Worth Living For, Act I

by Elianda

After the tragic events of Mindoir and Akuze, Marco Shepard has grown so accustomed to the abyss that the idea of falling into it doesn't scare him anymore. And when someone no longer fears death, being 'willing to die for someone' becomes hollow words… But this time, he may just have found someone to live for...

7. Chapter 7

Worth Living For,

Act I

by Elianda (a.k.a. Cygnonymous & TheLostGirl21)

SPOILERS: Everything up to and including Mass Effect 3's ending.

SUMMARY: After the tragic events of Mindoir and Akuze, Marco Shepard has grown so accustomed to the abyss that the idea of falling into it doesn't scare him anymore. And when someone no longer fears death, being 'willing to die for someone' becomes hollow words… But this time, he may just have found someone to live for...

DISCLAIMERS: All the characters in the story belong to Bioware, and whoever else has the rights on Mass Effect. Some quotes will directly be borrowed from the games.

Anything about Marco Shepard that isn't already part of the default character, including his personality and elements of his back story, was created by Cygnonymous.

WARNING: Certain chapters may contain more mature situations such as thoughts related to depression and suicidal intent, descriptions of violence, and sex between two loving and consenting adults.

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Chapter 7

They were lucky to make it anywhere near the facility in one piece when they made the drop. The Mako had to travel at a slow crawl, windshield wipers on full blast as the windows were buffeted with layer after layer of unyielding snow and sleet. Even the temperature inside the vehicle felt like it had dropped several degrees, despite the regulated cabin. The vehicle's tires squealed and struggled to find traction as they pushed onwards, more often than not grinding to a halt and kicking up snow until the treads could grab ground again and send them onwards.

"You sure it wasn't just the blizzard that knocked out their coms?" Garrus' voice cut through the cold silence in the cramped cabin, as he tried to look out through the flurry covering the window in front of him. Their visibility barely extended beyond a few yards ahead of them.

"The blizzard rolled in after communications stopped," Shepard explained, not once taking his eyes off of the path in front of them, fingers clenched hard around the steering wheel as though letting go meant death. Considering the current conditions, that conclusion wasn't unfounded. The entire vehicle shuddered with effort as they tried to climb over a particularly steep snow bank.

"What kind of facility is this, anyway?" Kaidan asked from the back seat, leaning forward to grab the back of Shepard's chair to steady himself as he looked out through the windshield.

"Top secret Alliance R&D lab," Shepard replied shortly, still refusing to move his head to look at either of his squad mates. "All I got out of Hackett is that if this is more than a simple communications failure, then we're going to have a big problem. That's why he sent us."

In short, that could mean anything. Though Kaidan had long learned that when travelling with Shepard, it was normal to expect the unexpected. From zombie-like husks to crazy scientists to supposedly extinct rachni… At this point, he wouldn't even be surprised if they ended up finding a live prothean over there! "Big problem" could indeed have more than a single definition. Good thing they'd had a few days to work things out, and catch some much needed rest - they were probably going to need it.

A small building came into sight as they drew closer, tucked into a tight corner formed by the surrounding ice-slicked cliff faces. The wind and snow howling against the outside of the Mako began to fade the further inwards they drove, cut off by the cliffs rising around them. They drove onwards until they were within walking distance of the facility. Shepard pulled the struggling vehicle to a stop behind a rock outcropping that hid it from view of the building, killing the engine and reaching over to activate a comm. link on the console.

"Testing. Is there anyone on this channel? This is Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy. Please respond."

He was greeted with hissing static, uniform and uninterrupted. He waited for a long moment before he hit the button again, repeating his hail in a slightly more urgent tone of voice. He waited a little longer, but once again, nothing came through. He swore under his breath.

"Kaidan, see if you can run a diagnostic on their comm. system."

He heard the telltale blipping sound of an omnitool being called up somewhere behind him, followed by the sound of fingertips clicking across the keyboard interface. The three sat in tense silence for a long moment, before Kaidan finally spoke again.

"I'm not reading any comm. traffic. I'm not even getting basic electronics readings. It's like the whole building is in a void."

Shepard heaved a frustrated sigh. "Jamming tech. Grab your weapons; we're going in hot."

The three men made quick work of snapping on their helmets – Gellix might have been oxygenated, but the blizzard was still pounding outside and they needed frostbite about as much as another hole in the head. And with the Mako's dashboard reading an external temp of over fifty below, they weren't going to take their chances. Shepard waited until everyone was ready before he put a hand on the door panel, pausing only to address them via their short-range communicators.

"We stick together on this. Stay close, watch each other's backs. If we're dealing with geth, I want you two running as much tech interference as you can. Keep an eye out for survivors first and foremost. Otherwise we look for whatever is disrupting communications and take it out. Understand?"

He waited until he'd received confirmations from both Kaidan and Garrus, before he shoved the door open. It gave a loud cracking sound as the layer of ice clinging to the hull shattered around the edges of the door, allowing it to swing open and assault the three with a flurry of snow and harsh wind. They were out and moving in an instant, not giving the weather any pause before the three began trudging through the knee-deep snow towards the building laid out ahead of them.

They came up around the side of the building rather than attempting a head-first charge through the front doors, coming around to see that the massive sliding door that led into the garage bay was wide open, and there was at least a couple of feet of accumulated snow inside the hangar, having blown in through the open door. They ducked inside, weapons drawn as they surveyed the room – it was empty and silent, save for a large utility vehicle parked near the back. There was a large span of empty space next to it, and Garrus walked over to inspect what looked like an oil stain on the ground. His visor flashed as his head moved, following the barest hints of what looked like tire treads cutting through the layer of ice leading out into the snow.

"Looks like someone took a vehicle out of here. The tracks aren't completely covered, so it can't have been that long ago," he said, stooping down to run a gloved hand over the tread marks cut into the ice. He stood up again after a moment, turning to face Shepard and Kaidan.

"Then there's a possibility there are survivors out there somewhere. Let's get this jamming device shut down, and then try to see if we can make a connection from the facility's comm. systems to the vehicle that's missing," Shepard said, undoing the snaps on his helmet and yanking it off with a grunt. Kaidan and Garrus followed suit – they could hardly see through their visors as it was, and he watched as Garrus cracked a layer of ice and accumulated snow off of the glass, causing it to the fall to the concrete and scatter. Their breath became visible in the frigid air.

"Alright, we do this quick and silent. If we see them first, we take them out fast," Shepard ordered as he readied his shotgun, the weapon clicking loudly in the relative silence of the empty hangar bay. He waited for his squad mates to ready themselves, before they pushed onwards.

They passed through dark, cold hallways, the only light source coming from the emergency strip lighting along the edges of the floor. The main power seemed to be completely shut down, and most of the doors were wide open and unlocked. For the longest time the only sound they could hear were their footsteps echoing harshly against the walls.

They checked room after room as they progressed, more than a little bit perturbed to see that much of the equipment was trashed, computers thrown from the desks, paperwork scattered across the floors, furniture overturned and broken. But aside from that, complete silence. No people. No enemies. Nothing.

Shepard suddenly held his hand up as they drew further down a particularly large hallway, causing the whole group to come to a halt.

"Voices," he whispered over his shoulder, before crouching into a stealth position and flattening to the wall, advancing further towards a large doorway at the end of the hall, shotgun held at the ready. Kaidan and Garrus immediately followed suit, coming up behind him as he inched closer towards the open doorway.

The closer they came, the clearer it became – someone was talking, a loud, harsh voice straining with anger and impatience. The voice was punctuated by another sound, the distinctive echo of someone sobbing uncontrollably. Shepard's pace immediately quickened until he had reached the door, and he leaned forward just enough to peer around the edge of the doorway.

"You have ten seconds to give me the access codes!" the harsh voice came back, raised to a roar – he zeroed in on the speaker, a large figure with its back turned towards the doorway. The sobbing sound was clearly coming from another figure on the floor at its feet – a woman in laboratory clothes, sitting on her knees with her arms hugged tightly around herself. The figure standing over her had a pistol pressed against the side of her head.

"Nine!"

Shepard's teeth clenched and he went rigid when he saw the figure's head turn – he recognized that profile almost immediately. Wrinkled, muddy colored skin, four dark eyes wide with fury, multiple sharp teeth bared, screaming in a deep, guttural voice.

The last time Shepard had seen a face like that, it had been leering down at him as he bled out on the grass, staring up at a sky choked with the ash of burning homes, the sound of flames crackling and people screaming in the distance. Gunfire echoing and popping, screams growing louder before going silent. Sobs catching in his throat as he choked on his own blood. "He's already dying. Don't waste your bullets."

"Eight!"

For the barest of moments, Kaidan saw Shepard tense and freeze as he observed the scene before them, his eyes losing their focus as if momentarily absorbed in a world of his own. He was about to gently grab his arm to divert his attention from what was happening and ask him if he was okay, when the Commander quickly snapped out of it by himself.

"Kaidan," Shepard bit out under his breath, voice harsh but steady. "Hostage, center point, on her knees. On my signal, biotic barrier on her."

"Seven!"

He didn't even wait for a response, but he didn't need to. The L2 had already begun activating his biotics the very moment that Shepard had spoken, a thin layer of dark energy now running across his body and reflecting in his eyes. Kaidan let the mass effect field around him slowly build up, ready to discharge the required amount of energy in order to shield the woman from both potential gunfire and Shepard's own biotic attack as soon as the Commander gave the order.

"Garrus, five enemies ringing the room. Snipe the three on the far side once Kaidan and I make our move."

"Six!"

Shepard's eyes swept around the room, double-checking the count – five batarians standing around the room, one more with his gun drawn on a human hostage. The five standing guard were carrying various assault rifles and pistols, most of them cheap models with weathered metal surfaces. All six were wearing dirty and earthy-colored jumpsuits, the kind of clothing usually seen on downtrodden mercenaries or homeless colonists. Or violent slavers with a penchant for destruction and murder. A few of them had dark stains on their clothing, vaguely red against the dirty brown colors.

"Five!"

"NOW!" Shepard roared, stepping out of cover and initiating a biotic charge the moment he saw a dark energy barrier flash to life around the woman on the ground. Six weapons turned towards the doorway but he was gone before their fingers even found the triggers, charging shoulder first into the batarian in the center of the room. He felt the batarian's shield pop from the force of the blow as he used the momentum of the charge to flatten him to the ground, pinning him down with his shotgun crushing down against his throat. He reared his free hand back as his biotics flared bright – the batarian didn't even have a chance to scream before he'd unleashed the biotic punch directly into his face, hard enough to snap his neck.

His head snapped up as he heard Garrus' sniper rifle go off, and he moved quickly – he grabbed the scientist by the arm and hauled her behind the cover of a nearby desk before the batarians could recover from the surprise attack and turn on them. "Stay down," he ordered, before he vaulted back over the desk and charged directly into another batarian on the far side of the room.

The alien slammed back into the wall from the force of the charge, and Shepard wasted no time slamming a foot down on his chest and firing a single round of buckshot directly into his head. He turned to see that Garrus had dropped the three on the far side like he'd been ordered, and Kaidan had just thrown the remaining enemy all the way across the room with a biotic pulse that sent him crashing into a desk.

They didn't have a chance to celebrate their victory, however, as they were suddenly interrupted by the sound of shouting coming from the doorway on the opposite side of the large room – Shepard only now realized that it was some kind of multi-user office, with several overturned desks and scattered paperwork. They immediately fell back into cover behind a few of the desks.

"Garrus!" Shepard yelled, catching the turian's attention. "Take cover with the hostage! Keep her safe!" he ordered, receiving a nod as Garrus immediately ducked out from behind the desk he'd taken cover behind and made his way over to where the scientist was still cowering, out of the line of sight of anyone coming through the far door.

Shepard moved over quickly, taking cover next to Kaidan. They waited in tense silence as the pounding footsteps and shouts drew closer, before a handful of batarians – maybe six or seven – came barreling through the door, weapons drawn. "All right Kaidan, cover my ass," Shepard ordered quickly, looking over the edge of the cover as the batarians clustered through the doorway, "I'm doing a one-two punch charge-nova. The moment I nova, give me a backup barrier and I'll retreat. When I'm behind cover, drop it and attack."

He didn't wait for a response before he'd vaulted over cover, disappearing in a pulse of biotic energy as he charged directly into the middle of the group.

They were still playing it pretty close to the edge, but at the very least, Kaidan was happy and immensely relieved that Shepard was actively coordinating his attacks with them. More than that, he kept a solid awareness of his environment, made sure that he had the appropriate level of cover before charging into the fray, and took advantage of each squad mate's strengths and abilities. In turn, Kaidan was able to better relax and focus more on following Shepard's orders and leadership, instead of seeking to protect him from himself. He still kept an eye out for unexpected or sudden threats, but felt confident that Shepard or Garrus would probably see them coming, too. The simple fact of being able to share the responsibility of keeping the whole team safe with the rest of his squad made him feel like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"Damn. I almost feel sorry for the batarians," he heard Garrus comment over their armors' comm. system as Shepard detonated his nova, sending the ones that hadn't already been hit by his powerful biotic charge flying across the room. Kaidan would have chuckled if something about the way that the Commander fought didn't raise his concern.

Sure, Shepard had always been extremely efficient at hitting his enemies and crippling their forces before they had the chance to recover and attack. But he'd never seen him be so… savage about it. It almost reminded him of a krogan's blood rage, though thankfully, he still retained all of his mental capabilities. Shepard wasn't just trying to incapacitate the enemies; he wanted to tear them apart!

Though he supposed that if batarian slavers had been responsible for the deaths of his whole family and all of his friends, he'd probably feel that way, too. It wasn't so much the violence with which Shepard attacked the batarians that bothered him… But the knowledge that this rage came from a place that was still filled with pain, and that there was nothing that he could do to make it better right now, besides supporting him as best he could in the fight.

Kaidan quickly replaced Shepard's damaged shields with a solid barrier, trusting the Commander to get himself to safety while he quickly assessed the situation. At least three of the batarians had gone down and were entirely unmoving, either dead or unconscious. The other four were slowly pulling themselves to their feet, still groggy and uncoordinated from the impact of Shepard's assault.

One of the advantages of fighting in enclosed spaces was that enemies tended to hit the walls faster, and stay relatively regrouped. As soon as Shepard reached cover, Kaidan dropped the barrier and smiled to himself.

"How about some target practice, Garrus?" he asked, generating a mass effect field large enough to lift the four remaining batarians into the air, maintaining them helplessly floating towards the ceiling.

"Easy pickings!" he heard the turian reply with a laugh, before he began taking them out one by one with his sniper rifle. Kaidan sent the last of them crashing into the far off wall with a strong biotic throw, wincing slightly as he heard a sickening crunch upon impact.

Shepard pulled out of cover the moment the last one fell, stalking over to the scattered bodies – he immediately began kicking each one over, as though checking to make sure they were dead. This was confirmed when he rolled one over with the toe of his boot and immediately raised his shotgun, firing one round into its head.

They were silent for the longest time, before the quiet of the room was broken by the choked sob that came out of the woman still cowering next to Garrus. They immediately converged on her position, Kaidan stooping down to check the traumatized woman for injuries.

"Are you okay? What happened here?" Shepard asked the woman, kneeling down so he could be eye level with her. The rage that had been so evident before seemed to be restrained at this point, allowing his voice to remain steady. She looked between him, Garrus, and Kaidan, eyes bloodshot from crying. She was still obviously terrified, but seeing three men who obviously weren't batarians was all she needed to start speaking.

"Batarian slavers attacked us three days ago," she said, voice shaking with barely held back tears. "Our guards held them off for the first two days, but they cut our communications and the power and we couldn't call for help."

She took a deep, shuddering breath, expression twisting a bit as she tried not to burst into tears again. "They killed the last few guards this morning and forced their way in. They took us hostage, locked us all in one of the storage rooms, back that way," she explained, pointing a shaking finger at the door the batarians had filed in through. "They've been dragging us out one by one and trying to scare us into giving them information."

"What kind of information?" Shepard asked, watching as she flinched.

"Access codes," she said, shaking her head in shame. "We've been working on Alliance prototypes, but the files are locked down. They want the blueprints and they can't read them if they don't have the codes." Her voice cracked. "They killed most of my colleagues trying to get them. I was going to be next."

"How many of you are left?" he asked, voice gentle. She bit her lip, eyes filling with tears again.

"There were four others left after me. They should still be locked up in the storage room."

"Can you show us where that is?" Shepard asked, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. She paused, expression faltering, before she gave a quick nod and forced on a straight face despite the red ringing her eyes. He and Kaidan helped the woman to her feet.

They made it to the storage room and rescued the group without complications, allowing the female scientist to race into the room and reunite tearfully with the four remaining hostages. They were in varying states of shock and disbelief, but were otherwise unhurt – if not a bit terrified, as the moment the door had opened they had expected an angry batarian to charge into the room and drag yet another of their number outside, never to be heard from again.

The batarians had used a crude jamming device to cut off their communications, not unlike the pylons that geth were known to construct. It wasn't long before they found it set up in a back room, unguarded. Shepard didn't even waste time trying to hack it – he unloaded several shotgun rounds into the control panel, shutting the signal down and causing the device to spit sparks before dying.

They followed the group of scientists to the communications room, helping them reset their systems and get the power running again along the way. Shepard was getting ready to send a signal to Alliance command when one of the scientists on the far side of the room let out a gasp.

"The others are still alive!"

He was met with a round of shocked exclamations as a couple of the others raced over to see what he was looking at, crowding around a panel with a blipping light on it. Shepard walked over to see what he was doing.

"What do you mean?"

