The scan of the extranet didn't give any results. Shepard had taken a picture of the little girl and launched a facial recognition program checking every missing person database he had access to, but found nothing. An hour and a third sundae later he started to contact every orphanage that existed in Vancouver, but none of those establishments had any of their children missing either.
At the end of the third hour, he had attracted an attention of a police officer, who started questioning him about his 'suspicious behavior'. It took another fifteen minutes to explain the situation. In the end, the officer advised Shepard to simply give up and send the girl to the closest orphanage and, if he still wanted to help to find her home, no-one could stop him from doing so afterwards.
Shepard was sitting on a bench in a small park watching the sunset and trying to figure what to do next. To his greatest disappointment, he started to realize that Kaidan was right, and that the police officer was right too. Shepard couldn't bring the kid home, because if there was a smallest chance someone would find out about it, he would be charged with kidnaping, which could lead to serious complications.
Plus, there was also the mission. Shepard had to head to the crime scene tomorrow morning and probably fly to Horizon afterwards. The thought of possibly flying anywhere seemed very exciting to the commander. He wasn't sure if he was ready to risk it yet.
Shepard glanced at the girl, who was sitting next to him on the bench. Her face was turned to the sun and eyes closed, as if she was enjoying the sensation of warmth on her face. Shepard also noticed that her skin was now covered in goosebumps and swore at the back of his mind for not thinking about the quickly dropping temperature sooner. He took off the black hoodie he was currently wearing and covered the girl's shoulders with it. The child opened her eyes and looked at the commander with surprise, but then snuggled into the hoodie with a content smile.
It was strange to watch her. Shepard knew that children at her age should already be talking, so maybe she had some sort of development problems. But at the same time, she was reacting to everything like an adult. Curious, fascinated, but adult. Even the moment he'd activated his omni-tool to scan the extranet, she tugged his arm closer to her face to take a closer look at the device, like she'd never seen it before, but instead of simply grabbing the glowing thing and starting to randomly press buttons, she gave it a thoughtful look.
She was… different.
"I'm sorry, I've tried everything," Shepard finally announced, "for today, I mean." He added catching her confused look. "I'll need to find you a place to sleep, and will try to do something more tomorrow, deal?"
The girl reminded silent.
Shepard sighed and activated his omni-tool again, trying to make a call. The audio transmitter in his ear beeped and only a moment later he heard a familiar voice answering his call.
"Hey, Shepard, it's great to hear from you," Liara greeted sounding tired, but happy at the same time.
"Finally, I've got a convenient excuse to call," the commander chuckled.
"Oh, now you need excuses to call a friend?"
Shepard spent good fifteen or even twenty minutes talking to her just about everything. Liara told him that she had nearly finished her book about prothean culture. Now it was easier with Javik's help. The commander was still surprised that Javik agreed on helping with it, but it was nice to know that the last prothean decided to stay with them longer, instead of joining his fallen comrades. He was even more surprised that now the both of them were attending to different archeological sites together, since most of the Mass Relays had been finally repaired. But never-the-less, most of Liara's work was still connected to the information market. Shepard wasn't even surprised when Liara told him that she'd already knew about his reinstatement.
Before they finally said their goodbyes, the commander asked her to check her own links and find out about any families with children arriving to Vancouver during the last several days. He also thought about asking her about Cerberus activities, but he was sure that it wasn't something he could discuss over a call, even if it was encrypted. Plus, Shepard was sure Liara would've contacted him herself if she knew anything.
Leaving the girl in the orphanage was difficult, but it was the proper thing to do. Shepard learned years ago, that the moral decisions rarely felt right at the time. Even this knowledge and his years of experience dealing with hard choices, didn't make it easier. When she understood what was going on, the young girl started to cry and cling to the commander.
Shepard knelt before the girl, placing his hand on her small shoulder, "I wish I could take you with me, but these people will take good care about you. I'll see you tomorrow," he promised.
