Kaya woke upon the floor of the loft above the living room, curled up next to Jeff. How she had gotten there was a little fuzzy. She was pretty sure the original plan was to return to the Normandy. Her abnormal biotics provided great protection from a hangover, but they didn't stop the alcohol from inhibiting memory formation.
Based on all the holes left, she was guessing there had been a lot of alcohol involved last night.
Oh god. That had been a dream, right? There hadn't really had a serious discussion about having children.
She smelled coffee down in the kitchen, and Kaya remembered that she had put a huge tray of French toast marinating in the fridge the afternoon before. She untangled herself from Jeff, very carefully trying to let him sleep. He was not immune from hangovers, and Kaya had a feeling she would be listening to him bitch about it when they departed later that evening for Ilium.
Kaidan was downstairs, apparently the only one awake. He poured her a cup as she tried to mentally assess everything. Garrus and Shepard were in their bedroom. The children – human, turian, and krogan – were asleep in the kids' room. Liara was in the downstairs bedroom, leaving Kaya to wonder how they had claimed a bed. Wrex and Bakara were in the childrens' room as well, sleeping upright against each other. Solana, Kasumi, and Tali were scattered on various couches.
Everyone else had apparently left during the night, although Kaya never remembered saying goodbye.
"That probably got out of hand for a children's party," Kaidan said sheepishly, handing her the mug.
"Thanks, boss," she said with a laugh, walking over to the fridge and pulling out the baking trays. "But, come on, like with all life events the party is never really meant for who we say it is. Maybe with the exception of birthday parties."
"What do you mean?"
"Weddings are for your parents. Baby showers are for the mom. Stag parties are for your drunken, stupid friends. Even religious holidays – you don't really celebrate Christmas for baby Jesus's sake."
He shrugged, saying only, "You would make breakfast ahead of time. Weren't you supposed to be on the Normandy? I believe your exact words were 'enjoying the silence.' Thanks for that mental image, by the way. I used to sleep on that bed."
Kaya laughed, unable to bring herself to talk about all the mental images she had of him and Liara. Hers, unfortunately, weren't mere figments of an overactive imagination. For the most part.
Instead she chose to ignore that last bit. "I'm selfless like that. And I was going to ask you to bring back any leftovers. When we left last night. Which apparently didn't happen."
She turned on the oven as Garrus walked in. "I don't remember inviting either of you to stay the night."
"There's a litter of krogan in your kids' room. We're the least of your worries," Kaya quipped.
Garrus only groaned. "I noticed. Of course it's not enough that I have to deal with Wrex and his damn krogan expansion at work. No, they have to take over my house, too."
"The kids seemed like they were assimilating well," Kaya noted, deciding to change the subject off work. She noticed it always put Garrus on an uneasy edge lately. The Primarch apparently disagreed, but Kaya felt General Vakarian was far better suited to battle than politics. He wasn't bad at it, he just didn't particularly like it.
"I wish I could stay longer. I feel like there's something I could do to help," Kaya added.
"I do recall you having veto powers over the Major's mission choices," Garrus said. "Alenko gave the last turian councilor a mild stroke over that one."
Kaidan raised an eyebrow expectantly at her. She had yet to exercise that particular power in the six months since the Normandy had transferred to their unusual command. It did not really feel right, telling Kaidan where he could fly his own damn ship. Then again, he had surprised her by taking her unorthodox rank as Executive Officer quite seriously, frequently consulting her on tactics and personnel.
Of course, he had also taken it seriously by giving her almost all of the paperwork. Ass. Here she was trying to do some serious continuing education hours with Dr. Chakwas, and she kept having to fill out personnel reports every time someone got shot. She would need to try Shepard's suggestion to make a template.
"Nah. I've never actually been to Ilium. Or, you know, I've never been allowed to disembark there," Kaya answered, remembering back to her time running from mad scientists with murky Cerberus connections. "Kind of surprising, really, when you think about our line of work. But, I'm hoping to get some shopping done."
Kaya got a late lunch with Kasumi at a fancy new Asari restaurant on the Presidium after catching a vid and spent a little time at the shooting range with Garrus trying out some pretty amazing new Spectre-grade weaponry. She was going to have to sweet talk Kaidan into purchasing that pistol. Kaya had seen the expense reports. The Alliance and the Council kept throwing money at the Normandy, in some bizarre attempt to bribe its captain.
By the time she met up with Jeff for dinner at their favorite sushi restaurant, Kaya didn't feel nearly as well rested as she would like at the end of shore leave. She was reconsidering her veto powers.
"You okay?"
Kaya stretched out her shoulder almost involuntarily.
