#mass effect squad

But still, he hadn’t been part of her crew for long.  Not like Garrus - who had been to literal hell and back with her, or Liara who took a chance on saving Shepard by giving her body to Cerberus after the collectors had blown her to bits.  Even Wrex, though he was unable to fight in her squad at the moment due to too many political responsibilities, was at her side once more.  No, they hadn’t been through nearly as much together.  Lieutenant James Vega had just happened to be in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time to end up on the Normandy.  

Depends on which of them you asked.

But despite his initial reluctance to leave Earth, James has proven himself to be a valuable asset to the team, and honestly?  Shepard couldn’t see this fight without him aboard.

He’s become a permanent fixture in her squad - always the first to volunteer when she heads down to the shuttle bay armory to suit up.  Eager and willing as ever, with a smile so boyish it makes her heart flutter and she can’t help but wonder what would she do without him?

She’s seen too many good people die in this war to think about that, though.  So she buries the thought of losing another good man - a friend - and buries it deep.  That is until she’s forced to face her own mortality once again.

A bomb on Tuchanka, placed as insurance should the Krogan decide to rise up again.  A strategic move that Shepard doesn’t agree with, but understands none the less.  The mission is tough, Cerberus throwing everything they’ve got at her squad to keep them from disarming the bomb.

She grits her teeth at the first sight of yellow and white armor.  Those bastards just couldn’t leave well enough alone.  The Illusive Man just had to stick his grimy little nose in everyone else’s business.

James is the one to calm her down, large hand clamping down on her shoulder and shaking her gently.  Big, brown eyes bat her way and she forgets she’s on a battlefield.

“C’ mon, Lola.  Let’s give these bastards hell.”

And that's exactly what they do.  Explosions rock the battlefield as she, Vega, and Garrus bob and weave behind cover, taking out Cerberus’s shields and snipers like the practiced unit they are.  Cerberus blood paints Tuchanka’s soil and Shepard knows Wrex would be proud.  She makes a mental note to tell him once they are back on board the Normandy.

After the smoke clears, Tarquin Victus’s voice crackles to life in their coms amidst static and error messages.

'TSS-C-Cerberus hacked-tsss-trigger-tsss-set to detonate!'

“Disarm it!”  She screams into her earpiece, gunning down another Centurion with a well-timed headshot.  Somewhere on the field, Garrus calls out a ‘good shot!’ while picking off a few more foot soldiers with his Widow.

'No time!  Have to separate-tsss-trigger-tss-'

“Victus, no!”  Her throat constricts, whether from nerves at watching the Turian climb a-top the massive fucking bomb or from Tuchanka’s less than friendly environment, she isn’t sure.  Still, she covers him with biotic blasts and bullets alike until the teeth-gritting sound of metal screeching against metal fills the air.  She looks up just in time to see the trigger arms falling away from the bomb - with Victus dangling alongside them.  “Lieutenant!”

'Victory.'  He huffs and Shepard watches helplessly, feet hammering against the ground - lungs burning with a scream - as she sprints as fast as she can. As if it will do any good.  The click of the bomb arm freeing up - damn it, she's still too far!  But then somewhere, someone calls out her name and she realizes that all she can do is watch as the turian plummets to his death below.  'At any cost.'

The ground shakes at the impact - turian, and machinery alike falling into the planet’s core but leaving the bomb intact above it.  

She breathes a sigh of relief - or surrender- and nurses her side.  Inhaling hurts and it's most likely a bruised rib from when her shields fell.  That Nemesis had timed her shot perfectly - even knocked Shepard on her ass.  Thank god the bitch hadn’t been using shredder ammo or she would be more than just bruised.  Of course, her squad was on retaliation in a second - Garrus returning the nemesis’s favor by blowing her head clean off while James had rushed over to apply medi-gel to Shepard’s side.  It had taken the sting away for a bit, the feeling of James’ large hand splayed on her flank only adding to the heat.

But now it was wearing off and Shepard needed to get to Chawkwas soon.

James’ face had been the same then as it is now - looking like he wanted to murder someone as he helped a hobbling Shepard to the shuttle as krogan reinforcements show up to secure the area.  They weren’t happy about the bomb and if any of the turians had survived, Shepard was sure another fight would’ve broken out right in front of her.

It’s quiet aboard the Kodiak, only the hum of the engines and Steve's absent-minded humming break the silence.  Garrus is tucked into a corner as he thinks over what his people had done all those centuries ago, and though Shepard can't interpret all of his subharmonics she's known him long enough to know the sniper is pissed.  Joker radios in for a status update, to make sure everyone was ok, but that was several minutes ago.  Several tense minutes that gave Charlie Shepard ample opportunity to replay the death of the Primarch’s son over and over again.  She mashes her fingers deep into her temples, hoping that if she pushes hard enough it will chase away the memory.

