Part 4

Ashley liked alcohol and always had. There was just something about the way it made the world deliciously fuzzy around the edges and all your troubles seem so far away.

And Ash had no shortage of trouble. So what if she'd overdone it a little? She'd been trapped on a damn dreadnaught full of geth, the monsters from her nightmares made…well, not flesh but solid, and nearly blown up by her supposed allies; if anyone in the history of the universe had ever deserved a drink, Ashley Williams was that woman.

Shepard could laugh. Shepard didn't wake up nights to the ghosts of the 212 and memories of her friends dangling from the Dragon's Teeth. Shepard hadn't had the picture of herself she'd held in her mind shattered by a pair of dark eyes and a voice like sweet British honey. Granted, Shepard had problems of her own. And, if the rumours about her and Garrus were true, she had her own ways of dealing with them. More power to her, then. Ash preferred stress relief that came in a bottle, the stronger the better.

Ashley was glad when Shepard left her to the sweet silence of the observation lounge and the fascinating patterns the floor made as it swayed under her.

"Ashley?"

Oh, shit.

Ash struggled to sit upright, fighting the dip and weave of the floor, and peered at Samantha – such a lovely name, Sam-an-tha, rolls off the tongue like sweet chocolate – through the curtain of her hair. After her mother, Sam was probably the last person in the world she would have wanted to see her like this. Especially now, with the alcohol and thirty years of desire singing in her blood urging her to just give in, just surrender to what she wanted.

"Hi, Sam," she said weakly, her eyes on the ground.

"Are you all right,?" Sam asked, going to her knees beside Ashley and tucking her hair behind her ear.

It was like being hit by lightning. Ash's eyes fell closed and she leaned into Sam's hand with a little whimper. She'd never wanted another person's touch this badly in her life, not even when she was a teenager, touch-starved and hormonal. That had been a bonfire in her blood. This was nuclear fire running and leaping inside her, demolishing everything she'd made of herself in an unguarded instant.

She opened her eyes when Samantha sucked in a deep, unsteady breath, her hand moving to cup Ashley's cheek. Sam's eyes were wide and liquid-dark, and she had her full bottom lip caught in her teeth.

Ash's hand rose of its own volition to mirror Sam's, cupping the other woman's cheek with a feather-light touch, and it was Sam's turn to sigh and close her eyes for a moment.

Sam shivered and licked her lips.

"Ash," she said, her voice barely a breath, "don't."

She didn't move away.

"I've always wondered if your skin is as soft as it looks," Ashley said, her voice coming from far away and sounding strange in her ears. "It's like silk."

A part of her mind was screaming at her that this was the worst thing she had ever done, that this was sin and wrong and she shouldn't be having the thoughts she was having – thoughts about what Samantha Traynor's mouth would taste like, and whether her skin was that soft all over. Ashley ignored it, which sounded easier than it was.

"Ashley," Sam said, covering Ash's hand with her own. Ash made a small sound of loss when Sam took her hand away, and Sam's eyes briefly fluttered closed again. "Ashley, I want you to stop."

That stung.

She'd thought that maybe Sam wanted…but what did she know, anyway? Ashley snatched her hand away and averted her face, letting her hair make a curtain between them again.

"Sorry," she muttered. "Sorry, I thought…" She wanted nothing so much as to crawl into the deepest darkest hole she could find and hide. Or die. Dying would work too.

"You're drunk, Ashley," Sam said gently. "You wouldn't be doing…this…if you weren't. Would you?"

Ash shook her head and didn't look up. It was only the truth, after all. Sober in the light of day she could never have found the courage again. Not after what had happened the first time she tried to tell Sam about her feelings. She blushed again, remembering the terror she'd felt as she blurted out what she thought, and the hysterical relief when Sam hadn't taken her seriously. That had turned into horror when she realized – later – that Sam had thought Ashley had been mocking her.

How did other people do this? Were there secret classes she'd never attended or something? Was it this terrifying for everyone and if it was, how had the human race survived this long?

Sam was quiet for a long time.

"No." She said. "No, of course you wouldn't, would you? At least you're honest. Come on, let's get you to bed. Give me your hand."

Ashley let Sam pull her to her feet. She tried not to think about the way Sam's body fit against hers when she put her arm over the shorter woman's shoulders, or the way Sam's scent made her heart race as they made their unsteady way to the cot she'd set up in the far corner.

"Think you can sit down without falling?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, I think so," Ash said, and proved it by collapsing in a miserable heap on the bed. "See?"

"Very good, Ashley," Sam said, and knelt in front of her. "I'm going to take off your boots so you can sleep more comfortably, okay?"

Ash's blood thumped in her ears at the thought of Sam taking anything at all off her, and she nodded mutely.

Then Sam's hand was on Ashley's thigh, struggling with the zipper of the boot, and Ashley gasped and closed her eyes. Her hands were clenched in the tangled sheets because if she didn't have something to hold on to she was going to do something…really stupid. She wasn't sure what she would do, but doing anything except let Sam help her with the boots right now would fall under really, really stupid. But the feel of someone else's hand on her leg, where nobody had ever touched her before was…Ashley had no words. She had no words for the feel of cool slim fingers on her upper thigh, inches from her most secret place, or for the spikes of desire that shot through her when Sam's knuckles brushed against her other thigh as she struggled with the zipper.

"There we go," Sam said triumphantly, and cool air hit Ashley's leg as she drew the zipper down. She shoved a hand in her mouth and bit down on her knuckle, determined not to make a sound, not to make Sam even more uncomfortable. Her whole world was narrowed to the few millimetres of her skin that Sam was touching as the other woman carefully drew off the long leather boot. The cool air on the skin of her leg was almost worse than Sam's hands, the softest of breezes drawing shivers from her skin. The boot tossed aside, Sam turned her attention to the other, and Ashley just couldn't stifle the small sound she made as the zipper slid down her leg.

Sam didn't notice. Her cool fingers were on Ashley's leg, touching a long, thin white scar that ran from the back of her thigh to the top of her knee, wrapped around her like a vine. Sam absently traced the line of it, her fingers moving on Ashley's skin again and making her shiver.

"What happened here?" she asked, not looking up.

Ashley took her hand out of her mouth.

"M-monofilament wire trap," she said breathlessly. "Batarian slavers. I'm lucky not to have lost my leg."

"You're lucky it didn't nick an artery," Sam said, and there was a quiver in her voice. "You'd have been dead in seconds."

Ashley closed her eyes and shuddered, remembering the smell of death, the quick scream that was all the point man – what was his name, you should be able to remember his name – had had time for before he died. The snap of the wire as it was cut loose and sent whipping through the ranks, and the searing pain when it had wrapped around her leg at last.

"Three people died," she said. "I got off lucky." She laughed and remembered the gore that had covered her when Justinian – that was his name, yeah, like the roman Emperor, but he hadn't known who it was until you told him – had walked into the wire ahead of her. Belly height to a human, just perfect for maximum pain. Fucking Batarians. Lucky to be alive, they'd told her, as if she cared. She'd wanted to die, when she was learning to use the new muscles they'd grown for her. There had been nights when the pain was so bad she'd thought she would.

"Oh, Ashley," Sam said. "I'm sorry."

Sam laughed bitterly. At least the memory had helped stifle her terrible desires. That was something, wasn't it?

Sam finished taking off Ashley's other shoe in silence, and helped her lay down.

Ashley smiled up at Sam as the other woman pulled the blanket over her.

"I really do like you, you know," she found herself saying.

Sam smiled, but it had an edge to it.

"Go to sleep, Ashley," she said, and turned the lights low. Ashley fell into restless sleep before she'd left the room.