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Carrie Shepard feels very strange being back aboard the Normandy.
Only hours ago she was confined to a cell, a disgraced former marine, a broken shell of who she used to be.
And now she’s back, reinstated, and Kaidan is there with her.
Except for the fact that he can hardly look at her.
“You know the Commander?”
“I used to.”
She doesn’t know if either James or Kaidan realize that she’d heard that, but…
Fuck, that hurts.
No one speaks when she, Kaidan, and James board the shuttle to Mars. She hasn’t even spoken to Joker yet, not about anything other than the mission, even though he’s remained her best friend throughout all of this.
Not a word is spoken until the shuttle lands, either, not until they reach the ground on Mars.
There’s a big storm coming, alright.
Tension is already high enough before they see that Cerberus has involved themselves, and this revelation does not help.
Of course Kaidan asks her if she knows anything. She isn’t surprised by it, neither is she upset…well, not at him.
She hopes he’ll talk to her once they get back to the Normandy. They need to have a serious conversation, one she’s not sure she’s ready for, one she’s absolutely terrified of.
But they need to have it. They need to know where they stand, what each still means to the other, for both their sakes.
They can worry about that later, though. They’ll have to wait until later to worry about it. Right now they just need to get inside these fucking archives, get what they came for, and get the fuck out already.
“Shepard,” Kaidan gets her attention as they make their way in, bringing her back to the task at hand.
He still isn’t using her first name.
“I need a straight answer—”
“Kaidan,” she sighs, unsure how she’s going to continue.
“Don’t ‘Kaidan’ me, this is business,” he snaps at her. “Do you know anything about why Cerberus is here?”
She tries to explain herself, to explain that she truly doesn’t know…she tries so hard, but she doesn’t know how to make him believe her.
She doesn’t blame him. She’d worked with Cerberus, for fuck’s sake, how the hell could she possibly expect him to trust her?
She genuinely wasn’t sure she’d ever see him again after Horizon, and she hadn’t allowed herself to so much as fantasize about what it might be like if she did, but…
It wouldn’t be this.
She never did mark that email he’d sent her as read, though. She didn’t have the heart. She made sure she’d see it every time she opened up her messages, and she’d read it over and over again every single time she logged into her private terminal.
“Commander Shepard’s been under constant surveillance since coming back to Earth,” James steps in. “No way they’ve communicated since.”
“Sorry, Shepard,” Kaidan starts.
“Carrie,” she mouths in correction, but she cannot bring herself to do so audibly, and she internally notes how grateful she was to have a helmet to hide behind in the same second that she removes it.
“You of all people should know what I’m about, Kaidan,” is what she does say out loud. “Please trust me.”
Her voice cracks the slightest bit. She’s missed him so fucking much, and she doesn’t know what to do now that he’s there.
And how the hell could she possibly expect him to trust her?
She’s sure she wouldn’t believe her, either.
He wants to, though, he wants to so badly.
Being back on the Normandy with her feels so good, so right. But something about it also feels so wrong at the same time, after everything that’s gone down in between this time and the last, and he can’t simply push it aside.
Is it wrong to wonder if Cerberus had changed her somehow? Is it wrong to fear for what exactly could have led her to work with the enemy?
After all, they’d devoted a lot of time on the SR-1 to deviating from chasing Saren in order to try to take down Cerberus, and they’d learned together about Cerberus’ involvement in what Shepard had endured on Akuze.
So how…how?
He’s wary, yes, of course he is. How could he not be?
He’s trying, though. Maybe at some point he’ll even bring himself to really look at her.
But having her there, working together again…the idea of looking into the eyes of the woman he loves (yes, loves, present tense, for as impossible as it yet feels to say it) and finding that it’s not truly her behind them…
It scares the hell out of him, and he can’t shake that.
But he's trying.
“I do,” he tells her, and he hopes that will help himself believe it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
He’s not sure what he didn’t mean, and he’s almost grateful it doesn’t matter, since he is swiftly cut off by the sounds of clanging metal and gunfire, anyway.
