A/N: In case it wasn't clear, I'm not using the 'hacked' option that gives Shepard and Kaidan a romance option in the first game. In this story they've always been 'just friends.'

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

- W.B Yeats, Human Poet

It had been foolish to hope that Finch was bluffing.

He'd known that, at an intellectual level, but despite his best efforts he couldn't live on intellect alone. A part of him had been secretly hoping against all logic that nothing would come of the other man's threats. Foolish. It had been very foolish.

All told, that disappointment rated pretty far down on the list of things he had to worry about. The story had broken in the same hour as their theft of the Normandy and escape of the Citadel. Everything was spinning wildly around him, and Shepard could feel his grip slipping. He was losing control at an alarming rate. When Anderson had told him to do this he had done it, automatically, obeying on military reflex as his mind still reeled with the reality he had found himself in.

When had everything gotten so serious?

He supposed the easy answer to that was when Ash died, but if he thought about it, really thought about it, he should have started taking it seriously a long time ago. But everything had just seemed so ridiculous. Just... ridiculous. All these people looking at him, at him! Looking at the dirty, thieving little street rat, and they all put their serious adult faces on. They did their best to impress upon him the weight of responsibility, the solemn duty that was expected of him and he'd met them all laughing, as he always had when anyone tried to convince him there was something he needed to pay attention to. It had been like a game, with him always one step ahead, always winning and thumbing his nose and laughing, laughing, laughing.

Shepard sighed and sat back in his chair at his desk, grinding his knuckles over his closed eyes. His screen was flashing, a video fully loaded and waiting for authorization to play. Shepard squinted at it, pressing his fingers into the throbbing pain that had taken root at each temple. He didn't play it. He didn't want to look at himself right now.

Maybe, if he'd been less of an ass, if he'd started taking this seriously earlier, maybe it wouldn't have happened like this. Maybe. It was impossible to say, really, but his mind kept coming back to the idea, no matter what direction he tried to send it.

How many times had he beaten impossible odds? He had beaten drugs and poverty, educated himself, made something out of his life. There was Elysium, Athena, his Spec Ops days in the fringe, before Normandy. But not on Virmire. Not when it really mattered.

He hit play. He didn't think anything could be more painful than going down that dark, lonely path again.

A pretty blonde reporter whose face was far too sweet and dimpled for the solemn countenance she was attempting to muster appeared on the screen, and hovering to her left a picture, no doubt cut from a video reel, of Shepard's face. Or, really, X's face. Shepard shuddered as he remembered what it was like to be so filthy all the time. One thing he never stopped appreciating about the military was access to hot showers every day.

"For those watching with younger viewers, I must warn you, the following images are disturbing."

The video was jerky, as though the person shooting it was being jostled around every few seconds and shot from chest height, most likely from a concealed camera. It showed a wall of writhing backs, dirty clothes and dirty people trying to move forward, toward something out of view. The camera surged forward, rattling like it was experiencing a seismic event, and then it was at the front of the pack and an arena was visible.

There was no other word for it, even though it was just a clear space hemmed in by stacks of steel plated shipping containers, most of them sporting weapon manufacturers logos. Shepard wondered what sort of press that was going to get them. There was blood splattered across the steel floor of the arena but its occupants weren't adding to it just yet. Shepard recognized himself, slumped over in near coma state with his arm out. He also recognized the man who was prepping a needle as his companion slapped at the abused vein in his former selves skinny arm. Arturo injected him with the drugs.

So that was good, the chipper, rational part of his brain chimed in. No video of him actually shooting himself up meant he could easily deny the extent of his former drug use. Never mind that he had shot himself up a hundred times, if it wasn't on video like this no one would ever know about it.

His former self came out of his coma like a tinker toy being wound up by a child. His head came up, his eyes focusing. Shepard watched himself look around, saw the tortured, confused expression on his face. This must have been toward the end, right before he gave up the needle and ran away from Trinidad and the Tenth Street Reds. His lips moved in the video, but there wasn't any sound and the camera was too far away anyway. Shepard knew what he was saying though. Begging not to go in again. He was tired, hungry, dying, had already taken a beating if the blood standing out on his forehead was any clue. It was impossible to tell if it had been a beating in the pit or something more casual doled out by one of his keepers.

