Sara slouched against the bench, her hands held her head as she fought back a mild headache. No one had talked to her directly since she made that remark to Dr. Carlyle and her annoyance was bubbling up slowly. Waking up out of stasis for a second time wasn't something she'd ever imagine she'd have to do again, but very little surprised her anymore out here in Andromeda. Still, she couldn't get any answers out of anyone, including Scott, and as much as that pissed her off, it worried her a hell of a lot more.
Scott had barely looked at her as they'd hurried her into what they said was the Tempest and she hadn't recognized anyone else. SAM wasn't even responding in their private channel. She'd decided to lay low until someone calmed down enough to hold a civil conversation with her.
The last thing she remembered was opening a vault on H-5668b with Peebee and the next thing she knew, an old and grizzled version of Dr. Carlyle was standing above her looking like he'd seen a ghost.
They'd given her a cup of coffee, just like they had the first time they'd woken her up from stasis. She'd recalled the first one tasting a lot better, but coffee was coffee, so she wasn't complaining. She could feel the adrenaline kick start her system as she took in everything around her before they'd rushed her out of the cryo bay, into the tram, and then into the ship. She also recalled better bedside manners, but maybe that was wishful thinking.
Still, her first time out of stasis hadn't been so rough, even with their first contact with the Scourge and the rude awakening that was Habitat 7.
She had heard Scott and Dr. Carlyle animatedly talking behind her as a young woman did her post-stasis physical. Couldn't exactly make out the words, but managed to pick out pieces like "Council" and "Kesh" and "Is this even possible?" None of which actually did anything to reassure her.
Scott had then wordlessly escorted her. Which was weird. In the many instances she'd been near death, Scott would usually crack a joke to ease the tension, or hug her until she was forced to push him off, or at least just say 'hi.'
But something was off about him. He looked to be about a half inch taller, broader in the shoulders, greyer. This wasn't the Scott she'd seen in what seemed like a few hours ago. This was someone else entirely, so she followed his lead and kept quiet. It would, at the very least, ease the small pounding in the back of her skull.
To say the Tempest was different would've been…an understatement. She hadn't been able to see much on her way up to the vidcom room, but the interior looked like it'd seen better days and then some. Blue had been switched to lavender and the paint was peeling, ladders were rusting, wiring was out in the open just waiting for an accident. Gil would've had a heart attack if he'd seen the way his baby was being treated.
Crew was different, too. She hadn't seen an alien this entire time and for some reason, that unnerved her. So far, she'd seen two women – one about twenty something, the other looked to be in her fifties – and two men, aged somewhere in the middle. They were talking in the research center, occasionally glancing up toward her and then quickly diverting their gaze. Whispers floated up to tickle her ears.
"You sure we should be heading to the Nexus so soon? She just woke up."
"Last time she woke out of stasis, she went straight into the hell pit that Ryder-1 used to be. Give her some credit, Toby."
"All I'm saying is that I remember coming out of stasis and it wasn't so…smooth. Besides, it's been years – who's to say she hasn't fried her brain and become the second coming of Sloane Kelly? Did they give her the serum?"
"I think it was in the coffee."
"Because that's not creepy."
"No Sloane clone, got it."
"Don't question the Pathfinder, Toby. Just go inform the Nexus that we're arriving with her. Tell Lexi, too. She might be convinced to skip her conference early for this."
"Might be? I think she'd jump at the chance to examine the former Pathfinder."
"I mean, she was Pathfinder before Scott, Ren. Lexi probably examined her a lot back in the day."
"I'm going to pretend I don't know what you mean by that."
"I heard Ryder had a thing for asari."
"It's Lexi, though. She doesn't date patients, remember?"
"Oh, she reminds me. Constantly."
"Does she look pale to you guys?"
"Focus. Contact the Nexus."
"But she's in the vidcom room. I don't think we're supposed to disturb her."
"Use the public terminal. I know you know how to use it. You keep leaving the extranet open on less than savory search queries and if you think you'll get a rise out of me, you won't."
"Ren, I think Toby's right. She does look a bit pale from here."
Curious, Sara stood up, stretched, and meandered toward the railing. Her arms rested against the bar and her she crossed her legs as she looked downward.
Her lip and eyebrow quirked, "You know she can hear you, right?"
A soft "shit" was heard as they scurried back to what was presumably their stations. One of the males, the blonde she was assuming was Toby, gave her a toothy smile and waved before heading off with the others.
They were an interesting bunch, she guessed. Gossiped like Kallo and Suvi on steroids. But they weren't her crew. And that, above all else, was probably the cause of the huge pit in her stomach that kept telling her that something wasn't right. Where was everybody?