It does not.

Shepard wasn’t looking forward to that conversation with Victus.

James watches her, the low light in the shuttle rippling over her as the krogan forces' speed past them.  Before, he would've been relieved to see them.  Now, all he can think of is how they'd made a difficult trade-off and Shepard was baring all of the responsibility.  His usually optimistic commander is silent, her exhausted frame hunched.  Her shoulder blades are pulled so taut it looks painful, and she rubs at her head with such ferocity that he's sure she's going to bruise.  It takes everything in him not to walk up and lace his fingers with her own.  Instead, he decides maybe words could help. 

“You can spend your whole life making up for your mistakes...”  James’ voice interrupts her treacherous thoughts and his handsome, battle marked face appears before her.  He’s kneeling, hands on either side of her legs as those big brown eyes stare into her own.  The depths swim with the same fear and uncertainty as her own.  They had been close from the get-go - his 'there's always a bright side' attitude never failing to bring a smile to her face.  They sparred together, they ate together, and the fought together.  But in all of that time, he had never been this close to her and she's suddenly finding it very hard to breathe.  Her eyes widen - big and glassy and so reminiscent of the ocean back home and he suddenly realizes he needs to put some space between them before he does something he regrets.  So he sighs, rocking back until he’s no longer caging her to the seats.  A sliver of red tinges his cheeks and he clears his throat. “At least the guy went down in a blaze of glory.”

She remembers the way she'd wanted to rip his fucking head off after the stunt he pulled on Mars.  How flippantly he’d compared his life to the grand scheme of things.  It reminded her of herself - how she was willing to do whatever it took to end the Reapers once and for all.  It set her fucking teeth on edge and she’d lashed out, cutting him off mid-sentence to send him sprawling on his back successfully ending their sparring.  She yelled - no, borderline roared - at him that they needed him alive.

The sight of him staring up at her, prone and shocked, brought her right back to reality and she balked, blush evident as she helped him up and tried not to bring attention to the fact that the thought of losing him angered her so much.  He’d turned to her after that, all malice drained away and replaced with a knowing smile.  She worried momentarily that he would throw this new-found knowledge in her face.  She'd never had the best luck with men, especially fellow soldiers, and with a settling breath, she braced herself for impact.

Only...it never came.

He simply thanked her for the pep talk, clapped her on the soldier, and gave her a nickname.  An innocent gesture, really.  One that she could've just taken at face value.  Instead, though, she pushed. 

'So I'm a Lola, huh?' 

'Yeah, my best friend's older sister growing up was Lola."  He'd said with a smile, eyes flitting upward as he reminisced momentarily.  Then he'd looked back to her, and his smile changed - his voice dripping into gravel to match.  "Older sister.  Hot.  Tough."

He was a shameless flirt after that.

She didn’t mind.

“We still talking about the Primarch’s son?”  He smiles at her again, that smile that makes his eyes crinkle, scar against his cheek winking away. The same smile that makes her heart shutter in her chest.

“Don’t worry, Lola.  I’m not going anywhere.”

She wants to beckon him closer.  To wrap her arms around him until she believes those words.  Instead, she smirks and shakes her head.

“You better not, Vega.”  She knocks his shoulder with her own as she makes her way over to Cortez.  “Who would flirt with me if not you?”

