Tension was thick on the Normandy, and even though she knew it was her own fault, she had long ago retreated to her quarters in order to escape it. She had snapped at Donnely today, just for asking the most innocent question imaginable about this 'Alenko fella' who was supposed to be coming to see her today. No eyebrow waggling, no winking and nudging, not so much as a saucy inflection of his voice and she had treated it like an accusation. When she went down to apologize to him he had been fine, smiled at her and told her it was no big deal. But she still felt like a shit, and not wanting to offend anyone else she liked, had retreated to the relative safety of her room.
Now she stood in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection, something she was doing with increasing frequency. She had assumed that she would get used to looking nothing like herself. The white blond color she had chosen for her hair softened the darkness of her skin, making her look almost tanned rather than naturally dark. She had liked that. Her Indian heritage still lingered in the thick lashes around her eyes and the roundness of her jaw but it was harder to tell exactly what she was. She did not wear makeup, not even a touch of it to soften her lips or bring out her already striking cheekbones. Marines did not have time to be feminine, for the soft gentleness that was so often associated with their sex.
Now she wondered if maybe she should put some effort into looking nice. On one hand, she did not give a shit what she looked like. On the other, Kaidan might. Then again, he had liked her just fine when she had looked older and been just as plain. She sighed, staring into the orange depths of her backlit eyes and ran her fingers over the aching bump on her nose.
"EDI, what time is it?" She asked the open air.
"Almost fourteen hundred hours, Shepard." Came the prompt reply. Good. She still had time for a shower then. As she began to disrobe, she heard EDI chime in again. "You just took a shower three hours ago, Shepard. And since that time you have done nothing but stare at the wall, your fish tank and the mirror. Are you feeling well?"
Great, even the AI could tell something was up. She shook her head, running her fingers through her short hair. Before she had cut her waist-length mat of curls off three hours would not have been enough time to dry it. She had often tied it up at the beginning of the day, only to take it down fourteen hours later and find it still damp and stringey. Now it felt so dry it was brittle between her fingers, the result of too much washing. Still, she continued taking her clothes off. She felt dirty, oily, disgusting. She did not want to meet Kaidan feeling like this.
"I'm fine, EDI." She reassured the AI in her most soothing voice. Even to her own ears it sounded sharp and fragile, poised to explode into fragments at any moment.
"I have also noticed a disruption in your sleeping patterns. Over the past two days you have had exactly twenty one minutes of REM sleep. This is not healthy for a human of your age and position." The AI reported. It was strange how she addressed concern in exactly the same voice as she issued her various emotionless analysis. She would have made an excellent psychotherapist, sitting on a couch crooning empty words over a note pad.
"I said I'm fine." Shepard snapped.
"Very well." EDI's voice went suddenly silent and she was alone again. Now she felt like a shit again. Because she had hurt her ships feelings.
"Goddamnit." She swore. A shower was not going to fix this, but she took one anyway because she had nothing else to do. Dressing in grey canvas pants and a black tank top she shambled out of her bathroom, bone tired but with no hope of sleeping. She should still have about twenty minutes until Kaidan showed up. She should review the datapad that Mordin had given her this morning, take another look at his findings before she acted on them. There was a lot to think about.
"Shepard." His voice, so familiar but laced with emotions he had never directed at her before, came from the couch in the living area. She whipped around, hand diving instinctually for the gun at her side only to find nothing there. She did not react to surprises well. At first she had thought this was merely because she was soldier, but she had learned differently over the years. She was never off guard, never unprepared. EDI was right, that lack of sleep was starting to affect her.
"God." Kaidan murmured as he climbed the stairs out of the depression where her bed and personal work station lay to stand before her. His black eyes were soft, warm and incredibly distant. She could not read his face, could sense nothing more from him now then she could during the long hours she had spent re-reading his messages. "You look terrible."
She cocked an eyebrow at him, putting one hand on her hip. "Not the greeting I was hoping for." She mused.
"Right, sorry." He looked slightly embarrassed and very concerned at the same time as he shifted from foot to foot, betraying his intense discomfort. "Sorry I'm early but I... I wanted to see you. Sorry."
"Better, but stop apologizing." She said, folding her hands behind her back. A habit she was picking up from Thane, it seemed. It straightened her spine, got her aligned, kept her balanced in the turbulent atmosphere of the room. It was harder though, when she thought of Thane while standing infront of Kaidan. Talk about being pulled in two directions.
