Shepard leaned her shoulder to the door frame, folded her arms over her abdomen and smirked when she saw Samantha had a towel folded over her forearm. During the past few weeks this had become the new routine, and Shepard didn't mind. She liked Samantha's company and she had water rations to share since she didn't bother showering more than a couple of times a week; being stinky and dirty made the sick pervert-guards less interested in getting close to her. Passive, non-violent resistance and all that; she would've preferred just beating the guards, but the last time she'd done that hadn't ended well for her, even if it had been very satisfying to break CO Harkin's right wrist and all of his fingers after he'd taken it upon himself to grab Shepard's breasts during a pat-down.

"I'm starting to think you're more interested in my shower than in me," Shepard teased.
"How can you even say something like that!" Samantha snapped, her tone of voice the same one would use when severely offended. "Of course I am!" she then added and they both laughed.

"Well, at least you're honest about it," Shepard said and stepped aside, allowing Samantha entrance to the cabin.
"Go ahead," she then encouraged and gestured toward the bathroom.

"Thanks!" Samantha said and headed in while Shepard retreated into her secret room and retrieved a few things, mostly various canned foods and of course, the prison wine (which she had not actually made in the toilet contrary to what she'd implied before). She brought them back to her cabin and set them on the table for later. She then grinned to herself and undressed before heading into the bathroom.

"Barge right in, why don't you!" Samantha called out from the shower after hearing the door open.
"Don't mind if I do," Shepard said, pulled the shower curtain aside and stepped in.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" Samantha frowned.
"You told me to barge in," Shepard shrugged one shoulder.

"I was being sarcastic and you know it!"

"Maybe my listening comprehension isn't what it used to be," Shepard said, her voice low and smooth, her smile audible in it. Samantha found herself giving in with ease when Shepard put her hands over Samantha's hips and pulled her closer, pressing their bodies together.

"I hate to say it, but I have to admit there is something oddly irresistible about a woman with a major personality disorder," Samantha smirked.

"Don't forget, I'm also very dangerous and I have a bunch of scars, some women find all that very sexy," Shepard murmured, sliding her hands up along Samantha's back as she put hers around Shepard's midsection, pausing to inhale deeply at the pleasant feel of her warm body against her own.

Shepard felt strong and solid under Samantha's touch and against her body; decades of physical work having sculpted her, leaving her body as exquisite as a finely chiseled marble statue. She was focusing on that with such intensity it took her a while to realize something was off.

"Whoa, what the hell!" she exclaimed, pressed her palms against Shepard's shoulders and shoved her further away from herself as she took a step back until she hit the wall, the unpleasant realization of being trapped between the wall and Shepard rattling through her mind.

"Oh, yeah, that," Shepard chuckled, as if the fact that she had a seven-inch cock was something she casually kept forgetting about.
"What... just... what!" Samantha snapped, unable to come up with a coherent sentence and Shepard made no attempt at hiding her mirth.

"All right, let's go over the frequently asked questions. No, I'm not transgender. Yes, I was born this way. Yes, I'm female apart from one little detail... well, not so 'little', heh-heh... And finally, don't worry, I'm a murderer, not a rapist, so you're perfectly safe," she smirked, folded her arms over her abdomen and leaned her shoulder against the wall.

"But... But... how?" Samantha frowned and gestured vaguely toward Shepard, kind of not wanting to stare but unable to keep her eyes from wandering lower to sneak glances at the hard cock.

She'd never found male genitalia exactly aesthetically pleasing, if anything, most she'd had the misfortune of seeing had looked rather repulsing. Shepard's didn't cause such a strong reaction, but Samantha couldn't really say she liked what she saw. The veins bulging underneath the skin and roping along the thick shaft looked somehow incredibly grotesque.

"Well, something got really messed up when I was just an embryo. I had a twin brother in the womb, but I consumed him. Unfortunately, not all of him got flawlessly integrated, so I ended up having parts of him manifest at odd places in my body. This being the most obvious part," Shepard explained as she shrugged one shoulder and nodded down to indicate her length.

