Chapter 28
A/N - Look at the size of this thing! And the chapter is quite big as well. Was that joke in bad taste? Should I maybe bump the rating up to 'M'? If anyone thinks I should then please tell me as I find the line between T and M to be quite the grey area. Also, the speed of this release was brought to you by Insomnia©. 'You can sleep when you're dead!'
Holt sat staring at one of the walls in his quarters, nursing a drink in his hand. Feeling incredible vulnerable as he wore simple track pants and a t-shirt. Damn armor had taken a bit of a beating so it was up in the armory. And maybe he was also being paranoid but he could've sworn that the wall had moved. Walls on ships very rarely moved though.
"Hey Holt. Got this hilarious vid you need to see." Joker's voice sounded as the door to his quarters opened. Without looking away from the wall, Holt warned the fragile man of a great danger that will be upon them at any moment.
"Shepard seems pissed off and she'll be here soon."
"I'll show you hilarious vid tomorrow." Joker quickly corrected himself as the door closed, the pilot gone before he had fully entered the room. The man could be quick when he wanted to. Holt had no time to think about Joker's hidden potential though as he saw the wall move again. But this time he had been prepared for it and immediately recognized the blur.
"I see you, Kasumi." He called out as Kasumi appeared right where he had been looking, trying to look as innocent as possible.
"Sharp eyes, Nathan! Do you realise exactly where you were staring?" She asked as she hopped down on the sofa next to Holt, almost making him spill his drink.
"Do you realise the danger you're in!?" Holt asked back, sweeping the drink. He would need more of it. "You need to run before it's too late." He ordered as he got up.
"Why would Shepard be so upset with you that you fear for your life?" She asked with a smile, clearly not seeing the seriousness of the situation.
"You've never felt Shepard's wrath, so I can understand your ignorance in this." Holt said as he searched the bar for something that would make him pass out until tomorrow or a secret escape hatch. He would need to have one of those installed. First he would need to get over his mild claustrophobia though.
"Again, why is Shepard mad at you?" Kasumi asked as she leaned over the counter. "Also, you can't throw me out from my own room."
"This is not your room." Holt corrected before he found a drink that would hopefully do the trick. "And I'm pretty sure I pissed her off by carrying around enough explosives to blow us to dust... Even after she asked me not to... blow us to dust..." He explained as he mixed the drink. Some petty thief stole it just as he finished though and he was forced to start over.
"Okay, tell me exactly what happened. You probably just misunderstood her." Kasumi laughed as she sat down on a bar stool. "I might not have been here for long but I got a pretty good grasp of the situation." She continued as the doors opened and Holt's heart stopped for a moment before he realised who it was.
"What's up, Holt. Need to refill..." Zaeed's words died down as he spotted Kasumi. "... Thought you were knocking boots with the Commander?" He asked as he looked between before shrugging and replaced Holt's place behind the bar as Holt sat back down on the sofa with a sigh and new drink in hand.
"She'll knock me out for real with her boots soon enough..." Holt mumbled as he went back to staring at the wall again. He soon remembered that the moving wall mystery had been solved and looked out the window instead.
"What is he on about?" Zaeed asked Kasumi who spun around on the stool to look at Holt with entertained eyes.
"Lover's quarrel."
"Really, there's noth-"
"So fill us in, what happened?" Kasumi interrupted Holt before he could correct them.
"Now that you mention it, something was off about Shepard earlier at dinner." Zaeed said from behind the counter as he appeared to pillage the whole stash. "Like she was focusing very hard at keeping a composed face."
"See? She's pissed!" Holt exclaimed as he looked towards the two intruders. "And when Shepard's pissed she's better known as Hurricane Shepard. Don't get caught in it!"
"I'm not really interested anyway." Zaeed grunted as seemingly was finished with his raid.
"But I am!" Kasumi beamed. "What did she say to make you so certain that she's angry with you?" Holt pleadingly looked at the woman, hoping that she would just leave him to his fate. She didn't falter and Holt was forced to repeat the words that had sent a shiver down his spine.
"I need to talk with you later..." He said with a mumble. No response was heard from the other two but Zaeed had stopped dead in his tracks as he was about to leave. Kasumi just sat there with a neutral expression. It was the mercenary that broke the silence after a few moments.
"You poor sod..." Zaeed grumbled with surprising empathy. Kasumi snapped her face towards him in with a clenched jaw.
"Are you serious?" She asked the old man to which he simply looked at her, confused. She snapped her face back towards Holt straight after. "Are you serious?"
"I know how you women work." Holt felt the need to defend himself as he pointed towards the thief with his glass. "If a woman says that person A and person B needs 'to talk', it won't end well."
