There were several moments in Vetra's life where she had been at a complete and utter loss about what to do next:

Getting kicked off Palaven, stranded alone on a station with her infant sister. Having a batarian merc take the young turian under their wing after she got caught stealing from them. The initial moment when she had first gotten out of cryosleep to find out just how much deep shit the Initiative was in.

But none of them came remotely close to the pure confusion that whirled through Vetra's head as a result of her incident with Ryder several days ago.

Her first impulse was to try to avoid him for the remaining two days in transit back to the Nexus. Whenever she and Ryder had ended up in the same room, Vetra tried her best to act like everything was normal and nothing weird had happened. As far as Vetra could tell, she seemed convincing. Ryder never acted strange or looked at her with suspicion, and the rest of the crew didn't seem to bat an eye at them.

But just because she was keeping up appearances in public, didn't mean she was keeping even remotely composed in private.

Every since they'd departed the Nexus, Vetra had spent almost any time she had alone thinking. About Ryder, about what happened, about what it all meant.

And now, sitting in the Tempest's armory alone, Vetra couldn't help but dwell on it. She had already finished all the work she had to do in Kadara Port, and had spent a good three hours going through a vicious cycle of procrastinating and thinking.

Clean up her rifle, think about Ryder.

Go get some food, have a brief chat with Suvi, think about Ryder.

Make sure the Nomad was working properly when Vetra already knew for a fact it was, think about Ryder.

She had just finished a particularly loathsome talk with Gil where he had insisted that the drive core was fine and he needed nothing. If he had just given Vetra something to do she would've been satisfied. With nothing to occupy her, she had hunkered down back in the armory just waiting alone with her thoughts hoping her mind thought up some other idea to keep her distracted. Luckily Scott was out in Kadara with Cora and Jaal, so she didn't have to worry about running into him soon.

Vetra let out a groan and leaned back in her chair, her head almost going limp.

Spirits Vetra! You're not going to get anywhere sitting around and acting like a damn teenager! You've been through shit a thousand times worse than this.

The turian leaned forward, rubbing her hand briefly against her brow plates.

It wasn't hard for her to accept the fact that she was attracted to Ryder. It was pretty obvious that she was, if her reaction to just his touch the other day was any indication.

The real question was why? She had never really been into non-turians before, save for one brief fling with an asari, but Vetra hardly counted that. Asari went out of their way to be as attractive as possible to every race … Hell, Varren probably found them attractive!

Humans though, that was a different story altogether. Not only were they fundamentally biologically distinct from turians, but the two species historically had a less than stellar introduction. Even years after first contact, there were still some barely healed wounds left over from the Relay 314 Incident.

Additionally, Vetra had never found humans very attractive. She'd heard of turians who did find humans scintillating, but had thought that very strange. Humans were soft, their legs were too straight, the hair on their heads just looked weird, and the lack of any subharmonics made it sometimes difficult to know exactly what they meant. If Scott had been a turian,Vetra would have known immediately if he was interested in her by the way he layered tritones into his voice.

But Scott wasn't a turian. He was a human, and yet here Vetra was thinking about him nonstop like a lovestruck kid who hasn't even made it to boot camp yet.

Try as she might to understand the attraction, the only explanation she could come up with that explained why she was so into Scott was because he was, well… Scott. She loved his friendly attitude, his terrible jokes, the way he genuinely cared about and listened to everyone on the crew, no matter what they were upset about or how stupid of a request they had. Scott was always there to help.

Plus, saving each other's asses on the regular certainly raised her opinion of him. Raised it to the point that she now really wanted to be more than just a friend to him.

Vetra let out another groan. None of this pondering was helping her figure out exactly what she was going to do. Maybe she'd get an idea after another round of procrastination. And food, that'd probably help too.

She got up quickly from her chair and moved out of the armory, making her way towards the galley. The cargo bay was quiet as she passed, with only sounds being the muffled laughs from Liam coming from behind the closed door of his little den.

As Vetra passed by the crew quarters, she heard the door to the med bay on her right and turned her head to see Lexi standing in the door.

"Vetra, there you are. I've got something for you. Do you mind coming here for a second?"

"Uh, sure. What's this about doc?" Vetra asked as she made her way inside.

"Just some precautionary measures is all," Lexi replied while rummaging through some cabinets.

"Precautionary measures? For what?" Vetra asked in confusion.

"Oh there's no need to be embarrassed about it," Lexi said with a dismissive wave of her hand before retrieving a small bottle from her medical supplies and moving back over to Vetra.

"These," the doctor began handing the turian the pill bottle, "are for you. Take one before any contact and you shouldn't have any allergic reactions to worry about. However I still recommend you don't ingest anything; the risk of anaphylactic shock is low, but it does tend to put a damper on the mood."

