Chapter 32

He Said

I stared at her, my stomach dropping into my boots. She had to be kidding, bringing that up now. What was she trying to accomplish? The Avery I remembered never had a hidden agenda and couldn't even play Skyllian Five, she was so terrible at bluffing. Had she changed to become more cold-hearted? I still didn't trust her. Was she manipulating me? Taking advantage of my desperately wanting in her pants? Wake up next to her in the morning? Hell, yes. Trust her to tell me the truth or even all of her plans? No. I stood up and avoided looking into her questioning blue eyes. "No. You don't get to say that." I'd come to terms with her never having faked her death, but then to have her say shit like this?

I didn't have to turn to know she was staring at me, her eyes wide. "Uh, what the hell, Kaidan?"

"The minute I start to forgive you for this... mess... we're in, you pull something else out of thin air."

She stood up and grabbed my arm to turn me toward her. "What am I making up now, Kaidan?"

"You can't just dump bombshells like that, Avery!" I almost shouted. But an awareness that her team might be standing with their ears pressed to the door kept me from it. "And stop trying to protect me, dammit!" I turned away from the flash of hurt in her eyes. I had to get out of that room, though. I told her I'd never leave her again, but this wasn't leaving. This was needing space. This was necessary to keep from doing something I'd regret. I heard the door swish shut and I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall, breathing deeply to calm the fact that my heart was racing. How could she get under my skin so thoroughly and so fast? I pushed myself off the wall and almost sprinted to my quarters.

I got in and locked the door behind me. I had no desire to let her walk in right now. Besides, from my spike in blood pressure a few minutes ago, I saw the warning halo of a migraine in the periphery of my vision. I ordered the lights dimmed and threw myself on my bed to think. Why the hell did my sheets still smell like her? Like us? I got up and went to sit in a chair, only to realize it was the chair. I moved to sit at my desk. Why the hell couldn't I separate how I felt about her and how much I wanted her from anything else in my life? When she was near, my resolve crashed and my brains dribbled out of my ears like the gelatin they physically resembled. She kept reminding me of everything I'd ever hoped for once upon a time. Family, children, normalcy. Love.

I still really wanted to have her six, and I would, for the moment. I missed being there, that wasn't a lie, to her or myself. But was it really enough? I kept coming back to the fact that she mutinied against me because she didn't trust me, and then she tried to protect me because she still didn't trust me, but yet wanted me to trust her. Was she right in not trusting me with her plans? No, she wasn't. She hadn't even given me a chance to figure out what to do with Hackett's orders. I'd never even gotten to respond. But, honestly, would I have told Hackett to shove it and hijacked my own ship myself? I scrubbed my face with my hands. I'd gone around and around with this ever since she'd let me out of my quarters and trusted me not to take over The Concorde. Would I have disobeyed direct orders to help her?

That was the problem. I didn't know the answer to that question. I dropped my head into my hands. The broken trust between us lay in pieces on the deck plating like a disassembled drive core. I didn't know if I had the instruction manual to put it back together. "The only thing that made dying bearable was knowing you survived." Goddammit. I had to take meds to make my brain shut up to sleep and keep the migraine at bay. Of course, it did nothing for the nightmares.

For the next two days, I did my best to avoid her. I ran my ship as best I could with the limited crew I had. Fortunately, Shepard seemed to have given her people instructions to follow my orders as captain. Even the mouthy tattooed girl they called Jack did what I asked. I found myself surprised by that given her attitude on the mission to rescue Shepard and Lawson.

By avoiding Shepard and speaking to her only when our jobs required it, the trip to Caleston managed to be completely uneventful. For which I was grateful. She seemed to be attempting to avoid me as much as I was trying to avoid her. Every time I'd pass Joker, though, he'd roll his eyes at me. I had brought my dinner to my cabin to go over the readiness reports the night before we were due to arrive in order to look them over without interruption. Shepard's team might treat me with respect, but that didn't mean I was one of them. I didn't hold it against them. After all, I'd yelled at their fearless leader and left her to go through hell while they'd stood behind her. It didn't matter to them what my reasons had been. The only ones who didn't were Tali and Garrus, but they were still part of that team while I wasn't.

