Periapsis
It feels odd, somehow, that she is the one standing and he is the one in the hospital bed.
She has spent more than her share of time in medical bays and in hospitals, after Eden Prime and the final battle against Saren, after two years of resurrection and that last, desperate flight from the disintegrating Collector base. Until she died he was there every time when she woke, his eyes tired but his smile relieved even when her injuries weren't his fault (which, except for the beacon, they never were). It was something to look forward to, in a stupid sort of way, something to mitigate the nightmares and the broken bones and her rapidly accumulating collection of scars.
When she came back to life she looked for him; he was gone, and so were her scars.
Her scars never came back, though she's earned more than a few new ones in the intervening time. She didn't expect Kaidan to come back, either, especially not after Horizon, but she kept the message he sent anyway, and set a photograph of him on her desk- she couldn't find a picture of the two of them together, only one taken at Flux years ago of her and Kaidan and Ash all grinning over their drinks.
It hurt to look at it.
(Later, she replaced it with his official portrait. It only halfway looks like him, too serious and his hair a pomaded crime against humanity, but she doesn't mind.)
She didn't expect to see him again but she should have known better. They've orbited around each other for years, like binary stars, and if she lost sight of him for a time it only means that gravity will bring him back around.
You can't fight gravity, after all.
By rights it should be her in the bed, bruised and bloody and broken. She should have checked the shuttle before they walked away, should have made sure the woman was dead and not trying to put Kaidan's head through the pavement, and the whole way to the Citadel she watched his orbits purple and the bruises well up behind his ears and willed him to keep breathing.
He did.
He's sleeping now, and she waits at his bedside and remembers the night before Ilos.
It seems a lifetime ago which, she supposes, it was; she watched him sleep that night, too. He had looked so contented she couldn't bring herself to wake him, so instead she just sat and watched the rise and fall of his chest, and the way his spine curved, just so, at the small of his back, and the way his toes curled against the blanket.
Now she rests her hand alongside his, still against the white sterile hospital sheets, and his fingers twitch and lace through hers.
You can't fight gravity.