"Son of a bitch."

The curse reached his ears as soon as Kaidan stepped off the elevator, steam rising from the cup of coffee in his hand.

He'd gone up to the galaxy map expecting to find Shepard there. That's where she'd been every morning for the last two weeks, plotting courses and making adjustments to the schedule with Pressly. Kaidan would arrive with the coffee, receive a smile of thanks from Shepard, and then help coordinate any ground missions.

On a few rare occasions, Shepard accepted her coffee and disappeared into the comm room. She'd grumble and moan about the reports the Council wanted regarding their progress, but she did them, trusting Kaidan and Pressly to plan the day themselves. It was a far step removed from the woman who hadn't wanted anyone near her galaxy map when she'd first taken command.

Today, Shepard had been missing from the CIC. Instead, Pressly sent him to the cargo bay. When the elevator door opened with the whoosh of the hydraulics, Kaidan hadn't needed to look hard for her. Following the string of foul language to the Mako, he found Shepard's boots poking out from beneath the chassis.

Kaidan leaned against the side of the vehicle, a smirk playing over his features as she continued to grumble."You alright down there, Shepard?"

A hollow clanking floated up from below, punctuating each of her words. "That goddamn turian! Left me! For C-Sec! Left me. To deal with this! Shit! On. My. Own!"

The last geth outpost they'd destroyed had been on a particularly craggy planet. Shepard had taken the terrain in stride, face bright with glee as she guided the Mako up and over the jagged landscape. The woman simply didn't know the meaning of the phrase 'go around'. It was no wonder the suspension sagged now and no small miracle that they'd even made it back to the extraction point in the first place.

Raising his voice to be heard over her continual cursing, Kaidan called down to her, "I brought coffee."

She scooted out from under the Mako in record time, practically hopping up from the floor with a gleam of delight sparkling in her green eyes. Greedy hands pulled the cup from him and her eyes closed with a moan as the first taste of the black coffee hit her tongue.

"Jesus, Rai," Kaidan chuckled. "Did you leave any grease on the Mako?"

She was covered in it. Grease streaks marked her cheeks and a smudge of it lined the ridge of her collarbone. The dark color of her tank top (her BDU blouse was thrown haphazardly on the hood of the vehicle) hid stains that would probably never come clean. Hands nearly black with it left inky splotches around the cup.

In other words, she looked incredibly sexy and he had a hard time keeping his gaze locked on her face.

She took another sip before flicking her eyes up to him with a smug smirk. "Think you can do better, Alenko?"

He shook his head, unable to fight the curve of his lips at her competitiveness. "I don't know if there's enough grease left to prove it, but I can try."

Kaidan unbuttoned the shirt of his uniform, not missing the way Shepard's eyes followed his fingers. He shrugged out of the well-worn fabric and folded it neatly before placing it on the hood next to the rumpled mess of hers. Hesitating, he debated on whether to shed his white undershirt as well.

Despite their night together before Ilos and her quiet admission a few weeks prior regarding his choice to stay, little had changed between them. Little, but at the same time, everything. Some mornings, her hand lingered on the coffee cup he held out to her, their hands sharing the same space for a brief moment before her cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink and she curled the mug into herself with a muttered thank you. There were times she would come up behind him, in the mess, at his terminal, down at the armory bench, and lightly place her palm between his shoulder blades for a scant few seconds to let him know she was there.

Kaidan couldn't be sure where they stood, or what she wanted. If honest with himself, he was too afraid to ask. He hadn't taken breaking frat regs lightly, but what if she had? There'd been no promises exchanged. She owed him nothing. But each small gesture, no matter how fleeting, filled him with a hope that she wanted something more. So, instead of pushing, he hung back and gave her space to figure out her feelings.

He was in no hurry. Now that the breathless rush to stop Saren was over, they had time to take things slow.

"Well?" She smirked at him again, her words pulling him back to the present. Her eyes gleamed as his hands hovered near the hem of his undershirt.

Truthfully, his feelings for Shepard far surpassed the physical side of things. It felt wrong to try to sway her by parading around the cargo bay shirtless. The shirt stayed. Still, it didn't stop the grin he hid behind a cough when she sighed with, what sounded like, disappointment as he dropped to his knees beside the Mako.

Crawling under the vehicle, Kaidan took stock of its condition, erupting into laughter at the scene before him.

