Warning: Mild-ish spoilers for maybe the first half of ME3. Nothing majorly plot-related, just related to Kaidan and his romance.

maybe there's a God above
but all I've ever learned from love
was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you

"WAS THERE SOMETHING between you and Garrus?"

Honest to God, Shepard's heart stops dead in her chest. She looks carefully at Kaidan, trying to decide whether she can get away with lying, whether she it's worth it, whether she even wants to. She decides fairly quickly that she'll tell him the truth, but it still takes more effort than she would've liked to open her mouth and make the words come out. Christ, she's stared down the Collectors without batting an eye - destroyed their base and lived to talk about it - but just the idea of telling Kaidan she slept with Garrus makes all the moisture evaporate from her mouth.

"Our, um -" She stumbles over the words, legitimately struggling to look him in the eye. She doesn't even know why she's nervous; she hasn't done anything wrong. But it's Kaidan, and the last thing she wants to do is hurt him, especially when he looks like he got run over by the Mako. "Our fight on Horizon really threw me out." She can't help it. She glances down at her sneakers, just for a second, before she resumes eye contact. "You just shut me down."

Kaidan sighs. "I know. I just couldn't believe my eyes. There you were... alive!"

She nods. Yeah, she gets it. In fact, she's pretty sure she gets the monopoly on being surprised at her own resurrection. Sometimes she still can't quite wrap her head around it.

"I understand why you cheated, but I still love you, Shepard."

At this, her head snaps up, and her brow furrows. For a moment, she just blinks at him, blood rushing in her ears. Then she gets up from the chair she's pulled out from the desk nearby and moves to the door of Kaidan's hospital room. She locks it with a flick of her wrist, and then taps the pad next to the door that tints the glass walls to opaque black. She turns back to him, jaw clenched tight and eyes narrowed.

"Say that again, Major?"

His brow is crinkled with confused, maybe because her inflection suggests she doesn't understand his statement. His confused face is adorable, even through the bruises, and that irritates her even more.

"I... still love you?"

"No, the other part," she says sharply.

"Shepard -"

"You can't seriously be implying that we were together the whole time I was dead. Or that we were in a relationship while you were only hearing rumours that I was alive." He's sitting up now, staring intently at her, his jaw flexing as he processes her protests. "No, Kaidan. The thing with me and Garrus wasn't infidelity. It was I'm-probably-going-to-die-again-and-the-man-I-love-won't-talk-to-me sex. And it might not have been a good idea, but it was definitely not cheating."

She's done with this conversation, doesn't want to deal with it anymore, and she turns to the door, intending to make a hasty trip back to the Normandy before she snaps completely. But she doesn't even manage to unlock the door before Kaidan's hands are on her shoulders. He pulls her back around to face him and then shoves her against the door. Not hard enough to hurt, just enough to get her attention.

She meets his eyes - those pretty caramel brown eyes - and feels her glare melt away into a look of pouty frustration. His thumbs press into the spots where her collar bones meet her shoulders, and her skin tingles even under her baggy N7 hoodie. His mouth is pressed into a grim line and his breathing's a little bit ragged, and she can't help but think that maybe he shouldn't be standing.

"Fine," he says, voice low and quivering with intensity. "Maybe, technically, it wasn't cheating. But I know how it felt. I know how I felt when I found out, Shepard. Like I'd been punched in the stomach." He squeezes his eyes closed, like he's imagining it and the visual won't go away. "God, the thought of you with him..." His left hand leaves its spot on her shoulder, shifting to her neck so his fingers can curl around her nape and his thumb brushes over her jawline. He leans forward, resting his forehead against hers. Her own stinging eyes flutter closed too, and she swallows against the growing lump in her throat.

"I'm sorry." She doesn't mean it to, but it comes out as strained a whisper. "I never meant to hurt you, Kaidan."

His lips ghost over hers. "I know." Then he kisses her in earnest.

It's been so long since he's touched her like this. She's missed it. She's ached for it. It was so different with Garrus. Vakarian is her best friend, and he always will be, and her night with him was exactly what she needed at the time. She'll never regret that it happened, but Garrus isn't Kaidan. Kaidan isn't her friend, not really. Her feelings for him have never been friendly. He's always been that guy, the one that makes her pulse beat erratically in her veins, the one that can cause a flood of moisture between her legs just by tossing her one of his flirty little half-smirks. The one she thinks about when it's dark, and she's alone in her cabin. The one she thought about when she was dying.

"Kaidan," she whispers again. This time her voice is desperate, pleading.

His response just as urgent. "I know."

His mouth finds hers again, hard and hot and wet. He manipulates her lips open for his tongue as her hands come up to grasp his arms. His skin is taut and heated under her fingers, and the warmth is intoxicating. The scent of medigel pervades the room, but she's close enough that it doesn't matter - all she can smell is him, all shampoo and leather and gunpowder. He tastes exactly like she remembers, and his tongue drags across the roof of her mouth and her knees give out a little, just like they did that night before Ilos. God, she's missed him.

The fingers of his left hand fist in her hair, and his right moves between their bodies - with some difficulty given how she's clinging to him - to find the zipper on her hoodie. With one quick pull, it's completely unzipped, and she legs go of him before she can convince herself not to, just so she can tug off the sweater entirely. The air in the room is cold on her skin, but she's so hot inside the temperature barely registers. The skimpy tank top she's wearing does little to dull the feeling of his palm as it presses against her breast, especially since her bra is little more than flimsy lace and elastics. Then the pad of his thumb skates over her nipple, and she gasps into his mouth as it pebbles against his touch.

