Kaidan sat up on the narrow bed in medbay and blearily looked at the time. He had been asleep for nine hours. He dimly remembered walking from the meeting to the med bay, where Dr Chakwas wanted to keep him for observation, but after that everything went black. He must have passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

The loss of Ash was a dull ache, but there was nothing he could do about it. What he could do was talk to Shepard. He should never have accused her of abandoning poor Ash.

He slid off the bed and walked the short distance to the captain's cabin, and found the door open. Shepard was sitting at her desk with her head in her hands.

"Excuse me, Commander," he said softly.

She looked up, and he waited for her to call him in. Her jaw was taut, her hands clenched, and she had dark circles under her eyes. She was clearly suffering the early effects of a massive stim come-down: she was exhausted but couldn't sleep; she needed food, but couldn't bear to eat; and even a light touch on her skin would feel to her like hot sandpaper. To top it off, she had an angry-looking rash along one side of her face and neck.

The comedown was only one reason why stim was restricted to N7 operatives, who used it only as a last resort. It was all too easy to get hooked on the high, and the body built up a resistance over time, making the drug less effective. The agonizing comedown was the icing on the cake.

Shepard had clearly never taken stim before. If she had, she might have known to force herself to eat and rest.

"Commander, I can see you haven't slept," he said. "You need to take a strong sedative to counteract the stim."

She frowned. "Sedation is not an option. I need all my wits for this council meeting. I can sleep when the negotiations are done."

She looked down at her shaking hands. "I guess you'll want to talk about Ash, but… oh God, Kaidan, I can't. If I focus on what happened to her it will drown me. I have to focus on the mission."

"I understand. We'll grieve for her afterwards."

"I need to know you're OK, though," she said. "How are you dealing with… with what happened?"

Shattered, he thought. Ash died because of me. Because of us... or the memory of us. Out loud he said: "Dealing, Ma'am. And I'm sorry for what I said earlier. Adrenalin."

"Don't worry about it." Her eyes were sombre, wide with sorrow, and it took all his self control not to take her in his arms, to give the comfort she needed. The comfort that they both needed. But any touch would be unbearable for her.

She shakily indicated the chair next to her. "Take a seat. There are other things we need to talk about."

"Yes Ma'am." He sat down.

She exhaled slowly.

"Kaidan, Torfan was a disaster from the start. I should have aborted but I refused to do so. I had told myself that the slaver lord was the same one responsible for my parents' deaths. In reality I didn't know for sure, but I wanted to believe it."

Kaidan was astounded she was finally telling him. He forced himself to stay silent, worried that anything he might say would cause Shepard to change her mind.

"The underground base was huge," she continued. "We were outnumbered and lost a lot of marines in a very short time. My commanding officer, Major Kyle, couldn't handle the stress. He had worked with the crew for many years; he had told me they were like his family. I knew only two of the crew, both of whom survived the initial assault, so I didn't take the early losses as badly as Kyle did.

"After a while he started hyperventilating and babbling that we were all going to die. I was terrified he'd give the order to abort. We had to get to the base. I was prepared to forcibly relieve him of duty if I had to, but the resulting conflict and upheaval would put my authority to a severe test.

"Fortunately a stray concussive shot knocked him unconscious. I got the medic to take him back to the entrance tunnel with the other wounded. From that point on, I was in charge."


Shepard took a deep breath. Now for the hard part.

"Things only got worse after that," she told him. "We made progress, moving further in, but we were dying like flies. I should have aborted the mission. I had plenty of chances. But I didn't."

She looked away, trying to hide the shame that engulfed her.

"Kaidan, I don't think you can understand what it's like to be driven by revenge and... and blind fury. It's all-consuming, it controls everything you do." She couldn't find the words to express how it felt. She certainly couldn't explain to him that the fury felt good – addictive, even. It was a kind of razor-sharp elation, a burning, bright music in her blood as she faced down her destruction. On Virmire she had resisted it. On Torfan she had welcomed it.

Her mouth was dry and she felt cold and sick. She hugged herself, wincing at the abrasive pressure on her skin, and felt her body shaking violently.

"Why can't I stop this shaking?" she said. "And I can't stop grinding my teeth. Hell, I can't go to the meeting like this."

Kaidan looked relieved. "If I give you a small dose of sedative you'll be able to sleep, and it should wear off by the time you get to the Citadel." He hesitated. "More or less."

She narrowed her eyes. "Which is it, 'more' or 'less'? Sedatives make me loopy. It might be a nice change to go to a Council meeting while off my head, I admit that. However, I won't represent humanity very well if I crawl up the stairs, leaving a trail of drool behind me, and announce to the Council that I'm Sybil the Magic Snail."

"You won't, I promise."

Shepard sighed and resignedly rolled up her sleeve.


When Kaidan returned he found her awake and nibbling feebly on an energy bar. She was pale but no longer shaking.

She looked up as he entered. "I guess I should tell you the rest," she said quietly.

He pulled out the chair next to her. "Only if you feel up to it."

"I'm starting to think I shouldn't tell you," she answered slowly. "The information is incriminating and could put you in a difficult position."

A silent moment passed between them, and his brows drew together. "Would you agree that a 'difficult position' could be defined as not knowing whose side to take?" he asked.

She blinked. "Yes..."

"Then you don't have to worry about putting me in one."

She gave him a small, sad smile. "Alright then."

"I knew only two other marines in the Torfan assault team," she told him. "Hallan and Byrnes were colony kids like me, and we always stuck together.

