Survivor

Warning: graphic violence is graphic

"Commander?"

Shepard's quarters were dark. The low hum of electronics and the rumble of Normandy's engines greeted her. The pungent twang of human vomit lingered in the air. A flicker of apprehension skated through her, and nervously, Liara bit her lip. Shepard had called, omni-tool to omni-tool, right after she'd awoken from a nightmare, as she'd done many times before, seeking — what, the asari maiden didn't know. The Commander had simply reached out. To kindness, Liara suspected. To friendship. It warmed her heart to know Shepard sought her out.

The conversation had been brief, mostly apologetic on Shepard's behalf, but Liara thought she'd heard a thread of pain woven into the exhausted words. After all, no one had expected what had happened on Ontarom.

Least of all Commander Shepard herself.

Much like the girl on Arcturus, Corporal Toombs' eyes had been wild. Liara hadn't thought they would be able to calm him. She had been too frightened to hope. Shepard hadn't been able to calm the young girl on Arcturus. As much as she'd tried to talk her into calming down, it hadn't been enough. It had been horrible to watch such a young and fragile woman take her own life.

Watching Shepard's reaction to the failure had been worse. And her nightmares— Goddess. Such horror. Such blame. Why are you normal? the girl had asked. Why do you get to be normal? And those questions ate at the Commander. Shepard's dreams were vivid, surreal as her mind tried to cope with not only the incomplete Prothean warning imprinted onto her subconscious, but with the realities of war and loss.

And of love and camaraderie. Of accepting and being accepted.

"Death. Loss. It's all getting too redundant," the Commander said before apologizing again for waking Liara and closing the link.

Liara took another step into Shepard's quarters allowing the door to close behind her. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She studied Shepard's bed, a disarray of blankets and sheets pulled away from the mattress and toward the bathroom. Her heart caught, clinched tight. She vowed after touching Shepard's mind for the first time that she would do everything in her power to help Shepard rest easy so she could stop Saren. The Prothean visions were strong, twisted. Shepard was courageous, strong-willed. Some would say stubborn. A lesser mind would have faltered and failed.

"Commander Shepard?"

But the missions in between stopping Saren tested Commander Shepard's mettle.

Liara had never touched a human mind before Shepard. In fact, she had only ever touched her mother's when she was a child. Sharing her memories, her joy. She was unsure if it was a human trait or simply just Shepard herself, but Shepard had a tendency to dwell and re-think, re-calculate. She ran what-if scenarios, calculating the strengths and weaknesses of her enemies, her teammates—sometimes she used teammates she knew were dead in her scenarios. Knowing it would hurt. It reopened old wounds. Dwelling. When she should leave well enough alone.

The door to Shepard's bathroom was closed. Liara rapped her knuckles lightly on the metal. "Shepard, are you in there?"

When the bathroom door opened and Shepard stepped out, Liara put a hand to her mouth in dismay.

"I think I'm going crazy," Shepard mumbled softly before Liara could say anything and weakly ran a hand through her dark hair. The tender skin under her eyes was smudged with fatigue. Her face where the harsh light of Ontarom's sun had burned her was peeling. Red vessels crisscrossed the whites of her eyes like a morbid spider's web.

"Shepard, let me help," Liara said as Shepard pushed passed her, paced.

"Help me go crazy? Sure. Why not?"

The jesting tone was light. And Liara knew Shepard was avoiding the issue. She knew the Commander didn't like her, as she put it, poking around in her head. But Liara knew she could help if Shepard let her. Just knew it. If Shepard would only listen to her. She'd been able to help some with the nightmares from Arcturus.

"Such a smart ass, Shepard."

"Damn right."

Her bare feet slapped the floor. Liara tried hard not to stare at Shepard's slender, yet muscular legs or the tuck of her waist under her steel-gray tank. Or her breasts that bounced when she walked. Or her toned, ivory arms. Or the freckles on her shoulders, the back of her neck. Or her firm butt beneath high-cut panties the same color as her tank.

And Shepard thought she was going crazy? By the Goddess.

Four times. That was how many times Shepard had allowed Liara to meld with her to make sense of her nightmares and the Prothean vision after the initial time. Twice for the girl on Arcturus. Liara wanted to help. Truly. It hurt to watch Shepard this way, looking so haunted. She wanted Shepard to be at her best.

Toombs. Toombs was one of Shepard's. Someone lost.

Goddess.

