Chapter Text
“Even one krogan life matters.” Drack’s voice isn’t even that loud, “Ryder, I thought you would understand.”
This hurts Sara more than she expected.
Sara almost wishes that he was yelling at her. Instead, Drack stares at her in a way that Sara will never get used to. Resigned, guarded. As if she was not his commander, his friend, but a threat.
“Drack, I know you won’t accept my apologies, but please know this, and know that my words are true -” Sara hears herself, “I have committed a crime, and I am willing to pay for it. I do not regret my choice, but I will hand myself over to your clan after the kett is defeated.”
The solemnity in that statement makes it an oath. Sara locks eyes with Drack, who is obviously taken aback by the sudden declaration of crime and responsibility.
The command bridge is quiet as a graveyard. Even the soft humming of the starship’s engine seems to have disappeared.
Without a word, Drack leaves the command bridge. Her pilot and science officer were silent when Drack was here. Now he’s gone, and Sara is suddenly afraid to even face them. She betrayed Drack by abandoning the krogan scouts in the test tanks to save a salarian. The connotation was there, undeniable, even though it was never Sara’s intention.
“I will inform the Initiative that we have secured the salarian Ark. Kallo, navigate us back to the Nexus. We will escort the Paarchero home. ”
She issues her command, calm and level-headed as ever. She is still wearing the Remnant suit, the dark red glow on her suit casts an ominous shadow upon her face. The green blood of the Archon paints her face, dripping down from her cheek. Pathfinder Ryder releases her grips.
Kallo complies. Sara’s expression is carefully blank as she leaves the command bridge. Peebee is leaning against the escape pod, and she makes an awkward attempt to straighten her figure as Sara walks by. Sara pays her no heed, afraid of seeing what she will undoubtedly find on her face.
Instead, she quickens her footsteps. She is running to her room. She has to flee from the gaze of her friends.
She simply needs to climb down the ladder to reach her room, but her hands are trembling and her legs are noodly. It takes her tremendous effort just to climb down. When she is finally in her room again, she immediately collapses onto the floor.
“Pathfinder!”
It is uncharacteristic for SAM to shout, his synthetic voice tight with concern. Sara, however, does not have the energy to comment on it, to thank him for worrying about her. She is alive - and will remain that way. This is for sure. She knows her own body.
With shaky hands, she takes off her suit; the smart textile designed to withhold gunfire and bombs is already destroyed beyond recognition. The fight on the Archon’s ship was vicious; Sara should count herself lucky that she survived, albeit barely.
There have been slashes and bruises, but those are relatively mild. When she finally takes away the torso piece of her armor, blood starts dripping, gradually pooling to the ground around her.
She puts her hands on her abdomen and gasps at the searing pain. Her undershirt, originally white, is now scarlet red after being drenched in blood. She pretended as if she was unscathed when facing the Archon. She appeared as if she was unharmed when addressing her team. Now, in her room, with only SAM present, she suddenly loses all the energy to even sit on the floor. Her limbs are wobbly, her body weak, and she considers lying down on the floor and just passing out.
“Pathfinder ...”
“Well, this is embarrassing...” a choked laugh escapes her lips, “SAM, do you think you can help me out a little bit?”
“I have already slowed your heartbeat so that you won’t lose too much blood. I will do what I can to quicken the healing. I must insist, again, that you should see Dr. T’Perro, although you already gave me your answer.”
“What would I do without you ...”
Her voice is so weak that Sara isn’t sure if she actually voices her thought. Her blood paints her hands, her face, and her sight. With tremendous effort, she pops herself up against a wall, her trembling hand leaving an array of sinister prints. But every step she takes is torture, and the edge of her vision starts getting dark.
“Forgive me, SAM ...”
She collapses onto the floor again.
If I had a body of my own, I would carry you to your bed.
She feels SAM’s intention, the gentleness that this ephemeral thought conveys.
“There is nothing to forgive, Pathfinder… Sara. I will not let you die.”
