James' attentiveness continued over the next weeks, that turned into months.

He tried to get her outside as much as possible but it involved getting special permission from the Committee and that always took days for them to get back to him. He toyed with arranging routine outside time, but decided it was too risky.

They had, however, fallen into a general daily routine.

He brought her breakfast every morning, which they ate together. She was always up and ready when he turned up, her head buried in a data pad. Then it was a trip down to the training hall for a few hours, as she let out her pent-up energy. He was always aware of their surroundings, and if it wasn't too busy, he'd train too, but always able to keep watch.

Lunch was followed by a few hours on the gun range. He already knew she was an outstanding marksman, but he never failed to be impressed at the tiny cluster of holes dead centre of her targets heads, preferring to keep at a distance using a sniper rifle and a pistol. James didn't have such finesse, choosing the power of the shotgun, with the quick-firing assault rifle, and getting up close to his target.

He decided that together, they made a pretty good team.

He always brought a movie or a deck of cards with the evening meal, along with a bottle of beer for both of them. They sat and talked, about anything, everything. The latest weapon mods (avoiding tech, because James tended to faze out with tech jargon),the best armour manufacturers, the most effective tactics on the field. Then on to his anecdotes about his recruitment days and missions, (though he missed out Fehl), her time with Cerberus (though she missed out Kaidan's appearance on Horizon), and destroying the collector base.

This would last well into the night, only the need for sleep, interrupting them.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Unfortunately, their self-made schedule was interrupted with the trial sessions.

When they called for Shepard, she would be in the committee room for hours, and when she was released James could see the tenseness of her shoulders, the frown on her forehead.

After those sessions she wouldn't want to do anything but go back to her room, so he would leave her at her door, and when he would bring her dinner, they would eat in silence, finally telling tell him she was going to have an early night. The next morning she would always look tired, but happier, and they'd resume their usual day.

Right now, James had been waiting outside that wretched room for nearly eight hours. This was definitely the longest she'd been held for. He knew she would be questioned over and over, going over every little detail.

He hated her being in there. She'd be hungry, he thought inanely, as he chewed an energy bar from the nearby machine.

An hour later she emerged, back into his care. She looked so pale, and incredibly small. It would have been hard for anyone who didn't know better, to believe she was the mighty Commander Shepard.

He cursed in his head, at the Alliance brass, as she just smiled weakly at him. He placed his hand at her lower back to propel her along beside him, making their way back to her room. With her safely inside he felt the need to stay with her, and he closed the door behind him.

He was sure she hadn't even noticed. She simply walked over to the window, her arms wrapped around her as if to ward off the cold, looking out at the world she wasn't allowed to be a part of.

"What happened in there today?" he asked softly.

She turned her head just slightly, and sighed.

"We finally got onto the reason I'm here."

"The Bahak system."

"Yeah," her gaze fell to the ground.

James didn't need to ask any more. He knew what it felt like to be responsible for innocent lives lost. He needed to do something.

"Look, you need food, so I'm going to go sort that out. Why don't you wash away the day while I'm gone."

She nodded slowly.

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

James had been gone for nearly an hour.

Shepard tied her hair back, still wet from her shower. She tried not to let the past hours intrude on her thoughts. The too-hot water had done it's job, and she felt warm again, clean, her skin still flushed from the heat. The knock at the door had her stomach rumbling in anticipation. Her Lieutenant never failed to deliver the most amazing food.

He entered with a large tray covered with a metal cover to keep it warm, setting it down at the desk. He uncovered it with a flourish, the wonderful smell making Shepard's mouth water. But it was the single flower laying between the two plates of food, that had her opening her mouth.

"Oh, here, I had to pop out for the ingredients and a woman was selling these. I thought you might like it."

James handed her the pale blue flower.

Shepard's eyes flicked up to him as she took the flower from his fingers.

"Thank you," she said, her voice quiet.

"Well, come on, grab a plate!"

He was completely unaware of what he'd just given her, so she put the flower carefully to one side.

They settled in their usual place on the sofa, side by side, and she listened to him as he told her, between mouthfuls, the name of the dish, and how his abuela had been horrified the first time he'd tried making it without using her special recipe. His face always softened as he spoke of his family, and she loved to hear him talk about them. They sounded wonderful to her, and she wished longingly for her own family. The thought of them made her pick up the flower again, her plate now empty.

"It matches your eyes, no?" James' gentle voice pulled from her memories.

"It's where my name came from."

He look puzzled.

