Written for my friend. TW: suicide. Dark themes. Character death.
one
Shepard bursts through the elevator door.
Her jaw is set tight, all harsh angles, and clean lines. She doesn't look harried. Her hair is perfectly pinned in place. Her weapons are firm to her back. She holds a pistol on him, her omni-tool flowing against her arm. The orange reflects into her eyes and he thinks, I don't know you anymore.
"Stand aside, Kaidan," she says, but he can't. He won't.
Cerberus is here. Shepard is here. As she was on Mars, while Alliance soldiers were shot in the head.
She's been so cool with him lately. Brief, and distant in the hospital.
She told him she owed him no explanations. She did what she had to do.
Jane has always been collected, gathered. But now he sees different things in her face beside her usual emotional reservation. He sees a stranger. A traitor.
Udina shows him the footage of her shooting the salarian Councilor.
She isn't the woman he used to know. The one he used to kiss. The one he used to love.
She steps forward, her gun trained on Udina, EDI and James' are trained on Kaidan.
She's not even looking at him, her gaze fixed firm and murderous on Udina. She's never liked him.
The Council is his responsibility. He has to control the situation. He has his duty. She isn't the Shepard he used to know. She isn't Jane.
Jane would explain. Jane wouldn't work for Cerberus. Jane wouldn't lie to him.
She isn't Jane.
Kaidan makes a decision.
He pulls the trigger. He's a good shot. He always has been. The bullet gracefully finds its mark right between her eyes. She crumples to the floor, dead before she even hit.
James and EDI don't even fire on him. They're too shocked.
Udina turns and shoots Kaidan in the back, and the last thing he sees are Jane's beautiful light eyes staring at him sightlessly. He hears gunshots and knows no more.
two
He wakes up two weeks later, and is told the truth by Hackett, and Commander Bailey. She wasn't working for Cerberus. Udina was a traitor.
Udina also killed the asari Councilor and got a lucky shot off at James before EDI took him out. James is lying in a coma down the hall. He's not expected to wake up.
He murdered her for no reason. His distrust killed her.
They don't press charges against him. Technically, he was just following the Council's orders. He had reasonable doubt. The situation was dire. They need all the damn soldiers and officers they have in this war.
Executing or imprisoning him would just deprive the war effort.
Anderson makes it clear that if he was there, if he wasn't stuck on Earth, he would shoot Kaidan himself. Orders be damned.
They demote him three ranks, and he knows his career is over.
He doesn't care.
As far as he's concerned, everything is over.
three
He's at the London push when it comes, stuck with the grunts on the ground. They put him in charge of a small unit, despite everyone hating his guts.
Shepard-Killer.
He's the only one to make it to the Beam.
Jane waits for him.
He asks her, "Why?"
She tells him to choose.
He says, "I'm sorry."
She does not respond. She hangs limply when he tries to hug her, tries to make her react, and tries to make an AI become a ghost.
Her voice tells him that she only took this form to interact with him, because the woman was foremost in his mind.
"Jane," he pleads. "I'm sorry. Please. I'm sorry."
She sighs. "The mind is damaged. This was a mistake. You are unworthy."
"I am unworthy. I killed you. I killed you. You looked at me and your eyes were dead. And I'm sorry, I loved you."
"I am not her. I am the Catalyst. Now choose, or you all shall be destroyed."
He destroys the tubes, because destruction is all he knows these days.
four
He wakes up. Two weeks later. Again.
They call him a hero. The Reapers are dead.
He doesn't care. Two weeks after he's discharged from the hospital, he grabs his service pistol, a picture of Jane from his omni-tool, a bottle of whiskey, locks himself in his puny bathroom, and shoots himself in the head.
Just like he did her.
He thinks in the millisecond before oblivion, that she might forgive him for this one.