A.N. Hello, lovely readers! Thanks for sticking with me this far. I just wanted to say that I read and appreciate every one of your reviews, and they really do spur me on to keep writing, so thanks!

This chapter was a little late because I've been having some trouble putting together this next part of the story and making it feel authentic to me, as I haven't written as far ahead as I like to normally and very little free time combined with massive writers block doesn't make for a very happy fanficcer. So the next few chapters won't be as polished as I'd like and will probably be edited again in the future, but seeing as I have a habit of not finishing stories (ever!) because of obsessive insecurity and laziness, I figure it's better to get it DONE and worry about my own stupid standards later.

Enjoy!

Chapter 25: Shatters

The first job he sends me on, I almost choke. It isn't that I can't handle it – I know I can, I've killed before, it's never been difficult – it's that I know this is the point of no return. Once I do this, once I make my mark in this way, there is no going back.

My life has never been normal. Late at night when other children slept I would lie awake listening to them fight, my mother's shrill, harpy-like screams and the answering yells of whichever boyfriend of hers was still around. Sometimes I'd hear something smash. They would never stay long. She was beautiful, but she was always a handful – paranoid and hysterical and, when it came down to it, just another lying junkie. Too much for most. You could never trust an addict. Not really. I was always the one to take care of her in the end, give her my love which she never understood how to return. It had made me good at lying to teachers and doctors and police and anyone else who pried too deeply.

Later, when I decided that enough was enough, I'd find myself lying again and again, just to get by. Yes, of course I have a home, I'm going there now. No, nothing's wrong, I don't need your help. No, I didn't see who took your wallet. No, I've never touched a gun in my life.

This job, today, is based on another lie, one we have all been working on for a while. The lie is that I am Lily Calvern, the fourteen-year-old daughter of the man almost at the head of the gang that owns the northern half of this filthy, sprawling city. The lie is that I am harmless, that I do not know I have made myself an easy target, or that the mob which owns the southern half plans to have me abducted, questioned and used as a bargaining chip to threaten and extort the man they believe to be my father. We have been convincing them of all this for several months now, constructing a careful fiction where we appear far, far more vulnerable than we are. Today is the moment of truth. The test to see if I am as good an asset as the Reds hope I am.

I pretend not to see the men following me as I take a deserted shortcut to the place that became my home three years ago. When they grab me I realise that they are strong, and for that moment I don't have to pretend that I am scared. But it all goes to plan. I play my part admirably. They underestimate me – everyone always does – and soon I am left alone with the man I am supposed to kill while he waits for me to stop crying huge, gulping sobs so he can ask me questions and pretend that he won't hurt me if I answer. The bawling comes easily, and the noise covers the sound of my fingers working a pick in the axis of my cuffs, locked behind my chair.

Suddenly, I catch my face in the mirror behind him as I look up. Then I see myself reflected in his eyes – a small, innocent girl, just his type – and in that moment I am struck by something.

I am so used to the lie that I often forget the truth. I am a fourteen-year-old girl. I have killed before and now I am planning on killing again. He won't expect it because my wiry muscles are hidden by my school uniform along with my budding breasts, and my friend Mira has done my dark hair in pigtails and no one expects a child to have the mental and physical capacity to kill like I can.

So why am I this way? Why does it come so naturally to me when it is so revolting, so horrifically unnatural to everyone else? Other girls my age are busy discovering boys and their own bodies and deciding who they will be, but who I am, I feel, has already been decided. I am not sure I like who that is, even though she is strong and I have already learned well that strength means safety.

If I kill this man, then that is it. I will be a hired killer, a child soldier, a heartless assassin. Was it ever a choice I made, I wonder, or just the best of a bad set of options? He thinks I have calmed down because my face has gone blank. He talks to me in a soothing voice, saying words I do not hear because all I can do is stare at him and wonder why I am going to kill him. I wonder if it is a real choice, a free choice, or if I am just going along with the tide.

