Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise.
It wasn't strictly an official mission, but Kaidan had to see it for himself. Of course the comm channels were ablaze with intel: the Omega 4 relay had powered up – not surprising, someone just doing suicide by relay. But when something – someone, rather – came back…
There weren't more than a few blurry shots from the dirty, messy Omega colony, but he still knew it was her. The Council had tried to downplay the incident which just made the news agencies view her as tastier fodder for gossip. It was something that had made him angry in the past, when they tried to use her face and her name as a cheap symbol to rally around. All of that anger and nowhere to put it, nobody to tell about it. But this was different. It was as if she knew she was going to be used as that symbol, and was using that to her own end. Not Cerberus, which was good. But not Alliance. Just Shepard.
Kaidan Alenko didn't know quite what to think.
The sunset on Illium was beautiful. Officially he was there on some business he couldn't remember, and he had told himself that maybe he'd drop by and say hello to Liara (but he also knew he wouldn't). There was one reason he was here. He had to see it for himself.
The Normandy – no, he corrected himself, Cerberus' parody of the Normandy – was ablaze in sunset light. Even with the raw and jagged cuts through her hull, there was still a distinct beauty about the ship. Beauty with strangeness, perhaps, but it just made him set his jaw as he thought of Shepard. Looking battleworn was always part of her charm, and always had been. It spoke to a raw power, a sense of fairness – picking on opponents her size or larger – as well as the honor of struggle. Already, repair mechs were scurrying on the Normandy's surface, piecing together the larger repairs that had been impractical to arrange at Omega. Kaidan wondered how many Cerberus nanobots had done the same thing to Shepard herself… scurrying like bugs, sullying where he always wanted to brush gently with his fingertips…
But he wasn't here to see that desecration. He was here to see her. After all, they weren't the same thing – not any more, not since she had come back flying her own colors instead of Cerberus'.
She was easy enough to track, even if the shop was a relatively obscure one off the main trading floor in Illium. Simply out of the way, not initially seedy: that was certainly a relief. And she was in the doorway in front of him too soon. Or maybe that was just her way, as he found out on Horizon. Maybe he would never be fully prepared to see her again. Maybe that's what two years of mourning do to a man. Maybe it wasn't entirely his fault.
Kaidan looked her over carefully. Her armor had been painted black with royal blue trim, but it was still scuffed and dented from the battle. The left upper arm and shoulder had been completely peeled off of her left side. The display was nearly obnoxious. It certainly wasn't subtle. The deep red of the tattoo's center nearly matched her red hair, even. But it was well done, he could tell, despite the tiny pinpricks of blood on the image that betrayed how recently it had been made. The Omega 4 relay, shining in red, its long arms like pincers framing two words in black: SEMPER FI.
He would look up the phrase later on his omnitool. The extranet entry for its translation made the wound sting even harder.
The volus shopkeeper glanced at him for only a moment before turning back to Shepard. "You'll want the premium topcoat, of course. Military-grade! The same the Turian fleet uses. Holds up fabulously during battle, very durable. Unfortunately not very many colors for the accompanying base paint, but I believe if you want an insignia I can make a few calls, see what I can do…"
"I do want an insignia. The name needs to be re-painted, too – she's still the Normandy." It was good to hear her voice, businesslike as it was. "Something in orange or red. We're going for something like this." She turned her body to show the new tattoo to the volus.
"Oh! Oh, the Omega 4 relay," the alien said with some amount of awe. "Of course. Let me, ah…" The volus peered a moment at Kaidan. "Let me go make a call to one of my associates. I'll be in my office for, oh, not more than fifteen minutes, and I'll have the color swatches uploaded to the console out here. In the meantime, look over the shades of grey and color schemes and tell me what you think." With that the volus hopped down off of its stool behind the counter and quickly waddled away, as if knowing it didn't want to stick around for the conclusion of whatever might happen next between Shepard and Kaidan, good or bad.
And she glanced behind her for only a moment.
"Alenko. Thought you said everything you needed to on Horizon."
Her tone wasn't harsh or cruel, it was even worse: disinterested.
"I… I came to see for myself. I thought I owed you that much, Shepard."
"Yeah?" Her tone was hazy as she flipped the haptic interface of the kiosk around. Dark grey 087 and dark grey 084 were more important than he was.
"It's good to see you back," he ventured.
"Mmm."
There were few ways this could go any worse. "Shepard, I need to speak with you. To apologize –"
"I think you said all you needed to on Horizon, Alenko," she drawled lightly, fingers moving to scroll on the kiosk's interface.
"I don't know if you got the email I sent after –"
"I did."
He held his breath. "And?"
"Didn't read it." She tapped the screen again and another blur of swatches of grey flew past. "You already said what I needed to hear, Alenko. I'm not sure how many other ways I can say it."
He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat.
"You used to call me Kaidan, you know."
"I guess I did," she murmured with the same disinterest. "Strange how you don't know who your real friends are in this life until you're dead."
He gave a small choked sound before she turned around in impatience. Her tone wasn't cruel or demeaning, and that only made it worse, to hear it as a statement of fact.
"If you expect me to still return that puppy-dog crush after you've called me a Cerberus bitch, you're aiming too high, Alenko. I stand by those who stand by me." She didn't turn back to see him, but instead she nodded off to the side. Through the large shop window, he could see a group talking, waiting for Shepard. It took him a moment more to realize through the multilayered reflections that it was Garrus and Tali.
"I see. That's… all I wanted to know, Shepard."
"Mmn." It was a small, musical little sound of dismissal.
He drew himself up to attention and stood there, saluting, waiting for her to turn around and notice. And he held the salute until the volus shopkeeper waddled back into the room, rambling about firebrand orange versus tigerlily red. She never turned, but he finished the salute with a flourish and a snap anyway.
The sunset over Illium was still beautiful even though he wished it wasn't.
And if you don't love me now, you will never love me again.
I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain.
-Fleetwood Mac, 'The Chain'