"The flower - it's only naturally found on the planet where I grew up. My mother loved it so much, that when I was born and she saw the colour of my eyes, she named me after it. Adrastia."

"So, you're a colony kid then."

"Yeah, I was."

She raised the flower up to her nose and inhaled the sweet scent. It was like home, and it brought tears to her eyes, making her blink them away quickly.

James saw them though, a frown creeping over his face.

"What happened to them?"

"You've heard of Mindoir?"

James felt sick.

"Shit…. Yeah. Batarian slavers, right?"

"Right. I wasn't home at the time. The first thing I saw when I returned was my home on fire. Didn't stop me running inside. I tripped over my father's body… He'd been shot in the face.

I found my mother upstairs, clothes torn open, a gun shot to the stomach, but she was still alive.

I managed to get her outside, but she'd lost too much blood. … She told me she loved me, that I wasn't to let them take me alive….then she died in my arms. That's when two slavers came out of the nearby house and saw me. They were laughing as they came close, looking me over, saying how I was just what they were after."

Beside her, James clenched his fists, as he listened.

"I was numb by then. Shock, I guess. I just had my mother's last words ringing in my head - don't let them take you alive. There was a rake laying on the ground by my feet, the handle was broken, so it was shorter than it should have been…. I made my first kill that day….Two batarian slavers, so complacent that I wasn't a threat that they were dead in seconds. The rake end blinding the first, the broken handle thrust into the neck of the second, then I used the second's gun and shot them both in the head. That's how the Alliance found me. Gun still in hand, still pointed at the bodies. It was Hackett and Anderson who pulled me out of there. I was sixteen."

James was amazed she'd come out sane.

"There were very few survivors that day, and the slavers still took a lot of children before the Alliance showed."

"Where did you go after that?"

"I was taken back to Earth, placed in a children's home, and thrust in front of psychiatrists. None of them had a clue what to do with me. Both Hackett and Anderson tried to check in on me every now and then, but military life doesn't exactly afford much free time. I couldn't connect with anyone else, so I left. Just took to the streets. I had no idea what I was doing - I was walking prey. Within days I was approached by the leader of the Tenth Street Reds gang, Dante, told they would look out for me if I wanted to join them. I was cold and hungry, and Dante was charismatic, made me think he understood me, so I accepted. Of course, it didn't take long for Dante to charm me into his bed. He had to be twice my age. They taught me how to break in places - in fact, it's where I learned a lot of my tech skills - and how to be stealthy. I never questioned what I was stealing for them - it was just how I paid my way. And because I was hitting large storage facilities, it seemed pretty victimless - to a self-obsessed teen, anyway," she gave Jams a wry look.

"The last place I hit must have had top of the line security, because alarms went off the second we stepped inside. We grabbed what we could and ran before anyone came, but one of the guys with me dropped his package as we vaulted the fence. It burst open….and that's when I found out that the 'goods' I was obtaining for them was the same crap that half the gang members were addicted to."

"Red sand," James sneered at the words as he spoke them.

"Uh huh. I saw what it did to those people, and I wasn't about to have any part in it. Told Dante I was done. He wasn't happy. He'd never laid a hand on me before, so I wasn't expecting the hard slap to the face, the slam into the wall. I was too dazed to react. Got my first scar that day," she traced along her left cheekbone, but the scar was notably absent now.

James was silent, his eyes dark, as her words brought up images of a younger her, being beaten.

"Then Hackett was there, laid Dante out in a heartbeat, he was so angry. Took me out of there.

Turned out that that last storage facility was an Alliance bay, used to store seized goods. It was also rigged with camera's. Anderson and Hackett had a trace on me since Hackett came by the children's home and found me awol. He'd managed to track my general vicinity, was looking for me, but in a large city it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Anderson had received an immediate alert when I showed up on the camera, and notified Hackett. He just threw a bit of cash around to get the exact address."

"Way to go, Hackett."

James had always respected the Admiral, but now he had added reverence for the man.

"Yeah," she responded fondly. "I made a decision that day, to do something good with my life. It was my eighteenth birthday the nect day, so it seemed serendipitous - I joined up with the Alliance."

"Man," James shook his head in amazement. "Well, you turned out well," he said lightly, and she grinned back at him.

"Thanks to Anderson and Hackett."

"So you don't have any other family, at all?"

"Nope. Neither of my parents had siblings, and I was an only child too. No living grandparents either."

"Guess I'm luckier than I realised. Kind of take mine for granted. I don't know where I'd be now if it wasn't for them."

"Willing to share?"

