Chapter 25
Regret
What does it matter that my love could not keep her?
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
-Pablo Neruda
I sat nervously as Anderson reviewed my report on Horizon on the desk across me. I wasn't sure how he would take the news that Shepard is alive and working for Cerberus. To my surprise, it seemed like he already knew.
As he slowly closed my report, he turned to me and asked casually, "So…how was she?"
At first, I didn't know how to reply, until I responded with a generic. "She's fine."
"How are you?"
"Good."
"You are not very good at lying, Commander."
"Still I try my best, sir."
Getting up from his chair, he walked towards his balcony overlooking the Presidium and gestured me to follow him. "I can't lie to you either, then, because you need to know. She came here about a month ago. Got herself reinstated, and asked for you."
"She asked for me?" I repeated disbelievingly.
"Yes, she did. But I couldn't tell her anything. I couldn't risk you getting targeted out there. I'm sorry."
"You did what you had to do sir. She's with Cerberus now, and like them, she can't be trusted anymore."
"That's where we're different then. I don't trust Cerberus, but I would trust her with my life any day."
"How can you be sure that it still her?"
"I just know." He leaned against the railings, looking up at the starry sky. For a moment, I think I caught a smile, as if he remembered something that he shouldn't but was glad to have remembered it. "I was young once too, Commander. I too had my chances at happiness. I let it go once, but when I almost lost her…The thing is Commander, not everyone gets second chances. You have yours. Don't waste it."
As I walked back to my apartment, I thought about what Anderson said. If she's really back, maybe this is the universe's way of giving us a second chance, but it seemed too good to be true. She has changed. I have changed. Everything has changed around us.
Maybe I did get my second chance, but I blew it because I was an idiot.
I should never have let her go.
That thought kept me from sleeping some nights. It kept me worrying about her: she was out there fighting God knows what, and I cannot be there for her. I just had to do something, so I wrote to her.
I edited and deleted more than I wrote. In my letter, I apologized for the things that I have said on Horizon. I was an idiot for telling her that she betrayed me. She never really did, and I was too harsh when I couldn't deal with the fact that she's working for Cerberus.
I wanted to tell her how I felt when I saw her again. Many things have changed around us, but my feelings for her remained the same. Every single day after she died, I tried to reach out to that memory of what we had, even if it is only a memory now. But I just couldn't tell her that.
Well, not all of it. So, I just reminded her that a lot of things have changed that we cannot just put them aside. I tried to explain what happened and what I've tried to do these past two years. As much as it might hurt her, I told her about Rhianna. And reminded her to be careful about Cerberus.
No matter how many times I shuffled paragraphs or edited it, I couldn't write a version that I knew would not hurt her. Reluctantly, I hit send.
For weeks and months, I waited for a reply. Nothing.
Until I got a poem fragment from an anonymous sender:
[…] my spirit with its loss
knows this;
though small against the black,
small against the formless rocks,
hell must break before I am lost;
before I am lost,
hell must open like a red rose
for the dead to pass.
I know only she could have sent it. And she must have hated me. At least she was determined to find a way to defeat the Collectors.
I only wished that she would find her way back to me.
A/N: This short. Hopefully, I'll find a way to quickly finish the next one. Initially, this was supposed to be in Chapter 24, but I decided to separate this to make the previous chapter all about Kaidan's confusion in Horizon.
I don't completely understand why, but I kept replaying this song from the Scarlet Pimpernel musical ( watch?v=jJMmDdGlGY4) as I was writing this chapter. Might be because it was the closest thing that hinted to me what Kaidan might have felt after seeing Shepard again.
I also edited and made some slight changes to "First Dates." I wanted Aida to make Kaidan take some risks. Minor change though.
Thanks for the reviews guys. I'm glad to know that people still love Shenko.