"So this is that amazing view you told me about."
She raised an eyebrow with a skeptical smirk. But sadness nagged irritatingly beneath the statement as her eyes crossed over the charred remains of trees and cinders that ringed a sweeping lake like a smouldering halo. The water looked as if someone had stomped the flow out of it, black and still. This was what was left of his home.
She'd expected a coy remark in return, a goofy laugh, or an exasperated exhale when her smartassing was frustrating him, but as she turned around she found herself staring at more burned and blackened landscape.
Realization coursed through her veins in a shock of ice water; she pulled her n7 hoodie more securely around her body but still shivered nonetheless.
She walked over to what would have been the deck, stepping over splintered wood and debris. She imagined that he would have stood right there, in that exact same spot, brows crinkled in a signature pucker with a beer dangling lazily in his hand. Maybe he would hum a tune softly just as he always did when she couldn't sleep. Her favorite was "American Pie" because the way the resonance carried tickled the tip of her ear. It made her smile to imagine him smirking.
She picked up a rock and hurled it into the lake, the black water swallowing up the stone without so much as causing a stir to the desolate scene.
"I will find you Kaidan." she whispered to the sky, eyes squeezed shut in determination.
She let the silence settle as she pictured the perfect image in her mind again. This time she was standing pressed to his side.
She spoke in a barely audible prayer, mostly to herself, "I have no right to ask, but help your old skipper out one more time."
She didn't notice the hot trail of moisture slip past her closed lid.
"Bring him home Ash."