"Ascent is go," crackled from the ship's speakers. A voice she didn't know. Just like everything else around here. With a sigh, she went back to the bench. It was comfortable. Sort of. At least that hadn't changed.
When Sara woke up again, the lights were dimmed. The ship was on night cycle. Eerie silence gave her goosebumps. As she shifted to get a better position, Sara noticed a blurry silhouette sitting on the other side of the room. Elbows on spread knees, shaky hands holding a head upright. Scott. She sat up as slowly as she could so she wouldn't alarm him.
"Hey," the broken voice greeted her.
"Hey," softly, she responded.
"I'm sorry. For…not coming earlier." Not quite eloquent, but it would do.
"What the hell is going on, Scott?"
"Honestly? I don't know," he sighed. His hands dropped and he sat up a little straighter. "You're awake."
"The problem is, I don't remember falling asleep."
He snorted, "You shouldn't have been asleep. You should've been dead."
Quizzical, "Why? How? What the hell happened? The last thing I remember was H-5668b and Peebee…Where's Peebee? Where's Vetra, Cora, Drack, Jaal, Suvi – everyone? Where's everyone? Why did I wake up in a stasis pod, Scott?"
A beat. He sighed again. He never, not even for a second, thought that explaining what would be easy. But then again, he never thought she'd actually wake up. At least, not in his lifetime.
Scott stood up and slowly made his way to his sister. Her eyes were searching him for answers that he was reluctant to give.
He sat down next to her, his burly figure making her feel like a small child again, "The long answer? When you went into the vault on H-5668b, you were disconnected from SAM. No one knows why or even how. When Peebee dragged you back to the ship hours later, you were unconscious. Lexi told us you were hemorrhaging. We don't know why, but SAM thinks it's because you interfaced with Remnant without him. He suggested we put you into stasis again. That maybe he could help you, over time, fix the internal damage. It was a long shot. Nexus decided it was the best course of action. Saved them from having to tell everyone that another Pathfinder was dead."
He paused. Let her soak it in. She closed her eyes and exhaled, "How long has it been?"
"Seventeen years, give or take a few months."
She whistled, "Damn. Guess I missed all the fun."
Scott smiled wryly, "I think there's still some adventure left."
She opened an eye and peered at him, "Are you telling me you're forty years old?"
Now the smile turned genuine, "Finally the older twin."
It was her turn to snort, "Not on your life." She pushed his shoulder. He pushed back. Inside, he was still confused and angry with her, a mixture of shock and residual mourning, and not at all convinced that this wasn't a dream. But whatever he felt, he couldn't deny that he'd missed her. And he wondered just briefly if this was how she felt when he'd woken up from the coma he'd been in when they'd first got to Andromeda.
"So," she dragged out, emphasizing the 'o', "I hear you're Pathfinder now?"
Scott shrank a little. He'd always felt awkward having the title. The acquisition of it wasn't something he particularly liked to share, "Yeah. I'm Pathfinder."
Sara nodded, trying to get a read on him, "But wasn't that supposed to be Cora's job or, am I missing something?"
He cleared his throat, "It was. It was her job."
Sara's breath stopped, lips parted, eyes wide, "Scott, I'm so –"
He cut her off before she got the wrong idea, "No, no, it's not like that. She didn't die. She's still very, very much alive."
A sigh of relief, "Then how did –"
"That…is complicated," he scratched the back of his next, grimacing a little.
Sara's eyebrow lifted in the signature Ryder brow quirk, "Assuming we're on our way to the Nexus from wherever the hell we were, I think we've got time to go over my lost years."
Years. That thought sounded so foreign to Sara. Just yesterday, she'd been running around the same room, partaking in a mob chase after Gil after he'd beaten them all out of their best hands the seventh time in a row. But that wasn't yesterday. That was, what was it? Seventeen? Seventeen years ago. The pit in her stomach traveled up to her throat, threatening to spill out in tears, but she swallowed it down, "You've still gotta tell me where my crew is, too."
Scott bit his lip and relented, "We just got off Meridian. So, yeah, it's gonna take a while." He stood up, "Better get comfortable, then. Want some coffee?"
She grimaced, "If it's anything like what they gave me in the cryo bay, I'll pass."
He smiled, "Sorry about that. A few years ago, they updated post-stasis procedure to include ingestion of a serum to fix any neural pattern alteration that might've happened in stasis." He tucked his hands in his pockets, a new habit he seemed to have picked up, "Turns out the reason the Initiative was so full of criminal types was because of maladaptation in stasis. Got a lot of good people back on board when we were able to introduce it on Kadara and Elaaden. Can thank Lexi for that, actually."
"Glad she was able to do something with those samples she had me take. How is she?"
Scott shrugged with an uninformative, "Good." She rolled her eyes. Seventeen years and this was her briefing? She wanted a new tour guide. He shuffled his feet, "So, coffee?"
