A/N: I ended up getting most of this polished up last night, so - Surprise!

The gentle chiming SAM had decided would serve as her wakeup calls dragged Sara out of the most restful sleep she'd had in… well, centuries. She muttered at him until the sound cut off, then rolled over, and smiled.

Tiran slept beside her, as he had the entire week of her leave time. They had enjoyed the rare privacy of having the deserted Tempest to themselves, although they had spent most of the time in her quarters. Talking, watching vids, as well as more physical activities, had all passed within the spacious confines of her room. Now, instead of feeling as if she were an interloper in this space, she felt as if she belonged here.

Whispering so as not to wake Tiran, Sara asked,

"SAM, what time is it?"

"It is 0800 hours, Nexus time, Pathfinder." She made a frantic shushing gesture at his volume, and he continued more quietly. "Your meeting with Vetra Nyx to go over the resupply is scheduled for 1200 hours."

Sara groaned. "So why I am awake now, SAM? I could be sleeping in!"

She had forgotten to be quiet that time, and heard a rumbling chuckle from behind her. "I asked him to wake me up early, Sara. I thought we should have time for a proper farewell."

"I was attempting to awaken you, Mr. Kandros, but was unable to without also awakening the Pathfinder."

Sara rolled her eyes. She and SAM would have to have a talk about his stilted formality. Did he not approve of her choice of partners?

Tiran just chuckled again. He was doing a lot of that this week, and it made Sara's heart glad to hear it. "Well, it seems to have worked out. Thanks, SAM."

She turned toward him, smiling. "And what did you have in mind to occupy our time?"

He kissed her, instead of answering.

Jaal's determination was going to be the death of one of them, Evfra was sure of it.

It had been several days since he broke the news of the moshae's capture to the rest of Aya; he had been less forthcoming about his repeated failures to rescue her. Each day, Jaal had been in his office, pushing, prodding, and urging action. Evfra was more cautious, unwilling to send any more of his soldiers to rescue her without know why his previous attempts had failed so thoroughly.

This morning's briefing had been different. Unexpectedly, Jaal seemed to be barely paying attention to him or anyone else in the room. He nodded absently when Evfra handed him the datapad with his assignments on it, barely glancing at it. He seemed filled with a nervous energy, hardly able to sit still until Evfra dismissed them.

A scout hurried up to Evfra, and while he would have normally welcomed the excuse to avoid Jaal, now he was almost annoyed by the interruption. Only briefly, though, the information the scout brought quickly took his entire attention.

When Jaal burst into his office not long after, Evfra didn't even wait to find out what he would say, instead; he started speaking immediately.

"There are aliens. Here. They are more of those Milky Way aliens that our people have reported on Kadara, but they're here. On Aya. Landing as we speak. Paaran is going to meet them. Make sure you are there, also."

Jaal stared at him, the nervous energy suddenly stilled in the face of this new threat. "Here? On Aya? How?"

"That is what I want you to find out. Go, before Paaran grants them access to the city without asking a single question."

Jaal snorted, but went as he had been ordered.

The landing pad was crowded, the air thick with bioelectric discharges from nervous angara.

Jaal felt as if he'd been hit with a concussion grenade. There was a ringing in his ears, and the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. He didn't know why, it was unlikely that a single, unarmed ship, had come with nefarious intent. Especially considering it was on fire. But the feeling persisted, and he didn't understand it.

Then, suddenly it became clear.

A small, feminine alien was standing at the base of the steps, arms held casually away from her body, hands open and loose. His steps faltered, and he froze.

She was the one.

His bioelectricity sent sparks across his skin, crackling in the air and causing those nearest him to fall silent and back away. Jaal didn't notice.

This is her. This is the one. My soulmate. How can this be? How is it that my soulmate was born a galaxy away? It doesn't matter! She is here. Alive and here. But… what is wrong with her, that the connection between us is still so… wrong?

