A/N: This is for Chaos715 because without her lovely words I would never have remembered why I began writing my renegade fics. I hope you like it.

A/N2: For any concerned with spoilers for ME3 being in the fic, there are none. Although the story is loosely based on the events in the demo I have tweaked and glossed over and outright ignored things leaving at best only the most superficial of resemblances.


"I trust him."

Her head bounced off the wall of the small room the Alliance had been gracious enough to stick her in after they'd returned to earth while her fingers drew invisible letters of a name on the wall before her.

The food was good. The accommodations better than the prison cell she'd been expecting and she was going quietly out of her tiny little mind from the itchy feel that was a constant reminder that for all that that the room's door was wide open, she was not allowed to come and go as she pleased.

"I trust him." Another head bounce.

Sure, she hadn't seen him in weeks. Hadn't received a single bit of mail. Hadn't heard his voice or his name, but he was busy off doing Spectre things, right? She had been one. She knew what it was to be the Council's bitch. It didn't mean anything and she trusted him.

Another bang of her head on the wall, harder this time.

"If this is your way of trying to break out of confinement I should probably point out that the door is open, Commander." A male voice commented from behind her.

Rache, head against the wall, twisted until she could see who addressed her and then jerked back with surprise. "Holy Hell. Are you going to eat the furniture?" There was genuine concern in the words as she took in the wide expanse of his chest and thighs that were as big around as her head.

The large human male slapped his heels together and gave her a salute. "Commander."

"Do that again and I'll shoot you." Rache bounced her head off the wall once more for good luck and turned to face him. "Damn, you're a big one. What are they feeding recruits these days, anyway? Kittens?"

"I'm not a recruit, ma'am." He informed her formally.

Rache stared at him. "You call me that again and I'll flash my tits at you." The words were a test, a button to push to see how he would react, what kind of soldier he was.

The slight opening of his mouth, the wide eyed wild look that froze his features and the lack of a response meant he passed the test.

"I'm fresh out of kittens, soldier, and I'm partial to the furniture so what can I do for you?" She crossed her arms under her breasts, lifting them, daring him, as she cocked her weight to one hip and smiled at him.

The behemoth in front of her didn't blink and his gaze never left her eyes. "The Defense Committee would like a word, ma'…uhn…Commander."

Rache's lips flashed with a sudden smile. "I like you. You can eat my furniture." She clapped a hand on his shoulder, squeezed and then paused stroking the taunt muscle down toward his pecs. "Wow, these are the real thing."

The strained expression on the soldier's face grew worse, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed hard.

The smile one Rache's lips turned wicked as the stroking fingers moved to the dogtags hanging on his neck. "Hello, Lieutenant James Vega." She all but purred, the mischief in her face unrecognizable to any who didn't know her well. There was more than one way to relieve boredom and teasing this big teddy bear would…

"Why are you molesting your guard?" A familiar voice asked from the doorway.

Every synapse in Rache's brain seemed to leap, excitement streaking through her veins as she recognized that voice but refused to turn toward him. Instead she added a more sensual edge to the fingers stroking the well worn Alliance t-shirt stretched over that wide chest.

"I was trying to amuse myself." She finally answered, green eyes slanting toward the disapproving Spectre standing in the doorway. "By now I'm thinking about sex."

Kaidan moved several steps into the room, his stance relaxed and almost indolent. "That better be because you heard my voice."

"Oh?" Rache replied stepping away from the soldier to face the Spectre. "What am I? Pavlov's bitch to come when called?"

The slow, quirky smile that kicked up one corner of his mouth was as familiar to her as the back of her hand but he added an undertone of want to the gesture this time, his dark eyes journeying from the thick black combat boots she wore up the dark black casual pants, pausing for a long study as he reached the dark shirt before finally reaching her face and lingering on her lips.

"Pavlov can go to hell. I don't want you to come for anyone but me." The rough grain of his voice sent a shiver up her spine and she lifted her chin with a delighted challenge.

