Tuesday evening
I notice something's wrong as soon as I step aboard the Normandy at ten p.m. by the ship's clock.
The doors have started making odd noises, chiming when they open and beeping loudly as they're about to close. The design of the locks has changed, too. They're more circular, less segmented, and lime-green rather than teal.
"That's new," I mutter to Lieutenant Cortez as we step into the elevator. He hits the button for the crew deck: I press the button for the loft.
"What is?"
"The noise. The doors have started making a noise."
"They've always done that, Commander," Steve says, eyeing me curiously. "It's regulation."
"Regulation?"
"You probably know more about it than I do."
"I've never noticed it before," I say, as the lift groans to a halt and announces the crew deck.
"You take things for granted after a while, I suppose." The doors slide open with that wailing two-tone chime, and Cortez steps out. "Good evening, sir."
"Good night, Steve," I say, jabbing the "door close" control with my little finger. I must be getting old. I genuinely haven't noticed that noise before.
"Commanding officer's quarters," the elevator announces. The doors judder and wail again. I feed the fish, and start up the sound system.
It begins playing classical music, something savage and raw and Russian in nature. "Not that," I snap at the little holographic clock, "something electronic. Something calm."
The music clicks off and becomes a gentle, repetitive electronic melody as I shrug off my jacket and roll my shoulders. Long day.
My terminal makes an odd noise as I start my Kronos-assault simulation script. Maybe it's developed an allergy to Fortran? I know I have. I bring up the crew manifest in a separate window and hit the command to call Ash up to my quarters.
She's not there.
She always is—first name on the very final page of the crew manifest. SPECTRE WILLIAMS Ashley Madeline, but she's not there. Everyone else is, but…
I open up the Alliance OffNet system and search for Ashley Williams, 53456-EP-1942. GUNNERY CHIEF. DECEASED W/HONS, KIA, VIRMIRE, 24 JULY 2183.
Jesus. I feel the blood drain from my system: how? How? I refresh the page, hoping it's a mistake. It doesn't change. MISTER WILLIAMS Ashley, 53456-EP-1942. DECEASED W/HONS, KIA, VIRMIRE, 24 JULY 2183.
I enter Kaidan Alenko's name in the search box. SPECTRE ALENKO Kaidan Makoto, 21943-BA-0953. MAJOR. IN SERVICE, SSV-SR-2, DEPLOYED: 19 MARCH 2186.
None of this makes any sense. I still remember the feelings of dread and guilt from two years ago as I updated this database record to record his death, the tears of Mikio and Marianne Alenko as we dropped off their son's possessions in Vancouver—and there's a chime at the door.
A glance at the monitor causes my stomach to churn. It's been three years, but I still remember his face, and the sight of it on the monitor brings a wave of nausea over my digestive system.
The door chimes again. What the hell's going on? I stand up, straighten myself out, and steel myself before the door. My finger hovers over the 'door open' control for a second or so before I finally bring myself to push inward.
The door wails and rolls apart, and the late Kaidan Alenko stands before me, alive.
"Kaidan?"
"Hey, Shepard." His voice is still the same, a little quieter and deeper, maybe, but still definitely him.
I want to say, "what is this? This is cold, this is sick," but I can't bring myself to say anything as he smiles, stood in his crewman's uniform, his unkempt hair combed backwards (I can see a few strands of grey, that's new) and his skin flushed a little pink, paler than I remember it. I want to prod him, check he's real, but I don't need to as he closes the distance between us and pulls me close—and I want to push him away and kick him out but I can't do that, either.
I can't do anything.
I stand, paralysed by his sudden appearance, as he embraces he and nestles himself in the crook of my shoulder. What the hell is this? Am I supposed to be—
A gentle kiss to my jaw answers a question I haven't even finished asking. "Are you OK?" Kaidan whispers—he can tell something's up.
"Fine, fine," I say, quickly, breaking apart the embrace. "This was just… unexpected."
"Is this a bad time?"
"No, no," I say. "Just been a bit of a long day… I've still got to finish this," and I gesture towards the terminal.
"OK." He undoes the top button of his uniform shirt. "When you're finished, Shepard, I just… I… we need to talk."
I haven't seen Kaidan in three years, but I can tell there's something wrong just by listening to his voice. "Can I get you a cup of coffee?" I ask him as I sit down at the terminal and unlock it.
"Yes, please."
I punch in orders for a white coffee (I still remember how Kaidan takes—took—his coffee, after all this time) and an americano for myself. He sips at his coffee quietly as I drop a sachet of sugar into my own and open up the journal application on the computer.
