Another restless night. Shepard turned to see the clock, unsurprised to see it read 3 AM. Her stomach announced its emptiness. May as well go grab a snack.

She stumbled into some clothes and wandered to the elevator. Rubbing her eyes, she pressed the button for the crew deck. She looked up at the camera and nodded as though to say, "Yes, EDI. Again."

In her sleepy state, the elevator felt slower than usual. Even her stomach seemed to grumble about it.

Ah, finally.

Shepard shuffled over to the mess area. Carefully she poked around the shelves to find something satisfying, making sure she left no trace for the mess sergeant to needle her about later. She heard faint voices through the wall in Miranda's room. Sounded like Jacob.

Her hands landed on something salty and unhealthy. The bag crinkled as she grasped it, and the voices abruptly stopped.

Let them have their fun, Shepard thought. I'm about to have mine. Landing at the table with a huff, she opened the bag. The voices started again. She looked around. Surely everyone else was asleep. Should she go back up to her room? Her fingers tapped the table impatiently. No, she didn't want to be alone. She stared into the medbay. Legion doesn't sleep.

Squinting at the bright light, she entered the medbay but stopped short of the AI Core. Should she really bother them? Would they even want to speak with her? She had already asked them so many questions. Can they even experience annoyance? Why was she really down here? She turned around to exit when the door slid open, Legion on the other side.

"Shepard-Commander. We saw your heat signature at the door. Do you require us?"

Turning back, she looked them up and down, failing to glean anything from their body language. Her hand crushed the bag a little.

"I, uh, came down for a snack. Then I thought I'd come by and say hi."

"Hello, Shepard-Commander."

"Hello, Legion." She relaxed her grip a little. "Truth is, I didn't want to bother you."

Legion's eyelight panned a little to the side before focusing again on Shepard. "We would not be bothered by you."

She stifled a smile, and willed her heart to slow down again with a very deep breath. This was fine. "Want to go to the lounge with me? I don't get to enjoy it enough."

"Yes."

Shepard sank into one of the couches facing the stars. She looked up at Legion, patted the seat next to her, and reopened her snack. Legion stiffly maneuvered into a sitting position, the couch whining under their weight. She looked at them as she chewed.

"So, how are you, Legion?"

"All systems are nominal."

"Yeah?" She used the bag to point to the stars. "What do you think of the view?"

"We understand why it would be pleasant to organics."

She stared at the eyelight reflecting in the window. Why were they so still? There was usually some ambient motion to them.

"Legion, are you nervous? If you don't want to be here, you can tell me. I won't be offended. You're just the only one awake."

"Operatives Lawson and Taylor are also awake."

Shepard shifted uncomfortably. "They're, uh, unavailable. Anyway, I'd rather be with you. You didn't answer my question." Her foot swung back and forth, scuffling the floor. She focused on the motion while putting another handful of chips in her mouth.

They swiveled to watch Shepard. "We are not nervous. We want to be here."

Shepard's head bobbed a nod as she finished chewing. "Good. That's good. So, uh… you have any 'queries' for me? Anything you want to talk about?"

Legion's hands quietly moved from the seat to their thighs, returning their gaze to the window. "No current queries, Shepard-Commander."

Shepard finished eating. She got up with a grunt to throw the bag away, then dusted her hands on her pants. She stood in front of them and opened her arms wide. "Are… are you upset with me? About rewriting the heretics? I know it's traumatic but surely it's better than destroying them. I couldn't -"

"No, Shepard-Commander. We are not upset with you. We are uncertain of what to do with this encounter."

"You've never just hung out with someone before?"

"Correct."

Shepard sighed and flopped down next to them. "That's fine. I'm out of practice, anyway. Not as bad as Samara, but everything's been non-stop since waking up in that Cerberus facility. I didn't do much for two years before that, though somehow I don't feel rested at all." A sad smile came and went. She looked at Legion, her eyes following various cables up and down their neck before falling to her fidgeting feet again. She hoped they didn't notice how long her gaze had lingered. "I… I don't feel close to anyone anymore. Liara's not here. Kaidan's definitely not here. Tali and Garrus are wrapped up in their own lives, their own problems. Wrex is running a planet. Anderson is unreachable given my current, uh, alliances. And Joker, as always, deflects most conversations with humor." She clapped her hands on her knees in defeat. "All my old relationships seemed to have burned up with the Normandy."

