Thank you all for reading! Special thanks to Oleander's One for the beta!
With much of the Citadel's infrastructure out of commission, and the remainder overwhelmed, Kaidan and Garrus had been brought back to the Normandy after the battle and put under Dr. Chakwas's care. In truth, Kaidan's broken ribs and injured arm weren't the problem—after the application of some medi-gel, they were healing, more irritating than anything. But he could feel the onset of a whopper of a migraine. Lights were flashing in his vision, and he felt dizzy and sick, the vise closing in around his head. Not surprising, but it was a terrible time for it. Every pair of hands was going to be needed to clean up the debris and start to put the Citadel back together.
Dr. Chakwas took one look at him over Garrus's burnt shoulder and without paying any attention to his protests had him hustled immediately off to the familiar confines of the isolation chamber, where blessed darkness and silence enclosed him. Eventually he dropped off to sleep despite his best efforts to fight off the symptoms and pretend he was fit for duty.
He woke refreshed, his head clear, his ribs sore but not painful. Dr. Chakwas looked him over, making certain he had fully recovered from the migraine, bound his arm in a sling, and cleared him to leave the med bay.
Once outside, he gathered his wits about him for the first time since he was taken into the med bay—it felt like the first time since they'd put their boots on the ground at Ilos, really—and looked around him. He was on the Normandy, but where was the Normandy? He had to assume it was still at the Citadel, and he didn't feel it moving underneath him, so he imagined it must still be docked.
He took the stairs up to the bridge. Young Gerard was standing at attention at the door, looking older and more tired than the last time Kaidan had seen him. Probably they all did. He unbent enough to smile when Kaidan came through. "Lieutenant, it's good to see you up and about."
"Good to be up and about."
Before Kaidan could voice the question uppermost in his mind, Gerard answered it. "The Commander will be relieved to see you on your feet. She hovered around med bay until Dr. Chakwas threatened to have her thrown off the ship."
Kaidan grinned. Only Dr. Chakwas could get away with talking to Shepard that way. "Have you seen the Commander recently?"
"She's been in the Citadel the last couple of days."
"Days? How long was I out?"
Gerard frowned, counting. "Three days?"
"Oh." After everything, Kaidan wasn't all that surprised he had slept so long, especially given the migraine. He wondered how much Shepard had slept, if at all. Neither of them had done too much sleeping that last night before Ilos, but she had slept less than he had. There hadn't been a chance to talk after that, either, so he wasn't sure where they stood. Regs said they stood nowhere, but having thrown regs to the wind once, Kaidan thought he would be willing to toss them aside a few more times, maybe even permanently, if that was what Shepard wanted. "Gerard, any reason I can't go ashore?"
"No, sir. Uh …" He hesitated as Kaidan paused, waiting for him to speak. "You can probably find the Commander wherever Captain Anderson is."
"Thanks." Kaidan moved toward the airlock, pausing in the cockpit where Joker lay stretched out on the ground working on something in the navigation console. "How's she holding up?"
Joker shifted his shoulders out from under the console to look up at Kaidan. "The Normandy's in fine shape. A lot better than the Citadel. Thanks to its capable pilot, that is." He grinned.
"We've never doubted you," Kaidan said, moving toward the airlock. He waited while the doors opened and then made his way out to the docking bay.
It looked a lot better out there than he would have thought. In the midst of the battle for the Citadel, the destruction had seemed endless, and the scars of battle were still evident in loose cords dangling from the walls and broken tiles at his feet and the scurrying of the Keepers who were usually so still and unobtrusive. But the docking bay was functional, and when he touched the panel the elevator doors opened. Kaidan hesitated before he stepped onto the elevator, remembering what had happened to the elevator during Sovereign's attack. But there really was no other way down, so he got in and touched the button to close the door, and he waited. The elevator was slower than usual, and the music was broken up by static … but it was still the same song. He smiled, listening to it, the melody so familiar his mind could fill in the missing pieces. A galaxy's worth of music, and the Citadel's elevators played the same thing over and over again. He could only imagine they were going for a soothing familiarity … or that it was some kind of glitch and no one could ever remember to fix it. Either way, it was actually reassuring to hear even brief snatches of it now.
The doors opened far below in C-Sec, which seemed largely untouched by the destruction of the battle. The geth apparently hadn't made it down this far. And no doubt the C-Sec officers had been out doing the fighting, defending the Citadel's populace. Kaidan wondered how many had been lost in the process.
Things were bustling here, and as he watched everyone rushing around he realized he had absolutely no idea where to find Shepard, or what to do with himself other than look for her.
He grabbed the arm of a passing turian. "Excuse me, do you know where to find Commander Shepard?"
The turian had clearly been thinking of something else; he frowned blankly at Kaidan while the words filtered through his distraction. "Shepard? Oh, the human Spectre! Not sure, but you might want to check the embassy." He didn't wait for Kaidan's response, going on about his business.
Kaidan made his way to the embassy area, continuing to be impressed by the rapidity with which the Keepers made repairs. Knowing now as he did that the race had been bred specifically to tend the Citadel, he found himself curious about them, watching the ones he saw to determine if he could tell what had been altered in them over the long centuries, what they might have been once upon a time.
As he climbed the steps to the human embassy, his heart was pounding. Since he hadn't had a chance to talk to Shepard since their night together, this first sight of her now after the battle was something he couldn't predict—would she be all business, would there be a sign for him, had she forgotten all about him in the greater urgency of the moment, had she decided it had all been a big mistake? Given Shepard, it could be any of the above.
At his tentative knock, Ambassador Udina's impatient voice called, "Enter," and the doors slid open for him.
"Well, soldier, what is it?" the Ambassador snapped.
Standing behind him, leaning over his shoulder looking at his computer screen, was Shepard. She stood up as Kaidan came in, and the blinding smile that flashed across her face, albeit briefly, told him everything he needed to know, filling him with peace and a welcome sense of warmth. "He's with me, Ambassador. One moment, please." And then she was all business, the formidable Commander Shepard famed across the galaxy. "Lieutenant?"
"Commander. Reporting for duty."
She raised her eyebrows, coming around the desk toward him. She looked pointedly at the sling that held his arm. "Are you ready for duty, Lieutenant? Last time I saw you you were down for the count."
"Yes, ma'am. Much better now. And you, no ill effects?"
"Nothing a little medi-gel and a good night's sleep couldn't fix, if I ever get a chance to remember what that is." She smiled a little, her face relaxing. "Why don't you come in here and we'll catch you up on everything you missed during your recovery. And then later I'll escort you back to the Normandy and check in on Joker's progress with the repairs."
There was something in her voice that told him any remaining questions he had would be answered satisfactorily then, and so Kaidan was able to put the personal aside and focus on the bigger issues at hand—the reconstruction of the Citadel, what the remaining Reapers on the other side of the Conduit would do, and whether the Council was finally going to add a human representative and if so, who it would be.