"My, how you have grown," Ellen Ryder said, the glaze over her eyes told Ryder her mother was seeing another version of her, one that was younger. "I swear you were just five and coming into your biotics. How time files."
Other times, her mother opened her eyes with the clarity of all her memories. Music playing softly in the background, an earnest voice sang. Those times Ryder cherished as they came far and few between.
Sleep a lifetime
Yes, and breathe a last word
Letting her mother run her fingers through her ponytail, never mind the tangles it created. A thumb brushed across her mother's knuckles, doing her best to say goodbye without speaking it out loud.
You can feel my hand on your own
I will be the last one, so I'll leave a light on
Her mother hummed along to the song, a thin reedy voice that lost the strength of years past. Ryder joined her voice with hers, shoring up where her mother was failing. Twin voices vibrating the still air, they dipped in and out of harmony. Ryder held onto all that her mother had to give.
Let there be no darkness in your heart
On one of her visits, her mother sat with her journal splayed out in front of her, the pen held lightly between fingers. Ryder approached, careful not to startle her. Glancing at the page, her chest ached. The page started with the careful and precise script her mother had but as it went on, the handwriting devolved, losing its coherency and legibility. By the end of the page, there was nothing but scrawls.
Her mother looked at her, a sadness in her eyes as she capped the pen and closed her journal. Gently, slowly and resolutely, she pushed both items towards Ryder.
Ryder's mouth opened, ready to urge her mother to keep them, to keep writing, but the words froze solid on her tongue when their eyes met. "It's yours now," her mother said.
Scott was also starting to come around, sheepishly tagging along with one of her daily visits. The dark circles around his eyes showed the struggle he had with Ma's decision.
"It's her decision to make," she reminded.
"I know, I know that now. It's just..." his words petered out.
"It's hard," she finished, reaching for his hand and squeezing it.
"Yeah."
"Why do you have that far away look in your eyes?" her mother asked.
"Just thinking." Ryder shrugged
"About leaving?" she probed.
Ryder shifted so that she could look at her mother. They were sharing the bed again. The physical contact was something her mother enjoyed. "Yeah," she sighed.
"Do you want to go?"
"I don't know. I like the people I'm working with. I found a place where I've belonged. But..."
"But not going means saying goodbye to Scott?"
Ryder nodded. "Has he spoken to you?"
"He has. He wants to go. He wants to take this leap of faith. It's weird to hear my children making plans without me." Ryder stiffened. "Hey, hey. I've come to terms with my own mortality a long time ago. It's what you all have to do now and that's fine. It's normal to make plans without me. After all, your parents are not immortal, not even your father isn't."
Ryder hissed at the mention of her father. He had fled to Theia station and never returned. If he was in contact with Scott or Ma, she didn't know, and she didn't want to know.
"What should I do?"
"Sara, I can't tell you that," lacing her fingers between Ryder's own. "You have to make your own decision, but I can say I'll be happier knowing my daughter isn't always on the frontlines. I know why you joined the Alliance. Right then, it was the best option for you, but Andromeda is new, you don't have to be fighting pirates all the time. You can explore a new land, you can discover new life beyond the confines of our galaxy."
"That sounds nice, but fighting is all I know, it's all I'm good at."
"Stop telling yourself that. Biotics are good for more than combat. Look at the asari, they are not all warriors. And even if they need your skills as a soldier, it won't be forever. They will need colonists, they will need people to teach the next generation of human biotics. And you can show them what is means to use biotics for good."
Ryder pursed her lips. The idea was tickling the back of her mind.
"Whatever happens after I'm gone." Ryder tightened her grip on her mother's hand. Denials already poised on her lips. "Don't interrupt me, you know this is true. I won't be around forever. Whatever happens, take care of your brother for me. He will be a little lost. Just be patient with him."
Ryder nodded. "I promise."
One moment, Scott, herself and their mother were enjoying a shared meal in her room. They were chatting, making plans for a new outing just between the three of them. And the next moment, her mother seemingly fell asleep mid sentence. Eyes sagging shut, hand falling limp onto her bed mid-way through feeding herself. Scott was trying to wake their mother while Ryder mashed frantically against the emergency call button. When response wasn't quick enough, she raced to the nurses station screaming for help.
The Ryder twins stood and watched as doctors assessed their mother. It was like so long ago in another hospital, when Ryder was covered in her mother's blood, and they were both crying as they waited. They were kids then, the fear and confusion now felt no different. It took a mere span of seconds to turn her back into the scared five year old.
