Notes: Written for the prompt, "Don't you trust me?" I liked it enough to publish it separately.
Scheherazade
He could still turn back.
The floor was dead. The overhead lights buzzed and his footsteps echoed in the too empty hall. The walls were a hospital off-beige that if there was some signs of life, might not have been so distressingly sterile. This part of the building was supposedly sectioned off for apartments, but the only signs of life were the guards stationed at regular intervals down the too long and too narrow hallway.
Security was tight. Anderson had to vouch for him just to be on the list of approved visitors. Then it took days of screenings to actually get a time slot for a visit. He had to get approval to bring in coffee. Then layers and layers of locks, scanners, searches, and guards quarantining the apartment at the end of the hall from the rest of the building.
Kaidan didn't know what the hell the brass thought wasting resources on this kind of security was going to do when Shepard decided she was done with this. He doubted any of it would even slow her down.
He could still turn back. Get back on the elevator and go back through the searches and scanners and guards. Tell his parents he could meet them for lunch early. She would never know. Even if she did, he doubted she'd care.
But he needed to do this. Shepard was willing to trade information. He had to know it was good before he sent his students to act on it.
Besides, a second coffee would go cold before he could drink it.
He showed his credentials to the guard at the door. He was young, but to have this kind of post, he had to have some experience. He had no tags or identifying marks of any kind. None of them did. Too dangerous to give Shepard something like that.
He asked how she was doing. The guard shrugged, said he'd never talked to her, but she seemed friendly. Laurie really liked her. The new nightshift guy played cards with her once, said she was terrible at poker, but enjoyed playing anyway. He reminded the guard to be careful what they told her and to tell nightshift to stop playing cards with her. She was better than they thought she was.
The guard swiped his keycard and scanned his hand. The heavy door slowly slid open. He didn't realize he was holding his breath until he realized that the only thing on the other side was a short entry hall, hastily converted to secondary containment.
The young guard paged the interior, told them that they had a visitor. This time, Kaidan was acutely aware of his heavy beating heart.
For all the time he spent getting preparing for this, he wasn't ready to see her again.
The apartment was small, sparsely furnished. There was a treadmill by the window, wear already obvious on the belt. A desk covered in neatly stacked books. Her nearly trademarked color coded folders laid out for efficiency next to her favorite pens.
It reminded him of her home on Arcterus station. Ready to be shown to a prospective buyer at a moment's notice and they would never know who lived there before.
Her guard was a heavily muscled woman with her hair drawn back in a tight regulation bun. She was amped. He couldn't imagine they'd leave anybody with a weapon she could use.
"Commander Alenko," Shepard said. She cut silently around her guard, her lips drawn into her perfect, made for the cameras smile. She exuded easy confidence, it was obvious that no matter how qualified or capable her guard was, Shepard was in control. "What a pleasant surprise."
Shepard looked much like she always did. All lean muscle and razor sharp edges neatly wrapped up in a designer suit. He didn't know if he was expecting different. If destroying a solar system had changed her at all, she hid it well.
"Brought you something," he said, holding the coffee cup out to her.
"Thank you. That was very considerate," she said. Shepard gestured to the kitchenette, then turned back from the guard. "You can leave us now."
"Mira." She had the guards wrapped around her finger already. "You know I can't leave you…"
"Laurie." The guard's eyes went wide. Shepard wasn't supposed to know names. "This is official business." Shepard set her cup down on the table and rounded on the woman. Shepard was soft and polite and without thinking, Kaidan cut in between them. From a distance, people forgot how big she was. He was horribly reminded that she was nearly as tall as he was and far stronger than she looked. "We'll be discussing sensitive information and he has the same clearances as Hackett and Anderson."
Behind him, Laurie stiffened and his amp port tingled, but she slowly retreated to the door.
"What the hell was that?" he asked. She could have just put that woman's career in jeopardy and for what?
"Don't worry Commander," she said, leaning back in her chair and draping her arm over the back. "We're on camera. There's a series of suits watching me from the building across the street. If this arrangement is good enough for Anderson and Hackett, it should suit you."
"I'm not worried about security," he said. "How do you think it's going to look for her when her supervisor finds out that she left you without…"
"She'll be fine. I don't get social calls," Shepard said, pulling out a chair for herself and gesturing to the one opposite for him. "The Alliance would prefer information be kept on a need to know basis. She doesn't need to know. So if you would please sit down so we can get to business."
He took the chair across from her. She studied him with idle curiosity, like she was supposed to be here.
"It's so nice of you to come see me." Something about the way she said nice made him think it was anything but. "What brings you here?"
He should have said, "Because I'm heading up operations based on your intel. I need to make sure I'm not sending my students into a trap."
