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Shepard leapt into the water, and Kaidan watched as he sank.
The spray from the mech breaching the Despoina sea soaked his armor, the freshly cold brine trickling into the nooks and crannies of his Spectre-issue gear and collecting in his joints. He was wet, freezing, and standing in the rain, but the last thing he wanted to do was move away from the edge of the dock, where he could still watch the shadow of the Triton ADS grow smaller and smaller beneath the waves.
“I’ll be fine,” Shepard had promised. His voice had been softening recently, worn down around the edges like the rocks Kaidan used to collect on the shore of English Bay. When he was younger, he used to pretend he was throwing them all the way across the channel. He couldn’t, then -- but after he got back from Brain Camp? Well, biotics or not, the rocks sank all the same.
Just like Shepard had.
“We should get dry, Major.” Vega’s voice came from behind him, followed by a heavy gauntlet on his shoulder. The lieutenant half-guided, half-dragged him towards the waiting cargo hold of the wreck. That was how it was with Shepard’s crew: the people saluted you and called you “Major” to your face, but they wouldn’t think twice about dragging your ass to safety -- even kicking and screaming, if they had to.
Anyway, Kaidan wasn’t about to make a fuss. The Triton had disappeared long ago, and though it didn’t make the knot in his stomach any better, he knew that Shepard was good for his word. Multiple times, Kaidan was sure he’d seen the last of him. But Shepard always came back, one way or another.
So he settled for trudging numbly towards the warm lights of the cargo hold, dragging his feet along the wet hull of the MSV Monarch. Vega was already undoing his boots and knocking them upside down, letting the water slosh out of them and onto the garage floor. He eyed Kaidan like he expected him to do the same.
“Let’s dry off,” Kaidan agreed, nodding. It was good to maintain a semblance of hierarchy in these situations. He went for his gauntlets first. His fingers were numb and pruning, but he could feel the blood beginning to recirculate as he peeled them from the synthetic material of his gloves.
“Esteban!” Vega shouted over the rain.
“Looking for the emergency heater,” Cortez called from the shuttle. Immediately after Shepard had dropped, Cortez had busied himself with babying the Kodiak, throwing himself into last-minute checks and diagnostics. His head was still stuck inside as he rummaged for supplies.
Vega just shook his head and grumbled something about fleeing the Reapers with a shuttle pilot who had a cold.
Kaidan methodically removed his armor piece by piece and set the parts down on a crate like he was in the Normandy’s shuttle bay and not stranded on a shipwreck in the middle of a planet-sized ocean. Shepard had always been unstrapping his black N7 armor right next to him.
“Hanging in there, Kaidan?” Shepard would ask. He smiled and touched more generously nowadays. Kaidan wouldn’t dare call the commander soft, but something had changed beneath the flesh that Cerberus had so meticulously knitted back together. Medi-gel and nanosurgery restored only so much.
Hardship either broke people or made them stronger, he’d once overheard Hackett say. Alliance liked to claim that Shepard belonged to the latter; Kaidan wasn’t sure anymore.
Shepard had been tough when they’d first met. The crew used to joke that it wasn’t only the Normandy that was part-human, part-turian. But after Saren, the Collectors, and now, the war with the Reapers, Kaidan thought he was finally seeing cracks in the armor. On good days, it was in the eye of his beholder -- Kaidan Alenko, awarded the privilege of glimpsing the man behind the commander. But on others, Kaidan worried that the world was finally wearing Shepard down, not so much sanding down the edges as much as grinding him down until he was just pebbles and sand.
Cortez jogged up with a portable heater under one arm and a first-aid kit in the other. He shivered in the cold as he left clear, wet bootprints on the floor of Monarch. They’d been in the rain so long that their boots were free of dirt for the first time since they’d been broken in. “Let’s get this thing going,” he said, teeth chattering. He passed the heater off to Vega, who clicked it on in the center of the hold, its metal bars mercifully humming to life with heat.
“Damn, that feels good,” Vega said. He wrung out his socks in the rain as Cortez pulled off the overshirt of his drenched uniform. “Imagine if the Reapers found us like this, shaking in our tighty-whities while we freeze our asses off.”