His chuckle is rich and contagious and sets her cheeks aflame.  Thankfully, Steve doesn’t mention that last bit.

~~~~~

Charlie Shepard would always do the right thing, even if that thing would leave a gaping hole in her chest.  It was what had earned her the Star of Terra back on Elysium, what had talked down Saren on the Citadel and what had made her such an optimal leader for The Illusive Man's suicide mission. This mission was no different.  In fact, it was more important since the alliance between turians and krogan hung in the balance.

But some sacrifices...hurt more than others.

And this one cut deeper than she anticipated.

She’d lost Mordin.

Just...watched him go, unable to do anything to stop him.  Her well-wishes falling on deaf ears as his smiling face disappeared behind the elevator doors.  It wasn't like she could stop him, stubborn damn Salarian.  He never listened on a good day, and this...this was not a good day.  'Had to be me', his last words haunt her nightmares, 'someone else might’ve gotten it wrong.'  Because of him, the Krogans had hope again.  Wrex and his people had a future.  And Shepard had her army.  But, she was also down a friend.

The pale blue liquor in her glass stares back at her now and she does the best to ignore the way the room spins.  Maybe it’s the core drive?  Maybe it’s just her.  She’s hesitant to confirm which - knows it’ll be the later.  Decides she's never really liked this room, even when Kasumi would spend hours in here telling Charlie stories of her favorite heists.  How the thief ever found comfort in such a flashy, bright room was beyond the Commander.

And that fucking mirror.  Who's bright idea was it to put a mirror in a bar.

'Might run tests on seashells'.  Mordin whispers when she thinks she's finally had enough to mute his ghost, his incessant humming buzzing in her brain.  His big, black eyes stare into her very soul and Shepard pours herself another shot.  Behind him, her mother smiles, her father close to his wife's side - as always.  Just more phantoms to remind her how she'd always been too late.  How anyone who got too close always...  Mordin smiles and with a few bleary blinks, his face has morphed into that of the Primarch, and his words echo in her head.  'My son died with the respect of his men.'  Would she be able to say the same at the end of this war?

Another shot burns down her throat, cerulean fire chasing their faces in the mirror away.  The whispers remain, however.  She turns away from the reflection before any more ghosts can show up to torment her.  Suddenly too still for her own comfort, she's on her feet. The hull of the ship creaks, her stumbling steps seeking purchase despite Joker’s smooth flying.  She opens her mouth to chastise him but instead has to grip the back of the couch with all her might just to stay upright.

The door whooshes open then, a familiar face stepping inside and Charlie smiles.  She isn’t sure whether he’s real or he’s another figment of her imagination but she really doesn’t care at this point.  She just wants to be held.

“Vega.”  She says, hands reaching out for him.  He’s shocked but catches her none the less, the full force of her weight sliding against his broad chest.  He’s not used to his commanding officer being this touchy...or inebriated.  

“Hey, Lola.  What’re you doing in...”  His eyes flick over her shoulders, spying the empty bottle beside the shot glass.  Realization dawns on his handsome face, and he looks to her again.  “Hey,”  His voice is softer now, she notes with a sleepy grin.  She always loved the sound of his voice.  Her Vega.  “You ok?”

She doesn’t quite know the answer to that particular question.  Doesn’t know if she wants to know, but she nods in spite of it all.

“Fine.”  She sniffs, pushing against the planes of his chest and righting herself as if everything was normal.  Blurry eyes adjusting in the light, she casts them down to her fingers against the white of his shirt.  Hmm, the alcohol sings in her head, strooong.  A few flexes against the muscles there, her tongue poking out of her lips just slightly, and she decides they would make the perfect pillows.  James clears his throat and she has to wonder if she said that last bit aloud.  She yanks her hands away.  “Why wouldn’t I be, LT?”  She flinches, the rank dredging Kaidan’s face to the forefront of her mind.  She shakes her head - perhaps too violently - as if she can physically shake his memory away, then lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.  With a tight nod, and heels clicked tight together, she bids her fellow soldier adieu.  “James.”

“Hey,” calloused fingers envelop her own, squeezing down enough to halt her retreat.  Beyond her, the crew deck buzzes with life, the door sliding shut after their few moments of stillness and suddenly it's quiet again.  He’s gentle as he tugs her closer again, hands enveloping her shoulders.  She hadn't realized how much taller he was than her until this moment, her neck craning to look to his face.  “You know you can talk to me, right?  I...I know what it’s like to lose someone.”  Yes, she does know this.  Knows that Vega, much like herself, harbors a guilt that has been eating away at him.  His chocolate eyes bore into hers, his tormented gaze echoing her own inner torture and something inside of her breaks.

