AN: Hey guys. This is a short response I wrote for the February prompt in the #Kaidan-Alenko-Fans group over on DeviantArt titled "Look At The Mess I Made." It's nothing special, but I figured I would go ahead and post it her as well. Mind you , I wrote this in just a few hours, so if it's lacking in any way, that would be why.

As a side note: This is not necessarily what will happen in Nowhere To Go But Forward when we get to Mass Effect 2. And speaking of which, I'm busy working on the next coming chapter (it's almost done) and it will be out within the week, I swear.

Thanks for your support and patience!

- Tac

Not Ready Yet

It was like he was looking at a ghost.

Her face was turned to the sky, dirt smeared and stands of hair clinging to her forehead from sweat, eyes fixed on the contrail of the escaping enemy. The butt of her rifle, still pressed into her shoulder, slowly lowered, her shoulders dropping. Her lips moved, words falling silent, being swept away by the torrent raging between his ears. He saw Delan come jogging from around the corner, seemingly chasing after the ship as it made away with the colonists. The ghost turned towards the mechanic, looking truly apologetic.

Blue eyes. She had her blue eyes.

Garrus put what seemed like a reassuring hand on her shoulder, though it was roughly thrown off as she turned to face him. Worry and anger etched her features. She said something, her voice fighting against the white noise that filled his head, jabbed a hand towards the sky then to Delan. Something in the back of his head took insult in seeing the turian next to her. Why Garrus and not him?

"—have to do something—"

It was impossible.

Delan tore the hat off his head and threw it to the ground. "What good are you then? Some big Alliance hero and you can't even save one colony."

Shepard was dead. It couldn't be her.

"You think I wanted them to get away? I did what I could."

It was her. Kaidan had just happened to glance up from the book in his lap—an old copy of Treasure Island, though the title that had once been scrawled across the spine had been lost to time, and all that remained was a black cover whose binding lay tattered with pages that clung desperately to the old glue. The book was actually Shepard's, left behind at his parent's home in Vancouver and saved from a fiery blaze that had consumed the life of its most frequent reader. He remembered the nights when she would lean into him, simply listening to him reading it aloud. The nights that he cherished and longed for when she was torn from the world of the living.

He had only seen the back of her head and shoulders through the crowd, just another stranger to those who did not know her, but he knew the stature of the woman who carried herself with such pride and grace. No one else stood as she did. Before his brain could throw on the brakes and common sense shake the initiative from him, he stood and approached the crowd, gently pushing his way through. He ignored the quiet complaints when they came. The only thing he was aware of was the woman with her hands pressed against a storefront fish tank, sending shimmering fish into a panic when she tapped the glass, smiling to herself.

"Commander Shepard, captain of the Normandy, the first human Spectre, savior of the Citadel," His feet carried him to her, eyes locking with her own as she reacted to his voice, turning away from the infuriated mechanic to face Kaidan. Relief flooded her features for the briefest of moments. God, she looked so much like Jamie. "You're in the presence of a legend, Delan. And a ghost."

It was so surreal. Her voice, her hair, the way she drug a canine over her lip when she was thinking too much, damn it, everything. Part of him expected that was exactly what she was; a ghost or a hallucination or delirium caused by a tumor he never knew about hiding away in his brain that caused Jamie—his Jamie Shepard—to appear before him. But when her lips quirked into that half smile and they closed the small gap that could very well have been a gaping fissure and his arms wrapped around a physical presence, his entire world shrunk down to the space that encompassed just the two of them. She was really there. Her face pressed to the side of his neck, warm and breathing. Alive.

Shepard must have felt his gaze boring holes into her back because she turned from her shopping without the need for Kaidan to call out her name, and saw him approaching her. Brown and blue met one another in a taught hold as he closed the distance between them and he foolishly thought that she might stay her ground, allow him a moment apologize or explain himself—Kaidan didn't know, he hadn't gotten that far—but her brow furrowed and what was a look of surprise quickly faded. An icy anger took its place and the emotional walls, ones that never used to be there, came crashing down, cutting him off from her. She fixed a narrow calculating gaze she normally reserved for the scum of the universe and the turian councilor on Kaidan before she turned on her heal and retreated into the throngs of people, away from him. He was now in the same league as those on Shepard's shit list.

