A/N - There is no way in hell that my Shepard sat in her cabin in the hours before the Omega-4 relay just staring at Kaidan's picture and didn't contact him. That's not who she is. Plus, there's a gap in their story that Bioware just didn't fill to my satisfaction. This chapter bridges that gap, and tells us the story of the time between Horizon and ME3 through my very Shenko filter~ Please also note that this is the first chapter that earns the M rating, for language, although it is minimal (one word minimal.) I think the chapter makes it clear, but if not, I'll state that ME2 playthroughs always go in Collector Base - Lair of the Shadow Broker - Arrival order. It's the only way my roleplaying brain can do it. My Shepard would not take another mission after Hackett told her to turn herself in after Arrival, nor would she delay defeating the Collectors to run off on a tangent, even for Liara or Hackett. If your Shepard does it differently, so be it, but I thought I'd clarify so that this chapter makes sense.
Moments after Miranda left, Kaidan found himself staring at the datapads before him, unable to concentrate on the reports and figures before him. He wanted to head back to Shepard's room, but the doctors had informed him that they would running diagnostics until 1600 and that he would not be allowed admittance. He couldn't let go of the thoughts his talk with Miranda had brought to the surface so with a sigh of resignation, he turned to his terminal and opened his email account. He opened the archive folder and found the file he was seeking. There, in front of him, was the email she had sent him on the night before her assault on the Collector base. He read back through her reply to the desperate and badly worded email he had sent days after their confrontation on Horizon and shook his head once again in wonder that they had ever resolved their relationship after that disaster.
Re: About Horizon...
Kaidan,
I'm sorry it took me so long to reply to your email.
Horizon was not one of our best moments, huh? I appreciate your apology, and let me offer my own in return. Saying everything pulled hard to port really sums it up...
I was told prior to the mission that you might be there; I spent the entire time on the colony searching for you, then, there you were, alive and breathing... I was in shock. I only say that as an excuse for my severe foot in mouth syndrome... I knew every word I said to you was wrong as soon as it left my mouth but I couldn't seem to stop myself.
Kaidan, you're not wrong about Cerberus, but you are wrong about me. I know I'm making deals with the Devil, I'm not stupid - and some things have happened since then that have made it even more clear to me - but SOMEONE has to do this work. SOMEONE needs to be fighting this fight... And yeah, so Cerberus resurrected me, but they did it (or say they did it) to stop the Collectors... that's not a goal I can deny.
As I write this, we're headed to attack the Collector base. Pretty much everyone acknowledges this is a suicide mission, I'll spare you the details, but it's bad. I've got good people and I've prepared the best I can but I can't promise to be careful. But you deserve to know that of course I remember the night before Ilos - it's the most meaningful night of my life so far - and I'm sitting here wishing I could hold you again now.
If I make it through this, when things are settled, I don't know, maybe...
Love,
Shepard
He read the email several times then moved to the next file in the archive, sent by him immediately.
Kat,
Stay alive. Everything else, all the maybes, we can figure out after, just stay alive.
Kaidan
Not one of his most eloquent messages he thought with a self-deprecating laugh, but it said what he needed to. He pulled up the next file in the archive.
Kaidan,
We did it! Those bastards are gone, and perhaps people need to redefine suicide mission – we all survived. It was horrible, and yeah, it got pretty hairy, but in the end, Shepard – 1, Collectors – 0. I'd say that is mission complete!
He laughed a little again now, as he had then, at her dorky humor. It was one of the things that defined both of them, really, and one of the areas that they meshed well.
In other news I'm sure you'll also be glad to hear, I told the Illusive Man he could go fuck himself. Pretty much those exact words. At some point, I'll tell you the exact circumstances, but I'll summarize here that he once again reminded me that lying down with dogs always results in a bad case of fleas. I know that you have been trying to tell me that since Horizon, and as I said to you before, I wasn't entirely blind to it, but the extent…
Do you remember our conversation about cutting corners back on the original Normandy? You were always my compass, my center, and even as I sit here now, grateful to be alive, happy that my crew has survived intact, mission accomplished and humanity lives to see another day, I wonder about the corners I had to cut to get here. Do you think you can ever forgive me for them?
Ah, I think this letter has gotten both too long and too maudlin; I mostly just wanted to let you know the outcome. I have some business to wrap up – I need to head back to Illium and help Liara with an issue, and then Hackett has asked me to contact him asap. Guess once Alliance, always Alliance, not even death seems to change that.
Love,
Kat
The next message he was proud of, he felt he had done much better at expressing what he had wanted, needed, to say to her the moment he realized the rumors of her resurrection were true.
Kat,
I don't forgive you because I don't need to.
Will you ever forgive me for calling you a traitor? I was hurting, reeling with shock, and I struck out in the most illogical and stupid way possible at the one person I least wanted to hurt.
The truth of the matter is I wish I had had the courage to just take your hand and follow you, the only excuse I have for not doing so was that seeing you rocked me to my very foundation, and I think, deep inside, I was almost afraid to believe, to trust, that you were actually there and that you could be in my life again.
Do you remember our conversations about how careful I can be, always leaving a way out? The thing that I regret most about that day was falling back on those habits. More, I regret that the first time I told you I loved you was in the heat of anger and in the past tense.
If there is anything the past two years has taught me, it's how important you are to me, and how much I would die (again) without you. I'm not willing to let another two years go by without telling you I love you. I love you now more than I even did that night before Ilos and on that night I didn't think it was possible to love another person more.
Stay safe and finish your business with Liara and Hackett. Then I think you owe me some shore leave.
Love,
Kaidan
He turned to the next message in the archive, seeing her reply, short as it was, reading through each word slowly, though he had long since memorized it.