"He's right." Zaeed chimed in. "If it's job-related it means that he'll be fired and if it's personal it means that it's over between them." Kasumi looked between them with great disbelief in her face. The girl obviously didn't understand what Shepard had meant, even with her being a woman herself.
"And since there's nothing going on between us that means it's job-related and I'm about to get my ass kicked..." Holt said as he looked back out the window while taking a large chug of his drink. A few quiet moments followed before Kasumi exclaimed her opinion.
"You're idiots..." She hopped off the stool and walked past the mercenary that stood with his arms full of bottles. "Men... Poor Shepard..." Holt heard her mumble before the door closed behind her. He looked in confusion at Zaeed who returned his confused stare.
"Women..." Zaeed grumbled before he took off in the same direction as Kasumi.
"Women..." Holt agreed as he heard the door close behind his only true ally in this. And why had Kasumi felt sorry for Shepard? Holt would never willingly cause harm to Shepard. Both out of respect and fear. This time mostly out of fear. And as Zaeed mentioned, Shepard had seemed distant during dinner. She had avoided sitting at the same table as Holt and he could've sworn that he had felt her glare in his neck during that whole time. And the way she had ordered him to have a talk with her after the mission, not even meeting his eyes... He was a dead man...The door opened again and Holt had now passed over to acceptance and remained seated, staring out of the window.
"Holt, I saw Kasumi storm down the corridor while mumbling something. She seemed quite irritated?" Garrus' pondered. The turian didn't deserve this fate, Holt had to warn him. "Also, I sent a very detailed report about the flaws of Normandy's current weapon system to Shepard. I think she'll like it." Or maybe he too deserved this fate?
"I lied, Shepard can't stand technical mumbo jumbo..." Holt decided to be nice these last few moments of his life.
"... Oh..."
"Yup."
"So she'll actually be-"
"Upset? Yes, and she was already upset to begin with."
"Is that why she was acting strange during dinner?"
"Yup."
"... So I just made it worse?"
"Yup."
"And it's you that she's upset with?"
"...Yup." Holt felt slightly offended that the turian had immediately expected it to be Holt that had pissed off Shepard.
"Oh..." Garrus mumbled as he remained in the doorway. "Well... Good luck." Was all Holt heard before the door closed. Downing the last of the drink, Holt rested his head back against the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. He should've known better. Shepard had never really approved of his tactics and execution when it came to explosives. Holt simply liked them because they were efficient and got the job done. And the explosion itself was cool. But now he had overdone it after Shepard had only days before told him to stop doing exactly what he had done. Things between them had seemed so good only a couple of hours ago and now he was probably about to get kicked from the mission.
"Mission comes first, after all." Holt told himself as he forced himself up and moved towards the bar for his third drink this evening. Maybe it would even be his last. Alright, Shepard would probably not actually kill him. But how would TIM react if Holt was no longer allowed on the Normandy? Just give him some other task or do like The Shadow Broker had done two years ago and sell him out because he was no longer needed? Holt's history in being sold off stretched back quite far.
"Mr. Holt?" A woman's voice suddenly sounded through his room which made Holt almost drop the bottle he was holding. It didn't belong to any human though.
"Way too many heart attacks for one man to handle in just one evening..." Holt mumbled. Was this a form of torture that Shepard had decided would befall him? He would much rather that she chopped his head off instead of dangling the axe in front of him like she was doing.
"My apologies if I startled you." EDI apologised but Holt felt that she didn't sound sorry at all. "Since you cut off the camera feed to your quarters, I can't pinpoint your location." And there she sounded almost irritated. This AI was more human than some real humans he had met in the past.
"Might cut off the audio as well..." Holt sighed as he sat down on a bar stool. Might as well stay close to the alcohol.
"That would be unwise in the event tha-"
"Health and safety. Blah, blah, blah, Security reasons. Yada yada yada..." Holt interupted the AI before she started lecturing him. Now was not really the time that he wanted to hear it. "Did you have a message for me or something?"
"Mr. Moreau asked me to tell you... Correction, asked me to warn you that Commander Shepard is on her way to your quarters."
"Correction, she's already there." A new voice corrected the AI before the familiar click of a comm line being closed sounded, leaving Holt alone with Shepard who had managed to open the door silently. That damn thing had made so much noise when it had been false alarms, why so quiet now? Giving her a quick scan with his eyes, he couldn't see any weapons on her. Also no armor but instead wearing the same combination of track pants and N7 hoodie that she was so fond of. "Are all crew members getting warned whenever I approach?" She asked with a grin on her face as the door closed behind her. Weird, had her mood turned for the better or was she just hiding her anger?
"Just Joker being Joker, who knows what goes on in that man's head." Holt tried as Shepard made her way over to him, taking the seat next to him. This was it, she was gonna hand him a data pad that told him that he needed to be off the Normandy within 24 hours or something along those lines.
