Shit. Out of thermal clips. Shit. Out of heavy ammo. Shit. Out of medi-gel. Oh shit.
Shepard wasn't normally a cusser, but if ever there was a situation that called for dropping a few F-bombs, this was it. Pity she didn't have some conventional bombs at her disposal. Her own damn fault for getting into this situation. And with her eyes wide open, at that.
She leaned against a stack of crates, dimly aware of her bubbly breathing, the taste of hot iron in her mouth, and the sharp stabbing pains as something scraped inside her with every inhalation. Instead of dwelling on the damage she had sustained, she ejected the glowing heatsink out of her assault rifle and popped the last one she had left into the worn slot. As her hands moved with practiced precision, she saw the hardsuit readouts on her vambrace; there wasn't a green light anywhere, but there were plenty of reds and a few ambers, dotted here and there.
No good. Despite her concentration, her vision was starting to waver, static filling her eyes like a bad connection. Using a biotic field as a makeshift support for her broken ribs was taking a toll on her energy. Sustaining it as well as using her powers on the offensive was draining her reserves faster than she could replenish them.
The smoke from the fires burning here and there in the abandoned town overwhelmed her overworked breath mask for a moment, making her cough, sending more pain like shards of broken glass into her lungs. Shepard glanced around, seeing the familiar Alliance-issue prefabs. Just another empty human colony in the Traverse, ruined and nameless and forgotten, thanks to terrorists like Balak.
Her lips peeled back in a feral, savage grin. Not anymore. She'd really hit his new crew hard. She could discern the stench of death in the air through her olfactory filters, hanging as heavy as the smoke, and she could see the last batarian she'd nailed hanging like a piece of dirty laundry on a terrace railing. She had Balak cornered in the colony's town hall, and he knew it. He had one, maybe two dozen men left, and they had to be scared spitless as they saw their ranks thinning further and further, and the trail of bodies she'd left in her wake. One woman against his small army - and she was winning.
Shepard coughed again, and again the teeth of what felt like hacksaws lodged in her flesh bit deep into her. She was probably going to die here. Far from support, far from the Normandy, far from the lethal crew she had assembled and built and trained.
They'd kicked the Collectors' collective behind, destroyed their base, and they'd won. Without a single casualty. They'd won. She was so goddamned proud of them, but she hadn't wanted to waste them on what was essentially a mission of revenge. Just because it was necessary to rid the galaxy of a menace like Balak didn't exclude payback of one sort or another.
Taking a breath that hurt going in as much as it did going out, she found she didn't have it in herself to feel any regret. Pain there was in plenty, and bone-deep weariness, but no regret. It was a good death - or it would be, after she took down that batarian. It would be worth it.
Fed up with feeling sorry for herself, Shepard grabbed hold of another precariously stacked pile of crates and levered herself up to her feet, ready to get out there and make someone else feel sorry for himself. She grunted, feeling the broken ends of ribs grinding against each other. Beads of cold sweat popped out on her forehead, itching like hell for a few seconds before the tiny ventilators in her full-face helmet dried them. Sipping on the little nutrient tube, she could feel the energy and stims pumping through her blood, and knew without looking at the meter that she was going through the last of her field rations.
One way or the other, she was going to drop after this was done.
Shepard slipped through the doors of the town hall, the dead automated doors gaping like the jaws of a thresher maw, and cursed as the grenade launcher on her back banged into them. The sound echoed through the empty corridors, and she thought she heard something, something that didn't sound like this planet's equivalent of vermin. It was dark inside; it seemed like every third or fourth light was malfunctioning, reminding her of the strobing red flashes in Omega's Afterlife. It certainly smelled about the same.
Shots flashed red in her vision, burning lurid streaks and comet tails across her retinas as she dodged behind a stack of canisters. The slugs left a trail of pockmarks on the wall, and while the batarian was still firing, she popped out, taking a few hits to her kinetic barriers as she threw a singularity at him. Ducking back into cover, she peered through a gap and saw the small blue ball spin, grow, and open like a predatory flower as it followed him behind the boxes and swallowed him into its event horizon. There was a scream of despair, followed by the sound of a rifle clattering to the floor.
Looking down at her own assault rifle, Shepard decided against using it; her hands weren't steady enough right now for her to be able to hit the batarian while he was floating around in there. It took a moment of concentration to form another ball of biotic energy, but she had more than enough time, even in her current state, to detonate the singularity before it collapsed.
Shit. Not good. Not good. Something that simple wasn't supposed to leave her shaking and weak. The stims were already wearing off; the fatigue poisons had built up to the point where the meds weren't making any headway. Not even her Cerberus cybernetic-enhanced body could take this much constant punishment without rest or medi-gel. How many hours had she been fighting? Squinting, she tried to remember. Forty-eight hours? Or maybe it was fifty-six. Too long, however many hours it was.
