The last time Ashley Williams had been in Joughin, it'd been for a funeral. Now the streets were littered with the debris of battle and what had been a park was now her unit's defensive line - foxholes dug into gardens, overturned picnic furniture and skycars used for cover. On the other side of a swing set she saw the flash of Cerberus white as she crouched behind the barricade.

Then she heard it - an all too familiar whistling sound.

"Get down-" Ash's voice was swallowed by the sound of the mortar round impacting - the roar of the explosion, the whistling of shrapnel, the thud of clumps of dirt falling back to earth. For a moment she thought this is it.

This was how she died, on a planet far from where she was born. Killed by the Illusive Man's little side-show to the real war.

Then she was on her back, looking up at the yellow-orange Benning sky, legs throbbing in time to her heartbeat. Ash forced herself to sit up and looked down. A few pieces of shrapnel had sliced through her shields and armour, leaving bloody gouges in her upper leg.

Ow.

She could hear the low groaning of wounded.

"Williams!" Vega was suddenly looming over her, a mountain in Alliance blue armour, "You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah." She pulled a tube of medigel out of her kit and started smearing it over the shrapnel wounds, "Casrep?"

"No one's dead," he said simply, "but we've got three seriously wounded. Ling wants to evacuate them."

The mission had been simple on paper. Ash, Vega and the rest of the Normandy's Marines had formed a blocking position to blunt the Cerberus advance while Shepard and the others evacuated civilians with the help of the local resistance fighters. Shepard was still running into pockets of Cerberus troops but if the Marines didn't hold, she'd be drowning in them.

Shepard had paused, before they'd started loading up for the drop. She'd paused, her eyes tracing the lines of Ashley's face like she'd wanted to say something. But all she'd said was good hunting.

It was easier when they were fighting together.

"Boomer!" she shouted as she grabbed Vega's arm, levering herself to her feet. The medigel mercifully numbed her leg.

Lance Corporal Klein, better known as Boomer, appeared. "Ma'am?"

She jerked a thumb at a van left abandoned on the street. "Reckon you can hotwire it?"

"Uh. Yes. Ma'am."

Before the Reaper invasion, Klein's auto theft charges would've kept him out of the Marines. Now they were taking anyone who could hold a rifle. She was just glad his particular skills were useful right now.

"Do it. Vega, make sure the wounded get loaded into it and taken to the LZ." From the LZ Cortez would be able to pick them up and ferry them back to the Normandy and Chakwas' medbay.

He hesitated. "You're hurt too."

"I'm fine. Go on."

"Boss won't be happy."

Ash scowled at him. "She can yell at me for it later. Get moving."

As soon as he was gone she turned back to reorganising the defensive line and scanning her tacmap. She was going to blow the fuck out of that Cerberus mortar.

"Ow."

"Stop squirming," Chakwas said calmly, the cold light of the medbay glinting off the forceps she was using to pick little bits of metal out of Ash's leg. "This wouldn't be so bad if you'd gotten treatment when it happened and not three hours later."

"I was busy!" Ash protested and then yelped as the doctor pulled another sliver of metal out.

"Marines," Chakwas said with fond resignation. Once the last bits of shrapnel were out she efficiently stitched up the worst of the wounds, dressed them and then subjected Ash to a now familiar lecture on wound care.

"Thanks, Doc, you're the best-"

"I believe the Commander wished to speak with you. She's in her quarters."

"...right. Yeah."

She took the elevator up to Deck One with some trepidation. Not out of any real fear Shepard was going to shout at her - she wasn't from the yelling school of leadership (more the quiet-but-excruciating-disappointment school) and if anyone could understand staying in the field with your people, it was Shepard.

No, it wasn't that.

On the field it was easy. They were two Marines who got each other's thinking, who watched each other's sixes. They were commander and subordinate, interactions guided by efficient respect and understanding. Out of the field, the ground was less stable.

'Friends' didn't quite encapsulate the whole 'ex-lovers who were in an armed stand off not even two months ago' thing. Or the fact that Ash could admit to herself that she was still in love with Emilia Shepard.

Shepard was behind her desk, typing away at her terminal. Her dark hair was wet from the shower, sticking up in spikes. Ash's fingers itched to smooth through it - she clasped her hands behind her back instead.

"Commander?"

Shepard turned. Her jaw was a hard line of tension. "How're you feeling?"

"I'm alright. Couple of stitches but I'll heal."

Shepard's eyes darted away from hers, shoulders squared just like whenever she had to go in front of the Council. "Good to hear."

Ashley was too tired to try and interpret whatever was going on. "Skipper?"

A tremor ran through Shepard's tense figure. "I heard the mortar round hit, and then over comms that you were hurt and..." She breathed out, rubbing a hand across her face. "For a moment there...it was Mars all over again."

Ash's throat closed. She didn't remember much of the Mars mission - side effect of the brain injury, the doctors said. But Shepard clearly did. "I'm okay."

Shepard shrugged, smiling weakly, "Guess that fucked me up more than I thought it had. I nearly lost you, and I couldn't - I couldn't stop it. I just watched it happen."

"You haven't lost me," Ash insisted, taking a step closer.

Shepard's eyes met hers, something close to resignation lurking in them. "Haven't I?"

And God, Ash was sick of trying to tiptoe through this grey area between them, of holding back from what she still wanted - what she hoped they both still wanted. Her voice came out a hoarse whisper. "Kiss me."

For a moment the words hung between them - long enough for Ash to consider whether she'd misread Shepard completely, whether she'd just fucked up their still fragile working relationship - and then Shepard's hands were cradling her face, thumbs stroking along her jawline, and they were kissing.

Kissing Shepard was both familiar and unfamiliar. She felt the same, tasted the same but the lip and chin scars Ash had liked to run her mouth over were gone, replaced by slashes of raw red across her cheekbones.

It felt like discovering something and coming home all at once.

She pressed her hand into Shepard's shoulder blade, felt the shift of her muscle beneath her uniform jacket, as Shepard pressed into her with her whole body - until Ash's back hit the bulkhead.

Shepard pulled back, pressing their foreheads together.

"Miss me?" Ash teased, running her hand down Shepard's spine.

"You have no idea," Shepard murmured and kissed her again.