Chapter Five: Pushing Through and Opening Up

Shepard popped out a kid and then bounced back to kick the galaxy in the balls? Doesn't surprise me. She should've been born a krogan. She'd have made a damned good one.

You want to know about Shepard? One of the best damned fighters I've ever seen. Could take out a merc group without them ever knowing she was there. Utterly fearless. A good friend. By the time the close of the war, there was a lot of blood on her hands, but she saved my people, saved us all, and I guess you could say that it balanced out if you're the squeamish, sentimental type.

If you are, that's disappointing. I always pictured any kid of Shepard's to be made of steel.

Urdnot Wrex

o-o-o

Tuchanka was a roller coaster and a half. James couldn't feel his left shoulder, and he was pretty sure he was going to be hearing that high keening from the thresher maw for the rest of his life – or, well, the next few hours, anyways. Damn, that thing had a set of pipes. He jumped as Stitches – his new name for Chakwas – dug her finger into this muscle right where his shoulder met his arm, and the pain was instantaneous. No way he was going to let her know that though. It'd ruin his reputation.

The pain gradually gave way, leaving him with an odd pins and needles all down his arm. He started to shake it out, but with one dark glance from Stitches, he stopped. That expression was so near his abuela's it was like she was alive again. Only, you know, in the body of a much younger British doctor, and if James were into older women, hell, she'd be up there on the list.

Right after…

Shepard strolled into the medbay already wearing her fatigues. The one side of her face was turning a nasty yellowish colour, and she was favouring her left leg a little. Other than that, you wouldn't be able to tell just by looking that she'd led the single most fucking insane mission he'd ever been on. Curing the genophage was one thing, but going toe-to-toe with a Reaper – while setting out to summon the Mother of All Thresher Maws and being bombarded by those brute motherfuckers – well, he never thought working with Shepard was going to be easy street.

Stitches put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at Shepard. It was such a mom look that James had to hide his smile behind a cough, but even then he was sure Shepard noticed from the way her eyes flickered in his direction and her eyebrow threatened to dance upwards.

"Well, what have you done to yourself this time?" asked Stitches.

Shepard gave this nonchalant little shrug and started to pull up her shirt. The room instantly went up about five million degrees, and James could feel the back of his neck burning. "Uh, should I be headed out, Commander?" he asked.

Now her eyebrows did shoot up, and there was this amused glint in her eye that made him want to smile at her even though he was sure she was laughing at his expense, evil woman. She said, "Why, Lieutenant, you've seen me far less dressed than this." Which was true, and brought back a whole flood of memories he really didn't need right then. Then, all innocent like, she jerked her head towards the window into the mess. "Besides, I'm going to be giving someone a show no matter what. Might as well be you, right?"

"That an invitation?"

This was where Stitches gave a little cough of her own and pretended to be thoroughly engrossed with playing doctor. "Show me what you need to show me, Commander."

"Get a load of this," said Shepard to James. "Sexiest thing you'll ever see, guaranteed."

Without any warning, she flipped off her shirt and stood in the medbay in her pants and – was that an N7 sports bra? For real? But then his mind was pulled away from Shepard's weird lingerie choice and to her body, all her words taking on this real sinister edge. Her torso was mottled purple and blue and black, splattered all down her right side and towards her navel.

James sucked in a deep breath. "Jesus, Lola, what the hell happened?"

"I'd wager what always happens," said Stitches, leading Shepard by the arm towards the bed. "The Commander here did something incredibly stupid and impossibly heroic." The doctor pulled up her omni-tool and started doing scans.

Shepard wasn't amused anymore. Her eyes were fuzzy with remembering, a slight frown pulling at her features. "Remember when we were getting towards the maw hammers and then all those brutes showed up from fucking nowhere?"

Did he. They'd been crawling all over those freaky krogan ruins, her and Scars and him, trying to get to the maw hammers. The Reaper was right there in front of them, staring down with that weird laser-slash-eye thing. James had been yelling about how fucking insane this all was, and how they should get their asses back to the Normandy and find some other way.

Shepard had looked at him over her shoulder, completely resolute. "This is the only way. You with me or not, Lieutenant?"

He'd met that impossibly blue gaze and nodded. Then he threw in a trademark Vega grin and shrug to match. "Didn't want to live forever anyways," he yelled over the commotion around them, and he'd popped a new thermal clip into his rifle.

Scars had laughed. "You're in good company, then." To Shepard, he'd added, "But this is pretty insane, Shepard, even for us."