Shepard gritted her teeth as she moved out from behind the stack and bent to pick up the dead batarian's rifle, stripping out its thermal clip, then rifling through his pockets for more, hoping for a medi-gel. No such luck, but at least she had clips. God, it was a pretty sad day when finding spare thermal clips could cheer her up.
There was nothing on her scanner for the moment, but that didn't mean she was safe. Balak knew she was coming, and he had to be bunkered down somewhere secure. A stupid terrorist he was not.
Okay, take a minute, catch your breath, rest. There was a warning hum she could feel in her implant, a slight buzz that tingled in her teeth, telling her she was cutting it mighty close to the edge of her endurance. She had never heard of a biotic's implant shorting out from overuse - you'd pass out first - but she sure as hell didn't want to be the first.
All right, time to get moving. Shepard called up the town hall's blueprints; every colony was built on the same layout, more or less, taking into account things like terrain and stability. There were two exits, one she'd just entered through, and another in the back. Time was she could have a tech expert apply some proximity mines, or some other equally unpleasant surprise - her thoughts veered in a direction she didn't like. Tech attacks had always been her weakness, one she'd compensated for by always bringing along a specialist.
No one here but me, myself, and I.
The best she could do was jam the doors closed using her omni-tool and burn out the wires. Then it was time to get herself up those stairs, cursing under her breath with every step. The knives stabbing into her sides were sharp and jagged, and she was feeling cold. Internal bleeding, a part of her mind informed her with clinical detachment, but all she could do was turn her suit's temperature regulator up.
She had a job to do. It wasn't done yet. She could fall over and die - again - after it was finished.
"This is the only habitable planet where they could've gone to ground, sir," Kaidan's XO said. "The reports have pinpointed this system as their last known location."
Kaidan nodded, looking at the map. Balak and his batarian terrorists had been at it again, but this time he and his merry band were cornered. They were finally about to nail him. His ship had been on Balak's trail for weeks, and their relentless pursuit was about to pay off.
The last time he'd seen the scumbag, the batarian had been running for his life; Shepard had been forced to let him go to save the hostages. He had been a smart scumbag, though, and had left security drones and bombs to keep her team too busy to chase after him.
He turned away, ignoring the twinge in his chest whenever memories of Shepard ambushed him. "I'll be going down with the recon team."
"But, sir, that's not -"
"No arguments." Kaidan didn't look back as he headed for his quarters to arm and armor up. "This one's personal."
Kaidan stood up from examining the third batarian corpse his scouts had come across, and he thought he recognized the cause of death. There was just something off about the odd placement of the wreckage around the body, how far his weapon had been flung away, and the mottled burns, burns that had never come from a flamethrower. No, he'd seen damage like this before.
"Just two or three days old, would be my guess," his scout was saying, wrinkling his nose as he got to his feet. The stench would've been unbearable in an enclosed space, but it was just barely tolerable right now. "Hard to tell, when the body's been out in the open."
One of the marines came jogging up, holding out an assault rifle. "No thermal clips, Commander, just like at the last two."
"Someone was scavenging them," Kaidan speculated. "Probably took their food and water, too."
The scout leader nodded, giving the batarian at their feet a speculative look. "Enemy of our enemy?"
"Maybe. I'd sure like to know the identity of our mysterious friend, though." Kaidan had a sneaking suspicion he already knew who it was. The signs were unmistakable, but he was damned if he knew what he was supposed to do about it.
"What're your orders, sir?"
Kaidan tapped his fingers against his holstered pistol and thought fast. He felt bad about possibly deceiving his men, but what choice did he have? The latest reports on Shepard had pegged her as an ex-employee of Cerberus. Knowing her, she had probably given the Illusive Man the metaphorical finger, taking the Cerberus ship, the Cerberus crew, and the Cerberus spies for her own. If he found her, how was he supposed to handle her? As a Spectre, or a criminal in league with a terrorist organization?
What the hell was she doing here, anyway? There had been no sign of the Normandy in the system, but then, there wouldn't be, not if her stealth systems were engaged. He needed more data, and he was probably the only one who could find it without getting shot.
He came to a decision. "We'll keep going, but I think it's safe enough to split up - we have a lot of ground to cover. Maintain radio silence, but don't go out of range. If there's nothing to report, we'll rendezvous back at the shuttle in six hours. Hold your fire unless fired upon - I don't want anyone to shoot our good samaritan."
It would only piss Shepard off.
