Title: Where's Shepard
Rating: G
Word count: ~1,100
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Mass Effect crew or story line. No profit is being made from the publication of this work.
Summary: Kaidan's looking for Shepard after the destroy ending and he's not sure what to believe anymore.
While he's looking for Shepard, Kaidan is only thinking one thing. Where's Shepard? Where's Shepard? It's a constant mantra in his mind: pushing forward an unwarranted migraine, while he begs for a glint of armor or N7 tags in the firelight. Traynor was smart, she was able to use the blast radius to calculate the approximate location of the Citadel at the time of the explosion and using that she could…well, Kaidan was good with computers but he had never been a savant when it came to math. Anyways, they had mapped out ten possible locations for Shepard and now teams were scouring different areas. He was probably dead. He had probably died on the Citadel and was still up there. His body being here on Earth…well, it just wasn't logical. But Kaidan wasn't Spock and logic had nothing to do with it. Where's Shepard?
That refrain has carried him through eight hours of searching. Eight hours of gently lifting debris in case there was a still breathing body beneath it and then shifting not breathing bodies out of the way. Eight long hours of checking for tags just in case an unrecognizable face was the one he wanted to find after all.
And finally, after all that time – after coming home to Earth and suiting up and arguing with Hackett and almost losing his status – after all the time, Kaidan can see a shining metal plate under a felled chunk of concrete. He can't tell if the metal is moving or not, but he shouts to one of the soldiers on his search crew. "Hey, I found something. Come and give me a hand!" Hours ago, he had been able to use a simple lift to remove the wreckage by himself, but now he's too exhausted to be exact enough. The soldier huffs (Kaidan seems to be looking more intensely than the others and they seem to be getting tired of helping him), but jogs over and dutifully assists him in moving the massive block. Whoever is buried underneath of it seems to be wearing badly damaged black armor. Most of it has been sheered or melted off, exposing their limbs. The person's head is covered by a piece of wood, but that is light enough that Kaidan is able to pick it up by himself. It's likely that the wood actually kept the concrete from decimating the victim's face.
Kaidan almost throws up. Instead, he drops the piece of wood to the ground and doubles over, sucking in a desperate gasp. "Shepard," he wheezes, straightening before nausea can overtake him. "It's Shepard!" His ears are ringing and he can't feel his fingertips and he is sure that he's hyperventilating but everything seems to be swimming into focus at the same time.
"We found him!" The soldier is shouting and waving to the crew, jumping up and down, screaming. "We found Commander Shepard!"
Kaidan begins crying. Kaidan is sobbing. He kneels down next to Shepard's body and reaches out to touch the man's forearm, unsure of what to do now that his only thought is gone. Where's Shepard? has turned into Shepard? There is movement, a breath under the badly damaged chest plate and a cough.
Against all of his better judgment and instincts, against his training and his medical knowledge, Kaidan picks Shepard up and cradles the man's head in his arms. It's impossible for Shepard to be here. He should have burned up in the atmosphere or died in the explosion. But magic brought him back to life once before, in Kaidan's absence, and Kaidan is going to be damned if magic expects him to absent again. Shepard is unconscious but breathing. The damage to his skull is horrendous – one eye socket is scratched raw - as though an animal has clawed it - his amp port glowing with overuse, his lip is torn on one side, and there's a still bleeding gash across the top of his head. The wounds inflicted on his body are even worse. And suddenly, the mantra becomes Shepard's breathing?
Kaidan can't have been holding the man for more than a few seconds when gentle hands are taking him away and Kaidan is still sobbing, unable to be ashamed of himself. But he lets them take Shepard and put him on a stretcher because some sort of Alliance training kicks in and he's a good soldier once more, even if he is a crying on. Time seems to jumble itself together in a blue and purple warp of time loss and suddenly Kaidan's in the makeshift hospital and Hackett's at his side, out of nowhere, hand on his shoulder. The Admiral's grip is tangible through the metal of Kaidan's armor. "Let's get you some rest son," he says, voice exhausted and annihilated. "He's not going anywhere now."
One day of sleep. One day of sleep and food and showering – in an impromptu shelter built for soldiers that Kaidan feels guilty taking advantage of. After one day, he's allowed to go and sit in Shepard's tent and wait for Shepard to wake up. There aren't many buildings around to house the wounded, search and rescue has to come first, and storage can come after. Kaidan doesn't mind being outside – and he knows Shepard wouldn't either. So he sits next to the man's bed, hidden behind gauzy shades that leave little to the imagination. Kaidan holds the unconscious man's hand and thinks Shepard's alive?
Kaidan is grateful but he still can't get over the abstract truth of Shepard being there – with him. It doesn't make any sense at all. As much as he loves it, as grateful as he is for it, it doesn't make any modicum of sense. Shepard has bandages on almost his entire body: he is a sleeping cast with tubes and machines for limbs. Kaidan thinks that maybe Shepard will be like this forever, maybe Shepard's brain dead. And he bows his head over the sleeping man's chest and thinks, Shepard's gone.
But then, after three long days of waiting, Shepard blinks. He makes a groaning sound and turns his head a little and blinks at Kaidan with his one exposed eye. And Kaidan thinks, Shepard's blinking?
After a few minutes of blinking and some coughing followed by water, Shepard croaks something: some words that don't make any sense to Kaidan. Shepard's speaking nonsense and he's still bandaged up. The road to recovery is going to be long and hard, but it doesn't really matter because nothing is making any sense and everything is right for once and Shepard's here.