Shepard had stalked back into the ship upon their return, ignoring Tali's questions and barrelling straight through a gaggle of engineers surveying the damage to the shuttle toward the elevator. At the back of the bay Kaidan pushed his sweaty hair out of his eyes and tossed his helmet onto the workbench that was littered with weapons waiting to be cleaned and processed.

It hadn't gone well. Hackett had promised their last mission before a long-awaited return to the Citadel and shore leave would be a quick one. "In-and-out", he had promised. That "minor detour" had turned into a week long scouting mission that had them all on edge from sheer boredom and frustration. The Comm buoy in the system had picked up encyrpted transmission signals that matched Cerberus codes, and the Normandy had been sent to root them out. Cerberus had suffered with Shepard's departure, and while cells still operated the reputation of the organisation had been declining rapidly as stories of their misguided attempts to 'aid humanity' came to light.

There was nothing but a few fragmentary lines that had been caught from the transmission, and no signal tracing worth a damn. It seemed that their communications array was no longer fully able to mask outgoing signals, probably because of poor maintenance. Good to know that it wasn't just the Alliance that was being hit by supply shortages, Kaidan had thought.

It had taken three full days with both the Normandy and the shuttle scouting to catch another communication, and even then it was so short that Joker and EDI could get nothing more than a rough guess of Cerberus' position a few klicks square. Not wanting to push their chances of detection, Shepard had sent the Normandy further back into the system as she, Garrus and Kaidan took the shuttle down to the surface to search the target area on foot. From then on, for a further two days there was radio silence from the Normandy since they didn't want to risk their own communications this close to the Cerberus detection equipment that was no doubt close by. Two days of scaling over rocky outcroppings, tramping over plains and dodging the local wildlife (shelled bugs with pincers and huge buggy eyes that Garrus seemed to be unusually uncomfortable around) and they were all heartily sick of the task, and cursing Hackett to high heaven.

On the third day they finally located and stormed the base, hidden in the side of a cliff face that concealed a small entrance beyond its shadows. From then on, mercifully, the work was easy. They slipped into the well-worn pattern they had of supporting, covering and pushing forward until the Cerberus soldiers were all dead, and Kaidan had fried all the electronic equipment with a charge he'd developed as a grenade mod without having to physically blow the place and risk a tunnel collapse.

By then they were all tired, dirty and desperate for food that wasn't nutrient paste and energy bars that all tasted the same kind of bland. They'd climbed aboard the shuttle secreted a little way away from the camp, behind a fringe of peaks that hid the site from view. Shrugging off her rifle and hanging her helmet from a hook next to her on the console, Shepard took the controls and at last fired up the drive core to bring them away from the planet surface. She could practically hear the sighs of relief from the others.

And then a siren had blared, red lights flashing on the holo controls and the shuttle careered to the left as a blast sounded, heading straight for the peaks they had been hiding behind. Swearing, Shepard grabbed the controls as if she could physically touch them, hauling to the right as the shuttle veered towards the craggy mountainside that was coming in fast. They were spinning out of control, jerking as a thruster sputtered and they lost altitude, speed bleeding away at an alarming rate. Garrus clipped himself onto the safety tether in the hold behind Shepard and punched the side door open to scan for the threat that had hit them.

"Rocket launcher, our 8'o'clock- they're reloading now and there's a bloody crate of ammo next to them!"

"Guess we missed one then." Shepard ground out, managing to pull the nose of the craft out of its precipitous dive to level out parallel to the mountain. The thruster on the left side was still coughing a little but had seemed to get it together enough to keep them flying in a straight line with some semblance of control.

"I'm going to bring her around for a pass; Garrus, are you ready to fire?" Shepard yelled. Just as Garrus opened his mouth to response they hit a thermal current and the whole shuttle vibrated violently, knocking him askew to the other side of the small hold with a resounding crack of his head on the crew rail. He lay there for a moment, suspended by his tether and groaned, blue blood dripping from his head.

