He turns down the posting on the Kilimanjaro. Standing in Hannah Shepherd's office, he tells her firmly that he has personal issues to take care of and needs to be posted on a stable base.
She purses her lips, grey hair severe and gleaming in its bun. "You must take me for some fool, Alenko."
"I'm sorry, ma'am?"
"I know why you're turning down the post. It's for the Shepard woman."
He clears his throat. "With respect, ma'am, my reasons are personal and I would prefer not to discuss them."
She eyes him shrewdly. "Well, I'm glad you told me now. Last thing I need is a useless marine in deep space moping after somebody groundside. So the rumors are true then? You slipped up and got yourself in a whole world of trouble. Her, too."
"Ma'am?" he asks, playing dumb.
She smirks at him as he shifts in his bracing stance in front of his desk. "I took a chance on you for my ship-"
"I'm sorry, ma'am, I-"
"I don't make mistakes," she cuts in, dark eyes matter-of-fact in her angled face. "I was right to. You don't think I choose my men willy nilly, do you? Just because they have soulful eyes and a mildly impressive record?"
Kaidan doesn't know what to say so he settles for, "Uh, no, ma'am."
"I know David," she says, looking away from him and scribbling something on a datapad, as if he's a non-entity in her office, maybe a particularly boring flower pot. "He would never have hired you for the Normandy position if he didn't see something special in you. The same thing I saw when your application crossed my desk. Your record is spotless, Alenko. Right up until her. You're going to throw it all away for a second time? The Kilimanjaro has command positions available. You have an innate grasp of groundside battle tactics."
His mind races and he honestly doesn't know how to respond. Her eyes seem to see right through him.
"Permission to speak freely, ma'am?" he asks, choosing his words carefully.
She nods. "Granted."
"I feel as if I would be throwing away more if I took the position." He glances away from her eyes for a moment. "I feel like I would be failing my duty if I joined the Kilimanjaro and left things behind."
She actually laughs out loud at him and he barely keeps the consternation from his face.
"Oh, son," she chuckles. "You made the number one mistake soldiers like you shouldn't make when they break regs for a pretty face."
"And what's that, ma'am?" he practically huffs, annoyed.
"You fell in love with her."
He doesn't answer but she continues smirking as if she knows all his secrets.
"That's fine, Alenko. I'll belay your orders and assign you back to Arcturus. I hope you don't come to regret this."
"I won't, ma'am."
"Somehow I think you believe that. I wish you the best of luck and for the record?" She arches her eyebrow. "I think you're a hell of a soldier and you'll go far if you stop letting that pesky heart of yours rule your head."
"I'll take that under advisement. Thank you, ma'am."
"Dismissed."
Shepard is released from hospital on Arcturus after a week and he's finally able to see her, drifting like a ghost around the space station. She still won't speak to him and her cheeks are even more sunken than they were when he saw her on the Kilimanjaro.
She seems to have some kind of sixth sense when it comes to him, or maybe it's her legendary N7 skills, but she always knows when he's around and makes excuses to leave.
One day she's sat in the cafeteria, staring glumly at a slice of unappetizing cake when he and Vega walk in.
"Oh, hey, it's Shepard!" James says too loudly and Kaidan groans as Shepard looks up and notices them, her eyes immediately shuttering when they land on him.
"Let's go say hi," James says cheerily and Kaidan can't quite tell if he's playing dumb or he's genuinely ignorant of the scuttlebutt about him and Shepard.
Shepard gets up to leave but James is too quick for her, plopping down in the seat beside her and happily striking up conversation. Kaidan stands there, struck dumb at the sight of her and James, his tray clutched in his hands like a life raft.
James grabs her uninjured arm, the one without the pressure bandage snaking its way up her shirt, and pumps enthusiastically, chattering a mile a minute. Shepard looks better than she did when he first saw her, he notes with relief. Her burns are almost healed, just a faint red outline and she's fixed that side of her hair into something jaunty or edgy, something one of the younger girls on Earth might wear to piss off their parents.
"Lieutenant James Vega, ma'am. Pleased to meet you. I'm Kaidan's friend. I mean, I'm Lieutenant Alenko's friend. I heard a lot about you."
She glares at Kaidan, her eyes narrowed with insult.
James catches on. "Oh, all good things. He told me what a kickass fighter you are. Kaidan, man! Come sit with us," he calls, and Kaidan honestly wants to sink into the floor and disappear forever.
