In the end, Anderson smooths it over for her and Kaidan is a little guilty and far too glad that his nepotism saved her career.
But Anderson can't fix everything, and nor would he want to.
Kaidan gets his orders to report to Arcturus station, a formal reprimand in his file, a demotion threatened, and a stern warning that if he breaks one more reg he risks court martial and strict disciplinary action.
She's threatened with a demotion, but manages to hold onto her rank of Commander by the tips of her fingers. Anderson's good word did a lot to stem the wrath of the disciplinary committee, not to mention the scandal of her Spectre status and fame if news of her affair and demotion broke to the press. For once her notoriety is a good thing.
He packs the night he receives his orders in his small room at the barracks. He hasn't seen Shepard since the time she stood outside the Normandy with Anderson, but it seems she has more courage than him, because there's a knock on the door and he knows instinctively that it's her.
She stands in front of him in casual clothes, a sleek pair of black pants and tall boots with a blue long-sleeved top. She appears as if she's any other young woman on the Citadel, casual and pretty. Her eyes are vibrant, but she still looks pale and wan.
"Hi," she greets softly. "Got your orders?"
"Yeah," he rasps, telling himself over and over not to reach out and touch her like a man dying of thirst.
She looks around nervously, obviously knowing that they'd be in trouble if she was caught here. "Can I come in?"
He stands aside. "Of course."
She crosses the threshold, appearing anxious and jumpy. The distant sounds of other soldiers in the recreation room makes her eyes jump to the door, but Kaidan shrugs wordlessly, trying to set her mind at ease. He knows she doesn't stay in the barracks when on the Citadel, but it's not so unusual for a Commander to bed down in the officer quarters. She can be seen here. Well… maybe just not in his particular officer's quarters. He nervously rubs his neck, thinking that being caught together a second time would be particularly stupid.
Hello demotion, goodbye career.
She perches at his small two-place table, fiddling with an empty bottle-cap off a beer.
"I get to keep the Normandy," she says in a rush, shrugging. He sits on the small bed. Safer that way, to not be near her.
"Shepard, that's great!" he answers with a genuine smile. "I was worried they'd try and take it from you."
"Yeah," she huffs. "Anderson sort of went to bat for me. Spun it that every soldier makes mistakes and that it was just a 'one-time, heat of battle' thing. Got a helluva mark in my file, but hopefully I can bury it in some commendations by working really hard on killing some Reapers. They gave me a good crew reshuffle, though; Adams got taken off, I barely held onto Chakwas, lost damn near all of your boys in the marine detail for some newbies and they threatened to kick off most of the alien crew before I threw in that I was a Spectre and they weren't Alliance."
"Good," he breathes in relief. "At least you'll still have Liara, Tali and Garrus."
"Yeah. Wrex has gone back to Tuchanka. He just kind of laughed and said he heard the rumors. I threatened to punch his face in and we parted as friends."
She gives him a crooked smile and he does his best to smile back. The light dies from her eyes quickly and she goes back to playing with her bottle cap.
He fiddles with the seam of his pants, for once lost for words. He'd thought that she was the one person in the galaxy that he never lose words for.
"W-What do you want to do?" she stammers, breaking the silence. She won't meet his eyes. "About us, I mean."
"Us?" he asks, swallowing the lump in his throat.
"Yeah, Anderson said… he said that if we want to continue this thing… that it needs to be quiet, but-"
"But I'm being transferred," he finishes for her. "It's not breaking regs anymore. We're both officers and we're not serving together."
"Can you do it, though?" she sighs. "The long distance thing? I can't leave the Normandy. Not yet. The Reapers are coming and I need to find a way to stop them when they do. I can't ask you to wait around for me and you have your own career. I know how much it means to you."
"Are you asking?"
She doesn't answer, still fiddling with her bottle-cap.
Kaidan runs his hands through his hair, scared by the fear and hesitation on her face. "You're having second thoughts, aren't you? About us?"
Her hair slips from where it was tucked behind her ear, hiding one side of her face from him.
"Yes," she whispers. "I am. Anderson was right. What about Ash's family? I mean… what if this was just some battlefield thing?"
His heart stops. "Please, don't say that. You know that's not true."
