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Aya hits him like a truck, every time. Havarl too, in that isolated scientific outpost and the small town Jaal’s family practically rules, but Aya more than Havarl because it’s dense with angara. They have room to spread on most other planets and try not to have too many people packed into too tight of spaces where the kett can find them—even now, with the kett mostly eradicated, old habits are hard to break. And it’s not like Scott’s ever been to Havarl’s cities, or even been invited to those secret planets he shouldn’t officially know about.
It’s like the first time again, every time he steps off the ship. No wonder it’s mostly non-human races from the Nexus coming here, the asari and salarians and the occasional turian engaging in cultural exchange. Humans aren’t averse to it, see Kadara, but it’s a lot all at once on Aya.
When every angara smelled like a human alpha or omega turned up to eleven, putting so many in one place was… overwhelming.
He wobbles for a second, sees Gil and Suvi do the same, Liam actually stumbling when his feet leave the ramp. Cora’s the only one who manages to keep herself contained and he’s like ninety-nine percent sure that’s pure asari huntress training there. It’s the only explanation he has for how firmly she’s able to resist her own instincts, because he knows for a damn fact that she’s not noseblind. She’s just way better at this than the rest of them sometimes.
“Okay,” Scott says, reorienting himself as the rest of the Tempest crew disembark. Jaal’s long gone, off the ship almost the moment they landed, but he can’t be upset about that. He knows exactly where to find him again. “We’re here for four days, max, but remember that we’re still bunking on the ship. I mean, unless you find someone else to bunk with, I won’t judge.”
“Better not,” Liam says with a grin, elbowing Gil. Scott valiantly ignores him, but also privately makes a promise with himself to find some pyjak treats and lure it onto Liam’s couch at some point in the future.
“Try not to get into any trouble this time?” When he gets the dutiful, and totally insincere, nods from everyone, he waves his hands for them to leave. Vetra’s got something to handle in the docks, he knows Suvi and Peebee are going straight to the museum, Liam’s bound to find trouble somewhere in the name of cultural exchange and Drack’s probably going to find it with him. He’s not sure where Gil’s headed off to but figures it’s really none of his business for now, especially since Kallo is going the same direction and they’re not biting each other’s heads off, but Lexi opts to stay on the ship for now.
Which leaves him and Cora to amble towards the governor’s office, almost perfectly in step with each other. He wonders, not for the first time, if Dad ever pictured this when he passed the mantle on. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable to look back at his memories and realize just how much family had mattered to Dad—and just how little Cora did, in the end.
“Captain Dunn told me that Addison is leaning on her again,” Cora says as they move to the side for a passing cluster of angara. After a few minutes on Aya, it’s easier for Scott to ignore the overpowering scent of them, focusing his attention on something other than how damned appealing he finds most of them.
They may genuinely have problems with repopulation if even half the humans on the Nexus are as attracted to angara as he is. “Did she say why? I thought the Kadara thing had been swept under the rug for now.”
“I guess there’s a group of malcontents causing a fuss on the Nexus, and Addison’s their chosen mouthpiece. Probably because she’s the colony director and Dunn’s been stonewalling the Nexus while we finish defrosting everyone on the Hyperion.” Cora grimaces, falling into step beside him again. He wonders if she’s going to stick around the garden this time, or if she’s going to head for the Resistance base and try to get some cross-training in.
“That’s fun. I’ll keep it in mind, try to keep my nose clean for a while. Maybe they’ll remember that they like me, most of the time? I’m really charming, you know.” He gives her one of his patented smiles, and Cora snorts out a laugh when she glances over. “Look at this lovable face.”
“You’re a menace, Ryder,” she tells him, breaking off at the stairs to the governor’s office. Off to the Resistance base, then. He wonders if he’ll see her there, or if she’ll be in the middle of a training exercise by the time he’s done talking to Paaran Shie. Hard to tell sometimes.
Ambassador Rialla is fiddling with the controls for her projector when he pokes his head in on her, muttering under her breath about ionic interference. He’s not sure if that’s a cover for not reporting in to Tann (a commendable excuse) or if it’s really a problem she’s dealing with, but he says, “Do you want me to boost the signal through the Tempest?”
“No,” she says, looking up with a smile a moment later. Definitely a cover, then. “No, I think it’ll pass in, oh, a couple hours. After Tann has hopefully closed up the office and decided to sleep. Can I help you with anything, Pathfinder?”
Funny, how he’s the Pathfinder still. The Pathfinder, as if the other three don’t exist. Avitus has been figuring out the deep space scans for a better planet, so it’s not like he’s been off making a name for himself, but Scott can’t help but notice how Sarissa and Hayjer don’t have even a quarter of the influence he does. “I was going to offer you the same thing, actually. I’m gonna talk to the governor, then swing around to sit down with the Moshae before we figure out who’s ferrying her back to the Nexus. Need me to mention anything?”
