#kitteria

As they wander through the ship, Skye can’t help but notice how strange it is seeing the ship so empty. There’s usually someone bustling about or muttering to themselves as they work, always something humming and whirring. Now the ship’s quiet, the only people left on board being the ones checking everything’s in working order and doing routine repairs. Skye would worry about them, but they’re all lost in their work, too focused on that to pay attention to her and her guest.

The pair of them walk hand in hand, taking the scenic route to her quarters - which involves a detour past the ship’s star drive core and through the crew quarters. They stop once in a while, Skye pointing out things of interest and nodding awkwardly in greeting when Suvi scurries past them, slowing down for a moment to give the two of them a quizzical look before carrying on her way.

“And here we are. The grand finale of our tour.”

The door closes behind them and she pulls him down into a fierce hug, squeezing a little tighter than usual. He returns it with the same ferocity. “I really missed you. Things have been so stressful lately.”  

“So I hear.” Skye pulls back so she can look at him and she raises an eyebrow. Reyes shrugs. “What? It’s not like everyone’s not talking about it right now. The Salarian ark, found at last. It’s big news.”

Skye sighs and it’s his turn to raise a questioning eyebrow. “What? Not in a celebratory mood?”

“After that mess of a mission? God no.” Her shoulders slump and Reyes catches her chin between his finger and thumb, turns her face so she’s looking at him. He asks what happened and she sighs. “I had to make some difficult choices on that mission. I could only save the krogans or the salarians and we needed the salarian Pathfinder so I went for her. But we had to leave Drack’s scouts behind, which was an even harder choice to make with him there beside me.” She pauses and adds quietly. “He’s not really speaking to me right now. Not that I blame him. We saw what they did to the krogan and it’s not pretty.”

“You did what you had to do.” He smiles reassuringly and to his relief a small smile forms in the corners of Skye’s lips. “I’m sure he’ll understand that, in time.”

“Yeah well, I don’t blame him for questioning my logic. I was struggling to think straight, what with having only recently regained consciousness.”

Reyes’ smile instantly vanishes and his brow furrows, concern etching his features. “Regained consciousness? What happened?” He subtly begins checking over her face for any signs of injury, but he finds nothing visible. Still, he makes a mental note to look into this further.

Skye exhales a heavy sigh. “Look, it’s not a big deal. Like you said, I did what I had to do. That’s all.” Reyes’ expression remains unchanged and she looks away, knowing he won’t ease up on the topic, at least not straight away. Deciding to answer him and get it over with she says quietly, “SAM stopped my heart.” Reyes opens his mouth to air his displeasure, but she quickly interrupts him. “It was necessary, okay. We were stuck in this force field and the only way to get out of it was to die and so SAM stopped my heart and then resuscitated me so I could turn off the machine. It’s fine. It worked. I’m fine.”

“And what if he’d failed? What if he couldn’t bring you back?”

She stares down at her hands, picks at her fingers as she talks. “I didn’t really have time to worry about that. We had to get out of there and it was the only plan we had. It wasn’t great, but it was necessary.” She looks up at him, a weak smile on her face. “And hey, it’s fine. I’m alive and minus a little grogginess afterwards I feel fine now.”

He rakes a hand through his hair, but after a moment’s thought returns her smile nonetheless, albeit just as weakly. “I suppose that is what matters. Just, please don’t go making a habit of this. I don’t think my heart could take it and I don’t have a SAM to resuscitate me like you do.” Reyes chuckles, but the laughter doesn’t quite reach his eyes.