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It’s all a lot to take in.
Waking up in a galaxy, a million light years from home was enough for her to wrap her mind around as it was, but then… But then nothing had gone according to plan. Her father’s dead, her brother in a coma, and she’s in unknown territory, doing things that have never been done before.
At least, she thinks to herself, she isn’t alone.
He calls her Ryder, Pathfinder, anything but her name. Not many people call her by her name anymore, but from him it’s… different. They speak out of deference, even reverence, but he says it with a soft smile, and those eyes that seem to contain the entire Milky Way in them light up as they meet hers. It’s like he’s daring her, testing her, seeing how far he can push her before she gives into her emotions, and demand he call her by her name.
The first time he says her name out loud, she almost misses it.
She has gathered all the crew members of the Tempest for a meeting, trying to address some of the problems that have been brought to her attention. Namely, Peebee’s attempts at pranking others aboard the Tempest. It’s good for them to loosen up once in a while—God only knows how taxing this has been on all of them—but she needs to draw a line somewhere, and Peebee setting her hamster in Drax’s bed is too far.
“Perhaps Lia only means to ask you to respect boundaries?” he says as the young Asari goes to express her displeasure, so casual that Lia agrees without thinking.
“Yes. Thank you, Jaal.” But then the realisation hits her, hard, and she cannot hide her blush when the Angara scrambles to correct himself, and then, he’s back to “Ryder” and “Pathfinder” and simply not saying her name at all.
He excuses himself, dropping into an unsteady bow. Lia isn’t quite certain, but she swears his purple colouring darkens as he blushes. Perhaps, she thinks, it’s just the light.
Peebee bursts into a fit of laughter, unable to control herself. Already, she has forgotten that she was being reprimanded moments earlier. “What was that about?” She goes to dismiss all of them, hurriedly trying to clean up this mess before it can be made, but it only seems to encourage the roguish Asari. “Something going on between you two I don’t know about?”
But she doesn’t have the time to respond, because Lexi, the ever-diplomatic doctor that she is, steps in. “Give it a rest,” she says, and the tone of finality in her voice ends the conversation before Peebee can prod Lia any further.
And of course, because he’s Jaal, and he’s so kind it almost makes her hate herself, he pulls her aside hours later to apologise. “Ryder? A moment?” he says, and already, she misses the way her name had sounded upon his lips.
And of course, because she can’t deny herself, and it almost makes her hate him, she gives him all the time she has. “Of course,” she says, smiling, but it’s more out of habit than anything else.
“I wanted to apologise.”
“What for?”
It takes him a moment to say what he wants to, and she can see him turning the words over on the tip of his tongue. “Calling you… Lia. It was… improper. I have read about human culture. Nick… names are reserved for close friends.”
“Well, we’re close friends, aren’t we? You’re more than welcome to call me Lia.”
He grunts, and she really can’t tell if he’s agreeing or disagreeing. Angara are open with their emotions, he has told her, but that is not the impression she has got from him since he came aboard the Tempest. Tentatively, he reaches out a hand, brushing a finger over the dark spots that stain her skin. “Your skin is like the sky,” he says, almost in awe, and his eyes widen as he forces her to tilt her head from side to side to examine the moles that dot her visage. “Stars. Constellations. Is this common for all humans?”
“Not all,” she tells him, and ignores the flutter of her heart in her chest. “Some. I got them from my mother. My brother, Scott, uh… doesn’t have them.”
“Hm.” Jaal lets go of her then. “Interesting. I will leave you be, Ryder.”
He leaves without as much as a cursory glance behind him.
This continues for weeks, and by the end of it, the only one who isn’t aware of Lia’s budding affections for Jaal is the Angara in question. Perhaps it is because the Angara are so used to familiar intimacy, he does not notice her subtle flirtations. Her brother was always the more sociable one, the more likeable. By now, he’d have had Jaal wrapped around his little finger. Lia, instead, bursts into a fit of panicked laughter whenever Jaal mentions something about her—“Your hair… it’s so… soft. Strange, but beautiful.”—which only serves to make the poor Angara confused. Later, she hears him asking Liam about her behaviour, and thank God, Liam has the common sense not to say anything.
