A/N: This is the very first piece of fanfiction that I've ever written. It's also, coincidentally, the first piece of creative writing I've ever done. So, ah... hi?

It's written to be compatible with the same (largely canonical) universe that I'm using for a much more ambitious writing project, but I felt sort of silly not having anything posted on this site, so I hammered this out in a fit of procrastination and insomnia.

"I swear this is going to drive me bonkers," Kaidan grumbled as he set his latest adaptive hacking program to compile.

Ashley glanced up from the mess table and raised an eyebrow at Kaidan. "Problem, Lieutenant?"

"Oh, it's nothing," he said with a sigh. "I think one of the marines planted one of those little phantom noisemakers near my station. You know, the ones that only play at specific times and barely loud enough to hear?"

"Ah, yeah." Ashley nodded. "One of the girls in the 212 had a bag of them. We all thought we were losing our minds until one of us caught her placing one. She did not have a fun tour, let me tell you that. Strange, though," she frowned. "Aren't you good with the whole tech thing? A quick scan should light it up clear as day."

"You don't think I've tried?" He ran his fingers through his hair, exasperated. "I even had Joker come down here and listen for it, too, make sure I wasn't hearing things."

"I take it he heard it?" She asked.

"Loud and clear, he said. Well, you know how good his hearing is."

"Yeah. I tried to sneak up on him the other day. He even guessed who I was without turning around! Said something about 'different footsteps.' I still think he's got a bridge camera hacked."

"Nah, he's really that good. Trust me," he said. "he can tell who sneaks up on him no matter where his sitting."

"I'll take your word for it." She pushed back from her seat, grabbing the empty meal tray and carrying it to the mess unit for recycling. "Have you asked anyone else about it?"

"What will they do? If Joker and I can't figure out where it's coming from, I don't think having a whole troupe of people traipsing through here will do any better." He sighed. "No, so far, I've been relying on earplugs and hoping to catch whoever put it there placing another one."

"That seems like a pain in the ass, sir," Ashley said with a grin.

"The ear, more like," Kaidan said. "At least it's not high pitched to give me a headache. I almost didn't notice it until it came on during the LS maintenance the other week. Now I can't help but listen for it."

"What's it sound like?" she asked, curious.

Kaidan scowled in though, absentmindedly grabbing one of the meal trays from the reheater. "I haven't been able to hear it clearly since the first time, but it almost sounded like music. Which only makes it worse, you know," he said with another sigh. "I keep trying to make out what song it is, rather than just tuning it out!"

"You could ask the Commander to check the security camera logs," she said slowly, leaning her back against the wall near his desk. "I mean, if you noticed it suddenly and haven't found the thing yet it's well hidden. If it's well hidden, someone should be fairly obviously hiding something near your workbench."

"Yeah, I thought of that," he said, taking a bite of his meal, "but I'd rather not. I mean, that's sort of like admitting defeat, if you know what I mean?"

She nodded at him."Believe me, I do, sir, but it sounds like this is getting beyond a funny joke."

Kaidan said nothing for a moment, just sitting and chewing on the rubbery chicken. "Yeah," he finally said, "you're probably right. If I let this get me distracted during a mission and something bad happened, I'd never forgive myself."

"Sensible enough, LT. You want to go track down the Commander?" She shoved herself off from the wall and glanced at the door to her quarters.

"Yeah, I'll go talk to her. She hasn't gone to bed yet, has she?" He glanced as his omni-tool's chronometer briefly, noting the time. "Nah, she's probably still up. Watch my dinner?"

Ash nodded at him as he stepped away from the mess table to go rap gently at the Commander's door. "Commander? Are you still up?" He called softly through the metal.

There was no response.

"Huh," he said. "Maybe she goes to bed early?"

Ashley shrugged. "I don't think so, it's only 1930. Even with the Commander's sleep schedule, that's early. Maybe she's up talking to Joker?"

Kaidan shook his head. "No, I was up with him before I came down..." He slapped his palm to his forehead. "Oh, I know, I bet she's with Liara. They've been spending a whole bunch of time together in the med bay. Discussing prothean stuff for Feros, I bet. Whole planet's supposedly covered in their ruins."

Ashley snorted and rolled her eyes. "Sure, Lieutenant. That's definitely what she's doing back there."

Kaidan blinked for a moment, uncomprehending, before his eyes widened. "You don't think-"

"I've seen how the doctor looks at her, and it's not an 'academic interest,' I assure you," Ash smirked at his bemused expression.

"Well, that would explain- never mind." he cut himself off, blushing slightly.

"Ha!" Ashley barked out. "Get shot down, did you, LT?"

"None of your business, Chief," he snapped at her, slightly more angrily than he intended.

"Sorry, sir." She apologized quickly and snapped a quick salute.

He waved his hand at her, his cheeks dimming. "Oh, it's fine, Ash. Don't worry about it. I mistook her congeniality for... something else. Nothing serious." He glanced at the med bay, and the closed door to the lab. "I'll just knock loudly before entering, that's all."

Ashley dropped her hand and grinned at him. "Probably a good plan, LT."

Kaidan glanced briefly around the empty medbay before lifting his hand to knock on the door to the lab. Before he could, a loud thud and some muffled voices echoed through the door. He paused – he really didn't want to walk in on his CO in a compromising position – then decided if he was going to knock, it was better to do so now. Plus, he rationalized, was it really a good idea to get involved with a member of the crew? It's not like she was Alliance, true, but the regs were there for a reason.

