Dialogue the First

"Are you all right?"
Serenity tried to move, but realized that she was lying comfortably in a pair of warm, familiar arms. "Yeah, bones are knitting and stuff. Where are we?"
"Service level. Shoddy reconstructed walkways collapsed when that Keeper blew up."
"Oh, is that what happened? I couldn't figure out what had exploded." She nestled her head into his shoulder, wrapped her good arm around his chest. "So, what are we doing down here?"
"Just waiting. No radio signals getting out, but I think they heard me shouting for help. Shouldn't be too long." He looked down at her, tried not to see all the blood and the damage. "Does... does it hurt?"
She chuckled, to his amazement. "What? Protecting you? Never has, never will."
He sighed, bent his head to hers. Kissed her again, softly. "Thank you."
She was silent. Straightened out one leg in response to signals from her implants. Listened to the slightly irritating noise of self-repair.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure, go ahead. We're alone, aren't we?"
"We are. The pulse was so bad it practically knocked out my amp. I'm pretty sure nothing external made it." He took a deep breath, and she knew she wasn't going to like his question. "Tell me about the Batarian."
She flinched. Whispered something he could barely hear.
"Serenity?"
"I keep thinking it's not going to hurt anymore."
The pain in her voice... he wondered if he should just let it go, but he couldn't. "I... you don't have to, but I... I would like to know."
"Oh, God..." She took a deep breath, almost a whimper of pain. Emotional, not physical. He couldn't see if she was crying. "On Elysium... I never ..." She choked back a sob, and started over, her voice stronger but still strained with pain. "We went as a group to Elysium, all of us. Mary... Inoue... Keiichi... Adam... Zheng... We'd grown up together, gone to Academy together. It was the first time we had all seen each other since we were split into our training programs. Everyone had paired up with someone except me.... N7 isn't really a good foundation for a relationship, you know? Well, I met this man, on Elysium. He was about ten years older than me, a lot like you in some ways, Kaidan. More like you than I like to think about. I suppose it turned out for the best, really."
"What happened?" Gentle, questioning, confused. He'd never thought about her being a war hero with scars.
"I was supposed to meet him for dinner. He said... he wanted to ask me a question, an important one. I spent all day trying to figure out how to look nice, how I could make myself look like I would fit into his life, and I just couldn't. I couldn't do it, I walked out of the hotel in my armor and weapons to just shoot stuff and let off some stress. I knew he would be waiting for me at the restaurant. It would have been the first time we ever met openly. And I ... I didn't go. I ran into Haliat's men instead, I held off six waves single-handedly and saved Elysium." She made a noise, half a sob, half a cry of pain. "But ... they were already inside the hotel. I didn't know that when I was holding my position. No one told me about the other waves. When I got back, the last group of raiders was leaving. They were looting bodies and running from the ground troops we had just landed. I... I found a Batarian looting his body. They had rounded up all the hotel guests and shot them in cold blood. All my childhood friends... all the people I grew up with... and I found this one Batarian... standing over his body... pulling ... what should have been my engagement ring... from his jacket... and he wasn't even cold...." She stopped there, choked up.
He closed his eyes and continued to hold her, silently. Trying not to give in to his own pain. Trying to bear it, for her sake.
"He wasn't even cold," she repeated softly. "Inoue was still breathing, had enough strength to send me after the rest of them before she died. She held on long enough to see me kill the Batarian, I don't think she really understood. I'll never know." A deep, steadying breath. "I found them all. I recovered everything the raiders had taken off the bodies of the dead. Everything they had stolen from my friends, all the others. Everyone... thought that was so heroic. They were all so pathetically grateful to have the little things back... such little, little things."
He felt a drop of warmth on his hands. It could have been blood from a wound. He couldn't see her face.
"I gave it back, of course. His parents didn't know, no one knew. He left people behind that needed that money now that he was gone. They sold it back. No one knew. I don't even know for sure... if he meant it for me.... I don't know."
"Serenity...."
The love in his voice was like warm, clean water to her tortured soul, washing away the darkness there. Exposing a deeper wound. "Oh, Kaidan, I used to wonder... if they had never attacked, would I really have left? Would I really have given up my whole life? But then... I met you. And that night before Ilos.... for the first time, I was glad! I was glad it happened!" She buried her face in his chest, ashamed to meet his eyes. "I was glad because everything I lost brought me to you...."

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Dialogue from "I Only Have Eyes for You," Episode 19, Season 2 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."