Chapter 7

When Lena awake the next morning, there were three things that she was immediately and acutely aware of.

The first was that she had most certainly slept later than she had done in years. Even after a night out drinking with Sam and James, thanks to her Alliance training, she would unfailingly wake with the dawn. Lena always had been an early riser, but her training pushed that habit to the hilt. The window in Lena's bedroom was north-facing, so the light of Rao would never come through it directly until midday. It was that light that woke Lena, bursting through the window that she had clearly forgotten to tint before she had left her apartment the previous night. As she groggily worked herself into full consciousness, it occurred to her that it must have been at least noon.

The second was a delicious soreness that ran throughout her body, one that had nothing to do with any kind of training she had ever undergone. The Alliance taught her a lot about her own body, her limits, her abilities, the exact way certain muscles would ache after certain kinds of exertion. The twinges and aches she felt as she flexed her body that morning were nothing like any of those. The first one she noticed was an ache somewhere deep in her core, an ache that instantly brought back images of golden blonde hair and long fingers disappearing between her legs. Lena's head tipped back against the pillow beneath her at the memory, biting her lips to try and stop her own arousal from building again just at the thought of it. On top of that there were a dozen or so sharper twinges that ran across both of her thighs and up along her collar. A curious probing of fingers confirmed that she most definitely had been left with some hickeys, and Lena's first thought was a territorial hope that she had given as good as she had gotten. The final thing, were the long, almost itches that ran down her back. Lena had little doubt that Kara's immaculately manicured fingernails had left their marks.

The third and final thing was that she was alone.

The bed in her room wasn't particularly small. At least, it wasn't to Lena. Compared to the bunks she had slept in with the Alliance, the bed was huge. Still, it was not a bed designed to be occupied by two people, which meant that any time that happened the two would have to sleep more or less on top of each other. It had taken Lena a moment to fully register that she was alone, accustomed as she was to waking up that way, her brain hadn't immediately made the connection. The moment it did though, Lena deflated, sinking back into the worn softness of her mattress.

Lena worked through the events of the previous night in her mind. After they'd shared that first kiss they had very quickly vacated the bar and started heading towards Lena's apartment. The walk itself had taken almost double the time it would usually have taken Lena, the two of them constantly stopping to claim one another in a kiss in the shadows against a convenient wall or tree.

They hadn't explicitly stated their intentions to sleep together, it had just sort of…happened.

That didn't take away from how incredible the experience had been. At first, Kara had been almost reserved even with all of her intensity. Lena hadn't needed to stop, to check on Kara and make sure that she wanted what had felt inevitable from the moment they shared their first kiss, because the moment she noticed how hesitant Kara was, it was gone. Lena had barely gotten her tank top over her head when Kara had flattened her to the mattress in a kiss that almost bordered on violent with its passion.

Lena was certain that Kara had felt the intensity between them in the same way she had. It had felt like gravity, like two deep space cometaries drawn together impossibly in the vastness of the void.

There hadn't been any voiced expectations between them, no promises, no words meaningfully exchanged beyond murmured instructions, pleas for more, and cries of names.

Yet, the lack of Kara's presence the next morning disappointed Lena out of all proportion.

Eyes still screwed shut against both her own emotion and the light pounding onto her through the untinted window, Lena blindly reached out one hand and grabbed around on the small table beside her bed. After a few long seconds with very little success Lena's hand finally closed around the rubber-like feel of her omni-tool. With eyes still shut, Lena fixed the device's mount around her wrist, flared it to life with a wiggle of fingers, and waved it in the direction of her window. It took a moment for the command to be aimed in the right spot but when it was the window's tint kicked in. Electric current passed through the window and turned the transparent material to jet black in a few seconds.

Grudgingly, Lena pulled her eyes open and looked around her room. Her clothes from the previous night were all gathered up and placed on the chair tucked against the small desk in her room. That caused her to pause. Lena had a very distinct memory of her clothes ending up in different places the previous night. Her tank top for one, which she remembered being thrown rather forcefully towards the door to the room by Kara.

Propping herself up on one elbow, Lena glanced around the rest of the room. Nothing else seemed to be out of place, that small amount of tidying up seemed to be the only anomaly. There was no doubt in Lena's mind that she hadn't been the one to do it, despite what her and Kara had drunk at the bar she definitely hadn't been far gone enough to black out. Sam wouldn't tidy up her own room, never mind Lena's, and especially not if it was evidence that she had gotten laid.

Which left Kara. Picking up the strewn around clothing before leaving didn't seem like the typical mark of a one night stand, Lena had enough experience with those to be sure. If Kara had woken up that morning and decided to bail, she definitely wouldn't have gone out of her way to collect Lena's clothes for her. It could have been a mark of guilt, Lena reasoned. Some dim vestige of Kryptonian propriety that demanded she clean up the mess she helped to make in someone else's home. Or, a more hopeful part of her brain suggested to her, it could have been a sign of guilt because she had to bail. A way of apologising for diving out before Lena woke up.

