Work Text:
The note
There is a piece of wrinkled white paper on top of a nightstand.
It has a tear on the right side, a sign of haste, that has now been angrily taped down. Very old-school to some, and to others, like Javik, utterly unthinkable and primitive. The paper lies next to a white N7-mug that has more than one pencil sticking out of it, leaning against its slightly chipped and lipstick-ridden rim. It’s more of a sloppy excuse than an innovative solution to a missing pencil holder.
Shepard eyes the mug from where she sits cross-legged on the edge of her bed. She wraps her fingers around the blanket, squeezing a good handful of it for courage before, after what feels like a small eternity, she finally forces herself to move and snatches a red pencil. The other two pencils get nudged around, revealing the gnarly dried coffee at the bottom of the mug. Kaidan would disapprove, Shepard thinks to herself. Most people would. She grabs the paper as well and stands up to walk over to her cluttered writing desk.
There she more or less slams the paper down, covering it with her scratched and bandaged palm, and pulls out the metal chair. Sit down, she commands herself and her body dully follows, taking its sweet time sliding down on the cold steel. Move your hand, the next command goes, but nothing happens.
“You got this”, she tries as she glares daggers at her hand. The other one that holds the pen shakes and she’s set on ignoring it. “There’s nothing there that you don’t already know.”
And finally her left hand does what its told. On the wrinkly paper is a short list of names. It could be longer, she tells herself as she desperately tries to hold onto some shape or form of optimism and hope. It could always be longer. But it could also be shorter. And that is the cold, unbearable truth that keeps her awake at nights. And so she reads.
Ashley Williams
Mordin Solus
Legion
Miranda Lawson
The list itself is inherently selfish. It’s a list of names that have faces to her. But it’s not where it really ends. When you’ve lived like she has, done what she has and made choices like she has, the real list is bound to be endless. Every action, every carefully chosen word, every step and every gunshot always has consequences. Maybe you get to be lucky and blissfully ignorant. Maybe you won't see it with your own two eyes, maybe it’s not written on your report or maybe the news won’t reach your ears. Then to you their faces have no names, their names have no faces. No loved ones, no lived history and no reality. But it doesn’t matter, because you know they are still there. You still hear them in your dreams. You still feel their eyes on your back. Their hands on your shoulders. Their whys and their pleas.
Yes, it is selfish. There is blood on her hands. Blood of enemies, blood of friends, blood of unknowns, blood of people who used to depend on her. Countless faces. Countless lives.
So she scrubs. It’s the first thing she does, when she gets up after another restless night and it’s the last thing she does before climbing back into her uninviting bed. Burning hot water, soap and broken nails scratching at the pink flesh of her palms. At first Kaidan used to call out to her, growing worried why she’s taking so long in the bathroom. Then he tried to talk her out of it. Now when it gets bad, he quietly bandages her hands and presses soft kisses on top of the patches of white. His eyes are wet, red and tired. But above all, Shepard knows he understands. It takes another soldier, an officer, to really understand. They all have their crosses to bear.
She reads the unfinished list again. Four names and faces. To her, it’s a list of people she has personally failed. There are only a handful of people she has talked to about it, but she rarely bothers anymore. Everyone has lost someone or something. And most people say the kind things that society generally deems acceptable. But there are those few, like Garrus, Kaidan and Joker, who won’t sugar-coat it. And she loves them for that.
Shepard moves the tip of the pen to the paper, to the empty space under Miranda’s name. She got lost in her thoughts. That happens more often than not when she’s left alone. When she’s idle. But tonight she has a purpose. She has to finish the list. She needs to write down the last name, the one she has been avoiding to add even when it's long past its due time. The one that she lost long before Miranda or Legion. The one whose face pains the most to remember.
“We are alive, siha. And when we are not, I will meet you across the sea.”
