Notes: We're still friends, right? Thanks to AgathaCrispy on AO3 for beta-ing!

Ryder had been on her way to meet Reyes at yet another seedy, neon-lit bar when his location suddenly changed, and she diverted to the desert. This did not exactly instill any confidence in her own private estimation of how well this meeting was about to go.

She found his vehicle parked where his last nav-point had sent her, but apart from that, the wasteland stretched silently around, barren in the moonlight. She climbed out of the Nomad, tucking her helmet under her arm as she did. A little voice whispered that maybe she shouldn't make it any easier on the sniper. "Hello?"

"Up here," he called down. Ryder took an unsteady step back, squinting up at the dark sky.

"What? Where?"

"Here." A light flashed, blinding her, but after a second her vision cleared and she was able to make out the faint outline of a jutting rock face, the sort of thing that Vetra was always happily scaling. Ryder trudged nearer, grumbling.

"You climbed this in the dark?"

"I have good eyes. Need a light?" He turned the beam back on, shining down the cliff's edge for her. It was an easy climb, once she could see where she was supposed to stick her hands. Ryder hauled herself up to meet him, noting that he still bent to help pull her through the final scramble. Another point worth noting: nobody had met her with a shot to the head.

"Thanks," she breathed. She'd left the helmet behind her. Reyes shrugged.

"My pleasure. We have a lot to talk about. I thought maybe, for once, we could go somewhere quiet. Avoid screaming at each other."

The climb, the cold night air, made her sniffle. "Sure, yeah. I'm all for not bellowing the master plan."

"Great." Reyes said. He stopped. They stared awkwardly at the other, neither quite ready to breach what needed to be said.

"Do you, um," Ryder paused, changed her mind. "Have you been drinking?"

"Can you smell it?" He sat, and almost magnetically, she followed him, throwing her legs out to dangle in the open air. It was a nice view, now that her eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting. Kadara's naturally burnt, reddish soil became pinker in the moonlight, while the glacial blues of its waters grew still richer.

Tentatively, she leaned into his shoulder, and his arm shifted to wrap loosely around her. "I don't know. I guess. You always smell like whiskey."

He snorted. "I spend a lot of time in bars."

"I know." She let herself relax against him. "Whiskey and engines and aftershave. How classically masculine."

He looked sideways at her, reaching back for the whiskey bottle she'd missed earlier. "I could say the same about you."

"You rubbed off on me."

"Oh, I see," he laughed, offering her the bottle. She took a swig, held the hot, spicy liquor in her mouth. She swished it against her teeth, and swallowed. Terrible. Always so terrible. She surrendered the bottle back to him, watching him drink. There was a new thing to him, a sort of deliberate thoughtfulness. She felt, somehow, that she was fighting against something for his attention. A feeling she'd never had before.

He sipped again. "It's beautiful, don't you think?"

Ryder glanced back at the landscape. "Yes. It is. Andromeda's a beautiful place."

"I don't like Kadara that much," Reyes said mildly. "Too many people. Too dirty. Even when we arrived, when it was just an Angaran outpost, it was ugly. Most people there don't leave it, don't see the rest of the planet. They're afraid some of the outcasts will murder them." He sipped again. And again. Like a man pushing down something.

Ryder cleared her throat. "I'm—look. I just—I'm sorry. That I called in the Nexus. I know it's lame to say that and it doesn't make anything better and you probably hate me. But I am. Sorry, I mean. I'm sorry. I don't know what you want to do next but if—if you wanted to go back to the Initiative or, um, or maybe just a different colony, I can make that happen."

Reyes stared at her, his expression vacant. He blinked. "Oh. That."

Ryder stared. "That? What's up with you?"

He passed back the bottle. "Nothing. Just trying to think things through. Keema's out."

"What?"

His arm suddenly tightened around her. "Kiss me."

"What?" Ryder squawked, and she scrambled to grab his shoulders as he suddenly faced her. "Wait, stop. What are you talking about?"

He leaned his forehead against hers, his eyes closing. "It doesn't matter. Whether she's out or not. It's over, the Initiative's coming in."

"Stop." Ryder snapped. He pulled away, eyes barely open. "Stop, and just explain this to me because I have no idea what's going on anymore. Why aren't you upset, why—?"

