A/N It killed me putting him though this, literally killed me dead... like Shep I got better and wrote some happy chapters near the end, but still it hurt.
Thanks yo-sirrah. Bioware owns all.
Chapter Ten - Kaidan.
Kaidan stares at the sky, his eyes darting about searching frantically, and when the pod begins to descend he's already running towards it. He practically collapses onto its door tearing it open, some hitherto unrealised fear clutching at his heart. The pod opens and he sees Joker, alone, his head in his hands and his shoulders shaking.
"Where is she?" he asks quietly, terrified of hearing the answer. Joker looks up, his eyes widening like he's surprised to see Kaidan standing there. Joker wets his lips.
"Kaidan," He croaks like it's a struggle to speak, "I'm so sorry..." and the terrible truth falls from his lips and there's nothing Kaidan can do to stop it. He finds he wants to cover his ears, anything not to hear what Joker is about to say. "There was an explosion and she...she..."
"No," Kaidan whispers and then, "No," he repeats in a louder voice, "she always had an escape plan, a backup, a way out. She's alive! She has to be!" he gabbles and he knows he's right because the idea that Commander Shepard could be taken out by a random unknown attack on her ship was absurd. A Reaper couldn't take her down; a few explosions shouldn't have even dented her armour. She had to be alive.
"She...she got spaced, Kaidan...nobody survives that," Joker whispers quietly, his concern for his friend momentarily overtaking his grief and knowing that however bad he feels, Kaidan's feeling a thousand times worse, "I'm so sorry," he continues, "she's dea..."
"Shut up Joker," Kaidan growls in a dark, menacing voice that causes Joker to fall silent immediately. Kaidan breathes deeply and when he speaks again his voice is quieter, but no calmer. He sounds almost lost, "I need to believe she's alive right now Joker," he says, "I need to believe she's coming back to us, because if I don't..." and Joker nods, understanding completely. Kaidan leans into the pod and carefully helps Joker out, throwing the younger man's arm around his shoulders. Together they shuffle back towards the rest of the crew. Kaidan's eyes turn towards the sky again still searching for her. 'She coming,' he tells himself 'she is.' and by the time they get back to the others, he believes it.
While they wait for the Alliance he gathers everyone together, checking those who are alive against the crew roster, compiling a list of those who are missing, putting together search parties. He sets up the distress beacon because he knows she's relying on him to take care of the crew while she makes her way back to him. When the Alliance ship arrives he makes sure everyone is safely aboard and he hears himself tell the captain that Shepard didn't make it, but he doesn't believe it. He is careful to leave some supplies by the distress beacon for her when she makes it there. When the ship arrives at the Citadel he's immediately called into Anderson's office for a de-brief with him and Admiral Hackett. Again he hears the words;
"She didn't make it sir." cross his lips but he still can't bring himself to believe it. Passively he absorbs the information that the crew has been given a month of shore leave to recover and that they're going to have a memorial for her in two days. He asks for his leave to be reduced to a week. He dutifully relays the information to the crew and ensures they all have everything they need, reassuring them that the pain will pass. When there's finally nothing left to do he heads towards his apartment.
It's not until the door closes behind him and he's finally alone that he actually allows himself to think of her as dead. Until now he's been half operating on autopilot and using his belief that she's coming back to see him through, both elements serving to create a kind of numbness in his heart that protected him from feeling. But here there is nothing else to do, nothing else to think about and he finds he can't lie to himself anymore. She's dead...officially dead. She won't be coming back to him with only a dislocated shoulder this time.
He finds he can't process how he feels about her death, like it's too much information to take. Too much pain bear. He sinks to the floor bracing his hands on his knees unsure of what to do with himself. He sits there, alone in the dark, trying to ascertain how he feels but he finds he feels nothing and, in a detached sort of way, this puzzles him. He's sure he's supposed to feel like his heart was ripped out or something equally dramatic but he feels nothing, absolutely nothing. Like he's not even really alive anymore. Like the part of him that had the capacity to feel overloaded and broke. He just feels numb - empty.
He doesn't know how long he sits there. Could be hours. Could be days. He isn't sure. It isn't until someone knocks at the door that he even moves.
When the door opens and Joker lays eyes on his friend he's shocked. He knew Kaidan wouldn't be taking it well but he never expected it to be this bad. The man clearly hasn't eaten at all in the last two days and for a biotic that's something. He's lost a lot of weight. He looks almost hollow, so different from the strong, quiet, calming presence he'd been aboard the Normandy, providing the perfect counterpoint to Shepard's fiery temper and fierce passion. If he didn't know better, Joker wouldn't think he was even looking at the same man.
"What is it Joker?" Kaidan questions. His voice is hoarse, strained from disuse. Joker wets his lips suddenly nervous. He realises that this man is an unknown entity despite being the same Kaidan he knows so well.
"It's her memorial today, Kaidan," he replies, "I just wanted to..." Joker stops. He's not really sure why he's here, to make sure Kaidan's ok? To be with someone who shares his grief? To ask Kaidan to forgive him? He isn't sure, just knew that he had to come. Kaidan blinks 'Has it been two days already?' he wonders.
"I'm not going," he says, verbalising one of the many thoughts that had been swimming around in his head, Joker moves to protest but Kaidan silences him, "I'm not being dramatic or irrational about this." His voice is calm and measured like it always is but Joker detects a slight change in him. There's a dead look behind his eyes and a flat tone behind his words. It's like his soul has been ripped out of him. "I can't sit there and listen to the military brass stand up and tell me what a hero she was and what a loss it is when they don't really mean it. I can't listen as Anderson talks about her wicked sense of humour and her unfailing efforts to do good because that's not who she really was. I can't stand there and salute her empty coffin as it passes by. Because it's not enough Joker, none of it. There is no fitting tribute to even adequately honour the person she was."
