Bioware owns them; I'm just playing with them.
Beta: None.
"Joker, I don't care where it is, but I want to get the fuck away from this place immediately," Kate yelled across the CIC as she impatiently waited for the elevator. Kelly started to speak and wisely turned away to do other work when she saw the dangerous glint in the commander's eyes.
"Fucking sonofabitch!" Kate screamed at her space hamster once she was finally in the sanctuary of The Loft. Sam looked at her with his beady black eyes for a moment before he retreated to the shelter of his hut.
She looked from the terrarium down to the picture of Kaidan sitting on her desk. "I betrayed you? Why wouldn't you even let me explain?" she yelled as she picked up the picture and threw it across the room where it hit the wall beside her bed and shattered. She slumped into her desk chair, suddenly mentally and physically exhausted.
A beep on the comm revived her. "What's up Joker?"
"Uh Kate?" Joker sounded like he'd rather be doing absolutely anything at that moment than trying to talk to his commander. "Admiral―"
"Tell him I'm not home," she ground out between clenched teeth.
A beat of silence and Joker came back. "He said he'll just keep calling back until you answer."
Kate sighed heavily as she stood up and leaned with her hands against her desk. "Fine."
"Hey now, don't shoot the messenger," Joker said with a laugh as he disconnected.
Kate mumbled something about cocky smart-ass pilots as she hit the button to answer the vid-com and scowled when Hackett's face appeared on the screen in front of her model ships. "What do you want, Dad?"
Hackett rolled his eyes. "You're just a little ball of sunshine today, aren't you? Who pissed in your coffee?"
She growled. "If this is about what happened to Commander Fuck-face on Horizon, save it; he more than deserved what he got."
"What exactly did Staff Commander Alenko do to deserve getting punched in the face?" he asked icily.
"He didn't tell you?" she shot back.
"Thanks to you, Katie, he's not exactly in a position to talk at the moment."
"Fucking coward," Kate muttered.
"His jaw is broken."
"Good," she snarled. "Should have broken several other parts of his anatomy while I was at it. He's lucky he made it off of Horizon alive."
Hackett's eyebrows shot into his hairline. "Excuse me?"
"No, not me. Alright, maybe me. But mostly Garrus and Zaeed. They were both practically vibrating, waiting for a chance to shoot him."
Hackett shook his head in bewilderment. "I don't know why you take those two everywhere, Katie."
"Would you rather I take someone I don't completely trust to have my back?" When he didn't respond, she continued, "Kaidan proved today that I'm lucky I have anyone I can trust or who trusts me."
He sighed and tried again. "What did he say to you?"
Kate shook her head. "You really want to know?"
"I wouldn't be asking if I didn't, Katie."
Her eyes blazed with fury. "Then go ask the jackass to explain himself. I didn't break his hands; he can type it out in his fucking report." With those parting words, she slammed her fist into the console and the call was disconnected. "Oh I'm gonna catch hell for that later," she muttered.
"EDI?" she called out as she flopped face-down on her bed.
The blue orb appeared next to the fish tank. "Yes, Shepard?"
"I'm going off-line for the rest of the night. I don't want to be disturbed unless there's an actual emergency. Joker can fill you in on the definition of 'actual emergency.' But if Miranda gets anywhere near my cabin, for any reason, I will space her. And yes, you can tell her I said that."
"Very well, Shepard," the AI said with something that sounded remarkably like apprehension. "Logging you out."