Scott was staring at her. It wasn't the distracted, good natured half-listening she'd come to expect from her brother. Dark brown eyes were hyper fixated and a crease marred his brow.

"That wasn't what the official Nexus report said." His tone was neutral, but Sara recognized the glint in his eyes.

"Can't imagine why not," Sara drawled. "I mean, if I initiated a full scale mutiny only for the leader I overthrew to sneak out in the single escape pod the ship had- all right underneath my nose- I might fudge a few details, too."

"But you haven't corrected it since," he said. "You really want that blurb after your name in the history books?"

"Why? So I'd have to exile half my crew?" She shrugged a shoulder. "You know I hate paperwork. Anyway, anyone who knows me knows I wouldn't become so overwhelmed by my duties I'd abandon the Initiative."

That made him snort. "You wouldn't?"

"Well, not when they were currently in possession of my comatose brother," Sara replied. "And certainly not by jettisoning my escape pod into an active volcano."

"You know people have no time to pay attention to the little details," Scott scoffed. His intense gaze had softened more toward his usual and he leaned back in Dad's chair. "Sara Ryder faced a crisis of faith, so she ran away to have her psychotic break in private while the world burned- tsk tsk, how very 'human' of her."

She groaned. "You know what? Okay, fine. You want to correct it? Be my guest, but it's currently beneath my notice."

"That sounds like quite the excuse."

"I've also been required at way fewer briefings, now that all the bureaucrats think I'm unstable," she muttered beneath her breath.

"There it is!" Scott snorted. "But isn't that what got you into this mess in the first place? Ceding too much of your authority?"

"And there you go, bringing logic into all this," Sara found herself giggling into her hands. "I'm hoping I've got all that sorted now. Streamlined it, so I handle less unnecessary briefings while maintaining all the respect and authority."

"Uh huh," he monotoned.

This leg of the adventure began much in the same way that many of the others had, with Sara blinking rounded eyes and bellowing, "What the fuck?"

As that uncertain sensation of weightlessness and speed hit her chest, she reached upward for her harness- dazed and delicately at first, and then pounding desperately at the clasp she never heard click over the blood throbbing in her ears. "Where exactly are we going?" Sara asked.

Peebee didn't respond, her attention on her omni tool, that tiny mouth of hers thinned and twisted off to the side. Maybe she hadn't heard.

"Peebee," Sara tried, a little louder. "Where are we going?"

"It's not my fault the closest landmass is an active volcano!" her friend exclaimed, her eyes rapidly scrolling the symbols spitting out of her omni tool. "We should be able to land on stable ground, assuming my subterranean scans are accurate. And the impact doesn't alter trajectory too severely. And-"

"And tell me you have a plan for getting out of this alive?" It was becoming very alarming to realize the exact decibel Sara's voice could raise on a continued basis.

"Is that a thing?" Peebee tried to laugh, but it fell flat when coupled with her stern expression. Her mutterings grew more frantic and louder with each moment of Sara's flabbergasted silence until the asari was shouting. "We came all the way to another galaxy with no 'plan' for getting back home. On the plus side, the Tempest won't be able to follow us in. All right- brace for impact!"

There was no bracing. The bulky harness that sandwiched either side of Sara's head was so large, she could hardly hug her arms around it, much less dig her nails deep into the fiberglass padding the way she wanted. They hit fast and hard enough for Sara to catch sight of her arms fluttering out from the sides of the harness like macabre party streamers. Peebee had her chin tucked against her chest and bear hugged her harness with an experience that had Sara questioning how many times her friend had been a passenger in an escape pod.

Outside, the world was a blur of rock and dirt and sky. Light flashed, rapidly at first, gradually becoming slower and clearer as the pod slowed its maddening skid across the earth. Sara blinked and let her mouth flap as her brain tried to decide which direction was up. SAM noted a bruised tailbone. Sara would file that injury away alongside her bruised ego.

Once the craft had finally stopped moving, she heard a nervous giggle. Up. They were facing up. It was hard to see Peebee from this angle, but at least she could hear her. "So, uh... are you mad, Ryder?"