"For some reason hearing that you've been killing since before you were even born doesn't surprise me," Samantha quipped, unable to keep from saying it out loud despite realizing it probably wasn't the best idea to insult Shepard while Samantha was still stuck between her and a hard place. Instead of getting offended, Shepard burst out laughing.

"I'd never thought of that before, but you're right," she chuckled, and Samantha let out a quiet breath of relief. Shepard stepped to the shower, tilted her head back and ran her hands repeatedly through her long dark red hair to get it thoroughly wet, and then reached for the packet of baking soda that was on the shelf in front of the mirror just outside the shower curtain.

Samantha realized Shepard had gifted her the last of the shampoo she'd smuggled in from somewhere, and she felt a bit guilty and also curious as to why Shepard had done that.

Maybe she fancies me too, Samantha mused, not denying she'd found herself feeling rather attracted to Shepard for a good while now, and that she'd hoped Shepard would take the hint and make a move or at least imply she was serious about her rather than just keep dicking around and flirting but not committing.

In the outside world something like another person giving you the last of their shampoo wasn't a big deal, but in here, it was a huge gesture. Then again, Shepard hadn't made a show of it like one might do if their intention was to impress someone with their act; she hadn't made a dramatic proclamation of how she would sacrifice her own comfort to spare Samantha from having to resort to washing her hair with baking soda.

"My mother kept me, but she wasn't exactly thrilled about having an abomination for a daughter," Shepard said as she let the baking soda set in her hair for a moment, focusing her attention to scrubbing her body.

"Spare the rod, spoil the child was her parenting method."
"What about your father, where was he?" Samantha inquired.

"I don't know, never met him, all I know is that my mother hated him and because I was an unpleasant reminder of him, she took her hatred for him out on me," Shepard said and turned to face the shower, raising her arms and rinsing the baking soda from under them. When she turned, she also provided Samantha with a chance to see the scarring scattered over Shepard's back, buttocks and the backs of her thighs. Mementos of severe beatings she'd endured as a child, the act of violence innocently titled "spanking", like it was something harmless when in reality it had left Shepard unable to sit down for days, sometimes longer if the wounds got infected and weren't taken care of after the fact -which they never were.

"She was a violent drunk, so it's not like it surprises anyone that she beat me. Hell, my condition is probably her fault, for all I know she was drunk the entire time she was pregnant," Shepard scoffed and began to rinse her hair.
"That sounds awful and terrifying."

"I was too busy being angry at her to be scared of her," Shepard said, and she meant it. She supposed it was just one of the many ways in which she wasn't normal. A normal kid would've been scared of the consequences of agitating the violent oppressor in their life, but Shepard hadn't been. No amount of beatings had discouraged her from doing the things which had triggered her mother's need to punish her. Shepard knew how incredibly stupid it had been, anyone with any sense of self-preservation would've learned how to behave.

"I was about seven years old when she lost it and came at me with a pair of scissors, threatening to cut my dick off," Shepard laughed, and Samantha found that to be a horrible thing to laugh about.
"Clearly, she failed."

"Well, she almost made it, wanna see the scar?" Shepard asked with a grin and grabbed herself, turning to face Samantha.
"No, thank you!" Samantha said immediately, turning her head away and raising her hands, making a small "stop"-gesture with them frantically.

"What happened to your mother?" she asked instead, still intently staring at the wall.

"I killed her that day. It was an accident, but I don't feel bad about it happening. Like I said, she was coming at me with a pair of scissors, I kicked her in the forearm and that ended up driving the scissors into her throat. The artery there got cut and she bled out in a couple of minutes," Shepard said, her tone nonchalant, as if she were merely discussing the weather or what she'd had for lunch today. Samantha couldn't think of anything to say to that, and Shepard didn't expect her to either.

"Afterward, I was on the streets, ran with gangs, mugged people, robbed stores, shit like that," Shepard said and stepped out from underneath the warm cascade of water when she was done showering. She graciously gestured toward the shower and bowed her head a little, silently offering the spot to Samantha who hadn't had a chance to finish getting properly cleaned up when Shepard had burst into the room.