I have been lying for so long, just to get by. And now I wonder what the truth is. I wonder what I would do if I had all the choices in the world laid out in front of me. I don't think I would pick this one. I think that, however much I thrived on conflict, in the end I would still choose peace, a thing I have never known. I would walk away from it all, if I only had a chance. But no one has ever asked. And I have never tried.

Maybe, I think, looking up at him, I won't kill this man. I don't have to, surely? Maybe I'll run away again. Maybe I'll ask for help. Girls my age were supposed to ask for help. Maybe there was a new life waiting for me out there, somewhere. A better life.

Fuck this job.

He reaches up, brushes a hand over my hair in a gesture that is supposed to appear soothing but there is something vile in his eyes, and sudden adrenaline spikes through my young body.

Before I know what I am doing, my hand shoots up from behind the chair, lightning fast, I pull his arm back, kick the shoulder joint hard as I can, hear it crack, muffle his scream with a head butt that leaves my skull throbbing even as I shove my fist into his throat, cuffs held like a knuckle duster. I need no guns to kill him. I boot him onto the floor as he scrambles for his pistol, choking on his own crushed windpipe. I'd spotted the letter opener as soon as he'd pulled the bag from my head in this opulent office. It twirls in my palm before I grip it hard and drive the sharp end into his throat. It takes seventeen seconds for him to stop gasping for air, and by then his soldiers are pounding on the door I've locked even as I upload the programme onto his console that will kill any alarms and download the information we need. There is blood on my hands, and splattered on the white shirt of my uniform. I notice, dimly, that it doesn't bother me.

I look at what I'd done, at the life I'd ended like it was nothing. He wasn't the first, and as I picked up his gun, screwed on a silencer and hid myself in the room before the doors burst open, I knew that he was far from the last. Training kicks in, my skill overrides theirs, and once again they underestimate me – no one wants to hit a fourteen-year-old girl, but hesitating is the last mistake any of them will ever make.

I stand there, surrounded by the lives I have taken. I am a killer, I think to myself, and a damn good killer too. Calvern will be pleased. This is my future now. This is how it will be.

Peace, I realise, will never be an option. I will never, ever escape this life.

oOoOoOo

Shepard

Times like this, I just wanted to run and run and run.

I put up a good front, I thought. Granted, even I knew I was cracking around the edges, but I'd convinced myself that I'd last long enough to see this whole thing through. I'd hold together long enough to finish this mission, to gather my army, and to take back Earth, do what I was supposed to. I was doing a good job at faking it. The confidence that came with command had to be fake, because if it was real it meant you were too damn proud to catch your own mistakes, and I caught every one of mine.

At times like this, though, I wasn't even sure I could fake it. Not when it was so, so clear that I had no idea what I was doing – just groping in the dark, fighting against an impossible, unstoppable tide as though I could make any real difference. When I remembered that, all my victories up until now suddenly felt meaningless.

My ears were ringing again, a barely audible buzzing that began at the base of my skull and throbbed all the way up to the follicles of my hair. Not enough sleep.

Kaidan was starting to notice, I realised, and he'd give me these looks, these half-scolding glances that said he knew what I was doing but didn't know how to stop it. He only knew because I'd become worse at hiding it. Worse at pretending I knew exactly what I was doing all the time, that my motivation was rock solid and that I was fully in control of my own destiny.

Javik was different, though. There was a reason the Protheans had ruled a galaxy-wide empire. He could read everything about me – my history, my thoughts, my insecurities – all in one simple touch, a total violation of the wall of privacy and invulnerability I'd built up after so long. I could hide nothing from him, and he was utterly merciless with the information sucked from my head.

I stood outside the room he'd claimed, sweating and panting and shaken to my core. I felt outside of myself, like I wasn't even real. I wanted to run, I wanted to fly somewhere far away, but I was in a metal box hurtling through black, empty space to the next mission, and there was nowhere I could go. No escape from this life I'd built.

I didn't even know why I'd spoken to him. I'd wanted a little perspective from people that had faced the Reapers already, maybe see if we could avoid some of their mistakes, and I'd asked him if he honestly thought we had a chance in hell. He'd looked at me, his infinitely strange pupils dilating, the unfamiliar planes and ridges of his face still fascinating to me as they shifted into an expression I couldn't decipher. And then, without a word, he'd reached up and pressed a long finger to the centre of my forehead.

