A/N – I had originally planned to write this chapter from Shepard's perspective, but Kaidan gave me that look and took over… like I could say no to him…
Ah, and Javik… he needed his moment, no matter how brief
Kaidan wondered if the Reapers had returned. If the Geth had suddenly reanimated their empty shells and decided all organics must die. If another Blasto movie was currently being filmed. Judging from the sounds coming from his fiancée's room as he quickly made his way down the hall from his office, he figured any of those options were likely, although he found himself in the strange position of hoping it was only the latter. What we didn't expect to see, when he entered the room, was Shepard, biotics flaring (which he mused was another sign that she was healing nicely, although she had been told to keep them on ice until the doctors cleared her) in an angry confrontation with the last remaining Prothean.
Javik had remained on Earth, unable to complete his plans to find the graves of his lost comrades and join them until the relays were repaired. To that end, he had been assigned to the team working on that project, despite his mutterings that he was a soldier not a scientist. He had fulfilled every request made of him during the reconstruction efforts, however, even if he commonly did so with a sneer. To Kaidan's mind, any help was welcome, even if it came with attitude.
Shepard and Javik had not always had an easy relationship, Kaidan knew. They had, more than once, ended up on opposite sides of debates, and they were both as stubborn as the other. They were more alike than the other wanted to admit, he had often thought – entirely to himself, since he figured sharing that observation with either of them would shorten his lifespan dramatically. But what Kaidan knew, to his bones, was that they each recognized the warrior in their counterpart and despite their differing points of view, they respected each other. Which is why he was so surprised to see them hurling angry words at each other now.
"Commander, if you make this mistake, commit this atrocity," Javik was speaking quietly, but anger tinged his tone, "you will not live to regret it."
For her part, Shepard was glaring at the Prothean, glowing blue and practically vibrating with her anger. "It's not your call to make, Javik. I'm not even sure it should be mine. But humans have the right to complete their own cycle as they see fit, not following the path of a civilization that died 50,000 years ago!" Her voice rose with frustrated anger on the last. Kaidan figured that he should break this up, in the interest of protecting not just the two people in the room, but everyone in the hospital and the vicinity. If Shepard's biotics were functional again, there was enough power between them to resemble a small nuclear explosion if unleashed.
Kaidan took a moment to raise his barrier, figuring caution was his friend here, and stepped up to the two. "What's going on here?" he asked.
That Shepard's face showed surprise that he was there - just for an instant before she masked it - told Kaidan that she was seriously off her game. Whatever the argument had been about, it had gotten to her. He repeated his query, this time more forcefully, "What's this about?"
Javik apparently decided that the confrontation was over and succinctly bit out a "Commander," on his way out the door. All the better, Kaidan figured, he really only wanted to have to sort out the emotions of one hotheaded warrior. He dropped his barrier and turned to the woman in question, brow raised, waiting for a response.
"Kaidan," she said in that tone that indicated she was trying to deflect him, to retreat. He saw the dark energy of her flared biotics disperse, to his relief, and she turned away from him to face the window.
He grabbed her arm, gently – he wasn't willing to stop protecting her, even from herself – and turned her back to face him. "Don't Kaidan me, Shepard," he flung the words at her as he had that day on Mars, "I deserve to know why my fiancée, who is still recovering from life threatening injuries, nearly came to blows with a member of her crew. Using the biotics she's been told to keep a lid on until the doctors think it's safe. What's. Going. On?"
For a moment, she looked every inch the Commander Shepard she had always been. No matter her new rank, that name was more of a description than an honorific and it fit the look she gave him more than any other could. Then he saw her relax visibly and take a deep breath.
"Tali asked me to convince the Admiralty Board that they should support reactivating the Geth." She said quietly. To anyone that didn't know her well, it might seem a non-sequitur but he spoke fluent Shepard and immediately did the math. Given his dislike and suspicion of synthetics, Javik apparently decided to make his views on the Geth issue clear.
Kaidan sighed and used the grip he still had on her arm to pull her closer to him. Gently. Then he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her. He pulled back and looked down at her face. She was looking rather downcast, he reflected, and very un-Shepard. Apparently there was more here than even his quick calculations had determined. "Ok," he spoke evenly, calmly, "so Javik didn't approve, I take it?"
Though he already knew the answer to his question, he also knew that questioning her indirectly would get her to open up and tell him the real issue. He had known for the past few days that she was struggling with something; even when they had made love in the pool room, he had sensed her distraction. Before, and after. But he figured that he owed her the space to come to him when she was ready, and that they had come far enough in their relationship that she would trust him to do when she was. Shepard was too accustomed to leading to be easily led herself, and no amount of pulling at her would change that. He accepted that. It was one of the downsides of a relationship between two alphas – someone always had to bend. He loved her enough to be that one usually, but, he thought, in this case, he wasn't bending till he got the truth out of her.
