"I need to see her"
The two young corporals turned in their seats before the desk, and stared, unabashed, at the bizarre interruption to their meeting. It was bad form to gawp so incredulously at a superior officer— but he had made quite the entrance; agitated, almost out of breath, bursting into an Admiral's office uninvited and unannounced. Kaidan ignored them, the entirety of his attention fixed on Anderson who said nothing, but stared back, his gaze weighty and unfathomable. Really, he should have torn Kaidan a new one for his behaviour, utterly unbecoming of his rank— but he didn't. Anderson simply continued to assess him, a glimmer of something like a challenge in his eyes. Kaidan swallowed hard and squared his shoulders reflexively. This seemed to meet an unspoken criteria; Anderson's strong jaw jerked in a fraction of a nod.
"Gentlemen we'll pick this up tomorrow." said the Admiral. When the corporals remained in their seats, he spoke again, terser this time. "You are dismissed." The young marines gave messy salutes as they scurried from the room, unsure what was happening, but certain they didn't want to be involved.

"Have a seat, Major." Anderson gestured to the recently vacated chairs, and sighed when he remained by the door. "Kaidan," with titles dropped, his voice was softer "Sit."

He didn't want to sit. He wanted to be doing something, anything to figure out what the Hell Shepard was playing at— but he acquiesced all the same. Reaching into a drawer, Anderson produced a bottle of whiskey and soon slid a decanter of the amber liquid across the desk. He extended a hand to accept it, but left the glass on the desk, fidgeting in his chair as the admiral took a sip from his own. Tired eyes appraised him sagely over the crystal, watching for something Kaidan didn't have the focus to identify. When Anderson set his glass down and sat back with another sigh, he took it as permission to speak.

"What is she doing?" the words came out more earnest than he'd intended, with a shadow of something like desperation playing at the edges. The Admiral's gaze dropped to the desk and hardened as he thought for a moment— he didn't need to ask who Kaidan was referring to. This wasn't the first time they'd sat together with a silent 'She' hanging over them.

The first had been after Alchera and many more had followed; Anderson had seen him at his rawest— and his numbest. Right up until Kaidan had been cleared for service and thrown himself into any and every mission the brass would give him. The worse the odds were, the better— someone had to do it. Why not him? What was he coming back to? What did it matter if he didn't come back at all? But then the second— or was it the third?— time he woke up in hospital with more wires in his torso than a Geth trooper, Anderson had visited sporting the same air of grim exhaustion and concern he did now. The, then Councilor, had torn into him that time— had thrown his "suicidal disregard for protocol" in the face of his exemplary mission success, had pointed out just how warped that was from everything he knew Kaidan to be and— crucially— had demanded to know what he thought Shepard what say if she could see him like this.

That was too far and Anderson had known it. Collapsing into a chair between the various monitors, he'd apologised with a gruff sigh. It had been too much, but Kaidan had been unable to deny the truth of the question. They'd stayed silent for a while until at last Kaidan had ground out a whisper.

"I don't know how to do this… to be how I… any of it… without her."

And then of course then Anderson had given him that look. The one he got from his parents, his friends— anyone who knew what had happened, what he had and what he lost. It made him sick. He didn't want their pity, but sometimes he didn't know how to scrape through without it.

More silence had followed, Kaidan staring at the opposite wall and Anderson at his clenched hands. Eventually a doctor had appeared and said that visiting hours were nearly up. After thanking her, the councilor had announced, more to the room than to Kaidan, that he was having him assigned to a Terminus Colony. "Important work" he had said and Kaidan hadn't argued— hadn't said anything at all. Later, he'd been able to rationalise the orders; not what he would have picked, but probably what he needed, though the admission pained him. Regardless, it was preferable to more enforced leave.

Anderson had been good to him. Kaidan had only spent a couple of weeks under his command on The Normandy before Shepard had… before the command had changed. And yet after the attack, Anderson had always gone out of his way to check in with him regularly in some small manner or other. In the short time Kaidan served under Anderson, he got the impression that the captain was the type to go the extra mile in aid of his subordinates' welfare— and Kaidan was a better soldier than most. But he knew there was more to this than professional concern or duty of care. Shepard had told him that Anderson's unit had been on Mindoir that day; too late to stop the attack, but in time to find a teenage Shepard—unconscious, brutalised and almost bled dry. He saved her life that day and stayed a part of it. When she told him she planned to enlist he'd tried to dissuade her, reasoning that she'd seen enough bloodshed. But he hadn't tried for long. He knew Shepard had rare potential and Shepard had gone above and beyond it. She'd done things and saved lives that no one else could have— and yet, it was clear to Kaidan, even through his own grief, that Anderson wished he'd tried harder.

For two years, Shepard's ghost had followed both men. But the Spectre haunting them had turned out to be less spectral than they'd thought.