"The Initiative will come to Kadara Port. I assume they will forcibly assert control through military force. As you have already discovered, those who were negatively impacted by their time in stasis will receive the attention and treatment they rightfully deserve." He spoke with an odd, almost lilting tone. Detached. He looked through her, the fingers of his left hand drumming absently on the ridge of her shoulder. She felt abandoned, and unable to articulate why.

Reyes was still speaking. "Kadara will change, of course. Clean up its act. I don't know what that means for those whom the Initiative deems as 'undesirables' but—well, there isn't a lot that I can do about that now—"

Ryder smacked his hand off her. That, at least, made something in his face flicker to life. "Don't talk like that."

"Like what?" he asked. Her stomach twisted.

"Like it's…like it's over. Like you don't give a fuck. Just say that you're angry at me, say it's my fault. I get it."

He raised his eyebrows. "It isn't your fault."

She turned away from him. She was so angry, it felt as though she could smash the rock they were sitting on with a single punch. Her teeth, jammed up, made an unpleasant, awful grind as she drew them together. "That's fucked up," Ryder whispered. She wanted to hit him. "Of course it's my fault."

He snorted, and she whirled on him, disbelieving as she snarled, "I get that I let you down. I get that I stabbed you in the back. But at least I was—at least I was honest and at least I took you seriously, so—so don't. Don't treat me like this."

"No," Reyes shook his head. He was smiling a weird, loose smile. "No, I'm not saying this right. Truly, it isn't your fault. I blame you for nothing. This isn't sarcasm."

Ryder lurched up to the tipping point, balanced tenuously against her own weight, threatening to burst free and drop away from him. He caught her wrist and yanked her back, roughly enough that she tumbled into him. "Don't go," he said. "Don't leave me just because you want to beat yourself up. Trust me. It's okay."

"It isn't okay." Ryder stressed, scrambling to right herself. "I—"

"Just stay with me," he interrupted, sharper than before. "I'm done with the rest of it. We'll figure it out tomorrow. Just stay with me tonight."

"Why are you talking like that?!" Ryder almost screamed. He cupped her face, pulling her towards him. She punched his chest even as he kissed her. She was toppling backwards, hitting the ground behind her roughly, hard enough to force a puff of wind from her chest. He'd rolled on top of her, and his hands were gentle and his hands frightened her. "Stop," she gasped, when he pulled away enough for her to breath.

"Are you afraid?"

"No." She struggled with herself. "Maybe."

His face was angled away from her, hiding his expression. He was looking at her body, the directions it could take. "Afraid of me? Afraid of what I could do?"

No. Her stomach twisted. She struggled and failed and struggled again to express herself, her unease. "Not like that. Don't distract me."

He looked at her, his expression oddly flat. Everything became flat, harder. His mouth barely moved as he said, "You should have been afraid a long time ago."

Her eyes closed as he kissed her again, harder, with teeth and ugliness and even this was somehow not enough. She felt drained out and desperately empty and thrilled, as he always thrilled her. And afraid.

"You shouldn't have treated me like I was your boyfriend. You shouldn't have trusted me. You shouldn't have thought that because I was nice to you, I actually wanted you to be happy." Reyes insisted. He was unbuckling the things that kept her safe, the plates of armor and mesh and bravado. Ryder felt dizzy, almost intoxicated, almost too much. She wanted to tear at him, the way he did to her. Her body was buried beneath a mountain of water.

"You should have been more careful. You should be more careful." He was still working, still pulling things away. His knuckle, his fingertip—something brushed the bared skin of her shoulder and she felt electrified, she felt him like never before.

"Why are you telling me this?" she managed to ask. She was too torn between bewilderment and indignation to have any sort of tone. "I mean it, where is this coming from?"

He hauled her upright, faster than she could brace herself, so that she was forced to sit unsteadily upright. He made a sound—an indescribable sound as remembered from childhood—and her arms lifted automatically in response. Her world went dark as he pulled her shirt over her head. And then she was free and the nights on Kadara were cold, freezing, her arms dropped across her chest for warmth more than anything else. She felt strange. She felt hurt.

Reyes sat back on his haunches, staring at her almost sadly. "You know these things. I don't need to lecture you. Just this time, don't ask questions. Just this time, trust me."

