A/N: Kaidan makes his first awkward appearance. Enjoy!
On the fourth night of her five night stay, the group went to one of the smaller clubs in the area named Marrog's after some obscure council Spectre. Her party had slept well into the afternoon that day and Shepard really wanted a more relaxed atmosphere for the rest of her trip. They bumped into some friends they had made earlier in the week and managed to get into a VIP area of the club.
After an hour of drunk dancing and camaraderie, they settled into a more mellow vibe and began swapping war stories. Of course, Shepard always had the best ones, but a few soldiers gave her a run for her money. Every once in awhile she would receive a drink from a stranger or a new acquaintance. She graciously accepted them but was often puzzled over whether they were for her looks or her N7 attire.
She told one particularly harrowing tale of the Blitz, after which the subject was quickly changed to joke telling when it was made abundantly clear that nobody could beat the newly promoted Lieutenant Commander. Between bouts of laughter, Shepard scanned the club looking for an intriguing man to approach.
Dating seemed to be out of the question for her. Most men were intimidated by her abilities, scared of her biotics, or off limits because of regulations and anti-fraternization policies. She was okay with it for the most part. She understood that she was married to the Alliance. It was her first love and the one thing she truly understood. But every once in awhile she yearned for a real human connection, or perhaps a non-human one. Tonight was one of those nights.
After one particularly surly joke that would have made her mother blush, she got an uneasy feeling that caused her to scan the club. There he stood at the entrance, perfectly within her line of sight. She wanted him immediately which took her by surprise.
She was usually very good at compartmentalizing emotions and feelings, but this was something beyond the scope of her understanding. She had to concentrate to keep from going weak in the knees. Her pulse increased and her temperature skyrocketed. At the time, she contributed it to the strange Asari drink she had just downed. Somehow she knew that he was the one she wanted to spend the night with.
A few seconds later he returned her gaze. He broke eye contact almost immediately. He was too far way for her to tell, but his checks began to burn from his increased blood flow. His mocha colored eyes quickly met hers again. He had to be sure it was him she was looking at. It was.
He was a very attractive man; tall and fit with a great ass, so they told him. His nearly perfect coal black hair had a blue shimmer to it under the lights. The outline of his muscles protruded from his standard issue off-duty fatigues. But he was not the kind of guy who dated much. Like Shepard he was married to the Alliance and his job come first and foremost at the expense of a romantic life. He was rather content with it actually.
He was the strong, silent type, but he was almost clueless when it came to women. The first woman he loved spurned him, leaving him broken and uninterested in the pain that love could bring. Instead, he threw himself into his career and it seemed to work quite well for him. At this point in his life, he had no intensions of disrupting the natural order.
He walked casually over to the bar following his friend's lead. The entire time, the two would lock eyes and then look away coyly, both hoping not to reveal the weaknesses they had when it came to the opposite sex. After she was confident that he was settled in one place, she turned her attention back to her group not wanting to reveal her endgame too quickly, or at the very least, her desperation.
He was quite flattered that a women of her beauty would show an interest in him, even though the truth was that he was handsome enough to get any woman he wanted. The fact that she was wearing an N7 emblem compounded his feelings of self-doubt and disbelief.
"She wasn't really looking at me," he thought to himself trying to explain away his perceived mistake.
She quickly chugged her beer in order to make an excuse to go talk to him. She whispered the code phrase to Matthews. The one they had finally decided on to indicate they would be leaving with someone else involved the L3 implant that they both received as teenagers. It is what solidified their friendship during bootcamp. Her exact words were, "Is it hot in here, or is it just my L3?"
At the bar she squeezed through the crowd and managed to work her way next to her mystery man. Once satisfied at her accomplishment, she attempted to get the Asari bartender's attention to no avail. They both looked at each other and smiled sheepishly, his still flushed cheeks giving him away.
He introduced himself nervously, "Hi...I'm Kaidan."