The first thing he'd done after seeing Shepard on Horizon— once he'd been able to pick himself up from the floor of his prefab— had been to tear through space to see Anderson on the Citadel. He could barely think, barely stand— couldn't comprehend the sick joke he seemed to have fallen into. He needed to tell him and needed someone who could explain, who would understand.

And after all that, Anderson had already known. He'd known. And said nothing. Done nothing.

The revelation that the whole mess had been a set up was a fresh twist of the knife in his gut. Getting screwed over by The Illusive Man was one thing, but the Alliance's part in it— Anderson's part in it… So he'd left, just left— had gotten the fuck out of that office as quickly as he could.

That was the last time they'd spoken until today, until Shepard's trial.

Kaidan's desperate question hung in the air.

"I…" Anderson sighed yet again, clearly at a loss. "I met her at the docks when she turned herself in and… I've never seen her like this…"

"After Mindoir and Akuze," Kaidan started. "Was she…?"

"Like this?" Kaidan nodded. "No. After the raid… she grieved of course, but more than anything she was determined and it made her stronger in some messed up way— and then after Akuze… Shepard was just angry… bar brawls, insubordination and blind fury. But she sorted her shit out in time, and again, it seemed to strengthen her even though it'd be enough to break anyone else." Anderson paused to knock back his drink. "This time…"

"It's like she's just given up." Kaidan said quietly.

Kaidan hadn't been to see her in all the time since her return to Earth. In all likelihood, he wouldn't have been able to, but he hadn't even tried. He was a coward— he had no delusions on that front, he accepted it with the bitterness and self disdain that had characterised his last few months. But when the trial finally rolled around things were different. The summons to testify as a character witness left him with a hollow sort of ache. He was scared to see her again, of stirring up the pain he'd worked so hard to subdue into a numb sedation. And yet…

Now that he had no choice but to see her— now that it was definitely going to happen, regardless of his cowardice— he was almost… no, not quite… but…

God, it was all such a mess.

Kaidan's feelings for Shepard were an intangible chaos he hadn't had the courage to examine in months. That part of him was a cancerous wreck he worked tirelessly to contain in some dark corner of himself. It was insurmountable, unconquerable and if he let it out of that corner long enough to try and make sense of it, it would consume him. The confinement was hard won, but not air tight. Poisonous tendrils found their way through and coloured his world. He might be able to keep the mess restrained most days, but he had no respite from its presence.

Shepard may have had Hackett and Anderson on her side, but that seemed to do nothing to soften the prosecution. The case against her was ruthless… vicious even. They tore into her like she was nothing— less than nothing and not a brilliant soldier everyone in the room owed their life to. Her achievements, it seemed, were nothing to them.

And Shepard just sat there and took it. Shepard listened to their allegations and slander without protest; eyes down, speech dull and to the point.

What was she doing?

Kaidan's feelings were warped and incomprehensible to him— and had been ever since Horizon. But, on the first day of the hearing, not one but three revelations hit him like a truck.

First, this was Shepard— the real Shepard, his Shepard. Seeing her again, without the shock of Horizon and with the benefit of months of agonising introspection, there was no doubt in his mind. Even in the face of this thoroughly un—Shepard behaviour, it was her… gloriously and excruciatingly her. What made the pain worse, was that, in order for Shepard's conduct to shock him as it did, some part of him must have known this all along.

Second, he still cared. God, did he care. To see her like this… defeated, disenchanted… hopeless… it fucking hurt— in ways he hadn't thought there was room for. And that pain threw his feelings into such sharp relief that he could barely breathe. Kaidan had never stopped loving his Shepard— not that she could ever be 'owned' by anyone. When she had reappeared, he'd been unable to accept her impossible return, or the circumstances surrounding it —but now that he was sure, certain beyond any hesitation, that this was the woman he had loved, and still loved…

Which lead him to his third revelation: he had fucked up beyond belief.

But as much as that pained him— and Christ, it did— it didn't matter, because Shepard was in pain too. She'd given up, she was folding in on herself, fading before the eyes of anyone who bothered to look— and that was all that was important.

Which was how Kaidan Alenko found himself in Anderson's office late that afternoon. The trial had ended for the day a few hours earlier and he had waited as long as he could to see the him, knowing he should wait until the end of the day, but it hadn't worked out like that.

They sat in silence, Anderson's eyes sad and uncertain, as though wondering how they'd gotten to this point.

"Anderson…" Kaidan tried again, voice pleading without pretense. "Just let me try. I have to try."

As Anderson continued to stare, Kaidan's heart pounded in his chest. Then at last—

"Okay."

Two chapters in the first upload.
I feel like this one might have dragged a bit and I need need to cut half my sentences down by 50%. Oh, and stop using italics ALL the time.
Anyway, I tried.