Miranda, it turned out, had already been drafting a new budget as well as thinking up new ideas for funding. Some of them Shepard refused outright – they would not be drawing from any Cerberus cells, no matter how many favors she might have been able to pull. In the heat of the moment she'd told the Illusive Man off after blowing up a base he'd implored her to keep. She hadn't just burned that bridge, she'd bombarded it from orbit.

No Cerberus. She hadn't trusted them from the start, and while she trusted her crew, she didn't trust anyone still on the payroll of someone who going to be nursing a grudge.

It hadn't all been bad news, at least. They had options. Not many, and they weren't sustainable indefinitely, but they were there.

And speaking of men with grudges...

She kept eyeballing her clock. Gardner would've started serving dinner maybe five minutes ago. The man was serious about food, she'd give him that. Punctuality was a good quality in a mess sergeant.

Shepard wasn't entirely sure what her game plan was, or if she even needed one. There had been obvious tension in the mess hall earlier, neither of them coming straight out with anything, but that there was any strain at all was a... good sign, maybe? It was the sign of something, anyway.

If Zaeed had written her off, if there wasn't something gnawing at him about the situation, she sincerely doubted he'd be going through all of this nonsense.

Really, she should have been reciting her 'No thanks' speech in her head, getting it ready to go. She didn't have time for whatever the hell she was contemplating. They were teetering on the edge of something that was going to change everything forever. It was huge. Too big, too beyond her understanding for her to do anything but plow through it head first. She was doing what she could, pouring all of her energy into it, and every time she stopped to have drinks in a seedy bar, every time she stared off at a horizon and tried to work things out, she felt like she was letting everyone down.

It probably wasn't healthy, shouldering the galaxies problems, but no one else was doing it.

That all of her blustering justification came crumbling down thanks to one small, almost insignificant gesture and an overpriced bottle of booze was sort of hilarious.

Sort of.

The man was a criminal, if she was serious with herself. An ex-Alliance, bounty hunting, Blue Suns founding, shot in the head, revenge obsessed son of a bitch. He was the kind of man that was usually on the other side of her gun, but definitely not without giving her a run for her money.

And he'd agreed to stay on without his usual fee. Miranda had shown her what it was when she'd asked, noting that the arrangement for the suicide mission had been significantly higher.

Drinks were on him for the foreseeable future.

Take away all of that growly merc shit, though, and what was left? A hell of a shot. Someone who wasn't intimidated by her. Someone who, even if he didn't much want to, respected her.

She spent a lot of time solving other peoples problems, and she wasn't short on shoulders to lean on if she needed a friend, but there was something more there with the mercenary. Most of her friends might be crushed by the metaphorical weight of one of her leans, spare one, and she wasn't about to vent her frustrations about saving the galaxy to Wrex. He had enough problems just trying to keep the krogan from blowing each other up.

Zaeed... he didn't tolerate bullshit. Didn't buy into self pity. Hell, he'd been shot point blank in the head. The man was tough. And unlike any of her alien confidants, there was potential for something more. Something more that wasn't hopelessly fraught with complications.

"Officer Massani is requesting access to your quarters, Commander," EDI's placid voice still managed to startle her.

"Yeah, let him up, EDI," Shepard said, running her hands through her hair and leaving it at that. She considered a few places to wait, but in the end she was still sitting at her desk by the time he entered her quarters.

"Commander," he said. It wasn't formal so much as it was wary. He was holding two dinner trays, just like he'd said.

"And you said you weren't a gentleman," Shepard smirked and kicked out a chair for him, accepting a tray with quiet thanks. He didn't respond to her comment or her thanks, guarded, maybe playing by his own plan.

"What's this about?" he asked after the two of them had made a dent in their meals, "I know you don't give a damn about the brand of bourbon we drank. Pretty sure it was older than you."

Him broaching the topic threw her off balance for a moment. She really did need to stop thinking like she was always a step ahead of him. It was rarely the case.

"Older than Jessie?" she used his trick, dodging his question and putting up another. The mention of his old rifle threatened to bring out a smirk, but his lips only twitched a moment.

"Not a chance," he outright scowled, "Cut to the goddamn chase, Shepard."

"Omega," she said after a beat. She felt a bit on her guard herself. Neither of them was eager to be on the defensive.

"What about it?"

"Afterward, when you came up here-"

"Oh, you mean when you made my balls turn bluer than a goddamn asari? Yeah, I think I remember that bit."