"When the batarians finally broke through our defenses, a handful of us ran for the hangar bay, grabbed a utility vehicle, and tried to get out of range of the jamming device to send an emergency signal," the man explained, before gesturing his hand across the panel. "Now that coms are up again, we're showing a distress beacon coming from the vehicle!"

"Hm. That would explain the missing vehicle and the open garage door," Garrus mused, coming over to look at the panel as well. "Why would they set off a distress beacon? A utility vehicle doesn't have enough transmitting power to send a distress signal off planet."

"They probably got stuck while trying to escape," the scientist said, tapping his fingers across the keyboard in front of him. "I'm trying to hail them, but there's no response…"

"Garrus, stay here with the scientists. If there are still enemies around they need protection," Shepard immediately ordered towards the turian, before turning to Kaidan. "Kaidan, come with me. We'll take the Mako to the coordinates of the distress beacon, see if we can rescue the rest."

Kaidan nodded, quickly following the Commander as they made their way towards the hangar bay from which they had come in. They could only hope that the utility vehicle's heating system was still functioning, or that the scientists that had tried to escape were wearing some very efficient enviro-suits; otherwise, their chances of having survived the blizzard on their own were rather slim. They would need to find them, and fast.

"Let me drive," Kaidan suggested. He'd seen how clenched Shepard's hands had been on the steering wheel on their way to the facility; and after what they'd just been confronted by, he didn't want him to be put under any more stress than necessary. "I used to love driving my dad's ATV through heavy snow, and I've had my share of pretty bad snowstorms to deal with back in B.C. Really, I don't mind," he added, trying his best to sound casual about it.

Well, it wasn't like he was lying… Just that he wanted to be able to use the Mako ride as an opportunity to talk with Shepard, and thought that it would be easier for him to maintain his attention on the conversation if he wasn't actively trying to deal with the blizzard also. As for Kaidan, he'd always been comfortable with skid control techniques, and knew that the best way to drive through snow was to be as relaxed as he could about it, anyway.

Shepard almost looked like he wanted to argue for a moment, before he sighed and shook his head. "Alright. You drive, I'll take weapons," he conceded. The two grabbed up their helmets from where they had left them by the door they had come in through, snapping them back on for the trek back to the Mako's parking spot.

The blizzard was still going strong outside, buffeting them with layer after layer of biting cold wind and snow, and when they made it back to the Mako, the vehicle had a fresh layer of snow clinging to its outer hull. There was a bit of a struggle as they tried to get the door open again, but with their combined effort they managed to get the layer of ice holding it down to crack enough for them to wrench it open. They clambered inside and snapped the door closed again, Kaidan taking the driver's seat and Shepard settling into the weapon seat next to him. They made quick work of pulling their helmets off again, leaving the pieces to thaw on the floor.

It was an unfamiliar spot, sitting in the weapon seat – he always drove, no matter what, so he felt awkward as he ran his hands over the controls and took stock of what did what. Once he was certain he knew what he was doing, he activated his omnitool and transferred the data he'd picked up from the scientists over to the Mako's computer. A navigational point appeared on the console as he did so, blipping every so often on the screen.

"All right, there's the distress beacon's location. Looks like they made it about five clicks northeast before they stopped."

"Got it," Kaidan said, activating the Mako's landscape sensors. He already had a pretty good idea of where they were headed thanks to the area map; but the last thing they needed was for him to drive them right into a crevasse or something similar.

The other utility vehicle appeared to be stuck in the northern corner of some large valley, surrounded by a few mountains creating a potential wind corridor. Great. If the readings were right, they would need to be especially careful as they got closer to their destination, as it seemed that the ground was a bit unstable nearby.

"Things got pretty heated back there," Kaidan commented, keeping his eyes on the road – or more precisely, the utter lack of one – and testing the Mako's maneuverability a little bit. He had to say, he'd been surprised when Shepard had agreed to let him drive, especially with so little convincing. The Commander wasn't exactly as bad as Joker when it came to letting someone else take control over his baby, but still.

Maybe Shepard had decided that it would be a good idea to take the opportunity to familiarize himself with the vehicle's weapons system, especially considering that Garrus normally didn't like to share whenever big guns were involved. Kaidan had to wonder if he even slept with his rifle at night. Or maybe it was a sign that Shepard really did trust him. Either way, he sure wasn't going to complain.

"How are you holding up?" he asked, trying to keep most of the concern out of his voice.

"Fine," Shepard responded a little too quickly. "I've handled hostage situations before." His voice was terse, and he was very adamantly refusing to make any sort of eye contact with Kaidan, instead choosing to stare out the windshield as they drove onwards into the flurry.

Truth be told he was in the middle of a very heated internal battle over whether or not he really was fine. It was taking all of his higher brain processes and then some to convince himself that he was okay, that it was perfectly normal for him to go into a visceral rampage when confronted with the same kind of aliens that had slaughtered his entire family and all of his friends.

Vanguards skirted the edge between tactical recklessness and outright rampage – he'd seen a few others during his N7 training, and he was glad to say that he was one of the ones who had a grasp on his baser instincts. He'd met others that got off on the destruction, charging headfirst into battle, laughing and screaming like a blood-raging krogan. And while there was a certain amount of liberation associated with his abilities, he liked to think that he held a decent amount of control over himself.

He flinched a little bit as he remembered the sound of that batarian's neck snapping when he'd unleashed that biotic punch. He almost wanted to feel sorry for him, but the sentiment was impossible to grasp at that point. Not when he was struggling to forget what his house on Mindoir had looked like while it was burning to the ground, or what it was like to watch his siblings die in pools of their own blood. Trying to forget what it was like to stare up at the face of a leering batarian, waiting to be killed, only to be denied a merciful bullet to the head because he wasn't worth the bullet. They'd already wasted four bullets shooting him in the back. One of those had broken three ribs as it passed through, before killing his little sister as he tried to shield her with his body. She might have survived if he hadn't been carrying her when he was shot.

That was a possibility that had haunted him for the past thirteen years.

If there was a higher power, he had to question His sick sense of humor. It took his entire family and all of his friends dying for him to gain the power necessary to have stopped it… but only after the fact. He hated being a latent biotic. If his powers had manifested sooner, he might have been able to protect them. He wouldn't have run away.

No, he was fine. Completely functional. He didn't care that his armor was still smeared with batarian blood, dark and reddish and thick. He was fine.

"Yeah, but most hostage situations don't usually end up with you trying to dismember all of the hostage-takers, Shepard," Kaidan stated quietly. Actually, most hostage situations that Shepard had previously been dealing with usually involved some form of negotiation. Or, at the very least, under normal circumstances, the Commander would have sought to capture one or two of them in order to turn them over to the Alliance for questioning.

What if there were more batarian slavers nearby? What if they were part of a larger organization that was planning yet another attack? And what did they need these blueprints for? With the entire group decimated, they would never know for sure unless more showed up. And Kaidan sincerely hoped that it wouldn't come to that; that they'd been lucky enough to deal with all of them in a single strike.

He wasn't going to voice these thoughts out loud, though. The last thing he wanted was for Shepard to start feeling guilty or second-guessing himself. Besides, he knew that most batarian slavers would have refused to negotiate or give up valuable information. So perhaps taking them all out as fast as possible had been the right call, after all. He was perfectly able to let it go, and even back Shepard's decision one hundred percent if the Alliance ever began questioning it.

The batarians were too aggressive; the risks for the hostages were too great. Their number was too high and they needed to act quickly before they had the chance to target more innocent lives. Besides, Shepard was a Spectre now, so it wasn't like the Alliance had that much say over what he did and the decisions he took.

His only real concern right now was Shepard, and the fact that he'd been acting in a way that was very unlike him. And Kaidan also needed him to know that if there was anything that he could do to help make things easier, he would.

"Most of the hostage situations I've dealt with so far didn't involve batarians," Shepard replied, voice still tense despite his better efforts. "They don't understand negotiations beyond overwhelming force. I did to them what they were prepared to do to us if we had hesitated."

It wasn't a very sound justification, but he wasn't prepared to explain to Kaidan exactly what was going through his mind while he was attacking those batarians. Explaining it would make it true and he just wasn't ready to own up to the idea that he might have made a mistake, allowing his emotions to dictate his actions, forcing him into doing something rash and horrifying.

That would prove that he was damaged, and he refused to even consider admitting to that.

"I know. I wasn't…" Kaidan began, before letting out a frustrated sigh. Why was it that everything he said always seemed to come out wrong? He didn't mean to question Shepard's decisions, or make him retreat to a defensive position again. Especially since the Commander had made some great efforts to really lead his squad as a team, and avoid being reckless.

"Look, I just don't like to see you hurt…" he said honestly, hoping that Shepard would understand that he had absolutely no issues with the calls that he'd had to make in the earlier battle. "Not if there's anything I can do to help it."

Shepard sighed heavily, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his face with the palms of both hands for a long moment. "I'm not hurt, Kaidan," he finally said through his hands, before lowering them to his lap and staring out through the window in front of them, expression flattening out into something a little less frustrated, less restrained. He suddenly felt weary – whether it was from the battle, or the emotions associated, or all of the above, he wasn't sure. "I appreciate the concern, really. But I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

"Okay," Kaidan said, though it was clear by his tone of voice that he wasn't all too convinced. He was willing to drop the subject for now though, especially since according to the plan, they were going to be reaching their objective pretty soon.

"And uh… Thank you," he said, allowing himself to take a quick look at Shepard and offer him an encouraging smile. "The way you led us into battle and kept us all involved in the fight back there…" despite the difficult and heavy situation, Kaidan thought to himself. "I sincerely appreciated that."

Shepard gave a slight laugh, shaking his head. "That's my job. I'm just sorry that it took me this long to do it right." He looked over, flashing Kaidan a faint smirk. "We make a pretty good team. I might be a bit biased, but hey. You and Garrus are amazing soldiers."

"Thanks Commander, that means a lot," Kaidan said gratefully. "And you're right, I think we're pretty good together," he added, quickly becoming flustered as he realized the potential ambiguity behind his words. "I mean…"

He didn't have the time to develop that thought any further, though, as the vehicle suddenly jerked, propelling them both forward, Kaidan's armored torso hitting the steering wheel. The vehicle skidded to a short stop and Shepard barely managed to plant his hands against the dashboard to keep from hitting it as well, unable to keep from making a startled sound at the sudden bump.

"Okay, what the hell was that?" Kaidan asked, his brows furrowing together as he tried to figure out what could have caused the Mako to jump like that, checking over the sensors and going so far as to look in the rearview displays. It was as if the rear end of the Mako had been suddenly lifted in the air before being dropped back, forcing them to a halt.

As far as he knew, there had been no bump on the ground; when he tried giving the vehicle a bit more gas again, the six wheels of the Mako immediately caught in the snow and propelled it forward, as if nothing had just happened. So it wasn't like the front wheels had suddenly sunk in, causing the rear to lift either.

"I don't like this…" Kaidan said with a certain level of urgency in his voice, suddenly determined to make it to their destination as fast as they possibly could.

"Just keep going forward," Shepard ordered, looking over the rearview display and pivoting the Mako's gun to face their rear, just in case. "I'll keep an eye out. It's probably just the snow giving the Mako hell, but if there are still batarians out here, it's definitely not below them to set traps for rescue vehicles."

They continued onwards, a tense silence settling in the cabin as they drew closer and closer to their destination. They waited for the inevitability that something strange was going to happen again, but were more than a little thrown off when the rest of the ride was mostly smooth save for a few skids here and there when the wheels lost traction for a few seconds. Within minutes they were within sight of the utility vehicle, and as Shepard leaned forward to look through the windshield, he could already tell that something was wrong.

Even with the reduced visibility caused by the snow raining down across the windshield, he could tell that the vehicle was overturned on its side and bent at a strange angle, and there were large, dark shapes and debris surrounding it on the ground. It was covered in a thickening layer of snow and ice, giving some idea as to how long it had been that way.

"Shit. This isn't good," Shepard swore under his breath, before grabbing up his helmet and pulling it back on, struggling with the clasps for a moment before he had it on properly again. "Come on, we need to check it out."

Once Kaidan had snapped his helmet on as well they climbed out of the Mako with their weapons at the ready, stepping out into a maelstrom of snow. Even in multiple layers of armoring and hard suits with environmental controls, Shepard could feel a chill settle across his skin from the biting wind. He squinted through the dark slit of his visor, trudging forwards with Kaidan following close behind as they closed the distance between them and the utility vehicle.

When they were finally upon the wreckage Shepard could see the full extent of the damage. A massive hole had been ripped straight through one side of the vehicle, spewing ice-covered debris across the ground. It almost looked as though something had punched straight through the side of the vehicle and kept going, flipping it for a loop in the process.

"Damn. What could have done that?" he heard Kaidan ask over their short-range communicator, tone wary. He saw him move out of the corner of his eye, stooping down to look through some of the debris littering the ground. He suddenly recoiled, however, and Shepard's attention immediately snapped in his direction. "Crap. Bad news, Shepard. I've got a body." He straightened up, before correcting himself. "Scratch that. Bodies."

It was then that he realized that half of those dark shapes he had assumed to be debris and broken vehicle parts were actually bodies, scattered in no particular pattern around the demolished vehicle, many of them well on their way to being entombed by the snow and ice. The snow was vaguely pink in some places from having soaked up the majority of the bloodshed, and the more Shepard looked over the scene, the more nauseous it made him feel. There were at least six bodies there – maybe five, as Shepard couldn't quite discern if one of the halves he was looking at belonged to one of the ones he'd already counted. The sheer brutality with which some of the scientists had been killed was unnatural and violent, even for a batarian.

"This damage isn't consistent with a trap," Shepard said, pushing aside a large piece of debris so he could look over the exterior hull of the wreckage. "If the batarians had set up landmines, there would have been more external damage. I don't see any scorch marks, either."

He turned away from the vehicle and walked over to where Kaidan had crouched down again, looking down to watch him shovel away a layer of snow with his hands to reveal what was clearly the kind of uniform he'd seen on Alliance engineering specialists. The body was frozen solid already, expression permanently twisted into something grotesque and horrifying, but what caught Shepard's attention before anything else was the fact that half of the uniform had seemingly been burned away. The skin underneath was blistered and congealed, like it had spontaneously melted. And judging by the consistency, it most definitely wasn't the result of an electrical fire or an explosion that might have resulted from the vehicle's accident.

No, he'd seen a wound like that before. It was one that he was forced to look at anytime he looked into a mirror or took his shirt off. One that had been so agonizing when he'd received it, unable to keep from screaming in absolute pain as his skin began to burn away and melt. He could still remember the pain, lying on his side in a hospital bed while a nurse lifted the bandage on his side and told him he was lucky to be alive.

He nearly stopped breathing at that point. "Kaidan," he bit out, "We need to go. Now."

He saw Kaidan sit up rigid in response to his tone, saw the confused look he was giving him even through the small window his visor made. "What? Why?"

And then the ground beneath them began to tremble, nearly throwing them off balance from the sudden unsteadiness. Shepard's heart nearly stopped, and it was all he could do to keep himself moving – he raced over and yanked Kaidan to his feet by his arm, before dragging him away from the wreckage. He could barely hear Kaidan yelling at him, asking him what was going on, the blood was pounding in his ears so loud and incessant.

"RUN!" he shouted over the rushing in his ears, and to his great credit, Kaidan followed orders immediately. The two dashed towards the Mako as fast as the snow would allow them, the ground still unsteady and shaking beneath them. Shepard made it to the Mako first, wrenching the door open and turning to make sure that Kaidan was still following. He was right behind him, thankfully, and Shepard gave him a hard push up into the vehicle to get him inside faster. He clambered inside immediately afterwards, slamming the door closed behind him and practically vaulting into the weapon seat as Kaidan dropped into the driver's seat.

"Get us out—" Shepard began to yell, but he was cut off by a sound that made his blood run cold – a roaring, shrieking sound, so loud that it made the whole Mako reverberate. He sucked in a harsh breath, forgetting to breathe for a moment as the trembling beneath them suddenly stopped.

His hands planted on the dashboard of the Mako as he leaned forward to look through the windshield, the only sound now being the wind howling against the Mako's exterior, his heart beating hard enough against his ribs to hurt, and his labored breathing within the confines of his helmet. "Kaidan. We need to go," he repeated, not even bothering to keep his voice from shaking.

The moment Kaidan turned the ignition on the Mako, it happened. Another roar split the air, and the snow-covered ground before them trembled and suddenly burst upwards with staggering force as something came bursting up through the ground, causing the vehicle to shake violently as they grabbed for a foothold to keep from getting knocked around. And as Shepard stared out through the windshield, he saw something that had been confined to his darkest nightmares for the past six years.

"THRESHER MAWS! EVERYBODY RUN FOR THE LANDING ZONE!"

Someone behind him was screaming in agony. Several rounds of gunfire followed him as he ran, ran as fast as he could, struggling to breathe, struggling to keep moving no matter what. Those things were roaring, louder and louder and louder, they were getting closer and if he didn't run any faster he'd be next.

He heard another scream as another marine was grabbed, the horrifying last sounds of a man desperate to stay alive being dragged to his death. But he blocked it out, buried it under the sound of his heart beating as he ran. Several of the men had stayed behind, unleashing gunfire on the beasts chasing them, but he could hear the streams of bullets dying out one by one under waves of screams and silence and otherworldly shrieking.

There were still a handful of men and women with him as they raced for the landing zone where the shuttles were parked – too many now for the too few marines still left alive.

The ground was shaking faster and faster no matter how quickly they ran, and a scream erupted from his left when a maw burst from the ground, taking down two of his teammates in one blow – rocky debris scattered everywhere and he lost his footing and fell, tumbling to the ground and losing his assault rifle in the process.

