A/N: Oh man oh man oh man I am so sorry this took so long. I had midterms... and then illness... and then the first draft I wrote for this chapter was absolutely terrible, so I started over... anyway. Here it is!
Shepard's morning routine was (usually) fairly consistent.
Her day began at 0630 with alarm on her omni-tool pulling her from slumber. It never pulled her from dreams, though – if she had them, she never remembered what they were. Sometimes she'd wake up feeling a little sad, or cheerful, or worried... but whatever the cause was, the feeling passed quickly enough. Any phantom emotions she carried from her subconscious were quickly drowned out by the real ones inflicted by the world.
She would get up from bed, or in this case, out of her pod, and get dressed. She didn't sleep in clothing if she could help it. While there was certainly a security in being dressed while sleeping, it was one of the few concessions she made to comfort. After dealing with badly-fitting clothing, rashes, fleas, bedbugs, and other parasites while growing up in the name of security, she was overjoyed – still, even after a decade of service – to feel safe enough to be able to sleep without wearing anything.
This wasn't to say she slept with no weapons nearby, of course. She always kept a knife and (when she found out about them) a taser-capable omni-tool nearby wherever she rested. Just because she trusted the security of the Systems Alliance didn't mean she was giving up all personal responsibility for her safety.
Some people had photographs of loved ones as comfort items in their pods or bunks, others small tokens of affection from relatives, and she'd known one soldier who actually had a small stuffed animal that he always grabbed before hitting the rack. She had her comfort weapons, and even if there wasn't much logic to them, she still didn't sleep well if they weren't there.
The second thing in her morning agenda was a workout. She'd don sweats and a sports bra, and make for whatever gymnasium was available. If there wasn't one, she'd usually settle for running laps through the hallways of whatever ship she was serving on.
The morning runs also served as training for her biotics, as well. Instead of carrying weights like some soldiers did, she simply removed her amplifier and used her biotics to artificially increase the mass of her limbs and body as much as she could. Not only did this help keep her in shape, despite the cramped quarters normally found on frigate-sized vessels, but it also improved her focus – and when her survival depended on her ability to focus her mind, working on focus was just as important as maintaining her weapons and armor.
Her workouts had garnered a few odd looks from the crew of the El Alamein at first, but a few of the marines had joined her, and it rapidly became an accepted ritual of of the ship – every day, around 0700 hours, a small group of marines and crew members would be jogging behind a faintly glowing woman half their size.
She had no such established ritual on the Normandy, but she already liked the layout. The cargo bay was large enough to actually run laps in without having to duck through engineering, which was an improvement over the last posting.
Mindful of the time, she finished her workout quickly and headed back up from the empty engineering deck to the crew level for her favorite part of her morning ritual: The shower.
Ever since the advent of modern gravity-confined fusion power plants, running water had ceased to be a limitation in space. Compared to the power required to accelerate a vessel to entry velocity on a mass relay, the power require to run water through a reverse osmosis filter was trivial. As a result, the hyper-frugal "naval shower" had passed quietly into history, much to the joy of sailors everywhere.
Shepard, for whom warm showers had always been a treat rather than a fact of life, always made sure to enjoy them whenever the opportunity presented itself. Shepard wasn't religious, although she'd always agreed with the "cleanliness is next to godliness" line. A long warm shower, in addition to soothing workout-sore muscles, paid homage to that mentality.
The crew deck had still been empty when she'd gotten up, which surprised her somewhat, but she'd paid it no real thought before grabbing her kitbag and a change of clothes and marching off to the showers.
Kaidan Alenko groaned, thumbing the dismount switch on his sleeper pod. It opened with its usual hiss and servo-motor hum, and he winced as he took a deep breath of the arid shipboard air.
The pod compartment itself was empty., but he heard the murmur of morning conversations echoing up the passage from the table that served as their lounge and mess hall. A quick glance at his chrono told him that he'd slept through his alarm... again. He sighed and checked it.
Wait. I know I set that alarm. What the hell?