"Don't interrupt me, Massani," Shepard's fingers curled into fists. Not the tight sort, but God could he ever get under her skin. Maybe this was mistake. She didn't need constant antagonism from him, not when she could get it from anyone else in the galaxy.

Zaeed glared and shifted his weight, stabbing his fork into his dinner. Definitely not a polite apology, but she'd take it for now.

"I just want to know if I was a trophy fuck or not," she said bluntly. The words felt ugly on her tongue – she didn't like them, but that didn't mean they didn't have some truth to them. She'd accused him of it and he hadn't exactly denied it.

It would have been too easy if he'd just answered her. Instead, he grappled for high ground again, "Why?"

"Answer the question," Shepard said. She'd been dead set on putting on a neutral face, steepling her fingers and looking down at him from a tower of icy indifference, but it wasn't working so well. She was too close to it now.

"What the hell do you want me to say, Shepard?" there was an exasperated thread in his voice that made her raise her eyebrows just slightly, "That I want to go bloody steady? Maybe we could hold hands in the corridor later."

"Don't be a dick," Shepard said, "You know exactly what I'm talking about."

He was doing it again, teeth grit behind pursed lips, jaw ticking, his good eye practically boring a hole into her skull. The man didn't half ass anything, she'd give him that.

"Maybe I don't."

She glared at him. All right, so, neither of them wanted to be the one to come right out and say it. Was that projection on her part? Was this one sided? No, her instincts couldn't be that off.

Goddamn him for making her doubt herself.

"I was still pretty shaken up after you saved my ass," she said. He rolled his eyes, but there wasn't much malice in it, "What I'm talking about comes after. After that... shit, I was scared. I thought after all we'd been through, we were going to get blown up by our own bomb. And you..."

She wasn't sure if she imagined the almost guilty expression that flashed over his face, it was there and gone so quickly.

"You're not one for mercy, Zaeed," she wasn't frowning, but her expression had gone very serious, "Not when people show you their throat. You didn't rip mine out, even after what happened on Zorya. I'm just trying to figure out if that means something or not."

He wasn't quite making eye contact, "I'm not a heartless monster, Shepard. I don't think I've seen you scared once before that. Hell, when you ran out of thermal clips you threw your goddamn pistol at a Reaper. Daft bitch."

It had been a venomous, nasty insult not too long ago. Now it almost sounded like a term of endearment, albeit not a very complimentary one.

"It wouldn't have even qualified as a half-arsed hug," he said gruffly, "Does it have to mean something?"

Shepard set her dinner tray on her desk and leaned back in her chair, raking her fingers through her hair and exhaling before she finally risked, "I'd like it to."

Zaeed raised his eyebrows in surprise, a shade of smug creeping in next, but he wasn't willing to concede anything just yet.

"Not enough to put out for the man who just spent two grand on booze for you, though."

"In my defense, and for the record, I don't think I need to defend myself, I didn't know how much it cost," she said. She'd stuck her neck out – it was his turn. Otherwise, she imagined their banter was going to sour pretty damned fast, "Credits aren't the issue, anyway."

She could see that he had a fair number of acerbic insults and comebacks just begging to spring off of his tongue. None of them came, however. Instead, he rubbed the back of his neck and pushed out a weary, aggravated sigh.

"Shepard... you're a bloody saint. A big goddamn hero. That sort of thing, shit, I don't have to explain it to you. You know," he paused to set his dinner tray aside and folded his arms over his chest before soldiering on, "After all the garbage I've seen these past few weeks, after what I saw in the Collector base, even I've got to admit that sort of shit puts things in perspective."

Shepard waited, patient, daring to allow a little flicker of warmth in her chest. This was either a very long winded let-down, or he was winding up to say he wouldn't mind a little meaning in his life either. It sounded sort of goofy when she put it like that, but hell with it. She was allowed.

"Last woman I got serious with sold me out to the Blood Pack," he said, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees, letting his hands dangle, "That was six bloody years ago. Seven? Nah. Six."

She didn't respond to that. He'd told her that story – the asari he'd had a 'good thing' going with. Shepard hadn't pried further then, and she didn't now. It wasn't assurances he was looking for. This was a hell of a lot more talking than she'd expected from him, and drawing out more wasn't going to tell her anything she hadn't already worked out. Just because she wanted something exclusive, something for keeps, didn't mean she was going to start shoveling through his checkered past. Didn't mean she wanted him to start asking her deep questions, either.

