Mass Effect Just Breathe

**01 – Motion**

Fiona Shepard hears the shouts behind her as she flees from the street cart, stolen bag of apples in hand, just another street rat on the run.

**02 – Cool**

"Oh my god, Thane," she murmurs, staring at him with wide green eyes once he's put on the red - or were they black? - sunglasses, "you look so... _sexy_."

**03 – Young**

The hanar brushes a thick tentacle over the young child's bare skull, waiting for the tickled giggle to pass before replying to the nervous parents, "This one will take care of him."

**04 – Last**

Fiona pauses to wait until she sees the drell catching up behind her, husks hot on their trail; no one gets left behind.

**05 – Wrong**

Even with the knowledge that he is not truly responsible for the blood on his hands, twelve year old Thane Krios cannot help but stare at the blood on his hands and feel the heaviness of sin on his soul.

**06 – Gentle**

She shivers and sighs as the hands that have been honed to kill brush delicately along her lips with care.

**07 – One**

A single shot is all it will take... any less is a disservice to his trade, to his employer and to his victim.

**08 – Thousand**

Even as her eyes shut again, the muffled voices still mumbling about life signs, the brightness of the light from overhead still flashes under her eyelids as more stars than she can count before unconsciousness claims her once more.

**09 – King**

"It's an ancient human tradition!" she insists as she sets the little gold crown on the top of his head, stating, "We can go as a pair for this Halloween, you as the king, me as the queen."

**10 – Learn**

She dodges the punch and throws out one of her own, only to have him calmly cup it and use it to twist her arm around her back; sometimes she wonders if Thane suggested one-on-one sparring to teach her or just to tease her.

**11 – Blur**

The silent kitchen, the blood on the floor, the soulless body that had once been his wife all spin together Thane's world collapses into nothingness, his eyes fixed on her corpse.  
**  
12 – Wait**

She can hear something on his voice when they talk, unspoken facts and masked feelings, but he's not ready to admit the truth of his heart yet, and she's not sure she is either.

**13 – Change**

Sometimes the new faces and strange places are too much, and Shepard finds herself retreating, wishing she had never taken the _Normandy_ near Alchera...

**14 – Command**

Even after holding her in his arms only hours before, once she stands at the head of the table, Thane's view of her instantly switches; no longer his lover, not now, but his leader.

**15 – Hold**

Shepard embraces him as the Normandy heads back to the Omega 4 relay, perhaps reminding herself this was all truly real, they really did survive.

**16 – Need**

She can't fail, she _won't _let herself fail, storming after Kolyat at a dead run; she needs to prove that not every broken family is damned to fall apart, that not all of them end like hers did...

**17 – Vision**

Thane and Garrus jerk back when the commander's cybernetics flare out with an almost supernatural green glow, her eyes encompassed in it, her body jerking like a puppet towards the door and mouthing words she cannot voice.

**18 – Attention**

He focuses on her skin, planting kisses in a precise line up from that secret place between her legs and up towards her face, every placement of lips perfectly planned

**19 – Soul**

When she had seen him in the penthouse, she had thought his eyes to be black, perfect for a master killer; but now, sitting across from him with just a table between them, she can see the layers and colors hidden away from the light.

**20 – Picture**

"Hold that pose, lovebugs!" pleads the photographer and Shepard obeys, grinning with amusement as she imagines Udina's face when he sees a photo of her and Thane, hand in hand, on the next day's news.

**21 – Fool**

From his position in the air ducts, Thane watches the other intruders and decides that only an idiot would stand in the way of the red-haired woman currently shooting and punching her way through the tower, and continues on his way.  
**  
22 – Mad**

As the krogan rants on and on and on, he sees Fiona's eyes drift to the gas tank just... under... the... she can't be consideri- _BOOM!_

**23 – Child**

The weight of his newborn son weighs heavy in his hands as the weight of this new responsibility weighs heavy on his mind.

**24 – Now**

Fiona stares at the plate of drell soup in front of her, wondering why it's _blue_; she did say she was open to new things and he'd eaten all of the burned macaroni and cheese she made... it's now or never.

**25 – Shadow**

"No! Please! Noooooo..." shrieks the slaver as Thane drags him into the darkness, the blood streaking the floor like paint, his pleas falling on dead ears and a dead heart.

**26 – Goodbye**

It started as a holding of hands, then a tearful embrace, then a lifeline as Shepard and Kolyat hold onto each other on the shore of the Encompassing that had swept the empty body away into the abyss.

