Unspoken

He felt suddenly self-conscious, the way he always did when she was standing behind him. Without turning, he drawled, "Y'know, Commander, it'd be great if someone got me a mirror so I could tell when there's someone lurking behind me."

"Now I know what to get you for your birthday." He could hear the lazy smile in her voice and his pulse ratcheted up a few notches.

"Aw, Shepard, that's sweet," he swiveled the undeniable comfy (leather!) chair around to face her, "but if you're taking requests—"

She pushed off from the bulkhead she'd been leaning against and flicked the brim of his hat down to cover his eyes with the same fluidity and grace with which he'd seen her dive, roll, and kill in the training sims. "If this involves latex, varren, and strawberries you're in for a disappointment, Joker."

"I could always lose the varren," he grinned and adjusted his cap, green eyes quickly flitting across her form. Not for the first time, he took in the weird amber scars, the copper hair cropped too short, and the unsettling effect of seeing her in Cerberus uniform. So much was different, but the quirk of her lips when she teased him and the devious glint in her hazel eyes was still the same. Something must have registered in his face because she frowned and reached out to him.

"Are you okay?"

Damn, he hated being serious. It meant acknowledging that however skilled a pilot, however funny or loyal a companion, he'd always be flawed, weak, inferior. A woman like Shepard—smart, brave, honorable, a goddamn hero—would never settle for a guy like—

"Yeah," he forced a smile, "Just wondering how you felt about whipped cream."

A moment of hesitation, then the expected laugh. Good. Crisis averted. He half-listened to her obligatory retort, grateful to have kept the exchange superficial. You get too deep, you get hurt, he thought as he watched her leave the cockpit, Better like this.

The familiar refrain did nothing to ease the lump In his throat or the sudden pain in his heart, but still he repeated it: Better like this.