Bioware owns all.
Author's note: Things get a bit weird/sexy at the end if you like that sort of thing. Just a warning.
Shepard stood silently against the back wall of the training room. How he hadn't realized this was on the ship, he had no idea. He wonders just how much Liara paid to have this ship built. From the little information he got out of her, it has a stealth drive that rivals the one on the Normandy. Two Quantum Entanglement Communicators. It's own comm buoy system to ensure up to the moment news feeds no matter where in the galaxy she's in. Within the ship there were 3 living quarters, a very large lounge area complete with a working kitchen, a deluxe restroom with multiple shower heads, and the cockpit where Glyph is housed. Below the living quarters, they have a full scale range and biotic training center complete with reinforced walls in case someone gets carried away.
Right now, he was watching Tessa go through her daily workouts. She's very good, he thinks to himself. Handles that SMG like a pro and her biotic abilities are off the chart. He was starting to get worried about having her come when Liara kept making a big deal about it, but watching her now, he knew as long as she kept her cool she would be just fine. Of course, whether you can do that or not usually isn't known until you're up to your ears in shit.
"Come spar with me." He calls over to her.
"No, thanks. I am quite happy with the location of my ass. I really don't need you to kick it again." Tessa replies.
"Come on. Believe it or not, you're going to go up against people who are biotically stronger than you. You have to know how to handle them other ways." Shepard tells her.
"Fine, if it will get you to leave me alone." She sighs and turns around facing him.
"I thought I was the greatest biotic too once. Then, I fought Benezia and her commandos, and after spending most of that fight looking up at the ceiling from my ass I decided I needed to make sure I could take care of someone without relying on my biotics completely." Shepard explains.
"They teach us that in Commando training, you know. Over power their barriers with warp and small arm or rifle fire and then incapacitate them with a singularity or finish them with throw or slam." She tells him.
"Good strategy. Now, what do they tell you to do if that person is an 800 pound krogan immune to most of those things?" Shepard asks.
He watches her frown and can see her mind working through all her training. Shepard waits patiently, and when she looks up at him and shrugs, he tells her "That's why the asari got their asses beat during the rebellions. If you take an asari's biotics away from her, most of them don't know what to fall back on. I won't let that be you. So I'm an 800 pound krogan just like the millions you are about to be within grabbing distance of, and I like most krogan am pissed off and want to hit something. Lucky for you I don't have a weapon handy. So, what am I going to do?"
"Close the distance and charge me." Tessa answers instantly.
"Good. Now stop me." Shepard tells her walking toward her at a brisk pace.
Tessa immediately threw two warps at him, but they didn't even budge his barrier.
"You tried that last time, and it didn't work to well for you. You have a weapon. Use it." Shepard instructed.
"But" Tessa starts.
"Time's up." Shepard closes within about 3 meters of her and charges. He watches her eyes get large, and she tries to back away. Shepard grabs her roughly by the wrist and pulls her forward using his momentum. When she crosses across his body he grabs her pants by the waist band and hurls her toward the wall. The impact sounds loudly through the ship, and he watches as she crumbles to the floor.
"What the fuck was that!" Tessa screams at him.
Shepard doesn't stop as he walks toward her again. He watches her realize that he isn't stopping, and she tries to get up. He waits until she takes her eyes off of him and then sends duel throws at her. Just when she gets back to her feet and looks up at him again, she sees the throws coming at her. Shepard notices how quickly she put all her power into her barrier, and he's impressed by it. It didn't help her here, though, as the first of his throws ripped right through, and the second one impales her into the wall again. He watches for her reaction, and what he gets makes him smile. She looks up at him, anger and hatred burning in her eyes. She spits a little bit of her purple blood out onto the floor. He watches her watch him, and he starts closing the distance toward her one more time.
"Krogan like to finish their opponents up close. They want to look into your eyes as they see your life fade away." He calmly tells her.
She growls at him. "Go fuck yourself."
She uses her biotics and dives away from him toward her SMG picking it up and immediately firing the whole thermal clip right at him. He registers all hits. Didn't miss a single round and it makes him smile. He changes direction with the speed a normal Krogan would, letting the fire dent his barrier. He watches her scramble toward the ammo dump and dodges the couple warps she throws at him. He sees her turn around, murder in her eyes. He was expecting another clip shot at him. So, when she put up a singularity right behind him, it caught him a bit by surprise. He lets it show by losing his balance and stumbling backwards toward the black hole. He looks back at her and sees her charging right at him. She empties the whole clip into his barrier, and he lets it titter right at the verge of dropping. What she does next completely surprises him as he watches her leap into the air and comes flying at him in a biotically charged drop kick. Shepard wonders to himself if he would have been able to bring his barrier back up in time even if he wanted to, and then, all thought stops as he's rocked hard by two feet to the chest and face. He realizes she's walking toward him. He watches in a daze as she brings up the gun and points it at his legs.
