Gil found great satisfaction in his engineering capabilities. He was especially proud of his ability to receive the Nomad in a dire state after being driven through a combat zone and have it both looking and running almost factory-fresh before the Pathfinder next needed it. Which was why he was currently glaring at Peebee. Peebee, who had decided the best place to park her brilliant blue butt, despite all the other vastly more comfortable seats on the entire ship, was on the beautifully polished nose of his excellently tuned Nomad.
"Pretty sure Ryder didn't request an asari butt-print with her tune up," he remarked pointedly when glaring in silence didn't seem to be clear enough. Peebee either didn't notice or didn't care. Probably the latter.
"Oh, relax," Peebee rolled her eyes at him, not moving from her position cross-legged atop the Nomad. She leaned back on one hand, and Gil knew, he just knew, there would be a damn hand-print there that he would have to polish away. "Ryder loves my butt."
"That's because she has no taste," Cora called over without looking. She had her armour laid out in front of her on one of the workbenches that skirted the wall of the cargo hold and was carefully going over the blue-and-white plates, checking they were all in working order.
Peebee stuck out her tongue at Cora's back.
Gil sighed loudly and resumed polishing the Nomads side panel with a soft cloth. "Why are you here, Peebee?" He asked, sensing she had something to say.
Peebee was quiet a moment, organizing her thoughts, then announced, "I just wanted to see if anyone else had noticed Ryder acting weird?" She glanced at Gil, then at Cora, who had paused in checking her armour to look over one shoulder at Peebee with her eyes narrowed. "You know, not that I really care, it's no skin off my nose if she's-"
"What do you mean?" Cora asked at the same time Gil said, "yes."
The trio paused, looking at each other. Peebee pushed off on her palm to sit up straight as Cora left her armour on her workbench and crossed the cargo bay to the Nomad, propping her hands on her hips. "She's been a little…skittish since waking up after the grenade," the blonde admitted.
"You don't think it did something to her?" Peebee asked, trying to feign indifference. She was a free spirit with zero attachments to anyone or anything, she couldn't possibly be seen as actually caring for someone, especially someone tied to an organization such as The Iniative. Nosiree, Peebee was as free as they came. "Like the explosion scrambled her brain or something?" She screwed a finger into her temple for emphasis. Cora glared at the crude motion.
"Maybe she's..." Gil paused awkwardly, trying to communicate with the women telepathically by raising his eyebrows increasingly higher as Peebee and Cora stared at him in confusion. "You know...on something?" He shrugged.
"What, like drugs?" Cora asked incredulously, frowning at him. No, that didn't sound right.
Peebee cracked up, tossed her head back and damn near roared with laughter. "Ryder is the most straight-laced rebel I've ever met," she said through giggles, flapping a dismissive hand Gil's way.
"She's all... Dorky," Gil insisted. "And jittery."
Cora looked amused. "I can assure you Ryder isn't as slick as she'd like us to believe."
"Well, she's not normally dorky and jittery," Gil replied almost defensively.
"Oh, she has her moments," Cora said, chuckling to herself. Then the smile fell. "Though, I've never actually seen her acting this way before."
"It must be this place," Peebee commented darkly. "Andromeda. It's screwing everyone up."
"Most people are turning to violence, alcohol and drugs to cope," Gil said. "Sara's more like..." He trailed off, trying to find the words to explain just how his friend was behaving of late.
"A hermit on way too much caffeine?" Peebee offered after some consideration. Sara had mostly been hiding in her quarters, and when she did venture out, she seemed to be on high alert for something. Or someone? Maybe Andromeda had got to her.
"Sara does like coffee," Cora remarked, nodding slowly.
"I had a friend get addicted to coffee once," Peebee said helpfully. "He drank gallons of the stuff. We had to wean him off onto this horrible coffee-flavoured stuff and-"
"Pretty sure that's not the issue here, Peebee," Cora interrupted.
"Maybe you should talk to her?" Gil suggested to Cora.
