Pain emboldens our resolve. Grow stronger.
"Sara, how are you doing, really?"
Awful. Horrible. The worst. How in the fuck was she supposed to answer that? Her dad died. Her dad was dead because of her and the one person who should have been mourning alongside her was in a coma.
But, hey. Good coffee. Sara cleared her throat.
"I'm okay," she said and forced a smile to her face that was fake, but felt better than the expression her mouth wanted to twist into. "Fine."
"You don't have to be strong for me," Cora told her. "We're in private, it's just between us two."
Because they were so close. In the dark of SAM node, Sara could practically hear the electricity crackle inside her ears. The silence was loud, SAM was loud.
He wanted to experience feelings through her? Well, buckle up, because Sara Ryder had a fuckton.
Cora was still standing there, patient and too understanding. Sara shrugged at the inky emotional sludge and told herself she only wanted to punch Cora's perfect concern from her perfect face because she was the only one perfectly close enough.
"I said I'm fine," Sara insisted and may have swatted the other woman's nose with her fingers as she waved her away. Accidentally, of course.
Cora nodded silently, her look of sympathy a strange hybrid of both condescension and constipation- not true, not exactly, why was that what Sara was so intensely focused on- but the important thing was that Cora left. She had no more sparkling gems about how Dad wanted to, "go out among stars" and did what Sara had wanted her to do in the first place: leave her alone.
No mother, no father, no brother. Any relevancy once possessed was centuries past. She felt like she could just slip wordlessly into the cold of space. Sara Ryder was alone.
Fuck.
Meeting Director Tann magically made things worse.
That was unkind, she should try again. Sara grimaced for the umpteenth time since arriving on the Nexus and aimed for happy thoughts.
It didn't work. Tann was still there, was still a prick. It was just a drop in the deluge of unkind thoughts that were swelling in Sara's mind, as she stood there and took their verbal battering in what she hoped they'd see as a calm resolve and not recognize it for what it really was: her checking out. Of course they wanted her father! She wanted him, too.
Where were the other arks? Why was the Nexus nearly depleted of supplies? Wasn't there supposed to be champagne upon arrival?
There was an insane, little thought to rush back to the Hyperion and hide a stash of coffee before everything was rationed and redistributed. Sara tried not to giggle. Both Tann and Addison looked deathly serious and she hadn't been listening.
Cora came to her rescue and agreed to privately hash out the details with Tann in his office. Sara pretended to be agreeable and not relieved.
A krogan named Kesh beckoned to her and was strangely pleasant. Motherly. The first taste of optimism, of hope. Sara wanted to cling to the older woman and weep.
What were they all doing lightyears away from any home? How could they think something golden six hundred years ago would wait pristine and untouched for them while they slept? Did Kesh know that Sara nearly died- correction, had died? That she'd had a seizure, was clinically dead for almost twenty three seconds, and now instead had an AI cruising through her synapses trying to convince her that she was the Pathfinder and that her brain wasn't as broken as her heart?
Sara was cool, though. She didn't hug the krogan, she just stood there and passively absorbed Kesh's warmth.
She could barely remember what Tann, hell, Addison or even Kesh, told her. Something about Eos. Sara left the encounter with the Nexus bureaucrats irritable and followed the only pitiful carrot they could dangle. She would see her brother before they sent her off again to do God only knew what.
In the med bay of the Hyperion, Scott looked like he was sleeping. He was sleeping, she told herself. Kind of. On a gurney with sterile white sheets. It made her glad to know Harry would be the one taking care of her not-so-little brother until he decided to wake. Sara reached forward and ruffled her twin's dark hair.
Scott felt comfortably warm. That was good, a good sign. Harry also didn't look too concerned at the lazy rise and fall of her brother's chest. It quelled a lot of the despair of the earlier hours.
But she couldn't think of anything comforting to say. Sara wanted to talk with her brother, not at him and it seemed in bad taste to respond on Scott's behalf when he could not.
Harry was watching, anyway. And Liam Kosta. This wasn't how Sara had imagined any of this.
"Asshole," she muttered as she kissed Scott's forehead. "I'm going to get into so much trouble and you can't stop me."
He would have been pissed if he could hear her. Instead, Scott continued to exhale heavy, even breaths. She wished he did hear her; she would have loved to know what he would have said.
Instead, she had to settle for Liam's friendly pat on the back as he ushered her to the Tempest with a, "Scott'll be fine. He's a fighter like you. "
