The background hum of the drive core was inescapable on Engineering Deck. Usually it sat comfortably in the backdrop of James's mind, like the street noise of San Diego, but tonight it kept nudging him awake. James lay in his cot, looking up at the ceiling without seeing it. When Anderson told him he'd be bunking in Starboard Cargo, he'd tried to argue out of being around Shepard all day and night. It wasn't sharing quarters that bothered him; it was sharing quarters with someone so hostile. He wasn't even sure why she disliked him. The old pilot, Joker, was a bigger smartass than James, but Shepard's mood brightened during the short visits Anderson allowed them.

The squeaking of springs emanated from Shepard's cell. Well, 'cell' was a loose definition of the three-by-four metre cargo container at the back of the room. It fit a cot, a sink and enough floor space for her to exercise. No toilet—which was a pain in the ass whenever she needed to go to the head, since he had to let her out and escort her up a level.

He turned his head to watch her through the bars on one end of the container. She rolled onto her bad shoulder and let out a little whimper before tossing back onto her good side. The night light in her cell threw her angular features into sharp relief. Her eyebrows met in a deep crease above her nose.

Neither of them had brought it up, but she'd had nightmares before. She'd toss and turn in her sleep until her blanket fell off the cot and she'd have to curl up against the chill of the air. Eventually, she'd settle back into a deep sleep, but that frown never disappeared completely. Shepard never looked like she had peaceful sleep.

This time, she jerked awake with a gasp. In the quiet room, her heavy breathing was loud enough that if he closed his eyes, he could imagine she was right next to him. The bed creaked again as she swung her legs off the bed. She hunched over, one elbow resting on her good knee, her head in her hand. If she were any other woman, James would bet she was crying, but crying seemed anti-Shepard.

He hadn't dared move a muscle since she woke. He didn't want Shepard to take her frustrations out on him, and he wanted to watch her when she didn't have her guard up.

Even though she was obviously still in pain, she stood in one fluid movement. The illusion that Shepard was fine dissolved as she limped to the little sink at the back of her cell. From this angle, and by the weak illumination of the light above her, he could see her haunted face in the mirror. Her lips curled into a snarl and her hand balled into a fist, the blue corona of biotics swirling across her skin. For a second, James thought she might punch the mirror, until his eyes met hers in the reflection.

Just as quickly as her anger had flared, it disappeared.

"You're awake," she said, her expression again unreadable.

"You're a noisy sleeper."

"So are you." She hobbled back to her cot and eased herself down onto it, a strangled gasp escaping as she lay flat again. "Who's April?"

The name was like a punch to the gut. He could still remember the weight of the little girl sitting on his shoulders as she played lookout, pretending she was a real private of the Alliance. Her gap-toothed grin; her long, blonde hair curling in the breeze; her high-pitched voice as she spoke through Captain Toni's omnitool from the Collector ship. She was as close as he ever got to having a hermanita—a baby sister. Her unshakable faith that he would save all the colonists, and his subsequent failure, was like a belly full of smouldering coals that slowly burned and shrivelled his heart.

"No one," he said and turned his back to her.

The hum of the drive core filled the silence in the room again. He thought Shepard had decided to let the topic drop, but that would have been too charitable of her.

"Did she die?"

James didn't answer.

"I'll take that as a yes." She sounded more curious than malicious, but James would have given anything to be able to shoot her. "How?"

He closed his eyes and willed himself to fall asleep, but Shepard was still talking.

"…Battle, perhaps, if she was Alliance. Girlfriend or possibly a sister. Disease is less common, but still an option–"

"Collectors." James rolled over, teeth clenched and body tense. "Now shut the fuck up."

She didn't. "I know what that's like."

"You know what it's like to have an eight-year-old kid taken by the Collectors?" His tone dripped with bitter scorn.

"I know what it's like to have people you love taken away from you while you can only watch helplessly from a distance." She lifted her head just enough to pierce him with a gaze that seemed to rip past his anger to grab at what was really hurting him. "That is what happened, isn't it?"

