Kaidan Alenko sat in the dark apartment, staring blankly at the floor.
It had been a month since the Normandy broke apart over Alchera. A month since he'd found Joker's escape pod and realized she wasn't in it.
It had been a month since she'd died, and today they'd held her memorial service.
He'd hated every moment of it. It wasn't just that she was gone- he couldn't say she was dead, not yet- it was that she deserved so much better than the political ballet her memorial service had become.
The only family she'd had was the one she'd cobbled together aboard the Normandy and that wasn't the kind of family you put in the front row of a high profile funeral. The section normally reserved for family had been filled by politicians and the press; people who had never met her and didn't care that she was gone.
Most of the people who had known her, the people that had laughed, fought, and bled with her, hadn't even been allowed inside the hall. They weren't human, weren't Alliance, weren't important, so they'd stood outside in the crowd, watching the service on giant screens.
He'd wanted to stand out there with them and mourn honestly. Instead, he'd found himself sitting stiffly between Dr. Chakwas, who kept giving him sad little pats on the arm, and Joker.
Fucking Joker, who was getting a damn medal for the way he'd acted that night. They said that by staying at his station until the very last he'd saved lives… Never mind that he'd disobeyed a direct order and gotten his CO killed.
The worst part, though, had been pretending that he didn't love her. "To protect her memory," Anderson had said gently. "To protect your career."
They'd wanted him to pretend he'd never held her when she slept or woken her from her nightmares. He wasn't supposed to know what her face had looked like, sweaty and satisfied after sex, the little hum she made when she ate real chocolate, or how her nose would wrinkle if she found something in her reports that displeased her.
It hadn't been easy, but he'd done as they asked. He'd kept his back straight and his eyes dry and he hadn't broken a single bone in Joker's body.
He did it to protect her memory. He didn't give a damn about his career.
The soft chirp of the door pulled him away from his thoughts, and he groaned. His head was pounding, which didn't surprise him; he'd been fighting headaches almost daily since the Normandy had gone down. He just wasn't sure how many were caused by his implant and how many were the result of too much alcohol combined with too little sleep.
He eyed the nearly empty tequila bottle on the coffee table. He was going to have to go shopping soon.
The door chirped again and he headed toward it, knocking his shin on the coffee table and tripping over a pair of shoes before he got there. It would be easier to tell whoever it was to go to hell than to keep listening to the damn doorbell clanging in his ears. Grumbling, he punched the button that allowed the elevator doors to slide open.
"What the hell do- Oh." He stumbled to a halt when recognized his visitor. Liara T'Soni was the last person he should be yelling at. "Dr. T'Soni. Sorry. I, ah, wasn't expecting you. Or anybody. But mostly you."
The corners of her lips tilted a tiny smile, and he tamped down a surge of irritation. "What are you doing here?" His voice was sharper than he'd meant it to be, but she didn't seem to notice.
"I was hoping to find you. I stopped by your own apartment, but you were not there." Her smile faded. "Was it wrong of me to come? I apologize, I am never sure of the etiquette of this sort of thing, but I…" her hands fluttered in front of her, filling the void her failing words had left behind.
Kaidan felt an unwelcome twinge of sympathy. He knew she'd struggled with human customs while they'd worked together on the Normandy; navigating human grieving practices must have felt like tap dancing in a mine field.
"You're fine. I was just having a pity party; you're not interrupting anything important."
She glanced into the dark room behind him. "Your gathering does not appear to be well- attended."
"My gathering-" He chuckled, surprising himself. "No, no guests. It's a way of saying I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself."
"I see. I've never heard that turn of phrase before." She paused, swallowed. "May I come in? I know that I must be intruding, but I just needed… I could not…" Her voice faded away again, and her gaze dropped to the floor.
He took a deep breath. He didn't want her there. He wanted to drink the rest of the tequila and fall into a sleep so deep that he didn't dream.
It was the look on Liara's face that convinced him to let her stay. She looked lost.
He knew the feeling.
He stepped to the side, giving her space to enter. "Yeah. I'll go turn some more lights on."
She glanced at him as she walked past. "If it would cause you discomfort, it is not necessary. I can see well enough."
He stepped away from the elevator, reluctantly letting the doors close. "Thanks.I didn't know you knew about… "He gestured to his forehead.
