"Kaidan!"
Alenko whirled around immediately. Lawson turned more slowly but in fairness, she was multi-tasking with having to raise an eyebrow.
A petite woman, four or five years younger than Alenko, finished the wave to get his attention and half-walked, half-ran up to him. She was pretty... disarmingly so. She could have been stunningly, intimidatingly gorgeous if she tried... but clearly she had neither the time nor the interest in doing so. Her even, pretty features wore only the lightest dusting of makeup and her hair, long and chestnut brown, was pulled back away from her face in a haphazard ponytail from which tendrils were already escaping and framing her heart-shaped face. She was slender, almost thin, but her skin had a healthy glow to it that belied any potential accusations of malnutrition. She was wrapped in a form-fitting white jacket which had probably once been clean and pressed but was now wrinkled and splotched with what could only be random combinations of bodily fluids. She had colorful pins showing rainbows, balloons, and a wide assortment of all the most popular cartoon characters on the extranet all over her jacket. She was carrying a clearly much-loved stuffed pyjak that had probably once been pink but was now a rather dull gray.
She came to a stop right in front of Alenko, smiling up at him. Her teeth were white and even and her smile, just a little bit crooked, was both sweet and genuine. She stood up on her tiptoes - she had to; she only came up to his shoulders, at best - and kissed him lightly on his cheek.
"Hi," she said.
"Lindsay." He blinked. "Hi," he said. "I, uh..." He shook his head roughly. "Lindsay!" He made a move as if to mirror the kiss to the cheek... then seemed to pause... then regrouped and wrapped her into a quick hug. "Hi."
She gave him an odd look but tempered it with a genuine smile as if she fully expected him to be an idiot. She likely did. "Hi," she repeated pointedly. She turned her smile to Lawson… waited… then she glanced at him... then at Lawson... then back at him... She then sighed, clearly giving up on him, and thrust a hand out at Lawson. "I'm Dr. Lindsay Miller," she said. "Pediatrician at the main med clinic. And you are -?"
"Candi Heavyn," Lawson replied in kind, shaking her hand firmly. "Special Projects coordinator for the Heracles Foundation. Commander Alenko is our Alliance liaison."
Alenko grimaced slightly. "Look, uh, Lindsay... Candi... we -"
"The Heracles Foundation?" Lindsay repeated, rolling it around on her tongue as if trying to figure out why it sounded familiar. "I'm not sure I know it. I'm sure Kaidan has mentioned it one of these nights," she added hastily, eager to avoid offense, "but by the time I finally get to his place, or he to mine, I'm about three parts kid vomit and two parts need-a-glass-of-wine, if you know what I mean." She waved the gray pyjak in the general direction of her wrinkled and stained white coat. "Is it a non-profit?"
"No, but it's at least a scientific joint venture instead of just a soul-sucking corporate machine," Lawson replied with startlingly charismatic ease. "Our biggest project involves targeted advances in mass relay tech. It's... well, it's all very boring, really... and I doubt we'll ever have the kind of personal impact you do. A pediatrician? On the Citadel? That must be..." She shook her head, shuddering faintly. "Positively harrowing."
"Shouldn't we -" Alenko started to ask.
"Oh, it is most certainly that," Lindsay agreed with a self-deprecating snort. "Though sometimes, it's less harrowing and more just... simply ridiculous." She held up the dilapidated pyjak. "As a case in point, this is Mr. Toodles. One of my little turian girls accidentally left him behind at the clinic... and one can only imagine the drama that will ensue if I don't get him back home before bedtime."
Lawson laughed aloud. "Thankfully my board members are much more forgiving," she replied. "And if they need their stuffed animals to sleep, they at least never bring them to the meetings. So how do you and Commander Alenko know each other?"
"I visit the kids on extended stays in the clinic," Alenko said. "Stories."
Lindsay snorted. "Well, I thought we were dating but story thing is certainly true as well," she said, though she took the edge off of it by patting his arm and smiling slightly. "Kaidan's been a lifesaver with some of our longer-term cases. It's amazing what a hero in a uniform can do for a desperately sick child who's been asked every day to be strong. And he may be single-handedly changing the hearts and minds of an entire generation about biotics."
"I can certainly believe that," Lawson agreed. "He's been absolutely instrumental in bridging the sometimes quite massive gaps between our scientific teams who are scared of militarizing technology and our Alliance investors who, well..." She quirked a smile up at Alenko, oddly similar to the one Lindsay had given him. "Yes."
"Well, don't let me keep you," Lindsay said, taking a step back. "And... don't let yourselves keep Mr. Toodles out past curfew." She waved the gray pyjak. "Ms. Heavyn, it was a pleasure meeting you. Kaidan..." She rolled her eyes at him, lips quirking into a teasing smile. "I'm going to be stuck at the clinic late tonight so we might have to push dinner back a bit... Maybe I can just bring something in?" She kissed his cheek again. "I'll give you a call when I'm about done."
She hustled back off toward the residential areas, Mr. Toodles in tow.
