Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.
Author's Note: Result of a prompt off the mini-fic list for FShenko with "things you said under the stars and in the grass".
Phantom Heart
"'Got to love these bionic limbs.' Her fingers brush over the last of her own skin, before the stump of her thigh turns into smooth metal and carbon fiber. She misses it sometimes, the leg she lost in the war." - Kaidan and Shepard share their phantom pain beneath the stars.
"What the hell are we doing, Kaidan?"
He snorts beside her on the grass, glancing over to her. "You told me you'd at least try it."
Shepard stretches on the cool lawn and looks from the stars overhead to his smiling face beside her. "I am. This is me – trying. I am so full of try right now, you have no idea."
He laughs, looking back up at the stars. "Two minutes in and you're already belly-aching."
Scoffing, Shepard looks skyward as well. The night is breezy but not cold, and she can lie on the dewy grass of their backyard quite comfortably in her N7 sweats. Her toes wiggle in the grass. "You know I can't sit still for long."
He chuckles. "I've noticed."
"And you say you and your father used to do this all the time? Star-gazing and all that?"
"Yep."
"God, you two were boring."
"Hey," he defends, gaze snapping sideways to her, but the playful smirk betrays any censure in his voice. "I like to call it 'contemplative'. Maybe even 'philosophical." His smirk blends into a grin.
She rolls her eyes, shifting next to him so that their shoulders are pressed together. "'Contemplative', 'philosophical', 'boring'. What's the difference?"
He nudges her shoulder, looking back to the stars. "See if I ever share anything with you again."
"Oh don't be like that," she chides, stuffing her hands into her sweatshirt pockets.
"Like what?"
"Like a baby."
"You're a charmer, you know that?"
She beams. "It's why you married me."
"Yes, your winning personality is what drove me to this madness called love." He throws a look her way, lips quirking up in an endearing taunt. "And I say 'madness' only because 'insanity' would imply that there's actually a sane way to love you somewhere out there."
She smacks his arm, never looking away from the night sky, and his responding laugh is warm in the cool air. "Well, this 'winning' personality won the war, didn't it?"
Kaidan shrugs in the grass. "Can't argue with that."
They spend a few moments in content silence. Shepard shifts against him, reaching down to rub at her thigh where the discomfort from her prosthesis is most insistent.
Kaidan notices. "Is it hurting again?"
Shepard shrugs, a noncommittal sound of disinterest falling from her lips, somewhere between a grunt and an exhale. "Got to love these bionic limbs." Her fingers brush over the last of her own skin, before the stump of her thigh turns into smooth metal and carbon fiber. She misses it sometimes, the leg she lost in the war.
"It certainly makes you look intimidating," he teases, because they are well past the point of emotional egg-shell walking. "Not that you needed it."
Shepard braces her hands in the air, pointer fingers and thumbs spread out to make a box, like taking a picture of herself. "I think it gives me mystique."
Kaidan barks a laugh and catches her blinding grin his way. "You're psychotic."
Shepard lowers her hands to the grass, smile still wide as she turns back to the stars. "Well, I've got to get something out of this ugly thing."
Kaidan's hand finds hers in the grass and he blinks up at the stars when he whispers to her "I think it makes you beautiful."
Shepard rolls her eyes once more and releases a rather unattractive snort. "God, you're such a sap."
Kaidan's grin is slow but sure. He bites down on his remark of how she doesn't pull her hand away. "Well, somebody has to be in charge of romance when it comes to this marriage, and it sure ain't going to be you, hon."
She smacks her lips in agreement. "True. After all, I'm responsible for the snark and the sarcasm. It seems only fair."
"Oh, how generous of you."
"That's me, the paragon of generosity."
"And so humble."
"Flaunt what you got, baby. Flaunt what you got."
He glances at her out of his peripheral and watches the way she stares up at the stars, her lips slightly parted, her gaze bright even in the dark. He rubs a thumb along her knuckles and smiles to himself.
"Sometimes, it's like it's still there, you know?" she whispers after several moments of silence, broken only by their steady, even breathing.
"Hmm?"
"My leg."
Kaidan leans into where they connect, shoulder to shoulder, pressing closer. "Like…you can sense it?"
"Yeah. Phantom limb and all that bullshit."
Kaidan chuckles, but there is a tightness to the sound.
Shepard sighs, licking her lips. "I mean, there's just this sensation sometimes. This feeling. Like I can feel the pain of it, or feel it touching things, or feel the ground beneath my bare foot, but it's not my bare foot at all, because that's gone for good and I don't get why I still feel that shit sometimes. Something missing but…always there. Gone but not forgotten. It's strange." She sniffs, and Kaidan has to look at her to make sure she isn't crying, and she's not, but her eyes gleam as she gazes upward and she won't look at him. "Fuck, I don't know. I can't really explain it."
"I get it though."
"Do you?"
"Sure."
"I doubt that."
He is silent for a moment, his fingers held steady over her curled hand in his. He keeps his eyes star-ward. The night sky is comforting and terrifying all at once. It reminds him of all those years in space, all those exhilarating missions and Normandy flights, but mostly, it reminds him of one day, one moment in particular – the way the sky had looked from the surface of Alchera.
Kaidan might understand better than anyone.
How something can be gone but not forgotten. The permanence of every bit of you, every part. Even after it is ripped from you.
Even when that part is your heart.
"Better a phantom limb than a phantom heart," he breathes lowly, voice just this side of breaking. But he manages the words, and he keeps his gaze steady, and he doesn't have to look to know she has turned to him.
There is a sound that comes from her that's halfway to a sigh and halfway to a groan. She bites her lip, leans into him. Her mouth presses against his shoulder in a single, sure kiss – unmoving, unabashed. "You sure know how to shut 'em up, don't you?"
He looks down at her face pressed into his shoulder and reaches up to gently touch her hair. "I didn't mean anything by it."
"Sure you didn't," she grumbles into his sleeve.
He can't help the smile that breaks across his face at her petulance. "Who's the baby now?"
She groans. "Guilt-tripper," she accuses.
His fingers thread through her hair and light along her jaw, tilting her face up to his. "Pity party," he retorts.
She narrows her eyes at him. "Hey, I'm the only one that gets to name-call around here."
"Of course."
"Seriously."
"I'm all seriousness."
"Don't be such a kiss-ass."
"Yes, Commander."
She growls, her free hand fisting in his shirt, and she frowns playfully up at him.
He laughs, hand sliding from her chin. "Alright, truce?"
She doesn't answer. Instead, she kisses him. Slow and open-mouthed and languid as the stars. When she pulls away, he is breathless.
"No," she breathes against his mouth, the teasing word warm upon his lips.
He shakes his head and watches her settle back along the grass. "You're insufferable, you know that?"
"But you love me."
"But I love you."
She smiles. "There's hope for you yet."
Kaidan scoffs, his laugh loud and unexpected, and his hand tightens on hers in the grass. "Good to know."
She nuzzles into his side and the sudden tenderness silences him.
"I never meant to be your phantom heart," she whispers against him.
His mouth opens but words have already failed him.
She buries her face in his sleeve, unwilling to show her face, and her words are more accusation than comfort but he has already learned how to recognize affection in them years ago. "I always meant to stay," she says. "I always meant to stay yours."
His throat is tight with air he has forgotten how to breathe. Even now, even many years after first feeling that tender inkling of love in his heart, she can still bring him to trembles. "I know," he manages to get out.
She has only ever said the words 'I love you' twice before but Kaidan finds her non-words far more meaningful, far more powerful.
He finds the love in what she doesn't say, but what is always there.
In the heart that never left.