"I was quartered practically inside the med bay on the Normandy, Lieutenant. I know many things about the crew that, quite honestly, I would prefer I did not."
"Do I even want to ask?"
"No, and I would not tell you if you did. May I sit down?"
"Yeah, I guess. I mean, yeah." No, he thought. Just tell me what you want and get out.
She moved across the room gracefully, stepping over his discarded shoes and managing her way around the coffee table without so much as stubbing a toe.
She clearly needed some tequila. He gestured to the bottle. "Do you want-"
She shook her head with a pained smile, settling herself on one end of the couch. "No, thank you, although I appreciate the offer." She hesitated. "Have you been struggling with your headaches?"
"Yeah. You know, stress and stuff."
"I see." She shifted in her seat but didn't say anything else.
Kaidan noticed her fingers twisting together in her lap as he sat next to her.
He had no idea what to say to her. He'd respected her on the Normandy; hell, they'd even been building a sort of friendship until they'd realized they were both in love with the same woman. Things had been pretty awkward after that.
The strain between them had only gotten worse after the night they'd finally asked Shepard to choose between them. Shepard had never been intentionally cruel, but she had always been efficient. Sometimes it had been impossible to tell the two apart. That night had been one of those times.
He cleared his throat, pushing away old memories. "Is there a reason you tracked me down?"
"Yes, actually. I am leaving the Citadel in the morning. It did not seem right to leave without saying goodbye."
"You're leaving?" He hadn't thought about what Shepard's team would do now that she was gone. He knew, logically, that they would have to move on with their lives, but to see them actually do it- his stomach clenched. It was too soon. "Where are you going?"
Liara stood and drifted to the window. The ward arm stretched in front of them, a river of golden lights representing hundreds of millions of people. There were splotches of blackness, places entire blocks had been wiped out when Sovereign had been defeated, but somehow those dark scars just made the station more magnificent to him.
She had done that.
Liara's soft voice brought him back to the present. "This is quite the view. You can hardly see the damage."
He'd known Liara for months, and they'd been through some pretty intense situations together. He'd seen her in awkward situations more than once, but he'd never seen her try to avoid a question before. It wasn't like her.
It worried him.
"Where are you going, Liara?" He asked again.
She turned to face him. She was twisting her fingers together again. "I have been offered a… job, of sorts. It's with a private organization. I can't tell you anything else, I'm sorry."
"Is it too much for me to ask if this job is safe?"
She gave him a tiny smile. "It is not too much to ask, although it may be too much for me to answer. I thought I was going to be safe excavating Prothean ruins on Therum, and yet if Shep-" She hesitated, caught herself before saying a name that would cause them both pain- "If the Normandy had not come, it would not have ended well. So no, I do not know if this assignment is safe. It does not matter; it is something I need to do."
He frowned. "Whatever you're doing must be pretty important."
"I believe the phrase used on your planet is 'a matter of life and death.' I really can't say anything else. I wish I could."
Silence fell between them as he digested that. When she spoke again, her voice was brighter.
"What is next for you? I have heard that you have been offered your own command. I've even heard rumors that they are considering naming you a Spectre."
Kaidan snorted. "Yeah, the Spectre thing. They're talking about it, but I think Udina's just trying to make sure humanity doesn't lose any ground with the Council. It's all political, you know?"
"I am not surprised. Your Councilor Udina seems quite… ambitious."
"That's one word for him. I've thought of a few others," he added darkly. "Anyway, what they want is another hero, someone like Sh- like her. I can't give them that."
Liara didn't reply. She didn't even look at him. She just stood silently by the window, looking out over the Citadel.
Her silence pulled words out of his mouth that he couldn't seem to stop. "I can't do this without her. This hero of the galaxy stuff, you know, stealing ships and committing treason and driving the Mako off of mountains… That was her. Even talking to reporters and dealing with the council. I can't… I don't know how to do all that. That was her."
"What did you do before you met her?" Liara asked softly.
Kaidan shrugged. "God, I don't know. Followed orders, you know, rank and file. Never had reporters following me into the shops to find out what color my skivvies are."
"They should have asked me," she said. "They are black with an Alliance insignia on the left leg."
That surprised a small chuckle out of him. "How do you even know that? I'll have you know that is classified information."
"If that is true, then the Alliance needs to rethink its priorities. Your undergarments are really not that interesting."