"I was sixteen when I started having seizures and I went to a clinic to have myself checked out because I knew I wouldn't be able to enlist in the Alliance if I was sick. There was this doctor, Mordin Solus, and he explained my condition to me and ran some tests. Turned out, I had more of my brother's bits and pieces in me, namely in my brain."

"That sounds... creepy," Samantha muttered.
"Doctor Solus extracted an eyeball, a tooth and a partially formed ear from my brain, all remnants of the brother I'd absorbed in the womb," Shepard explained. Samantha began to feel nauseated.

"The operation cured my seizures and I had his statement explaining my condition to the Alliance recruiters so that they'd have no reason to reject me. And the rest, as they say, is history," Shepard finished her story, grabbed a towel and exited the bathroom.

Samantha exhaled deeply. Shepard's story was a sad one but not at all uncommon, apart from Shepard's physical abnormalities. Samantha couldn't fathom how Shepard could be so nonchalant about her childhood and the things she'd endured.

I feel bad for her, Samantha sighed internally. She didn't know why she felt that way since Shepard had made it clear she didn't care about her past, didn't let it affect her. At least that was the facade she had put up, Samantha doubted Shepard was as indifferent about it as she liked to pretend.

I think I'm losing my mind, I'm falling for a callous murderer and I'm actually making excuses for her and feeling sorry for her, what is wrong with me, Samantha scolded herself.

Even if she were to look past what Shepard had done, she couldn't help but consider herself a fool for developing feelings for Shepard. She'd never get out of prison and visitation wasn't a common thing, Omega was built on an island in the middle of nowhere, visitations were arranged maybe twice a year, no one bothered running transportation between the mainland and the island for something like visiting hours. There was no profit to be made from that, most prisoners in Omega didn't have anyone who would even want to visit them, therefore the traffic wouldn't be profitable unless you overcharged the few willing visitors so heavily they would be inclined to just not go through with it.

All that summed up to the fact that once Samantha had served her time, the odds were she'd never see Shepard again. She certainly wouldn't get the chance to fulfill her dream of having a large house with a white picket fence, a dog, and a family; those were things she wouldn't get with Shepard, ever. So, what was the point of it all? To find some flimsy comfort during the time of her incarceration, and risk getting her heart crushed and scarred for life when she'd have to accept she'd never see Shepard again? It was idiotic, the dumbest thing anyone could do, certainly not something someone as smart as Samantha would ever do... but here she was, feeling a warm, gentle flutter in her chest when she thought of Shepard. It was insane.

Samantha sighed, turned the water off and grabbed her towel. When she joined Shepard a few minutes later, Shepard had already gotten dressed, she was wearing a black tank top and black boxer briefs. She had busied herself with setting the small table with whatever tableware she'd managed to smuggle in. She'd also brought a ziplock bag containing a pulpy liquid from her stash, and Samantha wasn't sure she wanted to know what it was.

"Are those cherries?" Samantha exclaimed softly after getting dressed when she noticed a small glass jar containing the red fruit.
"Indeed, have one," Shepard encouraged, popped the lid open and picked a cherry from the jar before extending her arm toward Samantha.

"Mmmh, I can't even remember the last time I had something that actually had any flavor," Samantha moaned when the fruit burst between her teeth, the sugary juice it had marinated in seeping from it and flooding over her tongue, the sweetness of it all overtaking her senses to the point of her not realizing she was intently sucking on Shepard's fingertips. When she'd extended her arm toward Samantha, she'd assumed Samantha would take the cherry from between her fingers with her own rather than eat it straight from Shepard's hand.