"So, what, she shouldn't have a memorial?" Joker challenges, shocked that Kaidan isn't going to be there to honour the woman he loved so much. Kaidan blinks at him and a muscle twitches in his jaw.
"Just go Joker," he orders quietly, "leave me be." and Kaidan moves back into the room not really caring what Joker does, wanting only to be alone, to stay numb. To never have to feel again.
"I know what she was to you Kaidan." Joker says quietly, still hovering in the doorway, trying anything he can to draw out something of the old Kaidan, "I know what you were to each other and I know she wouldn't want to see you like this." Kaidan merely stares at Joker and Joker has never seen his eyes so cold.
"She's dead Joker," he replies flatly, "so she's not here to see it is she?"
"What if she was here?" Joker retorts choosing to ignore that first bit. "She'd be disappointed in you and you know it." He worries he's gone too far with that comment but he has to pull his friend out of this spiral, if only because he feels partially responsible for causing it, "I know what you're going though Kaidan," he adds calmly, "we all lost her that day."
"You have no fucking idea!" Kaidan spits and Joker realises that this is the first time he ever heard the marine curse. "I want to stand up there and deliver her eulogy. I want to tell the world that she was far more than just a fantastic Commander. That when she wakes up in the morning she's just as groggy as everyone else. That when she goes to sleep at night she likes to cocoon the sheet around her because it makes her feel safe. That her hair annoys her but she keeps it long because that's how her mother had it. I want to say that every moment I ever spent in her company was like magic, that I couldn't believe my luck when she told me she loved me back!" he turns to face Joker un-shed tears brimming in his eyes, "But I can't..." he chokes out before adding bitterly, "because how would her Lieutenant know these things about her?"
His words shock Joker because in all that time, the time they had together he'd never considered through his jokes and his teasing how difficult it had actually been for the two of them, keeping such an obvious connection as secret as possible.
"You have to go Kaidan," he states firmly, "she deserves to have the man she loved there to remember who she really was." Kaidan's shoulders slump at that and Joker knows he's won.
"Give me a minute." Kaidan replies, seeing sense and disappearing into the bathroom.
When the two men exit the lift Garrus is waiting for them. Kaidan nods to him and Garrus lays a hand on his shoulder, they don't exchange words, no words are needed right now. Together they enter the hall where the memorial is being held and see row upon row of chairs all pointing towards a small, bright-white stage. On the stage there's a pulpit and a table where her empty coffin is going to sit. The whole place is covered in Alliance blue; apparently the Alliance is keen to claim her as their hero.
The three of them sit together, Kaidan in the centre, and settling between the two men he thinks of as brothers he feels a little better knowing that they're hurting too. That he wasn't the only one in the world that knew her - just the one that knew her best. He knows that they probably won't see each other ever again after this day because the pain will be too great for each of them, but right now it helps for the three of them to be together, just the boys. 'Shepard's Boys...' he thinks. She'd called them that once when they were all standing around on the bridge, keeping Joker company and sharing a cup of coffee. It had been a joke but they found they'd rather liked it and somewhere along the line they'd come to think of themselves as her boys. But not anymore.
He doesn't listen to any of the speeches because none of them will be good enough and instead he sorts through his memories of her, creating a sort of homage to her in his head. He remembers her sleepy half-smile the first morning they spent together on shore leave, when she woke up and saw him watching her. He remembers the way she habitually threw her head back to laugh, the movement tossing her hair, making those beautiful tresses fall down her back. He remembers how she had pulled him against her after he kissed her for the very first time, wanting more. He remembers how beautiful she had looked that night before Ilos. How alive she seemed even on the brink of death. He fixes her like that in his memory forever and vows to keep her there always. In his head he apologises to her for the ridiculousness of this charade, 'not your fault Kaidan.' she says.
In the end he does salute the coffin as it passes but it's only because he has to and he figures it's a meaningless gesture anyway because she's not actually in there. 'It should have been me,' he realises.
A week later he knows that he has messages from Joker and Garrus and probably Chakwas too. He knows they're trying to help him and that they're probably the only ones who can at this point but he doesn't want to be helped. He wants to push ahead, push it away, but he can't bring himself to even try to forget her and so he lives half in the past, half in the future, desperately trying to ignore the present. 'It should have been me.' When he opens his terminal he deletes all their messages without reading them, opening only the one from Admiral Hackett which contains details of his next posting. When he's read it he deletes that too, grabs his duffle, and leaves.
Months later he's half aware that they are desecrating her name and calling her insane. Dismissing all they had achieved together. Dismissing her. He knows that if she were alive she'd want him to defend her, to carry on her work and fight for their cause. But she's not alive to tell him this so he doesn't and he lets it go on. 'It should have been me.'
A year and half later he's got to a point where he only thinks of her at night and the dull ache in his chest begins to ease a little. Today for the first time since the Normandy went down he manages to laugh, but it still should have been him.
Two years later there are rumours that she's alive and he doesn't know whether to believe them or not. He's sure fate is playing some cruel joke on him, bringing her back into the public limelight just as he was beginning to go twenty-four hours without her crossing his mind. He's not sure what to do about any of it though so he does nothing. After all, how likely is it that the rumours are actually true?