Chapter 2 - "Talking At Each Other"

"Commander, you have a new message."

"Thank you, Kelly," answered Shepard as she brought up her message inbox. As soon as she read the subject header, Kara knew who had sent her the message. "I'll be in my quarters," she told her assistant and turned for the elevator.

When she sat at the terminal in the captain's quarters, she brought up her unread messages, her finger hovering over the button to open the message. She pushed down the flutter of hope rising in her chest, letting the dread dominate, as she has always preferred to expect the worst. You were never disappointed if you never had expectations to be crushed. Finally, she let her finger drop and the message appeared on her screen.

"I spent two years pulling myself back together after you went down with the Normandy. It took me a long time to get over my guilt for surviving and move on."

'Two years for you, maybe,' she thought, as an unbidden moment of bitterness bubbled to the surface, which almost instantly turned onto herself. 'Why didn't I say anything? Why didn't I just tell him? It wasn't my fault I wasn't conscious - hell, alive - for the past 2 years. That Anderson wouldn't even tell me where you were... how to contact you.'

"If you're still the woman I remember..."

'That's the crux of it, isn't it?' Her scars may have healed, but that was the problem, she wasn't really the same. Even the hard-won scar that once cut a swath through her left eyebrow since Akuze had disappeared. 'Why didn't I just send a letter to his account as soon as I got the Normandy back?' A tiny flutter of panic sparked as her mind came up blank. What was Kaiden's address? Why didn't she know that? For a moment she wondered if he was right to doubt her, if she was who she thought she was, as she grasped for that information, only be extinguished as she realized she had never known his mailing address. She had never had a need to, as the entirety of their relationship had taken place aboard the Normandy. She released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as the answer surfaced.

For the few weeks since she had been 'awakened' those momentary flashes of self-doubt had plagued her whenever she felt her mind take an extra moment to find an answer. She wasn't sure if she was really having troubled retrieving information, or if it had always been like this and she was simply hyper-sensitive to it because Miranda's pop quizzes had sewn a seed of doubt in her mind.

"When things have settled down a little...maybe...I don't know. Just take care...Kaidan."

Her eyes drifted to the picture frame, still lying face down, after she finished the letter and felt a small lump well up in her throat. 'He doesn't even know. How could he?' She was on a suicide mission. Not that she wasn't going to do her damnedest to stay alive, to keep her crew alive. But there were no guarantees in her business. He would understand, wouldn't he?

Kara sighed as she hit 'reply' watched the cursor blink, awaiting her input. She wasn't sure what she wanted to say. Finally she pushed her simmering anxiety down, letting out whatever may come.

"Kaiden,

I'm not sure what to say. I'm not even sure you wanted a response to your letter. In any case, please hear me out. Please know that I didn't know how to contact you. I didn't know you were on Horizon. Anderson can verify that he was no help to me at all. I didn't want to just appear like that. Being thrust together like that wasn't fair to either of us. But since when is the universe fair? I also shouldn't have let you just walk away like that on Horizon. But then, it wasn't really fair of you to storm off without letting me explain, either... it's not like there is a manual to dealing with this kind of thing, is there? All I can say is that I hope you realize that it's just as difficult for me right now as I'm sure it has been for you these past two years.

I'm still trying to get my mind around that. Two years. It doesn't seem real. But then I see the people I once knew changed overnight to me, and I know its real. The Galactic News echoes down the halls of every city I visit and I hear announcements of memorials to myself. Hell, did you know that there's a VI program out there with my face on? Anyway... I'm sorry. I'm avoiding what I know I need to tell you. I owe you more than you could possibly know. It hurts to say this, and I pray you understand what I have to do. But I feel like a ghost, haunting the world that has moved on without me.

I didn't want to die. And I didn't choose to be brought back. Certainly, I never chose who brought me back. But none of that changes where I now find myself. I've gotten a second chance to finish what I started. Even if it were possible to hide from the Reapers... it wouldn't be right to take the selfish, easy choice, and run away.

The mission I'm on... I can't tell you much. Only that I'm the only one who can lead it. That isn't arrogance, just an admittance of what's happened to me, and what's ahead of me. I won't lie. It's most likely a suicide mission. I've gotten a second chance, and I don't mean to waste it dealing with Council or Alliance politics. I will use it to do my best to keep my crew alive, even at the cost of myself.

It's because of this, that I can't contact you again. Not until this is mission is over. If I don't make it back...well, nothing will have really changed for you. Not really. I died by the hand of the Collectors the first time, and if I don't make it back, I'll simply have died by the same hand a second time. Hopefully taking them down in the process. But if I don't make it back...."

Her fingers paused. The cursor blinked at her, as if goading her into finishing the thought. 'C'mon, you've faced down thousands of enemies, you can say this. Have to say this. For him, if nothing else. So he can move on if the worst happens.' She inhaled, her fingers trembling slightly, and resumed typing.

"...if I don't make it back, I'm just grateful that I was given the chance to say goodbye. I don't know where we'll be... or even if there will be a 'we' anymore. I want you to live. Please don't wait for me. You've already lost two years of your life to that. I can't take any more away from you. I can feel my time, my life, slipping through my fingers like grains of sand. The harder I try to hold onto my old life, the more it slips away. Seeing you... your reaction... finally made me realize I could not hold on to the past. I will be spending whatever time I have left before the mission living as best as I can, but I'm not ready to build a new one yet. I have to live in the now, because I may not have a tomorrow. Please, for the love, the memory, of what we had, do the same. How does that old saying go? If you that which you love is truly yours, set it free. If it doesn't return, it was never truly yours... if it does.... Oh, you know.

I am still the woman you knew. And if you really knew that woman, you'd know that she would have to do this. I don't know what will happen, or how long it will take. But I promise you, when.... if.... if I survive this, when I can reclaim my own life, I will contact you. Please don't wait, though. Instead, I hope you can see our meeting as an opportunity. Don't blame yourself for what happened to me. Just know that I care for you, and don't want to waste any more time waiting for a ghost. Goodbye, Kaiden Alenko.

- Kara"

She punched the 'send' button before she could think better of it and stared blankly at the empty screen as the letter shot into the ether of space out of her control. Shepard ran a hand down her face, surprised by the wetness she found there.

"Approaching Illium, Commander," Joker's voice crackled over the her intercom.

"Be right there," responded Shepard, finding her voice cracking. She cleared her throat before continuing. "Let Garrus and Miranda know I need them ready in ten."

"Aye, aye, Commander."

Kara Shepard rose, made her way to her bathroom sink, and splashed her face with cold water, doing her best to push thoughts of her past to the back of her mind before donning her armor. She was living for today now, preparing for one particular tomorrow, and not a day past that.

Next time: Shepard finds that living for the present means letting and unlikely companion in to a place she thought had room for no one else.