A single gasping breath of hope.

Kaidan walked into his sparse living quarters with a heavy head and a heavy heart. He had spent the last week assisting with the cleanup effort in London and it was certainly taking its toll. It had been no easy feat convincing Joker to bring the Normandy back rather than get as far away from Earth as possible, but Kaidan suspected that with EDI gone Joker probably wasn't too keen on staying on the Normandy anyway and was eventually able to get him to agree. Somewhere between the raging battle with the reapers and their total destruction, Kaidan had thought - no, he had felt - that Shepard was still alive, and he was determined to find her.

Admiral Hackett had initially resisted his offer of help, no doubt believing that Kaidan's emotional state was too fragile. But although Kaidan hadn't known the admiral nearly as well as Shepard had, he was able to convince him that he needed more good soldiers to help. Once Kaidan was back on his feet after the shot he took to the gut, he had thrown himself into the work. It had been a grueling week of salvaging wreckage, recovering bodies, and in very rare cases - rescuing survivors. Kaidan was losing hope and not just a little sleep. He had rationalized that even if Shepard had survived the ordeal, the chances of her being alive after a week without medical attention were slim. Unless he could convince Cerberus to rebuild her again - he thought bitterly, then cringed at the horror of it.

Kaidan raked his hand through his already disheveled hair and let out an exasperated sigh as he dropped his gear on the floor and all but collapsed on the couch. The truth was he needed to keep himself busy in order to avoid thinking about the very real possibility that he had just lost her - again - right after he had gotten her back. Avoid the reality that he had lost her for two years, had never really moved on, then pushed her away for another six months before allowing himself to believe she was really there, and then he'd gone and lost her again, failed her again. He half smirked at that, knowing that if Shepard knew where his thoughts were going she wouldn't waste even a moment before flipping him on his back and reminding him with a pistol to his neck that he wasn't responsible for her life. In any case, feeling sorry for himself wouldn't make the search for her go any faster. As an Alliance marine and human Spectre, the best way for him to keep busy was to throw himself into the cleanup process.

Still, he kept replaying it in his mind. Not because he was feeling for himself, although sometimes he was, but in hopes that he may have missed something - some clue in their last exchange, the last of her comm traffic - that would lead him to her body. He cringed again at the path his thoughts were taking. His subconscious clearly already believed her to be dead. The explosion on the Citadel had left it mostly in ruins. In a moment of weakness, Kaidan had begged the Admiral to assign him to the Citadel efforts. Hackett hadn't even given it consideration. He was right, of course, Kaidan would have been a liability, he would have put all his energy in finding Shepard and shirked the rest of his duties. He had been assured that there were hundreds of capable men and women combing the wreckage and preparing to rebuild the Citadel. As time passed, though, the hope that they'd find her alive was dwindling. They had found Admiral Anderson two days prior in what appeared to be the wreckage of a control room. The doctors calculated his time of death to be mere minutes after the arms of the Citadel had opened to receive the Crucible. He had been shot in the gut, seemingly by the Illusive Man, whose body was also found, with a gunshot through the head. It looked like a suicide, and there were whispers that he had all the evidence of being indoctrinated. This had given Kaidan renewed hope. Hackett had confirmed that Shepard was the one who had input the command to open the Citadel's arms, yet her body was not at the scene, and Kaidan suspected that Shepard was the one who convinced the Illusive Man to take his own life rather than let the Reapers control it. But her body was not there, so he kept believing. The part that made Kaidan second guess that hope was that they had found traces of her blood at the scene, quite a bit of it actually, and without medical attention he couldn't imagine how she would hold on. He sighed deeply, this was the part he kept trying not to think about.

They were running toward the beam, it was just the three of them now. The reapers were taking out all their reinforcements. Kaidan and Garrus were doing their best to keep up with Shepard but she had barrelled ahead with renewed determination. He watched her stop and skid down low to avoid something, all of his instincts told him he needed to protect himself but he saw it too late. The vehicle crashed in front of him, exploding on impact and his vision went white for a moment. She was by his side before he felt anything and when she grabbed his arm and forced him to his feet the pain began to register. She set him down behind cover and Garrus was at his left now, she was yelling something into her comm unit, he couldn't quite hear it over the ringing in his ears. "... EVAC RIGHT NOW!" He heard and breathed a sigh of relief, they were getting out of there. She hoisted his arm over her again when the Normandy arrived, Garrus following behind, limping from his own injuries, and they hurried to the shuttle bay doors to get inside. When they got there, though, she draped his arm over Garrus' shoulders and began to walk away. Kaidan felt the panic fluttering up in his chest, he knew he couldn't fight anymore, he needed medical attention, but she couldn't go out there without him. His eyes were wide with unspoken resistance and Garrus was trying his best to hold onto him despite his own pain.