“Not the way I’d want to go,” Cortez agreed. Then his smile soured, and he added, “Hope Shepard’s okay.”
“Shepard’ll be fine,” Vega insisted. “Shepard’s always fine. You don’t survive a Collector base and multiple thresher maws through dumb luck.” He huffed as he chicken-winged his arms to get the blood going, pumping his pecs to make the tattoos on his chest dance.
“Careful, Mr. Vega, you’re going to poke someone’s eyes out with those.”
Kaidan heard Cortez and Vega bicker in the distance, like a newscast left on downstairs in the living room. Shepard was always fine. Kaidan had watched him vanish from his life more times than he could count: Virmire, Saren, Horizon -- hell, every time Shepard ducked for cover, Kaidan thought it might be the last moments of the SSV Normandy all over again.
Then it had turned out that not even death could keep Shepard away. If there was one thing you could be certain about Shepard, it was that he always walked away from the wreckage intact, silhouetted by the explosion he left behind.
That, and that he always wound up back in Kaidan’s life.
Shepard and Kaidan, reunited again. Shepard and Kaidan, two parts of a puzzle that had to fit together, becoming something singular. Their own little cycle of separation and reunion.
Sort of like the Reapers.
Kaidan didn’t like that thought. He felt the beginnings of a headache coming on, and the subtle rocking of the Monarch at sea wasn’t helping. No matter how many advanced stabilizers a spaceship had, when it was dead in water, it was just like any other ship.
Kaidan tried to focus on the steady patter of the rain instead. Cortez and Vega had relaxed their mutual ribbing and were settling into a comfortable silence. He could feel Vega’s eyes on him -- Kaidan knew plenty of Alliance guys like him. Big shoulders to carry the big responsibilities, stacking blame on his back like plates on a barbell. Shepard would have something sensible to say about that, but Kaidan had nothing.
“So,” Vega began. “You following the latest biotiball season?”
Kaidan shook his head. “Not since the hometown team failed to qualify.” He didn’t like being another responsibility the lieutenant felt he had to take on, but he appreciated the thought. “I heard there’s going to be a rematch from last year.”
“The Sorcerers and the Maestros.” Cortez nodded, smiling. “The game’s in a week. James and I were thinking about catching it in a bar on the Citadel. If you’re free...”
The first thing Kaidan thought was that Shepard didn’t follow sports. He knew the commander watched a little urban combat and football, the latter an interest he’d picked up from Anderson, but he never seemed particularly invested in one team or another. Maybe it was the lack of a team to root for -- Shepard never really had a city to call home, or if he did, he didn’t talk about it.
The next thought was that Kaidan wasn’t even sure if they’d be around for the next few days.
He didn’t know if Shepard had minutes or hours at this point. That might have been the last time Kaidan would see him, disappearing into the dark Despoina sea. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he knew he’d let Shepard go to his death.
Vega must have noticed his expression grow gloomy, because he butted in, “Hey, we’re going to make it.” He put his hand on Kaidan’s shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “You’ll see. Shepard’s going to come back, we’re going to get wasted in Anderson’s old apartment, and the whole galaxy’s going to watch the Maestros destroy the Sorcerers.”
“Those are fighting words, Mr. Vega,” Cortez teased, but his sentence was punctuated by the blare of a Reaper ship in the distance. Their eyes grew wide.
Vega growled in frustration. “Damn, I thought we’d have more time. Can we close the hold doors?”
Cortez shook his head. Back to business. “And leave the Kodiak out there? That’s our ride back. Besides, if the power goes out again with the doors closed...”
“We have to wait for Shepard,” Kaidan concluded. He was already strapping his gloves and boots back on, a routine as familiar as loading another clip into his gun. His fingers had warmed up a little by the heater, but the water-resistant fabric that lined the interior was still damp and cold. Like putting on your gloves after lunch in Whistler, before they had a chance to dry. “Vega, get Cortez to the shuttle.”
It’d been a while since Kaidan had led his spec-ops unit. Before he realized it, he’d already adjusted to fighting under Shepard’s command again. Shepard pointed, and Kaidan shot. Giving orders felt like acknowledging Shepard’s absence.
