FIC: Interstitial 1-4 (Mass Effect)
Title: Interstitial
Author: Jewels (bjewelled)
Fandom: Mass Effect
Disclaimer: Mass Effect is the property of Bioware. So is the hamster.
Summary: When you put chronology of a relationship in a blender, and take a look at what's left over, you probably wind up with something like this. Nine excerpts from the relationship.
Author's Notes: Gah, it's been a long time since I've written something this overtly romantic. Although romantic is probably the wrong word to use here. It just started as something to keep me busy while I was playing ME2, to keep my brain from continually running through the off-screen scenarios. And then at some point I decided to keep writing them and, if not turn it into a story, turn it into a collection of little vignettes that entertained me. I shan't bore you by explaining my character choices. If you've played the games, you can probably pick up what I decided.
Spoilers: Heavy, for both games so far.
Word Count: 14, 379
**
One
**
Every planet had its own smell. It was something that Shepard had quickly learnt after leaving Earth. Even individual ships had their own lingering aroma. They were all sterile, of course, bacteria and virii thoroughly scrubbed out of the air, but some ships had slightly stronger smells of coolant, or others had the tang of mechanical lubricant in the air.
Horizon had the peculiar hint of mint to it. It clung to her hair, to her armour where she'd skidded along the grass to cover, and had somehow become attached to her skin. It had filled her nose, the unusual sensory input demanding her attention from the moment she'd stepped off the shuttle. The only time that it had been pushed back was when Kaidan had put his arms around her and-
She had taken herself off to her quarters the moment that she'd arrived back on board, ordering Joker to set a course for nowhere in particular. Shepard knew that the Illusive Man wanted to speak to her as soon as possible, but knew she could plead needing a shower to gain at least an hour before she had to confront the bastard who was pulling her strings.
Like she was just a marionette, a puppet.
The inner layer of her armour interfaced directly with her cybernetic implants, gifts from Cerberus, and it had taken her some time to get used to disconnecting the under-layers by herself. The first few times she'd attempted it, she'd needed Chakwas's help to avoid damaging the connectors. Chakwas had never looked at her with pity or disgust, only the cool professionalism that befitted her profession, but it was something that Shepard preferred to deal with privately. It didn't bother her per se but it felt somehow... private. Intimate. She tried to tell herself that she hadn't had the body given to her by nature since the day the Alliance had shot her up with a standard array of gene-mods. Her stamina had improved, clotting abilities, and then there were the biotic implants, which were just another flavour of cybertech, weren't they?
She stood in the bathroom of her quarters, staring at her reflection in the mirror as she peeled away the underlayer of her uniform, exposing the still-raw scars that marked her skin, glowing with an eerie light from the tech under the skin. It reminded her faintly of the cool blue of Saren's implants, before they'd chewed through his flesh, reanimated his skeleton and tried to kill her.
Did Kaidan see such a monster when he looked at her, she wondered? Not just a member of Cerberus, the ones who'd murdered Kohaku, performed experiments on rachni, and thorian creepers, but as a semi-synthetic monster like the ones they'd fought against and destroyed years ago? Not that it felt like years to her. It felt like months, at best. Maybe that was why the pain of Kaidan turning his back on her so easily, calling her a traitor, hurt more than she would have thought possible, considering she still remembered exactly what it had felt like to suffocate to death in the vacuum of space.
She peered into the mirror, examining herself with an exacting eye. She could just see where the seams of flesh joined, where the point that they met wasn't perfect. There were the more obvious gaps, obviously, where the tech showed through, but she could swear that her eye colour had changed. So when Kaidan looked at her, he saw a stranger, a traitor, a Cerberus puppet.
A broken doll.
Shepard didn't even realise that she'd broken the mirror until she was standing there, her hand flat on the broken remnants of the glass. Blood had started to seep out from under her palm, dripping in long, fat lines towards the sink. She pulled back her hand and looked at the palm. Already the blood was clotting, the enhanced weave just below the dermis already knitting the sliced flesh together. The blood stopped flowing, and in less than a minute there was nothing left by faint pink lines that she knew would fade to white and then return to normal skin shades, albeit lighter and with a faint glow from underneath.
The worst part was that Shepard was pretty sure that when she left, the next time she returned she'd find that the mirror had been replaced. Kelly would no doubt make curious and sympathetic noises, and the Illusive Man would make veiled comments about allegiances and emotional responses. Shepard had gone through her quarters and pulled every bug that she could find but she was pretty certain that there were others, better hidden and still firmly in place that she didn't know about. So she turned on the shower and got in and turned her face into the spray.
Inevitably, Horizan's smell of mint left her, and the last lingering traces of Kaidan's scent went away.
**
Two
**
The bar was in the dingiest corner of Zakera Ward, with bad lighting and a worse smell. It was also almost exclusively populated by non-Humans. Kaidan Alenko wouldn't even had bothered going near the place if he hadn't heard a couple of C-Sec officers gossiping about a Human woman who had made the mistake of walking into the place, and wondering aloud about how long she would last. Kaidan had tried to kid himself for about five minutes that it wasn't her and that, even if it was, it was a bad idea to go and see her. He'd said everything to her that he'd intended, back on Horizon, and there wasn't really anything left to talk about.
He was telling himself that right up until the point where he crossed the threshold of the bar whose name loosely translated to the 'Tepid Shrew', and then such preoccupations fled his mind as he had to duck to avoid a thrown barstool. There was a wild cheering in the air, most of the patrons standing clear out of the way, drinks held safely in the hand, pressed up against the walls as they watched the fight in progress in the middle of the bar, egging on the various combatants.
It wasn't, Kaidan realised as he stared, a free-for-all. It was a group of four turians versus one human.
One human female, and she was winning.
Shepard was clad in full body armour, sans helmet, looking as comfortable in a military-grade hardsuit as most people would in exercise clothes. She was armed, but making no move to draw any weapons, so he guessed that she didn't seem to be in any danger. As she twisted, lashing out with a leg to kick out the left knee of one of her assailants, he even caught a flash of white as she bared her teeth in a tight grin. The turians were outclassed, but apparently drunk and uncaring. Shepard batted aside wild swings and punches, sending one turian crashing into a table, where he groaned and went limp, while the one whose knee she had damaged rolled on the ground making pained sounds. A third attempted to grab the front of her armour and toss her aside, but Shepard grabbed his shoulder plates to anchor her and headbutted him hard enough that the crack was audible above the jeering of the crowd.
Kaidan winced in sympathy, but she didn't even seem staggered by it. The turian, on the other hand, stumbled backwards, nearly cross-eyed, and tripped over his injured comrade. Shepard, looking only amused and unruffled, turned to the last of the group and made a 'bring it' gesture to him, goading. The turian froze for a half a second, before he held up his hands and started hastily backing through the crowd, out of the bar. The assembled patrons made disappointed noises, and an asari next to Kaidan made a victorious sounding noise, demanding her winnings, and people started filtering back to their seats, righting tables and chairs. It obviously wasn't such an unusual occurrence to have fights breaking out.
Kaidan stood by the door, somewhat hidden by the milling patrons, and watched Shepard right a chair and set it by a table, making a curt gesture to the bartender as she sat down heavily. The krogan was over with a bottle of something blue, and a shot-glass, depositing both in front of Shepard and saying something that Kaidan couldn't hear. In a smooth gesture she pulled a large-denomination untraceable credit-chit from somewhere about her waist and held it up with an expectant expression. The krogan took it and seemed much happier, ambling back to the bar.
Shepard either hadn't noticed him, or was pretending she hadn't, giving him an opportunity to withdraw without having to speak to her. It would have been easier to just walk away. But then it would have been easier if he hadn't left the Presidium, chasing a rumour. He'd come this far now, so he crossed the bar and sat down opposite her as she was in the middle of downing a shot of something bright blue.
"Staff Commander Alenko," she said, as she slammed the glass down on the table. "Enjoy the show?"
That answered the question of whether she'd seen him. "More than the turians did, I think," he said, trying to keep his tone light. He could almost pretend that they were acquaintances accidentally crossing paths, catching up after not seeing each other for a while. But she couldn't seem to look directly at him, which put that idea to rest.
"They thought I should go back to somewhere that catered to 'my kind'." Shepard poured herself another shot of fluorescent blue and drank it before she carried on speaking. "I didn't feel like moving."
Kaidan sniffed at the open neck of the bottle and his eyes watered. It smelt like industrial cleaning solvent. "I'm surprised you'd even be capable of thinking about moving with this stuff inside you."
"You'd be amazed at my tolerances these days," Shepard said, in a remarkably barbed tone. She seemed disinclined to say anything else, just taking the bottle off him and refilling her glass again.
"Shepard-" he started, then faltered. Any words that came to mind seemed inadequate. Instead he looked around awkwardly. They were being ignored by most people, and the injured turians had already been dragged outside, dumped in the corridor until they woke up. "This isn't really your preferred drinking hole."
Shepard snorted faintly, running one hand through her hair to brush it back off her forehead. "It's one of the few places where there probably aren't Cerberus agents around," she said, "Although you never know. Better drinking here than in my quarters. I suspect that even the fucking hamster is sending reports back about me and I haven't heard anything to convince me otherwise."
He stared at her for a long moment. "You have a hamster?" he asked, bewildered.
Her eyes snapped up, meeting his for the first time. And then she laughed, and if it sounded strained and with a slight edge of mania, he pretended not to hear those parts, and just focussed on the way that her shoulders sagged as the tension went out of her. She made a quick gesture with one hand, and a scantily clad asari quickly deposited a second shot-glass on the table.
"And fish," Shepard said, pouring them both a measure. "That I keep killing. Replaced the damned things about six times now."
He picked up the shotglass. "To dead fish?"
Shepard smirked and clinked their glasses together. He knocked the shot back in one smooth gesture and instantly regretted it. He revised his original thoughts about the drink. It didn't just smell like industrial solvent, it tasted like it as well. He blinked rapidly to make sure that he wasn't about to go blind. "How are you still conscious?" he asked, when he had finally regained the use of his vocal chords. "Is it a good idea to be that drunk?"
