The Firefly (Mass Effect Andromeda)

Chapter 36

This time when Olivia woke, she felt different. More focused somehow. She was back in her hospital room. Nina was beside her. "I'm not mad." Her sister said immediately. "In fact, I'm more impressed. You nearly got away too."

"I don't feel as confused." She said slowly. "Did they fix the implant?"

"Yes." Nina replied, "Dad and Lyora and Nunok. They said you'll be groggy. And that's without dealing with what the Kett did."

"I'm fine." Olivia said automatically.

"Yeah right." Nina replied.

"I still feel so angry. With Dad and the others, I mean, for lying to me."

Nina shrugged, "I don't blame you, but I think you should talk to them."

"Do they hate me? I gave up Meridian."

"No, kiddo." Nina smiled, "They don't hate you."

"I suppose I should get this over with." Olivia sighed. "I tried to kill Scott. I knocked you out."

"You were brainwashed." Nina pointed out. "Wasn't your fault." She called them in. Lyora and Nunok and Vee entered, sitting around her. "I'll leave you guys to it." Nina rose.

"Liv, how are you feeling?" Lyora asked, her voice uncertain.

"Could be worse." She grimaced.

"I befriended you because you were Martin's daughter." Lyora said. "But you are my friend. That's what's real." She took Olivia's hand. "And all the things we've been through together are because we're truly friends. And I know Nunok and I lied. But it was because we didn't want to lose you."

"I know." Olivia whispered. "I've missed you guys."

"So are we going to hug or what?" Vee laughed.

Talking to her father was harder. There was a lot of anger there, and resentment. He and Nina weren't in a good place either. The conversation was stilted. He was going back to Eos he said, to talk with her mother. She knew they would all get through it eventually, but for now, they needed a break from each other.

She was still a mess physically, battered and bruised, her leg aching. It had been three days since her surgery. She'd handed over the location of Meridian to the Nexus now but Scott had been banned from looking for it, she was told, in case he led the Kett there. The Nexus were too frightened of war.

Her friends had been in every day talking to her, supporting her. Kendra had become the biggest threat in the galaxy now, thanks to her passing on the location. Nunok kept pointing out however, that she had no way of activating without Olivia. A lot of resources had now been diverted into tracking her down on Kadara.

She'd not seen Scott since she'd tried to shoot him. It bothered her more than she let on. And she was bored, tired of spending her life in a hospital bed. Harry would have protested, Nina and her friends too, but she forced herself out of bed, using the cane to support the old injury to her leg. She pulled on a white t-shirt and navy pants before scraping back her hair and limping from the room.

No one had spotted her in her room not far from the cryobay. She slipped down the corridor and into what she knew to be an empty room, save for numerous human cryo-pods, unattended and empty now.

The door slid shut behind her before she noticed another figure in white, sat on a bench deeper in the vast hall of pods. The other woman looked up in surprise. "I'm sorry!" Olivia called out uncertainly. "This room is normally empty."

"Why do you think I'm here?" The other woman answered wryly. "Come on in. I don't bite." Olivia limped across, taking a seat on the opposite bench. "Man, you look like you've been through a war."

Olivia laughed at the girl's honesty. "I feel like it too. I was getting tired of being cooped up. Harry will drag me back to bed if he finds out."

"Ah, you know Harry too." The girl grinned. "Same here. I'm supposed to be on total bed rest."

Olivia examined the girl with interest, and a sense of déjà vu. She was certain she'd seen that face before and those green eyes were very familiar. "You're not who I think you are, are you?"

"Depends on who you're thinking." The girl folded her arms, "My name is Sara. Sara Ryder."

"You're awake!" Olivia's eyes lit up. "I recognised your face from that first day. I helped with your pod when everything went wrong. And you look a lot like Scott."

"You mean Scott looks like me. I'm the older twin." Her eyes sparkled. "So you're a doctor then?"

"No, that was all a big misunderstanding. It...wow it was a long time ago now." Olivia laughed again. She told the story of being woken instead of her father when they'd first arrived in Andromeda, though the memory was coloured now with anger at Kendra's orchestration of the event, she said nothing of this to Sara. "I'm actually a journalist. A part-time one, anyway, and part-time adventurer it seems." She paused, "And full time discoverer of trouble."

"You'd get along well with Scott and me then." Sara grinned. "And now I know who you are. You're Olivia Taylor. I've seen some of your reports when I've been trying to catch up on everything. I thought I recognised your face beneath the bruising."

"That's me." Olivia said wryly. "How long have you been awake?"

"A little while. Scott had just come back from some alien warship or something when I woke up." She shrugged, "I've been resting, and he's barely left my side since. I just need a bit of space, you know. To process everything. It's so frustrating when I just want to get into the field."

"It must be pretty crazy for you." Olivia said. "Waking up to this madhouse. You used to work in archaeology, right?"

"You're well informed. Yeah, I used to love looking for Prothean artefacts. My team was a special exo-archaeology unit. Fully funded and sanctioned by the Alliance. I mean they paid me for doing what I loved: finding artefacts and learn what we could from them." Sara smiled. "Then it all sort of fell apart."

"What do you mean?" Olivia asked.

"I don't know how much you know about me and Scott." She shrugged, "Our mom died. And as much as we were hurting, it destroyed our dad. His research on SAM was illegal as hell but he just wanted to save Mom. The Alliance found out. He got discharged from the Alliance and whenever someone realised who Scott and I were, we became pariahs."

"That's awful."

"Being Alec Ryder's kids in the Milky Way...we were in for a lifetime of dreams that were never going to happen." Sara sighed, "Still, Scott's living the dream here. The human Pathfinder..."

"You'll get your own moment of glory soon enough." Olivia laughed.

"So what are you in the hospital for?" Sara asked, "Since you know all about me."

"I got captured and tortured by the Kett." Olivia said honestly, "And brainwashed through an implant in my head. I basically screwed up everything."

"That's...not good." Despite the dryness of her tone, Olivia saw the shock and sympathy in the girl's eyes.

"I'm dealing with it." Olivia shrugged.

She and Sara sat quietly for a few minutes, just thinking. She'd left her omni-tool in the hospital room, so no one could call her. That was when the hospital door burst open, revealing an armed soldier.