My psychiatrist after Akuze had suggested keeping a diary, saying that people who wrote about everything that happened to them tended to find it easier to come to terms with grief. I've stuck to it diligently since then, and it helped a lot in getting over Kaidan's and Mordin's deaths, the horror of the suicide mission and the Alpha relay, and the endless desolation of my two months under house arrest in Portland.
"Long day?"
"Yeah," I lie. "Can't get my code to compile." I don't have the source code for my war simulation script up at all: in fact, I'm staring at a journal that's been perfectly empty for seven years.
Seven years ago, I ended a loveless relationship with Helena, a pretty but brash girl I'd met in a quiet bar in Vancouver. I was still on leave after Akuze, and I'd only moved in with her because I was lonely, more than anything. The references are all there in this diary: the words I remember writing, the accounts I gave of unsatisfying sex, of her emotional hardness, and—at the point where I know that seven years ago, I told her, "it's over," and walked out on her, the diary entry says nothing more than "fuck this."
After that, it's empty. I (or the man whose skin this belongs to, because it sure as hell isn't mine) haven't written anything in the journal application for seven years. I remember the emotional desolation of life with Helena, and imagine the torture it must have been for this man—this other Shepard?—to have lived with her for even longer.
"Damn type conversions," I mutter, continuing the illusion I'm programming while I bring up every mail I've sent and received in the last seven years. There's a lot of messages from Kaidan here, many of them one-liners.
thanks for letting me bunk with you last night, shepard. it helped a lot. -ka
Any time Kaidan. You should probably get Chakwas to prescribe you some stronger pain meds. SHEPARD
she'll probably say it's over-exertion. hopefully i won't need to disturb your sleep again in the near future. -k
I'm not complaining if you do! SHEPARD
are you flirting with me again!
FYI my code is currently compiling. I'm allowed, aren't I? I'm not busy. SHEPARD
There's a few interesting revelations. This man—this other me—has had something going on with Kaidan for a while, for six weeks by the looks of things, starting with a lunch date on the Citadel. Ironic: the same place Ash and I had met up and agreed to get back together.
The other me signs off his mails with his name in capital letters. I rarely bother signing mine off at all. The other me has a shuffle playlist consisting of a lot of Stravinsky, a lot of Copland, a lot of Debussy. I've never been particularly fond of classical music, always preferred soft electronica.
Whoever this other Shepard is, he's a very different man.
"Shepard, I…"
"Yeah, hold on," I say, quickly, pretending to correct a syntax error. "There we go. Done." I switch the terminal off, and stand.
"Fiddly?"
"I swear Fortran will be the death of me," I smile, although it's forced, and I hope to god Kaidan can't see how nervous, how confused I am. "Sorry about that, Kaidan."
"It's fine, Shepard. I just need to talk, because… well, it's important."
"What is?" I'm apprehensive and still damn confused.
"You'll want to sit down," he says, averting his eyes. Something's up, something big, and for a moment I sit beside him on the couch, throw caution to the wind and look him straight in the eye.
"Shoot," I say.
"I… uh… spoke to Chakwas. Like you said, I asked her for her advice, and she ran a PTA scan, and…"
"And?"
"There's a tumour."
Tumour. Tumour? God…
"She said it's early days, yet… probably a result of Mars, and she said the acupuncture that doctor put me on may have made it worse. But it's… it's malignant."
Malignant is a horrible word, and one that kicks me right in the stomach. This is horrible—as far as I'm concerned, Kaidan's been dead for two years, and he thinks this is another man, and I feel like a fraud and I feel sorrow and pity for him and—
"What's the prognosis?" I ask, keeping my jaw clenched tightly shut.
"Without treatment? A year," Kaidan says, his head drooping. "Possibly less."
"What about treatment? Can't you get it removed?"
"Yeah, but Chakwas says the only safe way to do it would be to remove the whole implant. And even then… the mortality rate…" he pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath, "it's forty per cent."
Forty per cent. "God, Kaidan, I'm so… sorry," I say, and I find myself embracing him as he buries his face in the crook of my—in the crook of the other Shepard's shoulder.
I stay still, because although I'm holding him that's something I'd do anyway, give him a shoulder to lean on. I have no idea what the other me would do at this point: kiss him? Tell him everything's going to be alright? Cradle him and whistle a lullaby? No damn idea.
"Thanks, Shepard," Kaidan breathes, and without thinking about it I kiss him on the top of his head. I immediately feel guilty: I'm not his Shepard. I'm not the man Kaidan trusts, the man Kaidan clearly loves more than anything, and I feel like I'm betraying—even cheating on Ash.