“Actually, since you mention it—” Rialla turns away, digging around on her desk before lifting a datapad. “I know Meridian is still getting off the ground, but some of the scientists here are putting in requests to study the Remnant tech there. Since most of the vaults on other planets are inaccessible or dangerous, I thought I’d pass the request on. I don’t know if the Moshae has anything planned, but it wouldn’t hurt to tell her either.”
“Neat, I love being a messenger. SAM?”
“The list of scientists and their requests has been transferred to your omnitool, Pathfinder,” SAM says, soothing and even over their private line. “I can cross-reference it against whatever list the Moshae provides to pick the individuals with the best skillset, should there be limited access provided.”
“SAM says we’re golden,” Scott tells her, grinning at the exaggerated sigh of relief she lets out. “I don’t know how soon we can make it happen, but the colonization efforts are going pretty well and I think we’ll be producing food alongside Eos pretty soon. Should I pass on a request for agricultural barter too, or leave that in the Moshae’s hands?”
Rialla wavers for a second, then shakes her head. “I’m only representing the Nexus interests on Aya for this, I can’t claim to speak for Meridian. But tell the Moshae I’m willing to be a sounding board for any arguments she may have one way or another; it’s possible Aya would be in competition with the Nexus for excess resources off of Meridian, so it would be best to keep me in the loop.”
“Can do, Ambassador. Good luck in avoiding Tann.” He salutes her, half-joking and half-earnest, and spins on a heel to head back out of the embassy. The arbiters glance up just long enough to confirm it’s him, then go back to working without comment, which usually means that Paaran is available. He knocks anyways, waiting a half second before opening the door.
The view from her office is incredible, like always. Aya is warm, a combination of the distant magma flows and tropical storms that batter the city on a regular basis. It’s an odd planet, in its own wild and gorgeous way, and it’s kind of nice to see it from the safety of an air conditioned room sometimes. Paaran is a lone figure watching over it all, her hands folded behind her back and a thoughtful frown on her face.
He still can’t really tell if he’s intruding, but she hasn’t thrown him out yet. And business before pleasure and all that, he figures he really ought to talk to her before he goes off and finds Jaal. Who’s probably with Evfra.
Oh, he’s got it bad.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” His voice feels overloud in the quiet office, but Paaran only turns and regards him for a moment before favoring him with a smile. There’s an undeniable elegance to the way the angara move, all of them, and it keeps catching Scott off guard. A species so open and in touch with their emotional selves shouldn’t move with that kind of regality, he thinks. That’s always seemed like something reserved for the coldly logical and remote sorts.
“Just my thoughts, but they were going in circles anyways. I’m afraid I don’t have any news for you, Ryder. Your support of the Moshae as the Nexus ambassador has been somewhat divisive, but I suspect you knew that already.” Her smile widens when he shrugs, showing just how little he cares about his divisive opinions. “It will be interesting, once there’s a more systemic form of governance in place. Does the Nexus know that Aya and Havarl will not be the only two angaran planets sitting at the table?”
“If the Moshae hasn’t told them, probably not,” Scott says. A ping on his omintool informs him that she’s sent him a message, requesting they reschedule their meeting for tomorrow. SAM responds for him, before Scott can even think of a message to compose.
“I’ll have to ask her. I believe she’s been weighing her options there, though we both knew that you were aware. She’s not the most popular on some of our hidden planets, you know.” Paaran returns her gaze to the window, her smile fading a little. “So much of us has been shaped by the kett. It will be a struggle to find our roots again without them.”
“Well, I doubt there’s going to be a formal draft of an Andromeda Constitution for at least another year.” He glances over the message SAM sent—perfectly polite, if a little bland—and then dismisses them both. “Sarissa’s still working to relocate the asari. Elaaden’s kind of krogan central now, and we’re not willing to touch Havarl or Voeld since they’re angaran. Until she can find another golden world, we’re going to be cooling our heels for a bit.”
“Another good reason to tell the Nexus about our other homeworlds,” Paaran says, still turned away. “I’d hate to have one of the other Pathfinders stumble across them the way you stumbled across us.”
“Yeah, not my finest moment.” Scott doesn’t wince, but he does watch the way a smile flickers over Paaran’s face again. He’d made the Moshae ambassador for himself, not for the angara, but he’s willing to admit in private to drawing some inspiration from Paaran’s steady hand at the helm of Aya. She isn’t an omega, no matter what his nose says, but every other human will make that same assumption too.
And Scott is spitefully, viciously happy to reinforce that little misconception.
She turns back to him after a moment, her expression set into something a little more diplomatic. “You’re meeting with the Moshae next, correct? She’ll have thoughts on the matter.”
