Chapter Text
She’s summoned to the Defence Committee – for what, she doesn’t know, but she follows Vega and later Anderson, trying to get a sense of what’s going on. Reapers, Anderson suspects, but she’s certain.
She hears a familiar voice, but focuses on taking to Vega instead, hoping that it’s not. But when he says “Shepard” in only the way he can, she responds. He’s made Major, third promotion in three years, and she thinks about what else she’s missed spending two years dead and eight months in the company of Cerberus. He loved her, past tense feelings spat out in anger; does she still love him? She’s not sure – feelings buried for the sake of a mission (again), uncertainty on how he feels about her now.
Politics haven’t changed, and she certainly hasn’t missed the feeling of repeatedly slamming into a wall trying to explain that the Reapers are real. By the time they believe her, they’re two minutes away from death.
She makes it to the Normandy. Kaidan welcomes her aboard as if there’s no bad blood between them; Anderson stays on Earth and Hackett orders them to Mars for the Prothean Archives.
Then they’re fighting Reapers and each other and Cerberus and each other. Vega has his suspicions, Shepard is sure, watching like a spectator at a tennis match, following as the volley of arguments goes from her to Kaidan.
No one ever warns of this outcome of breaking fraternization regs.
Vega knows that Kaidan used to be in her crew on the SR1, and the anger between her and Kaidan is like a warning beacon; you don’t feel this betrayed by someone unless you’re excessively, illegally close.
Liara breaks up some of the tension, an excuse for Shepard to send Vega back to the shuttle to cut off alternate escape routes for Cerberus. Things settle between her and Kaidan for a few minutes before the accusations start again – “is this what they did to you?”
Shepard tears him one for even thinking that, and to her surprise he looks suitably ashamed and embarrassed. They blast through more Cerberus troops, more screams of “it’s Shepard!” as she blazes across the battlefield in a haze of blue. One sector is cleared out and Kaidan asks about her new attack (not new for her), his inner geek coming to the fore for a few seconds. Shepard flashes back to a time on the SR1 when all three of them would share experiences, techniques, and methods, but that time is long gone (three years, she reminds herself).
Shepard makes the mistake of assuming Doctor Eva Coré is a typical human. Guns and biotics she can handle, but when the body of an android rose from the fire, slammed Kaidan into the side of the ruined shuttle…
His name rips from her lips, sounding across the comms. The time from shooting the android to getting Kaidan onto the Normandy are a mess, a haze, training and instinct kicking in and carrying her through what she needed to do.
In the medbay, looking down at Kaidan…she pauses, hesitates, freezes.
[-]
James entered the mess again. Third time since Shepard had given him the run-down of what was happening – a detour to the Citadel for the Major (no shit, given what had happened) and an attempt to get the Council on their side.
The Council would listen to Shepard – hell, they had to, as a Spectre she was one of their agents, and what good was having them if they didn’t listen?
What if they won’t listen?
There was more than a hint of resentment in those words. Bad history there.
James moved past the med bay, intending to pass by without incident. Curiously, however, drew him to glance through the windows. He could see Alenko, still unmoving, but also Shepard sitting next to him, looking more the part of a concerned friend than a military officer.
Shepard was crouched forwards, elbows on thighs and hands clasped together. Her hair, which had been tied back in a ponytail on Mars, was now free and draped across her face, half obscuring it from view. She’d tossed her gauntlets off onto the nearest empty bed, and a couple of the latches on her breastplate undone. She was as still as a statue, eyes focused on an unconscious Kaidan Alenko. Only blinking and the slight heft of her chest indicated she was still alive.
Even the sound of the med bay door cycling open didn’t turn her attention away from the Major. James had to take a few steps towards her and clear his throat before her green eyes focused on him instead. The slightest hint of red in her eyes, but the look she gave him was sharp and focused.
“Lieutenant?” Shepard said, raising from her seat to stand at eye level with James. He opened his mouth, but the words dried up. He swallowed, licked his lips, and looked over at Alenko.
“He gonna be okay?”
In a split-second, all the professionalism from Shepard vanished. She let out a heavy breath, rubbed a hand across her face. Her had stilled with her thumb on one temple, middle finger on the other.
“I–I don’t know.” Shepard’s voice cracked. Her hand slipped down to cover her mouth as she let out another breath. After a second, she let that hand drop to her side and looked away from James, back at Alenko. “For a biotic, their whole nervous system is wired up to a chunk of metal in the base of their skull. He…” Shepard grimaced, a faint flicker of blue covering her newly clenched fists.
“He’s laying in a medical bed and I can do nothing!”
The flicker of blue disappeared, Shepard turning away and storming across the med bay. She paused almost at the other end, back to James with one hand clenched in her hair.
“I’m not medically trained; hell, I’m not even a field medic. I get injured, I slap some medi-gel on and hope I can keep running. Kaidan…”
“Commander?” Joker’s voice came over the comms. Shepard’s head snapped up almost instantly.
“What?”
“ETA to the Citadel is thirty minutes. You might wanna get out of your dust-covered armour.”
Shepard turned around, looking at Alenko again. After a second she tore her gaze away and walked past James, every inch the professional soldier once again. She moved towards the elevator, calling it down and waiting for it to arrive.
Ten minutes later, James saw her back in the medbay, exact same pose.