She bit her lip. Sullenly, she mumbled, "You just told me not to."

He started on her belt, her firearms. Could she kill him without a gun, with nothing but her bare hands and maybe a rock she'd picked up from the ground? She thought about it for a moment. He was a strong man. It would be hard.

In the moonlight, he was a mess of purple and blue shadows. Ryder shook her head, the fogginess. "Did you drug me? Did you drug the whiskey, somehow?"

"There's nothing in there but alcohol." He looked up at her, teeth flashing. "You see? My point exactly. You make yourself vulnerable."

"Fine," Ryder snapped, and she drew her limbs away from him—a movement intended as defensive, but unfortunately only resulted in her shedding the sleeves of her pant legs. "If you're going to be all about boundaries then maybe I shouldn't be naked. Just a thought."

"I know," Reyes muttered. He was stripping off his own shirt, pulling it roughly over his head. "You've sabotaged us."

"Me?" Ryder squawked. But he'd dropped down to all fours, was crawling over her. She froze, quivering like some kind of prey-animal. Time seemed to slow, the way his fingers grazed up her flank, over the hurdles of her ribs. They watched his progress, together, until he had reached the hinge of her jaw, the soft part of her ear. She shivered away.

Reyes smiled. He still looked sad. "It's like you said. Things will be different. I might have to hide for awhile, I might not be able to see you. I just want you to be careful."

She laughed awkwardly, then wished she hadn't. "I'm not exactly—I mean, I'm not helpless."

"I drugged the whiskey." Reyes said.

Ryder stared at him, awkward smile frozen across her face. His eyebrows raised. "You see? Nobody is invincible. Anyone can be betrayed. Stop looking so terrified, I was lying. You're fine."

Indignant, Ryder smacked his shoulder. "I should have left earlier."

"You should have never met me," Reyes replied, just as fast. He had a habit, she was realizing, of sliding his hands to her throat. Of changing himself, trading a caress for a choke-hold. Maybe he had always been trying to warn her. Maybe she was as naïve as everyone—as even he—had told her.

She lay a hand against his wrist, to check the pressure, to pretend she was still in control. Panic beat against her rib cage, shaped like a bird. She was losing something, she knew. She was losing everything.

"It'll be okay," she told him, herself. His eyes were dark. She'd thought they were lighter than that—hazel, a little green. But they had always been dark. He hadn't changed. "So the Collective goes down, that—that sucks. But you're stronger than that, you can survive. You'll hide. I'll help you."

"And would you wait for me? For years and years and years?" he sounded bitter, mocking. She didn't know where he came from, she didn't know what he believed. He was rubbing her back, pressing hard on her sternum, she lost track of what he was doing. Sometimes sexual, sometimes innocent, sometimes frightening. It blurred.

"Whatever," she tried to bluster. "Like it's so hard for me to keep busy."

He smiled. He pushed her down, leaned over her.

"I love you," she admitted. The confession tore itself from her. It had spent days or weeks or months marinating in the back of her throat, spinning, beating its knees against the gate like the racehorse that wanted only to run. She regretted it almost immediately, felt the shame wash up her like—like—

She kissed him, so she wouldn't have to look at him anymore, so he wouldn't have to answer her. She kissed him, resenting him for the silence she had inflicted. She kissed him, hating herself. She kissed him.

She kissed him breathlessly and dizzily, with terror in her stomach, with fire . She kissed him with her fingernails like hooks that dragged up his back, never deep enough, never enough to catch him. She kissed him as she felt him moving, as his hands swept across her back and shoulders, and his arms were warm around her, and she felt so safe and so loved that she wanted to smash him to pieces. It was easier when he hurt her. It was easier to understand.

"Don't be gentle," she told him, she begged him. She felt like she might cry. His gentleness could break her.

"Don't be gentle," he repeated, he told her in kind. He pulled her hair so hard that her whole body twisted and arced, her scalp burned. She'd thought he'd cover her neck or her breasts—with warmth or with cruelty—but instead he left her open, he left her to the night's cold air, and this loss was so terrible and so unfair that she thought she might die. He bit the awful, nervous bit of skin below her belly, where her leg joined her body. It was excruciating. Her face felt swollen with tears. "They want you to be a conqueror," he told her. "So don't be gentle. Don't be anyone's friend, because they won't get along, when you stop watching them."