……
In her dream, she stands on a cliff. Below her is dark, deep water. The waves crash onto the reefs. The loudness is deafening and water splashes on her face. Her vision becomes blurry, as she listens to the beckoning of the water.
She raises her hands. They are stained with the blood of different colors. The smell is as revolting as it is eerie.
In the water, she sees the suffering she has caused. Her lack of knowledge as a Pathfinder. Her incompetence. She spoke against Sarissa for abandoning the woman she was supposed to guard, and now the asari have developed a deep distrust in her. Many disillusioned asari left the Initiative for Kadara. In the water, she sees the tired face of each and every one of them, who slept six hundred years for a dream that never was. She encouraged, or rather, forced, Avitus to take the leadership role from Macen, because she thought the turian people would benefit from the guidance of the late Pathfinder’s second in command. However, he becomes so hopeless, so forlorn, and he is always seen staring at the holographic projection of his predecessor. She made him sacrifice his happiness.
Now the krogan scouts are among them. She sees them suffering and struggling in the test tanks.
Her father would never have caused so much suffering. Her father always knew what to do. He was the original Pathfinder, trained for the job. She stole the mantle of Pathfinder from Cora, who remains loyal to her nonetheless.
She closes her eyes and opens her arms. Then she allows herself to fall into the water. The dead are calling for her name. She longs to join them.
……
Suddenly she opens her eyes, pulled away from this bizarre dream. She is still on the floor, lying in the pool of her own blood. Her body is still too heavy, but the sharp pain on her abdomen subdued. She is no longer bleeding - SAM saved her, again.
He was also the one who pulled her out of her sleep. But why?
Her doorbell rings. That small, soothing sound, designed to gently bring one’s attention, is so sudden that Sara almost trembles and gasps, her hand on the pistol in an instant.
She grips the weapon, knuckles white. Slowly, she puts it down. It is ridiculous that she would even reach for it in the first place. No one except for her crew members would come to her door at this hour.
Who could it be, then? Is it Drack? Did he come to interrogate her, or perhaps to kill her? Maybe it’s Vetra, who values loyalty above everything else, so she came to resign from her post on Sara’s starship, disgusted by her action. Or it could be Jaal, coming to express his disappointment in her.
“Please give me a moment.”
She hopes her voice hasn’t betrayed her weakened state. She pulls down her duvet to cover the blood and shoves her shelves against the wall to hide the red handprints. She quickly discards her bloodied clothes and changes into a black nightgown - she never likes it, but the dark color will conceal her blood, should her wounds bleed again.
Sara readies herself for whatever is to come, but she is still shocked when the door finally opens.
“Pathfinder Ryder.”
Her guest is not one of her squadmates. Sara would recognize that pristine, distinct voice from anywhere.
Zevin Raeka is standing at her doorsteps. By the dim light of stars outside of the windows, half of her figure is almost cloaked in shadow. She is not wearing the tech-enhanced armor - the one she wore when Sara awoke her. It is a long, white robe, with red coloring decorating her sleeves and collar. There are buttons on her sleeves - smart textiles, shedding soft light of dark blue. Similar buttons are also found on her groves, their light subdued and attenuated. It is strangely enticing to just look at her, the slender, white-robed figure decorated with the enchanting light that she has only observed from the bioluminescence flowers on Harvarl.
Sara has always loved Harvarl, the ancestry home of the angara people. It is a wonderland with colorful, flying animals, and the moons would cast their iridescent veil upon the beautiful and treacherous land. There is something about this planet, something primitive, feral, unhinged. The forceful nature of Harvarl’s beauty and the ramification of invasive, destructive vines serve it well.
The other woman is slightly too tall and the hallway is very dark; Sara cannot see her eyes but she can feel her gaze. Sara is on Harvarl again, face to face with the strange force of nature of that dying planet. She is fearful of the planet, but with fear comes exhilaration and … relief. The same relief that she found when staring down at the deep, black water in her dream, with crawling phantoms and screaming shapes howling her name and demanding her life.