Liara's heart turned in her chest. Even with Shepard's burned and peeling skin, her face was pale. Haunted, Liara thought again.

Fifteen times. That was how many times Liara had come to Shepard's quarters after a wake-up call. After the first wake-up call, Liara made sure Shepard was taking time for herself during the day. After the second wake-up call, Liara began to visit afterwards. To make sure Shepard was rested. Usually, Liara merely fixed tea or coffee and talked about nonsensical things — things other than the mission, thing other than what was bothering Shepard. But not tonight. Tonight, she was going to help Commander Shepard sort out her brain and her memories and show her how to keep from going out of her mind before the end of the mission. Damn it. Above all else, Shepard was her friend. She would do what she had to do to help her.

"It won't hurt." Truthfully, Liara had no idea if it would hurt, but she wasn't going to give up. "You'll feel better. You did before."

Shepard flopped into a chair at the conference table and put her head in her hands. "I'm tired, Liara. You should get some rest too." She squinted at the room's only clock. "We'll be into port in another hour or so. If we're lucky the refueling depot will have an actual restaurant and not some greasy spoon or titty bar."

"You'll be drinking again. So will your crew." Wincing at the accusation in her tone, Liara busied herself with the coffee machine. It was no concern of hers as to whether Shepard drank heavily in between missions. It appeared to be how most humans and many alien species coped.

"Command and alien crew are the only crew members I'm allowing a port call while we discharge."

"Your marines will be so disappointed."

Shepard shrugged. If she noted the sarcasm in Liara's tone, she didn't acknowledge it. "We can't risk an incident in the Terminus. Saren's out here somewhere. I know it. And with the Blood Pack attack on Fehl Prime diverting traffic from the Zeta Relay, we've had no choice but to divert to the Nubian Expanse. We're running silent longer, have to discharge sooner than expected, is all. The marines will just have to wait with the rest of the crew for a liberty once we make it back to Council Space."

"Was it a safe choice? To come out this way?"

"It's the only choice right now. One of the secondary relays in the Expanse will get us back to the Attican Traverse. We'll be back into Attican Beta within fifty hours, give or take."

She brought Shepard her coffee cup and offered a jar of lotion as well. Shepard eyed the jar with mistrust as she took her first sip of coffee. The way she was eying the jar, Liara thought perhaps the Commander expected it would detonate or ask her to dance.

"I don't do the beauty goo thing, Liara," she said. "And I don't look that bad." She combed a hand through her wild hair. It only stuck up more, the ends kinking and twirling. Fascinating. Human hair was so interesting. And Shepard's hair looked so soft… Liara wanted to comb her fingers through it too. She smothered the impulse with a forced chuckle.

"Your face is peeling like a snake, Calleigh. Isn't it uncomfortable?"

"Nope." She took another plug of her coffee, dark eyelashes sweeping her cheeks as she closed her eyes with a sigh.

"Shepard, do you want to talk about it? About Ontarom?"

The response was immediate but silent. Shepard's shoulders tensed, her copper eyes became flat and unresponsive. She set the coffee cup down hard enough that she might have chipped it and glared. So much went through that glare before she could hide it behind anger. Hurt. Self-loathing. Fear.

Liara stifled a sigh. Shepard was going to let her in, damn it.

"He could have killed all of us if Kaidan hadn't reacted. If he hadn't used his biotics to thrust away Toombs and his grenade."

Liara sat as she pictured the scene on Ontarom in her mind, the frightening way the man, Corporal Toombs, had waved about his weapons — a pistol in one hand, a knife in the other. She shuddered as she recalled Toombs had seemed to accept Shepard's words.

"I need to know what he knows," she insisted, firmly. "It's over, Toombs, but I need him. He needs to answer for his crimes and to answer my questions. Our questions.

"It's over, Toombs," she repeated in a calm, smooth tone. "They can't hurt you anymore."

Toombs continued to stand there. Liara's heart ached for the three tortured souls in the room. Which, she wondered, was more tortured?

Then: "It's— it's really over?" He looked despondent. "Maybe the screaming will stop now. I don't know."

Shepard stepped forward, took the knife. She handed off the knife to Garrus and gestured to the others to secure the scientist. The Commander took Toombs' wrist, led him away from the man on the table. "All you can do is keep going. You get hit, you get back up, and you hit back. You keep going. No matter what."

"I hit back, Shepard." She was silent as he looked at her morosely. "I hit back hard."

