Rating: General audience
Word count: 1380
Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy
Ship: Thane Krios/Female Shepard
Characters: Thane Krios, Mia Shepard, Normandy Crew
Notes/Warnings: No Warning Apply
Summary: The Normandy crew celebrates.
The moment Mia Shepard decided they going to bake and cook themselves, it was known it was going to be a disaster. The goal was to bring all their national, or maybe rather planetary meals together to this celebration, but there was one problem. They were soldiers, assassins, spies, and mercenaries, but no cooks in the slightest. And yet, she thought it would be the perfect bonding activity.
They weren’t celebrating anything in particular, rather just the fact they were closer to their goal. And they just stopped Thane’s son, Kolyat, from committing murder. Mia thought briefly about thanksgiving, which was in a few weeks but decided against it. It was human tradition, and only from her father’s land, where she had never been, and they had never really celebrated it so it didn’t make much sense for her to take part in it.
The kitchen was a little bit (well maybe not a little) crowded given that she gather all her squad mates. Joker got away with this telling them he must pilot the ship, but Shepard knew it was just an excuse – EDI would be perfectly capable of steering the ship herself for a while. Especially given that she would have later – Joker didn’t excuse himself from the dinner. If there would be a dinner to be eaten after their joyous experiments in the kitchen.
They settle on doing apple pie, kallathal, a traditional quarian meal made of meat and vegetables, especially pepper, manathes, drell’s cake with a lot of dried fruits, rellintini, asari meal, similar to Italian pasta and few turian meals for Garrus with d-amino acids. They double-checked the recipe they choose for ingredients toxic to them. Thankfully, they bought some semi-finished products in Citadel. And some alcohol, which, in retrospect, could be not the best idea.
„So, I think we must start with cakes,” said Shepard, after they all gathered in the canteen.
“I think we must start with alcohol.” Jack opened the bottle. Her expression was one of resignation. It was really hard to bring her here, and Mia wondered if it was a good choice. Jack always isolated herself, and Shepard wanted her to bring out of the shell, but maybe she should just let her be…
“Great idea, Jack,” said Kasumi. Mia only sighed and started to put products on the table. And they had to make a lot of cake if it was to be enough for everyone.
They split into two groups, one preparing the apple pie, and one manathes, and it was pretty mixed up because no one knew how to do either of them. They relied on the recipes. Thane, of course, was in charge of making drell’s delicacy, but he was of little help, other than the fact that he used to eat it sometimes. Miranda, on the other hand, admitted she helped a few times to prepare apple pie, and, after all, how hard could it be? Mia only hoped she would not be mistaken. There was not enough work for everyone just by the cakes, so they decided to multitask even more, and, in the meantime, Tali, Garrus, and Jacob were preparing some turian meals.
She was chopping dried fruit, while Thane mixed the ingredients for the dough.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, siha,” he said, as she dictated the recipe.
“Of course I don’t, I’ve never made it! I just put my faith in the recipe’s author.”
“I don’t mean that,” he gestured, with a hand dirty with dough, toward ingredients on the table.
“So what do you mean?” she asked, although she knew it would be a more serious conversation than she was ready for.
“Our mission, and… well… us.” She was certain she saw some blush on his cheeks. Or maybe she thought so because she had to be blushing rather fervently.
“Well, maybe I don’t know about our mission, but we had to do it and do it soon…” she said, stopping what she was doing. Thane already made the dough, now waiting for it to grow. “And us…” she continued eventually. “Us, I’m sure.”
“I’m dying.”
“As all of us, quicker or slower. And we all could die during our mission. Let us enjoy the time we have left.”
“Let enjoy indeed.” He touched her nose, living a piece of dough on it, and kissed her. Mia had an impression that everyone was staring at them, but she didn’t care. Either way, everyone knew of their… affair.
“Get back to work,” she said when they broke the kiss. There was plenty to be done, and Miranda was eyeing her with rebuke. For fraternizing with the squad mate or stopping the work, she didn’t know.
When the cakes were already safely in the oven, they started to prepare the rest of the meals. To say it was going smoothly would be a lie, but, with their joined effort, at the 8 p. m. standard time, everything was ready, and only a little bit burnt or, in one case, undercooked.
“So, I know we don’t celebrate anything in particular.” Shepard stood when everyone, including Joker and doctor Chakwas, gathered by the table. “But I just want to say how… grateful I’m to be here, and how grateful I’m that you all are here, with me.” She felt the tears in her eyes, as she looked around at all faces, smiling at her, just being there for her. She blinked a few times, to chase it away. She was not the one to cry, especially not in such a situation. “I’d like to thank all of you for that.” She held her glass, filled with wine. “Toast to that! Cheers!”
All of them raised their glasses and said the words of the toast in their languages, switching off the translators. And they began their feast. Well, maybe it wasn’t the best meal she had, taste-wise, but truly one of the best in a different way, she thought, biting slightly hard rellintini. It wasn’t that bad if you drank enough wine afterward.
“Cooking was nice,” said Kasumi. “But let’s not do it again. It’s better to be left to the cooks.”
“Agreed,” responded Tali, who already had some wine and the kallathal through her filter apparatus.
“Well, maybe we’re not the most talented, but at last we tried…” said Shepard. But to be frank, from the things she tried, only an apple pie seemed to be decent, even quite good. Maybe it was Miranda's experience, perhaps it was just the easiest, or maybe she just didn’t know how the rest should taste. But she bet it should taste better.
“Let’s this trial be our last. On this department at least,” Miranda was frowning from above her plate. Mia only sighed.
“I still think it was fun,” said Thane.
“You’re saying this because you get to kiss our commander,” commented Kasumi. Mia felt she blushed once again. She hated it. Sometimes her body acted as those of a teenager in love…
“Maybe.” Thane had a smug expression.
Mia shook her head.
“We had fun, but now we must eat fruits of our labor,” she said. “I want all of this gone. It’s an order.”
“You’re torturing innocents,” Joker fumbled half-heartedly into his plate.
“Try apple pie. It’s good.”
“Because I made it,” said Miranda.
The rest of the dinner passed on friendly banter and not very eager eating. In the end, not all of the food was eaten, but what was left were mostly the most burnt parts of the meal, so Mia didn’t push anyone to eat it.
When they were clearing the table, she was already a little bit tipsy. She laughed too loud and leaned too heavily on Thane, who seemed to be far less drunk, but in great spirit. After all the dishes were already in the dishwasher, and the table properly cleaned (at least to the point they were able to clean it in their current state), she left the canteen, holding Thane’s hand. It seemed all to be just natural when they were around his place, and he asked her in. She mentally went through all pros and cons, and in fact, she didn’t see any cons, so she happily accepted. And she stayed there till morning.
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