A/N: This was my assignment for Spec Reqs rarepair exchange over on AO3! Prompter requested "angst and fluff in equal measure."
Reapers are shining their blue beams off the glass when Kahlee unlocks the apartment door. In this part of the Citadel, they sweep their lights back and forth restlessly, like a miserable child looking for something. Maybe she's anthropomorphizing, but it's hard not to. Spend enough time around something, and you start to make up your own sides to it.
Coming back here feels strange. She and David agreed to hand the place off to Shepard months ago, forgoing their plans to retire here (mostly her plans, if she's being honest). Then he came staggering out of the conduit without the commander, one part of an enormous system reminding them how -
" - man makes plans, God laughs - "
- just as he said to her before she left.
He's still on Earth, helping with the continued rebuilding efforts and awaiting an honorable discharge. Grissom Academy, for its part, is in limbo after its structure fell to the Reapers and its students returned from war. So here she is on the Citadel again, the first day of a week dedicated to tying up loose ends.
Inside the apartment, Kahlee circles the floor slowly, giving herself a chance to get reoriented before trying to do anything. It's cleaner than she expected, but not sterile by any means. Makes the place feel one part lived-in and two parts achingly familiar. No one's been here since Shepard died, and when David offered to let someone from the Normandy come get the commander's things, they all but begged him to let them refuse. Easier on everyone to send her here, have her strip the place of its character, file off the serial numbers, and move forward. Easier on her, too. It deserves a proper send-off.
In fact, it really needs more send-off than one day can give. She realizes as she glances around that David never cleaned this place out before he turned it over to Shepard. He left valuables - hidden, but there all the same - and either trusted the commander to send them on or was much less certain they'd survive this war than he admitted. Kahlee wants to believe it's the former. He's good at trusting people, much better than she is. Part of her would almost call his perspective -
- crazy, being engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the man she's been sleeping with an hour after she was sure everything was fine. Still unaware of the stomach-twisting scene deeper in the atrium, Hendel hit with a stunner and Gillian in the throes of a grand mal seizure, only knowing Jiro knows things he shouldn't and it's wrong and horrifying and she needs -
- to stop looking at the picture on the wall before it starts making her frown more than smile. She doesn't have to recognize all of the people there to know it's the Normandy crew, past and present, in various stages of inebriation.
This is going to be a process. Peeling off layers, finding their yesterday under Shepard's and removing that too, until things are bare and clean. Clinical, if you will.
Take it from the beginning, Kahlee. No, one thing first. She pulls the photo off the wall, opens the empty suitcase she brought with her, and tucks it inside. Someone may want it later.
The monitor by the door blares a steady stream of static. Her hand reaches out to flick it off, then on, then off again. She drums her fingers against a few piano keys, makes a mental note to have it tuned if they decide to keep it. She'll ask David when she calls him later; according to her omni-tool, it's barely 0400 his time. The chances he's up anyway are high. She pretends they aren't.
Above the fireplace stands a line of books, all covered in layers of dust. Real hardcovers, too, the sort you find in antique shops or great-grandparents' homes, with crisp machine binding and colorful spines. They're good for storage as well. Without looking, she knows there's an emergency credit fund stashed between the pages of Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and inside The Phantom Tollbooth, expired ID cards. She wonders if she'd recognize the people in those old photos if she looked. The whole stack is set aside to pack later.
A screen smeared with fingerprints demands all attention as she sidesteps the wall with the fireplace. Some of those prints might be hers, now that she thinks about it. A press of the button to turn the display on reveals someone left a vid paused here indefinitely for months - Fleet and Flotilla, according to the root menu. Well, that's appropriate. Did she and David ever watch anything but cheesy vids on this screen? She glances to the couch and has to suppress an inexplicable urge to -
" - sit down." David takes her arm, steering her towards the sofa on wobbly legs.
"I had three glasses," she protests, an involuntary giggle escaping. "I can stand."
To his credit, he doesn't point out how quickly those three glasses went down. "You look like you should be sitting."
She can't string together enough of the right words to argue with that - had only protested because it felt like the thing to do, really - and so flops heavily, closing her eyes to focus on the pleasant buzz. Funny how nice it can feel to be dizzy…
"I'll get you a cup of coffee."
Kahlee rolls her eyes with a grin. "David, I'm fine." They both pretend she doesn't need to reach back and steady herself as she sits up.
"I know you are. It's good to see you cut loose once in a while. Too much time spent trying to take care of everyone else, not enough left for yourself."
She rolls this around in her mind slowly, digesting it. There's something wrong here; he's able to string together complicated ideas like that, and meanwhile she can't remember whether her pants are wide open because she was planning some weird attempt at seduction or she just forgot to redo them after she went to piss earlier.
"You should be drunker," she says plainly, making him laugh.