Having someone that she could lean on if she wanted would be a hell of a thing. Outside of everything else – the tattoos, that devilish gleam in his eyes, his steadfast confidence – it was that he understood her. Not entirely of course, that was impossible, but enough that he wasn't compelled to coddle her.

He'd summed it up rather well himself when he'd described waiting out her puke-fest on the Citadel. Some people were compelled to look after her, convinced that there was something fragile, something that needed nurturing underneath her unwavering exterior.

Zaeed knew that she just needed to puke and shake it off.

Neither of them needed taking care of. Considering what was coming, it was an invaluable quality to have.

She'd been sitting there silently, staring at him, and his eyebrows had slowly began to creep up his forehead. Maybe she ought to say something instead of just sitting there thinking warm, fuzzy thoughts?

"Come here," Shepard side, beckoning with one hand. He smiled, the expression even warming his good eye, and leaned back again.

"And do what? Sit in your lap?" he said, slapping his thighs with his hands pointedly, "You come here."

"Trust me?" she put just enough saccharine in her voice to make it insincere.

"That's fighting dirty."

"You love it."

He looked unsure for just a moment and then decided to relent, standing and taking a few steps to close the gap between them. Of course, that was all he did, folding his arms again and looking down at her with a 'Yeah, and?' expression.

Shepard curled her index finger at him, narrowing her eyes in what she hoped was a vaguely predatory fashion. He didn't respond immediately, still considering her, trying to anticipate her next move. When he did lean down it was with an indulgent, sardonic smile. He braced one hand on her desk since she was sitting so close to it, hooking the thumb of his free hand into his belt. His eyes moved over her face, which was quite close to his now, close enough that they could feel each other's breath.

"You pull a gun on me and I'll drown you in your own fishtank," he said flatly, contrasting with his brief, lopsided smile that told her everything she needed to know. He was on board, maybe even in spite of himself.

Shepard put her hands up with a smirk, turning them back to front, as though somehow that would assure him she was unarmed. She gave into her compulsion from a few days ago again, reaching out to run her fingers curiously over the ragged, rough scars on his face. Clean shaven, she noted – even now his jaw was relatively smooth.

There wasn't any hesitation in her exploration, and he didn't so much as flinch this time around, his free hand unhooking from his belt to indulge in his own curiosity. She'd been fully expecting a grope, but instead he grazed her scalp with his fingers, sending a pleasant shiver down her spine even as he wound one of her short red curls around an index finger. He smirked and stretched the curl out as far as it would go, releasing it and watching it spring back into place defiantly.

It was a bizarre moment, she decided. He'd wanted her on her back toute suite not too long ago, and the first thing he did was play with her hair?

She'd actually been halfway through the thought when he'd seized the back of her neck and covered her mouth with his own, but it had happened so fast it took her brain a moment to register. Once it had made a note of the turn of events, it backed off.

Shepard made to stand and Zaeed growled against her mouth, moving his hand to her shoulder and roughly forcing her to sit down again. She heard a loud clatter, identifying it as her datapads being unceremoniously swept off of the surface. Probably the dinner trays too, if she could tear her mouth away from his long enough to get a look at what had happened.

Shepard moved to stand again, more insistent, and he wrapped an arm around her waist the moment she was on her feet, lifting her up enough to set her bottom on the cleared desk. A few other loose items that hadn't gone in his sweep fell to the floor, forgotten.

His hands seized her waist and his mouth moved away from hers, grazing her jaw and savaging her neck. She felt a hot flash of indignation at his gall, marking her skin just high enough so that none of her collars had any hope of hiding it.

Angrily she curled her fingers into his hair, gripping it and giving it a yank, making him grunt and jerk his head back. They made eye contact, and any angry words she might've had died before they could make it past her lips. Instead, she laughed.

Zaeed's own throaty laughter joined hers, accompanied with a smug expression and his hands roaming the length of her body.

"You know," he muttered, hands undoing the fastens and zippers on her jumpsuit, "This takes me back..."

Shepard pressed a finger over his lips and shook her head, "Tell me later."

"I was on this mission, long, long time ago," his lips curled into a crooked smile, and he seemed to be having a very easy time of getting her out of her suit even as he talked, "Me and a couple of my best mates at the time," he paused to loosen her bootlaces, tapping them afterward so she could toe the boots off herself, "Seemed like an easy mission. Break into this secluded compound, bust out this blokes girlfriend or wife or some damned thing and leave. Didn't know the whole story, but according to our client, the place was guarded by maybe a dozen security mechs. Easy, right?"

