Commander Enayla Shepard saluted her reflection in the shining glass of the display cabinets in her cabin, and downed another tumbler of neat whiskey, her fourth – or was it fifth? – of the night. She was used to the burning as she swallowed by now, she barely winced. God damn him, she thought, not for the first time. God damn him to hell. She poured another measure, absurdly proud of how she barely sloshed the amber fluid about, and downed it just as quickly.
Bastard, she thought bitterly. How dare he accuse me of betraying him? The Alliance. I DIED, for god's sake! They owe ME! I owe him nothing!
In a surge of anger, she threw the glass at the wall, where it shattered and slid to the ground in musical crystalline shards.
She snorted, took a last deep swig out of the bottle, and, placing it carefully on her desk, strode out of the cabin and into the elevator.
She made her usual nightly rounds, trailing a wake of whiskey and resentment, while her crewmembers stared after her in varying degrees of shock and bewilderment. From engineering to the cockpit she sallied forth, eyes fixed at something only she could see as her feet made their own way around her ship. Eventually she found her way to the gunnery, at about the same time the whiskey in her bloodstream started making the decking treacherously uneven.
Garrus spun, startled from endless calibrations, as the doors swooshed open behind him, and a cloud of alcohol fumes preceded his commander in. Enayla braced herself against the wall and looked at him sullenly.
"Men… men suck," she confided. "Don't trust em. Don't believe em. Most importantly…" she moved closer and stumbled and he hastened to catch her while she waggled a warning finger in front of his face as his mandibles fluttered in surprise, "most importantly, don't love em. Don't. Just… don't…"
He watched in dismay as her face crumpled and slow, fat tears slid down her cheeks. She buried her head into his chest and cried in earnest, arms wrapped around him for dear life. Hesitantly he put his own around her, and held her as she wept. He found himself crooning as if to a hatchling, and stroking her hair which was fraying loose from its normally sleek bun. Eventually her tears ceased, to be replaced by deep, even breathing, and he found himself supporting her entire weight.
He sighed, and lifted her up, amazed at just how light and insubstantial she seemed. He carried her out of the gunnery and back up to her cabin, steadfastly shielding her tear stained face from the curious few he passed on the way.
He'd never been in her cabin before, but he didn't hesitate as he made his way to her bed and laid her carefully on it, arranging her limbs gently. He reached down and pulled off her boots, and started tucking her under the covers.
She awoke just enough to mutter "Kai…?" in a broken, whiskey roughened voice, thick with tears and longing, and started crying again. So he climbed in next to her, and held her, freeing her hair and running his fingers through its shining chocolate length, cursing her for turning to him in her time of need, cursing Kaidan for abandoning her, cursing the universe for its cold uncaring.
But mostly cursing his sympathies for rising in response to her vulnerability, cursing his weakness in wanting what he couldn't have, cursing his heart for falling for his broken Commander who loved another.