The waves licked the shore, lapping a bit over his booted feet as he made his way down the waterline.

It had been a whole Earth year since the loss of the Normandy. To the date. It had been easy enough to get leave, little enough explanation had been necessary.

It wasn't the first time that a shipmate had given their life to make sure that he lived, and possibly not the last. That though alone clenched at his gut, and he forced the faces from his mind before he could dwell on it.

That wasn't entirely true. He could still see her face every time he closed his eyes. The scarred brow, the slant of her dark eyes, the way her mouth curled up on one side into not-quite-a-smile, how her short-cropped hair stood up in the back when she first woke up. They were mostly general things he remembered. The way he had been honoured to serve under her command. The way respect was drawn to her and how quickly she gained the loyalty of a crew. They would have followed her to the end of dark space and back. They practically did.

The details became fuzzy over the months as they had stretched on. He wondered how long it would be until he couldn't recall the sound of her voice whether giving an urgent order or sighing his name into his ear. He choked over the memory. It had finally become possible to not cry, though that had taken some time.

Loss never settled well with him. Not Jenkins, not Ashley, and not her. Each time he had been there, and he had been the one to walk away from it. For the longest time he had been angry about the Gunny. He had been prepared to die that day, but she had come back for him and left Ashley there. Ashley had saved them, but she had chosen to save him. He wanted to hate her for it. He wanted to blame her for the guilt, but the truth was that no one could lay fault to anyone for what happened.

They all knew that death had been a possibility when they signed on.

The past year had been a tumult of self-blame and loathing. People talked about him, around him, rarely to him. What had there been to say? It wasn't something he talked about openly. They had been protective of their privacy, both for personal and professional reasons. They had been skirting the edges of regs, and they knew it. There was little to discuss with anyone, and no one to listen anyhow. No one that understood.

The hardest order he ever had to follow was leaving her behind.

Kaidan unclasped the chain around his neck, the one with his service tags, and slid one off. They came in pairs, and he held the second in his hand, rubbing a thumb over it, eyes fixed straight ahead.

Roberts and Cheng had been razzing him about that doctor back on the Citadel, and it was possibly time to at least give it some thought.

We grieve and move on. Grieve, move on, and live.

Her words after Virmire echoed in his mind. She wouldn't want him holding onto this like an anchor. She wouldn't want him to let it pull him to the seabed.

He looked down in his hand at the tag.

Shepard, Jeryn M. CMDR

Gripping it tightly in one hand briefly, Kaidan opened his palm, the charge of blue energy engulfing his hand and the tag. Furrowing his brow at it slightly, it lifted in his hand. Closing his eyes he pulled his hand back and pushed it out over the tide. It skipped like a stone for a few dozen meters, and then was gone.

Just like she was gone.

Taking a deep breath as the energy dissipated, he pinched the bridge of his nose slightly against a tinge of migraine aura. He looked out over the water to where he'd last seen the tag, nodded once, and then turned away, making his way back up the shore.

This is for long-forgotten
Light at the end of the world
Horizon crying
The tears he left behind long ago

The Islander – Nightwish