Forget Horizon

Shepard stumbled into the foyer of the Dark Star Lounge, the metal doors sliding shut and offering a quiet relief from the thudding music. She slowed her steps, breathing hard in an effort to keep composure of herself. She wanted to curl up in a little ball and hide away from the galaxy for a while, but not till she was back on board the Normandy. However it would do to have the brave, strong Hero that was Commander Shepard running through the Zakera wards with frantic haste and obviously in distress. No she was always the strong figure, angry and hot headed perhaps but never pitiful.

"Shepard!" The doors suddenly slid open, loud thudding music flooding the quiet foyer and carrying his voice with it.

She wasn't sure she wanted to do talking right at that moment. His voice was odd, angry in a way she'd not heard from him before and she didn't want to see him angry with her. Shepard shook her head and carried on walking towards the next set of doors, composed or not she counted that he at least wouldn't make a scene out in the wards, he might not even follow her. But she never got that far, she could hear his heavy footsteps falling swiftly behind her. She wanted to run but that was stupid, she didn't run from things let alone someone she had loved…still did love? Oh it was all just so confusing.

Kaiden reached out and grabbed her arm roughly at the elbow to stop her running away from him, "You can't just run off after saying something like that and not give me a chance to explain myself." He practically spat yanking her around to face him.

Her arm hurt from where his fingers dug into her flesh, gripping so tightly that she was sure he'd break her arm before she'd manage to struggle it away from him. So she didn't struggle, but as he yanked her around the movement took Shepard so off guard that the world span with colours again and she stumbled, falling against him. She had a sudden rush of déjà vu as her free hand came up to cushion her fall meeting firm pectoral muscles and an incredible urge to kiss him overcame her. But it wasn't right, it hadn't been angry or rough before…

Shepard frowned as her drink addled brain slowly filtered back into control and his previous words came back to her. "Explain yourself? So it is true then!" Desire to kiss replaced with desire to slap but she didn't, she shoved at him wrenching her arm from his slackened grip and stumbled away; backing too hard into the wall that it knocked the breath from her lungs. Damn I'm going to be bruised in the morning.

"You've even thought up some explanation to justify yourself! You really wish that I hadn't come back, that I'd stayed dead." She burst out through ragged breaths as her lungs filtered air back in. She stayed leaning against the wall for support, had enough of stumbling and being dragged around for one night.

"No damnit Shepard! I don't wish you'd stayed dead, I wish you'd never died at all. We had a good thing going, all of us, the crew, everybody, we lost you and it all went to hell. Without a Commander we had no reason to stick together anymore. No one wanted to believe in the Reapers, it all just got buried and there was nothing we could do about it, do you know how frustrating that is?"

"Funnily enough Kaiden actually yes or do you not remember all the shit we got from the old council when we were hunting Saren? So the new one isn't any better, big fucking surprise, but that's not the real issue here is it? I don't want to know about this, I don't care right now, Kaiden what concerns me is you. You have all this anger pent up inside you that you're dying to let loose, so do it!" Shepard pushed away from the wall, frustration and adrenaline giving her legs back their life. "Go on, blow up at me, rant about how you hate that I left you; that I ordered you into that escape pod. That I came back working for Cerberus after the number of them we'd tried to wipe out together. Tell me how you can never trust me again or some such other shit but please just do it now because I can't take anymore of the build up when I know what's coming."

Kaiden's dark eyes widened as she raged at him again, once more he'd not been expecting it. "Well it sounds like you got just about all of it covered there, I needn't bother." He said in a dark and bitter tone.

"Needn't bother, but you want to!"

"Yeah I do." He rasped in a tone that made Shepard a little nervous, "I want you to feel the pain that I did Shepard because it doesn't seem to even bother you!"

"Oh it bothers me Kaiden believe me, you have no idea what is going on inside of my head I just don't let it eat me away…" Or was that a lie, hadn't she been doing just that recently? Without a mission to take up her time and her attention these things took the chance to creep back into her thoughts and try to drown her. "I couldn't…there were things that needed to be done and there was only me that could do them. Damn that sounds big headed even to me."

"But we both know it's true, even right now I won't deny that. Cerberus wouldn't have spent all that money to bring you back if someone else could have done what you did."

Shepard frowned, just how much did he know? "You said you'd heard stories, what exactly did you hear?"

"You're changing the subject Shepard, something finally starting to hurt?"

She glared at him, "Just answer the question…please."

"Just rumours really, I imagine the, what is it? Illusive Man? Released them into the Alliance channels to boast about what Cerberus had done that the Alliance couldn't. Basically said that the initial threat to the human colonies from the Collectors was over."