So, I worked. I didn't mind. Though I missed that year we hunted Saren, not the actual hunt itself, of course, but the camaraderie, the teamwork. Until I dozed off.

"Kaidan. Go." She stood tall and strong in that armor. Invincible. I watched her head for Joker and I turned and ran for the escape pod. I sat in that pod, confident and foolish. When I heard Joker's mayday, I wanted to curse that man. He needed to get to a pod. I think we all sat there, listening to the static-y comms as Shepard coaxed Joker to leave the Normandy.

"C'mon, baby. Hold together, hold together!"

Shepard's voice was next, confident, authoritative. "Come on, Joker! We have to get out of here!"

"No! I won't abandon the Normandy! I can still save her!" I shook my head. Joker was going to get himself killed.

Shepard's voice was gentle, if exasperated. "The Normandy's lost. Going down with the ship won't change that."

There was a brief silence. I imagined Joker looking up into those blue eyes. "Yeah... okay. Help me up." There silence on the comms, then. Just the sound of Joker's yelp as I imagine Avery forewent gentleness for expediency and dead lifted him. I almost laughed. I glanced around the pod and found more than a few grins. Grins that quickly disappeared at Joker's strangled exclamation, "They're coming around for another attack!" Shepard grunted with effort. I assumed she shoved Joker into the pod. "Shepard, c'mon! Hurry!"

I heard the impact first, muffled slightly through the comms. Avery's soft curse as she bounced off something. Then Joker shouting, "Shepard! Commander! Goddammit, Shepard, answer me!" Before I'd known what I was doing, I'd unbuckled the harness and shot to my feet in the cramped confines of the pod.

"Shepard!" I put my hand to my helmet, not really thinking about much beyond trying to get a clear transmission. "Shepard! What happened? Shepard?"

"Kaidan, I -" She was panting, gasping for air. Oh, God, no.

"Shepard!" I found myself at the airlock door to the pod, straining to see through the tiny round window.

I could hear gasping over the link. My eyes strained to find her out there in the black. She was too tiny, the ship now too far away. I stared at the Normandy in her death throes, my stomach twisting at the sound of Avery's labored breathing.

"Shepard, please, God, no!" Joker's voice. I'd forgotten about him.

"Shepard," I shouted, my voice raw as if I'd been screaming. "Shepard! Can you hear me? Focus on my voice. Help is coming!" She wheezed and coughed.

"Kaidan-" The comms chose that moment to cut out. I felt like I was on fire, every nerve ending screaming in agony for her.

"Shepard!"

My own shout woke me with a start and I sat up shaking my head to clear it. I'd relived her death so many other times since she'd been taken from me. It had been my only companion every night for a year, after all. Since I'd found out she was alive, I'd managed to shut it down, unless it was in a nightmare - I think the first time in two years I hadn't had that nightmare was the night she spent in my quarters. Having her in front of me, living, breathing, had dulled the pain, but her comment about her death had apparently reopened the lock and that memory had been coming back and invading almost every spare moment and keeping me awake when I should have been sleeping. Again. Had I really believed she'd faked her own death after that? Avery just wasn't that good at subterfuge. But, a small part of me acknowledged, it was easier to believe she'd lied than had actually been taken from me in the most final way possible.

And I owed a terrorist organization for bringing her back to me. Ironic.

I scrubbed my face in irritation and got up to go to bed. I'd so far managed to forgive her her mutiny. Or had I? At the moment, I didn't feel as if I'd forgiven her, I still felt very angry with her when I thought about it for too long. And then worry would replace the anger. And then I'd get angry again. Avery had a talent for doing that to me. I rolled over on my side and resorted to a meditation technique so I could sleep.

I was woken by Shepard over the in-ship comms. Unlike the last time her voice woke me, she wasn't warning me of stealing my command out from under me. "We're on approach to the Balor system.

"Cerberus wants to count us out. They want to control us and dictate to us. They think they own us.

"We're going to prove them wrong. We're going to prove that we will not roll over and take what they give us any more. There's too much at stake here to be ruled by the petty whims of a petty man. There's too much at stake to answer to one individual. So, here and now, we tell Cerberus: no more.