Her hand was tight within her brother's grip. They exchanged gazes as they stared at the closed door of their mother's room. Breath hitching, heart lurching, Ryder prayed. Words of prayer launching into the air to any deity, any gods or goddesses who'd answer her prayers.
Please, please, please. Not today, not today.
"Sara, tell me I didn't fucked this up," Scott said, his voice broken and shattered. Tears were streaming unabashedly down his face. "Tell me I didn't spend days angry at Ma for a stupid selfish reason. Tell me she knows I love her."
Ryder pulled her brother into a hug. Arms wrapped around his shaking body as her eyes grew watery, the lump in her throat swell to epic proportions, almost choking her throat from speech. "She knows, she knows."
Long minutes later, the doctor exited. Ryder wasn't well versed in turian facial expressions, but the way the doctor's mandibles were tight against her face told her all she needed to know.
"Bad news?"
The doctor nodded as she shuffled aside. A gurney was wheeled out, on top of it laid their mother, seemingly asleep. "We're taking her for some more tests and get her an in-depth scan just to be sure. She had slipped into the final stages of AEND. She has been hovering on the edges for a while and now..."
"No," Scott whispered.
Her eyes lingered on the disappearing form of their mother. "What does it mean Scott?" Shamed as she was to say she hadn't kept herself abreast of her mother's condition and learned about AEND, but Scott did. He had threw himself into it with a passion. That was why it was so hard for him to accept their mother's decision.
"Sara, it means a deep coma that she'll never wake up from. It means her brain has degenerate so much that soon it wouldn't know to tell her heart to beat, her lungs to breathe. Ma will just stop."
Stop. The word echoed inside her head over and over.
Cease. Her breath hitched. Ryder thought she was prepared, but the way her heart ached, it was obviously insufficient.
End. She ran a hand over her face, blinking back the tears that threatened to spill. Her eyes darting to Scott, seeing how he took it.
"Is there anything you can do?" Scott asked, hands clenched tight into fists. "She is might still be in the shallow end of the coma scale. You could do something, can't you?"
"Mr. Ryder," the doctor shook her head. "Your mother had made her wishes very clear upon admission to our facility. She had signed a DNR."
"But she doesn't need to be resuscitated. She just needs to wake up." His voice pleading.
Ryder wrapped one arm around her brother's shoulders. "I've got him, thank you doctor. Please let us know when you have the results from the scans."
The doctor flapped her mandibles helplessly and left. Scott buried his face into her shoulder and weeped.
Ryder was tired, but she couldn't bear to close her eyes. She watched her mother's chest rose and dipped at regular intervals. She listened to the monitors beeping along, indicating all was fine, for now.
Music played in the background. She had since learnt hearing was the last sense that went out for a comatose patient. She had talked herself out earlier. It was hard to keep talking and expecting a reply and not getting one. So music was the next option.
Stings plucked against a silent room. The air quivered. The world held its breath.
Dear Mother, how you've come so far
Ryder rubbed her hand over her mother's palm, over and over. It was warm. She was alive. It was the only paper thin measure of assurance she could get.
Your love has fixed all of our broken hearts
I hope you're proud, Mother, of what you've done
Scott was dozing in the only other chair in the room. His snores the only source of mundanity in this situation. What was one supposed to do while they waited for their mother to die?
It's a lifelong lesson and I'm not pretending when I say
You cleared up my scars
She bit her lip and refused to cry. She had shed enough tears over the past couple of days. Like a dutiful daughter, she sent her father a message detailing what had happened. All she received in reply was a one word message. "Understood."
If she had the energy, she'd be pissed, but her attention was focused on keeping her mother comfortable as they all waited.
Many times, she told herself, this was better. Why drag things out and have Ma suffer? What's the use of medicine if it only prolonged pain? But the way her gut wrenched at the thought, she was convinced she was shot all over again. The living would survive. It was the dying that should be respected. Knowing something in her head wasn't the same as convincing her heart.
It was only through the constant messages she got from the Normandy crew that she could maintain her sanity. They were the buoys that kept her afloat.
The world was still as they held their breath.
Alec Ryder's arrival prompted a flurry of activities. He wanted the doctor's scan results and then he was holed up at home, constantly on his omni-tool. Who he was speaking to, Ryder had no idea.
