He remembered all the events of that day, although not in the correct order.
First, there was the flash of porcelain neck, fragile and smooth, before she clicked her helmet into place; he had kissed that neck dozens of times and nuzzled his nose in beneath the dark hair. It was such a feminine neck. It always amazed him that Shepard had such delicate parts to her when she was such a strong, unrelenting woman. It was like these places were her secrets and he had been privileged enough to gain access to them, discovering them one by one.
His heart was hammering in his chest at that moment but he still felt the familiar warm feeling when he saw that alabaster skin.
The next memory was from hours later, sitting in a hard cold chair, cradling a cup of coffee that felt small in his hand. They were all there, but they were avoiding looking at each other. Nobody wanted to have the inevitable conversation. Nobody wanted to say the inevitable words. So Kaidan was stuck staring at Wrex's feet, trying to focus on them. He remembered clearly thinking how huge those feet were.
It was Joker who cracked first, surprisingly. Or not surprisingly. He burst into tears with a kind of unrestrained emotion none of them had ever seen from him.
"It's… it's my fault," he choked out, covering his face with his twisted hands. He had broken some bones during the… during what happened, but he had refused to get medical treatment until they knew.
Liara was sat beside him, her own eyes large and damp. She put her arm around Joker's shoulders in a tender gesture that nobody would have ever attempted in normal circumstances.
Suddenly, Joker was looking straight at him, green eyes piercing, earnest and heartbroken. "I'm sorry." The pilot addressed him directly, frankly.
Kaidan had woken up before Shepard, which was not rare exactly, but still felt special. Since Ilos, Kaidan had been sleeping in her bed with increasing frequency. We shouldn't, he had said. He regretted his hesitation now. He regretted every missed opportunity, every moment that had slipped through his fingers. She had laughed at him; her bright, open smile was something which had taken time to get used to. She was usually such a hardass, so serious and focused. After Saren, she had relaxed. There was still work to do, but they'd stopped the Reapers for now. We've earned it. They'll look the other way, Lieutenant. We've just come back from a suicide mission. He had never met anyone so persuasive. She reminded him of a naughty child trying to lure the other children into mischief.
That morning, he had looked down at her face in wonder in the moments before she woke up. There was a faint smattering of freckles on that clear skin, bumping delicately over her nose and down her cheeks. She looked so innocent, apart from the long white scar that worked its way down the left side of her face. He bent to kiss it gently.
I could do this every morning.
"It's bad news." Anderson's face was drained of colour. He had been nearby and had rushed out to meet them when he heard what had happened.
They had all stood when he walked in to deliver the official news that they had all knew to be the truth for hours. Somehow Kaidan remained on his feet, although the feeling in his legs disappeared completely. He felt the others looking at him.
The crew had all known about the relationship, although Kaidan had never discussed it with anyone. It had never been mentioned on the ship, with the exception of a few winks and tiny comments from one Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau.
Shepard had been a great many things to the crew. She was Wrex's enabler, taking him to brutal fights and presenting him with challenges he never would have found alone. They had fought, they had disagreed- Kaidan thought back to seeing them staring down each other's barrels on Virmire with a shudder- but ultimately they had worked well together. She had saved Tali and taken her on an adventure. More importantly, she had given Tali a chance to take on the geth. Garrus owed Shepard a great deal too- she had opened his eyes to the galaxy. Garrus held Shepard in extremely high regard and had quickly started to see her more as a friend that a commanding officer, something which the rest of them had struggled with, with the exception of Liara. Kaidan knew Liara's feelings for Shepard ran deep. He understood all these things, all the things that Shepard had been and how the rest of the crew felt. But Shepard had been everything to him.
"Excuse me." He spoke the words in a voice which was quiet and measured, even though his tears were already falling.
"Kaidan-" Liara reached out for him, but he was already leaving the room, desperate to be away from them.
Flames engulfed the Normandy. He couldn't fathom what he was seeing. People were running, pushing. He heard a scream.
"Shepard!" She had her back to him, clicking down that helmet. She was calm and collected. Of course she was.
"The distress beacon is ready for launch." Professional, focused. She was Commander Shepard in that moment, not the soft, warm woman he had woken up with.
"Will the Alliance get here in time?" he asked. He was scared. The panic was rising up inside of him painfully.
There was a jolt then and he lost his balance, in that moment realising just how serious the situation was. The Normandy is going to be lost. Shepard's hands grabbed him and steadied him.
