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Shepard had kept her word - when he'd woken up to his brain feeling like it was pressing against the inside of his skull and a tongue as useful as a wad of cotton, there had been a new message buzzing on his omni-tool: Bay E-15, she'd said.
He made sure he was waiting there, when the Normandy limped into the docking bay. She looked like hell. The kinetic barriers shimmered where they covered missing chunks of her hull, and she had battle scars, gouges, stretching from bow to stern. He knew Shepard was alive. But the sight of Shepard's ship battered and broken took him straight back to Alchera. He shoved off the railing, his breath catching in his throat and his heart beating in the back of his mouth.
The docking clamps extended, securing the Normandy to the bay. It would have been so easy to pull strings, to use his rank and his status to force his way aboard. She was still listed as a Cerberus vessel, after all. But he couldn't. As much as he wanted to, as much as he wanted her, he wasn't sure where everything stood. Where they stood. Two years ago, when certain death had loomed and snapped everything into crystal clear focus, he'd come to her. This time, she needed to come to him. This needed to be on her terms. For both their sakes.
He watched the ship settle, watched the decon scan sweep over her hull. He knew they were going through clearance protocols, knew Shepard was probably trying to secure a small team of engineers and mechanics, but his pulse thundered in his ears for what felt like interminable minutes as he stood there waiting for the airlock to open. Waiting to be able to see her.
It was the hydraulics that warned him first - a distant hiss that heralded the inner airlock was opening, and his stomach dropped to his feet. His palms started to sweat. He couldn't do this.
He couldn't do anything but this.
The lock on the outer door flared a brilliant green, and his heart stopped. The door shuddered, the joints separating as it began to cycle open.
And then she was there. Standing in the doorway with a seabag slung over her right shoulder, and her left arm held at an angle in front of her, her omni-tool suffusing her face with an orange glow. She was obviously on a call - he could see her lips moving as her gaze swept across the dock. When she finally saw him, when their eyes locked, her whole face lit up. It was more than he could have hoped for. It was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.
She wove her way toward him, working her way around dock officials and civilians, never taking her eyes from his. She ended her call halfway across the dock, stopped to sign a model Normandy for a kid three-quarters of the way, and then finally she was there - whole, safe, sound, right in front of him. His fingers curled into his palms as he fought the urge to reach out and pull her into his arms.
"Hi," she grinned up at him, her voice soft, her eyes warm. She was so close he could smell the mint of her toothpaste on her breath. She was close enough that he could hear her omni-tool vibrating against her skin as he opened his mouth to tell her hello. A flush crept across her cheeks as she glanced down at her wrist. "Sorry," she murmured, looking back up at him sheepishly. "It's my mother. Again. I need-" He grinned at her, finally reaching out and touching her, wrapping his fingers gently around her elbow.
They both jumped at the firm crack of static as his fingers brushed against her skin. He grimaced, kicking himself for forgetting to discharge against the rail, and tried to jerk his fingers away. Shepard stopped him. Her bag thumped to the ground between them as her hand shot out, grasping his and lacing their fingers together with a brief squeeze. And then her hand fell away, going to her left wrist as her omni-tool flared to life.
As she angled her torso away just slightly, Kaidan took the opportunity to just watch her, to soak her in. The first thing he noticed were the bruises - he winced at the sight of the dark splotches against her pale skin, and they made him ache to soothe his fingers across them, to reassure himself, to comfort her - one creeping around the curve of her neck down to her collarbone, one barely visible on her left forearm underneath the glow of her omni-tool. From the look of them, there would be more he couldn't see, hidden under her clothing. He wondered how far they stretched, wondered if there were bruises spanning the plane of her stomach, how many mottled the creamy skin of her thighs. He cursed himself as unbidden memories of exploring every inch of that skin swam to the forefront and his pants began to grow tight. He immediately tamped down on that very unhelpful line of thought.
The second thing he noticed, as she was ending the call and turning back to him, was that her own face was splashed across her t-shirt. It only took him a moment to recognize it as the picture Conrad Verner had taken of her three years ago.
"That's quite the shirt, Shepard," he said, feeling his cheeks burn as he tried to bite back a smile.
"Yeah," she agreed with a self-deprecating grin and a huffed chuckle, "it is. I didn't own any," she paused and her lips went slightly thin and her brow furrowed for the briefest of moments, "appropriate civs. I'd hoped to be able to buy a decent shirt and have it sent aboard before disembarking. But I think Joker intercepted my req form because this," she plucked at the stomach of her shirt, the holo of her own face distorting around her fingers before resolving into a proper image again as she let go, "was what I found in my quarters."