But that wasn't everything. Before this, she fed them information on Cerberus operations. She made a deal with Hackett for immunity. She set Jack up with a job at Grissom. They even worked together on a few operations. He thought things were getting better between them. Then, out of nowhere, she destroyed a relay and killed hundreds of thousands of Batarian colonists. There was no coming back from that. No matter how much he wanted differently. But he wanted to understand.
Instead, he sat in silence, drinking his coffee and trying to think of what to say to a woman who he'd once loved and now, barely knew. All the while, Shepard watched him like a circling hawk.
She picked up her coffee, swirled it a couple times and took an experimental sniff. Then, almost casually, she swapped their cups. She barely managed to conceal her disgust when she tasted the milk and sugar in his. She said nothing, but the accusation stung.
"Don't you trust me?" he asked. Even at her paranoid worst, she was never like this. Listening to what he thought was her death over Alchera almost destroyed him. Even with everything she'd done, he wouldn't do that.
"You're an Alliance man." Shepard shrugged and took another sip. "Night shift leaves creamer in the mini-fridge if you want it." As if that was his biggest problem with this situation.
"I would never hurt…" he started. "Do you think that I could poison you?"
"I think it would be convenient for the Alliance if I don't make it to trial," she said. Like she was talking about the weather. "Don't act so surprised. You, of all people, should know I'm not the first monster they've swept under the rug."
He feigned interest in coffee creamer. He should have expected it. Her handlers thought it was too dangerous for her to have names. He'd told her way more than that. He'd given her everything she needed hurt him. And he trusted her enough to think she wouldn't use it.
That hurt more than the jab itself. More so because she didn't mean it. She just knew that it would hurt.
So he fumbled with the lid. Watched hazelnut cream swirl slowly into coffee until he could look at her again. She stared back, studying him clinical and uncaring, and he still couldn't quite make eye contact.
"You've been giving Hackett information," he said, slowly taking back his position across from her.
"Alliance isn't giving out luxury house arrest suites for free," she said. Had she always sounded so condescending? "You think I'm holding back the good stuff for a better view?"
"We both know you can leave whenever you want."
"I could, couldn't I?" She smiled and he half expected to see a second row of teeth behind it. Her aura of danger had been exciting once. He almost couldn't believe he'd ever loved it. "Almost begs the question, what do I get for staying?"
"Room, board, and a court appointed lawyer," he said. She wanted him to bait him into trying to figure out why the hell she came back. He didn't care enough to join her game.
"Two out of three's not bad." She shrugged and he glanced over at her desk. He hadn't noticed the subject material before. She was just arrogant enough to defend herself, but she was also good enough to pull it off. Even now, he had to admire her ego.
"So, if you're so sure I'm going to break out," she said with detached interest. "Do you want to run away with me again?"
"You know what I'm going to say." Was it his imagination or did she look disappointed?
"Pity. You made a damn good traitor Alenko," she said. "What changed?"
"I know where my loyalties lie." She hadn't changed. She was angry and frustrated at a stagnant career and she took advantage of the Normandy attack to get out. Even if she hadn't really joined Cerberus, for two years, she let him think she was dead. That he abandoned her to suffocate alone in the dark.
After everything that happened to him, he knew better than to fully trust the Alliance. He had a history, a faulty implant, and ties to Shepard. If something else went wrong, he'd be an easy target. But at least with them, he knew what he was getting into.
"After everything I've done, you still don't trust me." She said it like a fact. The sky was blue. Her drivers' license was fake. He didn't trust her. And it didn't bother her in the slightest.
"It's exactly because of everything you've done," he replied.
"You knew who I was when you helped steal a ship and followed me into the Terminus. That night before Ilos, you knew what you were getting into. You did it anyway," she said, her eyes flashing a dangerous, cold blue. He'd seen that look before. When she went up against Saren on the Citadel and knew just what she had to say. "And from what I can see, you did nothing but benefit. Don't get me wrong, you deserve it. You're a good soldier Alenko. I was too. Look how they rewarded me." She dismissively gestured to the apartment and the heavy locks on the door.
"You destroyed a star system and killed three hundred thousand Batarian colonists," he said.
"Did you have a point coming here?" she asked, her lips drawn into a thin line. "Or did you just want to remind me exactly why I didn't want to come back?"
"What happened in the Bahak system?" he asked.
"If you're talking to me, then you've either already read the files or you're a fool." She draped an arm over the back of the chair and stared out the window. "You're many things, but not a fool."
"Humor me," he said. He still regretted that he didn't try to hear her out on Horizon. This time, he'd listen.
"Cerberus took control of a mining facility, just like X57. They sent me in to finish the job." To anybody else, she could have sold it. But he knew her too well to think she was doing anything other than reading off a script.
