James was sending a message to Steve on his Omni-tool – betting on the next Seattle Sorcerer's match – when Kaya walked through the med bay door.

"Hey, Blue," he said, giving her a little wave. "Hell of a party last night, huh?"

Blue smiled at him, but there was something strained in it. James dropped his hand and put away his Omni-tool. Her face darkened, and he suspected she had not been expecting him to be so observant.

"I'm fine, Blue. Didn't even get any major organs. Doc says I'll be up and moving around in a few hours. And don't you dare start making jokes about my being taken down by an asari."

Especially not when you jeopardized the mission.

She crossed her arms defiantly at that, saying with a raised voice, "That was not my fault, James Vega."

"Indigo boy is getting under your skin, huh, Blue?"

She had told James and Kaidan about Van Dyne's ability to shield his thoughts from her at their post-op briefing. Good, a little bit of your own medicine. The sight of Blue getting so frustrated over not being able to read someone's mind was highly amusing.

"James, I was serious about what I said last night. When Alexis let his guard down … something there wasn't right. He doesn't have the same reservations about his abilities that I do," Kaya said, fidgeting with the zipper on her sweatshirt. "His blasé attitude toward the whole thing feels … off."

"And you're pissed off about flying blind," James pointed out.

She rolled her eyes and leaned up against the table across from him, shifting uncomfortably before finally saying, "I'm sorry."

"Blue, I don't actually think this is your fault."

"In your head, no, not when you go over all the variables. But there's still a part of you that's pretty pissed at me for not catching the knife."

"Yeah, well, it hurt," James explained.

"I know. I felt it, remember? I'm pretty damn impressed you managed to take her down after that."

"Oh, it takes more than that to take down one Lieutenant Commander James Vega," he said with a smile. "And I wouldn't have been able to do it without your friend's help."

"He is not my friend," she said, crossing her arms again. It was kind of adorable when she tried to look all tough and angry like that. Blue must have heard that particular thought, because she added, "You know, I can still throw you through that window with my mind."

"Probably not a good idea," Vega said. "Especially when you need me to help take down these fucking traitor pendejos."

They had known from Hackett's sketchy intel that there was a small group inside the Alliance with less than noble goals regarding Project Indigo. But if just half of what Van Dyne had said last night was true, there would be hell to pay. Plans to experiment on the other Project Indigo recruits, to turn them into a damn army of soldiers with mind control powers. Engineers working on new versions of the implants Kaya had, who had mysteriously gotten a hold of schematics from the late Dr. Marcus.

These were his people. He was a marine.

"These are not your people," Blue said kindly. "Don't worry, we'll do a little house cleaning. Put this whole mess behind us."

Vega sighed, but he could still feel his blood pressure rising as he reached for a datapad. That report wasn't going to write itself.

"Tell you what. You wanna make it up to me, chica? Go get me some coffee."

She pushed forward off the table, nodding, and turned to go. Something seemed to stop her though, and Vega found himself performing a familiar exercise. The one where he checked to make sure he hadn't just thought something offensive off-hand, barely registering it in his subconscious. He had earned a few half-assed punches from Blue for thoughts like that.

Apparently, though, that was not the case, as Blue instead crossed the room and threw her arms around him a hug.

"Should I know what this is about?" he asked slowly, still returning the embrace all the same.

"I just worry about you, marine," she said, pulling away. Vega didn't have to be psychic to guess this was about more than just last night's mission or even the new intel on the Alliance, but he decided not to press the issue. "Now let me go get you that coffee. How do you take it?"


Kaya was nursing her own black cup of joe – Vega had laughed at seeing that, black like her soul – when Van Dyne walked into the Mess. Kaya could feel herself visibly bristle at the fact that he was still shielding his thoughts.

"Once I'm sure you lot aren't going to stab me in the back, I'll teach you how," Alexis said, sitting across from her. "I promise."

She sat back and crossed her arms, studying him, once again grateful that Cain had pushed her to study human body language so extensively during training. While Alexis was certainly guarded – and she couldn't blame an Alliance deserter on an Alliance ship for that – there was also something friendly to his posture. Whether it was genuine was harder to determine.

He swept a hand through the auburn hair that reached down to his chin and sighed, apparently dissatisfied with her level of trust.

"Look, I know we play for the same team. Or, we should be, anyway," Kaya said. "But the fact still stands that you've been working for the Alliance. For all we know, you're one of them. It would be a damn good way to bring down our defenses, sending someone in here I could relate to."

"I can't believe you think I would work for those assholes, after what they did to you. I played nice and stood nearby and waited for the other shoe to drop. They trained me to be a spy. So that's what I did," Alexis said. "What I said about the faction last night was true. They're small, and certainly not an official part of Project Indigo. I wouldn't have left all those kids at Grissom Academy if they were. Actually, if Kaylee and Jack weren't there, I probably still wouldn't leave those kids there. Anyway, there is someone high up in the Alliance backing them, just waiting to make a move."

"And if you would totally let your guard down, I might believe you," Kaya said. "But the fact still stands that, if you're capable of blocking me out, you might be capable of fabricating thoughts as well. Maybe you do really want to take these bastards down as badly as I do. Maybe not. Either way, we need to get to work. I need to go make a call to the Turian Councilor about something. When I'm done, and I've filed my report on last night, we'll talk about finding Pari."

"The Council? You're going to tell the Council that I'm on board?" he said, standing up to protest.

"The Council has been helping us track down this seedy element inside the Alliance," Kaya explained patiently. "And the Turian Councilor is an old friend. We can trust him."

Alexis studied her, and Kaya found herself squirming under his gaze. Was this how she made people feel all the time? Like a specimen under a microscope?

Apparently he found something inside her mind that convinced him to shut up, though, because he nodded and stood to get breakfast without another word of protest.