Shepard's not sure when the bad dreams became night terrors; she hasn't slept right in so long that it all blurs together in her mind. She didn't think it could get worse than the dreams after the slavers hit, watching her mother holding her guts in with her hands, dream after dream on a million different slaveships, a million different worlds, all imaginary, witnessing the horrors these nightmare aliens might be inflicting on her friends, her dad. Even the dreams after Akuz were nothing in comparison – if you keep the room warm and don't use any blankets it's not so hard to calm yourself down when you wake up wheezing for air, trying to claw your way out of a thresher maw's gullet with your fingernails. Keep a light by your bed and open your eyes and stretch out your hand to touch the wall — see, it's okay, you're alive.
But these dreams are worse by far, with the false awakenings stacked up like matryoshka dolls. The sedatives Dr. Chakwas is making her take (yes, making — she'd never seen her so angry — goddamn it Shepard you're going to get yourself killed, you'll get us all killed, the damn galaxy is depending on you you need to sleep you arrogant closed-off bastard,) well, the pills put her to sleep but they can't stop her waking up again.
She can't say this, to Liara least of all, but she wakes herself up screaming night after night, rolling over to clasp her dreamed-up lover closer to her only to see Liara's eyes staring back at her from a banshee's twisted face, gnashing teeth inches from her throat. Jerking awake and reaching out to feel the empty bed beside her and finding instead that she's wrist-deep in a ravager's sac, hideous, collected Rachni bugs swarming up her arm. Heaving herself upright out of the nightmare, shaking, retching, looking wildly around her dark cabin as the husks moan and hammer at the door. Coming awake again in the dark with pain hammering through her veins, her view of the rushing stars overhead interrupted by Miranda Lawson's perfect face, mouth an angry line as she orders the doctor to sedate her again — don't try to move, don't try to move. The sound wakes her and she curls around her pillow, covering her ears to drown out the shriek of a Collector particle beam tearing her ship in two. Fighting to breathe through the fear, forcing her eyes open to see Garrus with his face blown in half, cold and dead on her chest, or Kaidan seeping fluid from the wounds the dragon's teeth leave, with reaper tech glinting behind his eyes, or Tali pulling away her mask to reveal a husk's face, squatting on her chest like a grinning ghost. Every night she watches her people die; Chakwas starts upping her dose; she washes the pills down with booze when she can.
She's not sure if bringing Kaidan back to the Normandy has made things better or worse — she sees the others in her nightmares less now, but sometimes she has nights when she watches him die over and over, nights when she wakes again and again to an indoctrinated Kaidan snarling the Illusive Man's lies in his own voice, his hands locked around her throat. The first time she had that dream she was up and pacing for an hour, pouring herself a shot with shaking hands instead of running down past the night shift to drag him out of bed and cling to him in desperation, needing to feel his hands and his mouth and remember that he's nothing like that, nothing like that. The next morning he smiled at her in the corridor and said Good morning Shepard and she shoved her hands into her pockets and asked him how he'd slept instead of grabbing him by the shoulders and kissing him in front of the entire bridge crew. When he stopped by her quarters one evening all he'd say was, "Karin said I should check up on you."
"What for?" Shepard asked, raising her eyebrows.
"She wouldn't tell me," he said with a shrug. She opened her mouth to tell him Chakwas worried too much, and then closed it again.
"Shepard..." he was standing so close, his hands on her shoulders; she shut her eyes. Dammit, I can't lie to this asshole.
"Come in, Kaidan. We can't drink out in the hall." She'd meant to grab glasses and Scotch but somehow she wound up in his arms instead, leaning wearily on his chest, feeling his heartbeat through his shirt. He rubbed her back.
"What's going on?" he murmured.
Shepard hadn't cried in front of another person since the Alliance rescued her from the ruins of her childhood home. She put it down to fatigue and tried not to get angry with herself.
They sat together on her couch for a long time, curled up in the corner clinging to each other, trading stories of night terrors. She'd never investigated the abuse Kaidan had endured during biotic his training, partly out of respect for his privacy and partly because reading about what the Alliance had done to their own children made her want to dig the implants out of her nervous system with a knife. Kaidan, for his part, had never actually heard the details of what Cerberus had done to her, and went pale and haggard and wrapped her in a bear hug instead of tripping over himself apologizing again for everything he said on Mars. He started to suggest acupuncture for the stress, but stopped midsentence at the way her eyes went blank and hard. For a moment they both saw it, Miranda's icy perfection, Shepard, lie still, don't try to move. He heard the words as though she were in the room with them.
"Never mind," he said, and asked if there was anything he could do to help.
Kaidan stayed with her that night, mostly because she fell asleep on his lap halfway through the bottle of Scotch. He woke her up trying to stand without disturbing her.
"I'm too drunk to carry you to bed," he said.
"Well, we can't have you staggering around the ship in that state, Major," she quipped, taking his hands and pulling him towards the bed. He laughed and helped her shrug out of her coveralls.
"I'm too drunk for a lot of things," Shepard murmured, leaning on him as she undid his belt.
"That makes two of us then," and he kissed her.
They passed out tangled in the comforter, Shepard asleep on Kaidan's chest. He woke up around six when she sat bolt upright, gasping.
"Hey," he mumbled, hazy with sleep and Scotch and a growing hangover. She turned without a sound and buried her face in his shoulder, her fingers locked around his biceps. He could feel her heart racing and dragged himself into wakefulness, rubbing her back, stroking her hair, telling her it was okay.
"I dreamed we were back on the Presidium — " She looked at him. "I dreamed I shot you."
He took her face between his hands.
"You didn't," he said softly. "You once told me it could have gone a hundred different ways, and you were right. It didn't happen like that. I'm here. I'm safe."
"None of us are safe," she said. He grimaced.
"Sorry."
"No, I'm sorry." Shepard sighed, dropping her head onto his chest again. "I could have done it, Kaidan. I could have killed you." He wrapped his arms around her. "I would have regretted it every day, every minute for the rest of my life, but I would have done it."
"No. No you wouldn't have, Shepard. I'd never have made you."
"But — "
"I know. But I trusted you too much to do that, even then." He squeezed her tight. "You really think I'd take that bastard Udina's word over yours?"
"Fucking jackass," Shepard muttered. Kaidan's laugh vibrated through her whole body. He felt her smile against his collarbone.
"Ooh, time to sleep off this hangover," he said, rubbing his eyes with one hand. Shepard groaned.
"I was trying not to think about it, but yeah."
She dropped off quickly, much to Kaidan's surprise. He had to wake her when the alarm went off.
"I didn't dream," she whispered, and kissed him til the snooze cycled back around. Garrus cornered her in the elevator that afternoon and smirked a bit about her boyfriend, but the look in his eyes said he was weak with relief that someone was looking after her. Christ, am I really that bad, she thought, her mouth curling, but when she saw the note from Kaidan saying to buzz him if she was having a bad night, she put her head down on her desk and held the tears in with her hands. Screw it, she thought. It doesn't matter. It'll all be over soon.