Back in her quarters on the Tempest, Ryder felt like her body was slowly being crushed into the ground by the weight of a large eiroch. With a lurch she staggered from her chair, throwing herself out of the sliding doors and into the hallway. Not for the first time, she cursed whoever had decided that the Pathfinder didn't need their own private bathroom. Coughing, she passed through crew quarters and into the female toilet, leaning over the sink just in time as hot blood ran down her throat, spattering the white porcelain in spots of crimson. Since accessing remnant technology without the aid of SAM she'd felt lethargic, her limbs were difficult to lift, and she was starting to worry that she had permanent tinnitus. That and she had become disconcertingly used to the taste of her own blood. But she had little time to worry about it, the voyage to Meridian would take only a few hours at current velocity. Deeply unsettled at the way Ryder had so recklessly risked her health (despite the Pathfinder's protestations that it had, of course, been the only way they'd had any chance against the Archon) Lexi had ordered her to rest up in her quarters until they reached their destination. Although Ryder found this exasperating, with everyone else busying themselves with last minute preparations, the intense look in Lexi's eye made her back off. It would be best not to give their only doctor a heart attack.

Although they had the remnant fleet on side, they were still going to need as many of their allies as they could gather. Every member of the crew had been reaching out to their own contacts, sending out directions to Meridian, asking if not for bodies, at least for supplies, medical supplies, guns. Cora had overseen most of those they could reach through regular channels, like Efra and the Resistance, those Ryder herself would have gotten in contact with if she were in any fit state. Which, judging by the fact that every orifice on her head had at one point been bleeding, she had to admit was probably wise. There was one contact, however, that she'd offered to get in touch with herself. Her eyes slid up to the mirror, they looked shockingly large in her reflection and alarmingly bright against the paleness of her skin in her weakened state, the skin beneath darkly shadowed. Well, at least he wouldn't be able to see her. After rinsing out her mouth she exited the bathroom and attempted to slip back into her quarters unnoticed.

"Ryder."

She winced. She had not been successful.

Liam was stood at the door to her quarters and had two steaming mugs of tea in his hands.
Smiling, he held one the slightly more worn mug that had a picture of the fictional hanar spectre Blasto on it, "Brought you a present."

Despite the grin Ryder could tell he was anxious. His eyes looked puffier from lack of sleep, the bright flecks of chestnut around his irises more dimmed than usual. At one time she would've been itching to kiss that look from his face, to tease him about the patch of long hairs stuck out under his chin that he'd missed because they'd been so busy lately. Being this close to him, so close that she could see the patch of freckles on his left cheek, see the lines around his nose that creased when he was trying to look happier than he felt, she could remember the fluttering sensations in her chest such proximity would have caused. If she let herself, she could feel a ghost of the feeling, like the impression left by a handprint in sand. But Ryder was not the same as she was then, she was different from the frightened girl that had been desperate for a source of comfort. Taking command of the Pathfinder team (really taking command, not the half stuttered attempts she'd made in the beginning), carving out safe havens for outposts, standing her ground against Tann, against Addison, marching onto the Archon's ship, telling her brother that their father was dead, and the utter, sheer pain of dying over and over again… it had changed her, not altogether, but those short yet significant months had made her different from before. And when she'd lost that inexperienced, frightened part of herself, she hadn't needed Liam in the same way she had before.

"Thanks, Liam," she responded, and although he didn't know it, she was thanking him for more than the drink. Thanking him because, even though she was stronger now, she was still not strong enough to drive a wedge between them, to give him the distance he may not want but certainly needed.

"You've got blood on your chin," he observed, trying to sound offhand.

She wiped it with the sleeve of her shirt, "Brilliant."

"You… scared me, you know," he began tentatively, stopping speaking abruptly as though concerned if he continued he might misspeak.

"We've got this," Ryder replied firmly, keen to avoid that avenue of conversation, too tired to focus on much else than her throbbing skull.

Liam nodded as though he understood, "I'll be ready."

Once he had retreated along the corridor and into the cargo bay, Ryder leant against the wall and let out a heavy sigh. She didn't know how she was going to tell him she wasn't taking him as part of her ground team to Meridian.