When he breaks their kiss, she's left panting from a combination of lack of air and burning need. His lips part on her neck, and his breath is hot and moist against her skin, sending an anticipatory shudder down her spine. He gives a low chuckle her reaction, and she, in response, twists his hair in her fingers, tightening her grip just enough to sting. He hisses against the column of her throat, and she smirks. That smirk doesn't last long, though, because he retaliates by unsnapping her jeans and delving his hand into her panties.

WHEN HE TOUCHES her, she's already damp with need, and Kaidan gives a low rumble of approval. It's been two and a half years since he's touched her like this, held her like this, and he's missed it so much. Shepard was dead for two years, and he never got over that. He spent those two years grieving for her, and for what they could have had together. And then he started to hear rumours that she was alive, and he hadn't... He doesn't even know if there are names for the feelings he had. Seeing her on Horizon had been both the best and worst day of his life. The best because she was alive, and it wasn't that she'd been alive the whole time and just not told him, which was something he'd been worrying about ever since the rumours started. The worst because everything he'd imagined doing or saying if he ever saw her again became totally impossible, invalid, once she'd revealed she was working with Cerberus.

But she's not. Not anymore. Now she's here, with him. And he's sure as hell not going let her slip through his fingers. The Reapers are attacking, and they could both be killed at pretty much any moment. If this is the end of days, he's damn well going to spend the time he has left loving her.

As much as she'll let him, anyway.

He dips the pad of his middle finger into her, but her panties and her jeans are still around her hips, the fabric binding his hand so he can't do what he wants to. It's frustrating, because his thumb itches with the need to press against her clit the way his cock aches to hear her moan.

He's a little sore, because it's almost time for another dose of his meds, so when he lowers to his knees in front of her, it's a little slower than usual. She still tracks him with her eyes the same way she always does, her hips tilting with the pull of her jeans as he drags them, and her panties, down her legs. He licks his lips as she, at his urging, lifts one leg from the denim, pulling her foot from her shoe in the process, and hooks her knee on his shoulder.

Kaidan wastes no time as he opens his mouth over her clit, two fingers sliding into her channel, as hot and tight as he remembers. His tongue flicks at her teasingly, and she bites down on her lower lip, stifling the moan he's sure is rising in her. He glares a little, and a smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth. His fingers pump smoothly in and out of her, and he waits until she's lulled into the easy, even rhythm of it to drag his teeth over the flesh covering her clitoris. Her hips buck reflexively, almost throwing him off her, but he manages to recover his rhythm fairly easily.

"Jerk," she murmurs, and he smiles against the smooth skin on the inside of her thigh.

When he feels her muscles start to clench warningly around his digits, he withdraws, and wipes his fingers off on the seat of his jeans as he stands. Shepard's cheeks are flushed with impending orgasm, her swollen lips parted and her breath escaping in heated little pants. He probably shouldn't, because he's still healing, but he picks her up anyway, and carries her over to his hospital bed, perching her on the edge. Her legs are still wrapped around his waist when he sets her there, and her jeans, hanging off one ankle, swing with the motion of it.

He's about to let go of her to unsnap his own jeans when she does it for him, reaching into the denim and withdrawing his dick, already fully erect. She gives a stroke up his shaft, and he responds by kissing her, hot, wet, and thorough. After she drags her thumb teasingly over the head of his cock, he pushes her hand away, tilts her hips toward him, and thrusts into her with one slick push.

As he plants as far into her as he can get, her head falls back on her shoulders, breaking their kiss so she can give a throaty moan. He transplants his lips to her neck, feeling her pulse beat wildly in the column of her throat. That pulse only speeds up as he finds his rhythm, quick and hard.

He fucks her there, on his bed in Huerta Memorial, and it actually makes getting the shit kicked out of him by a Cerberus robot totally worth it. He'd been pretty sure he'd never get to do this again, first because she'd died, and then because she'd teamed up with Cerberus. He must be the luckiest son of a bitch in Citadel space to be getting another shot with her. Commander Shepard. Saviour of the Citadel.

The Saviour of the Citadel is whispering his name over and over again, like a prayer. He responds in kind, murmuring against her throat - her name, confessions of love, interspersed with a little dirty talk for good measure. His hand slips between them, his palm splaying over her abdomen as his thumb finds her clit. He strokes it in quick little circles as she clings to his shoulders, rocking her hips into each of his thrusts.

He remembers the sexy groan she gives when she comes a split second before she demonstrates it, barely manages to smother the noise with his mouth in time. She clenches around him, muscles quaking as she rides out the orgasm, and he keeps right on pumping, trying to draw out the sensations as long as he can. Just as hers is subsiding, Kaidan's own climax wracks his body. He holds her tightly as the orgasm washes over him, and when it finally passes he presses a kiss to her sweat-dampened temple.

For a few minutes, he just stands there between her legs, and he suspects she's using him to keep from flopping back onto the uncomfortable hospital cot. When his breathing returns to normal and he's pretty sure he can move without his knees giving out, he relaxes a bit, dropping his forehead to her shoulder.

"I should probably go," she says, her voice soft and regretful.

He's unable to keep the disappointment from his. "Yeah."

"Kaidan?"

"Mmhmm?"

"I love you, too."