Curious Jealousy- a F!Shenko Fic

Chapter Fifty: Why

The walk to the door of the casino had been nothing but flashing lights- both from some kind of strobe lights as well as flashes from cambots.

As soon as they entered the casino, Kaidan could feel as Shepard relaxed against him. That was something that always funny to him.

Face down a horde of charging Krogan alone with nothing but a pistol?

Done- she'd do it without even blinking or even changing her posture.

Stand unarmed in front of a raging, out of control biotic with nothing but her words to calm him?

Done.

Face an Admiral that speaks blasphemy against her ship and crew and put in him in his place- and that place didn't come anywhere close to including in her face or in her decisions.

Done.

Give her a horde of eager reporters with cameras and voice recorders and she was ready to turn on her heel and just walk away.

"I'll get to the ventilation shaft," Brooks informed them. "Wish me luck." Without waiting for any input, she made her way up the stairs and, apparently, to the shaft.

"Liara," Shepard murmured after activating her comm, "any input?"

Kaidan guided her slowly up the stairs so that they wouldn't get run over by the next arrivals.

"Khan has a lot of surveillance set up," Liara warned. "I'd mingle with the guests if you want to look normal."

With a sigh, Shepard set her shoulders and smiled up at Kaidan. "Okay, Kaidan, time to meet the riff-raff."

As they sat down at the bar for a quick drink, Shepard fixed him with a hard stare, as though trying to pull an answer straight from his mind. Oh, he knew what the question was going to be, but he figured he'd let her ask it.

"You know," she finally said after taking a sip of her drink (which was nothing more than a soda), "you'd've never've been so bold and open a few years ago."

He didn't reply. For one, that wasn't a question. Secondly, she was right.

"Okay," she said, narrowing her eyes when she realized that he wasn't going to say anything, "I guess I just want to know why you did it."

Still not a question, but he decided to answer anyway. "Does it bother you that I did?"

She grabbed the glass from his hand and set it down on the bar. "That's not an answer to my question, Kaidan."

"Do you know what you are?" he asked, completely throwing her- that had not been anywhere close to close to what she had expected him to begin with.

Arching her left eyebrow, she decided to play along. Apparently this was going to end up somewhere; she may as well go along with it. "I am a Lieutenant Commander and N7 in the Alliance and a Council Spectre."

"Don't be so literal."

With an exasperated sigh, she lifted Kaidan's drink and threw back the whiskey. "Okay, fine. What am I?"

"Hope, inspiration." As her eyes narrowed and her mouth opened, he held up his hands to stop her. "No, just listen.

"For every soldier out on the lines- giving their lives to save a galaxy that denied the truth for so long- you are the inspiration to keep fighting. You're the one who's been fighting this war- relatively by yourself- for years. After all of the defamation and wounds you've endured, you've kept fighting. You died and you came back to keep fighting a war that would take more than another year before anyone would admit it was real.