"Uhn…I should…go." The soldier began inching toward the door, a strong rush of color rising from the neck of his t-shirt to the Mohawk on his scalp.

"Lieutenant Vega called me. I think I'm supposed to come for him." Rache retorted not even bothering to look at the large man.

"Lieutenant Vega can't handle you." Kaidan answered with confidence.

"I really don't want to be a part of this…" The soldier all but pleaded trying to put distance between them.

"Perhaps…but I doubt he would ignore me." Rache let the anger snap through her words. "I doubt he would demand my trust and then abandon me."

Vega began muttering a soft prayer in a foreign language, his eyes closed and expression pleading.

"Maybe he'd rather you gave your trust willingly so he didn't have to demand it." Kaidan responded not giving an inch. "Maybe he didn't expect that trust to have an expiration date that needed to be constantly renewed."

Anger flowed from the sensual heat between them and she closed the distance between herself and Kaidan, jaw clenched as she glared up at him. "Maybe he…"

"Maybe he only came here to escort Commander Shepard to the Defense Committee!" Vega finally said with desperation. "Maybe he really really wants be someplace else and leave you both alone to work this out."

Two similar expressions of exasperation were turned toward him.

"Please, ma'a…uhgn, Commander. Major." Vega shook his head, his eyes closing in defeat.

"I'll escort the Commander to the Defense Committee, Lieutenant." Kaidan finally said glancing at the woman next to him. "You can walk drag."

"What if I don't feel like going?" Rache crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at Kaidan. "Maybe I like this room. Maybe I'm thinking of redecorating. Maybe…"
"Move your ass, Shepard, before I put my hand on it." Kaidan stated in implacable tones.

"I'll wait outside, sir, ma'am!" Vega all but ran for the door.

Rache scowled after him. "I was supposed to flash my tits at him if he called me that again."

"If you start flashing your very admirable breasts at everyone who calls you ma'am, Shepard, it's going to take us a long time to get to the Defense Committee." He put his hand on her elbow and began escorting her toward the door. "And I promise you I will enjoy every step of the way."

A snorting laugh escaped her as they joined a pale Vega.

"Ma…Commander, I didn't mean…" The soldier began stumbling over his words as he tried not to look at her, a dull, painful color surging up his neck and cheeks.

"Relax, Lieutenant. I was asked to keep the Commander in line and I will. She will be keeping her shirt on for the foreseeable future."

Rache snorted. "Shot yourself in the foot with that one, didn't you?" She smirked at him.

Kaidan gave her a look and moved her down the hallway.

"I wasn't aware you knew the Commander, Major." Vega said joining them.

"Oh, the Major knows me very well." Rache dropped a suggestive tone into her voice, batting her eyes at Kaidan's strong profile. "One might even call his knowledge biblical."

"Madre de Dios." Vega said, his eyes widening slightly as he stared at Kaidan in awe.

"She's playing with you, Lieutenant. It's one of her tricks. She distracts you, keeps you off center so you don't pay close attention to her." Kaidan said the words as if giving a report. "If you don't pay close attention, if you don't see her, you'll never get near her and you'll never catch her."

Vega's expression narrowed as he thought that over.

"You make me sound like an evil overlord or something. I should grow a mustache so I can start twirling it." Rache rolled her eyes but the sharp look Vega gave her said he wasn't buying her mocking attempt to dismiss the claim.

"I've never had biblical knowledge of a woman with a mustache before." Kaidan answered idly and earned an unwilling laugh from her as his communicator gave a discrete beep. He pulled to a stop, nodding his head as he listened to the message before cutting the transmission and looked down at Rache. "I have to go. Anderson will meet you and give you a briefing on what to expect from the Committee."

Rache frowned, her gaze flickering from him to the sudden surge of motion around them, soldiers and staff moving at quick paces through the hall, and then back at him. "What's going on?"

"Hackett is mobilizing the fleet." Kaidan gave her the information without hesitation before clasping her chin and lifting so his mouth could find hers for a brief kiss. "Try not to kill anyone while I'm gone, hmm?"