"Elliott," she replied with an unsure smile.
"Uh...can I, uh, buy you a beer?" He asked stammering with his hand scratching the back of his neck as he did when he was uncomfortable. He quickly remembered that it was a good ice breaker while half expecting her to tell him to get lost.
"I'd like that!" she replied eagerly. "Not that I can't buy my own," she added clumsily, shaking her head in disbelief at the words that had just fell out of her mouth. "I mean, I could buy you one...like the second round or something." He sat there unsure of what to say.
"Real smooth, Elliott...," she thought to herself. She shook it off and asked, "Do you come here often." It was another one of those weird generic questions that you ask when you are trying to pick someone up.
"Uh, no, this is my first time. I didn't know it was fleet week actually. If I had, I probably would have canceled," he said unenthusiastically.
"Why is that?"
"I'm really not one for crowds. I guess I should've been a hermit crab or something."
"Sure but, even hermit crabs have to mate," she said as her face turned a crimson hue. Immediately she wished she could take it back adding apologetically, "That sounded a lot less creepy in my head." They both laughed at their lackluster performances.
"You are correct about the crabs though," he said as they both awkwardly took a drink.
"Well it's a good thing you didn't cancel because we may never have met," she finally said. Her flirty tone gave both of them more confidence.
"Here's your beer, Human," the bartender said rudely interrupting as she slammed a bottle on the bar.
"I think she likes you," said Shepard dryly motioning to the blue skinned Asari.
"What? No, no, she, she's not my type," he replied. "Oh...that was a joke, right?"
"Yeah. Sorry, that's the second one that didn't land tonight."
"Right," he said with a nervous chuckle. After an awkward pause he continued, "Are you here with anyone special?"
"Of course. You're special, aren't you? Geez...Please, don't answer that. I am clearly off my game here."
"At least you have game. Who brings up crabs while flirting with a beautiful woman?"
"So we are flirting?" she asked smiling at his compliment.
"I thought so, but I've been known to be wrong about these things...Can we start again?" he pleaded thinking that anything would be better than the disaster that he found himself in.
"Uh, sure. You go first," she quipped hoping that the second time would not be any worse.
"Hi, I'm Kaidan. I enjoy beer, steak, crabs, and long walks on beach. But I'm not really into crowds."
"Hi! I'm Elliott. I also like beer, steak, and crabs." His warm smile put her at ease and she blurted out, "I saw you walk in and thought you were smoking hot *cough* I mean interesting and wanted to know if you would like to join me for drinks?" she asked, quite proud of her directness.
Amazed that she was still interested, he immediately said yes so that she would not be able to move on to someone else. There was something rather familiar about her. He could not shake the feeling that he had seen her before, but where, he could not say.
He mumbled something to his friend and told her to lead the way with a satisfying grin on his face. She was the one that picked him up, but when he told the story the next day, it would be the other way around. They made their way to an empty table and waited for a server to take their drink order.
He thought about bringing up her N7 jacket. No way could he have handled a program like that. He was good, but not Shepard good. He admired her as a fellow soldier but was intimidated at the same time. He decided that anything he had done would not compare to her stories and decided not to bring it up.
He desperately searched for something interesting to talk about. "The weather? Too boring. Besides, the Citadel doesn't have weather. The Alliance? Too formal. We're on shore leave. Crabs? What the hell, Lieutenant? Wow, she is gorgeous. Any minute, I'm going to wake up...or...she's gonna leave."
Luckily, the loud music helped to alleviate the awkward silence. He was still afraid that if he was not interesting enough that she would find someone else to have drinks with and send him on his the way. He could not have been more wrong. The only thing she was thinking of was, "How long do I have to wait before I invite him to my room?"
Note: Wow, thanks for the reviews! Hopefully I will be able to upload chapters once or twice a week, depending on my schedule. My chapters are a little on the shorter side so I hope that one or two a week will not be too unreasonable for me.