A/N: I apologise for the typos and formatting errors in the first version. It's been some time since I've been on the site and so I made the mistake of assuming my document would upload properly. So a quick thanks to BuriedBeneath who left the kind review to point this out to me.
Seven hours. It only took her seven goddamn hours to screw up and put a life in danger because of one slip up. Not just anybody's life, his.
From the moment they touched down on the surface of the planet she had kept him in her line of sight always. She knew things were rough between them considering how in the six months since she had been in lock up under Alliance authority the only words exchanged between them were the few they had before everything went to hell in Vancouver when the Reapers began their assault. She knew that after she had sacrificed the Batarian colony to delay the Reapers' invasion there would have been little hope in seeing him to try and clear the air between them after what happened on Horizon but she still hoped that she would finally get the chance to respond to his audio letter he had sent after Horizon. Instead they were thrust into the thick of things once again and ordered by Hackett himself to chase a lead about a Prothean device that will supposedly end the Reaper threat once and for all on Mars.
The strain on whatever was left of their relationship was already bad and when Cerberus troops were the first thing he saw after seeing the dead bodies of Alliance soldiers the thread between them began fraying quicker. She knew then that she had to convince him that her temporary alliance with Cerberus in the past year was just that, temporary. At every turn when they ran into any troops she hit them harder than necessary and maybe placed a bullet here and there that weren't needed, innocent little renegade slips of her normally paragon nature. She reassured Kaidan anytime he brought up those bastards and what they did to her that she was still the solider and woman he had fallen for all those years ago. A faint smiled raced across her lips as she thought about how they were finally breaking that barrier between them when she had mentioned he was always stubborn and that deep laugh of his she had missed was his response as he tried to act innocent. But that didn't matter since half an hour later he was laying crumpled up and clinging to life because of her carelessness. And that tore her heart to pieces.
She should've been quicker with dealing with Vega. She should've gone to check the wreckage of the shuttle to recover the data and make sure the area was secure. But she didn't, instead she made the mistake and assumed that no one could've survived a crash courtesy of Vega Airlines. But someone, something, did and in the next few minutes that followed everything changed once again. One moment Kaidan was on his feet firing off rounds trying to take down the enemy and the next he was laying on the ground, crumpled and broken, barely hanging on to life.
It was Eden Prime all over again. However this time their roles were reversed. He was the one knocked unconscious and fighting for his life while she was the one who had to watch from the sidelines helplessly knowing that it was her fault.
Opening her eyes for a moment she looked at his battered body. Nothing had changed from the first time she had visited him a few weeks ago after speaking with the council to start trying to unite the galaxy against the Reapers. In the seven hours since she managed to almost get him killed, she had managed to accomplish many things. For example she went to the Turian home world of Palaven, rescued a Turian Primarch, and got Garrus back in her squad but it appeared that the damn hospital staff still hadn't managed to find the time to wash his face. Or perhaps they did and what she thought was dirt and grime covering his face was just his bruises finally molting away. Still it brought up the memory of seeing the deep bruises and dirt that covered his face back on Mars when his helmet was crushed by that Cerberus robotic bitch. She couldn't help but remember rushing over to him after she took the bitch down and quickly checked to see if she could patch the ruptures in his enviro suit and helmet with some non-existent omni-gel before exposure to the harsh temperatures of Mars added to the list of his injuries. A smirked tugged at her lips at the thought of omni-gel being able to fix everything, including his unruly hair, as it was an old joke that they had shared with Ash back on the old Normandy. Reaching out with a hand she carefully brushed her fingertips along the edge of his hairline stopping when she noticed that his straight black hair had started to grey. She dropped her hand from his face as a pang of guilt shot through her chest as she thought how she probably caused him to grey prematurely because of all the bullshit with Cerberus and the missing colonists and those abducted on Horizon. The self blaming didn't stop there. She thought about how he was finally opening up to her after the Battle of the Citadel all those years ago and was being less cautious when they were together and how barely a month later she was killed before she got the chance to tell him she loved him. He was the last thing she thought of before her the leak in her O2 line finally got her to kick the bucket when she got spaced. She wondered if she was or could be his last tho— no she couldn't think that.
She leaned forward as she picked up his limp hand in one of her own as she intertwined her fingers with his and brought it to her lips lightly kissing his knuckles and wrapped her other hand on top before she pressed her forehead against his. She struggled for what seemed like eternity as she fought the tears that threatened to spill and caused her throat to ache but she finally managed to speak, "I can't lose you." Swallowing a sob she continued as she gently squeezed his hand as she placed it above her heart, "Ple-please come back to me. I love you."