His fingers sank into her buttocks, spreading her open, freezing. Her skin crawled with goose bumps. He bit her inner thigh and she made a harsh, almost embarrassingly raw noise. "Just keep your head down and get it over with," he said. "No matter how hard it is. You can do that. You're strong. You were brought to Andromeda for this."

That twisted in her—brought here for this—her old fear that maybe she'd been the back-up, maybe there was someone who could do it all better, maybe Scott could have fixed Kadara—maybe, and also, had she ever even been given a choice?

Her eyes welled over, in silence. Ryder wiped her face clear, saying nothing, only whimpering when his fingers began to play with her, and she still felt so open and exposed and awful and she wanted—she needed—for him to bury her, to cover and to hide her, this girl who cried during sex, how fucking lame.

"Do you want to stop?"

"No," she growled. Her teeth were set. "No stupid, I want you."

He kissed the places he'd bitten her. His lips felt rough, torn and chapped and too much for the sensitive, broken skin. "Yeah? We could stop for an intermission."

"What the fuck," Ryder stammered. She wiped again at her eyes, sniffed harshly. "What the fuck. Do you not believe me, or something?"

He looked up, smiling oddly. "No. I believe you."

"Then what," Ryder challenged, trying to sound assertive, trying to take charge. She sounded hurt, embarrassing. Like a dying animal that didn't even know it'd been shot. "It's the tears, isn't it? It's the fucking tears, fuck, I know it's gross—"

"It isn't gross," Reyes said. He wiped her cheek. "It isn't gross at all. It makes my heart ache, that's all."

Ryder laughed shortly. Her eyes had stopped crying, at least, though the skin around them felt fresh and new. She scooted forward, wrapping her legs around his waist, flinching again to open herself. "What's up with that? My pain is your pain?"

"Your pain is your own. Your tears should be for me." He kissed her, the ragged edge beneath her smarting eye. "Don't give them to anyone else. Because I mean this: I'll kill them."

"That's so—" Ryder began to speak, her voice trembling a little, too breathless. She cut herself off as he caught her by the hips, as he maneuvered her around him. He paused, right at the breaking point. "That's so fucked." She whispered, looking in his eyes.

"What would you expect of me?" he asked. It sounded like a shrug. He began to ease into her, too slowly, too fast. She couldn't chose anymore, between violence, between compassion. She felt savage, she felt new. She hoped he killed them all. She hid her face against his neck, tasting his sweat as he dug in. She felt herself opening, making room for him. That was the difference between good and bad sex, she thought wildly. How much room you were willing to make. How readily she cleared the way.

She whispered to SAM to turn off her translator. She listened to him speak, in a way she hadn't before, without filters or interference. The things he said to her, the things she didn't understand. When she flipped onto her belly, and he filled her more deeply and so slowly that her whole body began to shake, and he spoke to her so gently and so carefully, words that could have meant filth and degradation but sounded like honey, they sounded like I love you.

But what, after all, was the difference? She bit his forearm viciously as she came, she reached back to tear at his thighs. His lips on her hairline, the sweat, the hair stuck determinedly to the nape of her neck. He swept it away for her. He told her something in that new, beautiful voice, something she wouldn't have understood anyway.

She came again and she started to cry, feeling him slip away from her. They had been experimenting, flipping through positions—sideways, backwards, her on top, her curled into a ball, legs over his shoulders, but now she grabbed for him—she rolled on her back and scooted beneath him and wrapped all her limbs around him, smearing her tears against cheek, when she pressed her face against his, when she failed to make them the same person. "I love you," she told him again. It couldn't get any worse. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

And it was mercy and torture, that she couldn't understand his reply. A thing she had done to herself. She clung to him, forced herself more tightly around him, still crying as she came again—as he came, and his body became hard and foreign around her, compressed and turned inward, a moment that tasted savory, the full palette.

"I love you," said her tears, when what she wanted to say was, "Don't leave me."

He pulled her against him, wrapped her in his jacket, and covered her with her own clothes. He held her against his chest. She was losing, she was sinking into unconsciousness.

"Sara," he called her. She closed her eyes. He smoothed her hair. In English, he told her, deliberately, "Don't be gentle."

It was hard to think of leaving her in the morning.

