Three days later, Professor Herik pressed his finger against a jar full of insects, sliding it along the tech lab's counter until it came to rest next to an ivy from Havarl that glowed with pollen. There was a bottle of disinfectant hiding behind the jar and he picked it up to clean a set of recently used salarian medical instruments.

He rubbed alcohol over metal with gloved hands.

Despite signing on to the Andromeda Initiative's expedition as a biochemist, Herik worked as a physician more often than he was trained for. But it wasn't unusual. No matter what their past lives entailed, many people in Andromeda now found themselves occupying positions left vacant by the disaster. Scott was the Pathfinder not by design, but by necessity, and Kesh used her superintendency as a general title for as many positions as she could fill with her krogan heft.

Tann himself had originally been assigned to finance, mirroring his previous life on Sur'Kesh.

"I can't find anything wrong with you," Herik was saying as he finished sterilizing the instruments. He glanced over at Tann, who sat with his shirt open on a metal stool nearby. "Your blood pressure is higher than the ideal, but that's expected. When did you begin to experience a lack of focus?"

"A few weeks ago," Tann stated, deeply unsettled by how much he had just been poked and prodded. A physical check-up had seemed like a good idea when he came into the lab earlier, but now he wasn't so sure.

"It might be the angaran delegations," Herik said. He disinfected the counter while Tann stood up and shrugged his shirt closed. "Weren't they supposed to be here already?"

"They've taken a detour to Voeld," Tann replied. "There's a remnant device that the Pathfinder plans to activate for them."

Herik nodded his horns. "Waiting for aliens can be difficult. You're probably just feeling the effects of the delay."

Tann murmured, "Perhaps," and buttoned up the clasps of his immaculately ironed collar.

He didn't agree at all - fixing a device at an angaran outpost would be beneficial to negotiations, and so he welcomed the delay - but a second opinion was a luxury that was hard to afford on the Nexus. More than that, Herik's lack of experience showed in his bedside manner and Tann had no intention of being manhandled again. His knee was still tingling where it had been hit with a carpentry hammer.

So, despite an electrode disc still clinging to his forehead, the impromptu physical examination was over. Tann was healthy according to the numbers. He was suspiciously fit considering the amount of sedentary office work he had engaged in throughout his life. The only time Herik's brow had even moved was when he measured Tann's upper arms with a pair of calipers.

Nothing was wrong at all.

But a clean bill of health wasn't what Tann had been hoping for. On the contrary, it was maddening. He dusted off a splash of foreign pollen that had drifted onto his shoulder, sighed with a puff of air and irritation. Something had to be wrong with him. There had to be a tangible fault line, a crack or dislocation somewhere that he could physically grab onto and wrench back into place.

"You know, I was dreaming of biology beyond imagination when I came here," Herik was saying, oblivious to his patient's inner turmoil. He put the gloves into a bin and then removed the disc from Tann's forehead with a painful tug. "But the angara will have to do. Maybe you should talk to Doctor T'Perro when the Tempest comes back with them. She might find something that isn't showing above water here." He crossed his arms and then tapped on his chin. "There isn't a single reason for your troubles as far as I can tell."

"Isn't Ryder's sister living with him?" a turian scientist asked from across the room, looking up from a microscope. It was Lucan, the chief geologist for the Initiative. And when he spoke Aridana, the head astrophysicist, looked up from her astrographic data. For the first time since Tann had entered the lab, all eyes rested upon him.

Herik hesitated. "I didn't know about that."

"Then you've been living under a rock," Lucan said, and returned his gaze to the microscope. "You should hear the scuttlebutt," he added. "The latest is that Tann forced her into an asari-style bonding ceremony so Ryder'll be stuck with him as an in-law."

"Really?" Herik said, his eyelids popping down. He turned back to Tann. "You should have told me. No wonder you're experiencing concentration issues."

"You can't just force someone into a bonding ceremony," Aridana said uneasily, as if Tann might try such a thing.