You're getting nowhere, Lena.

Lena grunted, flopped back onto her mattress, and kicked the sheets off her body. Dragging herself out of the bed, Lena pulled open her wardrobe, stuffed herself into some loungewear, and headed out of her room. The moment she stepped out into the split longue/kitchen space Lena had to bite down a whine of annoyance as her eyes landed on Sam. Her flatmate was perched on a stool at the small island in the kitchen, picking apart a bagel with methodical precision, a grin that could only be described as shit-eating plastered across her lips.

"What are you so fucking cheery for?" Lena sulked.

If anything, Sam's grin got wider at her petulance. Instead of an answer Sam plucked up the bag that was sat on the kitchen island and tossed it across the room at Lena. Before the offending projectile could make contact with her face (for a biotic Sam's aim using her actual muscles was terrible), Lena snatched it out of the air with one hand. The paper bag crinkled under her grip as Lena turned it around in her hands. Tacked to one side of the bag was a small, handwritten note in a flourishing script. Flaring up her omni-tool once again, Lena pulled up the translation window and held it over the Kryptonese lettering.

I couldn't bare to wake you up, you looked so peaceful. I have an engagement with my house that I have to attend. I hope the bagels make up for my absence.

Kara

Lena felt something in her chest. A weightless feeling like the start of a mass effect jump before the onboard anti-gravity compensators kicked in. Kara hadn't just walked out on her, and while Lena was still a little upset that Kara hadn't woken her up first, the overwhelming disappointment she had felt on waking up had vanished. A grin creeping over her own lips, Lena spun the bag around again, reached into it, and pulled out a bagel, before starting towards the island.

When she looked up, Sam was still grinning unbearably at her. Silence stretched out between them until Lena took a seat on a stool opposite her flatmate.

"She was hot." Sam said. "I didn't know that you had such good taste, present company excluded of course."

Lena scowled at her and plucked up the cream cheese container that Sam must have retrieved from the fridge. "You tell a girl you had a sex dream about her one time and she never shuts up about it. I think you're the one who needs a better sex life, Arias, not me."

As soon as the words left her mouth Lena knew it was the wrong thing to say.

"After the things I heard last night? I think you might have a point." Sam paused, took a sip from her coffee mug, and continued. "It's kinda odd for my first impression of a women to be the sound of her screaming my best friend's name."

"Best friend?" Lena shot back immediately with a quirked eyebrow. "I just keep you around for eye candy, Arias. And you're about to be out of a job."

"Well that's just hurtful."

"You love it really."

"True, it does turn me on when you're mean to me."

They broke the spiral of jabs and burst out laughing in perfect sync. Any embarrassment that Lena had felt at the realisation that Sam had overheard her and Kara last night bled out immediately. For all of the incessant needling Sam put her through, Lena knew it came from a place of love. Easy flowing banter and insults were par for the course with them, it was like their love language.

"So, I'd usually ask what you got up to last night but I think I already know the most of it." Sam grinned at her. "Gotta say I'm kinda surprised a kryptonian got you making that much noise. Always assumed they'd be prudes, with that whole making babies in machines thing."

Lena let out a snort of amusement. She had made a fairly similar assumption too the previous night. The boldness Kara had shown in kissing her had floored Lena alone, never mind the heightening intensity as they'd rushed back towards Lena's apartment. There had never been a moment where Lena could have asked about Kara's experience, her history, but from the fervour she had shown Lena very much doubted she had been Kara's first.

"She…surprised me." Lena supplied after a moment of consideration.

"I think you're underselling, babe," Sam grinned. "But shit, good sex looks good on you. I knew you'd finally heed my advice and get your brains screwed out. Maybe you'll be less of a hardass now."

"Unlikely. My bitchy personality is more a result of being forced to spend time around you, not my lack of mind-blowing sex."

"Mind-blowing huh?"

Lena glowered. "One of these days I'm going to make good on my promise to shoot you."

"You know, after last night I've got some shit in my brain I'd rather not have up there, I think you'd be doing me a favour."

"I hate you."

"You love me."

Deciding not to let Sam bait her into giving away any more information about the previous night, and not having anything else to offer but more insults, Lena instead bit into a bagel. Ignoring the look Sam gave her as she did it, Lena pulled up her omni-tool and opened her message log with Kara.

The bagels are fantastic, but I'm sure you'd be a better breakfast date than my flatmate. You'd better make that up to me sometime.

A/N: Just as a bit of housekeeping, the omni-tool is never really seen in Mass Effect outside of the holographic display when it's in use. When the characters are in armour, it makes sense that it would be mounted into the gauntlet, but in civilian clothes it's never explained (to my knowledge) where the omni-tool is worn. So, in my reality, the hardware part of the omni-tool is a Fitbit type device that can be worn around the wrist, and when activated it brings up that orange holo-display we all know from the games.