Kaidan was everything that Thane was not. Familiar, unpredictable, and not trusted by her. Not anymore at least. Dressed almost casually in black slacks, a white t-shirt under an light Alliance-issue jacket he was fidgeting as his eyes slid off of her and toward her fish, feigning interest in and effort to alleviate the tension. She continued to look at him, schooling her features to keep them flat. He was wearing combat boots, like both of them always did because nothing else fit right on their feet anymore. She was willing to bet he had a pistol holstered, either at the small of his back or under his right arm, since he was left handed, but he still looked very normal. Like someone she would see on the street, passing by on the way to the market or for lunch at the cafe. So recognizable it was hard to believe two years had really passed, hard to imagine where the gulf between them had come from. His handsome face was troubled, the familiar line forming down the centre of his forehead, his dark eyes searching her glowing mechanical ones. She went to stand by her desk, the one littered with datapads and schematics and diagrams rather then the smaller one below with its handful of personal projects collecting dust. She immediately regretted it, as her picture of him lit up at her presence and his eyes flicked immediately toward it and then away. She leaned against the desk, ignoring it. He wisely chose to do so as well.
"You look different. Younger. I didn't notice on... before." He rubbed his knuckles across his forehead, probing the frown line there. It was something she had seen him do a hundred maybe a thousand, times, and when he took a step forward the way he moved was like looking back in time. The strength rippling through his broad shoulders, the almost timid way he approached her as though he was not really sure what to do. "And your eyes..."
She looked away, face suddenly burning. "Yeah, I know, they're weird."
"Just a little." He said. He stopped an arm span away from her and she still felt like he was in her personal space. "But it doesn't matter. Even though you're so different, you're still so you." He paused, running that sentence over in his mind. "If that makes any sense."
"Not really, but thanks for trying." She shot back. She studied him out of the corner of her eye, not wanting to look at him, not wanting to show him the glowing pins of light that had become the largest outward sign of her metamorphosis, her pheonix-from-the-ashes transformation that was bleak and horrible and tragic. He looked hurt. She felt bad, but had no idea how to communicate it. She had no idea why he was even here, what they had to say to each other. Finally she sighed, her shoulders slumping a little bit and shrugged. "Sorry. I... sorry."
"I'm sorry to. Not for this awkwardness." He gestured to the whole room, as though there was a physical presence he was referring to. "But for... well... everything. For Horizon. For the message that I sent afterwards that was so confusing. I didn't know what to say but I had to say something. To let you know that I..." He paused, obviously struggling with his words, trying to find something to define what he was feeling. "That I still felt something."
"Something?" She asked, turning her head only slightly back to him. She kept her head tucked down, the fringe of her bangs hanging into her eyes. Every word coming out of her seemed to be a challenge suddenly, after she had sat down and had a firm conversation with herself about how she was not going to make things worse, she was not going to explode and she was not going to cry. Both reactions seemed equally close at the moment, as she hovered on the edge of tears and rage.
"Something. What more do you want from me?" He sounded angry now, and sad. Same as her, and she shifted her weight uncomfortably under his scrutiny. "I'm trying Shepard, but goddamn. I still have no idea what you did. I saw you got the Cerberus logo removed from your ship but I don't see an Alliance badge in its place. The Council acts like they don't hear the questions reporters ask about you, Anderson won't say two words about you. I still don't know who you are. How can I?"
"You could have asked!" She replied, fire winning over tears, fanned by the heat of his own words. "You could have ASKED me what was going on, instead of just ASSUMING the worst the moment we met! You could have listened to me when I tried to explain!" She stood straighter.
"Explain what? That you died, really died, and an evil organization that we did everything we could to undermine and destroy spent two years and, I'm assuming, billions of credits to bring you back so you could play detective? I couldn't just accept that Shepard, it sounded INSANE." Both of them were yelling, and realized it at the same time, taking deep breaths to calm themselves down. "I needed time, I thought, but time didn't do anything. I'm just... more confused. More lost. I don't..." His hands fell to his side and he looked up at her. "I tried so hard, Shepard. To preserve your memory, but the Alliance made certain threats whenever I tried to say anything in your defense."
"So you just let them say I was crazy. Delusional." She could not keep the poison out of her voice. "You just stood by and nodded while your bosses tore me apart, spat on everything I did. Spat on Ash's death..."
"The Alliance has done nothing but honour Ash's sacrifice." There was a dark note in his voice and she knew she had poked a sensitive spot.
