Wounded

Kaidan's foot was itching. It was an odd sensation, a disconnected sensation, while the rest of his body felt like it was floating. He heard a strange sound, the hum of a machine, but it wasn't like the throbbing hum of the Normandy's engines. He tried to open his eyes, but found he couldn't. Tried to move his arm to reach down and scratch his foot, but found that neither arm nor foot would move. Hmm. Odd.

He tried to remember where he was. The last thing he remembered was… Mars. Questioning Shepard about Cerberus. For some reason, he felt a deep regret about that, like he'd made a mistake that would take years to correct. And then they'd been fighting Cerberus soldiers. And then…

And then what?

Where was he, anyway?

"Kaidan," a voice said, and he thought he recognised the voice. "God, I nearly lost you…"

The voice seemed to feel the same way about him as he was feeling about Shepard. Loss. Longing. Regret.

"I need you to recover. The galaxy needs you. You're a damn good soldier, and I… I need you."

The itch faded away, leaving Kaidan feeling loose and ungrounded. What had happened to him?

"Fight, you hear me. I need you to fight, to come back to us."

He was fighting, trying to open his eyes, trying to get his cold, stubborn fingers to move, but it seemed to be a fight he was losing.

"Don't die, Kaidan. That's an order."

Footsteps retreated, and Kaidan realised he had been left alone. But he was good at following orders, and if that's what it took to see Shepard again, to earn himself the chance to look into those vivid blue eyes and apologise for everything he had said, for every doubt he had harboured, then fight was exactly what he would do.