It'd felt like the beacon all over again, or like Liara invading my mind and prying the information loose. When he'd touched me on Eden Prime it had been different, more general, picking up on elements like language and culture, things I knew without knowing how, but on the Normandy it was like he was reaching into the deepest, darkest, locked-away recesses of who I was and why. I tried to ride the wave of pain, tried to control the overriding instinct to shut him out because I knew it would only make it worse. In seconds it was over, but in my head it had taken much longer, and I was left feeling as though my entire life had flashed in front of my eyes.

It hadn't been pretty. Now, looking back at my life, all I felt was deeply ashamed that I'd cared so little for the girl I'd been. That I'd thought nothing of putting her through more pain and throwing her into hell because at the time I'd thought I could handle it. I'd grown into a skilled, powerful woman since then, but now I was starting to see my own limitations on the horizon, looming large and ever closer.

'This cycle has a chance,' he'd said cryptically, 'but only because it is led by you.'

I'd asked him what the hell that was supposed to mean, and I saw the frustrated way he curled his lips back, the expression he saved for when he was lowering himself to communicate overly complex ideas to the primitive species of this new galaxy.

'Whether you think so or not, Commander, you are exceptional. There is something within you which I cannot describe using this language. You are…an avatar of your people. A symbol. An idea. Yet you are living. Part of you knows this already, this side of you that has always been different, but you do not believe it. You are a paragon. An embodiment of the human spirit. There are legends of such people in your own history. Ancient heroes. You are just one more – an exceptional woman born into a world that has need of you.'

I'd stood there, stunned, confused, and told him with an uneasy voice that heroes were supposed to be good. And I had done horrible, horrible things. I'd killed hundreds of thousands, some because I had to, but some were just for the hell of it. Heroes, I thought, were people like Kaidan. People who believed all the shit they said and actually followed through with it instead of faking their way through life like I had. If there was an afterlife, I thought, and I did end up being judged, having my deeds weighed up in front of me on a set of celestial scales, the bad would outweigh the good tenfold. The only good I'd done in my life had been for my own selfish reasons. And the bad…that was mostly just because I could.

He'd told me that, as usual, I was missing the point entirely.

'That is not what makes you the way you are. You are an avatar of the human spirit because you embody the greatest qualities of your species – endurance, determination, a will to succeed in the face of overwhelming adversity. I have looked into your past, and I have seen the very worst of human nature – as well as the nature of others – and I have seen you overcome it all. You have done nothing but grow stronger in the face of that. You have thrived when anyone else would have failed utterly, not because of luck but because it is you and you must. You know this. You witnessed the extinction of an entire people when you touched the beacon on Eden Prime. The very fabric of your being was forever marked that day. And that is why it is you who must win this war, because you are the only one who truly understands what will happen should you fail. Through your actions you have become not just the avatar of your species, but the avatar of this entire cycle. The only hope for its continued existence. Never forget that.'

At that moment I'd frozen, held in place with the overwhelming gravity of what he'd just said. Mordin's last words came to me then, cool and clear as though I only just now understood them.

It has to be me, I thought, shaking, someone else will only get it wrong. It has to be me.

I felt like a sacrificial lamb, led into the fire for the good of the many. I told Javik that I'd always known that, because in some way I always had. No one else could do the things that I could do. I'd always been different.

But no, I thought as I stood outside his door, my heart racing. That can't have been right. I didn't believe in that kind of thing, that whole idea that the universe had some kind of order or that things happened for reasons beyond just 'because'. Sometimes, at my weakest, I'd convince myself that if I just hurt and struggled and fought enough, there would be a reward at the end of it all, but I knew that was just a comforting lie. I knew that when it came down to it I was just on my own, just another insignificant little creature struggling to survive against all odds. Javik's people had a culture that was very, very different to ours, and they interpreted the same things in wildly different ways. To Javik, the avatar of vengeance and the last hope of a dead civilization, I may have been something special, someone with a purpose or even a 'destiny' that had been decided from birth. But in reality I was just another human spat out of a great, sprawling metropolis who'd been given more than her fair share of second chances. Right?