He studied her then. He'd never told anyone - was kind of ashamed - but he realised that he wasn't afraid of her judging him… because she wouldn't.

"My dad was a soldier. He was one of the first biotics, but he struggled with the stigma. He got injured in a bar fight over it, spinal damage, couldn't work. He got a basic pension from the Alliance, but because he'd been injured off duty, and he'd thrown the first punch, he wasn't entitled to any extra financial help, like he would if it had happened on the field.

He was always bitter toward the Alliance after that - blamed them for exposing him to the Element Zero in the first place. Everything went down hill from there. Mom had to work two jobs to support us, and I did some illegal fighting for money to help out. But dad…he didn't handle it well, began drinking. Got really moody, started verbally lashing out. Mom found it hard, being constantly tired and dealing with his mood swings.

My uncle, mom's brother, suggested that maybe dad was using drugs too, and when they asked him about it he went mad. Yelled that my uncle was planting lies, turning her against him, and told him if he ever came near them again, he'd kill him. Mom just placated him, told my uncle she'd sort it out, to stay away, she'd visit him soon….

The next night she collapsed as she made her way home. Turned out she had a terminal illness - I forget what they called it - didn't really seem to matter at the time. Anyways, she held on for three days before it took her….It was devastating. Dad began drinking even more. It was a bad time. I ended up taking on more fights, doing dock-work during the day. Then one night we're sitting there watching the news. There had been a big attack on humanity's first colony - Elysium."

"The Skyllian Blitz."

James nodded at Shepard.

"I can still remember the camera trying to get an interview with the beautiful young soldier who held back a whole platoon of seasoned mercs and slavers, by herself, saving the entire colony. But she wasn't having any of it. She was completely focused on helping the colonists back to their homes, blood still running from a split lip."

Shepard ran her finger over the left side of her lips, where her second scar used to be.

"I realised that she could have only been a little older than me, and look what she'd accomplished. And here I was, going nowhere, to keep my father in booze. I enlisted the morning after, thinking I could use what I was good at in a positive way. Then I got cold feet, went to talk to my uncle. I was worried about how my dad would take it. Wondered whether I was being selfish. Tio - his name's Emilio - told me that I had to walk my own path. Came back home with me while I broke it to dad.

Dad was waiting for me as I came in the door, complaining because he needed me to pick up something for him, and he handed me this blue chip. I figured it was for medicine. That's when he noticed Emilio behind me in the doorway. Dad went off the wall, started yelling at him, saying he wasn't supposed to come near me. Tio tried to calm him down, but he just accused him of trying to turn me against him like he did mom. It wasn't true, any of it. He slammed the door on Emilio, then said I was ungrateful. I needed out of there so I went to collect his medicine. Tio just said dad needed time to calm down, that he'd check on me later. I hadn't even had the chance to tell my father about enlisting. I went to offer the blue chip to the guy in the pharmacy, but he started shouting at me to get out of his store, called me a junkie. I had no idea what was going on. When I step out of the store, this guy comes over, tells me I shouldn't have gone in there, asks for the blue chip in exchange for the package.

I'm still trying to make sense of everything when I hand it over and take the package he gives me. I go to leave, then the guy suddenly shouts and takes off on a motorcycle, and there's a police officer heading my way. I just reacted, and so I knock down the officer and run. I was pursued but eventually got clear. I couldn't believe that my own father had sent me to pick up something dodgy. I certainly didn't want to entertain the notion that it was drugs.

I called Tio, but I obviously wasn't too coherent, and he said he'd meet me at home. I went home, threw down the package, demanded my father tell me what the hell was in it. He just said I already knew, then opened it. Dozens of packets of red sand. Tio was right all along. My father actually inhaled the stuff right there in front of me. That was it for me. I told him I was leaving to join the Alliance. He just sneered at me, told me I was going to be his errand boy and the military wouldn't take me once he told them about my encounter with the police.

I got angry….went to hit him. He used his biotics to knock me back. Threatened to tell Tio what I did if I defied him again. After that I just sat on the beach in front of our home. I remembered all the good times we had on that beach - before it all went wrong. Emilio joined me then. Told me how he'd promised my mother that he'd look out for me before she died, but now I had to choose how to live my life. I thought it was too late.

Tio must have heard our argument earlier, 'cos he said my father was bluffing. Pointed out that he wouldn't tell the military because it meant implicating himself for contacting a drug dealer and soliciting the aid of a minor to purchase them. He made me realise that my father couldn't do anything to me unless I let him. Now it was up to me. So here I am."

