Kaidan sat despondently in the human section of the Zakera Ward at a run-down noodle bar. The chefs chattered to each other in Japanese, his translator picking up scattered words. His own ears recognized a couple of phrases and he tried to pass the time observing how rusty he'd gotten. He had to get out of the house. Kaidan hated the in-between time between missions, it gave him far too much time to think and brood…and the noodles he was picking at tasted terrible.
His apartment felt too quiet, the sparse furnishings were depressing. He sat there all morning trying to work on some reports but had eventually had to escape the oppressive atmosphere. The knowledge that Shepard was out there alive somewhere, had suddenly changed his perspective on almost everything. He had started renting the apartment a year ago, when the Alliance had started sending him on more and more high-risk assignments, and it had initially served him well. There was not a hint of the person who actually lived there, no pictures or decorations, functional and best of all: held no reminders or memories of Shepard.
Now, he couldn't sit still in it. He wanted to be doing something about Cerberus, something about Shepard. He kept turning their last conversation on Horizon over and over in his mind, wishing things had gone differently. He wished he hadn't lost his temper, he wished she hadn't lost hers so spectacularly. A wry smile twisted his lips at that, and he had to take a sip of his sake to cover it. Shepard had always been such a live wire, Cerberus hadn't changed that. His skin stung for days after she'd slapped him on Horizon; the pain was a stark reminder of her.
Anderson had not been happy to hear his report from Horizon, and not just over the loss of half of the colony. Kaidan had stood in his office over a week ago, giving his report in the most even and coolly professional tone he could manage.
"…after that we had, uh, w-words and Shepard left with Cerberus. She was accompanied by Garrus Vakarian and a woman named Miranda. Intelligence suggests her to be Miranda Lawson, one of Cerberus' top agents and scientists." Kaidan cursed himself for his little stumble. 'Words' was a massive understatement; they'd practically had a screaming match. Kaidan didn't even ever do screaming matches. Shepard…she just knew which of his buttons to push exactly.
Anderson seemed to consider his words carefully. His brows were furrowed intensely. "How did Shepard seem to you?"
"Like…like herself, sir. She seemed agitated, but she usually is when she's on a mission." Kaidan answered.
"Hmm." Anderson looked deep in thought, and he got up to pace behind his desk. Kaidan wished he could too, but his professional parade rest helped keep his head clear. It allowed him to recite facts about Shepard like she wasn't a woman he knew every inch of.
"She seemed lucid, sir, I asked whether she was under duress and she responded in the negative. It's really her, somehow." He said the last part under his breath, still not understanding what had happened to Shepard in those two years. How could she leave him? Did she go rogue? The woman he'd left on the burning Normandyand the woman who had stood in from of him in the field on Horizon did not connect in his mind as the same person. How could it be? The Normandywas utterly destroyed.
Anderson was quiet for the moment, he looked engrossed in his own thoughts and Kaidan was suddenly angry with him. He had said Shepard had visited him on the Citadel - he should have told Kaidan.
"You seem to have something to say, Commander?" Anderson seemed to sense Kaidan's hostility, lifting his head, from where it was bowed in thought, to look Kaidan in the eyes.
"Permission to speak freely, sir?" Kaidan's tone was clipped. He did want to say something, he couldn't let it go.
Anderson nodded.
"With all due respect: you lied to me, or you omitted information, but that's really the same thing. You said you saw her here on the Citadel before Horizon was hit. Why didn't you tell me? I could have been prepared. She completely threw me for a loop." As Kaidan spoke he thought about Ash's definition of 'all due respect'.
'Why is it whenever someone says "with all due respect", they really mean "kiss my ass"?'
Anderson leaned back in the chair, his expression unperturbed despite Kaidan's uncharacteristic outburst. "And that is why I didn't tell you. I wanted your reaction to her to be genuine, to judge whether it was her without my perceptions compromising your honest opinion and first impression."
"But you already suspected it was really her? Not a cyborg, I mean."
