Shepard's mind raced as she clambered painfully to her feet, gripping her aching stomach. Somehow she'd lost her pistol being thrown across the clearing, and she could see it would be useless anyway. They could barely see three metres in front of their faces, let alone get a good enough sight to fire a gun and be sure not to hit friendlies.

Ash was still nowhere to be seen.

"Run!" she yelled, grabbing Kaidan's hand and pulling him along.

"What about Ash?!"

"She's not here. These things are gonna kill us and we can't fight them. Just keep running!"

They tore through the trees. Shepard didn't even know which direction she was running in, all her senses muddled. She had the presence of mind to click her comm, but only static greeted her. She doubted even the Normandy would be able to connect.

They fell together into a waist-deep puddle. The water was black; she couldn't see past the surface which was as opaque as tar. A dead deer-like creature bobbed by, and she could see it had been pregnant, its belly bulging grotesquely.

She yanked his hand again, struggling through the water and trying not to let any splash on her face. She was the quicker of the two, and he tried to get her to let him go and run ahead, but she shook her head, and pulled his hand harder.

"Run, Shepard! I'll catch you up."

"Not a fucking chance in hell."

Something slammed into Shepard's back and threw her again face first into the water. Unable to help herself, she gulped automatically and knew that she would never feel clean again. Dead things floated by her face.

She felt a hiss, and bubbles swarm around her face and knew her airline in her suit had been cut. It was like whatever was chasing them knew exactly where to strike to disable the two marines. Something pinged off the armor of her leg, right over the tendon on the back of her knee. Without the armor it would have sliced right through and ham-strung her. As it was, it left a long, buckled scratch in the material.

Again, Kaidan yanked her head above water and this time he was the one to grab her hand and pull her along. She breathed raggedly, exhausted, her muscles burning with lactic acid and lack of oxygen.

"You OK?" he asked, as they climbed up the side of a muddy banked, clawing into the mud for purchase.

"Not by any definition of OK," she panted. "Just run."

Whispers chased them, that horrible monotonous chanting back and the sickly perfume in the air.

She had never felt more terrified, even on all her harrowing operations as a N7. Her biotics weren't working, a team member was missing, something kept trying to drown her, and she was sure it was driving them back into the heart of the swamp. The dark place, the secret place, the bad place.

Kaidan tripped and as he fell, he let go of her hand to stop himself dragging her down too. Instantly, darkness swarmed over him, a nasty cut appearing over his brow, and slicing into one of his thick eyebrows. He tried to shield his eyes with his hand, and Shepard knew if whatever was cutting them hit his eye, it would slice through the eyeball and they would be completely screwed.

Without thinking, she threw her whole body over him, exposing her back to the creatures and tucking her face into his side.

"Run, Shepard," he gasped again.

"No."

There was a moment of quiet, the creatures retreating for a second, perhaps to gather for another assault, so Shepard pulled his arm and raced through a thicket of trees where it seemed to lead to drier ground.

They ran for what felt like hours, and it never became lighter, the same gloom following them everywhere. The tree canopy never parted enough to see the sky, and Shepard lost all her bearings.

Eventually she collapsed, Kaidan falling alongside her in the mud. They couldn't run anymore. His face was puce colored, and she couldn't speak through her gasps of air.

Miraculously, they seemed to have stumbled somewhere the darkness couldn't follow, and she felt the whispering lessen, her ears no longer thrumming with ancient words.

Her hands fisted in the mud, rage rising in her.

"My biotics aren't working. They're not working. Give. Them. Back. To. Me," she said, voice dead and pure rage personified. Her breath quickened again. "My fucking biotics are not working. My one thing."

"Calm down," Kaidan said beside her, putting a hand on her heaving back. "Just breathe, alright?"

"How the fuck can I breathe when I don't have my fucking biotics?" she snarled and threw off his hand. "I'm useless without them! You tell me, Lieutenant!"

"You're alive," he said calmly, and crawled closer to her, his eyes tracing the cuts on her face. "We're alive. There's a rational explanation for all this. I doubt they're permanently gone."

"What if they are? I can't do my job without them. I can't. They're all I have. All that I am. You don't understand."

"I do, Shepard. Mine are gone too."

"How the fuck can you?" she yelled. "You hate yours. You're probably glad they're gone."

She breathed harshly, almost snorting through her nose and crawled to sit on a log, holding her head in her hands. "Where the fuck is Ash?" she murmured, almost losing it.

Kaidan stood, looking unoffended at her outburst. He sat beside her. "Ash is probably somewhere safe. I don't know. I didn't see her body back at the campsite. Knowing her, she might have gone to get help or something. She's a survivor."