"It's not the getting drunk," she told him, "It's the staying drunk. Give it thirty seconds and I'm stone cold sober, and I don't feel like being stone-cold sober." She stared at the bottom of the shot glass. "My kindhearted scientist friend has turned into a nasty bitch of an information broker who sounds like her mother, the Council has decided to pretend the end isn't nigh so they can avoid getting ousted by panicked citizens, and my now-former lover hates me and thinks I'm a traitor. All of which is enhanced by the fact that, to my perspective, about a month or so ago, everything was just fine."
Shepard forwent the glass and swigged directly from the bottle. "Now ask me why I should be sober."
He felt his stomach twist, and he looked at the scuffed and scratched metal table that separated them. "I don't hate you," he said quietly.
"Yes you do," Shepard said hoarsely. "As you should. I may not trust Cerberus as far as I can throw the Normandy-which isn't very far because the new Normandy is huge-but I'm still taking orders from them, right? I'm a traitor. And she that was dead came forth. Lazarus, working with the devil. Which begs the question: why are you here and not calling the Alliance down on my ass?"
"You telling me Cerberus wouldn't get you out of any custody I put you into?" he said, calmly, trying to pretend that the rawness in her voice didn't affect him, that every little gesture he remembered from those years ago and had committed to beloved memory didn't cut him like a knife.
"Hmph, that's probably true," Shepard mused, staring off into the middle distance somewhere. "Although I'd get bitched at for a while for the inconvenience of it all."
"Shepard," he said, reaching out to touch her hand. He couldn't feel the warmth of her skin through the hardsuit, but he could remember the sensation perfectly. "I don't hate you."
Shepard blinked and stared fixedly down at the tabletop.
"Leave Cerberus," he urged her, "Come back to the Alliance. It's not too late."
"Is the Alliance going to do anything about the Collectors?" she asked, quietly. She sounded tired, resigned.
"I doubt it," he admitted. "Not right now, when they don't have anything more concrete than rumours."
"Well then," she said, and shrugged, the motion mostly swallowed by her armour, "Someone should get on that."
He felt the sudden burning need to talk, to explain, but before he could do anything about it, she stiffened and pulled back, her hand going to the side of her head. "What is it, Edie?"
Kaidan couldn't hear the reply, carried as it was through the comm implant in her ear. He wondered if Edie was her helmsman or second in command.
Shepard sighed distinctly. "Tell her I'll be right there," she said, sounding brisk and professional. It was a far cry from the somewhat drunk woman who had been sitting opposite him a few moments earlier. He supposed she really hadn't been kidding when she claimed to sober up quickly.
He wondered, not for the first time since he'd seen her on Horizon, what exactly it was that Cerberus had done to her.
"I need to go," she said, "Keep the bottle."
"Right," he said, dully, staring at the remnants of the blue liquid.
She got to her feet, showing no signs of swaying. He had no doubt that she was perfectly combat ready, and he abruptly got a flash of her standing there in front of him on so many missions, ready to take on the galaxy and win, and swallowed past the lump in his throat. He'd never really stopped loving her, he realised. He just didn't know how he was supposed to trust her.
She strode past him, heading for the exit.
There was just enough liquid left in the bottle for one last drink, so he poured it out into a shotglass and drank it. He was slightly more prepared for the sensation of being hit about the skull with a brick, and so was able to restrain the urge to cough. His eyes watered.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder, causing him to jerk sharply to see who it was, some part of him already gearing up for a fight. He stared up at Shepard, who had a suddenly fierce expression on her face.
She didn't hesitate, just bent down and pressed her lips to his in a raw and passionate kiss. He could blame his response on the drink, or the shock of her being alive, but the truth was that he wanted this, wanted her for this moment if he could never have another. He reached up, fingers tangling in her hair, thumb brushing her jaw, held her there, and kissed back.
They stayed there in that uncomfortably, awkward position, exchanging their wet and fierce kiss until finally Shepard broke away, touching her forehead to his for a moment. "I miss you," she whispered, and then she pulled out of his grip and was gone for good.
The asari waitress smirked at him as she came by to pick up the now empty glasses. "Been a while since I got kissed like that," she mused with a faint sigh, "Gotta be a good fifty years. You want another drink, darling?"
He cleared his throat. "Um... no. Thanks." He found he was having trouble framing his thoughts into actual words.
She smiled at him and took the empty bottle with her as well.
He got to his feet, slightly unsteadily, and left the bar, talking the long way through the Wards back towards the Presidium, feeling the need of the walk to clear his head. It took him a good few hours to get from the bar to the higher-class areas of the Citadel, by which point he had almost managed to figure out what to do. When he finally got back to his accommodation, he hesitated only a moment before taking out his omni-tool and starting to compose a message.
Shepard, he began.
**
Three
**
Ships always had their own little quirks, their own little idiosyncrasies and flaws that added together to create the character of the ship. Sometimes those sparks of personality took years to develop and sometimes, like with the Normandy, those flaws were right there from launch day, and one of them was the portside heat sink manifold access station.
Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko stood over the monitor, rubbing at his forehead in exasperation. He'd fixed the same console at least half a dozen times now, and the sensor net kept flipping out and dying. The engineers had sworn off the console, citing it as 'non-mission-critical unknown error', after they'd wasted most of the trip from Arcturus to Earth trying to sort it out. Chief Engineer Adams had gladly signed over management of the issue to Kaidan, and Kaidan was already regretting having agreed.
"Ok," he said, to the console, opening his omni-tool, "One more time. From the top."
"Lieutenant."
He jerked out of his awkward half-crouch and jumped to attention, saluting sharply as Captain Anderson's voice reached him.
"At ease," Anderson said, returning the salute casually."Busy, Lieutenant?"
"I'd be grateful of the reprieve, actually, sir," Kaidan said, honestly.
Anderson's mouth quirked into a small smile. No doubt he'd heard the tail of the eternally failing matrix from Adams. "Our XO is coming aboard at Earth. I'll be in conference with Alliance command when we dock with the transport. I'd like you to give her a quick tour and get her settled in."
"Aye-aye, sir," he said, nodding his head sharply.
"Excellent," Anderson said, "Commander Shepard will be coming aboard at oh-five-forty ship time tomorrow."
"Commander Shepard?" he repeated, startled, and only realise that he had blurted the name out when Anderson looked at him with a sharp glint in his eye. "The Commander Shepard? Of Akuze?"
"The very same," Anderson said, inclining his head, "She's a decorated marine, and we're lucky to have her aboard."
"Of course, sir," he said, wondering if Anderson had thought that he had meant anything other than respect with his question. "I'd be honoured to show the XO around."
"Good. Carry on, Lieutenant," Anderson said.
Kaidan saluted again, and watched as Anderson headed towards the medical bay, presumably to speak to Doctor Chakwas.
"System error," the Normandy's VI told him, and the console's status lights all changed to red. Kaidan sighed, and pretended he was allowed to smash it with a hammer for one brief, pleasant moment.
~*~
"That is not a thing of beauty," Joker said, disdainfully. The transport vessel was big, clunky, and lacked in any sort of external decoration except for an ID string printed on the bow. It was exactly the sort of the thing that the government and the military liked to use to move people and equipment around without spending too much money on niceties. They were normally used for low-cost rapid deployment operations.
Kaidan leaned on the back of Joker's chair, peering out of the narrow slit of window that looked out on the grand vista of space. "I wonder what's so important they had to put our XO on a fast transport for rendezvous. This is just the shakedown cruise, right? I thought we were supposed to take her onboard in a couple of days."
"Don't be so sure," Joker said, hands moving across the console, eyes fixed on readouts, but chatting easily, as if he wasn't busy trying to match attitudes and velocities with another ship, matching airlocks without tearing either of them to shreds in an unanticipated collision. "I got new vectors. We're heading to Eden Prime best speed, and they've got Pressly plotting a stealth approach. Sound like an easy shakedown cruise to you?"
"Hmph," Kaidan frowned at the approaching hulk of the transport. "You know what they say about no plan surviving contact with reality."
"Too true, man," Joker said, as a thunk resounded through the hull, making the deckplates shiver under Kaidan's boots. "Go meet our XO, and tell me if the hero of Akuze is all they say she is. I'm betting bad-assed and one-eyed."
"You won't laugh if she really is."
Joker reached forward and tapped the comm. "Hard dock achieved, airlock synched. Stand by to receive passengers." He leaned back and jerked his head towards the airlock. "Better get moving."
Kaidan turned his head to see Ensign Mullen, the Captain's Yeoman, stepping up, holding a dataslate and looking nervous. He smiled gently at her. She was a pretty, diminutive thing. Attractive, but somehow a bit too delicate for him. She had a nice smile though, which she flashed at him.
"Who are you meeting?" he asked, faintly curious.
She opened her mouth, about to answer, when the Normandy's VI chimed in to report the completion of decontamination, and the airlock door slid open with a noisy scrape. First through was a turian in a thick hardsuit, pistol at his hip. Ensign Mullen stepped forward and smiled that same nice smile.
"Spectre," she greeted, "Welcome aboard the Normandy."
"Thank you," the turian, the Spectre said, bowing ever so slightly towards Mullen, "And please, call me Nihlus. Spectre is not a rank or title, and I find I prefer the informality."
Mullen's smile broadened. Kaidan wondered if she'd ever taken the exo-linguistics courses, and if she realised that, in at least half a dozen cultures he could think of off the top of his head, smiling and baring the teeth was considered a threat display more than anything. Nihlus didn't seem to be offended, at least.
"Captain Anderson is in the comms room and is waiting for you, Nihlus," she said, "If you'll follow me?"
"Lead on," Nihlus said, gesturing in a gallant fashion.
Kaidan watched them go. A Spectre. Joker was right. It definitely wasn't going to be a run of the mill shakedown cruise. He dragged his attention away from the retreating Nihlus as another person came through the open airlock, easily hefting a standard issue duffle bag, wearing body armour and carrying a full weapons loadout.
