A/N: Thank you Vorcha Girl, ela11, Jules Hawk, Impslave, Ms Sticha, SerenityFalconNormandy and Kirabaros for your reviews! They give me life. And of course thank you to Vorcha Girl for being my Beta.
Chapter 40. Reflection
Kaidan kept walking; his biotics throbbed under his skin with barely contained anger with every heartbeat. He heard Shepard's pick-up call, and flinched when Joker's name fell. Garrus was with her, and Joker, and God knew who else; why hadn't she contacted him?
Or ... maybe she had?
He groaned. Why hadn't he listened? She had mentioned meeting Anderson. But no, he had to charge straight for the word Cerberus instead of letting Nick explain. Kaidan curled his hand into a fist and punched the wall of the pre-fab with a shout of frustration, his biotics flaring around him.
"You are such an idiot, Alenko," he muttered to himself, staring at his bleeding knuckles and then at the hole in the wall. With a sigh he applied medigel to his hand, flexing his fingers slowly. He typed a few short messages - to Anderson, Hackett, Ash, and his parents - before he pushed himself off the wall and began searching the colony for more survivors.
He would send a proper report once he knew more about the colony's status.
As he walked through empty building after empty building, helping anybody he found, his mind lingered on Shepard. She had looked like Nick - apart from the angry, glowing scars on her face. She had walked like her, talked like her too. She had felt like Nick when they had embraced. She had smelled like her; a spicy scent of cinnamon and ginger and citrus.
The memory made him ache, and Kaidan drew a sharp breath.
His omnitool pinged once with an incoming message, disrupting his thoughts. He raised an eyebrow at the message. It was from Anderson, short and to the point.
Return to the Citadel for a debriefing at once.
Nick sat motionless in the shuttle as it took her and her shore party back to the Normandy. She stared at the floor in front of her while blood pulsed and rushed through her ears, Kaidan's words resonating in her mind.
I thought you were dead … reports you were working for Cerberus … for all I know you could be a clone …
She gripped the edge of her seat until her knuckles turned white, her stomach churning as momentum shifted and the shuttle touched down in the shuttle bay. Standing up swiftly, she punched the controls for the hatch and jumped out of the shuttle, feeling Miranda's and Garrus gazes following her.
"Joker!" she barked, stomping towards the elevator. "Set up a connection with the Illusive Man! And I don't fucking care if he's busy or not, keep at it!"
Impatiently, Shepard waited for the elevator to take her to the next deck, stepped off of it, and headed to the comm room.
"You lying, conniving son of a bitch," she spat when the image of the Illusive Man materialized in the QEC. "You knew what was going to happen. You knew. Don't ever dare use my friends as bait again!"
"I didn't know," he answered, mirroring the inflection of her voice, "but it was a good guess that the Collector's would be interested in somebody connected to you, however intimately."
Her hands curled to fists and Nick forced herself to take a deep breath. This was the second time the Illusive Man had hinted at her relationship with Kaidan, and it made her blood freeze. If he did anything to harm Kaidan she was going to kill him.
"All in all, it worked out well on Horizon," he continued. "The Collectors will be more careful now, but I think we can find other ways to lure them in."
She gritted her teeth. "We lost more than half the colony, and if Mordin's countermeasure hadn't worked we would've all been fucked."
"Half the colony is better than the whole colony, Shepard. I'm sure you'll agree with that? And Mordin's scientific expertise is why he is on the Normandy, isn't it?" the Illusive Man replied cooly. "It was a calculated risk, and my suspicion that the Collectors are looking for people connected to you proved to be useful and true. They would've hit another colony eventually." He paused and took a long drag from his cigarette.
She remained silent.
"To prevent more colonies getting hit is why I'm using all my resources to get you through the Omega 4 relay. Take the fight the the Collectors. That also means that your team has to be strong and focused, the same goes for you. Can I assume you've left your past relationships behind you?" he asked, cybernetic eyes lingering on her.
"That's none of your goddamn business," she growled, wishing she could punch him.
The Illusive Man tapped the ash off his cigarette. "If it affects the mission it's better you leave it behind. Once we find a way through the Omega 4 relay there's no guarantee you'll return. You must be fully committed to this, or the chances are you will die."
Nick sneered. "I'm always fully committed in combat. How do you think I survived the Blitz, or Akuze, or any other battle I've been in? And let me worry about my team. You just get us through the relay safely." She turned to walk away and paused, looking back over her shoulder. "And keep away from my friends. If you ever use them again, I will kill you."
She stalked out of the comm room, refusing to listen to the Illusive Man's reply. Fear and anger rolled through her in waves, and she felt dizzy with rage; her vision blurred and her stomach rolled. Nick swallowed and made it to the head just in time before emptying the little contents of her stomach into the toilet, heaving until nothing more than bile came up.
"Fuck," she muttered under her breath, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and closing her eyes.
Rocking back on her heels, she took a deep breath before getting up and rinsing her mouth out. She walked to her cabin and undid the safety catches of her armor, glancing at the holo of Kaidan on her desk as she let the armor pieces fall heedlessly to the floor. The tightness in her head and shoulders remained, so she changed into sweats and a t-shirt and went down to the gym.