Samantha blushed, and she was grateful Shepard didn't comment on her action, she rather gave Samantha a smug grin and left it at that. She gave Samantha the small jar of cherries and she accepted it somewhat awkwardly. Shepard then focused her attention on the bag of pruno. She had made it with juice, bread, mandarins and sugar, all ingredients she'd smuggled in from various jobs. Gathering up enough sugar had been the toughest part, she needed a lot of it and she could only take a handful of little sugar packets she discovered in the houses or break rooms if the job was at a factory or somewhere similar.

"How do you even make this stuff?"
"You just mash it all together in a bag and let it rot for a few days, the toughest part is remembering to burp the bag," Shepard said.

"Burp the bag? How charming."
"Yeah, because if you don't, it'll 'splode!" Shepard said and gestured widely with her arms to imitate the explosion.

"How do you know it's done?"
"It's done when you don't need to burp it anymore, see? The bag is flat," Shepard said and opened the bag a little. The pungent odor assaulted Samantha's nose and she made a face.

"The guards are gonna smell that from a mile away," she said, and Shepard smiled.
"Naw, Aria and is covering the night shift for my block, we're cool, I've made sure we won't be bothered."

"How are you in any position to bribe guards?" Samantha frowned.

"I don't bribe, I exchange favors for favors. Sometimes she needs me to handle an inmate who is threatening to compromise her little side business of drug dealing she'd prefer the authorities never heard about, in return she leaves me alone and lets me get away with a few little luxuries," Shepard explained with a smile. Samantha didn't want to know what exactly Shepard meant by "handling" an inmate, but she had a feeling that the rumors she'd heard about a prisoner who had recently been mysteriously bludgeoned to death had been Shepard's handiwork.

"Now... would you prefer your wine with pulp or without, m'lady?" Shepard asked as she grabbed a couple of plastic cups for them.
"I... don't know? I mean, I think I'd prefer my drink without rotting fruit in it..."

"Excellent choice, madam. Hold this over the cup," Shepard said and handed Samantha a sock.
"Oh, good Lord..." she groaned but did as she was told, and Shepard poured the wine through the sock. It didn't actually look bad, it was of yellow-ish shade, kind of reminded Samantha of a mango smoothie. Then the smell hit her again and she could barely contain a gag.

"Here's to five miserable months on the wagon, and all the irreparable harm it has caused me," Shepard smiled, hit her cup against Samantha's softly and took a long swallow, emptying the cup in one sitting.
"Oh, God!" Samantha coughed after barely tasting a sip. It was horrible. Shepard laughed, but had to admit Samantha's reaction hadn't been as rough as she'd expected.

"Yeah, it's not for the tasting, you just gotta drink it," she said, poured herself another cup of the foul smelling and foul-tasting liquid.
"It certainly isn't, it tastes like burning and rotten citrus fruit!"

"Sounds about right," Shepard nodded and downed another cup. Samantha took a few sharp breaths, pinched her nostrils shut with her fingers and braced herself before raising the cup to her lips and downed the drink, mentally ranting "just swallow, don't taste it" to herself.

"Nice!" Shepard complimented, genuinely impressed. "Do you find me charming yet, or do you need another drink?" she then grinned.
"Well, since I got this far, might as well go all the way. Hit me," Samantha blew out a breath and Shepard poured her another drink from the bag. The drink didn't go down quite as easily as the previous one had; Samantha gagged twice but soldiered through it regardless.

"You're turning into a regular marine, Traynor," Shepard chuckled and refilled Samantha's cup once more.
"You're a terrible influence on me."

"I think you had this in you the whole time, you just needed to have someone to blame it on, so you won't have to accept that you're capable of doing stuff like this by yourself," Shepard shrugged one shoulder.
"That's strangely observant of you," Samantha narrowed her eyes at her and finished the fourth drink, the burning feeling of the alcohol pooling in the pit of her stomach making her feel a bit ill.

"I have personal experience about it. When I was in the Alliance, I used my missions as my excuse so that I didn't have to accept that I simply enjoyed killing," Shepard explained, and Samantha sighed a little at that.
"What is so damn enjoyable about killing?" she scoffed.