That someone was a woman, around Kaidan's height, slim, athletic, with a sharp and intelligent look about her, and a smile on her lips. Then he caught sight of the N7 marker on her armour, and he realised both who she was, and why she was armed for battle on an Alliance ship. He snapped to attention and saluted.
She halted in front of him, and looked him up and down in a smooth motion. He couldn't tell whether she was assessing him or just checking him out. He was fairly guilty of doing the latter when dealing with subordinates, like a fair few others, not that anyone would admit it. He kept his eyes forward. She returned the salute with her free hand.
"At ease," she said. Her voice was warm, and rich. "Lieutenant Alenko, right?"
He tried not to look too startled. "Uh, yes, ma'am. Commander Shepard, ma'am."
She looked rueful. "A long flight on a rapid deployment transport means you don't get a lot of sleep, and you might as well read your personnel dockets. A pleasure, Alenko." She held out her hand.
"Likewise, ma'am," he said, shaking her hand. She squeezed his hand, without the slight over-compensation people tended towards when touched people while wearing hardsuits. The lack of tactile feedback was hard for a lot of people to deal with, gripping objects too tightly or not tightly enough. Shepard wore her armour like a second skin. "Captain Anderson asked me to show you where to stow your gear and give you the tour while he's in conference with-" He looked down the long hallway down towards navigation and the comms room. "Well, while he's in conference with the Spectre."
"Love to hear the story behind that one," Shepard said, following his look.
"You don't know, Commander?"
Shepard shook her head thoughtfully. "No. And Nihlus didn't even say much on the flight. We picked him up a couple of relays back. I wasn't even expecting to be here yet. I had two days of leave on Mirage still booked."
Mirage, a nascent colony established on a group of tropical archipelagos on a small moon in the Herald system on the edge of asari space. It was more renowned for its tourism industry than anything. Kaidan abruptly felt for Shepard. He wouldn't have liked being dragged away from a beach-side holiday. The thought was immediately followed by the question of whether she had spent the days clad in a swimsuit or a bikini. The hardsuits were figure hugging enough that he didn't have a hard time picturing either, and Kaidan suddenly prayed that the low lighting of the flight deck hid any colouring of his cheeks that suddenly happened.
"Early recalls are never a good sign," Shepard added. "When they divert a transport to pick you up, something even worse is brewing."
"Speaking from experience, Commander?" the question was probably inappropriate, but Shepard didn't seem to find it an impertinent question.
"Hell yes," she said, "Anyway. To the lockers, Lieutenant, so I can finally ditch this stuff, even if it's only bikinis and beach towels."
He opened his mouth, and closed it again with a snap. He had no idea how to answer and was suddenly acutely embarrassed by the idea that she might have worked out what he was thinking. He actually hoped she was just winding him up. From the ill-suppressed grin at his silence, that was very likely the case.
"Right, ma'am. I mean, aye. If you'll follow me."
He led her to the lockers that most of the senior officers had for their own use. The rest of the crew had to traipse down to the cargo hold to access their personnel belongings, while the ranking officers were located right next to the sleeping pods. He pointed it out, mentioned that only Anderson got private quarters, which received an eyeroll and a comment about rank and privileges, before taking her into medical to meet Doctor Chakwas.
The two exchanged handshakes and the usual polite greetings, and Chakwas said, "I've already received your file from your last posting, Commander, but I'm afraid I wasn't expecting you yet and haven't had time to review it. Do you have any medical conditions that I need to be made aware of?"
Shepard shrugged, the weapons on her back shifting with the motion. Chakwas hadn't even given the guns a second glance. "No allergies or injuries, Doctor," she said, "I have the early-version L3, well-integrated."
Kaidan tried not to look startled. Biotics weren't common in the military, and this was the first time he'd met an N with an implant. Early stage L3 meant somewhere between L2, his own implants, and the modern L3 implants. There was rumour that it meant a higher spiking L3 without the side effects, but it had never been proven in testing. Kaidan tried to keep up on biotic research.
"Good. I'll require you to have a standard physical before the day's out," Chakwas said.
Shepard gave a jaunty little salute. "You're the doc, Doctor. I'll be back once I'm done with my tour."
Chakwas grinned. "Commander, every time I think I have the infirmary-resenting stereotype of the military down pat, someone comes along to shatter it. I'll see you shortly."
He gave her a quick walking tour of the rest of the ship, showing her the cargo elevator, the lower decks, engineering, the mako, showers and toilet facilities, before leading her back towards the flight deck, introducing her to Pressly and walking her forward to meet Joker. They'd separated from the transport not long after Shepard had come aboard, and Joker was holding the Normandy in orbit. Occasionally there were flashes of the kinetic barriers kicking in as bits of ancient space debris skipped off the shielding.
"Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau, this is Commander Shepard, our XO." Kaidan introduced, as Joker moved his chair away from the console and shook her hand. Watching carefully, Kaidan could see the minute relief in Joker's face that Shepard wasn't one of those who gripped too hard while wearing a hardsuit, and he came away with his hands intact.
"Joker, to anyone who flies on my ship," he told her.
Shepard didn't look like she considered it funny, she treated the statement seriously, just saying, "Joker it is then," without taking issue with the 'my ship' statement.
"You're the infamous Commander Shepard," Joker said, folding his arms and looking at her appraisingly, "Are all the stories true?"
"Oh all of them," Shepard agreed dryly, "Especially the one about me, the two asari, the rubber chicken and wholesale bottle of maple syrup."
"I don't think I've heard that one," Joker said, lasciviously, "Care to share?"
"Only if you buy me drinks," she told him.
Joker gave a pout of disappointment. "Too much like hard work. I'll have to go without."
"Your loss," Shepard said, before throwing a glance at Kaidan. "Well, I believe I have an appointment with the Doctor if we're done, Lieutenant."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, "I should be helping Joker with the relay calculations anyway."
Joker didn't react, though he knew perfectly well that Kaidan needed to be doing no such thing.
"Of course. I'll see you later, gentlemen," Shepard said, nodding to them both before turning with a grace that only came from years of physical training, and heading back towards the medical bay.
Kaidan and Joker watched her go.
"I have to say," Joker said, barely contained glee in his voice, "I love combat-spec hardsuits."
"I hear you," Kaidan said, not taking his eyes away from the sight that was walking away from him. "I definitely hear you."
**
Four
**
"I'm going to scream," Kaidan said, in a low, pained voice. "I'm just going to start screaming and not stop."
Liara T'Soni squeezed his hand in hers and whispered, "Just a little while longer," in his ear.
He returned the gesture. The feeling didn't go away, but he at least didn't feel so much alone. He was adrift in a sea of unfamiliar faces wearing rich-looking clothes, affecting important attitudes. There were Admirals, Ministers, Ambassadors and what seemed to him to just be interested parties who had enough money and influence to justify their presence.
As far as funerals went, it was probably one of the worst that Kaidan had ever attended. They weren't calling it a funeral, though, it was a 'memorial service'. They were now sitting at the 'reception', held a lushly furnished diplomatic area in one of the few intact areas of the Presidium, it was full of polite conversation and graceful servitors moving about carrying refreshments, and Kaidan was sure that Shepard would have hated every minute of it.
He knew that it wouldn't have fazed her in the slightest, could imagine her working the room with her usual combination of charm and grace, and then taking the opportunity to roll her eyes at him in exasperation when Udina had his back turned.
He knew that it wasn't what she would have wanted, because she'd once told him so.
He and Liara sat separately from the party, such as it was, in comfortable chairs that sat under the large windows that looked out on the reservoirs of the Presidium. It was simulated nighttime outside, and the water reflected the dim glow of the nebula that was allowed to seep through. Lights from the buildings glimmered, and if Kaidan unfocused his eyes, he could pretend they were stars.
They had been almost inseparable since Kaidan had been released from days of debriefing by uncaring brass and intelligence officers only to find Liara standing outside the Alliance offices on the Citadel, her eyes bright and her mouth set in a thin line that spoke to how hard she was trying to control her emotions. He'd been tired and feeling battered down to his soul, and something inside had broken as he'd looked at Liara's devastated expression. He wondered if she'd waited there every day for him to emerge.
He'd crossed over to her and put his arms around her, hugging her tightly. She'd returned the embrace, and they'd spent the next few days clinging to each other out of a sense of mutual grief. He'd even crashed on the couch of the apartment she'd been provided with by her University, avoiding the Alliance barracks. They hadn't managed to bring themselves to talk about what had happened, just provided moral support to each other by virtue of their presences. When they'd gotten the message about the memorial service, and the invitation, she had fussed with his uniform collar, and he'd complimented her on her dress, pointedly ignoring the overly cyan cast to her eyes, the equivalent of the raw red eyes of a weeping human.
They'd been forced to sit through a memorial service as a parade of people who had never even met Shepard gave testimony about her bravery, brilliance and heroism. Liara's hand had clutched at his arm tightly, but he hadn't objected. He had just about managed to get through that ordeal, but he could feel himself pacing somewhere near his breaking point.
"I would have thought Joker would be here," he murmured to her, scanning the crowd.
"I heard he was in the infirmary," Liara said, keeping her voice soft to avoid being overheard, "I spoke to Tali before she left. Engineer Adams told her that Joker had thrown a punch at an Admiral. He broke his arm. If he's out, I imagine that he got advised not to turn up to such an auspicious gathering."
"Christ," Kaidan stared at her in shock, "Why the hell would he do that?"
"I can't speak to his thinking at that exact moment," she said, shrugging. "But I would hazard that his state of mind at the time included heartbreak and guilt."
Kaidan's first instinct was to snap that he should feel guilty. If he hadn't stubbornly refused to leave his post, hadn't disobeyed the evacuation order, hadn't forced Shepard to go and drag him out, then she would have been on the evacuation shuttles, she wouldn't have been blasted into space, wouldn't have-
He halted that train of thought before it could spin off into the cycle that it kept getting caught in. Liara was right. Joker was heartbroken. He'd cared for Shepard as much as any of them, maybe even more than a few. Shepard had never cared that Joker's body was broken. She'd let him have more free reign with the Normandy than most helmsmen ever got. And Kaidan couldn't wish the guilt of feeling responsible for the death of someone you cared about on anyone.