It was just luck. And skill.

Wasn't it?

I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to the cool glass that overlooked the hangar bay, feeling my hands shake ever so slightly.

You have thrived when anyone else would have failed utterly.

Nausea rose up within me. In my mind, I'd always survived and thrived because I was better than everyone else. Even in the face of overwhelming odds, I refused to give up and I succeeded because I deserved it. But now I was starting to wonder if it was something else. In a way, I'd always known I was different. I'd always known that, when it came down to it…it always had to be me.

I'd never been allowed to have a normal life. I'd never been allowed peace or joy or the things that others took for granted. I'd always been a tool, a weapon, something that meant other people could get on with the daily business of living. That was why it made sense that I should be the one in charge of all this. That was why I couldn't give up. Not now, not ever, because no one else could do what I could do. Anyone else would just get it wrong, even though I had no idea how to get it right.

Part of me had always known that was the way of things. And in Javik's words, spoken with the assurance of someone who couldn't conceive of being wrong, I heard the answering cry from the rest of the galaxy, from civilizations past and present, that said yes, it has to be you that ends this, we're counting on you to win this for all of us.

I heard the words humming in my ears, like white noise blocking out the sounds of my ship. Cold sweat bristled over my body.

I opened my eyes and looked down at the hangar bay, at James and Cortez chatting away to each other. I watched two crew members carrying a crate across the room, and one broke into a laugh as the other finished telling some joke. They were all counting on me too. They were all expecting me to pull a solution out of thin air, just as I'd always done before. I wasn't like them.

My fingers splayed against the glass, and suddenly I just felt so, so tired. I wanted to be weak, just like everyone else. Just for a few days on a beach somewhere, that holiday I told myself I'd take eventually which I'd never get around to now. Hell, even a few hours on my own would be enough, some time to myself where I could guiltlessly watch some stupid, soppy vid with a cup of something hot and sweet, maybe even paint my nails and cry excessively. That was what women my age were supposed to do, I was told. Even battle-hardened commandos got tired of being invincible sometimes.

I wanted someone to wrap their arms around me and tell me it was all going to be okay. I wanted to allow myself a few brief seconds to actually believe them, just for a little while, and find comfort.

I just wanted to not wake up in the middle of the night by ghosts in my dreams asking why with all my strength and speed I hadn't been strong and fast enough to save them. I just wanted to sleep.

But I had to be strong. All the time. I had to never falter, never fail, always be able to take in what was happening around me, harden my expression, and move on so that everyone else could do the same. I had to pretend I wasn't affected, be the calm in the centre of the storm, the axis around which this whole war effort turned. Because I was Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre, the first woman to make it to N7, the greatest Commando alive, an unstoppable, raging, legendary juggernaut of destruction, a beacon of hope in the darkness, an avatar of my race and this cycle.

And if it got out that I was absolutely fucking terrified that all of this was for nothing and the Crucible was a last-ditch effort doomed to fail and we were all just insects struggling against a relentless hurricane…well, that would be bad for morale, now, wouldn't it?

My hand fell from the window because I didn't have the strength to keep it there. I looked at the door at the other side of the hallway where Zaeed used to sleep under a canopy of weapons, but Diana Allers had taken that space up for herself and there was no way in hell I felt like having a 'friendly chat'. Engineering was full too, even the lower deck had someone working, using up the valuable downtime while we travelled across the galaxy to meet the quarian flotilla.

I thought of going to talk to James, but I wasn't in the mood to be forcibly cheered up. I could find Garrus, but with Palaven he had enough to worry about. Liara too, now that Thessia was feeling the heat. Feeling slightly outside of myself and with no real thoughts on where I was going or why, I entered the elevator and pressed the button for the next floor up.

I'd been trying not to think about it since my own stupid mind had set me down this self-indulgently dark path, but I knew exactly what I needed, and he was somewhere on this very ship.