"What?" Vetra asked, confused. "I'm sorry, what do you-" she began before Lexi cut her off by handing her another pill bottle.

"These are for Ryder. Same rules apply. Make sure to tell him in case I don't see him- and don't mix them up with yours!"

"Doc, slow down. What are-"

"And here's some analgesic in case there's too much discomfort afterwards. Should help for you both," the asari doctor concluded matter-of-factly.

Vetra blinked dumbfounded at Lexi. Was this supposed to be some kind of joke? The asari had kept a perfectly straight face on the entire time, and Vetra knew for a fact that she would never toy around with her patients.

Before she could even begin to formulate a response , the door to the med bay opened behind her to reveal the hulking form and grizzled face of Drack.

"Vetra. Doc," the old krogan grunted, nodding at the two women.

"Ah, just in time. Vetra, do you mind? I've got to inspect Dracks implants," Lexi said, grabbing Vetra lightly by the arm and directing her out of the med bay.

"Uh… I still don't know what-"

"Ha! Like hell you don't," Drack snorted in amusement. "Just go find the Pathfinder already before I have to grab you both and lock you in a damn room. Unless you want me to. It worked for me and Kesh's grandma."

The krogan chuckled, grinning in amusement at Vetra.

"Hey, don't antagonize her," Lexi scolded Drack before turning back to Vetra. "You have any question, you just let me know." The doctor moved back into the med bay, leaving Vetra standing alone in the Tempest corridor looking back and forth between the door in front of ther and the medical supplies in her hands.

Do… do they know? How?

Vetra could understand Lexi figuring it out. After all, it was her job to keep an eye on the health of everyone on the ship. But Drack? How'd he hear about it?

She shook the question out of her head, realizing that if they knew about it, others had probably heard as well.

As if to prove the point, Vetra heard the door to the crew quarters open and turned to find Kallo stepping out.

"Ah, hello Vetra!" the salarian said cheerily. Vetra watched in horror as Kallo's gaze quickly flitted to the pill bottles she held in her hands. She groaned inwardly as a broad smile appeared on the salarian's face.

"Oh my … Congratulations seem to be in order!" Kallo reached out to awkwardly pat Vetra on the shoulder.

"No, Kallo it's not-" Vetra began.

"We've all been pulling for you two," Kallo continued, clearly oblivious. "Though I'm sure Liam will be sad that you didn't wait until next week. He's going to lose 50 credits!"

"Lose … Wait, were you betting on me and Ryder?" Vetra asked, incredulous.

Kallo nodded and said, "Indeed! It was Peebee's idea. She said, 'If we have to watch those two dance around each other awkwardly, we might as well enjoy it…' The rest of the crew seemed to agree.'"

Spirits damn me, Vetra groaned internally.

"In any case, I'm happy for you two!" Kallo said sunnily.

"Uh … thanks Kal."

The salarian smiled again and turned to return to the bridge, leaving a very confused turian in his wake.

Did everyone on the Tempest know about her attraction? Did Ryder already know? What if he found out accidentally?

Screw it.

If Ryder was going to hear about the way she felt, it would be from her, not from someone else. Vetra pocketed the pills and marched back towards the armory.


"You were right. The view is great from up here." Ryder suddenly said, causing Vetra to pause in her climbing and turn around to admire the view.

The towering mountains of Kadara looming out as far as the eye could see, with clouds enveloping the tallest ones in seemingly random ways. The low valleys with pools of bright blue water surrounded by giant fungi.

Though the sights were great, Vetra had to admit that they were made all the better by Ryder's presence. Just being near him made her happy, especially when they weren't being actively shot at.

As nice as it was to spend time with Ryder outside of their day-to-day work, it wasn't the main reason that Vetra had scheduled this little climb. She needed to tell Ryder how she felt, and she wanted a nice secluded spot where nobody else would be around for miles.

The spot in particular that the two of them were climbing to was found thanks to a contact of hers back on Kadara Port. Apparently it has one hell of a view of a nearby valley, and seemed like the perfect spot where they could be alone and just talk free from the prying eyes or well wishing of the crew.

So Vetra had sent Ryder a message asking if he had any free time, and as luck would have it he had just finished up some business in the port.

So now the two were about halfway up a cliff face with nothing but their own grips and the jump-jets on their backs to prevent them from falling back to the ground below them.

Vetra took a quick glance over at Ryder who was still admiring the view, his left arm hanging freely while his right one gripped the rock tightly.

"Where not even to the top yet," Vetra said, prompting Ryder to turn his head towards her. "Come on, I'll race you."

"Alright Nyx. You're on." he said, a smirk clearly evident on his face.