Tann closed his eyes and composed himself. This type of scene kept repeating; it was impossible to avoid the subject of living with Sara now that the news had gotten out. "Nothing like that has happened," he assured the trio, barely holding back his urge to scowl at the implications.

"What's it like when you're together?" Aridana asked. "You don't have the best track record with humans, Tann. Do you argue?"

Lucan asked, "Does she run away screaming?"

"Humans are certainly famous for being one of the noisier races," Herik said, tilting his horns. He looked at Tann with the sort of commiserating, sympathetic expression that only another salarian would notice or understand. "And they compulsively touch everything they encounter. My advice is that you should move her somewhere else."

Lucan chuckled. "We'll even write you a doctor's note if you want."

Tann glanced at Lucan. "Who would I give it to?"

And he tugged at a crease that had appeared in the fabric at his waist, wishing he was anywhere else. Sara couldn't be the reason he lacked focus lately. The idea was preposterous. More importantly, the cultural center was far too important to divert resources away from by asking her to leave.

Tann could feel the disapproval begin to show on his face and he smoothed it into a calm, professional expression. "Your advice will be taken into consideration," he said to Herik. "And a note," he added to the others, "will not be necessary. Now, the Initiative is counting on you all to unravel the secrets of this galaxy. Do you have anything new to tell me about the Scourge outside?"

Aridana pressed her lips into a thin line, as did Herik. Lucan sighed with a low, sub-harmonic chord of pain. "It's complicated," Lucan said. "It's not a mystery you can just unravel in a year."

"Then you have an excess of work to get back to," Tann said thinly as he left.

Once he was in the hallway he stopped. He placed his fingers on his collar, remembered too late that it was already fastened. He let out a sigh of frustration. But he wasn't sure if the feeling was intended for himself or the scientists. They never had hard answers about anything, he thought to himself, just a chorus of vague speculations and questions. He shouldn't have asked them for help.

And it couldn't be Sara, he thought.

Tann reached for his collar yet again, dropped his hands and tucked them miserably into his sleeves. He tried not to panic. Behind him, he could still hear the scientists talking to one another in the lab. Their voices were floating through the recycled air of the hallway and Aridana said, "He's so odd." She then laughed softly. "He'd be handsome to the point of poetry if he wasn't... I don't know."

"A bureaucratic nightmare?" Lucan supplied with a dry flang of his vocal cords. "An awkward, calculating ghoul sent to torment us with paperwork and motivational speeches?"

"He's just from the homeworld, that's all," Herik said, interrupting them. "It's different there. Now, has anyone seen my scanner? I think Suvi might have taken it with her on the Tempest."

Tann headed down the hallway after that, away from the noise of the conversation.

But the physical had been a disappointment and the day continued on that trajectory. When Tann attempted to compliment the asari pathfinder on her actions to save her ark he fumbled it and she remarked that he had obviously never lost anyone he cared about. His aide cheerfully informed him that his popularity rating with the human population on the Nexus was plummeting at faster-than-light speed. The Tempest stopped answering its QEC line after the first time he called for an update.

And Tann had learned, months ago, that this did not mean that the pilot had crashed or that the ship was experiencing an explosive decompression. It only meant that the crew was busy. Like Kesh pretending her comm line was full of static.

Most days, directing the Nexus was simply a battle against charts and graphs and numbers. But his carefully crafted schedule was in tatters now that the hourly reports were daily. Even if he had been perfectly focused, there weren't enough administrative tasks to fill the time. And each department below him continued on at a steady pace, without his constant guidance and without incident.

So he was deeply relieved to end the shift. He went straight home, not bothering with his usual walkabout.

And when he opened the door, Sara looked out from the kitchen. His hand hovered over the door mechanism while she clutched a jar of yellow grain humans called corn. For a moment, they stared at one another in silence. He needed to move her somewhere else, he thought, and knew that he wouldn't be doing anything of the sort.

Because Sara said, "You're back!" very brightly. She said it like it was the best thing to happen to her all day.