"Ash died so we could stop the Reapers, Kaidan. She gave her life not only for the rest of us, but for the rest of the goddamn galaxy because she understood what was at stake. Every time the Alliance says there aren't any Reapers, every instant they stop the truth from coming out and the galaxy from mobilizing to fight them is a moment that we lose. Every time they hold us back from being ready for what's coming they risk losing this war before it begins. They risk losing everything. And if we lose, that means Ash died for nothing. That everyone we lost died for nothing." She met his eyes finally. "You can't tell me you don't see that."
"Maybe I do, Shepard." Kaidan replied. He sounded so tired, and she realized he was squinting in the soft light. A migraine. She recognized it instantly and, had this been the old days, would have insisted they finish this conversation later. She could never cause him any pain. But there was not a later anymore, if they ended this conversation now they would never see each other again. "But what was I supposed to do? I was by myself. Everything fell apart without you there, and the Alliance was the only thing I had left. I was hurting, and nothing made sense and... I just didn't want to lose more than I already had. When you died... god, I thought I could never be happy again."
He took a step forward, and there was nowhere for her to go, no escape. She could feel his warmth, the closeness of him; smell his familiar scent of soap and shaving cream. They were clean, simple, military smells that she had always loved and had always been attracted to. She was still attracted to them, even as her mind reeled and sputtered, not capable of forgiving him, but wanting to. Was this right? Was this what she wanted? Was she only still mad because she felt some sort of justice in hurting him, some petty satisfaction that was a continuation of her stony silence? She was better than that. She wanted to do the right thing.
"I don't know what's supposed to happen now." His voice was so soft, so gentle. "I don't know what you want to say, what you want to talk about. I didn't come here for this, to defend myself or accuse you. We won't get anywhere with it, what's done is done." He paused. "I came to tell you I love you, because I never did when we were together and I always, always regretted that. From the moment you didn't step out of that escape pod. I love you, Shepard."
"I..." Her voice faltered. Here it was, the moment of truth. She had died wishing she had done what really mattered, said what was really important instead of letting herself be numb and calling it her duty to the galaxy. This was her moment to say it, Kaidan's dark eyes searching hers, not expecting anything but still so fragile. He was waiting for the blow, waiting for her to tell him that it had all really been nothing, that she had never felt anything. "God, Kaidan, I don't know what's going on anymore than you do."
She slipped out, around him, away from his desk. "I... I don't know if you even believe me. That I really died. But I did." She leaned her forehead against the fish tank, seeking its coldness against the pounding pressure of her brain. "I died, in agony, all alone in space and all I could think of was you. How I shut you out, and tried to say it was because of my job when really it was because I was afraid. I was afraid to be vulnerable, I was afraid to be weak, I was afraid of everything. I'm sorry. I love you. From the moment we kissed, that night before Ilos, I loved you. You showed me myself, and for the first time I didn't hate what I saw."
She felt his hand on her shoulder, turned and faced him again. They looked at each other for a long moment, the warmth of his hand against her arm the only thing she could feel.
"So what happens now?" He asked, quietly. She put her hand against his, leaned close and brushed her lips over his, felt him stiffen and take a quick breath that shuddered in his chest. That ache, that pure physical need for contact, for sex and tenderness and anything that was not the flatness of her life in recent weeks was back, coursing through her blood to every nerve. All she wanted to do was tear his stupid civilian clothes off, shove him down on the bed and ride him until there was not an ounce of strength left in her. She wanted to stick her tongue down his throat, run it across his chest, snake down his body in that way that made him blush, ever so lightly across his smooth olive face. She wanted to hold him in the afterglow and feel that warm correctness that she missed so much.
"I think you better go." She said, stepping back until she felt the cold glass of the fish tank pressed against her bare shoulder blades, off setting the fire raging across her skin.
"Really?" He asked. He did not move, did not step back from her and she met his eyes for the first time, even though she could see they made him uncomfortable, reminded him of everything that was different about her. "You just said..."
"I know what I said, and I meant every word. I love you, Kaidan Alenko, and I always will. But you're still Alliance, and I'm not. I'm going to be working with them more closely now, but if it comes down to making nice with the Admirals or saving the galaxy you know which one I'll choose. If it comes down to breaking the law or stopping the Reapers I won't hesitate. I'll do whatever I have to in order to stop this. And you won't. You can't. You're as Alliance today as I was before I died, and that means that no matter how much we love each other, no matter how much we want each other, it'll never work." The truth poured out of her like a river and she realized she was crying. This was not how it was supposed to go, not the way she had imagined it. She was supposed to be righteously angry, scorning him for turning his back on her and everything they had fought for and believed in. She was supposed to grab him and hold him tight and love him forever. Not this. She could have handled anything but this incredible pain in her chest, as sharp and intense as dying all over again.
