Summary: There would be no bar Garrus told her about.
Note: Sorry for the mistakes. Need patient beta.
Wake me up before I die, hold me close
As I gaze upon the sky, comatose
No reason to survive, I suppose
Wake us up before we die
Comatose
Kaidan is alive now, though he was killed by a single shot during his senseless attempt to protect the Council, and Shepard is dead, though she was breathing - hard, but still breathing - some moments ago. Kaidan told her he loved her, she probably responded the same.
Shepard recalled his warm hand on her waist, his smiling face, the tight embrace, and then - he was falling down slowly onto the hard metal floor for what had seemed like eternity, though it took down some seconds in reality. He also tried to say something, but she remembered nothing of it. Just a few moments in her memory.
The silence was interrupted by a calm, slightly hoarse voice.
«Hello.»
He was sitting on the large piece of concrete opposite her, hands on his lap, and watching her closely.
Commander casted a glance at him, then turned away and closed her eyes. Predictably, when she opened her eyes once again, he did not vanish.
«Not happy to see me? Surprised?» Alenko continued, tilting his head. "Didn't you even miss me? After everything we have been through together?"
Not receiving any answer, Kaidan jumped down and approached the Commander. He still had the same appearance: black hair with white temples, dark blue Alliance uniform, polite half-smile. Shepard thought she felt the warmth his body emitted, long-forgotten scent. She almost physically could feel his presence. She just could not bring herself to head up and look into his eyes. His boots were covered with dust. The last time she actually saw him like this… He should not be here. Neither should she.
«So... Won't you tell me something casual?» There was a hint of slight disapproval in his voice. Or was it surprise? He could even frown. «Like you are really sorry? Moreover, you did not want to do this, but you had to - that was your regular excuse. Won't you even say hello?»
She was not sure, but she thought that he had not been angry. Kaidan hemmed as if he had learned her thoughts, and offered her a hand.
Shepard hesitated for some moments and then, putting all common senses aside, squeezed his fingers firmly. She automatically wrapped her hands around his shoulders in an attempt to get closer - just like old times some long years ago. Somehow, it seemed appropriate. But this time the Major softly pushed her away.
«I don't think it's a good idea, Shepard.» He was not angry. However, there were no emotions either. Just a matter of fact.
«What's going on here?» She dared to ask. Her own voice was distant and alien now. «Are you? - »
Shepard regretted her question immediately. She should have wait for some time. He would go away - one way or another.
«Dead?» Kaidan suggested. His carefree manner vanished. «Yes. Of course. You shot me. Do you remember?»
A kaleidoscope of faded memories appeared in Shepard's memory, and the most stable image, which had been haunting her in the nightmares, was his slow motion falling. She tried so hard to remember other details, but failed for so many times.
«And how are you - » the unfinished question trailed off.
Kaidan shrugged his shoulders and frowned.
«Cold. Lonely. Sometimes regretting that it had ended like this. Well, you would learn yourself soon enough.»
«This is not true,» Shepard stated. She tried to sound sure, mostly for herself rather than for Kaidan. «You cannot do anything to me now».
«I would not have done anything to you back then.»
He was not lying. He would have never shoot her first.
«I just have been spending too much time here...» Shepard stopped. There was only one conclusion, and she did not like it.
«Too much time,» Kaidan agreed indifferently. «Alone, with no help, no medigel, no communication, mortally wounded...»
Shepard, ignoring him, looked around, for the first time noticing her surroundings.
The place was painfully familiar, but she was sure she had never been here before. Concrete ruins, shards, pieces of armature everywhere, silhouettes of the discarded building somewhere, ghostly skeleton trees, swinging with wind she could not feel. The place looked like the Citadel, London and the suburbs of her home city at the same time. She also paid attention to the unusual silence squeezing her head.
Then she remembered as she had been actually lying somewhere, not daring to move. She had been alive back then, true. She remembered how she had been crying, overstraining her vocal cords, calling for help.
Shepard automatically glanced at her own hands. Some white, barely visible scars, not the raw meat she had seen the last time. As if she had been trying to crawl forward, leaving dark long marks on the ground.
That's no wonder that her mind did such strange things to her.
«Like hell you will,» she spoke through the gritted teeth, fast and spiteful. «You are lying. I will come to my senses, and you will disappear!»
Alenko did not object.
«And how much time had passed, exactly? Do you feel any pain? The heart beating?»
Shepard reached out to her neck, but stopped in the mid move. Kaidan arched a brow.
In a sudden rush of angriness or desperation, Shepard grabbed her pistol, no doubts that she would find the weapon on her belt, and made a shot. Kaidan glanced at a dark spot on his abdomen, spreading fast against the dark fabric of his Alliance uniform.
«Well, you really wanted to see me," he smiled with a corner of his mouth. The blood disappeared.
Shepard made a step back. This was not right, all of this.
«What will you say now?» the Major asked as if nothing had happened. «If you are not dead yet, this will happen very soon».
The fear gave place to panic.
Kaidan exhaled loudly. For a moment, Shepard believed he was alive.