"She wouldn't have left us."

Kaidan didn't respond. Shepard heaved and vomited more disgusting water onto her boots as he patted her back. Tears rolled down her face, and Kaidan's face crumpled.

Shepard wretched again, and moved weakly away from him on the log. She didn't need his pity or his comfort. Fuck him.

"You have other skills," she said. "You're smart, good at tech, not bad with a gun. My artillery skills are middling at best. My tech is non-existent. Biotics are the only reason they accepted me, and the reason I'm not dead in a ditch right now. I made it to Commander because I'm one of the best damn biotics they have in the service and they fucking know it. My career is over without them. I'm just some gutter trash. I'll have to go back to Earth. I never want to go back to Earth. I would rather die than go back to the life I used to have. Do you understand me?" she bit out, voice gravel. "Biotics are my life."

Tears started rolling down her face again as she extended her palm and tried to spark her blue fire there.

All she was rewarded with was a dull ache behind her eyes.

Kaidan wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer on the log. "Shh," he soothed, stroking her muddy hair. She buried her face in his neck, smelling blood and sweat there. "Shh. OK? You're gonna be fine. They'll come back. You're not going to wash out. You'll be fine."

"Kaidan," she said brokenly, her cheek stinging with her salty tears. "I can't live without them. I can't fight without them. I'm naked and exposed. How can I protect myself? How can I protect anything?"

"You're OK. I'm here. You're more than you think you are." His other arm came around her and she turned fully into his chest, shutting her eyes to stop the tears.

"Kaidan..."

"I'm here."

It was a long time before they pulled apart.

He searched in the small first aid kit he had attached to his belt and drew out a needle and thread.

"Your cheek has a nasty gash. It can't be left like that," he said, pulling off his gloves, and turned her face towards him gently.

"It's probably already infected. There were dead things in the water."

"I know. But I can't use medi-gel when it's gaping like that, it won't heal. There might be an infection but Chakwas can give you meds when we get back. In the meantime, it's still bleeding and the skin is loose. It'll scar very badly. It's best to sew it up, at least loosely, so you don't bleed out. I have suture training."

"Do it," she sighed. "Just do it quickly."

"I don't have painkillers," he warned. "It will hurt."

"I can handle it."

Shepard remained silent as he pulled the needle through her skin, tears in his eyes as she bit back screams. She dug her nails into his thigh, griping it in absence of his hand and her only outlet she allowed herself.

When he was done, he wiped his face looking forty-five again, and smeared medi-gel onto his sutures. "There. All fixed."

"I'm Frankenstein now," she joked weakly, wiping tears from her face and trying to bite back the vomit rising in her throat.

"Hardly."

"Let's keep walking," she said, standing on shaking legs. "We've gone too deep. We need to head back." She raised her arm and her omni-tool flared to life. This time she could see, but what she saw didn't make any sense.

"It says that since we stopped for the night, that a whole day has passed. That can't be right," she gasped and Kaidan pulled his own 'tool up.

"Mine says that too. How could that happen? How long were we sleeping for? How long were we running? Why hasn't the Normandy reported in?"

She clicked her comm. "Shore party to Normandy. Normandy, come in. Joker?"

The whispers came onto the comm and she stumbled back in alarm, shutting down the connection.

"Holy fuck. What is that?"

"Let's just keep moving," Kaidan said, moving to her side. "Something in here wants us to be lost."

"Well, they're gonna be disappointed. We still have navpoint data. We're getting out of here and finding Ash. I hope she's headed back to the settlement."

They walked for what felt like days, and the gloom never brightened, no matter if their 'tools said it was noon or midnight. Shepard was ravenous and thirsty but didn't trust to drink from the streams anymore.

Kaidan walked beside her, and it was clear they were both flagging. They didn't seem to be making progress and she wondered if they were walking in circles even if their 'tools told them otherwise. She could have sworn she had passed the same tree three times.

And through it all she flicked her fingers, trying to summon her biotic power to no avail.

Eventually they started following the water, moving away from the darker streams and walking down the cool, clear ones, hoping it would lead them back to the settlement and away from the whispers. The force that had attacked them hadn't come back yet. Maybe they needed a certain time of day, or some kind of trigger, but whatever it was Shepard prayed they stayed away. She was sure that this time if they threw her into a puddle and held her down, neither she nor Kaidan would have the energy to save her from drowning.

Late in the afternoon, something drew Shepard beyond a tangle of vines and she gasped. It was like walking out of a dark cave after being raised there her whole life. Color and light and life suddenly held meaning again.