There had always been something about Kaidan that put me at ease, even back before I really knew him. It wasn't the obvious thing, no, though that had helped a lot before Ilos. It was different. He had a way about him, something indefinable, a sincerity that meant he could be sympathetic without being patronising. He could look at the craziest situation imaginable – Saren, Sovereign, the entire galaxy being invaded by an army of unstoppable sentient machines – and agree with you that yes, it was crazy, and yes, he did understand just how insane it was that anyone could be asked to remain calm and strong in the face of such overwhelming adversity, but…here we were. It was always a we. Like it hadn't even occurred to him that he could leave you to deal with it on your own.

That's the thing, when you're the best. People try to work with you, be allies, but they would never understand - they'd always be standing behind you when it really came down to it. I had people on this ship that I trusted with my life, who I knew would never let me down, but they didn't understand what it was like to fill my shoes. Not really. Kaidan was different. He would stand there, right beside you, and tell you without a trace of irony that he was ready for whatever happened. Always. Until the end. And I would believe him. That was what made him different. He was the only one that had ever made me really believe that I wasn't just on my own, or that I was more than the weapon, the empty shell of a person that so many others had treated me as. For a few perfect moments before Ilos, my world had stood still, and I really, truly believed that everything would be okay. And it was. I'd found peace.

Fuck. I missed him so, so much. I saw him every day now, every single fucking day, but it wasn't the same. There was a cloud hanging over us now, filled with all that had happened since the first time we were together, and every time I saw him it was hammered home again and again that it would never be the same. And every time I remembered that I realised, right down to my core, how much I just wanted things to be just as they were.

I wanted to push all the resentment aside and just tell him that. The words would line up on my tongue as I saw him, but I'd never be able to get them out. It was always the wrong place, the wrong time, the stupid brain in my stupid head that wouldn't let me talk because the very idea of explaining to him everything that I felt when I saw him standing there sent adrenaline and fear shooting through me as though I were stepping out in front of a firing squad, naked and unarmed.

The doors opened in front of me, and I found that my feet had carried me to the starboard observation deck, a large, empty room that looked out onto the blackness of space as we flew by. This was where I'd always come before, in the early days of the SR-2 when I'd needed to clear my head. I'd sit down, I'd breathe, I'd try to meditate – Samara would help – and I'd get up feeling grounded and sane and ready for anything. I walked up to the window until all I could see was the distant stars trailing off into nothingness as we flew by, and sat down as I tried to remember how she'd told me I was supposed to flex my diaphragm. I sucked in a long stream of air through my nose, counted as I held it in, and let it flow out through my lips. All it did was leave me feeling light-headed. I tried again. The calm didn't come. In the stars I didn't see peace, just my own insignificance, the tiny portion of space and time that my life took up in the grand scheme of things, and all that I was meant to accomplish in that blip on the cosmic calendar.

I felt my hands shake as they lay limply on my knees. How was one person supposed to do all of this alone and not break into pieces?

The door opened behind me, and before I knew it I was scrambling to my feet, forcing my face into a neutral expression as I turned to see who it was. Of course it would be him, I thought as I watched Kaidan's lips fall open in surprise. Of course he'd find me when I was at my lowest, whether he'd meant to or not. He had a knack for only ever seeing me at my worst.

"Sorry," he said at once, stopping in his tracks, his face drawing together in concern as he took in the sight of me, "didn't mean to disturb you. I, uh, didn't think anyone else came in here."

"It's okay," I heard myself say, the thought of being alone with my erratic thoughts even scarier than the thought of being alone with him, "I was just…looking. Nothing important."

He walked into the room slowly, coming up beside me with his arms folded as he looked out of the huge window, a faint smile crossing his face. "It's one hell of a view, I'll give you that. Was it like this before the retrofit?"

I nodded, "This room's almost exactly the same. Guess they didn't want to fix what wasn't broken. I used to come here sometimes. We had an asari Justicar on board, she'd spend all her time in here meditating," I didn't know why I was still talking, telling him all of this, but I couldn't seem to stop, "I used to do it with her when I found the time, but…it's harder now."

