The days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and a year soon passed. Reyes decided to join Ryder on the Nexus and moved his whole life so she could become the next Initiative leader. There was a massive power struggle in the beginning, some still wanted Tann to run the show since he kept the exiles and most Krogan off the station.

Rules changed and life was bustling. With the help of the Krogan and exiles, Kandros forces had almost tripled overnight. Addison had so many staff under her, she almost struggled to give them enough tasks to keep busy and Kesh could for once sit back and let her people take more control without it all going wrong.

Kadara was running smoothly with Reyes off the planet and he'd given Keema more power to run the port, but he still made the major decisions. With his help, the exiles were welcomed back to the Nexus and Morda sent some of her Krogan there to help finish construction with the Nexus, which was nearly complete.

Life was almost perfect, but two things still bounced off Ryder each day. One was the Milky Way, they hadn't had a reply since she sent the previous message over a year ago and Reyes' team was no closer to figuring out a cure for her mum. She wondered if maybe they should just give up and let her mum rest.

Scott was too busy running around the cluster to even sit back and think or worry. Sara kept him busy making sure the colonies were running as they should. They had terraformed four more planets. One they gave to the Krogan and two others were split between humans and Turians, whilst the fourth created trace amount of natural element zero, which shocked them for a material to form between two different galaxies. The Asari were offered that planet to keep their biotic traits running over the next new generations being born.

"Reyes," SAM calls over his omni-tool. The message was flagged as urgent.

"Yes?" he asks looking down at his arm. SAM opens the message, and each sentence Reyes reads makes his eyes open wider and wider. "They've done it?"

"Yes, she is also awake," SAM adds. Reyes bolts from his station, startling his staff as he heads straight to Sara's office.

He finds her hunched over her desk, going through emails and mission reports from the Pathfinder teams. She looks up quickly to smile at him, "I wasn't expecting you for another hour, are you that eager to get me?" she chuckles.

She and Reyes had been sneaking off during lunch times to sleep together, their long hours made it hard to carve time out for each other and they weren't very good at keeping their hands off each other.

"No, Dove. They've done it!" he all but shouts, waving his omni-tool in her face.

"Slow down," she says, grabbing his arm to look. Reyes kept still, but soon she joined his pure panic. "This can't be happening?! They actually did it?"

"Yes, come on. We need to get down to cryo now!" he calls as he runs out of the door. "SAM, contact Scott. Tell him to get his ass to the Nexus now."

"Yes, Reyes," the AI replies.

They both arrived at cryo in just a matter of minutes. Reyes' whole team surrounded Ellen's body, she was now breathing on her own. But the machines hooked up to her monitored just about every bit of her body.

"Make room," the leading Salarian doctor calls as he sees Reyes and Sara barrel through the doors. "Mr Vidal, Miss Ryder, welcome," he curtly greets.

"Dr Yabani," Reyes shakes his three-fingered hand. Sara went straight to her mum's side, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "How did you do it?"

The Salarian looked at Ellen before looking at Sara as she waited for the answer. "We have been trying different types of medications since you first assigned us, and we had little luck with most. But one came through." He stopped talking to pick up the medication, it had a long and very complicated name. "This is meant to be given orally, which we first tried. But when mixed with liquidized Indoism."

"What's that?" Sara asked, she'd never heard of it before.

"It's the heated mineral from the Indo flower found on Eos. We tracked different flowers that might hold natural medicinal properties. This one showed the best results in recovering dead tissue cells and forming new white blood cells. We injected it directly into both Brachial veins and her heart rate spiked as her breathing began to progress without the support of the machines." He placed the drug back down, it would help save thousands of lives and it was he who discovered it.

"When will she wake up?" Reyes asks.

"We don't know, she is no longer under cryo sleep. It's down to her own body." The doctor started to scatter his staff away, giving Sara and Reyes some peace. "We will continue to monitor her, but it could take hours or days for her body to wake up naturally. We don't wish to force it."

"We will wait as long as we need to then," Sara says in a small voice. She held Ellen's hand against her chest, stroking the stray hairs from her face. "Any news on Scott?"

"Yes," SAM says on their private channel. "He will arrive in the next three hours, they are currently on Eos."

"Good, we will wait then," she says smiling at Reyes.

It'd been just over an hour when Sara felt her mum move, her arm twitching. She was laid next to her, and Reyes sat in the chair across from them both, doing work on his omni-tool. "Reyes," Sara calls.

"Yes, dov-"

"Alec?" a small croaky voice calls as Ellen's eyes slowly open to the bright lights facing down on her. "Sara? Scott?" she then cries. Reyes bolts off his chair, grabbing the doctor.

"Mum, it's Sara," she tries to say in a strong voice. She felt her voice crack as she held back the tears, her mum was alive.

"Sara? Where am I?" she starts to look around, trying to lift her head. her neck felt limp as she could just about move her hands.

"Please don't move, let the doctors check you over and I'll explain everything. We are in Andromeda." Sara realised she shouldn't have said that when her mum's heart rate spiked and alarms started to blare. Doctors rushed in from all corners.

"Andromeda?!" Ellen shouts before Sara is pulled out of the way.

"Please, let us calm her down and you can speak to her," a nurse tries to explain. Sara starts to cry, Reyes pulls her into the hallway, holding her closely.

"Dove, calm down. She is awake, let the doctors do their job and get everything under control." He rubbed the lower part of her back and held a firm hand at the base of her neck.