“Tomorrow. She, uh, rescheduled on me, so I’m heading straight for the Resistance headquarters after this.” He doesn’t blush, he does not, but he can’t hide the way he stands a little straighter, the way he knows he brightens up with eagerness. Vetra pointed it out once, when he’d asked where Jaal was, and now Scott can’t stop noticing it when all of his focus turns towards the men he adores.
“In that case, give Evfra my regards, and tell him I look forward to butting heads again,” she says dryly. But there’s a sparkle in her eyes that tells him he’s not fooling anyone, and Paaran probably enjoys the blackmail she has now. Not that it’s very good blackmail when Evfra refuses to do anything to hide the closer nature of their relationship but—well, it’s still good enough to make Scott squirm.
“Yep, can do,” he says, a little higher than he means to, and he leaves before she can laugh openly at him. Neither of the arbiters so much as glance at him as he passes by, and by the time he’s out under the sun again, he’s got some of his composure back. There’s dark clouds threatening, and he figures Aya is due for a major storm soon anyways.
For a second, he wonders if the crew is all ready for it. But this isn’t their first time on Aya, and he’s not a very good mother hen anyways. They can handle themselves, and if they can’t, SAM will give him a heads up. Nothing happens around the Tempest without SAM being tangentially aware of it at the very least.
“Is Jaal…?” Scott asks, knowing he looks crazy when he talks to himself and finding that he’s remarkably okay with that.
“Currently with Evfra in the Resistance headquarters,” SAM says over their private line. There’s a moment of silence, and then he continues, “Down in the shooting range, rather than the main floor. They have been there for approximately ten minutes. Cora is currently engaged in a cross-cultural training exercise, and appears to be teaching the angara how to effectively combat a highly skilled biotic.”
“Thanks, SAM.” He files the last bit away and then turns the first over in his head like a river stone, smoothing it over until it’s like glass under his thoughts. Evfra is notoriously difficult to pull away from his work, usually the first in the bullpen and the last to leave. If Jaal managed to convince him down to the shooting range, either things are very slow right now or there’s some kind of stress Evfra needs to work out.
And the thing Scott can’t stop, that unfortunate quirk of either upbringing or instincts, immediately starts trying to figure out a way to help. He likes helping, likes smoothing the stress out of Evfra’s face, likes being the thing that makes fears drop off Jaal’s shoulders and anxieties melt away. It’s the only damn reason he’s stuck with this Pathfinder thing for so long. (Well, not the only damn reason, but he likes to think his friends would still like him even if he weren’t the Pathfinder.)
He knows exactly what one of those bio-essentialist dickheads on the Nexus would say about it too. Nurturing instincts or whatever, an omega’s natural place, of course he’s subservient to his alphas, blah blah blah. It’s enough to make him want to dig in his heels and cause problems instead, but he can’t bring himself to actually do it—not when the food situation is so precarious for everyone, not when every kett remaining alive in the galaxy is a threat to some innocent, not when he knows all too well those burdens Jaal and Evfra shoulder because he’s shouldering all of them too.
At least the Hyperion’s colonists are too happy about being woken up to make a fuss about an inadequate Pathfinder. Scott fully anticipates hearing complaints start up soon, especially once the hard work sets in; the newly thawed colonists, the humans that get to wake up in paradise, they don’t understand how much was sacrificed for them. The Nexus might have a couple people that chafe at his title, but almost everyone who was awake for it knows just how much he’s done for the Initiative. For the whole of Andromeda, really. The new people, they won’t understand that.
But Paaran likes him, the Moshae appreciates his scientific rigor (ha), and Evfra has bent him over a desk often enough that Scott thinks his position here is pretty damn secure. If Meridian ever becomes intolerable, he’s totally running off and becoming an honorary angara.
Buoyed up by that much more cheerful line of thinking, he heads downstairs through the headquarters, nodding at some of the Resistance members he passes by. There’s fewer and fewer of them every time he visits, and he hopes it’s because most of them are finally picking places to settle, cleaning up Voeld and Havarl with the intent to live there once it’s safe. He likes to think that they’ll kick the kett out of the galaxy soon and everyone will get a chance for a happy ending.
The shooting range isn’t as busy as he expected it to be—Cora’s training exercise must have dragged in every other angara down here, and Scott can’t really be upset about that. They need the training against a biotic as powerful as her and he needs a chance to catch Evfra and Jaal alone. Win-win for everyone. And it also means he gets a chance to sneak up on two people he’s never snuck up on, especially since there’s no one to announce his presence with either questions for him or demands to know why he thinks he’s down there.
Evfra is holding a rifle up to his shoulder, sighted in on a target down the field. Within seconds, Scott’s already wincing about his stance, but that’s probably the reason Jaal is wrapped around Evfra’s back, hands brushing against Evfra’s arms and shoulders to reposition him. The shot, when Scott squints down the range, still goes a little wide, but it’s in the target at least. It wouldn’t have been if Jaal hadn’t stepped in.
