Meiou was standing beside Tristan and Edison by the galaxy map, watching in wonder as the swirling representation of the galaxy blinked before her. Thanikah was on the other side of the map, watching her, her arms crossed at her chest. Jarred and Amira came forward, the turian-human laughing while the quarian repeatedly smacked his arm.

Tristan smiled as they came in, "Anything I should know about? Looks like Amira's beating you senseless, Jarred."

Jarred smiled, "Nah. It's nothing, Tristan." Amira smacked him the last time, and he laughed. "Just teasing Amira a little bit."

"Well, don't tease her too much. Our mission would fail horribly if we don't have one of the best quarian engineers working on this." Tristan said as he turned his attention back to the galaxy map.

Meiou looked behind her and watched the two of them, and Amira returned to smacking Jarred in the arm, as the turian-human nudged at her teasingly. He caught her gaze, and he made an action where he pointed at Amira and Tristan, before putting his two fingers together and holding his heart, making an amusing action of looking at Tristan with adoration on his face. She stifled a giggle, and Amira smacked him in the arm again.

Liara came in then, with Grunt behind her, holding a data pad, "Is everybody back?"

"Yes." Tristan answered, "Nicholas is in the Med Bay, but he said he's ready to go when we get to Tuchanka."

Liara nodded, "The Council has approved the plan. Thanikah, Amira and I will stay behind to build the 'Biotic' Relays. Nicholas will follow once you've gotten the technology from the Shroud."

Tristan nodded, "Yes. I'll be taking Jarred, Meiou, Grunt and Nicholas with me." He held up a datapad, "Councilor Samara contacted me a minute ago. She has contacted the Grissom Academy about teaching Meiou biotics. They have arranged Meiou to be taught by Jack personally."

He looked at everyone, "All right. We all have our assignments. Let's go."

"Jarred." Thanikah called out, "Can you help us with our luggage? Amira's got a hell lot of mechanical stuff in our cabin."

Jarred blinked, and looked down at Amira, who shrugged. But she smacked his arm again. "I'll be heading out now, don't try to break any of my stuff, Jarred."

He sighed and nodded. It was probably Thanikah's way of getting him alone. He looked back at Meiou to see that she was on her way back to the elevator, and Thanikah followed her. He had no choice but head into the elevator with the two women.

Meiou noticed them come in, and she dropped her gaze, looking down at her shoes. Thanikah merely crossed her arms and pressed the button as they came in. Jarred looked back to see the human look at the drell's boots.

"Thanikah." Meiou said quietly.

"What?" Something in Thanikah's voice made her sound annoyed, and Jarred had to steel himself to prevent her from elbowing her.

"Is that a pair of Karnal 2205 Autumn Collection boots?"

Thanikah blinked, and looked down at the human, "How did you know?"

She was still shyly looking down at the floor, "I saw it when I was looking for an outfit. I know Justicar Samara gave me these clothes, but I am not that comfortable with it. I was looking for shoes when I saw Karnal's extranet address." She looked up at the woman, "Your shoes are Karnal 2205 Autumn Collection boots… the Starlet, named after the star emblem embedded on the tips of the heels."

Jarred saw Thanikah's lips curl a little to a very small smile, "I… the Justicar's clothes do fit you, but the red doesn't seem for fit you now since your lenses make your eyes seem like they're violet. Maybe you should consider changing the color to violet or black." She lowered her arms and stood behind Meiou, pressing a button near her upper neck, before activating her Omni-Tool. "There's a switch here that allows the clothes to change color. Here."

Meiou's clothes changed color, from red and gold to violet with gold trimmings. It worked well with her look, and Jarred gulped at how it made her even more beautiful. Meiou smiled shyly, "Thank you. I didn't know about that."

Thanikah chuckled before she blinked and realized what she was doing. A hard look came into her face again before she stepped away from her, "You might want to get rid of that ribbon on your hair though, it clashes with the color." And the doors of the Crew Deck opened, and Thanikah quickly strode out.

Jarred looked down at Meiou, who raised her violet eyes at him again, shrugging, but soon she stepped out as well and headed for the Portside Observation. Jarred ran to catch up with Thanikah, who was half-way to the Cargo Hold.

"Hey!" Jarred shouted as he caught her and grabbed her arm. "What is your problem?!"

Thanikah blinked, "Nothing! I have no problem at all!"

"Then why are you treating Meiou like she's trash?" Jarred said, his voice rising a bit, but he saw that the crew was looking at them, he lowered his voice. "What did she ever do to you that made you mad at her?"

At this the drell blinked and fell silent. Finally she answered. "I really… have no idea."

