5.43
She rolled over in bed. Sunlight was shimmering through the curtains, it was a beautiful morning, cold, but lovely, that was Vancouver for you. Jane Shepard sat up, stretched, combed her fingers through her red hair when she heard two cats call her from downstairs. Probably hungry, the two nuggets. She climbed out of bed, fished a man's shirt from a pile of clothes on an armchair in her bedroom and slipped in the sleeves, buttoned it up. It barely covered half of her thighs and it smelled of her deodorant. She couldn't even remember why she had it – or who she had taken it from, but she always liked blue and white plaid, so she had decided it was hers to keep and it was the perfect good morning shirt.
She grabbed her earpiece from the nightstand, activated it and checked her messages. Maevis ('Shepard, I am in town, would you like to meet for coffee?), Ella ('Hey bitch, what's up?! Did you get home alright?'), Cortez ('Hey Shepard, Seattle Sorcerers game this Saturday, I provide the booze, you provide the screen?'), Maevis again ('Did you get my call?'), and Maevis again ('Never mind, I'll just stop by your place.'). She had to smirk at each and every one of these messages. When she opened the bedroom door, she heard her cats meow on the end of the staircase.
"Just a sec!" she called down to them, but they kept calling. She headed for the bathroom up here, brushed her teeth to get rid of the taste of sleep and the stale aftertaste of the tequila shots she had shared with Ella yesterday. Then she finally went downstairs. Her two kittens strolled around her feet. Both were Scottish folds, one a little grey, the other a bit more brown. She went to the kitchen – wondered on the way when she had made such a mess of her living room – and took out the cat food to fill their bowls. Einstein and Curie stormed to their respective bowls and started wolfing down their food quietly while she started up the coffee machine and checked the final message on her earpiece. Anderson ('Sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but can you be at headquarters earlier on Monday? Remember I put your name forward for command over the SSV Normandy? The committee wants to meet you. Call me when you get this.').
"I'll call you once I've had my coffee…" she mumbled to herself and watched the coffee drip through the filter. Her left shoulder was tense, she tried relaxing it, stretching the joints. Felt like the weather was changing, her shoulder was always sensible to that. A grenade had almost ripped it clean off three years ago on Elysium. Eleven months of physiotherapy later she had her very own weather bone.
She poured her first cup of coffee, took the datapad from her dinner table and headed over to the living room. She was reading the first news of the morning, too absorbed to notice the draft from the open window, or the person lying on her couch before she sat down on his legs.
The moment she sat down, a lot of things happened simultaneously. The stranger on her couch woke, she cursed aloud as her coffee spilled all over her (white!) carpet when both her and the stranger shot up alarmed. She had the datapad tossed halfway across the room and had leapt for her Karpov VII, dropped an empty thermal clip and pointed the gun at the stranger. There she stayed still, assessed the situation. She was in no danger, she realised that instantly, but keeping the gun up couldn't hurt.
The man in her living room was stripped down to his black and camouflage patterned shorts, the rest of his clothes carelessly discarded on her couch and he had been entirely wrapped up in her favourite blanket, which was probably why she had not noticed him before. His black hair was dishevelled, he wore the 5-o'clock shadow of a beard and was physically a remarkable specimen of human male. Perfect shoulder to hip ratio, strong arms, muscular but not too burly, tall – just overall a really handsome guy looking at her from confused, sleepy brown eyes under expressive, strong brows.
"James?" Kaidan Alenko asked.
"Not last I checked," the woman pointing a gun at him replied. Right. Woman. Which James was decidedly not. Also, redhead. Not James. Also, gorgeous legs. Definitely not James. Which begged the question:
"Who the hell are you?"
"Who the hell am I?! This is my apartment, who the hell are you?!"
"Your apart-"
And that was when it hit him. Yeah, he should have seen that coming. Why with the new furniture and the two cats. He should have actually realised last night that he had not snuck into the right apartment. But what could he say? He had been a little too drunk from the party, had decided to get fast food in the middle of the night and after being done eating he had decided it was a brilliant idea to invite himself to James' place because his own place was so far away and he was dead tired. The problem with apartment blocks: everything looked the same! Had he actually been drunk enough to climb into a complete strangers apartment and fallen asleep on their couch? "Shit…"
"Yeah."
"This isn't 4.43, is it…"
"5.43, buddy. You're one block too far."
"Shiiiiit…"
He slumped over on her couch, forehead in his hands. She did not move, gun still raised at him when two cats strolled out of the living room and started purring against is legs. "I was wondering since when James was a cat person…"
"But you never stopped to question it?"