I let Kaidan Alenko die on Virmire. It wasn't a decision I enjoyed making, and in the two years between then and now, I've seen him nowhere but in my own nightmares. And this feels wrong. I feel sick, suddenly, and gently push Kaidan out of the way. "Sorry. Just need a moment."
I splash cold water on my cheeks, and survey my dampened, glistening face. It's similar enough to my own to appear virtually identical, but I feel like I'm in another man's skin.
I wipe my face dry, and step back into the cabin.
"Are you OK?" Kaidan asks, his voice fragile.
"Fine," I lie. "Are you OK?"
"Not great, but I'm… um…" Kaidan takes my hand in his and leans against my chest, "I'm glad you're here."
He smells different to Ash, I think. A light, airy smell of ozone, couldn't be more different to how Ash always seems to smell of her regulation shampoo and deodorant.
"Kaidan, I—"
"Come to bed," he asks, quietly, interrupting me. "Please?"
I feel a sensation of dread build in my stomach, and try to mask it from my face as I strip to my underwear and crawl between the sheets with Kaidan. We've seen each other naked before, of course: on the first Normandy, everyone, CO included, had to wait in line for a minute and a half under one of three showers. No sex or species segregation, and no privacy: you can't afford to be prudish on a stealth starship.
It's been a long while since I've been with a man, but Kaidan's a gentle lover, attentive and forgiving. I even begin to enjoy myself at one point, but then feel a stab of guilt as I remember that there's no way this can be right, at all, and I'm wincing as he makes love to me.
Any enjoyment of the climax is wrecked by the sensation of feeling like an imposter.
REM
I'm in the forest, again.
Gravity is about Earth normal, possibly a little less, and I feel light-headed, shrouded in fog. There's a gentle wind on my cheeks and…
BOOM.
There's the stabbing, throaty groan of a Reaper's horn, and I run, run after the little boy, bellow for him to get behind a tree, or into a cave, or something—
BOOM.
Another Reaper rolled over the horizon, and another, their engines roaring like thunder as they glided closer, and closer, to converge on a clearing, a campfire. It's murky, and I can't see clearly, but—there's a man, a pale, tall man with black hair, and a sharp-nosed woman with her dark hair tied in a bun—
BOOM.
"Ash! Kaidan!" I yell, as the boy runs into Kaidan's arms and Ash peers upward, staring into the eye of the three abominations floating above us.
A howl of machinery, a squeal of something electronic—and all three Reapers flourish their anti-matter death-rays, emitting deafening screams of alien exaltation as they immolate my friends—
BOOM.
Wednesday morning
"Shepard."
A gasp knocks me awake, and I'm covered in sweat, shaking from the cold and the vivid horror of the nightmare. A warm hand clasps me by the shoulder.
"Shepard!" It's Kaidan. He places a hand on my forehead and shushes me. "It's OK."
"Thanks," I whisper, and he kisses me on the lips. I ignore the pang of guilt and take slow, deep breaths.
"What was it?" he asks.
"It was Ash."
Kaidan's face flattens, and he sighs in something between exhaustion and sadness at the memory of Virmire. I can still remember his voice as he willed me to go and rescue Ash. I still remember his final words over the comm channel: "give 'em hell, Shepard. Tell my mom and dad I love them." I wonder what Ash's final words were in this Shepard's world, but I can't. It's too painful, and I force myself to stop before I start tearing up.
"It's hard, isn't it? Imagining how different it could've been," Kaidan whispers, in his muted, gravelly voice that's too smooth to count as 'husky.'
I don't tell him that I don't need to imagine—I know how things could've been different. I know how it was different. He brings me a coffee, and I smile gratefully even though I wince when I sip it. There's no sugar. Maybe the other me takes his coffee black.
"It's difficult," I agree, quietly, as I brace myself through the scalding bitterness of the coffee. "And she doesn't deserve to be forgotten."
"Yeah." Kaidan puts a hand on my shoulder, and gently strokes up to my neck, the back of my head, and back. I try to hide how wrong this feels as he finds his words, "you know, I… for what it's worth, I think you're amazing. You just… um…"
He kisses me on the cheek, and I smile, but I can't bring myself to reciprocate: I'm touched, but all the time wary that Kaidan loves a different man. I loved him (in the past tense) as a friend—a deeper, romantic relationship had certainly never crossed my mind, and I'd committed myself to Ash.
Ash, who I love with all my heart, isn't here. She's dead (how? Twenty-four hours ago, she was alive and groggy and we were holding each other loosely in the afterglow of sex.)
The image of her, being incinerated by three Reaper lasers at once, has burned itself into my eyelids, and I feel like a cheat and a fraud.
I want to go home.