"Shepard -" he tried to yell but she cut him off abruptly.

"You've gotta get outta here." She said, matter-of-factly.

"That's not going to happen," he said weakly, he knew it was futile, how would he help?

"Don't argue with me." There wasn't remorse, just the knowledge that she needed to finish what they had started and he would just slow her down.

"Don't leave me behind," he gasped at her, not willing to lose her again, not now, not when he had just gotten her back. It was selfish and wrong and he knew it but he didn't care. He had held her again, he had touched her again, and she was real and alive and she was his Shepard, he couldn't let her go, not again.

Kaidan saw the change flash in her eyes, the softness, the warmth and he knew she was about to tell him goodbye. He braced himself.

"Whatever happens," she took a step closer to him as she spoke, her eyes betraying feelings she had kept carefully hidden from everyone, everyone except him. And now she was displaying those feelings in front of Garrus, in front of Cortez, in front of the shuttle bay crew, and he knew then that this was the end. "I love you... always." She finished the declaration as she closed the distance between them, her hand resting on his cheek, her eyes conveying more honesty than she had ever shown and more of a goodbye she wouldn't dare say.

He sighed in defeat, tears pricking the corners of his eyes, he was going to lose her again and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was in no shape to try. "I love you too," he said simply, covering her hand with his own, squeezing her fingers as she started to pull away, but not letting go of her gaze. "Be careful." She turned from him and released his hand and he looked helplessly after her, knowing his world was ending again. She turned back to him and the warmth was gone, replaced with the cold resolve she got when she knew that the fate of the universe depended on her and she'd have to face the loss later. Compartmentalized, that's what her psych eval had called it. He saw it and sorrow washed over his own face, he knew there wouldn't be a later. His Shepard would save them, all of them, one last time. But the universe would not let her live through it. Three strikes, he thought grimly, she could only save humanity three times before the universe demanded a price, she was prepared to pay it, and he was in no position to stop her. He stared after her as the shuttle bay doors closed and she ran full speed toward the beam. He knew she'd succeed, she always had, she had prepared for this, they all had, he knew that deep down he'd even been prepared to lose her again.

And then, as the thought crossed his mind that they would survive it, something happened. A reaper beam was too close to her, and he felt the cold dread blooming in his gut. The world seemed to be spinning in slow motion. Garrus was standing to his left, clutching onto him as he watched the scene unfold. He watched in horror as she fell, and he fell to the floor of the Normandy as she hit the ground, the light from the beam colliding with her. He was screaming "NO!" but he wasn't hearing the words. His chest tightened and his biotics flared, and Garrus held his grip on his shoulder while Kaidan's world crashed down around him. His injuries were burning from within him, and then he realized there was no such thing as being prepared.

Kaidan hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep until he woke with a start and discovered he was no longer injured, Garrus wasn't gripping his shoulder, and he wasn't in the Normandy shuttle bay. In his sleep, his emotions had caused his biotics to flare into a thin barrier over his skin. He cursed under his breath as he forced the flare to dissipate. As if the barrier could shield him from his emotions, his loss. He mentally scolded himself for losing control, he hadn't since he got to London, though he didn't think he'd let himself sleep in as long either. He raked a hand through his hair before squeezing the back of his neck to battle an oncoming migraine. "This is why I don't sleep," he muttered to himself before walking to the sink to splash water on his face.

All of a sudden he realized that it wasn't the dream that had startled him, but the metallic ping coming from his terminal indicating a new message. He approached the small desk warily, not sure if he was prepared for either good or bad news. He tapped the green light to bring up the message, surprised to see that it was from Miranda Lawson. His confusion deepened as he read the message.

Major Alenko -

I'm sure you already know that Cerberus would have no motivation to bring her back

a second time if what you find is not a living version. However, I have reason

to believe that all hope is not lost. If you would give me a moment of your time,

I'd like to discuss it with you.

- M.L.

Kaidan blinked at the screen. He was half surprised that Operative Lawson seemed to know what he had been thinking (was she still an Operative now that she wasn't with Cerberus?), and half surprised that she would be willing to help him. He absent-mindedly rubbed the back of his neck again, attempting to coax away the headache. He mused that Miranda was no longer part of Cerberus and that maybe she had even found a friend in Shepard, in her own way, and that perhaps she needed Shepard to be alive almost as much as he did. Kaidan considered this for a moment before responding with a time and place to meet.