Catch-22
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Kaidan sat back and rubbed his eyes with the pads of his thumb and forefinger. Staring at data that made no sense was beginning to grate on his last nerve, and his eyes ached from staring too long at the various holos and data pads. He let out a sigh and dropped his hands to his lap.
Everything he thought he'd known…
After the initial shock of realizing who had attacked unarmed civilians – slaves! – Kaidan had asked to go over the information privately. Shepard had looked like she had shot and killed an innocent civilian, and Kaidan had been too shocked and angry to do much more than study the data, but as the hours passed, his boiling rage at the situation had reduced to a simmer. The shock had settled to the pit of his stomach in the form of apprehension.
Six hours of digging through the report Internal Affairs had written up along with nearly eight gigs of supporting data, and he was no closer to finding out why Rahna had changed her name – no, her whole damned identity – and snapped during a fairly routine raid than he had been when he first realized who it was that was staring back at him on the terminal in Shepard's quarters.
The raid had been routine but it hadn't been just a simple one. The Scorpions were first in during a raid on a major installation of a slaving ring run by a mostly batarian pirate gang called the Dark Talons within the Terminus Systems. And most of the info on Rahna was missing, other than her real last name and the link to Conatix – and subsequently to Kaidan.
Conveniently missing.
He'd read the one hundred page report three times. Shepard had defended herself against a mentally unstable weapon after said weapon killed six people and promptly attacked the squad when they tried to interfere. There hadn't been a choice, though there were several instances within the document that seemed to implicate Shepard had a strong dislike for biotics. Kaidan, even in a rage, had rolled his eyes at that. Shepard appeared to share his views of biotic extremists: Take them down before "normal" biotics got any more bad press. In all of the instances of finger pointing, the author had included notes several weeks later retracting her statements. Apparently the Internal Affairs operative had no idea that Shepard herself was a biotic. That, among several other inconsistencies, made Kaidan wonder just how accurate any of the report actually was. Shepard's own report even stated the Commander had had to use a biotic distortion attack against Rahna – Jones.
And that wasn't how he wanted to remember Rahna. He already had to remember her reaction to Vyrnuus, had to remember her reaction to Vyrnuus' death because he had been too stupid and idealistic. She had always been so gentle and charming. Knowing how she died… Hell, knowing that she was dead hurt just thinking about it.
Distortion attacks used undulating mass effect fields to shred objects. Not all biotics could do them, and not all biotics wanted to be able to do them. Right now, Kaidan didn't think Shepard would be able to execute one properly, not with her shoulder injury. They didn't take as much power or concentration as singularities, but the warping affect required the sync of the mutated nodes within the shoulder, forearm and hands. The initial buildup of the field began in the shoulder and progressed from there.
Kaidan propped his elbow on the armrest of the chair and rubbed absently at the stubble on his chin. An N4 sentinel but no records of her actually graduating the N program or attending boot camp, "Lieutenant Susan Jones" just seemed to appear one day with transfer paperwork from a fire team usually assigned to deep cover missions that infiltrated pirate gangs such as the Volpe Grisia or 10th Street Reds in the Local Cluster. Somewhere along the line she had gotten L3R implant surgery. And that was the rub. If she had indeed snapped, then the surgery would have had to have taken place afterwards. L3Rs were stable if they could survive the surgery; however, many ended up comatose or worse. Kaidan had heard horror stories about surgeries that were done by fly-by-night "surgeons" who had no business operating, let alone operating on anyone's brain.
There were enough red flags in the report that made him think she could have possibly been Black Ops. Had Rahna snapped or had she been placed in the Scorpions for a reason? Kaidan wondered, idly, if that was only wishful thinking on his behalf. That his mind didn't want to wrap around the fact that Rahna had changed her identity, quite possibly simply because she had hated her biotics, hated being an L2 because of what had happened on Jump Zero.
There were two training bases for the N marine program, one on Luna and one on Arcturus Station. It could have been that Rahna's records were still under lock and key because of her deep cover missions, but there wasn't a damn thing in anything Kaidan had read to indicate "Lieutenant Susan Jones" had existed prior to being assigned to Shepard's team. And Shepard had had to kill her. There was no way to find out if she had really snapped or if she was Black Ops.
He swallowed, his eyes unwillingly travelling to the data pad with Jones' image. To the woman Rahna had become. Had he…? He stopped that thought before it began with a shake of his head and stood up not bothering to study the image that was still on the screen. It was bad enough that she'd never forgiven him for accidentally killing Vyrnuus. Blaming himself for Rahna becoming an unstable L2 wasn't going to get him anywhere.