Commander Charlie Shepard is tough.  She has been to hell and back, and she sent the devil screaming.  She does not cry.  She does not think of the ‘what-if’s’, or what-might've-beens.  She remembers the lost, remembers their sacrifices, and looks to the tomorrow that those sacrifices have insured will come.  So then why is she burying her face into her lieutenant's chest, eyelashes desperately batting against the impending dampness?

“Uh, Lola?”  James asks, arms cast wide - afraid that if he touches her this fantasy will end she’ll hand him his ass on a platter.  If she was sober, she may have laughed at his sudden timidness in the face of all his previous flirtations.  But, of course, she isn't sober.

“Shut up.”  She says, voice muffled by the muscles she’s currently nuzzling against.  Her fingers dig into his flanks, noting how his breath hitches - ticklish?  He smells like the shuttle bay - grease with a hint of ash from a used heat sink, all capped off by a slight twinge of sweat.  She gasps wetly, turning her face so that her cheek brushes his chest.  He inhales sharply - his shirt too thin for this to be appropriate - and desperately searches for anything else to focus on other than Shepard's strong frame curling into his own.  “Just-”  Her smaller hands wrap around his wrists then, hauling his thick arms around her until he’s loosely hugging his smaller Commander.

¡¿Pero qué coño?!

The hum of the drive core is all that can be heard in the small cabin for a moment, then the brush of cloth as she presses ever tighter to Vega’s form.  He tenses.  Oh, Dios, think of Tio Emilio, or Abuela, or of fixing Shepard's guns.  Do not think about how she feels in your arms!  “Shepard...”  He tries, hands hovering away for a moment before she tugs them to her once more, harder this time.  Got it, not going anywhere.

“Just shut up and hold me, Vega.”  There’s a slur to her speech, and Vega is 90% sure she’s drooling on him.  Wait...Charlie Shepard...is drooling.  A low rumble starts in his chest, the beginnings of laughter, no matter how he tries to fight it.  She looks to him, ready to chastise with her brows pulled tight over bleary eyes.  But his smile is too much, too blinding to stay mad.  He drops his forehead to her own, his minty breath mixing with her own liquor stained breath.

“That all you after, Lola?”  He questions, tone teasing and smirk familiar. Normalcy.  She needs normalcy.  She snorts, pulling back in his arms just enough to grant him her own signature smirk and a cocked brow and he notes how beautiful at ease she is when she smiles.  His heart patters in his chest. Stop that.

She pats his pec once, twice, thought pulling her brows tight but before he can say anything, she pulls away completely. Pulls away before her hand can reach out and trace the shape of his crooked nose like she so desperately wanted to.  To trace the shape of his lips, and the dip in them that the scar leaves.  What would he taste like, she wonders?

“You see straight through me, Vega."  She quips booping his nose before she can stop herself.  To his credit, he only looks mildly surprised.  "Now,”  There’s several sharp 'pops' as Shepard cranes her head from side to side, tension melting out of her form before she’s jamming a thumb over to the poker table in the corner.  “You down for a game?”

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am!”  And it takes everything in him not to tug her back for another embrace.  An embrace much less chaste than the last...

The interface flickers to life as they each take a seat, opposite each other.  Blue light illuminating sharp cheekbones and scars as the computer deals them each a hand, stacks of credits to their sides.  James cracks a joke about Shepard gambling in her current condition.  She dismisses it with a single middle finger.  Several minutes and several credits later, he regrets his teasing.

“So,”  Shepard breaks the silence as they flick through the available games - of which, there were few.  Need to get Traynor to requisition more.  “You never told me.  What was her name?”  James flinches, questions written all over his face.  Ok, so she might not have been a smooth in her conversational detour as she would've liked. “The one who broke your heart.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Commander.”  He sighs, shoulders sagging with a weight he’d learned to carry oh so well.  Shepard sobers a little then, recognizing a grief she'd come to know so well.  She powers the interface down, leaving them with no barriers as he digs up the past.  It isn't something that's easy to talk about, and she's about to tell him to forget it when he murmurs.  “It wasn’t just her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fel Prime.”  He supplies, exhaustion evident in his shoulders.  “It was all of them.  A whole colony I had sworn to protect.  And hell, half my damn crew!  Dead.  Because of a decision I made...and April.”  James’ voice fails him for a moment, lids blinking back tears that he refuses to let fall.  He would not cry in front of his Commander.  His hero.  “I promised her I would protect them."  A bitter, humorless laugh breaks through the lump in his throat.  "She died crying ‘where’s James?’  And her mom had to lie.  ‘He’ll be here...he’ll be here.'  Because I made a promise.  Well, guess what, Commander?  I. wasn’t. there”

Silence settles over the observation cabin once more, this silence far more choking than the last.  She'd seen him upset before.  Seen him clear a battlefield, take bullet after bullet and keep fighting.  Hell, she'd seen him take down a fucking Brute all by himself, for god's sake.  But she'd never seen James upset like this.  Across from her own turmoil, her ever-smiling Lieutenant was on the verge of tears.

