[Entry 010]

Being back in space should have been a relief. It should have been simple.

When the Alliance scheduled another trip out to the Sol Relay for Kaidan and his biotic squad I managed to weasel my way into a spot on the transport out there. My therapist signed off on the trip with the assurance that I would only miss one, maybe two, appointments. My doctors signed off on it because she did. By all accounts it should have been a good thing.

Somewhere in my delusion I thought being back in space was the detail that I missed. I thought when I was back everything else would just fall into place. Being on any ship in any capacity would be a remedy.

As it turns out, I was wrong.

That might be because the only thing I can really do is sit on the observation deck and look out the windows. I'm not part of the crew so there's no need for me anywhere but the passenger deck. I'm not a member of the biotic squad so there's no need for me to join their meetings and training sessions.

I think you still expect life to just go back to the way it was one day, the therapist had told me at our last session. I still want to believe she's wrong even though my gut tells me she's probably right.

I look over at Kaidan who's asleep beside me. I long to touch him, to run my fingers through his hair or kiss his shoulder but I don't want to wake him. He went to bed upset about something he refused to speak of. Hopefully he'll find some comfort in sleep.

I had been sitting at the tiny little desk in our quarters when he'd stormed in after being caught up in meetings and training all day. He'd been tense; I could tell by the clench of his jaw and the way his fingers had lingered at his temples even after he realized I noticed. It's a look I know too well; it's a look that tells me he's upset and has a migraine coming on.

I had asked him what was wrong but he'd brushed me off. He didn't want to talk about it. He just wanted some time by himself. I pushed him a bit. I had told him he could tell me anything.

It had sounded silly when I said it because I knew he knew that but I felt like I needed to say it anyway.

I shouldn't have been surprised when he snapped back that it was nothing, even though I wished he'd just talk to me. I had let it go because we didn't need a fight, especially not here where the walls are thin and our voices carry to those staying in the adjoining quarters.

He had retreated to the shower and I had gone to the mess hall. Maybe I should have stayed and made him talk to me; it's what my mother would have done. She had a way of latching onto a topic and picking at it until the other person gave in or walked away. I didn't share that same style.

It was in the mess hall that I figured it out. Gagarin Station. There had been some command from the Alliance and we had been rerouted. What better place for a squad of biotics to be based out of then the old biotic research station.

I could have screamed I was so frustrated. Instead I had settled for a tumbler full of whisky.

Once I could have called Alliance Brass and had a title and two legs to stand on when I fumed at them for making such a stupid decision. Now, even though I hadn't been discharged, I didn't have either of those things. I had called in many favors to just get on this trip and it left me in no place to say anything at all.

I had grumbled over the fact and poured myself another glass.

When I got back to our quarters Kaidan had been asleep or at least pretending to be. I thought about waking him but decided it wouldn't do either of us any favors. Don't push him, Shep, I told myself. Give him a little time.

Gagarin Station, once called Jump Zero, held a lot of old, painful memories for Kaidan. How could it not? He had told me about brain camp on a few occasions, had let me comfort him after he told me about Vyrnnus and Rahna. He'd been a kid back then, just a fresh faced teen who'd never fought anyone or thought about being a soldier. Killing for the first time was something you never forgot and for Kaidan it was made worse by the fact that in the eyes of the girl he was protecting he had become the very tormentor that had terrified her in the first place.

It had been an accident but accidents often weigh heavy on troubled hearts.

Kaidan stirs and rolls towards me. My breath catches in my throat as he drapes his arm over my thighs I let it out slowly when he seems to drift off to sleep again. "I love you, Shepard," he murmurs.

"I love you too," I whisper letting my fingers brush against his hair. "We'll get through this."

It's been that way from the very beginning. Maybe I didn't know it what that feeling was when we ran that first mission on Eden Prime. Maybe I didn't even know for sure when we made our first, unpracticed attempts at flirting on the original Normandy. I figured it out pretty quickly after that.

I guess things don't go back to the way they were before, especially not after something as monumental as the Reaper War. Maybe nothing else will find a place in the puzzle that is my life now but I can be certain that one thing will always fit. I will always love Kaidan and Kaidan will always love me. We'll always have each other's six. Jump Zero might lie ahead but we'll get through it. We've survived worse.

So maybe some things don't need to fall back into place because they never changed to begin with.