Back inside her room Ryder climbed into the centre of her bed and dragged her bedsheets around herself like a cocoon. She pulled her wrist towards her face, the orange glow of her omni-tool illuminating the undersides of the sheets, a smile briefly flitting over her features as it drew to her mind an old memory she had thought forgotten. The torchlit interior of a pillow fort she and her brother had built in the middle of the night when they 9, where they had stayed up until the early hours chatting and playing video games, only to be found slumped slumbering within it by their mother when she came to rouse them for school the next morning. The corners of her lips fell however, as with a pang she wondered if Scott was even alive, if he had left her as the lone Ryder after all. Lone Ryder. Some warmth crept back into her bones as she remembered his joke and she breathed deeply to ease the hard beating of her heart. It would not do to unravel with panic now. The Archon needed Scott, he was not dead yet, she would find him and make the vile kett pay for ever even contemplating taking her brother within his filthy grasp. It was in moments like this, when she was alone or feeling despondent at Andromeda's many challenges, that she would usually talk to SAM. Despite the fact the AI was inexperienced with human emotions and at the beginning of their relationship had given somewhat clinical responses, the longer they had spent together and the better he had understood her, the more profound, even comforting, his replies had become. Although Ryder was over the initial shock of his removal, SAM's absence had still left her feeling sore, the empty space he left behind as abrasive as any physical pain. Ryder tapped at her omni-tool a few times, fingers tracing the pattern of the keys instinctively she had pressed them so many times before. It was time for her to do her part, to call the last remaining contact, although how she was going to explain everything that had happened, she didn't know.

When she finally called him, Reyes was asleep, laid back on the seats of his private room in Tartarus. When his omni-tool made a sound he started awake, grunting at the stiffness in his neck as he leant forward and shook his head groggily. Some voices emanated from the bar outside, but it was far quieter than it had been when Kian had visited.

Snatching the bottle the bartender had left behind, Reyes took a swig of whisky to clear his throat before answering the call, "Buenas noches. No vidcom this time?"

"Sadly not. It's hardly private and you definitely can't be trusted after last time," Sara answered, and it took him a moment to piece together her words he was so relieved that there was nothing particularly abnormal about her voice, that she didn't sound badly injured. She had called him the day before to tell him they were going after Meridian, and he'd been rather more distracted than he cared to admit ever since.

Reyes eased himself back into the seat, his words smooth in an attempt to disguise his initial pause, "I only asked you to show me one of them…"

Sara laughed and the sound was so full, so sincere he found himself grinning. It struck him he would look like a fool if someone were to see him now, smiling to himself in the dark, but found he didn't care.

Sara's laughter was cut short by coughing, and when she next talked her breathing sounded wheezy and uneven, "Besides, I look like hell."

"Impossible. If I was still there, I'm sure I'd still ravish you."

"I'm sure you would," she sniggered.

"You saved the world yet, angel?" Reyes kept his voice level, tone calm.

She might be speaking as though there was nothing amiss, but he knew her well enough by now to know that she was particularly gifted at playing things down, pretending she didn't hurt when she did.

Her voice was muffled for a moment as if by her hand, "Things got… intense today. We're a couple of hours out from Meridian, it's a long story, I've lost my connection to SAM, the Archon severed it."

"Didn't that hurt?" he asked, playful banter forgotten for a moment.

"Reyes Vidal, are you worried about me?" she asked, voice a few shades away from mocking. Although she'd meant it as a playful reminder of when he'd asked her the same question after they'd fought Zia, he instead recalled the last time she's asked him the same thing, the night before she boarded the Archon's ship. The night before she'd died. Such thoughts did nothing to alleviate his concern.

"Sara Ryder, are you evading the question?"

"Always," Sara paused, "yes, it did, but I'm okay. Well, apart from the fact the Archon has gone after the Hyperion and my brother and by now he must be headed to the same way we are."

Reyes winced. He'd been so casually joking when, if her brother was in danger, he imagined that internally Sara was in a state of near panic.

"I'm… sorry. That's, well, it's shit."

"Yeah…" her voice trailed off for a moment as genuine emotion blossomed in it for the first time, no longer held back by a façade, "I've already sent you the mission logs, so you know the details of what's happened. I'm pretty beat and it's hard enough putting it all into place in my own head."

"Should you be sharing something like that with the Charlatan?" Reyes frowned.

