Note: This is a kinkmeme fill I'm currently working on. It can be read as a companion piece to Homecoming or as an entirely different story.

Fractures

Kaidan watches her from outside the hospital room, arms crossed across his chest. Shepard looks like hell, and it causes him physical pain to look at her, to know that she suffered – that she continues to suffer. Her arm is a burned, ruined mess, so mangled it hardly looks like it should belong on a person. Her leg was pierced nearly straight through with shrapnel, and from what he's heard, it missed her artery by millimetres.

She'll have several knew scars ziplining across her face from now on, too. The doctors hacked away most of her hair, as matted and filled with debris as it had been, and it sits like rotten crab grass atop her head.

Despite this, the look she's giving the doctor isn't pained. It's not self-pitying. It's annoyed, and he watches her mouth set in that stubborn way he's grown to love. That, more than anything, let's him know that she's going to be okay.

The doctor looks two-parts harassed to one part awestruck, and Kaidan takes that as his cue to to interrupt. He gives a soft knock on the hospital door, and enters without waiting. Shepard's sharp green eyes turn on him, soften, and she jerks her head towards the doctor in a way that clearly says, Deal with this.

"There a problem, Doc?" asks Kaidan.

The doctor practically sighs in relief at the friendly tone, and points emphatically at his patient. "The Commander is insisting that she be allowed to roam the hospital. Now, disregarding for a moment the fact that she has several debilitating injuries -"

To no one, Shepard says, "Did I ever tell the story about that time I got spaced, shrivelled to a crisp, and then woke up from a coma to fight off a mech invasion?"

Now it's the doctor's turn to look annoyed, continuing on as though he hadn't heard. "But there's also the fact that it's sheer chaos out there, and the last thing we need is the galaxy's saviour to be wandering around causing a nuisance."

Kaidan can't stop his eyebrows from shooting up. He glances at Shepard, who seems positively appalled. "Causing a nuisance?" she repeats. "Need I remind you doctor, that I just stopped the reaper army on foot?"

Her voice is veering dangerously into her interrogation voice, so Kaidan steps between her and her prey. He says, "Why don't you leave the Commander and I alone, all right? I'll talk to her."

The doctor collects his datapad and, shaking his head, strides out of the room mumbling to himself. Kaidan turns back to Shepard, only to find that she's now levelling a very dangerous look in his direction. Choosing to ignore it for now, he sits in the foldout chair next to her bedside. He reaches for her uninjured hand – a hand she promptly snatches away.

"Don't sit there like we're staying. I'm getting out of this bed," she says, and makes a move to sit up. Sweat collects between her brows, and from the lines around her eyes he can tell that she's in excruciating pain. Not an insignificant part of him wonders at the logic of falling in love with a woman who doesn't seem to have the sense to lie down and heal, but, well, that's a battle he's already fought and lost. So he puts his hand gently on her shoulder, and gives her a significant look. She tries to ignore it, tries to ignore his hand, tries not to meet his gaze, but then she does, and she slumps back. "I hate you," she says, but it lacks any bite.

"I know," he agrees, taking her good hand and kissing it, remembering the first time he did so, remembering her smile. She smiles now, but it's sad.

"I don't like hospitals," she says. "Not after..." Shepard doesn't finish, her face closing down.

Kaidan knows what she's not saying. Cerberus. He grips her hand a little tighter, propping his elbows up on her bed. "You've got to stay here and heal. You had a pretty bad shot to the leg, never mind the rest of you. Don't want to make it worse, do you?"

Shepard grumbles, which means no. Neither of them mention her arm, or how, unless drastic surgery is done, she'll never be as quick with a gun as she was before. She lets loose a giant sigh and turns to him, eyes searching his face. After a time, she says, "I don't know how you put up with me."

He can't help chuckling. "Sometimes it's a mystery to me too." He recalls, suddenly, what brought him to her in the first place. "Oh, hey, I have something I thought you might want."

Leaning forward, he pulls a tattered notebook from his back pocket and sets it carefully in her lap. She freezes, staring at the rough paper of its cover, the fringed pages, the worn twine that holds it all together. She's so quiet, he can't even hear her breathing, isn't even sure she is breathing.

Finally, she says, "Did you read it?"

Kaidan considers lying. Telling her that he'd just found it today, and, recognizing it, brought it immediately to her. The truth is that he'd found it a few days after that last battle, a few days before they found her body. He'd slept with it, knowing that she'd held it close to her, hidden secret parts of herself inside, but had left it closed, waiting to hear the stories fall from her lips. It was only when they'd pulled her from the wreckage, broken and nearly dead, and he'd finally realized how small she was, how fragile... That's when he read it.

"Yes," he says, "I read it."

"Well," says Shepard, but can't seem to come up with anything beyond that. She leans far back into her pillows, and places her hand – her bad hand – on top of it, and somehow, that speaks volumes.

That's why Kaidan cups her cheeks, brushing away that one stray tear with his thumb. And because there's nothing else to say, he says, "I love you."