Anderson let out a sigh, one that seemed to come from deep inside, a place of worry and heavy burden. "Yes. No one, not even Cerberus' top scientists, can fake that unique pain-in-the-ass she is. I've watched her grow from a scrawny teenager to the extraordinary woman she is. They could not counterfeit her so exactly." Kaidan opened his mouth to protest, annoyed at Anderson for not telling him but he spoke over Kaidan. "But I was concerned that I was just seeing what I wanted to see…desperate to have the woman who was like a daughter to me, back."
Anderson looked years older than his actual age, and Kaidan couldn't exactly blame him. Kaidan hadn't even thought she was real when he had seen her running toward him. The little greys in Anderson's hair mirrored Kaidan's own. Love had made fools of them all.
Anderson's voice suddenly hardened, his famed N7 hardass tone in place. Kaidan unconsciously shifted in his stance. "Now, while we are talking about lies: you lied to me, son. And I don't usually let my officers get away with that. You're lucky I am semi-retired from the Alliance; I would usually note a formal reprimand in your file. "
Kaidan was confused; he was usually unfailingly honest, even to his own detriment. "Sir?"
Anderson looked at him flatly, seemingly very unimpressed by his puzzled expression. "You were having an affair. You never mentioned this; you should have recused yourself from the mission. Where is your impartibility-"
'Oh. He knows. Shit.' His brain scrambled for a moment, trying to think on how to explain, how to not leave him exposed and vulnerable. Kaidan didn't like talking about his relationship with her, it was too private.
"Councillor, I assure you our relationship had no bearing-"
"The hell it didn't! You look me in the eye, Commander, and tell me you weren't tempted to join up with her on Horizon." Anderson all but demanded.
Kaidan thought of the line of her jaw, of kissing her again, of waking up beside her, her laugh, her temper.
Kaidan's eyes skittered away from Anderson.
Anderson nodded knowingly as if he didn't expect any different. "I thought so. Shepard…there is something about her, Alenko. She is the most aggravating and hot-headed woman I have ever met, but damn if you can help being drawn to her."
"You don't need to tell me that, sir."
There was a pregnant silence for the moment, each man lost in his memories.
Then when Anderson spoke, his voice was resigned and quietly gentle. "You're in love with her, aren't you, son?"
'Hey LT, it's a secret so don't tell anyone or I'll have to totally kill ya, but I love you more than the moon and the stars.' She winks at him, just sauntering by him in the Normandy's corridor. When she is happy her sense of humor is decidedly off-color, but it still makes him laugh.
He glances around furtively and sees no one so he presses her into the wall to kiss her senseless, bending his head down to fuse his lips to hers.
'I love you, too. More than anything.' He whispers it to the shell of her ear and she giggles into his shoulder.
They're heading to Alchera tomorrow. She has to disentangle herself from him to do a check-in with Joker and leaves him alone and stupidly in love in the corridor.
Kaidan swallowed, but there was a massive lump in his throat. He supposed that was where all his denials were stuck, the denials he should make to protect his career, to protect Shepard. Anderson wasn't supposed to know, Shepard hadn't wanted him to.
He said nothing, which was answer enough for Anderson.
"You are a damned fool, and her too. She admitted it when she was here, I had my suspicions before during the Saren mess, but I had hoped you would have had an ounce of self-control, at the very least good judgement of your behalf."
"Sorry, sir. I-it kind of just happened. We couldn't help it." Kaidan stammered, aware of the lame excuse and uncomfortably reminded of the girlfriends he had had in high school, before Brain Camp, and meeting their fathers. Only this quasi-father was a N7 and Citadel Councillor who no doubt hid an assault rifle in his office.
There was another awkward silence broken only by the sounds of the fountains outside and distant Presidium bustle. Anderson was the first to break their staring contest, seemingly satisfied by whatever personal test he'd ran Kaidan through.
"It does mean I can trust you, Alenko. You're obviously incorruptible; even Shepard couldn't make you run off to Cerberus with her. God knows she had me wanting to help, but we're needed here, to get the job done the right way."