He can't refuse. James has made a scene and it seems the whole cafeteria is watching the train wreck unfold.
Shepard can't escape either, so he sinks gingerly into the chair beside her, trying not to notice how the air hums with electricity.
James shivers, rubbing his arms. "Whoa. Felt some bad mojo just now. Like someone just walked over my grave."
"It's our biotics," Shepard rasps, the first word he's heard from her in over a week. He thinks maybe by the quality of her voice they're the first words she's actually spoken without being forced out by necessity. "They hum in frequency sometimes."
Kaidan looks away as she lowers her head to poke at her cake, her hair falling down one side of her face again.
"How are you feeling, Shepard?" he forces out, willing himself not to look at her, not to search for clues that she didn't wipe away the thing they had made.
"I'm fine," she says, shifting in her seat to tug at her shirt. He doesn't believe her. Stealing glances he can see she looks like she hasn't slept in a week and barely eaten.
"You don't look fine," he says quietly.
"Well, I am," she snaps. "Don't tell me what I am and am not feeling, Alenko."
He winces at the 'Alenko' as James pauses in eating, his spoonful of soup paused halfway to his mouth as he gapes at the turn the conversation's taken.
"Did it just get chilly in here, or is that just me?"
"Cram it, LT," Shepard mutters and Kaidan bristles with sudden unreasonable offense. LT was his name. Not James'.
James eyes widen but he forges ahead and Kaidan really has to admire his sheer bravery or brain-dead stupidity.
"So, Shep. May I call you Shep?"
"No."
"OK. So, I hear you're like a ballerina. Got those fancy moves."
She glares at Kaidan again and he's inappropriately struck by how much he loves her, how much he just wants her to talk to him again, uncloak herself from the pall that's fallen over her.
"I'm no dancer," she replies.
"No, no," James argues. "I heard you were like… the hardcore version of a dancer. Got all that space magic in your brain. Fancy a match sometime?"
"With you?"
"Yeah, sure. Why not?"
She shifts again, her hand disappearing under the table and he suddenly knows when she glances at him shyly. She still has the baby.
"Maybe some other time. My arm's still hurt."
"Shepard, can I talk to you?" he asks as James shrugs and goes back to his soup.
"I don't see what there is to discuss, Alenko," she replies coldly. "I'll be leaving Arcturus as soon as I'm healed up."
"Please, can we talk about-"
He's cut off by a bunch of rowdy marines entering the mess and taking the table behind them. They bump Shepard's chair and she glowers but says nothing.
They don't seem to even notice her.
"So, you hear the news, Eddy? That cripple they had flying the Normandy died."
Their table tenses, James suddenly looking angry. Shepard's shoulders bow. Kaidan grasps his fork so hard he thinks it bends a little.
"Yeah, I heard," one of the burly marines replies. "No, no. That's not the juiciest part. You heard of Shepard, right? That tight-ass bitch they had in charge of the Normandy?"
"Yeah, yeah. I know her. Never should have got it after Akuze. What about her?"
The marine lowers his voice conspiratorially. "Well, I heard she got herself knocked up, by one of her crew. And her pilot died to save her. God! What a shitty Commander. But you know, it all makes sense. Maybe the kid was the pilot's, you know. He wasn't just flying the ship, if you know what I mean. I dunno, man. I don't know why they let women into command positions. Shit like this always happens. Guys want to save them or they get themselves pregnant and useless."
Kaidan's heart pounds with rage and the next words seal the deal.
"Kid's gonna be born a cripple. You'll see. Maybe he'll join up too, and you know, break a bone at the enemy or cry."
He starts to stand, to say or do something, anything, he doesn't know. But Shepard beats him to it.
Standing, he can see her properly and she looks much the same as she ever did, except when her shirt rides up he can see a barely discernible curve, only noticeable to him from long hours entwined with her body.
"Shitty Commander, am I?" she whispers dangerously and the whole cafeteria hushes. The marine's faces turn ashen.
"Uh, n-no, ma'am," the marine stammers.
"I thought I heard you differently. It must be my frail lady ears. Silly me," she says and Kaidan knows from long experience that she's furious. And not just in her usual way, not just as part of her personality. She's shaking with it, every line of her body vibrating.
"Make all the cracks you want about me. Call me a whore. Call me unfit. Hell, call me whatever you want. I don't give a fuck. What you won't do is say another damn word about Jeffrey Moreau," Shepard snarls, so quiet he has to strain to hear, but the entire cafeteria hangs on her words. "He was the finest man I've ever served with and you bunch of idiots shouldn't even have the privilege of mentioning his name."