They don’t have a proper chance to talk again until after Moshae Sjefa is saved, but with her safety comes the revelation of what the Kett have been doing to the Angaran people. They’ve discovered the truth, but she saw how Jaal had received the news.
“Jaal?”
He’s kneeling with his back to her, and he’s shaking as he desperately tries not to think of all his kin he’d killed, thinking that they were nothing more than the Archon’s minions. She can’t even imagine what he must be going through right now. “Thank you for checking, but I’m all right.”
It sounds like a lie, but she knows that there are more important things at hand. “I don’t know if I would be.”
“I have to be. How else do we go on? You know?”
She swallows, and glances down at the floor, shuffling her feet. That is a sentiment she knows all too well. She’s spent the past couple weeks pretending like her father isn’t dead, like Scott isn’t in a coma, like she isn’t a Pathfinder—like she isn’t the person they need her to be. But she has to be, because there’s no choice. There’s no one else to fill her shoes if she fails to do what is necessary. “Yeah,” she mumbles as he straightens, and looks her in the eyes. “I know. I just… I wanted you to know I’m uh… here for you.”
“That’s…” He tilts his head, appearing visibly shocked. “Kind. You’re kind… I really miss my family at times like these. Are you close to your family?”
“I… was.” She laughs—titters, really—more out of nervousness than out of amusement. “Am. Both of my parents are… dead, and my brother is… in a medically induced coma. I’m kind of an orphan at the moment.”
And he offers her his sympathies, as though he hasn’t just found out that his Resistance has been killing their own people this entire time, as though he hasn’t unknowingly lost brothers, and sisters, and friends, and family to the people he both fights against, and fights for.
“At least we’ve got the Tempest, right?” she says, trying to deflect the issues they both face, because maybe if she can pretend they don’t exist, they’ll actually stop existing. “Everyone aboard feels like family.”
“Yeah.” He takes a seat down on his cot, twiddling his fingers absentmindedly. “I’ve never really felt I had a purpose—but here, I do.”
“And the Resistance?”
“My place in the Resistance is… not what I’d like.”
“Yet, so many people still look up to you. That kid on Aya—”
He shakes his head, and she falls silent. “Sure, but you’re going to do something important, Lia. I feel it. This is where I should be.”
She has no idea what her father was thinking when he made her Pathfinder, because she’s hardly diplomatic, or in control of her emotions at any given time. How is she expected to be the face of all human members of the Andromeda Initiative, if she can’t even bite her tongue when talking to Jaal? “I like having you around. Specifically you.”
She regrets the words the instant they come out of her mouth.
“Because of my skill, and knowledge?”
“Well yes, but… not… exactly.” She pushes her short, brown hair behind her ear, trying to erase the past two minutes from both of their minds. “Forget that I said anything.”
Jaal smiles that soft smile that makes something within her chest ache. He rises to his feet, and closes the distance between them. Gingerly, he takes her hands in his own. “Because you enjoy spending time with me as much as I do with you,” he says, answering his own question. She stammers, unable to respond, and his smile only grows larger. “You’re fascinating. And special. And strange. And I mean it.”
It’s a dangerous little dance they dance for the upcoming days. She is the Pathfinder, and he, the equivalent of the Angaran ambassador. First contact protocol advises against this on all accounts, particularly when there is a small group of Angaran radicals calling for her head, but she can’t bring herself to care. She’s always been a cautious person, but the nature of being Pathfinder changes all of that. She has been forced to make decisions at the drop of a hat—decisions that could shape the galaxy forevermore. She’s starting to become impulsive, reckless, just like her brother. Perhaps it is healthy.
At least, it’s healthy when she isn’t staring into the Archon’s cold, dead eyes, immobilized from the neck down. The Kett leader wraps a hand around her throat, squeezing so tight she sees spots as he turns her head from side to side, inspecting her. Then, before she can even cry out, a needle pricks at the base of her skull, and pain shoots down her spine.