"I was really drunk… It was really late and I was really tired…"
"How did you even get in here?! We're on the fifth floor." she asked in disbelief. He looked over at the window.
"I might have climbed through the window… I did it before, at James' place… it was actually quite easy…"
"I have an alarm to stop people from doing this!"
"Um… yeah, I might have… disabled that…" he said sheepishly and looked up at the woman. By now he was a little clearer in his head and managed to focus on her. Damn she was pretty. There were worse sights to wake up to, though he would have liked the circumstances to be different in that case. Shoulder length, bright red hair, green eyes, the cutest freckles on her nose and cheeks, and wearing nothing but a long plaid shirt and an earpiece. Really, under any other circumstance, this would be the perfect sight to wake up to. Except for the gun.
"You just disabled my alarm? While drunk? While hanging outside my window on the 5th floor?"
"Um… I guess…?"
"That is… actually… really impressive!" she declared, shifting from anger to confusion to downright amazement.
"I'm… God, is that coffee? I'd die for a cup of coffee…"
"Yeah that's the coffee the guy breaking and entering my place made me spill on my 1000 credit carpet, thank you very much for noticing."
"I am sorry. I am so sorry, I'll make it up to you, I promise. God what a mess…"
They stayed still for a while and finally, she lowered her gun.
She watched the young man having an existential crisis on her couch and actually could not be angry anymore. She was actually rather impressed. Drunk, in the middle of the night, climbing up to an apartment window, disarming an alarm, and then just falling asleep on the couch? That was so bizarre and so unbelievable, she actually had to laugh. She kept the weapon close, no question, but she quietly shook her head and picked up the cup she had dropped.
"Fine, you know what? Put on some clothes and have some coffee. Lord knows I need one," she said. He looked up surprised and then jumped up to follow.
"Aye Ma'am!"
She looked over her shoulder.
"You're with the Alliance?" she asked. How ironic.
"I am. Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko," he introduced himself when he joined her in the kitchen. She poured them each a coffee, then handed him a cup with a smirk.
"Commander Jane Shepard."
Six years later, Kaidan Alenko woke in the morning, the sun shimmering through the curtains, and he was alone. He shot up, momentarily alarmed. Still, after all these years, he sometimes was afraid it was all just a dream. But the familiar scent of coffee relaxed him. He climbed out of bed, went downstairs to find her in the kitchen, back turned to him, where she watched coffee drip through the filter. She was wearing bright blue shorts and a tank top, her hair tied into a short ponytail. She was slowly moving from one leg to the other, hands clutching the kitchen counter for support. It was still all new, and a bit strange, the prosthetic leg. It was great technology, looked almost real, felt almost real, but to her, it had to feel strange. He watched as she leaned on her good leg, lift the bare feet of the bionic leg off the floor and turned the ankle in every comfortable direction.
Only then did he step closer, his hands on her hips, placed a kiss in her neck.
"Morning," he whispered. She looked over her shoulder to find his lips, they shared a soft, thoughtful kiss. He wrapped his arms around her, caressed her stomach through the fabric of her shirt and rested his chin on her good shoulder. She smelled like fresh out of the shower, and wet strands of her ponytail dripped on his neck.
"Remember how we met?"
"You mean how I drunk-climbed into your apartment in the middle of the night and you were nice enough not to shoot me but instead offered coffee?" he asked with a grin. She nodded.
"Would you have thought we'd end up here? With all we've been through?" she asked.
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to wake up next to you every morning for the rest of my life."
"Already back then?!" she asked in disbelief.
"Definitely. You had me at 'That's actually really impressive'. Really, how could I not fall for a beautiful woman in nothing but a plaid shirt, with coffee, red hair, and the cutest freckles in the Galaxy?" he asked, leaned over to kiss her nose. She chuckled and turned a little in his embrace so she could rest her head on his shoulder.
"You were not so bad yourself, Major…" she whispered, nuzzled his collarbone and smiled.
No, they had never thought they would end up like this. But they sure as hell were glad it happened anyways. The Universe was a magical place sometimes.
Author's Note:
So this kind of happened accidentally because I stumbled across the following AU-prompt:
i accidentally broke into your house/apartment because my friend lives next door to you and i was in the area, drunk, and i thought i was climbing into the right window and falling asleep on the right couch (and i did wonder when my friend got two cats but i didn't question it) so now i'm hungover and shirtless in your living room so um hi howya doin
... and then I kind of had to make it about Shenko. It has nothing to do with my Normandy Memoires universe, different Shepard, different Kaidan, different universe. It's probably nonsense and probably really bad but it was kind of fun to write so I figured I might as well share it. I am actually getting better with these oneshot things!