Arturo pushed the boy to his feet and started tugging off the dirty shirt and jacket he was wearing. Shepard could figure out where this was in his life based on the constellation of scar tissue laced across his torso. He leaned forward, squinting. The broad slash that went from nipple to navel was already fully healed, as was the deep cut that had almost punctured his stomach on the left side. Even the deep stab wound in the muscle above his collar bone was there, looking red and angry but healed. Very late then. Which was bad, because the last fights had been the worst.

Once he's wondered why people liked to see the kid fights. It made more sense at a higher level, with the bare-knuckled fighting and knife rounds, because those guys had actual skills. Some of them remained, to Shepard's memory, the best fighters he had ever seen. What he understood now that he was older and had looked at that world from another perspective, was that to the people watching kid fights were more like dog fights than the adult rounds. There wasn't any point to it, no measuring of skill or finesse or strength, just two sub-human brutes, who have been beaten and starved and debased until they are no better than animals tearing each other apart.

But not him. He got beaten and starved and debased, no doubt about that, but there was always skill in him, an understanding of how to hurt people that must have been inborn because he certainly can't remember learning it anywhere. When Arturo pitched him out into the ring and he caught sight of his target the awareness of what was happening put sudden strength in him. Shepard remembered that feeling, hard and cool as dry steel, darkness that edged out the details of the world and made everything numb and shapeless and meaningless.

The other kid was a screamer. He came charging, swinging his fists with his face screwed up in an expression of pain and ecstasy. Needle marks stood out all up and down his forearms and he was spraying bullets of sweat. The boy that had once been him took a small step sideways, out of the path of his blow and delivered a clean left cross with all the strength of his legs and hips behind it. The first boy, the screamer, stumbled back choking on blood, and Shepard, or X, or whoever that was on the video screen broke his knee with an almost casual flick of his heel.

At that point a hand closed over the camera and jerked it sideways. There was a moment of darkness, the lens cracked and the video was over.

That could have been worse, the rational voice said, after all you killed that kid. Beat him to death with your bare hands. At least they didn't get THAT on video.

Shepard sighed and turned the media program off. The scar on his eyebrow was itching, the way it always did when he was stressed out. He rubbed it, screwing his eyes closed and breathing deeply. He needed to think about this.

Or maybe he didn't. After all, they were all going to be court marshaled already. That tended to happen after one absconded with the most advanced ship in the fleet chasing what everyone believes to be an insane fantasy. Sometimes he thought it might be a fantasy. That would be the easy answer to all of this. But it wasn't, so he had to suffer on.

A message appeared in the corner of his screen, informing him that someone was requesting access to his quarters. Shepard frowned, rubbed at his eyes again for a moment and then stood, squaring his shoulders and setting his jaw. It was time for damage control.

"Shepard," Kaidan sounded cautious, "I thought you were going to meet me in the hangar bay?"

Shepard blinked at him for a moment. He had no idea what the hell he was talking about for several long, awkward seconds and then realized he was right. He had been about to go and meet Kaidan in the hangar bay so they could clean their armour. A terribly sentimental gesture from two battle hardened Alliance kill-machines. It had been Shepard's idea.

"Sorry, Alenko, something just... came up," he leaned against his desk, crossing his arms over his chest. "I need to talk to you."

"Is it about that video clip or whatever?" Kaidan shrugged, he looked bored. "I don't care about that right now, Shepard. We said we were going to do this. For Ash."

Shepard stared at him for a moment, stunned. Then he nodded.

"Right. Of course," he shook himself, amazed that he could be so selfish. "For Ash."

He almost felt like smiling. Almost.

Kaidan didn't speak to him until they were almost done. They had buffed out the scratches on the steel and painted over them with the airbrush. Varnish and polish and sealants followed, and that was before they had checked any of the tech, or optimized their omnitools. It was a lot of work, and neither of them had done it in a while.

"So," he said, breaking the near total silence of the last hour, "what is it about this video clip that I'm not going to like?"

Shepard blinked, pulled out of his memories, and sighed. He slid the armour back into place of the circuitry of his hardsuit and felt it click solidly into place.

"It's from a dark place in my life. Before the Alliance."

"You said you grew up on the streets," Kaidan started replacing the armour plates that covered the delicate wires of his omni-tool. He didn't look up as he worked. "And that man outside of Chora's Den, the one you hit, he talked about a gang. The Tenth Street Reds."

