"So. I may have a problem."

Kaidan looked up from the monitor he was trying to repair at his best friend. She leant against the bulkhead, arms crossed. There were shadows under her eyes - he hoped she'd slept last night. He'd told her to wake him up if she couldn't sleep and they'd do something like play cards or just go over reports, but she was stubborn sometimes, Ashley Williams.

"Yeah?" he paused his fiddling.

"You know how my mother likes to bother me about why I'm not dating?" she looked a little...nervous? But Ash was one of the more confident people Kaidan knew, forging through life with a certain brash swagger. He liked that about her, just as he liked the surprising emotional intelligence she hid under it. He'd found himself spilling out everything about BAaT to her, even the bit with Rahna.

You're one of the kindest guys I've ever met. The universe threw everything it could at you and you came out a protector.

"Yes?" there, the fuse. His fingers brushed it.

"Why do you bother?" she asked, mystified as she usually was by his attempts to get the monitor working. "Just get the ETs to put a new one in."

"Just because your idea of troubleshooting is to hit your omnitool against the table a few times," he said archly.

"You're such a nerd." There was something fond in her dark eyes.

"Who fixes your omnitool?" he said dryly.

"I am grateful," she replied with a mocking bow.

"So what's your problem?"

She grimaced. "So, my mom is hassling me about dating, because Lynn is getting married and even Sarah has a serious boyfriend - did I tell you she's dating a sailor?"

"You did," he said mildly. "Going to get the shotgun out next time you're home?"

"Nah. Sarah's 18. She can make her own decisions. But if he pulls any of that bullshit on her, I'll kick his ass." She scowled. "You know 'we should get married so I can move out of the barracks'. She's a smart kid though." She paused, a flicker of hesitation running over her features. "Anyway, I told my mum I was seeing someone so she'd try to stop setting me up with the next door neighbour's son."

"But you're not," he said, a little too quickly.

She rolled her eyes. "Not like there's much of a dating pool on a frigate. I haven't even gotten some on shore leave recently."

They'd spent their shore leave together. He'd gone to a few electronics stores on the Citadel with her in tow - she'd called him a nerd then too - before she'd dragged him off to have a few drinks. A small, quiet bar, because she knew he wasn't a fan of crowds and bright lights could sometimes trigger a migraine.

"So you lied to your mother," he said, a bit amused and a bit confused.

"Yeah. And now she wants me to bring my boyfriend with me when I go home next week!"

Kaidan couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. His laugh turned into a wheeze when she socked him in the ribs.

"This isn't funny," she grumbled.

"It is a little bit," he chuckled, leaning against the wall for support.

"Could you come with me?" she blurted out.

He blinked. "What?"

She sighed, rubbing her face. "You're my best friend, my family already like you from what I've told them and I trust you. It's just a couple of days and then I can just say I broke up with you or something later. I'm the asshole in this friendship after all."

"No, you're not," Kaidan frowned at her slightly. Sure, Ashley had her sharp edges, but underneath that was a woman who cared deeply for those she loved.

"Kaidan."

He did need to go back home to see his parents, but a couple of days to help out his friend from the terrors of a concerned mother... "Alright. But you owe me a bottle of whiskey."

"You betcha. Thanks, Kaidan!" She hugged him quickly and then darted off, leaving him blinking at the still broken screen, a dull orange light pulsing over his hands.

The ability to sleep anywhere at anytime was one cultivated by soldiers, so Ashley was asleep almost as soon as their shuttle lifted off, resting her head against the spacecrafts 'window'. For his part, Kaidan flipped, bored, through the inflight vids. His mom had been sending him probing questions for the past twenty-four hours, which he was doing his best to ignore.

Just a friend.

Uh huh. There'd been a lot of smug disbelief in her messages.

His eyes unwillingly slid to the chief, her cheek pressing into her fist. A few strands of long dark hair had escaped her bun and his fingers suddenly itched to tuck it behind her ear.

Kaidan forced his attention back to his vid. He'd had ill-advised crushes before during his career. He was Ashley's friend and superior, and she'd already made her opinion of male officers hitting on her clear with her reaction to Shepard's one pass at her.

The shuttle shuddered around them. "We are now beginning our descent into Amaterasu's atmosphere. Thank you for flying with Arcturus Spacelines."

He leaned around Ashley's still asleep form to try and get a look at the planet. It was only a tiny colony, really only existing to support the nearby Alliance bases and the mines, but it was Ash's home.

Amaterasu was striped in rust red and emerald - deserts around the equator in a thick band and the human settlements nestled closer to the poles. He'd done some reading - which had amused Ash a bit - and the colonists mostly worked in farming and either mining near the equator or in the nearby asteroid belts. The families of Alliance servicemen and women assigned to Czarnobóg Fleet Depot settled on the planet rather than deal with the difficult living conditions in space.

That was why the Williams had originally come here from Ash's homeworld of Sirona, before her father had died.

Ashley woke slowly, blinking blearily and rubbing at her face. "Nearly there?"