"Yes, sir."
"There's things that need to be done now, we're going to have to work together to bring Shepard in safely somehow. I can assume you have my back on this one?" Kaidan nodded. He would've done anything for her to stop what she was doing, the danger she walked into willingly. Who knew what Cerberus was doing to her?
Anderson pulled a file up on his console. "The rest of the Council is getting…anxious and it worries me. I'm going to work on them, try and smooth things over. But before that, I have an assignment for you, highly classified. How were your infiltration scores?"
Kaidan supposed he should get back to his apartment, the noodles weren't particularly cheering him up and he was anxious about the mission Anderson had assigned him. It wasn't exactly his forte, but he was the only one Anderson trusted implicitly to get the job done. Kaidan wouldn't let him down.
He started the lonely walk back to his apartment, preferring it to the transport to clear his head. The Ward was in its perpetual twilight, dark, hazy and filled with the smells of aliens, markets and cooking food. Kaidan liked being here better than the Presidium, it felt genuine and messy even though it would sometimes trigger a migraine. Shepard had liked it too; she'd always been a little creeped out by the Presidium's sterility.
As he walked, Kaidan got the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. He would turn around for a moment, wondering if he was being followed, but only see the usual Ward residents. He kept his pace the same speed as before but his brain switched into high gear. Muggings and general crime were common in the Wards, but he wasn't worried. Few would dare to mess with him, the tell-tale marks of an implant on the back of his neck not to mention his height and general obvious fitness level.
Still, the prickly feeling trickling down his spine did not abate and he decided not to head straight home. Whoever was following him was obviously an amateur; he'd known Infiltrators and espionage specialists in his years in the Alliance, they would never have tipped the target off that they were being followed. Kaidan was confident he could handle whatever they could throw at him, his Barrier mnemonic was ready, it would activate in a moment's notice. He felt mostly curiosity about why he was being followed; he wasn't even technically on duty until he shipped out on Anderson's op.
The poor area of Zakera Ward had grimy alleyways, lit by dodgy neon signs offering 'asari massages'. Kaidan couldn't help rolling his eyes at them. It smelt strange too, like refuse and filth after a rain shower in the slums on Earth, but of course, it couldn't even rain on the Citadel.
The alley he turned down was empty and this time he did jog to the end of it, quickly ducking around the wall and climbing the Keeper access ladder that he knew would be there. It gave him a huge height advantage, perfectly placed to spot the human that predictably followed Kaidan into the alleyway. He looked unremarkable, designed not to stand out in a crowd. He was of average height and build, smaller than Kaidan and seemingly not military-trained. He was dressed in a plain shirt and jeans but Kaidan could see the outline of a concealed pistol under his shirt. Kaidan's little shadow looked twitchy, almost nervy and Kaidan had had enough.
Standing from his perch he artificially lowered his own mass; just liked he'd been taught in Brain Camp. He leapt off his small balcony, perfectly landing straight in front of his stalker. The man's eye widened in shock and Kaidan knew that he instantly recognised that his stalking game was up.
The man seemed to throw all caution to the wind, panicked that he'd been found out.
He whipped out an automatic pistol faster than Kaidan had thought him capable and immediately emptied a clip at Kaidan in an unrestrained burst. It was all for nothing, bullets bouncing off Kaidan's Barrier. Still, in the back of his head Kaidan cursed himself for not wearing armor that morning. Without his kinetic shields in place his biotics would have to do all the work, and in a drawn out fight ,that would drain him quickly. He needed to end it as swiftly as he could.
Mindful of this, Kaidan thrust out his arm. The man's eyes were shocked as he was flung into a wall.
To Kaidan's surprise he got up again, the fall not seeming to faze him. The nondescript man activated some kind of function on his omni-tool with a swipe, an orange blade springing into existence. It was like the kind Kaidan knew were sometimes used for melee applications, an omni-blade. The Alliance didn't usually bother with it or train soldiers in its use, modern battles were usually fought at a distance and melee was no match for mass-accelerated rounds.