But she hadn't been listening. She timed it just so, and then with the yell of move she'd vaulted forward, damn near under the Reaper they were aiming to kill. That was fine; he and Scars were right behind her as she moved forward, using her SMG instead of her rifle in these close quarters. He had the thought of this is way easier than I thought and then Shepard suddenly wasn't in front of them anymore.

What was in front of them was one ugly ass brute. Shepard's body collided with a fallen concrete slab to their left, and she fell to her knees. It was like all his guts were tumbling out of his body when she let fly small grunt of pain. James and Scars had taken up shooting, but the thing seemed dead set on Shepard herself. It charged at her, and with a glare in its direction, she hit her tactical cloak and disappeared. James lobbed a grenade at the pendejo and whooped as it exploded with gross, husk-like blood raining down over the perimeter.

"Not over yet," screamed Shepard, materializing on his right.

He glanced up and noticed three more moving down to their position. With a curse, he began firing everything he had at them. It was chaos, pure and simple. He couldn't keep track of which one was which. All he could do was keep firing. Shepard seemed to be nowhere and everywhere at once. At one point, she leapt off an outcropping onto the back of one of the brutes and drove her omni-blade into the fucker's head before hopping off like it was some mechanical bull and not some mutant monster. She'd turned, eyes searching for him and Scars. That's when James noticed the shadow growing around her.

She noticed too, eyes moving upwards and she rolled out of the way just in time to miss a giant Reaper leg come down on the spot where she'd been standing. She stood, and her helmet had been cracked all to hell. She threw it down like it didn't matter and sprinted up the stairs. The second later, he heard the thwump of the hammer.

"The scans show a moderate amount of internal bruising as well," said Stitches, closing her tool. "You must be in a great deal of pain." She moved to her desk and pulled out a few bottles of pills. She tossed one to Shepard, who glanced at the level.

"How many?" asked Shepard.

"Four a day," said Stitches. "Preferably with meals, if you can manage it. And I must insist that you rest, and refrain from any strenuous activities for at least the next forty-eight hours."

Shepard's face squished up. It wasn't her most attractive look. "No promises."

Stitches sighed, bringing a hand to her forehead. "Of course not. Well, try your best in any case."

"And next time," added James, feeling left out of the conversation, "let me get pummelled by the brutes, okay?"

She just stared at him. Her hand came to rest on Stitches' arm for a brief moment, and then she was striding out of the room like he hadn't said anything at all. James felt like apologizing for whatever he'd done – or hadn't done – to receive such a cold shoulder. Something must've shown on his face, because Stitches was there, working on his muscles some more, and she smiled.

"Don't worry about the Commander," she assured him. "She always gets a little touchy when she's reminded that she's not superwoman." Her thin fingers poked and prodded at his arm. Her face went thoughtful. "Or when others speak of protecting her. I don't think she's had much of that in her life." Stitches' tone was soft on the last, and James couldn't help but think, yeah, this woman, she's probably the closest thing Shepard has to a mom.

"She hasn't," said James, and then bit his tongue, knowing how that sounded.

Stitches' face was wide with surprise. "She talked to you about that?"

"Well, I, uh, not really," stammered James, bringing his other hand to scratch at the back of his neck. "But you hear things, you know, when you're guarding someone." It sounded lame even to his ears, but he didn't know how Shepard would feel about him sharing all her personal business, even if it was only with Stitches.

Stitches took a step back and looked at him as through she'd never really seen him before. There was some sort of question mark in her eyes, and James didn't know what the hell it was referring to or what it wanted to know, but he felt like some spotlight had been dropped on him. She seemed to realize as much, and with one last pinch to one last nerve cluster, she backed away.

"That should do it," she said. "But the same goes for you – rest if you can, and avoid beating up on that bag I know you have stashed down there."

James hopped off the table and offered her a saucy salute. "Yes, ma'am."

He was rewarded with a laugh. "Oh, stop. Get out of here, you." She made a shooing gesture at him.

That Mordin guy hadn't made it out alive. James didn't know the guy real well, and hadn't ventured into the med bay during the salarian's stay. The guy had seemed a little jittery though, all over the place, and he was always, like, humming under his breath and stuff. But he knew Shepard had liked him, that Mordin had been with her when she took on the Collectors, and that… That counted for a lot, in James' book. Shepard tended to be a pretty good judge of character, even if half the people they were meeting were as loony toons as she was.

He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and headed down to the cargo bay. Estaban turned to him, wide eyes motioning over to James' workspace. There, with her hands all taped up, was Shepard, pummelling the shit out of the punching bag. With each punch, she let out a little grunt – but it wasn't cute, and it wasn't sexy, because they sounded much too painful for that.

