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Old habits are hard to break, but it doesn't seem to take Shepard any effort at all.
Her cautiousness went down with the SR-1. There is no uncertainty in how she is with him this time around. Sidelong looks become eye contact and a wide smile in the middle of the mess with a dozen crewmen between them during dinner rush. A quiet, "You okay, Lieutenant?" muttered in the airlock after a difficult mission becomes hands running over his armor to check for herself. Battlefield flirting is brought onto the ship, bold as anything, unguarded and without restraint.
It's not so easy for Kaidan. He still sneaks up to her cabin in the middle of the night cycle. He bumps her knee with his under the shadow of the table in the mess. He looks both ways before locking the doors to Starboard Obs behind her and shushes her when the drive core's hum softens during repair windows so their voices don't drift through the vents in the unusual quiet. She obliges and lowers her voice or stifles her laughter, but he knows she's only humoring him. Is it the war that has made her bolder? Is it the end of the world that has made her more fearless?
The end of the world has only made him more afraid. The future is so narrow now, his view reduced to week-to-week and sometimes even day-to-day. He clings to regs like a lifeline, order forced upon the chaos of the firefights, of the amp running hotter and hotter on the back of his neck, of the perversions the Reapers send against them in every war torn world they’ve touched down on. He fills out their Spectre expense reports, sends out detailed recaps of every mission on time, buffs out every scratch and pops out every dent in their armor after every excursion. The rules soothe the panic simmering just under the skin. The regs and routine of military life are a comfort.
His carefulness only amuses her. "We don't have to hide anymore," she says. She lets her hand linger on his when they pass in the hall, and spends a few extra minutes with him in the comm room after the holo of whatever general or commander they were briefing has faded, and sits too close to him in the shuttle before they drop into another war zone. She cracks a joke, says it’s time for a snack, complains about a bruise.
He smiles at her in silence. The silence is a hard habit to break.
They used to be silent in everything they did. His lips were always pressed firmly together to keep from shouting her name on the field as she risked it all to take the perfect shot, or whispering her name as she hovered over him in the darkness of the cargo bay on the SR-1, her hair tickling his cheeks, her breath hot on his neck.
Now, she reveals more without any effort on his part. Tears fall easily when she tells him about friends made and lost before he rejoined her crew. Laughs come even easier when they're huddled in her bed together, legs tangled in sheets and starlight spilling onto them from behind the reinforced glass on her ceiling. She props her head on her hand and her elbow on his chest, and her hair spills out over her shoulders and his heart aches with longing even though she's right here.
"I don't have the energy to hide how I feel about you on top of everything else," she says. "Besides, Major, you don't report to me anymore. Sir."
He laughs. "I'm not gonna lie, I felt a little tingly when you said that."
"Said what? Sir?"
"Ooh, there it is again."
Her laugh is loud and bold, and even though the drive core has quieted to a low hum for maintenance, he doesn't shush her this time.
"I want to hear you," she says. "Outside of this room, I mean. Talk to me. I want to know what you're thinking, what you're feeling. Don't worry about who's watching."
He wants to say "no," and "but." She kisses the words away. "Okay," he says instead.
He can break the silence habit. He can work on that. He lets himself call her name over the din of bullets and explosives and the shouts of Cerberus troops and feels the rush of relief when she calls back. He says her name again in the shuttle and she turns too quickly and their heads bump together, and he laughs too loud as adrenaline from the fight slowly pumps out of his body. He murmurs, "Jane," against her skin in the darkness of her cabin at night and shudders as her nails dig into his back in response. He likes making her smile after a boring meeting with a quick joke, telling her a story from his childhood on the orchard over breakfast, whispering that she looks good with her hair down when she's pressing him back into the bed. Maybe he's just indulging in these moments, a fragile present before a bleak future, but as she turns to look at him when he's said her name, he finds it hard to think of anything but the way her mouth curves into that smile.
He's still a little careful when they're around crew. The rules are more relaxed on this new Normandy. Officers and crewmen share the same quarters, the portside lounge is lively and loud during shift changes, and music spills out from engineering and the armory and the bridge during off hours. Everyone respectfully salutes when he walks past but they also smile at him and say hello and ask him how he's liking the ship.
He always feels eyes on him. Crew eyes, following them in the mess, the command deck, the armory. AI eyes, omniscient, everywhere, all the time. Admiral eyes, holographic as they are, feel like lasers scanning the small gap between them as they stand close together in the cramped comm room. The hologram fades as the Admiral turns to his duties a million lightyears away, and Shepard presses her hand to his chest, the side of his face, the back of his neck. He wants to sink into her touch but someone somewhere is always too close.
