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The rain falls softly on the windshield. His eyes burn into the side of my face but I can’t look at him. He came to get me. I didn’t think that he would. I look up at the building towering over us. Raindrops magnify the yellowed lights and blur my view, but I know how tall it is. Eleven stories. A hundred thousand words. An apology. I bite the inside of my lip to keep it from trembling. I taste blood, sharp and bitter on my tongue.
“Shepard,” he says. It’s the only thing he’s said this entire time. My chest tightens and my fists ball at my sides. I shake. I wonder if he notices.
I want to say so many things. I want to apologize for everything. I want to tell him what Kaidan said, why I left, why I drove seven hours to this building four minutes from his apartment. I want to make up for lost time. I want to apologize for not answering his calls. I want to take everything back. Everything I ever said. I want to erase myself from his life. I want to take away all the damage. I want to tell him about Kaidan, tell him why I’m so upset, tell him everything that’s burning a hole through my head. Tell him about the nightmares and how I haven’t been taking my pills and lying to the doctors and having flashbacks that last hours at a time. Tell him he’s the only thing I’ve got left to hold onto.
I sit silently and wish that he was a mindreader.
“Shepard, what happened?” he whispers. I shake my head. Blood pounds in my ears as I stare up at the building before us. I shiver from the cold, from the water soaking every inch of me, dripping from my hair, from my clothes. I’m probably ruining his leather seats but if he cares, he doesn’t show it.
He reaches over and pops open the glovebox in front of me, pulling out a small flask. He hands it to me and I clutch it like a cross. I take a long drag of the stuff. Whiskey, and the good kind too. I nod to him but he declines, motioning to the wheel of the car. I take another sip. It burns in my throat and up into my eyes. I open my mouth to speak but no noise comes out.
“What did he do?” he asks quietly. I shake my head because I can’t do anything else. “Shepard, did he hurt you? I swear to God, if he—“
“He doesn’t love me anymore,” I barely manage to say. My words hang in the small space of the car. The gravity of what that meant. For Kaidan, for me, for Jeff.
“He said that?” he asks, but it comes out more like a statement.
“He said, ‘Shepard, you don’t love me anymore. And I don’t know what to fuckin’ do,’ that’s what he said,” I say, turning to the window. I’m ashamed. I can’t breathe. I force another gulp down my throat and fight off the tears. I wouldn’t let myself cry, not right now. “Maybe I don’t. Maybe he doesn’t. I just… I need… I don’t know.”
“Shepard, that’s not…” he trails off. I curl deeper into myself. I can’t stop looking at the top floor. I force my eyes away and finally turn to look at him. He’s got that look in his eye that just wants… me. Maybe it never left. I don’t know. His face is contorted with worry and want and anguish and desire and I don’t know what else I can say to him. I hold out the flask.
“Take a shot,” I say, looking down at the booze in my hand.
“I can’t,” he breathes. He knows I’m not talking about the flask anymore. “It’s not how it used to—“
“I need you to,” I whisper, not moving.
I don’t know who moved first. I don’t know whose hands twitched, or whose mouth curled, whose spine curves and whose eyes closed. But his mouth touches mine and I feel a piece of me break, and all the tension comes rushing out of the middle of me. A crushing blow to my midsection. My stomach floods with electricity, my lungs ache, my chest shudders and his lips crash against mine in the best-worst way. I haven’t felt this way in a hundred years. I feel the weight of the war fracturing my bones. I feel his hand on my neck. I feel everything and nothing and the butterflies caught homeless somewhere between my stomach and my heart start to spread through my abdomen. A white-hot heat runs from between my thighs to the top of my head.
I pull him closer. I need more of him. All of him. My hands push away his hat and tangle in his hair. I’m clinging to him, closer, as close as he’ll let me. I’m desperate. Each kiss grows deeper, my heart pumps in my chest, trying to keep going. I need something to hold onto. Blood pounds in my ears and I feel dizzy. I’m getting lost in the smell of his clothes and the scratch of his beard against my jaw. His hand pushes my lower back across the cab of the car to meet him. I’m careful but urgent. Angry but sorry. I still love him but I can’t work up the nerve to say it.