“Get ready to fly if you need to, and stay low. I’ll draw their fire towards the bow.”
Vega already had his boots fitted and his rifle loaded. Kaidan knew from experience that that was the payoff of too many before-dawn drills in Basic. The other stuff couldn’t be taught. Kaidan nodded, and the crew moved without hesitation.
The first wave blasted the Monarch’s hull, rocking the shipwreck under their feet. A brute roared and rolled with the momentum, its carapace no worse for the wear after dropping out of the sky. Kaidan hated those things. He didn’t envy Shepard or Garrus, who had to look at their uncanny, jawless turian faces through a scope.
A blast from behind him, and the smell of smoking flesh and a burnt-out motor hit his nose. A crater sizzled from impact in the brute’s torso as it stumbled backwards from the force.
“We’ve got your back, Major!” Vega shouted. Cortez was already hunkered down behind a capacitor, pistol readied by his ear. The rain came down in sheets, cascading down the hull and into the ocean below.
Kaidan raised his Barrier as he vaulted a crate towards the bow of the ship. The tarp nearly slid out from under him, but he held on, his other hand gripping his rifle for dear life.
He heard an impact across from him, then the telltale gasps and growls of a pack of husks and cannibals. Gunfire echoed from Vega and Cortez’s position, and the ship swayed with each hulking step from the Reaper brute. Kaidan fought to keep down his rations.
He barely had time to roll into cover before the cannibals opened fire on him. He felt a bullet catch the edge of his Barrier, the air around him wobbling with biotic energy.
Shit. Bullets pinged off the piece of plating he was hiding behind, and he could hear the ghastly moans of the husks growing closer. Kaidan only needed a few more seconds.
The first husk rounded the corner to a faceful of bullets, the thermal ammunition chewing through its skull like butter at close range. Two more came and met the same fate, just getting in range of his Barrier’s mass effect field before being gunned down.
Kaidan’s rifle clicked empty. He had to reload. He heard the remainder of the pack just on the other side of his makeshift cover (when was their cover not makeshift?) and knew he didn’t have time. He was still fighting like he had a sniper watching his back, picking off the long-range threats that kept Kaidan from cutting loose.
The first husk came around, and Kaidan watched its metallic sinew flex as it slammed against Kaidan’s shields, knocking the wind out of him. With two hands on his gun, Kaidan sent it stumbling back with the butt of his rifle planted firmly into its chest. It stumbled against two, three more of its friends, momentarily dazed, its blue, synthetic eyes glowing in its eerily human sockets. That was all he needed.
He fired off a Cryo Blast that snap-froze the group, frost snaking across the surface of their bodies like a lake in winter. The Barrier around him pulled taut as he pushed the mass effect field around him like elastic. His L2 implant buzzed in the base of his skull, and he released.
Pieces of ice and synthetic-organic parts shattered, blasted across the ship’s hull by the force of a detonated Barrier. Kaidan smelled iron -- wet, metallic, and bloody. Far away, he heard the low throttle of a shuttle preparing for take-off. A grenade popped, and Vega whooped.
They were going to be okay.
Kaidan traded fire with the cannibals from cover, knocking down one and finishing the second with a blast of biotics. “Everyone okay?” he shouted over their comms.
“We’re good, Major! I’m on the shuttle with Esteban, we’re coming -- shit!”
Another Reaper deployment rocked the ship, barrelling out of the sky like a meteor. Waves splattered against the hull of the pitching Monarch, the sea spray landing on Kaidan’s face. He tasted salt.
Two more brutes stepped out of the wreckage, their glowing eyes piercing in the rain. They looked directly at him. Kaidan caught himself holding his breath for the crack of a sniper rifle and a headshot that never came.
Kaidan heard the hum of aircraft as a gust of strong wind swept over him, blowing the water from his hair and causing him to nearly lose his footing. The Kodiak had just shot by overhead.
“Ground forces got too close for comfort!” Cortez informed him over their earpieces. “Coming around for air support!”
“Roger that,” Kaidan responded, sounding more confident than he felt. “Pick me up port side!” He loaded his rifle as the brutes charged towards him, his bullets ricocheting off their plated armor and creating tiny, short-lived sparks.