"To find the time or to clear your head?" He glanced over at me, his voice curious and wary as though he expected me to lie. Not now, I thought. I was sick of lying all the time.

I shrugged, "Both. She used to make this…this thing with her biotics. Looked like those old pictures of atoms, with little bits moving around the outside. She said it helped her concentrate on nothing, and I just used to find it fascinating. I could watch it for ages, not think about everything else. It helped."

"You mean like this?" He brought his hands together and moved them apart as though kneading dough. In the space between them was a flawless, sapphire singularity. A centre of pure dark energy surrounded by swirling blue fire held in orbit by Kaidan's perfect control. I found myself staring right into the heart of his creation, marvelling at its beauty, at the way so much strength and force was channelled into something so small between the palms of his hands. It was different to Samara's – his was slower, darker, just like him. If it had a sound, hers would be twinkling bells and the whistle of the wind, and his would be the deep, rich bass of a bow on strings. The tension eased from my body as I saw how the skin of his marked and scarred hands glowed with reflected light.

Looking up, I found my eyes locking with his, their deep brown depths pulling me in. He was staring straight at me, a small, compassionate smile on his face which was lit up with biotic fire, electric blue dancing in his irises.

"Yeah," I said hoarsely, my heart hammering in my chest even though there were no other thoughts passing through my mind, "just like that."

I thought of yesterday, of the way he'd looked at me in the hangar bay, that little smile crossing his face, just how he used to look at me before everything went…wrong. I wondered if he'd figured out who Luca was. I wondered if he'd cared.

For a long, charged moment, I simply let myself look at him, and the beauty of his biotics dancing like sea creatures just underneath. His soft, kind eyes seemed to be telling me to just give in, to trust him with all the hellish things inside my head, to trust that he'd understand and even if he couldn't kiss me until it went away, he could at least give me some perspective, some sanity.

I felt something warm surround my hands, and he broke eye contact for just a second to glance down. I did the same, and realised with a jolt of surprise that I'd brought my hands up and slid them between his so the both of us were holding this thing he'd created. I pulled away as though I'd been burned, stepping back with my hands shaking and watched as the singularity fizzled away to nothing. Hurt flashed in his eyes, and I didn't know why. I cursed myself for letting my defences drop so much. Again.

I'd never been like this before. Not since becoming an N7. I didn't know what was happening to me, or how to stop it.

A few days ago, I'd been looking through some files for a mission at a fighter base and I'd gone to find James to ask him a question. I'd thought he'd be in the hangar where he usually was, in the makeshift gym him and some others had rigged together out of unused equipment, but when I'd rounded the corner he hadn't been the one I'd heard grunting with effort. Instead I'd seen a slimmer man with wide, well-defined shoulders lifting weights with each hand that I'd have trouble lifting with both. I'd seen an intimately familiar patchwork of scars and freckles crossing the skin on his back, and I'd known before he even turned around that it was Kaidan. He'd caught me off-guard then, too. For a single, stupid, mindless moment I'd forgotten all there was between us and I was just a sex-starved woman confronted with a man I'd never stopped being unreasonably attracted to. I looked up at him now, and it was like he couldn't understand why I was so wary, why I couldn't just let my guard down again. After all, we were supposed to be friends now, right?

"What's wrong?" he asked, furrowing his brow as I folded my arms and looked back out at the stars.

"Nothing," I shrugged, swallowing the lump in my throat, "I just don't feel like looking at shiny things and spacing out right now, that's all."

"Maybe you should space out once in a while," he replied, looking out onto space, the stubble along his jawline very distracting as I stared resolutely out the window, "taking a little time for yourself won't make everything fall apart."

"You don't know that," I said quietly.

"No, I don't," he agreed in a voice that sounded altogether too serious for my liking, "but I do know that on Mars, when I thought I was going to die, all I could think about was how I hadn't taken enough time in my life to just sit back and take it all in. I haven't taken enough time for myself – and I know you haven't either. I've seen the entire galaxy, done things most people could never even dream of, but at the end of it all, looking back, my biggest regret was not taking enough time to be with the people I cared about. Moments like this. It's the little things that make the rest of it worthwhile."

