He was only a few feet behind Shepard when the blast from the Reaper sent him flying. It wasn't a direct hit, but he'd lost sight of her in the eruption of dust and debris. Garrus had been beside him, but as he struggled back to his feet, he couldn't locate him. He couldn't see her as he stood. Panic grasped at his heart before years of training clamped it firmly down. A shot whizzed past his head and he took cover behind the nearest pile of rubble.
"Kaidan! Where's Shepard?" he heard Garrus call out from somewhere off to his right. Good. So he wasn't completely alone.
He peered over the top of the cement block shielding him from any marauder fire. The dust was settling. He couldn't see any banshees, but there were still several marauders and husks that had managed to survive the Reaper blast. He still couldn't see Shepard.
"I can't locate her. She was directly in front of me. She has to be down. Cover me, Garrus! I'm going to look for her." He shouted at the turian. Garrus was a crack shot with that Incisor sniper rifle. Kaidan could trust the man to dispatch any immediate threats, so he vaulted over his cover and sprinted to the impact crater.
He found her, body slammed up against another pile of rubble closer to his initial position and slightly to the right, where she'd been knocked back. He crouched over her, triggering his omnitool and scanning for damage. She'd taken a beating. Her breathing was shallow and ragged, her heartbeat faint, she was unconscious but still alive. He applied medigel to the burns he could see. Her armor upgrades would distribute the rest to any damage he couldn't see. His quick scan had shown at least a few broken ribs but it was nothing she hadn't survived before. Relieved, he gently swept singed hair back from her face.
"I've got her, Garrus! She's out, but still breathing. My comm's out. Can you radio in a team?"
"I'm getting static, but I'll see what I can do. Watch it! We've got company, Alenko, nine o'clock!"
At the heads up, Kaidan brought up his pistol, hitting the husk between the eyes. As it went down, he spotted more on the way. Switching to his assault rifle, he hunkered down as best he could, protecting the love of his life until backup or an extraction team could make it in.
They cleared the field and in the lull he reached down to touch her face. She felt unnaturally cold, so he brought up his omnitool and ran another scan. She wasn't breathing.
"Shepard! God, no! I can't... I can't lose you again!" He shifted her position, attempting to clear her airway. When that didn't work he overloaded the shield generator in her chest piece as a makeshift defibrillator.
"Alenko! Ravager on your two!" Garrus called out.
Struggling to clamp down on the growing sense of dread, he threw the Reaperized rachni across what used to be a street and into three more husks. Garrus tossed a frag grenade into the jumble of altered limbs, and Kaidan hit it with a warp field, augmenting and detonating the grenade at twice its usual force.
The immediate threat dealt with, he returned to Shepard.
"Shepard. Love. Please! Breathe, damn it! We need you. I... I need you."
Through the dim light, her lips appeared blue. His heart broke and he felt dark energy surge through him in a way he hadn't since hearing about her death for the first time, two years ago.