Shepard watched him come back to this time, this place.

"Here you are," she said approvingly.

He grinned at her.

"Phew! This spilling your guts thing is really cathartic!"

Shepard had to laugh at his sudden upbeat tone.

"Only when it's to a sympathetic ear," she added, referring to her earlier committee session.

"Well, how about we lighten things up with a game of poker?"

"Bring it on, Lieutenant!"

"Alright! That's what I'm talking about!"

He practically skipped out of her room, and she cleared the plates away, dragging a low table over to the sofa ready for their game. The flower she placed in a glass, in lieu of a vase, and centred on the desk. He burst back into the room with a deck of cards, some poker chips and two beers. They played for far too long, then slumped back on the sofa, in comfortable silence. Within five minutes they had both fallen asleep.

James groggily came out of his sleep, there was movement next to him, then he became aware of a strange sound.

Adrenaline coursed through him as he saw Shepard beside him, writhing and gasping for air, her hands up at her throat. He surged towards her, his heart pummelling away in his chest. He feared she was in some kind of anaphylactic shock, her airways blocked, and was about to call for help.

That's when he realised that her eyes were closed, and he hesitated.

She wasn't awake - a nightmare?

He hedged his bets, and stayed in place, grabbing her hands from her throat and holding them tightly.

"Commander?" he called out, firmly but gently.

She continued to gasp. It was heartbreaking to watch as he realised that she was probably reliving being spaced from the original Normandy.

"Shepard?" he said a little louder.

This time she jerked awake, her breathing now harsh as she tried to catch the air.

She looked so lost, as she searched his eyes for confirmation that it wasn't real.

James gave in then, pulling her close, holding her tight against him. She immediately wrapped her arms around him, gripping the back of his shirt with both hands, her head tucked into his neck.

Gradually her breathing returned to normal, and she let go of his shirt. He felt her leaving his grasp, resisting the urge to keep her close, and released her.

"Sorry, you had to deal with that," she murmured, her face pink with embarrassment.

"Hey, we all have things that visit us in the night, Commander," he said softly, in understanding.

"Yeah."

She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze fixed on her hands in her lap.

"I'm fairly sure I shouldn't have survived that, James. Being spaced….I remember it all so vividly. Unbelievable pain. It made my vision flare so all I could see was white light….then numbness, darkness…..nothing."

"Then along came Cerberus?"

"Seems so. I woke up and everything was chaos. Mechs were attacking the facility, there was nothing I recognised, no one I knew. Then I find out that these people are Cerberus. Cerberus…..and it was two years later. Everything, everyone, had moved on without me."

She looked up at him and shook her head. The Alliance shouldn't have given up looking for her, James thought again.

"God, I'm such a downer today - tonight," she joked shakily, then she spied the time. "Holy crap, Lieutenant, we'd best get to bed!"

"Commander! I think you're moving a little fast here!" he joked, his hands raised in surrender.

She raised one eyebrow as she gave him 'the look', unable to hide the small grin of amusement.

"Okay, I'm going," he laughed.

James moved to the door, then paused, looking over his shoulder.

"You'll be alright now though, right?" he asked her, a concerned look on his face.

She suddenly wanted to tell him to stay.

"I'll be fine, Lieutenant. My nightmares seem to be like lightning - they only strike once."

"Okay then. Goodnight, Shepard."

"Goodnight, James."

James lay in his bunk thinking about Shepard. She had become the first thing he thought about when he woke in the morning, and the last thing he thought of at night before sleep took him.

He told himself it was because his job demanded it, but he knew that he was only really required to make sure she received three meals a day beyond his guard duty.

She'd been here for nearly six months now and despite his best efforts he could see her incarceration was getting to her. She had no family to visit her, and despite many requests for visitation from some of her crew, they were all denied because of their connection to Cerberus and the trial.

James hadn't failed to notice that her mystery man wasn't among them, and wondered why the hell the guy wasn't supporting her.

That left just an occasional visit from Anderson and a few messages from Hackett. They offered supportive words, assured her they were still fighting her corner, and to bear with it.

James was the only constant in her life, and there was no way he would let her down.

He liked it when her smile lit her eyes, when her laugh filled the room. Given everything she'd been through, she deserved those moments of levity, and he was more than happy to provide them. He liked it that she was so at ease with him she would unconsciously touch his fore-arm or his knee as they chatted. He knew he deliberately placed himself too close to her when they conversed, that when they sat side by side on the couch their bodies touched.

He knew he enjoyed being with her, wanted to be near her - that he was falling for her.