"Fuck! Kaidan get the controls." She ordered, barely waiting for him to land in the co-pilot's seat before launching out of hers and clipping her own tether onto the support behind them. A huge boom shattered the air behind them and the shuttle was buffeted again, and Shepard herself was thrown towards the open bay door until her tether snapped tight and stopped her fall. Cursing, she righted herself and knelt, pulling the clip of her line to a lower rail so she could crouch. Kaidan had kept the craft as steady as he could, and now wove to the other side of the peak line to shield them from the ground attacks.

"We can't sustain more damage if we're going to make it to the upper atmo for pick up Shepard!" he said through clenched teeth, fighting to keep a straight trajectory.

"Just give me one pass, I'm not leaving any stragglers after everything we've gone through on this shithole!" she yelled back, and Kaidan couldn't help half a grin at her attitude.

"One!" He said, preparing to bring them around the peaks again and into range of the launcher. "Then we have to get genius there to Chakwas!"

She grunted in response and settled her the butt of her sniper rifle onto her shoulder in a well practiced movement, sighting down the scope to calibrate her depth perception and then looking around it to locate the enemy. It was a single Cerberus heavy in bulky white armour standing in the shadow of the cliff face, already lifting the launcher again from his waist where he had been reloading. She found him in her scope and settled into her rhythm, blocking out sound and smells and everything except the figure before her. Take a breath. Measure your heartbeats. One shot.

She held, waiting as the shuttle wavered again in the air as a gust of wind came through.

"Shepard, get going..." murmured Kaidan into the comm, still fighting to give her a steady platform against the gusting air and stuttering thruster.

One more second. Pick your moment. Don't rush. The launcher had reached the heavy's shoulder and he was sighting them down himself, the ugly conical nose of the rocket looming in Shepard's scope. She could see his arms make last minute adjustments, his finger moving towards the trigger. The shuttle was still too jerky, she couldn't guarantee a kill-shot. Hold. Don't rush you stupid fuck, she could almost hear her Sergeant yelling in her ear when she had first picked up a sniper rifle.

"Damn it Shepard!" Kaidan yelled, panic in his voice.

Her breaths came even and slow, the rifle well-weighted and familiar in her hands.

She could see his finger curl around the trigger but the shuttle was still rising, his chest swinging in and out of her crosshairs as she watched.

Don't rush. Breathe.

The crack from her rifle was deafening in the confined space, coupled with the deeper rumble of the rocket launcher firing. She could hear Kaidan yell incoherently, banking sharply in a futile attempt to avoid the rocket streaking towards them through the sky. Shit. Shit shit shit. She bloody missed. he thought, blinking the sweat out of his eyes and feeling cold fear slither down his spine to the pit of his stomach. They were done for now, he had seen the man on the ground as he fired and could already tell his aim was true.

A fraction of a second had passed, adrenaline making everything slow and warped into a surreal moment of utter blankness. There was nothing left, that was it. Game over.

Then, an explosion. Not close by, as he expected, but echoing from far away. And, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. The shuttle stayed on its trajectory instead of being blasted off course by the rocket. He eased off the throttle and banked toward the target, fighting to see through the dust what the hell had happened. As the swirling wind caught and carried it away, a crater that gouged six feet into the ground emerged, smoking with no a trace of the man that had stood there seconds earlier.

Kaidan spun in his seat, staring back at the figure now sitting back on her heels in the bay door, silhouetted by the bright sky outside. He could just see the grin that stretched over her features.

"Couldn't get the shot on him," she said, standing and slinging her rifle back onto is place on her back as it retracted into its storage position. "Shame really, I wanted to play with that rocket launcher. Took out the crate instead." Kaidan gaped like a goldfish, eyebrows so far up his forehead they almost reached his hairline.

"Come on." She sighed and scrubbed her hands over her face, suddenly exhausted and frustrated at the memory of the last week. "Looks like Garrus scrambled some brain cells, and I'm ready to leave this place in my eezo trail."

It was four hours since their return now and Kaidan hadn't seen hide nor hair of Shepard since her stormy exit from the cargo hold. She hadn't appeared at dinner and though she'd apparently talked with Chakwas over comms, she hadn't seen Garrus in the medbay. He had a mild concussion and a nasty laceration on his temple but was fine aside from that, and now being proded awake by Chakwas every half-hour to check for signs of degeneration of his neural functions. Apparently Turian skulls were made of stronger stuff than humans, but that came with the added risk of a more serious concussion.