~ooo~
When Shepard finally reached the door of his apartment, he felt empty and exhausted. The lights were on, so it meant Kaidan had already returned from work. For the first time this year, it was Shepard's turn to be home later than his husband and surprisingly the thought made him smirk.
The smell of cooked meat reaching his nostrils turned this smirk into a wide smile. Apparently, it was also Kaidan's turn to cook. At the image of the biotic standing in the kitchen wearing nothing but an apron, his dick gave a small twitch, demonstrating how much it appreciated the idea. Probably, it was something Shepard needed right now to get his mind off the events of the day.
Shepard found Kaidan exactly where he expected him to be – standing next to the stove and frying something on a pan. Unfortunately, his major wasn't wearing any aprons and wasn't naked, but wearing a simple old tee and a pair of sweats. He still looked damn amazing, with his broad shoulders and muscular back hidden little under the thin fabric of a form fitting shirt. Shepard's eyes slid further down and stopped on the curve of the biotic's ass taking a moment to appreciate the view.
"Are you going to just stand there, half-way between the corridor and the kitchen?" Kaidan asked not even turning his head.
Shepard took it as a sign and approached Kaidan, wrapping his arms around the other man's waist, letting his palm slid underneath Kaidan's shirt, resting against the flat muscles of his stomach. Shepard's lips pressed against Kaidan's neck starting to cover it with light kisses, which made the other man hiss.
"Could we perhaps have a dinner first?" Kaidan asked.
"Not that hungry…" Shepard admitted.
"Well, maybe you're not, but I am. You know, hungry biotics get grumpy."
"Yeah, I know," Shepard nodded, slightly startled at the biotic's cold tone. He moved away taking a seat on one of the chairs next to the dining table. "I'll eat some too, then," he said.
Kaidan turned the stove off and extracted two plates from the drawer placing them on the table, then he took the pan from the stove and started to dish the mix of meat and something green and ragout-looking to the plates.
"So," he started, "how was the meeting with Hackett?"
"Great actually; he reinstated me," Shepard replied.
"Well, congratulations," Kaidan nodded taking a seat on the opposite side of the table, starting to eat.
Several long minutes they ate in absolute silence, neither of them seemed to have any appetite. Shepard waited for Kaidan to say anything, but the biotic was silent, keeping his eyes on the plate.
Shepard could see that something was bothering the other man, but he didn't want to bring it up. The commander didn't want to start talking about problems, because he wasn't even sure what he could say that wouldn't make their already turning cold evening even worse.
"I asked him if he could pull you out from work for a couple of days, so you could join me on my assignment. I might need a biotic expertise there," Commander said instead.
"Let me guess, it was a 'no'," Kaidan smirked sarcastically. "Even if technically we've never breached the protocol by having a relationship, they are going to frown on a married couple in the same squad."
"Sort of," Shepard shook his head. "Hackett said he could pull some strings, if the mission will turn out to be more serious than it looks. So we might end up on a mission together anyway. If we will promise to behave." He added with a wink trying to lighten the mood.
It didn't really work, as the biotic ignored it. "Will see," he replied instead.
It was very quiet in the apartment. Somewhere out the window leading to one of the very few non-central streets rebuilt in the past four months, Shepard could hear a lonely ground car passing by and disappearing somewhere beyond the commander's ear-sight.
"I will need a biotic on the mission anyway," Shepard added after a moment. "Hackett told me to talk to you about it."
"Yeah, I can send you one of my students," Kaidan nodded.
"Ok…" Shepard agreed.
"Ok…" Kaidan repeated. For the commander it looked like his husband wanted to say something else, but changed his mind.
The rest of the dinner they spent without saying a single word. Shepard couldn't say that the whole business related conversation had been warm, but at least they'd had something to talk about. From there on, it just became awkward.
Shepard waited to see if Kaidan was going to bring the topic of the child up, but he never did. Maybe it was for the best, but for some reasons, Shepard hoped he would do so.
After the dinner Kaidan silently took both of their dishes from the table placing them into the dishwasher. Shepard watched him not moving from his sitting spot.