And Tann took a breath, felt immediately lighter. He smiled as he looked down at her. She smiled back and headed toward him, jar in tow.

"Indeed I am," he replied easily, as if he hadn't been standing outside the door pulling on his sleeve and practicing a Greetings, fellow biped that he had just forgotten to say. It was too late now; he moved on. He appraised her like a Director would. "You're moving quite well today," he noted. "How was your appointment?"

"Doctor Carlyle thinks that I'll be cleared for light duty soon," Sara said. "He told me I could walk around the station as long as I don't tire myself out."

She twirled a single time as confirmation, with her feet tapping on the metal floor while she said something that sounded like Ta-da.

"That's very good news," he said, nodding his horns with approval.

Sara's hair was messy over her shoulders and she pushed it away, watching him like he was the kind of person whose comm calls were always answered very promptly. There were dishes in the kitchen sink that she had been washing and a bag of sundries for physical therapy on the table. And Tann's home, usually deserted except for himself and the various ghosts he didn't believe in, was beginning to feel like someone lived there.

It was pleasant to come back to each day. He had even begun adding to it: there were bouquets of white flowers from Eos replacing the holographic blooms that usually decorated the space. Coffee silently appeared in the cupboards while Sara was asleep. While she was awake, it was impossible not to bask in being the center of her attention. It made him feel indulgent, with the distinct sensation of warming himself near a fire during a winter black-out.

And it was harmless enough to enjoy it, he reassured himself. She needed him.

So Tann helped her finish up with the dishes. Sara blew soap bubbles at him and he put away the plates that went on the higher shelves after she dried them with a towel. "Is there anywhere on the Nexus you'd like to go?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "Not today. I want you to watch this awful vid with me."

Tann tilted his horns a little, set down a plate.

Sara grabbed his arm and led him to a couch, reached up, and pressed on his shoulders to sit him down. Tann let her, watching her curiously. She situated him against the cushions, patted his chest twice. And Herik had been right about humans: Sara, like most others of her kind, touched everything she encountered. There was a bowl of food on the edge of the cushion and she grabbed that next. It was popped corn, he remembered. It made a lot of noise when it was cooking.

He wondered if she expected him to eat it.

Sara placed it on his lap, answering the unspoken question. Then she sat down and settled herself against his arm with a blanket while he said, "Why are we watching a vid that you think is awful?"

She gestured to the vid-screen nearby. "SAM told me that Scott was watching it on the Tempest so I'm going to watch it, too. That way we'll have something to talk about when he gets back other than... You know. Everything, I guess." She frowned a little, pushed whatever she was feeling away, and smiled again. "So, yeah. Movie Night on the Nexus is a go."

"With me," Tann ventured. He didn't watch many vids.

"With you," she affirmed and pressed the play button.

Noise erupted from the screen as a turian flexed, displaying the title.

Last of the Legion!

It was a surreal moment. Dim and faded in orange, the actors had spoken their lines in the Milky Way over six hundred years ago. And here in the galaxy of Andromeda, Tann had no idea why anyone on the Tempest would watch it outside of nostalgia. He couldn't help losing interest early in the first act and when he looked down he discovered that Sara had almost immediately fallen asleep. She must have been exhausted from her appointment earlier.

Had she been acting energetic for his sake? Tann set the popcorn aside and decided not to wake her up.

Instead, he turned the volume down and let the low noise of the vid flow past him without paying much attention to it. He had both the time and space to stay with her while she slept. There were no pressing matters to attend to. No meetings. And when was the last time he had been able to be himself, just existing with another person like this? Tann couldn't say.

But, for the first time, the lack of hourly reports and bureaucracy felt like a boon. He closed his eyes, relaxing as he began to doze off in the oversized cushions with her.

Just for a moment, he decided.

He fell asleep for fifty-seven minutes. For Sara, it was only a nap, but for him, it was an entire night's slumber. At one point he woke up slightly and found her snuggled against him. She had her forehead pressed against his shoulder and was almost in his lap while she held his arm tightly like she might sink into deep water if she let go. It wasn't intrusive like it should have been. He turned a little, leaning closer against her before he fell right back to sleep.