Her frustration simmered.
She wasn't going to beg him to spend time with his dying wife if he didn't want to. She hadn't realised it before. Her father, Alec Ryder had always been this paragon of soldierly virtues, this stoic example of all she should be and never would be but in truth he was a coward.
To see her father in this new light was earthshaking in its revelation. He was a flawed human like any other. He was no better than she was, but still her heart ached for a semblance of recognition for her achievements. She growled and pushed the thought out of her mind. It wouldn't do to have this time with her mother be tainted by such poisonous thoughts.
While she and Scott spent all possible time they could with their mother, their father avoided it. The vigil was taking a toll on them, mostly especially Scott. He was left as hollow a human could be without actually dying.
She watched. Her brother's silent pleas as he held their mother's hand. She listened. The wet wheeze in her mother's breathing, shuddering and half choking. Fluids collecting in lungs no longer able to expel them. This was the next step in the inevitable slide to the end. She smelled. The sting of antiseptic, the foul scent of a place that was nothing like home.
Still, it was relatively peaceful.
One week after their father's arrival home, Alec Ryder swept into their mother's room while Scott was away getting food for them both. His omni-tool deployed as he scanned her mother.
"What are you doing?" Ryder demanded, her frustration boiled over.
"Trying to save her life," he growled, grey eyes pinning her where she stood.
"She made herself very clear," she hissed, standing up to him in a manner she hadn't before. Twisting her body, she inserted herself between her father's intrusion and her mother's dying body. "If you're not going to respect her wishes, leave."
"Sara, don't be foolish." He stepped towards her.
Ryder couldn't help but checked her father's stance. Mentally, she was already thinking how she could neutralise him. It was idle fantasy she knew, he was the more experienced soldier and despite being a biotic, he would know how to disable her in any number of ways if he wanted to. Realising what she was doing, he stiffened.
"Move out of the way, Sara," his words a command now.
She jerked, her body automatically obeying the voice she had for so long, but she stopped. "No."
The door slid open, and Scott stared at them, food packs in his hand. "What's going on?"
Ryder glared at her father, her jaw set. Her hands kept loose at her side as she seriously considered forcing him out of the door.
"I'm trying to save your mother's life. There is still time for her to go into cryo."
"No," this time it came from Scott. He set the food packets down carefully. "Ma didn't want this. You are not going to force her to go through this."
Their father growled low in his chest, anger and frustration colouring his face, twisting his features. "Step aside, both of you."
Scott stepped into the room and crossed the space between their father and herself. He planted himself next to her, shoulder to shoulder. They formed a barrier between their father's single minded focus and his target. "You should leave," Ryder spoke as evenly as her voice could manage.
"Can't you see? Your mother can survive this!"
"Not in the manner she wanted," Scott pointed out. "Accept this, Pa. This is her life and her death."
Grief so raw welled up in their father's eyes, it hurt to watch. But Ryder planted her feet and she wasn't about to move. "This hurts me, it hurts Scott and you, but this is her choice. We don't get to save everyone we want."
His grey eyes locked onto each of theirs in turn before looking at the still form of his wife behind them. Bit by bit, Ryder saw the shutters coming down, locking his emotions down as he turned to leave.
"Are you ok?" Scott asked as she leaned against him after their father left.
"Yeah," she breathed shakily, cold sweat had broken out across her skin, her hands shook with unspent adrenaline.
Ryder was tired, but she slept lightly. She imagined missing a call from the hospice, and she'd arrive at her mother's room the next day to find it empty. She imagined her mother dying alone in a cold and unfeeling room, without family, without anyone but four walls. She kept her omni-tool active, praying she'd never get the call but hoping she didn't miss it either.
The tension was killing her. The guilt of wanting this to be all over choking her at times, but relief from this situation was something she craved. Ryder took a shuddering breath and squeezed her eyes shut. She pressed her face into the pillow and pretended this was all a dream.
Then, her arm buzzed, her omni-tool flickered to life. Orange splashed across her walls, staining everything.
"Yes?"
"This is Dr. Indius," her mother's doctor said. "It's your mother."
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She thought she was ready. She thought she knew what was going to happen. But when the call came, she realised she knew nothing at all. A single sentence was all it took to send adrenaline coursing through her veins.
"Scott!"
Muffled groans came from his room.
"Scott! Get up! It's Ma."
