Rainbow sat on the balcony of the consulate's office after Luna had gotten her out of custody, the Princess herself wasn't there anymore as she had meetings to catch up to. The hospital had begrudgingly agreed to sign her out as Rainbow had absolutely no intention of going back there and let nurses worry about her while she would be stuck in a bed. Dash hadn't seen Fluttershy yet but wasn't really that angry with her anymore, she'd of course look into ways of fixing herself but for now would live with the condition as it didn't seem to hamper her too much other than general discomfort.
Sighing deeply Rainbow looked at the messages on her omni-tool for the hundredth time, reading the message from the Commander once again. The Normandy would be docked at the Citadel by now already so she should be getting up to the docking bay to rejoin the crew while Shepard took care of some business with a new crew member picked up on Illium. Picking herself up from the ground Rainbow proceeded to find a shuttle to take her over to the docks instead of flying in the direction herself’, from there it wasn’t a long walk until she found the stealth corvette attached to the station’s docking clamps. The airlock automatically opened as she approached, cycling its decontamination system.
“Welcome back aboard, Rainbow. Glad to see you in one piece after we pulled you out of that other ship,” Joker greeted, having turned around his chair away from. “Gabby in particular was distraught seeing you like that.”
Rainbow winced slightly. “Is she okay now?”
“Better but I think seeing you about will cheer her up some more,” Joker said as he turned his chair back around to face his controls again. “Oh and Fluttershy’s at the main battery along with Garrus screwing around with the Normandy’s new gun.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, thanks,” Rainbow said as she walked deeper into the ship, only to stop right before she entered the elevator down and moving over to the lab instead. Professor Solus was humming a tune while working as Rainbow entered.
“Ah, Rainbow Dash. Unexpected. Not used to seeing you here. Must be matter of injury?” Mordin immediately said as he noticed Rainbow enter.
“Yeah, just wanted to ask if you may have any solutions?”
“Hmm, troubling. Unsure. Will look into. Skin graft not feasible in limited timetable of Reaper’s arrival,” Mordin thought out loud. “But! Need to work on collector drone countermeasures. Not effective enough yet.”
“Alright, I’ll leave you to it then,” Dash said, walking out of the lab and now went down for real, passing through the crew quarter towards the frontal battery. Some of the crew looked surprised to see her up and about but did leave her alone.
“The Thanix was reverse-engineered from Sovereign’s main armament after it was salvaged. The stuff is technically top secret… unless you know the right people of course.” Garrus could be heard talking from the side of the cannon.
“It’s also a massive drain on our power systems,” Gabby’s voice pointed out. “If you’d just let me...”
“Change my settings? You’d mess up my calibrations completely!” Garrus replied as Dash peaked around the corner, finding Garrus and Gabby facing off with Fluttershy in between.
“What’s going on here?”
All three others in the room turned to look at her, Gabby and Garrus with a look of surprise though Fluttershy had her face hidden underneath her hood.
“Rainbow!” the little griffin leaped over and pulled her into a crushing hug. “I’m so happy you’re okay!”
“You seem quite well, colors,” Garrus smiled, though Fluttershy remained quiet in the shadows.
“Better than it could have been,” she admitted, ruffling the feathers on Gabby’s head before turning to Fluttershy. “Shy-”
“I’m sorry, I-” Fluttershy cut her off only for Rainbow to do the same as she pulled her into a hug.
“Shy, I’m beyond pissed that I’m stuck in this stupid thing but I don’t blame you for that. I’m walking again and we’ll find a fix later because I don’t really feel like going like this for the rest of my life,” Rainbow plainly told her, “There’s plenty crazy stuff out in this galaxy that can probably fix me.”
“Ahh, that’s sweet!” Gabby cooed, “Almost as sweet as it would be if you gave me access to the Thanix’s power distribution and control systems, Garrus,” she added with an as sweet as possible voice.
“How about you two work together on the system?” Fluttershy chuckled along with Dash before the yellow pegasus tried to meditate again. “Neither of you is going to get everything you want if you can both get like seventy percent you’ll both at least be happy.”
Garrus grunted and sighed, “Fine, we’ll work something out.” Gabby cheered in response as she pulled the turian along to the control panel where they started talking tech on the ship’s specifications and power control.
“Let’s leave those tow to do their thing, they’ll need some time to hash things out,” Fluttershy smiled, leading the two of them out of the cannon’s control bay. “Dash I’m really s-”
“Drop it Shy, I want it off my mind for the moment.”
Fluttershy felt silent as she followed Rainbow to the port observation deck where she jumped on one of the barstools, getting a drink from behind the bar.
“Ugh, they still don't have cider for us,” Rainbow grumbled as she settled for a turian beer.
Fluttershy smirked deviously as she picked two human ciders from behind the bar and opened them up. “Who says they don’t?”
Rainbow stared at the can for a moment. “You know we can’t drink these, right? They’re levo drinks.”
Shy just shrugged and chugged down a swallow of the drink. “It’s something Shining actually found out via Fidelis. The Earth’s apple trees are far related to Equestrian apples. Ponies apparently can consume both types of food even though we're dextro's.”
Dash looked at the cider in front of her in wonder before looking back over to Fluttershy. “How in the world did you not figure this out earlier? Didn't you ever accidentally eat the wrong food?”
“Of course not!” Fluttershy said slightly offended, “I'm very careful with what I eat.”
Dash snickered as she took her first sip of the cider, quickly followed by the whole can. “Oh, that's good. I really missed cider. Not that these are anywhere near as good as AJ's stuff of course.”
The two of them shared a couple more drinks in peace before Fluttershy spoke up again. “Think we'll ever see them again?”
“Duh, of course,” Rainbow replied full of confidence. “We've got a group of awesome friends both here and at home, as long as that's the case I won't give up on them.” Dash was then reminded of something she'd found on Omega. A stack of singed and crumpled letters coming out of a storage compartment of her armor, the distinct cutie marks of their other 4 friends still visible. “You shouldn't either.”
Fluttershy looked a bit paler as she recognized them. “Thanks Rainbow.”
The intercom then blared to life as the Commander spoke. “Normandy crew, prepare for imminent departure. We've gotten intel on a disabled collector ship we will be investigating.”
Downing the last bit of cider Rainbow placed the can into the recycler. “Guess we'll be going back to work then.”
“Let's go find the commander then, I'm sure we'll have a briefing soon.”