She finally looks up at him, tears in her eyes. "We barely know each other, Kaidan. We're going to be separated ten months out of a year. We can meet up on shore leave, but really, how often do we get those? A couple of weeks every few months? What if we're not even in the same cluster? We're marines, this is the life we chose. It wasn't meant-"
"It was!" he says, and he can hear his voice crack with suppressed emotion. He knows what she's doing. She's leaving him. "Look, my dad was Alliance, he made it to Major, and he made it work with my mother."
"We're not your parents, Kaidan, and your mother wasn't a marine. She was a civvy. It's not the same."
He searches for the words to make it right but all he tastes is ashes on his tongue.
"I wish to hell I'd locked that door," he says with a bitter laugh.
"I wish I had, too. But we didn't and Pressly was right. We were fooling ourselves. We had Intai'sei, our perfect shore leave, and that has to be enough for us."
She sniffs and she raises a hand to wipe her nose.
"Will I see you again?" he asks quietly.
"Sure!" she says, voice too loud, bright and wholly insincere. "We'll catch up, I'm sure. We can do coffee on Arcturus. Let me know when you get redeployed. You're going for a groundside tour this time?"
He shrugs, not caring very much for that through the breaking of his heart. "I don't know. Might get assigned to a dreadnought. The Kilimanjaro is having a crew reshuffle, I heard. I think I might try and get a posting there."
"Good, good. More career opportunities on dreadnoughts. Might shake off your rep of being associated with me, eh?" she jokes, but he doesn't smile.
He drops all pretenses. "Shep, I can't let you go."
She stands and he can finally see her face. Tears are trickling down her cheeks. Her eyes are vivid, her cloudy blue made green by the redness in her eyes.
"You're so beautiful."
She gives a strangled laugh, swiping at her eyes. "Hardly. I… I've been awful lately. I'm no good at sitting around waiting for deployment and what makes it worse is knowing when I get back on the ship you won't be waiting for me at your console with a smile and a coffee. Anderson is pissed as hell at me and I know he's being mild. If he wasn't my mentor I'm sure he would have thrown the fucking book at me."
"Shep…" he sighs, reaching forward to pull her into a hug but she backs away.
"We can't, Kaidan. If you hug me, then I'll want to kiss you and this is me trying to say goodbye. I've been practicing this speech in my head for three days and I've already gone so far off script that I'm just winging it right now. Please, I'm trying not to break my heart any further."
She tilts her head in that way she does when she wants to avoid his gaze and he can see her lips twist from trying not to sob any harder.
His mouth opens and the words stick in his throat. He has no idea what to say. Words won't show her how much she means to him. Actions will.
Kaidan walks over to his door and swipes his omni-tool, locking it.
"What are you doing?" she whispers.
He holds out his arms, a sad smile tugging his mouth. "I locked the door."
Her face crumples and she comes to him, allowing him to wrap his arms fully around her. Her hair is soft and sweet-smelling, like the jasmine shampoo she likes and home. It tickles his nose as she buries her head against his chest, small sobs ripped from her throat.
"I'm sorry I ever started this," she says. "It just hurts more now."
"I'm not sorry. Loving you couldn't be a mistake."
"Please, please, don't say that anymore," she begs. "We didn't. It was just… the danger. Because it was wrong."
Not for me, is what he wants to say but can't.
She tilts her head up, her nose snotty, her face blotchy and he does what comes naturally to him, what her eyes beg him to do.
He kisses her and he knows as soon as their lips meet that this will be their true goodbye.
"Make love to me, Kaidan."
"Is that an order, ma'am?"
"We've played this game out," she half-laughs, half-sobs. "'Get on the floor and give me twenty,' right?"
He kisses her, cups her whole face between his hands and rubs a thumb beneath her eye to catch the escaping moisture.
"A serious breach of protocol."
She sighs and rests her head on his chest. "It's what we do best."
His hands wander beneath her shirt, feeling the ridges in her spine, the shifting muscles, the tightly wound tension.
"You alright?" he murmurs as he massages the muscles. "You seem like you're sore."
"I've fucked my back somehow but this is heaven," she whispers, arching her spine under his hands. "I've missed you. It's weird sleeping without you beside me."
His kisses her forehead. "I know."