The bravest of the group of marines smirks and Kaidan can see by his insignia that he's another Commander and not cowed by her rank.
"Look, Shepard, I don't know where you get off acting so high and mighty, when from where I'm sitting, you got a subordinate killed because you couldn't keep your legs-"
He doesn't get to finish his sentence because to Kaidan's alarm, Shepard leaps on him, her hands wrapping around his throat. She's not bothering with biotics, far too gone to use them or just forgetful in her rage. Kaidan's glad. She would have killed him otherwise.
"You sonvabitch!" she yells. "How dare you. How dare you?!"
"James!" Kaidan calls, already moving for her.
Her rage makes her strong though and she fights him every step of the way as he tries to pull her off.
"Shepard! Leave him! He's not worth it."
She's beside herself, tears streaming down her face. "No, Kaidan! Let me go!"
James scrambles over to Kaidan, wrapping his arms around Shepard's middle and hauling her off. The marine's face is scratched and bloody, his nose broken by one of her flying fists. One of his eyes is already blackening.
"Careful with her!" Kaidan barks as James is a little rough. His heart is doing weird flip flops.
James sets her down in a clear area and stands in her way when she tries to push past him again.
"Come on, man," he says to her. "Let it go. Walk it off. Cool down."
Her hair is in disarray, her face a weird mixture of green and red and even as Kaidan watches she presses her hand to her mouth, her whole body heaving. He moves to her, placing a hand on her back and rubbing.
"Easy," he whispers. "You alright?"
"Fuck off," she says, choked with bile rising up her throat, and she turns and rushes off.
Kaidan watches her go, his heart tearing in two.
"Fucking crazy bitch," the marine on the floor says, spitting blood onto the ground.
Kaidan turns to punch him in the face but James beats him to it with a cheerful expression.
"If I just got my ass kicked three ways to Sunday by a 125 pound woman without even involving her biotics, I would probably be inclined to keep my stupid mouth shut lest she come back and rip my balls off. Just sayin', sir."
His buddies help the fallen Commander up off the floor and he slinks away, a burning sunset of red on his face.
"Break it up," Kaidan calls to the stunned onlookers. "Back to your lunch or posts."
They disperse slowly, a few of them muttering their admiration for Shepard's fighting skills.
She comes to him that night, like a wraith or a secret lover in the shadows, softness and hard edges both.
He doesn't even know what dorm she's been staying in or he would have went to her long ago. Arcturus station is big and she has ways of being lost.
The knock on his door startles him from his nightly round of 'Ways in Which Kaidan Alenko Sucks and Hurts Everything but Most Especially the Women He Loves.'
She stands behind the door, a loose shirt and BDU pants on, all sharp cheekbones and dead eyes.
"Can I come in?" she says and he opens the door wide, shocked and wordless.
"Of course."
She stands in the middle of his room and scratches her pressure bandages.
"How is your arm?"
"Fine," she mutters. "It just itches. But cut the bullshit, Kaidan. I don't have time for this. I came here for one thing."
His heart lightens, thinking that she's forgiven herself a little and is ready to talk to him about the baby, about them.
"Anything you want. I'm here for you."
She nods once and crosses the room in three quick strides. She grasps his face, pulls him down to her level and joins her lips to his. "Good," she breathes. "I need you."
He kisses her back, a breath of fresh air after too long buried underground. She groans into his mouth as his hands come around her back.
"Thank god," he sighs. "I thought… I thought you hated me."
"Don't talk," she says softly, pressing him back to his bed. "Let's just not talk."
His knees hit the back of the bed and he falls, letting her fall on top of him.
"Shepard, what-"
"Shh," she whispers, kissing him again, her mouth ravenous. "This is us before the door was left unlocked."
He's confused and he doesn't like the deadness in her eyes, but he wants her any way he can have her, the kiss of her skin on his is the thing he wants most in the world. His hands come up to rest on her hips as she slides on top of him, her thighs parting around his middle. He can feel her hot against him, even through her pants.
She reaches up and pulls her shirt off and his eyes feast hungrily on her. Her scars are barely there and as she notices him watching, she defiantly pulls off her pressure bandage.
"Shepard, you need to keep that on…"
"Fuck it," she says, running her hands over her now freed arm and tossing the bandage across the room. "I hate it."