Jarred sighed, "Thanikah. Be honest with me." He stood in front of her, his arms crossed to his chest, "Are you mad at her because you're jealous? Don't lie."

She looked up at him, her eyes unreadable, but she blinked, her eyes moving in rapid movements as if she was looking at something. Jarred knew what it was. It was her eidetic memory. As a drell, she was able to relive any moment in her life. Jarred didn't like that trait of hers, as she often points out things she remembered about them, particularly the embarrassing ones.

Thanikah began speaking, "He stands beside me, saluting, looking at Tristan in fierce determination. Voices whispers behind me. Mocking. Insulting. Furious. Disgusted. 'Mutant. Unnatural. Turian-human. Never pure. Useless. Never a turian. Never a human.' So many voices. Tristan shoots a gun. The boy runs. He was fast, like the wind itself. He jumps, climbs, crawls, shoots. So quickly. He was amazing. He reached the finish line. Five exercises. Two minutes, thirty-four seconds, sixteen milliseconds. All soldiers behind us, gaping in surprise. Their voices silenced."

She blinked, returning to the present, before placing a hand on her forehead. "I guess… yeah. I was jealous. We've been through a lot together. And I… really liked you." She blinked again, and began speaking from her memory. "So tired. Wanted to rest. Jarred sat beside me. The smell of sweat and electricity floats through the air. He looks down at me. Smiles. He places a hand on my face and pulls my head to his shoulder. So warm, even with armor. And I slept."

Thanikah returned to herself, and shook her head. "I'm sorry. It was wrong of me to be such a bitch towards her. I just… didn't like the way you two were touching and everything."

Jarred sighed and looked at her, "Look, Thanikah… I…" He placed his hands on her shoulders, "I like you too, but not the way you want me to. You're right, we've been together a lot. But I treat you as a friend, almost like a sister. The same way I treat Amira. I don't think I can be anymore than that to you."

The drell nodded, "Yeah. I figured it was something like that. I'm sorry." She shrugged, "I'll try to be nicer to her, and…"

He shook his head, "No, Thanikah. I should be the one to say sorry. You just told me you liked me, and… I'm sorry. It's not that you're not my type, it's that I've always thought of you as Thanikah, my awesomely smart friend who would beat me at stealth any day of the week and the only person to smack me up the head when I do something stupid." Thanikah laughed at this, relaxing. "Anyway, I'm really sorry."

But Thanikah waved off his apology, "Don't be stupid. You can't apologize for something you didn't do. I told you I liked you, and you told me the truth about what you feel." She reached out a finger and poked him on the carapace on his forehead, "You should never apologize for saying the truth about what you feel, Jarred."

He nodded and smiled, but she still looked uncomfortable. She looked up at him, "But since you're being honest… tell me the truth, Jarred? Do you like Meiou?"

Jarred blinked, and he let go of her to scratch his head, "Uhm… ugh… this is really uncomfortable." Thanikah giggled but Jarred shrugged, "I don't know yet. We just met her a few days ago. But… she's really pretty, and nice and powerful. And there's… just something about her. I just can't explain it."

Thanikah smirked, "If that's how you put it, it seems to me like she got you bad."

Jarred's brow plates raised, "D'you… d'you think so?"

At this the drell laughed, "Jarred's in love. Sheesh. I never thought I'd see the day." Jarred blushed hotly under his mandibles, and Thanikah sobered, "If you like her that much, Jarred. Then maybe you should try going after her. She does seem like she's into you. What's the worst that could happen?"

Jarred shrugged, "That she'd reject me?"

She scoffed, "Rejection is a part of life, Jarred. I just got rejected by you. You don't see me being too torn up about it."

He blinked, "Sorry about that… but yeah, I guess you're right."

"Then go get her, tiger." Thanikah said, pushing him out, "I'll take care of Amira's things, but you'd better get to Meiou. If this mission is as dangerous as it seem, then you shouldn't waste too much time dwelling on 'what ifs'."

Jarred smiled at her, and he came forward and hugged Thanikah. She blinked, surprised, but she smiled and held on to her friend. "Thanks, Nika."

She nodded, and then she pushed him off roughly, raising her foot as if to kick his armored butt. "Git! I'll see you when this is all over."

Jarred laughed and ran out the door, "I'll make it up to you with a chocolate shake when we're done, Nika!" And he was gone.

As the turian-human left, Thanikah turned around, and covered a hand to her lips. The hurt bubbled up from inside her, and tears started falling down her eyes. She let go of her sadness, crying till she fell to her knees to the floor, as she helped the man she loved go after another woman.