Kaidan was unsurprised to find more batarian corpses, more or less leading in a straight line towards the colony's empty town hall. He'd used the priviledge as the commanding officer to save that sector for himself, knowing Balak would most likely bunker up in the building with the best view. He continued to find signs of biotic attacks, but he was growing concerned. The first corpses, the oldest ones, had died from fatal gunshot wounds, but these more recent ones were unmarked, a sure indication that they had died from direct biotic energy. He knew Shepard, and she only did that when she didn't trust her aim.
There were quite a few possible explanations, ranging from the hilarious to the horrific. He didn't like any of them. A sense of urgency hurried him on, but he still kept an eye on his omni-tool scanner and one on his surroundings. This band of batarian terrorists was cunning, and none of them were to be underestimated.
He reached the doors of the town hall, but the green light wasn't on - in fact, there weren't any lights on the panel at all. Raising his omni-tool to scan the mechanism, he saw that it had been sabotaged, and in a most rudimentary and crude way. That, too, was one of Shepard's hallmarks.
She had always relied on him to take care of the tech stuff, confident and secure enough in her own abilities to admit to her subordinates that it had never been one of her strengths.
God, he missed her.
It only took a few seconds to locate the right wires, twist them together in the correct configuration, and use his omni-tool to trigger the doors open. Then he unholstered his submachine gun, checking to be sure it had a fresh clip. This was exactly the kind of place batarian terrorists liked to use to set ambushes: darkness, narrow walls, no cover to speak of, and too many nooks and crannies to set up a sniper's nest.
He found the body by tripping over it, but managed to catch himself before he fell flat on his face; in the gloom, it had looked like just another shadow. It was the freshest corpse he'd seen yet, and it was just like all the others: the rifle was empty of clips, and the pockets were empty of anything at all useful.
Shepard had to be close. So why didn't he hear anything? Kaidan cocked his head, breathing through his mouth and straining his ears. No gunfire, no shouts, no explosions. Nothing. A small lump of icy dread began to form in the pit of his stomach. That couldn't be good. His team would've alerted him if there'd been any sign of a shuttle taking off, or even movement, so that meant she still had to be here.
It was, as the ancient cliche went, too damned quiet.
Kaidan was too cautious to rush up the stairs without checking for traps, but his heart was pounding and his mouth was dry by the time he got to the top. There were more bodies here, on the floor and draped over makeshift barricades; all of them were batarian, and they had died recently enough that there was only a hint of death stench in the air.
He checked their vitals with his omni-tool, just in case one of them was pulling the playing dead card, but they were all quite deceased. Shepard was nothing if not thorough. He took a firm grip on his gun, knowing protocol demanded he should inform his squad of his findings, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. Things were complicated enough.
The next room was smaller, but it was more of the same. Except there was a slender figure crumpled face down in one corner; it was covered head to toe in a set of familiar tarnished, grimy silver armor, a stark contrast to the bareheaded batarian corpses that surrounded it. Kaidan's heart leapt, knocking painfully against the confines of his ribs, and his tongue was stuck to the roof of his dry mouth. Oh, God, no, he was too late, too late, not again...
Kaidan stumbled among the dead bodies, most of his attention on his omni-tool as he knelt and ran it along the stained armor, and stopped himself from yanking Shepard too hard. Don't make things worse, he reminded himself, as information scrolled down the holo hovering over his arm. His mind was on the litany of woe, cursing as it registered internal bleeding, broken ribs, low blood pressure, dehydration, exhaustion. Not really thinking about much except what he had to do to stabilize her, he grasped the cold metal of her shoulderpad to gently roll her over onto her back.
What he'd thought was an unconscious person had placed the muzzle of a submachine gun under his chin, and he heard the safety click off. Oh, shit.
"Take it easy, Shepard. It's me," Kaidan breathed, freezing in place.
The helmet she wore covered her entire face, so he couldn't see her expression. It was a small eternity before she lowered the gun. "I'm hallucinating," she croaked, her words slurring.
God, there should be a law against half-conscious, injured women sounding that sexy; the usual furry smokiness of her voice was more pronounced than usual. He dragged his mind back to business. "You're hurt pretty badly, Shepard. Let me help you."
She stopped him with a hand on his arm when he started to run his omni-tool over her. "Balak. Is he dead?" It sounded like she could only drag out every word from her punctured lungs through sheer will.
"You shouldn't try to talk," Kaidan admonished her, hearing an ominous wheeze in her voice, but he knew she wouldn't rest until she was sure.
He looked around and spotted a familiar batarian face. They usually all looked alike to his human eyes, but Shepard had managed to give Balak a parting gift before he could escape; there was a small bullet scar above the second set of eyes that distinguished him from the rest.
"Yeah, he's dead all right," Kaidan assured her, thinking Shepard must have passed out at that point, because she would've realized that any batarian who was missing the top of his head had to be dead.
