The buzzing coursed through Kaidan's head as consciousness slowly returned to him. Groggily, he attempted to open his eyes, but the lids didn't budge. He was vaguely aware of his surroundings: grass beneath his feet, a breeze in his face, the awkward, hunched over position of his body; but when he reflexively tried to straighten up and stretch, he found himself paralyzed.
Worst of all, though, was the buzzing. It pulsed through his brain, invading his mind, fully occupying his thoughts. He forced himself to ignore it and focus. The colonists. Whatever this was, it had a hold of them, too. He was supposed to protect them. He'd failed. Just like he'd failed Shepard. Sure he'd heard the rumors, but it couldn't be true. Joker said she'd been spaced. He'd watched her suit fail. Besides, it had been two years. If Shepard was somehow alive, she'd have contacted him; he was sure.
He couldn't afford to be thinking about Shepard right now, though. He had to worry about the colonists, about the people he could still save. He had willed the sound of the buzzing from his brain; now he willed himself to move. He could feel the biotic flare throughout his body as his nervous system struggled to assert itself. He felt his muscles try to remember familiar motions as he tried to move his arms, push forward with his legs. And suddenly, with a flash of biotic energy, he was free.
He reached down to grab the rifle that had fallen beside him as he activated his barrier, hoping the latter would manage to keep him protected from any more of those bug... things. He'd never seen anything like that before, and doubted that Cerberus had anything to do with it. He needed to let Anderson know. He activated his omni-tool and patched into the colony's communication network... and was surprised to hear chatter.
There was a crashing sound-"Shit! Garrus, distract this thing a sec."-Shepard's voice?-The click of a rifle being cocked-"Got it, Shepard."-a biotic explosion, followed by another voice, an unfamiliar one-"Haha, fuck yeah! Good one, Shepard."
It was true. She was here. Kaidan forgot all plans of calling Anderson. He traced the comm signal, and hurried to reach her location. He had to get to her, even though he knew what would happen next. They would embrace, both of them relieved to see the other alive. And then he would start to accuse her. Ask her how she could let him think she was dead, how she could betray everything she stood for. She would protest, try to explain, but he wouldn't listen. He never listened.
He arrived in the makeshift courtyard, prepared for the familiar scene, but what he saw betrayed his memory. Shepard stood there, alone, paralyzed in the thrall of the swarm. "Shepard!" he cried. "Shepard, you have to resist it! Find something else to focus on, and you can break free, like I did!"
But had he? The buzzing grew louder. "Shepard," he struggled to say again. He raised a hand and tried to reach out to her, but was stopped as his body froze into place. He was trapped, and all he could do was look at her, as the buzzing continued...
BZZT! BZZT! BZZT! The incoming call on Kaidan's omni-tool forced itself into his dream. Trying to regain consciousness, he rubbed one arm across his face as he reached for the omni-tool with the other. "Shepard?" he muttered as he answered the call, his mind still somewhere on Horizon. Finally, he opened his eyes to see Donnell Udina's face looking back at him.
He cringed visibly, and tried to turn it into a cough. "Councilor, I'm sorry, you- ah- I guess I'd dozed off..."
Udina nodded once, scowling. "Major," he said, "I'm glad you've finally decided to accept my offer. You'll be important symbol for humanity. The second human Spectre."
Kaidan chuckled. "Not sure how much people really care about the second person to do something."
"Perhaps," Udina considered, "but what matters is now. And right now humanity needs a hero it can be proud of."
Kaidan was perceptive enough to see notice what Udina was implying, but he wasn't going to rise to the bait. He kept his expression blank and avoided mentioning Shepard. "I'm honored you feel that way, Councilor."
"Which is why I feel we can spare a bit more ceremony in this case. What would you say about two weeks from now."
"Well, I did have a few things I wanted to look into once I'm released from here." He thought about his students, hoping that maybe the Spectre resources he'd now have access to would help him track them down. "But I think two weeks should be fine."
"I'm glad. This is a wonderful opportunity. It will help give the people hope."
Kaidan nodded. "Yes, it will." He quickly cut the connection, not trusting himself to keep quiet, as he knew he should. He knew what Udina was trying to do. He'd lost control of his pet Spectre and was trying to groom a replacement. Kaidan wasn't going to let himself get caught up in the whole politics of the situation. Hell, he wouldn't know where to start. But it wasa great honor, whatever the reasoning behind it, and if it let him help his students, if it let him help Earth, if it let him help Shepard, none of the rest of it mattered.