Shepard and Kaidan are both relieved to see that it’s Liara, aside from the initial moment of distress Shepard has, the way she feels her chest tighten in the split second she almost doesn’t want to tell James to stand down from his professionally assumed hostility.
She’s mostly over Liara giving her body to Cerberus. She’s entirely forgiven Liara for it and come to terms with why she did it, that much is true, but as for herself, she’s…she’s trying very hard to convince herself that she’s over it. Maybe someday she’ll actually get there.
Liara is forgiven, yes, but the act is far from forgotten.
That might be a fun conversation to have in front of Kaidan.
Not now, though, not really. This is neither the time nor the place.
Liara offers them a bit of hope—by far the most they’ve found anywhere in terms of defeating the Reapers yet. Her research has come up with a device, or plans for one. This sounds good. They can use this.
Shepard sends James back to the shuttle for when shit inevitably hits the fan, but she doesn’t actually want him to go any more than he does. It’s for the best to send someone back, though, and they need Liara to guide them through the archives.
And she can’t turn away Kaidan. Not yet.
She’s already formed a strange bond with James, though. She didn’t speak to him much about anything truly substantial during their time together in the brig, for as often as he’d tried. Although he always seemed nervous to push her into a real conversation—probably equal parts the awkwardness of the situation at hand and the fact that he holds her in extremely high regard, to the point that she might go so far as to call him an outright fan—but he never once tried to tell her about what she’d done, like she was always waiting for everyone to do. The brass never did hand her own ass to her the way she imagined they would, even for as much as she had begged, but she was always aware of how much she’d fucked up, including what little interaction she did have with most Alliance personnel she encountered during her detention. For six whole months, the only person aside from Anderson who never had anything at all but blatantly kind words for her was James. He never judged, and something about him gives her the impression that he understands how she feels on a deeper level than she knows.
It’s a little strange to give him orders. After so long under their previous dynamic, it seems downright unnatural. She can do it without hesitation, effortlessly assuming the role the Alliance has given her, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something off about it. More than that, though, too, she realizes she actually feels more at ease with him around. That’s interesting.
But with Kaidan and Liara by her side, she almost feels like it’s 2183 all over again. Like she had never died, like her time with Cerberus had never come.
If only.
And there is a Cerberus presence fucking everywhere around these archives, which isn’t helping this high anxiety flaring between Shepard and Kaidan both.
It does give them something to concentrate on, at least.
Aside from each other.
Kaidan finds security footage that uncovers how Cerberus was able to infiltrate the archives so efficiently.
Liara blames herself for not being more suspicious of Dr. Eva Coré, and stops to wonder if any of this has a point. She tells Shepard she doesn’t know how she does it.
“There’s so much at stake,” Shepard replies solemnly, her eyes immediately shifting to Kaidan. “I just think about what I’d lose if I fail.”
She’s staring. She is definitely staring, and the look Liara gives her only confirms how very not subtle it is.
Liara follows Shepard’s gaze to Kaidan, and then looks back to Shepard with an understanding nod, but she is kind enough to respond simply by telling Shepard about what a terrible burden she must bear, and how much she wants to believe that they can do this.
So that could have been worse.
Kaidan still can’t seem to make eye contact with Shepard, but hell if he isn’t staring as he hangs back while she and Liara talk. But the way he catches Liara glancing at him when Shepard mentions what she thinks of losing…
He’s really trying. Even after all this time, she still gets him better than anyone, so maybe that’s enough to hope that on some level, she knows how damn hard he’s trying.
The mission must go on, and just going through the motions eventually gets them to the tramway, but without access to an actual tram.
But this is something else to focus on, a problem that needs to be solved and that can’t simply be shot at, and therefore one that gets them out of their own heads.
Shepard smiles a little despite herself whenever Kaidan thinks up looking for a Cerberus helmet with a transmitter. He always was good at this kind of thing, and it’s so good to get to see him in the field again.
“The major has become very…capable,” Liara says knowingly when he goes looking for one, and Shepard shakes her head.