Kaidan radioed Joker for a medevac and never took his eyes off Toombs while he ran the trauma module from his omni-tool on Dr. Wayne. The human biotic didn't trust the man. Or maybe he was watching Shepard. Liara's heart hurt at the thought. She thought Shepard didn't have a clue as to Kaidan's true feelings. Just friends, family in arms, Shepard had said once when Liara had felt brave enough to ask. She had thought she sensed a thread of untruth in the Commander's voice. Kaidan didn't seem to be in any hurry to declare his undying passion for her. But the way they looked at each other sometimes… By the Goddess. Such love, caring. Understanding. It was there. It had to be.

In a way, it was frustrating. Liara imagined a romantic interlude between the two humans. They had to be passionately in love with each other. Had to be. They worked with each other every day. It should have been the romance of the ages with both declaring their love for the other and riding off in an air car made just for them.

On the other hand, Liara was glad Shepard was totally oblivious to Kaidan. It meant she was still available for Liara's more lurid daydreams. She so wished the Commander would pay more attention to her. She wanted to be the one riding off in the air car with Shepard declaring her love and devotion. Asking for the bonding ceremony. Both wearing the gowns of the Devoted.

Loving her and only her forever.

Which was an incredibly foolish thought since Shepard was a member of such a short-lived species.

But still.

Shepard would look absolutely beautiful in a gown of the Devoted.

Ashley nudged her. "Focus, T'Soni! He's going to bleed out."

"What? Oh!"

Liara had a sense of relief once the madman had been placated, but the relief was short-lived. When Shepard had begun to question the scientist, Dr. Wayne, about Cerberus' activities, Toombs had become more violent, more deranged.

Shepard stood between Toombs and the scientist. The metallic stench of blood hung in the air. The man was nearly gone. The medevac team would be there soon with the needed blood and liquids IVs. He just had to hold out a few more moments.

"You think I don't want revenge for Akuze?" Shepard's angry shout made him blink, made Liara blink. Was that what Shepard wanted? Was that why they were here? Cerberus had killed an Alliance rear admiral as well as countless others. Was it revenge or justice? Did Shepard even know? The wildness of his eyes dimmed. Kaidan, Ashley, and Garrus stood rigid, weapons ready. Liara quaked in her boots. "Damn it, Toombs, if I'd seen you, I'd never left you behind. I saw you dragged under! I saw… so many dragged under."

"I don't want to talk about it, Liara." Shepard's voice pulled Liara back to the present.

She raised her eyes to find her watching her. Copper eyes ringed with pale green shimmered in the dim light. "Well, I do," she answered quickly over her choking, beating heart. "I was terrified, all right? And that poor man… the scientist. No matter that he's with Cerberus. Toombs had no right… Not like that." Liara closed her eyes briefly seeing the raw and bleeding flesh of the scientist's arm, smelling the metallic scent of blood, hearing the man's painful moans. Her stomach lurched.

Shepard's expression softened and she reached across the table to clasp Liara's hand. Her fingers were calloused, her palm rough. The grip was strong, warm. Protective.

Dipping her head slightly, she said, "I'm sorry." The pad of her thumb caressed the back of Liara's hand. "I'm sorry you were dragged into this mess."

"That was my mother's fault." It hurt to admit it. "I keep hoping that she's innocent, but…" She shook her head. "I will do what it takes to help you stop her and Saren. I've told you that before. Those data disks we've found. There is some useful information on them. Not much. They're so fragile. Most of the data is corroded. But—"

"I trust you, Liara."

She smiled, warmed at the thought. "Thank you, Shepard."

She watched as the Commander took a calming breath and gave her permission to meld. As an afterthought, Shepard raised her omni-tool toward the door to her quarters, the locking mechanism flicking the haptic adaptive interface from green to red.

Liara reached out with her senses, using her mind and not her entire nervous system. Instantly she was transported to a realm of blood and pain and loss. She was ankle deep in a torrent of red blood. Decay and rot assaulted her, blown at her on rough, cold winds. Thresher Maws and beasts with multiple eyes and gnashing teeth bit at her. Creatures with no names and gore in their mouths hissed and snarled. Writhing bodies screamed for help. Cries of "Shepard!" echoed across the mindscape. She calmed her nerves and edged through the memories twisted by agony, picking her way slowly. One couldn't run within the mind. And here, in Shepard's mind, riding an air bike to reach her destination was probably a bad idea.

