What the fuck happened? What's wrong with me? These thoughts were racing through Shepard's mind now. She'd gone back to her cabin as soon as they'd gotten back aboard the Normandy. She'd been so relieved to see Kaidan, alive. Safe. And then he'd laid into her like that. Called her a traitor.
She was able to talk her way out of anything. Part of what had made her such an Alliance poster child was her ability to influence even the most antagonistic interviewer. She could play galactic politics with the best of the Council races. Not that she wanted to. In fact, she rather hated politics and politicians. Oh, she understood the game, could read the players, knew their motivations probably better than they themselves did. But she'd never been able to stomach the fact that they played their games with the lives of innocent people. Politicians made the decisions that ultimately cost countless soldiers their lives time and time again. If you couldn't do, you had no right to lead, as far as she was concerned. But in the end, she knew how the world really worked and did her best to sway the ebb and flow whenever she could.
She was glib. Had always been a bit of a smartass with a short temper. But she could manipulate with the best of them when the time and need called for it. And then she had just said the dumbest shit when finally reunited with her lost love.
Kaidan Alenko. God, her heart had skipped a beat as soon as she'd heard his voice. She'd been so afraid she'd lost him to the Collectors. She hadn't seen him in any of the pods they'd passed on their fight through the small colonial settlement on Horizon. She hadn't seen the face she'd longed to see from the moment she woke up on that Cerberus operating table in any of the swarm-frozen colonists she'd managed to keep the Collectors from loading into their creepy coffin-pods. She'd had the fiercest battle of her life against that... thing after fighting off wave after wave of husks and Collectors. They'd managed to get the GARDIAN guns calibrated and online and then the Collectors' massive ship had taken off. And she still hadn't found him and she'd feared he was taken.
And then there he was, walking toward her, calling her a legend and a ghost. At the time, she'd thought if only he really knew… But then he'd embraced her and she felt the world, her fears, her duties, falling away. She knew she'd missed him. She had been searching for him all this time after all, but she had not expected her reaction to his embrace – his nearness – to leave her completely dumb.
She'd wanted to tell him everything, Cerberus be damned. He'd made it clear from his words, his tone of voice, even the way he'd stepped away from her, that he thought she'd been intentionally keeping away from him these two years. And all she'd been able to say was that she had been dead but now she was back and she had to work with Cerberus to stop the Collectors. To stop the Reapers. From destroying everything I love, she'd thought at the time, but hadn't actually spoken aloud. And then he'd called her a traitor. Said she'd betrayed the Alliance. And the ground had fallen out from under her, leaving her floundering, heartbroken. After everything they'd been through together. The things they'd seen. He'd been at her side, believing her, believing in her, when so few had. He… He walked away from her. Said goodbye, take care. There was something in his voice when he'd said the last. Now she could identify it as sorrow… regret, loss and a hint of hope? Hope that this wasn't over. But then she had been angry. Felt betrayed herself. She'd said goodbye but was too stunned to say much else.
Honestly, she was still angry. Furious that he hadn't let her explain. She was also upset that he hadn't demanded a full explanation from her then and there. She wondered if his love for her was so fickle that he could just walk away. And then a gurgle from the aerator in the fish tank taking up half of one wall in her new cabin reminded her that life, the galaxy, had moved on without her. The defeat of Saren and Sovereign only felt like months ago to her, but to everyone else it had been over two years. Kaidan had loved her and then she'd died. He'd mourned her and moved on. Of course, that thought was too much to bear. So she recalled and held onto what she'd heard in his final "Take care." Truth be told, she began to obsess over it. He'd clearly been emotional. He'd gotten angry. She was the one who'd just stood there. She imagined she must have appeared cold and distant. She hadn't said the things she'd really wanted to say. She grew determined to find a way to apologize, sit down with him in private and really tell him everything that had happened since she'd seen him last. She didn't know when she'd get the opportunity. She didn't trust Miranda or the Illusive Man to stay out of her business. After all, they'd made it perfectly clear that everything she did was their business. But she'd find a way. She had to.