The thresher maw was roaring directly above him and he knew it was the end even as he scrambled to his feet – he was shocked, however, when a pair of hands grabbed him by the arm and dragged him upright, throwing him forwards so he could keep running.

"RUN!"

He didn't even have to look to know it was Toombs who had saved him, but he ground to a halt the moment he heard him scream again, this time no longer an order to run for his life. He turned back and lunged to grab the Corporal's hand as the thresher grabbed hold of him about the legs, threatening to drag him under.

"Toombs, hold on!" he shouted, scrabbling for purchase against the rocky ground as the maw tried to drag them both backwards – he was too weak, though, and Toombs was covered in blood and there were acid burns on his hard suit and he was screaming, screaming for help, screaming because he didn't want to die.

The maw roared again, rearing back as it pulled them, and Shepard didn't look up in time to realize what it was doing – the acid splattered across his right side, searing straight through his hard suit and eating into his skin. He screamed in agony and Toomb's hand slipped from his own as he fell backwards, and within seconds the maw and Toombs were both gone.

He didn't know how he was still moving. His entire side felt like it was on fire, he could barely run as he limped as fast as he could – he was so close, the landing zone was right there, he just had to keep moving. The maws were still roaring behind him, the last screams disappearing for good. He could hear the roaring, shrieking so loud in his ears growing closer and closer and he was almost there—

The last thing he remembered was climbing into a shuttle, smashing a hand on the distress beacon and autopilot, and collapsing on the floor. At least he wouldn't be conscious when he died, he realized as he held a hand over the bleeding, melted flesh spanning his right side, before everything suddenly faded to black under waves of pain and anguish.

"Oh god," Kaidan whispered, taking in the sight before them, fighting to keep from letting the fear paralyze him, or the panic take over. He'd never encountered a thresher maw before – and quite frankly would have been perfectly content to spend the rest of his life without ever having met one – but that creature was huge! A gigantic worm with its head nearly the Mako's size, rising several meters above ground… And with tentacles, large sharp claws and… acid spit.

"Shit. Hold on," he said, putting the vehicle in reverse a bit too quickly, tires spinning and sinking into the snow. "Damn it!" He immediately drove forward for a few feet before bringing the Mako back in reverse again. This time, the traction held, and he was able to try to put some distance between them and that… thing.

"Shepard, is the mass accelerator cannon online?" he asked urgently, watching the maw move its head back, taking aim. No answer. "SHEPARD!" he called again. Still nothing.

Swerving to the right in order to avoid the ball of acid thrown their way, he felt Shepard's upper body bump and then sag against his shoulder like a rag doll. "Shepard!" he shouted, not bothering to hide the anguish in his voice, immediately grabbing him by the shoulders and turning to face him. He gently but quickly lifted his head with one hand, while sliding his other arm around his back and underneath his armpits, in an effort to keep him sitting upright so that he could get a better look at him.

He could see his opened eyes through the helmet's window, but his gaze was completely vacant, empty. It was as if Shepard was staring right through him and seeing nothing…

"Shepard, come on!" he called out once more, near desperate, shaking him in the hope of provoking some reaction, but the Commander still remained entirely unresponsive. What he could see of his expression was blank, fixed – the lights were clearly on, but it was becoming increasingly evident that no one was home.

Which meant that it was now entirely up to him to deal with the thresher maw, and get them both out of this alive.

Looking up, he noticed that the maw was no longer anywhere in sight, having gone back underground. Knowing that it would be too much wishful thinking to hope it'd stay there – the creatures were known to be extremely territorial and tenacious – he used the opportunity to take a quick look at the weapons controls, before quickly bringing the mass accelerator cannon online, ready to fire.

"You know, when we make it back to the Normandy…" Kaidan began, not expecting an answer from Shepard, but needing to speak nevertheless in order to try to fight back the panic, and avoid thinking about how poor their odds of surviving really were. "…I'm putting forward a motion that says that everyone in the Mako takes turns with the commands; gun-obsessed turian or not!"

As he spoke, he maneuvered Shepard's body so that his head and torso were now lying across his lap, figuring that this would probably be the most stable and safest position for him until he regained consciousness.

"You're just lucky I actually RTFM," he said, instinctively tightening his hold on Shepard, trying to draw courage and strength from the contact, reminding himself what he was fighting for… Hadn't he said that he wanted to help him fight his demons? Only he never thought he'd end up doing it so literally. Batarian slavers and thresher maw all in the same day, really? No wonder he'd gone catatonic.

The ground began shaking again and Kaidan tried to anticipate where the maw was likely to emerge next. He began driving forward as fast he could without risking the Mako getting stuck, figuring that it would be harder for the creature to strike a moving target. It was much too large and too fast for them to have any hope of outrunning it, not in this kind of weather. So for now, their only chance was to try to avoid getting hit and wearing it down as much as possible.

There was a loud screeching sound as the maw sprang back to the surface, the sensors indicating its presence on their nine. He quickly pivoted the cannon's head in its direction and used the weapon's camera to take the shot. There was a sharp kickback motion in the vehicle as the cannon fired, Kaidan holding Shepard a bit closer to himself to stabilize him.

The projectile hit its mark, and the thresher maw roared. It swung from left to right and angrily slammed its claws into the ground, before vanishing through the snow and the ice again. Kaidan could only hope that he had dealt it some actual damage, instead of just having pissed the giant deadly worm off.

And pissed it off he did. With each time that the thresher maw emerged from the ground, especially following a serious injury, it became more and more aggressive and its attacks much more violent. It was like an unrelenting game of cat and mouse in which a single moment of inattention could prove fatal.

Each time that the monster disappeared, Kaidan needed to anticipate its next attack and try to plan his own moves accordingly, hoping to catch his opponent by surprise. But he could feel himself growing more and more tired and starting to make mistakes.

They'd been indirectly hit by splashes of acid a few times; but thankfully, the eezo core and other most important systems were still intact. One of the maw's spear-like claws had also succeeded in pinning them down once, embedding itself in the hood, until a few well-placed shots in what appeared to be the creature's forehead had forced it to let go, rearing in pain.

And while Kaidan was tired and starting to make mistakes, thankfully, so was the thresher maw. It may have been more and more aggressive, but its attacks were also becoming slower and less coordinated. It was refusing to give up the fight though, or even leave any opening for them to retreat.

Had Kaidan been alone in the Mako, at some point, he might have found himself tempted to give up… His head was threatening to explode from the pressure of having to constantly maintain such a high and absolute level of concentration. The repetitive cycles of the maw going back underground only to pop up seconds to minutes later in a different location were slowly driving him insane! And no matter how many times he'd successfully managed to shoot it, the damn thing just wouldn't go down. Why wouldn't it just die already?

But the thing was, he wasn't alone. Shepard depended on him to make it through this, and he'd be damned if he ever let that monster get to him! The maw might have been driving him mad, but it was also starting to make him feel incredibly angry.

He just wanted the confrontation to end, but was determined to bring his adversary down and save Shepard, no matter what. The cannon was once again fully charged; perhaps next time…

The thresher maw exploded from the ground right in front of them, making particles of ice and snow rain upon the Mako once more; Kaidan fired the cannon at the same time that the gigantic warm threw another ball of acid spit.

This time, both of them hit their targets head-on, the maw emitting a deafening roar of pain and collapsing in the snow, while various instruments inside the Mako began to emit sparks of sizzling electricity, threatening to burst or overload.

"Shit!" Kaidan swore – they had to get out of the vehicle quickly before the acid ended up getting to them, or they got caught in an electrical fire from one of the overloading systems.

He quickly reached in the back to grab the emergency first aid survival kit, before kicking the side door open. He threw the kit out first, then grabbed Shepard under both arms and got out of the Mako while trying his best to avoid any contact with the acid that was starting to eat through the hull, having already melted part of the front windshield.

He dragged Shepard far enough from the vehicle to ensure his safety and was about to start checking on him when he heard the now too familiar screeching sound of the thresher maw coming back to life.

He quickly spun in its direction, biotics activating, and he used his powers in an effort to directly tear apart the worm's nervous system. The maw immediately went rigid, throwing its head back, trying to break free from Kaidan's solid hold. But after all the damages that it had already sustained, the biotic reave thankfully proved to be just too much, and the creature finally collapsed hard enough to shake the ground, deathly still.

For a few seconds, Kaidan kept holding on, wanting to make sure that it was really dead this time and would hopefully stay that way, until the strain became too much and he fell back to the ground right next to Shepard, breathing heavily, allowing himself to regain part of his strength while fighting hard to maintain his hold on reality.

Despite the intense feeling of relief that they'd finally gotten rid of the most immediate threat, he knew that the fight itself was far from over. They were still stuck outside in the middle of a blizzard, miles away from the base, and without any means of transportation. And although their suits could provide them with a certain level of protection from the cold and other environmental hazards, it would only last them a few hours.

Speaking of their suits… Trying his best to ignore the physical and mental exhaustion, Kaidan sat up and began checking his armor for any tear or opening, running a diagnostic with his omnitool to make sure that everything had remained sealed and intact.

He then turned to Shepard and began inspecting his armor also, cursing loudly when he found that he'd accidentally been in contact with the maw's acid, probably sometime when he'd been dragging him out of the Mako. The acid had eaten through a portion on the armor on his left leg, but thankfully, it hadn't been enough to reach the skin and burn him. He still used some snow to rub it against the opening and try to make sure that there was no acid left on it. The problem was that the interior of Shepard's armor would now slowly be losing heat; and, unless Kaidan could bring them to shelter and keep them both warm, he would eventually begin suffering from severe hypothermia and…

No, he refused to let that happen. He hadn't just succeeded in defeating a thresher maw just so that he could lose Shepard to something as trivial and stupid as the cold!

Opening his omnitool's medical interface, he set it up to identify Shepard's biometrics and provide him with continuous, steady readings of his internal body temperature and ECG. For now, his body temp was 98ºF, and his heat rate appeared to be normal and steady; but he still had to move fast.

"You know, now would be a very good time for you to snap out of it," he said in a tired, yet slightly hopeful voice. However, the Commander still remained unresponsive. "Of course that would have been too easy…" he stated a bit dejectedly, though he hadn't really expected it to work.

"I'll be right back," he said, briefly giving him an encouraging pat on the shoulder, before standing and walking back to the Mako. Careful not to get into contact with the acid, he still managed to slide his arm inside of it and activate the vehicle's distress signal. The radio was down, but hopefully when the rescue team would come to investigate, they would notice the dead thresher maw and the lack of human bodies surrounding the vehicle, and come to the conclusion that both of them had gone looking for shelter.

He then grabbed the survival kit, securing the backpack on his shoulders, and made his way back to Shepard. He checked the area map on his omnitool, which still kept beeping steadily to the rhythm of the Commander's beating heart. All things considered, they were rather lucky. The thresher maw's nest had been close to some mountains, which thankfully had a few caverns on their side. One of them appeared to be just about 1.5 km from their current location.

Of course, that was 1.5 km of walking in knee-deep snow carrying a man in a medium suit of armor on his shoulders, with strong winds blowing sideways at them, trying to deviate him from their course. Well, better get to it then.

Kneeling back on the ground, he managed to get Shepard over his shoulders in a fireman's carry and stood up, using his right hand to hold onto Shepard's right arm and keep him securely in place. This allowed him to still be able to watch his omnitool interface on his left arm.

Considering the fact that the visibility was close to nonexistent, he had to rely entirely on the omnitool's GPS to make sure that he was headed in the right direction. It was a difficult walk, especially since he had to keep lifting his knees as high as he could with each step he took to keep advancing through the heavy snow, but the Commander's rapidly cooling core temperature was providing him with just enough incentive to keep ignoring the fatigue and the aching in his muscles, and keep moving at a steady pace.

"Shepard, just hang on, alright," he said, though he knew that he probably wouldn't hear him. Even if he was to regain full awareness, chances were that he'd be slightly confused and disoriented. He might even start trying to fight him off. Honestly, he didn't know which would be worse – having to deal with a conscious and potentially uncooperative Shepard, or this; the complete lack of reaction, the utter absence of any will to fight. He knew that it wasn't the Commander's fault – strong psychological triggers had been responsible for the shock and catatonia – but part of him couldn't help but feel like Shepard was giving up…

I can finally let go.

"Please don't…" Kaidan found himself whispering, tears welling up in his eyes. That dream had kept haunting him for so long. The intangible enemies that he hadn't been able to defeat, that he had failed to save Shepard from… The peaceful, resigned look in his beautiful grey eyes. "Please don't let go, I can't…"

There were only a few meters left now, but Shepard's heart still kept slowing dangerously. 40 bpm… 30 bpm… and the temperature was still dropping, now having reached 86°F. "Hold on, we're almost there," he begged him, finally seeing the outline of the cave's entrance.

Until they managed to reach protection from the violent winds and snow, there wasn't anything he could do besides making sure that they got there. Everything else was a battle that the Commander was forced to keep fighting on his own…

And he was failing. From painfully slow and irregular, the sound of the ECG suddenly became one long, dreadful, continuous note, indicating that Commander Shepard had flatlined.

"No," Kaidan croaked, feeling as if his own heart had stopped beating, and the breath had been knocked out of him. This isn't happening, he thought. And even if it was, he wouldn't let it!

Finally rushing into the cave, getting far enough from the entrance to ensure that they would be protected from the high winds, he gently dropped Shepard back to the ground as fast as he could, removed the backpack from his shoulders, and took a large thermal blanket from it. He laid it flat on the ground and proceeded to remove Shepard's helmet, armor and bodysuit, leaving only his underwear.

He then lifted him in his arms and placed him in the middle of the blanket, hoping that it would provide some insulation from the cold floor; quickly opening a number of self-heating packs and putting them behind his neck, underneath his armpits, on his stomach and in the groin area.

"Please, Marco, stay with me… Please-please-please-please-please…" Kaidan kept repeating like a mantra as he worked as fast as he possibly could to get everything settled. The hypothermia was providing Shepard with a certain level of protection against brain damage, but if there was any chance for him to succeed in restarting his heart, he had to begin CPR, and quickly.

Having discarded his own helmet and gloves, he began chest compressions, wincing slightly as he heard a rib or two crack under the pressure. "I can't let you go, you hear me?" he said desperately, "Not when I've just got you back… Not when I…" …love you.

I love you… Kaidan thought again, the realization catching him off guard, making him feel like he was on the edge of a cliff, about to lose his footing. He didn't know if he should laugh or cry from knowing that he had finally made sense of his feelings for Shepard now that the universe was threatening to take him away from him.

Beyond friendship, beyond loyalty, beyond that desire to keep him safe and their camaraderie… From the very moment they had met, there had always been a "spark" in him that had kept growing brighter and stronger as the weeks had passed, and as they had gotten to know and trust each other. He hadn't been ready to face it back then, too respectful of the regulations and of Shepard's position as his superior officer; having long accepted that as soldiers, their duty to the mission and the crew must always come first.

But here, lost and alone in the cold with him - and with so much to lose - that love was all that he could see. All that really mattered. He couldn't bring himself to say it out loud, though. Not when Shepard was unconscious, hovering somewhere between life and death. It wouldn't feel right… It would be like admitting that it was over, and that he'd never have another opportunity to tell him how he truly felt. And he wasn't ready to accept that.

Instead he gently tilted his head back, and locked his lips against his, trying to breathe life back into him. Praying that somewhere, somehow, Shepard could feel how much he needed him to hold on to life, and how lost he would be without him. He repeated the process for a second time, before returning to the chest compressions.

The last thing Shepard remembered, a massive, angry thresher maw had burst from the ice directly in front of them. He vaguely remembered going rigid, every muscle in his body tensing, his heart nearly stopping and his breath catching in his throat.

At first the memories were lucid, so real that he was almost sure that they were happening again. He was a slave to the pattern, however, unable to break free and do things differently, no matter how loudly that voice in the back of his screamed at him to just do something. He had the power now; he could save those men and women. But he was scared and desperate all over again, running for his life as the screams swelled and died behind him. His chest hurt with each sharp inhalation as he gasped for breath, stumbling over rocky terrain, feeling the ground shake beneath him as the maws drew closer.

He could still taste the blood on his tongue, the salty tang of his sweat pouring down his face. He could still hear Toombs screaming for help, echoing in his ears. He could still feel his side burning as he laid on the floor of the escape shuttle, tears of pain dripping against the metal flooring as he fought –and failed – to stay conscious.

He didn't wake up in the Mako, however, nor did he wake up in an Alliance med bay as a nurse applied medigel to the bloody, blistering wound covering his side. Something wasn't right – the scenery had warped into something familiar, but no longer the same. He was upright again, no longer curled on the floor in pain, once again running as fast as his feet would carry him under the burden he refused to let go.

He could smell the smoke. Screaming in the distance. He was gasping for breath again, running for his life, but this time he wasn't stumbling over shaking rocks, listening to the roars of thresher maws behind him. He could hear shouting, guttural voices roaring in anger, guns going off – he raced across wet grass as buckshot peppered the ground at his feet. The child clutched in his arms like precious cargo was trembling and crying but the sound of his harsh breathing drowned out the pitiful sounds of her sobbing.

He heard his older brother Samuel scream. He almost looked back, but forced himself to keep running. No matter what.

The bullet tore into his back before he'd even realized that it had been fired and he cried out in agony, stumbling and ready to fall – but he somehow managed to keep upright, pulling from that last bit of strength – only to hear a shotgun go off one, two, three times. His sister screamed. He fell, and he knew he was dead.