He takes her hand and looks at it, even as she tries to distract him with more messy kisses. The arm is still a little swollen, but most of it has gone down and the scars have mostly disappeared from there, too. He presses a kiss to the feverish skin and a shiver runs through her body. He peppers kisses the entire length of it, the part of her body that touched the coldness of space as the yellow beam tore through her suit. They almost stole the very thing in the galaxy that matters most to him.
"Stop," she says and he looks up to see tears in her eyes. "I don't deserve this. Please, just fuck me and let me go. Don't be kind."
She kisses him violently, trying to force her tongue inside and makes a noise of frustration when he resists.
"Hey, hey, hey. I'm not going to just fuck you. Don't say it like that. This isn't a game, Shepard."
She unclasps her bra, leaning over him and pressing against his chest. She looks at him in challenge.
"Who says it's a game? You don't understand. You're going to kill me if you keep looking at me like that. I can't bear your kindness."
She takes his hand and presses it to her breast. He groans as he feels the weight in his hands, how it's so familiar to him, the exact softness and texture of her skin. His other hand slides up from her hip and rests on her stomach and she freezes.
"No, no, no," she mutters, climbing off him and heading for her shirt on the ground. "No."
He scrambles up. "Shepard, please. Stop. Stop running."
She spins as she pulls her shirt on with her bra. "If I stop running, I'll fall and I promise you – I won't get up again."
She heads for the door, but he beats her there, pressing against the button so she can't open it.
"Can we talk? Please, Shep. Please," he begs. "I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know how to feel."
She looks up at him with tears in her eyes. "You think I do?" she asks, voice breaking. "You think I have any idea about what to do? I can't sleep. I can't breathe. I can't eat. I can't think. Every time I close my eyes I see the ship burning and Joker caught in the blast. I just want-"
She breaks off, her shoulders heaving with sobs.
"I just want you to take away the memories for one night. Like before. I want to pretend that this thing isn't inside me. That… that I can just walk out this room like it's the SR-1 and Joker will be there to smirk at me and make jokes and I can steal his hat and wear it around the ship. That I can laugh again. Like there's not this hole inside me. That I can love you again without feeling like my heart is tearing apart."
Tears cling to her eyelashes, like the droplets from the shower from so very long ago.
"Can you give that to me? Can you let me pretend?"
Kaidan goes to her, wraps his arms around her in a hug and she sighs and sinks against him.
"I can give you that. I can try."
His hands sneak under the shirt, tracing her spine and then grasping the edges to pull it up and over her head. He backs her against the wall, running his hands over every inch of skin he can find, pretending when his fingers ghost her stomach that he's not trying to feel the subtle rise of skin. If she notices, she doesn't say anything and instead reaches down to fiddle with his fly.
He pulls off his shirt, making her pause in her desperate kisses to his mouth and they take a chance to meld their torsos against one another, feeling the hot skin, the loss of a lover.
She rests her head against his shoulder and allows him to stroke her hair, a tiny demonstration of love.
"I missed you," she murmurs.
"I love you," he returns, but she doesn't say it back. Her hands wander to his ass and inch the fabric of his pants down.
"I want sex, Kaidan," she begs. "And I don't wanna go anywhere else for it."
"Don't. I'm here."
"Then be where you're supposed to be."
He helps her pull his pants down and divests her of her own. She stands before him, her head tilted up at him in defiance, her eyes blazing, as if challenging him to mention her new curves.
He says nothing, just picks her up and carries her to the bed. He climbs on top of her, joining their mouths again and they kiss for a long time, relearning each other's bodies.
Her hands wander down his back, cupping his ass and grinding him to her, his arousal pressing against her entrance with a delicious friction. For good measure, she reaches down and strokes him a few times, the barest lift of a smile on her mouth when he groans against her neck.
"Are you sure we should be doing this, Shepard?"
She doesn't answer, just rolls and lets him curl around her, widening her legs so he can press against her and position himself right.
"I told you," she murmurs when he adjusts his arm so her head rests against it, just as he slides into her hot and slick center. "I don't know anything anymore. Don't ask me."
He kisses her neck, her mouth, her eyes as he thrusts, tilting her head so he can reach her. Her eyes are shut tightly and she won't look at him, but she accepts his affection as she used to, returning the heat with her own blazing fire.
His palms caress her breasts, gently circling her swollen peaks and feeling her clench around him, a strangled moan of pleasure escaping her mouth.