"But after..." He started, and she shook her head.
"You can't ask me to make that promise. You can't ask me to promise I'll come back from this war, or even that I'll be alive this time tomorrow." She stopped, swallowing her tears. "And I can't ask you either. It was real Kaidan. We were real. But... it's over. Maybe in another time, another life, we'll get a second chance. But this is... this is over. And I think you should go."
He stood still for a long time and then took a step back. She knew he would never be that close to her again, that she would never feel the close heat of his body next to hers and the knowledge cut her to the bone. He took a deep breath, his shoulders shaking slowly and then, to her great relief, he nodded.
"You know best Shepard." He looked up and there were tears in his liquid dark eyes that did not fall. "I... I don't know how I'll feel about this in an hour, or a day, or a week. But... you know I'll always be here for you right?"
"As my friend." She nodded. "I know, Kaidan."
They shook hands, and then he left. Shepard sat down at her desk, staring blankly around the cold steel walls. Her fish floated serenely, blissfully unaware of the maelstrom of violent emotion that had just passed through the room, of everything that had ended with just a few simple words. She picked up the picture on her desk and opened a drawer, placing it gently inside. Her chest still hurt, still ached. A huge part of her wanted to run, wanted to give up everything and run to him and hold him close and tell him it was a big mistake, that he should stay with her. That she would stay with him, whatever he wanted.
But she always did what was right, so instead she folded her arms on her desk, put her head down and cried for a very long time.
Later, when the tears were dry, when her face was less puffy, when she was able to choke down the emotions that were strangling her she managed to read through Mordin's findings. The cybernetics that Cerberus had pumped into her body were more advanced than anything he had ever seen, and he apologized profusely for taking so long to come up with something. She had asked him about this a week ago, gotten the chest x-rays a day later. She shook her head, still amazed by the proficiency of the salarian mind. Everything looked fine, better than fine, it looked damn near miraculous. She clutched the pad in her hand and took a few deep breaths.
When she had stilled her mind, stilled everything inside her, as well as she could she took the elevator down to deck three. She still had no idea what she was going to say, how to break this kind of news. She supposed there was no way to prepare. She would just have to be herself. Even if 'herself' was nothing more than a sleep-deprived emotional trainwreck these days.
The door whooshed open and she stepped into the dry, slightly musty air of life support with a hundred possible conversation starters bumbling through her mind. She stopped when she caught sight of the pair of people sitting at the table, both of them looking at her now with the slightly uncomfortable expression she had come to recognize. Miranda and Thane had just been talking about her.
Her distaste for the situation must have shown in her face because Miranda stood instantly, looking ashamed. Shepard wanted to punch her. What she had said in the mess hall was between them, was a sign of the trust that she had for the other woman. Not an invitation for her to go blabbing about Commander Shepard's personal crisis to anyone. Or not just anyone, to THANE who should have known with his endless analysis of her that she would hate it.
"I can come back later." Shepard said flatly, knowing that if she walked out that door now she would never come back. Mordin could deliver the information in this datapad just as well as her. Well perhaps not as efficiently, but he could take care of it well enough. Thane shook his head. Evidently, he realized this as well and his gaze was intense. He did not say anything, she would not have this conversation in front of Miranda, but his eyes told her to stay, that he would explain if she let him. She did not want to have another emotional conversation today, but that was what she had come down here to do anyway. The only difference was that now she was going to have to be emotional to.
"No, no, I was just leaving." Miranda replied, waving her hands nervously. She looked at Thane, who gave her the slightest nod to a question in her eyes that Shepard did not see. Then, she turned sharply and strode to the door, the breeze her nervous speed stirred up smelling faintly of floral perfume and sweat. She looked tired, Shepard thought dully. Then again, they all did. When the door closed again, leaving them in quiet seclusion, she turned back to Thane and tried not to look angry before he explained. Apparently she did not succeed.