He had to run.
Kaidan thanked whatever god there was that Spectre helmets were designed to resist fog and rain. If it weren’t for the chilly air outside, he was sure he was breathing hard enough to obscure an entire Citadel cab. He felt his heart pounding in his chest as he tore across the MSV Monarch, the heavy footfall of the brutes behind him. Their claws dragged against the ground, the squeal of metal against metal rattling his teeth.
He couldn’t afford to slow down. He hesitated, once, thinking about casting a Barrier around himself, only to be dissuaded by a heavy claw that hammered the vent inches to his left. It had only missed because the ship had pitched violently to the side, slamming Kaidan along the center ridge of the ship’s hull. He felt his head ringing, far away, as the adrenaline and his armor’s medi-gel system kicked in, and he threw himself onto the roof of the bridge. Another slam behind him informed him the brutes weren’t far behind.
Kaidan had never heard anything as sweet as the sound of the Kodiak’s shuttle doors opening, its thrusters hovering just in front of him.
“Get your ass in here, Alenko!” Strong hands reached out for him, and Kaidan barely recognized his own feet moving as he leapt into the shuttle, rolling on its floor. The door slammed shut -- the sound of the rain and the ocean softened, and the humid, briny air was replaced by the sterile air-conditioning of the Kodiak. A force clipped the door, sending the shuttle lurching to the side, but Cortez swore and banked right, pulling up and out of reach.
“Shit!” Cortez cringed as though he were bracing for a collision that never came. The pulse -- it hadn’t sent them careening out of the sky. He squinted one eye open. “The pulse is offline,” he said, laughing breathlessly. “Shepard actually did it.”
Shepard did it. Shepard always did it, and he always came back.
“That means he has to be coming up,” Kaidan said. Heart still racing, he braced his hand against the shuttle door, throwing it open. There couldn’t have been much oxygen left in the Triton. Shepard would have to breach the surface soon.
Rain battered his face. Through the storm, Kaidan could make out the brutes patrolling the wreck of the MSV Monarch, their glowing eyes staring at him. They looked over the dark waves of the sea like they could read his thoughts. Like they were looking for Shepard, too.
“Careful,” Vega said, one gauntleted hand on his shoulder to steady him. Kaidan would have leapt out of the Kodiak and swam to the bottom of the ocean to drag Shepard back, kicking and screaming if he had to. Maybe Vega knew that.
Cortez cruised low over the site where Shepard had dived. They had no idea where Shepard would come up for air. Kaidan had an image of the mech rocketing up to the surface miles away, running out of fuel before they could find him. He saw the Triton sink back into the grasp of the ocean, nestled among the shipwrecks of Despoina and lost to the sand at the bottom of the sea.
Kaidan would drown himself searching before he let that happen.
On the Monarch, the brutes watched like predators at the edge of a forest, waiting for anything to get close. With a surprisingly deft swivel, one of the brutes lashed out at the Kodiak when it flew too close -- just a warning sign, but enough to scare Cortez into giving them a wide berth. It was a push and pull of territory, of waiting.
Vega radioed up to the Normandy, one eye never wandering far from Kaidan. “We’re not leaving without the commander,” he said, a little louder so Kaidan would hear.
Kaidan couldn’t see him. His eyes were glued to the ocean’s surface, scanning it for anything that might be Shepard. He’d removed his helmet for better vision, and the salt was beginning to sting his eyes. The wind chafed his skin, turning his nose and cheeks red.
Shepard would come back. That was how these things worked. Things worked in cycles -- the sun set on the Pacific, the Reapers harvested, and Shepard always left in order to come back.
Time stretched like the moment just before they entered a mass relay. The horizon receded into the distance until Kaidan couldn’t see it any more, and then it just kept going. His fingers were numb, anchored to the shuttle door’s interior latch as the gale ruthlessly buffeted his face.
Kaidan didn’t dare blink when he spotted it.
There, just off the wreck of the MSV Monarch, something was rising to the surface. He barely spotted the round dome of the Triton surfacing before he shouted, “Cortez!” and blew up a Barrier around himself so strong that his hair flared in all directions. “Starboard of the Monarch!”