Vetra’s a pretty shit shot too, when it comes down to it, and Drack’s about as good at hitting things with his shotgun as he is with his head, which is to say that he uses both at similar ranges most of the time. Everyone’s got their own strengths, Scott’s no judge of that. (If he were going to be a judgy judgerson, Sara’s consistently better scores at the range would put that to rest fast.)
He still leans against the wall of the range booth, watching as Evfra sights in and automatically slips back into that sloppy, close-combat stance. Before he can say something, Jaal is there to tug Evfra back into place, making a low noise of disapproval when he does.
“Look, Ryder’s here,” Evfra says with exasperation, his hands steady as he lets himself be readjusted. “Critique his shooting.”
“As much as I would enjoy that, Scott’s almost as good a shot as I am,” Jaal murmurs, flashing him a quick smile before pressing a kiss to Evfra’s head. It prompts a grumble, but when Evfra takes the shot, all three of them crane their heads to check how it landed. Bullseye, even if it’s a bit of a fluke.
“You’re probably better in hand-to-hand combat than we are,” Scott says, not actually sure if that’s true. Jaal’s pretty effective with a knife and biotics count as an unfair advantage in his mind. And Evfra spends a lot of time at headquarters…
“Unlikely,” he says dryly, setting the gun down and flipping the safety. It’s been modified for angara hands but it isn’t angaran in make, and maybe that’s why Evfra is fighting with it so much. “I’ve gotten rusty, and I wasn't particularly exceptional in the first place. My skill lies in strategy.”
“We love you anyways,” Scott tells him sincerely, grinning at the quelling look Evfra gives him. Jaal’s hands have dropped to Evfra's hips, holding him close still even if none of them are pretending to pay attention to the gun anymore. It's tempting to slide between Evfra and the rifle stock, sandwich him in and work some of that tension out, but they're in public and Scott finds himself always checking that instinct.
“The last exaltation facility has been destroyed,” Jaal says, his hands squeezing slightly as Evfra grunts. “We got the news just after the Tempest landed.”
Scott stands up straighter, eyes widening. They've been clearing the lingering bastions of kett resistance out in the wake of the Archon’s death, but those exaltation facilities had been the most critical to destroy. “Wait, really? That's great, isn't it?”
“The team on the ground made the call. No survivors.” Evfra starts to reach for the gun again, then grimaces and drops his hands to Jaal’s instead. “It was the best call they could make, but it wasn't the uplifting news we wanted. And we still don't know if it was the last one.”
“But it is a victory,” Jaal disagrees, with the air of someone who's been arguing this position for a while. Scott mentally tries to count back how long he’d taken getting the Tempest cleared to sit on the landing pad for half a week, briefing the rest of the team, touching base with Paaran. An hour, maybe, but an hour of arguing against the stone wall that Evfra throws up is a long damn hour.
“As much as I’d like to say that, the angara that were hoping to see their families again—” Evfra cuts off as Scott squeezes between him and the rifle stock, hands smoothing over the soft fabric draped over his chest. “Ryder.”
“I need to institute a first name rule for Aya,” he says, reaching back to adjust the gun so it isn't digging into his hip.
“How much work do you have left?” Jaal picks up on his plan immediately, because Jaal’s the best, and Scott gives him a grin of appreciation. “We can establish the rule back in your quarters, Evfra.”
“Both of you,” Evfra says in exasperation, but he makes no move to force either of them away. “I have paperwork to do and two of my teams are going to be in contact later today. Is that work enough for you?”
“The real question is, is it work you can't do from home?” Scott raises his hands to cup Evfra's face, one thumb catching on the scars that score down over his cheek. Jaal’s mouth is working over Evfra's skin, and he can see the way Evfra wavers, just slightly.
Of course, if Evfra is determined to stay, there's nothing they can do to convince him. He's as bullheaded as they come and twice as contrary, just as likely to deprive himself out of duty as he is out of spite. But the Resistance isn't hovering on the brink of destruction anymore and Scott wants to take a little of that burden away, even if it's just for a few hours.
He’d made a different call the last time he'd been at an exaltation facility, and he's still not sure if it was the right one. That kind of weight sticks.
“...I suppose most of it could be managed outside of headquarters,” Evfra eventually says, his eyes half-lidded as Scott and Jaal do everything they can to tease him apart. “If the both of you promise to let me work.”
“We can behave,” Jaal says, in tones that promise anything but that.
“We’re really good at that,” Scott agrees, feeling the way Evfra’s reluctant body is easing into his touch.
“I don’t believe it for a second,” Evfra mutters, but he leans in to kiss Scott anyways, and the taste of victory is sweet.