He peeled the top of her suit down, keeping a firm hold of it so she could wriggle her arms out, and trailed a few kisses over one of her shoulders. The merc was definitely savoring the memory and the moment.

"Wrong," he said in her ear, "Bastards hired all sorts of security after our client got his intel. It was a goddamn slaughter. My mates ended up corpses and it was just me and this other bloke left in the end. Pretty sure he was the leader of the other mercs. We swing out at each other, guns aimed at each others heads, and goddamn click. Both of our guns, jammed. This was before Jessie. Unreliable piece of shit, it was."

Shepard chuckled in spite of herself, bracing her hands on the desk and lifting her backside up so he could yank her pants off without resistance.

"Told my gun what a bitch she was," he moved in between her legs, himself still fully dressed, "And I ran a hand over the barrel, just like," he ran his fingers lightly up her spine, lowering his voice an octave as his fingers eventually hooked on her bra, "That. Pow," he unlatched her bra with a flourish, "Blew his goddamn head off right there and then. Don't think I even squeezed the trigger."

He definitely had a way with words, though she has having a pretty hard time understanding the relevance of the story. Not that it was a bad one.

"Moral of the story?" she mumbled, enjoying how he was drinking her in with his eyes, his hands returning to her hips and giving them a hungry squeeze.

"You won't find a bastard in the galaxy with steadier hands," he said.

"And you said you weren't romantic, Zaeed."

He made her pay for that statement, though she wasn't so sure her punishment was negative reinforcement. Somewhere on their journey around her quarters he managed to get out of his armor. There were hand prints on the aquarium glass, the leftover dinner was still spilled on the floor (and a bit trampled), and there were bootprints on the wall over her bed.

Most of the bedding was on the floor, but a slight adjustment to the climate control meant they didn't need covers. Shepard's curls were plastered to her skull with sweat, and though the shower called to her, it was much more interesting to trace the pattern of the tattoo sleeve on his arm.

All right. That had been worth all the trouble, even if she was pretty tempted to slap the smug, self-satisfied expression off of his face.

He groaned and rolled onto his side a moment, feeling around on the floor while she watched the muscles of his back and shoulders work under his skin. Shepard smirked, chin propped on her fist, raising her eyebrows when he produced a cigar and a lighter from his search. An actual flint-wheel and fuel powered lighter.

It was probably older than she was.

"That's a... what's the name," her brow furrowed a bit in concentration, "Zippo, isn't it?"

He looked surprised that she knew it, cupping a hand around the flame as he puffed on the cigar a few times. Her nose wrinkled at the smell, though it was a familiar one. The starboard cargo area always smelled like it, albeit a bit less pungent since he never smoked them when she was present.

"Yeah," he snapped it shut and passed it to her, watching her turn it over in her fingers as smoke curled from his cigar.

Her smirk faded to a private smile as her fingers felt the battered surface, steel pitted and scratched from a long life in Zaeed's service. How many stories accompanied this particular object?

She looked up when she felt his hand on top her head, the gesture a bit heavy, fatigue obviously settling into his limbs as he relaxed. When they made eye contact he cupped her face, briefly, grazing her chin and her jaw with his thumb.

"Sleeping here?" Shepard wondered, pressing the zippo back into his hand before he could withdraw it fully. He nodded at her and set it on the nightstand, but she wasn't sure if his nod was a thank you for his lighter back, or a yes, he was sleeping here.

"Yeah, guess so," he eventually answered, curt. Not terse, but she could tell he wasn't really a pillow talk sort of guy. At least, not tonight. He had an all-too-familiar look on his face, eyes slightly out of focus as he remembered things.

"You don't have to," she reminded him gently, "No pressure."

"Daft bitch," he said with a surprising amount warmth, taking his cigar out of his mouth and gesturing her closer, "Come here."

This time she obeyed, sliding up alongside him, even daring to lay her head on his shoulder. Awfully cuddly for a couple of die-hard bad asses, in her opinion. Nobody had to know.

He rested a hand on the curve of her back as she settled in. They didn't speak again, no sweet words or platitudes, but he did give her a bit of a squeeze right before she drifted off.

A/N: Toot toot, all aboard the fluff train! Originally I was going to leave it here, but now that I'm at this point and I've had so much fun, I might have at least one more chapter in me. No promises, haha, but either way I'm very glad so many of you enjoyed the story. :)