It's So Fluffy!

Notes and Notices: Thank you, everyone who has been following and waiting (probably impatiently) for the update. I make no excuses for the amount of time it's taken me to get this chapter up. I'm sorry you had to wait so long. I wrote myself into a hole with the last chapter and almost gave up the rest of the story. It's taken this long to figure out how to get out of said hole. I give you fluff to make up for such a long wait. :)

Also, since I do not have internet at home and I have not had it for a year, I have not been able to download and play the three ME3 DLCs: Leviathan, Omega and Citadel. (Nor have I spoiled myself… too much…) Hopefully, I haven't completely curb-stomped actual canon with this Chapter. I have not been able to do as much research as I usually do when writing a chapter since I've only been going to the Library for online access once or twice a month.

Water beat down on the back of Shepard's neck, relieving the tension there. Soap slicked and feeling more rested than she'd been in days, Shepard turned her face into the shower's spray and let the water finish its job. Between Liara's help with asari compartmentalization techniques and Alenko's adamant insistence that the Corporal Toombs Shepard knew died on Akuze and not Ontarom, Shepard was feeling much better about the situation. She knew it would be yet a while before truly healing but for now she could at least set it aside and concentrate on the mission at hand. After all, both her friends were right: The situation on Ontarom had been essentially screwed from the onset. Bad luck, worse timing, and the unpredictability of a madman had precluded any certainty in the outcome. And that was just inside the base.

Damned Space Cow.

Damned dinosaur.

Damned everything.

The only certainty: the Alliance had the scientist, and he was alive and undergoing treatment to repair his tortured body. That was what she concentrated on. Alliance Intelligence was sorting out what the Cerberus group was and what they were up to, and Normandy was on course for a secret Cerberus base to get more information with instructions from FLEETCOM to raid the base and take any prisoners. Not that Shepard was looking forward to finding what other experiments Cerberus was doing, but she was going to stop them. She had to. Cerberus was a galactic menace.

Shepard sighed and turned off the shower, grabbing a towel.

"How about better luck next time?" she asked out loud, mostly into the towel as she blotted her face. "Just a little bit better? A hint of good luck?"

She gave a mirthless, depreciative chuckle as she toweled off and dressed, foregoing boots–she was off duty and wouldn't have the watch for another seven hours. She combed her hair and studied her reflection in the mirror. The peeling from her fight with sunlight was all but gone, but the only "tan" she'd received was in the form of a few extra freckles across her nose and forehead she didn't recall having prior to getting sunburned. Her face was pale as ever.

Freckles. Of all the complexions she could have had…

Thanks, Mom.

Her bemused thoughts tapered off as she stepped out of her private head. Alenko was waiting at the conference table in her quarters, his face shadowed by the dim light of her cabin, and she was silently thankful she had had the foresight to bring her uniform into the head with her. She usually left it neatly folded on her bed.

Huh. Luck's improving after all.

"Do you have some time to talk now, Commander?" he asked, standing. "I, uh, made some coffee, ma'am." He offered a mug.

The grin that had been forming on Shepard's face faded at his tone. She sat at the table, accepted the steaming cup, and inclined her head as the Lieutenant sat back down. "What's wrong?"

He waited until she'd taken a sip before answering. Or rather, not really answering.

"I'm…" He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Nothing's wrong, ma'am." He toyed with a datapad on the table.

Shepard cocked a brow at him, reprovingly. She ticked off her fingers as she ran through the things she felt were "wrong".

"One, there's an army of geth under the control of a rogue Spectre looking for (two) a Prothean Conduit of some kind to bring back a race of sentient machines to kill all organic life, and (three) we took a detour to deal with something traumatic from my past. Four, now it's time to take down a black ops group—also rogue—that's conducting illegal and unethical experimentation in what appears to be a quest to build super soldiers for some as of yet determined cause. There's also a good possibility that said rogue black ops group has a connection to someone from both our pasts.

"Five things, right? Six, if you squint. And nothing's wrong?" In dismissal, she put the coffee mug to her lips and blew to cool it.

He gave a sheepish smile. "Well, when you put it that way…" Trailing off, he handed over the datapad. "Speaking of the rogue Spectre: That Helena Blake woman forwarded this information to us."

