Arms, strong and protective, wrapped around her. Two years of pain, sorrow and longing came rushing back in a wave. She sagged against him, hands clutching the edge of his breastplate and yanking him close to seize his lips in a kiss. For that one moment in time, nothing else mattered – just them. It seemed they were doomed to only ever having these brief stolen times together.

"Alenko."

An unfamiliar voice broke Kaelia out of her trance and forced her to take a step back. His arms pulled, refusing to let go of her entirely. Her eyes roamed his face, drinking in every detail. She frowned when she noted that his scar seemed to have vanished. "Where's your…"

He shook his head. "Apparently rebuilding me didn't include adding old scars."

Rebuilding… She stared at him. "How long…it's been over a month since I heard the rumors of…"

A hand reached to brush over her hair; he only did that when he was trying to soothe her. "A few months, at most."

She couldn't help a flash of anger. A few months? She pushed his arms off of her. "A few months? Why didn't you try to contact me? I…" Her eyes filled with tears again as she remembered. "I watched you die. We…Kaidan, I loved you. Watching you…that tore me apart. I quit the Alliance when they backtracked on the Reapers. I owed you that much."

"Anderson stonewalled me when I visited him. I tried, Lia; believe me, I tried."

The news hit her like a truck. "Ander-…he… You talked to him?" She felt dizzy. He lied to me?

He nodded softly. "I'm sorry, but we've had too many leads on the Reaper threat. I had to keep going." That certainly sounded like him: duty above all else. It still hurt to hear, though. Duty to Cerberus?

Kaelia's hand flew up and connected with his cheek – hard. His face whipped to the side with the force of her slap. "We? You are working for Cerberus?" She immediately regretted lashing out, but the anger was slowly taking control again. He knew he could trust her…why didn't he find her? They could have worked on this together!

"No! I'm…they're funding it, but only because the Alliance refused to help. Anderson told me they refused to help you, too. That you're a full-time Spectre now."

Oh, no. Don't you dare…

"Come with us, Lia. Come with me. I need you." His hands reached for hers, gently holding them.

She wanted to hate him so much for asking her, she truly did; but when her eyes lifted to meet his, she realized he already hated himself enough for the both of them. She just couldn't do it, not even for him. He knew this about her, her principles: her refusal to settle for less than the highest road. He had to understand. Her head shook slowly. "How can you ask me to work with Cerberus?"

Kaidan sighed and lifted a hand to stroke her cheek. "I'm not. I'm asking you to come help me stop these attacks. Do you trust me?"

What she wanted to do was twist her head away from his touch: instead, Kaelia's body betrayed her and her face rested against his hand further. "I do trust you, Kaidan…but I don't trust Cerberus. How do you know they're not behind these attacks?" Finally her body listened to her commands and she stepped back – free of his overpowering caress. "…Don't you think it's a little convenient we both ended up here at the same time?"

He had no answer to that; the quirk of his eyebrows told her he had already thought the same thing. The pleading in his expression threatened to bring her to her knees. All she wanted to do was go with him, but she just couldn't betray everything she was as a person.

"Lieutenant." His chin lifted involuntarily at her call; probably reflexes from they were officers together. "Alenko." Both their brows furrowed as she continued. "Kaidan." He bit his lower lip at the vulnerability she let sink into the final name. "I would follow you to the end of the galaxy, even all the way into dark space to take the fight directly to them; but you can't ask me to commit treason. Treason."

She bent down to pick up her pistol, quickly flicking the safety back on. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

A solemn nod greeted her when she rose. "I'm sorry, Kaelia. I never had a choice; I never asked for any of this to happen to me."

Tears began to form again when it dawned on her that he'd never had a choice his entire life: his biotics, being pulled into the Reaper mission, and now this. "I know. You've never asked for anything to happen to you, but it still does." She paused to take a deep, throat-clearing breath. "Take care, Kaidan. I…I couldn't stand to lose you again."

Their audience apparently didn't matter to him, given the way he quickly closed the distance and pulled her into a gentle but firm embrace. His words washed over her ear in a warm rush. "I love you, Kaelia. When this is all over, I'll find you."

His words had what she imagined was the intended effect: hearing them melted away some of her shock. Commander Mode was slowly allowed to kick in and she only nodded silently in return. He seemingly took the cue and stepped back, letting her go with some reluctance. The last thing she said to him was a quiet, "I'll hold you to that."

She stood stock-still as he and his cohorts departed, pistol hanging from her limp arm. Shepard didn't move until she heard a ship soar away – taking with it the one thing she wanted more than anything in the galaxy. The next few minutes of her life were spent just breathing. The wind eventually pulled her from the near-meditation she had started. Her eyes opened slowly and she looked around.

Now she was in an abandoned colony. She trudged toward the nearest prefab. The first thing she needed to do was sleep; that was a lesson hard-learned when they were on the run from Saren. Every time she was emotionally blindsided, she needed to sleep like a log before any constructive processing could happen. Gun fights were one thing: adrenaline and cold as steel nerves were easy when under fire. In general, she was more apt to compartmentalize all her feelings and ignore them forever anyway. Today, though…today she didn't want to ignore them.

Her shins bumped into the nearest bed, the pain a welcome jolt of reality for her brain. Guns were unhooked and fell wherever they felt like bouncing off to. Taking her clothes off was probably a bad idea…just in case there were any survivors. She crawled onto the bed and curled up into the smallest ball her body would allow. Finally in bed, alone and clutching a pillow, she allowed herself to let go.

Bitter tears carried her into sleep.