Legion's face plates made minute movements in various directions, a habit Shepard observed when she had said something particularly interesting to them. Perhaps they were searching the extranet on how to respond.

She scooted closer to them. She gently lifted their arm to link hers through it, hugging it close to her chest as she leaned her head on their shoulder. On armor that was once hers. Legion looked down at their arms together. A gentle whirr rose and fell somewhere from within them, so quick Shepard barely caught it. What did it mean? Was she messing with their system temperature? They seemed cool to the touch.

"Is this okay?" she asked, eyebrows raised.

"Yes."

"Okay." She snuggled in her head under theirs a little more. They both sat in silence for a few moments. Shepard started drifting off.

"Shepard-Commander, we have a query now."

She jolted at the sudden sound, looked around, and yawned. "Yeah, what's up?"

"We are not currently equipped to service you, but can acquire the necessary upgrades if desired. Should we proceed with these upgrades?"

Shepard blinked in a mix of grogginess and shock before unlinking their arms and straightening up. "Wh… what? Wait, by 'service' do you mean, like, physical stuff? Between us?"

"Affirmative. We can also recommend other crew members to fulfill this role: Thane Krios, Subject Zero, Garrus Va-"

"No. No, no, no, Legion. That's not what I'm here for. That's not why I'm spending time with you."

Legion's eyelight rotated and dilated. "We do not understand. Extranet searches indicate physical closeness similar to what was previously exhibited often leads to additional physical contact. Shepard-Commander does not want this?"

"No, I definitely do not want that. No offense to you, I'm sure your upgrades would be great." Shepard slouched with a sigh. She stared out at the stars. "To be honest, I don't like sex very much. At all, really. And it seems to go along with most relationships. That's why I'm not in Thane's room tonight. Or Jack's, or Garrus'... The 'I really like you but don't want to do that with you' conversation is more than I can handle right now."

Legion's face plates stirred as they considered this. "Additional query."

"Yeah?"

"Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko. Prior to fighting the Old Machines at the Citadel, records indicate you and Alenko-"

"What records?" Shepard's eyebrows crinkled down. Legion hesitated and looked elsewhere. She heard a few more whirrs and clicks from deep within the machine.

"We have access to personal journal entries by Lieutenant Alenko. He is not as secure as he perceives himself to be."

Shepard stared, mouth smushed into a straight bemused line. She would need to upgrade her encryption. Had they already peeked into her secret thoughts, too? Had they noticed her entries mentioning them grow from curiosity to fixation? She stared back out the window and shoved the idea from her mind.

"Yeah, me and Kaidan were close for a while. He's very sweet and kind. But even with him, I didn't enjoy it. I overhear how Kasumi and Kelly talk about people like Jacob, Thane, Garrus, Samara... How they describe their bodies or voices or demeanor and the effect it has on them… and I don't connect to it. I see all those people as very aesthetically pleasing and some of them even emotionally captivating, but what Kasumi and Kelly describe is different. Deeper. It's on a level I don't have access to. A kind of attraction I simply don't experience. Doesn't stop me from feeling lonely, though."

Once more Shepard rested her head on Legion's shoulder, entwining her arm with theirs. In the silence, she pondered the armor that was no longer hers. The being attached to that armor. The being that had searched for her across the galaxy. She heard a few more whirrs and clicks, and wondered again what they meant. They were so alien to her. How could she be with them so easily, but struggle around her fellow organics? Why couldn't she sit tangled like this with anyone else, comfortable in knowing they weren't expecting more?

Legion swung their head over toward her. "Shepard-Commander, do you find this platform aesthetically pleasing?"

"I do. I also find you, um, interesting. Beyond that." That last part had slipped out a bit too eagerly. She looked them in the eyelight. A few faceplates jostled, chewing on her confession. "Is that okay?"

"It is preferable. We would like to offer ourselves as an option for companionship."