“That, he has,” Shepard sighs.
He’s always been every bit as good of a soldier as he is a person, and she has no doubt he’s earned his promotions. She only wishes she could have been there to see it in action.
“Shepard,” Kaidan calls to her, and it remains that every time he calls her by her surname, it feels like daggers in her chest. “I found something.”
He pulls off the dead soldier’s helmet to retrieve its transmitter, and neither of them could have expected to see what’s underneath.
“My god,” Kaidan exhales. “He looks like a husk.”
“Yeah,” Shepard deadpans. Her head is spinning at the sight. They’ve seen this before, of course. They took down a Cerberus facility on Chasca, where an entire colony had been turned into these atrocities.
Kaidan tries not to think about that, himself. He tries not to think about how long they’ve both known what Cerberus is and what they’re capable of, when he can’t yet get the question out of his head of how the hell she ever worked with them. It makes his head hurt, literally. He tries his best to push it aside.
He is trying his best.
“They’ve definitely done something to him,” Shepard continues, although she doesn’t know why. That wasn’t something that really needed to be said, and right now all she wants to do is hide. From Cerberus, from Kaidan…from herself.
She sees him try to look at her. She knows how this must be hurting him, how conflicted he must feel. She thinks again on that email. She thinks even harder on missing the feeling of his arms around her, of his lips against hers. She wonders if he misses it, too.
He’s trying to look at her, though, she can see that he’s trying. That’s something. That has to be something.
Just look at me, Kaidan, she silently pleads. Just say my name.
“And by ‘they,’ you mean Cerberus,” Kaidan says tersely, but his tone is not directed at her. He is horrified in so many ways, by so many things. “They did this to their own guy?”
She already knows what he’s about to ask next. She isn’t sure how she knows exactly the words that are about to come out of his mouth, but she does and there is nothing she can do to brace herself for it.
“Is that what they did to you?”
Yes.
She closes her eyes for a split second, her whole body tensing. She can’t let it show that she has to remind herself how to breathe. She can’t let it show that she suddenly has her name, the current year, and where she is repeating in the back of her head, desperately trying to remind herself that she is real, that she is here, and desperately trying to convince herself that she is free from Cerberus and that this isn’t actually literally what she became with them.
Lieutenant Commander Carrie Nesiah Shepard, 2186, Prothean Archives on Mars, with the Alliance, not Cerberus, not theirs, not theirs, not theirs, not theirs…
She fights through it, fights the shake in her hands, and forces herself to respond defensively. “How can you compare me to him?”
“Shepard, I don’t know what you are or who, not since Cerberus rebuilt you,” he tells her, and how he wishes he could make himself shut the fuck up already. He hears the words he’s saying and he acknowledges that he’s the one saying them, but they are disconnected, out of touch, not what he feels they should be.
He’s voicing his legitimate fears, yes, but this is neither the time nor the place. He wants to talk to her, to take a moment for themselves once they get back to the Normandy, to clear the air. He’s sure it’s not going to be pretty, but it has to happen or nothing can move forward between them.
And he wants that, he wants things to move forward, to get back to where they were. He wants that more than anything. God, how he wants to be able to tell her that. How he wants to push all of this down, to push it away. He doesn’t want to doubt her. He doesn’t want to be afraid.
If it had been anyone but Cerberus…
“For all I know, you could be their puppet, controlled by the Illusive Man himself,” he continues. The fact that she hasn’t punched him yet is probably telling.
“Kaidan…” She sounds broken, exhausted.
She feels broken, exhausted. She doesn’t deserve his understanding or forgiveness and she feels so fucking selfish for wanting it as badly as she does, but fuck if she doesn’t want it more than anything.
He backs down at that. Her voice is so heavy, so drained. He’s aired his thoughts enough. He’s gotten enough of this out.
“Don’t try to explain it,” Kaidan offers when it’s clear she doesn’t know what to say. It’s not his best, but he has to offer something. “I don’t think I’d understand it, anyway.”
He just wants to understand.