Nick stretched and loosened her muscles before throwing her first punches which came faster and harder in time with the music blaring from her omnitool. She spun on her heel, aiming a vicious kick at the bag only to follow up with another quick succession of jabs, cross punches and hooks. Again and again she attacked, her anger pushing her forward relentlessly.
She worked her anger out until she was drenched in sweat. It ran down her face, plastering her hair to her forehead, and her shirt to her body. Tomorrow she was surely going to pay for this. She felt utterly exhausted, and her legs shook from exertion when she finally returned to her cabin to shower, letting the water batter on her skin. Weariness was ready to overwhelm her as she dried off, but she dragged herself to her bed, grabbed a bottle of liquor on her way and took a large gulp before dropping unceremoniously onto her bed.
Staring up at the skylight over her, Nick watched stars pass by. She drank the liquor straight from the bottle as she lay there focussing on the void while her thoughts traveled back to Kaidan. She tried to blink away her tears, but they rolled silently down her cheeks anyway. Finally, her eyelids drooped, and she fell into an uneasy slumber.
The door to Anderson's office closed behind Kaidan as he struggled to keep his biotics under control. They crawled under his skin like a myriad of little pin-pricks. He flexed his fingers and walked briskly to the nearest rapid transport station to wait for a skycar, discharging the static of his biotics on the metal railing.
Nick's words that she had seen Anderson had been haunting him ever since, and after his debriefing he had asked. Anderson confirmed it, and then added that he hadn't seen Shepard until after Kaidan had already been sent to Horizon.
In retrospect maybe he should have expected it to be true. Nick wouldn't lie about that. But still Kaidan was furious that he hadn't received any warning, and the reason Anderson had just given him made it even worse.
We needed your unbiased opinion, Commander.
Kaidan couldn't help but wonder if he had been sent to Horizon with the sole purpose of drawing Cerberus attention, and not just to keep an eye out for Cerberus activity.
He felt used.
After the skycar reached his stop Kaidan walked to his apartment, blinking in annoyance at the bright lights on his way.
The apartment was cool, dark and quiet as he stepped inside and he let out a sigh of relief. Running a hand through his hair, he went to the little bar and poured himself a double. He was just about to sit down when his omnitool showed an incoming call. Kaidan checked the caller ID and transferred the call to the vid screen.
"Hey, 'Rin," he greeted his sister.
"Kaidan, were you ever going to call mom and dad after that attack on Horizon?" His sister's tone was accusatory.
Kaidan rolled his eyes. "I sent a message."
"Yeah. 'I'm fine', that was it." It was Erin's turn to roll her eyes before letting them rest on her younger brother. "What happened on Horizon?"
"What do you want me to tell you? Of the enormity of the ship that attacked the colony? The helplessness against these goddamn stinging beetles that created a paralysis within seconds? Being able to see and hear once you got bitten, stung, whatever, but not being able to move?" He flared as his temper and voice rose simultaneously. "Seeing colonists being dragged off, and being able to do nothing?"
Erin watched him for a moment, and then asked quietly, "How did you survive then?"
"It wasn't my doing." There was a hint of bitterness in his voice, making it crack as he continued, "I'm not sure how much time passed until I realized I could break the paralysis using my biotics. A few minutes? An hour?" He took a sip of his whiskey. "I heard a shuttle in the distance, but at the time I thought it was just my imagination. It wasn't. Anyway, I broke the stasis with my biotics and found myself in a nearly deserted colony with the sound of combat in the distance. I followed the sound, fighting against some aliens I'd never seen before. Then the bloody defense towers that I spent weeks trying to calibrate started firing, and the sound of fighting just stopped and was replaced by people talking." He paused. "And then I saw her."
Kaidan watched his sister furrow her brow in confusion. "Who?"
He closed his eyes briefly. "Nick. I saw Nick."
The apartment door opened in the background and he watched Erin look past him at Ashley before she looked back at him and asked, "You saw Nick?"
"Are you certain it was really her?" Ash asked, stepping closer as she shrugged off her uniform jacket.
Kaidan nodded, and stood up. "Now, yes. But on Horizon I wasn't, and I fucked everything up." He glanced down at the tumbler in his hands. "We hugged and … talked, briefly. Garrus was with her, and a Cerberus operative, and I accused her of working for the enemy and betraying everything she believed in. We argued, and Nick said I knew her." Kaidan shrugged helplessly. "I replied that the woman I knew would never work for Cerberus and that maybe she was really a clone." Saying the words out loud again made him wince, realizing how hurtful they were.
"Have you apologized?" Erin's voice cut through his thoughts.
"No."
Ashley punched him hard on his arm and he shot her an incredulous look, ignoring the "Thank you, Ashley" from his sister.
"What the heck was that for?" he wondered, rubbing his arm.
"For being an insensitive prick, that's what," Ash shot at him. "You said you're sure it's Nick. If she really is, how do you think she's feeling now?"