So he left her at night.

Reyes put up the shields, double-checked her keys and her vehicle and how tightly the clothes were wrapped around her. He did everything he could so he wouldn't have to look at her. It was ugly, it was weak, to linger.

She looked rough. Old bruises, new bruises. A frown, even while she slept, pinching and pulling her face downwards. Maybe she'd used up all her tears. Maybe, she was done.

He left, telling himself that.

He flew back to the Port, left his ship parked illegally—if there was such a thing—he left his ship parked inconveniently, in the middle of what would become a busy street, in the day time. The morning was grey, the morning was cracking open. The Collective's feeds were scrambling, splintering, but still enough intel to know when and where the Initiative's ships would appear, who was riding them.

Reyes got to the docking bay just in time. The best docking bay, with the grandest view. Clearly visible to whatever troops were about to come falling from the sky around them—the Initiative was fast, too fast. It had taken them only hours to arrive at Kadara Port. Hours to build an army. Nobody could do that. The liars.

The ship's doors slid opening, and Director Tann stepped out, surrounded by a cohort of armed guards. Reyes stepped forwards, his hands raised casually. The guards shouted, aimed. He stepped nearer, and Tann's high, nasally voice cut above them. "That's enough. He's the Pathfinder's friend."

Reyes came to a stop in front of the Director, his hands lowering to shove into his pockets. It was cold – early mornings on Kadara always were. "You could say that."

"Hm." The Director didn't even glance at his bodyguards. There would be no private audiences, not for the friend of the Pathfinder. "I had hoped to be unoccupied this morning. I need to make a speech for the troops' arrival. May I assume you've been sent to bargain on the behalf of the exiles?"

"Is it exile when we left voluntarily?" Reyes mused. Tann's expression soured. It hadn't been especially warm to begin with. Reyes kept talking. "The exiles, as you call them, are hardly a singular group. But you could say I am here on the behalf of the Collective."

"Make your point."

"I'd like to," Reyes said. "To be brief, I'm the Charlatan."

Tann stopped. He looked back at his guards, all of whom, beneath their masks of passive neutrality, had collectively flinched towards their weapons. The Director hesitated for a moment. "Anyone can say they're the Charlatan. But very well, I'll assume you've brought proof. Why are you here?"

"I'm here to tell you what's going to happen."

"That is not a negotiation," Tann snapped. He waved angrily at his guards, and they took a few wary steps back, but now with their weapons drawn—now, the roar of ships approaching.

Reyes' heart was racing. He'd wanted to be cold, to feel nothing. It had been easy, those other times. Those fights and battles and bad deals, all those times when he'd known, of course, that he might not leave alive. He couldn't stop remembering her tears, what she hadn't known how to say. "I think you'll agree that you won't be able to refuse. This is, I think, your perfect offer."

"A perfect offer," Tann repeated, his tone clinical. The first ships came into sight over the mountains. The port was waking up, there was a slow roar building, as the Initiative's insignia was seen, as more and more ships dropped from atmosphere, their shadows cast long in the early sunlight. So many. An impossible number. There was something about Tann, an agitation. He was not someone who coveted power, but feared and loathed the thought of surrendering it. A fatal and dangerous pride. He recoiled when insulted.

So Reyes smiled, and Tann's footsteps grew quicker. Reyes spoke again, with the same slightly mocking tone, the same whip to drive cattle. "My offer. Myself, in exchange for my terms. Peace."

"You are of course aware that I was initially intended to be the Initiative's head of finances. Most people believe this makes me an accountant, a more sentient computer. But my true qualifications, my talents, lie in diversifying corporate portfolios. I am very good at…balance. An economy is a delicate thing. People…people would disagree, but they are easier." Tann paused. He seemed to be studying Reyes, considering the benefits and disasters of his next move. "Your life, Charlatan's or not, isn't worth anything to me. I am not bloodthirsty, I do not traffic in martyrs. What you are asking for is too illogical for me to accept. A person offering their own destruction is not a business partner."

"Who needs a business partner? That implies longevity." Reyes smiled. "Haven't you ever wanted to gamble?"

"No." Tann looked towards the descending fleet of Initiative ships, the crowd of Angara watching their approach, the tension that could tip a crowd into a riot. "Gambling necessitates chance. I don't need chance."