“A first sample,” the Archon growls. “Your testing begins now. I will learn your secret soon enough.”
And then he’s gone, and she’s still trapped, and there’s still the problem about the Salarian Ark, and—
“The containment fields only interact with living matter. If you expire, the field around you will extinguish until manually reset.” SAM’s voice echoes crystal clear in her ears, breaking through her panic. “As you know, my access to your physiology allows me to enhance your vital signals when required. I could also do the opposite.”
Unfortunately, all SAM succeeds in doing is making her panic more. “You’re going to kill me?” she nearly shouts.
“After stopping your heart, I would attempt to resuscitate, of course.”
“Is there another option?”
“None that I can determine.”
Behind her, Jaal and Vetra are loudly proclaiming their dislike of this idea, Jaal more than Vetra. She does not listen to either of them. She will take what she can get, at this point. “All right,” she says. “Let’s do it.”
It is by some miracle she survives, though the loss they suffer that day almost makes none of it worth it. She had to leave the Salarian Pathfinder, Raeka, behind in order to save as many lives as possible. Lia has never been a particularly religious person, but if there is a God out there, may they forgive her for her mistakes. She had done what she thought she was right at the time. At least, she thinks, they have what they came for. The map of Meridian is nothing short of valuable, and if they can turn all of the Vaults to their advantage, and terraform the entirety of Andromeda that easily…
She groans, and falls into her bed, her head throbbing. Whatever the Archon did to her—neurotransmitters in her bloodstream, was it?—she can still feel it. Although, she suspects what she is currently feeling is the side effects from dying, and being resuscitated.
Lia wonders if her father is proud of the choices she has made in his absence. Would he acknowledge that she’d tried her best, even if she hadn’t succeeded? Alec Ryder, she knows, would have been able to save both the Krogans and Raeka, with minutes to spare. He was supposed to be the Pathfinder, not her. She isn’t certain that she is the Pathfinder Andromeda wants, nor the Pathfinder Andromeda needs, but she is the Pathfinder Andromeda has. If the encounter with the Archon proved anything, it’s that like it or not, she is the Pathfinder, and it is her responsibility to lead all these people into a bright new future.
“What were you thinking?” She has made a point of rarely locking the door to her quarters, enforcing an open-door policy with her crew members, but she had certainly not expected an angry Angara to barge in just as she was drifting off. She has never seen Jaal angry. The Angara has been, at most, displeased, but angry? He has too kind, too gentle of a soul to turn his wrath upon another living being.
He stands at the foot of her bed, his arms crossed. “Ryder.”
She doesn’t have to ask what has angered him. “It had to be done.”
“You could have died.”
“And?” She shoots up in her bed, now wide awake. “What’s your point, Jaal? Yes, I could have died, but in case you haven’t noticed, being Pathfinder means that I am constantly risking my life. I don’t think I have had a week yet where I haven’t needed to do something incredibly stupid, and incredibly dangerous. I don’t enjoy this any more than you do! Difference is, you can leave whenever you want. I can’t.” Her voice breaks as she almost erupts into tears, the emotions she’s been keeping back ever since her dad died overwhelming her. “I didn’t want any of this.”
His face softens, and Jaal takes a seat on her bed, pulling her into his side. The bio-electric field that surrounds him raises the hairs on her arms as she buries her face in the crook of his shoulder. “Shhh,” he breathes out. “Lia, Lia, Lia…”
She decides she likes the way he says her name. He makes it rhyme with Aya, stretching it out into two syllables rather than one. Leeah. Leeah, leeah, leeah. “I’m sorry about having SAM stop my heart,” she whispers. “It was the best idea at the time.”
“I know, I know,” he says, and his anger is gone just as soon as it had come. “I… was frightened. I watched you die. For a moment, I thought you would not return.”
She laughs, but the sound is pained, and disingenuous. “And let you kill the Archon without me? Never.”
Rather than joining her in her bitter mirth, his countenance goes stony once again as he tilts her chin up to examine the purple-black bruises the Archon left on her throat. “Lia—”
She does not have the heart to swat his hand away. “I’m fine,” she says. It sounds like a lie.
