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perfection. noun. a quality, trait, or feature of the highest degree of excellence. the state or quality of being or becoming perfect.
Prologue: Gravity
2186 - Arcturus Station
i. fear
He failed.
One shot. They had one shot to do the impossible and he failed in the deciding hour. Kaidan tries to control his breathing, hands sprawled out before him. There is a dilapidated steel pillar between his body and the blue fire storm raging behind him - fading back into dark and quiet. He digs his fingers into the unyielding structure, trying to grasp towards some sort of absolution in the in the cracks forming under the stress of warping gravity.
'Kaidan.' She is bright and he is terrified. 'Help me.'
'Grab her, Alenko.' Vega yells behind him, Kaidan turns and Vega is pawing for a switch Kaidan can only assume is the toggle to activate his mag boots, trying to hold onto the crumbling station walls around them. The bright blue corona flares again. Vega is thrown back against a bulkhead with a resounding crack, slumping into himself. Liara has her own dark energy field, and she is on her knees pushing against the force washing over her. It's no use because the opposing charge overpowers her easily and it won't take much more to throw her.
Kaidan turns back towards Shepard. Her mouth and eyes are open wide in a silent scream he can somehow hear in his bones. Arms spread, legs pulled together with power radiating from her core. This close to her, all he can see is white noise edging it's way into his vision. So close he can touch her if he wants - but he hesitates. Who was she now, in this moment? The woman who killed hundreds of soldiers - with families and futures much like her own - in Vancouver or the siren who had caressed his face with razor sharp forced tenderness when Thessia stood in ruin?
In a single moment it occurs to Kaidan somewhere in his mind, a million light years away from his reality- that this is it. The one hundred percent. The absolution they had been searching for. Was Dr. Toshiwa right? Had the investment paid off? Is this one perfect adept, the absolute biotic, the key to human ascendency? The concept sounds sickening even in the silent confines of his mind. This creation of human 'ingenuity' had backfired. What happened when mortals tried creating gods. Chaos.
Kaidan lifts his head just into the eye of her storm. He sees ultramarine crawl over his fingertips, and he closes his eyes, feeling the power current storm through his body. His left arm starts to lift of its own volition. Shepard reacts violently, convulsing. Maybe she can feel him running through her as well.
Shepard's body starts to shake. She lifts higher off of the ground, form perfect. She brings her arms to the side of her face grasping at herself - trying to escape the vortex. Kaidan realizes it's not her hands acting as her field generator, the voltage conducts through her body, her entire body.
'She can't control it.' Kaidan thinks. His hand is almost touching her now, he stops again. He's second guessing, over thinking every single minute detail that has brought them to this point.
Then she opens her eyes, and he sees fear, confusion and a hint of something he's forgotten from her - or at least tried to. She screams then, gut wrenching and ear splitting in its vibrancy. It breaks him down completely before he throws caution to the wind and grabs for her.
Everything seems to slow down and stop when he holds her tightly. Kaidan presses his face into her neck - inhaling the essence of her. He misses this. He can't fathom how he convinced himself he could go without this, her, them.
"You came for me." She says it in a hoarse whisper.
He grasps her firmly. "Of course I did."
It all fades away, the bright azure lightning storm, the blinding light. All he can feel is her arms circling around him and her cheek pressed into his. Kaidan closes his eyes and pretends that they could be transported from this time into one he remembers. Where her flesh is warm when he drags feather light fingertips against her and she feels perfect underneath him and when she opens her mouth to him he feels utter completion.
'Kaidan!' It's Liara's strangled cry that wrenches him out of his reverie.
She sounds scared, angry, distraught? But, he's done it. They've done it. It's over. Kaidan realizes Shepard's arms have dropped from around him. A cold dark sort of chill comes over him. He steps back like she's on fire, and he's sure she is when he sees the inferno blazing behind her eyes. Shepard slams him with a shockwave that sends him flying back into the wreckage.
Liara is there in time, barely, to catch him with a small biotic pull. It is for naught - Shepard unleashes an impact onto them that sends Liara, Kaidan and a rousing Vega slamming into falling debris. If this is the blast that is going to kill him - if this is his anti climactic end of days - Kaidan wishes he had something more poignant to say than 'I'm sorry.'
ii. minutes
Kaidan shakes his head to the side a few times, surprised to still be alive. The station is still crumbling around them. He can't pinpoint Liara or Vega's locations. Kaidan closes his eyes, trying to bite back his nasty habit of assuming the worst. The symbol of the Alliance was falling to pieces around him - in more ways than one - he believes he's entitled to a bit of blind optimism.
"Find them." Kaidan hears Shepard bark in the distance, to whom he can only assume are Cerberus shock troops. "Kill the spares if they put up too much of a struggle - but leave Alenko for me."
Kaidan's breathing quickens, throat dry and chest heaving. He tells himself to pull it together because he's a marine and goddamn he's been trained for this. But not exactly. Maybe this was the sort of thing the Alliance might want to add if they ever got their SPECTRE training program off of the ground.