Shepard made a show of looking at the datapad but didn't really see it. Worried about his disposition, she asked instead, "What's really bothering you, Kaidan? Speak freely."

"I'm worried about us," he admitted quietly. "You," he corrected quickly, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Ma'am."

When she looked up from the datapad he held up his hands as if to fend her off. "I don't want to step on anyone's toes though."

Puzzled, Shepard blinked at him. She sipped her coffee waiting for him elaborate. When he didn't and the silence began to get awkward, she tried to come up with something to say to him.

"Want to run that by me again?" She couldn't keep the puzzlement out of her voice.

To her astonishment, the tips of Alenko's ears turned an interesting shade of red. He stammered, looking quite like a fish without water. Shepard could only blink in bafflement at him. Had she just pissed him off or embarrassed the hell out of him?

To the Lieutenant's credit, he had an incredible poker face. In the months they'd been serving together, she couldn't read him as well as she'd wanted to. He'd been pissed at her—or at least the situation—when he'd learned his childhood girlfriend had died after attacking a group of civilians.

Hell, she was still pissed at that particular event in her life. The way Internal Affairs had handled the situation was FUBAR'd from the beginning. (Such was politics, in Shepard's humble opinion. …Said opinion not really being humble at all.) But Shepard couldn't recall his ears turning red when he'd snapped at her in a fit of temper when he'd all but snatched away the Internal Affairs report concerning the civilian and Marine casualties suffered by one Lieutenant Susan Jones AKA Ms. Mihaljević and retreated to his cabin. This was new.

And… cute, her hormones added unhelpfully.

"Dr. T'Soni, ma'am," he managed finally. He didn't sound angry—in point of fact, Lieutenant Alenko sounded like he wanted to be anywhere but sitting across from her—so Shepard assumed the ears thing was due to embarrassment. But what he'd said didn't compute. What did Liara have to do with anything?

"What about Liara?"

"You and Dr. T'Soni," he said. He looked like he'd swallowed something foul-tasting. Turnips, probably.

"Do what, now?"

Alenko shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. What followed Shepard had trouble comprehending: "I, uh, like… I-I mean, I wanted to talk about… That is… if you're a… Uh, if you prefer Dr. T'Soni—Dr. T'Soni's company, that is—then I can go."

Shepard couldn't keep the confusion off her face.

He scrambled to his feet. "I should go, Shepard. Commander. Ma'am." And although he looked like he was about to leave without it: "Uh, with your permission, ma'am."

Shepard stood and eyed him uncertainly. What the hell was going on? Alenko was… awkward around her at times, but…

Wait.

Wait a minute.

Did Alenko believe that she and Liara were…?

Oh, Hell.

Did the crew?

Probably.

Well, shit. Did Liara?

Oh, damn it.

If it weren't happening to me, it'd be funny, she thought morosely.

"Lieutenant," she said, a smile of dark humor touching her lips, "cross my heart, hope to die: What are you talking about?"

It was his turn to blink at her. Then his shoulders relaxed a bit—only enough to draw Shepard's attention to their broadness. She gestured for him to sit to take her mind off his shoulders. No good would come to thinking about Alenko's features. She was sure of it.

He didn't sit back down until she did. And when he sat, his posture was rigid. Then he tried to speak again. "Dr. T'Soni, ma'am… Uh, there's a lower deck rumor that she's interested in you as more than a Prothean resource," he said at length, and Shepard had to struggle to keep her mouth from gaping open. "I've… I've got some downtime and wanted to spend it with you… er, wanted to talk to you, ma'am, but if the rumor's true, I didn't…" He broke off releasing a shaky breath and ran a hand through his hair. The curly ends stuck up in various directions. Shepard wondered absently if his hair felt as soft as it looked, and held onto her coffee mug with both hands lest she be tempted into reaching out and smoothing it down.

"Hell, Shepard," he said finally, staring into her eyes. "I like being around you. Spending time with you. If there's something between you and Liara, I won't intrude. I just… need to know."

Shepard swallowed. He hadn't pressed this subject since Czarnobóg, and at the time she'd thought he would change his mind because of the IA report. And that was before she knew anything about a rumor of Liara being interested – though, now that she thought about it, Liara did seem to have a crush on her. Which was both very flattering and very weird.

