I apologize that this is such a short chapter but we are getting a glimpse of the blossoming romances. This chapter and the next few will be just on the shore leave for the Normandy crew. Don't worry, we'll be back to the 'blowing up flashlight heads' parts in a bit. Please r & r. Enjoy!
The Normandy slide into the dock of the Citadel. Claire squad was relaxing in the mess hall trying to recover from the shock and terror of Feros. Luke and Ashley were relaxing and sipping on coffee.
"How long are we going to have here?" Luke asked as Ashley rested her head on his shoulder.
"I don't know, at least three days or so. Unless we get a call regarding Saren."
Luke nodded and rested his cheek on Ashley's head. "Three days." Ahsley looked up at him as he sighed.
"What should we do?"
"Well, the first night is everyone's night off but tomorrow night, I want everyone to meet up at Flux and we'll have a crew's night out." Claire said refilling her cup of coffee.
"I that case, Ash and I are going to go to dinner." Luke said looking down at Ashley. She smiled up at him.
"Sounds good to me. Where are we going?" Luke smirked.
"It's a surprised." Luke could not help but smile to try and keep his plans a secret. "But I am going to need some time to get things ready."
"That's okay. She can come with us." Tali said motioning to Liara, Mallory, and Claire.
Ashley looked over at Luke and smiled giving him a smile. She was a little nervous about going to dinner with the Luke but she really liked him. what could possibly go wrong with a dinner date. After all they had faced the thorian, Cerberus, and the rachni together.
"I'll give you a call when everything is ready." Luke said giving her a kiss on the cheek.
"Okay Chief, we have some very important business that we need to take care of." Mallory said offering Ashley her hand.
"What do you mean?" Ashley said as Mallory pulled her to her feet.
"You'll see." Claire said allowing a devious smile to play across her lips. Luke had seen that look before a long time ago. She had something up her sleeve.
000
The women left the ship in a pack dressed in civilian clothes, except for Tali of course. Garrus and Luke watched them head toward the elevator and disappear down the shaft.
"What are you going to do for Ashley?" Garrus asked as Luke opened his omni-tool.
"Well, you know how you always said that I was a decent cook even with dextro-food. I think I'm going to cook a meal for Ash in my apartment and do the whole candle light dinner thing, you know. Try and be romantic."
"Dinner is romantic for humans?" Garrus asked.
"Yeah, or course. You put a lot of thought into something and the ladies love it. Pay them some compliments and you might be able to get a kiss good night." Luke said with a smirk. "Don't turian women like being treated like they're special?"
"I wouldn't know." Garrus said. "The only experience I have had with women of any species is training and…" The turian paused trying to figure out a non-awkward way of explaining his 'sparring' experience with his old comrade. They had had a lot of tension between them and had been at each other's throats right before a really big mission. To get rid of some of the tension they had fought a no-holds-bard sparing match. He had 'reach' but she had 'flexibility.' And even after all that and a tie in the ring, they had a tie breaker in her quarters afterward. The same advantages applied…
"And what?" Luke asked.
Garrus cleared his throat. "Let's just say I've never really done anything romantic with a woman before." Luke smiled. His friend may have been an experienced soldier and C-sec agent but when it came to women, the turian was as helpless as a hanar in an earthquake.
"Who are you thinking of making dinner for?" Luke asked making a list of the things he would need to get to make up Ashley's dinner.
"I was just curious." Garrus lied. Luke was too busy working through his list and plans for realize his friend had just told one of the biggest lies he had ever managed. The truth of the matter was, Garrus wanted to figure out a way to show Claire that he had come to appreciate her in more than a professional capacity.
"Okay, well, I'm going to head out and start getting things ready for Ash. You have fun okay big guy?" Luke said waving to his partner and friend.
"I guess dinner is not a terrible place to start…right?" Garrus said softly. He had no idea what someone wore on a dinner date or even how to ask someone to go on one. "This might be harder than I thought." Garrus said looking through his omni-tool for some restaurants he knew served both dextro and amino foods. He needed to figure out a way to get Claire there without the rest of the crew but still not open himself up to a humiliating rejection.
He typed a short message into his omni-tool. I know a place that serves both dextro and amino foods on the presidium. Want to stop by for a bite?
Garrus read through the message ten times before holding his breath as he sent the message to Claire's omni-tool. "Spirits help me."
000
Ashley struggled against her captors as they pulled her into the store. Mallory and Claire were laughing and holding on to an arm each as Liara pushed from behind. Tali was probably blushing but Ashley could not tell. She help the door open as the other three pushed her in.
"Come on! This is not funny!" Ashley shouted. A crowd was starting to gather and watch the girls drag their friend into the store. Most of them were laughing as Ashley protested.
"It's just a make-over." Mallory replied. Liara finally summoned a biotic field and lifted her up.
"Woah! What are you doing?" Ashley shouted as Liara moved her forward and into the store.
"If you are going to have dinner with my brother, we want you to really knock him for a loop." Mallory said as she started looking through some of the clothes.
"Yeah, he is probably trying to surprise you with something really great. We just want to level the playing field." Claire added. She pulled a short blue dress from the rack and holding it up to the still floating marine judging it for size.
"Fine…you can put me down." She said looking back at the asari. Liara smiled and set her back down on the floor.
"My apologies Ashley. When our illustrious leader comes up with a plan, you know as well as I that it is best not to get in the way and just go along with it." Ashley smiled. It was the first time that she had really spent any time with the asari.
"Yeah, I hear you." Ashley sighed rubbing her nose. "Let's get this over with."
Liara watched as the humans disappeared into the changing rooms as the back of the store. Tali tagged along trying to live vicariously through her squadmates. Liara looked around and glanced back at the rooms. She had a promise to keep for Luke.
Slipping out of the clothes store she made her way over to a technology department store. She browsed for a minute before stopping at a display of biotic amps compatable with both humans and asari. Looking through a few of the schematics, she found one model that looked perfect for Luke, a Savant X. An extremely powerful amp that could boost or suppress biotic abilities based on the settings. Perfect.
000
Luke opened the door to his old apartment with a bag of groceries over his shoulder. He glanced around the small one bedroom space. It was a decent place to live for someone who was normally not around. He quickly cleaned up tossing everything that he could not remember where it went into his closet. He knew that if she saw the disaster that he used to call home, she probably would not want to eat anything he made.
Luke made sure to give the kitchen a good once over with a cleaning and sanitizing solution making sure that the counters were ready to prepare food on.
"I really hope Ashley likes this." Luke said as he unpacked the bags. He had spent more than he made in a week with C-Sec to get the ingredients for meal. Genuine, natural, steak from Earth, with potatoes from Eden Prime before the attack, and fresh veggies from an agriculture colony in the traverse. He started looking through some of the recipes on his omni-tool. He wanted something that was going to be good, but also easy to cook.