"Let's stick to having you sober up." Then he's approaching with the offered cup of coffee, setting it aside when she reaches out and grips his shoulders. His hands end up on her thighs, body tilted forward so they can -
- squint as the light of a Reaper passes by. It's hard to get used to, no matter how routine it's becoming. Whoever thought to invest in blackout curtains must be making a killing right now…
She steadies herself, shakes her head, and turns back to the couch. One cushion bears an ugly stain, probably removable, but not something that's going to get dealt with now in any case. Stain remover, she keys into her omni's notes function. It can be tomorrow's task.
For the moment, there's plenty of other, equally necessary things to do. On to tackle the bar and kitchen. Nothing that's been sitting here all this time is still going to be safe to eat. That makes it easier to stop thinking about how invasive going through someone else's fridge feels, and just do it.
Most of the food has rotted, but there's some unopened cans - maybe the duct rats would want them - not to mention half a cooler of fruit-flavored beer. The rest fills two trash bags that Kahlee ties off and sets by the door to take out later.
Another task for later this week: the counters need a scrub-down. At first glance, the table in the back seems better, but when she nears it, suppressing a giggle becomes impossible. Are those boot prints? Seriously? She grins and scoops the model Normandy SR-2 there up, adding it to the pile of things to bring back. Funny to think this ship was a unique model not that long ago, unpopular with its Cerberus history, and now there must be thousands of them out there. How quickly things change.
Ducking into the living room behind the kitchen, she can tell immediately that things are calmer here. The counter is bare, untouched, and the screen above it blank. Around the gaming table, chairs stand in disarray, and cards are still littered over the surface. Someone's poker hand still lies facedown at a spot; Kahlee reaches to flip it over so she can see -
- four nines and an ace slammed down on the table, an adolescent's version of a temper tantrum. "You cheated!"
Before Rodriguez can snap back, Jack cuts in. "Cool your jets, Seshaun. Bluffing isn't the same thing as cheating."
"No, this deck is marked, I know it!"
"You're just mad you have to do my chores now," Rodriguez sneers.
Kahlee barely looks up from her reports. "If you can't behave yourselves, everyone's going to put the cards away and go to bed early. Understood?"
Seshaun sighs, and Kahlee knows without looking at him that he's rolling his eyes. "Yes, Miss Sanders."
Jack gives the cards a quick glance-over and shakes her head. "They're not marked. Give me the rest of the deck and I'll shuffle."
Before she's finished her sentence, a buzzing cuts through the room as Kahlee's omni rings. She eyes the display and is on her feet before she's consciously recognized the name on caller ID.
"I have to take this. Jack, I'm leaving it on you to make sure curfew is enforced."
"You got it."
The kids have turned back to their game by the time she's shut the door to the hall and tapped 'Answer.' David's choppy, stuttering image fills the screen.
"Kahlee? I read your email and had to get a comm through."
He says it like they just spoke yesterday, like everything is fine. She wants to lean against the wall, slide to the floor, and burst out laughing and sobbing with the ridiculousness of it.
"Oh, my God. I didn't think you'd have a working net connection on Earth. I - " Her feet keep moving, but her mind is utterly still, bathed in relief. "Are you all right?"
"On the right side of the dirt." He grants her a smile. As the picture stabilizes, Kahlee gets a better view of fresh cuts and new scars, torn clothing and dirt. She's painfully aware of how crisp and proper she looks in comparison - a director, a teacher, white-collar, and somehow that feels like a dirty word.
Oblivious to her thoughts, he goes on. "I spoke to Shepard. She told me about the evacuation."
"The commander saved us all," she confirms with a nod. "My students are going to support roles. They're off killing time while we wait for transport."
"Good. Keep all of them safe. That goes for yourself as well." He turns his head, listening to someone off-camera speak, then nods and glances back at her. "We have a few minutes. I need to be off the line in ten."
She touches two fingers to the hologram of his picture. "It's so good to see you. I'm just glad you're - "
- getting back to work. Standing around reminiscing doesn't help anything. The shelves here are packed with display books, too many to take back in a suitcase. They'll either be sold to a staging company, or mailed home. At the top - she tilts her head back to see, and has to suppress a smile. That stuffed volus definitely wasn't here the last time she was in this room. Next to that stands a trophy for an arcade game of some kind. Good to know the commander made sure she had a little R&R time…
Going through the terminal isn't a breach of privacy she's up for just now. She flicks it on to verify it still works, then tosses it into her suitcase as she heads for the downstairs bedroom.
Added to the to-do list: wash sheets.
Aside from the rumpled bed, this room is quiet, the vacant closet suggesting it wasn't used much. Well, at least the workout equipment clearly got some use. Kahlee smiles at the pull-up bar, briefly entertaining the idea of hopping up and seeing whether she can still do -
" - a max set? Every time you go in or out?" She laughs in disbelief, shaking her head at him. He smiles.
"Little things we do to stay in shape. My recruiter gave me the idea, way back when."
Kahlee shakes her head, remembers being twenty-two. "When I was having trouble with it, all they told me was to practice the flexed-arm hang. They said your score on one correlates to the other."