"Ah, you're up," a warm, female voice said said from the table, and he blinked the sleep from his eyes as he searched for the source.
"I saw the silly hour you set your alarm to, and took the liberty of changing it," the older, white-haired woman said with a kind smile. "I know you marines like to push yourselves, but we're in dry dock. There's no sense in enduring another day of headaches from sleep deprivation."
"Doctor Chakwas," he said, proud of himself for sounding mostly coherent. "You changed my alarm?"
"Yes and no," she admitted. "I had Captain Anderson change it after you went to bed last night. You really should get more rest, young man," she said sternly.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied automatically, and shook his head. "Although while I appreciate the extra sleep, I do have work to do," he said reproachfully.
"Medical needs take priority, especially when we're docked," she said firmly. "Also, check the schedule. The refit was changed to 1000 instead of 0800."
He blinked and glanced at his tasks for the day – sure enough, someone had moved the scheduled refit for one of the core charge monitoring units back two hours, giving him enough time for his normal morning rituals if he hurried, despite oversleeping. He glanced up at the doctor, his expression grateful. "You arranged for this?"
Doctor Karin Chakwas shook her head. "I'd love to claim credit, but no, Anderson did it last night after we turned in. I think he was up late and wanted his sleep," she said with a sly smile.
"Well, regardless what the reason was, it means I can get a shower before we start," he said with a smile and hopped out of the pod, rolling his eyes at Chakwas' appreciative hum.
"Really, Doctor? Ogling your patients?" he said, still smiling as he threw a towel over his shoulder and headed for the showers.
She laughed. "I'm old, not dead, Lieutenant. Tell whoever is in the shower that it's toast and eggs for breakfast again," she said.
Kaidan scowled and looked around the pod bay. "You saw someone in the showers? Everyone's personal stuff is still here," he said skeptically.
She shrugged and took another drink of her coffee. "Guess I was hearing things, then. Go on, get, or the food will be cold," she said with a flip of her hand.
He smiled at her and headed for the showers.
She flicked a lock of red hair out of her eye and reached for the small bottle of cinnamon-scented concentrated soap she'd taken a liking to. She didn't used to have long hair – in the reds, everyone kept their hair as short as possible – but with bedbugs not a regular problem, she'd indulged herself and grown it out a bit.
She was just rinsing the last of the soap out of her hair when the door to the shower hissed open behind her.
Her reaction was as automatic as it was fast, the product of a youth spend on the street and a decade in the military. Her left hand darted out to the shelf with her kit bag, reaching for the rubber-handled knife she always kept within arm's reach while the telltale blue glow of activated element zero gathered around her palm that was rapidly approaching the unsuspecting soldier's nose.
Luckily for both of them, her conscious mind decided that the second half of the reflexive maneuver – the sudden approach and slice with the combat knife – was probably something that warranted fore-brain approval before executing, and she stopped herself from the vastly more lethal followup strike just in time.
Well. You had to start meeting the crew sometime, didn't you, Shepard, she thought to herself as she set the knife back on the shelf, kneeling down by the stunned soldier she'd just assaulted.
Kaidan never knew what hit him.
One moment he was walking toward the shower door, the next he was flat on his back with a somber-looking naked woman leaning over him, a hand under his chin and another snapping gently in front of his eyes. She was saying something, but his ears weren't quite working yet, and his nose hurt.
"I said, can you hear me?" she said, her voice serious... and strangely gentle, he thought muzzily.
"I, uh," he said incoherently, blinking water out of his eyes. Damn his nose hurt. And his head.
Proper cognitive function returned to him in a rush, and he blushed slightly. "Ah shidb, ma'ab, I'b sobby-" he said, scowling as he realized that he didn't recognize the woman kneeling over him... and that his nose wasn't working properly.
"Commander L. Shepard, marines," the woman said at his scowl. "I'm your new executive officer," she added at his continued confusion. He blinked in recognition, and tried to lift his hand to salute.
