Bioware's toys. I'm just borrowing them.

Chapter 29

He Said

I looked up at her. "Then I want to show you something."

Her big blue eyes blinked, "Uh, all right." I stood up and took her hand in mine and led her to my console. I waited for her to sit in my chair and the screen flickered to life at the motion in front of it. She stared at it blankly and I was reminded at how adorable I usually found her inability to deal with anything remotely technical.

I pointed to the last few lines of the code on the screen. "That, when I execute it, will take over the Concord. That," I pointed at a part further up, "will lead your techs down rabbit holes that will distract them until the master code does its job. I don't think even your geth could chase them all down and eliminate them before the master code went into effect." I dropped my hand back to my side and waited.

She didn't take her eyes from the screen, "Why are you showing me this? Why didn't you just use it?"

I crouched down and with my hand on her chin, I turned her to face me. "Because I'm tired of not trusting you. At some point, one of us will have to make the first step. It might as well be me."

She smiled at me, sadly, "I was planning on letting you take your ship back over if you wanted. I can't fight with you any more, either. I'd find a different way to stop the Reapers. One that wouldn't harm you. But I can't quit trying to stop them." Her eyes were steady on mine. They'd gone to the cold blue that meant she was withdrawing.

"I'm not asking you to, Avery."

Her shoulders slumped and she looked away from me. "I'm not going to ask you not to use that program. I won't even warn my team you're going to use it. It's entirely up to you. I don't know where to go from here, Kaidan."

I nodded and stood up. She rose and gathered the remains of the meal that neither of us had actually paid attention to eating. "Give me a reason not to use it, Avery. Trust me back."

She paused on her way to the door and looked over her shoulder at me. "I'm not going to give you a reason, Kaidan. You want me to trust you, I trust you. If you think I need to be stopped in this quest, that I've lost perspective that badly, then use your code. If you really think I'm no better than Cerberus, then take the Concord back." The door closed behind her.

When Shepard left, taking the remains of our dinner, I sat back down at my console and stared at the program I'd written. All I had to do was hit "execute," and I'd have her cornered. But that wouldn't be trusting her. I put my face in my hands. Could I really consider a Council Spectre to be an enemy combatant from whom I needed to escape at all costs? Could I really continue hurting any chance we had at a future together by not taking this step to trust her now?

Did I really need to stop her? Stop her from what, exactly? Other than taking her funding from Cerberus, she'd seemed to have taken her ship from them and run at the first opportunity. We were in this mess right now because she needed her ship back. But the ends don't justify the means. Not even in the face of a galaxy-wide apocalypse. But what had her ends been? Taking money from a terrorist group that had once been part of the Alliance in order to stop colonial abductions? The same terrorist group that had apparently resurrected her? I may have done the same thing in her circumstances.

But Vakarian was right. She was growing more obsessed. This quest to stop the Reapers would use her up if she wasn't careful. Something in me wanted to save her from that fate. I wanted to help her find something else to live for, now that she'd been resurrected, than stopping those machines. I shut down my monitor.

I sat in my chair for a while, staring at absolutely nothing, trying to think around the problem. Was I really arrogant enough to think I could help her? Was there anyone else she'd let try? Yes and no. I'm not even sure she'd let me try. I stood up to pace, weighing the best course of action. I rarely did anything on impulse. The last impulsive thing I did was knock on my CO's door four hours before a suicide mission.

I take that back. The last impulsive thing I did was yell at her on Horizon. I clenched my fist and turned on my heel to pace back toward my bed. "Commander Avery Shepard, Captain of the Normandy, first human Spectre, Savior of The Citadel. You're in the presence of a legend, Delan. And a ghost." I'd been surprised at the time to get the words out of my throat. It had felt tight, like I was breathing through a straw.

She wasn't my enemy. She was a Council Spectre. And a damned good one. She needed me on her side and I was letting my suspicious mind get in the way. But, she stole my ship. Right out from under me. Could I really just let that go?

"I thought you were dead, Shepard, we all did." I closed my eyes, my memory of Horizon warring with the images from that OSD. She was dead. She'd tried to tell me. But I hadn't believed her. Who comes back from the dead? Especially after after all that time?

"I spent the past two years believing you were dead. I thought we had something Shepard, something real. I loved you, thinking you were dead tore me apart. How could you put me through that? Why didn't you try to contact me?" I winced at my own words that I remembered with perfect clarity. She'd tried to explain. She'd tried to reason with me as best she could with her Cerberus keepers looking over her shoulder. "Why didn't you let me know you were alive?"

I'd felt like a jackass after. When I'd thought about what she'd said. Her attempts to explain. And how I ran right over them. I'd assumed she'd lied to me and hid from me. For two years. The rumors I'd heard before being assigned to Horizon had infuriated me. They'd made me so very angry that yet again, someone was pissing on her memory.