He swallowed the lump in his throat. He hated her even more in this moment than when he'd found out he'd sacrificed the colonists of Fehl for nothing.

"You don't know anything about me," he said, his voice a low growl as he turned his back on her again. "You don't have access to files."

Shepard laughed mirthlessly. "I don't need files to read you, soldier."

The hum of the drive core took over the room again and James soon fell into a restless sleep, haunted by the faces of the colonists he left to die.

The morning after their midnight chat saw a frosty James. Shepard was indifferent, as usual. He escorted her to the head, hitting every button on the way with excessive force. He glowered at the wall as he waited in the corridor. He didn't need this crap in his life.

"Did Shepard piss in your cereal this morning, Vega?" asked Joker as he was escorted by his own guard to the men's bathroom.

James retorted with an insult about Joker's mother. The pilot laughed and continued on his way.

Cerberus must have been loco to install a VI that listened to only one person. Then again, it was Cerberus. Bad guys always did crazy things.

Shepard limped out of the bathroom, her wet hair dripping onto the shoulders of her BDUs. She tilted her head and studied him. He clenched his jaw and tried to mimic the way Shepard dismissed him: a bored slide of his gaze away from her to focus on something more interesting—like a bare wall.

He heard the small huff of laughter as she breezed by him and said, "Chow time."

James wanted to reassert his authority by hauling her back to her cell, but the rumble in his stomach vetoed the idea.

Shepard went straight to the mess hall cupboard and stuck her head into it.

"Someone's been rifling through my rations again," she said "I think the only thing saving them are the messages I wrote on every packet. What do these ones say? I've forgotten what I wrote." She pulled out two packages and read them. "The curry says 'I will skin you' and the brownies say 'I will use your balls as a pendant.' Fun."

Shepard's sudden want for conversation was jarring. Before last night's heart-to-heart, Shepard had kept conversation between them to the bare minimum. Anyone else, and James would have laughed at the messages on the packages. Since it was Shepard, he chose to ignore it and served himself from the food laid out for the crew.

As Shepard heated her food, she continued to chatter like they were old friends, seemingly uncaring that he barely looked at her, let alone responded. The constant chatter was putting him on edge, and a muscle in his cheek started to twitch from clenching his jaw so tightly.

"Done," she said, and when he looked at her she had a wide grin on her face.

Oh, she knew she was annoying him just as much by talking as she had by not talking—he could tell by the spark of mischief in her eye. By now, he wasn't sure if his jaw would ever work again.

He stared at the back of her head as he followed her back to the elevator, willing her to spontaneously combust. She stopped suddenly and he nearly ran into her. Her attention was fixed on three crewmembers laughing as they sat at a table eating. The one facing James and Shepard noticed Shepard's attention and shot up out of his chair, saluting. The other two turned to look before doing the same. James straightened and tried to meet their eyes in response, but all three of them were looking at Shepard.

"Aaron?" said Shepard, disbelief softening her voice.

The man who'd first noticed them looked at his two companions in confusion. "Uh… no, ma'am. Corporal Lucas Hornby, ma'am."

"Oh." She continued to study the Corporal before she straightened and looked away. When she spoke again, she sounded like normal, dismissive Commander Shepard again. "Continue, corporal."

She resumed her slow hobble to the elevator. James glanced at the corporal, who was being interrogated by his friends in hushed voices. The corporal looked slightly troubled, but when he caught James's eye, he smoothed the expression from his face. James turned away and followed Shepard into the elevator. He wanted to ask what the hell that was about, but he was more determined to give Shepard the silent treatment.

The ride back down to Engineering Deck was the noisiest he'd ever had with Shepard. She'd evidently recovered from whatever just happened. He had a feeling that even when they sat down to eat, she'd continue to talk. He tried to tune her out, to imagine that she was just the drive core being unusually loud, but it didn't work. She was talking about sex. James might want to punch her, but he couldn't ignore sex talk from a female voice.

James flopped down on his cot after slamming Shepard's barred door shut on her. His tray of slop was a pile of unidentifiable stew on top of something that was supposed to be mashed potato, but he knew that it tasted more like salt and cardboard. He glanced at Shepard's tray. It smelled like food of the gods.

