"It's been four sessions now Lieutenant. I was hoping we could talk about the commandertoday." The doctor activated his omni tool calmly. "You don't mind if I record do you? Much easier than all that note taking."
He didn't need to explain, or even really ask. He had recorded all their prior appointments.
Anderson had requested as a friend he attend these sessions after the attack on the Normandy, but he was sure that the councilor was in a position to make that friendly request in an order as a superior officer if he had refused. Up til now it had even been rather easy to comply as the doctor generally just sat listening calmly as Kaidan had wasted time describing his family, or boot camp. The first visit he had asked about the crew, and inevitably her.
"Shepard was an excellent solider," he had said numbly. It had only been a month since the memorial. There had been no body to bury. Only a month? Fuck, how had it been so long already?
Sensing his discomfort the doctor had segued artfully away instead asking about the events on Virmire.
It made Kaidan sick what a relief this has been as he calmly began to discuss Ashley. It was true he had avoided her too, but compared to Shepard this seemed simple. I'm such a bastard he had thought to himself as he justified for what was at least the hundredth time aloud, probably the thousandth in his head the choice she had made. He left out the part about how afterwords she had admitted she couldn't have brought herself to leave him there.
From that point on there had been not a word about the commander in any visit, and very little about the Normandy at all. Today they sat there in uncomfortable silence for a moment before he answered surprising himself with how bluntly the response came.
"What degree of confidentiality are we dealing with here doctor."
Judging by the skeptical eyebrow raise this brought back it seemed he wasn't the only one caught off guard.
"Technically, I'm not required to report anything that doesn't suggest the possibility of something that could be harmful to you or those around you in and out of the field." he brushed his fingers over his omni tool and the bright orange light dimmed before relaxing in his seat. Was that suppose to make it more personal?
"Technically?"
"I don't see the benefit in it, I don't plan to, and no regulation says I'm expected to. If I reported every little toe open of line Lieutenant frankly we would never get to the core of anything important." With his free hand he stroked his beard thoughtfully. Kaidan watched him carefully trying to remember anything he had every heard about whether or not doctors were allowed lie about that sort of thing. He never did decide before he answered this time.
"Alex had this gravity, this energy that made you want to rush right along with her into the center of everything..."