ad astra per aspera

“You know what I miss?” Kaidan prompts, exhaling through a quiet laugh like Taylor is in on the joke.

The woman blinks, tilting her head enough to peek a gaze at him. “Actual running water?” She suggests.

His mouth twitches. He tilts his head in slight agreement. “I mean…yeah, the Normandy is great, but I do miss unsanctioned, untimed showers…” He pauses, brain shifting back to his original thought. “No. Diners.”

Taylor snorts. “Diners?” She echoes, processing the word slowly as if she's misheard.

“Yeah. You know, little hole-in-the-wall places. Open all night. Terribly burnt coffee.” He pauses thoughtfully, lips curving into a contented smile. “Grease that takes five years off of your life.”

“You are a romantic,” Taylor observes. Her voice thick with a dreamy warmth.

“I’m serious.” He nudges at her ribs gently. “There’s this place back in Vancouver. Tiny booths. Sticky menus. They have the best pancakes on Earth.”

She laughs. “That sounds scientifically impossible.”

“I’ve done extensive field research,” Kaidan counters lightheartedly.

“Oh, of course. Very top secret matters. Alliance sanctioned, I’m sure,” Taylor plays along.

“Exactly.”

Taylor smiles against his shoulder, nudging her nose closer to his collarbone. Kaidan feels it more than he sees it. The warmth in his chest has an aching bite to it. Because this, right here, is more dangerous in a way that combat never is. Not the sex. Not even the affection. The simplicity of everything between them right now.

She shifts a bit, rolling until her chin rests atop his sternum now. Eyes locked level to his. “I think I’d want a garden.”

“A garden?” He blinks, grinning.

“Mhmm.” She drags her fingers idly along one of his collarbones, like she’s trying to memorize the subtle curve of the bone as it dips from his shoulder down to his chest. “Nothing huge, ya know. Maybe herbs. Tomatoes.” She contemplates her growing list for another second. “I feel like I could grow strawberries.”

“Taylor,” he chuckles. “You’ve never grown anything in your life.”

Her face twists a bit with a scoff. An indignant huff escapes her lips. “That’s not true!”

“You killed the fern the woman from Feros gave you. In a week.”

“It was weak,” Taylor counters.

That remark elicits an outright laugh from the lieutenant. Low and genuine. The commander grins because she adores that sound. Loves how rare it is lately amongst the tumult of the galaxy in dire straits.

“You know what I think?” he prompts.

“Hmm?” she hums.

“I think you like the idea of gardening.”

Taylor’s lips pout. She narrows her brown eyes in his direction. “You saying I can’t survive domestic life, Alenko?” She challenges.

“All I’m saying,” he teases, “is you’d threaten a zucchini for insubordination.”

“That zucchini would know exactly what it did.”

Kaidan shakes his head dubiously. He feels helpless as he smiles. The two of them simply stare at one another before, inevitably, the humor reaches a morendo. Dies into something quieter and more real.

Taylor observes him for a moment longer. A ripple of ecstasy, not generated by carnal desire, but by the deep plainness of their current encounter, shines in her eyes. She finally speaks again with an inquisitive tilt to her head, “What about you?”

“Hmm?”

“The future.” Her voice is gentle now. As if the conversation may fracture if given too much weight. “What do you actually want?”

Kaidan halts for a beat. Chest suspended as he mulls over that query. Nobody asks him that anymore. Not really. People ask what the mission needs. What command needs. What humanity needs. But no one asks what Kaidan wants or desires.

The pad of his thumb strokes slowly along the bony ridges of her spine. “Honestly…”

She nods.

“Boring. I want boring.”

That earns a chuckle from her. But Kaidan doesn't relent.

“I want to wake up and know the day isn't gonna end with somebody dead.” His neck arches as he drifts his gaze toward the stars beyond the glass. “I want a couch that's mine. I want to argue about groceries and what color the curtains in the dining room should be. I want…” he hesitates, air caught between his ribs. Almost embarrassed by the notion of it all. “I want to know where home is.”

Her expression shifts at that, softens in a way that is almost agonizing to look at. Because Taylor Shepard understands, more than anyone.

Since the Alliance, home is a temporary entity. Military housing. Spaceships and stations. Deployments. Warzones. The next assignment already waiting in the wings before the last one concludes. The only certainty is uncertainty.

Taylor reaches up, fingertips tangling through the short hair at the nape of his neck. Her fingers flex. Clinging to him like he'll apparate from her hold at any moment.

“I think you'd be good at boring,” she murmurs.

A dry chuckle shakes his chest. He smirks. “Yeah?”

“Mhm.” An ember of humor flickers in her eyes. “Very dependable. Probably own too many throw blankets.”

“Wow.”

“You'd absolutely be the type to say things like ‘we have food at home.’”

Kaidan grins. “I would say that,” he remarks.

“I know.” Taylor leans, pressing a kiss against the corner of his mouth.

Their smiles fade slowly, naturally, until they're simply looking at one another. No body armor. No rank. The meddle of command structure not pressing complication between them. Just Kaidan and Taylor.

It's almost unbearably intimate here. Perhaps that's what feels complicated – that Commander Shepard, underneath the N7 armor and the military accolades and the Spectre title is just a human. Made of the same flesh and bone as the rest of them. Composed of hopes and dreams, and many things she's either relinquished or placed on hold for the sake of duty.

That part almost breaks Kaidan's heart.

He studies her face carefully. As if trying to memorize it. The little scar through the arch of her right eyebrow. The flutter of her eyelashes. The curve of her jaw.

“You know what's weird?”

“What?” She whispers.

“I don't think I've heard you speak often on this stuff before.”

Her eyebrows furrow for a moment. “The future?” She clarifies.

“Yeah…the normal future.”

Taylor falls quiet for a moment.

“I don't usually let myself,” she admits softly. Wistfully.

His chest tightens.

Because there it is. The truth of it all.

People like them, but especially Taylor Shepard, survive by living mission to mission. One disaster at a time. You stop fantasizing about retirement parties and gardens and a home near the oceanshore because hope becomes a dangerous thing. Attachment is a luxury they can not afford. But tonight she allows herself to imagine it anyway.

With him.

She plants a kiss at the center of his chest, absent and affectionate. “I think…that's why this feels…” Dark eyes cloud as she seeks for the word. “Big.”

Kaidan smirks. Brows lifting slightly. “Mmm, the sex?” He teases gently.

Taylor rolls her eyes immediately, snorting. “You're insufferable.”

“Hey! I'm just trying to clarify.”

She laughs again, shaking her head. Arm over his chest, she nestles her chin against her forearm. She blinks. “No, not that.” Her smile turns fondly wicked for half a second as she adds, “Not just that.”

The edge of his mouth curves as he chuckles.

Her face grows complacent again, a tender seriousness.

“It's this.” She drums her fingertips against Kaidan's chest. “Talking about things that exist outside of war.” She pauses. “Outside of dyin’.”

The words settle heavy between them – not morbid, but brutally honest.

Kaidan tightens his arm around her instinctively, and for a long moment neither of them speaks. The Normandy continues its course, gliding through deep space to their destination on Ilos. Barreling, headfirst toward uncertainty. Toward a future that neither Taylor nor Kaidan can ascertain.

But here, in this tiny cabin suspended between the stars, they allow themselves the selfish notion of a possibility of an afterward.