"Doctor T'Soni." An asari had approached, casting a quick glance over Kaidan, eyeing his uniform, before clearly dismissing him from her attentions. "I was surprised to hear that you had joined the crew of a Spectre's ship. You never seemed the type for adventure."
Liara smiled thinly. "Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, this is Doctor Ysera V'Lesh, a former colleague of mine at the University."
"Research Director at the Dorril Foundation these days," Ysera said, with a superior smile. Kaidan recognised the name as a major player in explorative research. Liara had mentioned them once as she explained, aboard the Normandy, over a meal that had included Shepard, Garrus and Tali, how most archaeological research was funded by private companies, usually in the hope of finding ancient Prothean technology they could adapt and sell. It had been virtually impossible for Liara to get academic funding for digs to remote planets, one of several reasons why it was generally just her and an omni-tool doing all the work.
This woman clearly thought her position meant she was better than Liara, who had lowered herself to slumming with soldiers. He felt a low level of irritation on her behalf.
"I hadn't heard," Liara said, "I'm afraid that I've had rather more important things to worry about."
"Hunting down a rogue Spectre, yes. Must have been exciting, my dear."
Liara's jaw clenched slightly, and Kaidan wondered if she was having to restrain the urge to throw the other asari across the room with a well-placed biotic throw. "Yes, it was," she said, "Right up to the moment my ship blew up, killing friends and loved ones, turning my grief into a spectacle for the rich and smug."
Ysera V'Lesh seemed somewhat taken aback by the acerbic and frank nature of Liara's reply. "Well, of course, I had no intention-" Kaidan had never heard an asari stammer before. In this case, it was rather amusing.
Liara turned to him, pointedly ignoring Ysera's acute embarrassment. "Lieutenant," she said, "I find I wish to leave. Would you be so kind?"
"Of course, Doctor," he said, standing and offering her his arm, gallantly.
They left Ysera blushing a deep cerulean, and headed for the exit, taking care to avoid any senior politician or admiral who would want to speak with someone from Spectre Shepard's crew. When Liara went to retrieve her wrap, Kaidan stopped at the bar and dropped a few credit chits for what he wanted. When Liara returned and saw what he'd bought, she laughed lightly and handed him her wrap.
"Try to be subtle about it," she said, with a faint smile. "Don't want any rumours starting up."
He snorted. "Let 'em," he said, but covered the bottles with the wrap so that they wouldn't attract attention on the way out, if there were any press lingering. They snuck out via a service corridor, and no one spotted them.
Kaidan explained his thinking to her, and when he said, "Call Joker," he said, "See if he's out of the hospital."
~*~
Joker was waiting for them when they got to remote environmental access hallway high up, relatively speaking, over the Presidium. There was no one there. It was sized for something larger than keepers, so it could be assumed that it had been designed to be utilised, perhaps as a linkage between two of the diplomatic buildings, but that the current denizens of the Citadel had never found the need. So it was empty, quiet, and had one of the best views over the Presidium, all the way from the council tower halfway around the ring to the other side.
Shepard had been the one to find this place, crawling around half the Citadel looking for keepers to scan. She'd stood there, murmured, "Wow," and then made a comment that some people would kill for apartments with views like that. Then she'd dismissed the vista and gotten them moving again. It somehow seemed appropriate to remember her there. It really was little more than a walkway, with transparent walls. It meant that Joker could sit on the ground, looking pensively over the playground of the Citadel movers and shakers, and ask,
"How was the party?"
"Horrible," Liara declared, sitting down next to Joker, her black dress flowing around her as she lowered herself to the deck. "Shepard would have hated it."
"Not sorry I missed it. Like any of those bastards gave a shit about her," Joker's words were unpleasant, but he sounded only tired. His right arm was in a cast, and he had a vaguely spacey look about him that Kaidan recognised as the side effect of heavy painkillers. He'd recovered from his injuries after the Normandy's destruction, only to immediate go and break another bone. Kaidan wouldn't be Joker on those days for all the Universe.
"That's why we're here." Kaidan held out one of the bottles, a bright orange liquid that looked somewhat radioactive to the untrained eye. Joker took it, and raised an eyebrow at the label. "Friends and expensive booze. Just the way she wanted it."
"Works for me," Joker said, handing the bottle to Liara, who twisted the top off, took a drink and handed it back. Joker followed suit, and passed it on to Kaidan. They sat there for several minutes, doing nothing but passing the bottle back and forth, each lost in their own thoughts.
"Did you really hit an Admiral?" Kaidan finally asked, looking at Joker's arm.
Joker smirked broadly. "Hell yeah. He deserved it. Haven't you heard?"
Liara frowned slightly. "Heard what?"
"Us Alliance monkeys are all getting reassigned to non-flight positions. I think they want to watch us, keep an eye on us. Everyone followed Shepard into open rebellion, after all. Probably don't want us to get any ideas."
"Shit," Kaidan muttered, leaning back against one of the transparent walls, legs stretched out in front of him. "I hadn't heard, no."
"When was the last time you checked your omni-tool?"
"A while," he said, evasively. He'd been avoiding opening his messages. He'd only looked at the official message about the service because the subject line had caught his eye.
"I'm useless on a planet," Joker said, holding onto the bottle for slightly longer, taking a deeper drink. Kaidan might normally have made a comment about combining booze and painkillers, but if there was ever a man that had every right to get as drunk as he liked, it was Joker. "No point. No point at all. I think I'm gonna quit."
"Quit?" he blurted, startled, "The Alliance?"
"No, book of the month club. Of course the Alliance, y'idiot."
Kaidan wasn't sure how to respond to that. The military was more or less his life. Leaving didn't even occur to him as an option. He supposed that it wasn't a universal feeling, but it was still weird. He opened the second bottle, this one full of green liquid. The combination of tastes was strange, but not unpleasant.
Joker gave Liara the bottle and a questioning glance, "What about you, Liara? Got any plans?"
"I find myself somewhat at... what's the human phrase... at 'loose ends'." Liara said, thoughtfully. She looked none the worse for having consumed the better part of something expensive and very alcoholic. Maybe hanging around marines for several months had improved her tolerance. "What do you do when you achieve your life's work when you're only a bit over a century?"
Kaidan thought about that for a moment. "Congratulate myself on making it that far," he said.
Liara chuckled, softly, "I remember Shepard's reaction when she found out my age. I think she thought she was older than me. It felt like it in a lot of ways... I felt... like a child around her. Like I didn't know anything."
"You do a lot of living if you grow up on the streets," Kaidan said, thoughtfully.
Joker took the orange drink off him, but just turned the bottle over in his hand thoughtfully. "She ever tell you much about that part of her life?"
"Never," Kaidan said, shaking his head only once before arresting the motion. It made the world sway a bit too precariously. "She never brought it up. What I know I only know because Ash told me she once spoke about Earth as a hole anyone would be eager to get away from, and because we ran into that man on the citadel who threatened to 'reveal her past'."
"I never heard about that," Liara said, sharply.
"She shot him," he said, "Saw her shoot men before, plenty that deserved it. Never in cold blood like that, though. Didn't think it was a good idea to quiz her on the subject."
"Happy childhoods don't often produce N's," Joker pointed out, finally taking a drink. "Gah, my mouth tastes like cinnamon grapefruit. Weird."
"Street gangs, Akuze... I sometimes couldn't believe she was functional in society," Liara admitted, "It sounded like such a blighted past that surely no one civilised could come from such a background. It just creates thugs, mercenaries and criminals." Liara sighed. "I was an idiot. She was brave. Intelligent. Charming."
"And hot," Joker said, "Really really hot. The woman could fill out a combat suit."
"Well, yes," Liara said, as if that were blindingly obvious.
"And she cheated at cards," Kaidan pointed out, "She took Garret and Mulholland for a ride when they were too dumb to believe her innocent act."
"God I remember that," Joke said, "Garret bitched for a week. Shepard just kept smirking about it."
"The crew always felt so close to her," Liara mused, "Every one of us, every one of the crew, followed her without question. She always had this way of... drawing loyalty, affection."
They lapsed into silence for a minute. Kaidan fiddled with the label on the bottle. When he finally spoke, it felt like someone other than himself was speaking. "I loved her," he said, dimly surprised at how calm he sounded, how his voice didn't wave her. "I would have stayed with her if she'd... if she'd let me."
Liara made a small, distressed sound. "You weren't the only one," she said, bitterly, "But at least you had her." She downed the remainder of the orange liquid, using the back of her hand to wipe her lips, her fingers lingering on her cheeks to wipe away the sudden tears.
Guilt twisted at Kaidan's stomach. "Liara, I'm sor-"
"Don't apologise," she said, roughly, "Don't apologise for loving her, or being there for her, or because you were the one she wanted and I wasn't, or so help me Kaidan Alenko, I will put you through a wall with my brain."
Kaidan choked back the reflexive apology. "Yes, ma'am," he said, believing her utterly.
Liara sniffed slightly, and wiped the silvery trails from her cheeks.
Joker reached out, tugged on Kaidan's sleeve. Kaidan handed over the bottle without comment. "I never realised," Joker admitted, "I mean, there were rumours, but you know what small ships are like. If you paid attention to some of the rumours, Garrus was secretly sleeping with Wrex."
"There's a disturbing thought," Liara said, in a slightly steadier voice.
"You guys kept things quiet," Joker added. "How long were you..."
"Since the night before Ilos," Kaidan said, "The month of shoreleave we were forced to take after the Siege. And then whatever moments were could grab when our shifts worked right, and no one was watching. Not necessarily sex, y'know, just... talking."
"Now I'm the one who's sorry," Liara cleared her throat. "You should have had more."
"Yeah," Kaidan said, not feeling like taking what life had dealt them with good grace, "We should have. I've had people I've been with for longer, but I didn't feel anything for them what I felt for her. Not one tenth of it." He looked at Liara. "I should probably shut up. It's not fair to say this stuff to you."
"No," Liara said, shaking her head. "Tell us about her. Tell us about the woman you saw that no one else could. Please."