His thoughts were spiralling out of control, his emotions dangerously close to running away with him, and Paaran Shie was speaking to the strange alien. He had a job to do, and he couldn't do it like this.

The only answer was to lock his emotions down, hard; to focus solely on his assignment and ignore anything else until he could figure it out in peace. Right. Carry out the mission.

Jaal barged down the steps, breaking into Paaran's greeting to the alien, ignoring her explanation of their guest. He didn't stop until he was standing nearly on top of the alien woman, his harsh tone trying to provoke a reaction, while his eyes searched hers for some sign that she recognized him.

His voice was harsh, harsher than he would have wanted, but he couldn't help it. "Aya is hidden, protected. What do you want?"

She looked slightly confused, but that may have been from his suddenly belligerent presence. In an effort to maintain control of himself, he was ignoring his own emotions so completely that he wouldn't have recognized any that may have come from her.

She answered readily enough, and her own voice was calm; it would have been soothing, if he had allowed himself to be soothed.

"I apologize. Landing here the way we did, without warning, on fire, was not the plan." She offered him a small smile, inviting him to see the humor in the situation.

Despite himself, Jaal felt himself responding. Her words, her presence, her tone, they washed over him like a balm for a wound he had never expected to heal. "That's good to know. Because if it was, that would be a very bad plan."

He nearly smiled in return before bringing himself up short. He could not risk relaxing around her until he had more information. Getting a better grip on his emotions, he turned away.

"I'll inform Evfra. He'll be waiting for you in his office at Resistance headquarters, I'll meet you there." He stalked away, hoping to find some sort of equilibrium between the docks and Resistance Headquarters.

Sara was nervous. As if nearly flying into a kett fleet wasn't enough to shave years off her life, an emergency landing on an unexpectedly populated planet was nearly more than she could handle without biting her nails.

But her team had all gathered on the bridge, and she couldn't fall apart in front of them.

When Vetra demanded, "Please. You're not really going out there on your own," incredulously, she managed to not only sound calm, but determined at the same time.

"We can't afford a repeat of last time. I'm the Pathfinder - first contact is on me."

"Most important thing ever. No pressure."

Sara grinned. Trust Liam to have a wisecrack ready. She grinned as she responded in kind.

"If this goes badly - if I get eaten alive - even if it's hilarious - please. Destroy the vids."

With a wave that she hoped looked casual (and didn't show how much she was shaking) she left the bridge.

It seemed wise to walk towards the armed aliens hurrying toward her ship with her hands raised. She hadn't even considered bringing a weapon, and she wanted them to see that she had nothing to hide. She stood silently while they scanned her, and followed politely when they indicated that she should move.

The welcoming committee was a bit intimidating, standing at the top of the stairs, but she was greeted kindly enough by the angaran governor.

Suddenly, a new figure was pushing towards the group at the top of the steps, and then he was approaching her like a tidal wave moving toward the coast. Taller than she was, angry, and bringing a sense of foreboding that had her jaw clenching with nerves.

Sara was suddenly certain that this was the exact point that history would mark as the failure of her first contact with the angara.

His eyes bored into hers as he spoke, Sara tried frantically to come up with some way to save the situation. She couldn't think clearly, she could nearly feel roiling emotions passing from him to her. Ridiculous, she told herself. It was just nerves. How should she know what this alien was feeling? She was assuming that his feelings matched hers, and she needed to stop if she wanted any chance of saving this situation.

She couldn't remember any useful advice from the Pathfinder handbook on first contact situations, but she thought that defusing the tension could only help. She was halfway through her wry apology when she suddenly panicked. What if her humor didn't translate?

She thought for a moment that her fear was justified, but suddenly the intimidating angara unbent enough to give the slightest of smiles. Sara nearly sagged with relief.

In the next moment, he was gone, and she was left to Governor Shie's much calmer civilities. Taking a deep breath, she followed the governor through the city; around small talk with Shie, she had plenty of time to wonder how much worse this Evfra could possibly be, given his chosen emissary.