"Okay," was all she said, and submitted without a word when he gave her a boosting shot of medi-gel.
Say what you would about Cerberus, they knew how to take advantage of cutting-edge cybernetics; the lattice under her skin, according to the display, was shunting the medi-gel to all the places that had the worst damage. He'd been afraid that he'd have to use up his entire supply and be forced to call for more, but he was getting a hell of a lot of mileage out of one unit. God only knew how her body was straightening out her broken ribs by itself, and he could only watch in disbelief as the broken ends moved of their own accord, pulling out of her lungs, the punctures sealing over. He saw enough to know that another two or three packs would be enough to put her on the mend. They couldn't fix the exhaustion or the dehydration, though.
"I'm going to take your helmet off, okay?" Kaidan said, once the scan hovering over his omni-tool told him the medi-gel had stabilized her. Her only reply was a grunt.
Shepard looked like hell, once he'd unsealed her helmet and pulled it off. Sweat had plastered her short black hair to her forehead, there were dark rings under her bloodshot eyes, and blood around her mouth. She looked more like a red sand addict coming down from a binge than any of the complimentary cognomens the galaxy had heaped on her. Kaidan still wanted to kiss her.
"How long have you been awake?"
"Ugh. Two days. Maybe three." She grimaced and licked her bloody lips. Tilting her head, she leaned down to sip on her suit's nutrient tube before she realized it was empty.
"Here." Kaidan unslung a canteen from his harness and popped the cap, then put an arm around her shoulders and helped her up so that she could drink. He tried not to stare as her lips clamped around the spill-proof opening.
"Thanks," Shepard gasped, after she'd drank her fill.
Kaidan used his biotics to pull over a container for her to lean against. "I need to work on your arm now," he said. Multiple breaks, his omni-tool reported. This was gonna be a bitch. "I can't believe you're still wearing this godawful garish thing, Shepard."
She gave him a wan smile. "You've always known what a diehard Blood Dragons fan I am, Alenko."
He snorted. "How many championships have they lost so far, now?"
Her eyes narrowed, but he could see the glint of humor in them. "That's blasphemy you're speaking, Kaidan. Wars have been started on Earth over less."
They grinned at each other, and he relaxed. Shepard was going to be okay, if she still had her sense of humor.
"Talk to me, Kaidan. Tell me why you're here," she said as she leaned her head back on the grimy plastic. Her facial muscles twitched as he began to unseal the pauldron, the only sign of pain she would show.
"Command at Arcturus got a tip a few weeks ago about Balak. I don't know if you were aware, but the Alliance has been on the lookout for him ever since we ran into him on that asteroid," he said as he worked.
Her blood sugar level was low, so he dug out one of the energy bars all biotic soldiers carried around, ripped it open with his teeth, and handed it to her. Shepard took it and stared at it like she'd never seen food before.
"Eat," Kaidan scolded her. "You need it."
"Keep talking," she said, mumbling around a mouthful. The old smile was back, even if she was pale and sweating, the one that said she knew a great joke and it was really funny.
"There's really nothing more to the story," he said, watching his omni-tool display instead of looking at her, at the smile that tugged on his heart. "Alliance Command passed the tip on to patrols guarding the Traverse, and we've been chasing him through one system after another ever since we picked up his trail."
He glanced around at the scene of death, destruction and mayhem, and snorted. "This reminds me of a saying my great-grandmother was fond of: 'A day late and a dollar short.' Looks like we were short again. Your turn to spill the beans."
"I'd say it was just a coincidence -" Shepard paused, inhaling through her nose as he set the first break. "Except I don't believe in coincidence. God, yes. Coincidence, no."
"Where's your backup, Shepard?" Kaidan asked when she stopped talking and gnawed on the bar instead. When she didn't answer, he stared at her with dawning surmise. "Are you here alone?"
"There is no backup," she said. "The Normandy isn't even in this system."
"Shepard... what in the fucking hell were you thinking?" he said, and was mildly surprised to realize he had yelled at her. Just yelled at Shepard, like she was one of his soldiers who'd screwed the pooch on a mission.
That smile was back and deeper than ever, but there was bleak pain in her eyes, pain that had nothing to do with her broken arm. "I clean up my messes. That's all."
"That's bullshit." Kaidan forced his hands to be gentle, maneuvering the last broken bone into place. "You didn't have to do it alone. Garrus has your back, he'd -"
"I'm already a bad influence on Garrus," Shepard said, shaking her head as she crumpled the wrapper in her other hand. "I don't... I didn't want anyone to see me like this."
"What? Insane?"
