How many times had Kaidan tried not to think about Arran Shepard choking to death as she floated into and through the nothingness, her body wracked with panic and pain? And worse, almost than any of that, dying as she was utterly and hopelessly alone? He would try and try not to think of it, from the moment he knew the Normandy shattered, the instant he realized she was spaced, the moment he felt that little red thread she’d tied on his rib cage, the one that could stretch for light years, go taut and then snap. He needed to maintain control, and for some time, duty and training took over and he could push it out of his mind well enough. But a debt of memory was incurred and suddenly, on the shuttle from the docks to Headquarters, the debt was called due.
And after that, howsoever many times he tried to stop it, it came back to him again.
So it became a hundred thousand? A million?
Seemed to him it couldn’t be measured like a number. Numbers were discrete, had boundaries, ends. When it started, it just was the new space, omnipresent whenever you glanced out the windows. Second by second at first, he would blink it in and out of view until he had to drink something to stop the almost seizure-inducing flashes of his Arran’s final agony. Had to drink so much to overcome his biotically-enhanced metabolism that for a few days, he felt like one of those ancient film projectors, playing the same film over the theater of his eyes over and over again. It felt like half-punishment, half-mercy because he didn’t want to know what was on the other side of the bender, when the reel ended and she was just dead.
Report filed, leave requested and granted, he stayed there in the little hotel room outside Alliance HQ in Vancouver. No food, no calls, no friends from the Normandy. No check-in messages from the family. Just he, himself, a case of lager, and the wallpaper.
It wasn’t like suicide, but an early, persistent and unprecedented migraine meant he didn’t really care if he was close enough to the edge to be dangerous.
And it wasn’t like a vision, but he woke up to his own sobs on the third day, and a feeling of her hand on his chest just as she had always done. His breathing calmed under her touch. Her face, beautiful, as imperious as ever and briefly unmarred by sights and sounds of the replaying snuff film still playing in his mind, albeit muted, just out of frame. White light from a projector came through the pocket between her elbow and her left palm that was bent up to press against her ear. Against facts and sanity, he was caught up in her presence, like he could just grab her and have her, like he could just opt out of his agony and rewrite history in this lopsided, comfortless bed.
Her hand was soft, stroking, as she shook her head. He could feel it. He really thought he could almost feel it. She whispered, “This isn’t really like us.”
“What isn’t?” He’d looked up, blinked, saw a flash between frames.
As though there was nothing more to say, let her hand rise from his chest to his cheek, holding it there. Then, she rose and the sheets that had only half-covered her before fell away and she walked into the light.
It did not bring him peace, but afterwards, he found he could sleep just enough, focus just enough, eat just enough to come back to duty. The film now just in matinees, spare instances when he didn’t stick to routine, and he would see it, but at the end, remember that the ugly grief he felt, the monstrosity of helpless, wretched love, wasn’t really where she was. And if he wanted more answers, if he wanted to follow the breadcrumbs, if he wanted *her*, and oh, how he wanted her, he had to go where she was.
Into the light.
This is dark, like the depths of the ocean. I think it is absolutely wonderful!