"What you need is a new Pathfinder," Reyes said, boldly. Tann didn't flinch. His mouth barely moved.

"Careful, Mr. Vidal."

"You know Keema Dohrgun. The former face of the Collective. She's vanished, probably off planet by now. I'm sure that doesn't surprise you. Someone else could take her place, someone could organize. You could spend months, years, gouging out an armed resistance when what you need is full cooperation. Because Aya will be after you, for over-stepping, for taking a city they consider their own. The citizens here will be against you—because they don't want to let you tamper with their children's brains, and with good reason—considering the only party who stands to benefit from the madness on Kadara, the things done to its children—the inevitable failure of the Pathfinder sent to fix it—the only party who stands to benefit is you."

Tann snorted, very quietly. His hands were behind his back, relaxed. The posture of a confident player, the posture of a winning team. "Speculation."

"I can make things harder for you," Reyes said slowly, deliberately. Gun at his hip, one second, one shot. It was easy. Life was easy, when you were alone. "Or I can give you exactly what you need."

He held out the data pad. Tann glanced at it, at him. It was hard to resist curiosity. The Director took the slender console, and scrolled. His large eyes flickered, reading faster than any human ever could, almost sickening to watch. He looked up. "Your confession and your proof, as promised. Full ledgers. I suppose I have to believe it. The Charlatan of Kadara. You. I have seen you fighting, on the front lines. I have seen you, I know your face." There was a note of pure rage seeping into the Salarian's voice, an indignation. "You. I thought you were better than this. I thought he was better than this. Not some thug. No. You wouldn't do this for a woman. No."

"It's all there. Everything you need. Tell them I made their children rabid, I made them lust for cruelty. Tell them I doctored their water. Tell them it was drugs. Tell them anything you want, everything you need."

Tann was trying to sneer. His lip was twitching, furious. "You aren't serious. There's something else. There's some trap."

"The Pathfinder. She isn't part of this anymore. She doesn't take the fall anymore. She doesn't mop up your bullshit, your mistakes."

Tann laughed breathlessly, almost shrilly. Some of his guards turned back to look, almost concerned. The fleet had landed. The troops marched swiftly to the ground, lined up. A sergeant was already shouting orders. The tents were already rising. You change or you get left behind. Tann wiped at his forehead—a human gesture, did Salarians suffer from migraines?—he wiped his wide forehead. He asked, bitterly, "You think that's it? That's enough, to make you trust me? Or do you do this to buy her time? Only that? Only that?"

"That's all she needs." Reyes said. Tann was drawing his pistol, a small, almost ornamental thing. Antique. Old weapons, old galaxy. The things they clung to, so much old violence. Reyes smiled. Tann aimed. "Because now, she'll see you for who you are. She'll see all of you. And you will never beat her. You will die a footnote."

"Really?" Tann asked. He was trembling. "I wonder what you will become."

Ryder woke from nightmares, indistinct and familiar. She gasped into the lonely silence, scrambling uncertainly at the space just around her, the vacated place.

He left her.

He fucking left her. On a goddamn rock.

Ryder sat up, forearm to chest, some weird sense of modesty belatedly kicking in. She looked around, somehow refusing to believe that he would really ditch her. Again.

But his ship was gone. No notes, no emails. No reason given.

Stupefied, Ryder simply stared at the awkward pile of clothes she'd left tangled around the area, and drapped over her. A suspicious, dirty feeling was sitting patiently in her gut, just waiting for her attention. Her omni-tool kept flashing, over and over again. Something had happened. He'd done something. He'd lured her out to the middle of nowhere and kept her busy and now—what now? Had he bombed the city, was he destroying the Nexus? Her jaw ached. She'd ground her teeth all night long.

She dressed hurriedly, pulling her hair back as she braved the first messages. Panicked, rambling—Peebee, Liam, Jaal. She skimmed them without reading, without really understanding. She was looking for the violence word, the word that would tie it all together. Detonation, assassination. Murder, fuck, poison.

Missed calls from Cora. Missed call from Drack.

Vetra, Vetra calling now. Ryder put her through. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Ryder," Vetra started, relieved. And then she stopped.

"Vetra? Seriously."

"Turn on your tracker." Vetra said, instead of explaining. "We're split up, trying to find you."

