Work Text:
one.
He always thought, if he saw Shepard again, it’d be after they moved him to a public hospital, probably on the Citadel, with a view of the Presidium: plenty of windows; plenty of natural light to help combat the depression that always set in when a soldier was in limbo, that recuperation stage, for too long.
It wouldn’t be easy. There’d be a lot of hard work, days when it was almost too heavy carrying somebody else’s weight around the same halls—especially when that somebody was smart enough to know they were being carried.
Shepard wouldn’t like it. He wasn’t the type.
The food wouldn’t be good, but it wouldn’t be Normandy-bad, either. Puddings in cups; proteins in wrappers. At first, it was hard to accept the idea of holding straws for Shepard’s protein shakes, or seeing him in pain, or remembering the man he was, watching atrophied muscle finally start to strengthen and realizing the healing process was three steps forward for every two steps back. Some days, the odds fell on the other side. Some days, it was like moving backwards.
But a few weeks passed, and Kaidan figured, okay. Okay. He could do it. He could be that guy. He could take the time off. He could sit by the bed and get the sunlight, get stir crazy, get the straws—even if he couldn’t get the pain. He could take three steps forward and two steps back if it meant he was moving more than he was waiting.
Only Shepard didn’t come back. He wasn’t in any of the hospitals. Kaidan ate decent food and went through the routine, counsel sessions exactly forty-five minutes each. Ten of them over the course of three weeks.
Cleared for Active Duty, his file said on the last day. And by then, Shepard’s would’ve said MIA, even if it was classified information.
two.
He got his new commission when he got the news. He was still getting used to the promotion, thinking that was the kind of change he could get used to. Maybe. Someday.
He got the chance to breathe three hours later, alone by a fountain on the Presidium.
He got his eyes up to the sky, shielding them from the glare of the light fading over the tower, and blinking off the hard black edge of a polished memorial. One of too many, old soldiers liked to say.
He got that chill he hadn’t felt in years, sharp between his hips, deep in the base of his spine—but when he turned around, Shepard wasn’t standing behind him. All the VIs were in another part of the Commons and most of them were in the docking bay.
He got on the transport to Horizon and Shepard didn’t find him at the check-in station; he didn’t show up the three days Kaidan had off before the commission, on any of the streets from Purgatory to Apollo’s Café. Touching Kaidan’s shoulder while he watched the skyways. Saying Kaidan whenever he closed his eyes. Standing back to get a good look at him—saying how much and how little he’d changed.
three.
He saw Shepard again—kind of like it was for the first time—on Horizon, without enough space to pause between this might be it to there he is.
His hands balled into fists only all the fight, considering where the fight really was, had been taken out of him. Not enough protein to rebuild the muscles he needed for hurting.
The healing process was three steps forward and two steps back. Shepard took the first step, an odd number, and Kaidan wondered where the pause was, the perspective, when pride settled in like armor, a visor’s blind-spot or the angle of the sun between them.
In a perfect world…
On a perfect horizon.
Shepard touched Kaidan’s shoulder, and Kaidan would’ve touched his face, only they were wearing gloves, and he was too busy feeling his mouth twist at what they’d found in a Seeker Swarm.
Yeah. Anti-gravity humor—sometimes it’s all you’ve got, right, Kaidan?
Yeah, Shepard. I always did have that weird way of joking. Funny how nobody ever laughs.
You know I would’ve found you if the mission you were on wasn’t top secret, right?
Yeah, Shepard.
And it’d be easy. Two old friends. Wounds that hadn’t been cauterized. How little they’d changed.
four.
He played it out like a bad game of chess in his head, in his heart, in his veins. Shepard was walking away, but all he had to do was say Shepard’s name.
The rest came after. The first shot… Sometimes, that was the only one that needed firing.
‘I’m not gonna heal that quickly,’ Kaidan would say. ‘You know, it’s… It’s gonna take time.’
‘Yeah, Kaidan.’
‘I’m still mad as hell, and it’s gonna be slow. Slow like healing.’
‘Yeah, Kaidan.’
The old times. The good times. Driving off the edge of a cliff in the Mako; not knowing what gravity was or that they had to obey it. When the engine bottomed out and Shepard hot-wired it to work again—then grinned, sweaty and cheeky for only a second, so it felt like a trick of the sunlight in low air-pressure situations. Glare on the sand. A hallucination. ‘They don’t teach that in Alliance,’ Kaidan had pointed out, leaning against the hot side of the vehicle, and if he hadn’t been suited up, it probably would have burned him. As it was, there’d been a definite sizzle.
‘I had to do it, Kaidan. Protocol. Integrity. I had to get Joker off the ship. You would’ve done the same thing if you were in my place—if you were the Normandy’s commander, not me.’
‘Yeah, Shepard. I would’ve done the same thing.’
Commander Alenko. He was still getting used to the promotion.
five.
He saw it happen a different way, wanting it hard enough that his head started to swim. Shepard made it three steps forward before he turned around. He made it two steps back before Kaidan took his first step, and going in opposite directions was what brought them together again.
Maybe it could work out anyway.
Maybe Kaidan punched him, hit him hard. Maybe Shepard let it connect, knuckles on bone, even if he could’ve ducked it easily. Maybe he held his jaw after in his gloved hands, lip bleeding, the flesh already swelling, while Kaidan shook out his fist and said he was sorry, but they were both commanders now, and this was his station.
‘It’s not insubordination,’ he’d explain. ‘So you can’t throw me in the brig.’
‘You pack one hell of a right uppercut, Kaidan,’ Shepard would say. He’d have blood in his mouth, the blood Kaidan never got to see. ‘You know, we’re going to laugh about this someday.’
‘Found each other in a Seeker Swarm.’
‘Might even say we found what we were looking for.’
‘This isn’t a Blasto movie, Shepard.’
‘I figured as much when I looked down and realized I didn’t have any tentacles.’
Maybe they’d laugh already. Deep, hard, rough. Maybe Kaidan would be the one to touch Shepard’s shoulders and pride wouldn’t be about perspective but about how much they’d changed. Maybe he’d rest there for a while; once was an accident, twice was more than a coincidence, and if they got all the way up to three times they could call it a habit, Shepard saying Kaidan when he closed his eyes.
‘Sorry about hitting you that hard.’
‘Sorry about dying for a couple of years.’
‘And—’
‘Not calling, even though I couldn’t. And…’
‘And showing up working for Cerberus.’
‘…And not giving you a good reason.’
Maybe they’d say that. Maybe it’d be okay.
six.
Shepard’s shoulders squared off in the sunlight, which was already going down over Horizon. The glare blinked along the arc of metal over his omni-tool and Kaidan, who didn’t have to salute, didn’t shield his eyes.
Three steps forward, and it only took one.
END