Shepard nodded, sounded like the sort of thing the Illusive Man would do. "That's true, the Reapers are still out there but they've not got their Collector pawns any longer."

"But how? What did you do?" He asked, curiosity for a moment overshadowing his rage. Shepard hesitated and just looked at him while still carefully avoiding his eyes, her mouth formed silent words and it struck her that she must have spent a good part of her evening looking like a fish at feeding time. "See this is just it Shepard, how can I trust you when you're keeping big things like this from me and the Alliance?"

"What does it matter what we did, can't you just accept that what you've heard is the truth and leave it at that?"

"No!" Simple answer and Kaiden said no more even though Shepard paused and waited for him to continue. When the silence started to stretch too long she relented.

"Fine, if it'll do anything to help you trust me again I'll tell you, but only YOU Kaiden. I don't personally care who knows but the Illusive Man might and I…well I wouldn't like to think what he might do to you."

"I can take care of myself Shepard, you know that."

"Yeah I do, still I don't want to give him a reason to try…I would never forgive myself."

Kaiden let another silence stretch out between them; he was considering his options very hard. She seemed almost morbidly sincere, a little more pain creeping into her eyes. "Fine, just between us then."

She nodded and took a deep breath, "Ok, well we took the Omega 4 relay to the Collectors homeworld and we wiped them out from there." Vague a little perhaps but it about summed the whole thing up.

"What? How, no one knows where the Collectors are from and the Omega 4 relay is always locked."

"Ah I don't know Kaiden we found some data from somewhere, the Illusive mad had his tip offs and contacts and all that crap. Found some programme thing, you know how good I am with the technical stuff, which would show us where their homeworld was, also led them straight to the Normandy and got my whole damn crew kidnapped, if it weren't for Joker and EDI the whole damn lot would be dead and we'd all be Collector chow."

Kaiden shook his head, when she got into her stride Shepard really got talking, particularly when she had a few good drinks in her. "So where was it, the Collectors homeworld."

"…The galactic core."

He shook his head, "No way Shepard, there is nothing there, there can't be it's a mass of black holes…"

"Yeah we had just the same discussion with the AI, but trust me there is more than black holes there. Though a little less now after the neutron purge wiped out every organic lifeform in that place."

"You went to the Galactic core? Shepard nothings ever been through that relay and come out alive, that'd be why! You went in there knowing…"

"That we might not be coming back?" She finished for him, "Yeah, we were all prepared for it to be a suicide mission and for two of my crew it was."

"Shit! Shepard why? How could you just go into that not knowing if you were going to come back again or not?"

"Isn't every battle we go into like that though Kaiden? You never know the day when someone is going to get the lucky shot on you?" She said feeling her words as far too philosophical to follow one of the few times she'd ever heard him curse. "But, as far as this time goes, I suppose there was no other choice, we were as prepared as we could be and I, well, wasn't sure there was anything all that great to be coming back to. So if worse came to the worst, as long as we got the job done, it wouldn't be a huge loss on the galaxy."

"No great loss? Don't give me that Shepard, what was it, trying to play the martyr? And nothing to come back to? Well that about says it all doesn't it. The way you just come back all business as if no time had passed at all and with Cerberus…do you know what that did to fuck with my mind with my life? And now you tell me that I could have lost you again and not even known about it."

Shepard shook her head. "No Kaiden, you lost me once. I may have come back but you didn't want to find me and I still don't think you're sure about that even now. I can stand here in front of you talking, very much alive, but to you I'm not the same anymore. It's not you who's lost me Kaiden, I'm here and waiting, it's me who's lost you."

"You never lost me, I didn't go anywhere, haven't changed."

"Really?" Shepard said in disbelief as she closed the gap between them. She looked up intently into his dark eyes, her own glistened with tears that still remained unshed but they were there and waiting to fall. "Then tell me you love me. Because I know that I still love you."

He looked down at her and wanted to say it, he could almost feel the words on his tongue but there was so much else going on that they didn't sound real. He was still angry, he was hurt and confused and not even convinced that she was still the same Shepard he had fallen in love with. Conflicting arguments warred in his head, the Shepard he knew would never work for Cerberus, but they'd turned around and done what the Alliance couldn't and protect the human colonies. They'd done so much bad and fucked up shit he didn't even want to associate with it and she was, but Shepard had never been a part of that. And what she had done had saved the damn galaxy again….maybe she was still the same…

He must have let the silence stretch for too long, the thoughts in his head battling amongst themselves as the words remained perched on his tongue. But it was Shepard who spoke first.

"See, that's what I thought." Her voice sounded strange, quiet and strained, cracking slightly as if she were fighting back a sob and before he knew it she had turned and was gone again and he wasn't sure how he could go about getting her back after that.