And then they were true. And she was standing in front of me. Begging me with those big blue eyes to trust her. And I didn't. Instead, the first time I tell her I love her, it's in the past tense and with hatred in my voice. I sat down on the bed and put my head in my hands. "You turned your back on everything we believed in. You betrayed the Alliance, you betrayed me." My own words made my stomach twist.

She hadn't though. The Alliance had turned its back on her first. Almost the minute she was declared Killed In Action, she stopped being their recruitment poster. She stopped being the Hero of the Citadel and was quietly forgotten, her warnings about the coming danger swept under the proverbial carpet. And I had had to watch it happen. Anderson hadn't been any happier, so when I requested an assignment to get me away from the fleet and the Citadel and everything that reminded me of those strong fingers, those blue eyes, the bottle blonde hair, he understood.

And then, her haircolor was different, she had new scars, her eyes carried more pain than anyone person should ever bear and there at the spaceport on the colony world, I yelled at her. But she was still Avery. Still my Shepard. And I did everything but spit on her boots. Hell, I'd tried to date; no other woman could compete with Avery Diana Shepard, but I had to try to move on. I scrubbed my face and glanced at the chrono on the wall. It was late. If I was going to do anything, now would be a good time. Something pink caught my eye as I stared at the timepiece. I stood up and walked over to the wall. There, stuck behind the chrono and wedged against the bulkhead was that stupid pink thong we'd never been able to find. I smiled and pulled it out of its hiding spot, trying to not think about that night too much or I'd be unable to leave my cabin for awhile.

She hadn't done it to spite me. She did it out of desperation, out of her obsession. If I let loose that worm, I'd be doing it now out of pettiness. It would be out of a desire to get back at her for her mutiny. She hadn't slept with me to distract me from her plans, she'd made love to me because she loved me. Because she needed me to touch her as much as I needed her to touch me.

God help me, I was going to trust her and hope she wasn't just cutting corners. And I was going to help her avoid cutting them in the future. I shoved the tiny pink thong in my pocket. I needed to find her and talk to her. I needed to tell her I wasn't going to run my program after all.

I found her leaning against the mess table, the drell assassin Thane Krios next to her. He heard me coming and their conversation broke off abruptly. He stood up and bowed slightly to her, his palms together and turned and walked away. She turned to look at me and smiled and I forgot about the drell.

I stopped in front of her, "I, uh, didn't do it. And I won't. But I need to know, what did you do with my crew?"

Her smile widened. "They're comfortable. But the Alliance won't be able to find them. They're in a secure location. I'd tell you, but it's not my secret to tell."

"Oh. Who's is it?"

"Liara's." She glanced away at the expression on my face. "I'll ask her to tell you. That's all I can do. Just please trust me when I say that they're safe. Your XO, your pilot and your engineer are still here, though. Joker's at the helm right now."

I had to chuckle at the last comment, "Let me guess, she's not the Normandy."

"He points this out to me frequently. Right before he orders me to find him his ship." She rolled her eyes.

"Can I at least see where you've got my crew?" I asked.

She nodded, "We'll talk to Liara in the morning. But we can't stay here for much longer. We narrowed down the Normandy's probable location to five systems."

Then she'd leave. I shut down that thought. That wasn't something to think about right now. "Five is a good place to start. Maybe I can help?"

Her eyes lit up, "I was afraid you'd never ask. You can at least help break the tie."

"Tie?"

She smirked, "Garrus, Miranda, Jacob and Liara all picked a different system. I'm holding a meeting in the morning with the whole team to see if I can get some sort of consensus."

I glanced around the empty mess, "That sounds difficult with your group of rampant individualists."

"Herding cats, Kaidan."

I had to laugh at that. Her eyes widened, "God, I've missed that sound."

I blinked at her, "What sound?"

Her hand tentatively reached out to cup my jaw, "Your laugh. Your voice. You." Her cool fingers lightly brushed against my skin, rasping along my stubble, reminding me I hadn't shaved that morning for the first time in a long time. Migraines and the woman in front of me tended to make me forget little things like that. I turned my chin into her hand and brushed my lips against her thumb, keeping my eyes locked with hers. She missed me. Her breath caught in her throat. "Is that really a good idea, Kaidan?"

"I just kissed your hand, Shepard. I'm not clubbing you over the head to drag back to my bunk."

She laughed and I realized it was a sound I'd missed, too. "You wouldn't even have to club me over the head." Still leaning against the table, she pulled me toward her. I lifted her slightly to sit on the table and she pulled me closer, wrapping her arms around me, pulling me to stand between her legs. I put my arms around her waist, staring down into her upturned face.

"I wouldn't? That's good to know." I'd been so angry with her when the day started. And now, holding her, having thought about what was between us all day, I felt it drain away and I leaned my cheek against her forehead where her head was tucked under my chin. I didn't want to move from this spot. This one spot where we were whole.