It was late in the nightcycle now and Kaidan couldn't settle down enough to sleep despite being bone-tired. He had showered and changed into a hoodie and trackpants, and was sitting idly at his terminal, scrolling through the extranet without really taking any of it in. He was more distracted by his concern for Shepard.

"Major Alenko?" EDI's voice sounded from his terminal and he jumped, accidentally flaring at the interruption.

"Uh, yes EDI, what is it?"

"You asked me to inform you when Shepard left her cabin. She is currently on the elevator heading down to the cargo hold."

The hold? Unusual choice. It would be deserted down there at this hour but Kaidan couldn't imagine what would draw her down there at this time.

"Thanks EDI."

He paused, then with a pang of guilt at the invasion of her privacy brought up the video feeds from the hold in time to see her stepping out of the elevator with, of all things, a basketball. That was new. He hesitated another moment, wavering between interrupting her and just letting her work through her frustrations on her own. When she flung the ball at the wall with such vehemence that the audio feedback made him wince, it was decided.

'Need some company?' he typed into his omnitool, hitting send before he could second guess himself. Perhaps she just needed space. A few seconds passed as he stared at the message inbox and nothing appeared. Definitely trying to think of a way to let him down lightly. He had almost finished a self-deprecating message explaining that it was ok to say no when his omnitool pinged.

'In the cargo bay.' she'd written back. He had to stop himself from jumping up too quickly and speed-walking to the elevator but couldn't quite achieve the nonchalance he'd wanted to show for the cameras. In a few minutes, the elevator settled to a stop at the cargo bay and the doors slid open with a hiss.

She was standing in the clear area beyond the Kodiak, throwing the ball against the wall with an easy rhythm and economy of movement that she'd certainly been a good player at some time in her life. The passes were firm and true, a mix of chest and bounce passes that rebounded off the wall until Shepard caught them with easy confidence and send them sailing away again.

She didn't stop what she was doing as he walked a few steps further into the cavernous space and leaned against Cortez's workbench as he watched her.

"I didn't know you could play." he said quietly, voice low and a little husky. He should have guessed really, she was brilliant at just about anything physical.

"I was being scouted for a College team and a scholarship to transfer to Earth before the raid. Basketball was sort of on the backburner after that. Part of another life, really."

He could remember reading the historical reports about the angry, resentful teenage Shepard that had raged at the world after the raid on Mindoir, refusing to be pinned down in one place by the foster system until finally she ran away from the home she'd been assigned to at 16 and didn't re-emerge until her enlistment two years later. She never spoke about what had happened or where she'd been during that time, but a haunted caste fell over her eyes any time it came up and Kaidan had learned not to push it. She would tell him if, and when she was ready. He hoped someday she would trust him enough to let him in that close again. In the months since he had rejoined the Normandy she had relaxed her curt detachment toward him into an almost friendly banter, but had yet to really let him back into her life. Having her so close to him after such a long separation, and so much history between them was difficult, but he had promised himself he would be patient and earn her trust again. It wasn't easily conferred, but once given she would walk through fire for anyone lucky enough to have gained it. He had doubted, he had paid for it, and now he was doing his penance. The last weeks had been better and he had accompanied her on more ground missions, but something was still waiting to click in her demeanour. It wasn't unfriendly so much as still a little distant. But she had invited him down here when she wasn't feeling her best, and that was a good sign right?

"So are you going to stand there or are we going to dance?" She said, catching the ball once again and tucking it under her arm, an eyebrow quirked and a crooked grin on her face. He grinned back, an uptick in his heartbeat sending adrenaline through his system and he shrugged off his hoodie down to his loose black shirt that had had the sleeves cut off years back. He liked unrestricted movement when he trained. Tossing the jacket aside he caught Shepard's eyes trailing along his arms and to his chest before they moved back up to his face, the grin widening.