So Kaidan took a deep breath, and did.
**
Continued
Author: Jewels (bjewelled)
Fandom: Mass Effect
Disclaimer: Mass Effect is the property of Bioware. So is the hamster.
Summary: When you put chronology of a relationship in a blender, and take a look at what's left over, you probably wind up with something like this. Nine excerpts from the relationship.
Author's Notes: Gah, it's been a long time since I've written something this overtly romantic. Although romantic is probably the wrong word to use here. It just started as something to keep me busy while I was playing ME2, to keep my brain from continually running through the off-screen scenarios. And then at some point I decided to keep writing them and, if not turn it into a story, turn it into a collection of little vignettes that entertained me. I shan't bore you by explaining my character choices. If you've played the games, you can probably pick up what I decided.
Spoilers: Heavy, for both games so far.
Word Count: 14, 379
**
One
**
Every planet had its own smell. It was something that Shepard had quickly learnt after leaving Earth. Even individual ships had their own lingering aroma. They were all sterile, of course, bacteria and virii thoroughly scrubbed out of the air, but some ships had slightly stronger smells of coolant, or others had the tang of mechanical lubricant in the air.
Horizon had the peculiar hint of mint to it. It clung to her hair, to her armour where she'd skidded along the grass to cover, and had somehow become attached to her skin. It had filled her nose, the unusual sensory input demanding her attention from the moment she'd stepped off the shuttle. The only time that it had been pushed back was when Kaidan had put his arms around her and-
She had taken herself off to her quarters the moment that she'd arrived back on board, ordering Joker to set a course for nowhere in particular. Shepard knew that the Illusive Man wanted to speak to her as soon as possible, but knew she could plead needing a shower to gain at least an hour before she had to confront the bastard who was pulling her strings.
Like she was just a marionette, a puppet.
The inner layer of her armour interfaced directly with her cybernetic implants, gifts from Cerberus, and it had taken her some time to get used to disconnecting the under-layers by herself. The first few times she'd attempted it, she'd needed Chakwas's help to avoid damaging the connectors. Chakwas had never looked at her with pity or disgust, only the cool professionalism that befitted her profession, but it was something that Shepard preferred to deal with privately. It didn't bother her per se but it felt somehow... private. Intimate. She tried to tell herself that she hadn't had the body given to her by nature since the day the Alliance had shot her up with a standard array of gene-mods. Her stamina had improved, clotting abilities, and then there were the biotic implants, which were just another flavour of cybertech, weren't they?
She stood in the bathroom of her quarters, staring at her reflection in the mirror as she peeled away the underlayer of her uniform, exposing the still-raw scars that marked her skin, glowing with an eerie light from the tech under the skin. It reminded her faintly of the cool blue of Saren's implants, before they'd chewed through his flesh, reanimated his skeleton and tried to kill her.
Did Kaidan see such a monster when he looked at her, she wondered? Not just a member of Cerberus, the ones who'd murdered Kohaku, performed experiments on rachni, and thorian creepers, but as a semi-synthetic monster like the ones they'd fought against and destroyed years ago? Not that it felt like years to her. It felt like months, at best. Maybe that was why the pain of Kaidan turning his back on her so easily, calling her a traitor, hurt more than she would have thought possible, considering she still remembered exactly what it had felt like to suffocate to death in the vacuum of space.
She peered into the mirror, examining herself with an exacting eye. She could just see where the seams of flesh joined, where the point that they met wasn't perfect. There were the more obvious gaps, obviously, where the tech showed through, but she could swear that her eye colour had changed. So when Kaidan looked at her, he saw a stranger, a traitor, a Cerberus puppet.
A broken doll.
Shepard didn't even realise that she'd broken the mirror until she was standing there, her hand flat on the broken remnants of the glass. Blood had started to seep out from under her palm, dripping in long, fat lines towards the sink. She pulled back her hand and looked at the palm. Already the blood was clotting, the enhanced weave just below the dermis already knitting the sliced flesh together. The blood stopped flowing, and in less than a minute there was nothing left by faint pink lines that she knew would fade to white and then return to normal skin shades, albeit lighter and with a faint glow from underneath.
The worst part was that Shepard was pretty sure that when she left, the next time she returned she'd find that the mirror had been replaced. Kelly would no doubt make curious and sympathetic noises, and the Illusive Man would make veiled comments about allegiances and emotional responses. Shepard had gone through her quarters and pulled every bug that she could find but she was pretty certain that there were others, better hidden and still firmly in place that she didn't know about. So she turned on the shower and got in and turned her face into the spray.
Inevitably, Horizan's smell of mint left her, and the last lingering traces of Kaidan's scent went away.
**
Two
**
The bar was in the dingiest corner of Zakera Ward, with bad lighting and a worse smell. It was also almost exclusively populated by non-Humans. Kaidan Alenko wouldn't even had bothered going near the place if he hadn't heard a couple of C-Sec officers gossiping about a Human woman who had made the mistake of walking into the place, and wondering aloud about how long she would last. Kaidan had tried to kid himself for about five minutes that it wasn't her and that, even if it was, it was a bad idea to go and see her. He'd said everything to her that he'd intended, back on Horizon, and there wasn't really anything left to talk about.
He was telling himself that right up until the point where he crossed the threshold of the bar whose name loosely translated to the 'Tepid Shrew', and then such preoccupations fled his mind as he had to duck to avoid a thrown barstool. There was a wild cheering in the air, most of the patrons standing clear out of the way, drinks held safely in the hand, pressed up against the walls as they watched the fight in progress in the middle of the bar, egging on the various combatants.
It wasn't, Kaidan realised as he stared, a free-for-all. It was a group of four turians versus one human.
One human female, and she was winning.
Shepard was clad in full body armour, sans helmet, looking as comfortable in a military-grade hardsuit as most people would in exercise clothes. She was armed, but making no move to draw any weapons, so he guessed that she didn't seem to be in any danger. As she twisted, lashing out with a leg to kick out the left knee of one of her assailants, he even caught a flash of white as she bared her teeth in a tight grin. The turians were outclassed, but apparently drunk and uncaring. Shepard batted aside wild swings and punches, sending one turian crashing into a table, where he groaned and went limp, while the one whose knee she had damaged rolled on the ground making pained sounds. A third attempted to grab the front of her armour and toss her aside, but Shepard grabbed his shoulder plates to anchor her and headbutted him hard enough that the crack was audible above the jeering of the crowd.
Kaidan winced in sympathy, but she didn't even seem staggered by it. The turian, on the other hand, stumbled backwards, nearly cross-eyed, and tripped over his injured comrade. Shepard, looking only amused and unruffled, turned to the last of the group and made a 'bring it' gesture to him, goading. The turian froze for a half a second, before he held up his hands and started hastily backing through the crowd, out of the bar. The assembled patrons made disappointed noises, and an asari next to Kaidan made a victorious sounding noise, demanding her winnings, and people started filtering back to their seats, righting tables and chairs. It obviously wasn't such an unusual occurrence to have fights breaking out.
Kaidan stood by the door, somewhat hidden by the milling patrons, and watched Shepard right a chair and set it by a table, making a curt gesture to the bartender as she sat down heavily. The krogan was over with a bottle of something blue, and a shot-glass, depositing both in front of Shepard and saying something that Kaidan couldn't hear. In a smooth gesture she pulled a large-denomination untraceable credit-chit from somewhere about her waist and held it up with an expectant expression. The krogan took it and seemed much happier, ambling back to the bar.
Shepard either hadn't noticed him, or was pretending she hadn't, giving him an opportunity to withdraw without having to speak to her. It would have been easier to just walk away. But then it would have been easier if he hadn't left the Presidium, chasing a rumour. He'd come this far now, so he crossed the bar and sat down opposite her as she was in the middle of downing a shot of something bright blue.
"Staff Commander Alenko," she said, as she slammed the glass down on the table. "Enjoy the show?"
That answered the question of whether she'd seen him. "More than the turians did, I think," he said, trying to keep his tone light. He could almost pretend that they were acquaintances accidentally crossing paths, catching up after not seeing each other for a while. But she couldn't seem to look directly at him, which put that idea to rest.
"They thought I should go back to somewhere that catered to 'my kind'." Shepard poured herself another shot of fluorescent blue and drank it before she carried on speaking. "I didn't feel like moving."
Kaidan sniffed at the open neck of the bottle and his eyes watered. It smelt like industrial cleaning solvent. "I'm surprised you'd even be capable of thinking about moving with this stuff inside you."
"You'd be amazed at my tolerances these days," Shepard said, in a remarkably barbed tone. She seemed disinclined to say anything else, just taking the bottle off him and refilling her glass again.
"Shepard-" he started, then faltered. Any words that came to mind seemed inadequate. Instead he looked around awkwardly. They were being ignored by most people, and the injured turians had already been dragged outside, dumped in the corridor until they woke up. "This isn't really your preferred drinking hole."
Shepard snorted faintly, running one hand through her hair to brush it back off her forehead. "It's one of the few places where there probably aren't Cerberus agents around," she said, "Although you never know. Better drinking here than in my quarters. I suspect that even the fucking hamster is sending reports back about me and I haven't heard anything to convince me otherwise."
He stared at her for a long moment. "You have a hamster?" he asked, bewildered.
Her eyes snapped up, meeting his for the first time. And then she laughed, and if it sounded strained and with a slight edge of mania, he pretended not to hear those parts, and just focussed on the way that her shoulders sagged as the tension went out of her. She made a quick gesture with one hand, and a scantily clad asari quickly deposited a second shot-glass on the table.
"And fish," Shepard said, pouring them both a measure. "That I keep killing. Replaced the damned things about six times now."
He picked up the shotglass. "To dead fish?"
Shepard smirked and clinked their glasses together. He knocked the shot back in one smooth gesture and instantly regretted it. He revised his original thoughts about the drink. It didn't just smell like industrial solvent, it tasted like it as well. He blinked rapidly to make sure that he wasn't about to go blind. "How are you still conscious?" he asked, when he had finally regained the use of his vocal chords. "Is it a good idea to be that drunk?"