'How to hold your composure while being hunted by your evil ex-girlfriend, who also happens to be your old commanding officer and knows your every move before you make it.'
On second thought - that one might be a bit too long for the recruitment brochures. They've taken to a sleek minimalistic approach.
Kaidan takes a deep breath and snakes his head around the debris he found refuge behind. Rookie mistake. He thinks he's been spotted - he hears chatter flare up around him and footsteps approach. The footballs a soft tap against his chest - gripped with something akin to fear. Tap. Tap. Tap. Kaidan tries hard to figure out what about the situation regresses him into a FNG fresh off a shuttle from basic. Maybe they can add stealth training into that regime he was thinking about.
Just as quick as thunder claps and the spark of lightning across a storm darkened sky - he feels pain rip through everything he is. The crash landing of his body against the bulkhead is unexpected and seals his back ramrod straight. A sickening crack cements the fall - his wrist catches his weight before falling limp.
"Ahh-." He bites his lip, trying to cut off his sharp scream of pain. The medical VI in his suit had given out hours ago and he was already on pins and needles before; now the pain has burrowed too far into his skin for escape. He lets out a shaky breath - screwing up his face against it.
Only mostly broken if he's lucky - it seems like he's been in short supply of that lately, among other things. Kaidan coughs red trying to roll over on the ground - cradling his wrist gingerly to his right side, brandishing a pistol his first thought before charging his biotics. Second mistake, or third, or tenth. He's stopped counting.
Shepard kicks the pistol out of his hand and grinds her foot onto his wrist - turning him over and discovering a few ribs he missed in the first check. Kaidan bites down his scream - pain only coming in small hitches of breath that hisses past his lips involuntarily.
"Give up this time?" Shepard says. "Or do you need convincing again?"
Her smirk is wicked and uncharacteristic under that mask of the woman he used to know. None of the vulnerability of the past hour to been seen. Just mad amusement. He liked it better this way. There was no way he was going to come out of another Thessia alive. It was a marvel the first time.
When he takes too long to respond to her questions, Shepard grabs him by the neck - doesn't need the added strength of her biotics - never has. She pushes her face into his cheek, tipping herself closer. The outline of her body is present against him in her light armor. Kaidan can't feel it through his hardsuit but he knows it well enough to make him pause and wish she wasn't so close to him - twitching away from her in an almost childlike fear. He knows what she was capable of. Very well.
"This is it isn't it?" She whispers. Sweet nothings from a lover's mouth. Digs her nose into the small gap between neck and shoulder - where his helmet should be. Instead it's thrown aside, disguared. His eyes see straight into her hair - grown long and thick against the months apart. Tongue darting out to taste him and he shivers - screwing his eyes shut when she laughs. "What will they say about you when you die? I wonder."
He can't feel her body pressed against him in a manner too inappropriate for battle - or torture as it seems. Just as he can't feel her pistol press his side because he's numb. His breathing picks up despite himself. It would just take one shot from her. She knows where to put it, knows how hard to press. What angle would do him in? Maybe he wants her to. He definitely wants her to. He hates himself for it.
Kaidan wasn't made for high command - his promotion had been all political bullshit and none of the preparation. He didn't want the responsibility. The decisions that held millions of lives in the balance. He was content to follow behind his beautiful commander as long as she would have him. That woman was gone now and he was lost.
"Will there be anyone left to mourn you?" she says.
He doesn't answer.
"Open your eyes." Her breath crawls across his face.
He doesn't respond, breathing regulated finally.
She gives him a little shake. "Look at me."
Kaidan opens his eyes. She's pulled back her face - not her gun - her body still moulded into his at an awkward angle. They stare at eachother for a moment. Shepard pushes the gun closer like she's trying to convince herself that she wants it. Her lips curl - she gets that look in her eyes. The one when she's about to make a particular satisfying kill. She shakes her head suddenly and pulls her body away. He hears her whisper out a series of 'no, no.' and something akin to 'stop it' before her resolve strengthens.
"This ends now." Her scream isn't meant for him because her eyes are closed and her breathing is heavy. "I'm in control. You're not going to do this again."
Her hands are clenched to the side of her face. She's rocking back and forth; shaking out the weakness damning her.
'Do it.' Kaidan thinks because he's crazy. Like she made him to be. Shepard was gone. He knew that now. He wanted to go where she was. And if she wasn't gone. If she was still inside of a cage looking out at him with horror - maybe she would know what it felt like. Kaidan clenches his eyes shut. It's selfish. But, he deserves to be some of that too.
Shepard meets Kaidan's eyes when the ring of hesitation and humanity passes. Kneels down to where he is slumped over himself. She uses her pistol to lift his chin. Fingering the trigger. She melts into him and sighs. He hears a click and a whisper before it's all over.
"Bang."