I opened my mouth to tell him that was a load of sentimental crap, but I realised with a prickle of heat along my skin that in my last moments, when I clawed at my suit and felt the air forced from my body, my biggest regret was that I'd never get to see how things with him would work out. That we'd never get to pick up where we left off and figure out exactly what it was that had existed between the two of us. I glanced over to him now, and realised that it was still my biggest regret, only now I had the time to fix it, but I just…couldn't.

"What, being a Spectre isn't enough for you?" I quipped instead, trying to roll my eyes but finding that the muscles were busy stopping my face from creasing in sadness.

He chuckled, a rich, velvety sound that trailed off as I felt him glance over to me, "I guess not."

It wasn't enough for me either. It wasn't just that I always wanted more – bigger challenges, shinier medals, more and more people in awe of what I could do – it was that however hard I tried I couldn't find satisfaction in being a soldier. Not total satisfaction anyway. There had only been one time when I'd looked at my life, at everything that I had, and thought that things were, all in all, pretty damn good. And I couldn't tell Kaidan that, because he'd ask when it was, and I'd have to make something up so he didn't know it was in my apartment, between missions, with an injury as a good excuse to keep out of combat, good food in the fridge and the kindest, strongest, most beautiful man I'd ever met in my bed.

It was the last time I'd been at peace with who I was and what I'd done. It was the last time I'd felt truly human.

I felt my hands shake even as I dug my nails into my arms as subtly as possible. I didn't know why I couldn't just tell him. I didn't know why I had to torture myself like this. There was ringing in my ears.

"How are you doing, anyway?" he asked suddenly, and I realised he'd been looking at me the whole time. The ringing was gone, replaced by the sound of his voice and the total silence that followed as he waited for an answer that I didn't think I could give.

I shrugged, staring back at the outside world.

"Fine," I lied, "My wrist's healed well after the last mission. I'll be ready to go by the time we reach the Far Rim."

"That's not what I asked," he said gently, pushing for something real.

The words 'I'm fine' were shaped by my mouth again but I knew they would be a lie, and I had a feeling he would know it too. He was someone who asked because he genuinely wanted to know, not because he just wanted me to encourage him with how reassuringly indestructible I was. But what else could I say? Could I tell him that for a long time I hadn't felt like myself? Could I tell him I had no idea why I was still fighting or why I'd even begun, that I felt as lost as I had as a child? Could I say that I wasn't sure how much longer I could hold myself together for the sake of everyone else?

"Jena," he called, as if snapping me out of a trance. I looked up at him and saw nothing but honest sympathy in his eyes. "You can tell me. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I'm not…" he sighed, his brows drawing together as though he couldn't think how to word what was in his head, "I'm not one of these people who thinks you can do this without a scratch on you, against all odds. I mean hell, you amaze me, you always have, but I know you're human, just like me. And I know that I couldn't do this without it tearing me up inside."

"It's not like I can just wake up one morning and decide I feel too shitty to go on the next mission," I replied, meaning it to sound flippant, dismissive, but there was a tremor in my voice.

"Maybe not," he gave a small shrug and stepped towards me until he was so close I could smell him, "but that doesn't mean you have to pretend you don't feel like doing just that sometimes. Not to me, anyway. I just…whatever else you think about me, I hope you know that."

I wanted to break down. I wanted to fall to my knees and bury my head in my hands and just weep and it was stupid because this mission was so far from over and I had so much left to do. I was so tired. I was tired of this mission, of the Reapers, the death tolls, the burning colonies, the endless reports, the people begging for help that would never come. I was tired of the fact that I was the last hope for anyone in the galaxy but had no hope myself because all I wanted to do was forget about it all and let myself die, get the peace that I'd been denied the first time around. I wanted to tell him that the only reason I was pushing myself forward was because I was too damn stubborn to give up. I was so tired of pretending it was all okay.