The same feeling haunts her as she looks at Raeka. The other woman does look like a ghost from some Earth legend, shrouded in white and wandering in the dark. Had she left Raeka to die, would the salarian Pathfinder find a way back to her in dreams? Would she join people whose blood stained Sara’s hands? Would she -
Would you save me? Would you save me from what I am now, from what I have done?
Belatedly, Sara realizes that she has been silent for a while, staring at Raeka and lost in her own thoughts. She steps aside, allowing the other woman to enter.
Raeka’s eyes are on the strange arrangement that Sara haphazardly put together to hide the fact that she was bleeding heavily, but she doesn’t say anything about it.
“I’m sorry to have disrupted your sleep,” Raeka tells her. “But I had to come. I have to … ” she glances away, almost bashfully, “I need to … Well, I was told that you haven’t been seen by your doctor after our Ark was secured.”
She already knows what Raeka is going to say.
Raeka’s hand is on her collar now, and Sara suddenly realizes that Raeka has closed the distance between them. Those long fingers linger along her neck. Raeka is not touching her, but her hand is so close that Sara can almost feel it. Raeka must have felt her quickened pulses as well.
“You took the hit for me. I would like to tend your wounds, if you don’t mind.”
Of course Raeka noticed. True to her reputation, the salarian Pathfinder is observant. When a kett soldier tried to shoot at Raeka, Sara shielded her from his gunfire that destroyed her helmet and blasted away part of her armor. She didn’t feel anything except for the wetness on her abdomen, under the textile, but she knew what it was. She made sure to hide it, quickly. Seems like her effort was futile.
“That won't be necessary.”
Raeka’s hand drops, not looking surprised. Still, she asks:
“May I ask why?”
Why? Sara scoffs. At herself, of course, but it’s possible that Raeka takes it the wrong way. She doesn’t want to answer the question.
Raeka’s eyes soften. She asks, again, and the question uttered is different from the one Sara expected. She wonders if Raeka noticed her reluctance because the other woman changes the topic.
“Why did you put your life on the line to save me?”
“Because I had to protect you.” That, at least Sara can answer with honesty.
“You put too much faith in me, Ryder. I am honored,” once again, Raeka doesn’t push the question, nor does she force Sara to answer why she refuses to seek medical treatment, “I know who you want me to be, and my only fear is that one day, you will be disappointed. I am not who you think I am, and I will never be.”
As a race that thinks fast and acts fast, the salarians are surprisingly soft-spoken. Raeka is no exception. Then she offers Sara a smile, a courteous, concerned one, as if to make up for the suddenness of the unprompted visit.
“Who I think you are ...” Sara repeats. She lowers her eyes, lost in her thoughts. When she raises her head again, there’s light in her eyes, as a pale shimmer of moonlight dancing on the surface of the vast ocean.
Salarians are not considered attractive to human standards, but Sara is always able to look over the facile appearance of an individual. Raeka is beautiful, almost in an ethereal way. Her figure is hauntingly thin, almost gaunt as a ghost, and Sara was concerned if the opposite force of firing of her assault rifle would knock the other woman off balance. Yet Raeka handled her weapon with the deadly grace of an asari huntress. When she checked her gun, the only thing that Sara could see was the determination in her action, the calmness on her face. Those long fingers caressed the rifle reverently as she murmured something to her weapon - it was intimate - as if she was talking to a lover to whom she had entrusted her life.
Raeka is not a biotic, but there’s only a few biotics that can hope to challenge Raeka in combat. When she was trapped by the enemy, Raeka was still calm enough to give out commands - she prioritized her people on the Ark and guided Hajyer to dislodge the Paarchero from the Archon’s ship. Never once did she panic, even in the face of death and possibly a fate even worse - exaltation.
