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Shepard’s cabin lay in deep shadow in the early hours, the kind of stillness that felt less like peace and more like something holding its breath. The quiet pressed in on her, heavy and suffocating, carrying with it the unspoken weight of what was coming. The final push, the last battle, the end of the war they had spend months bleeding towards.
Shepard lay on her side beneath the sheets, awake, while Kaidan slept beside her, and for a while she simply watched him. The dim light from the aquarium painted the room in soft shades of blue, shifting gently across the ceiling and the walls whenever the fish moved through the water. It caught along the curve of Kaidan's cheek, disappeared into the dark of his hair, then returned again.
He looked younger asleep, not by much, but enough that the difference mattered; the hard lines war had carved into him seemed to soften when his eyes were closed, the tension that lived almost permanently around his mouth finally gone, leaving no trace of battlefield or briefings or casualty reports or Reapers in his expression.
Just Kaidan.
Her Kaidan.
She let herself look.
In a few hours, the galaxy would gather on Earth for one last fight. Soldiers who had never stood beside one another before would fight together. Humans, turians, krogan, quarians, geth, salarians. People who had spent generations distrusting one another would stand beneath the same sky and try to keep the Reapers from ending them all.
There would be shuttles and gunfire and orders shouted over comms. There would be streets burning beneath a sky full of Reapers. There would be the Crucible. There would be London.
There would be a thousand things she could not control. But right now for what could be the final time....there was this.
She reached across the small space between them, her fingers brushing lightly through his hair as he slept on, undisturbed. A smile touched her mouth, and she let her hand linger there a moment longer before drawing it back.
It would come whether she was ready for it or not. But right now she didn’t have to think about it. Right now, she could simply listen to Kaidan breathe.
She leaned across the pillow, careful not to wake him, and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. Lingering for only a heartbeat before she gently pulled away. "I love you." She whispered.
She eased herself out of bed, the mattress shifting beneath her. She froze, waiting for any sign that he might wake. Nothing. Kaidan's breathing remained slow and even in the quiet dark, and only then did she rise to her feet.
The cabin felt colder without him beside her.
She dressed quickly and quietly, slipping into her under armor and pulling on her boots loosely. Then she moved through the cabin, gathering the few things she would need. Once she had everything she needed, she looked back toward the bed. Kaidan hadn't moved. A quiet breath left her....Good. Maybe this was easier. She turned toward the door and took one more step.
"Rose."
She stopped, his quiet voice coming from behind her. Awake. For a fleeting second, she closed her eyes, almost laughing at herself for thinking he was still asleep. She turned back to find him already sitting up, the look on his face enough to make her heart ache.
Kaidan pushed the blankets aside and stood, saying nothing for a moment, and neither did she. He crossed the few steps between them, his eyes never leaving hers, and Shepard stayed where she was.
She didn't know what she had expected when he called her name, maybe a question, maybe a protest, maybe some quiet attempt to convince her to stay just a little longer. Instead he simply reached her and pulled her close, his arms wrapping around her. He drew her in until there was no space left between them. She let out a small breath that disappeared against him as her own arms came around him almost automatically.
For a moment neither of them moved, suspended in the stillness as she felt his heartbeat beneath her cheek, steady, warm, real. Her eyes slipping closed while his hold tightened just enough to make it clear that, for these few seconds, he wasn't willing to let her go.
Shepard buried her face against his shoulder, breathing him in. The familiar scent of him. The warmth of his skin. The quiet rise and fall of his chest.
She’d spent so long learning how to live with uncertainty. How to wake up wondering which name would be missing from the next casualty report, how to walk into rooms knowing she might be the one who didn’t walk back out, how to give orders that could send people she loved into places she would never be able to follow.
She had gotten good at it.
Too good.
But this....this was harder.
Kaidan shifted slightly, one hand sliding slowly up her back before coming to rest at the back of her head, his fingers curling gently into her hair as Shepard tightened her arms around him, neither of them speaking because they didn’t need to. The silence between them said enough.