"I should be if I want his help," she sounded slightly tentative.

"What do you need?"

"Oh only everyone, we need everything we have against the Archon. That means members of the Collective, if you can spare them."

He could hear the trepidation in her voice and could tell that the entire conversation had been building to this moment. She needed to know that she could trust him, this was his opportunity to wipe away the doubts he still sometimes observed in her countenance, the guarded way she beheld him at times, to redeem himself after the debacle of revealing himself as the Charlatan in which he had come very close to losing her. Rid her of the idea that he was nothing more than a liar, that he was using her for her station, ideas which he had no doubt Kosta was inflating at every opportunity.

But Reyes was still getting used to being sincere.

"All along I knew you were using me for something, I just thought it was my body," he quipped, reflexively.

Sara's response was quick, "Don't forget who helped you into that throne, King of Kadara."

"Well, since I suppose you have helped me in the past, in a very minuscule and almost ineffectual way…" he chuckled and continued seriously, "I'll review the mission logs and get some men debriefed and ready in ships as soon as I can. Sound fair enough?"

"Reyes… Thank you."

They both were silent then, and he wondered if she was thinking the same as him. He had tried to ignore it throughout their conversation, but the idea that had pulled at him had become more real the more he tried to avoid it, like an oddly shaped shadow in the dark becomes more sinister the more you avert your eyes.

This might be the last time we talk. The Archon might kill her tomorrow.

And he didn't know what to say. Perhaps he should tell her how he felt, but how could he when he didn't fully understand himself? Reyes did not credit himself with having great powers of introspection, did not linger long on mulling over his feelings, his deeds, over the man he had become. Perhaps that had changed a little recently, when Sara prodded and poked at his conscience, or what remained of it. But that was just it. She had forced him to face himself because she seemed to care about the man he was. And the fact that he wanted, really wanted, her to approve of the man he was, was something altogether alien to him in itself. Alien and yet welcome, such that he didn't want it to end, certainly not yet, maybe never.
"I…" His words struggled to find form. "Just be careful alright?"

"This is it. You don't need me to tell you how important this is," Ryder began.

Two hours after her conversation with Reyes she stood in the Tempest's meeting room clad in her father's armour, back straight although her shoulders were aching, expression impassive although fear and anger lashed at her insides. Around her stood the rest of the team, all armoured, all ready. Through the tinted glass above them, the orbed outline of Meridian grew steadily larger as they approached through a flurry of meteoroids. Dotted amongst the stars, other ships with Initiative colours, anagaran resistance fighters, vast remnant cruisers and other unmarked corvettes and frigates flew alongside them, following the same trajectory, ready to jump into FTL speed and oppose the waiting kett fleet.

"I'm not going to rattle off some speech that's supposed to inspire you, you don't need it, I know how much you all want this, and no matter what, each of you is exceptionally capable. I have no doubts you will fight to the best of your ability."

"Funny, that still sounds a lot like an inspirational speech, Ryder," Cora grinned.

"Maybe there's more of my father in me than I thought," Ryder nodded, briefly returning her smile.

"What's the plan, kid?" Drack asked, swinging his shotgun upwards so it rested on one of his massive shoulders.

"Our intel about what the surface will actually be like once we get there is limited, so I'll update you once we're there. We'll be splitting into two teams. Drack and Cora will be with me, just the three of us, that way if we need to drop in the Nomad we can. Vetra, Liam, Peebee, Jaal, you will follow behind us for extra fire support, or for any secondary objectives we acquire," her eyes circled the room, catching as many of their gazes as she could. "All I can tell you is be ready for anything. And be safe. Dismissed."

In a flurry of nods and back clapping, the group began to disperse. Only Liam remained still, staring at her.

He stepped towards her, voice low, "After all this, you can't just leave me behind."

"You're not being left behind; your role is vital. You'll be there to make sure nothing surprises us, and you'll be on hand if we need you for support," Ryder kept her voice level, although a flicker of heat ran beneath it. She had expected him to be hurt, perhaps a little angry, but she had not thought he would question her.

"No, I want-"

"Specialist Kosta," her voice rose sharply, "this is a mission. It isn't about what you want."

Eyes rounded Liam stared at her, swallowing as though pushing down a retort and his eyes fell away from hers. Behind him, Ryder noticed Cora ushering the others from the room.