He rapped twice on the door. He heard a sigh, and Chakwas' muffled voice called out. "Come in!"

Curious, he waved a hand over the door trigger and peered into the rear lab. Chackwas was on her hands and knees, gathering up a crate of spilled data records. Shepard and Liara were nowhere to be seen.

"Ah- sorry to interrupt you, Doctor. Have you seen the Commander? I was hoping to speak with her."

Clutching her knees with a groan, Chakwas stood and shook her head. "They haven't been here for nearly half an hour. I was just moving some of the more commonly used supplies into the med bay proper so Liara can use this as her quarters without tripping over things."

"Oh. Do you need any help?" He asked.

She shook her head. "No, I'm nearly finished here. Besides," she smiled him, "it's good for me to get a little exercise, rather than letting you strapping young soldiers do all the work."

"Ah- if you say so, ma'am. I don't suppose you know where they went?"

She shrugged. "I didn't ask. I saw Shepard head for the elevator with a case of some kind, though, so I suspect she's down in the cargo bay. You might check there."

He nodded. "Thanks, ma'am. Let me know if you need any help with the crates."

She waved goodbye before turning back to the mess on the floor. "I will, Lieutenant. Thank you."

Back in the mess hall, Ash looked up from recording a message on omni-tool as he stepped out of the medbay. "Well?" she asked expectantly.

He shook his head. "Not there. Chakwas said she took some kind of case down to the cargo bay."

Ash shut off her omni-tool with a flick of her wrist and jerked her head at the door. "Probably picked up a new gun, or something. Let's head down and check it out."

"'Let's'? Is this a group effort now?" he asked resignedly.

"You bet, LT. Gotta get my gossip supply somewhere, after all." She smirked at him.

"Great." He rolled his eyes and stomped for the elevator.

Ashley tapped the elevator button for the cargo bay, then glared at the control panel. "Every time I use this thing, I'm more and more tempted to take Tali's offer of speeding it up."

Kaidan glanced at her, curious. "I thought you didn't trust the aliens near the Normandy's systems."

Ashley shifted uncomfortably. "Well... I'm not sure about Liara... or Wrex... especially Wrex... but Tali's just a girl when you get to know her, and I sort of feel for Garrus. I mean, nobody likes being bogged down by shitty brass, and when you have to let someone you know is bad go because of it..." She gave a little shrug. "I guess I see where he's coming from. He's not so bad. Plus," she added as an afterthought, "this ship's part turian, right? They've got a right to have at least one guy on board. I guess I should be happy that there aren't more."

"Remarkably even-handed of you, Chief," he said.

"Oh, don't you start, too," she grumbled at him as the elevator slowed to a stop at the bottom deck. "I already got reamed by Shepard over it."

"Did you, now?" He raised his brow at her. "Shepard doesn't really strike me as the reaming type."

"Well, not a reaming, but... you know how it is. Some people don't need to shout to make you feel two inches tall."

He laughed at that. "Yeah. Yeah, I know that one." He blinked. "Hey, do you hear that?"

She paused. "Huh. Music? Down here?"

The door to elevator slid open, and both of their mouths dropped at the scene before them.

It hadn't been a noisemaker, or a prankster, or someone trying to drive him out of his mind. There was no grand conspiracy. There was a small crowd – most of the engineering team, by the looks of it, as well as most of the ground crew – gathered in a rough semicircle around Ashley's workbench.

And there was Shepard. In standard fatigues, with her boots off, slowly swaying back and forth while playing a truly ancient-looking acoustic violin.

Playing it amazingly, he realized.

She finished the final note of whatever haunting piece she'd just been performing, and gave a small bow to the assembled crowd before setting the instrument carefully back in its case on the bench. The applause was, for a group that small, quite loud.

"Commander... that was amazing," Ashley said, almost in a daze as she walked up.

Shepard smiled at her. "I'm a bit rusty, I'm afraid... but thank you. I like to practice down here in the evenings. The space is better than my quarters. People don't mind my screeching here."

"It's hardly screeching," one of the engineers protested, and Shepard gave him a smile.

"I never knew you played, Commander," Alenko said.

She shrugged. "I used to play for a living, back on Earth. I stopped when I joined the military. It wasn't a reminder of my old life that I wanted to keep up, but I couldn't bring myself to get rid of my fiddle."

"Well, it sounds damn good, ma'am. Why didn't you tell us you were playing? I'd have loved to hear more," Ashley said.

Shepard eyed the gunnery chief. "I only started practicing here a few weeks ago. It wasn't good enough to be heard by anyone before that," she said with a wince.

"Wait... a few weeks ago?" Kaidan interrupted. "When, exactly?"

"Uhm." Shepard scrunched her face up, thinking back. "Tuesday before last? When we were fixing the number four ventilation fan? It got too stuffy in my cabin, so I asked the people here if they minded. They didn't, so-"

"It was you! And here I thought I was going mad..." Kaidan pointed an accusatory finger at her, before realizing what he'd done and dropping his hand awkwardly to his side. "Er. Sorry, ma'am. You just solved a longstanding and frustrating mystery."

Shepard glanced back and forth between the two humans, a single eyebrow quirked. "I take it there's a story here?"

Ash grinned. "Well, ma'am, you see..."

A/N: I didn't specify which piece she's playing, largely because I am not a violinist. However, the piece I was listening to while writing this was Samuel Berber's Adagio for Strings. While it's not a solo piece, it's still amazing and worth listening to.