"A little bit." The harness fit so snugly around Sara's shoulders it made it very difficult to beat her head against the back of the seat. Difficult, but not impossible. "A lot of bit."

There was a depressed hiss as the harness released and she rolled out of her seat and crawled from the escape pod on hands and knees.

Peebee was already to her feet on this new piece of paradise. "Any landing you can walk away from, right?" she chirped.

"Right-"

"Ryder!" The frequency on her omni tool exploded in angry chatter. "What in blazes do you think you're going to prove with that little stunt?"

"SAM," Sara sighed. "Cut all communications with the Tempest, please. Thanks."

She pushed herself to her feet and gingerly began to test each limb for injury. The harness had done its job and SAM informed her that there were no internal wounds she should be aware of. "You said we're inside a volcano?"

"More or less," Peebee replied. She frowned out at the world before them, calculating.

It looked safe enough from where they stood. Surrounded by an island of gray and black rock, it fell away to a cliff face that grew increasingly hot and less stable. By SAM's account, it was "highly likely" the ground would become too hot and soft to traverse long before they even approached the bubbling, fiery red pools of molten magma. It was a deeply conflicting emotion to know that they were effectively trapped, but if they'd jettisoned to any other location, there would have been nothing to prevent the Tempest from swooping down and collecting them like naughty toddlers.

"You know," Sara commented. "My mom used to tell me stories about Earth religions tossing living sacrifices into volcanoes to appease the old gods."

"Quaint." Her friend didn't look up from whatever numbers she was crunching on her omni tool. "Please tell me they were bedtime stories. It would explain so much."

"You could tell?" Sara snorted. "Never was thrown into a volcano, but got tossed into bed a lot during the story's finale."

Peebee only grunted in response.

"What's the plan?" Sara asked. "The stories tend to end once the maidens are inside the volcano. I'm at a loss, here."

Peebee did a little hop and then began to pace back and forth, turning to march back at Sara presumably when her feet touched a surface just a smidge too hot. "If you could go anywhere in the entire system, where would you choose?" she asked. "Not the Nexus, I assume."

"What?" Sara blinked. "You mean like Aya or something?"

"Aya?" Peebee chuckled manically. "I drank so much I nearly blacked out all of Aya from my memory! Aya's a good choice. Probably."

Sara shook her head. "No, Aya shouldn't get any unwanted attention until we find Meridian and make things more stable."

"Well, shit Ryder, you were just the one who said-"

"Kadara," Sara told her. "It's the only place that makes sense right now. It's outside of Initiative jurisdiction and it has an inactive vault."

Peebee stopped her frantic pacing. "And Reyes Vidal."

"Well. That goes without saying..."

"Uh huh." With a sharp cackle, Peebee dropped to the ground by Sara's feet. "Damn it, Ryder! I really didn't want to do this, but there isn't any other way, is there?"

"Any other way for what..?"

Peebee punched a code into her omni tool and sighed, "Hey, babe."

"Pelessaria?" Kalinda's voice sounded huskier than usual. "Do you know what time it is?"

"No." Was Peebee sulking? "Can I get a ride?"

"I don't hear from you in weeks and all you can say is 'can I get a ride'?"

"Is that a yes or no?"

The frequency popped with the force of Kalinda's exhale. "Can it wait until the morning? I'm supposed to have this meeting with an angaran diplomat. Kind of a big deal."

"I mean, me and the human Pathfinder are trapped inside a volcano, but by all means, sip cocktails with the stiff shirts," Peebee snapped at her omni tool. "We'll be here in the morning. It's not like volcanoes do things like erupt."

"Goddess, Pelessaria! Are you serious?" Kalinda sounded instantly awake.

"Yup," Sara drawled, hoping her voice would add validity to Peebee's claims.

"Oh sweet hells..." There was a thud as Kalinda fumbled with things on her end. "Of all the stupid- give me your navpoint, now."

"Done," Peebee said. "You'll need a shuttle, it's too tight for a ship."

"I will tell you what I need when I get there!" Kalinda groused as she cut the feed.

"Not even a 'ta'," Sara muttered. "She must be mad."

