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In the quiet hum of the ship, there was something Samara looked forward to each night aboard with Abby.
Each passing year felt like a blink of an eye, and she could tell with each passing day, that the former Spectre wore down a little more.
Quick and sharp movements of once before, were slow and deliberate, as if afraid to make the wrong move in case of it being the wrong one.
The once vibrant gray eyes, were beginning to dim yet the wrinkles became more prominent around the corners.
But she remained her usual self.
Always willing to talk and ask questions about what she could, having learned more and more of what was allowed with the Code.
Always having the ship she prized so much ready to go when she needed to move.
Always there at night and in the morning, when she left and when she returned from her assignment.
Even if it was slower, she herself was gaining in her years as she continued the tedious work of a Justicar. Her joints would ache, especially after their morning and evening meditation. Her biotics were less powerful, although only she could really feel it.
Even those who gave her assignments, were beginning to notice, and she found each mission to be less dangerous. They continued to leave hints that they would be willing to allow her to stop traveling, and settle down to apprentice more Justicars if she so desired, but she knew that the age of her kind would be finished with her.
And with that age, she was allowing a little more of the Code to slip or be twisted to fit in this… new life of hers.
If she could claim possessions, Samara would say that Abby was hers.
Maybe she did, in the slightest, at night when she ran the brush through Abby’s thick brown hair. Each strand, both the dark locks and the graying locks, had her presence in them.
She loved to brush it before bed, marveling at how fast it grew each month. The way it was always so clean and pulled back in a thick braid during the day. To unwind it and let it fall between her palms…
What more, it was during this time that Abby talked.
She spoke of her mother (who had passed away years ago), of how she had insisted she kept her hair short because it was easier to take care of when they moved from ship to ship.
She would tell stories of the various friends she had rarely made when she was little, only to lose touch with them, always reminding herself to find them on the extranet but always forgetting the next day.
She spoke of her career before becoming a Spectre, as well as the time after it when Samara wasn’t around.
All of it was spoken in a low voice, talking with each pull of the brush. It was almost as if the Shepard had given up that life to be with her, forgoing all her previous possessions for the ship, what few things she had (because it was always Abby’s, never her things), the cat and her.
Samara could tell that she missed that life. The military had been Abby’s home, a more stable place than a childhood of constantly making a new home, new friends, and new good byes. Even with death and war, there was still that family, that purpose.
She could relate, in some ways, remembering her own previous life of a family, a bond mate, a garden to tend. The bookshelves that lined the walls even when books were a thing of the past. The long curtains rustling in the wind of the large windows that looked onto her garden. She wasn’t supposed to miss it, but she blamed her age in the tiny moments she did. In the privacy of…
…Abby’s home, it could be allowed….
“I think I’ve run out of things to say,” Abby chuckled, looking up at her from her chair, a small smile on her lips. “I’m afraid that with us humans, we don’t have hundreds of years of stories to tell.”
Samara returned the smile, setting the brush to the side before leaning down to kiss her forehead. “You may repeat them all you want. It is good to hear your stories.”
“Even the awkward first kiss with a Salarian?”
The Justicar chuckled softly, an act she was doing quite more frequently than before. “Not quite that story, I do not like that image in my head.”
Abby grinned, turning in the chair so that she was propped up on her knees. She draped her arms around her shoulders, smiling lopsidedly. She always did that when she was teasing her. “Does it make you jealous?”
She knew that Abby was still far too sharp when it came to anything about her. If she tried to lie, she would know it. If she tried to change the subject, she would pull her back to it. There was no use in hiding, and in this moment, she didn’t mind not doing so.
“A little,” she admitted, brushing back a stray strand of hair behind Abby’s ear. “It just reminds me that I was only a few hundred miles from that ship when that happened. If I had stopped to rest…”
“You would have lost the lead on that leader you were tracking and would have never forgotten the dumb little girl who would have asked you a million and four questions when you docked. I’m not sure how Asari children are, but us human kids? We’re dumb as bricks and loud to boot.”
Abby leaned forward, faintly brushing her lips against Samara’s without hesitation. “That life wasn’t meant for us,” she hummed.
She always claimed that she was caring less and less about rules in her old age. She had been the pride of a paragon warrior when she was younger, and wanted to steal as many kisses as she could while she still could…
The thought made her close her eyes, tilting enough to meet her lips for a proper kiss. She let her fingers slide through those long locks as Abby made a happy sound with the returned gesture.
There was a warmth in her to see, to hear, to feel her happy.
Abigail Shepard had given her a new life in a new time.
And she herself had said that the Code didn’t forbid love.
So who was she to not enjoy it.