When he is lucky, he wakes up before they die.
When he is not, he sees it all in startling detail. Perhaps the where isn't on target - Virmire hardly ever stars in his dreams, nor does the Normandy - and the when - it didn't happen all at once, not like ripping off a band aid, but a slow driven into a defenseless back, another in a distracted chest. And he wasn't there for either event; not there to hear the screams or the cries, if there were any (knowing the women, curses seem much more likely), and he wasn't there to see their faces, to watch their pain, to bear witness to the horror of great lives taken far too soon.
But one detail remains every time, painful in it's accuracy. Every time, he can do nothing but allow it to happen.
When he is lucky, he wakes up before they die. When he is really lucky, sometimes he dies too.
::
They tell him the sessions are a "necessary step to combat relapse." He supposes they might be right, but that doesn't mean he's going to speak. He'll sit in the corner, impassive and rigid and silent, and they'll click their tongues and shake their heads, but he'll just sit.
Ash would mock him in that way of hers, the way that made him grit his teeth and spread a near-impossible fondness through his gut. She'd elbow him in the side and tell him to "grow a pair, El-Tee, it's not like you're dying," and then laugh like an idiot until he joined in, knowing from experience that it was hard to remain stoic in her presence.
Shepard would place a hand on his shoulder; her touch would be firm, but there would be enough warmth in her fingers, enough tenderness in her grip to take his rage and turn it into something else, something better. Something he could fight with. She wouldn't say anything - for a loud-mouth military woman with a presence that domineered a room as soon as she entered she was really quite quiet - but it would be enough. It would always be enough.
But Ash was dead and Shepard was dead and he was dead too, just not in the way he wished he was.
::
Tanned fingers tap against hard wood - she always hated the noise, Shepard, and he expects her to come up and slap his hand any second, snapping at him for annoying her but corners of her lips twisting upwards. He used to do it just to get that reaction, just for that semblance of a smile.
"Kaidan."
She was the only one who used to call him by name - to anyone else it was Lieutenant, or El-Tee, or Alenko, but it isn't her voice which speaks now, and he whips his head up in annoyance as if to say his name and not be her is akin to sin.
"What are you thinking about?"
It's a loaded question, and he ponders his options. Honesty could lead to mental breakdown. Lies could do the same. He has to think about his answer, now that silence is no longer given to him as an option.
"If the universe can take away two brilliant soldiers without second thought, and leave me behind just as easily, what does that say about our fate? If they strip away the heroes and leave the useless, the incompetent, what hope do we have for survival? What is there for us to hold on to?"
It's not what he was thinking, not quite, but it has passed through his mind before, and it seems appropriate now; he knows it is a question she will not be able to answer.
"I don't know, Kaidan," she answers eventually, and he applauds himself for this small victory, one of the few he can count.
::
They say he went insane. They say he lost his mind for a bit; survivor's guilt, they called it, and what a bullshit diagnosis it was.
"It's not your fault," they would say, "Shepard had to make the call on Virmire, you couldn't have changed her mind. And as for the Commander...she knew what she was doing. She always knew what she was doing, and she knew the risks. You can't blame yourself."
But little did they understand that he could. He could so easily, could with every fiber of his being and not an ounce of hesitation.
Harmless flirting turned into something so deep it had terrified and thrilled him at the same time, something more. And he had liked it, had faith in it, and then the choice was between Ash and him and he was saved for reasons the Commander would never admit to, he would never admit to, not to her, not to himself.
And it was Shepard, and he had left her. She had saved him, and he had left her. The Normandy was lost - he knew it was, she knew it was, and still he left her in a crashing ship. A leak in her O2 line was the suspected cause, such a cruel way for the fearless Commander Fucking Shepard to die. He always assumed it would be a bullet, an explosion, an act of heroism that saved billions and killed one.
Not a goddamn leak in her O2 line.
They say he went insane when he opened the shuttle doors and found only Joker inside.. He woke up in a hospital bruised and battered, doctors telling him he exploded in a white-hot biotic rage, that he had almost killed everyone around him, including himself.
But their words fall on numb ears, and he knows the truth. It's not survivor's guilt he's feeling, not something they can stick a label on and cure with pills and and a couple kind words.
It's a slow knife in his spine, another in his chest. It's a steady deterioration, sleepless nights and the death of a soul before it's body. It's the trail of blood behind him, the blood too red, too fresh, coating his palms and staining his armor.
It's not a soldiers death, but a cowards, and he thinks it suits him all the same.