He walked off without another word and left her behind.

It had been one of the happiest moments of his life, seeing her standing there before him again. He'd thought at first it was a side effect from whatever poison had paralyzed him, or maybe just an aura before one of the migraines hit. But she'd really been there, in the flesh, and he could smell, touch, feel her in his arms like he'd thought he'd never be able to again.

Disbelief had been the first emotion, followed by joy. Then it had come crashing down when he'd realized she'd been alive all this time and hadn't bothered to find him, see him, even tell him of the fact. It had taken him a long time to pick the pieces back up after he'd thought her gone. For months he'd hoped to get some sort of word, even after Joker had told him what he'd seen, their Commander caught in an explosion, lost to deep space. He'd continued to believe that she'd find a way to survive like she always did. What was one exploding ship compared to geth and krogan and rogue Spectres and Reapers? She would find a way back to him, he had to believe.

Then the months had passed by with no news, and the Alliance had declared her death and he had to accept the fact that he'd never see her again, never make an embarrassing slip of the tongue or call her ma'am or follow her lead or hold her again.

Then came the guilt. Even while he was trying to tell Joker it hadn't been his fault that she was gone, Kaidan had wondered what might have happened if he hadn't let her go on her own. Or if he had gone back for Joker himself. It was another person who had died because of him, and more than ever he wasn't sure he was worth the cost. It had taken months, years, to feel like he could move on again, because he knew she would have wanted him to. And now here she was, and she hadn't had the decency to tell him, to find a way to say that she wasn't gone.

He could have forgiven that in time, probably. She was a Spectre and an Alliance soldier before all else, he knew that, and if a mission demanded she fake her death she would have done it in a heartbeat. But then she had said the unforgivable, that she was working for Cerberus now, just like the rumors he had shrugged off said. That was the sign that this dream wasn't what it seemed to be.

The Shepard he knew would have never worked for Cerberus. She would have done the job by herself before allying with them. She might even have died first, or stayed dead, if what she said was really true. But how could he believe it? He had to face the fact that he didn't know the woman in front of him, and he wasn't sure if he ever really had, even though he'd loved her like he hadn't loved anyone in a long time. That was what hit him the hardest. If she could do this, work for the unthinkable, then maybe he had never really known her at all. Maybe it had all been one big farce from the start, a Cerberus plot through and through. How could he trust anything she said or did right now, or anything she had said or done?

But if he didn't know who she was anymore, he knew one thing about himself. He was an Alliance marine who had believed in the things he'd heard from her lips, and he would hold to those things even if it meant walking away from her. So he'd taken the only option he could be sure of, and said goodbye.

Even as he'd done it though, the doubt remained. What if she was telling the truth, that she didn't belong to Cerberus, that there was a bigger threat out there that no one wanted to hear about? The Council had done the same thing and she had been right from the start. Didn't she deserve his trust after everything they had done together, been through together, been to each other?

If it was true, and she needed his help not only against the Collectors but against Cerberus as well, then he'd thrown her to the wolves without anyone to watch her back, and that might be unforgivable. It was a choice between his duty and his heart, and he didn't know if he could make that choice. So he did the only thing he could. He left her behind and hoped that she could forgive him someday if she was right.

-~0~-

He walked off without another word and left her behind.

She watched him go, knowing that there wasn't anything else she could say to change his mind. There was no way to prove anything, or she wouldn't have to rely on Cerberus instead of the Council or the Alliance.

She had searched long and hard for him ever since waking up on that table in Cerberus' lab. It was the first thing that crossed her mind after getting over the shock of dying and being alive again. What happened to my crew? And foremost among those had been him. She'd asked everyone – Jacob, Miranda, the Illusive Man, Captain Anderson, and none of them would tell her, until she had heard that he was here, on Horizon, and so were the Collectors.

Then every motionless body, every cocoon, every corpse she had searched, fearing that one would be his. And every time she didn't see him, she didn't know whether to be relieved or even more afraid that some worse fate had befallen him, that the Collectors had taken him for some unknown purpose and she would never, ever see him again. Then there he was.

Her arms were around him and he was really there and things were finally starting to feel right again. And then he had started yelling at her and she just couldn't respond. She, Commander Shepard, savior of the galaxy, was helpless to answer.

Of course he was justified. She wouldn't have believed someone could be brought back from the dead if she hadn't been the one it happened to. She would have thought, just like he did, that it was impossible. So she could hardly blame him for not believing.

At the same time she wanted to shout back, to ask why he couldn't trust her, believe in her, just a little after all they had gone through together and been to each other. Didn't she deserve that much, after defeating Saren and saving the galaxy and dying? He should be happy to see her again, to get the second chance that never should have happened!

She wanted to tell him everything, explain why she was right, why he should trust her. But then there was Cerberus, right there behind her, and what would the Illusive Man do if he got his hands on one more thing to hold over her? It was all just too much coincidence that they were here together anyways. Cerberus knew too much, and even that little bit was enough to put them both in peril.

It was all too much, just too much to handle all at once for one person, even for her. She couldn't even react when he said that he "loved" her, like he didn't anymore, because she didn't know which was worse – the past tense or the fact that he had to be thinking all sorts of horrible things that just weren't fair when you had already died once to get resurrected and stuck in the muck she was in. It was just too much.

So she let him walk away, let him leave her behind with the world crashing down around her ears again, and she couldn't do a thing about it, stuck somewhere between wanting him to come back and wanting to clobber him over the head with whatever was handy. She did the only thing she could and let him go, wondering which was worse – that he left or that she didn't try to stop him.