This is what a Pathfinder should be. An exceptional commander and a skilled soldier. She minimized the casualties that her people suffered - unlike Sara, who always leaves a trail of corpses of her own people wherever she goes.
“All I asked for was you, Pathfinder Raeka.” Sara smiles, her expression soft and lovely. For a moment, she gazes at Raeka, into her large eyes with such hope and affection as if looking at something precious, “that’s why I came back for you. I would always come back for you.”
Raeka closes her eyes, wistfulness in her voice: “you don’t know me.”
“True, but my father did, and he chose you.”
“If you value his opinion so much, would it change your mind if I tell you that Alec would hope that his daughter seeks medical attention when needed?”
Sara’s lips curl up into a smile: “don’t put words in a dead man’s mouth. Your words are yours and yours alone. Don’t pretend to speak for him.”
Raeka does not respond to that. She simply tilts her head, thinking.
“Very well,” Raeka concedes, and she smiles again, sad and sweet at the same time, “but Ryder, I brought antibiotics and other medications that you might need. With SAM, I have no doubt that you will survive without any permanent damage, but it pains me to see that you intentionally make yourself suffer. Therefore, I hope you’ll reconsider - let me tend your wounds, please.”
Raeka’s voice is gentle, her eyes true, and she has been nothing if not comforting and considerate. She looks at Sara as if her happiness depends on Sara’s answer. It is too much, Sara almost wants to indulge her, let her do what she wants.
Raeka doesn’t touch her, but her gaze alone holds her still. She is unable to move her face, unable to even look away. In the darkness of her bedroom where the only lights are the dim shimmers of the stars outside, Raeka’s eyes seem to bear into her chest like that of a mysterious spirit, only sweeter, kinder, and more mesmerizing.
“Is this an order?”
Raeka is confused by her question. She says, “I have no right to order you. Our titles are equal.”
“Are they?” Sara scoffs at her words, “no. You were appointed six hundred years ago, by the Andromeda Initiative. You were elected by your people. I am but a … ” she trails off, closing her eyes, “I only became a Pathfinder because my father was one.” Then she glares at the other woman, daring her to do as she is asked. There is simply no reason that Raeka, always treating her with respect, would agree. Also, as the salarian Pathfinder, issuing a command at the human Pathfinder will not be taken kindly by Sara’s people.
Raeka holds her gaze. She considers Sara’s words with so much deliberation as if she’s contemplating a scientific hypothesis. Finally, she speaks again, having made up her mind.
“As you wish.”
This time, it is Sara who looks up, shock on her face. She did not expect Raeka to go along with it - she expected polite refusal, in which case she would decline Raeka's request and ask the other woman to leave. Her eyes are so wide that her expression must be comical, because Raeka lets out a little laugh.
Then, Raeka raises her hand, once again, and her fingers reach for her face.
Raeka’s hand is gloved, brushing against her face. The touch is so light, as her three fingers trace gently along the shape of Sara’s cheek, her throat, then its rests upon Ryder’s collarbone where her nightgown is held together by a button. Her eyes follow where her fingers go, her touch devoid of warmth. Yet Sara tenses up at her touch. Then she shudders, averting her eyes.
Raeka’s touch leaves a trace of blazing fire; despite its gentleness, Sara grits her teeth in pain, as if Raeka was cutting open her flesh with a dagger. She instinctively wants to move away, but she discovers that she cannot will her body to move.
She has no idea where Raeka’s intention lies. The way Raeka looks at her, contemplative and affectionate, sends a shock of fantastic horror down her spine. And she knows that something about this is off. This is not supposed to happen.
“Why ...” now it is Sara’s turn to ask that question, only her control over her emotions preventing her voice from shaking, “why are you doing this? Do you know what -” does Raeka realize that what she’s doing is romantically suggestive at best, inappropriately sexual at worst. Sara doubts it, as most salarians have no interest in such things, so perhaps she doesn’t know.