"Joker?" Kaidan asked dubiously as Shepard stooped to retrieve her bag. "With that shirt? I think I'm missing a piece of the story here."
"I ran into Conrad Verner on Illium," Shepard said as she stood and bumped her shoulder gently against his side, a conspiratorial grin curving the corner of her mouth and sending warmth rocketing through the pit of his stomach. He couldn't help but smile back, even as he fought the urge to wrap his arm around her shoulders and pull her into his side. Even as his lips twitched with the effort not to press a quick kiss to her temple.
"Conrad Verner?" he said instead, nearly tripping over his own feet when the backs of Shepard's fingers brushed against his hand as they began making their way to the elevator.
"Conrad Verner," she laughed, nodding. "He was wearing a set of replica N7 armor and telling everyone he was my 'second-in-command' during the hunt for Saren." Her fingers brushed against his hand again, and Kaidan's skin damn near tingled from the contact. He wanted to reach over, to grasp her hand firmly, to see if her fingers still fit as perfectly between his as he remembered.
Instead he contented himself with the brush of her skin against his, praying it wasn't accidental and trying to convince himself it was. "N7 armor?" he asked, hoping the tightness he felt in his chest every time her fingers grazed his knuckles wasn't evident in his voice.
"Mm-hm," she answered, grinning up at him side-long from under her eyelashes. "And a good-looking set, too. He said his wife bought him a ticket off-planet."
Kaidan chuckled, his heart hammering against his ribs as Shepard's knuckles brushed against him again. "Can't say I blame her."
Shepard gave an amused hum in response. "I'm not sure I do, either," she said, and then her fingers were genuinely stroking against the back of his hand, her touch feather-light. Hesitant. Kaidan nearly stopped in his tracks. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. And by the time he'd gathered his wits enough to try to reach out, to slip his hand around hers, her hand was gone again. "He did mention, though," Shepard continued as if nothing had happened, her tone still light and amused, "that his armor was expensive. Joker did a little extranet searching afterward and found a site where these lovely shirts were being sold. And, of course, he had to buy one. I think the excuse he gave on the expense report was something about 'requiring material through which he could better obtain an understanding of his commander and her person so that his loyalty might be fully developed and cemented'."
"Sounds like Joker," he agreed, and this time he reached out, brushing his thumb across her knuckles. If he hadn't been watching her face so closely out of the corner of his eye, he would have missed it - as his thumb ran over her skin, she caught her lower lip between her teeth and her nostrils flared ever so slightly and her chest rose on a sharp inhale, and then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone. But it still seemed to embolden her; the next step they took, her fingers stroked at the back of his hand again, lingering before falling away.
When she touched him again, he steeled himself and turned his hand over, slipping his hand around hers. They had stopped, were standing still in the middle of the dock, people pouring around them like they were stones in the middle of a river. But it didn't matter. His chest was too tight and his pulse was thundering in his ears as skin rasped softly against skin, as he slowly twined his fingers through hers and he felt the warmth and pressure of her small fingers curl and flex against the back of his hand before gently squeezing and then settling between his knuckles. Kaidan ran his thumb over the back of her hand, relishing the feel of even this little bit of her skin under his touch.
"Hi," Shepard breathed when he finally dared to look up at her. Her eyes were overbright and a hesitant grin curved the line of her mouth.
"Hi," he responded, more a movement of his lips than actual sound. He wanted to reach out and slide his fingers over her jaw, to drag her in for a kiss, to taste her on his tongue. "Have dinner with me?" he said. The words had come unbidden, surprising even himself, but he didn't care, wouldn't have taken them back even if he could.
Shepard stood there, her eyes searching his face, and a knot of tension roiled and tightened in his gut as he started to wonder if maybe he'd been too bold, pushed too far, hoped too much, but then her grin broke into a full smile and he felt like he could really, truly breathe again.
"I'd love to," she said softly, squeezing his hand again. "Just, does it have to be right this second? I'd like some time to buy something decent to wear first."
Kaidan couldn't help but chuckle at the blush blooming across her cheeks, at the self-conscious tilt of her head and the set of her jaw. He did reach out to her, cupping that stubborn jaw in his palm and tracing his thumb over her cheekbone. Her lips parted slightly as his fingers brushed over her skin, and she turned into his touch, her eyes closing for the briefest of moments and making her eyelashes flutter against his thumb.
"If I pick you up at 1900," he asked, his voice sounding thick and slightly choked even to his own ears, "will that be enough time?"
Shepard opened her eyes and offered him a slow smile, her cheek still nuzzled into his palm. "Yeah," she answered, her voice just as rough as his had been. "1900 would be perfect."