Kaidan couldn't remember the last time he had held a woman in his arms. Probably because the last time he had he had been high on red sand. As he laid there, Lauren resting peacefully beside him, he wasn't sure how he felt. Ilos loomed ahead, and this...dalliance seemed insignificant. Had he used her? Had she used him? Kaidan rolled away to face the wall.
His migraine was gone, but guilt had taken its place. She offered herself, so her consent wasn't in question, but was this whole thing forced by grief? Or fear? Kaidan tried to shake the sinking feeling in his gut. This wasn't right.
xXx
"Five minutes out to the Mu Relay." Joker's voice shattered Lauren's sleep. As she sat up, she wasn't entirely surprised to find she was alone. The pillow Kaidan had laid on was cold, suggesting his departure wasn't recent. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sighed loudly. There was no time to dwell on that. The fate of the galaxy rested on her having a clear head. She stood up. Time to work.
xXx
"Earth to Kaidan. Where are you?" Joker's snark sounded more pointed than usual. Kaidan blinked, looking up from the console he had absentmindedly been staring at. He wasn't used to not being part of the away team, and he couldn't help but believe it was because he left Lauren in her quarters and went back to his own bunk, and it annoyed him.
Mentally chastising himself, he looked towards the pilot, who was frantically pulling the ship out of orbit from Ilos. "What the hell are you doing? Where are we going?" Kaidan demanded. "We can't just leave her down there…" Faltering, he lamely added, "...and Garrus and Wrex."
"They're not there," Joker said, worry reflected in his own voice. "Lauren just sent me a message, but she said the team is on the Citadel and we need to get there now. So wake the hell up and help me navigate."
As Joker worked quietly, Kaidan settled in and the tension in his mind eased as he thought the moment of scrutiny had passed. Suddenly, he felt Joker's eyes boring into his head, as he looked over at Kaidan and said in an exaggerated whisper, "What happened? I saw you leaving Lauren's quarters at zero dark thirty. Did you two-?" Joker's eyebrows raised at the implication.
"I don't want to talk about it," was the stern reply.
"But you have to! You can't let me just wonder! You two have been dancing around in this weird mating ritual of yours for weeks, and I need to know if you did the deed."
"So what if we did?" Kaidan snapped. "Can't people just live their lives without being interrogated? You aren't owed a detailed story from either of us."
Joker let out a low whistle. "Ok man, I was just teasing. I thought it was a good thing for you guys."
"I don't know if it was," huffed Kaidan as he looked ahead at his console. "I- I think I acted too impulsively."
Joker put up his hands. "No judgment here. Let's just make sure she's safe at the Citadel, ok?"
xXx
Captain Anderson sat in Lauren's hospital room, questioning her about what happened on Ilos and how the hell she got from there to the Citadel. He meticulously wrote everything from her account for the report, gingerly patted her shoulder, and said, "Get some rest. You've earned it."
In the grand scheme of things, her injuries were minor, some bruised ribs, a broken arm, and cuts everywhere that had already been tended to with a layer of medigel. She wanted to leave, but when the doctor "strongly recommended" that she stay one night for observation, invoking concern from Admiral Hackett, she knew better than to argue.
With Anderson gone now, rest wouldn't come. It was too quiet inside the hospital and Lauren hated it. The echoes of battle still rang in her ears as she laid in the Alliance medical center on the Citadel's Kithoi Ward. The pounding of her blood in her ears roared, and she was about to call the nurse for a sleeping aid, when the door abruptly opened.
"Kaidan!" The shock in her voice was unmistakable. "How did you get here?"
"Anderson told me. He let the whole crew know because we were worried about you. He said somehow you missed getting crushed by part of Sovereign?" Any annoyance Kaidan had felt was long gone as he saw the state she was in. The face that he had caressed not 24 hours prior looked beaten and tired. One of the arms that had held him closely now hung limply in a sling.
"Yeah, I decided I wasn't going to let some tentacle be the end of me." Lauren winced as she chuckled. "It seemed too much like one of Joker's fetishes."
"The fact you know any of them frightens me." Kaidan's face broke into a smile.
As an awkward silence fell, the smiles drained off both of their faces. Kaidan looked away and cleared his throat. He watched the seconds tick by on the digital wall clock, praying for an interruption. None came.
"Should we talk about this?" Lauren finally said. "It's not going to get any easier to avoid it."
"You're right, but don't you think we've all been through enough today?" Kaidan dodged.
"If we took that approach, we'd never deal with anything. I don't like putting off the hard conversations. So let's have it, Alenko. Why'd you leave?"
Kaidan flinched at Lauren's directness. "I didn't 'leave…'" he started. "I don't know. I can't give you a good explanation. Everything about last night felt...off. Too rushed. Too...wrong."
Lauren shifted in her bed, letting out a low grunt of pain. "I thought we enjoyed ourselves."
"We did...I did. But the circumstances and everything that led up to it was just...it's just not what I had pictured." blurted Kaidan.
"What you pictured? Was this some kind of fantasy to you?"
"Now, wait a minute!" Intensity grew in his voice. "You were very clear that this was a fling, so what gives you the right to get angry that I left?"
"A fling?!" retorted Lauren incredulously. "I said I couldn't say I loved you. That was it. I'm not the one who has these romantic daydreams."
Kaidan stopped short. "Then what is this? Or that? Or whatever happened…"
Lauren looked down at her left hand that still wore the ring from a long dead love. "I don't know. I just know that I thought I was ready to feel again. Maybe."
Kaidan's brow furrowed in remembrance of his own part in Lauren's heartbreak. "You-we don't have to rush anything," he said quietly. "I've been an idiot."
"Can we just...enjoy this?" Lauren questioned. "Can it just be nice without expectations of...I don't know, marriage, children and all that? I can't say that'll ever be me. Sorry, Mrs. Alenko."
Kaidan lightly chuckled at the mock apology to his mom. "I think my mom will live. She's recognized she raised a military man."
Raising her hand to scratch her forehead, Lauren cracked a smile. "So now what?"
"Does this mean we're a thing?" His eyebrow quirked as he asked.
Lauren shook her head fiercely. "Not officially. Still pretty against regs. Gotta keep this quiet. But…," she paused, reaching for Kaidan's hand, smiling wickedly. "We have some shore leave coming."
Author note: I'm doing my best to recapture Lauren again after all these years, and it hasn't been as easy as I thought it would be, but I appreciate those of you who have read and given encouragement! Thank you for reading. Every comment and follow makes my day!