"It's not the getting drunk," she told him, "It's the staying drunk. Give it thirty seconds and I'm stone cold sober, and I don't feel like being stone-cold sober." She stared at the bottom of the shot glass. "My kindhearted scientist friend has turned into a nasty bitch of an information broker who sounds like her mother, the Council has decided to pretend the end isn't nigh so they can avoid getting ousted by panicked citizens, and my now-former lover hates me and thinks I'm a traitor. All of which is enhanced by the fact that, to my perspective, about a month or so ago, everything was just fine."
Shepard forwent the glass and swigged directly from the bottle. "Now ask me why I should be sober."
He felt his stomach twist, and he looked at the scuffed and scratched metal table that separated them. "I don't hate you," he said quietly.
"Yes you do," Shepard said hoarsely. "As you should. I may not trust Cerberus as far as I can throw the Normandy-which isn't very far because the new Normandy is huge-but I'm still taking orders from them, right? I'm a traitor. And she that was dead came forth. Lazarus, working with the devil. Which begs the question: why are you here and not calling the Alliance down on my ass?"
"You telling me Cerberus wouldn't get you out of any custody I put you into?" he said, calmly, trying to pretend that the rawness in her voice didn't affect him, that every little gesture he remembered from those years ago and had committed to beloved memory didn't cut him like a knife.
"Hmph, that's probably true," Shepard mused, staring off into the middle distance somewhere. "Although I'd get bitched at for a while for the inconvenience of it all."
"Shepard," he said, reaching out to touch her hand. He couldn't feel the warmth of her skin through the hardsuit, but he could remember the sensation perfectly. "I don't hate you."
Shepard blinked and stared fixedly down at the tabletop.
"Leave Cerberus," he urged her, "Come back to the Alliance. It's not too late."
"Is the Alliance going to do anything about the Collectors?" she asked, quietly. She sounded tired, resigned.
"I doubt it," he admitted. "Not right now, when they don't have anything more concrete than rumours."
"Well then," she said, and shrugged, the motion mostly swallowed by her armour, "Someone should get on that."
He felt the sudden burning need to talk, to explain, but before he could do anything about it, she stiffened and pulled back, her hand going to the side of her head. "What is it, Edie?"
Kaidan couldn't hear the reply, carried as it was through the comm implant in her ear. He wondered if Edie was her helmsman or second in command.
Shepard sighed distinctly. "Tell her I'll be right there," she said, sounding brisk and professional. It was a far cry from the somewhat drunk woman who had been sitting opposite him a few moments earlier. He supposed she really hadn't been kidding when she claimed to sober up quickly.
He wondered, not for the first time since he'd seen her on Horizon, what exactly it was that Cerberus had done to her.
"I need to go," she said, "Keep the bottle."
"Right," he said, dully, staring at the remnants of the blue liquid.
She got to her feet, showing no signs of swaying. He had no doubt that she was perfectly combat ready, and he abruptly got a flash of her standing there in front of him on so many missions, ready to take on the galaxy and win, and swallowed past the lump in his throat. He'd never really stopped loving her, he realised. He just didn't know how he was supposed to trust her.
She strode past him, heading for the exit.
There was just enough liquid left in the bottle for one last drink, so he poured it out into a shotglass and drank it. He was slightly more prepared for the sensation of being hit about the skull with a brick, and so was able to restrain the urge to cough. His eyes watered.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder, causing him to jerk sharply to see who it was, some part of him already gearing up for a fight. He stared up at Shepard, who had a suddenly fierce expression on her face.
She didn't hesitate, just bent down and pressed her lips to his in a raw and passionate kiss. He could blame his response on the drink, or the shock of her being alive, but the truth was that he wanted this, wanted her for this moment if he could never have another. He reached up, fingers tangling in her hair, thumb brushing her jaw, held her there, and kissed back.
They stayed there in that uncomfortably, awkward position, exchanging their wet and fierce kiss until finally Shepard broke away, touching her forehead to his for a moment. "I miss you," she whispered, and then she pulled out of his grip and was gone for good.
The asari waitress smirked at him as she came by to pick up the now empty glasses. "Been a while since I got kissed like that," she mused with a faint sigh, "Gotta be a good fifty years. You want another drink, darling?"
He cleared his throat. "Um... no. Thanks." He found he was having trouble framing his thoughts into actual words.
She smiled at him and took the empty bottle with her as well.
He got to his feet, slightly unsteadily, and left the bar, talking the long way through the Wards back towards the Presidium, feeling the need of the walk to clear his head. It took him a good few hours to get from the bar to the higher-class areas of the Citadel, by which point he had almost managed to figure out what to do. When he finally got back to his accommodation, he hesitated only a moment before taking out his omni-tool and starting to compose a message.
Shepard, he began.
**
Three
**
Ships always had their own little quirks, their own little idiosyncrasies and flaws that added together to create the character of the ship. Sometimes those sparks of personality took years to develop and sometimes, like with the Normandy, those flaws were right there from launch day, and one of them was the portside heat sink manifold access station.
Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko stood over the monitor, rubbing at his forehead in exasperation. He'd fixed the same console at least half a dozen times now, and the sensor net kept flipping out and dying. The engineers had sworn off the console, citing it as 'non-mission-critical unknown error', after they'd wasted most of the trip from Arcturus to Earth trying to sort it out. Chief Engineer Adams had gladly signed over management of the issue to Kaidan, and Kaidan was already regretting having agreed.
"Ok," he said, to the console, opening his omni-tool, "One more time. From the top."
"Lieutenant."
He jerked out of his awkward half-crouch and jumped to attention, saluting sharply as Captain Anderson's voice reached him.
"At ease," Anderson said, returning the salute casually."Busy, Lieutenant?"
"I'd be grateful of the reprieve, actually, sir," Kaidan said, honestly.
Anderson's mouth quirked into a small smile. No doubt he'd heard the tail of the eternally failing matrix from Adams. "Our XO is coming aboard at Earth. I'll be in conference with Alliance command when we dock with the transport. I'd like you to give her a quick tour and get her settled in."
"Aye-aye, sir," he said, nodding his head sharply.
"Excellent," Anderson said, "Commander Shepard will be coming aboard at oh-five-forty ship time tomorrow."
"Commander Shepard?" he repeated, startled, and only realise that he had blurted the name out when Anderson looked at him with a sharp glint in his eye. "The Commander Shepard? Of Akuze?"
"The very same," Anderson said, inclining his head, "She's a decorated marine, and we're lucky to have her aboard."
"Of course, sir," he said, wondering if Anderson had thought that he had meant anything other than respect with his question. "I'd be honoured to show the XO around."
"Good. Carry on, Lieutenant," Anderson said.
Kaidan saluted again, and watched as Anderson headed towards the medical bay, presumably to speak to Doctor Chakwas.
"System error," the Normandy's VI told him, and the console's status lights all changed to red. Kaidan sighed, and pretended he was allowed to smash it with a hammer for one brief, pleasant moment.
~*~
"That is not a thing of beauty," Joker said, disdainfully. The transport vessel was big, clunky, and lacked in any sort of external decoration except for an ID string printed on the bow. It was exactly the sort of the thing that the government and the military liked to use to move people and equipment around without spending too much money on niceties. They were normally used for low-cost rapid deployment operations.
Kaidan leaned on the back of Joker's chair, peering out of the narrow slit of window that looked out on the grand vista of space. "I wonder what's so important they had to put our XO on a fast transport for rendezvous. This is just the shakedown cruise, right? I thought we were supposed to take her onboard in a couple of days."
"Don't be so sure," Joker said, hands moving across the console, eyes fixed on readouts, but chatting easily, as if he wasn't busy trying to match attitudes and velocities with another ship, matching airlocks without tearing either of them to shreds in an unanticipated collision. "I got new vectors. We're heading to Eden Prime best speed, and they've got Pressly plotting a stealth approach. Sound like an easy shakedown cruise to you?"
"Hmph," Kaidan frowned at the approaching hulk of the transport. "You know what they say about no plan surviving contact with reality."
"Too true, man," Joker said, as a thunk resounded through the hull, making the deckplates shiver under Kaidan's boots. "Go meet our XO, and tell me if the hero of Akuze is all they say she is. I'm betting bad-assed and one-eyed."
"You won't laugh if she really is."
Joker reached forward and tapped the comm. "Hard dock achieved, airlock synched. Stand by to receive passengers." He leaned back and jerked his head towards the airlock. "Better get moving."
Kaidan turned his head to see Ensign Mullen, the Captain's Yeoman, stepping up, holding a dataslate and looking nervous. He smiled gently at her. She was a pretty, diminutive thing. Attractive, but somehow a bit too delicate for him. She had a nice smile though, which she flashed at him.
"Who are you meeting?" he asked, faintly curious.
She opened her mouth, about to answer, when the Normandy's VI chimed in to report the completion of decontamination, and the airlock door slid open with a noisy scrape. First through was a turian in a thick hardsuit, pistol at his hip. Ensign Mullen stepped forward and smiled that same nice smile.
"Spectre," she greeted, "Welcome aboard the Normandy."
"Thank you," the turian, the Spectre said, bowing ever so slightly towards Mullen, "And please, call me Nihlus. Spectre is not a rank or title, and I find I prefer the informality."
Mullen's smile broadened. Kaidan wondered if she'd ever taken the exo-linguistics courses, and if she realised that, in at least half a dozen cultures he could think of off the top of his head, smiling and baring the teeth was considered a threat display more than anything. Nihlus didn't seem to be offended, at least.
"Captain Anderson is in the comms room and is waiting for you, Nihlus," she said, "If you'll follow me?"
"Lead on," Nihlus said, gesturing in a gallant fashion.
Kaidan watched them go. A Spectre. Joker was right. It definitely wasn't going to be a run of the mill shakedown cruise. He dragged his attention away from the retreating Nihlus as another person came through the open airlock, easily hefting a standard issue duffle bag, wearing body armour and carrying a full weapons loadout.
That someone was a woman, around Kaidan's height, slim, athletic, with a sharp and intelligent look about her, and a smile on her lips. Then he caught sight of the N7 marker on her armour, and he realised both who she was, and why she was armed for battle on an Alliance ship. He snapped to attention and saluted.