"I don't think even he knows sometimes." Shepard said with a low chuckle. Still playing some sort of sick game, was she? "I was supposed to be here earlier but Garrus sent me some weird blueprints and some report of... something." Shepard continued as she reached over and snatched the drink that Kasumi had left behind. Holt realised that he should've drugged the drink with some sleeping pills and hoped that Shepard would've forgotten everything the next morning. "Didn't even understand half the words he wrote..." Shepard said with a small frown as leaned with her elbow on the counter, facing Holt.
"Turians are weird..." Holt said, both thankful and hating the fact that she at least wasn't violent. At least with angry Shepard you knew what was coming. He could feel Shepard's eyes burn into the side of his face as she seemed to be deciding on something. Probably what level of punishment he would receive.
"Hm." Was all he heard from her as she stood up and went over to the sofa. Holt turned towards her in confusion. Was she preparing for a running start? Nope, she was sitting down and simply staring out the window as he had been doing earlier. What felt like several silent minutes passed as Shepard never took her eyes off the stars outside. Since it was one of the most uncomfortable silences Holt had ever experienced, he decided to bite the bullet.
"You needed to speak with me?" He asked. Shepard seemed to have been deep in her thoughts as she turned towards him, a small smile forming on her face.
"Yes, there's some stuff that needs to be said." Well, that didn't sound ominous at all. "Get over here though, after today I'll take every opportunity I can to sit on something as comfortable as this." She added as she stretched her neck from side to side. Soon enough she would be cracking her knuckles. Holt slowly made his way over and sat down next to her. No point in sitting as far away as possible as he couldn't really flee anyway. Deciding that he only had one last chance to try and remedy the situation, he spoke up just as she was about to begin.
"I'm sorry about how I handled today's mission..." He said within looking over towards her. He knew how scary her glare could be. "Even after bei-"
"What are you talking about?" Shepard cut him off and had a small laughter in her voice. Not an evil laugh but an honest old Shepard laugh which Holt loved to try and bring out of her any chance that he could. As he dared a look in her direction, he saw that her face was a mix of confusion and entertained.
"... Explosives?" Holt reminded her to which her face remained as it had been but a small shake from her told him that she still had no idea what he was on about. "You're mad because I brought explosives to a mission?" Holt asked as he was now starting to wonder if he might've misread the situation.
"... Does this have anything to with our previous conversation?" She asked as her face showed no signs of anger or bitterness. "I warned you that I would kill you if you ever take an unnecessary risk with your life on the line. What happened earlier was not even close to that." She explained with a reassuring smile as she took a sip of her drink. She seemed to not have expected how strong the drink was. "What is this? A drink for krogans?"
"So you're not upset?" Holt ignored her last question and asked his own.
"... No?"
"But you said that 'we needed to talk'?"
"I said that 'I needed to talk with you'." She corrected.
"There's a difference?"
"... Of course." She answered, looking at Holt as if he was stupid.
"Women..." Holt mumbled low enough so that Shepard wouldn't hear. "What's the deal with what happened during dinner then?" He asked as Shepard's eyes was still glued to Holt. Her stare didn't seem as scary as he had imagined earlier though.
"Ah... I can probably answer that..." She answered with an almost embarrassed squirm as she looked back out through the window. Something was really off about her.
"Probably?"
"You remember the first time we met?" She asked out of the blue. He wanted to answer that he would never get the image of the first time he saw her in person out of his head.
"Yes?" Was what he answered instead, wondering where she was going with this. His heart was painting some scenarios of where this would lead while his mind tried to be rational.
"You know what my first thought of you was?" She asked after another drawn out sip of the drink.
"Hopefully it was something good."
"A small part of me told myself that you couldn't be trusted." Ouch.
"Ah... Well, it's quite smart to not be so trus-"
"But a bigger part soon convinced me that I could trust you." Shepard quickly interrupted him. "A lot of people tried to tell me both before and after Virmire that I never should have trusted you. They told me that the Nathan Holt I had known didn't exist and it was just some mask that you had worn."
"... Right..." Was all Holt dared to say as Shepard sounded like she needed something said and interrupting her would be a bad idea.
"But I knew that I had worked with the real you during our hunt for Saren." She said as she looked Holt right in the eyes, daring him to try and lie. "Tell me if I'm wrong."
"Other than the obvious thing of who I worked for which we have already discussed..." Holt began as he tried his hardest to hold her gaze. "I did not lie about anything back then." The answer seemed to have been the correct one as Shepard flashed another smile before continuing.
"And then, after your death, when I saw you flying Cerberus colors... I didn't know what to think again. It was like my first thoughts of you came rushing back." She continued as she put her drink away.