Her quiet voice cut through his anger like a laser through butter. "Balak used to be part of the same group of slavers that raided Mindoir."
"Jesus. I... I'm sorry." God, now he felt like the biggest jerk in the galaxy. Kaidan finished binding up her arm, and began to strap the pieces of armor back on. Her hardsuit would help with the healing, locking the limb into place like an old-fashioned plaster cast, but not if it was in pieces. "How... how long have you known?"
She closed her eyes. "Not long, or I might've done something I'd regret for the rest of my life, back on that godforsaken asteroid. Liara sent me a message. Did you know she was an information broker on Illium?"
He sealed the last piece of her armor, and injected another medi-gel into her suit's system. Shepard looked better already. "I did, actually. She's sent me the occasional message. Information she thought might interest me, you know. Gratis, for old times' sake."
Shepard opened her eyes and raised her brow, but he didn't elaborate. "Liara has gone up in the world since you saw her last, but that story's not for me to tell. I wouldn't be surprised if she was the source of your tip."
"Huh." Kaidan kept his eyes on his omni-tool, but her armor and cybernetics were doing their jobs. He closed the display down, and in the fading blue light, he saw tears gleaming on her face. "Shepard!"
"I'm okay, Kaidan." Seeing so much pain coupled with that smile was a travesty.
"No, you're not." It was awkward as all get out, but he managed to sit down next to her and wrap his arms around her. Their armor clanked together, and he had to be careful of her arm, but he managed to make it more than just a half-assed effort.
She was stiff, more than her armor could be accounted for - not that he could blame her. Now that his attention wasn't divided, he realized Shepard smelled exactly like a marine who'd been out in the field for days, but that was okay. It had never bothered him before - she'd certainly never complained about him, and he sure as hell wasn't about to start now.
Shepard broke down like a stone might crumble: in small bits and pieces, cracks forming everywhere, subtle and understated and inexorable. Her head rested on his shoulder, her sweaty hair and skin sticking to his. There were no gasping sobs, maybe because she was too tired for that, just... a slow trickle of wetness down his cheek.
"It's over, Shepard. Anla," Kaidan murmured into her hair. "You got 'em all. You got 'em all." How long had she been carrying this around? Ever since she had biotically laminated those batarian slavers to the walls of the basement she had been hidden in, if he had to take a guess.
They were both in armor, surrounded by corpses that were starting to stink - forget starting, they were already ripe - and all he could think about was the smell of her, the sensation of her sweat-damp hair on his face, and the arm around his waist. This was so not the right place. Or time. He was aware of minutes passing, too... it had taken him a few hours to get here, and if he didn't make the rendezvous in time, there was going to be an almighty fuss. There was just no way to say all the things he wanted to say - he'd had no time to prepare, to brace himself for a meeting this soon.
And then there was one of those leaps of - not intuition - but some kind of shared consciousness, or maybe it was just knowing the mind of someone you loved, someone who always had your back and you always had theirs, knowing what that eyebrow twitch meant, or a glance, or laughing at a joke that never had to be articulated for him to know the punchline. Hell, maybe it was the meshing of their biotic barriers. Shepard's hand, the one on what was supposed to be her injured side, turned under his and flattened against his palm.
Fire, a gentle, controlled blue fire, blossomed between their hands, and something in him clenched, feeling that familiar energy again. Everything else fell away; the stench, the bodies, the time, and their surroundings faded into the background. She'd done things to him with her power that had made him scream. In a good way. In a really, really, really good way. Maybe that made him a freak - both of them - but this was how biotics talked to each other, how they said things that mere words could never articulate.
Shepard had raised her head until her forehead was pressed against his, and her breaths puffed warm against his face, mingling with his, slow, steady, which pleased that part of him that was always on the lookout for his team. Even if she wasn't part of his team anymore. Not part of the Alliance.
He winced, remembering what he'd said to her on Horizon, and wondered how he'd ever made those lies sound so convincing. You didn't let someone you didn't trust, someone you thought was a traitor, someone strong enough to lift a geth armature into the air run fingers of dark energy all over your face, through your hair, your neck... It took a great deal of skill to control biotics to that fine degree, but it wouldn't take a whole hell of a lot to twist it sideways and pop his head right off.
Kaidan wasn't worried. And that should've worried him. It didn't. It was impossible to be worried when she was talking to him, not with words, but with the pulses of biotic power that were caressing his cheeks, pressing across his lips, tousling his hair. He didn't know why he wasn't kissing her, when she was so close, so warm, so real.
Maybe it was because he could touch her with his biotics even through her armor, in all the places he couldn't reach without prying her out of that garish tin can. It wasn't like touching her with his hands - he couldn't actually feel anything, contrary to what some of the more enthusiastic and misinformed memes floating around the extranet claimed, but he could feel her respond, in the way his power touched hers, like two waves interacting, feeding into each other - no, crashing through each other. He hadn't ever felt anything like it before, and not since she... she'd died.