"They're happy you're here," she tells him in the portside bar, when she catches him staring after a pair of ensigns who had just saluted him while holding their beers in their other hands. "And so am I. We've got too much going on, no one here is waiting for anyone else to mess up. You should try and loosen up a little."
"Around them or around you?" he asks.
She nudges him with her elbow and sloshes her glass, sharp smelling alien liquor spilling out onto the counter before her. She doesn't even notice.
"Both," she says.
He starts to say something but the night-cycle starts at the same moment, and as the lights dim her eyes seem brighter, her smile wider, and he completely loses his train of thought. He checks to make sure no one's looking before he puts his arm around her and pulls her close.
"I can try," he says.
He can try. It's easier said than done. The coil inside him primed to spring at any moment is hard to ignore. Each report, briefing, update leaves him feeling like a cornered animal, and it takes effort to walk down the opposite hall from his usual haunt to the portside bar instead. Fear is isolating. But here are a group of people speaking to the thoughts he's been keeping to himself. The sounds of the crew, their laughter, the stories they tell, the doubts they give voice to, it fills him with a sense of relief. A couple of crewmen comfort an engineer tearing up about a friend lost to fighting on Benning. Someone proposes a toast to their comrades killed on Arcturus and the room is filled with the sound of glasses clinking. He finds himself talking about Biotics Division, his students, his fear that they've gone so far underground that he'll never find them. He keeps his eyes on the bottle of beer in his hands but looks up when an engineer puts a careful hand on his shoulder in solidarity.
Shepard steps in at that moment and the crew salute and welcome her in. She locks eyes with him as someone shoves a bottle into her hand and smiles. And three bottles later, he puts his arm around her without checking to see who's looking. There are still eyes on them but their weight doesn't feel as heavy.
He's still smiling at the stars blinking behind the glass of her ceiling when she props herself up on his chest again and says, "You should touch me more."
Her eyes are barely open. He kisses her eyelids one by one.
"You mean outside of this room," he says.
"Mhm."
He starts to say no but can't get the word out. Her face is peaceful in almost-sleep, lips slightly parted as she sighs. He finds himself saying, "I want to."
"Then do it."
"I don't know, Shepard."
Her tone surprises him, sad and wistful. "I've already wasted so much time," she says. "Pushing you away on Horizon, giving myself up to the Alliance. I don't know how much time we have left. I don't want to waste another second pretending that you don't mean anything more to me than anyone else on this ship."
He takes her hand and presses it against his chest, right over his pounding heart. "Neither do I," he says.
"I know." She opens her eyes and her gaze is piercing. "It's not just the regs. You're afraid. Of this. Of us."
He opens and closes his mouth. The ever present fear spikes. He tries to force it back and focus on this moment, her skin still warm and flushed, her eyes looking through him to his very core. And the truth tumbles out in a rush: "I don't want to lose you again."
"You won't," she says without hesitating. So certain. Always so certain. "I'm not going anywhere. If this all ends badly, if right now is all we get, I'm all in with you. Are you all in with me?"
"Yes. I am "
"Then don't hold back."
She puts her head on his chest, over his heart. Can she hear how wildly it beats? He takes a deep breath.
"Okay," he says.
It's harder than the silence, than allowing himself to open up, more flaunting of the regs he's been trying to keep a shaky hold on, more hope for an uncertain future displayed for all to see. She puts a hand on his shoulder as they study the Crucible's progress on the holo in the war room and he rests his cheek against it, feeling the coolness of her hand on his skin, the very act grounding him against the rising panic he feels whenever he sees the holo and is reminded of just how monumental their task is. He helps fasten her armor as they prepare to board the shuttle, his hands lingering on her shoulders, her waist, earning a smile that causes warmth to pool in his core. He rubs a patch of soot from her face after they secure another Alliance base against a Cerberus incursion and only looks behind him once before stealing a quick kiss.
"I love you bold," she says, and his heart throws itself against his chest to hear the word "love" come out of her mouth so easily. He scoops it up in another kiss and is glad for the cold he can blame his flushed cheeks on. From her laugh against his mouth he knows he hasn't fooled her.
On the shuttle back to the ship, they stand as close as their armor allows, holding onto the handrail above them, swaying together as the shuttle enters the vacuum of space. Her eyes are bright, she's still coming down from the excitement of the fight. His mind wanders to their next fight, and beyond that to the one they've all been working towards. His stomach lurches in anticipation.
She draws her knuckle down his jaw and nudges his chin up a little. Her smile is warm and sweet. His mind goes miraculously blank of war, of fighting, of sore muscles and headaches and fear. He touches his forehead to hers. And he doesn't care who's watching.