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The sounds of the beeping monitors kept Kaidan up at night, making it impossible for him to get any semblance of a good night’s sleep. He knew his lack of rest — along with his lack of food — was doing his migraines no favors, but he couldn’t, couldn’t stomach the thought of food or sleep.
Food because his anxiety was making him so nauseous that anything he put down would just come back up again a few minutes later.
Sleep because he was afraid — so afraid — that he’d miss something. Anything. Afraid that if he closed his eyes for just a moment, allowed himself to go home and get at least something akin to a good night’s sleep, that was when she’d wake up, or when something would happen that he needed to be around for.
He, somehow, became her de facto legal agent to make medical decisions on her behalf. She had no next of kin, so he supposed, as her de facto XO, it sorta made sense for him to be there in that capacity? Anderson, the only other person whom she was remotely close to, died on the Citadel, so he was all she had left.
The irony that she probably wouldn't want him in control of her future wasn’t lost on him.
But he’d do right by her. He promised himself that.
Once, they had something special. And once, if he hadn’t had his head so far up his ass, they could have rekindled what was.
But he was angry; he was mad, and hurt, and so confused at what the universe was throwing at him...he didn’t allow her to come back to him.
She tried. God damn if she didn’t try. And she did everything right. She came to visit him at the hospital. She explained why she was with Cerberus, why she hadn’t contacted him in two years, why she had to go missing from his life when he saw her again on Horizon…
She had explained. And he didn’t want to hear it.
He dropped his head in his hands as he felt fresh tears well up in his eyes.
He had been crying for so long, he was surprised his body had any more tears left to give.
“Kaidan,” Dr. Chakwas admonished him quietly, looking over at him from her place by the monitors near Shepard’s bed, taking down vitals and checking nutrient levels in the commander’s IV to make sure she was getting what she needed.
The good doctor had tried for ages to get Kaidan to go home. But he couldn’t. He just...couldn’t. Finally, she had slipped him some protein bars and instructed him to eat them, at least a bite at a time, so he wouldn’t pass out on her.
Considering he had almost worked himself to exhaustion finding Shepard, he knew better than to argue.
It still wasn’t easy though.
“I’m fine,” he said automatically, lifting his eyes and meeting Chakwas’ in an attempt to cover the lie more effectively.
He knew she knew he was anything but, but he also knew she’d been around him and Shepard long enough to know not to argue.
He was forever thankful for that.
“I’ll be fine.”
She gave him one last look before turning back to fiddle with the IV bag.
I’ll be fine. The same lie Shepard told him when he turned down her offer of friendship, of potentially rekindling their relationship. The simplest little lie, but one that could cut deep, hurt more than any of the others told.
He had loved her once. Hell, he had still loved her when he had returned to the SR-2, he knew. But he had to concentrate. She had to concentrate. Getting their personal lives entangled was the last thing either of them needed to do during that last push of the reaper war. She needed to focus on the war effort, on gathering the resources needed to build the Crucible, on creating the force needed to protect the weapon and engage in that final battle before it was unleashed.
She needed to be 100% on her A game.
And he thought, he had thought, he would have been nothing more than a distraction, nothing but a terrible influence on her. He would take her away from the duties she needed to perform.
How mistaken he was.
He didn’t know, didn’t have a single idea, until Vega and Vakarian talked to him while they were searching the wreckage for her. Kaidan had been inconsolable then; the thought of losing her like that had spurred something in him, had shaken something loose that let him finally come to his senses.
That he had loved Commander Shepard with all of his heart and soul, and he was the universe’s biggest idiot for turning her down and leaving her on her own during the most difficult time of her life.
If she woke up from this, if she managed to pull through, he’d spend the rest of his days making it up to her. He’d be there for her, for whatever she needed. He’d support her emotional and physical recovery, be by her side as she faced the galaxy again as its savior, a famous figure that would never be able to go anywhere ever again without being recognized. The news vids had plastered her face all across the extranet when the war ended.
