Chapter Title Inspiration: The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order: the continuous thread of revelation. —Eudora Welty
Chapter Notes: This takes place soon after the confrontation on Horizon, probably late that same night, or early the day after the Horizon encounter. Largely due to an accident of luck, it takes place almost immediately following the previous chapter of Parts Answering Parts. Slight Edit 8-5-10
The line "No body, no crime," is borrowed from an episode of Psych.
At some point in that long, awful night, she realized Kaidan hadn't been able to see past the Cerberus logo to the woman beneath because he'd never bothered—had he even ever tried?—to look beyond the stripe on her shoulder, or the Alliance N7 she'd always worn.
Well...the stripe was still there, but that clearly wasn't enough.
The realization didn't rush over her with a surge of shock, either.
It emerged slowly, drifting slowly to the center of her awareness, a submerged corpse bobbing to the surface. She'd seen the signs. Some part of her had even recognized them for what they were...ripples in the seemingly smooth surface of their attraction.
But she'd wanted to be wrong so badly...
She'd weighted the truth down and let it sink to the bottom of her mind, the pit of her stomach, and wedge there, hoping it might dissolve with time. No body, no crime.
It might even have worked...if things had been different. If she and Kaidan had ever gotten enough spare time away from the ship...away from their duties and responsibilities, away from the Alliance...he might actually have learned something about her, about Jane Shepard, as a woman. He might even have liked it.
But possible didn't mean probable.
It was far more likely Kaidan would have ignored anything that could taint, tarnish, crack, or even color the plaster saint in his head—in his heart. Probably to the extent he'd never have noticed there was even anything to avoid.
Whatever their differences were alike in that. And that, she thought wryly, was something—maybe the only thing—they had ever really shared.
The admission was bitter.
But...oddly enough...it was also almost...sweet...because Garrus was there, holding her hand.
They had always looked directly at one another...
Recognizing—acknowledging—the simple fact of something she had always taken for granted without regarding its rarity, without appreciating its implications...made her stop and notice how much of herself she'd unwittingly exposed...made her see—made her feel—herself to be vulnerable in his sights.
That was immensely comforting...
and insanely terrifying.
She suddenly felt a new appreciation, a new curiosity, a new guilt for the path the last two years had carved through the center of his life. If things had been reversed...
the thought alone made it difficult to breathe. But...if they had been...
she wondered if she could have broken even with him. It wouldn't—as he had said...and, oh, the tenor of his voice as he'd said it!—have been easy. No, not easy at all. Never easy.
And if she had managed some solace, some way to remember and to honor, some semblance of normalcy, some way to solider on...if her ship and her squad had provided her with that...Wrex or Liara or Kaidan or Tali—and how telling it was she would think of Wrex or Liara before Kaidan when it came to companionship, when it came to solace...
and Garrus, of course, Garrus before them all...
How could she have been so blind? Why hadn't she seen it before...before Ilos?
She knew why.
She'd been complicit.
But that wasn't the point.
The point was that if she had found some measure of peace in her friends, and if they too had died...if she felt she'd failed them...even if one of them hadn't betrayed her, betrayed the others...well...she would never have been the same.
Hell, come to think of it, that hadn't happened, and she already wasn't the same.
But, when all was said and done, she was beginning to think she might yet live to be damned grateful for that.