Hurt, Kaidan thought, and shame crept through him. He said goodbye to Erin, and with a short glance at Ash he took the bottle of whisky and headed to his room. They were right. He had to apologize.
Nick unscrewed the lid of the bottle again and watched as the amber liquid splashed into the tumbler, a small part of her brain telling her it was the same color as Kaidan's eyes. She gritted her teeth and glanced at the Alliance stock photo on her desk before glancing back at the whiskey in her hands. She had lost track of how many she'd already had since returning from Bekenstein with Kasumi.
"You know, Kaidan," she began, trying to sound conversational, but her voice was already slurred from the alcohol she'd consumed. "I get that you're angry with me. Really, I get it. I'd feel the same way if you'd died and then suddenly shown up after two years working with Cerberus." She hissed the name of the pro-human organisation, venom dripping from every syllable, and paused.
A light blinked on her console, distracting her for a moment until she remembered she was recording a message, just as she had every evening since Horizon. And just like the previous evenings she knew she was going to delete the message again instead of sending it.
This was getting to be habit.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Mesmerized Nick stared at the light before she continued speaking. "I can understand that you're upset. I understand your distrust of Cerberus, because no, I haven't forgotten what they've done. Hell, I'm even kind of proud of you for staying so true to yourself. But that's not what hurt me, Kaidan. What hurt me was the fact that you didn't listen. Not only that. You didn't even give me a chance to explain. The minute I mentioned Cerberus you started backing away from me, as if you couldn't put more distance between us quick enough."
She sniffled and went on. "Maybe Garrus is right. Maybe you're so hung up on Cerberus that you fail to see the big picture." She paused again, the words catching in her throat and she gulped down a sob with a large swallow of whiskey. The amber liquid burned its way down her throat.
"It gets worse though, Kaidan. You called me a traitor. Me. A traitor." She slammed her hand on the desk and growled. "Goddammit, Alenko. How dare you say I betrayed you. Or the Alliance. You have no idea how hard I tried to find you, only to get stonewalled on all sides. Anderson told me your mission was classified and that he was sorry he couldn't tell me. And the Illusive Man, well, Timmy claimed that your file was - how did he put it? oh yeah - 'surprisingly well classified'." Nick let out a short, bitter laugh. "Then several weeks later he comes up with this new mission, claiming he had information of an impending Collector attack on a human colony in the Terminus, Horizon. Horizon," she repeated with a hoarse whisper, staring into the camera of her communications terminal. "And then he dropped the bombshell. He told me you were stationed there."
She choked back another sob.
"He told me you were stationed there and I was scared. I left the QEC and ordered a course to be set for Horizon immediately, I was so scared that we'd be too late and I'd never see you again. And now? Now I'm scared that I've lost you nonetheless." The tears she had been trying to hold back spilled down her cheeks now and she broke down sobbing.
Pling!
The sound of an incoming message grabbed her attention. With shaky hands she opened her private messages and her heart started to race when she saw it was a voice message from Kaidan.
"Subject: About Horizon …"
She stared blankly at the message, and pushed play. At first there was silence, only disturbed by the sound of a sharp breath being drawn, and then Kaidan spoke.
"Nick, I'm sorry for what I said back on Horizon. Seeing you …God, I don't know how to put this." His voice sounded rough. "It threw me in a loop, and I fucked up. I know this is no excuse, but ... I spent two years pulling myself back together after you - after you died. I loved you ... I still do, " he added quietly. "It took me a long time to get over my guilt. A friend - okay, Ash - talked me into going out for a few drinks with a doctor on the Citadel, nothing serious, just … she figured I should try to have a life again, you know? Something beside the Alliance. And I hoped she'd shut up about it if I went."
Nick clenched her jaw, gripping the glass in her hand tightly. The knowledge of another person, man or woman, going out with Kaidan was unwelcome, and she cursed Ashley under her breath.
He cleared his throat. "On Horizon … I couldn't believe it was you, and I'm sorry for not listening. I had spent two years mourning you, and there you were standing right in front of me, with Cerberus." Disbelief colored his voice, but no accusation. "Do you remember anything? The night before Ilos, shore leave? I'm sorry, that was probably out of line." There was another pause, and she thought she heard the sound of liquid being poured into a glass.
"Nick, please be careful. If … if you're still the woman I remember then I know you'll find a way to stop these Collector attacks. Just … watch out for yourself, okay? Cerberus is too dangerous to be trusted. Knowing you're alive - " The pain in his voice was overwhelming as it dropped to a mere whisper. "I've missed you so much. I dreamed of you being alive so often, and every time I'd wake up to nothing but emptiness. I … don't know if I can go through that again." Nick made a choked sound and wrapped hers arms around herself.
Silence fell, but the message wasn't over yet. After a moment Kaidan went on in a quiet voice. "I don't know how you feel about me anymore, but … maybe we can sort this out when things settle down again . Or, maybe even earlier? I hope we can. Take care, and try to stay safe."
She leaned back, her heart hammering in her chest as hope bloomed. Now she just had to find a way to get a reply to Kaidan past the watchful eyes of Cerberus.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed it. Reviews are always welcome! :)