She glanced away from him, brows knit in concern, as she nodded in agreement. "I will," she decided. It hadn't worried her at first. Sara had always been a little quirky, but now that they had been talking about it, and she had really thought about it, Sara's behaviour was fairly strange.
She looked up at her comrades as she felt a heavy silence fall and found them both looking expectantly at her. "What, now?"
"Well, why not?" Peebee demanded.
Why not, indeed?
Cora sighed and nodded again. "You're right. I'll go find her."
"She's probably in her quarters surrounded by caffeine," Peebee quipped. Cora shot her a frosty look before turning away and crossing the loading bay, requesting SAM find Sara's location for her.
"She is in her quarters," SAM replied through her omni-tool. "Shall I inform her you are looking for her?"
"No, thank you," Cora said.
Cora barrelled straight into Sara's quarters without announcing herself and found the Pathfinder sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed with a datapad in one hand and mug off coffee in the other. She shot the mug an almost suspicious look as Sara glanced up at her, Peebee's words about caffeine-addiction floating to the forefront of her mind.
"I feel like you guys treat my quarters as an extension of the rest of Tempest," Sara remarked, tossing her datapad aside and leaning back on one hand to look at Cora with a raised eyebrow and a sloped smile. "Everything okay?"
Cora paused in front of the bed. Now that she was here, with Sara in front of her, she realized she hadn't actually formulated a way to question Sara, to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. As it was, Sara seemed perfectly at ease, and Cora began to wonder if they had been imagining things… But no, Sara had definitely been spending less time with the crew, more time cooped up, and she always seemed on edge when she did venture outside. "I wanted to ask you that," Cora said finally.
Sara looked confused. "Ask me what?" She sat up straighter, putting her mug on her bedside table, sliding to the edge of the bed and getting to her feet to stand in front of Cora.
"Some of us have noticed you're a bit… on edge lately," Cora began.
Her stance was relaxed, but Sara knew her friend was analysing her every move. At first, she was absolutely baffled by Cora's remark, but then it all fell into place with an embarrassing click. Suvi… Sara had been doing her utmost to avoid what she perceived as a problem, and that meant avoiding the Tempest's science officer who had the uncanny ability to pop up anywhere, mainly due to her habit of walking around the ship while scrutinizing data readouts. Apparently walking increased brain function, not that Sara believed that.
Sara gave an awkward laugh, rubbing at the scar underneath her eye. "Ah, thanks for the concern, but it's nothing."
"You know you shouldn't bottle up your feelings," Cora told her seriously, as though ready to listen to Sara divulge some great traumatic secret that was eating her up.
"No, I know, but it's nothing," Sara insisted. "Really, Cora, I promise, I'm fine. I'm just being an idiot, but you need to trust me and just let me get on with it this time."
Cora was quiet for a moment, studying Sara. The Pathfinder's eyes were earnest, and her lips had quirked up faintly on one side. She looked embarrassed but not upset, or stressed or... High, as Gil thought she might be. "Okay," Cora said finally with a small nod. "I trust you, but if you change your mind and you need to talk...?" She lifted her eyebrows in question.
"I know where to find you," Sara finished and gave her a full smile then. "Thanks. You're the best."
"Okay," Cora said again. "I need to finish checking my armour." She motioned over her shoulder with a jerk of one thumb.
Sara smiled and nodded. "Sure."
Cora reached out and squeezed Sara's shoulder as she turned away, heading back out of Sara's quarters and into the corridor outside.
Sara watched her go and waited for the door to close before hiding her face in her hands and groaning. "Oh my God, why is my life so humiliating? Rhetorical question, SAM!" She held up one finger, sensing the AI had been about to ask her for clarification.
She sighed and moved back to her bed, dropping onto the edge and staring down at her hands. She needed to work harder at controlling her feelings for Suvi before she freaked out the entire crew with her weirdness and they set Lexi on her. She had to get over this, and fast. Was it possible to guard her heart? To wall it off? Perhaps if she found bad things about Suvi instead of- no, that was an awful idea. Besides, Suvi had no bad points.
Sara uttered a growl of frustration and flopped backwards onto her bed to stare up at the ceiling.
"I hate everything."