The smile faded from Lawson's face as soon as Lindsay left. She worked her jaw as if it were a little stiff from the amount of smiling she'd been forced to do - it probably was - then immediately turned around, walking briskly off in the direction they'd originally be going, flicking her omni-tool on.
Alenko, hastily following after her, felt he should say something.
"Um," he said. It wasn't exactly what he had in mind.
"Nope, don't want to hear about it," Lawson interrupted him brusquely, raising a hand to stop him. "This meeting is going to be with just our two lead researchers. A more detailed status review, basically, than what we presented to the board last night. It's probably going to be a little tech heavy but I don't imagine they're going to expect us to be able to hang with them. I'm more interested in figuring out what all this nonsense is about 'strict dependency on another sister project for a critical breakthrough'... That just seems like a terrible project design and I can't find any specifics in the documentation I have. They -"
"Shepard -" Alenko began.
"Still don't want to hear it," Lawson said.
"- knows I'm dating," Alenko finished. It sounded more defensive than he'd meant it to... though in hindsight, he wasn't sure how he could have said anything like that without it sounding defensive.
Lawson sighed, indicating that she'd heard him probably for all of her attempts otherwise, but didn't raise her gaze from the reports she was scanning on her omni-tool. "I know she knows," she said. "You told her as much when you apologized for the tomfoolery on Horizon. I only wish you'd done it sooner. I can't even quantify how much productivity I lost while she was moping. Now, hopefully these researchers will be able to provide us a little more information about what exactly this sister project is and why -"
Alenko paused. "She moped?"
Lawson sighed again. "Well, Shepard's brand of moping involves throwing much larger bodies into various hard surfaces to see how loud a thud they make," she allowed, "but yes. After a fashion. And, I reiterate, with all the associated hits to productivity. Similar to the ones we're experiencing right now, actually."
A longer pause as he tried and failed to process that. "And you read her mail."
"Of course I read her mail. I'm probably not the only one who does though I'm certainly the only one I don't regulate on for trying. Can we please return to the point at -"
"All of you read her mail?" he interrupted her. "Isn't she entitled to privacy? You -" He cut himself off abruptly and dragged a hand over his face. "Never mind. The point is... okay, it's been two years and I -"
"Look, Alenko," Lawson said, stopping dead in her tracks and finally meeting his gaze directly, giving him her full attention. "Just stop. Stop right there. I don't want to hear your confession but apparently you're carrying around enough guilt to want to give it... and for reasons I cannot even begin to fathom, you want to give it to me. So let me just say this first before this all becomes even more stupid."
He expected recrimination in her gaze; there was none. He expected heat in her voice; there was none of that either. She was simply matter-of-fact.
"Men like you" - she pointed a perfectly-manicured finger at him - "who love women like Shepard" - she pointed in the direction of the Normandy - "marry girls like Dr. Lindsay Miller." She pointed behind her in the direction of the residential sections. "Smart. Pretty. Funny. Safe. That's how it works. Her mom will remind you of how you remember yours to be before BAaT... or maybe how she never was but how you always wanted her to be. She'll plan your wedding so you don't have to. You'll help her set up her first private practice and after you christen one of the examination tables with a two-backed beast, she'll joke about having to break out the antiseptic even though for just a moment she'll see the distance in your eyes like you're thinking of someone else. You'll never figure out how to convince her not to work late but you'll at least learn she'll nibble on a sandwich if you bring her one. You'll kiss her forehead when she falls back on the pillows after delivering your first child and you will genuinely believe she's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, laughing and crying together in awe at what the two of you bumbling idiots managed to create... but part of you will wish the tiny little bundle has her eyes... not hers, but hers. That'll fade. When he or she graduates from the Academy, you'll be so proud that she'll joke you're going to bust the seams out of that old dress uniform that doesn't quite fit around your middle so well anymore. Part of you thinks that she would be so proud too... not her, but her. That'll fade too.
"And Dr. Lindsay Miller will spend the next seventy, eighty years of her life feeling like the luckiest woman in the galaxy. You won't love her a single day of those eighty years... but your sense of duty is so ingrained, so perfect, that she'll never know the difference. And one day, after your children are out of the house and the two of you are puttering around together in your garden, and she's muttering for the seven hundredth time about the damned snails eating her chrysanthemums... you'll realize that warm, safe feeling you get in your chest when you look at her is just as good."
He stared at her.
"So," she finished briskly, "if you're looking for absolution, Commander, there. You've got it. You're making the right choice for everyone involved. There's a very good chance that Shepard is going to die in the very near future but in the off chance that she doesn't, well... I think we can agree that the only thing worse than losing her once is spending a lifetime just waiting for it to happen again. I admire your cost-benefit analysis. Most men in your position would allow their rationality to be compromised by tawdry emotional investments and quixotic romanticism. Now." She took a step backward and looked up at him, tucking a once-again blond piece of hair back into the otherwise perfect, elegant knot at the nape of her neck. "Can we continue to our meeting?"
He stared at her.
"I have to go," he said.