He'd barely disconnected the call from Udina when the omni-tool buzzed again, indicating an incoming text message. He reactivated the tool, and felt his breath catch when he read the incoming text:
Cathy Alenko: Kaidan, please be there. Not much news here and don't know how long I'll have access.
Kaidan Alenko: Mom! I'm here! You guys made it.
Cathy Alenko: Been here 2 nights so far. Dad got the comm running a few hours ago but I couldn't get through off planet til now. No voice or vid though. Text only.
Kaidan smiled in spite of the situation. One of his biggest worries had been lifted; his parents were safe, for now. He knew his father would have relished the challenge of trying to get communications online down at the orchard, tinkering with their priority settings so they could even have a chance at offworld contact right now, adjusting the inbound frequencies to give them access to any news.
He remembered when he was a kid, and they'd spend weekends doing these kind of projects together. They'd find some old PC or radio at a garage sale or thrift store and set about improving it: overclocking it or tampering with frequencies or boosting signals. Kaidan had been sure that he would join the service as an engineer when he was old enough. Until brain camp changed everything.
He couldn't help but wonder what kind of person he'd have been without it. Would he be where he was right now, an officer and now a Spectre? And what about Shepard. She'd accepted his past, said she liked the man it had made of him. Would he still be the kind of man she could love? Would he have even met her?
Kaidan Alenko: Yeah, net's pretty strained I would think. But everything's ok there now? What's Dad up to?
Cathy Alenko: Your Dad's not here, Kaidan. He went back.
Shepard groggily opened her eyes, trying to think of where she needed to be. Happily, she realized the answer was nowhere. After realizing Mordin would need some time to finalize the genophage cure before they could proceed down that road, she'd authorized everyone 48 hours leave once they reached the citadel, then collapsed in her bed without undressing. As she looked at her clock, she realized that had been nearly 12 hours ago.
Dragging sore muscles across her quarters, she slipped out of dirty fatigues and turned on her shower. Shipboard bathing always left quite a bit to be desired, especially in terms of water pressure, but she let the blissfully hot water do its best to soothe her aches as she stretched under it, arching her back, rotating her shoulders.
A beeping noise behind her alerted Shepard that the water would be shutting off in a minute. She quickly finished rinsing and grabbed a towel from a shelf. That was the other thing about shipboard showers. They were never damn long enough. She was pondering what exactly she would do on the Citadel while there was no immediate emergency to grab her attention, when the comm on her desk started flashing.
"Hmm," she muttered, activating it.
Mordin's face greeted her. "Commander, good. EDI said you were awake. You should stop by medbay. Meet with Eve."
"On my way." The female Krogan was a shaman and would claim no other name, so Mordin had proceeded to call her 'Eve', presumably for Shepard's benefit. Nopressure, there, she had mused sympathetically, while she wondered if the Salarians even had a mythological equivalent.
She was wondering this again as she stepped off the elevator on Deck Three and nearly collided with Dr. Chakwas. "Whoops! Sorry about that," she said as she narrowly dodged to the side.
The doctor shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I've just been trying to find a place to settle while Mordin invades my office."
Shepard smiled. "Well, they did turn his lab into a conference room."
"Of course, and I completely understand, it's just... not what I'm used to."
"Well, good luck then." Shepard rounded the corner and continued to the medbay.
"Mordin," she held out a hand as she entered the room. "How's everything been going here?"
"Research progressing wonderfully. Maelon's data left much to work with. May have cure fully synthesized within two weeks. Eve very agreeable to procedures. Wrex... less so."
"Indeed," remarked Eve from a bed at the back of the room, "such a powerful Krogan warrior- until you get a needle near his quad." The Krogan chuckled as Shepard walked back to join her. "Regardless, the Salarian seems to know what he's doing. Despite the interruptions."
"What interruptions?"
"Your pilot has been contacting him. He seems to be concerned with the logistics of... mating with the synthetic."
No. Nonono. I did not just hear that. "Please tell me I didn't just hear that."
"I wish I hadn't," Eve replied.
Shepard tried to change the subject, for her own sake. "Still, you've been taking this quite well. It can't be easy, having the fate of your people resting on your shoulders."
"You say that, even while you have the fate of so many more resting on yours."