Sara shook her head, "I just want to know what's happened, Scott. Everything is so…different. Which, with being unceremoniously dumped seventeen years into the future, that isn't all that surprising, but I need actual information. Not…'good.' I've got so many questions and I don't know what I don't know." She paused, "The Tempest is…a shithole. Your crew is – well, first of all your crew – and all human. And this is the first time you've looked me in the eye since I woke up. I want to know what happened. I want to know where everyone is. I want to know why you're Pathfinder, and I know you. The second you get up to go anywhere, you're going to avoid this conversation. So, spill, Scott. I need to know."
Scott sat back down, a little more deflated.
"Where to start?" he muttered, mostly to himself.
"How 'bout the part where my lieutenant got mutinied?"
He narrowed his eyes, "She didn't get mutinied."
Sara threw up her hand and leaned her shoulder into the bench, facing Scott sideways, "Then tell me the story. I like stories. Even mutiny-free ones."
He frowned, "About a month after you die – no, after you went into stasis…" A pause, "SAM suggested transitioning the role of Pathfinder. You were still alive, so it had to be manually done. Which meant that Cora had to agree. And she did. She was Pathfinder for a few years. We got married –"
"Hold up, hold up, hold up, You pressed fast forward and I need you to rewind." Sara waved a hand in face, signaling him to stop. She stood up straighter and her eyebrows shot up, "My little brother got married and this is how he tells me?"
Scott gave her a sad smile, "I was married. Past tense."
Sara sat back, "Damn. And here I dared to believe there was such a thing as 'happily ever afters.'"
"Maybe somewhere in Heleus, but not for me," Scott played with his fingers.
Softening her features, she reached out for his arm, "Hey, you may be old, but you're not out of commission just yet, old man. Take it from the top."
He nodded, "We got married about a year after you were put in stasis. I was on her crew. So were Vetra, Drack, and Jaal. Suvi, Kallo, and Lexi stayed on to help with the ship. New engineer, though. Same guy I have now, in fact."
Sara furrowed her brows, "What happened to -?"
Scott lifted up his finger, "We'll get there. Lots of info, limited me time. About two years after we got married, we had twins."
Sara almost shot up out of her seat, "You have kids?! You got married and you have kids?! My god," she threw herself back on the bench, arms splayed out. "You really have grown up, haven't you?"
He gave her a shy, goofy dad-grin, "I've got pictures of the twins, if you want to see."
"Abso-friggin-lutely. And I want to meet them, too. I can just imagine – two mini you-and-Cora's looking for trouble. Twins, huh? How old are they now?"
"Just turned fourteen."
A beat. A hitch in breath. A shallow, frustrated voice, "Damn it, Scott….I was supposed to be there for this." Sara's jaw tightened.
Seventeen years was just starting to hit her. It may have been nothing compared to their over six-hundred-year voyage, but it was everything when the people she loved were moving on with their lives without her.
It was Scott's turn to squeeze Sara's arm. He knew exactly what she'd missed because he'd felt the emptiness of it all without her there.
"You're here now." She couldn't help it if one small, measly tear escaped her right eye. Or if another small, measly tear chased down right after it. For his part, Scott didn't say anything. He just brought her in close, and for the first time since she woke up, he hugged his sister. They sat like that for a few minutes. She took time to compose herself. He tried not to cry, himself, as it finally hit him that his sister was alive. Almost twenty years younger than him now and closer to his kids' ages than his, but she was alive.
Sniffling, she gently pushed him away, like she always eventually did, "Okay." She exhaled, "Enough of that." Who'd ordered the Ryder Crying Fest?
Scott nodded and sat back, "I'll show you the pictures later."
Sara smiled and discreetly wiped away one last rogue tear, "I'd like that."
He patted the bench and readjusted himself, "So…after about, more or less, two years of domestic bliss, it kinda…well, it was my fault. I think. When they manually authorized transition of the Pathfinder role to Cora, dad's memory lock reset."
Sara grimaced as she sniffled, "Shit. I'd almost forgotten about that."
He returned the expression, "Yeah, well. I, unfortunately, did actually forget about that. Took her five years total to unlock the memories. Five days to bust my ass for not telling her about it." He dropped his voice, "Especially about mom. I should've told her about mom, Sara. I know should've. Jien Garson's murder, the benefactor – that wasn't so bad. I mean, it was, but it wasn't…personal. She hadn't realized why dad had given the Pathfinder role to you before then. And when she got it…Well, I preferred being a husband to being Pathfinder, but don't tell my crew that."
Sara inhaled, "That's…a lot to take in, Scott. I'm sorry that happened."