He nudges her. "Well, go on, then. I'll time you."
"For an admiral, you can be so shameless about wanting eye candy." Even as she makes the quip, she's preparing to hop up.
"It's not a bad sight."
She grins but says nothing, concentrating on keeping herself up for as long as she can. A flex-arm hang is something that looks critically easy to anyone watching, at least if the person is doing it right - still and silent for nearly eighty seconds until the telltale shaking of the arms begins, and then they extend on their own until all that's left is a dead hang, and she drops to the floor -
- after a single chin-up. Not that she's not physically capable of doing more, but suddenly she doesn't want to anymore.
Is it even worth shipping these things back home? Buying new ones might be less expensive. Another note for the omni.
She heads for the stairs and nearly slips, not noticing what looks like a half-finished booby trap until it's almost too late. Another second and the whole thing would have collapsed under her weight. Whose brilliant idea was that? She shakes her head, stopping to dispose of the parts so it won't cause the same problem on the way back down.
It'll be easier to start from the back. Circling around to the art gallery, she pulls out her omni and starts snapping pictures. David said it would be better to sell the lot unless she disagreed, and she didn't. Something about war makes fancy material possessions feel so stupid. There's a place on the strip that can give them an estimate for each piece.
She's never liked that painting in the middle, anyway. The first time she saw it was right after everything with Saren's betrayal. No matter what those brush strokes are meant to convey, the clashing colors and tight lines send her back -
- into the makeshift cell of Qian's storage closet, throat hoarse from shouting, blood pounding in her ears, hands scrabbling at the door in search of -
- a lone stick of gum in her pants pockets, promptly unwrapped and jammed into her mouth. The explosion of cinnamon is disgusting, but grounding, and that's enough for the moment.
Her shoes beat a fast path through the next room. More display books on the shelves, two sofas, and a coffee table. Nothing that can be taken back by hand. There's a bottle of flat dextro soda that goes straight into the trash, and a keyring with an unrecognizable key on it. She compares it to the one for the apartment - at a glance, no, not a match. Someone can probably tell what it is. Into the bag it goes.
The third bedroom has another set of sheets that need washing, and without looking closely it's obvious the carpet won't settle for anything less than a shampoo. It either took the brunt of an entire spilled beer, or something very close. She adds it to the note on her omni.
That's it. One more room to go, the one she's been putting off. She forces herself not to hesitate as her hand closes around the doorknob to the master bedroom, then pushes inside.
It feels invasive in a way that going through the rest of the apartment hasn't, and somehow this being the only really messy room just adds to that feeling. She can barely take a step without her foot landing on broken heat sinks, parts of model ships, and toy mechs. The door of the armor locker holds a cracked helmet and a pair of boots, the left one split at the toes. When she grabs the sheets to strip them, figuring it's best to just start somewhere, clothes tumble out. Black dress, leather jacket, tank top, and it's all she can do to put them aside for the suitcase without thinking about who they belonged to.
Better to do this whole room in one go, to silently sweep up handfuls of junk from the floor and toss it out, rhythmically, not letting herself falter. The sooner the personality is out of this room, the sooner it won't hurt so much to be in it. Part of her aches to lie down on the bare mattress, close her eyes, and be still…pretending they're back in the days before the Reapers were even a thought. Like she's still half-asleep, a smile curving up her lips as she waits for -
- the familiar sensation of their fingers interlocking. His hands migrate to her hips, and she covers them with her own, enjoying the heat of -
- steam rising from the bathroom, the jets in the hot tub still going. If Shepard was the one to leave that on, it's a minor miracle no ill effects have come from it, or at least one less headache. Either way, better to switch it off now.
Ah. The bag she thought she lost has been here all this time? Deftly, she reaches over to grab it by the strap, careful not to slip and fall in. And…someone's clearly gone through it, which sends a rush of unpleasant warmth to her face that has nothing to do with the temperature. Things to think about as little as possible, starting immediately.
Back downstairs, this bag joins the others and rests there while she takes out the trash. There's plenty still to do, but it's getting late, and the apartment is beginning to feel stifling. Lingering won't help.
No, she needs to take this back to her hotel, call someone from the Normandy about what to do with Shepard's things, and get some rest. It's not a conversation she's looking forward to, but if she doesn't get it done tonight, she'll put it off and put it off and put it off. Time to be a grown-up, Kahlee. War doesn't play fair, and you know it.
Little things indicate a frequent traveler: standing the suitcase upright, then using the handle as an anchor to wind her overnight bag's strap around.
When she opens the door, her vision is swallowed by Reaper-beam-blue for a split second, but this time she hardly notices it. Her mind is way ahead of her body, past the elevator and the shuttle ride, working out what she'll say in the privacy of the hotel room. In her left hand, she clutches memories, the belongings of a dead hero. David's yesterdays and her own stand silent behind her, waiting for another tomorrow.
The lock clicks shut, and her footsteps echo along the walkway. She refuses to look back as she leaves the safety of the apartment.