That’s because, she thinks, it is one.
But she does not understand the pain she has put Jaal through, not really. Her mind is too preoccupied with the fact that she had died hours earlier to consider the implications of her actions. He has made it clear that he cares for her, time and time again, and it must have been agony for him to stand there, helpless, watching her put her life on the line. It’s an agony she comes to experience weeks later.
“You, more than anyone, knows how dangerous Akksul is,” a female Angaran voice says, crackling over the speakers of Jaal’s comms. Lia hesitates in the doorway, trying to assess the situation before entering further.
“Why were they allowed to speak with him?” growls Jaal, unable to hide his anger. It’s painted clear across his strong features.
“They aren’t children anymore. We can’t control their every move,” adds in another female Angara. His mothers, Lia realises. Two of his five. “You remember how you were.”
“Please, Jaal,” the first Angara begs.
He bows his head for a long moment, before letting out a resigned sigh. He catches Lia’s wary gaze out of the corner of his large eyes, holding up a single finger to sign for her to wait for him. “I’ll bring them home,” he says, hanging up.
Tentatively, Lia leans against a wall, her arms crossed. “You okay?”
“Three of my brothers, and sisters have joined the Roekaar.”
“Shit.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Jaal smiles. “Quite. Akksul has poisoned them with his hatred of aliens.”
“And your mothers want you to bring them back.”
Jaal rises to his feet, moving closer towards her. He toys with the hem of his rofjinn idly. “The Roekaar have made camp at the Forge. Many consider it the birthplace of our civilization. Akksul likely believes this bold move will create more fanatics for his cause. Ryder… Lia. He has my family, but I don’t think I can do this alone.”
“Then you won’t have to,” she says, and there isn’t an ounce of trepidation in her voice. “Like it or not, you’re stuck with me. If you need me, count me in. Tell me when and where.”
“No hesitation,” sighs the Angara, his head tilted to the side as he watches her. “That is what I love about you.”
She cannot tell if it is simply a turn of phrase to him, or if it’s just a part of his culture, but to her, such declarations do not come as easily. She can neither give nor receive them with any degree of effectiveness, so instead, she laughs off his words as though her heart doesn’t skip a beat. “Some people would call it reckless.”
“Some people,” he counters, “would call it loyal.”
Which is how Lia finds herself helpless as Akksul points a gun at Jaal’s head. Foolish, foolish, foolish, she says to herself. She should have known that Akksul would not care about either of their lives. To him, she is nothing more than an alien who needed to be eradicated, and Jaal is a traitor to his kind, defending Lia rather than joining the Roekaar.
“The Moshae trusts Ryder—” Jaal argues, trying to prove to Akksul that Lia is more than just an alien.
But Akksul will have none of it. His pistol whirs as it loads, ready to fire. “Stop! We’ve been fighting the wrong enemy. Maybe the enemy is this traitor!”
“Easy…” Jaal cautions.
Lia has her assault rifle aimed at Akksul’s head, ready to shoot at any moment. “Jaal—”
“Don’t!” the Angara says, holding out a hand to stop her. His gaze meets hers, and for a moment, she wants for nothing more than to ignore him, and shoot Akksul where he stands. Then, he inclines his head ever so slightly. Trust me, he says silently. Trust me, Lia. “That Moshae trusts Ryder,” he continues. “You’ve become a danger to your own people. Walk away.”
“Or,” counters Akksul, “I kill you, and reveal the Resistance for the traitors they are.”
It all happens quickly. She watches, frozen, as Akksul’s finger curls around the trigger, and it’s like nothing else in the entire universe matters but her decision. Akksul is right. She cannot kill him lest she make a martyr out of him, and more importantly: Jaal knows this. His life is in her hands. She can kill Akksul but risk ruining everything the Initiative stands for, or sacrifice one Angara, no matter how important he may be, in order to destroy Akksul’s Roekaar once and for all.
I’m sorry, Jaal, she thinks.
And does nothing.