She's so tight around him, the way she presses her thighs together making a delicious friction for him. Heat begins to draw sweat from their bodies, the stuffy Arcturus dorm overheated and cloying. The fine wisps of her hair stick to her face and he can feel a bead of sweat run down his temple to splash onto her shoulder.
He can feel his release coming too early for her. She's having trouble getting there, reluctant to follow him to completion or just incapable of it.
A frustrated whimper falls from her mouth as his pace intensifies, so he reaches down to ghost his thumb over her clit, making a noise of comfort against her ear.
"You'll be OK. I swear it. I'm gonna take care of you," he mutters, not sure what he's saying but wanting to do anything to take that sound from her voice, the lines of pain from her face.
She comes, shuddering around him, tears on her face and he follows a moment later, pulling out of her to spill against the bed sheets. He feels empty when he's done as she rolls over to gaze up at him, the most helpless longing in her eyes for forgiveness he can't give her because she's the only one who can forgive herself.
He wraps his body around her, his hands on her back as she shudders, wetness on his chest as she buries her face against him. Kaidan pulls the sheets up, wrapping them around her, desperate to stop the shaking that wracks her body.
"What can I do to help you?" he says, desperate and scared for her.
"Bring Joker back to me. Let me die instead of him. Lock the door. All of these are impossible, but that's what I want."
Fear grips him tight and doesn't let go. She doesn't mention what she wants relating to their baby.
"Are… are you saying you want to die?"
She shakes her head, mouth moving wordlessly against his skin.
"Shepard, you need to speak to someone. You can't bottle this up and hope it'll go away. Please, I know what it's like. After Brain Camp I-"
"I know," she whispers. "Let's just pretend for now that everything is fine. Hold me."
"I am," he replies kissing her forehead.
"Tighter."
Her shoulders still as she drifts off to sleep and he follows hours later, finally satisfied with watching her face smooth out in sleep, watching her chest rise and fall and her slight, exhausted snores. Her eyelids flutter the whole time, lost to dreams.
When he wakes up she's gone again and he can't find her anywhere on the station.
They only tell him later in Transport that she took a shuttle to the Citadel. Joker's funeral would be held there in three days and Kaidan gets leave to join her.
He won't let her go through this alone, despite how often James tries to tell him to just let her work it out for herself.
"Man, just… she's just all messed up in the head, as any one of us would be if we saw our friend killed right in front of us," James says over coffee, only hours before Kaidan is due to depart for the Citadel himself.
"James, she has PTSD and depression," he says flatly. "You can't just get over that. I can't let her pull away because if I do, I'll lose her forever."
James looks around furtively, even though there's no one around in this tucked away corner in the bowels of Arcturus. "So, it's true what they say? About you and her? I mean… she is having, you know, a mini-human? That's not rumors?"
Kaidan sips his coffee and says nothing, merely raises his eyebrow at 'mini-human'.
James shrugs. "It sounded right. OK, a baby creature thing."
"It's not a creature or a thing, Vega. She wasn't having an affair with Joker. She loved him as a friend and as her pilot."
James whistles slowly, out through his teeth, as if that sentence confirmed all his suspicions. "Shit, man. I don't know what to say. Are you still together?"
"No," he answers honestly. "I don't think that we are."
"And how do you feel about that? I mean…" he lowers his voice, his eyes darting around. "That's your kid, man. You must feel something."
He repeats what Shepard said to him, over and over. "I don't know anything anymore."
James looks at him with more pity in his eyes than he can stand. He wonders if that's how Shepard feels when anyone looks at her these days, the fallen hero, and humanity's best and brightest who's lost it all in a few short months. She was everything bright and beautiful, full of potential before Kaidan sullied her.
"Do you… wanna be the kid's dad?" James asks nervously. "Look, I never really brought this up before because it's weird and I don't like talking about it, but my dad… he wasn't so great. If you're gonna do this thing, you have to do it the best you can. There's no second chances when you hold that little kid. They're gonna trust you, more than anyone, and you have to not let them down."
"I know," Kaidan answers instantly. "I know. Believe me. There's nothing more I want than… than to-" he breaks off, words fleeing. "I'm just worried about Shepard. She won't let me bring it up. Won't talk about it and I don't know how to push without making her splinter, you know? She came to me, the other night, and I-" He sighs. "She wasn't the woman I used to know. She was this brittle thing and I'm worried about her."
James pats his back roughly. "Sorry."