Arashu's Gift

Chapter 16

The course of the Normandy was already set, and the estimated time of arrival to Illium was around five hours. Shepard stayed in her cabin checking the datapads Miranda had given her. There were reports on the successful installation of the Thanix cannon and the next upgrade on their agenda: the Silaris heavy ship armor. The asari-designed upgrade would allow the ship to withstand heat and overloads that would penetrate the Normandy's default shielding. Miranda estimated a minimum of ten hours needed for its installation. The whole team and crew were informed of the technical shore leave.

Shepard read mechanically, and with every passing second she was paying less and less attention to the technical aspects the Cerberus officer had written for her. Her mind wandered and before she knew it, she was reliving that dance with Thane. His hand on the small of her back beneath her T-Shirt, his lips brushing her neck, his piercing eyes, his leg between hers, the firmness of his chest, the coolness and the citrus perfume of his scales, the sway to the rhythm of the music held tight in each other's arms ...

Shepard stood up from her desk and entered the bathroom. She turned on the tap and splashed cold water onto her face. She looked at herself in the mirror. That very memory had raised her temperature. She smiled. There was a sparkle in her eyes and a stubborn smile on her lips. She bit her lower lip and covered her mouth, shy at her own reaction. This was no longer the age and, needless to say, the situation in her life to behave like an infatuated teen.

Suddenly, something in her reflection caught her attention. She moved closer to the mirror. Was it her mind playing tricks on her, or were the red lines that crossed her face disappearing?

She left the bathroom and walked to the aquarium. She pressed the button to release a load of food and watched the fish swim to the surface, trying to catch the particles slowly falling down in the water with their mouths.

She relished the delicious tickling manifesting from her belly at the mere memory of Thane.

I'm dying. Low survival odds don't concern me. The abduction of your colonists does.

I should be fine for another eight to twelve months. I think it's safe to say that by the time my body is incapacitated, we'll be victorious, or dead. Either way, I won't be a burden to you.

Immediately her brow tensed, and where minutes ago a fresh and naive hope had nestled, now a dark hopelessness reigned, quickly casting a gloom over her mood. It wasn't merely a physical thing, she was certain of that. She didn't know how to describe what she felt for him. Being in his company had a strange calming effect on her and, at the same time, it was beginning to awaken a desire to jump into the void, so long as he held her hand. Once again, she saw herself dancing in his arms. And she remembered the question he had asked right before she took notice of their teammates' presence in the surroundings.

Shepard sat at her desk, opened her terminal, and launched a search on the extranet: Drell venom on humans. She barely managed to read a few article headers before she shut her terminal. She stood and walked the length of her cabin time and again. His behavior with her that night in the Afterlife VIP area contradicted any reading, regardless of how poor it may be, Shepard had managed to get on him until that point. There weren't that many options yet; she tried to analyze them in an effort to try to predict his future reactions to her. Either Omega had awakened a part of him long dormant, or he had ingested something that lowered his inhibitions – or despite his personal history and his terminal diagnosis, he actually felt the same way about her.

When the installation of the Thanix cannon had concluded, Miranda had messaged everyone's omni-tools, calling them back to the Normandy to resume their journey. Each team member had returned to their private quarters, and so had Thane. They had been traveling for hours since then, and she hadn't seen or spoken to him.