"Bringing out the big guns I see." she said and Kaidan reddened a little, only making her smile wider. With a quiet chuckle she turned and lifted the lid of a crate next to her and let her corona flow over her skin, rippling blue that distorted her outline and gave her an ethereal quality that never failed to fascinate him. Arms extended she lifted a hoop from the crate, complete with backboard, up to the wall and a hidden bracket he'd never noticed, letting it settle until it gave a satisfying click and the dark energy dissipated. Kaidan looked at her, eyebrows raised.

'I had the techs put it up during the last retrofit," she said, shrugging one shoulder and shedding her own N7 hoodie. "There's only so many miles you can do on that damn thing before it gets mind-numbing.", jerking her head toward the treadmill in the corner. It was an advanced model that relied on a mass effect field that cycled like the old belts, but could alter its surface depending on the choice of VR program by the user. The inbuilt holo-projector allowed you to run anywhere on Earth by adapting satellite mapping technology, but after all that innovation they still couldn't really break the feeling of running hard and getting nowhere fast. It just wasn't the same as the real thing.

He nodded in agreement, rolling his shoulders and jumping on the spot a few times to start warming up his muscles. From her stance a few feet away she couldn't help letting her eyes linger on the way his muscles moved under his skin, wondering if they still felt the same way they had three years ago. Tactile memory was a funny thing she'd found, eerily strong and sometimes persistent beyond expectation. She had traced those lines so many times she couldn't imagine not falling back into that rhythm if she ever got that close to him again. She shook her head slightly, bouncing the ball idly and dragging her eyes away from him. 'Get a grip, Shepard' she thought focusing on bringing the ball close to the ground without losing control of the bounce, just as she had done at fifteen.

"So," he said, jogging on the spot again, oblivious to her ogling. "Best of what?"

She rocked back on her heels, surveying him with a scrutinising eye.

"Best of 15 and we go hard." she said, shooting the ball to him with such speed that he took half a step back when he caught it, fumbling in his fingers. It was already late and though they would be in transit toward the Citadel for the next day or so they both had work to catch up on in the next day cycle.

"Done," he said, testing a few bounces before looking up to meet her warm brown eyes and see her half smile. "Take it easy on the new guy alright?"

Her smile turned wolfish as her eyes narrowed. "Not a chance, buddy."

He chuckled, moving back to the seam in the floor the approximate distance of the half-court and waited for her to take her position. She was a few steps away from him in a relaxed stance, as if she were about to take a potshot at a tin can in the backyard. Kaidan wasn't fooled. She was slowly tensing her muscles, ready to spring on the offensive. He rolled his neck to each side, feeling the tightness ease with a satisfying crack, took a deep breath and bending low, crossed the line.

Three steps and two bounces in he felt her whip around him, lightning fast, snatching the ball from his grasp and spinning away with a whoop. She darted out of reach, took a few more strides and pulled off a perfect lay-up with practiced ease. Kaidan blinked. He hadn't even seen her coming.

"What happened to easy on the new guy?" he said, flummoxed but grinning at her as she jogged back with a broad smile on her own face.

"Dream on Kaidan, I never pull my punches!" Well that much was true. He readied himself again, determined to give her a run for her money and save his pride from a total whitewash. He turned, guarding the ball in a defensive dribble with her close behind him, yet still giving him room, waiting for her time to strike. Closing in on the hoop he half turned, bringing the ball up for a two-point shot when it was again smacked out of his hands and within seconds Shepard had landed it in the basket again. Hmm. Even he hadn't expected it to be that easy for her. It was 2-zip and he had nothing to answer with.

She chuckled at his chagrin and passed the ball back to him, starting further back to give him some room. This time he used his weight to charge forward and dart to the side as Shepard's hand snaked towards him, trying to catch the ball mid bounce. He managed to knock it away and execute a passable jump shot to land his first basket.

"Nice one," she said, catching his return pass. "Turns out Alenko can rise to the challenge after all!" He nudged her arm playfully as they reached the line, feeling her hot skin beneath his own and a thrill surged through his chest. She didn't move away until Kaidan backed up a few paces and took his stance on the balls of his feet. He was breathing hard.