The spike in his emotions must've registered in his biotics, because her powers faded, dissipating, and she raised her head, her eyes flickering with... what? Regret? Sorrow? There was no longer any of her power for him to get a grip on, so he withdrew his own dark energy field. It wasn't exactly telepathy, but it did give him an edge when it came to her feelings, the ones she hid under a mask of authority. Just like him.
God, they had so much in common, it hurt, it really did. Damaged goods, huddling together in a room full of corpses. What a pair they made.
"You didn't come here without backup," Shepard said, not looking at him as she picked up her gun from where she'd left it on the floor and holstered it. "Shouldn't you be checking in with them?"
"I told them to maintain radio silence," Kaidan said, checking the time on his omni-tool and cursing when he saw how late it was.
Shepard scooped up her helmet and attached it to her harness, then grabbed the edge of a nearby crate and dragged herself to her feet with a soft grunt. "Well, what now, Staff Commander?" She had that smile on her face again when she called him by his title, though it was laden with black irony. "You outrank me, so you're in charge. Are you going to turn me in?"
He searched her face, looking for mockery, and found none. "You want me to? Technically you haven't done anything wrong - you just took out a band of batarian terrorists wanted in both Council and Alliance space, and the Council reinstated you as a Spectre. You were just doing your job."
She shrugged, then winced. "It'll save me a trip."
"What do you mean?" Kaidan asked, but she didn't answer. He frowned. "What aren't you telling me?" he demanded, but found himself talking to the back of her head. "Hey!"
He caught up with her finally near the back of the building as she was leaving through the other exit, and grabbed her arm. "Shepard, wait, goddammit -"
"Let me finish this, and then we can talk," she said, yanking her arm out of his grasp as she walked down the street.
There was an edge as sharp as a knife in her furry voice, and it made his blood run cold. "Don't tell me you set up a bomb or something in there -"
"I don't need some lousy bomb," Shepard said, a quiet snarl in her voice that was totally unlike her.
She stopped when they were a few blocks away from the town hall, turned around, and stared at the building with eyes full of pure hate. Then her body flared blue as she raised her arms, looking for all the world like she was raising an invisible barbell, clenched her hands into fists and made a sharp yanking motion.
The roof of the town hall caved in, bringing down the already damaged and none-too-stable structure as it folded inwards, burying all of the batarians in an impromptu mass grave. Kaidan pursed his lips in a silent whistle. It was obvious Cerberus had upgraded her L3 implant to the new L5x when they rebuilt her. His comm was suddenly alive with chatter, and he had to break in to assure his marines of his well-being and settle them down. He was aware all the while that Shepard was watching him, her gaze an almost palpable weight.
He looked at her stony face. "Done?"
Shepard swayed on her feet, but there was tired satisfaction in her eyes now, instead of hate. He sure was glad to see that. "Done."
Kaidan kicked an empty carton onto its side and sat down, waving a hand for her to take a seat. She hesitated, then shrugged and sank down. A line appeared between her brows, the only outward indicator that she was probably having the mother of all headaches right now.
He handed her another energy bar, knowing exactly how much of the pain was from overexerting biotics and how much was just due to low blood sugar. Instead of wolfing it down like he expected, Shepard unwrapped the bar, broke it into two equal pieces, and handed one to him. He took it automatically, looked at it, then at her. Call him crazy, but there seemed to be more meaning here than just sharing food.
"Sometimes an energy bar... is just an energy bar," Shepard intoned, deadpan.
Kaidan couldn't help it, he burst out laughing at her perfect delivery of the old chestnut. He felt his heart ease, just a little, as he bit into his half of the bar. For a few minutes, there was silence, broken only by the sound of chewing.
"So you want to tell me what you meant, back there?" he said, flicking his fingers to get rid of the crumbs.
"This was the last loose end I needed to tie up before I head to Earth," Shepard said, her voice quiet, her expression somber.
He frowned. "Earth? Not the Citadel? What do you mean?"
"I'm surprised the news hasn't reached your ears yet."
Kaidan threw her a sharp glance. "You're stalling, Shepard."
Sighing, she rubbed her face with the heel of her palm. "There isn't exactly an easy way for me to say this, Kaidan. It's... it's not something I'm proud of. You'll have to forgive me if I need a running start."
That sounded reasonable enough. He took out his canteen, took a few sips of water, and passed it over to her. The container went back and forth a few times before she hunched over like someone had punched her in the gut, propped her elbows on her knees, and began to speak.