The brutes had spotted him, too, and as the mech rocketed onto the side of the ship, kneeling under its own weight, they lumbered over to investigate.
“I see him!” Cortez took the Kodiak into a nosedive, throwing Vega backwards. Kaidan gripped the shuttle’s frame so tight he thought he would dent it. He could see a figure -- so small, between the Triton and the brutes -- stumble out of the mech and fall to his knees.
“SHEPARD!” he shouted into the wind. The Kodiak sped towards the scene, closer until he thought he could make out the N7 emblazoned on Shepard’s armor.
They weren’t going to make it in time. The Kodiak had to slow to land, and one of the brutes was already raising its talon, the huge appendage hovering over its head as it prepared to swing it down on Shepard. Kaidan had seen a lot of broken bodies in his time. This was one he couldn’t stand to see.
Cortez was shouting something about covering fire and staying out of range. He heard Vega load a fresh clip into his assault rifle as the shuttle slowed its descent. It was enough.
Kaidan jumped -- and he swore he saw the brute over Shepard blink.
His biotics cushioned most of his fall, but he knew he’d be seeing Chakwas that evening. Garrus would give him grief over it, too, probably stop by on his way over to the main battery. Getting smashed against a shuttle, jumping out of a moving one... What’s next, Alenko?
Shepard would be pissed, but he’d be alive.
There was a smashing sound above him as the brute swung towards its friend, metal and wires groaning under the force. The ground was wet, and it was only by the grip of his boots that Kaidan didn’t slip and fall on his ass, though he came close a couple of times. He didn’t know what the hell was going on as the brutes tackled each other, grappling each other as their parts squeaked and creaked in protest, but he wasn’t about to stop and ask. He scooped Shepard up by the torso, tossing his arm over his shoulder like he’d done so many times before.
“Shepard,” he said, like it meant something just to say his name. It had become something of a prayer across the galaxy, but Kaidan only needed one person to hear it.
Shepard mumbled something in response. He thought he heard something about a cycle. There was blood running down his nose, past Shepard’s lips and into the neck of his armor. But he was alive, and he was standing. Barely.
With Shepard’s arm around his shoulder, Kaidan dragged them, hobbling, across the hull of the MSV Monarch. Another slam rocked the boat, one of the brutes throwing the other to the ground. They barely had time to jerk out of the way. He heard the fire of Vega’s gun get closer and closer. Kaidan couldn’t see anything through the rain. He was navigating by sound and feel, so keyed up that his biotics pulsed slowly around him, tiny mass effect fields pulling him forward along the ship.
He’d pay for overclocking himself in the morning, but for now, he was too busy trying to see that morning.
Kaidan collided with the shuttle by the hips. He threw Shepard on board, then himself, the both of them sprawled across the Kodiak floor. The gunfire stopped, someone yelled, and then the door slammed closed. The rain receded.
They were taking off.
Somewhere in the outside world, the storm raged and the fight continued in muffled, faraway tones. But Kaidan’s world had narrowed immediately and sharply in the past thirty seconds to the man underneath him. He heard the soft exhale of Shepard’s breath, the rise and fall of his chest against his cheek.
He was alive.
Kaidan felt a weak hand against the small of his back, holding him close.
“The cycle,” Shepard mumbled, head lolling deliriously against the shuttle floor. “It’s going to change.”
“Shepard,” Kaidan warned. He brought up his omni-tool to deploy medi-gel. Shepard was freezing. They should have been prepared for hypothermia, the bends… Shepard always came back, but he always seemed to come back worse for the wear. No man’s luck could last that long. “Never do that again,” he breathed.
Shepard just coughed in response. His eyes fluttered to life as the medi-gel took hold, though he’d probably still be staying overnight in the med-bay. Kaidan mentally prepared himself for a night of hard beds and the smell of antiseptic. If one of them stayed, both of them stayed.
“Kaidan,” Shepard said. He parted his lips and cradled Kaidan's cheek in his hand, eyes far away, looking at something he couldn't see. Shepard smiled -- gentle, worn-down, shit out of luck. “We’re going to break the cycle. It's going to be okay.”