Things faded in and out at the point, whether from blood loss, trauma, or imperfect memory, he couldn't say. He remembered being kicked over onto his back, forcibly separated from the girl he was so desperate to protect, only to turn his head and see eyes so much like his own staring back at him, hazed and empty. He remembered sobbing, inhuman screams of agony escaping his throat – from the loss, from the bullets buried in his back, from the way the batarian leered down at him, readying a bullet in his pistol only to back away and leave him there to die, watching as his feet retreated into the distance beyond his immediate vision.

He remembered reaching over, taking Alicia's hand in his own, and waiting to join her and the rest of his family.

But then he was up again. Running through a training course, decked in ICT fatigues, charging from target to target like a biotic freight train, ignoring everything except for the path directly in front of him and the way his blood pounded in his ears, synchronized to his heartbeat as it thrummed against his ribcage faster and faster, unyielding and unstoppable. Breaking equipment in raw fury, sending testing dummies flying into the far wall with each unrestrained shockwave, energy crackling and arcing with each practiced movement.

Finishing the course, stalking through the exit with biotics pulsing across his skin, ignoring the other trainees as they stared at him like he was a rabid animal.

Staring out at the horizon past the Villa, out towards a pattern of lights that he knew was Rio. Four hours were allotted each night for sleep at ICT. He was lucky if he took ten minutes.

Suddenly sitting in a quiet, clean room that smelled like antiseptic and the last nurse's perfume. White walls, paintings of fruit and flowers, a hospital bed and chairs and a nightstand for cards and flowers. A gold medal hung from a purple ribbon pinned to a display board, lying on its back in the center of the nightstand. Staring up at an impossibly white ceiling, listening to the sound of the heart monitors beeping. He inhaled slowly, the emergency skin grafts on his side stretching with the movement and making him tense in pain, eyes squeezing shut.

Opening his eyes and seeing a distressed male in Alliance medical fatigues standing over him – he reacted on instinct, not recognizing his surroundings or the person standing over him, not even willing to accept the fact that he was somehow still alive – he reached to shove the man away, only for immense pain to ripple through his nervous system, searing through his back and making his head hurt so badly that he saw white. And then there was a crash, and blue electricity danced across his vision, and he saw the nurse hit the ground.

Turning when he heard Garrus yell, and seeing Kaidan fall back against the ground, a bloody wound in his chest. Overwhelming anger and fear and panic as he slammed his body into the geth responsible. Chest tightening, hands clenched around Kaidan's, clinging to the hope that it wasn't too late.

"I can finally let go."

Watching Toomb's body slump to the floor.

Staring at the blank wall next to the bed in his apartment. Pulling his hand away from the fresh scar tissue covering his side, disgusted and ashamed. Eyes burning from lack of sleep, from rampant insomnia, from inescapable nightmares. Staring down at a bottle of sleeping pills. Hands trembling as he removed the lid.

Everything just… faded away. Like the color, the details, everything had been drained away, leaving nothing but empty space and blackness. Overwhelming emotions pressed in on him from all sides like water intent on drowning him, dragging him further and further into the abyss.

At first the feelings were easily identifiable… Anger, fear, shame, hopelessness, helplessness, guilt. Each one could be picked apart from the others and segregated into its own compartment, a place to hold onto it until a later date. But they were pouring in too fast, overflowing, stifling almost all of his senses.

He was shaking. From exhaustion, from fear, from the cold outside, from all of the above, perhaps. He felt so numb, so drained, unable to move – he could barely draw breath, let alone try to move about or lift a finger. Did he even need to breathe in a dream? He wasn't sure. It was so realistic before the images had faded, the pain in his lungs as he had gasped for air, the soreness in his muscles as he forced himself to run for his life, run with every last ounce of strength he had left in his body – the agony as his skin melted from the acid, the agony as blood poured down his back and soaked his t-shirt red. Now he was slipping away into the embrace of something dark and cold, like icy arms wrapping around him, comforting him with promise of someplace warmer. Someplace he could stop the memories, stop the pain and the fear and the guilt.

He would have been content to let those thoughts pull him under, but something wasn't allowing it. Something else was pulling him upwards, out of the abyss, from black to white. Emotions cascaded through him, pain replaced by warmth, fear replaced by hope, guilt replaced by love.

These weren't his emotions. They were foreign, unfamiliar, but they were there and they weren't content with allowing him to slip away so easily.

So he followed them.

Shepard eased his eyes open, expecting the interior of the Mako to greet him. What he hadn't expected was to open his eyes to the scene of Kaidan hunched over his body, hands pressed to his torso as he desperately counted out chest compressions. Though, strangely enough, he was far more inclined to wonder how he had managed to lose consciousness while standing than how he was able to clearly see his own body laying on the ground, skin pale and lips turning blue.

There were several emotions he should have felt at that moment in time, but none of them seemed to want to surface. All he could feel was this sense of calm, so comforting and welcoming, the likes of which he had never felt before. Even the sight of his body, clearly dying, wasn't enough to raise fear or concern.

He sunk down into a kneeling position next to Kaidan as he worked vigorously to revive him, staring down at the scene for a moment before turning to look at Kaidan's face, so distraught with emotion and panic.

"You can stop now, Kaidan. I don't think it's going to work."

Kaidan didn't respond, and Shepard merely reached over and brushed a soft hand down the back of his neck – a comforting gesture, but Kaidan didn't even bat an eyelash. Shepard frowned. "Why are you still trying?"

"He can't hear you, you know," came a voice from behind him, and if he hadn't been so unnaturally calm, he might have jumped in shock. As it stood all he could muster was a slightly surprised look, turning to look over his shoulder to see Toombs standing behind him with a knowing smirk on his face.

"You do know what's happening, right?" he went on to ask, watching as Shepard rose to his feet – he didn't turn to face him, however, opting instead to look down at Kaidan and his own body stretched lifelessly on the ground.

"Am I dreaming, or am I dying?" he asked flatly, watching Kaidan's hands as they pushed against his torso over and over and over.

Footsteps crunched across the ground as Toombs walked up to stand next to him. "What do you think?"

Shepard pressed his lips together in a tight line for a moment, before speaking. "Even if this is real, you're not going to give me a straight answer."

A soft laugh. "Bingo. I'll let you decide what you want to believe. Whatever makes you happier."

"Neither," Shepard responded, that calm ebbing away every so slightly under a weak wave of frustration. "If I'm dying, it's already too late, and if this is a dream, then I have no idea when or if I'm going to wake up."

"Not necessarily. You seemed perfectly content with letting go earlier, when you weren't even aware of your surroundings. But you're still here. Something kept you from slipping under."

Shepard sighed through his nose, before shaking his head and once again feeling that frustration come back. "I… I don't know what that was."

Toombs cast a knowing look to his side, towards Shepard. "I think you do."

For what felt like an eternity, but in reality couldn't have been much more than a minute or two, Kaidan kept maintaining his efforts to revive him, refusing to even consider the possibility that it could be over, and that Shepard wasn't coming back.

It had taken him fifteen years to finally find someone that he felt safe enough with again to open up his heart to… To let himself lose control over his feelings, and dare to love. An even if that love ended up being unrequited, even if it ended up being forbidden, he'd still rather have Shepard by his side and share with him the little that he could be allowed to share, than to lose him and lose everything.

He also knew that soon would come a time where he would have to make a choice… If Shepard couldn't be revived no matter how hard he tried, then he would need to put his own helmet and gloves back on and seal his suit in order to preserve heat for as long as his armor's oxygen reserves were still available. And then, use the remaining heat packs and the thermal blanket to keep himself alive until a rescue team would finally find them; if one ever did.

And he couldn't do it. He didn't want to die, but he could feel that the fight was almost gone from him. There was only so much he could take, so much left for him to give and hold on to… And this time, the thought of the parents and distant loved ones that he might be leaving behind simply wasn't enough.

"Please Marco, I can't do this alone…" Kaidan said brokenly, not caring about the tears running down his face, or the fact that he was shaking. His nerves were shot, and he was too tired and desperate to care.

"You once asked me to hold on… And that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'll hold on to you." He kept compressing his chest until he reached the count of thirty, and then bent down again, locking lips, closing his eyes as he blew two more deep and slow breaths into his lungs.

He then brought his attention back to Shepard's heart. "I'll hold on and keep trying to save you until there is no more strength left in me to save myself," he said, throwing him a challenge. "So I dare you, Marco Shepard… I fucking dare you to come back to me and save my life."

Shepard felt an emotion course through him that might have been alarm, but he wasn't able to grasp it before it was gone. He almost felt frustrated again – he never thought he'd dislike calm so much. He dropped back into a kneeling position next to Kaidan, grabbing his shoulder.

"Kaidan, don't you dare—"

"Didn't I already tell you that he couldn't hear you?" Toombs asked, a slight lilt of amusement to his tone that had Shepard frustrated all over again. He turned to look up at him, not letting go of Kaidan in the process.

"This is ridiculous. He's going to kill himself trying to save me," he snapped, irritation levels rising enough that the calm started to ebb again. "He has a chance to survive and he won't take it. Why?"

Toombs' lips were still curved into that smile, the one that told Shepard he knew a lot more than he was letting on, that he could see through him like wet tissue paper. "Why, do you think?"

"Because he's a self-sacrificing idiot," Shepard responded almost automatically.

"Do you really believe that? Because it sounds to me like you just described yourself, as you were not that many days ago, actually."

Shepard was driven speechless for a moment, not quite able to form a proper response as he stared up at Toombs. He was still smiling, still watching the scene in front of them.

"Tell me, Shepard. How do you feel about this man?" Toombs continued, gesturing a hand loosely towards Kaidan as he continued his frantic efforts to revive Shepard's body, tears streaming down his face.

Shepard looked between his hand and Kaidan's face, struggling with how he could possibly answer that question. The expression on Kaidan's face, the desperation lacing his tone – it made his chest hurt to look at him, to feel the emotions emanating from him, the panic, the fear, the hope, the love.

Shock settled in and Shepard froze in spot for a long moment, inhaling sharply and forgetting for a long time to exhale. And when he did, it was all he could do not to crack.

Love.

That was an emotion he hadn't felt in a long, long time. It was something he'd refused to allow, something he'd ignored and shoved away and locked into a lockbox in the back corner of his mind. He'd convinced himself that it was for the best, and maybe it had been. He was a superior officer. Love was against the regulations; it was something that caused hesitation on the battlefield and bad decisions and pain.

But the love he could feel, desperate and raw coming from somewhere deep within the man sitting next to him – only part of it was distinctly Kaidan. He'd never thought that emotions had identities but he knew almost immediately that this was a shared feeling; something half held and half owed. It had been missing part of itself for a while, its other half locked away in that dusty lockbox, covered in warning labels and red tape. But that lockbox was gone, obliterated. He held the emotion in his hands like something fragile, something worth protecting but so easy to lose, so easy to break into little pieces that could never be put back together again.

That had always been the risk of acknowledging it, bringing it to bear and even considering the idea that it existed. And sitting there next to Kaidan as he fought with every ounce of his willpower and resolve to bring Shepard back to life, the last thing on his mind was regulations and petty denial.

"I… I would die for him."

Toombs made a tsking sound behind him, tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth in disapproval. "No, Shepard. Try again."

Shepard looked up at him, pinning him with a glare. "How is that wrong? It's how I feel."

Toombs sighed, before stepping around the body laying on the ground and sinking to his knees across from Shepard, so that the two could hold eye contact. It was unnerving, looking at a man he'd seen shoot himself from across his own body. "You've spent the past thirteen years of your life sitting on a ledge, always leaning forwards but never quite able to let go of the edge. Sometimes the wind almost blows you over; sometimes you try to fall of your own accord. Either way, you've grown so accustomed to the abyss that the idea of falling into it doesn't scare you anymore. And when someone no longer fears death, being 'willing to die for someone' becomes hollow words.

"Shepard, you're willing to die for anyone you feel like has more to lose than you do, if only because you don't want anyone to suffer the same kind of loss you've been through. And while that's noble, you're taking away someone's basic right to make their own choices regarding their own life. You refuse to allow sacrifice for your sake, and yet you never realized that you might become important enough to someone that your sacrifice would hurt them. That there are people who are willing to die for you," Toombs said, not once breaking eye contact with the man sitting across from him.

Shepard looked away after a long moment, expression faltering in conflict – the calm was almost gone, replaced by nothing short of emotional turmoil as he considered Toombs' words. "I know that. But… if there's even a chance that someone can live because I died—"

"You do realize that there is a key difference between living and being alive, correct?" Toombs interrupted, causing Shepard to grind to a halt.

"I… don't… I mean, yeah, but—"

"Look at him," Toombs once again interjected, nodding his head towards Kaidan, the fear and desperation almost tangible at that point. "You became a part of this man's life, and clearly that part is important enough that he's willing to give up completely if you don't come back."

Silence fell between the two men for a long moment, the only sound between them being the sound of Kaidan gasping for breath, driving the palms of his hands into Shepard's chest over and over.

The calm began to return, slowly overriding the emotions boiling inside of Shepard. He reached over and brushed a gentle hand down the side of Kaidan's face despite knowing full well that he couldn't feel it nor would he respond. He'd never seen the man so desperate before, face flushed with tears and panic and the faintest glimmer of hope, slowly but surely extinguishing as each sharp thrust downwards of his hands did nothing. Shepard felt his chest tightening despite the settling calm, his heart aching like someone had squeezed it in their fist, trying to wring the life out of it.

"I… don't want to die for him," he began, but his voice cracked and his vision blurred and before he knew what was happening, tears were streaming down his face. He wanted to be alarmed – he hadn't cried since… since he couldn't even remember when. But something had broken, snapped in two, and he couldn't stop himself. "I-I want to live for him."

He didn't even have to look at Toombs to know that he was smiling. "Then I think we're done here."

Toombs stood up from his kneeling position, going to pass Shepard as he sat next to Kaidan, taking his hand away from his face as he leaned down once again to breathe into the body lying in front of him. He turned to watch as Toombs began to walk away, towards the cave's entrance.

"Hey, Toombs?"

The man stopped, turning back enough to look down at Shepard, an expectant look on his face.

"Can… can you tell my family that I'm sorry?" Shepard asked, barely able to keep his voice from shaking. "Tell Sam that I'm sorry I didn't come back for him, and Allie that I'm sorry I couldn't protect her—"

Toombs held up a hand to stop his rambling. "Shepard, they already know. And if you don't believe that, you can tell them yourself when it's actually time for you to go. Right now you've got someone to get back to. I'd suggest doing it before it's too late."

"I… all right," Shepard conceded, looking away for a moment, before turning to address Toombs one last time. "And Toombs? I'm sorry. To you, and the rest of the unit. I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

That knowing smile was back. "You don't owe any apologies to anyone, Shepard. You survived. And if there is any greater insult to the people who caused the tragedies you've endured, it's the fact that someone made it out alive. You want to repay us for our sacrifices? Live. For every one of us who didn't."

Toombs offered him one last farewell salute, before turning to leave. Shepard closed his eyes, and everything faded.

Almost another minute had passed, and still nothing. Kaidan was almost ready to give up hope when, as he brought his lips back to Shepard's, a high-pitched beeping sound came from the omnitool's ECG interface… Followed by another… and another… and another…

For a few seconds, he remained there, lips hovering less than an inch from Shepard's mouth, in a state of shock and disbelief. 'That's it, my mind has finally snapped,' he thought, thinking that he was now beginning to hallucinate, the cold and exhaustion making him delirious. Until Shepard drew in a sharp breath, the warm air he then exhaled a gentle caress across the scars on his lips.

That had the effect of a lightning bolt, and Kaidan immediately sprang into action, reaching deep into energy reserves that he didn't even think he had left. In an instant, he had Shepard wrapped tightly in the thermal blanket and then jumped to his feet, quickly removing what was left of his own armor and bodysuit. He then grabbed the remaining self-heating packs from the survival kit, a few energy bars, and briefly reopened the blanket in order to get himself settled inside of it, holding Shepard in his arms.

He positioned himself so that they were both lying on their sides, facing each other. The omnitool was still providing him with a steady reading of his heart rate, but he still needed to keep a close eye on Shepard's breathing, and watch for signs that he was regaining consciousness.

Once that was done, he wrapped his legs around Shepard's, holding him securely into place, and folded the other man's arms against his chest so that he could manage to surround him with his own body, almost like a mantle. He then tightened the thermal blanket around them both, doing his best to ensure that very little heat could escape from it.

He began vigorously rubbing Shepard's upper arms, shoulders, and back in an effort to activate his blood circulation, while trying to disrupt the blanket as little as possible. As he did so, he couldn't help but pay attention to the feel of the skin underneath his fingertips…

Besides the large scar on his right side, Kaidan could also feel a number of other smaller healed wounds all over his body… But what caught his attention, especially, was what appeared to be large gunshot wounds on his back. They were too large, and had done too much damage to the tissues around them to appear to be regular battle wounds. It was like someone had repeatedly fired a shotgun in his back at close range while he wasn't wearing any armor.

"God… What happened to you?" Kaidan whispered quietly, feeling his heart ache and the anger in him rise. Here, cradling Shepard protectively in his arms, marveling at how perfect his slightly smaller form felt nested against his larger frame, he couldn't help but feel like he was watching over the most beautiful and precious thing in his world. The thought that someone else could ever have sought to hurt him…

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, resting his forehead against Shepard's, enjoying the feel of the warm breaths tickling his lips, each single one of them an acute reminder that he was alive. They both were. And he was immensely grateful for that small miracle.

A deep feeling of calm and relief settled upon his soul, and he had to open his eyes again, afraid that if he kept them closed for much longer, he would end up giving in to the weariness and fall asleep. Under the circumstances, that was simply too dangerous.