"The Alliance won't abandon us." He had heard her express her doubts about the Alliance on more than one occasion and he realised that she was trying to make him feel better. She had already turned away from him, reaching for a fire extinguisher and attempting pointlessly to put the fire out. Didn't she understand how bad the situation was? "We just need to hold on."
He caught the fire extinguisher she tossed to him and stared at her for a moment, fear freezing his feet in place.
"Get everyone onto the escape shuttles." Maybe she did realise how bad it was.
"Joker's still in the cockpit. He won't abandon ship." He saw her pause at his words but realised that she wasn't making any move herself to get to a shuttle. "I'm not leaving either."
It seemed like common sense to him. If she was staying, he was staying. He wasn't quite at the stage of comfortably thinking of them as a single unit yet, but in this situation there was no way he could consider leaving her.
She reached out and grabbed his hand. "I need you to get everyone onto the evac shuttles," she said, and her voice was different now. The control was slipping. "I'll take care of Joker."
Shepard moved to turn away from him and walked straight into an explosion in a style that he would much later think of as typically Shepard. She fell against him as the blazing fireball erupted before them and he held her for the last time. She pushed off him, staggering off towards the flames to get to Joker.
"Commander!" Kaidan could never figure out why he called her that instead of Shepard the last time he saw her. He couldn't let her go without him. There was a pain in his chest and all of his instincts were screaming at him to grab her and bundle her away to safety.
But you couldn't do that with Shepard. He had known that the first time he saw her.
"Kaidan, go." She turned back to look at him. With the helmet on, it was impossible to read her facial expression, or to see the look in her eyes. He always wondered afterwards what she looked like in that moment. "Now." It was an order, and he understood it as such.
He paused for a small moment. Should he say something? There was something horribly final about this moment. Good luck? Be careful? I love you?
"Aye, aye." The words tasted bitter and he turned away from her with something close to anger in his mouth.
"What's the plan for today, Commander?" Kaidan was perched comfortably at the end of her bed, watching as she strode from her bathroom wrapped in a towel. Her skin was damp and glowed beautifully, unnaturally, in the light of the room. He wanted to reach for her and tug her back into the bed, but duty called.
"The usual, I suppose." Shepard paused in front of the mirror, briefly examining a yellow bruise on her shoulder. "Find some geth, get into mortal peril, shoot some things." She flashed Kaidan one of those easy smiles in the mirror. "Maybe there'll be a button to press. You know how much that would thrill Garrus."
"You'll only end up annoying him when you refuse to let him push it."
She laughed and dropped the towel suddenly, eyes glinting mischievously. "How true."
"Joker…" Kaidan was standing behind the pilot, watching him slide through screens with ruthless efficiency. The alarm was blaring and Kaidan could smell smoke.
"I can save her," Joker said, completely unaware that Kaidan was there. "I can save you, baby."
Kaidan felt a rush of affection for the pilot and a sharp pang of sadness as he realised what he was about to ask. "We need to abandon ship, Joker."
"I'm not abandoning her!" There was poison in Joker's eyes and genuine anger in his words as he turned to glare at Kaidan. ""You go if you want, Lieutenant. I'm staying right here."
"You're being ridiculous, Joker." Kaidan tried to keep the words neutral, gentle, but he knew he failed. The sounds of people panicking behind him were getting louder and he knew it wasn't getting better. "If they come around for another attack, the ship isn't going to-"
"I need to concentrate. I'm only the best pilot in the Alliance when there isn't a preachy Lieutenant complaining at me." Joker's voice was final, absolute. He had tried to make the words less prickly, less painful, with an attempt at humour, but he was still angry. "Go find Shepard and make sure she's alright."
"Of course Shepard's alright, Joker."
"I could do this every morning." He blurted out the words without thinking as he watched her sweep her hair into a bun with ruthless ease. He regretted them immediately; blood rushed to his face and he dropped his eyes to his knees.
There was a painfully quiet moment. She was going to ask him to leave. She was going to kick him out and they'd never speak again. She might quietly shoot him on a mission and blame the geth.
"Kaidan, look at me." The words were gentle, almost tentative, although those were two words nobody would ever associate with the Commander. He met her gaze nervously, expecting some sort of scorn or pity in her eyes. He found none. "What- what do you mean?"
She was nervous too. He could hardly believe it. "I… I could wake up with you every morning. Do this couple thing every morning." It took bravery to say the next few words but he couldn't back out now. "Every morning. I love you, Shepard."
She took his hand. Her fingers were trembling. "Every morning?"
"Every morning."
She smiled then and leaned towards him. "I could live with that."