He smiled weakly at her, "I'm sorry it happened, too. But, anyway, that's not…that's twelve years in the past. I still love her. I'll always love her. And I don't see the kids nearly as often as I want to, but…what's done is done."
"But you still haven't told me how you became Pathfinder."
"I was lieutenant. And she said the role had always belonged to a Ryder. I got the feeling that we'd both preferred that Ryder had been you, but…I've been trying my best. Got big shoes to fill," he grinned at her.
And that, right in front of her, was her baby brother. If someone had told her that this dark, brooding, responsible mess would be what her brother would become, she'd have laughed them out of a solar system. But he was there and that's what had happened. Living in the future was going to be hard to get used to, but she'd been through worse, right?
"Anyway," he stretched. "That's me. That's my life."
Cue signature Ryder brow, "And my crew?"
He melted back into the bench, "Now there's where you're gonna get your stories. They're around. Most of them."
Sara motioned toward the interior of the ship, "Around?"
He shrugged, "Well, not that around. Only original crew member is Lexi, still. She's at a medical conference on the Nexus right now and I know she's going to be dying to see you."
Sara smiled and raised her eyebrows, "What me? I'm nothing special. Just a medical miracle, apparently."
Scott chuckled, "In so many ways, little sister."
She punched his arm, maybe a bit too roughly, "I don't care what you say or how much time passes by, I'm still the older twin."
He pouted and massaged his arm, knowing that it had a good probability of bruising by the morning, "You're definitely the aggressive twin, I'll give you that much."
She rolled her eyes and motioned for him to continue his briefing.
He rolled his own eyes in return, "Well…Gil's on Eos. He's one of the major partners of an engineering corporation there. His son's about to graduate secondary schooling. Suvi's a professor of something or other on Meridian. Lexi's got Drack stuck on the Nexus. It was either there with Kesh and Erka or on Elaaden with the Overlord of all Overlords, Morda." Scott shook his head, "You missed a lot on Elaaden. Probably for the best. Anyway, he chose the Nexus. Lexi goes to see him every once in a while. Vetra's on Kadara. Hit it big over there. That place definitely cleaned up after the serum. Jaal's a major bigwig on the Nexus. You'll probably see him. He could give you a much better run down than me." He ticked off his fingers, "Am I missing anyone?"
If Sara had had a big enough object to chuck at him, she would've done it, "Oh, y'know, just my pilot, crisis specialist, ex-sister-in-law, and my girlfriend." She swallowed again. The pit was rising. She was trying especially hard not to think of Peebee, but a million different possibilities were floating in her head and none of them had good connotations.
Scott scowled. He thought if he'd just rattled off quickly, he could get by without getting into the less savory details. It was obviously a long shot, but he'd tried. Reluctantly, he continued, "Kallo's been dead for a year. Had an aneurysm. One of Andromeda's biggest losses. He was the best damn pilot in Heleus and everyone knew it. Kept him as long as I could at the helm before he decided to be a director at some flight academy. His death hit Suvi hard. She's barely been on a ship since."
Sara frowned, her eyes cast down. If she sat still enough, she swore she could still hear her pilot humming softly from the bridge, something he would only do when he thought everyone was asleep. She remembered when Kallo would talk about the Tempest design team. How he could still see and feel everything as if it was still happening. She finally understood that.
"Liam's been MIA since Cora was made Pathfinder. Had an argument with Nexus leadership after the transfer and then stormed out. Haven't seen or heard from him again."
That…sounded like Liam. Sara sighed. She wasn't surprised. Maybe disappointed, but definitely not surprised.
"Cora's on Eos, same settlement as Gil. Seth and Serena go to school there while Cora teaches some of the kids how to use their biotics," there was a ghost of a smile on Scott's lips. "She's even gotten a couple of community gardening projects running. She's doing great."
Sadly, Sara smiled at him, "I honestly can't believe I missed you two together."
Scott waved her off, eager to bypass the subject, "And then there's Peebee." Sara sat up a little straighter.
Expectantly, "Yeah? Where is she?"
Scott shrugged, "I don't know. We think she's on some mining colony, but honestly? Could be anywhere. She booked it after you were put into stasis."
Sara blanched. That was definitely one of the not-so-good scenarios that had run through her head before. Damn it, Peebee, she thought. If I have to travel the entire galaxy to find you again, I swear I will. Sara pursed her lips. Damn the insecurities and what-if's that were flooding into her head by the second. This was a promise she would make, no matter what the consequences would turn out to be.
Her jaw set firm, "I'll find her."
Scott raised his eyebrows and gave her an incredulous smile, "If anyone can, it's you, Path…" He trailed off.
And it hit them both at the same time, like a bright red brick wall they should've seen coming a mile away.
She wasn't the Pathfinder anymore. He was.