After a few minutes, he noticed that Shepard's eyes appeared to be moving beneath his lids. Soon, he began blinking, gaze still a bit unfocused. Thankfully, the light coming from the cave's entrance and their omnitools wasn't too harsh.

However, considering that the last memory that Shepard might have was of that thresher maw appearing before them while they had both been sitting in the Mako, there was some risk that he might be feeling confused, disoriented, and perhaps even scared.

"It's alright Marco, I've got you," Kaidan said quietly, trying to keep his tone as reassuring as possible. He lifted one hand to delicately and almost lovingly come to rest against his cheek, while his other arm slightly tightened his hold on him, ready to steady him should he begin thrashing about. "You're safe now," he added with a gentle, encouraging smile, waiting for Shepard to regain full awareness of his surroundings.

At first, Shepard wasn't sure if he wanted to open his eyes. Everything around him felt wrong, like he'd been transplanted into the wrong body, at the wrong place. He remembered the thresher maw exploding from the ground, but everything after that was a congealed mess of emotions and memories and voices.

He vaguely remembered Toombs' voice, but that was impossible… Toombs was dead. Had he dreamt it up? He'd been stuck in looping hallucinations for so long that it wasn't a far stretch to think that he might have succumbed to some kind of lucid nightmare. He'd held a full conversation with a dead man… the words were slowly seeping back into his consciousness, and the more he remembered, the more difficult it became to stomach the explanation that it had all been a dream.

Something about it all felt too real.

He realized that he was trembling. His hands were shaking, his skin was prickling with biting cold except for the points where patches of heat had been applied to his skin, under his arms and between his legs and across his stomach. His chest hurt, like he'd been stomped by an elcor. As he inhaled, he felt his ribs twinge in pain – they must have been cracked at some point. It wasn't the first time, but it still hurt.

He focused on the feelings first, cataloging the twinges and stings of pain, the cold biting into his bare skin. The soft blanket rubbing against his cold flesh. Warm skin damp with sweat pressed against him, strong arms circling him and trying to bar the cold from reaching him any further. Soft breaths wafting over his face.

Slowly, carefully, he opened his eyes. Despite the fact that his vision was hazy and blurry, he didn't need it clear in order to see the brown eyes staring directly back at him, or the gentle smile assuring him he was in the right place, the right body, and that everything was going to be okay. Kaidan's hand was against his cheek, warm and stabilizing, and it was all he could do not to just clutch it to his face and lean into the embrace.

He licked his lips, trying to will away the dryness, before he finally spoke, voice hoarse. "You called me Marco. No one calls me that," he said with a weak laugh that made his ribs hurt again. He shook his head slightly – of all the things to say after waking up from a near death experience, he was commenting on Kaidan using his first name. It was surprising – it had been years since anyone had cared to call him anything other than Shepard, to the point that he wouldn't even introduce himself by first name anymore. Most people wouldn't know it if they hadn't read his files. But, there were far more important things to say and for all he knew, he wouldn't have enough time to say them.

He exhaled slowly, pressing his forehead against Kaidan's and closing his eyes. "You saved my life. Again," he said in a soft voice, barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry it came down to that. I froze up and you had to deal with the consequences. For what it's worth… Thank you. Thank you for saving me… in more ways than one."

He'd called him Marco? He… Kaidan hadn't even noticed he'd called him that. Commander, Shepard, Marco… Leader, friend, and… so much more.

Just another boundary, another barrier that he had instinctively felt the need to break down as he'd been desperately trying to reach him. One more intimate connection that he had needed to feel with the man that he had frantically tried to save.

A man that was now breathing, moving, talking, and even laughing a bit. A man whose body and mind were now once again whole, alive, and very much here. Right here, with him, in the comfort of his arms, and thanking him for still being here, also.

Kaidan suddenly felt so very small, so insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

He'd fought so hard… Tried to keep it together for so long… Maintained such solid barriers around himself until one man had come charging into his life, and had made them explode in one great brilliant flash of warmth and light.

And he'd needed that… He'd needed it so badly. Someone to remind him of what if felt like to allow himself to feel, and to love, and to be free. To truly embrace life, including the parts that remained buried deep within him, out of fear or lack of understanding.

"Shepard, I…" love you – need you – want you in my life – was so scared you were dead – thought you weren't coming back, and couldn't stand it – couldn't have kept fighting without you by my side – believe your presence gives me so much strength, helps me achieve so much more than I could on my own – have never met another man who could ever make me feel the way you do – trust you with my life, my heart, my soul – am, quite simply, yours.

All the emotions of the day came rushing back to him in waves. Powerful, overwhelming… The pain, the relief, the fear, the hope, the joy, the despair, the love, and the incredible happiness that Shepard was alive… It all came crashing, his body shaking, his eyes filling with tears. He suddenly found himself naked, figuratively speaking – though he supposed that he was in a pretty advanced state of undress, too – stripped of any of his usual protective emotional walls.

And he finally just broke down. Relinquishing all control, he found himself crying, and trembling, and nearly clinging to Shepard, his face buried in the crook of his neck as he tried to will himself to calm down, trying to catch his breath. "I'm sorry…" he said, his voice a bit muffled by Shepard's smooth and cool skin. "Nerves, you know. It's been a kind of an off-day for me." He half-laughed, half-hiccupped as he realized how very weak and tired he sounded. "I thought you weren't coming back, Marco," he added, his voice small and breaking. "And I'm just really, really happy and relieved you're here…"

Shepard was lucky he didn't break down at that point. He'd never seen Kaidan so emotional, breaking down so easily and baring his emotions without any provocation. Well, everything that had led up to that point was probably sufficient provocation, come to think of it – and Shepard felt the guilt hit him in the gut like a stiff uppercut. This was his fault. If only he hadn't frozen up… they would have made it out of there just fine.

He wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but he had to presume the Mako had been destroyed or disabled and Kaidan had dragged his unresponsive body to a nearby cave. Sometime during that ordeal he had nearly died, though judging by his lack of injuries he knew it wasn't from the maw's attacks. He had to assume from the missing armor and the fact that he had self-heating packs applied to his skin in various places that he'd succumbed to hypothermia. In which case he felt luckier than ever to still be alive.

He slid his arms from between their bodies, slipping them around Kaidan's back and pulling him into a closer embrace, one hand going to the back of his neck and softly stroking his hair – he didn't care if the contact was inappropriate. They were half-naked and intertwined in an embrace right now; there wasn't a lot they could do to make things any more awkward. They were here, they were warm, they were together, and that was all that mattered.

"It's all right, Kaidan. Just… just let it out, don't try to hold any of it in. Don't apologize, either," he said, voice shaking as he tried to reign in his own emotions. "You've been through a lot. You saved my life. I think you're entitled," he added, trying to put on a lighthearted tone but ultimately failing. His grip tightened ever so slightly around Kaidan, and he pressed his face into his shoulder, expression twisting a bit with the urge to cry.

Even if Kaidan had wished to hold anything in, his body simply wouldn't have allowed it. It was as if someone had just opened the valve of a pressure cooker, releasing all the tension that had been accumulating inside of him over the last few hours.

He didn't even have any energy left to feel embarrassed anymore. So he let Shepard's words and gentle touch soothe him. Eventually, his breathing naturally slowed and evened out, the tears stopped falling, the shaking subsided, and a deep sense of calm settled over him. He just felt… pleasantly numb.

Eyes closed, face still nestled against the other man's neck, gingerly held in Shepard's embrace as he delicately ran his fingers through his hair… Kaidan felt safe, peaceful, and oddly content. Feeling the urge to finally rest and succumb to the inviting darkness…

Thankfully, his survival instincts quickly took over and he jolted with a startled gasp. He found himself staring right into Shepard's questioning eyes, silently asking him what was wrong.

"Talk to me," Kaidan said urgently, as Shepard gave him an even more confused look. "I don't mean to worry you, but after the maw finally went down, I was only able to activate the Mako's distress beacon – the radio was too badly damaged," he explained, informing Shepard of the details of their current predicament. "Technically, since I reached the cave that was the closest to it, once the rescue team finds the Mako, they should be able to locate us."

In theory, that meant that they would need to first get the signal. Then, considering that they were the second vehicle to get stuck in the same area with its communications down, he supposed that Garrus would have to report directly to the Alliance to let them know of the situation, and organize a better equipped search party. That could take a few hours, since he doubted that they would agree to risk sending a single vehicle after them, not knowing what to expect.

"So until then, that means that we have to find ways to keep ourselves stimulated somehow; because falling asleep could be very dangerous. So please just keep talking to me," he asked, knowing that the fight for their lives wasn't yet won. But at least, this time, he knew that he wouldn't have to keep fighting it alone. They could do this.

"I..." Shepard faltered for a moment, not entirely certain how he should respond. He wasn't much of a talker; he had always chosen to listen, never wanting to burden others with his problems or worries. But in this case he couldn't afford to be choosy. He could tell just from Kaidan's expression, the way his body felt in his arms, that he was hanging from a very thin thread. He barely had any energy left in him.

At least Shepard still had some energy reserves to run off of, but he knew even he wouldn't last very long if Kaidan went. And if they both lost consciousness, it would be nothing short of a miracle if they survived long enough for the rescue team to find them.

If the rescue team came at all.

That thought did little to comfort him, so he pushed it out of his mind almost immediately. They hadn't come this far to die now. Not from something trivial like hypothermia. And if they died here… it would be by his own fault. He refused to let that happen.

'Kaidan nearly died saving your life because you froze up. You at least owe him an explanation as to why it came down to that.'

Shepard gave a soft sigh, looking away from Kaidan's face and staring at a spot on his collarbone so he wouldn't have to maintain eye contact. "When that maw came out of the ground, everything just sort of fell apart. All I could see were the threshers on Akuze, slaughtering my unit," he began to explain, only to pause to take a deep, shaking breath, trying to steady himself. "I felt like I was there again, running for my life. I could feel everything all over again – the fear, the pain, the desperation. I don't even remember what happened after the thresher came out of the ice."

He closed his eyes, unable to keep from grimacing. "I did the therapy, everything the Alliance threw at me when I told them I wanted to continue serving. I passed their tests. On paper, I was the same as before. But…" he paused, expression twisting for a moment with indiscernible emotions. "I faked my recovery, Kaidan. I'm still fucked up; you've seen it. But I was so desperate. The Alliance is all I have. I wasn't ready to leave because they thought I might be damaged. And because of that, we almost died. I'm so, so sorry…"

"You don't know that," Kaidan said gently, saddened that Shepard appeared to believe that he was responsible for what was happening to them. "Even if the parameters of the situation had been changed, there would still probably have been a thousand different ways that things could have gone down." While he didn't share Ashley's religious convictions, or wasn't normally one to believe that the future was pre-determined; sometimes, it did feel that certain things happened for a reason.

Maybe it was better for him to have fought the thresher maw on his own, after all. Maybe if they had needed to coordinate their attacks, it would have created more opportunities for distractions and mistakes. Or maybe they would have defeated it more effectively, and succeeded in keeping the Mako operational. Either way, they would never know for sure.

"I would tell you to stop blaming yourself for what happened, but if it were that easy, I guess a lot of shrinks out there would be out of jobs," he added with a soft smile, delicately putting a finger under Shepard's chin and lifting his head so that he could look at him directly in the eyes. "But no matter what happens, I need you to know that I don't blame you. I'm at peace with what happened," he said, hoping that the other man would see that he was completely sincere, and not only saying this to make him feel better.

Really, how could he ever blame him, and for what? For having been so violently tested by fate on so many occasions? For having chosen to live, and try to make the most of the hand he had been given?

He remembered what it was like to feel so lost that he didn't know if he still had a place in the world. To find himself at a crossroad where he was under the impression that all of the doors around him were locked tight, and he had nothing left to look forward to.

The Alliance is all I have. Funny how Shepard's words seemed to reverberate deep within himself. Except in Shepard's case, he supposed that the feeling probably ran even deeper considering that he had lost his whole family. 'Now you have me, too.' Kaidan was almost tempted to say. And even if Shepard didn't return his feelings, he knew that at the very least, he did care about him, deeply.

Kaidan was perfectly willing to be his friend, his brother, his confidante - anything that he needed. He didn't believe that he would ever be able to stop himself from loving him; but he would always respect Shepard's emotions and decisions, and wouldn't pull away from him even though it might hurt to remain so close to what he could never have.

"You know, from what I remember about these Alliance psychologists and their evaluations, I doubt that you could really have fooled them, Shepard," he said, letting the other man know that he hadn't been the only one that had needed some more solid psychological supervision at some point. Actually, in their line of work, that tended to be the norm rather than the exception.

"They probably knew that the events of Akuze still affected you in some way; but decided that the contributions that you could still make to the Alliance, either through skills or determination, far outweighed the risks," he continued, looking back at Shepard with a gentle smile. "You are an amazing soldier and leader, Shepard… I guess the few scratches and dents just give you character. And now that I know they are there, I might even be able to help you with that."

Shepard let go of the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, almost feeling as though a heavy weight had suddenly been lifted from his shoulders. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking over Kaidan's words, before he forced his eyes open again lest he fall asleep. "Thank you, Kaidan," he finally said in a soft voice, forcing himself to hold eye contact to show that he was sincere. "For everything. For saving my life, for staying by my side through all of the ups and downs, for not judging me when I was at my worst. Even after everything I've put you through – on and off the battlefield – you never gave up on me. I gave up on myself a long time ago, but you're the first person to make me think there might still be a chance."

He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. "I've spent the last six years trying to pretend like I'm undamaged, like none of this has affected me. I've had to live up to this cardboard cutout icon that the Alliance built of me – the survivor, always moving forwards and using my losses like a ladder, climbing higher and doing better in spite of what I've endured. You're the first person I've ever told these things to. I've never wanted to admit that I might be damaged because when you're a soldier, being damaged is not something you want to show on the outside, let alone share with someone else. But I trust you, Kaidan," he said, trying to force on a sincere smile – it came across sad and weak, however, but it was there nonetheless. "Every member of my crew is important to me. But I don't think I've had a connection as strong as the one I feel with you. I hope it's not too forward of me to say so, but I care about you. A lot."

"That's good… Because I think you're the most important person in my life right now." The words were out of Kaidan's mouth before he really had the time to consider them. But the most surprising, perhaps, was the fact that he was okay with that. Shepard had just admitted to caring about him, to the point where he felt a stronger connection to him than anyone else on his crew. It was apparently enough to make Kaidan's heart race, and he had to fight the urge to start grinning like an idiot.

The fact that their bodies were pressed together so closely, keeping the skin contact to a maximum in order to try to preserve heat, wasn't helping either. It was all he could do not to slide one of his hands to the back of Shepard's neck, and crash his lips to his, trying to hold him even closer and... God Alenko, Shepard just said that he cared for you. Really, that was a pretty innocent thing to admit to a very good friend, nothing that justified him getting all hot and bothered. Well, besides the obvious.

"Wait, what do you mean you 'gave up on yourself a long time ago?'" Kaidan asked, frowning a bit, his mind having finally registered the other words that the man had spoken now that the giddiness was slowly subsiding, allowing him to regain control of his thoughts.

Shepard's expression faltered and he looked down again. He didn't answer at first, unable to form the words properly – was that something he needed, or wanted to share? He was tired, cold, emotionally fragile, admitting things to Kaidan that he'd never even wanted to admit to himself. And as much as he wanted to deny the possibility, there was still the very real chance that rescue wouldn't come in time and that they very well might die then and there, freezing to death in each other's arms. And even if that thought made his chest hurt and his throat tighten, there wasn't anyone else he'd rather be with at the end.

He breathed out a sigh, breath shuddering with cold and emotion. "Remember the argument we had in the med bay? You asked me if I fought the way I do because I wanted things to go wrong. Because I wanted it to end," he said, voice just barely above a hoarse whisper. "For a while… that was my only motivation. That was the only thing that kept me going. I wanted back in the Alliance because I wanted the chance to die a hero, not a coward. I didn't die on Akuze, so I figured any battlefield would do."

His voice was beginning to shake, and he shut his eyes tightly as he felt the unfamiliar burn of unshed tears coming back to him. "I threw myself in the line of fire so often it became my method – always rushing forwards, drawing fire and keeping my squad mates safe. Eventually, I just started telling myself that I was doing it to protect them. And I was, even if it would cost me my life. But it would have been worth it, because that was what I had wanted from the start."

He made the mistake of opening his eyes again at that point, because it allowed the tears to break free and stream down his face, his expression twisting as he turned his face downwards, so Kaidan didn't have to see him crying. "After Akuze, when they put me on mandatory shore leave so I could undergo therapy – I started suffering from insomnia. I couldn't sleep, and when I did, the nightmares woke me up. So they gave me sleeping pills. I… I was so hopeless, so desperate that things would never get better. The therapy wasn't helping. Getting that fucking medal was like rubbing salt in the wounds."

He had to stop for a moment, biting into his lower lip to steady himself, before he continued, voice so broken he wouldn't have thought he was himself anymore if he didn't know any better. "I tried to kill myself, Kaidan. I took an overdose. I don't know how or why, but it didn't work. I woke up, I threw away the note, and I pretended like it never happened. I put on my uniform and ever since then I've been working towards a different kind of suicide. Just because I wear armor and throw myself into enemy fire doesn't make me any less of a coward."

As Shepard spoke, Kaidan tightened his hold on him a little, soothingly running one of his hands up and down his back, sometimes unconsciously tracing the outline of his scars. The emotions he felt were an odd mix of heartache and overwhelming relief. And he was deeply moved that Shepard trusted him enough to open up to him about something obviously so intimate, and painful.

