I don't own Mass Effect or any of its characters. Thanks for reading!
Shepard started for them, but Vega was already going for Jack. She'd shared enough battlefields with him to know it was a feint, that he was more interested in throwing Jack off balance and getting to the knife in his boot than he was in hitting her. But he never got to complete the feint. Delicately, with more control than Shepard had ever seen her use, Jack put him in a stasis field and lifted him high in the air. He floated, blue and glowing, like a barbaric lantern.
"And that," Jack said, loud enough for the whole crowd to hear, "is how a hundred pound woman beats the shit out of a two hundred pound man. Keeping him all safe and cozy like this is way harder than crushing all the bones in his body."
Shepard slowed, realizing at last - and Jesus, she was slow today - that she was seeing a demonstration. Not a fight. Jack was a big girl now. A real Alliance instructor. Not a messed up kid fresh out of prison. And Vega was an N7. Not just some wet-behind-the-ears Lieutenant with more muscle than self-preservation. They had both grown.
With effort, she tried to slow her pounding heart by taking even breaths. And, since everyone had seen her start toward them, she made herself walk slowly to where Jack was standing.
"You planning on keeping him as a decoration?" Shepard asked, gesturing up at Vega. Jack chuckled, rolling her eyes up at the big solider.
"He is pretty decorative," Jack said. "I don't know. Keeping him up there is kind of a work out."
"Jack," Shepard said. Old habits die hard. Even though Shepard didn't technically have any command over her, Jack sighed and let Vega down. She didn't take him out of stasis. But Shepard assumed that would wear off on its own. She let it go.
Jack grinned, and winked at her. Alarm bells started sounding in Shepard's head. That was all the warning she had before Jack threw a Warp field right at Kaidan's head.
Her hand went to a gun that wasn't there. Her fist curled, bare, and she was about to go after Jack - against all better judgment, because even naked Jack would be armed to take down an Atlas - out of pure instinct before her brain caught up with her. Jack wasn't really attacking Kaidan. This was something else. Because if Jack was going to attack Kaidan, ever, she wouldn't do it from within arm's reach of Shepard. And she sure as hell wouldn't do it when Garrus was within gunshot range of her precious students.
Ruefully, Shepard had to acknowledge that even after all this time together, it was logic and not bare trust that saw her through that moment.
Kaidan, for his part, had a barrier up and ready to absorb the hit before it even reached him. He dropped a chunk of glowing purple bread to his plate- he was mid-bite when she hit him. That was why she'd used Warp, Shepard realized. No blowback. No splatter. No ricochet.
"Psychotic Biotic," Kaidan yelled. She wasn't sure if he was calling Jack out or cursing her. Shepard looked up to see him standing on top of the table. Tali was holding her head in her hand in exasperation. Garrus was still eating, totally unfazed. Of course he was. "At least you're picking on someone your own size."
"Only one around here that's my size is your mom," Jack said. That was just not true. Shepard sighed. This wasn't her ship. Or her crew. And it wasn't a real fight, whatever it was. She was just a bystander.
She did not like being a bystander.
"That's a bit below the belt, don't you think?" Kaidan shouted back. They had the full, undivided attention of everyone in the clearing now. No one was even eating anymore. What was it Kaidan had said, about throwing someone across the room being a decent attention grabber?
Remembering that, she had some idea of what was going to happen next.
"You want to talk below the belt?" Jack said, licking her top lip. Then she sent out a Throw, knocking Kaidan back off the table. He came up glowing purple, his brows drawn down, and he sent out his own Throw, knocking Jack ten feet back. Blue fire erupted around her.
Wait, what was their plan for dialing this back?
Shepard sighed, again, and tapped a nearby student on the shoulder. He started and looked up at her, his eyes wide. She attempted a reassuring smile.
"May I borrow your sidearm?" she said. He fumbled with his holster, pressing the Carnifex pistol into her hand. She pulled a Lift field, pointed it in Kaidan's direction, and drew a bead on Jack's rising torso with the gun. She stood with one weapon pointed at each. She didn't have to be precise with the Lift field, she just had to let it go. She kept her eyes on Jack.
"No fair coming down on your boyfriend's side," Jack said.
"If this were a real fight, sure," Shepard said. Her voice was pitched low but she knew it would carry. The whole clearing was entirely silent. "Maybe I'd have to be impartial. But you guys are just messing around. And you're interrupting my dinner."
"You're drawing on me cuz I'm interrupting your dinner?" Jack said. There was a glittering edge of anger in her voice, and Shepard knew the gun pissed her off in ways that a biotic attack never would. Old reflexes.
"I'm just trying to get your attention," Shepard said. She deliberately lowered the gun before she dispersed the Lift field. "We both know a pistol couldn't take you down, even if that was what I wanted."