"You must have had quite the conversation with Miss Lawson to look so offended that she might have shared it with me." Thane observed quietly. He said nothing more until she made her way to her usual seat, across from him. She sat down, her posture ram rod straight, full of tense energy. He examined her, taking his time, and said nothing for a long moment. "She did not. At least not in any detail. She merely said that you were upset, and wondered if there was anything I might say to you that would help. I understand she had a similar conversation with Mr. Vakarian earlier. She's worried about you Shepard, and you have no right to be angry about that."
She glared at him for a moment longer, for having the unbelievable gall to be so right about everything all the time, and slumped back in her chair. The sudden relax of her muscles told her just how tense she had really been. She set the datapad down on the table and rolled her shoulders, unpleasant cracking noises rolling through her body as bones ground and shifted under her skin. Thane sighed.
"I suppose our sparring did not help your tension as intended." He remarked wryly. All their fighting had done was stir up a whole bunch of unmentionable sexual tension, and they both knew it. They could both still feel it, hanging in the air between them. "How was your talk with Commander Alenko?"
At least that killed the mood fairly efficiently. She shifted uncomfortably, but he did not apologize like he normally did when topics she did not want to talk about were broached. She supposed he had a right to know, she had said that it was not a no between them after all, but she did not want to talk about it, not this soon.
"In some ways, it went well. We agreed to be friends, at least, though we'll see how well that works out." She met his eyes, too raw and wounded to say much of anything else about the subject. He looked sympathetic, at least. "It still... hurts. It hurts like a bitch."
"I understand." Thane replied, and made no more mention of the subject. For a few moments, silence stretched and Shepard relaxed back into her seat. She had not been down to see him since their conversation after sparring, convinced that she had to work out her feelings before she could have this easy companionship again. But that was not the way it was at all. Even with no music playing, or food, or much of anything to think about she felt safe here. Comfortable. She smiled at him and leaned forward, picking up the datapad.
"I think you should look at this." She said, handing it to him. He quirked an eyebrow and accepted it, his fingers tapping at it slowly at first, and then faster, his brows contracting over his dark eyes. His expression was more animated then anything she had ever seen as he scanned graphs and equations and diagrams. When he looked up at her again, she had to reach out, to cup his suddenly trembling hands in hers.
"Are these estimates accurate?" He asked, a slight tremor in his voice. He looked scared, terrified, and hopeful to. She bit her lip and tilted her head to the side.
"I honestly don't know. You'll have to ask Mordin. But what I think he said, was that he really doesn't know either. Those schematics are based off the implants Cerberus put in my lungs. I... I suffocated to death Thane. I didn't freeze, my blood and guts weren't sucked into the vacuum. I got a puncture in my air supply and I suffocated in space. Those implants made my lungs work again." She paused as he looked back down at the datapad. He looked so lost, so confused. Afraid to hope for everything a handful of tiny implants might mean. They were no bigger than the nail of her smallest finger, but they were more valuable to him than anything else in the world. "They might give you a year. They might give you five. They might give you ten, or hell, even more. They might do nothing but make it a little easier to breathe in the meantime."
He stayed silent and then, very carefully, laid the datapad down on the table. He looked back up at her, and she could see there were tears shining in his amazing dark eyes. He blinked and they ran down his face. His now empty hands wound around hers and she just sat there with him as he absorbed the implications of what she had just told him. She cleared her throat and he looked up.
"I understand if you want to leave. After you get the implants." She said, slowly, choosing her words carefully. "The Reapers probably won't be here for years yet. But the Normandy isn't going to sit around waiting for them, we're going to war now. We're going to unite the galaxy, mobilize them for what's coming, and get ready for a hell unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. You told me low survival odds didn't concern you, when I first recruited you, but these will change that. If you want to go, to use what time these implants give you to spend time with your son I... I understand. I won't stop you."
"Shepard..." His grip on her hands tightened and he shook his head, speechless. "I can't... there aren't... you..." He was actually at a loss for words. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly.
"I am here with you, until the end." He said finally. "Until we die, or the Reapers are defeated. Not because of these," he nodded to the datapad, "but because I want to do something good for the universe. I cannot imagine there is anywhere I could go where I could do that more effectively then where I am right now. At your side."
She let out a sigh of relief that stirred the curls hanging into her eyes. Thane never seemed uncomfortable when she fixed them on him, she realized suddenly. He never seemed uncomfortable around her at all. She did not think, looking back at her long life, that she could say that about anyone else she had ever met. She smiled at him.
"We should go. Mordin is waiting for you." She said. They stood, and she walked to the med lab with him, where Mordin's miracle was indeed waiting.