She followed the river of blood to a patch of trees. Mists shrouded them. Ghosts moaned. Toombs voice, louder than the others, accused Commander Shepard of abandoning him. Liara shut her eyes and said nothing, only trudged along, shivering as the temperature dropped. She wore only a thin tank top and loose, wide pants. Her feet were bare and the red blood from the river coated them.

The trees parted and Liara looked out at the bleak landscape. Twin suns—one gold, one deep orange—lay low on the horizon, Mindoir's close binary pair. A sea of blood as far as the eye could see lapped at a shore made of bones and crushed bodies. Blank-eyed stares and open mouths stared up at her. Such anguish. Her heart wept for Shepard. A geth trooper smashed one of the skulls—it looked like Ashley—with its sidearm before disappearing, and more blood flowed into the sea. Liara shut her eyes momentarily blocking the visions but careful not to complete the bond between them, turn it into something sexual in order to block the more powerful images of Shepard's subconscious. She'd made that mistake the first time. To bring pleasure against the pain. Shepard hadn't asked for pleasure, just consented for comfort. She was here to help.

Goddess, such pain. Such misery.

The bones of the shore dug into her feet painfully. She walked along the shore, waiting. In the distance a bomb went off, shaking the ground, a mushroom cloud formed on the darkening horizon. Shrieks of the dying bellowed on the wind.

"Come out, Shepard." She kept her voice even, calm.

Shepard, as a sixteen-year-old girl —Calleigh — appeared some distance away. She walked calmly along the shore. Her dark wavy hair was long, parted in the middle, and uncombed. It brushed her shoulders like a dark waterfall and fell down her back. She was unaffected by the harsh wind. The hair remained still as the wind picked up its pace and blew at Liara hard enough to nearly knock her over. Pieces of bone and flesh scored Liara's bare arms and legs.

Liara wondered, not for the first time, if this child who walked along the beach unaffected by the wind or the red waves was the young Shepard, the Calleigh who survived the batarian raid on Mindoir. The child Commander Shepard did her best to protect, to fight for. To defend. The one she tried desperately to shelter from the horrors of war.

As she neared, Liara could see Calleigh had a black eye, busted lips, and a bloody nose. She didn't know what to make of the girl's appearance. There were bruises on her chin, a scuffed knee, broken fingers. She was armored though. The girl looked like she'd been in the fight of her life but didn't seem to feel the pain from her injuries. She needn't. The pain was in the very air. It lanced off Liara's exposed skin, chilled her to the bone, and made her heart ache.

"You're wearing your armor," Liara noted when the child reached her. The armor looked old. Worn in places, it was missing sections. Where a piece was gone, there was a long, painful-looking scratch or bloody puncture wound. There were green fuzzy shoes on her feet. The shoes had huge goggling eyes and big grins. And they were smiling crazy smiles directly at Liara. Of everything in Shepard's mind, those shoes scared Liara the most.

Calleigh smiled proudly, cracked and bleeding lips stretching. She was missing a few teeth on top and one on the bottom. "Well. Yeah. I'm Commander Fucking Shepard." Her breath whistled through her missing teeth, giving her a lisp.

Liara's heart swelled, relieved. Thank the Goddess. Shepard's natural stubbornness had built the armor in her mind once she'd been shown how. She was going to be okay. They just had to practice more to build up it further, to make it stronger. Perhaps the child's injuries could be healed as well. Were they the injuries Shepard received on Mindoir? she wondered. Or did her mind injure this figment this way? Was it purposeful? And what was the purpose?

"Now to show you the proper way to compartmentalize, Commander Shepard." She chose a spot on the blood-soaked shore and sat cross-legged. Bones crunched beneath her weight. Miniature flying thresher maws zipped around them. Their tails glowed like lightning bugs winking on and off.

"Meditation has never really worked for me," Calleigh said, flicking one of the lightning thresher maws with a forefinger and thumb that looked broken. But she sat cross-legged as well, resting an elbow on her padded knee, chin in her hand—the glove was fingerless and exposed dried blood around the edges of her broken fingernails.

"That is because you have the patience of an obese space cow that hasn't eaten in days."

Raising her chin, the armored girl assumed all the dignity she could muster looking as scuffed and battered as she did and said, "You've been waiting to use that one, T'Soni."

"Well. Yes." She tilted her head to the side. "Are you ready, Commander Shepard?"

"Let's do it."

"First," Liara began and pointed to the green fuzzy shoes. She was certain they were staring at her, pinning her with their unsettling grins. "Shepard, what are those?"