Her hand moves and the ink takes shapes, letters and words, scattered across the paper. Once and then twice, until she is done and nothing more remains. It’s more than just his name: it’s his face, his touch, his words and his company. It’s his presence.
“I am sorry, Thane”, Shepard whispers. She puts the pen down and straightens the paper, the finished list of her losses. Despite everything, it feels strange not to regret Thane. She is through and through content with her choice of loving him. It was unintentional and every bit curious and beautiful, as long as it lasted. She runs her thumb across his name and even though the ink slightly spreads, a tiny smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. He was curious and beautiful. And she’d do it all over again, given the choice. Even though a part of her wonders and perhaps knows that maybe both of their lives would have been smoother without their brief romance. His end would’ve been kinder, this much he told her.
“And Kaidan would’ve been happier”, she finishes her thoughts out loud.
“If what?” a familiar voice asks not a moment after.
Startled, Shepard looks over her shoulder. Kaidan leans against the aquarium, hands behind his back. His eyes are gentle, but he doesn’t smile.
“When did you get there?” she asks instead of answering the question.
“A while ago”, Kaidan admits slowly. “I’m sorry, I can leave if you want?”
“No”, she hurriedly responds and turns to look at the paper again. At the smeared blue ink. “Please don’t. I’m almost finished here and I think I could use the company.”
“Yeah? What have you been up to exactly?” he asks and pushes himself away from the glass, finding a spot from the edge of the bed instead. Somewhere closer to her, but not too close. It’s thoughtful. Very Kaidan-like. “The way things went down on Thessia and Horizon.. I was worried you were.. never mind.”
“Writing a suicide note?” Shepard snorts and glances at him again. “No rest for the wicked, major.”
“Not funny”, Kaidan huffs as he leans his elbows against his knees. His fingers sink into his tangled dark hair. It’s getting a touch too long for an Alliance soldier’s standards. “So what were you doing? You dodged my question and I’m dying to know what would’ve made me happier? Shit, I.. worded that badly, sorry.”
“I’m sorry”, she sighs, picks up the note before she has the time to hesitate and turns around on her chair to offer it to him. If her hand shakes, they both pretend not to notice. “See for yourself.”
Kaidan spends a moment searching for her eyes, but the floor and its dark gray panelling suddenly feels very intriguing to her: rows and rows of straight lines, what a comforting, unsurprising pattern. Accepting it for what it is, he finally takes the note from her and looks at the short list of names. He must read it more than once, because it takes a good minute or two before he puts it down on the bed beside him. Then he leans closer and reaches to gather her bandaged hands into his and she gives into it, savoring the feeling of him running his thumb across the row of her banged-up fingers. The simple silent touch soothes her. It’s exactly what she needs. He knows her so well.
“Look Shepard, I know you loved him”, he starts carefully and breathes out. Kaidan is painfully aware that from now on, every word that he chooses will be irreversibly etched into her memory, like it or not. There’s no room for error, no take-backsies. “And I have.. Made my peace with it, I swear. And now I need to tell you something and I need you to.. No, I hope you can listen to me. Will you do that for me, Shepard? Please?”
She stares at their hands, at the odd bundle of more or less bruised skin and worn down bandages and swallows. “I will try Kaidan.”
“Yeah? That’s good, I’ll take that. There’s a story that I haven’t told you yet. I think.. I think I was waiting for the right time. But I know now that there’s probably no such thing, not when it comes to discussing what happened during our time apart. So, I wanted to tell you that I actually met Krios before Cerberus attacked Citadel”, Kaidan explains and she tilts her head upwards, listening. “Hey, don't look so surprised. We were both stuck at the hospital for quite some time, it was bound to happen. But did he tell you he was basically babysitting me there?”
“Yeah”, Shepard nods and can’t help but to smile. “I met him when I came to see you. After Mars. And when he said that you had been waiting for me, well, he asked what we were.”
“Yeah? What did you.. So what did you tell him?” Kaidan asks gently.