When Kaidan moved closer to him, he never tore his eyes away from his husband. Kaidan took him by the hand and tugged him silently into the bedroom, never looked away as he started to undress him, slowly, nearly methodically. Neither did he look away, when Kaidan carefully pushed him onto the bed, covering his neck and his torso with kisses.
When Kaidan's nails dug into Shepard's hips, the commander shut his eyes, swallowing hard. He tried to concentrate on the sensations, on the feeling of Kaidan's skin under his fingertips, on the shift of his muscles under that skin and on the wet warmth of his tongue playing with Shepard's nipple. In the end, it was exactly what the commander needed right now, what he'd hoped for since he returned home.
Shepard didn't want to open his eyes. He was afraid that it would make him lose concentration, turning his attention away from what they were doing, so he continued to simply touch, smell and sense. He felt strong hands lifting his hips, and Kaidan pushing into him, slowly filling him with careful, steady thrusts.
Kaidan let out a grunt, but it was not one of pleasure. Shepard felt him retreating and opened his eyes giving his lover a questioning look.
"I… I can't," Kaidan shook his head. "Not when both our minds are somewhere else."
For a second Shepard wanted to argue, but then glanced down between their bodies, noticing his member laying limp on his stomach. "Shit," he groaned in annoyance. "I'm sorry…"
Kaidan shifted away moving towards his side of the bed. "No, that's all my fault," he admitted after a moment of silence.
"Ok, right," Shepard nodded, "let's stop trying to find whose fault it is and just talk. Come on, spill it, what was the entire evening about?"
Kaidan turned his head and looked at Shepard, his eyes were filled with desperation. "John, what was I supposed to do seeing you with this child? Tell you, that it was fine, that we could take her home and raise her as our own? Even if it has been little bit less than an hour since you met her?" he asked.
"Whoa! Kaidan…" Shepard raised his eyebrow. "I've never even… considered this."
"Yeah, of course you didn't," Kaidan replied with a sigh of disbelieve, "It was only my imagination playing tricks with my mind when I saw you embracing her, your eyes starting to shine. For the rest of the day, my heart was doing these weird flip-flops as the image was popping back into my mind: you, me and a child. You know… I…" He stumbled, half way through the sentence rubbing the bridge of his nose between his fingers.
Shepard's eyes widened in surprise, as he realized what Kaidan was talking about. And here he thought, that it was him who did something wrong which pissed his husband off.
Of course he'd always knew that Kaidan was a romantic, even if he kept denying it, but Shepard had never actually thought about him wanting to raise a child together. He had never even thought about the possibility, especially with the fact they weren't asari who could reproduce without the second gender. "Kaidan, do you want us to... have a kid?" he asked, his voice was unexpectedly gentle.
"I don't know, John," Kaidan sighed, "I mean, when I was younger, I wanted it. You know would be nice to have someone who would bring you a glass of water when you won't be able to lift it with your biotics anymore," he chuckled, "but then... then I found you. Never expected to actually fall in love with a man. But I have never expected to survive the war either…"
"Hey," Shepard smiled reaching for his husband's face with his hand to pet Kaidan's cheek with his thumb, "if you want we can go back to the orphanage tomorrow. I asked Liara to check if she can find anything on the girl. And it's Liara, so by tomorrow she will probably find everything. And if the girl has no-one… I mean, we could…"
Kaidan started to chuckle nervously. "Heh, this is surreal," he admitted, "but yeah, we could. Can't see why not. And if Liara does find her parents, then I guess we could just be happy for the girl. And, well, think about... umm... alternatives."
Shepard's smile widened. Moving closer and wrapping his arms around Kaidan, he pressed his nose into the other man's neck, inhaling the smell of his skin.
"Although, you're an overgrown child yourself, you know?" Kaidan teased.
"Me?" Shepard faked a surprise. "I thought I was the living image of courage, heroism and valor," he laughed.
"Yeah, right," Kaidan laughed in response, snuggling closer to his husband. "Of course you are."