"I…" I started, but my voice broke at once, and with it I felt my face crumple into total misery that I didn't have the strength to hide. Before I knew what was happening I felt myself being pulled closer to him, my cheek pressing against his chest as his arms circled around my back and drew me into an embrace. I realised I was holding my breath, tensing up instinctively, and I decided that now, just for one, fleeting moment, I'd just let myself—

The sigh flowed out of me along with every ounce of tension wound up in my body as I collapsed into his arms. I felt my hands move up his back to curve around his wide shoulders as I took another shaking breath, relishing the sharp, electric smell of him, so familiar, so perfect, the feel of him beneath my fingers, the fit of his arms around my body, moulding to my limbs tighter and tighter like we were made for each other. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest, so hard I was sure he could feel it. I closed my eyes and pressed my head closer to the rise of his chest, drinking in every part of this feeling.

"I'm n-not…" I started unsteadily, my lips shaking, "I'm…"

"I know," he said quickly, the sound of his voice sending a shockwave through my body, "I know. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have to be the one to do this. I'm so sorry I haven't been there for you."

I could feel my fingers quivering against him as every beat of my heart thrummed adrenaline through my veins like I was in the middle of a fight for my life. I was frozen solid. I had no idea what to do, what to think, what to feel. Every instant I spent in the circle of his arms felt like I was falling deeper and deeper into a black hole I'd never be able to climb out of. Like feeling a drug work its way into your system and knowing you should pull out the needle but every moment you waste in thinking about it just makes it harder and harder to move.

He smelled perfect. My apartment was gone forever, but this, right here, was like coming home. I wanted to cry. I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually managed to cry.

His hand moved up my back, fingers curling over my neck. "I missed you so much," he murmured quickly, lips against my hair, "every day you were gone, I missed you like hell."

A wave crashed over me, an emotion that shook me to my core, the sudden realisation that this was not a dream and that whatever happened now would have consequences. Maybe he'd spent these past few weeks feeling just as wretched about the two of us as I had. I'd never felt like this about someone, I'd never thought it was possible to feel like this, and the very idea that he could feel just a fraction of what welled up inside me now was—

I opened my mouth to respond, but at once pure, naked fear shot through me like a blow to the gut. There were so many unknowns, so many question marks dancing around the future. I wanted to tell him I'd missed him too, that I'd missed this more than anything, but all at once I thought of him walking away from me, accusing me of being a traitor, rejecting all that I was. Adrenaline clamped down on my throat and I found myself tensing up, stepping back, his arms falling away and my body feeling cold and empty as he looked at me in confusion. What the hell was I doing?

Fresh panic washed over me as I stared back at him, wanting so much to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him but knowing deep down that I wouldn't, couldn't. I couldn't take it, I couldn't deal with it, I couldn't let myself fall again just to have it blow up in my face like last time. I couldn't afford that kind of distraction, it would break me in two. This right here was pure, unbridled comfort that I longed for, but it wasn't safe. I couldn't just use him like I'd done with others before, I couldn't just be casual, and the thought of someone else having that much power over me was just…it was—

"I…I can't," I said quickly, feeling myself shake with stupid, pointless self-sabotage, "I'm sorry."

I felt my feet carrying me backwards, towards the door, saw his face fall as he said my name to call me back, hurt and confusion and sorrow bright in his eyes, and I hated it, I hated everything about this and all I wanted was to be back in his arms but I couldn't, I couldn't, I…

I turned and stopped myself from breaking out into a run as I reached the elevator. I forced myself to think of nothing, nothing at all until I got to my room, where the doors closed behind me and cut me off from the world. I leaned back, letting myself slide to the ground, put my head in my hands, my eyes dry and raw as I heaved with silent sobs, and wondered what the fuck I had just done.

Just breathe, I told myself. Just…breathe.

Chapter 26: Awake – Not wanting to let things lie, Kaidan comes to Shepard's cabin to force a confrontation.

The next chapter will hopefully be posted up pretty soon, because it was originally meant to go on the end of this one but it ended up being too long. So I didn't leave you with a cliffhanger (kind of...) on purpose! Promise!