There was something going on—something between Steve and James Vega.

It was easier to see these things when you weren't in the middle of them. Kaidan wanted to use that as an excuse for why he hadn't figured it out earlier for himself, but really, he had no excuses. Not anymore.

Kaidan also wanted to tell them, whatever it was, to go for it. They didn't know how long they had; they didn't know what could happen later or even tomorrow. They just didn't know anything.

What was the point of making all those mistakes if nobody ever learned from them?

But the words died on Kaidan's tongue when he tried to let them out, during the dinners they ate together. Just a pilot, a soldier and a marine, like the start of a joke in Allers's daily news bulletin. When he tried to chuckle at the thought, a hit of tabasco knocked him square in the back of his throat and the others had to watch him choke, thinking it was about all the things he couldn't handle instead of all the things he couldn't share.

It wasn't Kaidan's place to say anything. They could waste all the time they had because that was what people were good for, apparently.

And when he thought like that, he tended not to make it outside until later in the day, not because his limbs were too heavy but because the sunlight felt wrong. He didn't want to feel it.

By that point, the days themselves were getting shorter, winding out of summer and heading into something closer to fall. Not that they could tell, because the trees were all bare and burnt and black like they'd just come out of winter instead of the other way around. Some of the buildings were more than halfway repaired, but the farther out they got from the radius of Piccadilly and Leicester and the National Gallery, the trinity of London relief efforts, the less obvious the signs were.

It was dangerous out there. Kaidan was recuperating and he wasn't supposed to go alone.

Steve went with him a lot of the time, nothing but walking. Maybe he had his own advice he thought wasn't his place to give, about what it meant to lose somebody the way they'd both lost…somebody. If Kaidan thought it would help, he would've taken it, no hesitations, only a few more questions asked.

He just wanted to know it was going to be all right. But the truth was, he knew it wouldn't be. And this wasn't a shocking revelation, either. He'd known for a long time.

That was what it all came down to. What Kaidan knew, what he'd believed, how he'd prepared—and how he had to live with it after. How he had to force himself into healing when everything inside felt like doing the opposite.

His bruises were fading. His headaches came and went. His biotics were in good shape; every time the Asari nurse checked up on him she was pleased, said it was lucky, and Kaidan gave her a tight smile instead of a wince.

'Yeah,' he said. 'Lucky. Thanks. Thank you.'

He stared at his own progress report to understand the statistics of his body, what he could and couldn't do. Limitations. The physical therapy was something he thought maybe he could work on with Vega, out in back where he exercised every day, but then he realized that was out of the question. If Kaidan wanted to feel inadequate, then sure—but if he wanted to start small and doable, he'd stick to lifting a few simple weights with his bad arm in the privacy of his own room, the separator drawn, pain-sweat beading on the side of his throat. And when Steve came in to ask him how he was doing, Kaidan said, 'Yeah, I'm doing great.'

Lucky, even.

They both meant the same thing when they weren't, actually, the truth.

He lifted the weight, just a hunk of scrap metal that hadn't been melted down and repurposed, to prove the point. His elbow didn't pop. His fingers were closed tight around something cool his palm had made warm.

Steve offered him a smile that wasn't pitying or sad but a little proud of what he figured Kaidan had already accomplished.

Just waking up and swinging his legs over the bed was hard enough. Steve got it. He didn't say anything other than, 'That's great— That's great to hear.'

'Anyway, I won't be taking up your space for much longer,' Kaidan added. 'It's not like I want to overstay my welcome.'

'Hey, don't worry about it.' Steve pushed his already rolled up sleeve higher over his elbow; Kaidan hadn't seen it slipping. 'You know it's fine, right?'

There was a time Kaidan would've given anything to have the excuse to be with somebody alone, without all the usual suspects hanging around too. There was always at least one other person in the picture, watching the sandstorm on Mars, adding to the conversation, blowing even the pretense of privacy wide open and stacking up those chances Kaidan never took because he never had them in the first place. There were so many of those—and nobody showed up injured and bruised to force them into sharing close quarters. Maybe, if they had, Kaidan would've been able to think the word lucky without feeling his skin tug at the bruises, his mouth settling into a hard line.

'Just don't do me any favors,' Kaidan said. 'You've got…something good working out for you here.'

'Right. In the shelter.' Steve tilted his head to the side and Kaidan knew he wasn't buying it.

But Kaidan's arms were already too tired to do much shrugging. 'Sure, okay. If you say so. But if I'm getting in the way—'

'You'll be the first to know,' Steve said. 'Man, I'm itching to get out for a while. Feel like taking a walk with me, soldier?'

Kaidan said yes to the question like he always did. Saying no would be like shooting himself in the foot—something he hadn't done literally for a long time.