The clearing was a vision. A stream burbled, light breaking through a gap in the trees to dance and fret onto its cool surface. It was so clear Shepard could see every cool blue river stone in the bottom.

Moss grew; green, bright and soft on every rock and surface. Butterflies flocked onto great purple flowers, and mist sent scattered rainbows to dance across Shepard's eyes. There wasn't a dead animal in sight. The Normandy nav data hadn't indicated anything like this, and indeed when she looked at her 'tool it said it should have been just a snarl of fallen logs and muddy puddles.

Growing up on Earth she knew urban sprawls, smog and hustle. Joining the Alliance she expanded her range to bombed-out buildings, war zones, and alien cities.

She knew concrete, metal, and cold glass. She knew wasteland, desert, and scrub.

She didn't know this.

Even the Presidium didn't match the sheer beauty of this place. The complete contrast between constructed beauty and the natural world was staggering.

The Citadel was a facade, a poor echo of what the clearing effortlessly captured - life.

"I think we should camp here, for now," Shepard said, kicking a log with her boot and assessing if it was safe to camp in the clearing. It was relatively dry and settled, small and defensible. It seemed safe to sleep, the whispers lessened in power. She could see some kind of hollow they could tuck into, out of sight. "The sun is going down soon, I think, but for now we have light. Those predators things don't like the light. We'll let off a flare, or start a fire if we can find some wood. We'll keep it burning in case Ash comes."

"Shepard, we need to find her, we-"

"We will. But it's no use stumbling around in the dark and getting killed looking for her. We need rest, we need light and we need to keep our heads on straight. Hopefully we'll be able to re-establish comms with the Normandy in the morning or find our way out of here."

Shepard was sick with worry over Ash. She didn't know where she could have been or what could have happened to make her separate from them. But Kaidan needed to have confidence that everything was under control. Her earlier breakdown over her biotics was unacceptable.

She started gathering sticks for a fire, hoping the matches would be dry enough to use. The sun went down, the butterflies fled and Shepard crawled into the hollow with Kaidan, a roaring fire unable to drown out the whispers.

"It's cold," Shepard muttered, sometime around two a.m. Her hips ached on the cold ground, her stomach roiling and the heat from the fire seemed to have been swallowed into nothingness before it could reach them.

"I know," Kaidan said, shifting his back against hers. He'd rolled over against the wood of the hollow at an attempt to give her some privacy, but she wished he wouldn't. "I can't sleep."

"We should conserve body heat." They were still dressed in their armor, thinking if the creatures came back it would protect them, but it was rapidly becoming highly uncomfortable. Water had leaked inside from her cut airline, and she could feel her skin pruning. It would soon become infected and rot.

So Shepard started unbuckling her boots. Screw this, she thought. She'd take sleeping beside Kaidan in her skivvies rather than deal with her skin sloughing off. They hadn't seen the creatures for a day, and truthfully, armored or not, there wasn't much they could do to fight them.

"I know. I don't trust myself." There was a small laugh in his voice, muted and tentative, but there.

She pulled off her chest piece and greaves and threw them next to the fire to dry out, rubbing her skin down with the hem of her singlet.

"Me neither," she muttered. "But I'm cold and tired and hey, it's not like we're totally the picture of restraint and good judgement."

He started pulling his own armor off, and threw it out of the hollow to rest beside Shepard's.

He smiled shyly, looking exhausted and old again. "Come sleep beside me, Shepard. I promise to be a perfect gentleman and not take advantage of you."

"Advantage? Ha." She laughed, crawling into his arms. "I would be more worried at me ruining your puritan modesty. I'm no lady."

"You don't know me very well, then."

"Yeah?"

"I wasn't always so..."

She arched a brow, feeling her stitches pull. "Work obsessed?"

"I'm not obsessed," he protested.

"Sure you're not." She rolled over, facing the bark wall of the hollow, and felt him curl around her, his bare legs running down hers, the friction warming them. She only wore a singlet and very short shorts, almost underwear like, but made from sweat-absorbing material, standard issue for Alliance wear under armor. He wore his own t-shirt and short pants, but their nakedness didn't seem to bother him.

"You're not?" he asked. She felt him rub the back of his neck, his little uncomfortable tell. "I heard you speaking to Ash. Sounds like you don't even like taking shore leave."

Shepard sighed. "Heard that, huh?"

"Couldn't help it." There was a smile in his voice again. "You speak loudly."

"I do not, you liar." She elbowed him in his stomach and felt his puff of exhaled air, laughter soft on her neck.