"I ordered the rest of the squad to create a distraction so we three could sneak into the main compound. The distraction worked... for the most part. By the time the three of us reached the compound, Byrnes and I were hypoglycaemic and Hallan was bleeding internally from a shot to the abdomen. I gave him blood thickeners and told myself he'd pull through, but deep down I knew he wouldn't survive the mission.

"My plan was for us to crawl along the ventilation shafts while I followed my scanner to the slaver lord. When I found him I would lift up a ceiling grate, attach a silencer to my pistol and quietly shoot him. Easy, right?

"It turned out to be a shitty idea. The ventilation shafts were rusted through and we fell into a room full of bodyguards."

Shepard shut her eyes and let the memories flood back in.

The ventilation shaft was narrow and dank, lit only by her omni-tool scanner. She heard the floor of the shaft creak beneath her hands and knees, and then the rusted metal gave way.

The room had a low ceiling so she was able to land on her feet, dropping into a crouch and rolling forward to absorb the impact.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hallan roll behind cover; he knew how difficult it was to hit a fast, low target.

Byrnes wasn't quick enough. A concussive shot hit him squarely and hurled him backwards. As Shepard scrambled behind a crate she heard his desperate cry on the radio.

"Shepard, I'm hit!" he screamed. "He got me Shepard. Oh God, he's finished me."

Shepard looked to the corner of the room and saw Byrnes lying in a tangle of concrete reinforcing, his blood splattered against the wall.

A hail of bullets whipped past Shepard's head, and she quickly pulled back behind the crate.

"Sit tight," she yelled. "I'm coming."

"No, leave me. That bastard has ripped a hole through my chest. Just go, go now!"

More bullets thudded into the crate. It started to crack under the onslaught.

"I'll come back," she promised him. "I'll come back for you."

There was no answer from Byrnes. She called to him again. No answer.

Shepard felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. She gasped for air as the sounds of battle melted into white noise, and crackling blue fire flooded her vision.

Shepard took a shuddering breath. "Byrnes was the first friend who had been killed under my command, and I completely lost it. My biotics took over. The energy exploded out of me. It was like... well, you know. You've seen it.

"Hallan didn't stand a chance. I woke up on the floor, surrounded by dead slavers, and saw him slumped against the wall. He'd received a fatal head wound, blunt force trauma. I was the one who had given it to him.

"I was a bloody, feeble mess. I could hardly walk, could barely think. I knew if there were any pirates left I'd be in no shape to fight them, so when I stumbled across some mining explosives I didn't waste any time. I set the charges, stumbled out and blew the base to rubble. I don't know how many pirates were left in there, or whether they would have surrendered. I didn't think about it at the time.

"I dragged my sorry ass out of there and climbed aboard a shuttle with Kyle and other soldiers who had been wounded in the initial assault. I thought the distraction team would be waiting for me, but they weren't there. They had been annihilated."

His dark eyes widened in shock, and her chest tightened. God, that look. He must think she was a monster. It took all her willpower to keep talking.

"Afterwards Kyle went to a mental hospital, and I was a hero. I had won a great victory for the Alliance, and the brass loved me for it. They didn't know I'd ignored opportunities to abort. They didn't know I had lost control of my biotics and killed one of my own soldiers. They did know I had blown up the slaver compound and everyone in it – which in my book makes me a war criminal – but they didn't care. Truth be known, I think they were pleased. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

"I knew if I told the brass the truth about Hallan and the others, it would immediately be hushed up. Instead of being court-martialed, I would be discreetly discharged and put on a very generous pension. Any controversy would tarnish the great victory I had won for the Alliance. You know what they're like. You know I'm right.

"I shut myself away, refusing to talk to anybody, and tried to figure out what to do. The Alliance kept sending a PTSD psych expert to my apartment; I think they were worried I'd throw myself from a window or something. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered it.

"In the end I did the only thing that made any sense – I removed my amp and signed up for soldier training. I resolved to keep fighting until I died on the field, like my friends had. They never got the chance to settle down or retire, so why should I?

"Soldier training was more brutal than you can imagine, but I succeeded in the end… except for one thing. I couldn't cope without my amp. Downgrading was the most I could bear.

"So." She turned to him. "Now you know. You have a kind heart, so I suppose you'll want to tell me it's all OK and that I shouldn't beat myself up over it – but don't. I know perfectly well it's not OK."

"I won't lie to you," he said carefully. "You did act for the wrong reasons when you refused to abort. You let yourself be blinded by your vendetta. However, you have to remember that by wiping out such a massive slaver ring, you saved many more lives than you lost. Your squad didn't die for nothing."

"But if I had been less impatient... if I had dug in and taken it slow..."

"That might have given the pirates time to bring in reinforcements. Who knows?" He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and looked at her earnestly. "Shepard, the past is like a vid. You can watch it as many times as you like, but you can't alter it. You can agonise over all the different ways the vid could have ended, but that won't change the ending.

"The only thing you can do with the past is learn from it, and use that knowledge to become a better person. I believe you've done that. Now you have to let go of the past and move on with your life."

I can't, she wanted to cry out. I can't let go. I don't know why.

Then, in a flash, it hit her: all this time she had been searching for forgiveness. Ever since Torfan she had always applied for the most dangerous missions, spent her shore leave in weapons training, worked herself to exhaustion, waiting for some kind of sign that she was forgiven. A sign from the universe, from God, her dead friends... someone.

But the universe couldn't offer absolution. Dead friends couldn't provide forgiveness. The only thing she could do, she realised, was to forgive herself.

"I'll try," she told Kaidan. "I promise I'll try."


Only one more chapter to go...