"What?" Shepard snapped. He peered out from under the frame; her frustrated scowl, face covered in grease and arms crossed over her chest only made him laugh harder. "Damn it, Kaidan. It's not funny!"

"It kinda is," he wheezed between laughs.

With a giant huff, she squatted down and balanced on her heels beside his boots. "Okay then, smart guy. Enlighten me."

"You didn't see this giant crack?"

"Where?" Voice full of indignation, she dropped to her back and slithered further under the Mako until the two of them were lying side by side.

He pointed at the left middle wheel's torsion bar. The crack was deep, close to being sheared in half. How she'd missed it, he had no idea. "Right here."

"Okay, it's cracked." She rolled her eyes. "How do we fix it?"

Kaidan's mouth dropped slightly as he choked on more laughter. "Shepard, you can't just 'fix' a cracked torsion bar."

"My omni-gel says otherwise." She pressed her lips in a thin, stubborn line as though she could will it into submission.

Kaidan snorted. "I think the Alliance cut corners with your tech education."

"Hey!" Her nose wrinkled, eyebrows knitting together with her protest, but the tug at the corners of her mouth gave her away. "You know damn well that transport maintenance is not covered by standard tech training."

He did know that. But he also knew that she was phenomenal at hacking into terminals and getting into locked doors. She could defuse a bomb without sweating, yet was absolutely clueless about mechanics, even the absolute basics.

"Well, lesson one then. When it comes to repairs, omni-gel is a lot like medi-gel. Good for in-the-field fixes, not a permanent solution."

"If we can't fix it, what are you doing?" Shepard asked as he moved away from her, doing his best to wriggle towards the front of the vehicle without banging his head.

"Considering how you drive, I figured it'd be a good idea to check the other bars while we're down here." Kaidan kept a straight face, despite the indignant huffs coming from behind him, huffs probably punctuated with a raised middle finger or two. "Then we'll know how many to order. Though it couldn't hurt to double it so we have some extra laying around."

Once all six torsion bars had been inspected, Kaidan and Shepard crawled out from under the Mako. Other than his greasy hands, Kaidan was pleased to see he'd remained fairly clean. His mouth split into a wide smile and he held his palms out in triumph as Shepard hopped to her feet.

"See? Not so hard!"

"Oh?" Her eyes glinted and one corner of her mouth turned up with mischief. "You missed a spot."

Faster than he could react, she reached forward and swiped one of her greasy hands across his face. His fingers closed around her wrist, but her other palm slapped into the center of his chest, leaving a solid, black handprint on the pristine fabric. He reached for her, trying to get hold of her free hand without losing the first, but she danced nimbly out of reach. Back and forth they went, Shepard smearing grease on his arm, shoulder, and more on his face all while his reflexes were too slow to catch her.

As she wiped yet another smudge along his jawline with a gleeful grin, Kaidan stepped towards her rather than trying to stay out of her reach. The offensive movement forced her retreat, backing her against the Mako. Thrown off balance by the sudden power shift, Shepard was left with no room to maneuver allowing Kaidan to capture her remaining wrist. She struggled against him, the two of them laughing as she tried to break his hold. With another step closer, Kaidan pressed her wrists above her head, pinning her against the Mako and hoping that she'd admit defeat. It was his only chance to escape without being completely covered in the black goop.

Shepard's laughter died in her throat, replaced by a sharp inhale. Green eyes darkened as she stared up at him from under thick lashes. Already breathless from laughing as he'd held her off, Kaidan's chest now rose and fell with short, shallow gasps that had nothing to do with physical exertion. His heart hammered against his ribcage. What would she do if I kissed her? Pulled by invisible forces, he moved forward until the space between them shrank to a pinprick. Finally still beneath him, Shepard caught her bottom lip between her teeth, challenge blazing in her eyes as she watched him.

"What are you doing?" Tali's unmistakable trill sounded from behind him.

Spell broken, Kaidan released Shepard's hands and stepped back in haste, almost tripping on his feet in the process. A glance over his shoulder revealed Tali with one hand on her hip watching the two of them.

"We were, uh," Kaidan coughed as heat raced up his face, "fixing the Mako?"

Tali's head shook back and forth. "No wonder Garrus did this. It'll never get fixed like that." A note of amusement rang through her words.

"We can't fix it anyway." Shepard crossed her arms over her chest with a sniff of defiance. "We have to order parts."