But by whatever luck that possesses, by some turn of fate, Akksul misses his shot, even at point-blank range. Time resumes its normal pace, and an angry sear across Jaal’s upper cheek marks Akksul’s impulsive attack against his own kin. She can’t decide if she wants to burst into a fit of delirious laughter, or relieved tears.
He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive.
Jaal grimaces with pain, but his gaze hardens on Akksul. He has just exposed himself in front of all of his followers as a man who is prepared to kill his own kind, even as he says he wants to protect them. Fear, disbelief, hatred ripples across his crowd of followers, and one by one, they lower their weapons, and file out of the antechamber.
“The alien,” Jaal says in a low voice, “is not the monster here.”
Akksul knows in his heart that he has lost. Whatever validity his cause had possessed is now gone. “I love my people.”
But Jaal does not indulge him further, ushering his siblings onwards. “Come on,” he says, “let’s get you home.”
They return his siblings to his mothers, and in the perpetual drizzle that seems to plague Havarl, he pulls her aside. His purple-blue skin glistens in the pale light. “Thank you for trusting me. Killing Akksul would have made the Roekaar stronger,” he murmurs.
She forces him to turn his head, examining his fresh wound. “I thought, for a minute there…”
“I’ll be fine.”
“He shot you.”
He scoffs, far more amused by Akksul’s actions than she is. “I’m glad he did—it exposed how far he’d fallen.”
“Jaal, you can’t treat this like it’s nothing,” she says. “You could have died. You harass me for throwing myself into the line of fire, but you…” She cannot formulate her thoughts properly, and slicks back her shoulder-length hair if only to give her something to do. “I was worried.”
He pulls her into him, pressing his forehead against hers in a typical Angaran embrace. “It will heal. All scars do.” He cracks a small smile as they part. “Besides, I cannot let you kill the Archon without me.”
She smacks him in the shoulder. “Don’t you dare throw my words back at me,” she says, sternly, but she cannot keep back her grin.
He responds with the same amount of seriousness, which is, to say, none at all. “Forgive me.” Then, he lets out a breath, raising his face to the indigo skies. “We should get back. I want to say goodbye before my family heads home. Would you like to… accompany me? I could meet you back on the Tempest.”
She shakes her head. “No. I’ve heard a lot of your family. I’d like to meet them. If that’s okay…”
“That is more than ‘okay,’” says Jaal with a reassuring smile.
His home is large, spacious enough to house his large family. They have barely stepped through the door when an older female Angara comes running towards them. “Jaal! Jaal!” she says, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.
He embraces her without a moment’s hesitation. He is a good head taller than her, though Lia has yet to meet someone who is significantly taller than Jaal. Vetra and Drack both have a couple inches on him, but not enough for it to matter. It does not take Lia long to recognise this woman as Sahuna, Jaal’s true mother. He is a man who keeps his family close to his heart, and he speaks of her often.
“Wait,” Sahuna says, hesitant as she pulls away. “Is there bad news?”
“No,” Jaal laughs. “The Pathfinder is interested in where I grew up.” It is almost as though Sahuna had been too preoccupied with her son to notice the short human standing behind him for her eyes widen, and her hand flies to her mouth as she gasps. Lia cannot tell if her reaction is good or bad. “Ryder, this is my true mother. Sahuna Ama Darav.”
“Don’t listen to him,” she says as she pulls Sahuna into an embrace, standing on her toes to reach her properly. “My name’s Cordelia. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Jaal blinks, seemingly shocked. She wonders if hugging Sahuna was not the correct thing to do, and that is when she realises: he did not know her full name. He shoots her a look that says they will speak of it later, but she dismisses him without a second thought.
Sahuna grins, turning Lia from side to side to inspect the young human. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that she is the alien here, not them. “Jaal’s told me how much he admires you,” she says, as honest as any Angara. “Brave, clever, funny, protective…”
She casts a glance at her blushing companion, raising a dubious eyebrow. “Really?”
“He’s my favourite,” Sahuna gushes. “Smart. Loyal. Kind. A great shot. Writes poetry… Sews.”