Despite that thought and the consequences he knew of being on said list, he pursued her.

Resentment bubbled up in his chest, suffocating the feelings of pure elation he had felt earlier as he grabbed her shoulders and decidedly made space between them. He knew something was wrong when the confusion written on her face brought a fraction of joy to him.

When he spoke, his voice was husky, emotion gripping it tight. "I thought you were dead."

She slowly blinked and then relaxed, a hand rubbing the back of her neck. She casually shrugged her shoulders, a sheepish smile playing on her face. "I kind of was Kaidan. It's a long story that you probably won't believe unless–"

He didn't hear her, anger starting to make his thoughts feel fuzzy. Where had she been for two years? Did she even realize that it had been two years? Where did she get off acting so nonchalant? Every question that popped up pissed him off more. But not as much as seeing her shrug it off like it was nothing, as if the pain of trying to put his life back together after her death shattered it was nothing, like the hole she had left in him was nothing.

Like he was nothing.

The dam broke and the questions poured out. He threw them at her from all directions. "Where have you been? What was so important that you had to run off and let everyone think you were dead? How could you let me think you dead? Do you know what your parents went through? Damn it Jay, how could you put us—me—through that? I thought we had something. I loved you." It got to the point where he had to turn away from her, unable to even look at her face, an all too familiar pain stabbing into his chest.

She tried to explain. "I did die Kaidan. The Normandy was attacked, it blew up, I was spaced, and I died." The simplicity and finality of her words struck a nerve hard. She just didn't get it.

"Jamie, wait!" Kaidan reached out and grabbed her arm, jerking her to a stop. She pulled away, spinning on him, blue eyes ablaze.

"Leave me alone Alenko." Kaidan tried to ignore how much not hearing her voice say his name hurt. How much hearing her address him so harshly hurt. Then again, maybe he didn't want to hear it said in the same manner as Alenko had been. It would clash too horribly with the other times where his name had been whispered in the night, breathlessly gasped in passion, smiled with, laughed with.

Shepard attempted to walk away and he pulled at her again, his eyes pleading with her. "Please Jay. Just listen to me." Kaidan screwed up on Horizon, in more ways than he realized. He knew that, knew it with every cell in his body. He just wanted a chance to salvage what he had been so eager to cast away and wanted her to give him that chance, wanted her to want to give him that chance. He didn't think he could stand to walk away from her a second time.

Kaidan could see her running through the scenarios in her head as she slowly blinked at him, weighing the pros and cons, testing to see if her broken heart could stand one more intrusion...

...And after what seemed like an eternity, she nodded. The callous glare had finally melted away, and though it was replaced with a shell of caution, Kaidan exhaled. It was something he could work with.

So the hushed rumors were true. Cerberus. Jamie was working for Cerberus. After everything they had seen—the colonists that were merely test subjects to the defective group of human extremists, Admiral Kohoku who was tortured and killed, after she had sworn to make them pay—she had the gall to act like she actually owed the bastards.

Betrayal gripped Kaidan's heart, took the work that time had carefully tried to piece back together over days and weeks and months, and squeezed it to the point of almost breaking. Suspicion and doubt forced away all questions that had been bouncing around his head and left one, shattering realization in the empty expanse.

Fraud. Fake. Clone. She isn't who you think she is. This isn't Jamie Shepard.

She was close to the real authentic thing; the inflection of her voice, her scent, her smile, her small idiosyncrasies and that spark in her eyes and that damned pull she had that could force anyone to follow her through the fire and back. But the Shepard he knew and loved would never, not even with her dying breath, betray the Alliance. Her uniform would always blue. She would always be a marine, and she would never work for Cerberus.

And even if she were the real deal, as logic was desperately trying to get through to him, she wasn't the woman he knew two years ago.

Shepard reached out to him, a comforting hand looking to console the man she was almost sure she loved, though he didn't know that. Kaidan flinched back, and when he saw the pain flash across her face, he would admit that it made him happy. He found a certain smug delight that he could hurt her as much as she had hurt him.