She launched her attack again with blinding speed, dashing to his left before faking a dodge. He veered wildly in her direction but felt her passing under his arm to dance away from him with a laugh and a jump to find the basket again. 3-1.

"Damn it!" he said, more in disbelief than actual frustration. Her laugh rang out easily this time, echoing against the walls and with a quality he hadn't heard in it for a long time. He couldn't quite put his finger on it but it was different. Better somehow. He was still distracted when he started forward and paid for it by losing the ball again quickly and losing another point.

'Head in the game, Alenko.' he admonished himself as Shepard chuckled at his blank expression and lobbed the ball back to him.

"Something on your mind there buddy?" she said with a sly grin, stretching her arms wide and bending sideways in an obvious ploy to distract him. It was certainly working, he couldn't get his mind off the way her body moved with such grace; strong and powerful but with a finesse that had her running rings around him all the while barely breaking a sweat. She was so beautiful and she didn't realise it, and that just made it all the more noticeable to Kaidan. There was something about her subconscious confidence and complete ignorance of her own desirability that got to him every time. She had always been that way, but recent years seemed to have given her a deeper surety in herself and was even sexier than her previous blasé self-assurance, endearing though it was.

He shook himself, blinking his eyes back into focus and taking the ball again for the next point. Shepard looked far too self-satisfied for his liking, and he wasn't intending on letting her run away with the rest of the match.

"Come on," he said, bending his knees and gesturing at her to make her move. "You wanna dance? Let's dance."

The next twenty minutes were a flurry of measured steps, frenzied sprints and shouts of triumph mixed with groans of defeat. Kaidan used his bulk against her finesse and succeeded in stealing the ball from her a few times, but she still certainly held the upper hand. They traded points in ones and twos, Kaidan never falling too far behind but also not approaching her total as the game continued.

He would muscle past her to leap and land one directly into the basket and she would return fire on the next point, flashing around him to dunk with another of her exultant whoops before they returned to the line. The third time she got around him by cheekily bouncing the ball between his legs, he finally admitted that he hadn't a hope in hell of besting her in this particular field. A shit-eating grin now stretched over her features as they lined up for the final push. 14-8, and she had already scored the last three last four baskets. Kaidan had managed to score the last point but he had no illusions as to holding her off much longer. She looked far too self-satisfied for his liking, but he had no answer to her speed and dexterity with the ball. He narrowed his eyes as she dribbled the ball at the line, taking her time to enjoy her triumph before restarting the game.

She wiggled her eyebrows at him suggestively and her eyes narrowed. "Catch me if you can, baby."

That does it. It was time to play dirty. Adjust the odds in his favour.

"Oh I will." he growled back, settling down into his defensive position and returning her smirk, readying himself for the play. A second later, she was moving. She moved to his right this time, guarding the ball behind her and waiting for him to dart in and make a grab or muscle her off it as he had been doing. Instead, keeping and open stance and tracking across the impromptu court with her he waited for her to launch away from him and head for the hoop. At the last moment, as she put on a spurt of speed he darted in close and wrapped his arms around her, choking the shot that had almost left her hands and letting the ball fly wide of the basket.

He chuckled evilly as he used her momentum to spin her in his arms and pull her close, giddy as he felt her arms circle his neck. They were both breathing hard, a sheen of sweat glowing on her forehead as he leaned close, close enough to feel the heat emanating from her and catch the scent of her soap that had always enchanted him. He grinned again, hand moving to cup her cheek and moving so their noses were almost touching. Her breath caught in her throat and her arms tightened at the nape of his neck as she stared into his warm, whiskey-coloured eyes.

"Got you," he said huskily.

"That's no fair!" she said breathily, mind stuttering at his proximity and the feel of his arms around her. God it was good to be held again.

He lips stretched wide in a grin that had her smiling back at him as he moved in closer.

"All's fair in love and war, Shepard."

A happy one at last! Too much angst weighs heavy on the heart, I think. As always, hope it was ok, and please let me know how I did.

Sayonara amigos,

-AT