AN: I am taking the liberty of assuming that some crew members have their own quarters on Normandy SR-2.
Nope. Don't own Mass Effect.
Kelly Chambers lay in bed, running her fingers through her short red hair. She was rereading the file on the datapad in her left hand once again, even though she had memorized it months before. Now, however, she was looking for the parts she felt she had missed. The sentence or two that should have warned her that on meeting the subject of the file everything she knew would be turned on its head. The sentence that should plainly read, "The moment you meet Commander Shepard, you will know that she cares about you personally, and you will love her for it."
"Or maybe," Kelly muttered to herself, "the Commander should have a warning label on her. 'Caution; Contact will cause intense feelings of loyalty and love.'"
During the long months while Cerberus rebuilt Shepard, Kelly had learned all she could about the woman. She had interviewed everyone she could who was known to have met Shepard, read every Alliance report Shepard had filed or was mentioned in, and read Shepard's personal journal that The Illusive Man had somehow recovered from the wreckage on Alchera. Kelly had watched every extranet interview Shepard had ever done. She had seen the closed feed of Shepard's recovery in the last few months from Lazarus Station. If she had been asked how well she new Shepard in the hours before Shepard's untimely awakening, Kelly would have said that she new her as well as anyone alive could.
And none of it had prepared her for the reality of meeting Shepard.
When Shepard had walked into Normandy's CIC with Jacob and Miranda, Kelly was surprised at how very small the pretty, petite marine seemed to be in comparison to her companions. However, when Shepard introduced herself Kelly was overwhelmed by the size of her personality.
In school, Kelly had spent a large portion of her time studying leaders and charisma. Her doctoral thesis was a study of how charisma could overcome the obvious shortcomings of a politician when other, more competent individuals were unelectable. She knew how charisma worked, how some individuals tailored their personality to their audience to seem like they cared. And then she met Shepard.
In just those few short moments when Shepard questioned Kelly about her feelings about Cerberus, humanity and non-humans she learned more about the Commander than she had in months of study. Guileless, Shepard was everything she seemed to be on the label and more. She hadn't asked how Kelly felt out of some obligation of conversation, but because she cared about the woman. The same way, Kelly had later realized, that Shepard cared about every other human, krogan, asari or whatever that she met. And unlike nearly everyone else Kelly had ever met, Shepard knew precisely where her moral compass was and which way it pointed. Shepard wasn't working with Cerberus out of some obligation for her resurrection, she was using Cerberus to stop what she felt was an even greater evil. And Kelly had no doubt that after the Collectors and Reapers were stopped, Shepard would do what she felt was right with regards to Cerberus.
Further conversation had just reinforced Kelly's belief that Commander Shepard knew who she was, knew what was right, knew who needed defended and knew that she was the one to defend them. It was powerfully intoxicating to be around.
In just three short days since their first meeting, Kelly had become addicted.
"And then... There are her looks," Kelly whispered to herself, letting her mind recreate the dark haired, blue eyed visage. The facial scars that hadn't healed yet from her reconstruction did nothing to detract from the Commander's beauty, merely providing a counterpoint to Shepard's pretty features.
The young woman sighed and put down the datapad. Naked, she slipped out of bed, bare feet on the unyielding cold of deck plates and padded quietly to her desk. Turning on her computer monitor, she called to the ship's AI, "EDI."
"Yes, Yeoman Chambers?" the AI responded, the blue globe of her avatar appearing from the console next to the desk.
"Please put the display from your Loft console camera on my monitor," Kelly said. "Authorization code kappa, charlie, eight, five, alpha."
There was a barely perceptible pause before EDI complied with Kelly's request. "As you wish, Yeoman Chambers." As the display of Shepard's darkened quarters came up on Kelly's monitor, EDI's avatar slipped back into its console.
Kelly sat down in her chair and watched as Shepard tossed atop her sheets, in the throes of another nightmare. The Commander's boy-shorts and t-shirt were wet with cold sweat from unknown terrors.
Three days and Kelly's loyalties had shifted away from Cerberus. Three days and she knew that Shepard was compelled to place herself between life and the monsters of the darkness that would destroy it. Three days and Kelly had decided that while Shepard watched over them all, she would watch over Shepard.