"Better come back soon." She responded almost by rote, but her eyes betrayed her tension, her frustration at being inactive while things were so actively happening.

Kaidan smiled and then looked at Vega. "Watch her. She's smarter than you are and she is sneaky. Oh, and if she flashes her breasts at you, I will kill you. Good luck." He clapped the soldier on the shoulder and then was moving down the hall.

Rache watched him go, unashamedly focused on the tight muscles of his butt until the strangled noise from Vega caught her attention. "Relax, Lieutenant." She said with a laugh. "Most people don't notice it, but Major Alenko has a sense of humor."

"With all due respect, ma…urgk, sir! I don't think the Major was kidding." Vega responded.

Her attention more on the movement about them, all but itching to join, to be apart, to do something, Rache gave a one shoulder shrug deciding she was tired of all of this talking. She wanted…no, needed…to be doing something. She should just send a biotic slam through the crowd and run toward the nearest exit…the one Kaidan was walking through…

She closed her eyes. Her teeth and fists clenched and she breathed through her nose.

"I trust him." She muttered before swallowing her urge to run free. She gave Vega a bright and meaningless social smile that hid her thoughts and rolling emotions. "I believe we have somewhere to be, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir. We do." He answered and began leading the way.


The bastards. She'd told them! She'd told them what was coming and when it came they were all 'help us, Shepard, you're our only hope.'

The pistol in her hand spat several times turning the head of the husk several yards in front of her to mush and she kept racing on, her eyes tracking the battered and debris ridden terrain about her as she tried to keep up with the surprisingly spry Admiral in front of her. Hunh. Once an N7, always an N7.

She'd murdered more than a quarter million batarians trying to slow this day's coming. To give the universe time to prepare and what had they done? Stuck her under house arrest and debated the legal and political ramifications of what she'd done versus her status as an Alliance Hero and First Human Spectre. Oh, with a little Legally Declared Dead thrown in there to give the whole clusterfuck a well lubed feel.

A scream of pain cut far too short drew her attention to the left and she gave a low oath watching the solider in Alliance blues fall to the ground, husks swarming about her. Grief warred with guilt and both were strangled by rage and bitterness. She pushed a bit more effort into her run, barely listening as Anderson called out instructions and commands on his com, pausing every step or two to shoot blue seared abominations that looked like play dough variants of various alien shapes and sizes smashed together by the demented glee of a two year old.

A bitter laugh huffed from her at the thought of these new monsters being tossed at them. At least the Reapers had put the time she'd delayed them to good use by coming up with new and improved monsters to scare the shit out of their victims in the moments before they killed them. Good to see the enemy of all sentient organic life in the galaxy being proactive. Maybe that was the true pinnacle of evolution right there…the ability to manage time efficiently.

Another scream of pain matched by someone else's terror. She located the source…civilians being hunted down by husks. A young teenage boy was dragging at the arm of an older woman who had fallen, his face white as he stared down the blue streaked horror racing for them.

Even as she raised her pistol, Rache knew it was useless. They were out of range, wreckage and water proving an impossible obstacle course between them and any biotics she tossed in an effort to help would fizzle out having never reached the target. As she watched, helpless, the boy was smashed to the ground, hitting so hard she didn't need the splash of blood to tell her he would never rise again even as the woman finally gained her feet. She managed two steps before the swarm was on her.

Rache wanted to scream. To shriek her rage. She wanted the blood of every husk, every Reaper near her to flow until she bathed in it. She wanted to fight, to kill them. To make every one of them pay for her failure to stop them from coming. Her failure to protect the ones she loved yet again. Only this wasn't Mindoir, this was Earth and the death toll was already much higher.

"Shepard." Anderson had paused, looking back at her. His expression held sympathy but his voice conveyed the need for her to suck it up and keep moving.

She gave him a single nod and they were moving again.

"There's the Normandy." Anderson yelled pointing before them.