Estaban came over close. "I tried to politely suggest that maybe she ease up, and uh, let's just say that Shepard's got a scary mean face."

"I know, man," agreed James, hands clenching around his water bottle. They both watched Shepard in silence for a few seconds, but then it was just too much. "I'm going in, Estaban. If I die, you're welcome to have my workbench."

"Oh gee, you're so kind, Mr Vega," sniped Estaban, but it lacked any real bite.

With a deep breath, James marched forward. He leaned back against his workbench, dropping his water bottle on top and crossing his arms. Shepard's eyes swirled briefly in his direction, but she kept up her assault.

"Didn't Stitches say you were supposed to rest and not to over exert yourself?" asked James, all casual like, even though he could hear his own pulse. But he knew Shepard, knew how she thought, and this was Shepard unhappy. He could tell from the way her face showed nothing at all.

"I'm the Commander of this ship," she ground out, giving a one-two combo.

There really was no arguing with that. "Yeah," said James, "and Stitches is the doctor. You might want to maybe listen to her? I haven't seen her angry yet, but I'm willing to bet it's fucking terrifying."

Shepard landed a particularly ferocious punch with her right hook, and from the looks of it, she immediately regretted it. She curled around her side, breathing loudly through her mouth, eyes closed as her face contorted in pain. "Shit," she whispered.

If James were a really big asshole, this would've been the part where he said I told you so. But because he was only a medium sized asshole, he picked Shepard up and set her sitting on a few crates in his little nook before she had the chance to make a big commotion about it. Her expression was thunderous under her low-hanging brows, but James pretended to ignore it, instead taking a swig from his water bottle with a pointed look in her direction.

"You wanna tell me what's bothering you, Lola?" She didn't say anything, and the silence made James uncomfortable, though he couldn't have told you why, exactly. "Is it your friend – that Mordin guy?" Her eyes clenched slightly. Bingo.

"I don't want to talk about it," she snapped. It sounded suspiciously like fuck you.

James held up his hands in surrender. "Fine," he said. He went back to his workbench, totally prepped to finish installing the mod on his new vindicator rifle. He pretended not to notice how Shepard made as though to stand, and flinched, her hand coming to her side. She slumped back, glaring at him – a glare that became only more pronounced when it became clear he wasn't going to react at all. That would be giving in, and James Vega never gave in.

Or, okay, if she suggested something really good, he might give in. Or if she cried. But damn, the day he saw Shepard crying would be the day he would be well and truly lost. It was a close thing even now, and she was giving him the stink eye like it was going out of fashion.

With a sigh, she dropped her head into her hands. Fuck, he wanted to comfort her but he didn't know what to do, and no matter what he decided, she'd probably consider it totally inappropriate. So he just kept working, keeping an eye on her as she sat there, face hidden from him.

"I had to do it," she said finally, so quiet James almost didn't hear her over the hum of the Normandy. "I had to let him do it."

James' fingers were slick with oil, and there was this uncomfortable pressure in his chest. He grabbed his rag and started wiping off his hands, if only for something to do while they had this chat. He'd offered to talk, and he would, but he wasn't good with this whole feelings business. There was a reason he was a marine. And Shepard, well, she wasn't good at it either if he was being honest, but somehow, when he was around her, all there was were feelings.

"You know, most people wouldn't have cured the genophage," he said, in what he hoped was a conversational, non-judgemental tone. "Not even for the Reaper war. Why did you?"

"God, you make me sound like some paragon with humanity," she said with a breathy, self-deprecating laugh. Shepard leaned back, her hands clenched on her knees. Her eyes were distant, examining things he couldn't see. "I don't know. There were so many reasons. A lot of them were selfish. Like: krogan reproduce quickly, right? So in the event that we completely fail," she held up a hand to stop James when he frowned, mouth open to protest, "there will still be at least one organic race in the galaxy capable of making the Reapers' lives a little shittier for a little longer. Like, Palaven needs reinforcements to even consider helping Earth, and Earth to me is priority one. Like, that Dalatrass pisses me the fuck off and I want her to know that this isn't a war that can be fought on her terms, not anymore. Like," and her voice got soft here, "I can't even imagine what it would do to those women, to be unable to have children even while their civilization was crumbling around them."

There was something there. A thread of something in that last that James couldn't help but jump on. God, Shepard was the most complex, the most annoyingly vague person he'd ever met. She could speak straight statements and have them mean something completely different. James wasn't the brightest guy ever, and he could pick up on it, but damn if he was lost to their meaning half the time.

"You thinking about Dahlia?" he hedged.

"Yeah," she said, and then pulled a face. "I mean, no. I haven't heard from her and I'm a little worried, but that's not what I meant."

