A/N – FYI, my Shepard is a Vanguard, and I think she and Kaidan bond over their biotics from the first moment they meet
Kaidan had always liked and respected Karin Chakwas. He thought the doctor was not only brilliant in her field but also her no-nonsense nature and quiet compassion had always appealed to him on a deeper level. At this moment, however, he found himself wanting to throw the good doctor across the room with his flaring biotics. "It's too dangerous," he bit out, not for the first time in this discussion, and with more temper than he usually allowed displayed, at least publicly.
Chakwas looked at him calmly and repeated the information he'd already heard and processed, then rejected in a panic. "It's no more dangerous than any brain surgery. And I'll admit, Major, that brain surgery is still a risky business, but if we ever hope to restore the Captain's biotic functionality, we need to replace her implant now. She's made large strides in her recovery, and she's neurologically stable. The time to implant is now so that her nervous system has time to reintegrate before she's ready to begin physical therapy." She finished her report and stood her ground, unruffled, her clear blue gaze meeting his in silent standoff.
"Um, maybe you should ask the person whose brain is involved," came a dry laconic comment from the woman between them on the bed.
"Finally," Kaidan replied, "some sanity." He turned to Shepard, fully expecting her to back him up and end this standoff with the doctor.
"I want to do it," were her next words and Kaidan stared at her, mouth agape in shock. "When can we schedule it?" she asked Dr. Chakwas, receiving a "tomorrow morning" in reply. Shepard nodded once, in agreement and dismissed the doctor to make her preparations.
Kaidan sank to the recliner beside the bed, still in disbelief that she had agreed, head in his hands, and muttered, "Why? How could you even think about this now?"
Kat felt a moment of pity that her decision was causing him more distress. By all accounts, he had been nearly out of his mind with worry while she lay peacefully in a coma and she hated to add to the stress, but she couldn't allow her feelings for him to change her mind. She was determined to make a full recovery, despite the doubts of the team of doctors, perhaps because of them. As she saw it, this was the first step, and a logical one. That was the command decision. Now, the woman in her needed to somehow reach the man she loved and make him see the importance of it.
She took a deep breath and steeled herself for what she knew would not be an easy conversation.
"Kaidan," she began, in a thoughtful but loving tone of voice, gentle with him out of respect to the reason for his disagreement – his infinite desire to keep her safe, to protect her – "when was the first time you used your biotics?"
Kaidan looked up, startled, surprised at her question, and took a moment to think back. "I think I was about five," he reflected, "and I was playing with some other children in a dirt pile near our house. We had these toy mechs, dirt movers, and we were pretending that we were construction crews, working on a large excavation. There was an older boy, 8 or 9, I think, and he was bigger than the rest of us. He decided he wanted all the toys to himself and started taking them from us. I didn't think, I just looked at him and knew I couldn't get my toy back, he was too big, then the next minute, it was in my hands. I had pulled it out of his hands from three meters away." He shook his head, chuckling, "I don't know who was more surprised – me or him."
Kat laughed softly, thinking of the boy he must have been then, before tough lessons had taught him reserve and control. She loved him with all her heart but she thought she'd love him more to see him as unreserved and open as he must have been on that day. Still, she reflected, there were moments that he dropped that reserve with her, and they were all the more precious for their rarity, so perhaps she wouldn't change a thing about him.
She smiled at her fiancé – that was gonna take even more adjustment than Captain – and nodded. "For me, it was after my father died. I was 8. And a terror." She was sure her mother would call that an understatement. "I had so much anger. I had never seen death, not up close anyway. My parents did their best to shield me, even telling me that people under their command who had died were 'transferred' so I didn't have to know. I don't blame them, I'd likely have done the same thing in their shoes. But when my father died, I had no frame of reference, no filter, no idea how to deal."
He pulled her hand into his, placing his other arm on her shoulder in quiet support and comfort for the child she had been and sat for a moment as she gathered herself to continue her story.
"I was in the cargo hold, alone, sitting there, feeling the bitterness, the anger in the pit of my stomach, not knowing how to release it." Even as she retold it, all these years later, the bitterness still colored her tone. "Maybe if I had been able to cry, I would have been ok, but I couldn't. I was lost and alone and so angry and I pushed my hands away from myself like I was trying to release the feelings, somehow, someway. The crates across the bay almost imploded with the force of my push, then traveled all the way to the back wall and smashed into it with a huge crashing sound. I sat back down, shocked, and then, finally, rolled over and sobbed. My mom found me there later, curled up, sound asleep. She didn't even ground me for the damage to the bay," she finished with a chuckle.
"Ok. Good." He replied, thinking how much he'd have liked to hold that child, to comfort her. Still, he mused, he got to hold the woman she'd become and that was enough.
"My point, Kaidan, is that to us, biotics are like breathing." Kat said quietly. "They've become a part of us, of who we are. Losing mine would be like losing a limb. That's why I need to do this. I need to be whole again. Please let me do this?" Her eyes begged him for understanding.
Kaidan sighed, knowing that he could deny her nothing when she looked at him like that, and, perhaps more importantly, followed her reasoning and understood her point. "Ok," he said with a nod, hoping that he wouldn't come to regret this, "let's do it."