The relief that streaked through Rache didn't bear close scrutiny and it sure as hell wasn't connected to anyone with the name Kaidan. Neither was the surge of emotion that welled in her as she saw the airlock open and that familiar figure raise an assault rifle taking carefully lined shots against the monsters swarming towards her and Anderson.

"Go, Shepard!" Anderson yelled at her as the Normandy began to hover nearby.

"Dammit, I swore the last time I jumped into the Normandy was the last time. Stupid Gods of Irony." She muttered under her breathe before lining up her path and sprinting for the open door.

She landed badly, sprawled on the floor of the airlock and heard a soft laugh from the man with the assault rifle.

"You lost points on the landing." He observed calmly shattering the brain pan of a grotesque blue abomination.

"You want to get shoved out the door?" She countered scrambling to her feet before looking at the Admiral she'd left behind. "Come on, Anderson!" She shouted motioning.

The tall man shook his head. "I'm not coming. Someone needs to lead the ground troops here, Shepard. To organize a resistance." He shouted back. "Go. Bring help!"

"Are you kidding me?" Shepard tossed her arms in exasperation and shook her head. "Set me down, I'm not leaving him behind…"

"Good luck, Admiral!" Kaidan called and hit the button cycling the door closed.

"No!" Rache cried out reaching for the control panel only to be denied by Kaidan's arm. "You son of a bitch, he'll die!"

"We have Shepard secured, get us out of here." Kaidan said over his com before he pushed her toward the inner door of the airlock. "Admiral Anderson is a soldier, Rache. He's tough and he's made his choice. Accept it."

"Accept it?" She screeched at him, appalled at the pitch of her voice but incapable of stopping the emotions that surged through her. "There are innocent civilians dying down there or maybe you didn't notice while you were running to the Normandy like a scared little girl! Our duty is to those people! We should be back there helping them, Kaidan!"

His expression was impassive as he looked down at her. "We have our orders, Shepard. We are leaving Earth."

"What the fuck is the matter with you?" Rache shouted at him. "Did you donate your spine to science or something while I was dead or…"

Kaidan's hand came up, his fingers lodging solidly in the collar of her shirt as he jerked her toward him, his breath hot against her as his tone grew low. "My parents are down there, Rache." He hissed, the words barely above a whisper as fear and grief contorted his features for a mere beat of the heart before being shunted behind a wall of duty. "And we are leaving." He let her go and turned away.

Stunned into silence, Rache watched Kaidan enter the Normandy. His parents. In Vancouver. They could already be dead and he didn't even know.

"Sir?" The soldier who had been next to Kaidan made a hesitant noise, his arm extended toward the Normandy's interior.

Swallowing, Rache schooled her features before focusing on the large man. "It's the furniture eater." She tried for humor and heard the failure in her voice.

"I prefer Vega, sir. We should go in." He watched her with sympathy and Rache felt hated tears well up in her eyes.

Viciously she denied them, searching for and finding her anger. Feeding the emotion to deny the grief, deny the helpless and guilt she felt. Deny the tiny flare of relief in her that she hated herself for feeling because she was leaving the terror and death behind for others to suffer. For others to fight.

Rage twisted her features. "I warned them. I was fucking Chicken Little clucking about the sky falling while they laughed their asses off. It's their own damn fault!" She stomped her way onto the Normandy, a curious sense of déjà vu fighting her to reconcile the way she'd last left the Normandy with the way it looked now. "Just one more damn thing to be pissed about!" She snarled.

Searching the deck for Kaidan she managed to see him just as the elevator doors closed him off from view. She made her way through the Alliance blue soldiers buzzing about the stations, taking reports, chasing the chatter of coms, ignoring the hales from a few familiar faces she saw until she reached the elevator and slapped the summoning button.

"I'm going to stay down here, sir." Vega said in hopeful tones.

He stepped back half a step when she turned her fury on him. "You aren't my damn guard anymore, Vega. Find a bunk, find a weapon and by any God you hold dear, find me a target to kill!" The elevator opened and she stepped inside turning to glare at him as the door closed.

Vega let a low whistle out from between his lips. "I think you just went hunting one, sir."