“She meant a lot to you.”  Shepard reasons, heart beating in her throat.  “I’m sorry.”

“No one should die like that.  Especially not a kid.”

Oh, her heart hammers.  That’s not what I was expecting.  Judging by the way Vega chuckles, shaking his head, he knows exactly where her mind had gone.

“She wasn’t mine.”  He clarifies, large hands dragging over his face.  “Just a kid on that colony I was tellin’ you about.  The one I couldn’t save.”  He flicks his omni-tool open, a picture of a gapped tooth blonde child beaming to life.  Her smile is wide, blue eyes the same as she holds an Alliance patch in her hands.  She's precious and instantly Shepard is reminded of the child she herself was unable to save back on Earth.  “She wanted to be part of the Alliance so badly.”  His smile turns sour, the picture fading away.  “My little lookout.”

“You must miss her.”  She whispers, not entirely sure what to say.  She'd never been good at the whole...feelings thing.  But she would try, for James.

“She never should’ve been a part of this.  Damn collectors had no business dragging her or her colony into this stupid war.”  Ah.  Now that.  That rage.  That she understood.

“They had no business dragging any of us into this war.”  She muses and decides it's time to stop groveling in her own shit.  Her hand drapes over his across the table, pulling his eyes to his CO.  She’s beautiful, he notices - not that he hasn’t before, of course, but at this moment it hits him harder than before.  Shepard isn’t like a lot of women in The Alliance.  She’s short but makes up for her height with strength and a temper unrivaled by even Wrex himself.  Rippling muscle and soft curves built into one tiny body.  A tattoo or two under her hoodie that he so desperately wishes to see more of.  Her usual braid has fallen loose from her inebriated, tugging fingers - black whisps falling into her face and tickling full lashes that frame stormy blue eyes.  Thick, beckoning lips forming words he realizes he isn't listening to, and thank god he tunes in just in time to hear “She would be proud of you.”  He smiles at that, clearing his throat before awkwardly pulling his hand away.

“Yeah?  I bet her and Mordin are looking down at both of our sorry drunk asses, sayin’ ‘that idiot’s mine’.”  Her laughter isn't what he'd been hoping for then.  It's genuine, sure, but there's a sorrow that keeps the sound from blossoming into the unbridled joy he's so used to hearing at his quips.  That laughter fills the whole shuttle bay.  This one...well, this one barely reaches her eyes.

“I’ve got too many people ‘lookin’ down on me’, Lieutenant.”  Absentmindedly, her fingers wind in the braid that’s barely hanging on as it is.  So much tension in one, tiny woman and, Dios, he so desperately wants to hold her again.  But that would be breaking regulations.  So he stays put, squeezing her hand that's draped over his own, and lamely offers up a platitude of ‘they’re in a better place now’.  He’s thankfully she only snorts, tugging her hair the rest of the way from her braid before she stands and offers him a hand.

At that moment he realizes he's never seen her hair free before and has to check himself before he sweeps his fingers through it.  She stretches, hand resting on her jutted hip when she turns to him again.

“Yeah, well, as long as I don’t have to worry about you running off to join them any time soon?”  It’s phrased as a question, but he can see straight past her bluff.  Straight into the very fear she’s trying to hide so deep in those endless, blue eyes.  She’s afraid to lose him, afraid that he’ll be gone - just another senseless casualty of war - before she can really tell him how she feels.

“Hey, it’s ok.”  He soothes, rough palm coming up to cup her smooth cheek, and immediately he knows he shouldn't have.  He feels the dips where Dr. Chawkwas’s implants hide her scars, feels the heat radiate from them and her lashes fluttering against the pad of his thumb.  It's a familiar heat, like the one burning in his chest when he looks at her.  A heat that feels like it's breaking you from the inside out.  “My place is right here.”  Her lip catches between her teeth, cloudy eyes sweeping over his burning face only lingering over his lips for a moment longer than was appropriate.

“Here...like the Normandy?”  She asks, crowding his space yet his hand doesn’t fall away.  If anything, it only pulls her closer.  “Or here...with me?”

There's a vulnerability in her eyes that he never would've expected from Commander Charlie Shepard.  It reaches deep into his chest and squeezes and he has to desperately remind himself of what his Tio Emilio always told him about 'not shitting where he eats'.  And hell, James Vega is rarely ever stumped, but at this moment all he can do is draw his brows together and flap his mouth open and shut like a fish until Charlie puts him out of his misery, lithe index finger pressing against his lips.  She lets it drift over the scar there, eyes following its’ path.

“You don’t have to answer that.”  She rushes - heat coloring her pale cheeks and James realizes that maybe he isn't the only one thinking about breaking regulations.  He sweeps his fingers over that delicious blush once more, then drops his hand before he can do something he regrets.  Still, he takes her hands in his and smiles - repeating what he said to her in the shuttle before - and really meaning it this time.

“Don’t worry, Lola.  I’m not going anywhere.”

---

More Charlie Shepard x James Vega to come.