She still has the dreams.
They are vivid enough that they wake her in the middle of her sleep. They disturb her enough that any hope of going back to sleep is lost and she has to get out of her rack and wander to calm her mind. The bright flashes of the fighting, the screeching of the thresher maws, the screams of her squad-mates … it all runs like a holo-movie through her mind even after Jeryn's stumbled into consciousness. It has been years since Akuze and she can still play through ever moment as if it were just days ago.
Sometimes she goes below deck to the lower hold and runs on the treadmill just to get some of the adrenaline to subside. Occasionally it helps, other times it doesn't. Once in a while it riles her up more when she finds her mind drifting to memories of sprinting for cover. Memories of trying to survive for just a few more minutes to buy the others time.
It didn't work, though.
The guilt weighs on her even when she doesn't let it show. It is useless to worry on it, and when people ask how she goes on Jeryn puts on her Skipper's Face and tells them pretty lies. You move on, she tells them. You learn not to dwell, she reassures them. Grieve and move on, she reiterates like a mantra. She has an answer for everything and each one takes just a little more effort to make convincing.
Especially on days like this.
She rests with her forehead against the crook of her elbow for a moment as if she can make the flashbacks stop by the force of her will alone. When that doesn't work, she swears and stomps to the floor then on to the elevator.
Stopping at her gear locker she grabs her knit bag of sundries and turns down the passageway to the shared State Room head. Flipping the sign to 'Occupied' she pushes in through the hatch. What moving won't relieve, perhaps the water will. It's times like this that Jeryn longs for the actual showers that she can let run on some of the central space stations, the build-up of steam being just the thing to soothe the worry from her mind.
Working the soap into a quick lather she freezes when she hears a sound, a scuff. She isn't alone, and reflexes combined with a triggered response have her reacting before her brain has a moment to catch up. Spinning around she slams her forearm into a throat and screams out as she pins the other person to the bulkhead.
Alenko's voice is barely a grunt when he finally gets out sound. "Shepard," he ekes and tries to swallow against the force of her arm. "You all right?"
"Shit," she snaps back to reality with one word and shakes her head. "Yeah, I just … you didn't turn the sign."
Realizing what she is doing, she steps back and crosses her arms over herself, a glimpse of horror is noticeable before she slides her Face back into place.
He rubs at his throat with one hand for a moment then tries to play it off casually, looking away and at the ceiling. "Gosh, yeah. Apologies for that. I didn't think …" Rubbing at his forehead he blinks several times against the light.
"Headache?" she asks, happy to shift the topic from herself as she grabs her towel to wrap around herself, then wiping some soap away from the path to her eyes. She wonders how she missed him being in here. He's in PT gear, making her realize that she must have been more out of sorts than she'd realized.
"What?" he queries before giving one bark that sounds like a chuckle but clearly hurts his head. "Oh, that. Yeah. I thought that-"
"The shower would help?" she finishes for him.
"Exactly."
"How did that work for you?" She is relieved to not have to talk about this awkward encounter, the soap in her hair, what she is doing awake when it isn't her shift yet.
"Not well. I was just about to give sleep another go."
She scrubs at her eyes and wipes soap into them which makes them burn and her swear again. "No luck for me either, apparently." She tries to laugh it off. He uses that face that is full of meaning, with things that she thinks are unsaid but doesn't want to ask one way or another.
"Right." He doesn't believe her, and she doesn't expect him to. The sound of his shower shoes on the deck tell her that he's fidgeting and possibly nervous, and she wishes one of them would just rip off the bandage and say something. It would be easier than all of this talking around things that seems to have become a holding pattern for them.
Now is not the time, with the vacant eyes of her squad burned into her vision every time she closes her eyes. Without ever saying it, she thinks that he knows that, too. He's distracted her long enough that it is easier to push the visions from her mind, though, and for that she's grateful. She regrets the mark on his throat that looks as if it might bruise, though there isn't anything that can be done for it now.
"I'll just … leave you to it, then, Commander." She follows him with her eyes as he grabs up his own sundry bag and turns for the hatch.
"Kaidan," she drops protocol completely and catches his eyes in the mirror on the far wall. It's a step further than either of them have ever gone.
He turns and lifts an eyebrow. "Jeryn?"
"Thanks," she says a lot with just that one word.
He nods once. "Any time, Commander," his voice dips low and he steps over the frame of the hatch and leaves her to rinse her hair.