All the resolutions he'd made before—they were calling it BD, and even though it was hard to swallow, Kaidan could still get his mind around it, put his head somewhere in the game—didn't have the same weight here. They didn't have the same purpose. They didn't have the one thing they needed, which was a name, the one on the back of a dog-tag that he'd managed to keep throughout the whole ordeal. A single, bent rectangle of stamped metal he couldn't look at, especially not when it caught the light. Not anymore. He couldn't keep it under his pillow, either, so he left it under the cot instead. It was pushed far enough beneath that he didn't trip on it when he swung his legs over the side of the bed, just as simple as a grunt and a 'Sorry for slowing you down, Steve.'

'Slowing me down?' Steve gave his sleeve one final twist. This time, it held in place above the bone. 'Who said anything about that? I'm the one who likes to take it slow these days. Stop and appreciate the view. …You know, the part of it we've still got left.'

It wasn't all bad.

'It's okay,' Kaidan said, not it's great or it's lucky or even it's good. That was how they knew it was the truth, because it didn't pretend to be anything better than it was—or anything worse.

It was closing in on dusk when they stepped outside, a little later than they usually were. In one direction they'd head to Piccadilly. In the other, they'd end up at the orphanage. There was one other field hospital across the river that wasn't a river anymore, and all around them the shells of bombed out buildings were still dark shapes against the sky.

There was a third option, somewhere to the east, branching off from the gallery square.

'Vega has this thing about Turians doing repair work,' Steve said casually. 'Some people just can't see anybody else doing something right and they have to do it for themselves.'

They were doing okay too, Kaidan thought. He just couldn't get the word out anymore, and Steve let it slide.

Walking while thinking was hard enough. Walking while keeping up appearances and a conversation… Some days, it seemed like it was always going to be impossible.

Kaidan stared at their options, then took the third, heading in the direction of somewhere else.

He could still feel it, the reverberations underneath their feet, the echoes in the sidewalks and the torn-up chunks of pavement. It wasn't pretty; there was no gleam, no polish, nothing bright to sting your eyes from every engineered scenic viewpoint. Basically, it wasn't the Presidium because that didn't exist anymore. Neither did a café nobody would remember the same way they remembered the other monuments and memorials, all the places where shit really went down instead of the places where two people finally shared a meal together.

Kaidan's throat didn't feel tight. He just didn't think about the names, the sheen of starlight off the single rectangle of metal, and he was okay.

'Haven't been this far yet,' Steve admitted. 'Funny, isn't it? Where your feet take you. All the routines you fall into without realizing.'

'Funny isn't the word I'd use,' Kaidan replied. 'Maybe… Maybe predictable. Maybe that's more like it.'

'You're right about that.' Steve was following him now, but Kaidan had no idea where he was taking them—just that it was down a wide street, and all the houses they passed weren't even memories of their former selves. And Kaidan didn't mind the perspective, what he had to see out here. The silence. It wasn't as ugly as it seemed. At least it was honest. 'But you can't think of it like that forever. Eventually…something's bound to surprise you. Shake you up a little. You know how it is.'

'Do I?' Kaidan asked. 'Yeah. I guess I do.'

'It doesn't stop happening, you know.' Steve stopped walking instead. There was a bench in front of them—untouched, not even scarred or scathed, without a single twist in or burn-mark on the metal. It was like it'd fallen straight out of the sky from another time, another place. Kaidan thought about ducking down behind it and taking cover—it'd be a good vantage point—but nobody was firing at him. Nobody he could see, anyway. Besides, his joints didn't have the bend. He didn't have the speed. He didn't have the motivation, not anymore. 'Hey—let's sit for a while.'

Steve sat first. Kaidan knew it was to show it was all right, that he was doing it for himself and not for anybody else.

'We don't have to stop,' Kaidan said. 'Not on my account. All the nurses say it's better to do a little extra each time.'

'And they'd be right.' Steve waved him over. Kaidan still couldn't move. 'It looks better from down here, Kaidan. Trust me.'

That wasn't the problem. What Kaidan trusted, what Kaidan knew—that was never in doubt. He just didn't want to trust it or know it, and he was being stubborn; he was being worse than somebody else he once knew, a guy who had to pretend all the way up until the end that they were going to see each other again when both of them knew they weren't.

'He said he was gonna meet me,' Kaidan said. 'After everything was over. And I— I didn't even believe him.'

'You know, it sucks to be right,' Steve replied.

Kaidan took a step forward, then sideways. His knee creaked when it bent, but he made it onto the bench without any trouble, one stiff hand resting with the knuckles curled and swollen on top of his thigh.

'Yeah,' Kaidan said. 'Don't I know it.'