Homefront Warfare
You Should Go
Jack deposited Kaidan at the door to his apartment building. The lights of the citadel had long ago dimmed to simulate a night cycle, but there was plenty of light left to see by. They hadn't spoken much on the trip across the strip; Kaidan was too focused on making his feet work the way he wanted them too. By the time they had reached the apartments his stride had evened out some, although his eyes were still slightly glazed.
"Alright," Jack said as Kaidan fumbled in his pocket for his key fob to open the door. "Go sleep it off, biotic-boy."
Kaidan merely grunted, not finding the nickname as amusing as he had earlier that evening. He finally got the sensor to register the fob, and he wrestled with the door to get it to disengage the locks. Then he realized his foot was blocking the path of the door. He stepped out of the way and the door swung open easily.
A headache had started pressing into his temples. It was probably caused by the alcohol, and not his biotic migraines, but the pain was souring his mood. He almost let the door slam shut behind him without saying goodbye to Jack, but she grabbed his shoulder.
"Hey," she said. "I wasn't going to mention this, but…I know what you've got hidden in your office."
He furrowed his brow. What was she talking about? He struggled to think around the fog of alcohol that had settled in his brain. His office? At the academy?
"I was looking for a spare data stick, and I saw it," she continued. He noticed she didn't apologize for rifling through his desk without permission. "Look, I get you're going through a rough time right now, but if administrators find it, you'll be in some hot shit."
"Jack, what are you talking about?"
She rolled her eyes, as if he was being purposefully oblivious. "The bottle of whiskey you've got stashed in your bottom drawer. You know damn well no alcohol is permitted on campus. If a student found it…drunk biotics may be fucking fun, but dangerous. Some idiot would probably spilt themselves in two attempting a Charge after doing shots."
Kaidan felt a cold chill travel down his spine, clearing some of the haze from his mind. He swallowed hard but couldn't find an answer for Jack. She was right: he had known about the 'no alcohol' rule on campus. It was enforced strictly for both students and faculty for the simple reason that drunk biotics were incredibly dangerous. He could have lost his position had anyone other than Jack found the bottle.
And the worst of it was…he didn't even remember leaving a bottle in his desk. Which meant he was drunk when he left it there. He was certain he had never gone in to work drunk – hungover, maybe, but never… Maybe he had forgotten something at the office, and, after a night of drinking, decided to go back and grab it? And left a bottle in his desk. He groaned at his own stupidity, rubbing a hand down his face.
Jack stared at him in a rare moment of concern. "You sure you're okay? There's a big difference between getting sloshed at a bar on a Friday night, and hiding bottles in desk drawers."
"I'm fine," he reassured her. "Thanks for reminding me it's there. It'll be gone soon."
"It better be, you idiot," she said, letting go of the door. "Later, bitch."
And just like that, Jack's caring side was gone and her edgy mask was firmly back in place. She didn't spare another glance back at the apartment building as she swaggered back out onto the strip. For Jack, the night was merely beginning.
Kaidan sighed as the elevator slowly rose higher. The apartment was still empty when he returned. The only difference was the soft hum of the dishwasher running in the kitchen. Shepard had probably waited until he had left to venture out and tend to her chores. In the distance he saw the bottle he had accidentally left out still sitting on the bar, untouched.
He checked the clock on the wall: twenty-three hundred hours. Late by work-week standards, but not for a weekend. He considered bypassing Shepard's room and heading straight back upstairs, but the thought of spending another night by himself exhausted him. Emboldened by his conversation with Jack and the whisky still running through his veins, he bypassed the stairwell and headed for the back bedroom, knocking lightly.
For a long moment, Kaidan wasn't certain Shepard would open up. He was considering knocking a second time, or simply giving up and heading upstairs, when her soft voice called for him to enter.
Shepard was laying in the bed with her datapad atop the covers. She wore an age-soft N7 tank top that had a hole in the sleeve. "Sorry," Kaidan said sheepishly from the doorframe. "Were you sleeping?"
"No," she answered him. "Just doing some paperwork." Kaidan noticed the alertness in her eyes and the fact that the bedroom lights were on. She wasn't lying, then; he hadn't accidentally awaken her.
As Kaidan pulled stock of the room, Shepard finished her own examination of his state. Her lips pulled down into a frown. "You're drunk," she said with disgust.
Somehow Kaidan missed the disapproval in her voice as he wandered into the room and sat on the edge of her bed. She pulled her legs up into herself, shrinking away from him and the whiskey on his breath. "I went out with Jack," he said, fudging the truth just a hair. He reached for the datapad, curious as to what she was working on, but she quickly pulled the pad away from his reach and set it on the night stand beside her.
"What do you want, Kaidan?" The dismissal in her voice was clear to anyone. This was the first time since Juliet's death that Kaidan had entered the guest bedroom. Shepard's expression made it clear how she resented his presence in her space.
"I just want to talk to you," he answered honestly. "I feel like we haven't just...talked in a while."
"Kaidan…" she sighed. "I'm tired." Her excuse fell flat. He knew she hadn't been tired until he walked through her door.
He shifted closer to her on the bed. "C'mon," he cajoled. "Take a sanity check with me."
"Is that what you call getting so drunk you can't see straight? Just another sanity check?"
He paused at the venom in her voice. She sighed at the hurt expression on his face. "Sorry," she said quietly. "Please…just go. We can talk in the morning."
"You've got a meeting in the morning," he accused her. "The Krogan Expansion vote – it's been all over the extranet recently."