"Call me crazy, but spending the afternoon holding a sniper rifle tends to make me kind of tired," she said as he walked in behind her.
Heads turned as they were escorted to their table in front of a sizable line. Kaya still hadn't gotten used to this, to dating an interstellar celebrity. Fortunately, no one had caught on yet to the fact that Kaya Cole existed, but their stares made her long for the Normandy.
"You know, I'm pretty sure the girl I met eight months ago would never spend one of her free afternoons doing combat training," Jeff chided.
"No, she wouldn't," Kaya said. She wasn't sure whether or not to laugh. "But if there was a line of past me's, all of them aiming to give present-day-Kaya a piece of their mind, she would have to head to the back of the queue."
"Oh, and what would these past Kayas take issue with?"
"Dating a military guy, for starters. Hell, just dating a guy with a beard," she said with a smile. He grabbed at his stubble self-consciously, and she reached a hand across the table to touch his cheek. "Relax. I changed my mind about more than just heavy weaponry."
Jeff took the wine list from the waiter as Kaya looked around. She was taking in the scenery: the dim romantic lighting, the impeccably attentive wait staff, the clientele. Mostly the clientele. Kasumi was hovering, cloaked, over by the bar.
"Kasumi Goto. Stop spying on your grand aunt and her boyfriend."
"You wound me, Auntie. I'm meeting a friend."
Kaya sighed with exasperation and let her be, but only because the thief was actually telling the truth for once.
"Stop spying on everyone and let them enjoy their dinners," Jeff said across the table, misreading her expression.
And turn your attention to me.
She picked up the menu in front of her, a smile playing at her lips as she said, "You look nice, by the way. What's up with the suit?"
"I'm not allowed to want to dress up for a date with my girlfriend?"
"You? I couldn't get you to wear a suit at Kaidan and Liara's damn engagement party. You're not going to propose, are you, Mr. Moreau?"
She could feel Jeff across from her as she stared resolutely at the menu with a smirk, thrown by this off-hand suggestion on a subject they had been very carefully dancing around for a while now. Not that they were anywhere close to actually getting married. And neither of them were the sort to get caught up in what a piece of paper said, anyway. But, considering the fact that the two spent most of their waking hours together, the lack of any conversation was conspicuous.
If Kaya was reading him right, though – and she always was – that deliberate omission was a bit of a charade.
As Jeff settled up on the bridge, running pre-flight checks, Kaya was stowing away some last minute purchases in her cabin. She was about to collapse down on the bed for a quick nap when Kaidan's voice came over the comm.
"Kaya, are you ready for our briefing?" She didn't respond for a moment, wondering if she could pretend she was not yet aboard. "Kaya."
She did not have to be in the same room as him to hear the warning under this words. Kaya, I've given you a long leash here. I'd appreciate you not abusing it.
"I haven't abused it," she responded out loud. "Not once, and you know it. I'll be right up."
Kaidan didn't say anything more, but she could feel his discomfort over the comm. Kaya would think her C.O. was used to her skipping the verbal pleasantries and jumping to the point by now, but it still grated on him. It grated on everyone, Jeff included, if she was being honest.
"I hope you have something black-tie appropriate," Kaidan said when she entered the Captain's Quarters. He looked thoroughly distressed by the prospect.
"Yes! I was wondering when we were going to have a proper moment of espionage," Kaya said.
Kaidan ran his fingers through his hair in annoyance. Kaya noticed that his temples were beginning to gray just as much as hers, although his stress-induced metamorphosis was a bit more age appropriate.
"We believe there's going to be an assassination attempt on an asari matriarch, someone high up in the government of Ilium," Kaidan explained. "I'll forward all of the details to you. Put together an abbreviated dossier for James. We're to attend a party being held by the matriarch. Hopefully my presence will startle without scaring them away, and you can move through the crowd undetected to find the assassin and, we hope, whoever hired him or her."
Kaya briefly remembered Shepard tracking down a different assassin on Ilium. His target had deserved a good clean death then, and Kaya wondered what this asari matriarch had done to earn someone's lethal ire.
"So just me and you? That's a nice change of pace," Kaya noted.
"Vega's coming, too. He'll have your six," Kaidan said.
"Vega's not exactly going to blend into the background," Kaya said.
"No. But that's not necessarily what we need. And you need an invitation without being my date. An Alliance N7 graduate who served with Commander Shepard won't raise any eyebrows. Not too many, anyway."
Kaya sighed. "He's going to be absolutely insufferable, isn't he?"
"Probably," Kaidan said, holding out his suit in front of him with a look of disdain. "Suit up. We're cutting it close on making it to Ilium in time to be fashionably late."