Peebee dropped her head into her arms. "Damn it!"

"I mean, I'm not the most astute of people," Sara said, joining her friend on the ground. "But I'm obviously missing a few things here."

Peebee only groaned.

"Peebee."

"It's going to come with strings!" she exclaimed. "Tucked away in her back pocket when I least expect it, all these qualifiers that I didn't want to deal with- especially because she was supposed to come to me first!"

"Right." Sara dropped her head onto Peebee's shoulder. "That's an awful lot of baggage to fit in a teeny tiny escape pod."

"I put a junk drive in POC," Peebee murmured, glassy eyed. "It compresses all my issues and makes them transportable- I left POC back on the fucking ship!"

"A good thing, too," Sara told her, "or do you think she'd have gotten through our collision unscathed?"

"Ugh, what if somebody messes with her? Or sells her for scrap? Or-!"

"Peebee, focus," Sara urged. "Task at hand. Kalinda. What's the big deal?"

"I backed off, I gave her space, she was supposed to come to me." That brooding scowl really didn't suit Peebee.

"Okay," Sara said slowly. "But she is coming to you now."

"Because I asked her to, yeah!"

"Does that matter?"

"Yes!" Peebee fell backwards and grabbed at her tentacles. "I don't know! This always happens. It's always me reaching out to her. It's been years since Kalinda's initiated anything and I've tried to antagonize her and you know I'm good at it."

"Throwing yourself into a volcano for attention is pretty antagonistic," Sara agreed.

"Oh, shut up about the volcano," Peebee growled. "That was for you!"

Sara nodded and cleared her throat. "I guess I should thank you, not that I really asked for you to do that..."

"So I should have just let you sit under house arrest on your own ship?" Peebee demanded, snapping upright. "You needed help- running was better than staying and getting entrenched!"

"I still can't believe that happened." Sara picked up a pebble and chucked it off the cliff. "I guess I should have seen it coming from Cora. And Liam's such an asshole! But I can't believe Jaal would agree to it, or Vetra or Drack..."

Peebee shrugged. "Vetra's got a sister tied up in Nexus business, right? Maybe it was under duress?"

"Maybe none of them were consulted and would have helped me toss Cora's ass into a holding cell," Sara grumbled.

"Maybe," Peebee replied. "But was that a chance you'd be willing to take?"

Sara sighed. "Guess it doesn't matter, now."

"Guess not."

"I've got to figure out what to do next," Sara said. "Kadara's a good start, but that'll only take me so far. The Initiative doesn't need people wasting resources and creating diplomatic incidents. It needs Meridian. It needs me."

"You're not the only Pathfinder, anymore," Peebee said. "The Initiative may not see it that way. But this could be good for you. It'll give you a chance to figure out what you think is important-"

"You're right!" Sara exclaimed. "I'm not the only Pathfinder! Avitus needs to know about this!"

Sarissa also had an axe to grind against Cora Harper, but part of the reason Sara had kept the asari in her position was because she was slippery and not the most trustworthy. She liked Avitus and he was the bridge between Sara's sad sack self and Sarissa's duplicitous snake. It could work.

"Hey, SAM," Sara announced, "send a message to Avitus Rix's omni tool: Avitus, it's Ryder. I hope salvaging the Natanus is going well. Kind of going through a patch of shit on my end, but I'm hoping to sort out all these vaults if nothing else. I wouldn't trust any news from the Tempest if it hasn't come from my mouth, first, if you get what I'm saying. Thanks."

"Why didn't you just come out and say it directly?" Peebee asked.

"Eh." Sara shrugged and tried to sound more insightful than begrudging. "As much as it pisses me off, I do think Cora has the right intentions. They might be able to do some good things with the Tempest if we don't turn the entire Initiative against them. But I still don't want her having the final say in any important decision."

"That's quite a bit more generous than I'd be," Peebee admitted.

While Sara could agree with her friend's sentiment, what else was there to do? They were stuck, chucking pebbles into a magma lake beneath them for the next several hours until Peebee's estranged girlfriend could get to them. Let Cora Harper spread her wings and try. Kallo would jettison the lieutenant before he let her dent the Tempest.