"Damn right," Jack muttered, mollified. She turned her attention to the crowd of rapt students. "Okay, you guys saw what Major Alenko did with his barriers at the beginning of the fight? Until your barrier goes up that fast, that strong, your barrier is shit. You thought you were big stuff for living through the Reaper War, but we're just getting started. Everything you're going to deal with from this point on is going to be a lot less predictable than an artillery strike. What you're going to do after you clean up your dishes is you're going to follow Major Alenko for barrier drills."
A murmur started around the edges of the crowd. It gradually grew almost to its former volume. Shepard handed the young soldier back his pistol and smiled at Jack.
"That was clever. They wouldn't have known what to look for, what they were looking for, until they saw a real good barrier in action," Shepard said. Jack grinned at her.
"Here I thought you'd be pissed that I got your boy in the plums," Jack said. Shepard glanced back at Kaidan. He was talking with Tali and Garrus, standing straight and tall and completely all right.
"If it affects his performance I might take that out on you," Shepard said, lightly. She saw a solider near them shaking with laughter. This wasn't the place to air the reflexive rage she'd felt when Jack hit him with that first Warp.
Vega was rolling his shoulders experimentally. Being in a stasis field could leave a weird tingle for hours. But it was just a side effect, it didn't mean anything. He grinned. She could have sworn he was about to start in with his habitual, meaningless flirting. Maybe say something about her working out her frustrations with him. But he just looked at Jack and said nothing.
Wasn't that interesting?
"Did you know you were part of a three ring circus, Vega?" Shepard said. He shrugged his massive shoulders.
"Wasn't my first time getting tossed around by a beautiful woman," Vega said. "Probably won't be my last."
"Probably not," Jack agreed, blandly.
"What did you say to piss her off, Vega?" Shepard asked, curious. He shook his head.
"It's what she said." The big Marine shrugged again. Usually he was a lot more glib than this. "She asked if I wanted to demonstrate a hold to the kids."
What, no line about Jack holding him?
Was he sick?
They both just stood there, uncharacteristically silent. She backed away and left them to it. Whatever was happening was way outside her expertise.
It took almost an hour to clean up after dinner, and several more hours for Kaidan to wear the students out with biotic drills. She finally found him on a bench in the barn, long after the sun went down. He was by himself. A yellow light shone down from the ceiling, bare and dim, but it gilded the little hairs on his arms. He sat with his arms flung wide, his legs spread out, head thrown back in exhaustion. And abandon. How long since she'd seen him just relaxed?
His eyes were closed, but he heard her. His eyes slitted open. But when he saw who it was he closed them again and smiled.
"Hello, beautiful," he said, softly. "Hell of a long day."
"A good day," she agreed. She sat down next to him. Crickets made a cheerful buzzing cacophony outside. The wind smelled like plants and people, like new growth. She thought of the little chapel covered in greenery.
"Hey, Kaidan?" she said, her voice soft. He quirked his eyebrows to indicate he was listening. "Want to get married?"
His eyes popped open. He stared at the light above them.
"Huh," he said.
Slow, silent heartbeats passed, getting slower. She tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey, now, what's this?" she said. She covered the sudden anxiety roiling her stomach with a smile. "Did I kill you? Shock you to death at last?"
"No, I just. . ." Kaidan cleared his throat and looked at her at last. "That wasn't how I pictured that moment."
"Sorry," she said. "It never seemed like the time, before, when we were on the battlefield."
"I wasn't thinking of doing it when we were under fire," Kaidan smiled. Then he laughed. "But God, yeah, I can see you doing that. I was picturing something with more flowers."
"Sorry," she said again. He took her hand, and he kissed it. Just like that day back in Apollo's.
"No, don't be, I don't mean you should have gotten me flowers," he said. His brown eyes were very earnest, looking into hers. "I mean, I always figured I'd get you flowers. Or find a field of them. Or . . . I was thinking apple blossoms? I don't know."
"You wanted to ask me?" she said, some of the tight panic in her stomach loosening. Asking had felt like the most natural thing in the world, but then his response. . .
"Yeah, you're kind of stealing my thunder, Shepard." Kaidan pulled a small dark blue box out of his pants pocket. Her heart pounded so hard she could almost taste her pulse. "I, uh, I got this today. I was thinking about all the things I never got to say to you. Or do with you. All the things I would have regretted if you'd died in the Citadel. And I thought, yeah, okay, first chance. So here we are."
"First chance to ask me to marry you?" she breathed. "What about yesterday in the shuttleport?"
"No ring," he said. And he kissed her. She melted against him. But then, laughing, she drew away. And poked him hard in the side.
"Well, too bad, because you're slow off the mark," she said. "I asked first."
"Doesn't count," Kaidan said, grinning at her. "You don't have a ring. Marry me?"
"Hey," she laughed, but then he was kissing her, and laughing with her, and nothing else mattered.