She laughed and knocked his arm back down. "Don't try to move," she advised in a more apologetic tone. "I thwacked you pretty hard. Here," she said and stuffed a folded up towel under the back of his skull. "Lie back."
He did as ordered, wondering why she was holding a thumb up to his face and closing an eye before a fresh spike of pain tore through his nose, and he tried to grab his face.
"Sorry about that," she said as she grabbed his hands to prevent him from touching his face. "I wanted to get that set properly before it started to swell. Trust me, it hurts less this way." He winced and reached tenderly for his nose, pulling his fingers away with a a smear of blood.
He glanced up at the woman, and she rubbed an embarrassed hand behind her head. "I'm sorry about the nose," she said awkwardly. "you startled me something fierce," she explained a bit sheepishly.
"Ah'b sobby," he said, wincing at his words before trying again. "I'm sorry," he managed after a moment, proud for sounding less like a toddler, and she smiled at him.
"If anyone needs to be making an apology here it's me, mister..." she trailed off, an eyebrow raised.
"Alenko," he said quickly, realizing she didn't know his name. "Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko," he said more slowly.
"Right, Lieutenant," she said. "Like I said, if anyone needs to be apologizing here, it's me. I'm pretty sure you weren't expecting a fist to the face when you stepped into the shower this morning," she said with a slight smile.
He gave a weak chuckle and shook his head, wincing at the pain the slight movement brought to his abused nose. "As you say, ma'am," he said.
She nodded and put her hands on her knees, standing from a crouch in one smooth motion. "Wait here, I'm going to fetch the ship's doctor," she said, heading for the door, pausing at the control. "The ship does have a doctor on board, yes?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Ah, yes, ma'am. Doctor Karin Chakwas," he said. "But, uh," he said with a blush, glancing down at her naked form.
"Huh? Oh," she rolled her eyes and grabbed a towel off the rack, wrapping it briskly around her waist. "Don't go to sleep, Lieutenant," she said, slipping out the door.
He leaned his head back on the towel with a slight groan, staring up at the ceiling of the shower.
If there's a worse way to meet your new executive officer, I can't think of one, he thought with a sigh as he fingered his tender nose.
Well, that could have gone better, Shepard thought as she padded softly out of the shower and headed for the medical bay, peering in through the window.
"Interesting uniform, Commander," Captain Anderson's voice called from the table in the mess hall, and she spun about to face him. I guess I'm flashing the whole crew today. Lovely.
"My apologies, sir," she said quickly. "Is Doctor Chakwas here?"
"That's me," a white-haired older woman across the table from him said with a nod. "Is something wrong?" she asked, her kind voice concerned.
"Lieutenant Alenko startled me in the shower," she explained in a hurry, "and I'm afraid I broke his nose."
Chakwas laughed and stood. "I told him someone was in there," she said as she headed quickly for the shower. "Serves him right for not knocking."
Shepard smiled as she trailed after the doctor, while Anderson covered a grin with his hand.
Kaidan winced in pain as Chakwas ran gentle fingers along the edge of the his now swollen nose, and she hissed in sympathy. "Definitely broken," she said. "Doesn't look out of place, though. Did somebody set this already?"
Shepard nodded. "It's easier if you do it before it starts to swell," she said.
"Well, it certainly makes it hurt less," Chakwas said. "Did you hit your head, Lieutenant?"
"No, the Commander did," he replied drily, and Chakwas laughed while Shepard looked vaguely embarrassed.
"True enough, Alenko, true enough. I don't think you have a concussion, and your neck looks fine, so let's get you down to medical for some anti-inflammatories."
Kaidan stood with a groan, rubbing his neck and rolling his head slightly before nodding politely at the Commander and following Chakwas to the medical wing. The door slid shut behind them with a hiss.
Shepard shrugged at the empty room, hung the towel up by her clothes, and went back for the second half of her shower. She'd go apologize properly later. It wouldn't do to have him upset with her, and it wasn't like it cost her anything.
Systems Alliance survival rule #74: Do not startle N7 operatives.