Tali laughed. Then laughed some more. After she managed to compose herself, she crossed the room and slipped behind the Mako. Rummaging sounds filled the room and, a few minutes later, she reappeared dragging a footlocker sized shipping container behind her. She let it drop to the floor with a solid clunk and bent to pry off the lid.

"What?" Tali looked up from her crouched position as she pulled torsion bars and shock absorbers from the bin, clearly confused by both his and Shepard's slack-jawed expressions. "You didn't think Garrus just sat down here and tightened bolts for hours, did you?"

"I…" Shepard stammered, eyebrows scrunching together to create crease lines above her nose.

"Oh, Keelah! You did!" Tali laughed again, her hands going to her sides as she caught her breath. "Shepard, Garrus had Dubyansky requisition extra parts for the Mako the first time we went back to the Citadel. And they've had spare parts waiting at every port we've docked at since."

Shepard's eyes went wide. Kaidan pressed his lips together to stifle his laughter, but it forced its way out. Her cheeks pinked and she huffed, turning her back on them though Kaidan didn't miss the slight tremor of her shoulders as she tried to hold back her own laughter.

Tali made a shooing motion with her hands. "Both of you get out of here and let me fix this. If you want to drive it again, I mean."

"Sure you don't need any help?" Kaidan asked.

Still shaking her head, Tali crawled under the Mako to do her own damage assessment and Kaidan knew that he and Shepard had been effectively dismissed. They left Tali to her repairs and said nothing as they waited for the slow descent of the elevator's arrival. The ride back up to the mess deck was equally slow, though long enough for Kaidan to agonize over whether he should pick up where they had left off down below before Tali's interruption.

No sooner had he decided that yes, he would dare to kiss his commander in the elevator did Joker interrupt. Kaidan was really going to have to talk to him about his terrible timing.

"Commander, I've got an incoming transmission from our favorite admiral. Want me to patch him through?"

"Yeah, you might as well," Shepard shrugged, even though Joker wouldn't see. "We probably owe him one since we're not all sitting in Alliance prison cells. I'll be up in the comm room in about two minutes."

The door lowered with a hiss and Shepard moved towards the stairs without a backwards glance. A sigh fresh on his lips as he watched her go, Kaidan raked his fingers through his hair before remembering the grease. The viscous substance slicked through his statically charged curls and he hissed a rare curse under his breath. What had started out as a good day had quickly spiraled into frustration. At least now he had time for a shower, preferably a cold one.

Kaidan didn't see Shepard again, despite the small size of the ship. She hadn't arrived for dinner, though he saw Crosby prepare a tray to be delivered upstairs. Whatever Hackett wanted must have been keeping her busy. Resigned to seeing her the next day, he made way toward his sleeper pod. He pulled short, pleasantly surprised by the sight of her pacing in front of his terminal, eyes cast to the floor as she chewed at the cuticle of one thumb.

"Shepard?"

Hand frozen in front of her mouth, her eyes jerked to his as if startled by his presence. "Kaidan!"

"Do I need to go suit up?"

She frowned, puzzled by his question. "Oh." Understanding sparked in her eyes and she waved her hand with a dismissive gesture. "No, it's under control. We're heading to the Omega Nebula. Three Alliance ships have gone missing around there and Hackett thinks it might be the geth. So we're going to head over and check it out, but we won't be there until tomorrow."

Kaidan waited. She still hadn't explained why she'd been pacing at his terminal. Her eyes dropped back to the floor as she twisted her hands together. The gesture struck him as…nervous, a foreign emotion on her face. Angry, desperate, resigned. Amused, curious, even happy. Those were all emotions he'd seen before. But nervous?

"Rai," he reached for her, his gentle grasp below her shoulder meant to calm her. "What is it?"

Nervousness gave way to determination and the muscles beneath his hand shifted as she squared her shoulders. Balancing on the balls of her feet, she rose high enough to rest her forehead against his. When she met his gaze, he counted gold in a sea of green before her lashes fluttered shut. Supple, warm lips kissed him and her hand cupped his jaw as the world around them fell away. Tender and soft, this kiss was nothing like their first and over far too soon.

"Goodnight, Kaidan." Her words were a whisper and the scent of her lingered as she disappeared around the corner, leaving him dumbfounded in the center of the mess deck.