The first time he saw her, it was on the big screen. Watching the council live vids streaming on the extranet with everyone else.

Jane Shepard: First Human Spectre

He didn't know what he had been expecting but it had definitely been a surprise to him back then when he first heard the news. A human spectre. A female one at that, not that he had a problem with that. He had just been surprised, that's all. No one really knew much about her before being nominated for the spectre position, people only seemed to know about what she had accomplished which had been big news back in the day, especially when she emerged as the lone survivor on Akuze.

Besides that, she had been hidden behind a colossal wall of mystery and no one seemed to be able to breach it. Partly because she had always been off doing the impossible with her own crew and also partly because she seemed to shy away from publicity preferring to focus on her missions instead of the fame.

And as time had passed by after taking down Saren, the legend of Shepard only grew more widespread in the galaxy. Her feats had been repeated and passed on from soldier to soldier and pretty soon, she had become a celebrity that James had (in a way) looked up to for motivation (although he would never admit it to anyone).

It was even stranger how circumstances brought him aboard her ship under her leadership. He had been the one ordered to keep Shepard under surveillance for a time when she had been grounded on earth. Albeit he had been a little forced given the circumstances. But he was still honored as any soldier would be.

Vega hunched over his work table trying to fix an assault rifle mod that had broken when he had chucked it at Esteban's head by accident trying to hit Javik with it. The Prothean had a special way of getting under his skin with his snarky comments about primitives and airlocks.

He had to wonder how Shepard dealt with it all. The reaper war, the crew, the peace treaties she had to broker between feuding species, and the council...oh, he could go on about the council just like everyone else, but no one had more to say than Shepard who amazingly kept all complaints to herself.

"How's fixing that mod coming along?" Esteban's voice was smug as he called out to James from his corner in the shuttle bay. He was reworking something on the shuttle he used to pilot Shepard around for ground missions. Lately it had been making strange noises, a sure sign that something wasn't right.

"Your head must be invincible." James called back,"You ever think of using it against the Reapers? I'm sure we'd win this war in no time." he jiggled a screw in frustration and then just threw the mod down with a sigh. Something in there was messed up but no what he did it wouldn't work. Maybe he'd ask Garrus for help.

"Ha ha very funny Mr. Vega." Esteban's voice was heavy with sarcasm as he slipped underneath the shuttle with his tool box.

"I try." James called back as he rifled through the spare parts on his table instead of trying to fix the broken mod to put together another mod when he heard the elevator doors open with a beep and hiss.

Solid footsteps steadily made their way towards him and he instinctively knew who it was,"What's up Lola?" he didn't look up from what he was doing but he knew that she had taken a seat on one of the cargo boxes near his work table.

"Just wanted you to know that you're on a ground mission that's taking place tomorrow." Shepard watched him with a slight smirk on her face and a knowing look in her eyes,"So I heard about what happened down here lieutenant." she was struggling not to let out a laugh.

James froze for a brief moment and glared at the screwdriver in his hand vowing silently to exact revenge on whoever's big mouth it was that had to casually inform the commander of the incident. Not that he was surprised, the crew on the Normandy was a tight group and anything that happened on the ship would be known by the whole crew within the hour. It's like there was no such thing as privacy.

"Uh yeah." he tried to play it off cool,"Just a regular old fashioned disagreement between two species." he pretended to focus on the parts he was holding hoping that Lola would ask about something else and not pursue the topic.

"You know the last time I checked in with 'disagreements between two species', the genophage happened and so did the Contact War. Don't even get me started with the Quarians and Geth." she rolled her eyes, they had been the cause of most of her headaches in the past, the present and the sure future. She loved Tali and Legion was a good geth but there were a lot of delicate issues that needed to be sorted out and it was even more difficult when she was surrounded by hot-headed Quarian admirals,"You aren't going to go around trying to sterilize protheans or go around promoting mass extinction of a singular race or anything are you?" she joked.

"Excuse you Lola." James looked up from his tools and finally at his commander looking mightily offended,"The genophage was between three species." he noticed that her hair was still wet and she was wearing a pair of faded black N7 sweats and a regular black t-shirt. She must have recently gotten out of the shower after the mission, he realized,"Well, you already blew the collector homeworld sky high and I doubt Javik is going to get anywhere with a lady with that attitude." he grinned.

Shepard waved a hand in the air with a laugh,"Details." she crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him,"Still calling me Lola?" he couldn't deny that he felt a little prick of happiness at the fond smile on her face.

"Of course." James shrugged,"Once I give a nickname, they stick." It was easier to remember people with the nicknames he gave them and also he wouldn't embarrass himself trying to pronounce alien names correctly, you know, if they were too difficult. Which had happened once or twice a few years ago when he had the burden of integrating a Batarian survivor into his team.

Shepard opened her mouth to say something when Joker interrupted.

"Um commander, you have a message from the council?" his voice sounded a little stressed over the ship intercom and he posed the statement like a question. Everyone knew how volatile the subject of the council was to Shepard. She wasn't one to let emotions get the best of her but when it to came to the council, it was just the way that they shoved their unwilling and skeptical attitudes into her face when it came to the reapers...she just had a hard time keeping up a professional stance sometimes.

She grimaced and sighed heavily while pinching her nose bridge,"Alright, I'll be up there soon." she replied to him with a sigh and stood up from her seat almost unwillingly.

"Goodluck Lola." James nodded at her. At the mention of the council, her face turned dark and for a moment he had been grateful that he had not been the cause of it. He actually hoped that he would never cause the dark look on her face that made an appearance in dire situations, it could be scarier than being shot by a reaper.

She nodded back with a tight smile and jogged towards the elevator without another word unaware that James watched her until she disappeared from sight.

Sometimes, he still couldn't believe that he was serving on the Normandy. It felt unreal to him at times.

James turned back to the mod and inspected it carefully trying to discover where the flaw was so that he could fix it. Maybe.

He also couldn't believe how human Shepard was. It was a given of course, it's just that when a person such as her was glorified and talked about all the time, her personality was lost among her feats, her humanness dissolved within the hype, and in the end she was nothing but what she accomplished. Just another war hero.

He had to be the best. If he wanted to be an asset, if he wanted to help, then he had to fight like never before.

Whatever it took to be part of the team.