She had always been the one to break up with them.

When she was 17, right after she enlisted, she had aquired a boyfriend. Not by any effort of her own, just some puppy eyed boy that had begun following her to the weight room after classes and stalked her dorm mates, befriending any of them who might have even the slightest connection to her. Without a mother to confide in or a brother to threaten her suitor, she began to give in. She might not have been overwhelmed with attraction but she thought it was atleast time she kissed a boy, having never begun a relationship with any of the farmer boys back home, when she still ran around in cotten dresses and braided her hair with red bows at the ends. But now she was a new person, she was a grown up. So when he came knocking the night after finals she accepted his invitation to go for a walk around the Alliance training base. He was a sweet boy, with long eye lashes and a stutter when he got nervous, but the courtship only lasted for a month, with the only evidence of it's occurance being her twice pecked lips and a little less anxiety when hand holding.

When she was 20, she had caught the attention of an older soldier, who's confidence drove her insane. She agreed to go out with him on his dare, and a week later after hearing how amazing he was in bed and wouldn't she like to see proof? she dumped him at the same bar he picked her up at.

When she was 25, she met a man from Earth. He was a school teacher part of an Alliance out reach program promising to teach young Asari children English. He had blonde hair, wore glasses, and often quoted Faulkner and Steinbeck for no apparent reason. She spent 1 year and six months walking around the small parks of the base, talking and analyzing the finer points of The Sound and The Fury, and having her belated sexual awakening in his small apartment one year after she had met him and was confident she couldn't get hurt. However, like always, she was wrong, and when the Alliance called, she walked into his small classroom dressed in Navy Blues and told him the bad news. His face broke and spewed promises from the cracks. He said he loved her, that he would quit his job and follow her to the ends of the Earth, to please, please not go. She softened against this, a grown man on the verge of tears asking her to please stay with him, promising her the moon and stars and years of libraries and intellectual conversation, but she knew she was not for him. Even though she loved their time together, he needed another girl, one who could cement her feet to whatever place he fancied and cook him breakfast every morning, not a wife who ran off with a hot pistol and no promises to return with a beating heart and a emotionally healthy brain. So she left him in his classroom, silently calculating how far away she would be from this planet as if leaving it meant leaving behind every feeling she encountered there.

When she was 29, with enough medals to promote her to working on the Normandy and enough PTSD to give her the distinguished look that experienced soldiers wear on their faces that obviously sets them apart from the boys fresh from their high school graduation, she met another man. He had funny falling hair, with a bump in the middle of his head. He didn't like to show off his talents and had an unconcious fondness for tight pants. He liked to talk to her but would never admit it (atleast not in the beginning of their relationship) because he was below her in rank and innd, below her in every way he could possibly be. He told her of his life and she listened eagerly, not noticing as the digital timer on her watch clicked down the minutes. She enjoyed going on missions with him and making him uncomfortable with her flirting. She enjoyed the game of eye-tag they played in the mess when she was eating with others. She loved the way he smelled and the sound of his voice and how cautious he was around her like she was a porcelin doll surrounded by a field of egg shells. She loved how nice he was to everyone, even to the race of aliens he had every reason to hate. She loved his big heart, the way he marched into her room the night before her certain death and told her how he felt, sweating but firm in his stance. She loved the way he pulled her shirt over her head, unbuckled her pants, and pushed her onto her hard, sheetless bed. She loved the way he looked, the way his skin felt soft, they way he flipped her over and how she let him be the 2nd man to ever recieve the invitation to bed her. She loved waking up next to him, the way his olive skin reflected the blue light of her computer, how his face had found away to grown the smallest amount of shadow. She even loved the way he snored, something she had hated when she was young and the night-time symphonies of her brother and father floated through the house to wake her from her pre-pubesant dreams of flying and falling. She loved sneaking around him naked and silently putting on her bra and panties, pants and shirt. She even loved how she watching him sleep, feeling completely creepy but at the same time feeling like she was staring at a painting. She loved how scared he got when she was going to go on a suicide run, glad his feelings for her didn't die when he reached his height in her bed. She loved how relieved he looked when he saw her, limping away from rubble. She couldn't wait for him to knock on her cabin door during the two months they were docked for repairs and the ship had been virtually cleared, leaving them the only two who cared for it. She giggled at his weird food choices, Asian take out and Krogan Barbeque, and took pleasure in teasing him as she ran around the ship like a child with him chasing her. She especially loved, but wasn't exactly proud of, how they had sex on Pressley's desk as revenge for his stuck up attitude. She loved how sometimes he would call home and talk to his grandmother in Greek and how he would blush whenever she heard his grandmother mention his girlfriend (she had learned the word). She loved how he loved her scars and her cropped red hair and how their names rhymed, even though it was a junior high cuteness she couldn't resist the sweet syncing of syllables when she said 'Aiden and Kaidan'. Most importantly, she loved how he loved her.

She loved how concerned he was when the ship had been hit. She loved that she had to tell him twice to leave. She even loved, in her last moments of natural life, how she was concerned for only him.

She had always broken up with the boy, but now, standing on the parched grass of some god-forsaken colony, she found herself, Commander fucking Sheapard, having her heart ripped out of her chest.

And fuck, it hurt.