Kaidan,
I love you too, always have, always will.
See you on shore leave,
Kat
The final entry in the archive was a message from her, as well, this one, a video log. He took a deep breath before he opened the file, knowing the contents as well as he did, he realized that the pain that they always caused him would be even sharper now.
Her image filled the screen and he drank in the details of her, seeing her for the first time since Horizon. He saw with a start that she looked thinner, the least healthy he had ever seen her, and her face bore several fresh cuts and bruises. He took a moment to catalog them all, wondering what had happened to put her in that condition. He could see from the way she was sitting, the way she held herself, that her injuries weren't limited to the visible wounds on her face, and although his field medic background asserted itself to assure him that she wasn't in any physical danger, just discomfort, he thought to himself that he'd like to find the persons responsible and beat them to a bloody pulp. His rational brain reminded him that they were likely already bloody pulp or very very dead, but his protective instincts didn't ever listen to reason.
He realized with a start that her eyes held the most pain of all, and his heart sank as he heard her voice, filled with tears. He'd only ever known Shepard to cry once before, in the wake of Virmire, and even then she hadn't cried openly to him or in front of him, he just happened to hear her through the slightly open door of her cabin. That she was sitting before him now, unshed tears in her eyes, naked emotion in her voice, worried him more than any physical injury she could ever suffer and he damned the fact that they were separated by untold distance, that he couldn't gather her in his arms and hold her as she clearly needed right now.
"Kaidan," she began, her voice breaking on his name, "I needed to see you."
"Shepard, what's wrong?" he questioned her softly, still drinking in the details of her appearance, "What happened?"
"I can't tell you," she said, and something disturbingly like a sob broke through before she took a deep breath and composed herself enough to continue, "it's bad, and you'll know soon, but I can't tell you."
Alarmed, he sat closer to the screen, "Kat," he began, but she cut him off before he could inquire further.
"Alliance, classified," she said, sighing," not Cerberus, and I've probably already said more than I should. Calling you like this is selfish, I'm sorry, but I didn't want you to hear before I talked to you." She gave a small self deprecating laugh. "Of course, I can't tell you either. Just let me say that when you hear, you'll understand, but please, believe in me."
"I always will," he had replied.
He winced now, watching the playback, when he realized that that was yet another promise he had broken. Although he strangely hadn't doubted her over the destruction of the Alpha Relay, mostly because the Alliance brass he trusted the most, Hackett and Anderson, seemed to stand staunchly in her corner, the instant things had gone from sugar to shit on Mars, he had instantly jumped down her throat about Cerberus. He shook his head with regret at all the mistrust, doubt, and miscommunication they had allowed to nearly destroy them, then reminded himself that it was in the past, and turned back to the video log.
"Kaidan, I need to ask you to do something you're not going to want to do, but I need you to promise me you will," her eyes were clear now, shining at him with determination, resolve, almost fervor.
"Whatever you want, Kat," he replied, thinking he would do anything to keep the sadness out of those eyes forever.
"I need you to stay away. You're not going to want to. But I have to turn myself in to the Alliance tomorrow. I'm headed to Omega to pick up my military escort and allow my non-Alliance crew to disembark. Then we're headed to Earth." She said the last on a sigh.
Kaidan knew she was born and raised on ships, a navy brat in every way and that Earth didn't hold the appeal or memories for her that it did to him, but he had never heard her speak of it with the negativity he sensed now. His stomach churned in alarm, he tried to make sense of what she was saying, and his brain kept refusing to process her request for him to stay away.
"Kat, what's going on, what are you saying?" he asked, in desperation.
"I can't tell you, Kaidan, please, just promise me," she was choking up again, this time the tears were falling freely and some detached and irreverent part of his brain had a thought that even crying, she was beautiful. "You need to stay away, I can't let any of this touch you, I love you too much," she broke off there, openly sobbing and brought her fist up to her mouth in a futile effort to stop. He watched as she gathered herself, at great effort and length, wiping at the tears almost in disgust, and saw the Commander Shepard mask fall in place over her face. When she looked at him again, he saw the leader, the soldier, only the slight redness and swelling of her eyes and tears drying on her cheeks remained of the woman.
"Please, if I mean anything to you, please let me say goodbye now, and don't try to contact me." She bit out in a firm commanding tone.
"Kat," he tried again to appeal to her, although he knew her well enough to know that Commander Shepard wasn't going to change her mind.
"Commander Alenko," she was playing dirty now, using their military formality to distance herself, a trick she had used in the few times they had disagreed on the SSV Normandy. If anyone had asked him prior to hearing it, he would have said he was sure it wouldn't work now that he outranked her. He would have been wrong. He did the only thing he could.
"Aye, aye, ma'am" he replied, giving his best salute, in clear breach of military protocol, to a subordinate officer.
"Goodbye," she replied, returning the salute in proper fashion and signed off.
He thought with irony of the message he had sent to her in casual disregard to his promise, the day of the Reaper attack. It had taken him six months to decide, even in the wake of the Alpha Relay and her detention, that he needed to see her, and being called before the Defense Committee to testify was as good an excuse as any to make that happen. He wasn't sure she had ever received it, indeed, he didn't even have it archived, and he had been careful with the wording to try to deflect any suspicion on the likelihood that her messages were monitored while she was detained. Still, he remembered it.
Hey, Commander. Thought I might come down to see you today-if they let me. Here's hoping.
Just a casual message from one officer to another - former shipmates. Nothing suspicious or eyebrow raising. Ironic, in retrospect, even. Kaidan shook himself out the reverie of the past, checked the time on his omni-tool to see that the doctors would be done, and he headed down the hall and back to his present. Alive alive alive alive alive…