SAM was on it, pinging out for the team. Ryder shook him clear of her consciousness, let him do the background work. Vetra was still staring at her, still oddly frozen even as the Turian's background kept shifting and blurring—betraying her motion, her swiftness. "Vetra, just tell me. What did he do?"

"He…" Vetra looked up, sighed. "Ryder. He's dead."

"What?"

"I know, I know it's got to be shocking—"

"No, I mean. What? Say it again." Ryder insisted. She leapt down from the rock she'd spent the night on—the rock she'd cried and fucked and confessed on. Her feet failed her, she landed clumsily, stumbling so that her shins screamed.

Vetra paused. "Vidal's dead, Ryder. He went to see Tann. They shot him."

"He wouldn't do that." Ryder said. She blinked.

"Kosta's closing in on you. He's closest. Just wait for him to get there."

"Vetra, he wouldn't do that." Ryder said again. Vetra grimaced.

"Look—Ryder, it's bad. They're saying he's behind all the, the brainwashing or whatever we want to call it. The murders and the kids and shit. They're saying it was him."

"He didn't fucking do it!" Ryder yelled, not sure if she meant the accusations, or the idea that Reyes would reveal himself as the Charlatan. That he'd be shot for it. Tann wasn't—he wasn't violent, not an active being, not like that, he was rational, he would have taken Reyes alive for a trial. "Why's the Initiative here, why—I called them last night!"

There was a low whine on the horizon. Liam, coming for her. She didn't have time for this. Ryder cut the call with Vetra, ignored the immediate callback. Fuck it. She threw open the Nomad's doors, slammed the car into drive and started tearing towards Kadara. What a fucking joke. What a fucking joke—

Her communicator wouldn't stop beeping, insistent. She turned it off. Then there was SAM, nagging over and over and fucking—

"Shut up, SAM!" Ryder snarled, and then for a second there was only the drone of Liam's craft tailing her, then—then a flash and an unholy crash, as she hit something—there hadn't even been—

Ryder slammed on the brakes, shrieking a little from shock, as Liam wobbled and dropped to one knee, thrown clear of the Nomad's hood. She skidded to a halt, then threw the door open, almost falling over in her rush to reach her crisis specialist. Liam stood, still a little unsteady. Ryder didn't so much stabilize him as she did just—grab him.

"Did you just fucking throw yourself out of your ship to land on my car?!" Ryder screeched. In answer, Liam's ship landed somewhere behind her. He grinned awkwardly.

"You seemed erratic."

"You should fucking talk," Ryder answered. She snorted. A sort of uncontrollable laughter bubbled from somewhere deep within her, a more physical, more potent laugh than any she'd suffered before. "Jesus, Liam. Jesus. I need to go."

"I'm driving." Liam said. Ryder shot him a nasty look.

"I'm not fucking hysterical."

"Okay, whatever. Fire me later. I'm driving." He steered her towards the passenger side, the poor Nomad. Only now did Ryder notice the smell, the seared rubber smell of abuse. She'd been driving with the emergency brake on. She'd been flooring it.

Ryder climbed into the passenger seat, still stewing, wondering how to swing it. "Liam," she said, as he climbed in across from her. "Hey."

"We're going," he said. "Alright? Cool it."

"Okay." Ryder said. She sat back. She put her seatbelt on. "Okay."

Liam drove them back to the Port, arguing on the com channel the entire time. Lexi wanted them pulled back, immediately, and Cora was swearing, almost exploding. Drack growled beneath them, a rolled up mess of noise, all of them. Ryder pressed her face against the window, shuddering and banging with every bump in their way. Enough.

Ridiculous. She caught sight of herself in one of the mirrors, the odd, fixed smile she wore. What the fuck are you laughing about, she wanted to ask herself. What the fuck.

Liam listened to her. He took her to Kadara Port, where the Initiative had already begun its work. Streets were sealed off, people were corralled into quarantines, children measured and gathered into lines, awaiting treatment. The whispers and rumors had already begun to spread, so that even in the strange fog Ryder felt surrounding her, she felt their stares. The charge that hung in the air, the tension as thick as the electricity. It was going to storm. One look at the sky, one sniff of the air, and everyone knew. It was going to storm.