He turns to look at her, to actually look at her.
She’s there. She’s there with him, with the Alliance, on the same mission, on the same team.
This is going to be okay. This has to be okay.
Look at her. Look her in the eyes. Say her name.
He decides to start again. “I just want to know if the person that I followed to hell and back, the person that I loved—”
Shit.
The very second they hit the Normandy’s airlock, he is taking her aside. They need to talk and get it over with. If they’re going to be working together again, they need to deal with this.
To deal with the fact that he loves her, he loves her more than anything, he loves her so much in the here and now, no matter how much time has passed or how much has happened or how fucking afraid he is of his feelings.
“Are you still in there?” Kaidan asks. He has to now, he has to follow through. And for as much as he hates that he still wonders, he has to know for sure that she is. “Somewhere?”
His eyes meet hers straight on, both of them so desolate and vulnerable.
The way she looks back…she’s in there, alright. That’s her.
He’s missed her so much.
She also doesn’t look any better than she did on Horizon, though. She looks like she’s being eaten away from the inside out, like she’s halfway to death’s door—or like she really has crossed through it once before, as the rumors say she has. He doesn’t yet know what to make of that, but he knows how very much more it makes him want to hold her.
They need to move past this.
“They didn’t change me, Kaidan,” she can’t believe she manages to say without breaking. “Or how I feel about you.”
She approaches him, extends her arm. She touches him, and he lets her. This is the closest they’ve been since Horizon, and she can’t let this end the same way.
“But words won’t convince you, will they?” She doesn’t know why she had to add that. Perhaps on some level she wants to keep some doubt about her in his head, an act of self-sabotage.
After all, she loves him so much and would do anything to earn his trust, to get him back, but it’s also because she loves him so much that she still subconsciously believes she has to push him away. She doesn’t deserve him, and he deserves so much better than her.
“Probably not,” he sighs, and neither of them know quite what that is trying to express.
“I didn’t think so,” she forces herself to laugh. “You were always stubborn.”
“Me?” Kaidan laughs, too, but his is genuine.
This is something. This has to be something.
“Come on, let’s see what Cerberus is up to,” she says, her voice a little lighter than before.
There is still a mission. They still have a job to do.
And when that brings them to a confrontation with the Illusive Man, she prays he believes her after that. Surely this has to prove to him that she and Cerberus are not on the same side. Surely this has to show him.
Which will put her back to having to worry about not pushing him away on her own, of course, but this has to get the Cerberus nonsense out of the way between them, if nothing else.
While it may not matter to the mission, that would make one thing they know they’re getting out of this shitshow, now that the fucking data’s getting away.
Until James deliberately crashes their shuttle into Dr. Coré’s and they both come down.
This is all such a fucking mess.
Cerberus’ is the only one that comes down in flames, though, so that’s promising.
James lets them know the Normandy’s on its way. This is almost done with. They still need to retrieve that data, but…
But that’s when the synthetic who’d apparently been masquerading as Eva Coré emerges from the Cerberus shuttle.
Kaidan starts shooting without hesitation, but he can’t stop her in time. She grabs him, holds him up, probably already damaging his helmet with how tight her grip on it is.
“Let him go,” Shepard demands. She should have started shooting already. This is what she trained to N7 for, to be able to quickly and adequately respond to these kinds of situations and minimize casualties.
She is supposed to be fearless.
She freezes, though. This is Kaidan, and the reason she bothers with threats first is that her hands are shaking so much she doesn’t trust herself not to hit him if she just starts firing.
She should have fucking tried, though, she learns that fast enough.
Shepard thinks she hears herself scream when Kaidan first hits the side of the shuttle. But it doesn’t stop there. It keeps going. Shepard doesn’t even know how long, how many times.
Kaidan hits the ground, and she finally fires her fucking gun.
Too little, too late.
Everything moves in slow motion. She shoots, she shoots, she shoots, she shoots, the robot falls.
Right by Kaidan.
Blunt force trauma that severe, even if there hasn’t been any breach of his protective gear, and she’s too scared to check whether or not he’s still breathing.