Shepard latched onto this fact. "You're right! Which means you should go. I've got an important day tomorrow."
Kaidan was relentless. "Shepard," he admonished her, pushing himself all the way up the bed so his head brushed the pillow. "We don't have to talk, if you don't want to. I just…I miss you."
He could read the surrender in her voice. "Fine. You can stay. Good night."
Shepard rolled over onto her side, away from him. She touched the lamp on the nightstand and cast the room into semi-darkness; the light on his side of the bed was still burning bright.
Kaidan was quiet for a while, listening to Shepard's breathing and watching her silhouette in the muted light of the bedroom. She was far too still to be asleep, although he could tell she was trying to school her breathing in order to fool him. Her body was tense underneath the covers. It took him a minute to realize his presence was why she was so stressed.
"Shepard, please," he begged her again. "It's been months since we've had a conversation about anything other than work. Ever since Juliet-"
"Don't," she interrupted him suddenly, her voice sharp but also pleading. "Don't bring her up. I can't. Not tonight…"
"Why not tonight?" he pressed her. "Why not yesterday, or tomorrow, or a month ago? When can I talk about my daughter, Shepard? When do I have to stop pretending she never existed?"
She didn't answer. He felt anger start to build inside his chest at her disregard until he heard her sniffling. His heart broke as he realized she was crying. "I'm sorry," he trailed a hand up her arm and pulled her into his chest. Surprisingly, she didn't pull away. She allowed herself to fall back into the cradle of his arms, curling up against his chest. Finally Kaidan had found a crack in the stiff wall she had fabricated around herself.
Her back planed his front as she buried her face into the pillow and tried to stem the tears. He whispered words into her hair that were not as important as the tone in which they were said. His thumb rubbed reassuring circles into her bicep as he pressed a kiss into her hair.
It was the first time since the funeral that Kaidan had been allowed to comfort her – to hold her while she cried. That fact did not escape him as he held her ever tighter.
As her tears began to dry up, some of the rigidness in her body faded away. She melted into his embrace, boneless and pliant. She hummed contentedly when he pressed another kiss to the top of her head.
She shifted against him, her ass rubbing strategically against his groin, as she whimpered low in her throat. "Kaidan," she whispered longingly, turning her head so her hair fell away from her neck.
Instantly another form of tension shot through his body. He froze, making sure he hadn't misinterpreted her intentions, as she shifted again and laid a hand over his.
Yes, he thought excitedly, scarcely afraid to breath. This. This is what they needed. They needed to be together, to come together as husband and wife. It had been so long… He was instantly hard as he kissed down her neck and stroked her empty stomach.
She groaned his name as he slipped his hand underneath the waistband of her panties. His lips found the sensitive spot just behind her ear as he pressed a warm finger against her folds.
She was bone dry.
"Kaidan!" she repeated louder, and instantly he realized his error. She hadn't been shifting to get closer to him, she'd been trying to get away from him. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"I'm sorry!" he started as she jerked away from him and sprang out of the bed. "I thought…"
He hated the way she stared at him as she adjusted her clothes and folder her arms across her chest. "You should go," she told him coldly, glaring with disgust.
"Shepard-"
"Go."
Something in the curtness of her voice made the anger flare up inside him once again. She spoke to him like an underling, a Sergeant berating a Private, and not as a wife speaking to her husband. "No," he snapped at her, just as shortly. He got up from the bed and glared at her from the other side of the room. "We need to talk."
"Fine," she said, picking up a pair of pants and hurriedly pulling them on. "I'll go."
"Damn it, Shepard!" he cursed as he crossed the room and blocked her way to the door. "I've lost my daughter! Don't make me lose my wife, too!"
She stopped short and glared at him. "How dare you," she spat, her voice pure venom. "Don't you dare throw her death at me like that. Don't you dare!"
"I'm sorry-"
"Just go!" she shouted, putting her hands on his chest and pushing him towards the door. "Get out!"
"I'm not leaving here, Shepard!"
"Yes you are!" she insisted.
Kaidan grabbed her hands from his chest and tossed them back at her. "Just talk to me!" he yelled desperately. "Tell me what you want from me!"
"I want you to hate me!" Shepard screamed. Her admission surprised them both, stunning them into silence. Some of the rage inside her expression melted into despair. "I killed your daughter!" she said in a pleading tone. "Juliet is dead because of me! I took her from you! How can you still love someone that-"
"How can you think that?" Kaidan interrupted her. There was a sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach as he struggled to keep up with her confession. She blamed herself for their daughter's death? Is that why she had segregated herself from him – as a punishment? A penance? "Shepard…she didn't die because of you. It wasn't your fault!"
"Just go," she begged him, again guiding him from the room with one hand as the door automatically opened behind him. She stared at him with an indecipherable expression, looking tired and wrung out. "You're so drunk you probably won't even remember this conversation in the morning, anyway." With that last parting shot she shut and locked the door.
But she was wrong; combined with the intense emotion and his biotic metabolism, the alcohol he had drunk was already burning its way out of his system. He was almost completely sober when tears started to fall as he stood, alone, outside of Shepard's room.
It took a few moments, but eventually he noticed that his hands were shaking. He thought about going straight to bed, but his thoughts were whirling too fast through his mind. He needed something to calm his nerves.
He headed back into their bar, picking up the bottle of gin he had turned his nose up at earlier that evening. Standards sufficiently lowered, he picked up the drink and headed upstairs to his bedroom. He let the door slam shut behind him, blocking out the soft sobs he could hear from downstairs.
