"I was really worried," She had confided as Jaal evaded saying anything more about his brush with death.

He simply replied, "It will heal. All scars do," and pulled her face to his. Their foreheads touched, and a warm wave of energy washed past her eyes. It was instinctual to respond in kind, to put her hand up to his neck as he did for her. She was tall as human women came but it was a stretch to match him.

As they stood there in that brief moment, she realized she had become entangled with him in a way she never planned.

"Two rules," Liam had told her the day after her anxious reveal. He'd had more time to think, and it wouldn't be the last of his rules. She welcomed them, because no lines meant everyone would always be on edge.

"Shoot," She'd responded.

"Ah. Rule one. One at a time? Please don't take my approval as an excuse to start a harem."

She guffawed in response, "Where would I keep them?!"

"Turn down the snark for a moment, hun. This is … gonna take some adjusting and I'd like to know that I only have ONE person to avoid on the ship, okay?"

"I think I can control myself," Leanna smirked.

"Two. And this one," He paused to tilt his head in that way he did when he had something important to explain. "There's no… subtle way to say this."

"Again," She crossed her arms, "Shoot?"

"No other… men? Okay?" He frowned slightly, like he was suddenly embarrassed. " Human men, I mean-"

For once, she caught the message and jumped ahead. She pulled his hand into hers, and cupped her other hand over it, pulling his arm slowly to her chest. "The only father I want for my future children is you, Liam."

His face cracked into a goofy smile, and he kissed her lightly, plucking her lips with his as he drew away. "That makes things easier."

That was days ago and since then what little she'd seen between Liam and Jaal had become surprisingly courteous. The mere sight of the cool politeness made her back prickle, but whatever discussion they had worked out, seemed to stay silently between them.

She herself hadn't said much to Jaal yet. It was easy enough to avoid anyone on the Tempest when you had a private suite and everything linked into your neural net. She could always pull up an overlay of everyone's position in her right eye if she chose. The long haul from Aya to Elaaden gave her time for a personal side project. One she was hoping to advance before she had look Jaal in the eyes again.

Leanna tapped the output commands of her omni-tool insistently, until the bar lowered from 'lethal' to the bare minimum, and then removed the external cuff entirely.

It could never be fully removed. Between the biotic transmission implants she'd received as a teenager, the hardware put in during Cryo to help her interface with the Pathfinder team's technology, and the workover they'd woven through her to hook her up to SAM (and reboot her brain), the vast majority of the omni-tool's components were inside of her now.

Besides, removing them would probably kill her, like yanking the power supply from a server. Thin trails of light bloomed from her fingertips to her forearms and then back as she coaxed a mass effect field through her body. Most soldiers were taught the big stuff. "Launch a tiny black hole at that guy." or "Punch that lady in the face with five G's behind your gauntlet." or the classic, "Shove and energy shield out as hard and fast as you can and hope they all snap their necks on the way down."

Inelegant and inefficient displays, but most soldiers loved the flare of it. Being able to embed a training dummy in a concrete wall had earned her dozens of drinks and a few quick flings over the years. When insomnia gripped her between guard shifts she found herself idly spinning chess pieces in the air of the rec halls, overlooking miles of optimistic holes in the dig site where they still hadn't uncovered prothean artifacts after months of effort.

The thought lingered, "We know how large Mass Effect fields can go… but how small could they go?"

As her left hand crackled quietly, she felt certain the answer was going to be, "Pretty damned small."

She pointed her finger like a gun, expecting to see the long arch of a spark, but instead, her hand simply crackled, and the rod she'd set in the middle of a rubber floor mat remained stationary.

A quick flick, a flailing shake, a punch to the air. Nothing seemed to bridge the gap from skin to metal. Kneeling down, she squinted at the foot-long piece of copper indignantly.

For another half-hour she meditated, she waved her hands around, rubbed her temples, and then began to pace around the room adjusting every omni-tool setting she could imagine. As she breathed out calmly and closed her eyes, she heard the soft clink of metal stress, and opened her eyes to see the rod levitating slowly up from the ground with a familiar violet aura about it.

Momentarily enraged, she launched the whole mat and contents at the bay window. A moment after that, she was started by the shrill beep of a warning sensor, and Kallo's voice stammering over the intercom, "Ryder? There's a damage report in your room, are you-"

"I'm fine," Leanna groaned, rubbing her hands down her temples, knowing what Addison meant now by always saying 'her face was tired'."

Swiping her hand across the clear aluminum of the bay windows just left a translucent smear of oil across the surface. It did nothing to obscure the hairline scratch now running from the center up towards the ceiling.

With a drawn-out growl of annoyance at herself, she began picking up the odds and ends she'd smashed, piling the bent copper rods, the spare (now broken) arduino and fragments of the omnitool's faceplate that had scattered on impact, all back on the rubber mat which was one-hundred-percent okay. Turns out rubber was pretty resilient against biotic forces.

"Maybe that's why all the Asari mercs back in the Milky way looked like they clothed themselves at fetish shops?" She snarked. Pursing her lips, she stared down at the small pile and began to grimace. "What am I doing…?"

"ELECTRONS CARRY ENERGY BETWEEN ATOMS-" SAM's hollow voice echoed from the console at her desk and between her ears simultaneously.

"Thanks," She drawled. "Very helpful."

"THAT IS," He continued in a slightly lower, soothing pitch, "ENERGY FLOWS NOT IN ONE DIRECTION. BUT IN both DIRECTIONS, SIMULTANEOUSLY."

Mid-way through a new snark she stopped, and looked down at the crumpled copper rods. Picking one up in each hand, she tried again to bridge a visible arc between them. The jolt that ensued knocked her to her back, put spots in front of her eyes and a throbbing pain pounding up and down both arms, pulsing irritability in both elbows.

It also left her gasping for air, pounding her chest like SAM had shut off her heartbeat all over again.

"LEVELING CARDIOVASCULAR SIGNALS-" SAM explained over the roar of blood in her ears.

As she lay on the ground gulping in deep breaths, he continued, "IF I MAY ADVISE? I KNOW YOU ARE SEEKING TO INITIATE INTERCOURSE WITH THE ANGARAN JAAL, PERHAPS YOU SHOULD APPROACH HIM FOR GUIDANCE INSTEAD-"

Leanna groaned as she covered her eyes, "Please don't ever say the word 'INTERCOURSE' again. Ughh-"

"NOTED," SAM quipped. "CONTINUING- IF INTIMACY IS THE INTENDED RESULT, THEN PERHAPS CONVERSATION IS THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION?"

Leanna sighed, "Of course."

SAM continued, "FROM WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM YOU AND YOUR FATHER, IT SEEMS THAT HUMANS FAIL MOST WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO WORK ALONE, RATHER THAN SEEKING AID."

She huffed, then rocked back up to her feet, and laughed under her breath, "Fine. This won't be awkward at all. "

"SARCASM NOTED."