Kaidan didn't even have his gun; he'd turned it into the quartermaster in the Alliance barracks after returning from Horizon.
'It was supposed to be safe on the Citadel. You idiot, never should have let your guard down.'
His heart was beating faster, ready for whatever this slippery man had in store for him.
Kaidan Alenko did not give up easy.
The man charged at him, recognising the futility of his gun for the moment. Kaidan crouched, ready for his attack and as soon as he got close enough coated his hand in biotics to punch the extended blade; it fritzed, sparking and then it completely faded. The pale man feinted to Kaidan's left then leaned in to punch Kaidan in the mouth, splitting his lip. He was far, far too quick for his build. For a moment Kaidan worried about cybernetics or drug enhancement. Kaidan shook it off though, striking his adversary in the solar plexus.
"Fuck!" The man spat, skittering away from Kaidan and desperately levelling his gun again. It was no use, Kaidan thrust his hand upwards and the man was hit by a blue blast lifting him into the air and completely ruining his aim. Another wave of Kaidan's hand and the Throw violently shoved him into the same wall he'd hit earlier. This time he didn't get up.
Kaidan jogged over to him, turning him onto his back by gripping the man's plain brown shirt. He was still alive and mostly conscious, just dazed.
"Who are you?! Why were you following me?" Kaidan demanded, as he fumbled to activate his own omni-tool. Kaidan smeared medi-gel onto a cut on the man's head, as he tried to jerk away.
"Ha. Little Alliance soldier boy. You don't think I'll talk, do you?" Kaidan's attacker had brilliant-green eyes, like a cats. Kaidan absently noticed they were an anomaly, something to help identify him. Most humans these days were colored like himself and Ash: black or brown hair, dusky skin and dark eyes due to Earth's now ubiquitous speedy transport systems and accordingly increased population mingling. Light eyes and light hair were a rare trait, especially green. One of the first things he'd noticed physically about Shepard had been her strange dark blue-grey eyes in combination with her pale complexion. In contrast to her, these unusual emerald eyes were narrowed in hate as he spat blood into Kaidan's face.
Kaidan jolted away, disgusted. Shaking his head he stood and planted a boot on the man's chest, making sure he wouldn't move, and activated the comm function on his 'tool for C-SEC.
The weird man just watched him, wiping blood from his mouth. When he was done with C-SEC, Kaidan waved his omni-tool over the stalker's, attempting to hack through his encryption. This seemed to panic the man, he struggled under Kaidan's foot.
"Stop it, C-SEC will be here any minute. You may as well tell me: why were you following me?"
"Fuck you!" the man seemed to bite down with his jaw and a moment later Kaidan realized what he was doing: he had a poison capsule concealed in his teeth and had just bitten through it.
"No!" Kaidan threw himself on his prisoner, thrusting his finger into the man's mouth, trying to fish the capsule out but it was too late. He was already frothing at the mouth, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.
He was dead in less than two seconds. Kaidan swore under his breath, and dejectedly sat beside the corpse to finish data-mining the dead man's omni-tool. As soon as he tried to access some files, or maybe it was keyed to the man's vital signs, there was an angry beep. To Kaidan's alarm the 'tool started erasing all its data.
"Shit, shit, shit." Kaidan frantically transferred what he could to his own omni-tool. It was far too little, too late; he'd only managed to snag a fraction of what was on there.
Kaidan surveyed the way his afternoon had progressed with a weary sigh. A dead body and a mere ten gigs of data to show for it, wonderful.
He was glad Shepard wasn't here for this. Her spectacular temper would have the poor corpse thrown into a sun or something equally drastic.
