The Normandy was the finest ship in the fleet, no one argued with that fact. But whoever designed it had clearly had a lapse in concentration when they only put one kitting up room in. Males and females had separate locker rooms (not that that would stop much) but the expedition party still had to gather in the same room to set up weapons and armour before shipping out.
It didn't tend to be a problem in most cases. Shepard found herself with Ashley a lot and an extra female presence was more than enough backup if the situation got out of hand. But Ashley was running late today and Shepard wasn't about to put her own prep at risk to hunt the ship for her.
She strode right into the kit room without thinking, and found herself confronted with a half-naked lieutenant.
"Oh God." She said, half gasp, half laugh as he span around at the sound of her boots on the metal floor.
"Commander, sorry. You're earlier than I was expecting." He said, hastily pulling a vest over his head and then pulling the top half of his under-armour jumpsuit up after it. He attempted a sloppy attention, but Shepard waved him off.
"As you were Lieutenant." She chuckled, heading for her own locker.
"What, exactly?" He responded, hand as ready to pull the rest of his zip up as it was to pull it down.
The look on his face suggested to her that this wasn't an entirely unexpected situation for him to find himself in. She toyed with the idea of calling him on it, but in the end she just smirked. "Any other time and my answer might be different, but right now don't make me have to warn you against facetiousness."
"Understood Ma'am." He grinned, turning back to his own cache of weapons.
When Ashley did eventually arrive, she had an anticipation on her face that turned quickly to disappointment. It only took a moment for her military persona to kick back in and her face to fall back into alert disinterest though. Shepard looked at her curiously for several moments, hoping to force her hand. Her suspicions weren't to be confirmed, but she knew she was right none the less. Ashley had sisters, she was probably used to relationship gossip and matchmaking.
"You're late, Ash." She reprimanded. "I assume you have a good reason?"
"Well Ma'am, I intended to." Ashley said, walking to her own kit station.
"And what happened?"
Ashley smirked, eyes flicking to Kaidan for a moment just long enough to convince Shepard she was right. "I'm afraid I just don't know Ma'am."
Shepard fought back a chuckle. "Virmire's waiting Chief, so I won't follow this up now. I assume you'll at least have a good excuse if it happens again?"
"You bet." Ashley replied with a grin. Off Shepard's questioning eyebrow raise, she hurriedly added a "Ma'am."