She looked up from her meal to catch his longing look.

"I bought my own rations before I turned myself in to Anderson. I don't like that—" she waved her hand at his food, "—and I can only live on MREs for so long."

He looked down at his tray again mournfully before setting it aside. He really didn't need this crap.

"I'll trade you," she said, pushing her tray through the gap at the foot of the bars. "Don't get used to it though."

James's eyebrows shot up in surprise before his expression fell into a frown of suspicion.

"It's not poisoned," she said with a roll of her eyes. "I'm being nice after making you cry last night."

"I didn't cry!"

She smirked, and he realised she'd been trying to prod that reaction out of him.

"And here I thought I'd get the silent treatment all day."

She nudged the tray further out of her cell. After a brief moment where he glared at her amused face, he took her tray. His mouth was already watering at the smell teasing his senses. He pushed his tray of horrible stuff through the gap and Shepard picked it up, the wrinkle of her nose showing just how much she wasn't going to enjoy the food.

James's first mouthful was like fairies dancing across his tongue. Even the proper food at Arcturus hadn't tasted this good. Shepard must have dropped a lot of credits for this stuff. He shovelled the curry and rice into his mouth like a starving man. When he took a break to breathe, he noticed Shepard hadn't touched her food. Her fork hovered over the tray, but she just stared at it like it was three-day-old roadkill. He felt a little guilty that he was eating what she'd bought for herself, then shoved the feeling away. This was payment for her being such a bitch.

"So, who's Aaron?" he asked, and then coughed at a tickle in his throat. Now that he'd broken his silence, he'd subject her to the same questioning he got last night.

"A boy who was taken by slavers."

James's food-laden fork stopped halfway to his mouth. He wasn't expecting her to answer truthfully. He narrowed his eyes. Or was she lying? A small frown marred her brow before she seemed to shake off whatever memories were haunting her. Probably not a lie, he concluded.

His throat began to burn. Shepard's food wasn't that spicy, but he coughed anyway. A sip from his water bottle didn't lessen the irritation.

"Too spicy for you?" she asked with a smirk.

He opened his mouth to retort about his abulea's spicy cooking and threw up instead. If Shepard reacted, he didn't hear it over his own retching. The tray dropped from his lap as he bent over, coughing, stomach heaving.

He felt rather than saw the fuzzy static of biotics. The smell of eezo accompanied a crashing squeal, and he looked up mid-cough. The bars keeping Shepard in her cell folded open like a curtain.

"Lieutenant Vega." She gripped his chin and tilted his head up to look at her, but the scorching pain in his stomach made it too difficult to focus on her face. "James, you're coughing up blood."

He couldn't taste anything but bile. Shepard let go of him and he retched again. Through blurry eyes, he could see flecks of blood in his slowly spreading sick. He stared at it. He was used to seeing his own blood, but not mixed with something he just ate. He hadn't thrown up since the first time he'd looked down a scope at a person rather than a black target and blew her merc head clean off.

Shepard swore. "Locked. Someone really didn't want us getting out. EDI, override the lock."

Who was Edie?

"Unlocked, Shepard." Female voice. Pleasing tone. Even though his blurry vision he couldn't see anyone else in the room, though. "My systems have been compromised. The engineers have been recalibrating routines all over the ship and, as per Joker's instructions, I have fixed only the changes that were detrimental. I will examine the remaining recalibrations again for suspicious activity."

Too much talking. James wanted them to shut up. His head throbbed. His throat burned. His arms shook as he tried to keep himself from falling face-first into his own vomit. How long had it been since he first threw up? It felt like hours. Days. Eternity.

"Get up."

He looked up at Shepard. When did she move from the door? She hooked a hand under his armpit and hauled him to his feet with strength that no normal person should have, let alone someone with half her limbs injured.

"Stay with me, James." She was calling him James again. It sounded odd. "Keep walking. If you die and make me fall over, I will bury you in a tutu."

"Make it blue," he said through gritted teeth, and Shepard snorted.