In terse, almost brutal terms, she told him about a mass relay. A Reaper artifact. The imminent invasion of the Reapers. Being all alone on an asteroid that was on a collision course with the mass relay, needing to fight through every damn indoctrinated soldier in it. An entire system destroyed. Three hundred thousand dead batarians.
Jesus. If it had been anyone else, he would've slapped them into a psych ward faster than you could say 'Sovereign'. But this was Shepard.
Shepard's breath puffed out in a laugh that wasn't humorous at all. "You know what the bitch of it is? The bitch of it is that I'd do it again in a heartbeat, Kaidan. In a heartbeat."
He placed a tentative hand on her shoulder, inwardly glad that she didn't shake him off. "You had to do it. You had no choice. We'd all be dead now, or worse, if you hadn't."
"I know it, Kaidan. I know it up here," she said, tapping her forehead. Then she rapped her knuckles on her breastplate. "But not here. Not yet. Maybe not ever."
"Sometimes... sometimes there is no right way."
Shepard gave him a somewhat surprised look that he couldn't interpret. "Huh. You sound like an asari I know. No, I don't mean Liara. Well, anyway. That's why I have to go to Earth. To stand trial for war crimes."
Kaidan sat bolt upright and spoke without thinking, "Shepard, no!"
She turned her head and raised a brow at him. "'No'? 'No' what?"
He grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face him. "You can't go! They'll... there's a damn good chance they'll execute you to placate the batarians! They'll set you up as the star attraction in a media circus!"
"You think I haven't thought of all that?" Her lips twisted. "I'm tired of running. Actually, I'm just tired, period. I pissed off the Illusive Man, so I've got Cerberus after me, and I would be surprised if the Blue Suns, Eclipse, and the Blood Pack aren't after me, too - I killed enough of their troops. I can't run from them and the Alliance. It wouldn't be fair to my crew."
Kaidan shook her, in the hopes of shaking the stupid out of her. "So that's it? You're just going to give up, knowing the Reapers are coming?"
Her hands came up to grip his arms, a spark of anger flashing in her tired eyes. "Are you suggesting I go crawling back to Cerberus? That didn't exactly go over well with you before, did it?"
"No, I don't mean..." He tried to come up with some kind of solution that wouldn't result in Shepard's eventual second death. "What about the Council? You're still a Spectre - if Anderson's story about his mission with Saren is true, Spectres can get away with damn near anything."
There was a hint of bitterness to her expression as she shook her head. "You're either grasping desperately for straws, or you really are this naive even after two years, Kaidan. Didn't Anderson tell you? Didn't you listen to what they said at all those meetings I took you to? The Council doesn't want war with the Terminus Systems and the Hegemony any more than the Alliance does. They'd throw me to the batarians in a second. And you know what? They'd be right."
His fingers squeezed her pauldrons as he sputtered, "You can't mean that -"
Shepard shook her head, and the serene resignation on her face shook him. "You said it yourself: the Reapers are coming. Like it or not, we'll need the batarians to help fight them. If that means I have to be executed, then so be it."
"You can't mean that," he protested. The utter certainty in her voice was terrifying.
"Kaidan," she whispered, pressing a kiss with infinite gentleness to his cheek. "There's nothing you can do. There's nothing I can do. This... this is the only honorable way forward, the only thing I can do and still remain who I am."
He pulled her into his arms, crushing her against his chest as he buried his face against the side of her neck. For a brief moment, he entertained visions of smuggling her onto his ship somehow - yeah, right, like he could hide the galaxy's most infamous hero from his whole crew. No, she had made too many enemies - there was no place safe enough for her now. It hurt to be so... helpless.
"No..." he breathed. "There's... there's got to be another way."
Shepard's words ruffled his hair. "There isn't any other way. Please... please understand. I hope to God you understand."
He laughed, though it sounded more like a sob. "You still believe in God? Even after all the shit you've gone through? Still going through?"
She pulled away a little so that she could look him in the eye. "There is a God, and He's here," she said, jabbing a thumb at her chest. "And there's a Devil, and he's also here. God and the Devil and everything in between, co-existing side by side, more often than not. We make our own heaven, and we make our own hell, and sometimes we can't tell the difference between the two. Right here, right now. This is the only life we have. That's how I can do what I do, how I can live with my decisions."
"Even the decision to work with Cerberus?" He tried to infuse the words with the anger he'd felt when he found out it was true, but he couldn't.
It failed to get a rise out of her, in any case. "You were born on Earth, Kaidan. You wouldn't understand. You couldn't understand. I hope to God you never do."
"Try me," he snapped, the challenge clear in his voice.
"Are you sure you're ready to listen?" Shepard retorted. "It's part and parcel of why I worked with Cerberus."