"Oh. Just some green froggy slippers my mom gave me when I was sixteen."

"I see." She didn't. Not at all. What was a froggy? "Are those… eyes?" And were they staring at her?

Amusement flickered in the eyes, copper with dark green flecks and ringed with pale green, that met hers. Her sense of humor took over and Calleigh answered by sticking out a thin leg and giving a shake of a fuzzy green foot. The froggy eyes circled around and darted to and fro, but its disturbing grin never wavered. She broke into an open and friendly, yet snaggletoothed smile letting loose a peal of laughter. "I'd totally wear these bad boys 'round the ship if I weren't so… so stuffy and CO-ish. And if they hadn't been, like, destroyed on Mindoir and stuff." She shook her foot again, goofy smile still plastered on her face. "Aren't they frigid? Like, totally arctic?"

Liara shuddered. They were staring at her. But Calleigh's smile and laughter were contagious. This was the side Shepard was protecting. This child. The humor, the joy of living. Carefree. Battered, beaten, but not broken. "Totally arctic, Shepard," she forced herself to agree.

"All you can do is keep going," Shepard had told Toombs. "You get hit, you get back up, and you hit back." And that's exactly what Liara was going to help Shepard do.

Outside the door, Kaidan's heart twisted as he dropped his hand. The door locked him out just before he could knock. Liara was in there. He'd watched her enter only moments ago.

In there. With Shepard. With the door locked. Ice spread through him. He didn't want to think about it. He wasn't going to think about it. His chest felt tight.

Sighing he walked back to the galley and poured the cup of coffee he had prepared for Shepard into the sink and dropped the paper cup into the recycler. Emotion swamped him like a wild thing, stabbing his heart. Chin to his chest, he gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles turning white. How had he let this happen? Had he let his emotions get the better of him? His thoughts turned to BAaT, to Rahna. His heart stuttered. Was his life on repeat?

If he hadn't reacted on Ontarom, they all would have died. Shepard knew that. Surely to God she knew that. And why hadn't Shepard frisked Toombs? Why hadn't she cuffed the bastard? His thoughts filtered back to Ontarom, to the last few moments of the mission before the Alliance drop ship had arrived.

"The vids say you were the sole survivor of what happened at Akuze." The tremor in Toombs' voice had alarms going off in Kaidan's head. Shit! "Who am I to argue?"

"Toombs. Don't!" Shepard's plea fell on deaf ears.

Kaidan didn't hesitate. He tackled Shepard as he used his most powerful throwing mnemonic. Toombs' body and the Mark 14 grenade flew through the open door and down the corridor. The blast only seconds later rumbled the ground, plumes of fire and smoke shooting into the room. He clutched Shepard to his chest, protecting her head.

When it was over, Kaidan lifted to his elbows, inspecting Shepard for injuries as she coughed, and stared into her eyes. She looked ethereal, unreal in the dim red flashing lights and choking smoke. Her hair was disheveled, a dark aura of choppy waves encircling her head. For a brief moment, it was only them. His mouth went bone dry. He reached up with trembling fingers to remove his faceplate, to bring their faces closer together. He wanted her hot against his mouth.

The bunker's emergency VI kicked in and foam began raining down to squelch the flames. The gray foam splattered them, the moment gone. Kaidan's fingers stilled on his helmet. Hell. He took a breath, unsure if he felt relieved or angry he'd been interrupted, and looked around. Garrus picked himself off Liara and helped her up. Ashley had shielded the scientist's body with her own as best she could. Now she rubbed at the goo spraying her armor, gave her fingers a delicate sniff. Her nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Ugh. What is this stuff?" she wanted to know. "Bird shit?"

"Tango down?" Shepard asked quietly, blinking away the smoke. Her voice brought his attention back to her face. Hurt lay naked in her copper eyes.

He nodded, made no effort to move but to gently wipe the moisture from her face. "Negative contacts, Commander."

Had she expected him to react to the threat differently? Why hadn't she restrained the madman? Why hadn't she ordered Garrus to restrain him? How come Garrus hadn't done it without being ordered? Why was he questioning his commanding officer?

She wet her parched lips. "What about the Cerberus scientist?"

"Alive, ma'am," Ashley reported. "Barely. Enough to get answers eventually. But he's out cold. If medevac doesn't get here, he's not going to make it."

"Corporal Toombs was a good man," the Commander told them later at the debriefing.