She halted in front of him, and looked him up and down in a smooth motion. He couldn't tell whether she was assessing him or just checking him out. He was fairly guilty of doing the latter when dealing with subordinates, like a fair few others, not that anyone would admit it. He kept his eyes forward. She returned the salute with her free hand.
"At ease," she said. Her voice was warm, and rich. "Lieutenant Alenko, right?"
He tried not to look too startled. "Uh, yes, ma'am. Commander Shepard, ma'am."
She looked rueful. "A long flight on a rapid deployment transport means you don't get a lot of sleep, and you might as well read your personnel dockets. A pleasure, Alenko." She held out her hand.
"Likewise, ma'am," he said, shaking her hand. She squeezed his hand, without the slight over-compensation people tended towards when touched people while wearing hardsuits. The lack of tactile feedback was hard for a lot of people to deal with, gripping objects too tightly or not tightly enough. Shepard wore her armour like a second skin. "Captain Anderson asked me to show you where to stow your gear and give you the tour while he's in conference with-" He looked down the long hallway down towards navigation and the comms room. "Well, while he's in conference with the Spectre."
"Love to hear the story behind that one," Shepard said, following his look.
"You don't know, Commander?"
Shepard shook her head thoughtfully. "No. And Nihlus didn't even say much on the flight. We picked him up a couple of relays back. I wasn't even expecting to be here yet. I had two days of leave on Mirage still booked."
Mirage, a nascent colony established on a group of tropical archipelagos on a small moon in the Herald system on the edge of asari space. It was more renowned for its tourism industry than anything. Kaidan abruptly felt for Shepard. He wouldn't have liked being dragged away from a beach-side holiday. The thought was immediately followed by the question of whether she had spent the days clad in a swimsuit or a bikini. The hardsuits were figure hugging enough that he didn't have a hard time picturing either, and Kaidan suddenly prayed that the low lighting of the flight deck hid any colouring of his cheeks that suddenly happened.
"Early recalls are never a good sign," Shepard added. "When they divert a transport to pick you up, something even worse is brewing."
"Speaking from experience, Commander?" the question was probably inappropriate, but Shepard didn't seem to find it an impertinent question.
"Hell yes," she said, "Anyway. To the lockers, Lieutenant, so I can finally ditch this stuff, even if it's only bikinis and beach towels."
He opened his mouth, and closed it again with a snap. He had no idea how to answer and was suddenly acutely embarrassed by the idea that she might have worked out what he was thinking. He actually hoped she was just winding him up. From the ill-suppressed grin at his silence, that was very likely the case.
"Right, ma'am. I mean, aye. If you'll follow me."
He led her to the lockers that most of the senior officers had for their own use. The rest of the crew had to traipse down to the cargo hold to access their personnel belongings, while the ranking officers were located right next to the sleeping pods. He pointed it out, mentioned that only Anderson got private quarters, which received an eyeroll and a comment about rank and privileges, before taking her into medical to meet Doctor Chakwas.
The two exchanged handshakes and the usual polite greetings, and Chakwas said, "I've already received your file from your last posting, Commander, but I'm afraid I wasn't expecting you yet and haven't had time to review it. Do you have any medical conditions that I need to be made aware of?"
Shepard shrugged, the weapons on her back shifting with the motion. Chakwas hadn't even given the guns a second glance. "No allergies or injuries, Doctor," she said, "I have the early-version L3, well-integrated."
Kaidan tried not to look startled. Biotics weren't common in the military, and this was the first time he'd met an N with an implant. Early stage L3 meant somewhere between L2, his own implants, and the modern L3 implants. There was rumour that it meant a higher spiking L3 without the side effects, but it had never been proven in testing. Kaidan tried to keep up on biotic research.
"Good. I'll require you to have a standard physical before the day's out," Chakwas said.
Shepard gave a jaunty little salute. "You're the doc, Doctor. I'll be back once I'm done with my tour."
Chakwas grinned. "Commander, every time I think I have the infirmary-resenting stereotype of the military down pat, someone comes along to shatter it. I'll see you shortly."
He gave her a quick walking tour of the rest of the ship, showing her the cargo elevator, the lower decks, engineering, the mako, showers and toilet facilities, before leading her back towards the flight deck, introducing her to Pressly and walking her forward to meet Joker. They'd separated from the transport not long after Shepard had come aboard, and Joker was holding the Normandy in orbit. Occasionally there were flashes of the kinetic barriers kicking in as bits of ancient space debris skipped off the shielding.
"Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau, this is Commander Shepard, our XO." Kaidan introduced, as Joker moved his chair away from the console and shook her hand. Watching carefully, Kaidan could see the minute relief in Joker's face that Shepard wasn't one of those who gripped too hard while wearing a hardsuit, and he came away with his hands intact.
"Joker, to anyone who flies on my ship," he told her.
Shepard didn't look like she considered it funny, she treated the statement seriously, just saying, "Joker it is then," without taking issue with the 'my ship' statement.
"You're the infamous Commander Shepard," Joker said, folding his arms and looking at her appraisingly, "Are all the stories true?"
"Oh all of them," Shepard agreed dryly, "Especially the one about me, the two asari, the rubber chicken and wholesale bottle of maple syrup."
"I don't think I've heard that one," Joker said, lasciviously, "Care to share?"
"Only if you buy me drinks," she told him.
Joker gave a pout of disappointment. "Too much like hard work. I'll have to go without."
"Your loss," Shepard said, before throwing a glance at Kaidan. "Well, I believe I have an appointment with the Doctor if we're done, Lieutenant."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, "I should be helping Joker with the relay calculations anyway."
Joker didn't react, though he knew perfectly well that Kaidan needed to be doing no such thing.
"Of course. I'll see you later, gentlemen," Shepard said, nodding to them both before turning with a grace that only came from years of physical training, and heading back towards the medical bay.
Kaidan and Joker watched her go.
"I have to say," Joker said, barely contained glee in his voice, "I love combat-spec hardsuits."
"I hear you," Kaidan said, not taking his eyes away from the sight that was walking away from him. "I definitely hear you."
**
Four
**
"I'm going to scream," Kaidan said, in a low, pained voice. "I'm just going to start screaming and not stop."
Liara T'Soni squeezed his hand in hers and whispered, "Just a little while longer," in his ear.
He returned the gesture. The feeling didn't go away, but he at least didn't feel so much alone. He was adrift in a sea of unfamiliar faces wearing rich-looking clothes, affecting important attitudes. There were Admirals, Ministers, Ambassadors and what seemed to him to just be interested parties who had enough money and influence to justify their presence.
As far as funerals went, it was probably one of the worst that Kaidan had ever attended. They weren't calling it a funeral, though, it was a 'memorial service'. They were now sitting at the 'reception', held a lushly furnished diplomatic area in one of the few intact areas of the Presidium, it was full of polite conversation and graceful servitors moving about carrying refreshments, and Kaidan was sure that Shepard would have hated every minute of it.
He knew that it wouldn't have fazed her in the slightest, could imagine her working the room with her usual combination of charm and grace, and then taking the opportunity to roll her eyes at him in exasperation when Udina had his back turned.
He knew that it wasn't what she would have wanted, because she'd once told him so.
He and Liara sat separately from the party, such as it was, in comfortable chairs that sat under the large windows that looked out on the reservoirs of the Presidium. It was simulated nighttime outside, and the water reflected the dim glow of the nebula that was allowed to seep through. Lights from the buildings glimmered, and if Kaidan unfocused his eyes, he could pretend they were stars.
They had been almost inseparable since Kaidan had been released from days of debriefing by uncaring brass and intelligence officers only to find Liara standing outside the Alliance offices on the Citadel, her eyes bright and her mouth set in a thin line that spoke to how hard she was trying to control her emotions. He'd been tired and feeling battered down to his soul, and something inside had broken as he'd looked at Liara's devastated expression. He wondered if she'd waited there every day for him to emerge.
He'd crossed over to her and put his arms around her, hugging her tightly. She'd returned the embrace, and they'd spent the next few days clinging to each other out of a sense of mutual grief. He'd even crashed on the couch of the apartment she'd been provided with by her University, avoiding the Alliance barracks. They hadn't managed to bring themselves to talk about what had happened, just provided moral support to each other by virtue of their presences. When they'd gotten the message about the memorial service, and the invitation, she had fussed with his uniform collar, and he'd complimented her on her dress, pointedly ignoring the overly cyan cast to her eyes, the equivalent of the raw red eyes of a weeping human.
They'd been forced to sit through a memorial service as a parade of people who had never even met Shepard gave testimony about her bravery, brilliance and heroism. Liara's hand had clutched at his arm tightly, but he hadn't objected. He had just about managed to get through that ordeal, but he could feel himself pacing somewhere near his breaking point.
"I would have thought Joker would be here," he murmured to her, scanning the crowd.
"I heard he was in the infirmary," Liara said, keeping her voice soft to avoid being overheard, "I spoke to Tali before she left. Engineer Adams told her that Joker had thrown a punch at an Admiral. He broke his arm. If he's out, I imagine that he got advised not to turn up to such an auspicious gathering."
"Christ," Kaidan stared at her in shock, "Why the hell would he do that?"
"I can't speak to his thinking at that exact moment," she said, shrugging. "But I would hazard that his state of mind at the time included heartbreak and guilt."
Kaidan's first instinct was to snap that he should feel guilty. If he hadn't stubbornly refused to leave his post, hadn't disobeyed the evacuation order, hadn't forced Shepard to go and drag him out, then she would have been on the evacuation shuttles, she wouldn't have been blasted into space, wouldn't have-
He halted that train of thought before it could spin off into the cycle that it kept getting caught in. Liara was right. Joker was heartbroken. He'd cared for Shepard as much as any of them, maybe even more than a few. Shepard had never cared that Joker's body was broken. She'd let him have more free reign with the Normandy than most helmsmen ever got. And Kaidan couldn't wish the guilt of feeling responsible for the death of someone you cared about on anyone.