Ryder continued, tone soft but clear, "This whole team care about each other and that sometimes makes things difficult, but we can't let it cloud our judgement. On Khi Tasira you tried to stop me using the remnant interface..."

"Because I thought it was going to kill you," Liam muttered, defiantly.

"That doesn't matter," Ryder shook her head, "it does not matter more than the mission. We may not be military but there is a chain of command, Liam. You shouldn't have interfered."

"It's not always as simple as that though, is it?" Liam countered, dark eyebrows forming a v shape.

"Excuse me?" Ryder breathed, features hardening.

"You say that but then you endangered the mission when you let Vidal kill Sloane, " Liam rebuffed, his tone a touch scathing. Ryder was so taken aback by his words and the bitterness in his voice she was speechless for several seconds. Liam continued, as though now the words were finally out of his mouth he couldn't stop, "You couldn't know at that point whether the Collective could've actually overthrown the Outcasts. You also couldn't have known he'd play ball with the Initiative. But that didn't seem to matter when your precious Charlatan was in danger-"

"Stop," she snapped.

A long silence drew out between them in which she felt herself practically glowering at him, well aware of the intense heat in her neck that was spreading up all the way to the curve of her ears. Where Ryder felt herself growing angrier, Liam looked as though he was deflating, the wrinkle of his nose smoothing over, the stone in his eyes losing its sharpness.

"I… I didn't mean," Liam began, words trailing away beneath the ferocity of her gaze.

"If you ever interfere with my tactical choices on the field, if you do anything that undermines my authority again, you will be straight off this fucking ship Specialist Kosta."

With that, Ryder stalked away to the bridge where a call from the Archon awaited her.

As the shuttle descended lower, Reyes found himself wishing he had more eyes with which to take in the sights before him. The sky was littered with ships locked in conflict, filled with the rattle of gunfire from barrels of disparate sizes, with smoke coughed out from downed cruisers and burning vegetation. But beyond this, the sky was a blue so vivid it looked like it had been produced by editing software for a holiday brochure, and the peaks and valleys that stretched before him were abundant in lush greenery, like nothing he'd ever seen in any galaxy. He started, his sense of wonder shaken from him as he jerked the ship swiftly to one side as a downed shuttle blazed passed them, before readjusting their position so they were still following the coattails of the rapidly plunging Hyperion.

From behind him one of his passengers approached his chair, he could tell who it was in his peripheral vision from the hesitancy of the salarian's gait.

"Relax, Daven, it was just a bit of turbulence," Reyes murmured, eyes not flicking from the scene before him as he rolled the ship to avoid impact with a kett fighter. This made the salarian grab the edge of the pilot's seat hastily and Reyes chuckled.

"That was a fireball that nearly took off our wing, not turbulence!" Davendar squealed.

This only made Reyes snicker more.

"Charlatan… sir… Are you sure that it wouldn't be wiser to let Andor pilot the ship? I'm sure you have more important things to be concerning yourself with," he continued, hesitantly.

Reyes barked out a laugh, "Absolutely not, I've missed this… Besides, I've seen Andor drive before and that's only a good idea if you want to wait another 600 years to be part of the action."

From the back of the shuttle where a trio of Collective agents were sitting, one of them spluttered. Although Davendar was right, it would have been more fitting for the Charlatan to be escorted, for him to be flown in, Reyes knew that there weren't many pilots amongst the Collective's ranks that could rival his ability in the cockpit. When the stakes were as high as they were, Reyes Vidal, Anubis, was not being flown into the fight by a pilot whose previous experience summed up to little more than flying commercial tours of Illium.

"True, but we might get there in one piece," the salarian murmured under his breath as he turned and went to join the others.

Reyes grinned but didn't look over. Although young and less experienced in combat than many other agents, Davendar Helon had a brilliant mind, particularly brilliant even amongst salarians. He had a keen worldview that enabled him to assess a situation and envisage several different stratagems, particularly those that would be unexpected by an adversary. There also wasn't a great deal of technology that he wasn't able to hack. As such, his expertise had seen him rise in the Collective's ranks quickly, with his proven loyalty winning him his position of one of the chosen few that knew of the Charlatan's real identity. He was, admittedly, a sassy little shit, but that had never stopped Reyes liking someone.