"The Normandy is not just a ship. She's a weapon. She's our best defense. And in some cases, our friend. Those bastards think they can take her away from us and take her apart after all the work we put in to making her the best ship in the Milky Way? I don't think so.

Let's go get our home back." I stared up at the ceiling. Avery hated giving speeches, but she gave damned effective ones. It wasn't the words that got to her team, but the sheer determination and faith in them that made her speeches great.

I got up to get ready. I tried not to think about the fact that after this mission, she was going to be gone. And everything still between us would be left unresolved. I finished shaving and climbed into my armor, a memory of Avery helping me into it before her death - long fingers trailing against my spine and along my ribs, gentle lips behind my ear - threatened to erode all my resolve. "Dammit, stop that." I headed up to the cockpit. Joker didn't need me looking over his shoulder for this, but I needed to do something other than stand around while Avery ran my ship.

I made it up to the cockpit in time to see Avery turning away from standing behind Joker. "Steady as she goes," she told him.

"You got it, Shepard." I met her eyes and was startled to see their blue depths rimmed with red. Had she been crying? She nodded at me as she brushed past. "Commander."

"Spectre." I tried to keep my eyes on her whole body as she walked away, but when I caught myself staring at her swaying hips, I wrenched myself around to find that Joker had turned his chair to face me.

He sat glaring up at me, his arms crossed. "Would you pull your head out of your ass, Alenko? You used to be a nice guy, as I recall."

I raised an eyebrow. "Now what did I do?"

"Oh, now you're an idiot as wellas a jackass? You really don't know?" If anything, he glared at me harder.

"What are you talking about?"

"You realize she's the only one holding this group of psychopaths together?"

I frowned. "Not sure I follow."

He rolled his eyes. "We're not playing with baby Alliance officers, here, genius. They're like sharks. Sure, they may be loyal for the moment, but the minute they think she can't get the job done, everyone but Tali and Garrus is gone. Blood. In. The. Water."

"I doubt that." He rolled his eyes at me. Before he could retort, I continued, "Everyone knows she can get the job done, Joker. No way anyone's paying attention to me or worrying about what I do."

"Get out of my cockpit. I am not talking to you until you stop being so fucking stupid."

"It's still my ship."

"You want to fly her? No? Then she's mine."

"And you take your orders from Shepard." As do I.My mouth twisted. "Get to the point, Joker."

"My god, you're dumb. I already made my point. You don't believe me?"

"Didn't I just say that?"

"Fine. I'll use small words your tiny Jarhead brain can understand. She. Still. Cares. About. Your. Dumb. Ass." He sighed. "And she could really use your help in not being crazy terminator lady."

"And I still care about her. Neither of those facts are going to fix our current problem. Joker, she stole my ship and is hell-bent on a suicide mission. Again." I leaned closer. "She's willing to sacrifice everything to save everything. I don't know about you, but that doesn't make sense to me."

"Then, you moron, maybe you should do your best to point that out to her?"

I frowned at him. "You honestly think Shepard will listen?"

Joker's brows drew down and I'm not sure how, but he looked even angrier. "Worth a try, isn't it? Won't you feel worse when she manages to sacrifice herself again and you're still around? After all, she's also a Jarhead."

I wasn't sure how Garrus and now Joker thought I'd be able to stabilize Avery. When she saw something that needed to be done, she did it and damned the consequences. I wasn't sure she loved me enough to put me ahead of her mission. Or was that really the issue? I rubbed my forehead. "So, you're hoping I'll remind her if she goes out in a blaze of glory, everything she's trying to save will go with her?"

"Maybe you're not so dumb for a Jarhead."

"I've tried it, Joker. Repeatedly."

"Try harder. Clock's ticking. She gets the Normandy, she's going to try to 'protect' you by leaving your ass behind."

"That I do know."

"Then quit stalling and figure something out. Or you'll lose everything, too."

A/N: Because I'm an ungrateful wretch and highly forgetful:

Special thanks to Jillyfae for writing Joker for me. And I suck at HTML, so, you can find her here: .net/u/2277883/jillyfae