"Hey."
She stops with a snarl: there is nothing she wishes more than to find a safe dark corner and hit the sack, if safety can be had on a Cerberus ship.
His Fucking Awesomeness Commander Shepard catches up with her. "Just one thing. I want you to go for a check-up to the medbay –"
"The fuck I'm going to let some Cerberus scum get his paws on me!"
Shepard inhales. "Doctor Chakwas is with me, not with Cerberus," he says softly, and pointedly.
She gives him a look – fat difference, fucker – and jerks her shoulder. "Fuck, I said no." Turning on her heel, she starts away from him – and she stumbles into a muscular arm that has blocked her way out of nowhere, and the fucking bastard is suddenly looming above her.
"I'll say this just once," he says, in a tone that makes her want to cringe. "First, Doctor Chakwas is my friend and you will treat her with respect. Second, the moment you are on my team, I must be sure that you are in top shape, which you are clearly not, after universe knows how long in cryo stasis, with unhealed bruises. Third, when I say 'jump', you ask 'how high', or I'm dumping you on the first habitable word we fly by, I won't have in my team anyone who has problems following my orders. "
She stands there, blinking at him, for several seconds, before she manages to master herself. She sneers into his face. "Well, you still haven't given me those files, so I'm not on your team yet, sweetheart."
He slightly raises his eyebrows. "Fair enough. But the moment I give you these, you go to the medlab, even if I am to kick your ass out of bed."
"Whatever," she retorts, and with a slight hesitation, he lets her go.
"Dick," she mutters, not really caring if he hears her or not, and carries on, a bit surprised that he noticed the bruises under the tattoos at all.