Curious Jealousy- a F!Shenko Fic

Chapter Seven: As Simple as a Scent

Waking up was painful. Being a marine- as well (okay, specifically) as a L2-, he was used to pain.

...

Maybe pain wasn't quite the right word to use.

Whatever the word was (and he was leaning heavily towards torture), he wished he had stayed asleep. The problem was that he had smelled something painfully familiar and he needed to see her. But he was unsure whether it was a dream or a memory.

Opening his eyes, there was no one in the room with him- nothing but the hum of the machines was there to greet him. He had been sure that she was there. Of course, the scent had been faint, so, perhaps, it was nothing more than a memory. He shuddered away from the thought (there was a part of him that needed it to be real- if it wasn't, than he fought to wake up for nothing) and tried to sit up- gritting his teeth from screaming.

He had been in more pain before- of course, it had been a few years...and not all of it had been physical pain.

He needed to focus on something- anything- besides the pain. The smell of her shampoo- the smell that had awoken him- was a good thing to focus on. It was one that would be forever imprinted on his mind because it was a part of her.

Ash and Kaidan sat at a table in the mess, laughing about the mission they had just been on. It was easy to laugh with Ash- much easier to call her a friend. They had a shared understanding that Kaidan was crushing on the CO and was terribly embarrassed about it. And he knew that Ashley hated aliens (not really a secret) and she was crushing on their snarky, pain in the ass pilot (which was a huge secret).

"You should have seen your face," Ash laughed, "when I shot that husk and it fell into your back!"

A chuckle that he would have recognized anywhere sounded from around the corner. When she made herself seen, her blue eyes were alight with laughter and her hair was still wet from a recent shower. "If there was ever a moment when I wished that I carried a camera, it was right then!" She pulled a face of sheer horror and surprise that had Ash practically falling off the bench and Kaidan chuckling. "Don't mock it, Kaidan, that's what you looked like."

Kaidan cocked an eyebrow. "Anything to keep you two entertained, I suppose." While there was nothing technically wrong with his words, he had (accidentally, of course) made them sound a bit more seductive than he should have. Shepard cocked an eyebrow and gave him a half smile, but otherwise didn't acknowledge the inappropriate tone of his words.

Shepard walked to the fridge (it wasn't his fault that he watched her every step) and began pulling out some food. "You're doing a good job, keep up the good work." She glanced out of the fridge and asked, "You two want anything?" Ashley and Kaidan raised their own sandwiches and she disappeared back into the fridge.

Ash leaned across the table and whispered, "How interesting do you find it that she's able to do an exact replication of your face when we were in the middle of a pretty intense battle?"

It took all of his effort not to curse Ashley for making his face a horrid shade of crimson. Thankfully (or maybe not), Shepard chose that moment to join them at the table- sitting a little closer to Kaidan than was necessary- with a sandwich of her own and a cup of hot chocolate. It was in that moment that he was able to truly tell what he had smelled all those times on the battlefield and on board when she made her daily rounds.

Vanilla and mint.

"Well, I need to get back to checking on everyone's guns. The Tur-" she glanced fleetingly at Shepard and said, "Garrus said he thought his trigger was sticking."