Kaidan lowered his head, and she met him instinctively lifting her own until their foreheads rested together as if they had always known this was where they would end up. Their eyes remained closed, their breathing quietly mingling in the small space between them. Beside them, the aquarium kept its gentle rhythm. Its soft blue light drifting through the dark cabin, sliding over his shoulder and tracing the curve of her cheek.
For one suspended moment, there was no Earth, no Reapers, no war, no......only Kaidan’s hand resting at the back of her head, his arms around her, and the quiet, steady warmth of him holding her in place as if the world outside the cabin had simply ceased to exist. Shepard’s fingers curled gently into the fabric at his back, anchoring herself to the feel of him even as the truth settled between them.
She didn’t want to let go, and neither did he, but they both knew that eventually one of them would have to. She swallowed against the weight of it, and when she finally spoke, her voice was barely more than a breath, "I have to go put my armor on."
Kaidan didn't move. "I know."
Two words....quiet, simple, and somehow they hurt more than anything else could have.
Kaidan’s thumb moved once against the back of her head in a small, almost unconscious gesture, neither of them opening their eyes.
Kaidan’s hand slowly slipped from the back of her head and his other arm loosened around her. It was almost imperceptible at first, but Shepard felt it. He was letting her go.
She opened her eyes, and Kaidan did the same. Neither of them speaking. He gave her the smallest nod.
Go.
Shepard stepped back, the warmth of him fading almost instantly and leaving the space between them suddenly, impossibly cold. Kaidan’s hands fell slowly to his sides as she turned toward the door, taking one step, then another, until she reached it and it automatically slid open before her. She stopped, the quiet of his breathing audible behind her, and for a brief moment she simply stood there staring into the small hallway beyond. Then she turned back around.
Kaidan hadn’t moved, still standing in the middle of the cabin watching her, and something in his expression shattered whatever resolve she had managed to gather. She crossed the room again, and he barely had time to breathe before she reached him. Her hands rising to his face as she pulled him down into a kiss, soft, unhurried, without urgency or desperation, only warmth, only love. A kiss that felt less like goodbye and more like a promise neither of them could guarantee they would live long enough to keep. His hands settled gently at her waist.
Then Shepard pulled away, their faces still close, their breaths mingling in the quiet. She looked into his eyes and brushed her thumb once along his cheek before leaning forward to press one final kiss to his forehead.
Kaidan closed his eyes as she stepped back for the last time, turning toward the door again while he watched her go, the door opening to reveal the dark, empty corridor beyond, Shepard pausing in the doorway for a heartbeat before she stepped through, and it slid shut behind her.
Kaidan stood there, unmoving, simply staring at the closed door as the cabin fell quiet again.
Too quiet.
He swallowed as his shoulders sagged, and he took a step back, then another, until he reached the edge of the bed and sat down heavily. His elbows settling onto his knees as he stared at the floor. For a moment he managed to hold himself together...just barely.
His hands slowly coming together, fingers interlacing as he looked toward the door again. It was still closed, still empty, his breath hitching in his chest.
He lowered his head and pressed his hands against his face, his fingers trembling as he struggled to breathe through the tightness in his chest, feeling the tears coming and fighting them. Not out of shame, but because if he let them fall now, he wasn’t sure he would be able to stop.
There were still soldiers waiting. Still a shuttle to board, still a war to finish. He needed to get up, needed to put on his armor, needed to be ready, but for one moment....alone in the darkness of their cabin he simply couldn’t make himself move.
His hands slowly fell into his lap as his head bowed, and when he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet it barely seemed to exist. "Please." The word broke somewhere in his throat as he swallowed hard, eyes squeezing shut. "Please..." His breath shuddered, his head lowering further while his fingers curled tightly together as though he could somehow hold on to her through them, and then, broken and small, almost like a prayer, he whispered, "Please don’t die."