Chapter 6 - Found then Lost Again
Eternity's Struggle

Eternity's Struggle, the sequel to A Glimpse of Eternity, is a complication of short stories, letters and life-snapshots that are sprinkled throughout the events of Mass Effect 2 following both Commander Kiara Shepard and Kaidan Alenko. While they're in chronological order, its not the complete storyline of the whole of Shepard's missions as she prepares, then faces, the Collectors. There will be SPOILERS. Please read the Eternity Series - Disclaimer for more general information.

Disclaimer: I own only the parts of the individual personality of Commander Kiara Shepard I have developed inspired by the Commander Shepard in the gameplay. I do not own, nor hold any rights, to any of the characters, dialogue, storylines or any part in or of the "Mass Effect" game series. I want to thank Drew Karpyshyn and his staff of amazing writers, animators and voice actors. These are for fan enjoyment only and no money had been made on these stories.

The colony was under attack. The Collectors had come and were mid-harvest when they arrived. Though she fought hard, killing any Collectors she came across, a part of her heart clenched in fear. Where was Kaidan? Had he been taken by the Collectors? Fear turned to anger the further through the colony they worked, Garrus and Jack watching her back. Her anger and worry drove her, pushed her. If they had taken Kaidan, she would move heaven and galaxy to find him and she knew when she did, every last Collector she found would die a slow and painful death. She would find him. She had to find him.

Hold on Kaidan, I'm coming... she thought to herself as they continued to push through the colony.

Damn Collectors.

Damn Reapers.

They would pay.

Kaidan watched as his body remained frozen in some kind of stasis as swarms of insects ravaged the colony. Aliens descended and fury built up within him but there was nothing he could do. Like the other colonists, he was immobile but fully aware.

He watched everything within his field of vision, analyzing and learning everything he could as colonists one by one were loaded into pods. He had to find a way to break free but there was no way. He was trapped and the aliens were starting to work their way towards him, collecting the frozen colonists and putting them away in pods.

Suddenly something halted the aliens as they stopped what they were doing and began to move quickly to another side of the camp. Sounds of weapons fire reached his ears from the far side of the colony. Cerberus, no doubt. He'd been sent here on reports that Cerberus might be behind the attacks on the colonies.

At least he doubted they were working with these aliens. Cerberus was as "strictly human for humans" as an organization could get. Unless the Alliance somehow got tipped off about the attack in time, he doubted it could be them. That left Cerberus as one of the few remaining options.

Held in stasis, he listened intently as sounds of battle drew closer. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw one of the aliens go flying, a biotic shockwave propelling it through the air. More of the aliens amassed, backing up as they fired on the assailants closing in on their position.

Whoever they were, they were precise and efficient. Powerful too, if that biotic shockwave was any indication. Suddenly a rush of blue energy propelled forward with a person at its center towards one of the aliens. It moved with fury as surged across the path, lunged onto a crate then launched off it, coming down into the creature. He watched out of the corner of his eye. As the person was coming down, fist ready to smash into its face, his heart stopped.

Was that…? No, it couldn't be.

She landed with force as her fist came down, her whole body radiating with a powerful biotic field, as its head exploded under the impact. She was quick to recover as she rolled off the alien and drew out a pistol, moving for cover as she resumed fire on the enemy forces.

The way she moved and crouched, ducked the fire and shot off rounds, left no doubt in his mind who it was.

Shepard.

His heart threw somersaults while simultaneously tightening in his chest. She was dead. He still remembered Joker screaming her name the moment she was lost. For two years he'd mourned her, trying moving on, burying himself in his work. Yet there she was, fighting as if nothing had happened and nothing had changed. As if she was still the same woman she had been two years ago.

The rumors she was alive had been right and that created a swirling mixture of emotion within him he couldn't process. He'd been prepared for a lot of things, including Cerberus using her memory as a weapon. He even considered the possibility of a mech with a high-tech VI module running around pretending to be her. Watching her as she moved, there was no doubting she was the real deal.

Why hadn't she contacted him? Why hadn't he heard from her? Where had she been? She didn't look like she was with Cerberus as she fought the aliens. At least that was a small miracle. Clearly the reports had been wrong.

Trapped as he was, all he had were his thoughts and questions as he saw her and her team push through the aliens. All too soon she'd cleared them and continued working her way through the colony until they rounded a corner and disappeared from view. He recognized one of the members of her team. Garrus. So that's where he'd disappeared off to.

It made his chest ache more. She'd reached out to Garrus but not him. Had he been wrong about them? About what they were? He shook the thoughts from his head. Speculating wasn't going to do anything but make a mess. Knowing Shepard, she was going to stop this attack and then…then they'd be able to talk.

Then he'd get answers.

Once more, his entire universe was turned upside down.