"That's what the files say." She promised she would never lie to him. He was never comfortable with the double standard, but he could use it now. "What really happened?"
"Kaidan, why does it matter?" She rested her forehead on her fingertips and for just a second, the illusion fell away.
Her clothes hung off of her. Her ribs rose and fell under the fine cotton. Her hair was thinner than he remembered. She'd covered up dark circles under her eyes as best she could with makeup, but it wasn't perfect. Her cuticles were faintly ripped, her fingertips covered in papercuts and her palms had small spots of ink.
For a month, all she had for company were people who weren't allowed to talk to her, weren't even allowed to tell her their names. Everyone who came to see her either wanted something from her or wanted to tell her what to do. He couldn't blame her for resenting visitors after that.
She worked herself to the bone under good circumstances. Living like this, she wasn't sleeping, instead spending every spare moment working on her defense because she didn't trust anybody else to do it. If not that, she was running until she was almost too tired to stand out of a mix of stress and boredom. Her world shrank down from an entire galaxy to two rooms. Not an inch of either she had to herself, even for a moment. For all the power and control she tried to project, she had neither.
He'd been in the middle of enough cover ups to know when there was something more going on.
He thought she was here only because she wanted to be. That Shepard could leave whenever she wanted to. She still could and she knew it. Yet she stayed. Mira was normally long gone by the time things got dangerous. Yet she surrendered quietly. Mira Shepard never did anything if she didn't have a reason. Even more so if that thing could end in her death. There was something stronger than locks or walls holding her here.
But it was only for a second. She tucked away the exhaustion, loneliness, and fear. Her hand stopped shaking on the coffee cup. Her eyes stopped flicking to the door. And just like that, she was poised and dignified, like there was nowhere else in the world she'd rather be. She had no use for those kinds of feelings, so it was better to just compartmentalize. She made it too easy to forget she was only human
There was a chance that this was what she wanted him to see, but even at her worst, she never wanted people to feel sorry for her.
He wanted to reply, "Because you still matter to me," but he didn't think she'd forgive him.
"I need to know if we can trust your information," he said. Like there wasn't some little part of him that desperately wanted to reach across the table, take her hand, and tell her…he didn't know what exactly. He didn't know if there was anything he could say.
She got up and went to stand by the window. He wasn't sure if he imagined Shepard dragging her feet through the first few steps. He followed, but stopped just too far to touch her even if he wanted to. Even if she'd allow it, there was too much between them.
"All you need to know is that I have no regrets." There was earthforged steel in her spine and she spoke with nothing less than perfect conviction.
"What's out there Shepard?" He didn't think she'd say it outright, but Shepard didn't lie to him and he still knew her well enough to understand.
"Three hundred thousand dead Batarians and a broken relay," she said, folding her hands behind her back. She picked her words carefully, unable to tell him the truth outright, but enough for him to see its shape in its shadow and the dark space where it should have been.
Shepard didn't turn herself in. This was a sacrifice. She wouldn't come back here for the Alliance. Not even to stop a war. Her life was worth too much for that. She wouldn't risk execution if the alternative wasn't extinction.
"How long until your trial?" He still knew how to talk to her. He couldn't ask about the Reapers if there was a chance anyone would overhear it, but he could ask about this.
"Six months," she said. Even if it was a sacrifice, she wouldn't go quietly to her death. She'd choke the courts with their own red tape if it meant she'd get a few more minutes. She only had to drag it out until the invasion.
"You're sure about this?" He tried to ball his hands at his side to stop himself from reaching out to her.
"You never know with these things," she admitted. "It could be tomorrow, they could put it off indefinitely. All I know is that I can only hold it off for so long and in the end, it's not my choice."
Everything Shepard did was ultimately her choice. Except now, things were beyond her control. Even with everything she'd done, she was alone and scared and she deserved better than this. His hand stopped just before her shoulder, as if there was a wall between them.
"How are you doing?" He didn't expect a response, not a real one anyway, but he caught her off guard.
"I've been better." She turned just enough that his fingertips just brushed up against her. A jolt flew between them. Just biotic static, nothing more.
"Is there anything I can do?" Slowly, carefully she leaned into it. Her back and shoulders relaxed and her breathing steadied just a little. He wondered how long it had been since anybody touched her.
Then she caught sight of their reflection in the window.
"Just go." It was sudden, cold, and sharp, but he didn't fall back. "See your family. Be a good soldier for Steven. Whatever you need to do. Just don't come back here." It somehow felt more like instructions than a dismissal.
He backed away slowly, reluctant to leave her alone again, but he had his orders. Still, he paused at the door. "Be careful Shepard."
She didn't respond at first, but just before he left, she replied, so soft he almost missed it, "You too Kaidan."