And he didn't dream of anything but the stars floating outside.

When he woke up again, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, Sara was awake and the vid's credits were rolling along the screen. She had pushed herself up against the cushions and she was rubbing the heel of her hand against one eye while she watched him with the other. When she realized he was awake she looked away toward the screen. She asked, "What's Vetra like?"

Tann sat up, blearily processing the question.

"She's a requisitions officer," he informed her. Of all the things he had expected her to say, a question about Vetra Nyx was not one of them.

"Okay, but what's she like?"

"She's a very effective requisitions officer," he said, expecting that would be the end of it.

But Sara shook her head, in a way that would have reminded him of Addison if she hadn't just been using him as a human nest of some sort. Addison had never attempted that. "Oh my god," Sara said, laughing a little. She gently pushed on his arm. "No, Tann. I mean, is she a nice person? Am I going to like her?"

Unease settled very thoroughly in his stomach. Tann had never thought about whether or not Vetra was a nice person. He was more interested in her competency and dedication. He frowned at how strange the question was, but Sara was staring at him as if it was the most serious, important thing you could ask about a crew member.

So he recited what he knew, hoping it was enough. "Vetra has a sibling named Sidera that she's very protective of. When..." Tann couldn't help but hesitate, remembering. "Before the Hyperion arrived with its extra supplies she would never eat before Sid. She always passed a ration to her before taking one for herself. After a time, she began giving her own portion to Sid."

And he knew that because the Security Director, Kandros, had told him. At the time, standing in the shadows of the operations deck and hungry himself, it had seemed like a hopeless detail that had slowed down a debriefing. But Kandros was worried that Vetra would end up hurting herself trying to take care of her younger sister.

Sara said in the present, without any of her previous cheer, "You guys were running out of food, weren't you?"

"Yes," Tann said, glancing at her. "We were going to."

"I'm sorry," she said.

Publicly, the supplies running out had been a lot of people's fault - the diplomatic wasteland known as Kadara existed because a group had burnt down the hydroponics deck, after all - but Tann was the Director of the Andromeda Initiative. He had woken up in a new galaxy as the most important person in the room and it had been the stuff of fantasy, a plot that role-playing games and stim-vids used as their prologues to make the viewers feel powerful and heroic. Yet, by the end, the Nexus had gone dark. His station was dying.

Tann had not been the hero at the end of his story. Privately, he couldn't say that he had made the right choices.

But it wasn't Sara's fault despite her apology. He looked up at the credits on the screen. "I think you'll like Vetra," he predicted, knowing she wanted to hear that. "But I'm curious why you want to know," he added. "I assume it's because she's rooming with your brother?"

"It's because they're dating," Sara corrected.

Tann's thoughts about the past scattered. "Dating?"

Sara said, "In a relationship. You know, making out and holding hands and stuff."

Tann stared at her in shock. He understood, academically, what the term meant. After two years on the Nexus it was impossible not to; aliens commandeered the lonelier corridors for romantic trysts on a regular basis. And rough turian plates grating violently against valuable Pathfinder skin must have been what Kesh had meant about the details of the arrangement.

Tann blanched, fully awake now. "They don't have enough spare omni-gel on the Tempest for that," he said with grave concern.

"Don't think about it," Sara said with a laugh. She threw a piece of popcorn at him. "Look at you, you're thinking about it."

It was impossible not to. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees as he was pelted with another piece of popcorn, then another. It made sense, he supposed. Aliens often treated reproduction with the same contractual gravity as playing a hand of Skyllian Five. No wonder the Pathfinder hardly answered his QEC calls.

"I still should have been informed," Tann said to himself, narrowing his eyes. "I'll have to send an email about engaging in dangerous behavior without a reliable protective layer. Several layers, perhaps."

Sara was laughing. "Tann, stop thinking about it! That's my brother!"

