Kaidan couldn't believe what Katherine was trying to convince him of.
There was no way that the newborn in front of him could be his and her baby.
Too many years had passed for that to be even possible.
"I don't believe you," he informed her.
Liara smiled encouragingly at Shepard and offered Katherine her own seat. Sitting down, Katherine stared expectantly at Kaidan. When he did nothing, she nodded her head at his overturned chair. "Sit down, Kaidan. I'm not here to force you to do anything you don't want to do- just hear me out before you leave."
Kaidan just wanted to turn away and leave.
He had every reason to.
Pursing his lips, he righted his chair and sat down, facing Shepard as though facing an enemy. "I don't believe you."
Of course, he wasn't sure who he was trying to convince- her or himself.
Shepard smiled kindly at him. "I wouldn't expect you to simply take my word on it- it's been too long for you…too much has happened," she said gently with pain lacing her words. Kaidan hated that, knowing that he could still cause her pain…that it still mattered to him. "No, I have DNA reports and the file on the Lazarus Project."
"Councilor Anderson already let me-"
"No," she interrupted, "you don't understand. I wasn't given the full version at the time- of course, I was told otherwise. This includes everything from Project Lazarus to the inception of Project Mirror." She passed him a datapad that she had hidden underneath the baby in her arms.
Kaidan looked from the datapad to Shepard. "Project Mirror?"
"That was Echo's designation. They didn't bother to give her a name- why should they since she was kept in a gestation tube and then in stasis? She wasn't anything more than leverage."
It didn't matter that Kaidan didn't quite (want to) believe that Echo was his, it bothered him that they had treated an innocent baby like nothing.
If he believed Shepard.
Which he didn't.
His conviction was ebbing.
"Shepard, I don't even quite believe the original files you gave on the Lazarus Project."
"You've read them?" Shepard asked.
"Haven't you?" Then he remembered the gruesome pictures that had accompanied the information and shook his head. "Never mind."
Liara leaned down and whispered something to Shepard and Kaidan fought against the anger and jealousy of seeing the Asari so close to Shepard. Some old habits seem to die hard- if at all.
Clenching his fists, he glared at Liara. "You believe her- all of this dying and being brought back to life stuff?" he demanded.
She looked at him with the strangest expression on her face. "Of course," Liara said as though he were stupid, "I'm the one who found her."
Well…he hadn't expected that.
"Then how'd she get to Cerberus?"
"I gave her to them. They said she could be brought back and she was dead. She needed to come back- for the galaxy, for her friends…for you."
He wondered if it was his imagination that he heard jealousy in her voice.
Then the words hit.
"You gave her to Cerberus?" he hissed, feeling his biotics start to flare. "After everything we did to put a stop to them- you just gave her to them?"
Shepard balanced the baby in one arm and carefully laid a hand on his arm. "Kaidan," she murmured.
Kaidan grit his teeth and glanced down at the datapad and went immediately to the results, his eyes scanning it back and forth multiple times to be sure that what he was seeing and reading was accurate. He glanced over at the baby- Echo- and then back to the datapad.
That was almost completely inconceivable.
Something from a movie.
He sat the datapad down onto the table and stared from Echo to Katherine, back and forth.
Echo.
He had a daughter named Echo with Katherine Ann Shepard.
Well.
Damn.