"Hey! I know how you operate Scott Ryder. No jump-jets. We're doing it the old fashioned way." she said, feeling around for the next available foothold.

"Fine, fine. But what do I get if I win?"

"What would you like?" she replied, again noticing the flirtatious trill from her subharmonics.

Ryder hummed exaggeratedly and started climbing the cliff face once again.

"How about… the bad guy defeated, a magic sword… and the girl?"

Vetra felt her heart rate increase. If Scott knew why she had brought him here then he was just playing with her at this point.

"Well, good thing you're losing then. I don't have a magic sword."

The each continued their climbing, with the top of the cliff a good 15 feet still above them. Vetra however already had a good lead. As long as she kept up her pace, she'd beat Ryder no problem.

As the turian tested another foothold, she recognized the rising crescendo of a deep bass thrumming that could only be produced from a biotic field. It was a sound that Vetra knew well, thanks to her time spent in the field with Ryder.

She barely caught a glimpse of him as he pushed himself upwards with biotic force, sending Vetra a hearty laugh/cheer on his way up.

Oh, of course. Dammit Vetra! You should've known he'd do that!

In truth, she couldn't bring herself to be even a little mad. That was Scott to a tee, always resourceful. And really, Vetra was just happy to be spending time with someone she cared about.

It wasn't long before Vetra reached the top herself, pulling herself over the edge to see Ryder lying down on his back with his hand on his chest and a pained smile on his face.

"Having fun?" she asked.

"Oh, plenty…" he replied. "I just love getting the wind knocked out of me…"

"Well, consider that your punishment for cheating."

"Never heard a rule against biotics, " he teased through a smug smile.

Vetra didn't respond, just crossed her arms and raised her brow plates at him.

"Alright, I'm sorry. But, as long as I'm lying down you might as well join me. The sky is something to see right now," Ryder said, patting a spot next to him.

Vetra obliged, moving to the right of him and lying down on her back. After some quick adjustments to her legs so that her spurs wouldn't get caught on the rocks if she tried to move, Vetra took a moment to reflect on how lucky she was to be right here.

She was lying only inches away from someone that she could say without a doubt was the most important person in her life, looking up at the clouds above. The sunlight was just dim enough so that stars could faintly be seen in the sky. Vetra idly wondered if any of them were the Milky Way.

If there was ever a time to ask him, it'd be now.

"Scott?" Vetra asked, turning her head to face him. She didn't even care about the affectionate subtones in her subharmonics.

"Yeah?" he replied quietly, still looking up at the sky.

"Is… Is this real?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think the sky's real."

"No, you idiot," Vetra said with a playful nudge from her left elbow. "This. How you are towards me. I've… worked with a lot of people. Most of them were assholes, but a few of them I could actually consider friends. But you're… different. It's like you… care, as more than just a friend.

Vetra brought the back of her hand to rub against his, and the contact sent a small shiver up her spine. She paused for a moment, and turned her head back to look at the sky.

"I don't mind if it's 'no'," she continued. "I just want to be sure. It gets messy otherwise."

"Messy? Sounds like you've got some experience there," Ryder said making no attempt to move his hand away.

"I… I misread a few things with a long term colleague. It didn't end well. Look, it's not important, I…" she turned her head to face him, and he did the same.

"I just want to be sure."

A small smile appeared on his face, his blue eyes never breaking from hers. She felt his hand slowly and gently wrap around hers, three fingers were interlocked with five.

"I do care about you," he said, still staring straight at her. "As more than just a friend."

"Really?" she asked, unable to hide the small surprise in her voice. "I didn't want to assume. It just seemed so unlikely. Me, you. Turian, human. It's… well, not exactly common.

"Well sure it's not, but that shouldn't matter. I've considered you a friend since we first left the Nexus. It wasn't until recently that I realized how crazy I was about you."

"Crazy, huh? How crazy?"

"The kind of crazy where I've considered biotic charging a few turian guys that couldn't take their eyes off you back on the Nexus."

Vetra let out a small laugh. "I'm flattered - truly, but I'm also glad you didn't go around starting fistfights to prove how much you cared about me."

"I mean, there are other ways I could prove it to you," Ryder said, a devilish look in his eyes.

"Oh really? How so?" she asked, squeezing his hand a little tighter.

Ryder rolled his body over so that is was flushed with hers, with him now on his side. She saw as his left hand reach around and pulled her closer, his other one still gripping hers tightly.

Vetra felt almost frozen in place, yet her heart was pounding out of control as Scott moved his face closer to hers.

And then Ryder frowned.

"So, uh … I didn't think this through, too busy trying to be suave," he admitted. "How am I supposed to kiss you exactly?"