Somehow, he had always known… But hearing Shepard openly admit that he had wanted to die, so much so that he'd even tried taking his own life in the past, was actually giving him hope. The dark shadows from his dreams were finally taking shape, becoming something tangible that could be fought back – together, if Shepard would let him.

He quietly watched the tears fall, repressing the urge to kiss them… Instead, he lifted a hand to his cheek to gently brush them away with his thumb. He then rested his forehead against Shepard's, rubbing his nose against his in an affectionate gesture.

"Do you still want to die, Marco?" Kaidan asked quietly, trying to keep his voice as calm and open as possible. He wanted to make sure that Shepard knew that he wasn't horrified or troubled by what he'd just told him. Even if the answer were "yes," he wouldn't judge or think any less of him. Besides, he understood all too well...

Shepard didn't even have to consider the question or sort through his emotions before he could deliver an honest answer. "No," he whispered, eyes sliding closed and his expression relaxing ever so slightly at Kaidan's touch. The tears were still cutting tracks down his face, but he was at peace – with himself, his emotions, and everything he needed to say – and that was all that mattered. "I never realized that there was still a chance for me to find something – someone worth living for."

His eyes opened again and he held Kaidan's gaze, unwavering. "You did that for me, Kaidan."

Kaidan's breath hitched in his throat. Of all the answers that he'd have expected Shepard to give him, this obviously wasn't one of them. It was a bit overwhelming, and he found himself fighting back tears of his own. "Is that why you came back?" he asked in a small voice, feeling as if his whole world was shifting somehow.

It was a silly question – for all he knew, Shepard had lost contact with reality at the beginning of the thresher maw's attack, and had been unaware of anything else until he'd awakened a few moments ago. But he remembered that there had been a point before his heart had stopped beating where Kaidan had gotten the distinct feeling that Shepard had been giving up, somehow… And it would have been so easy for him to simply slip away and get what he'd been wishing for so long. But he was still here, with him.

A weak laugh escaped Shepard's throat. "You're probably going to think I'm crazy, but… after I went catatonic, when the hallucinations stopped, I saw Toombs. He sat with me, watching while you… while you tried to bring me back to life," he said, faltering for a moment as the memory came back. In hindsight it seemed sort of silly, like a strange, surreal dream. Had he actually watched Kaidan trying to resuscitate him? Or was he just hallucinating? The fact that Toombs had been there made him second-guess the validity of what he had seen. "Maybe it was all just a dream, but he spoke with me and he made me think about what I was doing. I really do think that everything could have very easily ended at that point if I had just let go. But… but I couldn't. Not when I realized…"

He trailed off for a moment, before he took a deep breath and reached up, running a soothing hand down the back of Kaidan's neck and gripping it softly as their foreheads remained touching. "Not when I realized that I'd be leaving you behind. And maybe it was just a dream, but even then… I remember you saying that if I died, you wouldn't even try to save yourself." Tears pricked his eyes again and he blinked them back, his voice growing heavy with effort. "You brought me back, Kaidan, and you're the reason I want to stay."

If it had all been a dream, it appeared that Shepard's brain had still maintained enough awareness to hear him, and integrate his actual words into it. Or maybe whatever the Commander had experienced after his heart had stopped had been real. The thought that the ones they had lost still continued to watch over them beyond life, and would come to them in their hours of need was comforting. And Kaidan was more than willing to let himself believe it, especially given their present situation.

Shepard had come back for him. Not only that, but he now wanted to live to… remain by his side? Was that what he was really saying? Even if the other man wasn't physically attracted to him, or even interested in him romantically; the knowledge that he cared enough to choose to stay with him was… There were no words for what he was feeling. It was deeply humbling, and exciting, and a bit scary, even, but in a good way.

"I couldn't let you go," Kaidan spoke quietly, trying to deal with all the emotions that were now assaulting him, and letting Shepard know that some of the things he remembered were definitely not part of his imagination. "I'd just gotten you back, and I just… I couldn't…" He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to control the trembling in his voice and push aside the memory of the panic and despair he'd felt when he had thought that Shepard was gone.

"I'd rather have followed you to wherever you were going, than to stay here, alone… Watching over your body as I waited for help to arrive. My coping abilities only go that far," he admitted sincerely. After what Shepard had just shared with him, he didn't want to give him the wrong idea, though.

"I'm sorry. I don't want to die, Marco," he said, wanting to make it clear that he didn't have to worry about him ever giving up, at least not under normal circumstances, and especially not as long as he was here. "But I'm not afraid to. I haven't been since…"

He sighed heavily. He hadn't told anyone about the darker thoughts he'd had during the five years that it had taken for him to recover from everything that had happened at BAaT. And "recover" was a big word. A person would learn to accept, move on, and let themselves believe that they were stronger for it – and in many ways, it was true. But that type of strength came with a price, and part of them would forever remain marked by such events.

"After what happened at Brain Camp, I felt pretty damn lost," he said, allowing himself to reconnect with the memories. It was obviously easier for him to openly talk about them, since he'd long made peace with the feelings he'd had back then, but it still felt weird to say it out loud. He guessed that the only reason why he was able to do so was because he trusted Shepard, wholeheartedly.

"I didn't really know who I was anymore. I'd lost Rahna, and pretty much all of the friends I had were gone. I had these terrifying powers, and was petrified that I could end up hurting or even killing someone with them… maybe even my family. Although my father and the Alliance had almost immediately stepped in to protect me, there were still talks about the turian Hierarchy pushing and insisting to bring the one responsible for Vyrnnus' death to justice. Until they finally gathered enough testimonies from the other kids to prove that I had acted in self-defense, and that our teacher had been responsible for the deaths of some of the students, that is," Kaidan explained, remembering how uncertain the future had seemed to him at that point.

"And, of course, the migraines weren't making it any easier." Though it was still much better than the complications that most of the L2s suffered from, it had still taken him some getting used to. "After a while, I guess I came to the conclusion that it would make everyone's life easier if I wasn't around anymore. My family would be safe, and not forced to look after a broken, completely messed up kid; the Alliance's whole dilemma with the turians would be solved; and I would stop hurting so much."

He took a deep breath, looking down while his voice became a bit quieter. "So I made plans, tried to find a way to take my own life that would hopefully look like a complete accident." Thankfully, that had proven to be quite a bit of a challenge. "But every time I did come up with a plan that just might work, all I kept thinking about was how devastated my parents would be to lose their only son. And no matter how strongly I wanted the pain and everything else to end, I just couldn't bring myself to put them through that."

He risked looking back up to stare into Shepard's eyes again. "I guess that once someone reaches a point in his life where the thought of dying becomes such a strong comfort, death can no longer be something to fear. But it's no longer something I desire, either. Especially not when I have you by my side," he added, letting Shepard know that he would always be willing to fight to live for him, too.

Shepard wasn't sure at what point he began threading his fingers through Kaidan's hair, moving the hand that was against the back of his neck upwards so he could gently stroke his hair. It was the closest thing to comfort he knew, as he sat in silence and waited for Kaidan to finish his story, offering him silent understanding and encouragement. He could feel his chest tightening, his heart aching as he realized just how much he and Kaidan had in common – they'd both faced loss and the overwhelming feeling of weakness and helplessness as a result, succumbing to dark thoughts and the idea of suicide to bring about the peace that had eluded them.

The main difference was that Kaidan had been strong enough to overcome those thoughts and to become a stronger person because of it. Shepard hadn't been that strong; his cowardice had simply taken on a new form, putting on the visage of false strength. And Kaidan had had something tangible that had prevented him from going through with his plans – he'd had his parents as an anchor, stabilizing him and holding him back from simply letting go and letting the current take him away. Shepard had let go, and for the briefest moment in time he was at peace as he lay there on his bed and waited for the overdose to kick in and pull him under for good.

Waking up to face an empty room had been one of the most painful things he had ever experienced. He had expected to see his mother, his father, his brother and sister, his unit from Akuze. Instead his eyes had opened to see the same blank ceiling he'd fallen asleep staring at. At first he had assumed that this was his own personal Hell, that his weakness had trapped him in this room – but then his omnitool had gone off and he had seen the reminder on his calendar that he had a meeting with his therapist in two hours.

"Kaidan, do you remember that time I said that I admired you because you had turned your losses into strength, and chosen to do good things despite the pain you had been through?" Shepard asked, voice halting – he could only ignore the cold for so long, and he was shaking all over again. It was difficult enough keeping his voice steady as it was. "I meant that, and I still do. It takes more strength than most are even capable of to be able to overcome their pain and consider how their death might affect those that care about them. And you realized this when you were just a kid. I was an adult and the only thing I could see was all of the pain I had been through, and how much I wanted it to go away. And I've felt that way for the past six years."

He took another deep breath, shuddering with cold and unrestrained emotion. "I can't help but envy you. But I feel like you've made me so much stronger, knowing that I have something to hold onto. And… I have to thank you for that."

Kaidan smiled back at him, lifting his head a little to plant a soft kiss on his forehead; only to find himself blushing as he realized what he had just done. It was something that his parents often did to comfort him, and he'd just purely reacted on instinct. Given the circumstances, it was hard to keep the same level of reserve he usually had, and not simply act upon his impulses. It didn't seem to bother Shepard, however, as his eyes had drifted closed and a soft, somewhat content look had crossed his expression at the contact.

"I'm here for you, Marco. Whatever you need," he said a bit shyly, tightening the embrace and going to rest his head against his shoulder. He noticed that Shepard's body was quivering all over again. The heat packs had cooled down by now, and though their body temperature was probably comparable, since he had gone from nearly frozen to barely warm, his discomfort was probably greater, and his body was using more energy to keep his core temperature from dropping back, also.

Kaidan reached behind him to grab one of the three remaining self-heating packs and opened the envelope, bringing it momentarily to the back of Shepard's neck, holding it in place until the shaking subsided; before taking it and bringing it between their chests, so that they could both benefit from the heat.

"There's two more," he said, hoping that it would be enough to help them hold on until help arrived. "So you tell me if the cold starts becoming too uncomfortable again, alright?" He then remembered about something else that he'd completely forgotten about. "Oh, and I've also got these," he said, reaching behind him again and taking two of the energy bars, showing them to Shepard.

"I bet they taste horrible, and quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to check the expiration date…" he said with a little grimace. He could only hope that the people in charge of checking the supplies in the first aid survival packs were thorough with their verifications. "…But it should still be better than nothing."

Shepard gave a weak laugh, taking one of the energy bars and turning it over in his hand so he could read the label – it was a generic protein bar, not much different than the ones the Normandy had stocked in the mess. He laid it back down again. "Let's save these for if things start to look grim," he joked, smiling a bit. He relaxed in Kaidan's embrace again, breathing out a soft sigh – the heating pack had quelled the trembling for now. He could feel his body slackening, his breathing slowing as that familiar haze began creeping around the edges of his mind. He needed to keep talking if he didn't want to get tired. He scrambled for a topic, grasping the first thing that came to mind. "Tell me about your family?"

"My family?" Kaidan asked, a bit surprised by the question. Though he supposed that after what he'd just told him, it was normal that Shepard might want to know more. "Well, I already told you that my dad served in the Alliance, and that we have my mom to thank for the fact that our protein shakes don't 'taste like ass' anymore," he said with a little smirk, reusing Shepard's rather colorful expression. "She's uh, pretty thrilled you like it, by the way." That earned a soft laugh from the other man.

"Otherwise, I guess they're pretty regular folks," he added with a shrug. "Dad was there in the very beginning of the Alliance. He helped with the colonization of Terra Nova, but ended up retiring shortly after they opened Arcturus Station," he began, thinking that he might as well share a bit of his service history.

"He considered coming out of retirement to help with the war effort after First Contact, but my mom convinced him not to. I was only six by then, and with my biotic abilities having manifested about a year prior to that, there was still a lot of uncertainties regarding how my powers were likely to evolve, or what the risks associated with them were," he explained, remembering that his mother had once told him how scared they had been that he would end up suffering from more complications, or even dying. Especially considering the number of children that had developed brain tumors as a result of in-utero eezo exposures.

"I mean, they had already come to terms with the fact that I'd most likely always be a bit 'different.' But if something ever went wrong, mom just didn't think that she would have had the strength to face it on her own, especially while having to worry about her husband never making it back to us safely. So dad chose to stay, at least until they would know for sure what was happening to me, or the conflict with the turians threatened to break into a full scale war implying all of humanity." Thinking back, he was pretty grateful that his father had chosen to give priority to his family. It might have been selfish, but he knew that it was one of the many reasons why he'd had the opportunity to grow up in a stable and loving environment, at least.

"I guess I owe them a lot… They tried to make sure that I would be given the same opportunities as the other kids, and made great efforts not to overprotect me," he said, obviously grateful that they had handled the situation so well. "They've always respected my decisions, and let me choose my own path… Though I would be lying if I said that my father wasn't pleased that I ended up following in his footsteps, so to speak," he added with a little smile.

"We're still close, but not overly so," he clarified, not wanting to sound like they were involved in every aspect of his life. They were his parents, after all, and as such they still maintained some solid and healthy boundaries between them - something for which he was also very grateful. "I know that sometimes they worry about me, especially considering the risks associated with the job. But as long as they know that I'm happy and doing what I want with my life, they are willing to respect that."

He smiled fondly. "I think they would like you…" he said, then laughed a bit "…actually, knowing mom, she might be tempted to try to adopt you if you aren't careful enough. I think she mentioned something about wanting to send us both sweaters in her last e-mail… Something that we could both really use right about now," he mentioned, before suddenly blushing a bit as he realized that he'd just revealed that he was talking about him to his mom in his e-mails. Ah, great. Shepard would probably think he was a complete dork now, if that wasn't already the case.

Shepard couldn't keep from laughing. "I'd love to meet them. They sound like good people," he said with a soft smile, but a moment passed and he faltered, expression turning sad. "I can tell they really cared about you. You're a very lucky man, Kaidan."

"Yeah, I am…" Kaidan trailed off a bit, looking at the young man in his arms with a pensive look. No matter how terrible things got sometimes, it seemed that he always ended up being "lucky," making the most out of any situation. His mother got exposed to element zero while pregnant, and he ended up with strong biotic abilities instead of terminal brain cancer. He was among the first human children to become biotics, and his parents still responded appropriately to the situation despite all of the uncertainties. He got incessantly picked on and abused by Vyrnnus at Brain Camp, but his powers were strong enough to allow him to hold his own against him. He got pretty messed up after what happened at BAaT, but he was offered the necessary support and resources to pull through. Despite being an L2, he only got strong migraines out of it…

"Lucky" pretty much seemed to define him, come to think of it. Even now, he felt pretty damn lucky that he had managed to defeat a thresher maw on his very first encounter with such a creature. Lucky that he'd managed to make it in time to the cave before it became too late to revive Shepard. Lucky that he got to hold the man he loved in his arms, at least, and to be given the opportunity to get to know him better.

And even if the rescue team didn't manage to find them in time… he still felt lucky that, in the end, neither of them would be dying alone out here. Lucky that Shepard had come back to him long enough to be given the chance to share these few precious and oddly wonderful moments with him. Of course, he was still planning to fight with all he had left in the hopes that both of them would pull through, as he was far from ready to give up yet. But whatever ended up happening to them, he still felt "lucky." And sometimes, that was enough.

"Maybe I could bring you to see them during one of our next shore leaves," he suggested, before realizing that he just might have gotten himself into trouble. While he had no doubt that his parents would be thrilled to see their son bring a friend with him on one of his next visits – especially if said "friend" was Commander Shepard, and especially since it would be the first time that he would be bringing any friend to visit in over fifteen years – his mother was an incredibly observant woman. There was no way that he'd be able to hide his true feelings towards Shepard from her, even if he were able to hide them from Shepard himself.

Though there was a high probability that it was Shepard who would be introducing Kaidan to his own family first if they weren't rescued in time. "What was your family like?" he found himself asking without really thinking about it. "I mean, only if you feel comfortable talking about it…" he quickly added, feeling a bit embarrassed to have brought up the subject in such a casual manner. God, he could be such an idiot sometimes!

Shepard's expression faltered and he looked away, not answering at first. A tense silence fell between the two and Kaidan nearly retracted his question before Shepard suddenly answered, his voice barely audible. "They were amazing people that I wished I never took for granted," he said, eyes closing. He breathed out slowly, before inhaling to steady himself.

"There were five of us," he explained, still not opening his eyes – he almost appeared to be deep in thought, like he was trying to recall the memories. He'd simultaneously pushed all of his memories of his family into the back of his mind and nearly forgotten what their faces looked like, or what their voices sounded like. It had been thirteen years since he'd woken in an Alliance med bay only to be told by an uncomfortable soldier that the bodies of his family had been found and were being taken care of. "Mom, dad, my older brother Samuel, and my little sister Alicia."

His eyes opened, but there was still a faraway look to his expression as he spoke. "We were just homesteaders. We had a little farm, a small house. Dad was a strong man, taking care of the farm and working at one of the settlement's factories. He was tired a lot, but he always pretended like he wasn't when he was around us. Mom was a factory worker too, but her true passion was painting. She had a beautiful voice, too. She used to sing us to sleep when we were younger. She was stubborn and she always kept us in line when dad was too soft on us."

He took another deep breath, trying to keep himself steady lest he start trembling all over again – and not necessarily from the cold. "Sam was only a year older than me, so we fought a lot. He was a computer lover – always knew how to fix the tech around the house when it broke. He'd signed up to join the Alliance right before the attack," he said, expression tightening for a moment. "Scared the hell out of my mom. Dad didn't know what to think. The Alliance wasn't very popular out in the colonies, even then."