Mostly just very weird.

And what about Williams? Had she imagined things? The last thing Shepard wanted was to be played by someone she was attracted to. She saw Kaidan as not only her Marine detail commander, but her friend as well.

And then there were the Regs. There was no Regulation against friendship among crewmates, but… what the Lieutenant was implying… She'd broken Regs before and what had begun as an intense relationship had eventually sputtered out.

Sputtered? Hell, it'd exploded in spectacular fashion with both parties hating the other. Her heart still held the scars.

She was tempted on two sides. One, deny anything was between the young Prothean expert and herself and say to hell with the Regs. Two, affirm a relationship between Liara and herself and say to hell with breaking the Regs.

What she really wanted… would change everything between them. Did she deny or affirm?

"I…I'm out of line," he said when she remained quiet. "Aren't I?"

He looked away, and Shepard watched him thoughtfully, replaying his stammered words in her mind. There was something in his demeanor that troubled her. She glanced at the datapad again, wondering if that… No, she decided. That was his excuse. He seemed to have to have an excuse to talk to her since Czarnobóg. Possibly even before, if she guessed his feelings correctly. If there was nothing between him and Ash.

Shepard suspected the last mission had taken its toll on the entire ground team. Alenko had done his job and saved them. Because she'd been unable to. She'd frozen up. Not since Akuze and the six months of Admin had she…

"This isn't about Liara, is it?" she asked, choosing her words carefully. She tapped the datapad with a thin finger. "Or this. You need an ear. I have two, you know. There's a little black rain cloud around your head."

"I'll try to keep the deck dry," he remarked drily after taking a sip of his coffee and setting the cup back on the table. "I had the data Blake sent us, so there it is. But… Shepard. Ontarom was rough. On all of us. I… just want to make sure you're okay."

And there it was. The problem. If Alenko doubted her command, then most of the crew probably felt that way as well. Shepard swallowed. She'd never expected being the Executive Officer of the most state-of-the-art frigate in the Fleet would lead to her becoming Normandy's Commanding Officer. At least not in the way everything had gone down.

"I'm better," Shepard told him honestly. She studied him. "But you aren't. What's on your mind, Kaidan?"

He stared at his coffee mug, an intense expression on his face. Shepard's hands felt clammy, her mouth dry. "Ontarom brought up some—" he hesitated, expelled a breath. Shepard tensed as if awaiting a blow to the gut. "—memories of my own."

Her heart cinched and Shepard felt both relief and humiliation. This had nothing to do with her. Feeling foolish at her self-consciousness, she took a sip of coffee and schooled her features into neutrality. Mentally chastising herself, she racked her brain for a possible explanation. Memories?

"Jump Zero?" she guessed.

He nodded, shrugged. "Don't know why. You did the best you could under the circumstances."

"And you didn't?"

He shrugged again, turned the mug around on the table. He didn't meet her gaze. "I… took that madman down the same way I did… Vyrnuus. With biotics and without… without thinking."

Puzzled, Shepard cocked her head to the side. "I don't understand."

"Rahna," he began but stopped and shut his eyes. Briefly, Shepard's heart squeezed at the name. Rahna Mihaljević. She'd known the woman as Lieutenant Susan Jones. The girl Kaidan Alenko had loved died by Shepard's biotics after she'd betrayed the team and killed six innocent civilians using powerful biotics. Biotics she shouldn't have been able to use given the L3R configuration implanted into her skull.

"Vyrnuus broke Rahna's arm," Alenko said, opening his eyes. He stared past Shepard. "She reached for a glass of water instead of pulling biotically. She just wanted a drink, you know?" He rested his chin in his large hand, looked over at Shepard sadly. "So I stood up. I didn't know what I was going to do. Just… something."

"Get your knuckles wrapped a few times, Lieutenant?" She wondered how many of Kaidan's bones Vyrnuus had broken for speaking up for his girlfriend. The fight couldn't have been pretty.

"I killed him, Shepard," he admitted. Shepard's brows rose in surprise, her heart going out to his lost innocence. "Snapped his neck. They could have saved him if they'd gotten to him fast enough, but… they didn't.

"Everyone had been so afraid of him. Especially Rahna. After that… After that she was scared of me too. Of biotics in general. Conatix shut down after that. They shipped him home quietly and… and I went home too.