After a long grueling fight through Horizon, Shepard's team finally made it to the terminal to activate the GARDIAN defenses. After holding off the Collectors from their assault, the defense towers finally did enough damage to the ship that they'd left. She cursed they weren't able to disable them permanently and rescue the colonists on board. How many of the colony had they abducted? Did they have more from other colonies aboard?

A thought she'd been suppressing tore through her mind. Was Kaidan one of the colonists on board? She hadn't found him yet as they'd swept the colony and it created a deeply seated anxiety in her chest. Was Kaidan alright? Was he even alive?

The grating voice of the mechanic rang through her thoughts as he cursed them for letting the Collectors get away. She knew how he felt though it was Garrus who responded. When he called her Shepard, that seemed to get the mechanic's attention. He smirked and asked if she was supposed to be some 'big Alliance hero'.

"Commander Shepard. Commander of the Normandy. The first human Spectre. Savior of the Citadel. You're in the presence of a legend, Delan. And a ghost."

She heard the voice and dared to hope the man whom it belong to was really there. When he came around the container, she swore her heart stopped beating for a moment.

Kaidan.

His voice, a low coarse timbre that send a shiver down her spine and sent her heart soaring with happiness and elation. He was alive and he hadn't been taken by the Collectors. Standing there, even as he spoke to the mechanic about her, she couldn't take her eyes off him. The last two years were written on his face in tired life-worn lines, but beneath them was still the man who'd stolen her heart and taken her breath away...her Kaidan.

Tears of happiness threatened to fill her eyes but she held them at bay. No matter how good it was to see him, she couldn't let it show. Not with her team at her back and a stranger in front of her. Her heart and stomach turned somersaults within her but nothing could get her to break her gaze from his.

She hardly noticed as Delan muttered something about being done with the Alliance and walked off. She was aware of her surroundings, of course, but none of it matter. They'd found each other again.

He stepped closer and after a brief moment, he opened his arms and she moved into them. It took everything she could not to let tears of relief fall as she held onto him tight, breathing in his scent and the warmth of him. Spices and metal. Some things never changed. Closing her eyes, she savored the moment for everything it was worth. Her heart that had ached now felt whole and it was as if a part of her, a part of her soul, had been returned to her.

Kaidan couldn't believe it was really her as he held her, the familiar feel of her body fitting to the shape of his. The scent of lilacs rushed his nose as he buried his face into her neck and reveled in the relief at her being alive and once more in his arms. He'd never thought he'd get the chance to hold her again, to feel her warmth. It was like a dream he never wanted to wake up from but he knew it wasn't a dream. Not this time. This time she was real.

Her arms tightened around him even more as she buried her face in the crook of his neck and she felt his do the same.

"I thought you were dead, Shepard. We all did," he said, a soft murmur at her ear. She could hear the emotion and the pain heavy in his tone as he clung to her, his arms tightening around her for a brief moment. Slowly he pulled away and though the loss of the feel of him wracked her to her very core, she released him as well and took a deep breath as she looked at him again, her eyes meeting with those amber orbs of his.

There was so much she wanted to tell him. So much she wanted to say. Still, remembering her crew at her back, she knew now wasn't the time. It wasn't the time for Kiara to speak everything she wanted to speak. It was the time for Commander Shepard. Later she would get her chance to speak to him privately.

"It's been too long, Kaidan. How have you been?" She said with a smirk of a smile, hoping he'd see the words for what they truly were. Hoping he'd see how much she'd missed him but knowing that it would be later they could talk more openly. She hoped he would read between the lines as he'd always been able to do.

She couldn't have prepared herself for his actual reaction. Instead of understanding, she was met with upset and anger.

"That's all you have to say? You show up after two years and just act like nothing happened?" he looked at her with such hurt in his eyes, such pain. The happiness of the reunion was over and instead, she saw in his gaze the pain the last two years had brought him.

He stepped forward closer to her, his voice dropping slightly, "I thought we had something, Shepard. Something real. I...I loved you." His words hit her like a bullet to the heart. Loved? Past tense. Had his feelings changed? The pain in his gaze only grew as he looked deep into hers, "Thinking you were dead tore me apart."

Sadness and pain mingled with anger as he looked at her, leaning towards her, "How could you put me through that? Why didn't you try to contact me? Why didn't you let me know you were alive?" Kaidan knew he should have given her a chance to speak but all of sudden, it had all come pouring out. Though she'd held him tight, the distance he heard in her words when they parted had cut him to the quick.

Like the flip of a switch, her own happiness had turned to pain and sadness but with his words, anger mingled with her emotions as well. Why hadn't she try to contact him? Why hadn't she let him know she was alive? She had! She had written him numerous times telling him what was going on, that she was alive, that she missed him. That she loved him. She'd tried to find him, tried to find a way to reach out to him when she could but she'd been in a coma, if it could be called that, for two years. Wasn't it enough she'd tried to find him the whole time since she woke?

"Not my choice! I spent the last two years in some kind of coma while Cerberus rebuilt me," she said, trying to reign in her emotions. She hoped he would see. She hoped he would understand.