"So you almost got married?"

Ah. Here we go, she thought. That discussion again.

"No. Like I said, I nipped that in the bud."

There was a silence and then he said quietly, "Well… I'm glad you did. I think I'd be pretty jealous."

"Jealous…" She hummed, feeling his hand settle on her arm, warm and slightly coarse. "Hmm, I think at this point in time my pretend husband should be pretty jealous of you. After all, we're naked and you're stroking my arm."

"Oops." His hand stilled. "Sorry. Habit."

She laughed and reached behind her to grab it and wrap it back over her arm. She felt him press a kiss to her shoulder and barely resisted rolling over and climbing on top of him. "You lie down in ditches with ladies often?"

"Only every five years or so. And only the really pretty ones."

Shepard blushed and despite the entire awful situation - her aching cheek, feeling like she was missing an arm without her biotics and Gunnery Chief - she grinned.

"Tell me about your apparent lack of puritan modesty. It seems like an opportune time."

She could feel his chest expand against her back with his breaths and shut her eyes. "I was young once. And stupid."

"Are you telling me you're some kind of space Casanova?" she murmured sleepily, and he laughed.

"Hardly."

"You got up to some things, though?"

He brushed her hair back from her neck and rested his chin there, lightly kissing the stitches on her cheek. Shepard used every ounce of willpower she had to not turn her head and kiss his lips. They had promised they were saving this for shore leave.

They promised.

"Everyone has a past," he said, his voice low with sleep and exhaustion.

"I know."

"Sleep now. We're safe."

"I feel safe." She grabbed his hand, holding it. "Here."

She was awakened in the night to something poking her thigh and realized with a hot swoop of embarrassment what it was. If she was completely honest with herself she also felt a rush of base arousal. Her face burned.

"Kaidan? You awake?" she whispered. He shifted and she heard him snuffle in his sleep. Not awake then.

Shepard lay still for long moments, trying to work out what to do. His hand was against her stomach, shifted there unconsciously in his sleep, and she tried to deny to herself how good it felt, warm, soft and comforting. She shimmied on her back, trying to soothe the ache between her legs, and accidentally drove back against him.

That startled him awake. She felt him freeze up as soon as he realized his precarious situation.

"Um, I don't suppose you'd buy that it's my sidearm, would you?" he whispered to the back of her neck, breath warm.

She rolled over, smiling. "Not a chance."

He smiled shyly back at her, and as if she hadn't thought about it all, or as if she had thought about it for years and deliberated carefully, she leaned in and kissed him. He stilled for a moment, and then relaxed into her embrace. His hand drifted up to tangle into her hair, pulling her closer.

It wasn't their first kiss after all. She seemed to be 'accidentally on purpose' kissing him a lot lately, and she thought this was the damn well closest they could get to dating without actually dating.

He was too magnetic, too Kaidan and she had too many ready-made excuses. She had a head injury, she thought he was injured, they got caught up in sparring, it was dark, they were tipsy, he had a headache and she was just trying to make him feel better. It was a Tuesday. She was stressed. They were left alone for too long. They were stranded in a swamp, being chased by whispers. They had lost a friend. She woke up to him hard for her, a muddled brain, and a burning need between her thighs.

Excuses.

Excuses.

Excuses.

He was a drug she couldn't get enough of, unable to go a day without speaking to him, without sitting by him as he worked on that stupid console they both knew he had repaired months ago. He had become a part of her. An annoyingly handsome, loyal, kind, funny and far too easy to love part.

She fisted her palms into his t-shirt and pulled him closer.

She could smell that strange flowery perfume again.

Kaidan's hand snuck up her shirt, she could feel her muscles clench against his wandering hand, and smiled again against his lips.

"You shouldn't be touching me."

"You shouldn't be kissing me," he whispered back.

"You shouldn't flirt with me."

"You shouldn't look at me like that with those gorgeous eyes of yours."

Her centre gave a throb, screaming at her to tell him to use his mouth for things other than speaking. "You should shut up and kiss me."

In the firelight she could see his hand brace on a muddy patch of ground and become dirty with mud. He left a brown handprint behind on the clean skin of her stomach. She thought he had marked her, branded her, and changed her. He went to wipe it away from her skin with his shirt, but she stopped him.

She tried to flare for him, a light in the darkness, burning cosmic fire, but nothing came. Nothing flared or burnt. Nothing mattered. Her eyes sparked with frustrated tears, and he seemed to notice.

"Hey, hey. It's OK. We don't have to do this."

She pressed her lips against his. Hard. His stubble scratched her face and she knew there would be a rash in the morning.