"Oh, no, you did not." Rache spat the words with warning as she stomped out of the elevator and into her quarters, addressing the man who was standing in the middle of them, his back to her. "This is my cabin, you ship stealing ass! This is my ship!"

"Not now, Rache." He snapped back at her, not bothering to turn his head toward her.

Stunned she actually went silent. She couldn't even recall the last time she'd been dismissed so pointedly. Rage whirled in her, a culmination of the last three years since her death and all the stormy emotion that had been building since the man before her had dismissed and rejected her on Horizon only to come chasing after her time and again since.

"Oh, I do beg your pardon, cher." She all but hissed the words. "Have I come at a bad time? Should I leave you alone so you can pull the blankets up over your head and pretend there aren't people dying because we aren't there to fight and save them?"

"Not now, Rache." He repeated, this time the edge to his voice was more pronounced and his back was stiff.

Eyes lit with fire, she sauntered toward him, her chin lifting. "We just left a planet to die, Kaidan, and I find it more than ironic that the one who wasn't born there is having more trouble with it than the one who was. Or were matters with mommy and daddy just that bad?"

She honestly didn't see him move, hadn't realized they had until she comprehended that the sensation in her back was from him shoving her against the wall, his frame broad and intimidating as he slammed her hands against the wall above her head.

For a long moment he was silent, glaring down at her, his breath hissing, hot against her cheek. "I get that you like to push buttons, Rache. Hell, most of the time, I even enjoy you playing with mine, but now is not the time and my parents…" His voice broke and he looked away for a moment.

Rache pushed against him once, not liking the feeling of being caught, being trapped. He didn't relent and she finally opened her mouth to provoke him only to remain silent as he turned back to her, the expression on his face stunning her. Hate. He looked at her with hate and it was directed at her.

"We could have prevented this day, Rache, if you hadn't gone with Cerberus." The words were low, the words brimmed with an emotion she still couldn't comprehend he was directing at her. "If you had come back to the Alliance we could have prepared properly and my parents would be safe."

She ignored the guilt based emotion that rolled through her gut, ignored that part of her, a part she did not dare listen to right now that wanted to agree with him, wanted to know what she should have done differently to make this day either never come or help them be better prepared for it. She focused on the anger, the betrayal she had felt when he'd turned away from her. "This is not my fault, Kaidan, and you know it! I have done everything in my power to stop the Reapers while those in power did everything to undermine me and you sided with them! Against me!"

"Oh, yeah, you tried real hard, didn't you, to make the Council listen. To persuade the Alliance that you knew what you were talking about." He bit back. "After all, it's not like you have any skills talking people into doing or saying what they normally wouldn't, do you?"

The bitterness in those last words caught at her and confusion contorted her face as she tried to understand what he was saying. "Yeah, my powers of persuasion are legendary. Just look how well they worked getting you to follow me on Horizon." Sarcasm dripped from her voice and she gave a sudden shove with her hands, more in frustration than an attempt to escape. "You want to blame me because no one would listen when I told them what was coming? That's fine. You do that. But you damn well better consider how much harder it would have been for them to dismiss me if you'd been at my side, backing me up the whole way. Instead you saluted like a good little soldier and shut your mouth!"

"Shut yours." He hissed and then covered her lips with his.

Rache didn't try to resist, wasn't even surprised at the turn from words to action. Since Horizon, since the wedge dividing them that had been compounded by mistakes on both sides…hers for not contacting him, his for not being there when she needed him…it seemed talking only had them hurting one another more. Touching, connecting physically had become the only way they could communicate without causing each other pain.

And, Gods, but she needed this now. She needed to not feel the grief and the shame, the heavy, soul destroying guilt that she hadn't prevented the Reapers from coming. Hadn't prevented the deaths that were even now going on. She needed the hot physical demand of his touch, his mouth and teeth nipping at her sensitive flesh as his fingers plucked and pulled and insisted on the panting gasps of pleasure she couldn't deny him.