To Sara’s question, Raeka, tilting her head ever so slightly with amusement, simply responds: “I’m doing this because you asked for it. Weren’t you the one who insisted that I ranked higher than you? Well, you didn’t expect that I would go along with it, did you? You thought I wouldn't risk a misconduct that would surely cause a political scandal.”
“So be it. You can tell the Initiative about what I am about to do. I would rather risk a political scandal and be hated by all the humans in the Initiative, than see you suffer needlessly.” Raeka chuckles, but her expression is serious, “I will not allow it, unless you tell me to stop.”
“I -” Sara bites her lips, cursing herself. Weakly, she tries one last time, her voice almost begging, “please, Pathfinder Raeka … ”
Sara lowers her eyes, her hands gripping her elbows. She is drowning in a flood of overwhelming emotions. She opens her mouth, wanting to tell Raeka that this is all too improper, but no words come from her lips. Raeka sighs, her finger brushing against Sara’s cheek. It dawns to Sara that she is crying, but those aren’t tears of fear or sadness.
“Ryder, you have shown me and my people great generosity. Perhaps I do not deserve it, but I will repay you and forever remain your ally. Please know that you can always come to me. I wish … ” she lets out a sigh, “I hope we can become friends. I hope that eventually, you will trust me.”
“Have you seen a lack of trust?”
“You won’t let me take care of you, even though you took the hit for me. The only logical conclusion is that you are uneasy around me, not comfortable with letting me touch you. You also tried to hide from the fact that you were hurt, from which I can only conclude that you didn’t want me to see your vulnerability,” Raeka says, “isn’t this a lack of trust?”
Sara should be offended - Raeka barged into her bedroom in the middle of the night, made an attempt to touch her, and made ridiculous assumptions.
She is not angry at Raeka at all, but she is tired - too tired to engage in a conversation with another colleague of hers. Whatever Raeka’s intention is, Sara cannot afford to brush off another Pathfinder. Talking to the salarian Pathfinder requires finesse and professionalism, which she is incapable of at the current moment, weak and exhausted.
“If that is true,” she speaks, slowly, “then you are suggesting that I don’t trust any of my crew members. None of them knows about my condition.”
“Oh, no, I'm sure that you trust them, but you think that they do not care, that they detest you,”
which is not what Raeka has seen. Perhaps the krogan was furious at her, feeling betrayed, but there was never hate in his eyes during the mission. He obeyed her commands and guarded her dutifully, so did her other crew members. However, Raeka decides that it's not the best time to bring this up
The sudden change of tone is startling. With a blink of an eye, the considerate, compassionate spirit becomes a phantom that easily lashes out. Before Sara could manage a response, Raeka continues:
“If you trust me, then would you listen to me? know that your health affects your mission. If you don’t think for yourself, think for the Initiative. It won’t benefit from you sustaining untreated injuries. I will have to report to Tann so that you can be taken care of. He wouldn’t like that idea that an injured Pathfinder slows down the progress that she should be making.”
Then she offers: “I promise I won’t tell anyone of your injury, if I know that you are treated.”
Sara is almost amused by Raeka’s effort to manipulate her into allowing her to treat the wounds. Raeka brought up her dead father, her duty to the Initiative, and that Sara not taking care of herself pains Raeka.
Raeka tilts her head, waiting for her answer. Sara averts her gaze, looking at the small holographic projection of SAM instead. Her AI partner is unusually quiet - perhaps he doesn’t know how to make sense of the situation, either. Or perhaps he is just confused or overwhelmed by Sara’s chaotic thoughts.
“I’ll do as you say, Pathfinder Raeka.”
Raeka beams at her, and Sara is speechless again, fascinated by the way starlight dances in her eyes.
~~~~~
Raeka knows what Sara Ryder wants her to be - she knew it since the beginning when awakened from her cryo pod. She was terrified by it, the expression on the face of the young daughter of her dear friend.