"Yeah... That meeting was painful." Holt said with a low voice, remembering the punch once again.
"But once I got to vent my anger a bit and heard the reason of why you were with Cerberus..." Shepard said with a mean smirk, seemingly also remembering the punch. "I quickly realised that you were still the same Holt as back then." She said with a smile that made Holt's heart skip a beat.
"Heh, well. Some would say that's not a good thing." He said with a nervous chuckle. Holt quickly looked away and took a deep chug of his drink. There was no way he was gonna be able to look into Shepard's eyes if she looked at him like that.
"... The same Holt that I fell in love with..." Maybe he should've made his drinks a bit stronger. He knew how much alcohol one had to consume to be able to take a beating without much pain. But he had no idea how much that was required to dea-... Wait, what had she said? The last of the drink remained in his mouth as he looked back over towards Shepard who was still looking at him with a face that Holt had never seen before. A face of relief, anticipation and nervousness. He put down his glass while slowly swallowing the drink before he replied.
"Just so I don't make a complete fool of myself. Did you just say tha-" He was cut off but this time it wasn't by words. Either it was the alcohol making his reactions as slow as an elcor or maybe it was Shepard's speed. But her lips were suddenly pressing against his. His mind, in it's confused and weakened state, tried to make sense of the situation. His heart told the mind to shut the fuck up and took the wheel. Shepard's eyes were closed as her hands softly held the sides of his face. Holt allowed himself to fully relax for the first time that evening as it seemed highly unlikely that a punch was coming. He really doubted that Shepard would reveal that this had all been a set-up to make him lower his guard.
"Just to make sure I'm not the one making a fool out of myself..." Shepard whispered as she pulled back slightly, her eyes half open and looking right into Holt's. He had been with women before but that one kiss had felt so much better and so much more right than everything else prior to it. Holt answered Shepard's unspoken question by initiating the kiss this time as he pulled her in close. Part of his mind was still annoyingly trying to list up reasons as to why this was a bad idea. Her being Alliance and him being with Cerberus being one of them but he honestly couldn't care less. He knew that Shepard was a smart woman who also must have had those doubts but she had clearly figured out that they could be dealt with. And as many times before, he fully trusted in her decision making. The kiss was getting hotter by the second and Holt took a moment to breathe as he pulled away.
"Not the kind of contact I was expecting just a few minutes ago." He chuckled as Shepard's hands moved from his cheeks down to his neck.
"Prefer this kind of contact?" Shepard asked with a small smile as she went in closer and fully wrapped her arms around him, one of her hands stroking his hair. Her eyes were closed again as she attacked his lips again.
"I think I can learn to live with this instead of the punches..." Holt answered as best as he could with his mouth locked with Shepard's. His hands slowly trailed down her sides and Holt was about to declare himself the happiest man in the known universe. That's when that fucking infernal beeping sound signaling that the comm to his room came back online interrupted them.
"Commander Shepard. You got an urgent message in your terminal." EDI's voice informed, clearly oblivious to the danger she was in now as Holt made her his new archenemy. Hearing Shepard let out a frustrated sigh as she pulled away, Holt too, reluctantly leaned back on the sofa.
"How urgent is this?" Shepard asked out loud into the room.
"Mr. Moreau insists that it's of utmost importance."
"... Fine... On my terminal you said? I'll go have a look." Shepard told the AI. The comm died down and the two of them sat in silence again. Shepard soon burst out laughing.
"Should I worry about my pride with you sitting there laughing?" Holt said in a mock-hurt voice. Shepard's laughter died down as she looked at him with a smile that seemed more genuine than ever.
"Just trying to lessen my frustration over being interrupted by trying to laugh it away..." Shepard explained as she went in for a quick kiss before she stood back up. "Don't for a second believe that we're done though. I intent to finish what we started some other day." She said with a wink before she headed out through the door. Holt remained sitting on the sofa, watching the now closed door before his omni-tool beeped. Seeing that it was Garrus calling him he picked it up, wondering what the turian wanted.
"If you had called about a minute ago, you would've been on my hit list."
"What?" Garrus asked back, clearly confused.
"Never mind, don't even have a hit list. What you calling me for?"
"Just wanted to make sure you were alright. Me and Joker sent another report concerning Normandy's weapon system to Shepard and managed to get EDI to tell her it was urgent. I hope we weren't too late? Shepard didn't manage to inflict too much damage on you, we hope?"
"..."
"You there, Holt?"
"..."
"... Hello?... I don't know, he went quiet..." Holt heard Garrus explain to someone next to the turian. That someone probably being Joker.
"I think it's time to write that hit list..." Holt growled before he cut off the call.