"Don't forget who my father is." She tells him before he hears two rounds fired and he feels the burn in his thighs. "I will tell mom to bring medi-gel" was the last thing she said before she was gone.
Shepard looks down at the holes in his pants and pulls them apart. He watches with mild amusement as both holes close up completely leaving his thighs looking like nothing ever happened.
"Only humans need medi-gel." He softly says to no one in particular.
Ashley couldn't believe her luck. What was suppose to be a nice week or so of shore leave on the new citadel has turned into a rushed rescue mission, and to make things even worse, there wasn't a single Alliance station on the way to Feros. Looking up over by the poker table, she sighs again at the commotion.
"Fuck you dinosaur. I won that hand fair and square." Jack was yelling at Grunt.
"You may be able to intimidate the Quarian with your loud voice and your half naked body, but you're not enough woman for me, Jack. So, sit down heh heh." Grunt shot back.
"The Quarian has a name, you know." Koran casually lifts one hand in the air and waves it around.
"Shut it, tin can. No one is talking to you." Jacks yells at him.
Ashley watches the scene as a weary spectator just waiting for all hell to break loose. She looks over at the doc who was sitting on the bench in front of her messing with Sprocket and thinks that she probably has the same idea I do. Someone was going to get hurt. She looks back over to the game and watches Joria lean over and whisper something to Koran. She watches Koran sigh and start to pull off his mask.
"In case you didn't know, there is actually a person under this mask." He tells the table.
Ashley watches in awe as his facial features come into full view. She notices the short black hair on his head. The design of his facial markings that she's sure must be for some reason. She audibly sucks a breathe in when he looks up over the table and she's greeted to those eyes. They are the most shockingly blue orbs she has ever seen. Not even Liara has eyes as piercingly blue. She sees his high cheek bones and fleshy lips. Thinking to herself, my God, he's beautiful. Joria catches her eye and when she looks over at her friend. She is greeted to a smile and a wink.
"Holy fuck balls. You're hotter than I am." Jack proclaims.
"Haha so is Vorcha shit." Grunt eggs her on.
"Oh go stick your tail up your ass." Jack tells him flipping him off.
Ashley smiles and even the doc giggles at that one. She looks over and sees Sprocket standing on its hind legs like he's begging for a treat. The doc pats him on the head and he lays down at her feet wagging his little metal tail.
"I, umm… well thanks." Koran says blushing.
"Don't worry about it. So, listen. I've been in cryo for most of a century. Why don't we take a walk. I will show you where I fucked Shepard's grandfather, and if your lucky, I might even show you how." Jack tells him grinning.
Ashley looks back at her shocked.
"Oh keep your panties on. I'm just messing with you. Your old old man was pretty fucked in the head from the time we hit Horizon til we blew the collector base to hell. What your grandmother said to him fucked him up something fierce." Jack tells her looking right at her.
Ashley puts her head back down. She knew her family's history just as well. The fallout of him working with Cerberus. The words spoken at Horizon. The standoff with Counselor Udina. All of it left scars on both of them. They would never speak of that though. All they would speak of is their reunion on the ruined citadel, their joy when their children were born, and how proud they were when she had finished N7 training. Those are the things they talked about, not the hard few years between the destruction of the SR-1 and the end of the reaper war.
"Anyway, I am serious about the walk Elf. If you want to get a taste of human, let me know." Jack finishes.
"Elf?" Koran and Joria ask at the same time.
"Human mythology. Usually describing fair, beautiful human-like creatures that had magical properties. Most human based fantasy games still use elves as races." Ashley answers for them.
"That seems like an interesting proposal. This unit would like to watch." Zadara chimes in.
Everyone looks over at Korin with varying states of disbelief. He just moans and puts his head in his hands.
"That was a joke." EDI answered for him over the intercom.