She needed him. Now. So she could feel alive instead of just going through the motions. She needed him on the edge of control, a place only she could take him, so she could shove him right over and plummet with him. She needed, for a moment to remember what it was like to just be a woman and not a bloody icon with the fate of the universe on her so inadequate shoulders.

There were no words, no protestations of affection or even demands. There was simply the slide of sweat slicked smooth skin against hair roughened flesh creating a delicious friction as each urged the other on, determined to hold back their own satisfaction in a game of wills where the first to give in to the rush of pleasure would be the first to submit and declare the other victor.

She was the first to give in, to lose herself in his strength. He chuckled, arrogant with the knowledge he'd won, his dark eyes staring down at her. She lifted slightly from the bed, her fingers deep in his hair, pulling him tighter against her, almost cradling him as he tensed and then surrendered to her.


Later, sprawled half on his chest, her face away from him as he run his fingers enticingly up and down the small of her back in a rhythmic caress, Rache found the first comfort, the first safety that she had had in years.

Guilt wanted to settle in. Wanted to punish her for taking time for pleasure while others died. Wanted her guilty and groveling for being selfish and Rache ruthlessly shunted the emotion away, a sneer on her lips and a determination to take the moment for what it was. Maybe try a new beginning and this time find a way to make it work. She was tired of pushing and pulling at her own feelings, tired of doing the same to Kaidan and she was going to show him how much she needed him, how much she loved him. As stubborn as she was, there had to be a way to build something solid between them.

She needed his touch too much, needed him.

Loved him.

A soft chuckle from the man her thoughts were on drew her attention and had her closing her eyes, contentment in the curve of her lips as she waited for his words and the confirmation that what she felt wasn't just one sided.

"Do you know how much easier it was to love you when you were dead, Rache?" The words were husky, the question almost rhetorical and they hit her with a searing shock.

She couldn't find the words to answer. Couldn't respond to the pain surging through her chest, her eyes open and staring blindly at the far side of the cabin as she tried to regain her center, tried to rebuild the defenses she'd been so determined to tear down for him.

"I could gloss over the questionable acts…punching that reporter, shoving your gun in the face of people who piss you off. Making promises and then tossing them aside when they interfered with what you wanted." He continued on, the words reflective and holding the slightest trace of bitterness. "I could remember the good times. You dragging me onto the dance floor at Flux because you wanted to know if the stick up my ass allowed for hip movement. You scaring the hell out of me by ramming that geth colossus with the mako and knocking it into the lava pits on Therum because you said you were thinking of having barbeque for lunch…and then doing it again on the skyway at Feros because you wanted to know if geth could fly." He chuckled softly, his hand never losing the slow stoke on her back. "And then there was our time together before Ilos. Hovering there, always, in the back of my mind."

Rache licked her lips and swallowed, hard, shifting so her hair fell over her face, hiding her. She coughed slightly and made to move off the bed. "I should go." The words were husky, but she managed to get them out.

He didn't let her leave. The stroking hand on her back shifted to her hip, holding her, turning her toward him.

"You are never still. The only times you're calm are right before the storm and when it hits, you have this terrifying intensity about you that declares just how willing you are to do whatever it takes to succeed." He used a finger to stroke her hair away from her face, unsurprised to find the tears silently rolling down her cheeks, her eyes anywhere but on him. "It's that intensity that draws people to you, Rache. Makes them willing to die for you. Me included."

She gave a half shoulder shrug, her eyes rolling, her expression full of emotion. "Kaidan, right now I don't even think you like me." The words were scoffed and she used a naked shoulder to brush impatiently at the tears on her throat and cheek. "That's a helluva thing to think after making love with someone."

"Sometimes I don't. Sometimes you do things that frustrate me." He admitted with frank honesty, his fingers brushing at her cheek bones, testing the wetness there. "Sometimes I wonder what a woman so full of life, so determined to taste every experience out there, good or bad, wants with me, a career soldier most women consider bland and boring when they actually bother to remember me at all."

