Author's Note: I decided to continue with this for a bit, to have some fun with the fact that they're together. I'm particularly interested to see how Garrus, Miranda and Joker will react.
But that's for the next day; for now, it's still late at night on the Normandy...
Reviews always appreciated.
They had been holding each other on the leather couch for almost an hour now. She clung to him tightly, as if she was afraid that he would disappear and she would awake to find herself alone in her usual bunk.
"What does this mean for you, John?" she suddenly asked, both of them enjoying the sound of her using his first name. Her voice was still timid, and was slightly muffled as her face was turned in towards his chest.
He smiled; he had been expecting a question like this.
"Don't worry," he said, hugging her more tightly, "I'm not in any hurry. I know we have to take things slow. And I want to be around for as long as you'll have me."
"I would have you always," she said immediately, matter-of-factly and with a smile in her voice.
He expected her to tense as a human woman would have, realizing how it had sounded and fearing she'd scare him away, but she actually relaxed.
Just one more way that it's easier with you, he thought.
"I was hoping you'd feel that way," he replied, dropping a gentle kiss on her hood above the visor, where she could feel it.
She sighed in contentment.
"I wish you could kiss me," she whispered, and he felt a thunderbolt of a very powerful emotion, best left unnamed for now, strike his chest.
"I think that every day," he replied quietly. "It'll happen."
There was a long moment of silence.
"Ideally on the Citadel, in front of Udina," he added, with a smile.
She yelped with laughter, her moment of sadness forgotten, and he felt incredibly privileged that he'd been able to make her do that.
"And it would be just terrible if it were to happen in front of Miranda," she said, in an excessively innocent voice. He was certain that if she wasn't wearing her helmet, he'd have seen her fluttering her eyelashes.
If she has eyelashes, of course, he thought with a smile.
"Where did you get this Miranda thing from?" he asked, unable to completely suppress a slightly smug grin as she looked up at him, which promptly earned him a poke in the ribs.
"Don't smile about it!" she pouted, threatening another poke of her finger, so he held up one hand in surrender.
"OK, OK," he conceded, "but... I've just never seen any sign of it. Truthfully."
"John," she said, "you never saw any sign from me either, and I practically tripped over my own feet whenever you talked to me."
She lifted a hand to stroke his face tenderly.
"You are wonderful, but you're not the most observant man in the galaxy when a woman likes you," she said sweetly.
His laugh boomed across the cabin, making her head bounce slightly against his chest. She felt a wonderful warmth inside her at how comfortable they were together.
"Next time she looks at you in that way, I might set my combat drone on her," she said, playfully, drawing another laugh from Shepard.
"Maybe it'd be best if you just thought about how I only have eyes for you," he replied with a grin. "Besides, Miranda's pretty dangerous. And fast."
"Nobody's faster than Chiktikka vas Paus," she replied, the smile obvious in her voice.
She nestled further into his chest, and yawned, drawing an answering yawn from Shepard a moment later.
"Do you want me to leave?" she asked, lazily. "You should get some sleep."
"Let's just stay here for a while," he replied, allowing his head to fall back against the couch and closing his eyes. He felt rather than saw her head nod against his chest in response.
Before a further ten minutes had passed, they were both asleep.
Shepard slowly opened his eyes, still groggy.
Fell asleep on the couch again, he thought, before becoming aware that something was different.
There was a small, warm body curled up against him, and a head in a very familiar hood rested against his chest. Every so often, an extremely adorable half-snore could be heard. He smiled, and once again the powerful emotion filled his chest.
He sat as still as possible for another few minutes, but his right leg was beginning to cramp. He could see from the holographic clock across the room at his bedside that it was after 01:00 hours.
The thought of sending her back down to deck 2 to sleep in her bunk wasn't appealing, and the thought of lying alone in the huge bed was even less so.
She deserves a good night's sleep; it's been a tough evening for her, he thought, and his mind was made up.
He carefully shifted one arm to loop under her knees, and gently picked her up and stood up in the same motion. He paused for a moment to see if he'd woken her, but she only curled closer into his chest.
He walked slowly across to the bed, leaning down to pick up the edge of the top sheet between two fingers of the hand that still held her below her knees, and pulled the sheet back. Very slowly and with infinite care, he lay her on the bed, then lifted the sheet up over her. He reached for the control panel at the beside and dimmed the cabin lights by several levels.
She snuffled and her arms twitched slightly, but she curled up and settled almost immediately. He smiled at her, then crept across to the few stairs which led up to his office and private washroom.
Five minutes later he stepped back into the main cabin, being careful to be as quiet as possible. He made his way to the couch, and lay down, making himself as comfortable as possible.
He had only been there for a minute when he heard her sit up in bed, followed by her voice in the dim light.
"John...?" she asked.
"I'm here," he said. "We fell asleep. I didn't mean to wake you."
"Oh..." she replied, "I should go and let you rest."
"If you get up now it'll take you a while to get back to sleep," he said. "Just lie back down. You deserve a decent sleep after the evening you've had."
There was silence for a long moment before she spoke again.
"It's your cabin," she said, shyly, "you don't have to sleep on the couch."
"I don't want to overstep any boundaries, Tali," he said. "I fall asleep here more than you'd think. I'm just fine."
"But you'd be more comfortable... here," she said, in a very quiet voice. He could practically feel her bashfulness radiating from her, and his heart went out to her.
"Just sleep, John," she continued. "I... I'd like you to be here."
He bowed his head for a moment, weighing up the rights and wrongs, but in the end his decision had already been made. It was innocent, as enforced by her immune system, and she had asked.
"OK," he said warmly, getting up and crossing to the other side of the bed. He lifted back the sheet and lay down in the darkness, and she immediately moved to be by his side, putting her head on his chest and an arm around his waist.
"Thank you," she said, as he wrapped his arms around her.
He was unsure what exactly she was grateful for, but the details didn't seem to matter.
"I should be the one who's thanking you," he said, and felt her squeeze him a little tighter.
"Perhaps," she said, coyly, her voice heavy with sleep, and he grinned in the darkness as he closed his eyes.