Shepard grimaced in response to his query and gave a wry laugh, "That would be an understatement. He's so tied to his past, his cycle… I guess it's a bit like me, when I came back," she was now lost in her own thoughts and he took a moment to grimace over the casual mention of her death and resurrection, "he's still in his present, but everyone else has moved on around him. But he has to be willing to adapt, to change. I did."
Kaidan nodded, knowing that they weren't there yet, but that Shepard was working her way around it, in her own time. He stood quietly holding her, offering her silent support, and patiently waited for her to continue.
"Kaidan, I don't know what to do," she spoke quietly, standing passively in his arms with her eyes cast down, "I don't know what's right." She stopped there, as if she had actually given him something to work with, and he took a moment to wonder if she thought he actually could hear her thoughts, rather than just being very good at guessing them. Apparently, this was going to take more work than he had originally thought.
"Kat," he said gently, using his fingers under her chin to lift her face up to him so he could look her in the eyes, "whatever's wrong, no matter how bad, you can tell me. I'm your soft place to land, remember? Let me help."
He watched the struggle in her eyes, the indecision then she nodded, just once and very slight. Finally, he thought. "I told Tali I didn't know, I wasn't sure," as she paused, he looked a question at her, needing more clarification, "I don't know if the Geth should be reactivated."
Kaidan was stunned. This was not a view he expected from Shepard. The woman he knew supported life in all its iterations, took up arms in defense of any cause she found remotely worthy, and, for fuck's sake, even cried over dead fish. He knew full well that she considered Geth to be sentient life, and he wondered, not for the first time, how much her experience with that AI during the Crucible firing had changed her, in both blatant and subtle ways. Still, this was not just the woman he loved with every fiber of his being, this was the hero he had followed through thick and thin since he had met her. If she had doubts, he would honor her with the respect she had earned.
"Why," he asked her simply, probing once again to try to reach the center of this struggle.
"Wouldn't we be doing it all over again? Repeating the same mistakes?" she questioned him, doubt clear in her voice. "The child – AI – whatever – said that if we created synthetics again, the cycle would be doomed to repeat. I can't be responsible for that. It sucks that I killed the Geth," here, he saw clear confirmation that she had and still did consider the Geth to be 'alive,' "but plenty of other species have become extinct throughout history. Life moved on. What if reactivating the Geth eventually killed all life?"
Trust her to be worried about people who wouldn't be born for 50,000 years he thought. But, although he saw her point, he also saw the flaws in her logic. He knew if she wasn't recovering from massive trauma and suffering from a serious case of survivor's guilt, she would see them herself. But events had tempered her, caused her to doubt herself. It would be up to him to help her find the way now. He reached deep inside for the strength to say the things he was about to, knowing that it would wound both of them to think about, but he needed the hurt to make her see.
"Shepard," Kaidan began, his tone gentle but firm, "you died." He saw the shock in her eyes at his bald statement, and he too felt the pain and regret, "What would this world be like now if Cerberus hadn't brought you back?" A question he didn't think there was enough alcohol in the galaxy for him to truly ponder at length. "My point is, if you had stayed dead, none of us would be standing here now. And yes, Cerberus brought you back for a specific mission, but look at what you have accomplished since you defeated the Collectors. The peace you have brought, the enemies you have defeated. Would any of that have happened if you hadn't come back?" Kaidan raised a hand when he saw she would interrupt, "No, we don't know if someone else would have stepped in," although he sincerely doubted it, "but isn't that another point? We don't know."
He paused for a moment to lean down and gently kiss her, needing to reassure himself after talking about her death that she was, indeed standing before him, whole and alive. Then he continued, still in the soft and gentle tone he had used from the beginning.
"Do you know why we haven't buried my father yet?" he inquired softly. This too, would be a painful subject, but he'd gladly drag his pain out and display it if it would only help her.
She shook her head, pain on her face now, too, in sympathy for him, bringing her hand up to stroke his cheek. "We don't know - he's not dead," she said quietly, trying to offer him what comfort she could, even in the middle of her own crisis.
Kaidan smiled sadly, and told her, "We don't know he is. But the chances that he will be found alive after over 10 months MIA are slim. We both know that. But, we have hope. So we won't 'bury' him, won't declare him dead, until there is no hope remaining."
She nodded, understanding the truth of that. Still, she kept her hand on his cheek in comfort.
Kaidan turned his head and placed a soft kiss on her palm. "That's what makes us human. We have hope. That's what no AI, no matter how advanced, could be able to comprehend. That's why the child was wrong. Hope was not something it could calculate."
She looked at him, startled, and realized that she herself had tried to make that point when speaking to the AI child. This, then, was the crux of the matter. If she had hope, there was only one right solution.
He saw the change come over her gradually, as she processed his words, followed his logic. He saw the moment his Commander Shepard stood before him, tall and proud, and figured the Admirals were in for quite an earful. He couldn't wait to see it.