"There is something precious about the whole situation... when you're with someone who knows they're going to die by your hand. Sometimes they know not to even bother trying, they don't beg. Most of the time they do. I respect those ones more. They are more annoying with the whining and crying but at least they try, even if they must know no amount of begging and reasoning would change anything," Shepard spoke softly. She paused for a moment to pour Samantha another shot. Samantha wasn't sure she should drink it but at the same time, she didn't think she wanted to hear this without thinking there was a chance she might not remember this if she got drunk enough, and then she wouldn't have to come to terms with the fact that she found Shepard irresistible despite the things she was saying right now.

"Then there are those who have no idea... there is something sweet and innocent about it... and you gotta see how it would make one feel like a God. I get to decide who lives and who dies, and the people I'm in charge of have no idea I'm the one who decides. It's a very intimate thing, in some ways it's been the only intimacy I've known in my life," Shepard said and leaned so close to Samantha their noses were touching, her hand resting against the side of Samantha's neck.

"You know, I could keep pushing until your windpipe gets crushed and you suffocate," Shepard said, tapping her thumb against Samantha's throat before letting it dig a bit deeper, not enough to genuinely hurt but making the implication clear. Samantha surprised Shepard by not flinching.

"You could. Clearly, you're the one in charge, you're the one who decides what happens to me, but the thing is... it doesn't bother me, I trust you with my life," Samantha whispered, and Shepard frowned.

She'd had no intention of actually hurting Samantha, she hadn't even intended to genuinely intimidate her, she'd just wanted to tease her, but now Shepard found herself being the one who was confused. Samantha's reaction hadn't been what she'd expected at all.

Samantha sunk her hands into Shepard's hair and pulled on her to close the gap between them, pressing her lips against Shepard's passionately. She then wrapped her legs around Shepard's waist and tightened her hold on her, pressing their bodies firmly together.

"Sam, I think you're drunk, we should stop," Shepard said after breaking the kiss.
"Says the woman who kept insisting I should get drunk."

"Yeah, but I also told you before; I'm a murderer, not a rapist, and you're in no condition to consent," Shepard shook her head and sat up.
"So, you have a code of ethics?" Samantha asked in disbelief, not sure she could take Shepard seriously. Judging from the clearly visible bulge in Shepard's boxer briefs, Samantha felt Shepard hadn't found the situation unpleasant at all.

"Of course I do. Otherwise I'd be just a lowlife thug," Shepard smiled.
"You're not joking," Samantha said, feeling oddly offended when Shepard rejected her.

"I am not. You'd regret it in the morning and I don't want your regret on my conscience. If you still wanna do it when you're sober, we'll bang, okay? But until then, nothing will happen," Shepard said, her voice gentle and kind, everything about her in such contradiction with the fact that she was a cold-blooded killer Samantha didn't know what to make of her anymore.

"I just realized something about you," Samantha said, sat up and turned to look at Shepard who sat down next to her, her arms folded and resting in her lap, her forearms covering her erection as she waited for it to pass.
"Do share."

"You're not a psychopath nor a sociopath, you're not a typical murderer."
"What makes you think that?"

"Well, your code for one. And the fact that you kill out of necessity, you don't have a compulsion to murder. You kill when you have to but you don't actively go taking lives just for the sake of taking them."
"I hadn't thought about it like that. So, what, you think that makes me redeemable?" Shepard smirked.

"I think so. At the very least it makes me feel better about falling in love with you because if I'm right, it means there's a chance you might feel something too," Samantha blurted out, not realizing what she'd said until she noticed the way Shepard was regarding her.

"Crap."
"You love me?" Shepard quirked an eyebrow.

"Must you be so smug about it?" Samantha sighed. "I should go," she then said and began to awkwardly get up.
"No, you shouldn't. Come on, I had to do a serious favor for Aria to convince her to look the other way while we hang out, it'd be a shame to waste it," Shepard smiled.

"Well... you're right," Samantha agreed and smiled back.
"Good. Besides, we have to finish the pruno, you know, to get rid of the evidence," Shepard grinned and poured them more to drink.