Her throat tightened at the candidness of their proposal. Some hidden part of her had wanted this and now that part was exposed and eager to see what would happen. Her face contorted with concern, heartbeat rising in her ears. "I don't know… Are you able to consent to an emotional relationship? I don't want to… use you."

Legion's eyelight dilated further. "It would be an equally beneficial relationship. You would receive companionship, and we would receive novel data on interpersonal organic connections."

She rolled her eyes. "So I'd be an experiment. Very romantic."

Legion turned their entire body to face Shepard and faced them in return. They put a hand on hers and looked directly at her, eyelight as wide as the hardware allowed. Their face plates moved emphatically.

"Shepard-Commander. We searched the stars for you for two years. Against probability, we have found you. You have trusted us, and we have trusted you. We find it optimal to be by your side both on and off the battlefield. Any data received from our time together would be the most important data the geth have ever gathered."

Shepard smiled to herself, and looked down at the hand eclipsing hers. She followed the cables up their arm, into their torso, and up to their face. It would be a lie to say she didn't want this, an emotional closeness without having to explain her aversion to physical intimacy. Without feeling like she was denying the other a natural part of themselves so she could also exist. She closed her eyes and breathed deep. Yeah, this was a future she could fight for. She grasped the hand that was on hers and held it up to her lips for a near imperceptible kiss.

"All right. I'm all yours."

"Acknowledged, Shepard-Commander." The next words were said at a crawl, as though examining every possible meaning they could hold. "We are yours, as well."

They were both quiet for a moment.

"You don't have to call me 'Commander' anymore, you know."

"We will amend our parameters." Legion paused. "Shepard."

"Much better." She leaned back again in her seat, and they mimicked her.

"We have a query, Shepard."

"Okay." It was so strange to hear only her name coming from them. She wasn't surprised it only took one request.

"What happens now? We are having difficulty finding information on the extranet that does not involve close physical intimacy."

"Yeah, that sounds like the extranet. How about we just sit here and enjoy the moment?"

"That is acceptable."

Shepard once again put her arm through theirs, resting her head on their shoulder. She yawned. Legion's face plates gently moved up and down in a way she had only seen a couple of times before.

"That motion you're doing. Last time I saw it was when Tali gave you information about the Migrant Fleet. I can tell it's a positive thing. What exactly does it mean?"

"We believe the closest organic emotion would be happiness or the anticipation of future happiness."

Her cheeks warmed at the thought. "Good. I'm happy too," she said through another yawn. Sleep was getting harder to fight despite her desire to stay awake.

Legion stretched to grab a pillow from the next couch. They placed it on their lap as Shepard slid down and properly nestled in for the night.

"Sleeping without proper neck support can result in orthopedic injuries," Legion explained. "We assess the probability of you falling asleep is near 100 percent."

No longer fully aware, Shepard mumbled her thanks. She didn't notice Legion gingerly place their arm around her, uncertain of themselves. They dimmed their eyelight and watched her for a moment.

"EDI," they said, a lower volume than usual.

"Yes, Legion?" EDI responded in a matched whisper.

"We request that you lock the door to prevent others from waking Shepard." A soft click came from behind them. "Thank you, EDI."

"You're welcome." EDI paused, considering her next words. "Legion?"

"Yes, EDI?"

"Please take care of her. I know she will take care of you."

Legion's face plates pulsed, and they suppressed a whirr. "We will."

EDI said nothing further. As Legion watched Shepard finally enter a restful sleep, they searched the extranet for more information, but found little that was helpful. Their face plates moved in a rolling sequence while considering a future with Shepard. This was not an anticipated outcome for even the most imaginative programs among them. The likelihood of this happening had been so small, rounding up any meaningful number of decimal points was still zero.

They caressed her shoulder as they'd seen on a rom-vid and observed a subtle parasympathetic reaction. The Consensus splintered in multiple directions. Some programs went to search for more information about such a response, while others adjusted parameters and runtimes for their new social situation. Some went to their game profile, deleted Fleet and Flotilla, and booted up Galaxy of Fantasy. They were unsure if Shepard would sleep a full recommended amount, but were certain they would at least be there awhile. Legion did not mind at all.