He had to pause for a long moment before he could continue. "Allie was nearly six years younger than me. She was such a terror, but I loved her. We caused all sorts of problems together," he said, laughing slightly as a wistful look crossed his face. "Our favorite thing to do was play pranks on Sam. He was so serious that it was always an accomplishment if we could get him to laugh at himself."

His expression faltered again and he bit his lower lip for a moment before he inhaled steadily. "Dad died giving us all time to escape when the batarians kicked down our front door. Mom stopped to hold them back while we jumped out the back window. I didn't even see her die, but I heard her," he whispered, voice going hoarse. "Sam was shot while we were running. Allie couldn't run fast enough, so I carried her."

He suddenly took hold of one of Kaidan's hands, guiding it so his fingers lay over a large scar on his ribcage on the left side. "They shot me four times – a shotgun, close range directly into my back. Only one of the slugs was a through-and-through. This one," he said in a barely audible whisper, before letting go of Kaidan's hand. "It passed through and hit Allie. I survived four bullets to the back, and the one that passed through me, killed her."

While it was comforting to learn that Shepard had spent his childhood and teenaged years living happily with a loving family, it only made the story of their deaths all the more heartbreaking. And it was impossible for Kaidan not to feel strongly for him. He had to fight back the anger at the unfairness of the whole situation, the tears that were threatening to fall as he realized just how much pain Shepard must have had to endure following these events – both physically and mentally.

If he'd thought earlier that certain things seemed to happen for a reason, it was suddenly very difficult for him to understand what reason there could ever be for such senseless loss. What could ever justify a group of angry batarians kicking down the front door of the home of a peaceful workers' family, and gunning down every living soul inside of it, including the children? How could anyone explain why a seventeen year old boy had been forced to watch and feel his beloved little sister die in his arms, powerless to prevent any of it from happening?

His survival had been nothing short of a miracle, especially considering the severity of the wounds he had sustained. Kaidan could easily conceive that for Shepard himself, it might have felt like something of a betrayal or punishment, rather than anything else. He was impressed that he had found the will to go on at all.

"And you say that I am the strong one…" Kaidan whispered hoarsely, running the back of his hand gently against Shepard's cheek, voice filled with wonder.

It was sometimes hard to admit it to himself, but Kaidan knew that one of his greatest fears was to be rejected or abandoned by those closest to him – to the point where it had become difficult for him to let himself build close emotional relationship with others. The fact that Marco Shepard had penetrated his defenses so easily had been surprising… And the prospect of losing him had almost made him give up on his will to survive not so long ago.

But Shepard… Shepard had been left behind by his whole family under violent and horrific circumstances; and yet, he was still here. His body had refused to ever give up even if at times, his mind had.

And Kaidan knew that he would never be able to replace what the other man had lost; but he realized that he didn't have or even want to. What he wanted was to give Shepard something different and new to look forward to. So that hopefully, in time, the pain associated with his losses would fade, and he would be left with the happier memories of the good times that he had shared with his family instead. Help him move on, by offering him something tangible to move on to.

Those memories would become something to be cherished, instead of something to be haunted by. And though the pain would never entirely go away, and it probably shouldn't; looking at Shepard now, he also knew that pain wasn't the only legacy that his family had left him with.

"If only you could see yourself the way I see you," Kaidan said softly, not even bothering to hide the look of pure love and adoration in his eyes. "You would never feel the need to call yourself a coward, or believe you're pretending to be any stronger than you really are, Marco."

He took a deep breath. Although Shepard had let go of the hand that was resting against the scar on his side, Kaidan let it linger there, delicately running his fingers across it, keeping his touch feather-like.

"You are good, and strong, and kind, and caring… And there's a fire in you that shines brighter than anything I've ever seen," he added, vaguely aware that he was being a little more uninhibited than usual, but also past the point where it could have bothered him anymore. Whether it was because he was tired, or cold, or both; the words just kept flowing out of him, and he just let them.

"And that fire is not something that can be taken, or stolen, or ever extinguished, you know. It's simply who you are. And it's got nothing to do with other people's expectations of you, your reputation, or even your choices and actions," he explained, wondering if he was still making any sense at all.

"But it's what I, and so many others see when they look at you… What inspires the respect, loyalty, and sometimes, even the affection of your crew," he added with a gentle smile.

"And if your family is still watching over you – and I like to believe that they are – I know that they are probably immensely proud of the wonderful man that you have become," he said sincerely, never having been surer of anything else. "No matter how many times you may have fallen or stumbled, or even given up… You are still you, Marco. And that's what I lo – like about you." Among so many other things. It was funny how your body could suddenly feel so hot and so cold at the same time.

Shepard's breath hitched in his throat and he had to close his eyes, feeling that still unfamiliar burn of tears returning. He'd never felt so exposed in his entire life, but somehow, it didn't bother him. It didn't bother him that Kaidan was the first person he'd ever allowed this close to him, both physically and emotionally, and it didn't bother him that Kaidan could so easily crack him open like a brittle eggshell and see all of his flaws and emotions and just him. It was simultaneously frightening and liberating to know that he wasn't alone and that he'd finally found someone he could just break apart in front of, leaving his façade in pieces on the floor. Realizing that allowing someone inside of those walls wasn't admitting or sharing weakness – it was a mark of strength and of trust, knowing that he could share the things he'd kept hidden for so long without fear of reproach or judgment.

And the fact that it was mutual, that Kaidan felt the same way – that he trusted Shepard with his secrets and his fears and his everything – that was the most overwhelming feeling in the world. In the twenty-nine years he'd been alive, he'd never felt a connection like this before, strong enough to make his chest hurt and his gut twist and his eyes burn with tears. Strong enough that he wanted more than anything to just wrap his arms around Kaidan and pull him in, lips and bodies meeting until they didn't know nor care who was who anymore. Skin to skin, mind to mind, emotions melding into one. He vaguely wondered if this was how asari felt about their mates, but the rest of him didn't care.

And despite the overwhelming cacophony of emotions boiling just beneath the surface of his skin, he managed to hold enough control over himself to remember where they were, their chances of survival, and the repercussions of his emotions. It was this horrible, disappointing feeling, reminding himself of the regulations and the consequences, of the very words he had told Kaidan during one of their prior conversations.

'I respect my crew far too much to put them through something like that.'

That was what it came down to, wasn't it? He respected – no, loved, because there was no point in even trying to deny it at this point– Kaidan far too much to even consider putting him through that. The repercussions would be severe, and he wouldn't be able to live with himself knowing that he'd put Kaidan through any kind of pain because of his feelings for him.

He opened his eyes after a long moment of trying to steady himself, forcing on a straight face as he did so. "Thank you, Kaidan," he whispered, "You have no idea how much that means to me."

Kaidan nodded with a soft smile, and snuggled a bit closer, resting his cheek against Shepard's shoulder. He tried not to get himself too comfortable though, purposely keeping his eyes opened and lazily running his hand up and down the other man's back to avoid falling asleep. The little dimples on Shepard's lower back were kind of sexy… 'Aaand it's time to bring that hand back up,' he thought, a bit amused at himself.

He probably should've been ashamed, but it was kind of hard to feel bad for developing those sorts of feelings when he was pressed so close to such a gorgeous and athletic body. Never mind that said body happened to belong to the man he loved, too. So really, who could blame him for being just a wee bit (okay, a lot) attracted? It was actually a rather nice reminder that he was still fully alive, and perfectly responsive to his surroundings, so to speak. Well, as long as he still maintained enough self-control not to start acting on his impulses. The last thing he wanted was to openly take advantage of Shepard and their current situation.

He was starting to feel a bit dizzy and nauseous, too. And he knew that had nothing to do with Shepard's presence. "You know, I think I'm going to have one of those energy bars now… I believe my blood sugar might be getting a bit low," he said, reaching for one of them and removing the paper before taking a bite. Despite the dubious taste, he let out a contented sight, not having realized how really hungry he had been until then.

"Turns out that a good biotic reave works pretty well against a maw, but those things have huge nervous systems," he explained, feeling a bit silly for having waited so long before taking anything. Old habits, perhaps… His early training days had taught him to push himself pretty far, after all; sometimes beyond his personal limits. Even to this day, it was easier for him to simply follow the meals schedule instead of trying to get a feel for what his body's actual needs were. "It might have been slightly more draining than I thought."

A shocked look crossed Shepard's face at that. "You reaved the maw to death? Jesus Christ, Kaidan. That's… actually incredibly badass," he said, breaking off with a slight laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. "I'm kind of mad I didn't get to see it. Sounds like something you'd see in a Blasto movie."

He was honestly glad that Kaidan had stopped stroking his back in order to grab the energy bar, though he tried his best not to show it. It wasn't that he wasn't enjoying it; on the contrary, he was enjoying it far too much. And if he was going to even try to stick to regulation, he couldn't be giving in to his impulses like a horny teenager. No matter how attractive and caring and wonderful Kaidan was, and no matter how obvious it was that he felt the same way about him.

It was all he could do not to curse out loud. This sucked.

Kaidan laughed back. "Yeah, well I'm afraid 'this one' can't fight as gracefully, or with as many limbs," he said, recalling some of the over-the-top action sequences of those movies. Blasto always made those things look so ridiculously easy when real soldiers knew by experience that they were anything but.

"The Mako's guns and cannon actually did most of the job, and thankfully for us, the vehicle pretty much absorbed all of the damage, too... We may need to request a new one from the Alliance, though," he clarified, not wanting to make it sound like he had some crazy superpowers or anything either. He supposed that it was a good thing that the Alliance had a few more bases on Gellix; maybe they had another M35 to spare.

"It was mostly one of those typical horror film moments where you think that the monster is dead, and it suddenly springs back to life," he said with a little shrug. "So I spun around and reacted with a reave. Might have held on a little longer than necessary to make sure it was really dead this time, too."

"Either way, that's still pretty damn amazing," Shepard said with a soft smile, unable to hide his amusement at just how nonchalant Kaidan was about the whole ordeal. It was all he could do to hide his embarrassment, though. "I go into shock and leave you to fight a maw on your own, and you still got the job done. I'm just sorry that it happened that way."

"And here I thought we'd already been over this," Kaidan said, shaking his head a little, though his voice sounded more warm than irritated. "It's okay, really. The maw is dead and we're here together," he pointed out, thinking that as far as he was concerned, that was truly all that mattered. "Besides, I'm not sure that I would have been able to take it if you'd tried to go charging into that thing," he said with a little shudder. "Not having to scan the battlefield for large comet tails was a nice change of pace," he teased, though he couldn't help but think that the visual effect of a biotic charge was actually quite pretty.

Shepard rolled his eyes. "You couldn't pay me enough to charge one of those things," he said, unable to keep from laughing nervously. "If I'm pulling a charge, it's away from the gigantic worm that wants to eat me." He grinned a bit, expression turning somewhat devious. "In fact, I probably would've thrown you over my shoulder and charged the hell out of there. I freak you out enough with my powers as it is; imagine witnessing them firsthand."

Kaidan laughed. "Oh, God… Though I suppose that you'd have to be able to lift me up first," he said with a playful smile, letting him know that he was only toying with him. But then again, he couldn't help but consider it. "You know what, though… I think I'd really like that."

Though he wasn't exactly the kind of person that tended to take unnecessary risks, be it in sports or on the battlefield, Kaidan had always enjoyed thrill rides and other types of activities that got the adrenaline pumping. As long as things remained relatively safe and under control, that was definitely the kind of thing that he'd be willing and especially curious to try.

"Do you really think that you would be able to do that?" he asked, eyes sparkling with sudden interest. "I've never been able to understand how you can manage to use dark energy to propel yourself in such a way… It just looks incredibly cool!" If Shepard thought that he could manage to pull it off without risking injury to either of them, Kaidan knew that he really had to try it. The Commander didn't know it, but it was exactly the kind of thing that he would just keep nagging him about until he gave in.

Shepard stared at him in disbelief for a moment, before breaking into a fit of laughter. "Are you asking if you can ride me, Lieutenant?" he asked, putting on an affronted tone and fanning himself with his free hand. "I must say that's a bit of a bold request."

He couldn't help but break into another grin, shaking his head in exasperation. "As much as I'd love to be your biotic freight train, Kaidan, I don't know what would happen if we tried it. I'd hate to accidentally splatter you on a wall or something." A thoughtful look seemed to cross his face at that, however, and he frowned slightly. "I mean, maybe you could put up a barrier… Tell you what – if we end up in a situation where we have to book it and there aren't any witnesses, we'll do it. Fair enough?"

"Or, you know…" Kaidan began, unable to keep from feeling a bit bashful now that Shepard had asked him if he wanted to ride him. Well, that was kind of what he'd asked, hadn't he? Or, more precisely, he was curious to find out what it would feel like to ride the currents of dark energy with him. Just not… Okay, now he was having trouble keeping his mind on track!

"We do have a few beautiful and very quiet lakes back in B.C… If you get there early in the morning, there's usually no one around. And, of course, no wall to accidentally splatter myself on either." That would definitely be a huge plus. "I suppose that if you were to charge from the shore to a given point farther in the water, the only thing that we would risk is getting wet."

"So, maybe during one of our next shore leaves… I don't know…" Great, now he was making it sound like he was asking him on a date or something. "I could also lift and throw you in the water a few times too, if you'd like. I can, uh… lift pretty high and maintain it for a fair amount of time. Would be just like flying," he offered, not wanting Shepard to think that he was just thinking about taking advantage of his powers without giving anything in return.

'Wait…' Was he really suggesting that they use their biotic abilities to just play in a lake and have fun together? Maybe Marco Shepard was really starting to make him loosen up a bit after all…

Shepard actually looked genuinely interested at that idea, however. "That actually sounds like it'd be a blast," he said with a soft grin. "When we finish this mission and the galaxy doesn't need us for a few days, let's do it."

"One more reason to make sure that the mission succeeds, then," Kaidan said, grinning back, finding the thought rather amusing. For some reason, he could picture an annoying interviewer asking what the great Commander Shepard, first human Spectre, was fighting for… And Shepard giving an answer along the lines of: "Oh, I just want to go vacationing with a friend at a lake in B.C."

Of course, in reality, the Commander would probably find something great and inspiring to say… He always did. But most soldiers knew that when their lives were on the line, the fate of the galaxy or the advancement of mankind wasn't usually the first thing that popped into mind, or gave them the strength they needed to get things done. The reality of it was far less glamorous.

You usually thought about the safety of your friends, your family, your squad… About that cool jacket that you wanted to buy on one of your next shore leaves… Or about some other personal project that you still wished you'd be given the time to fulfill when you got back home. It was much easier to latch onto smaller and familiar things, and seek personal connections than to fight purely for an ideal.

And it was definitely nice to have more to look forward to than war and death. "You know, being part of the Alliance is great and it does feel like home most of the time," Kaidan said, realizing that he'd pretty much devoted his whole life to his career over the last ten years. "But I guess I should start trying to develop other interests too, or else I just won't know what to do with myself when I eventually decide to retire."

Shepard sighed, eyes closing for a moment. "You and me both. I'm probably never going to retire, if only because I don't have anywhere to go," he said in a soft voice, before his eyes opened again, expression turning sad for a moment. "You know, I never took extended leave when it came up. I'd just ask for a transfer to another ship. I've been hopping from ship to ship for so long… I've never even had a place to stay. After Akuze, when they put me on mandatory leave, they had to scramble to find me an apartment in New York. And I only stayed there for maybe seven months before I went back into active duty. Then they submitted me for N7 training, and well… here I am. I imagine I can retire when I find a place I belong."

"Well, I'm not suggesting that either of us retire any time soon," Kaidan pointed out. "Especially not when you just got this new exciting Spectre position… And I managed to make it on your team." Career wise, Kaidan felt like they were at a pretty great place right now, one where they had the power and resources to truly make a difference. And that wasn't something that he was looking forward to giving up… At least, not yet.

What saddened him, though, was the thought that Shepard was apparently staying with the Alliance military mainly because he felt like he had nowhere else to go. That probably didn't stop him from enjoying his work, however. And if he wanted to be completely honest with himself, one of the reasons why he had eventually found his own way back to the Alliance was because as a biotic, he had been out of options. He'd just been lucky that the job really did suit him.

"But if the galaxy is ever done needing saving, or if I become too old or tired for this shit, who knows?" he said with a little shrug. "I guess meanwhile, it wouldn't hurt to try to strike a balance between work and a few other more mundane things, hobbies and stuff." If only to avoid burning out by the time they'd reached forty.

"We would have to begin slowly then… Maybe a few days off here and there… Perhaps even a week?" he offered with a gentle smile, taking into consideration the fact that Shepard had just told him that the last time he'd taken some time to himself, it was because he had been forced to. "Oh, and if you're ever looking for a place to stay on Earth, I do have a small apartment in Vancouver."

While his parents had often insisted that he'd always be welcomed in their home, and they didn't mind housing him whenever he needed a place to stay between assignments, Kaidan had still felt the need to get his own place, even if he was virtually never there. He just needed to know that he had his own territory, a place where he didn't need to report to anyone, and he could just sit back, relax, and not care if his bed was still unmade, or the dirty dishes were still on the table.

"It's in a very quiet neighborhood, and I usually go there whenever I want to take my mind off things. Just read a book, watch movies, or do some thinking, you know…" he explained, realizing that his life outside the military probably didn't sound all that exciting. "It's big enough for two, and I think that I trust you enough not to trash the place if you ever needed to spend some time over there on your own," he added with a teasing smile.

A smile worked its way across Shepard's lips at that, and without thinking he gently rested his forehead against Kaidan's shoulder. "I'd love that," he whispered.