«I suppose you ran out of your second chances.»
«I am not dead.» She said stubbornly. «I will get out of here –»
She didn't finish the sentence, because she wasn't sure what would be the next. Her sureness was just a facade. Again, there had been so many hopeless situations like this one before… They would find her. Or she would just rest for a while and then would get out of here on her own.
«Just admit that not everything in this galaxy centers on you.» Kaidan uttered her name. Her real name, not the familiar one in the Alliance files. He had never heard of it.
Shepard shrugged.
«You even could not stop what you have started. You are not sure. Even frightened.» That was not a question anymore. There were traces of displeasure in his voice.
«Go to hell!» Shepard burst out. «I need to call Hackett! Where is my Normandy?»
There was no sense in her questions. She knew it. He also knew it. She was not in control anymore. The Major stated at her.
«She took off,» he finally said. «Without you this time. Maybe you should be happy that your crew managed to escape?»
Shepard slowly nodded in response. Somehow, she was sure he was not lying.
Inappropriately, she remembered Ashley. Back on the Virmire, Shepard had not been thinking much on her last words, before she had shut down the omnitool. She had never heard the last answer of Ashley. Then she suddenly realized that she squeezed her fists in tight balls and her nails caused some pain to the palms. Nevertheless, she still could feel this! She tried to straighten her breathe.
Kaidan smirked.
«Couldn't imagine that you would be the one left behind?» he suggested. «They could not wait for so long. They hoped that you would do something, make your choice…»
«I didn't –» The excuses sounded lame even in her head and the Commander just nodded. «Which one is the right one?»
«I think you already know the answer. However, it's too late anyway. So, it all was for nothing. My death, death of Ashley and so many others… Even your own. You failed. In that very last moment, when it was almost over, you hesitated for too long.»
Shepard felt cold and hugged herself. She even thought she had noticed a little cloud of her breath. Kaidan shook his head.
The Commander slowly realized that there was no disapproval in his voice; he did not try to criticize her actions, just told the fact. And for the first time in her life no one tried to cheer her up, to say that she would do it once again or she was strong enough; nobody made any orders. She was on her own.
«Who can bragging of dying twice?» The Major's brown eyes expressed sympathy. «You know, I really think that they should let you die for the first time - it was your right after all. You deserved this. I hope you will be more lucky the second time.»
Fingernails sticking in the palm of her hand caused no sensations.
«I should go,» Kaidan admitted with some sadness in his voice. He was standing half-turn, looking somewhere beyond, not focusing on the Commander. «Despite everything, I was glad to see you. We had never have enough time to talk.»
«I don't want to stay here. Alone,» Shepard said quietly. It sounded very stupid and childishly. «It would never ended right, wouldn't it?»
«I would never have wished it would end anything like this». Kaidan was serious this time. «Shepard, I'm really very and very sorry. Maybe, in another life... I don't know.»
He turned away abruptly.
Her legs gave away, and Shepard again fell on all fourth, still staring at Kaidan. He was trailing off; his image blurring. Somewhere far away a dark-haired woman in the same dark-navy Alliance uniform was waiting for him; Shepard was sure she remembered her. Kaidan never looked back.
Then she was wandering on the edge for some time, waking up and fading away again in the darkness.
Unfortunately, she still had enough of her life strength (or Cerberus implants) to wake up for the last time. It took some time to understand where she was.
Predictably, nothing had been changed, not minding the blood, already getting dry. Battered fingers with broken fingernails, stripped skin, brown trails on the shiny metal - her attempts to get up, sore throat, and penetrating cold, because the life support system in her suit had failed.
Of course, she was alone here, and there could not be anybody else. The ghostly silhouette of a boy, haunting her in the nightmares, also disappeared. She had to wonder, was he even real or just another of her hallucinations.
She turned on her back, once again ignoring the pain and the numbness. The Reapers were silently attacking the Alliance Fleet on the background of the Earth. Maybe, the Illusive Man was right after all…
Normandy frequency was silent static, making her assume that communication system had been also damaged. However, some time ago Shepard heard Hackett's order, raising his voice on her. Once she had cut off communication from her side too; Normandy had been leaving Virmire.
With each passing moment, she became more and more positive that nobody would return to pick her up. They just had left here, saving their own lives.
Maybe, she deserved all of this. To stay alone and die like that? She had enough blood on her hands. Something she was even proud of. And never regretted a thing.
Or maybe she deserved some well-earned rest, which Cerberus had denied her? She did not ask what Kaidan had meant.
It took more than one try, but the Commander managed to stand up, not forgetting to pick up her pistol. If the Catalyst had been right, she still had a last choice to make, and her twisted mind, resulting in a different image, insisted she should make it.
She went forward, shifting the heavy legs, paying no attention to the blurring shapes in front of her eyes, and didn't even notice when she fell on the ground, the pistol slipping out of her unbending fingers.
Certainly, she had deserved this.
Somehow, she knew she had already been too late.
There would be no bar Garrus told her about.
Maybe, later, in her very personal hell, she would continue to make choice after choice, but would never know which of them would be the right one.