"Keep your weapons ready, we're going in hot," Reyes muttered, the gunfire in the sky thickening before him the closer they flew to the arc. "Opening the hatch in thirty."

"Affirmative," Davendar responded.

Reyes flicked on the comm channel just in time to pick up a familiar voice, "Kandros? Who's with you?"

"The whole damn cavalry, you know I can't resist a party," Reyes' replied over the comm, unable to resist.

"We'll hold the kett, you secure Meridian," Kandros responded.

"Let's find the Archon!" Sara acknowledged.

Reyes dipped the shuttle a little closer to the ground, scanning a line of trees until he picked out a tell-tale flash of white and blue that suggested the Pathfinder's Nomad had boosted below them. Above it he caught a blur of green, a kett cruiser was gaining on Sara's vehicle. Tapping at the console before him, Reyes turned his ship's guns on the cruiser. Catching the pilot by surprise, the kett ship flipped several times in the air, crashing to the ground just as the Nomad passed.

"Sorry for the mess," Reyes said, sarcastically.

"Any closer and you'd have singed my eyebrows," Sara's voice crackled over the comm.

As Reyes sped ahead of the Nomad he noticed the pathway below narrowing, with kett already ensconced behind rocks, waiting.

"Be ready to land," Reyes commanded the others.

Charging forward, Ryder barrelled into a chosen, knocking it backwards before finishing it with a blast of her sandstorm. Next to her Drack laughed, voice mired with bloodlust as he cascaded into a tightly packed group of kett, sending them flying in different directions before saturating them with shotgun fire while they lay on the ground. A destined approached them and wordlessly Ryder overloaded its armour as Cora threw it into the air in a haze of blue. All Ryder was, all she knew, was gunfire and biotics and fury. Her brother had been taken into the structure that was still at least fifty metres away, and these kett stood between her and it. Ryder boosted over a rock, instantly regretting her haste as an anointed waited for her on the other side. It spun, heavy machine gun in its hands, which caught Ryder around the head, cracking the visor of her helmet and causing lights to dance in her eyes. Snarling, she took a step backwards to steady herself as Drack buried several shots in its back, before Ryder ruthlessly tore the anointed in two with her biotics. She had barely registered that their reinforcements must be close, and it didn't even resonate until the anointed, the last kett, fell to the ground in pieces and she was suddenly faced with the surly expression of the Resistance leader Evfra, surrounded by his men.

"That all of them?" she panted, half to him, half to SAM.

Ryder tore her broken helmet from her head, and let it drop to the ground, massaging her forehead where it had impacted the inside of her helmet.

"Yes," SAM replied, "although more are incoming."

"We're ready Pathfinder," Evfra nodded.

"You could've left a couple more for me," a voice behind her posed, and Ryder wheeled around.

However focused she was, however agitated, so abruptly seeing those almond eyes amongst all the insanity of battle caused her breath to catch.

For the first time since they had left Khi Tasira she smiled and meant it, "I'm sorry for being so inconsiderate."

Her eyes quickly flitted over his outline, but he looked the same as ever; flightsuit unmarked, hair perfectly styled, knowing grin in place. Whatever action he had seen, Reyes was managing just fine. Two Collective agents flanked him on either side, a salarian she was sure she had seen before and an asari with a frown so pronounced Ryder wondered if she knew how to smile. They dropped back as he approached her, and although every muscle in her body was screaming that she had to move, Ryder allowed herself this one moment's pause.

"Shouldn't you be up there, flyboy?" she asked, cocking her head towards the sky.

"Well, let's just say I have more of an interest in keeping what's on the ground safe," Reyes took her face in one hand, a shiver running through her body at this sudden proximity, his gloved fingers on her face. He tilted her head to one side gently, before brushing his knuckles against her ear, and when he drew his hand away his glove was stained with a drop of crimson.

"You alright, Pathfinder?" Reyes' eyes flashed over hers searchingly.

She was aware there were several pairs of eyes watching their exchange with a level of interest and some confusion.

Ryder lowered her voice so the others couldn't hear, "Hazard of using remtech without SAM. But I'm alright."

Reyes nodded before squeezing her shoulder resolutely, "You go get him back then, and give that kett fucker a kick from me."