The very idea that he actually had somewhere to go, somewhere that he was welcomed… It was enough to make him giddy. It was new, and refreshing, and it felt so good. He wasn't used to it, but it was perfect and he liked it – even if things didn't work out, if regulations stood between them, he still felt like there was a permanent connection that had formed between Kaidan and him, and that was all that mattered. Shepard didn't need a home to feel like he belonged – he was perfectly content in Kaidan's arms. As a friend, a lover, or nothing more than a brother-in-arms, he didn't care.

"Then it's settled…" Kaidan said, lightly resting his chin on top of Shepard's head and drawing him closer. "We get rescued; find a way to stop Saren and his geth; solve pretty much all of the Alliance's problems along the way…" Because he had no doubt that as soon as they were back to the Normandy and fit for duty, Hackett would probably have a bunch of other secondary missions for them. And, of course, Shepard could never actually say "no." How did we end up collecting mineral resources again? "…Then ask for a joint shore leave; take a few days off to go swimming at a lake in B.C.; make a brief stop at my parent's home for a good home cooked dinner; and finally end up at my apartment for some quiet before heading back to work."

He chuckled a bit. "You know, when I say it that way, it does sound pretty easy." In truth, they'd probably be lucky to make it out of that cave alive… Still, it was nice to be able to just make plans as if everything was going to be all right, even if it only ended up giving them hope.

"I think, when this is over, I might go back to Mindoir," Shepard said in a quiet voice, expression concealed by Kaidan's shoulder as he leaned against him. "Just for a little bit. I haven't been there since the attack."

Truth be told he had never even seen where they had buried his family. His injuries had been so severe that he'd been rendered comatose for a few weeks, and by the time he'd woken up, his family had been buried and he was on his way to an Alliance temp facility for biotics. With BAaT shut down and the Ascension Project unheard of, he spent a good part of the next year shuffling from facility to facility, until he was finally old enough to enlist. He'd been so swept up in the thick of things that he'd never bothered to look back.

A very small part of him had always wanted to go back – take a few days of shore leave and catch a transport to the colony, comb the local graveyards for a set of four headstones carved with the name Shepard. If only to have the chance to finally say goodbye, once and for all.

But the rest of him didn't want to say goodbye, so thirteen years had gone by and he still didn't know where his family had been buried. Maybe closure was all he had ever needed. Or maybe seeing it would make it true and nothing would get better; it would only get worse, like peeling scabs away to expose the wounds festering beneath. Either way, he tried not to think about it too much.

"Whenever you're ready to head back there, if you want someone to go with you, I'll make sure to be available," Kaidan said. He didn't want Shepard to have to face those feelings on his own, unless that was what he preferred. In that case, he wouldn't try to impose his presence, but he felt like he needed him to know that the option was there, and that he could count on him.

Shepard sighed softly, warm breath wafting over the bare skin of Kaidan's shoulder. "I'd appreciate that, really. Thank you, Kaidan."

They spent the next few hours talking about everything and nothing while doing their best to keep warm… Old childhood stories, the types of movies they enjoyed watching, tales from some of their earliest missions after they had joined the Alliance. However, they purposely avoided mentioning how much time had passed, or the fact that the storm was still raging outside, wind howling against the cave mouth. Kaidan was also starting to have some doubts regarding the distress beacon - what if it had been too damaged to send a clear signal to the people back at the facility? After all, it wasn't like he'd had the time to inspect it after activating it, especially not without risking getting in contact with the thresher's acid. He wasn't going to voice his concern, though, not when they were both starting to get dangerously tired, and it was getting harder and harder to maintain their focus.

They had used their last heat pack about three hours ago. Kaidan had hesitated a little before opening it, until Shepard had put his own hands on top of his, giving them a reassuring squeeze while whispering "It's okay, we'll get through this." They had no way of knowing that, of course, but he'd still nodded and offered him an encouraging smile; sharing the need to keep on believing that everything would be fine, if only for a while longer.

That pack was no longer emitting any heat now, and the hypothermia had once again begun to set in a little while ago; their bodies were shivering against each other, their skin becoming unnaturally pale, lips tinged blue. Eventually the shaking subsided completely, and that was perhaps one of the things that had Kaidan worried the most.

They were only making small talk now, keeping the subjects as simple as possible, Shepard leading most of the conversation since his ability to maintain his concentration was slightly better than his. He still did his best to keep him actively involved, continuously asking him questions ranging from his favorite color to how many fingers a parrot had. Anything that came to mind, really, all the while trying to hide his growing concern as Kaidan became more and more hesitant or slow to answer, his speech a bit slurred at times.

He was still doing all he could to hold on, though, stubbornly refusing to go down without a fight. But all the willpower in the world couldn't stop the profound weariness from settling into his body, and he could feel himself growing weaker despite his resolve.

The fight with the batarians, taking down that thresher maw, the long walk in the snow right in the middle of a blizzard, and the energy that had been required to revive Shepard and keep him safe… All of it was finally taking its toll, his body having been pushed way past the limits of what it would normally be able to endure.

Even the sound of Shepard's voice, the one thing that, until then, had successfully managed to keep him solidly grounded to reality, was starting to have a strong lulling quality.

"Marco… I'm sorry… I…" Kaidan whispered brokenly, feeling all of the muscles in his body go lax against his will, slumping against Shepard as his eyes fluttered closed. I wish we'd had more time… he thought wistfully, the darkness pressing heavily upon him.

"K…Kaidan, stay… stay with me," Shepard stammered, voice hoarse and cracked – he reached up and tapped his fingers against the side of Kaidan's face, trying to jolt him awake. He had no way of even knowing how hard he was tapping him because his fingers had gone completely numb with cold, but apparently it wasn't hard enough because Kaidan didn't open his eyes.

"C'mon Kaidan… If you go, I go, so you gotta… you gotta stay awake, a-alright?" Shepard pleaded, tapping him a little harder. When he didn't respond, Shepard let out a shaking breath that might have been a sob of frustration, before he slapped him as hard as he could, palm connecting with his cheek – it was weak and pitiful and barely made a sound, and he realized that he didn't even have enough strength left in his body to muster up a hard smack.

He swore out loud, voice broken, as he reached back and buried his fingers in Kaidan's hair and pulled him forward, until their foreheads were touching again. He would've cried if he was capable, but as it stood he was so numb all over it was a wonder he could still move, let alone cry. "I'm sorry Kaidan," he whispered, voice choked with regret.

He leaned forward before he had a chance to talk himself out of it, angling his head until his lips met Kaidan's in a soft kiss. 'I'm so sorry…'

Kaidan could feel himself being slowly pulled under, while part of him still kept resisting, stubbornly maintaining some minimal awareness of his surroundings. His whole body felt distant though, as if it was no longer quite his and was refusing to obey his command. The darkness itself was actually very warm and soothing - welcoming, even - and he knew that if he gave in, he would be safe... that there was nothing for him to fear once he let go… But he couldn't, not while Shepard still needed him.

He could hear his voice somewhere in the back of his mind, begging him to wake up… asking him to stay. And he wanted so much to tell him that he was trying, to find some way to respond, to let him know that he was still holding on with all that he had, all that he was; and that he was never, ever letting go.

He tried to focus on his senses - sound, touch, smell - anything that could keep the darkness at bay. A pricking sensation on his cheek… Cool fingers moving through his hair…

And then, there was something else – something gentle and delicate caressing his lips… A warm breath, followed by soft, if only slightly chapped skin…

Before his mind even had time to process what was really happening, Kaidan felt a powerful fire originating deep within his lower belly, quickly spreading to the rest of his body. That fire was tapping into adrenaline reserves that, until moments ago, he never would have guessed were even there; much less known how to access them.

He regained control of his mouth first, lips languidly moving against Shepard's, following the other man's lead, thoughts still somewhat confused and distant as the pressure and pace slowly begun to increase. Tongue tentatively pushing past Shepard's lips, instinctively seeking his. Heart rate picking up, breath quickening, body and limbs becoming part of himself again, mind clearing up and…

Oh god. Shepard is kissing me… Shepard. Is. Kissing. Me. The shock of that realization only lasted a fraction of a second as Kaidan's heart immediately soared, and he grabbed the other man in his arms, almost crushing Shepard's body to his as their lips met again in a hungry kiss that was filled with so much love, passion, desire, and perhaps even just a little bit of despair.

As they kissed, Kaidan's hands began to explore the back of Shepard's neck, his muscular shoulders, the smooth curve of his lower back; allowing said hands to reach lower than he had ever dared to allow himself to touch him before. He pressed his thighs, his hips, his chest, his whole body as close as he could to Shepard's, almost trying to melt into him, wishing to let this man know and feel just how much he loved and needed him. To finally say with his lips, body and touch everything that, until then, he hadn't had the courage to express with words.

If part of him knew that this was just a temporary reprieve… that sooner or later, the darkness would once again catch up to them; he decided that, in that moment, he no longer cared. He would gladly kiss Shepard from this life into the next without any regrets; as he could feel that neither of them had any intention to ever let the other go. As long as they remained together, no matter what would happen, deep down, he knew that everything would be okay.

Shepard was almost startled by the ferocity of Kaidan's reaction, but as it stood, he could barely muster up the energy to be surprised. He had just enough for this, for now, and that was all he cared about. Kaidan was alive, he was awake, he was responsive – so responsive that it left Shepard breathless, feeling his hands roaming over his body, calloused fingertips and palms brushing over skin left untouched, and— Good lord, he's a good kisser.

He wanted to stay like this forever, bodies entwined together in perfect form, lips pressed together, tongues twining, hands running through hair, across skin, anywhere they dared to go, regulations be damned. The very last thing on his mind was regulation. He loved Kaidan, he loved the way Kaidan made him feel, physically and emotionally and everything and he wasn't going to let a fucking rulebook get in the way of that.

That revelation was enough to shake him to the core but he refused to give it pause, only stopping their contact for the sake of oxygen, gasping for breath, lungs aching with effort and cold air, before they pushed together once more. Even if they died tonight… this was what he wanted.

But he didn't want to die tonight. Not when he'd found this, when he'd found Kaidan, the only person capable of breaking down all of his defenses and yet still made him feel so incredibly strong, so capable of anything and everything. The only person to see all of him, inside and throughout, and love him regardless of the person he really was, the person he'd spent so long trying to hide away. He'd never felt like this before but he knew it was something unique, something so very important, and something he would likely never feel again if he let it slip away.

He very nearly would have let it, and that was probably the revelation that hurt the most. They needed to live, to make it out there, if only to avoid losing what they'd only just found. What he'd only just found.

"Glad to see you two found a good way to keep warm."

Kaidan's eyes immediately went wide with shock as he stared back at Shepard, unmoving, lips still lightly resting against his. Judging by the very surprised, off-guard expression being returned to him, he quickly figured that the voice he'd just heard hadn't been a figment of his imagination. Which meant…

"Oh god," he whispered, mortified, as he slowly turned his head to the side to see Ashley kneeling there, looking over them both with an amused, if perhaps slightly too pleased with herself smile on her face.

"It's okay. Don't ask, don't tell," she quickly said, raising both hands in a mock "I surrender" gesture. "Besides, it's pretty dark in here… I think my eyes still need some more time to adjust," she added with a wink, before activating the omnitool on her wrist and waving it over the both of them.

Kaidan finally allowed himself to relax, rolling a bit on his back and pulling Shepard close against his chest. He was still embarrassed from having been caught making out with his Commander like some horny teenager – by a soldier technically under his command, no less – but, at the same time, he was beyond relieved that they'd finally been found. For the first time in the last few hours, the words "we're going to be fine" meant more to him than some vague expression of hope.

Shepard, on the other hand, wished more than anything he could just melt through the ground and disappear right then and there. He wasn't sure which was worse – the idea that they were hallucinating and his mind had decided to conjure up the most humiliating scenario in his final moments, or that Ashley had indeed shown up out of the blue to rescue their frozen asses from certain death, and had the great luck of showing up right when they were in the middle of a heated make-out session. It was one thing to be found half naked in an embrace with another soldier in a similar state of undress – that had been a necessary evil to keep themselves alive. Awkward, but necessary, and easily explainable regardless of how both parties felt towards one another.

He was far too embarrassed to even think about the ramifications of having been seen kissing a subordinate. Not that he expected Ashley to get her fatigues in a wad and report the both of them for some reason or another. He trusted her well enough that he knew she wouldn't subject them to that kind of embarrassment. Though as it stood, as a Spectre, there wasn't really much fear of recourse for his actions, unless the Alliance decided to keelhaul the first human Spectre for fraternization, of all things. He only really expected to see that charge at the bottom of a larger list, and only if things went horribly south. Arson, murder, and jaywalking, as it were.

Shepard let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, closing his eyes for a moment as he laid against Kaidan's body, refusing to even part contact with him just yet, arms still circled around his torso and fingers numbly clinging to his shoulders. He could see the orange glow of Ashley's omnitool waving around even through his eyelids, but it was comforting nonetheless knowing that it was there and it meant that they were going to be okay. He didn't even bother trying to say anything to her just yet – he'd be lucky to form two coherent words at this point. He felt himself sagging again, ready to go under, but for the first time in the past several hours he didn't fight the urge tooth and nail. Ashley's voice became nothing more than a comforting drone as she spoke into her communicator.

"…transferring the data to your omnitool now, doctor. The perimeter appears to be safe; you can send in the medical team. We'll need the enviro-pods to carry them out of here, too," Ashley spoke through their short-range comm. device.

"Copy that, we'll be there in a moment," Dr. Chakwas' voice confirmed through the communicator. Ashley closed the omnitool and opened two self-heating packs from the first aid kit she had brought with her, and began applying them delicately to their necks.

"Here..." she said softly, voice filled with relief and lingering concern. Now that her initial amusement at having surprised two of her best friends engaged in a passionate embrace had passed, she was reminded of how deeply worried she had been until they'd finally found them. The situation wasn't exactly critical anymore; but Shepard and Kaidan were still in pretty bad shape - half-frozen, dehydrated, and obviously exhausted. Though she wished there was something more she could do to ease their discomfort, Ashley was incredibly glad that they'd successfully managed to keep each other alive until then. After what had happened to her unit on Eden Prime, she didn't think that she would have been able to handle losing more of the people she cared about. "You two scared us pretty bad… We were afraid we'd lost you…" she whispered, voice choked.

"I was afraid we'd been lost, too," Kaidan admitted quietly with a grateful smile, closing his eyes for a moment, letting out a soft sigh and tightening his hold on Shepard a little.

Shepard breathed in slowly, face still turned into the bared skin of Kaidan's shoulder, trying to focus on the warmth now spreading from the heat pack on the back of his neck and slowly forcing some life back into his numb body. The embarrassment had passed and he didn't care that Ashley was watching them – at this point he wanted nothing more than to just fall asleep in Kaidan's arms without the fear that sleeping meant certain death for the both of them. He forced himself to stay awake for now though, lifting his head enough to look over at Ashley as she lingered above them. "Thank you, Ash," he managed to say, voice a barely audible, hoarse whisper – it was all he could do not to burst into tears of relief when it finally sunk into his chest like a knife that they really were going to be okay and that this wasn't all some stupid hallucination. Judging by the slight smile that quirked the corner of her lips, she understood him.

After that, everything was pretty much a giant blur. Kaidan was vaguely aware of Dr. Chakwas and one or two Alliance paramedics reaching them, Garrus in tow. He'd exchanged a few words with her, letting her know about Shepard's earlier cardiac arrest, and urging her to keep a close eye on him. She'd kindly reassured him that she would make sure that both of them stayed safe, and told him to stop worrying so much.

While she spoke, he noticed that Dr. Chakwas had that tender, slightly amused smile on her lips… Actually, it was almost the same kind of smile that his mother often had when it was clear that she knew more than she was letting on. For some reason, he'd found it quite a bit unnerving. Surely his concern for Shepard's well-being and safety wasn't so odd?

She had then placed a mask over his mouth and nose, while a paramedic had done the same for Shepard, and he'd felt warm, humidified air fill his lungs.

Kaidan had experienced an odd sense of loss as he'd finally been pulled away from the other man's body… A strange emptiness, as if something had suddenly gone missing, and it was all he could do not to instinctively try to grab on to Shepard. They'd nevertheless managed to share a last look, a gentle smile and a small nod – both of them wordless saying "It's okay, I'll see you soon." to each other – before he'd been lifted up from the blanket lying on the ground by… Wrex?

"Wrex?" Kaidan asked, thinking that after finding himself carried bridal-style by a heavy armored krogan, the day couldn't get any weirder.

"Alenko," the krogan answered, before letting out a throaty laugh at Kaidan's puzzled expression, and placing him in a narrow transport pod. "When you and Shepard are back on your feet, you two have got to tell me how you managed to kill that thresher maw. Can't believe I missed it!" he added with barely contained excitement.

"Wrex…" he heard Dr. Chakwas warn him.

"What? I said once they're back on their feet…" came the krogan's somewhat annoyed answer. "Spoilsport," he added more quietly, making Kaidan snort. Meanwhile, Ashley had placed a heavy electric blanket over him, giving him an encouraging smile and a little pat on the shoulder, before pushing the button to make the pod's transparent lid slide closed.

A few moments later, Dr. Chakwas once again came into view, checking the pod's readings and making a few adjustments, before ordering Wrex and another marine to lift it from the ground, and move out. Looking to the side, he could see Ashley and Garrus carrying another identical enviro-pod. Though he had trouble catching a good glimpse of the man lying inside of it, he knew that Shepard was now safe, too, and that was all that mattered.

Thus, as the darkness returned and demanded his surrender, he finally agreed to a truce and gave in; letting feelings of deep relief and warmth wash upon him, secure in the knowledge that the battle was finally won. He smiled, his last conscious thought being the memory of Shepard's soft lips against his…