Ryder’s brown hair was long and combed, but the longest strands on her forehead still fell below her ears, so very close to her chin. Her eyes, steely blue, reminded Raeka of the piercing gaze of Alec Ryder. She used to see those eyes, sad and longing, as Alec talked about his wife and his dream to venture out to a new galaxy. Now, the same eyes gazed back at her with such firey intensity that Raeka could almost feel her eyes burned into her chest.
Raeka was not familiar with the aesthetic standards of humans, but there’s something about this young Pathfinder that beckoned to her - she saw the duality of hope and despair. Still disoriented from her slumber, Raeka found herself staring, thinking in awe that this was perhaps the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. The flashing light on the Ark reflected on Ryder’s face, and Raeka could see the slope of her nose, the sharp edge of her chin.
Raeka should have said something to break the silence, but Ryder was on top of her, bearing down, and her hair strands tickled Raeka’s face. Her arms were on both sides of Raeka who was still lying in the cryo pod that was just opened, found herself unable to speak, as Ryder looked at her face with those deep, beguiling eyes.
Raeka felt something warm dripping on her chin. She reached out to touch it, her fingers tainted red. Belatedly, she noticed that a fresh wound, deep and long, was on the underside of her chin.
Then Ryder smiled at her, extending her hand.
……
Ryder disrobes in front of her. The black fabric drops from her shoulders as water drips from that of a statue. Her clothes pool around her ankles, and Raeka is confronted with a menagerie of cuts and wounds.
The most conspicuous one starts under her left breast and extends to her right thigh. SAM must have already done something to accelerate the healing - without him, she would have bled to death. Even so, it looks bad. She remembers that a kett soldier was shooting his laser gun at her, and Ryder, using her biotics and her own body, shielded her.
Raeka lifts her head, only to find that Sara is looking at her, as well. Even in her underclothes, Ryder is not conscious of her nakedness, which Raeka finds atypical. She is different from all the other humans that Raeka has met, her father included. Alec always worried too much; his daughter cares about nothing at all.
“Would you like to sit down?” Raeka asks her.
Ryder shakes her head. She says nothing, only regarding the other woman with the faintest interest, as Raeka reaches to her pockets and retrieves antibiotics, injectors, medigel, and various other medical things that Ryder doesn’t recognize.
“Please don’t tell me you are allergic to cephalosporin, ” says Raeka, as she moves to disinfect a small area on Ryder’s neck, “this was the only antibiotics I could find.”
“Where did you search?” Ryder seems interested.
Raeka’s hands, still holding the injector and the vaccine, halts in midair. She hesitates for a moment, then answers Ryder: “I went to the med bay.”
“You told Lexi about - this? She knew that you were coming?”
“No,” Raeka clears her throat and makes a conscious effort to not look at Sara, “I visited her lab, while she was not there.”
“You stole from Lexi?” Ryder laughter is too bright for a woman covered from head to toes with her own blood, “I should thank you, then. Lexi is always too uptight and meticulous about everything. I’d love to see her face when she finds out her stuff is missing.”
Raeka wants to say that she wouldn’t call it stealing, since she took it for the well-being of Lexi’s patient, the captain of the Tempest, but the words that leave her mouth are different.
“Yes, I committed a crime for you. I’m at your mercy, Pathfinder Ryder. Please don’t turn me in.”
When Ryder is laughing at her response, Raeka injects the antibiotics. She knows the injection of cephalosporin would be painful if her mandatory training did teach her anything useful. Expectedly, Ryder gasps at the needle, her smile turning into a grimace.
“I’m sorry,” Raeka tells her. Ryder only huffs:
“Well, you could have warned me. I am not afraid of pain.”
Seeing the scars and wounds on her body, Raeka only sighs: “I am well aware of that.”
Then she disinfects her tools and puts on gloves, her long, slender fingers start to spreading medigel over the cuts. True to her words, Ryder doesn’t say a word about the pain, but Raeka can see the sweat on her forehead. On her chest.