He subsided. "Yeah. I think I am. Now. I wasn't ready, back on Horizon. It was just... it was such a huge shock, seeing you again."
Shepard nodded. "I understand. I know that wasn't easy for you to admit, just now." She took a breath. "You could've figured it out for yourself, if you'd thought about it. I think I first made the decision to work with Cerberus after seeing Freedom's Progress. Did you see any of the reports?"
Kaidan nodded. "Anderson was kind enough to let me see them before he sent me to Horizon. Empty buildings, empty streets, no bodies... there was not one clue as to what had happened. Creepy."
"You saw Freedom's Progress." She looked up at the pile of rubble that had been the town hall. "I saw Mindoir."
He winced. "Of course. You're right, I should've figured it out."
She stared at a point in the air, a distance he thought he could measure in light-years. "If you'd seen what I'd seen, Kaidan... you would've done the same. Freedom's Progress, Horizon, what ghastly things the Collectors had done to humans on their ship, what they were really doing with the colonists, what they almost did to my crew. It hit home. It hit home hard. The question became not how I could work with Cerberus, but how could I not work with Cerberus."
"So... why'd you quit?"
Her face twisted with disgust. "The Illusive Man wanted the Collector base for Cerberus, knowing what had been done there, what the Collectors were making."
Kaidan studied her pale face. Whatever it was, it had to be really horrible for her to lose her composure. "Do I want to know what they were making?"
"No. But I'll tell you anyway, and I'll leave it up to you whether you believe me or not. They were making a Reaper. A Reaper made from our genetic material. That's why entire colonies had been disappearing - they needed millions of humans to make something that size. Maybe even billions. The entire population of Earth, at the very least."
"Jesus," he breathed. For a split second he thought about not believing her, but this was Shepard. He hadn't believed her back on Horizon - he wasn't going to make the same mistake now.
The color was coming back into Shepard's cheeks. "Anyway, I told the Illusive Man to fuck off and then I blew up the base - there's nothing large enough for his vultures to scavenge. I don't care if he sends every cell he has left after me - I regret nothing."
Kaidan shook his head. "I hope some day that I have as much strength in my faith as you do in yours."
"Survive long enough, and you will." Shepard cupped his face in her gloved hands. "There's nothing more dangerous or interesting than vermin here now. You should get back to your ship - your men are waiting for you."
"What about you?" He wished he could at least offer her a ride, but if what she'd said about those batarians were true, he couldn't harbor or aid a criminal. If he had been alone, he'd do it in a heartbeat, but his soldiers were innocent and deserved better than to be court-martialed.
Shepard disentangled herself from his arms and stood. "I've got a shuttle parked in one of the underground garages a few miles from here. I'll be all right."
"Okay." There didn't seem to be anything more to say. "Do you need any supplies?" he asked as he got to his feet, but she shook her head.
She took his hands in hers, her smile making a reappearance, one that didn't have anything but genuine affection in it. And, dare he say it, love. "Kaidan. Thank you. You saved my life."
"For all the good that did." He couldn't help the bitterness that seeped into his tone. "I already attended your funeral, Shepard. I sure as hell don't want to attend another."
"Hey," she said as she slipped an arm around his waist, "don't be like that. It doesn't become you."
He blew out his breath in an explosive sigh. "You're right, it doesn't. But... Jesus, Shepard. This was... that was one hell of a bombshell you dropped on me."
"I know. I'm sorry." There was a sudden light of determination in her eye and her voice turned bracing, the same tone she'd used to lead her team into hell and then come back out. "You know what? I'm not sorry. Sorry that I just burdened you with this shitty news, yes, but I'm not sorry that, of all the planets you could've been searching, you landed on this particular one and ran into me here." Her lips quirked. "God works in mysterious ways."
"Shepard..." Kaidan reached up and cupped her cheek.
"I'm glad we had a chance to talk." Her lips twitched. "You know. Alone. Without any Cerberus flunkies hanging around."
"I'm sorry -" he began, wondering if he'd ever live Horizon down.
"Kaidan." She pressed a finger to his lips, that I-know-a-joke smile back on her face. "I was teasing."
"I knew that," he said, and saw her smile deepen.
Shepard embraced him. "Goodbye, Kaidan. Be well." She shook her head at him. "Don't give me that look. We'll meet again, this side of heaven. And if we don't, then just know that I love you."
"You're a cruel woman, Shepard. Anla. A cruel, cruel woman," he said into her hair. "I love you, too."
His hands trailed down her back as she stepped away, down her arms to her hands, her fingers, before he let her go. He watched her walk down the empty, trash-littered street, and saw her put her helmet back on. The silver figure disappeared around a corner, and was gone.