His expression changed at her words, and once again where she expected one emotion, she got a different one. Pain and anger grew pale next to look of disgust and betrayal that wrote itself into his features and filled his gaze. She had never thought to ever see that look on his face directed at her. It cut her deeper than anything could.

"You're with Cerberus now..." he said as if he couldn't quite believe it, though the words that came from his lips were heavy with that statement as he stepped away from her. "...Garrus too. I can't believe the reports were right..." he shook his head in disbelief, his gaze remaining fixed hard on hers.

As much as she wanted to look away, to look at something else other than the way he looked at her, she couldn't.

"Reports? You mean you already knew?" Garrus asked from behind her, reminding Shepard of him and Jack at her back.

Kaidan didn't break his gaze from Shepard's, "Alliance intel thought Cerberus might be behind the missing human colonies. They got a tip this colony might be the next one to get hit. Anderson stonewalled me, but there were rumors that you weren't dead. That you were working for the enemy."

"Cerberus and I want the same thing: to save our colonies. That doesn't mean I answer to them," she defended, trying with everything she could to not let her voice come across harsh. How could he think she would ever, willingly, work for Cerberus? He knew her better than anyone, knew her deepest thoughts. She had thought him, of all people, would've know she was using them.

"Do you really believe that? Or is that just what Cerberus wants you to think?" he asked with a harshness he didn't try to hold back, stepping forward towards her in his anger. His gaze searched hers, "I wanted to believe the rumors that you were alive, but I never expected anything like this. You turned your back on everything we believed in. You betrayed the Alliance..." For the briefest of moments the contempt wavered as pain came into his amber depths, "...you betrayed me."

Her heart ached and warred with her own anger as she stepped forward, pleading inside that he would understand what she was doing, "Kaidan, you know me. You know I'd only do this for the right reason. You saw it yourself. The Collectors are targeting human colonies and they're working with the Reapers."

Kaidan's demeanor shifted a bit as contempt turned to concern, though still his distain for Cerberus rippled through him, "I want to believe you, Shepard. But I don't trust Cerberus. They could be using the threat of a Reaper to manipulate you." He took a half of a step forward, "What if they're behind it? What if they're working with the Collectors?"

"Damn it, Kaidan! You're so focused on Cerberus that you're ignoring the real threat!" Garrus ground out behind Shepard, his own anger and frustration rising.

Kaidan hadn't said anything she hadn't already thought of but she knew, deep down, the Reapers were involved. Garrus only reinforced the point she was trying to make and it gave her strength to push forward, "You're letting how you feel about their history get in the way of the facts.

"Maybe. Or maybe you feel like you owe Cerberus because they saved you. Maybe you're the one who's not thinking straight," Kaidan said, the contempt returning and mingling with so many more emotions that swirled inside him. She knew it, she could see them all. He'd always been transparent to her, as she knew she had been to him. Or, at least, she thought she had been.

"You've changed. But I still know where my loyalties lie. I'm an Alliance soldier. Always will be. I've got to report back to the Citadel. They can decide if they believe your story or not," Kaidan said as he turned to walk away. The movement sent a thread of panic running through her that she fought hard to not let show. He couldn't leave! He couldn't go. Not after all this time, not after everything that had changed. She needed him. There was still so much to say, so much he needed to hear. She loved him!

"I could use someone like you in my crew, Kaidan. It'll be just like old times," she said, taking a step forward. Though her words were that of a Commander, she did everything she could to convey that it was her, Kiara, pleading with everything she was for him to stay. From him, she didn't hide the pain at the thought of losing him again as she looked at him.

He stopped walking away and stood there for a moment, his back still turned to her. Hope she scarce wanted to feel sparked in her heart. Would he come with her? Would he come to understand what it was she was doing? That she wasn't working for Cerberus but using them, their resources, to do what the Citadel, the Council...even the Alliance wouldn't do?

"No, it won't. I'll never work for Cerberus," he turned then, looking to her. In that moment, with that look, the spark of hope extinguished in her breast and a pain, so deep and so strong, coursed through her like nothing in her life. She knew his next words before he spoke them.

"Goodbye, Shepard. And be careful."

She felt like she had been shot through the heart, like her world had come crashing down and exploded all around her. Tears threatened to overwhelm her as he turned and walked away, her breath stealing from her lungs as her chest clenched in pain. She couldn't breathe.

It was the smell of the acrid smoke and the bodies of the Collectors all around her which pulled her from her grief as Kaidan rounded a corner and disappeared. She couldn't process it all in that moment. Later, in private she would, but not there. Not then.

Touching the com at her ear, "Joker - send the shuttle to pick us up. I've had enough of this colony."

After that, it all went grey. Her movements were automated, her thoughts swirling and replaying what happened over and over again in her head. Eating her. Tormenting her.

Did I just lose him for good? she thought as she boarded the shuttle and headed back to the Normandy.