**

Six

**

The warm breeze from Mirage's vast seas blew in through the open windows. It carried a heady scent of tropical flowers mingled with the freshness of the water. Every planet and moon had its own smell, and Shepard had thought, the moment she'd first set foot on the tropical moon, that she rather liked this one. Not that she was paying much attention to it at that moment. The breeze drifted across her naked body, deliciously cooling as it whispered across damp, sweaty skin.

"You," she said, as she caught her breath, "Have been holding out on me."

Kaidan grinned at her, bending his head to kiss her, and when she was thoroughly distracted, rolled onto his back, pulling her with him. She found herself giggling (giggling! Her!) like some sort of schoolgirl, but couldn't bring herself to be too bothered about that.

He really had surprised his with his enthusiasm, and inventiveness. She supposed it wasn't so surprising. There was no longer the crushing fear that tomorrow would bring death or the failure to prevent Sovereign from destroying known space, and here, far away from the Citadel, the Alliance, rules and regulations, with another biotic who had no fear of him or his 'strange' abilities, he showed himself to be surprisingly uninhibited.

The crew of the Normandy had been 'required' to take a month's shore leave. Shepard could think of several reasons why off the top of her head. It kept them dispersed, off the press radar, where it was much harder for them to speak up and rally any sort of public support, given that they were being hailed as heroes. The Council wanted them out of the way while they rebuilt their base of power, and reasserted control over known space, reassuring the populace that they weren't all about to die. It wouldn't be good if the Spectre who saved the Council was giving soundbites that contradicted the party line. The Alliance wanted to study the damage to the ship and the Mako, to figure out a defence against the geth and Reaper weapons, and wanted to keep separate a crew that had shown more loyalty to its commander than its orders.

Shepard hadn't raised an objection, but then she had her own selfish reasons. She'd seeded rumours and electronic breadcrumbs that sent anyone looking for her to the other side of known space. If anyone caught her, she'd claim that she was seeking privacy, and as a Spectre she only truly answered to the Council, who couldn't care less where she vacationed. If someone saw a passenger manifest of the transfer to Mirage, they might see a 'Miss Lamb' on the roster, but not find anything odd about it.

"Couldn't have you making so much noise back on the ship," Kaidan said, teasingly, as he smoothed his hand down her back. "Adams might have thought something was broken."

"That's insubordination, mister." Alright, so maybe she had become a tad uninhibited herself.

"Yes, Commander," he said, with a grin.

Part of her was telling her, in the quiet moments when she actually had a chance to give this affair any thought, that this was some silly infatuation, that shipboard romances never lasted and, besides, did they really know each other well enough that this was anything more than a physical compatibility enhanced by a shared fight against an apparently indomitable enemy?

Shepard didn't kid herself. She knew she looked good, though her haircut was more a practical one than anything, and she never saw the point in wearing makeup. She ran around in gravities ranging from non-existent to semi-crushing, and had to be athletic and built hardily enough to handle whatever the galaxy decided to throw at her next. She knew how to turn a phrase, learnt how the moment she'd figured out that the dumb fucks who couldn't reason their way out of a paperbag wound up out of their skulls on Red Sand, cannon fodder for the gang bosses.

Of course, that same part of her life had taught her the value of her body, and how easy it could be to ensnare the hapless. She'd never felt driven enough to use such cheap tricks, valuing words over physicality, but ex-lovers that she'd had in the years of Alliance service had proved that men were suckers for a pretty face and a nice backside, and didn't really care if she had two braincells to rub together. Eventually, she'd just sworn off military partners, not considering it worth the while.

Flirting was different, of course. It was words, another way to turn a situation to the advantage, and could be rather fun besides. Harmless fun, the sort they didn't court martial you over. That's all it was supposed to be with Kaidan, a bit of harmless flirting, taking the pressure away from the undeniably political assignment of catching a rogue Spectre. Yes, there were legitimate reasons it was important to stop Saren, but the Council had called her constantly, and her terminal had filled up with private messages from Ambassador Udina, and Admirals who wanted her to do jobs for them that her newfound 'above the law' status meant that they couldn't get the work done themselves. She was good at politics, but didn't have to like it.

And then suddenly Kaidan had been standing in her quarters and faced with the choice between jumping off the rather precarious cliff that was in front of her, and backing away quickly, she'd leapt without thinking, trusting he'd catch her.

She couldn't actually remember the last time she'd trusted that easily.

No, she did. Henrick, back in basic. The first man who'd ever shown her a bit of kindness in courting her, or so she'd thought, used to the rough nature of the streets. She'd trusted him too readily, and when it turned out he just liked how she looked, and didn't give a shit about anything else, she'd taken it as a learning experience, and not handed out that trust so readily again. Sex was easy, faith was something she didn't care to place in anyone. She'd knew she'd suffered for lack of friends because of it. Her circle of companions generally consisted of her shipmates at any given time. If any of her former partners had been aboard her ship, come to her the night before a dangerous mission, she would have smiled, pointed out the regs about the CO of a ship fraternising with the crew, and sent them on their way.