Kaidan sat in his apartment later, his omni-tool synched up to his home console. It was more advanced and could handle Kaidan's digging through the data better. He hadn't bothered alerting C-SEC to what he'd stolen from the dead man's omni-tool; their overworked technicians wouldn't be any better than him at decryption and Kaidan sensed whatever would be on there would be classified, not suitable for the eyes of the average C-SEC agent. Mostly Kaidan wanted to know what was so special about him, why he was being stalked and observed and whether this was the first time. Kaidan thought worriedly that this may have just been the first time he'd noticed. Surveillance was generally carried out in shifts with rotating people on a schedule. He may have just had a sloppy stalker today, which meant there could be more. Kaidan would have to be cautious. He hadn't alerted Anderson yet, as he planned to head to his office in the morning.
He padded into the small kitchenette to make a coffee while his self-made program mined information and automatically parsed standard decryption layers. A ping had him abandoning the coffee, and throwing himself in front of his console.
A lot of the data was gibberish, mere fragments of a whole. Whatever this was, they had deep pockets and were everywhere. He saw references to Hahne-Kedar, the Alliance, C-SEC officials, pretty much anyone with any power in the galaxy. It was carefully wiped though, much of the useful information censored.
He saw his name as he scrolled through, and paused. It seemed like a snippet of a profile on him.
SubjectName: Kaidan Alenko
Aliases: N/A
Current rank: Staff Commander
Additional information:
Human biotic, high potential. No hints of cancer or abnormal growth in medical records. Genetics flagged for further study. Further humanity's biotic potential.
Systems Alliance, specialization: Sentinel.
Assessment for {redacted} recruitment has been deemed unlikely. No potential for espionage, but flagged for {redacted} once technique perfected. Studies pending, await Chandana's {redacted} results.
Subject should be surveilled and periodic reconnaissance should be conducted on his whereabouts when not based on Citadel. Subject is dangerous and utmost effort to maintain distance should be observed. Involved with subject S. Shepard before Normandy SR1 destruction, any interactions between subjects are to be immediately reported to {redacted}. Integrity of Project {redacted} has potential to be jeopardized, avoid at all costs
If agent discovered by subject K. Alenko or similar hostile parties: suicide ordered. Alternatively termination of subject K. Alenko is authorized under extenuating circumstances, there must be a check-in with your cell leader before any action is taken however; Project Lazarus and Project {redacted} are the priority. Additionally psychological profile of subject S. Shepard suggests adverse reaction if subject K. Alenko is terminated. Subject S. Shepard's mission is vital and cannot afford distraction.
Lazarus Cell Head Agent is not aware of extent of surveillance, she is not to be informed.
"Shit." He swore, softly. The sound was still loud in the silent apartment.
It must be Cerberus; who else would be manipulating Shepard? And they were keeping tabs on him - they were even more dangerous than he suspected. This was...this was huge.
Buried in the gibberish was a photo file.
Kaidan had to clasp a hand over his mouth to keep in the bile that rushed up his throat.
There were thousands of pictures.
Thousands.
And not just of him, that would have been tolerable, but there were pictures of Shepard too. His breath caught in his throat, there was even one of her as child, tiny and in overlarge clothes. He had no idea where they had even gotten it from; she barely went to school enough for school pictures. Kaidan's heart went out to her; a weird protective instinct in his chest made him wish he could have been there for her. The others looked to be from everywhere, some even on the old Normandy. A picture of her dirty and bleeding after Akuze, from her post-mission debrief. There was him, Ash and Shepard wandering on the Citadel, them in Flux, even their time on the Noveria mission. Innocuous seemingly unrelated pictures were scattered in too, Normandy schematics, a husk, a thorian creeper, a Serrice Council biotic amp, a small asari, a grainy one of what looked to be someone's baby sonograph, and bio-rhythm results. Cerberus clearly had their fingers in many pies.
Kaidan was no photography or holo-tech expert but all the pictures of Shepard and her crew looked to be either taken with bugs, or long distance lenses. Some were a bad, blurred quality but a lot were clear, just like the photographer was standing right in the same room.
