AN: Okay, here is the deal. These are going to cover multiple Shepards/playthroughs, so I will throw a general description at the top so people know which Shep and time frame they are dealing with.

Time frame: ME1

Robin Shepard: Spacer Adept War Hero. Alignment: Paragon with an attitude problem.

Staff Lieutenant Alenko felt his usually considerable patience waning. He had been waiting what must have been at least fifteen minutes to disembark from the public transport to the docking bays at Arcturus Station, but the woman in front of him was taking her sweet time unloading her baggage, and blocking his only exit in the process. The official inspection of the Normandy wouldn't be until tomorrow, but most of the junior officers and non-essential personnel were moving their belongings onto the ship tonight.

He wasn't entirely sure why he'd even been picked for this mission, he'd spent most of his career keeping his head down, following orders, and hoping that nobody asked too many questions about his biotics. Sure, he'd gotten commendations, but not for anything spectacular, in fact, he'd always wondered if the brass hadn't handed him those praises out of some misguided sense of pity. Human biotics in general tended to get odd glances from the everyday grunts and jarheads, but when anyone heard he was an L2 they just gave him this stare, like they were amazed he wasn't drooling on himself. His abilities must have impressed someone however, because here he was, waiting to board one of the sleekest most sophisticated ships in the Alliance fleet. He would be working alongside legends….if he ever managed to get off the damn transport.

Kaidan rolled his eyes and groaned quietly to himself. The girl had a wavy cascade of dark honey colored hair that just brushed the backs of her elbows, thin willowy limbs, and wide inviting hips. In fact, if she hadn't been irritating him so badly, the Lieutenant would have been more than happy to stop and enjoy the view. He shook his head and chastised himself as a cradle robber; the girl couldn't be more than eighteen. The familiar navy blue fatigues might label her as Alliance, but she was tiny. The top of her head couldn't have reached higher than his clavicle, even with her boots on. This, he suddenly realized, was the apparent hold up, as she wasn't tall enough to get the last of her bags out of the overhead compartments.

"Uh, Miss?" He began, clearing his throat, "Would you like a hand with that?"

"No, thanks," She panted, her voice straining as she tried stretching up on her tip toes, the elusive duffle bag still a good foot out of range, "I've got this." He stood there, watching her struggle for a few minutes, before coming to grips with the fact that there was only one way that either of them was ever going to make it off this transport and get back to their lives.

He stepped up behind her, barely close enough to smell the soap she used for her hair, and plucked the offending luggage out of the overhead bin with ease. He didn't even have a chance to hand the bag to her before she spun around, snarling at him like a hellcat.

"Are you deaf as well as stupid?" She fumed at him, "I said I could handle it!"

Kaidan wasn't really the type to get all calf-eyed over a pretty girl, he was too analytical for that sort of thing...usually. This woman however, looked like she should have been modeling something; it was almost a crime to think those gorgeous features might be obscured by a hard suit on a regular basis. Her skin was a canvas of lightly bronzed perfection, marred only by the lengthy scar that cut a jagged path through her right eyebrow, across her long straight nose, and stopped barely and inch above the left hand corner of her mouth. It did nothing to detract from her beauty. In fact, it only seemed to accentuate her wide sky blue eyes. Add these already considerable charms to her plush pink lips, which were practically begging to be nibbled at, and her sweet little heart-shaped face framed by that wild mane of blonde curls, and it was easy to see how she could have frozen any man in his tracks, and the Lieutenant was no exception. He was about a millisecond away from making a fool of himself by admitting this to her, when her words seemed to finally reach him and whatever sweet-intentioned nothings his brain was about to spout died in his throat.

"You sure have a funny way of saying 'thank you'." He told her, trying not to sound as annoyed as he was quickly becoming, and still not quite capable of tearing his eyes away from her face. Her scowl deepened, somehow sensing that he was staring at her scar (anything was safer than those eyes, or that mouth).

"And you have a funny interpretation of the word 'no'," she snapped.

"My God, is this what they're teaching kids in Basic these days?" The Lieutenant sighed in exasperation. "How old are you anyway? Throwing a temper tantrum is a one way ticket to demerits for insubordination."

"Thanks for the advice, Gramps." She rolled her eyes at him, "I bet I'm old enough to out-rank you."

"Doubtful-," Was all he managed to counter before a quick gesture and a flare of blue tugged the fight-inducing duffel bag out of his grip into its owner's outstretched hands. He gaped at her. She glared at him.

"You're a biotic!" He exclaimed rather lamely. Way to point out the obvious Alenko.

"And you're an ass." She toss back at him. Then she turned on her heel, flicked her long hair over one shoulder, and stomped out the door without another word.

When looking back to when you met someone who was going to change your life forever, most people say that they had some sort of inkling, a spark, a sense of rightness as fate set the person they were meant for in their path at long last. It had been that way for Kaidan the instant he'd seen Rhana out at Jump Zero, he had always assumed that if he ever found someone else, it would be the same. But, as with everything else, Robin Shepard blew the standard protocols for falling in love clear out of the airlock, because the only thing the Lieutenant was thinking as he watched her walk away from him for the first time was, 'What a bitch.'