But not Kaidan. It was something of a fiendish puzzle that she couldn't work out.

There was a noise, just on the edge of her hearing, a beep of a message alert.

She sighed, starting to pull away and sit up, to find wherever it was she'd stashed the omni-tool and check what was so important. Kaidan, however, was somewhat reluctant to let her go. He snaked arms around her waist and pulled her back down before she could get away.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked her, pressing his lips against her neck, making her shiver even in the warmth of the air.

"The galaxy could be in peril," she said, "Civilisation as we know it might be on the verge of falling."

"What a pity," he murmured, "We'll be stuck on this tropical moon forever. Real pity."

She chuckled and tugged his hair, pulling his head back gently. "You'd miss the extranet," she said, "Don't think I don't know that anything with a Y chromosome is looking at porn on that thing."

"That's true," he said, "You'd better answer that. Can't deprive the galaxy of porn."

She kissed him, firmly, until the omni-tool beeped again, and she slid off the bed to go and find it. It turned out to have been tossed aside inside her kit bag, twisted around a t-shirt. She slid it onto her arm, turned it on, and looked for new messages. It was sitting at the top of the list, unread, and certainly wasn't to do with galactic peril.

She opened it, and sat down heavily as she read it. When she was finished, she stared out of the window at the sea, lost in recollections. She had no idea how long she was out there, but she realised it was more than a few minutes when something touched on her shoulders and she jumped. It was only Kaidan, of course, his fingers on her shoulders and a concerned expression on his face.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

She took a deep breath as he sat down. "No, I suppose not," she said, and held out her arm, wreathed with holography. He gently grasped her wrist, turning her arm so that he could properly see the display. He stiffened with surprise as he read through.

"Is this-?"

She nodded. "The last thing I can do for Ash. The only thing. I had political cachet from the Siege, and from elevating humanity to the Council. I figured I might as well use it before the wind changed and I wound up on the outs."

It was a note from a member of the Alliance parliament, co-signed by a member of the Admiralty, regarding her request for a posthumous pardon for the grandfather of Ashley Williams, especially in light of his granddaughter's sacrifice in the fight against Saren for the preservation of all sentient races, especially humans. They'd considered it carefully, the message said, and they'd agreed. Shepard knew perfectly well that they realised it would come across very badly to the public to have humanity's only Spectre be turned down for a request on behalf of a crewmember who'd given their life, when said Spectre was being hailed as a hero by all and sundry.

She flicked her wrist, shutting the omni-tool down.

"You know," she said, giving voice to the feelings that had been running through her mind only moments before, "When I die the politicians and Admirals are going to love it. It'll be a great networking opportunity. They'll all come and sympathise and shake their heads and say what a terrible loss it is for humanity." She turned and looked Kaidan in the eye. "When I go, I want the same as we did for Ash. Friends, expensive booze, and fuck the politics."

He didn't do her the disservice of pretending that would never happen. He just smiled, perhaps a little sadly, and kissed her on the cheek. "Promise," he said. "But I do have one question."

She nodded slightly. "Ask."

He drew a breath, a little unsteadily, she thought. She was leaning against him, her arm against his chest. Not an easy question to ask, and she had a sneaking suspicion what it might be.

"You never answered, when I asked before," he said, slowly, watching her reaction closely, "Why did you save me and not Ash? Was it because of… of this?" He touched her cheek with a finger briefly.

She sighed, looking down at the omni-tool interface still around her forearm. She slid it off and toyed with it as a distraction. "Are you sure you want to know? You may not like the answer."

She could feel him stiffening, preparing himself for the answer. He probably thought he knew what she was going to say. She hated to disillusion him, but he'd asked, and she refused to treat him like a child by refusing to answer. They weren't in a briefing room where she could dismiss his concerns with a sharp word and 'that's an order'. "Ash was a soldier, through and through. A very competent one." Unable to sit there, and feel the way his body reacted to her words, she stood, with the excuse of stowing her omni-tool again. "High scores, field stripped a weapon under a third the required time. She liked poetry and had the same drill instructor as I did. And then there's you."

She turned, leaning against the table and folding her arms, as if she weren't standing there naked, and the gesture was a pointless one. "You're an officer, a Lieutenant in the Alliance navy. You're a biotic, a powerful one, an L2 with minimal side effects. You're an effective and skilled technician, highly competent in combat against weaponised machines. You represent an investment of hundreds of thousands of credits in training and implant tech alone." She set her jaw, looking at him hard so that not a single word was lost. "Simply put, Lieutenant Alenko, I judged your life to be more valuable than hers. If that makes me a cold bitch, then so be it."

He looked away from her for a long moment, out of the window at the sea. She fought the urge to fidget while she waited for him to make up his mind. Eventually he stood, walked over to her, and put his arms around her. "If you'd told me it was because of us," he said, sincerely, "I probably wouldn't have forgiven you."

She smiled at him, and let him pull her into a warm embrace. She still hadn't figured out the puzzle that was her feelings for Kaidan, or why he'd managed to worm his way inside her heart, but one thing was certain:

He was never finding out that she had lied.

**