That thought made Sara giggle.

She wished she could say she had lost track of time when Kalinda's shuttle finally arrived, but the downside to having an AI live in her head was that SAM had documented every minute of every godforsaken hour. Sara didn't ask questions, she hopped aboard the shuttle, requested Kadara as a destination, and reveled in the awkward silence that, for once, she could not be blamed for.

"So..." Sara trailed off, once the silence became unbearable.

"This is it," Kalinda said. "If you want to run off with those lawless criminals, I'll take you to Kadara, but after that, I can't. I can't keep waiting for a comm call to rescue you from your latest manufactured catastrophe."

"Manufactured?" Peebee was to her feet. "You wouldn't have to wait for a call if you were there with me!"

"So we could both be stranded and helpless, excellent thinking-"

"What is your problem?" Peebee demanded. "What happened to you? You never used to be like this!"

"What is my problem?" Kalinda released her harness and stood. "My problem is that I woke up after six hundred years to everything different, but you were completely the same!"

Peebee flinched at that. "I'd think you would like that. Wouldn't you?"

The shuttle rumbled as it docked inside the larger ship and Kalinda lost her footing. She made a resigned exhale and sat back down. "You really have no memory of cryo? No dreams?"

Peebee shook her head. "Nothing."

"I woke up," Kalinda said. "Not fully, but enough to be aware. They had to be careful about freezing our brains to not damage the tissue. Maybe they didn't freeze me all the way. Maybe there was something wrong with my pod."

"That's the sickness you mentioned?" Sara asked. "You were awake for the entire trip?"

The asari shrugged. "Sort of. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, but I was aware."

"And now you hate me?" Peebee stumbled back to her seat. "I don't get it."

"All I had," Kalinda breathed, "was my thoughts and memories. I kept thinking about you. Little things. Like the sound you make while slurping noodles or about that night at the theater. It gave me comfort. Until it didn't."

Peebee frowned. "Until it didn't?"

"That's the problem with memories," Kalinda replied. "You can never remember them exactly right. Little details get skewed. I started to misremember. Started to think, what if I said this differently or moved that way instead? How would you react? Would you like it or not? So I replayed them, tested it out. Sometimes you were wonderful, sometimes you were awful."

Peebee blinked away at the emotion in her eyes. "...You are mad at me for things you imagined me doing?"

Kalinda laughed. "I don't even know what really happened that night in the theater and what I invented. So the first thing I did when I was revived was pull strings and do everything in my power to wake you up. Because you could confirm which memory was the truth... and I couldn't bear the thought of you trapped in cryo like I was. But then you popped out of there, good as new, like six hundred years hadn't just happened."

"You're mad because everything happened to me the way it was supposed to?" Peebee realized. "You're mad because my pod didn't malfunction?It is not fair for you to be angry at me over a cryo pod functioning correctly!"

"Of course I know that!" Kalinda snapped back. "But I still am! And that's why I've been letting you go do whatever it is you do while I've been getting my brain sorted. So I don't do or say something we'll both regret."

"So, what does that mean?" Peebee dropped to her seat. "You want more time? See you in a century? Are we..?"

"I don't know."

"I wish you did," Peebee muttered, poking restlessly at her omni tool, "because I certainly don't."

Kalinda sighed. "Probably. Yeah. Yes."

That was the floodgate opening wide. Peebee curled up small, her head in her hands. "Shit."

Kalinda didn't say anything after that, only nodded. Sara, for her part, was acutely aware of just how out of place she was in this exchange. She kept quiet and pinned her gaze respectfully out the window and away from the two asari.

Kalinda excused herself soon after, and Sara never saw her again, but the asari was true to her word. She flew them to Kadara and even allowed them to keep the tiny shuttle, maybe to be rid of the fresh memories created within as much as to be helpful. Sara watched Peebee disperse into the Kadara crowd without a trace as she stood there, isolated in the bustling swarm of people. She brought her omni tool up to her face and punched in the all too familiar frequency as she struggled with what exactly to say. Duty never ceased and all that.