Her deft fingers work their way on Ryder’s body. Raeka is not a medical doctor, but like many salarian scientists, she did receive training on the basics of medicine, and she is trying her best to not cause Ryder any unnecessary discomfort. Her fingerprints are light and soft, tracing along the soft curve of Ryder’s hips and breast and the toned muscles on her arms and legs. Briefly, Raeka is distracted - she is uncertain if she has overstepped, but Ryder, calm as ever, with a smile on her face and thoughts in her eyes, makes no move to stop her.
Then she wonders.
Raeka had never been this close to a human before. Sure, she understands the basic physiology of humans, but everything she learned, she learned from lectures, videos, and medical archives. Salarians are known for their curiosity, and Raeka has to resist the urge to prod different parts of Ryder’s body. She would really like to feel the muscles and bones under her hands and perhaps listen to the pulses of her heart.
Well, she’d better tuck that curiosity away. Ryder hasn’t made any attempt to stop her, but her gaze has become unnerving. Raeka quickly finishes applying bandages to her torso and limbs. When she stands up again, it seems like an eternity had passed.
“I’m sorry if that felt awful. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
Again, Ryder shakes her head. She smiles fondly at Raeka, her hand on her neck, where Raeka injected the antibiotics and later applied a small bandage.
“You did not.” Ryder’s voice is low, almost a whisper. Then she averts her gaze, sighing heavily, “but you didn’t have to help me. Nonetheless, I’m grateful.”
The despair and hope are back in her eyes, albeit only a moment. Then Ryder chuckles, scoffing at herself.
“You said that you could never be the one that I hoped for. If you truly believed in your own words … why did you come, then?”
The starlight outside the windows is a consortium of dark yet vibrant colors, casting a veil on Ryder’s figure. The perfect shape of her body and every flaw, every wound on it are accentuated. She looks weary, lost, and dazzling at the same time. It is not how things were supposed to be - Ryder is young, and she shouldn’t have that look on her face, as if haunted by people held by each battle that she took part in. Some are dead, some still living, clinging to her shoulders, enveloping her in their otherworldly whispers with great passion.
Raeka has no answer to that. In truth, Ryder saved her Ark and her people, took the hit for her, so Raeka simply did not want Ryder to suffer. She wanted to do something, no matter how tiny it would be, to help Ryder, to reach out to her. She felt pain when seeing Alec’s eyes, desperate and forlorn, on his daughter’s face. She felt as if Alec was back again and his agony continued.
“You are Alec’s daughter. I wanted to take care of you.” Raeka says. Her words don’t even register in her mind. She can no longer hold her gaze, her chest suddenly tight.
“I’m sorry, Ryder, I know this is unfair to you. You are your own person, not your father’s shadow, and shouldn’t be treated like that, but I didn’t want to lie to you.”
Her answer, however inconsiderate, seems to appease Ryder, who walks towards Raeka and stops when there’re less than two inches between them. Slowly, the human raises her arms and encases Raeka in them. She runs her hands against Raeka’s cheek, returning the other woman’s gesture. She can still smell blood on her hands, in her fingernails - that richness manages to be noisome and intoxicating at the same time. Wherever her hands move, a soft trace of redness paints Raeka’s skin.
She touches Raeka’s face with such deliberation that one might suspect that she is looking for something. Perhaps she is looking for Alec, too, from the image of his cherished friend.
“You are too kind, Raeka, but you don’t need to worry. I am honored to be seen as his shadow, his successor.”
She lifts her heels. Standing on her toes, Ryder is able to reach Raeka. She leans in to press a kiss on the other woman’s cheek - but she stops herself halfway. This is not something she could afford to just do. She literally just survived death on the Archon’s ship. Probably still recovering from her shock, Sara is certain that she isn’t thinking clearly.
Instead of pressing a kiss, Sara simply touches the other woman’s cheek again, feeling Raeka leaning in. She says, genial and sincere:
“I’m glad that I went for you.”