She’s fucking terrified.
She can’t think about it, she can’t think about anything. She can’t be Carrie Shepard right now, only Commander.
She snaps into ordering James to grab the synthetic body and Joker radios to inform her of nearby Reaper signatures.
She rushes to Kaidan, gets him off the ground, not stopping for a single fucking second to check for vital signs. She can’t.
They need to get the hell off of this awful planet.
She isn’t aware of herself at all until she has Kaidan lying in the med bay and Liara practically shouting in her face, calling her back to reality.
“Kaidan needs medical attention,” Liara says, but her words are distant in Shepard’s head, distorted with overwhelming amounts of reverb. She shouldn’t even need to say this. But Shepard can’t focus, can’t think, can’t breathe.
“We have to leave the Sol System,” Liara tells her like she’s trying to explain light to someone who’s never seen it.
“I know,” Shepard makes herself answer.
She does, she knows.
Liara’s frustrated insistence means Kaidan’s made it this far, though. There wouldn’t be any reason to push getting him to a hospital otherwise.
That’s good. That’s something.
At least someone had the nerve to check.
There’s too much work left to do. They’ll set their course for the Citadel, to tend to the Council instead of just being able to worry about Kaidan, but first, Hackett is on vid comm.
That’s important. That’s the job. Right.
Breathe.
Her itinerary for the rest of their journey to the Citadel is now to speak to Hackett, to see if there’s a bar on this Normandy somewhere, and then to cry herself to sleep.
She hopes she can sleep.
“Kaidan’s been hurt,” she hears herself tell Hackett. She needs to be there. She is trying very hard to be there.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hackett replies. “But we both know this is just the beginning.”
That, they do.
Her heart is clouding her head, she knows, it’s distracting her from the bigger picture when the fate of the entire galaxy is at stake, but…
She needs to tell him that she loves him at least one more time. She needs him to know, she needs to get that chance.
It’s not just about his life, she knows, and if she loses him, she’ll have to power through for the sake of the other billions of lives at stake.
She achieved the impossible with Cerberus, though, and she was basically dead inside for all of that. She was void. She was a shell…a husk.
But she did her job, and she can do it again. It’s not about her life at all.
If she loses him…
“This is what will never happen again,” she whispers to herself in her cabin. She doesn’t remember how she ended up there. She hopes she brought alcohol. “Us.”
She wishes she still had that email, that her terminals and their data hadn’t been confiscated following her arrest.
She doesn’t need to see it, though. She memorized it a long damn time ago.
“‘Then I saw you, and everything pulled hard to port,’” she recalls, and she suddenly strongly detects the smell of batarian ale.
She did bring alcohol, then. Good.
“‘I couldn’t bear it if I lost you again,’” she whispers. “‘When things settle down a little…maybe…’”
She wishes Dr. Chakwas was here. She’d feel a lot better if she were.
“No, fuck this,” she says to herself, and she gets up and charges back down to the med bay.
She curls up in a bed near Kaidan’s and she knows this isn’t healthy, but she needs to be close to him.
She suspects Liara is going to find her here in a few hours and talk her into going back to her quarters and sleeping in a real bed, but she can stay with him for a little while.
“Don’t leave me, Kaidan,” she whispers, her knees nearly touching her chest.
She might actually even fall asleep like this.
She can’t lose him.
“Please.”
It’s so quiet she can hear him breathe, and she feels her shoulders relax as she fixes on it.
They aren’t out of the woods yet and she is far from okay, but that makes a difference.
That is something.
She syncs her breathing to his, inhaling and exhaling at the same pace, in the same rhythm. It’s much slower than she is used to, but it’s an oddly easy adjustment all the same.
Her eyes burn and she closes them, focusing only on knowing for sure that she hasn’t lost him yet.
She can’t fucking lose him. She won’t.
But he’s breathing.
He’s breathing. She’s breathing.
Life is holding on somewhere in this med bay.
That’s something.
That’s a place to start.