"Yeah, well, five minutes ago, before you started talking, I would have given you one hell of a reference." She shoved at him then, trying to move out from under him.

"And then there's the moments when I see you with your hands on another man." He didn't let her go, his lips curving to a smile. "I see you weaving a web around them with words and touches and I see the way you play them and they don't even know it. They run along and do what you want, never questioning and I know I will never be that man."

"I never asked you to!" Rache snarled at him, angry.

He laughed. "No. You don't ask, Rache. You demand and when you don't get your way instead of pouting you start looking for alternate ways to get what you want by fair means or foul."

Her mouth dropped open and she stared at him. "Oh, this conversation is so over, Kaidan." She started wiggling again and he moved more of his weight on top of her.

"When you died it was easy to forget all of that and make you some sort of paragon that you will never be." He continued, as if she hadn't spoken. "I was wrong to do that. Wrong to shine up your rough spots and lie to myself that the pale sanitized version was the woman I loved."

"As soon as I get not naked around you, that will no longer be a problem!" She snapped at him. "You think this is…"

He cut her off with his mouth and dodged her belated attack with her teeth, laughing. "I think I'm a fool, Rache. That's what I think. I think I'm never more happy than when you're making me miserable. I think the universe is going to hell and there's no place I'd rather be for the closing curtain than here, with you." He brushed a hand through her hair again, smoothing the strands away from her face, tucking them behind her ear. "I think I made you cry and there's a part of me that is terrified that I have that much power over you. I think I'm thinking too much and this is all just words, anyway." He leaned down and kissed her again. "It may have been easier to love you when you were dead, Rache, but it was a pale, anemic love. I'd rather take the lumps and bruises loving you will undoubtedly give me than be left holding nothing but a ghost."

"Here's the first one!" Rache declared smacking him on the side of the head with a half hearted palm. Tears filled her eyes again and she shook her head, trying to hide the emotion with a scoffing laugh. "Geez, Kaidan. Only you would take ten minutes and a whole lot of useless words telling me you love me!"

"You already knew I love you, Rache. You just needed to know I plan on being with you, whatever you do, wherever we go, no matter what." His eyes were dark, his expression serious as he looked down at her.

Rache twisted her head, studying him as she tried to puzzle out what his meaning. "What if I say to hell with everyone else and we head for the most remote planet capable of sustaining human life and plan a way to rebuild the human race instead of fighting for our existence?"

"Will you be naked for most of the trip?"

She laughed and wrapped her arms about his neck, pulling him closer. "We both know I'm not ready to give up."

"Not your style." He agreed.

"There is a way. There has to be." Rache said softly, the words fierce. "To stop them. I've beaten them before. It can be done. You were there with me when I killed Sovereign."

"And I'll be with you this time, too. When we beat them."

Rache's chin lifted, her shoulders going more square for all that she was laying on her back under a very naked man. Her expression grew more determined and her green eyes narrowed, a slow smile curving her lips as she finally began to understand what he had been telling her. "You did this so I wouldn't be distracted."

"You needed to remember what you're fighting for, Rache." Kaidan agreed with a nod. "I needed to know that this time, if something happens to you, I won't regret the things I didn't say more than the things I did." His rubbed a thumb over her lower lip, his attention on her eyes. "We both needed to clear the air so we could begin to remember what it was like to trust the bond between us."

She inhaled deep and found her center, found the strength and confidence he'd helped her build simply with the knowledge she wasn't on her own anymore. Another deep breath and she smiled, tapping his arm, a silent request that he move off her, one he fulfilled.

She left the bed heading straight for the slots that held her armor, smiling and unsurprised when she found her favorite set charged and ready to go. Chuckling she began pulling the pieces on.

"Pretty damn smart, aren't you?" She quipped with a cocky smile directed at the man watching her dress with avid interest.

"I have to be, Rache." He answered with a grin, his own lips curving. "I have to keep up with you."

Green eyes flared with challenge as a blue mist flared from the palm of her hand and was clenched tight in a fist. "Good. Because there's a war on, Kaidan, and I have no intention of losing."