"Corporal Toombs died on Akuze, Shepard," Kaidan replied, foregoing her title. If anyone present noticed the slip, they said nothing. Not even Shepard. "He was given a burial with full honors. Just like all the others. It's… over, ma'am."

Shepard only nodded with a taut jerk of her head, looked haunted and pale beneath her sunburn.

The whirring of a sleeper pod caught Kaidan's attention and he pulled himself from the memories, straightened. He did what he had to do, damn it. And he would do it again.

Keep going. Not only was a Special Forces motto, but it was Shepard's personal motto too. She'd survived a hell of a lot just by doing it.

"All you can do is keep going. You get hit, you get back up, and you hit back. You keep going. No matter what."

He vowed he would do just that. Commander Shepard was going to live, and she was going to bring Cerberus and Saren to justice. They were both galactic threats. If the Commander only saw him as her friend, one of her crew, then… God that hurt to think about. He swallowed. One step at a time. He'd make sure she lived. That's all he could do right now. He couldn't—wouldn't—think about her and Liara.

He looked at the time and heard the familiar rhythmic slap of socks on the other side of the bulkhead. Needing anything to take his mind off things, he poured a cup of coffee, sweetened it with artificial sugar and added powdered creamer. When Ashley rounded the corner in a steel-gray tank top, matching sweats, and hot pink fuzzy house slippers with yellow antennae and green owl eyes, he forced a smile and held out the fresh cup of coffee. Her hair was sleep-tossed and spiked in directions it was never meant to go. There were creases in her cheek and on her arms from sleeping hard. Rack burn. At least someone slept well.

"Morning, Chief."

Tilting her head to one side, she stole a slanted look at him before she gave her usual good-morning grunt in response. Then she dove for the coffee like a dying woman in the desert as she sought her first dregs of caffeine goodness. He crossed his arms and leaned a hip on the counter to study her. After the first two gulps, she was nearly human again and raked fingers through her hair to prove it before opening cabinets on the hunt for chow.

"How's the Commander, El-tee?" she asked as she inspected her choices for breakfast. Rye toast of questionable origin with fake strawberry jam that had the consistency of chunky boogers or fake sausage and fake eggs with a fake rice-cake that was really cardboard in disguise and fake grape jelly that had the consistency of semen. Oh. Yum. "The breakfast of champions, right there," she murmured as she set the two packages on the counter and gave both of them the beady eyeball over her coffee cup.

"Liara's with her." He hadn't meant to blurt it out. It wasn't anyone's business who the Commander was with, let alone Gunnery Chief Williams.

Ashley turned and gave him a critical squint. "Does that idea bother you as much as it bothers me? Jeeze. She could be programming the Commander to accept her mother or Saren or the geth for all we know."

He really didn't want to go into it and found himself, much to his revulsion, defending the asari maiden. They'd gone through drills and fought beside Liara for months now. The woman was there to help in the fight against Saren and the geth. "If Liara can help her… The Prothean device did a number on her, Ash. So did the Prothean Cipher. And what with that vigilante on Ontarom…"

"Corporal Toombs—"

"Died on Akuze, Chief. I stand by that. Who we met wasn't the man Shepard served with. The vigilante on Ontarom was a madman who ultimately disgraced his uniform. What Cerberus did to him was—"

"Gross."

"Monstrous."

"Yeah, okay. That too. And if you hadn't been there, we'd all be blown to Kingdom Come." She tapped a slender finger on her chin thoughtfully. "Except T'Soni. She'd be fried calamari or something." She shrugged, resumed her hunt through the cabinets for food.

"Be nice, Chief."

Her mouth twisted wryly. "Can't, sir. Nice begins after O'Dark Hundred. And I haven't had nearly enough caffeine yet. Even if you did fix it perfectly. Thanks."

She held up the jam and jelly packets. "Looks like someone ate all the good fake stuff. So what'll it be, Alenko? Strawberry-flavored snot on questionable rye or grape-flavored spunk on dry cardboard this morning?"

Despite himself and his dark mood, the edges of his mouth threatened a foolish grin. It had to be her crazy houseshoes. Maybe it was the dimple in her cheek. It definitely wasn't the chow.

"Eggs, sausage and dry cardboard, Williams," he said. "Hold the grape-flavored spunk."

"You should live a little," Ashley teased with a bemused smile on her lips. She elbowed him in the ribs playfully. "Try the spunk, El-tee. It'll soften up the cardboard."