**27 – Hide**

Even in the dark, she can see him grinning as he unzips her top; maybe she has a bit of a kink for the possibility of getting caught, but he was the one to lead her to the main battery.

**28 – Fortune**

Shepard cackles as the squad sits around the mess table, the new assassin making a rare appearance out of Life Support, a bowl of noodles and dumplings to each of them as she holds up her little slip of paper from a yellow cookie and reads, "You shall be lucky in love, lucky numbers fourteen and sixty-eight. Yeah, right."

**29 – Safe**

"Funny," she jokes to Thane as they duck behind a corner to hide from the Harbringer's attack, Grunt's roar of blood lust almost drowning her out, "never expected an assassin to watch my back!"

**30 – Ghost**

Even without having ever met the long-gone woman, Irikah Krios now haunts Fiona's mind almost as much as Thane's, forever present in the tiny little room.

**31 – Book**

"For me? You shouldn't have..." He smiles proudly as her eyes go wide as she clutches the leather-bound volume with glee, an antique copy of _Dune_.

**32 – Eye**

_Like staring down the scope of a rifle..._ muses Thane internally as his new employer sits across from him, her focus not unkind but intense and unwavering.

**33 – Never**

Through life, death, and life again, she has never had someone who truly stood at her side; now she lays awake at night and watches him sleep, all too aware of each passing moment with the knowledge that they are numbered.

**34 – Sing**

When he closes his eyes during those long nights alone on Illium, he can listen to Irikah sing those old songs as perfectly off-key as the first day he'd heard her.  
**  
35 – Sudden**

When did she realize what this feeling was, this unexpected emotion, this unforeseen desire to be near him... when had she first realized this fresh warm feeling for what it was?

**36 – Stop**

"Don't give me a speech," she murmurs, hand on his arm, but he can't stop the words from spilling out, all his fears and dread; the terror that came with the late night realization that, at long last, he has found something worth living for again...

**37 – Time**

In a galaxy where everything seems to go by too slow, the pain of the past dragging on longer than possible, it occurs to him that it's painfully ironic that the hours and minutes he spends with her seems to go by so, so fast.

**38 – Wash**

"I must confess, at first this didn't appeal to me..." he states, but she can see from the way his eyes travel along her coated body that he's no longer opposed to the idea of a shared bubble bath.

**39 – Torn**

As she whispers in his ear while they embrace, a word triggers it before he can stop the memor- _Irikah leans into my side, smiling happily as we awake together, the rising sun giving her an unearthly glow..._

**40 – History**

"Don't let them take one more inch of Elysium! Not! One! _More!_" she howls, pointing to the incoming batarians, and her heart swells as she hears the soldiers and citizens all around her take up the rallying cry.

**41 – Power**

In the dark of the hallway, the lights overhead shattered from gunfire, the blue biotics swirling around Thane's body drive away the shadows.

**42 – Bother**

He closes his eyes and prays for patience, counting the moments until he decides to tell her to quit humming the theme to _Blasto_.

**43 – God**

Pride swells him as she stands on the edge of the shore with him, hand in hand, the fireworks of the festival of Arashu lighting up the night sky and dancing in her eyes.

**44 – Wall**

She watches her team become smaller and smaller as the floating disc takes them away and into the heart of the Collector ship, her heart bursting with pride and dread.

**45 – Naked**

Thane's mouth drops before he quickly turns around and covers his eyes, but not before he hears her yell, "Knock first!"

**46 – Drive**

"Like hell I'm sitting on the back seat," she says with a smirk, putting on the helmet as she straddles the hoverbike, and he gets the feeling that he's in for a bumpy ride.

**47 – Harm**

Mordin isn't surprised when she comes in, hobbling a little from an uncomfortable rash in... well, in uncomfortable places.  
**  
48 – Precious**

As Thane held the tiny little fuzz ball in his hand, she can't help but giggle girlishly at the adorable sight of the hamster pressing his little pink nose to the drell's.

**49 – Hunger**

She still rips into her food as though she were still on the street, holding tight onto her sandwich, old habits afraid of never being sure of when the next one will come.

**50 – Believe**

She stands on the beach alone now, staring up to the night sky, and prays for the first time in nearly three years, _Lord, those who die still live in Your presence, their lives change but do not end..._

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**AUTHOR'S NOTES:** If these seem out of time, it's because they're not written chronologically, sorry. orz orz This was written for the 1sentence drabble community on LiveJournal. Great community, check it out!


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Mass Effect, Romance