Making his across the corridor and into the galley, his stomach growled loudly reminding him to eat. He fixed himself some chow, ate quickly without really tasting it and left, stopping in front of Shepard's door. The last time he'd seen her, he'd been short with her – unbecoming of a subordinate.
Raking a hand through his hair, he went over the possibility of her reaming him out for the lack of respect. Kaidan thought he deserved it, would have reamed out one of his subordinates were it to happen to him, but… did he really want to face her right now? He licked his lips and squared his shoulders. It was best to get it over with now. Let her say how disappointed she was in his behavior and how it was going to affect his next Eval.
Damn.
His Eval.
Kaidan inwardly cringed. He'd crossed two lines in less than a week. "Flirting with CO" was high on the list of Things Not To Do in the Military. It went hand-in-hand with "Do Not Piss Off Your CO," "Do Not Disrespect Superiors," "Do Not Be A Dick And Get Your Squadmate Killed," and "Do Not Fart (Loudly) At Award Ceremonies."
What had happened to the level-headed staff lieutenant with the dozen special commendations? Yeah, it was personal, but it was his own damn fault that he let it get that way instead of…
Shit.
He passed his hand over the biometric on Shepard's door determined to set the record straight and fix things and hoped beyond hope there was some way to salvage the situation.
"Commander?" He stepped through the door as it slid open.
His eyes widened when Shepard moved quickly to make herself presentable, turning away from him without a sound. It wasn't that there had been anything to see – she had been unbuttoning her blouse and hadn't gotten very far – it was that he'd walked in on her undressing to begin with. The door had already shut behind Kaidan as he hurriedly apologized for intruding.
She shook her head, not turning to face him. "Don't," she told him shortly, seemingly struggling with her blouse. Her injured arm and hand were fairly useless encased as they were in a sling, not to mention the nerve damage in her shoulder kept her from wiggling her fingers too much. She grumbled something under her breath that didn't quite reach Kaidan's ears. It sounded like she was cursing for having an open door policy, but it could have easily been her cursing him for opening the door.
"I'll come back later, ma'am," he told her. Another line crossed, he thought morosely. Three times in a week.
She gave a mirthless laugh and turned around, loosely clutching the top of her blouse together between the fingers and thumb of her good hand. Only the top two buttons were unbuttoned, but it was enough to make her uncomfortable in his presence. Her expression was that of annoyed tolerance.
"Check my bandages," she ordered, surprising the hell out of him. "I'm having… difficulties doing it myself." Shepard frowned.
Kaidan blinked, his mind immediately tuning into the task at hand. He stepped forward. "When was the last time –"
"Dr. Chakwas checked them before we left," she told him sitting in the chair closest to him as he gaped at her. "We misjudged how long the flight was gonna be. Thought I could hold out, but I'm not sure that that's a good idea." She looked up at him, her face carefully blank. "I cannot wait to be healed."
"I hear that," he told her. He picked up the medical kit and rummaged through it for the ultrasound device in case she still had medi-gel patches under the bandages. "Any medi-gel?" he asked when he couldn't readily find one.
"Just at the wound sites," she told him. "Ultrasound's on the table if that's what you're looking for."
He grunted, looking at the device next to her. She had already laid out everything she needed. "Thanks."
He couldn't check Shepard's bandages properly without completely removing her shirt. Steeling himself, he turned to her and reached out. She dropped her hand into her lap to allow him access. Kaidan's fingers worked the buttons open exposing her dog tags as he worked his way down. His brown eyes met her copper ones. The overhead lighting gave her eyes a golden green hue.
Swallowing, his eyes darted back to where his fingers had stilled. "I, uh, I can't do much without taking off your shirt," he told her unnecessarily, then paused again when he realized that she wasn't wearing a bra.
"I'm sure you'll be professional about it," she quipped, laughter in her voice.
"If I can keep my eyes off your breasts, then yeah, I'd be..." He stopped talking, his fingers stilling on the button in between her breasts, when his brain actually caught up to what had spilled out of his mouth.
She stiffened.
His cheeks burned.
Oh. God.
He looked at Shepard's face again. She was blinking at him, her face flushed. Kaidan wanted to run to the airlock and space himself.
Oh. My. God.
"Might as well finish that sentence, Lieutenant," she told him after a moment of staring at him.
His face was on fire. He took a breath and obeyed her order. "Very professional," he said.
"Ma'am," he added belatedly.
She only nodded at him.
"In my defense," he said sheepishly, "that was supposed to be a joke."
"The punch line was a little dry," she quipped, recovering, her face no longer as red.
"I did manage to dig myself into hole," he said somewhat reluctantly. "I seem to do that a lot around you, ma'am."
To Kaidan's horror, she raised an eyebrow and asked, "How deep will you bury yourself if you continue talking, Lieutenant?"