Shepard wondered where else she might get him to leave a beard rash.

Their teeth bumped together, no finesse, but raw want. She pulled her hands through his hair, and pressed her chest against his, feeling her breasts flatten against him. His hand moved up and his thumb brushed a nipple. She sucked a sharp breath in, and pulled his shirt off hastily.

She had never wanted to let him in. Now, she never wanted to let him go.

She kissed his fingers, his wrist, up his arm. He turned his head as her lips left wet marks on his shoulder, and finally captured her lips. A bird hooted, the sound echoing into the night to be swallowed. The fire flickered as Kaidan's hand came up to bunch in her hair, rubbing the silky strands between his fingers.

A stream burbled, mists crept along the ground, the air sung with promise and secrets and life.

Shepard's hand graced his stomach with soft fingers, and moved lower, following the trail of dark hair past the waistband of his shorts.

Shepard's eyes fluttered open in the middle of the kiss, eyelashes heavy and dark, and as they did so, he seemed to sense it. He opened his eyes.

She met his heated gaze fiercely as she kissed him, stroking his length. His teeth scrapped on her bottom lip, as his hand touched the skin at her inner thigh. He was golden under the campfire light. He was the fire, and the warmth. His skin seared her, but she kept going back for more as his eyes were lit amber by the flames dancing in them. She ran her free hand over his bare chest, feeling his muscles pull beneath her palm. Her heart fluttered so quickly, she feared it would grow wings and fly away from her, as the birds flittered from branch to branch in the swamp. One wrong move and they would break their wings and be pulled to earth, to rot, to destruction.

He placed his palm over the burning warm skin over her heart, and the fear left her. He would hold her heart in his hands and cage it. A tame bird didn't break its wings.

It was slow. Everything.

Times, space and meaning lost vitality, lost immediacy. She counted the time in whirls of color, in his lips, in the places he trailed his fingers, in places his lips met, in the fingernail marks she scrapped down his back. She kissed the scars on his lips, her lips soft as pillows against them. His eyes shut and his hand moved into her hair to pull her even closer.

Her eyelids were heavy so she shut them. Her mind was foggy, like the mists before morning, or the creep of white in the deep of night, obscuring everything in its path. A heavy perfume suffused the air, sickly flowers and mushrooms of every color, glowing in the dark. A bird called again, and fell silent. He thrust against her hand, breathing harshly so she pressed open-mouthed kisses to his neck.

The whispers were back, but she drowned them out by moaning his name.

"Shepard..." he murmured, pulling her shirt up and off. She threw her head back, hair trailing down her back as his mouth found her neck, and his hands her breasts.

Soon, only sensation was left behind. The texture of his stubble, the feel of his lips. His hardness against her thigh as he pulled her up to sit in his lap. Her head lolled against his shoulder, sleepy but unsated. He pressed against her underwear, and she wished the barrier wasn't there anymore, but was too busy languishing under his hands to do anything about it.

Moss was soft on her bare back as he lowered her to the ground, his hands on her back, gentle but firm. He hovered above her, fumbling with his pants. Her thoughts became ripples that spread across the water, and then faded.

Impatient, she pulled his pants off, and lifted her hips so he could help her with her own. They slid down her thighs and his fingers slid up them to the wet apex waiting for him. The night air was cool on her heated skin. The hair on her arms stood on end and she knew it wasn't from the cold. She pulled him up her body by tugging on his shoulders, and he kissed his way up.

"I can feel your heart beating..." There was wonder in his voice, his lips to her ears. She parted her thighs and he settled between them.

Shepard looked up into the canopy and thought she could see the stars. She wished she had some alcohol at that moment, something else to numb sensation, to dull her thoughts further. It had been too long since she had sex without being drunk. She didn't know if she could do this. He was too close to her. Her heart fluttered again and he pressed his lips to the spot above the swell of her breast.

Shepard tried to flare one more time, and nothing happened.

"I can't feel anything. Make me feel something," she whispered.

The fire remained the only light. Shepard arched her back, closed her eyes and kissed him. A pain became pleasure. Shepard breathed deeply, her hips undulating like a river serpent, her eyes river stones, her mouth red berries. His hair was black as the raven's feather, his skin heated stones in the sunshine, and his lips soft river water, quenching her thirst. His hair curled in her hands, completely undone, untamed, uncontrolled for her. He nipped her neck, kissed her eyelids and moved inside her. Shepard moaned. She drew her leg up his body and hooked it around his hip.

Shadows crept over their bodies, the small fire they had built unsuccessfully keeping away the dark.