"You aren't the Shepard I knew, not anymore. You're a traitor to everything we stood for. You've betrayed the Alliance, and you've betrayed me."

She looked like he had smacked her across the face.

They had made their way back to his small apartment on the Presidium, away from the prying eyes of the wards below. Kaidan hoped that a change in scenery would calm the boiling tension between them, maybe smooth the road enough where both of them could speak like mature adults. Give both of them a chance to reconcile.

He had never been so wrong in his life.

Something had sparked the flammable air between them and as soon as they had crossed the threshold, Horizon: Round Two erupted. They yelled and ranted. Walls were hit, a few books thrown, hate filled words carelessly tossed around.

"Jamie, I sent you a letter. I tried to apologize!"

She got up in his face. "A fucking letter doesn't make up for calling me a traitor!"

Kaidan didn't back down, knowing that if he lost ground, the chances were that she would verbally trample him. He had seen her do it to countless others. He scoffed, knowing she was a force to be reckoned with if one pushed her far enough. He aimed to do that, all thoughts of reconciliation being thrown out the airlock. "Did you hear what you were saying? You sounded insane! Acting like Cerberus deserves your thanks."

She growled in frustration, pivoting on her foot and taking a few steps away, hands raking through her short hair. "They. Saved. My. Life. What part of that can't you understand, Kaidan?" She motioned her hands at nothing, turning back to him. "You do realize that I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them, right? And that they're the only ones doing something about these Collector attacks? The Alliance is sitting on its laurels hoping the problem will just go away while millions are being slaughtered! What was I supposed to do?"

"Not sign up with the enemy! Listen to yourself, Shepard!"

"Damn it Kaidan, you know I can't stand around while there are people dying!"

He closed the space between them in a few strides and grabbed her face, crashing his lips onto hers. He didn't know why he did it. It wasn't a kiss of love or the want for them to stop screaming at one another, it was hot and angry and born out of pointless need.

She gripped the fabric of his shirt, parting her lips and kissing him back with the same ferocity, drawing blood as she bit his lip, showing that it changed nothing. She was still pissed at him too. Both fought to control the other, both fought to make the other quit the field first. Kaidan almost let himself slip into a feeling a bliss, knowing how much he had missed the taste of her, the feel of her pressed close against him. Her bare skin and her scars. But the fires of their fight still burned and quickly consumed any other feeling. He pulled away, holding her at arms length, breathless. His lip hurt.

"It's what got you killed the first time and now…" He paused, wondering if his next words reflected how he actually felt.

Her face was flushed, her chest heaving. "And now...?"

"Please. Come with me Kaidan. It could be like old times." Her voice was pleading, praying. Come back to me, it said. Don't leave me. I need you.

He didn't even turn around. He knew that if he did, turned around and met those sad cerulean eyes, it would mean his resolve would crumble. It would mean everything he endured was all for naught.

"No."

Something suddenly clicked in him and he met her eyes with an unwavering calm, speaking clearly; a stark difference from his previous state. He wasn't sure what she saw in his eyes or face, but he didn't think he cared enough to worry about it, because he realized was still angry. He had gone on with his life, found that it was possible not to think about her every waking hour. He could laugh and joke without it hurting, and he could even get back to the Alliance, doing the job that he loved. He found he could live without her, and that it could be a life worth living. And at that moment when he had come to terms with it, she threw a wrench in and it backfired.

Perhaps it wasn't the whole of it, but Shepard seemed to be the perfect target to direct all his problems at, known or not, because she seemed to be at the center of it. He didn't care if it hurt her, or himself, or even if it hurt their chances of getting back together later on. He just wanted her to understand how difficult she made his life after she died. And how much he hated her for it. "Now I wonder if it was better that way."

Kaidan didn't have time to gauge her reaction. Truthfully, he half expected a closed fist to strike him and wake up hours later, face first in the floor, but a single, curt nod and a blank stare was all he received.

"Fine."

And he watched her walk away from him. Just as she had watched him walk away from her. It wasn't has difficult as he thought it would be.

She didn't look behind.

He didn't chase after her.

Neither was ready to forgive the other.