Shepard stopped what he was doing. He turned and looked directly at Kaidan, waiting until the other man did the same. Their eyes met. Kaidan looked troubled, a frown pushing wrinkles up across his forehead.

"If you try to stonewall me right now, Alenko, I swear to god-" he cut himself off, taking a step back and letting himself calm down.

"I looked at the video on my omni-tool before I came up, Shepard. It's pretty dark stuff," Kaidan rubbed at the back of his neck, avoiding eye contact, "I don't know what to think about it. About you."

"We're heading into a war zone, Alenko, with the fate of the galaxy on our shoulders. This is a really fucking inconvenient time for you to have a crisis of faith."

"I realize that."

"I need you to trust me."

"I realize that to. So explain it to me. Make me trust you."

Shepard stared at him for a moment, going over his options in his head. Lying was appealing, but his stomach did that uncomfortable twisting thing that told him it would be wrong. He respected this man, relied on him, and considered him a friend. Shepard balled his hand into a fist and hit the top of the armour bench, hard enough to send a shock up his arm all the way to his shoulder. His mouth felt like it was full of cement.

A secret, if it is big and heavy enough, can become one of the most difficult burdens to bear in the galaxy. Worse that being tasked with saving all organic life from the hunger of sentient nightmare machines. Shepard had carried this secret for so long, all the worst and most evil parts of it, that it had become almost impossible to release. He had held onto it so tightly and for so long that letting go of it was painful.

But he got it out. Halting and stammering occasionally, it all came flooding out of him. Something broke and there was nothing he could do to hold it in. The streets, the gangs, the drugs, the pits, it all came rushing out. It was harder than it had any right to be, but he got it out.

Kaidan didn't speak at all. Shepard was too deep into his own memories to evaluate his expressions or his body language. He barely seemed aware that he was even there half the time. When he ran out of words, he paused, and took a deep breath as though coming up for air. It was only then that he actually looked up and their eyes met again.

"Shepard," Kaidan rubbed at his eyes, "I'm sorry that happened to you. I can't... imagine what it must have been like."

"It doesn't matter," Shepard shook his head.

"Of course it matters," Kaidan set his jaw hard. "How can you say it doesn't matter?"

"I'm not saying what I did wasn't horrible. I know it was. But I don't think that I can do anything to make up for it in prison. That's one reason it doesn't matter, and you know it's a good one," Shepard hoped he knew.

"But the other reason it doesn't matter is because that person, that life, doesn't exist anymore. I wasn't myself for a long time, and where I found myself, what matters more to me than anything else in the galaxy, is the Alliance and what it stands for. My life, my real life began when I left all that behind. I'm here, I'm committed and I'm not that person anymore. If you believe that, then you can trust me."

"I do trust you," Kaidan said softly. "Of course I do. I... I'm sorry. Everything that's happened... it just threw me a little off course."

"I get it," Shepard assured him. "You know, it's funny. It hurts to talk about it now, because it means remembering that no matter what I do and who I become I'll have always been... like that. But now that I've actually gone and said it all... I feel better. Clean."

He clapped Kaidan lightly on the shoulder and let his hand rest there. "Thanks Kaidan. I meant what I said that night. I'm lucky to know you, and I can't think of anyone I'd rather throw myself into hell with."

"I'm honoured, sir," Kaidan said wryly. Their eyes met.

Shepard wasn't sure exactly what he saw there. Up close like this the lieutenant's eyes were very dark, his gaze intense. Shepard hadn't felt this close to someone in a long time. He could feel the muscles in the other mans arm shift as he uncrossed them, and still their eyes lingered, locked together. The air between them felt charged, different than it had a few moments before.

If things had been better, if the world had been a little less flawed and painful things might have been different between them. Shepard didn't know it when he dropped his hand and looked away but there was a day coming that he would look back on this, on the moment he realized what was happening between them, and regret letting it slip away. But in that moment, after baring so much, Shepard shied away from letting any more of himself slip out of control. He put a lid on it, filed it away, resolved that he would deal with it later.

"I should go talk to Vakarian. I'm going to want him with us," he said, glancing across the hangar bay.

"I'll take care of your guns," Kaidan replied, turning back to the bench.

"Yeah," Shepard hovered, reluctant to leave the moment but without any excuse to stay, "thanks, Alenko."

"No problem Shepard."