Liara is taking her turn watching the news feeds, and spending the downtime worrying about what was going on down in the sub level. They have gotten increasingly louder for the past 15 minutes. She really hopes Shepard doesn't hurt her. She sighs, trying to focus on her work. She hadn't heard anything new from Feros since that last message, and she couldn't contact her agent there. Things were pretty quiet all around except on the Krogan front where everyone was waiting for it all to go to hell.
"Mother." Tessa called to her as she casually came up the walkway, stripping off her armor as she did.
"I'm in here, Tessa" she calls out to her.
"Hey, you might want to go take a look at Shepard. We were sparring and he told me to take it seriously so I think I kinda lost my temper, and I shot him in both of his thighs. I made sure they were just flesh wounds, but he will probably need a liberal application of medi-gel." Tessa tells her.
"Oh Goddess!" Liara proclaims getting up out of her chair and hurrying over to the medi-gel dispenser.
"I'm going to get a shower and then study a bit. I will see you two at dinner." Liara hears her say as she walks into the shower pulling her shirt over her head.
Liara is in full on panic mode now, thinking he has to have huge gaping holes in his legs to keep him off his feet. She had seen first hand how much that man could take. She grabs all the gear she thinks she might need and rushes down to Shepard.
"Shepard are you OK?" She asks when she sees him sitting down by the wall on the far side of the training room.
"I'm fine, Liara. You don't have to worry." He answers her.
Liara rushes over to his side and kneels down, starting to look for the wounds. She pulls at the whole in his pants looking for entry and exit wounds but doesn't see either. All she sees is a bit of dried blood and rosy skin where the hole in his pants are.
"I can't see the wounds, Shepard. You need to stand up so I can get Medi-gel on them." Liara says starting to panic more.
"Liara I swear I'm fine." Shepard starts.
"Hush. I've heard that before" Liara interrupts him. She grabs his wrists and pulls him to his feet, kneeling back down to look for the wounds. "Goddess, I can't find them." she says. "I need you to take your pants off."
"Liara, I am OK." Shepard says to her one more time.
"Please Shepard. We need to make sure your OK when we get to Tuchanka. Just let me look." Liara begs him.
"Fine." He sighs, as he starts unbuckling his pants.
Liara helps him pull them down around his ankles as she starts to scan his flesh from his knees all the way up his thighs.
"I don't understand" She says "Tessa was sure she shot you in both legs."
"She must have missed." Shepard tells her shrugging.
At some point, if Tessa was watching she would have realized that concerned touches had turned into needful caresses. That realization hit Liara hard as she looked at him standing in front of her. As she drew each of her hands slowly up his thighs she could feel all the little hairs and little bumps all over his legs. Goddess, why does he feel so good? She looks over his body. The strength he has in those legs all the way up to his waist. Her eyes follow his legs up his body to his core where she is just inches away. Her hands come to rest against his thighs firmly, and she notices he has gotten really still. Her eyes take in what she sees in front of her. His boxer-briefs leaving very little to her imagination. Is he getting aroused? She thinks how his body is so much different than Feron's. It's so much more primal. She realizes it's because of whose body it is. While she loved Feron and they had a good life together, she always knew that only one being in the galaxy has ever made her feel this much need, this alive. She had worked with Cerberus to find and save him. She wanted to take over being the shadow broker so she could help him as much as Garrus or Tali did. She had even agreed to help Hackett on mars because she wanted to help Shepard succeed at stopping the reapers. It was all for the man standing before her now. She again thought about her decision to have Tessa, and she felt a pang of guilt that somewhere deep down it had nothing to do with reapers or bloodlines or anything. Maybe it was just a desperate move by a foolish girl to keep a part of a man she loves with her forever. She needed him desperately. She inches her hands closer. She feels him suck in his breath. She looks up at his face and sees his eyes clamped shut. She looks back down at her goal. She wants to lean in and kiss around the form showing in his boxers. She wants to draw her hands around his waist and grab onto him, pulling him into her mouth. Goddess, should I, she prays.
They stay like that, frozen for seconds that feel like hours. She builds up her courage and reaches around his body to grab the waist of his boxers. Looking up at him as she grabs hold. She watches his reaction as she starts to take them down. His eyes shoot open, and he looks down at her. She freezes but looks at him with all the hunger and need she's felt for over 100 years. Please she screams into her mind, hoping that he can hear her.
"I'm so sorry" He whispers.
Frantically, he pulls up his boxers and pants and rushes out of the room.
Liara sits back in defeat, not knowing whether to scream or cry.
She does both.