Kaidan's clenched his other palm into a fist where it rested on his knee. There were pictures of them wandering the supermarket in Intai'sei, kissing and holding hands. Shepard naked in the shower; there were even of pictures of Shepard and him making love. Not just once or twice but hundreds of snaps in a running documentary, in different places of the house. It was obscene. There must have had bugs all over her apartment, in every room and corner.
'Those sick bastards.'
This had been in his stalker's possession and who knows how many other people. They had seen her, probably slathered over her obscenely. He wanted to kill them. Kaidan was shaking with suppressed rage; he didn't think he'd ever been angrier in his whole life.
In an effort to block the pictures from his mind he scrolled on to a chat log that was archived:
Chat initializing...
guest1: Hey hank.
guest2: hey :)
guest1: This guy is so boring. Sure we can't get to tha bar before closing?
guest2: You kiddin'? your balls will be on the chopping block.
guest2: You heard the man, he needs watching.
guest1: Ugh. This is stupid, he's so vanilla. Work, work, work. Geez, hire a prozzy once in a while ffs! Then we'd get some good shots hehe. You see the woman he was bangin, that Shepard? Fuck me man, what i wouldn't do to trade places with that lucky bastard. bitch is fine
guest2: Yeah man, i get should see that vid, 'commander Shepard does the citadel', actually next time you're on the network i'll send it to ya. But srsly, don't fuck around with this. It comes from on high and he'll piss right on our heads, we fuckk this up
guest1: yeah yeah. Well i'm off, imagine this, he's heading to the gym again, wooo. Maybe later he'll go to the Presidium and do some more wooork. greeeat.
guest2: lol. Oh harden up. could be worse.
Your chat partner has logged off.
Kaidan regretted every small bit of mercy he had shown the man in the alleyway. He should have hurt him. This was-
Kaidan lost his battle with composure and headed to the liquor cabinet, grabbing the bottle of whiskey he kept there and poured himself a generous glass. He gulped it in minutes, angry and sick, and heartbroken. It burned but it was nothing to the burn of his rage.
Kaidan could barely face what was on the omni-tool, he got drunker and drunker as the night progressed but the rest of it was mostly useless, full of unrelated incomprehensible fragments of dialogue, stands of DNA comparison and analysis or dry technical information that he could make no sense of.
He sat at the console steadily drinking his way through the whole bottle. He hated them, hated. They had all these pictures of her, even nice ones of her smiling on the Presidium when he had never had a lousy single one. She had never liked having her photo taken.
Somewhere in his haze he pulled up his email app and started to type. He hoped she still had the same email address but regardless of whether it got through or not...he had to try and tell her, had to at least warn her. Shepard needed to know that Kaidan still cared for her.
Shepard,
I'm sorry for what I said back on Horizon. I spent two years pulling myself back together after you went down with the Normandy. It took me a long time to get over my guilt for surviving and move on. I'd finally let my friends talk me into going out for drinks with a doctor on the Citadel. Nothing serious, but trying to let myself have a life again, you know?
Then I saw you, and everything pulled hard to port. You were standing in front of me, but you were with Cerberus. I guess I really don't know who either of us is anymore. Do you even remember that night before Ilos, or your apartment? That time we had meant everything to me... maybe it meant as much to you. But a lot has changed in the last two years and I can't just put that aside.
But please be careful. I've watched too many people close to me die - on Eden Prime, on Virmire, on Horizon, on the Normandy. I couldn't bear it if I lost you again. If you're still the woman I remember I know you'll find a way to stop these Collector attacks. The way you're doing it, it isn't the only way. Cerberus is too dangerous to be trusted; they're watching me, watching you. Please...I guess I don't know what I'm asking of you, I just want things the way they used to be.
When things settle down a little... maybe... I don't know. Just take care.
Kaidan
Alenko
Staff Comm-
It took hours; he agonized over every single word. He didn't even know how to sign his name, deleting it at least three times.
In the end he went with what she liked to call him and collapsed in bed, exhausted.
LT.
He just wanted her home safe, he wanted to be sure of her and he wanted to take down Cerberus. In the meantime he had a job to do.
