Battle Royale

A/N: I really like writing in Ashley's POV, it's very similar to how I think.

In my mind, I have Ashley, Kaidan, and Shepard as being this little group of friends. With Ashley as the third wheel who loves to torture the other two. The game gives no indication that she is aware of the relationship between Shepard and Kaidan (other than the time when she mentions the rumor that he has a crush on someone) but I like to write as if she is aware. This story also makes references to 2 in-game conversations; the first being the infamous Wrex question of "who would win?" The second one is a bit obscure, and I'm not going to spoil anything here. But it is worth getting just for the confused "What!?" at the end.

And yes...I am planning on writing Ashley's nightmare, mostly because that is my favorite line in this whole collection so far.

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Shepard was staring into her coffee too intently, and it was making Ashley nervous. It was normal to find the commander deep in thought at breakfast. Usually drinking the coffee, rather than trying to reheat it with the evil eye. This was making LT nervous as well; if he didn't stop tapping his fork against the plate somebody was going to lose a hand.

"Skipper?"

"Hmm?" Shepard looked up; she had large, dark circles under eyes.

"If you're trying to read the future, you need tea leaves not coffee."

"Not sure if I want to know the future," Shepard finally took a long drink before continuing dismissively, "I was just thinking about something Wrex said yesterday."

"What did the overgrown turtle say?"

"He asked who would win in a fight, me or Kaidan." It was obvious that the commander was lying. She was a good enough of a liar not to have any tells, but no one would contemplate a question that stupid this hard.

But still Ashley laughed. Kaidan let out an annoyed sigh. And Shepard grinned.

"So who did you decided would win a fight between you and LT?"

"He asked me, not her." Kaidan answered instead, still not eating his processed scrambled eggs.

"And?" Ashley eyed his toast. Sometimes it was unfair how much food biotics got.

"I told him the truth; there is no reason why I would fight Shepard."

"What about a war game? Or if it was Shepard's evil clone?" These kinds of breakfast conversations had been common in Williams' household.

"You do know that cloning is illegal." He noticed her gaze and slid his food out of her reach, "Or is that why she's evil?"

"No, no, no! This is one of those evil parallel dimension clones. You can always spot them because of their pointy goatees."

Kaidan groaned and dropped his head into his hands, "I really don't want to picture Shepard with a goatee."

Shepard shrugged, "I would look just like my dad."

I hope that is all you can think of when you try to kiss her, toast-hog, Ashley thought bitterly.

"Anyways, Kaidan would win." Shepard flatly interjected, "If it was a strictly hand to hand. He's bigger, stronger, and a biotic. I would be pinned under him in a heartbeat."

Ashley started laughing again when she saw the back of Kaidan's neck turned red. Shepard had on that shit-kicker half smile indicating she had meant the implication, "My only saving grace is that I'm faster, so I could just run away."

"That's our fearless leader." Somebody had called Shepard that, but whom Ashley couldn't quite remember.

Shepard's smile dropped, and she quickly looked away. It suddenly hit Ashley that the half-crazed corporal from Shepard's old unit had been the one to call her that. Slightly embarrassed she quickly changed the subject, "How between about you and me?"

The shit-kicker look returned, sort of. There was some strain around the eyes showing that it was forced. "Win-win if we split the profits fifty-fifty."

"Profits? Do I dare ask?" It was a bit frightening how well Shepard could act so foolish and happy under so much stress. Just how much would it take to break her? What would happen if she did?

"People pay good money to watch two girls wrestle." Shepard sounded too serious, a tribute to her excellent acting skills, "Extra if there is mud and bikinis involved."

"The extranet is full of fetish sites featuring that," Ashley mused, "we would need some sort of hook."

"That's why those featuring asari matriarchs in pinstriped suits are making so much money."

"Got to admit those are classier than mud wrestling."

"You think there are any featuring matriarchs mud wrestling?"

"In suits hopefully," Ashley looked around furtively making sure the resident Prothean expert wasn't around, "because I don't want to see something that old in a bikini."

"Just can't drop that can you?" Kaidan sounded annoyed. Even though it had been days since they left Noviera, Ashley and Shepard had been giving him a hard time about his comment on the subject of extranet fetish sites to an unamused Lorik Qui'in.

"Sorry LT you just make it too easy sometimes." There was no debated in Ashley's mind that Kaidan Alenko was a really smart man, but he did have a tendency to say something pretty stupid things, especially in the presence of a certain redhead.

Shepard held up her hands apologetically, "Dropped." Her smile softened. Ashley hated that smile; it always made her feel like an outsider from their little group.

Even more so when Kaidan returned the look, but his voice held a tone of sarcasm, "Commander, Chief." He stood up and cleared away his tray, "Always a pleasure."

Shepard just nodded as a goodbye; Ashley did an exaggerated finger wave. Once he was out of range, she debated asking Shepard if she had a pinstriped suit, but decided against it. She didn't want to have nightmares about Shepard and Alenko having weird sex games. Instead, she half muttered to herself, "He's such a dork."

"I like dorks." Shepard said defensively.

"Bad asses are always such high maintenance." Ashley was speaking from experience; she did have a weakness for jerks with motorcycles.

"Great abs though." It caught Ashley a bit off guard that Shepard was being this open about her relationship with the lieutenant. Because of her spying with Joker over the com system, she knew that the two were just barely crossing the line into fraternization. But there had never been any actual admittance. This was still just technically friendly girl talk.

Curious if she could get more of a reaction Ashley replied, "Cute butt."

A narrowing of dark blue eyes, a slight flaring of nostrils, and a growl of "Hands off." Success.

"The hands are off."

"They better be, because I would win in a fight."