Jaal clears his throat. “Mother…”
She laughs him off, just as Lia has on so many occasions. “I’m late for a Resistance meeting. Stay clear,” she says, grabbing both of their shoulders before slipping out the doors.
“Your mother is in the Resistance?”
He chuckles, “Yes. And every child is her favourite.” Meeting Sahuna just makes her realise how much she misses her mother, and her father, to some extent, as distant as he might have been. “Everyone,” Jaal says, leading her into a large living space crowded with bustling Angara. “This is Ryder.”
“Cordelia,” she admonishes.
“Cordelia,” he corrects, and if her nickname had sounded lovely on his tongue, her full name sounds even lovelier. The pronunciation is hardly correct, though she cannot blame him. Cor-deh-lee-ah. If he had been anyone else—Liam, Peebee, Vetra anyone with a basic grasp of Latin-based languages—she might have been irritated, but he is trying. Everything about her, to him at least, is strange, unfamiliar, new, but he is going out of his way to make her comfortable nonetheless.
Shyly, she waves. “Uh… hi.”
A dozen pairs of eyes snap to her at once, but everyone is smiling, waving back at her, and making jokes. A few younger children stumble over her name, and settle on “Dehleeah” as they follow after her, amazed by this strange human. One tentatively asks to touch her hair. She unties it, letting it brush her shoulders, and soon it’s like everyone in the room has their fingers running through her brown locks in amazement.
They have all seen humans around before—the Initiative had been making a conscious effort to try to get humans to integrate with Angaran society—but none have met one so open to let them thoroughly study her. She admits she shared the same curiosity when she first met the Angara.
Jaal has been very accommodating about it, at least. Sometimes, they trade questions.
“Your fur, is it for warmth?”
“My hair, you mean? No. Maybe once upon a time, but no longer.”
“It comes in so many different kinds. Yours is so different from Liam’s, and Suvi’s, and Cora’s. It is most like Cora’s, I think. The colour is different.”
“Sometimes we dye it colours too. Blacks, and browns, and reds, and blondes are normal. ‘Natural.’ Sometimes, we get a little more creative. Blues, and pinks, and purples, and every colour you can imagine. I’m almost envious of the Angara, really. It would take a lot of time, and money to get my hair to be the colour of your skin. My turn: how in hell can you eat that nutrient paste without gagging?”
“It’s delicious!”
“It’s really not. It’s really, really, really not.”
“This,” Jaal says, gesturing to them room once his family members have let her go, “is where I spent most of my days growing up. Me. My sister, Koana, our cousin, Etta, and brother, Finn. Then, Bavsil, Rollu…”
“I can’t imagine having such a large family,” she says, and she honestly cannot. It’s always been her, Scott, and her father. Until recently. Sometimes, she feels alone, but then Jaal appears out of nowhere, with a poor attempt at cooking human food for her. She forgets to eat too often due to how busy she is, and Lexi has been getting on her case. Realising that Lia wasn’t going to change her habits for the Asari doctor, Jaal had taken it upon himself to ensure that Lia met her caloric intake for the day. That wasn’t to say his cooking was any good.
She always tries to eat at least half of it, anyway.
“We like to live like this,” Jaal says to her, ignoring the teasing from his aunt for bringing “someone special” back to meet his family. “And here’s my room. My tiny sanctuary.”
She isn’t how else to describe it but as very him. Dismantled pieces of technology are scattered across every workspace, some very clearly put back together using pieces from something else. Star charts and maps are stacked upon his desk, notes scribbled on the pages. She’s surprised to see that the Angara use a form of paper. Nowadays, it seems that everything is electronic.
“We have a saying that I like,” Lia murmurs, tying her hair back up haphazardly. A stray lock falls across her eyes. She tucks it behind her ear. “Home is where the heart is.”
Jaal cracks a small smile. “I like that.” He notices a container precarious balanced atop a stack of datapads. “Oh no, who put this here?”
“Schematics? Of…?” Lia prompts, taking a seat beside him.
“When I was seven, my aunt stole a kett weapon for me. So I took it apart. To learn.”