Shepard was never going to know peace.
And he swore to her, here and now, that he would create that peace for her. Give her a place to just...be. To process and grieve and heal and recover without having to put on a strong face for the masses, without having to smile, where she could grimace and hate the galaxy for what it asked her to do, to sacrifice.
He had the opportunity to be that for her before, and he fucked it up so royally, he had no idea how she was ever going to forgive him.
Of course, Vega and Vakarian assured him that she still wanted him. In some misguided attempt to calm him down as they looked for her, they exchanged stories, tales of what she was like on the SR-2 when he wasn’t around. How she would sit in her cabin and regale the two men with anecdotes of Kaidan and her, what they’d done together on the SR-1, what they had done in those few weeks of bliss they had before she died…
She clearly still loved him, they said, and she wished, hoped, every night that he’d come back to his senses, that he’d get his head out of his ass long enough to be able to figure out that they belonged together.
That they were two halves of the same whole.
But no, he hadn’t figured it out until he saw her running for that beam, saw her essentially sacrifice herself for them, for the galaxy. Then, it clicked. Then, he realized what a colossal, massive idiot he’d been.
He spoke even fewer words during the search for her than he did now, but once, when Vega and Vakarian were talking to each other, exchanging one story of the time they had to sober her up before a meeting with Anderson and Hackett, he had asked.
Asked why the hell they hadn’t said anything to him about Shepard’s state and what she was feeling.
And their response gutted him more than anything that had happened thus far.
She wanted him to come to her on his own. To figure it out himself that they belonged together. That there was no one else in the entire universe for them.
He knew it once, she knew. He had just forgotten. And she was willing to have patience, to give him the time and space necessary to come to that realization again, to find his way back to her.
It took him way too damn long to do so.
But he was here now. He was here, and there was nothing, nothing he wouldn’t do for her.
He was too late.
No, he admonished himself. It wasn’t too late. He had hope.
He had to.
“Come back to me,” he whispered to her, not caring if Chakwas was still in the room. “Please, come back. I need you…” his voice cut off as emotion closed his throat once again.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, staring at her prone and still body, bruised, battered, and covered in so many wires and tubes and casts he had lost count.
“I’m sorry I was an ass, sorry I had no idea what I was doing. Sorry I was so scared. Scared of you. Of what a future with you meant. I’m so, so sorry.”
He reached over and gingerly took her hand in his. He knew he wasn’t supposed to touch her, wasn’t really supposed to manipulate her too much, because her body was in a delicate stage of healing, but he just felt a compulsion, a need, to connect with her, feel her warmth, however faint it was, surround him.
And he knew it was unfair to say it, unfair of him to put this emotion out into the world when they clearly had so much to talk about, so much to figure out about their relationship. So much work to be done between the two of them, but...he felt the drive to say it. To get it out in the open.
The words were burning inside of his chest.
“I love you.”
And he let out a sob, a huge cry that wracked his body, as he felt her hand twitch around his own.
But he might just have been imagining it.
“Dr. Chakwas?” he called softly, not taking his eyes off of Shepard, tears actively streaming down his face. “Did you do something to make her move?”
“No, Kaidan. Did she? What did you do?”
“I told her,” he sniffed. “I told her I loved her.”
The doctor came over to peer into Shepard’s face, pulling up her omni-tool to read her biostat sheet.
“Have you ever done that before?” she asked.
Kaidan shook his head, fresh tears springing to his eyes. “It just...it never felt right. But I just thought…”
“Do it again,” Chakwas ordered.
“Shepard. Elizabeth. I love you.”
And that time, he knew. Knew it wasn’t a figment of his imagination, or something Chakwas had done to her.
She had moved, securing her hand more firmly around his own, or as firmly as she could given her broken state.
“I love you, Elizabeth.”
And to his utter and complete astonishment, she opened her eyes.
Maybe he hadn’t missed his opportunity after all.