They hadn't had time to move his body, or maybe they didn't care enough. Someone, at least, had moved him a little off to the side, a little ways over. She could see the blood he'd been dragged through, where he'd fallen.

Ryder stopped. She just looked. She could see, so obviously, where he'd been shot. Right through the head. The nightmare she'd never wanted to dream, lying on the ground before her, and bleeding and already dead. She put a hand across her mouth, feeling something rising, something that clawed furiously and it climbed her throat and exploded from her mouth. The sharp, cracking slap of a laugh that she could not recognize.

"Ryder, we need to keep it cool," Liam said. He was right in front of her. She felt like she could see through him. That neatly parted hair—she'd never seen it messed up. Not even when they made love. She could never mess him up.

"He's dead." Ryder laughed. It was a painful, belly-stabbing laugh. "Liam. The fucker's dead."

"I know," Liam said, very gently. He was so gentle. His arms went around her and her face disappeared into his shoulder, and there was the smell of shampoo and sweat—a comfortable, human smell, and Liam's solid, alive body holding her up, and still that ragged noise tore itself from her.

"He's dead," Ryder repeated. And she threw Liam off. It was easy. In less than a second, he was simply no longer in front of her. She didn't care if she'd hurt him. She counted the steps between them, just six. Six steps. All that bullshit and angst over six fucking steps, and look, there was her hand, there were her shitty fingernails. She touched his face, the stubble. He hadn't shaved. He hadn't shaved when he left her to die by himself. He hadn't shaved and his hair was a mess.

"You motherfucker," Ryder giggled. "You dead motherfucker."

A hand on her shoulder, but Liam didn't try to pull her away this time. He just stood there, bracing both of them, his voice humming into his radio as he requested medical, for backup. What a joke. Medical for a dead person. Reyes' eyes were still half-open, still amber and green and brown and more distant than ever before, untouchable. She touched his mouth, his eyelids. Frozen. Rain-wet and cold. It was raining. When had it started raining? There was thunder in her ears.

"I told you that I loved you and you didn't say it back are you fucking kidding me is this why, is this why you wouldn't say it?" Ryder laughed. She wiped her eyes. "Hilarious. I hate you. I hate you so fucking much, you lying bastard, you dead lying bastard—!"

"We're going to get him out of here," Liam said from above, and then next to her. He'd knelt beside her, his arms were around her again. "Sara, it's okay. It's okay. We'll take care of him."

She tried to point out the obvious. It was not okay. She had failed and Reyes was dead, so that was just about the antithesis of okay, come on Liam—but she couldn't. She couldn't speak. She couldn't force even a syllable to come out past the laughter.

She pushed back from Liam, hoping she would be able to communicate this somehow, this thought—but the minute he saw her face he was wiping her checks with his sleeve—her tears, and her streaming nose—gross, gross, she pushed him away and he came back anyway, rotating to use a dryer bit of fabric, still murmuring, "It's alright, Sara, it's going to be alright, I know, I know—"

He didn't know. He didn't fucking know. She could see his uncertainty, his panic, his sweet brown eyes. She shook her head, unable to reassure him or curse him. She picked up Reyes' wet, stiff hand. Horrifying. Death felt horrifying, and she held it anyway, clutched at it. Like she'd never seen a dead body before, like she hadn't watched her parents die, like everything was new, and she was the weak sort of person who couldn't keep it together. Keep it together.

She bent forward, until her forehead touched his chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing, his scent lost beneath the hard, iron-blood smell.

"Pathfinder," Liam said. There was an uncertain, but warning note to his voice now. He wasn't calling her Sara anymore.

"I just need a minute," she said. "Just a minute. Sorry."

Liam didn't answer her. His feet rasped over the wet ground, the pebbles and mud. Leaving her, giving her room. She still shook with weak giggles, but tried now to wrap these tremors with steel, to bolt them down. Liam was mumbling into his radio, still coordinating with the Tempest for help. Pathfinder down.

She should sit up. She should stop making a scene.

She was waiting for Reyes to squeeze her hand. She was waiting for him to tell her she was an idiot for thinking he was dead, that this was a trick, just one more con from the absolute expert. Any minute now, any minute, she'd know what she had to believe.

She held her breath, her eyes still screwed tight, her ears turning inwards and muffled.

And she waited, for as long as she could.