“The truth. I told him that before Cerberus, before my.. Before my death, we had been close”, she explains and hesitates a little if she should mention the last bit. But she does. “Before Horizon happened. We had been together.”
“Yeah”, Kaidan sighs and shakes his head. “Not my favorite list of past events. How did he take it?”
“Honestly? I think he already knew. He probably just wanted to hear it from me”, Shepard says. “But then he said he will watch over you. That he’d keep you safe when I was away.”
“That was good of him. I wish I knew that”, Kaidan smiles a little and puts one of his hands on her arm. “But yeah, I don’t think he meant me to catch him. To figure him out. And at first I didn’t. But hey, you gotta give me some credit! I am an Alliance soldier, I know my way around. To keep watch, you know. He’d walk past my room, three times a day. Man was the very definition of punctual. But he was also..”
“Very sick”, Shepard finishes the sentence, helping with the words Kaidan was uncertain to say out loud and he looks so apologetic for it.
“Very sick”, he confirms solemnly. “And I could hear him cough. Even when he tried to.. You know. So when I got back to my feet, I found him from the lobby, walked to him and struck up a conversation about something silly. You know, ‘nice weather’ or something. And he looked at me blankly with those big big eyes and replied dryly ‘the weather is always “nice” here Alenko, the Citadel is a space station’.”
Shepard chuckles and touches his hand on her arm before looking him in the eyes. “That sounds so very you. Plural. What happened then?”
“Oh boy, we talked. And Shepard, just so you understand, I knew who Krios was”, Kaidan nods. “We were very well briefed about what was going on with Cerberus and back then it also meant what was going on with you. I think Anderson kept some of the things from me, you know, but I knew who he was. And I was curious. I couldn’t ask him about you, not really. But to me it was like catching up with you, too. It puzzled me first, I mean, you with an assassin? And I can’t lie, I was jealous. No scratch that, I envied him.”
“Kaidan..” she tries, but he shakes his head and gives her hand a small squeeze. It’s okay, the gesture assures.
“But the more I talked with him and the more I watched him, the better I understood. He was polite to the bone. Helpful, selfless and just.. Strikes you as a man of integrity, you know? Anywho, it helped me deal with everything. Our time apart. Our choices. Everything. I knew you had good people around you, hell I knew some of them personally. But to know you had been kept safe and loved by someone.. That you weren’t alone in that sense either.. Eventually it helped more than it hurt”, he lifts her chin and their eyes meet once more. Kaidan’s brown eyes are soft, his tone is sincere. She finds herself believing every word. “What Krios sacrificed there that day stuck with me. I felt that the very last missing pieces were finally falling into place, fast. It was overwhelming, really. And then just as fast, he was gone. And I.. I never got to thank him. To have an honest conversation about you.”
“He was good at reading people”, Shepard says quietly. “I believe he could tell.”
“Yeah, you're probably right”, he admits. “When I met you at the docking bay, I had imagined a million ways for it to go totally South. But God I wanted to be close to you again. In any way, shape or form you’d let me: as an ally, a friend or.. more. I loved you, I never stopped. I never would. And I thought to myself that if by any chance you’d allow it.. It’d be my turn to watch over you again and it’d be the only way I could thank him. I know I probably sound self-righteous as hell and man, I must be rambling, but.. Look, what I really mean by all of this, is that I want you to know that you don’t have to hide this part of your life from me. Or the feelings he awoke in you. You’re right to miss him. And I hope you know that I’m here if you need to talk about it. I’ll always listen. I got you, Shepard.”
She bites her bottom lip and falls slowly into him, pressing her forehead against his shoulder. He catches her with ease and closes his arms around her, one hand at the nape of her neck as the other draws solacing shapes across her back. His embrace is warm and well-known. I got you, he keeps whispering into her hair as she falls apart at her seams.
There is a piece of wrinkled white paper on top of the shared bed.
It’s a list of names. And the last written row reads:
Thane Krios