"We're going into the descent," he pulled back, suddenly aware of how close they'd gotten, tapping his fingers against his thigh.

Ash patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, my family is going to like you. Just be your normal charming self."

He blinked at her, wondering if she was teasing him again - but no, her expression was earnest. She thought he was charming? He'd gotten 'quiet' and 'serious' a fair bit, but...

Kaidan felt a little pleased despite himself. "Shepard said your sister thought I was cute."

"Ugh. He told you that? Kill me now," her head thumped back against the seat and he let himself laugh.

He still wasn't sure about this whole 'pretending to be dating to Ash's family' thing, but spending time with her wasn't bad at all.

They stepped off the shuttle to the squeals of delight and excitement of Ash's sisters, who promptly tackled her before she gave her mother a big hug, dropping a kiss to the top of her head.

"So this is Kaidan," Mrs Williams said.

Sarah looked him up and down and immediately turned to Ash to offer a high-five. Which she took, because of course she did.

They all crowded into one skyvan, Ashley squeezed in beside him, warm leg pressed against the side of his thigh.

Mrs Williams made a few probing questions about how they'd gotten together. He couldn't blame her for being a little concerned about her daughter dating an officer, and one in her chain of command at that. He told her that Ash had been the one to take him out. He could see her doing that - she liked to be in charge and besides, "It would've been inappropriate for me to make the first move."

There was a strange look on Ashley's face, before she smiled, "You're too nice for your own good, Kaidan."

"Lucky I have you around," he said mildly.

"Damn straight."

Once their bags are delivered into Ashley's room and Mrs Williams started on dinner with the help of Lynn, Ashley grabbed his arm and propelled him towards the door.

"I'm gonna go visit Dad!" she called back.

"You don't need to..." Kaidan began.

"Don't be silly," she loosened her grip and he found himself missing it, "I want you to come. You're my best friend. If you want to come, that is."

"I do."

Ashley's father was important to her, even now he'd been gone for a few years. They'd talked about their families in the dark cargo bay, swapping stories of military fathers. Ash had laughed when she talked about how much they'd fought when she was a teenager, only for her to be the one daughter to follow him into the Alliance.

It had to have been difficult. Raising three younger sisters with her dad gone a lot. She must've taken out the resentment she'd never admit to feeling on her dad, because she never would on her sisters. Kaidan was glad they'd been close in the years before the senior Williams had died - Ash had to carry enough without adding guilt to that.

They came to Amaterasu's small military cemetary. Ash knelt in front of the simple white headstone.

"Hey Dad," she murmured. Flowers had been left, Kaidan found himself straightening them up.

"I usually read Ulysses to him," she explained.

"Go ahead," he smiled gently and settled beside her. Their shoulders knocked together as he listened to the rise and fall of her voice, the still there edge of grief in her words.

You helped raise one hell of a woman, Mr Williams, he thought.

"Is this going to be weird?" Ashley gestured at her bed.

Kaidan stopped his perusual of her belonging - he was curious about who she was when she wasn't on a warship with all her walls up, sue him - to turn to her. "It'll be fine. We've slept together before." He stopped, went bright red as she began to laugh, bent over at the waist. "We've slept near each other before."

She straightened, wiping the tears from her face, "Yeah, you're right."

It was true. They'd slept, squished into the back of the Mako, during missions. He'd even fallen asleep on her shoulder once, to Shepard's amusement. Military life meant a sometimes uncomfortable knowledge of your squadmates.

He had no reason to feel nervous about a couple of nights sleeping in the same bed as her.

Kaidan woke slowly, the first bars of sunlight filtering through Ashley's curtains. He was warm and comfortable enough that he just wanted to close his eyes and go back to sleep. But Ashley was draped over his side, her face pressed into his shoulder, her hand pressed to the warm skin where his sleep shirt had risen up.

Should he move her? Extract himself?

He wanted to wrap his arm around her.

Ashley stirred with a grumble - then froze when she realised where she was. She rolled off him and onto her back. "Uh...sorry."

"Ashley Williams, a cuddler. Who would've known," he said lightly.

"Tell anyone and I'll put itching powder in your sleeping pod," she shot back with a yawn.

Kaidan suddenly wished that she didn't feel like she had to conceal those gentler parts of her - the part that liked poetry and literature, the part that brought him water when he was having a migraine and did his paperwork.

He wasn't expecting the sudden press of her mouth against his, her hair brushing his cheeks. He froze.

"Shit," she pulled back hastily, "I'm sorry -"

He was so eager to make up for freezing that their next kiss was a little uncomfortable, teeth clacking together.

They drew apart. There was a light in Ash's dark eyes.

"Let's try that again," he suggested.

Her hand was warm against his jaw when she leant down aagain, a smile curving her lips as they slotted their mouths together. Getting it right this time. He closed his eyes, sinking into the warmth of it, curving his arms around her, smoothing one hand through her silky hair.

Yeah. He could get used to this.