Ryder was half-propped up on a stool in front of the food station in the staff quarters, looking over her teammates as she tried not to screw up her eyes against the light. Lexi had wasted no time letting her know that "this is what you get when a Fiend throws you headfirst into a rock wall, Ryder", even though she already knew that from firsthand experience, so now she was being extra stubborn about not letting on about any discomfort, especially to Lexi. Said doctor was leaning against a wall close to the door, her eyes fixed on Ryder for any sign of anything at all, and Ryder fought the impulse to stick out her tongue at the doctor.
Lexi hadn't even wanted Ryder to get up; she'd wanted her to either take the meeting in the medbay or via vid. Just … no. Ryder wasn't taking a meeting in bed, and she certainly wasn't taking one on vid lying one room over from the rest of the team. She couldn't get up a floor to the meeting room, so this was the second-best option. Admittedly, she had to wear a bionic leg support kindly adapted by Gil because her hip was temporarily less than useful, and the very short distance to the quarters was an experience she didn't want to relive very soon, but she'd made it. Fine, it took longer than she expected, and her body was trembling like crazy, but she'd made it, and nobody knew any different, so...
"You look like shit," Drack said as casually as ever from where he was leaning against the wall by the coffee machine, his arms folded.
"Thanks, Drack." Maybe they knew just a little different. Half of her face was mottled and bruised, covered in cuts and splits, her lip busted, and her left shoulder and arm were entirely immobilised against her chest... and that was just the stuff they could see. She looked, well, pretty much the way she felt. "Stupid Krogan ceremonies. No offense."
"Hur hur," Drack rumbled out a chuckle. "Sucks to be the Pathfinder. You dodged a bullet, Harper."
Cora quirked her eyebrows from Drack's right. "Can't say I would have chosen to get into it with three Fiends if I was in Ryder's place."
"Hey, I didn't know there were three of them ..." Ryder objected.
"Man, I would have loved to see that fight," Liam interjected from the left. "Drack told me it was epic."
"Epically stupid." Lexi, from the back, quietly but perfectly audible.
"Okay..." Ryder began.
"It is Ryder's destiny," Jaal offered gallantly.
"To be epically stupid?" Peebee laughed from the back, where she was lazily spinning around a piece of Remtech in the air with her biotics. "Couldn't argue with that. Pot. Kettle."
"Okay..." Ryder tried again.
"Why would you argue with a pot or a kettle?" Jaal wanted to know, and then, "I see. It is one of those vagaries of language? I will confer with Dr Anwar later."
The science officer in question was sitting off to the side smiling at the conversation.
"Sid's going to love this story," Vetra added from beside Suvi. "She thinks Ryder's the business."
"The business? What business?" Jaal.
"I'll catch you up, Jaal". Suvi.
"Ah."
"O-kay! Order!" She felt stupid saying it, and then she felt the aftereffects of saying it loudly. Fighting the urge to say "Ow!" like a baby (Lexi was still staring her down) Ryder took as much of a breath as she could manage, fighting down the snap of pain in her chest, and then tried again.
"Okay. We have to talk about the next week or so. I won't be going on any missions for the next couple of days..."
"At least two weeks," Lexi interjected, and Ryder shot her as stern a look as she could manage.
"... couple of days..."
"Good," Drack interrupted. "You'll scare the Varren, looking like that."
"... couple of days. Stop interrupting!"
"Sorry, Ryder."
Ryder opened her mouth, looked around accusingly to pre-empt any further nonsense, and was met only with suspiciously serious expressions. "Okay, guys, please don't make me have to talk more than I really have to." She glanced at Lexi, then sighed. "I don't think I have any uncracked ribs left, and I shot up six medigels in less than 20 minutes and crunched the blood flow to my heart - which Lexi will be only too happy to tell you about in full detail if you ask her - so until the gross stuff she ended up doing in here to fix it..." vague hand-waving over her chest, "settles and my heart goes back to normal..." she paused to take a slow breath, "... I can only fight one Fiend at a time."
Lexi pushed away from the door and moved closer. "By which Ryder of course means no fighting at all, and no leaving the Tempest at all, and no aggravation at all."
"Hey," Gil protested from the back, "why are you looking at me when you say aggravation?"
"I'm not, Gil, you're just directly in my field of vision."
"That's what you say now."
"Okay." This time it only took the once for everyone to keep quiet. "My deal with Dr T'Perro is that I don't have to go back to the Nexus unless something goes wrong, as long as I stay down for a bit."
"Two weeks."
"Unless I'm fine earlier than that."
"Two weeks."
"Ugh." Ryder grunted. "Two weeks. Everyone good with that?"
A variety of sure's, yeses and grunts, along with a droll "pretty sure we'll survive" from Gil, which earned him an elbow in the side from Vetra.
"So there's the Remtech thing," Liam said, "but if we get stuck we can have you and SAM in our ears as the experts, right?"
"Heyyy," the Remtech piece in front of Peebee spun faster as she scowled at Liam. "What am I, a Hanar skeleton?"
"Hanar don't have skeletons." Jaal looked from Peebee to Liam, and then at Suvi. "Dr Anwar, at this rate we will have to book off a whole evening."
Suvi laughed. "You know I don't need an excuse for a conversation with you, Jaal."
Ryder felt her heart blip, even though she was about 95% sure Suvi wasn't interested in men, and even though Suvi didn't belong to her in any way and she was being completely ridiculous.
"Alright." At this point she would have stood up for a bit of inspirational hand-waving, but she only had one working hand and her hip had locked up anyway. "The mission doesn't stop just because I have to for a bit."
"Two weeks."
"Shh. We keep going. There are vaults to find on Elaaden, Remnant sites to investigate, minerals to mine..."
"... basically the stuff we do all the time." Peebee grinned. "Dibs on the Nomad!"
"You can't dibs the Nomad," Cora protested.
"Only doing what you would have if you were faster, Harper."
"Don't worry, kid. We got this."
So much for her inspiring speech-to-be; they were already dispersing before she'd even opened her mouth again.
Pausing at her side Vetra tapped her shoulder lightly. "What they meant to say is we're glad you're alive, Ryder, and we'll hold the fort. Rest up."
Ryder shook her head. "I always liked you best, Vetra."
"Let's not lie to our friends. Now you sit here and wait until everyone's gone, and then you drag yourself back to the medbay. Because you look like shit."
