A/N: AMAZING art for this piece created by the very talented Cadkinn! Soooo happy to have had her working on a piece for this fic, I couldn't be happier with the results! THANK YOU! MANY THANKS also to my lovely beta Sin'vraal, who, despite a large heaping helping of stuff to do on her own plate, still managed to help me whip this thing into shape on a rather tight deadline! YOU ARE BOTH THE BEST! This fic was created for the Mass Effect Big Bang 2012!

If you would like to see the art for the second chapter embedded in its proper place within the chapter, check out the AO3 version at: archiveofourown dot org forwardslash works forwardslash 540458 forwardslash chapters forwardslash 960304.

Promises

CHAPTER SOUNDTRACK: "Mind Heist" by Zack Hemsey

Promises.

A lot of people had promised Kaidan a lot of things throughout his life. His mother had promised that he was still normal that first day the blue-black distortion had rippled off his body and broken her favorite teapot. The men in suits who had shown up at his house a few years later had promised everything would be okay if he just enrolled in their special training program. The surgeons had promised the implant wouldn't hurt. Vyrnnus had promised to make him into a soldier or kill him trying. The Alliance had promised a career where his talents could be fully utilized without being feared.

Alenko didn't make promises.

They were only good for getting broken. And he wouldn't make a promise he couldn't keep.

A banshee's wail pierced the air, raising the hairs on his neck and setting his teeth on edge. He felt the creature's biotic power even from a distance, like pulses of electricity coursing over his nerves. Fingernails scraping a chalkboard. A chill racing down his spine. He clenched his teeth together and rose above his cover – a pile of rubble that had once been the front face of the apartment complex to his right – firing his assault rifle in the direction of the noise.

"We're in the shit now, Commander!" Vega shouted from somewhere to his left, and Kaidan felt a bizarre urge to pistol-whip the lieutenant for bothering to state something so blatantly obvious.

No one needed a reminder of their current situation.

Marauders had formed a perimeter, hemming them in. Banshees were coming down from the left and right, and the hulking, growling forms of three brutes charged down the stairs ahead with reckless speed, heedless of the husks they trampled underfoot on the way to their quarry.

Alenko swore as a banshee biotically jumped to within feet of Shepard. She swung around calmly, her face a mask of concentration, and lit up the asari-beast's shields with several well-placed blasts from her shotgun. The banshee swelled a magnificent blue, preparing to unleash one of its stunning attacks.

"Vega, get those brutes!" he yelled, scrambling up the pile of rubble to get a clear shot.

Enemy fire slammed against his shields. He hastily reinforced them with his own biotic barrier, dropping his rifle to his feet and yanking his pistol from his hip. He sighted down the scope. Perfect head-shot. One, two, three.

The banshee shrieked again, whirling to face him.

An explosion rocked the night from somewhere behind him, heat rushing past him on the shock wave, making him stumble.

A mechanical yowl echoed through the ruins of the street, bouncing off of broken walls.

"Alenko, down!" Vakarian's voice barked through his helmet and the major threw himself sideways. He hit with a grunt and rolled over chunks of concrete and twisted rebar to land in a heap just as the crack of a sniper rifle finally put the banshee close to Shepard down for good.

But there was no time to celebrate. No time to rest.

They had to stay alive. Protect the rockets. Just long enough for EDI to complete the uplink to the Normandy's guidance systems.

Alenko pushed himself into a crouch, bringing up his pistol to aim for the nearest brute. Vega was dancing with it, dodging the giant claws as he fired into its chest with his rifle, shouting dares and insults at it the whole time. Kaidan drew himself up, gathering his focus for one precious second, then threw out a stasis hold. The biotics held the thing just long enough for Vega to put some distance between him and it, and then the lieutenant under-handed another grenade right at the creature's massive feet.

Kaidan ducked away from the blast this time, but that only brought his gaze back to Shepard, who still stood well-covered, switching her aim from one marauder to the next, cutting them down with methodical precision. But they couldn't last forever. Most of the team they'd come with had already gone down. The way behind them was littered with the dead and dying, with blood and tears and sweat, and there was still a whole Reaper ahead of them, blocking their way to the Conduit.

He tried hard to fight the rise of hopelessness, the choking despair that clogged his throat.

His eyes went back to Shepard.

She didn't make promises she couldn't keep, either.

Back in the relative calm and safety of the London FOB, before they had started this mad charge for the Conduit, he had tried to get her to promise him that she would be careful. At least try to stay alive. He hadn't been foolish enough to expect her to promise that she would. But she could at least try to keep herself out of impossible situations. She could at least hope to survive.

"I'll wait for you," was all he had gotten from her. "And you'd damn well better be there to meet me."

But he didn't make promises he couldn't keep.

Maybe he should have promised, just this once.

Would it have made any difference? Would it have made him feel any more certain, now in this moment when the noose seemed to be tightening, when all escape had been cut off, that they would somehow make it out alive? Or would it have just made everything worse… made his last moments full of pain and regret over having had the arrogance to declare something he couldn't possibly really control? Something that had turned out to be a lie.

There was no time to worry about that now. Husks were swarming their position. Kaidan threw out a wall of dark energy, sweeping many of them aside to smash into walls with a splattering of green gore.

They just had to survive. One step at a time.

So maybe he hadn't promised Shepard anything, but that didn't mean he wouldn't do his damnedest to see them all through to the other side.