“And that is—was—a kaerkyn.”
“Pet kaerkyn—Alfit. He died. So I also… took him apart.”
“To… learn?”
“Why not?”
“Fair point.”
Jaal sets the box aside, lowering his gaze. “I… don’t show people these things. You make my heart sing.”
She ducks her head, and her hair falls across her eyes again. “Jaal…”
He reaches up, pushing her hair back behind her ear. His thumb almost catches on the three metal hoops she has encircling the upper part of her ear, not entirely unlike his own piercings. “I want... us to be together.”
She lets out a choked, half-strangled noise.
“Lia?” he says, worried. “I apologise, was I too forward?”
Yes? No? Maybe? She isn’t certain as to how she should respond. He has never been anything but open about his feelings, and by God, how she admires him for it. He accepts who he is so freely, she almost wishes she could do the same. He is far more accepting of who she is, than she is of herself. She is hypercritical, aware of every mistake she makes. Scott is the self-assured, the confident one. He owns his mistakes, and he does not apologise.
She does not know how someone such as Jaal could care for the disaster that is the human Pathfinder.
“You simply took me by surprise, that’s all,” she tells him after a long, silent moment. “Caught me off guard.”
She still hasn’t given him an answer.
“I would like that, would like…” God, she is terrible at admitting things. “Would like us. You.”
Jaal lets out something akin to a joyous cheer, as though he hadn’t expected her to agree. “Yes!” he exclaims, and she cannot help but join in. For the first time in a long time, she forgets about everything outside this room. Somehow, he takes the weight off her shoulders, and she is no longer Pathfinder Ryder, instead Lia, the alien female who is a billion miles from home, but has found some sort of home in his arms anyway. “I adore you.”
When their lips collide, a fire ignites somewhere within her heart—a flicker of hope, of faith that perhaps, after all, she can be the person the Initiative needs her to be as long as he is standing beside her. It’s a love she had not expected to find, this far from home. God, when she’d left the Milky Way, she hadn’t even known the Angara had existed, but something—destiny, fate, something—had drawn them together across galaxies. The first human the Angara had ever had contact with, and the first Angara the humans had ever had contact with.
She wasn’t as hopeless as a romantic as Suvi is, but even she cannot ignore the way her head spins when she is around him.
“Let me show you one more thing you might like,” Jaal says, reaching out a hand to help her to her feet, as dizzy and as breathless as she is. “Lie down.”
She quirks a brow, but complies with another word, watching as he crosses her room. Then, the entire room is filled with brilliant washes of blue, and purple light. The entirety of Andromeda is suspended in the air, each individual star hanging above her head. The celestial bodies swirl and drift in a mesmerizing display of colour and light. She cannot help but let out a gasp of awe.
“Jaal,” she says, “you… you made this?”
“Long ago,” he says, lying down beside her. “It’s not accurate. More of a dream, really. I got a few things right.” He pushes himself up onto his elbows, examining the moles dotting Lia’s neck. “I compared these to constellations once. I realised soon after I recognised their pattern.”
She knows of what he speaks. “They look like the constellations us humans have for this galaxy.” She reaches up to touch the slightly raised spots on her skin. “Andromeda. Scott thought it was… funny, but then again, he’s an idiot.”
He bursts into laughter, shaking his head as he settles back down beside her. His gaze focuses back on the stars above him, but she is too busy looking at him to see what he is seeing. His indigo-hued skin seems to glow in the soft light, and the bullet wound on his cheek is dark, and angry, but he is right. It will scar, and it will heal, and it will serve as a reminder. They have survived time and time again, even when the odds seemed to be stacked against them.
“Just one more thing I want to take apart, and figure out,” breathes out Jaal, studying the stars.
She forces herself to look away from him, and up to the stars above him. She cannot hide her smile.
“And now,” he continues, “I have someone to do it with, Cordelia.”
She holds onto his hand, and though their physiology may be drastically different, it’s almost like they were meant to fit together. She leans into his shoulder, “I’m glad you’re here with me.”
“And I, you.”