"If I wasn't here, someone else would be." Yet whether that was true or not, after four years of being strung along at the galaxy's whims, suddenly everyone was looking to her. And regardless what anyone else might have done, it all fell to her now. Just as it had, on a smaller scale, at Elysium. There couldn't have been anyone else in this position. No, the galaxy had made her its bitch, and it was here to collect.
"But they're not. As my sisters are not. Some would call it chance; I might have, when I was younger. But I haven't believed in chance for a long time. But perhaps I'll tell you more, later."
They were going to have this discussion, she decided. Yes, he'd apologized; and yes, she'd accepted it, but there hadn't been time then for her to say what she needed to say, and for him to say what she needed to hear. But as much as she wanted to brush it aside, she had to know whether he trusted her or not. She owed herself that much, at least. And if it wasn't going to work out between them, that was okay. She could manage this on her own.. She'd proven that to herself. She defeated the Collectors, hadn't she?.
"So if the mind and the body are separate, what about the heart?" She wasn't really looking for an answer. Spirituality had never been something that interested her, and even her recent- well, not so recent, really- death hadn't driven her to seek God. No, she asked because it would allow her to talk. Because it would give her a chance to open up, when she had no one in her world to open up to.
Tali, Garrus, and even Joker looked up to her too much. Jacob was too distant, Grunt too young, Jack too unstable, Samara too detached, and Miranda was... Miranda. But Thane was different somehow. His beliefs notwithstanding, she got the impression that he saw her as nothing more than she was. She could be honest with him and he wouldn't doubt her.
"You would only be asking that if it was a matter of the heart that concerned you," he responded. "You are thinking of someone you love. Tell me about them, if you're willing."
She did. She told him about the beacon on Eden Prime, and the friendly face she'd woken up to afterward. She told him about the feelings he had been so reluctant to admit to, and the feelings he'd gradually evoked in her. She told him about Virmire, about Ilos, about Kaidan's relief to see her alive after the battle of the Citadel. She told him about the last time she'd seen him on the old Normandy, when she'd sent him to the escape pod without her.
She told him about Horizon.
"At first I was just so relieved to hear his voice, see him standing there. It was like the first moment I'd truly woken up, where I wasn't just going through the motions. I can't even imagine what it must have been like for him. Then we embraced, and for just a moment it felt like we might be able to go back to how things were.
"But he started accusing me, thinking I'd been alive and working for Cerberus for the past two years, thinking I'd deliberately avoided contacting him. How could he think that? Garrus believed me; even Tali'Zorah was able to trust me. But he wouldn't even hear me out, let me try to explain..."
Thane cut her off there. "He had so much more to lose."
She considered this for a long moment. There was truth in what he said. After the pain of losing her once, he would be resistant to let her back in. To let himself believe her, only to lose her again if he was wrong.
"I am not saying he was right, to do what he did," Thane continued, "In fact, I suspect that he wishes even now that he could have responded differently."
"How can you say that? You don't even know him."
"I know what you told me. I know he loves you. I imagine I might do the same, were Irikah to appear before me tomorrow."
"I miss him," she confessed. "This would all seem so much simpler if he was here."
Thane nodded. "Of course it would. But nonetheless, you will meet the obstacles ahead of you, and you will overcome them. Your strength will see you through, Siha."
"Siha," she repeated, "you never told me what that means."
He looked away. "She is one of the warrior angels of the goddess Arashu. Fierce in wrath. A tenacious protector. You embody her, Shepard."
She was wrong. He'd put her on a pedestal same as the rest of them. Yet... "And you can still think of me that way? After everything I've told you?"
He looked back up at her, surprised. "Of course. We all have pain in our lives; it doesn't make one weak. Indeed, to carry on in spite of it demonstrates great strength." He paused. "Now as for the question you ask; it is something that drell philosophers have long considered. I'm afraid I don't have a definite answer for you..."
And she hadn't really needed one, she now realized. She knew she loved Kaidan. She knew he loved her. Mistakes had been made on both sides. They didn't need to have this discussion, she decided. They just needed to know they were there for one another, now.
"Ma'am, what will you have?" the Quarian behind the counter repeated.
Shepard was startled from her daydream to realize that she'd reached the front of the line at the hospital's cafe. "Two coffees, please. One black, one sweet."
"Yes, ma'am, right away." the Quarian hurriedly prepared the order and set the cups in front of her. "Six credits."
She paid him, took the coffee, and headed into the patient lounge.