She sat up on her knees, holding a handful of popcorn and threatening to dump it right on him, but her expression was full of amusement. He let his eyelids and membranes relax into their normal state. She was probably right. But he was still dangerously out of the loop, it seemed, so he asked, "Are you... dating... anyone?"

She clutched the popcorn to her chest like he had ambushed her with the question. "No," she said, staring at him with wide eyes. "I'm totally free and single."

"Do you prefer it that way?"

She shook her head. "Not really. But when I go on dates I never meet anyone I like. It makes me feel like I'm picky." She took a breath, looked at him guiltily. "Tann, I kind of wish that you could..." she began, but then she stopped. "Maybe it's weird," she said quietly.

And she looked down, embarrassed.

Tann tilted his horns to the side, watching her falter in the following silence. In his view being picky was being smart; salarians hired contract lawyers and poured over numerous applications when it came to reproductive matters. "There's no need to worry," he told her, marveling faintly at how strange aliens could be. "I'll take care of anything you need me to. I'll even perform a background check and review the credentials of anyone who tries to approach you."

Right before I assign them to an outpost far away, he thought suddenly. A really dangerous one like Elaaden.

He frowned at the possessive urge, unsettled by it. He was supposed to be helping her.

Sara sighed and then she laughed a little, put the popcorn in the bowl and set it aside. "Thank you. Hey, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have thrown this at you," she said. She helped him brush the mess off the couch for the vacuum bot that was angrily rushing toward them. "I just worry about Scott a lot, I guess. He's out there while I'm stuck here in," she hesitated, "in the Pytheas system, right?" When Tann nodded she continued, "I wish none of this had happened to us. I wish there was something I could do."

Tann said, dusting himself off, "You'll do the most by healing. You want to be on your feet when you greet him, remember?"

She leaned against the cushions again. "Will you still spend time with me when I'm better?"

Tann hadn't put much thought into their future beyond her successful reunion with her brother. In his mind, it coincided with the perfect grand opening of the cultural center. He leaned down and moved the vacuum bot away from where it was bumping against his foot. He thought about what had happened a few weeks ago, as he had so vaguely implied to Herik.

And he said, "I told you I would stay with you. Perhaps you don't remember."

Sara looked away, placing her fingers over a wetware scar at the base of her scalp where her father's implant lay dormant. "People don't ever mean things like that, Tann," she said. "It's just something they say."

He said, very seriously, "Sara, I mean the things that I say to you."

She looked at him again but didn't smile. She considered his words for a long time. Then she grabbed the blanket and settled herself against him like he was a giant pillow. Tann could feel her searching for his hand under the heavy fabric and wrapping too many human fingers around his larger three. He lost his train of thought at the sensation. The warmth was comforting but he wasn't tired now.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "I'm really glad you're here."

Tann squeezed her hand and was rewarded with a smile. Then they picked up the vid where they had left off. When it was finished Sara went to bed in her room with her little pictures and the Thessian curtains hiding the Scourge tendrils outside the window. The vacuum bot crunched over popcorn kernels.

Alone in the common rooms, Tann felt unsteady.

He knew he couldn't truly keep Sara with him like this forever. At some point, as much as he liked seeing her each day, she would have to leave. She needed to be properly integrated into the Nexus' population and allowed to thrive with other humans like herself. But doubt crept over him as he passed the flowers on the table. He reached out, pressed the white petals between his fingers.

The mission mattered above all else, he reminded himself. That was part of being the Director.

But Tann exercised too hard after that, kept going even after he pulled a muscle in his leg. The bath he stepped into was so purposefully cold that the water might as well have been ice stacked up around his chest. His breakfast was perfect nutrition and then it was his fingers when he bit them by mistake. The evening was punctuated by model-ship pieces scattering all over the floor when he dropped his model-ship box.

He stared down at the pieces glittering up at him, closed his eyes. He needed to focus. But as much as he hated to admit it, Herik had been right. Sara was turning him into a mess whenever he spent time with her.

Worse, he had no idea what he was going to do about it.