It took her brother seconds to wake up, and they were both out the door, racing back towards their mother's side. Their father was nowhere to be found.
Ryder was cold. Her fingertips tingled as she forced them to be still. She was dressed in her Alliance blues, as was her brother. They stood at either side of their mother's sealed coffin like sentinels, guarding her soul for the afterlife. The Ryders were never religious, theirs was a family of science and military, it had left little room for it. But here and now, she wanted to believe her mother was at a better place, and she wasn't suffering anymore.
She bit down on her traitorous lip, trapping it between her teeth, tasting blood. Glancing at Scott, he had his hands pulled tight behind his back. His eyes wet as he was blinking them furiously. She took a shuddering breath, guilt and relief weighed heavy against her chest. Forcing the feeling to the back of her mind, she searched the hall for her father. He was dressed in an unfamiliar white and blue uniform, no longer was it Alliance blues or the black and red armour of an N7 soldier. Upon his breast was a strange black and blue one which she could only assumed was the Andromeda Initiative's logo. For a brief moment Ryder was angry, irrationally so, at the organisation that had robbed her mother's time with her husband.
"He doesn't look too sad about it right?" Scott whispered.
Ryder studied her father's face. He was barely visible through the swarm of well wishers patting his shoulder, shaking his hand. It was lined with exhaustion, his eyes dull and weary ringed by black.
She grunted, too weary for words.
Neither Scott nor herself had any time to breathe since getting the call from the doctor. Within hours of their arrival, their mother was gone. Just like that the world breathed again. Their vigil was over.
In their shock, their father had swept in and made all the funeral arrangements. Everything from booking the venue, choosing the coffin, deciding on cremation over a burial, all of it was done by the time either of them could offer to help. For all the inattention he had paid to their mother while she was alive, Alec Ryder was all over this. And it galled Ryder.
The day spun around her. Friends she didn't know her mother had were paying their final respects. Mouths belonging to people she didn't recognise offered up words she didn't hear. And then it was the end, the true end.
Her father stood before the small crowd at the end of her mother's coffin. They flanked him, protraying to the world like this perfect little family. He spoke of her life, her ups and her downs. His hands gestured towards them as her greatest achievements.
This words washed over her. She glanced at the crowd before her, and she realised everything here was meaningless. It was a show, a public spectacle for them to beat their collective chest over the passing of a great woman, her mother.
Ryder wished the ground would swallow her up.
"Hey," Scott said, his voice hoarse like he has been screaming all night at Dark Star lounge. Ryder looked up. She thought he'd be out all night drinking. He had asked if she wanted to join. "Drown our sorrows in a legit way."
She had shook her head, preferring the solitude of their home. Their father disappeared as soon as the crowd has dispersed and Ellen Ryder was nothing but ashes. Nothing could surprise her anymore. Where her father went, she couldn't care less, she just wanted to be alone for a bit.
Ryder was numb as she sat alone in the darkened kitchen with music only as her company. "When did you get home?" she asked, lifting her head to see her brother's reddened eyes.
"I just came back and you scared the shit out of me sitting all alone in the dark."
She chuckled but the sound faded quickly, guilt replacing the small flare of amusement. "Why are you back so early? I don't expect you back till… well two days later or something. Maybe getting a call from C-Sec to bail your ass out."
Scott snorted. "And you let me out of your sight despite that? Some sister you are."
"Hey, you're the older brother."
"And you're the one always reminding me 12 minutes don't mean shit."
"It doesn't."
They lapsed back into silence. A guitar was being plucked over the air, a quiet, clean voice came.
I wish you'd walk in again
Imagine if you just did
"Got you something," Scott slid a bottle to her.
Ryder took it and drank deep, allowing the alcohol to scour her throat raw.
I'd fill you in on the things you missed
Oh sleepless nights, a grown up man dressed in white
And just like that, a motion so mundane, so everyday, a sob ripped through Scott's throat. She slid off her chair and wrapped her arms around him. Her mother's words echoing in her head. He returned the hug in a grip so tight she could hardly breathe.
"She's gone," he wailed.
"I know," she whispered, her fingers trembling as she pressed her face into his chest, tears she held back streaming down her face.
Who I thought might just save your life
But he couldn't, so you died
"I miss her already."
"Me too, me too."
In order of appearance:
Lyrics Taken from Monsters by James Blunt
Lyrics Taken from Scars by Sam Smith
Lyrics Taken from Nana by The 1975