I part my lips and his tongue slides over mine. He’s exploring my mouth and it hurts more than I can ever admit. He’s searching deeper and deeper, filling me up with his taste again. It’s been too long. I can feel my heart cracking in my chest, it’s too much, too soon. I kiss him deeper, I pull myself up over him and press his shoulders to the seat behind. I want him. More than anything, I want him.
“Shepard,” he manages between kisses. I take a fistful of his shirt and move down his jaw, eyes closed. I’m navigating the space of his upper body, becoming reacquainted with all the ins and outs of his skin, his muscles, his bones. His nails drag over my shirt, cold and damp but warmer when I press myself to him. My hips roll over his and my teeth scrape his neck. A shiver rolls up his spine. He grabs my hand up in his and holds it tight. My kisses trail over his shoulder, then back up to his ear. I take his earlobe into my mouth and his other hand pulls me closer to him. “Shepard,” he says again. I can hear the weight of his words and I know he wants to ask, but I don’t want to give him answers. I just want to be here with him, curled up in his taste and his smell and his sensory overload. He’s everything I’ve been missing. Everything I need.
“Shepard, why did you come here?” he asks finally, catching his breath. “It’s not just him, I know it’s not.”
I look up at the ceiling, my chest still pressed to his. “I don’t belong here,” I say.
“Do you want me to bring you home?” he offers quietly, like our kiss never even happened. Pain shoots through my midsection.
“No, I don’t belong here,” I breathe. “Here… I… I should’ve died in London, Jeff, and you know it.”
He grabs me so hard and fast that I lose my breath. His mouth takes me over and I’m overwhelmed by him entirely. “Don’t you dare,” he seethes between strangled kisses. “Don’t you ever say that. Don’t you dare say that.” I can’t feel my mouth anymore, I just feel him all over. My heels and my thighs and my stomach and my breasts and my shoulders and my forehead. I’m filled head to toe with him. His teeth drag my bottom lip with them and I moan. I feel another piece of me break as he starts to fuse himself back into my heart. I can’t breathe. There’s a new gap in my chest and I can feel the tangible ache. The tears come before I can stop them.
“I was going to jump,” I whisper, but no sound comes out. He doesn’t need the sound. He already knows. He crushes my mouth with another kiss. His hand smoothes over my hair, pulling me close. I bend into his lap and my hips grind in against his. I wrap myself around him. My arms snake around him and I’m clinging to him like he’s all I’ve got left. In almost every way, he is.
“Shepard,” he whispers, and it’s all he needs to say. His hand settles over my heart. Our foreheads rest against each other and we wait patiently in the symphony of our ragged breathing and our hammering hearts. I have never wanted anything more than to have him again. I am filled with regrets and apologies and a hundred thousand dead soldiers and the ashes of a dying race but somewhere in the rubble of London I hear his voice in my ear. Somewhere in Chicago I hear his breath coming in waves as he holds me close again. And I don’t need any more words.
He puts a small kiss on my cheek bone. My eyes flutter shut as my head comes to rest on his chest. A silent “I love you” passes between us, seeping from our skin and into our bloodstreams. My wet clothes stick to my body as his hand travels over my back. My hands play with the hem of his shirt as his mouth hovers over my jaw. He pulls me flush to his chest and my hips press closer to his. The pressure between our bodies is mounting, I can feel it in my core, in every single cell in my body. The need I feel is dizzying. My hands explore his chest, play with his neck, scratch through his beard. I’m crying but it’s not the same as it was before. I can feel the pain in me shifting, pushing away the weighted darkness and replacing it with light. My breath hitches in my throat and I stop to hover over his lips.
“I need you,” I whisper, and that’s all he needs to hear.