"Doctor T'Soni." An asari had approached, casting a quick glance over Kaidan, eyeing his uniform, before clearly dismissing him from her attentions. "I was surprised to hear that you had joined the crew of a Spectre's ship. You never seemed the type for adventure."
Liara smiled thinly. "Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, this is Doctor Ysera V'Lesh, a former colleague of mine at the University."
"Research Director at the Dorril Foundation these days," Ysera said, with a superior smile. Kaidan recognised the name as a major player in explorative research. Liara had mentioned them once as she explained, aboard the Normandy, over a meal that had included Shepard, Garrus and Tali, how most archaeological research was funded by private companies, usually in the hope of finding ancient Prothean technology they could adapt and sell. It had been virtually impossible for Liara to get academic funding for digs to remote planets, one of several reasons why it was generally just her and an omni-tool doing all the work.
This woman clearly thought her position meant she was better than Liara, who had lowered herself to slumming with soldiers. He felt a low level of irritation on her behalf.
"I hadn't heard," Liara said, "I'm afraid that I've had rather more important things to worry about."
"Hunting down a rogue Spectre, yes. Must have been exciting, my dear."
Liara's jaw clenched slightly, and Kaidan wondered if she was having to restrain the urge to throw the other asari across the room with a well-placed biotic throw. "Yes, it was," she said, "Right up to the moment my ship blew up, killing friends and loved ones, turning my grief into a spectacle for the rich and smug."
Ysera V'Lesh seemed somewhat taken aback by the acerbic and frank nature of Liara's reply. "Well, of course, I had no intention-" Kaidan had never heard an asari stammer before. In this case, it was rather amusing.
Liara turned to him, pointedly ignoring Ysera's acute embarrassment. "Lieutenant," she said, "I find I wish to leave. Would you be so kind?"
"Of course, Doctor," he said, standing and offering her his arm, gallantly.
They left Ysera blushing a deep cerulean, and headed for the exit, taking care to avoid any senior politician or admiral who would want to speak with someone from Spectre Shepard's crew. When Liara went to retrieve her wrap, Kaidan stopped at the bar and dropped a few credit chits for what he wanted. When Liara returned and saw what he'd bought, she laughed lightly and handed him her wrap.
"Try to be subtle about it," she said, with a faint smile. "Don't want any rumours starting up."
He snorted. "Let 'em," he said, but covered the bottles with the wrap so that they wouldn't attract attention on the way out, if there were any press lingering. They snuck out via a service corridor, and no one spotted them.
Kaidan explained his thinking to her, and when he said, "Call Joker," he said, "See if he's out of the hospital."
~*~
Joker was waiting for them when they got to remote environmental access hallway high up, relatively speaking, over the Presidium. There was no one there. It was sized for something larger than keepers, so it could be assumed that it had been designed to be utilised, perhaps as a linkage between two of the diplomatic buildings, but that the current denizens of the Citadel had never found the need. So it was empty, quiet, and had one of the best views over the Presidium, all the way from the council tower halfway around the ring to the other side.
Shepard had been the one to find this place, crawling around half the Citadel looking for keepers to scan. She'd stood there, murmured, "Wow," and then made a comment that some people would kill for apartments with views like that. Then she'd dismissed the vista and gotten them moving again. It somehow seemed appropriate to remember her there. It really was little more than a walkway, with transparent walls. It meant that Joker could sit on the ground, looking pensively over the playground of the Citadel movers and shakers, and ask,
"How was the party?"
"Horrible," Liara declared, sitting down next to Joker, her black dress flowing around her as she lowered herself to the deck. "Shepard would have hated it."
"Not sorry I missed it. Like any of those bastards gave a shit about her," Joker's words were unpleasant, but he sounded only tired. His right arm was in a cast, and he had a vaguely spacey look about him that Kaidan recognised as the side effect of heavy painkillers. He'd recovered from his injuries after the Normandy's destruction, only to immediate go and break another bone. Kaidan wouldn't be Joker on those days for all the Universe.
"That's why we're here." Kaidan held out one of the bottles, a bright orange liquid that looked somewhat radioactive to the untrained eye. Joker took it, and raised an eyebrow at the label. "Friends and expensive booze. Just the way she wanted it."
"Works for me," Joker said, handing the bottle to Liara, who twisted the top off, took a drink and handed it back. Joker followed suit, and passed it on to Kaidan. They sat there for several minutes, doing nothing but passing the bottle back and forth, each lost in their own thoughts.
"Did you really hit an Admiral?" Kaidan finally asked, looking at Joker's arm.
Joker smirked broadly. "Hell yeah. He deserved it. Haven't you heard?"
Liara frowned slightly. "Heard what?"
"Us Alliance monkeys are all getting reassigned to non-flight positions. I think they want to watch us, keep an eye on us. Everyone followed Shepard into open rebellion, after all. Probably don't want us to get any ideas."
"Shit," Kaidan muttered, leaning back against one of the transparent walls, legs stretched out in front of him. "I hadn't heard, no."
"When was the last time you checked your omni-tool?"
"A while," he said, evasively. He'd been avoiding opening his messages. He'd only looked at the official message about the service because the subject line had caught his eye.
"I'm useless on a planet," Joker said, holding onto the bottle for slightly longer, taking a deeper drink. Kaidan might normally have made a comment about combining booze and painkillers, but if there was ever a man that had every right to get as drunk as he liked, it was Joker. "No point. No point at all. I think I'm gonna quit."
"Quit?" he blurted, startled, "The Alliance?"
"No, book of the month club. Of course the Alliance, y'idiot."
Kaidan wasn't sure how to respond to that. The military was more or less his life. Leaving didn't even occur to him as an option. He supposed that it wasn't a universal feeling, but it was still weird. He opened the second bottle, this one full of green liquid. The combination of tastes was strange, but not unpleasant.
Joker gave Liara the bottle and a questioning glance, "What about you, Liara? Got any plans?"
"I find myself somewhat at... what's the human phrase... at 'loose ends'." Liara said, thoughtfully. She looked none the worse for having consumed the better part of something expensive and very alcoholic. Maybe hanging around marines for several months had improved her tolerance. "What do you do when you achieve your life's work when you're only a bit over a century?"
Kaidan thought about that for a moment. "Congratulate myself on making it that far," he said.
Liara chuckled, softly, "I remember Shepard's reaction when she found out my age. I think she thought she was older than me. It felt like it in a lot of ways... I felt... like a child around her. Like I didn't know anything."
"You do a lot of living if you grow up on the streets," Kaidan said, thoughtfully.
Joker took the orange drink off him, but just turned the bottle over in his hand thoughtfully. "She ever tell you much about that part of her life?"
"Never," Kaidan said, shaking his head only once before arresting the motion. It made the world sway a bit too precariously. "She never brought it up. What I know I only know because Ash told me she once spoke about Earth as a hole anyone would be eager to get away from, and because we ran into that man on the citadel who threatened to 'reveal her past'."
"I never heard about that," Liara said, sharply.
"She shot him," he said, "Saw her shoot men before, plenty that deserved it. Never in cold blood like that, though. Didn't think it was a good idea to quiz her on the subject."
"Happy childhoods don't often produce N's," Joker pointed out, finally taking a drink. "Gah, my mouth tastes like cinnamon grapefruit. Weird."
"Street gangs, Akuze... I sometimes couldn't believe she was functional in society," Liara admitted, "It sounded like such a blighted past that surely no one civilised could come from such a background. It just creates thugs, mercenaries and criminals." Liara sighed. "I was an idiot. She was brave. Intelligent. Charming."
"And hot," Joker said, "Really really hot. The woman could fill out a combat suit."
"Well, yes," Liara said, as if that were blindingly obvious.
"And she cheated at cards," Kaidan pointed out, "She took Garret and Mulholland for a ride when they were too dumb to believe her innocent act."
"God I remember that," Joke said, "Garret bitched for a week. Shepard just kept smirking about it."
"The crew always felt so close to her," Liara mused, "Every one of us, every one of the crew, followed her without question. She always had this way of... drawing loyalty, affection."
They lapsed into silence for a minute. Kaidan fiddled with the label on the bottle. When he finally spoke, it felt like someone other than himself was speaking. "I loved her," he said, dimly surprised at how calm he sounded, how his voice didn't wave her. "I would have stayed with her if she'd... if she'd let me."
Liara made a small, distressed sound. "You weren't the only one," she said, bitterly, "But at least you had her." She downed the remainder of the orange liquid, using the back of her hand to wipe her lips, her fingers lingering on her cheeks to wipe away the sudden tears.
Guilt twisted at Kaidan's stomach. "Liara, I'm sor-"
"Don't apologise," she said, roughly, "Don't apologise for loving her, or being there for her, or because you were the one she wanted and I wasn't, or so help me Kaidan Alenko, I will put you through a wall with my brain."
Kaidan choked back the reflexive apology. "Yes, ma'am," he said, believing her utterly.
Liara sniffed slightly, and wiped the silvery trails from her cheeks.
Joker reached out, tugged on Kaidan's sleeve. Kaidan handed over the bottle without comment. "I never realised," Joker admitted, "I mean, there were rumours, but you know what small ships are like. If you paid attention to some of the rumours, Garrus was secretly sleeping with Wrex."
"There's a disturbing thought," Liara said, in a slightly steadier voice.
"You guys kept things quiet," Joker added. "How long were you..."
"Since the night before Ilos," Kaidan said, "The month of shoreleave we were forced to take after the Siege. And then whatever moments were could grab when our shifts worked right, and no one was watching. Not necessarily sex, y'know, just... talking."
"Now I'm the one who's sorry," Liara cleared her throat. "You should have had more."
"Yeah," Kaidan said, not feeling like taking what life had dealt them with good grace, "We should have. I've had people I've been with for longer, but I didn't feel anything for them what I felt for her. Not one tenth of it." He looked at Liara. "I should probably shut up. It's not fair to say this stuff to you."
"No," Liara said, shaking her head. "Tell us about her. Tell us about the woman you saw that no one else could. Please."
So Kaidan took a deep breath, and did.
**
Continued