He leaves her for a moment to turn the lights down in the room, sick of the harsh fluorescents. Their only light is the gaudy ones from outside, neon pinks and yellows and reds from the Wards. It's just enough to see her with, just enough to paint her gently in a flattering hue, her skin soft and warm.
He pulls her shirt above her head, revealing a simple black bra beneath it, and leads her over to his cramped bed.
"I'm sorry about my place- I've been meaning to get an apartment or-"
"It's fine," she soothes, lying belly down on his bed. Her hair spills down her back and he notices that she hasn't cut it into the shaggy bob like she usually does. It looks wild and untamed, just like her. "The Normandy wasn't exactly classy."
"Quite a ride though," he says as he removes his shoes and hers. He climbs on top of her, resting his weight on his knees on either side of her and begins massaging her back.
"The best."
Her skin is fire beneath his hands, something that just seems right to him. The smooth expanse of her back is where he finds himself and he can't help but press a kiss there.
A shiver races through her and she groans. "You have no idea how good that feels."
His lips move to the back of her neck and down, leaving kisses at even intervals on her spine. With slightly shaky fingers he snaps the clasp of her bra and removes it. She rolls to let him take it and he catches a glimpse of a full breast.
"I've missed you," he says again, sure he's just repeating himself by now. Surely how much he misses her is written all over his face, heavy in every word, hot in his touch.
She says nothing, but turns her face into his pillow again, inhaling slowly.
His hands work at her lithe muscles, easing the pain and tension there.
"Been using biotics lately?" he asks, frowning at the tightness.
"No," she answers, voice muffled by the pillow. "It's just sore. I haven't had to use biotics for weeks now. I'm bored as shit, actually."
Kaidan smiles at the barest hint of her good humor returning. "I know the feeling."
If he glances just so he can see a small smile making dimples in her cheeks.
She rolls and he lets her bare herself to him. He feasts hungrily on the acres of pale, freckled skin, the contrast with her dark hair and light eyes alluring to him.
Her breast seem all at once brand new to him and something familiar, as if it was merely a day since he last saw her naked or maybe a lifetime.
It may as well have been a lifetime, with how much has changed.
He bends his head and rests it against her breast, hearing her heart beat below it. Shepard cradles his head, inhaling in a hitched way that says she's holding back from breaking.
He kisses the skin beneath his mouth, tasting the body lotion she likes and the faint tang of her sweat, and then he kisses down, across her smooth belly and to the zipper on her pants.
"Kaidan…"
He pulls her pants down, baring to his amusement frilly yellow underwear, a sharp contrast to her sensible and plain black bra.
A rare bark of laughter escapes his mouth. "What's with the frills, Shep?" he asks, fiddling with one of the pretty bows.
She grins impishly, the storm clouds chased from her eyes for this small moment. "Shut up. I didn't expect to be having sex and matching was a low priority. You know me, clean panties and I'm good to go, I don't care much what's on them."
"But frills?" he laughs again, bending his head and kissing around the seams. He's not sure what to make of her confession that she didn't plan to have sex. He wonders guiltily if weeks from now, months from now, she'll take another man to her bed.
The thought makes heat pool in his stomach and he has to force the thought away. She won't be his anymore. He can't ask her to not move on.
"Yes," she says with a huff, parting her thighs. She grins. "I can like girly things sometimes, you jackass."
He shakes his head as he traces a finger over her mound, watching her face turn serious again.
"I just want you, Kaidan. This perfect last thing."
He pulls her panties down her thighs, kissing her knee so her nose does that wrinkly thing again, the one he likes. Then he bends his head between her legs and sets to work to chase away the bad feelings for her.
She tastes tangy and soft as he kisses her folds. She sighs, reaching down to tangle a hand in his curly hair.
He gives her a mock frown, pausing in his mission to glance up at her grumpily. "Why do you always have to mess up my hair? You always do this."
She smiles softly and laughs, his most favorite sound in the world. "Because you have beautiful curly hair, LT, and I like to see it loose and wild. I don't know why you hate it."
He eyes her mop of wavy hair, not half as curly as his, but somehow always far messier. "Just because you don't care about all those dress code infractions…"
"Shut up, Alenko, and work your magic," she says with a giggle, determinedly running her fingers through his hair to make it as wild as possible then guiding him back between her legs.
