"Today, thirty children were sent to the Ascension Project because of the Kaidan Alenko Memorial Scholarship..."
Halt, and think, you fool. Stop walking. Listen to the voice that comes with a hand, sifting through memories like so many datapads. Even if you don't want to, you have to. For the Kaidan Alenko Memorial Scholarship. For the Kaidan Alenko memorial. For Kaidan Alenko. For Kaidan...you fool.
Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, Commander. I'll be with you on Eden Prime.
She closes her eyes. She doesn't see, doesn't see the turian and the drell, doesn't see the people walking by, doesn't see the console that brings her to this blindness. Doesn't see the three fingered hands, from different people, different lives, reaching for her.
I'm so sorry, Commander, I was a fool, I shouldn't have touched the beacon. This is my fault.
No, you silly boy. He's there, right there, watching her wallow and loving her for it. Loving her for it, even though she never deserved it. Even though she never loved him back, not like that, never the way he did.
I'm glad you're safe, Shepard, and that you got Dr. T'Soni out.
Always there, always polite, always kind, she was always first. She doesn't know what she did to deserve him, to deserve a brother. She doesn't feel the hand on her shoulder. She's only thinking of him, of what she cost him.
Let's get out of the cold, Shepard. I think you're just as tired of this planet as I am.
She thought she had repented. She thought she had remembered enough of him, done her share, but deep in her heart of hearts, where her family resided, where Kaidan lived on, she knew it would never be enough. Never enough for her. She was never enough for him.
Lessa, are you sure you're fine? We didn't have it too bad here, we got the colonists away, but it sounds like the Thorian was nasty business.
She remembered the first time he called her Lessa. She remembered when he had brushed at the cut on her cheek from a stray tool, and when he had quietly asked her to see Chakwas. That was what was wrong with him. He never told, he always asked. Asked her if she was okay. Asked her if she loved him. Asked her if he should die.
Lessa, Captain Kirrahe wants to know if Ash or I should go with him.
Ash or I, not Ash or me. A gentleman. A scholar. Well-versed, in fact, in the art of winning her heart and taking a part of it away with him. That was Kaidan Alenko.
I don't regret a thing.
But she did.
Not for saving Ashley. She would never regret that. Ashley had sisters, a family. That was her justification, but she could never justify Kaidan. Not her acceptance of him, not her rejection of him, not her murder of him. Never Kaidan. Kaidan.
"Lessa." She opens her eyes. The new face is there, a motley of blue and grey, blurry as if she had refused to focus on life. But he was there, forcing her back, bringing her back to life.
"Come on, Lessa." And she leaves, and she imagines him, wherever he may be, smiling as she walks away.
For Kaidan.