"Khalisa Al-Jilani does not agree with you." He sobered. "In any case, I don't think returning to the rank and file is an option. Hard to disappear into the ranks when you've been in every headline for the past year."
"You could command your own vessel."
He rubbed his hands wearily over his eyes. The pounding in his head was getting worse. "No, I couldn't. If I had any ability to command Shep-" he took a deep breath. "She would have made it off that ship alive."
"What?" He'd never heard her sound so surprised. "That's not true, she-"
He didn't let her finish. "I fucked up,", he said roughly. "I made a bad call and she died because of it. I could have picked Joker's sorry ass up out of that chair and thrown him in the escape pod myself- what was he going to do? Break a bone at me? But no. Oh no, I couldn't just make that call on my own, I ran to Shep- to her… like a five year old tattling on his brother."
His voice cracked. "I thought…" he took a deep breath, struggling to get it past the sudden tightness in his throat.
"I thought I was saving her. I thought if I could just get her up top, she'd get into that pod with Joker and get the hell off the Normandy before it was too late."
The tips of Liara's black shoes were suddenly in his field of vision, occupying the patch of blue carpeting he hadn't realized he was staring at. Then, she was kneeling in front of him, taking his face between her cool hands.
She wiped away the tears he hadn't felt himself shed, her fingers cool against his hot cheeks.
"I have read Joker's report, Kaidan. According to him, she very nearly made it. She was halfway through the door when she was knocked away by the blast."
"If she'd been below, with me-"
Her hands were firm on his face. "How many people died on the Normandy, Lieutenant?"
He took a deep breath. "Twenty, but-"
"How many would she have abandoned?"
"That's not-"
"How many, Lieutenant?" Her voice was firm.
He knew the answer. He just couldn't force it past the lump in his throat.
Liara cupped his cheek in one gentle hand while she brushed wayward dark strands of hair back off of his forehead with the other.
"It is not your fault that Shepard died."
Hearing her name was like a punch in the gut.
There was a pressure in his chest that seemed to rise up from his belly, closing around his lungs, his heart, up and up until it burst through his lips.
"I see her everywhere, Liara. I know she's gone and I still- it's not like I think she's there, but I… I drink a cup of coffee, and I think, 'She liked coffee.' I walk through the Presidium and I remember how she laughed at that Krogan statue or the way the lights reflected off her hair on that bridge...She's just… she's everywhere I go.
"I don't know how to live in a world where she doesn't exist. None of this makes any sense without her, you know?"
Liara nodded sadly. "I know."
Watching her, Kaidan realized with sickening clarity that she did know.
He wasn't the only one mourning the woman he'd loved.
"For what it's worth," he said quietly, "I'm sorry."
Liara pulled away from him and moved back to the window. "What exactly are you apologizing for, Lieutenant?"
"I guess…" He reached up to rub the back of his neck. "I guess I don't really know. I'm not sorry that she chose me, but I am sorry that you were hurt, if that makes sense. I'm sorry that you didn't get more of her to… remember. To hold on to."
Liara stood very still, not taking her eyes off of the brilliant expanse of the Citadel.
"Those are not things you need apologize for, Kaidan. I do not feel that love is wasted if it is not returned."
She turned her face toward him. "What I felt for Shepard was a gift. I cannot regret it. That she did not feel the same for me- I can not regret that, either. Not when the two of you were so happy together."
"I don't know if I could be that generous, if I were in your shoes."
She flinched.
"I do not know if 'generous' is the right term, Lieutenant." She turned back toward the window, and he could barely hear what she said next.
"Indeed, I fear I am being very, very selfish."
The worry he'd felt earlier came back in waves. "Liara-"
She shook her head, as if clearing away unwanted thoughts. "I appreciate your willingness to speak to me tonight, Kaidan. I should go, before I overstay my welcome."
It was like she'd put a wall between them.
He got to his feet a little unsteadily, following her to the door. "If there's anything I can help you with, I hope you know that I'm here for you."
"I will keep that in mind."
He reached out and touched her arm. "Hey, Liara… Thanks. You know, for… just… thanks. I needed it."
She smiled at him, laying her hand over his. "Do not give up, Kaidan. There is still work to be done, and more hope than you think."
He swallowed as she pulled away from him to step onto the elevator.
"Take care of yourself, Liara."
He didn't miss the steely expression that crossed her face as the doors closed between them.
"I intend to do more than that."