He hums his pretend frustration against her clit and the vibration makes her toes curl against his back. She reaches a hand up to tweak her nipple and sighs. The sight of her touching herself like that makes him want to work even harder for her, and his talented tongue curls inside. She makes a muffled squeal, her fingers clawing at the duvet and her strong legs wrapping around his back.
He doesn't skimp on going down on her, putting all his effort into making her feel good when she feels so very tightly wound and stressed. He ignores the heartache in his chest, the voice that whispers that this will be the last time he'll taste her, hear her sigh his name or egg him deeper.
She soon writes beneath him as he moves to her clit, rolling the small numb between his lips gently and then licking the whole length of her. She nearly arcs off the bed, begging him, almost undone, and he decides it's time.
"Please, please, please," she chants. "Kaidan, I need you."
He kisses back up her body, tickles her belly button with his tongue in the way she likes so she gives that small laugh, and then up to her mouth to let her taste herself. She kisses him back enthusiastically, messy and wanton, nibbling on his bottom lip and pulling him as close as she is able. There are tears on her cheeks so he wipes them away as she pulls off his shirt, running her hands across his pecs and the shifting muscle in his back. It's like she wants to disappear inside him, melt into him so they could never be separated again. She always liked him being on top, preferred his body to cover her. She said it made her feel safe.
"You know what?" she asks, sighing as they kiss gently. Her eyes are heavy lidded, eyelashes a dark half-moon against her cheeks as her eyelids flutter. "You are my favorite man I've ever slept with."
He grins at the odd compliment. "Thanks. I think?"
She smiles. "Yeah."
"Well, you're my favorite woman I've ever slept with. Favorite person actually."
She helps him with his pants, fumbling at the fly in her haste. "I've never met a man like you. I don't think I will again."
"Don't say that," he says as she frees his cock and strokes it. Tiny drops of moisture leak from the tip and she swipes her thumb across it, collecting it and bringing it to her mouth. He can't take it anymore and gently presses her back into the bed. She obediently spreads her thighs.
It doesn't take much to have him so hard he thinks he's going to have a stroke, his head pounding with the blood loss, but they're both not up to much adventurous sex. She's sore and tired, drawn with grief over their ending, and he feels as if his heart is bursting - with longing, with the knowledge that she'll walk away from him and the most he'll see of her is her exploits on the news vids. And what's more than that, he's not just losing her, but the camaraderie he found on the Normandy, how perfect they were working together, biotics humming in tandem.
"Flare for me, baby," he asks softly as he covers her with his body, feeling her breasts press against his chest. He knows she likes that, likes feeling the contrast of hard against soft. "One last time. No one feels like you do."
He prays she didn't notice the slip with the pet name. Shepard never did like them very much, but she either doesn't notice or care because she obediently flares, lighting the whole room and their bodies a brilliant azure.
The amp in the back of his neck picks up on the feedback of dark energy, begging him to cut loose, too. Tiny sparks caress his skin, like sinking into a warm bath after freezing all day. His cock throbs with anticipation.
She wraps her arms around the back of his neck as he positions himself, fingers slick at her entrance, and guides himself inside.
She makes a small noise in the back of her throat, half heartbreak and half pleasure.
"Is this OK?"
"Oh god, yes," she answers. "Please, deeper."
This time their lovemaking is slow and muted, something to be savored and drawn as long as possible. He knows she'll drift away, his gravity not enough to bind the brightness of her star to him. When he wakes up in the morning, she won't be there.
She runs her hands over his back again, tracing over his freckles and moles, the imperfections, the rough patches of scars and burns he's obtained over the years. It's as if she's trying to memorize the feel of him, the exact texture of all that he is.
He shifts her thigh a fraction higher to allow him deeper access and it bends her mind a little, her eyes rolling up into the back of her head.
"Yes…" she murmurs again, her head thrown back to bare her neck. His lips devour the vulnerable expanse of skin, his tongue at her pulse point, laving soft kisses against her proof of life.
She flares brighter.
Kaidan feels his body lighten and looks in alarm as everything in the room not bolted down begins floating softly, including them.
He pauses in the pumping of his hips, cradled between her thighs. "Shepard?"