"I don't know why I just said Andromeda like that, I fucked up," she cries into his chest.

"Shh, you didn't do anything wrong. You were trying to help when she asked where she was. Just deep breaths and you'll get to see her again soon." Sara only cried more, she felt so stupid. She hoped she didn't make it worse for Ellen as the alarms could still be heard going off throughout the hotel floor.

It'd been half an hour, and Sara finally stopped crying and sat on a chair in the corner, her knees up against her chest. Reyes leant by the doors of the hotel room, waiting for any news. Finally, they opened.

A nurse stepped out, smiling. "She has calmed down, you can see her now," she says with an extended arm.

"Thank you," Reyes replies before looking at Sara. "Dove?" he calls. She looks up, "come on," he waves his hand out to her.

Sara reluctantly gets up, letting Reyes lead her inside. Ellen watches them, tears welling up in her eyes. "I'll give you two some time," Reyes whispers as he kisses her cheek and gives her a nudge towards the bed.

"Come here darling," Ellen says with welcoming arms. Sara runs like a little kid not seeing their mother all day after school. She missed her mum's hugs, they were warm and loving.

"I've missed you so much," she cries.

"Hush, darling. I am here now," she soothes. They both hold each other for a few minutes before Ellen loosens her hold and lets Sara sit up. "I need some answers, Sara."

"I know," she replies, sitting down in the chair to the side of her bed. "After me and Scott left the hotel room when we said our goodbyes, you spoke to dad before finally falling unconscious."

"I remember," Ellen adds. Sara nods.

"Dad put you straight into stasis, then got you moved to the Hyperion Ark under the name of Elizabeth Reilly, he hoped we would find a treatment here for the disease." Ellen looks at the wires hanging off her body.

"I take it, they found one then?" Sara smiles and nods.

"Yes, your body is fighting the disease as we speak. You should make a full recovery. We arrived here just over two years ago. Shit hit the fan the second we arrived, Scott's pod got damaged so he couldn't wake up at the same time I did. It was just me, dad and the Pathfinder team." Sara smiled, remembering seeing Cora again after six hundred years asleep.

"I expect you will tell me why your father isn't here?" Sara could hear the cold, broken tone behind her words. She knew Alec was dead, but wanted confirmation of it.

"We landed on a planet that was screwing with comms and visuals, we met another race, the Kett. Turns out they are the bad guys, we were able to fix the planet and get everything fixed in getting to the Nexus. But me and dad took a hit and my helmet smashed on the planet that had very little oxygen." Sara hated remembering scratching her throat for air, feeling her life slip away. "Dad gave me his helmet, passing Pathfinder and SAM to me before I passed out, he didn't survive."

Ellen swallowed back her cry, she just nodded, looking straight ahead. "I'm glad your father saved you. He'd die for either of you since the day you first took a breath."

Sara watched Ellen up on the rest of the stories from their time so far in Andromeda. Soon enough Scott had finally shown up, Jaal not far behind him. He went to stand with Reyes.

"MUM!" he shouts as he runs up to Ellen, almost crushing her under his weight.

"Scott, be careful," Sara says, pulling him off. Ellen chuckles as she strokes Scott's face.

"You are both so grown up, I cannot believe my son is a Pathfinder and daughter the leader of the Initiative. Here I thought our AI research destroyed the family name." Ellen then remembered him, "SAM?"

"Hello, Ellen. I am glad you're awake." Ellen looks at Sara's omni-tool as SAM speaks.

"I guess you and Sara are one now?" Sara nods.

"He's part of me and I am part of him. I can't imagine my life without him."

"Him?" Ellen asks, Sara only nods. "SAM was always a part of the family anyway," she adds. "Now," she slyly says, looking towards both Jaal and Reyes. "Are you going to introduce me?"

Both men looked up and slowly walked over. Reyes held Sara's hand and Jaal placed his hands protectively around Scott's waist. "Mum, this is Reyes Vidal, my partner and secondary leader to the Initiative." Reyes smiles and bows his head slightly. "And this is Jaal Ama Darav, native Angara I told you about and Scott's partner."

Ellen could only smile, "well. I am glad you both took my advice and fell in love. You all look so happy together." Jaal moved to the side to shake her hand and Reyes kissed the back of her hand, giving the best welcoming he could muster.

The Salarian doctor had returned with a few datapads in his hand. "I hate to interrupt, but we need to run some tests. Would you all be able to return tomorrow?"

"Of course," Reyes replies. He bids goodbye and waits outside with Jaal. "I love you mum," Scott says.

"I love you both so much, thank you for not giving up on me." She hugs them both one last time before letting go and them both leaving.

Outside Scott and Sara held each other. "She's really with us," Sara says with a croaky voice.

"She isn't going anywhere now." He pulls back from her. "Me and Jaal are staying here for a few days, Eos can wait. We will be back tomorrow if you both will be?"

Sara looks at Reyes, he nods. "We will see you back here tomorrow morning then. Go get some sleep little bro," she taunts.

"Very funny," he calls as they walk towards the trams.

"Thank you so much, Reyes, for saving my mum." She throws her arms around him, holding him as if her life depended on it.

"Anything for you, dove. Come on, let's get some dinner and head home. It's been an emotional day." He steers her towards the trams, finally the weight of Ellen off his shoulders.