He walked over and hopped on a crate next to her. "What did you mean then?"

She slumped her shoulders, turning to him. The expression on her face said that she didn't understand him the same way he didn't understand her. Which was kind of bullshit because he considered himself a fairly straightforward guy. Not like her, who kept her private life close and her secrets buried six feet down.

"Why do you care?" she asked, but it wasn't angry or defensive or anything. It was genuinely curious, and maybe a little sad. James wanted to reach out and touch her face, her hand, hell, any part of her – and he did mean any part – and make it so that she'd know exactly why. Only, he was chicken shit and couldn't manage it.

He bumped her shoulder with his. "That's what friends are for, right?"

"Usually, my friends leave my business alone and I leave theirs," said Shepard.

"Okay, now I know that's a lie," he said, unable to suppress his smile. "According to Joker, about the time the collector attacks were happening, you were flying around the galaxy playing at Dear Dinah, solving everybody's problems. That true?"

"I wasn't anything like Dear Dinah," protested Shepard. "I doubt Dinah would condone the amount of violence I employed during those trips."

He couldn't help it. He cracked up at that, imagining the Dear Dinah columns that would involve Shepard's particular diplomatic methodology. Gradually, a small smile stretched onto Shepard's face too, and she shook her head, though whether it was at him or at herself, he had no fucking clue.

"I just don't like talking about myself," she said.

"No shit." he said, grinning.

"You're an asshole, James," she said, but she too was smiling widely. James counted that as a victory.

He let his grin slide off his face, and bumped her shoulder again, softer this time. "Hey, I'm sorry about your friend. Mordin."

"Thanks," she said, accepting it with a nod. "He was a good man. Don't know if he believed it all the way, but he was. And god, he was fucking brilliant. He could do things with medicine and technology that left me all the way confused." She let out a short huff of air, and pushed herself off the crate. She ran a hand through her cropped hair, looking perplexed and lost. She studied him for a long time, eyes couched under furrowed brows. James fidgeted under her glance, but finally met it head on. "Why do I always find myself opening up to you?"

"My stunning good looks?" offered James. "My charming personality?"

Her blue eyes sparkled. "I was going to go with bad habit, actually."

James pressed his hands to his chest and leaned back. "Ouch, Lola. That hurt."

"I doubt it," said Shepard, and he was pleased to hear her sounding significantly calmer, even if she couldn't manage happier. She poked him. "You're built like a rhino."

"Oh, so you did notice!" interjected James, throwing her a flirtatious look.

She shook her head, chuckling. Turning, she started to walk away and James couldn't help but notice her… assets. She raised a hand in a wave. "See you, Lieutenant." As she passed Estaban, she nodded at him before disappearing into the elevator.

Estaban scurried over. "What the hell was that?"

"What?" said James, giving his best innocent face. It never worked on his abuela and Estaban seemed as equally immune.

"You and Shepard? The flirting?"

"I flirt with everybody. You should know that better than anyone." James waggled his eyebrows at the other man, hoping he wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

Estaban wasn't convinced in the slightest. "Uh huh," he said. "Yeah, you're right Mr Vega – I've seen you flirt your ass off, it's true. But I've never seen you..." Estaban made some vague gesture to the punching bag and James' workstation. "Is there something I should know?"

James forced himself to shrug. Not only was he not good about talking about feelings, he really wasn't good about talking about them when they related to Shepard. Hell, he had a fucking yen for his CO. If that didn't spell cluster fuck, he didn't know what did. But more than that, if he admitted to liking Shepard, everyone was going to think it was because she was smoking hot in battle or a fucking hero – both true, by the way, and neither one hurt – but that wasn't it. He might not have been able to definitively say that he would have liked her just as well if she wasn't Commander Shepard, but he didn't want people just to assume that he wouldn't.

And yeah, Estaban was an all-around good guy, and maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't leap to that conclusion, but James didn't want to find out either way.

"There isn't anything to know," said James, which was nearly true. There really wasn't anything going on between him and Shepard.

For a moment, it appeared as though Estaban was going to push the point, but he just clamped his mouth shut instead. Those damn eyes of his, though, they were way too knowing. "If you say so," he said. He stood around a few moments more, but when it became clear that James had nothing more to say, off he went.

And James did say so. Even if he was starting to feel (okay, that was being generous, there was no fucking starting about it) more than camaraderie for her – and he was, he definitely was – how the hell do you chat up a woman like Shepard? He couldn't even begin to guess.

God, did he wish he knew what was going on inside that pretty head of hers.

Next Chapter: James gets some news and has to go to Shepard for advice.