"Shhh, just… just be with me for now. Close your eyes."
He listens to her, losing himself to the light drift of no gravity and feels a strange kind of peace as he finds their rhythm again.
"You know," he whispers. "I've never had sex in zero-g. Have you?"
She breathes deeply as they spin and he opens his eyes to see a vision of a goddess. She's above him, her hair spread out behind her, her eyes shut and an expression of bliss on her face.
"No," she murmurs. "You're the first I trust to do this with."
Kaidan kisses her, marveling at the woman she is, how she can have so many layers that every day he wants to peel back new ones. She's the woman with the snotty nose, the frilly and childish panties, the woman who can negate a law of the universe to literally fuck it over.
"You can do it, too, you know," she says gently. "You're as powerful as I am."
He doesn't open his eyes as he's hit with the sudden desire to burn as brightly as her for once.
He flares, coating her in a layer of biotics that makes her skin goose bump and her inner muscles grip his cock in a rush of arousal.
She moans. "Fuck, I love the feel of you."
His addition of dark energy propels them into the middle of the room, his free boots and socks and even his datapads floating around them. She squeezes an eye open and laughs, kissing him fully.
"You're amazing, Kaidan. You make miracles."
"I just do what you do. You're the miracle."
"You have a gift. Not just your biotics, but the way you can make someone feel as if they could take on the whole galaxy alone. You have a singularly beautiful heart. And I-I…" She chokes a little, burying her head against his chest again, unable to finish.
"You're all I ever wanted," he whispers, his thrusts quickening. He can feel her start to quiver around him, her biotics sparking on his skin at each delicious contact of bone against bone, flesh against flesh, heart against heart.
When he comes, she follows a moment later, not bothering to stifle herself from calling his name for once. He thinks that the other marines might have overheard that one and give him shit in the morning, but he doesn't care. Let them talk. He's already lost her, he can't lose much more.
He holds her against him, stilled inside her for as long as he can, stroking her sweat-slick back as they float lazily. He watches her hair drift, the iris of her eye dance with dark blue energy and he thinks he'll never see anything so beautiful again.
As they come down from their peaks, so too do they allow their biotics to wane and die and soon they hit the ground with a soft thump.
Exhausted and sated, he picks her up, and carries her into his bed, her eyes already drooping with tiredness.
She curls against him, her nose in the sparse hair at his chest, stroking her long-figured hand over his heart. "Be careful without me."
"You, too."
Kaidan tries to stay awake as long as possible, but the release of his orgasm and the resulting rush of hormones beg his eyes to shut. He won't let his body betray him. He needs this time with her.
His hands stroke her bare skin, over her shoulder, her stomach, her thighs, feeling her gradually cool and shiver so he has to pull the blankets up over them. Her skin is the softest thing he's ever felt pressed against him and she responds, half asleep but lost to his touch. She takes one of the hands stroking a full breast and guides it between her legs.
The lights outside paint her in ways he didn't think possible, every inch of her skin a patchwork of colors and seduction, the hottest thing he's ever seen. He watches her as he starts to bring her off again, eyes stinging. Her body is perfect to him, the tightness of her flat stomach as she flexes, the curve of her shoulder, her generous hips that seem made to fit with him.
Her eyes are closed when she murmurs his name again, her face young and wiped of worries, smooth in relaxation.
He encourages her to orgasm a second time even slower than the first, dragging it out so they have the moments to ferret away for the future when the nights are cold and lonely. She's quiet now, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth moving soundlessly as his hand rubs between her thighs, not rough because she's already sensitive, but slowly, never pausing in his attention to her.
He can feel himself becoming hard again for her, turned on by how she feels, still wet from her arousal and his release. She grinds against him, his cock against her back and eventually rolls over, parting her legs.
"We can do it again, if you want," she whispers shyly. "You can have this memory. This isn't just about me."
He kisses her and they don't speak again.
She's not there when he wakes up, his body cold and sore. Her clothes are gone, but he notes as he wipes sleep from his eyes that in her haste to leave and the mess of his biotics-addled room, she left her pretty yellow panties behind on his floor.
He packs them when he leaves for Arcturus and promises himself that he'll try and forget her.
No matter how impossible it is.