"God, I hated that turian. But he wasn't really a turian to me, you know? He was just Vyrnuus. But I never meant to kill him."

He met Shepard's gaze evenly. "On Ontarom, the only thing that mattered to me was getting that man away from you. I didn't even think. I just… reacted. Like with Vyrnuus."

Shepard reached across the table and rubbed the back of his hand with her knuckles. "I never doubted you for a moment, Kaidan." She paused, looked at him with new eyes. "That's why you're so in control, isn't it? Because of what happened. You were, what, seventeen?"

"I've got no more control than any other biotic," he said, looking uncomfortable. He straightened and put his hands in his lap.

She felt an acute loss at his withdrawal and mentally chastised herself for it, but she gave an unladylike snort, continuing the conversation as if nothing had happened, wrapping her fingers back around her mug. "You've got a hell of a lot more control than I do, Kaidan. If I can't shoot it, smack it with biotics, or beat it up, I blow it up."

He shrugged, a small smile on his lips. "Your methods get results. You do bludgeon things pretty hard, Shepard. 'Sides, I'm older than you are anyway."

"By what, two years? I think I've put in more miles on my biotics than you have, Lieutenant."

"It's three years, Commander."

"Same thing."

He regarded her with a shake of his head. "Your math skills need a little work, Shepard."

She grinned at him from behind her coffee mug.

"Feel better?" she asked after she took a sip.

He nodded then considered her with a speculative eye. "So, are we good?"

"There was never any question, Kaidan," she told him immediately, and he expelled a breath like he'd been holding it.

They drank their coffee in a comfortable silence for a moment. Shepard took the time to study him, chin in hand, elbow on the table. She replayed his words and his actions over the last several months. A thought occurred to her.

"Jump Zero doesn't bother you because of Vyrnuus and his death," she said watching his face. "Not really. It bothers you because Rahna spurned you after you stood up for her."

"No, that's—" he began then stopped and thought it over. "Well. Maybe you have a point. Maybe." He frowned at her and drained his mug, wiped his mouth with a quick swipe with the back of his hand. "But it's damned embarrassing you had to point that out to me."

"Sometimes it takes a third party looking in," she told him gently. She picked up the datapad with the information from Helena Blake. "Speaking of third party."

"You aren't going to like it," he warned.

She read over the data, a frown forming on her face as she read. "You were right," she said when she'd finished. "I didn't like it."

She contacted the bridge. Pressly's face appeared on her terminal. She hadn't realized he was on watch. She'd been expecting Joker.

"Yes, Commander?"

"Set course for Noveria, Exec, and then get a message off to Admiral Hackett. 'Re: Cerberus. The Normandy has to make a detour. Possible geth sighting in the Horse Head Nebula, Pax System. We're going to investigate and will be late to the Cerberus base raiding party. Happy hunting if we can't make it back in time.'"

"Aye aye, ma'am."

"What do you think the Admiral will say to that?" Alenko asked after she'd signed off.

"Hopefully, 'Good luck,'" she grumbled. "If this turns out to be a wild goose chase, I'm going to throttle Helena Blake and bomb her base from orbit out of spite."

"Joker would be so happy, Commander."

Shepard grunted unhappily. "He would be, wouldn't he?"

"Sadistic bastard, our pilot."

Shepard finished her coffee and looked at him. She recalled something he said earlier. "You said you wanted to spend time with me." It wasn't a question, but neither was it an accusation. She kept her face calm, though her pulse skipped beats.

Alenko looked away, took a breath. "Yeah, Shepard. Yeah, I did." He looked back at her. "I was out of line. The chain of command is complicated enough without me tripping things up. It's just… you're special, you know? I've never met anyone like you."

"'Special', huh?" She shook her head, a small smile stretching her lips. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Kaidan was one of her lieutenants. Swallowing hard, she reached across the table, her hand coming to rest next to his.

He sighed and took her hand. Her heart gave a kick at his touch. His hand was warm, soft in places, worn in others from half a lifetime using hardsuits. "No going back now, is there?"

"Nope. Besides, you owe me a third date, Lieutenant."

He gave a short laugh of surprise. "I think I can come up with something special… Calleigh."