It's Never Too Late

“You're assuming I care.”

Piercing blue eyes narrowed.  “Are you saying you don't?”

Kaidan clenched his jaw and stared at his drink.  It had been a long day and all he wanted to do was have a beer or 2 and unwind.  The last thing he was expecting was Garrus to come in and ask for his help.  And he never would have guessed Garrus wanted his help rescuing Shepard.

It had been 3 years since the Reapers had been defeated.  The galaxy was rebuilding.  Things were, for the most part, pretty damn peaceful.  All because of Shepard.  Three years of people adulating the woman he could have had and didn't because he was a stupid, stubborn ass.  Three years of him wanting to talk to her, to apologize.  Three years of him starting to type a message only to lose his courage and delete it.  Three years of “I'll give her a call and see how she's doing” never happening.  Three. Damn. Years.  He was certain she'd moved on, found someone else, maybe even gotten married.  Hell, she probably hated him.  He certainly hadn't done anything to win her favor.  But still...

Kaidan sighed heavily and leaned back in his seat.  “What happened?”

The short version was that Garrus had asked for Shepard's help.  Even though most species in the galaxy were getting along famously, there were still those who were looking to exploit the weak and helpless.  In this case, it was a gang of batarians and vorcha and they made the mistake of preying on turian refugees.  Shep had put together a small team to try to locate an infiltrate their base of operations.  The plan was for her to check in every 12 hours.  36 hours had passed since anyone had heard from her last.

Kaidan tried keeping his temper in check.  “36 hours?  Garrus, why didn't you get help when she missed that first one?”

“Comms are still shaky, Kaidan, you know that.  And it wasn't the first one she'd missed.  There had been one or 2 others that came in a little late for whatever reason.  I wasn't concerned until she missed the second one.”

Kaidan turned his attention back to his drink.  Maybe this was his chance for redemption.  His chance to ask for forgiveness.  And even if he lost his courage again and couldn't speak, maybe the simple fact that he'd helped might be enough to break the ice  Maybe it would be enough for her to say his name.  God, what he wouldn't give to hear his name dance across her lips one more time...

Kaidan finished his beer and said, “When do we leave?”

- - - - - - - - - - -

You make me feel....  human.

Their first night together had been one for the books.  He wouldn't have been exaggerating if he'd said he'd seen stars.  The feel of her skin against his, her lips pressed against his own, the taste of her tongue in his mouth, the sounds she made as she came undone under his touch...  his heart ached at the memory.  Back then, he thought nothing would ever happen to them.  They were damn solid – a daunting force on the battlefield, fiercely protective of each other.  She put him well above her own needs and he did the same for her.  Kaidan honestly couldn't have pictured his life without her.  He'd even bought a damn ring.

- - - - - - - -

Kaidan followed Garrus onto the shuttle.  The plan was that it would be just the two of them on the planet – they didn't want to risk a larger force being noticed and possibly endanger Shepard.  And they were still waiting to hear from her.  They didn't know if the batarians caught her or if something had simply happened to the team's comms.  Kaidan doubted the latter – Shep had enough sense to know that people would worry if she didn't check in like she was supposed to.  She would have found another way to contact Garrus.  Or Hackett.  Or anybody.  She wouldn't just do nothing and leave them all hanging.  The fact that batarians were involved worried him.  Tremendously.  Even though she'd stopped the Reapers, most of the few remaining batarians in the galaxy wanted her dead because of the mess at the Alpha Relay.  If they had managed to catch her, there was no telling what they would do with her.  It wasn't like her face was unrecognizable.  He closed his eyes and tried not to think about it too much.

- - - - - - - - - -

Joker's still in the cockpit – he won't abandon ship.  I'm not leaving either.

Fucking Collectors.  No one knew at the time who it was that had attacked the original Normandy.  His heart had sunk to the pit of his stomach when she'd ordered him to leave.  She hadn't left him behind on Virmire, he hated that she wanted him to leave her behind on the Normandy.  It took every ounce of willpower he'd had to obey that order.  And after making sure the rest of the surviving crew were on board the escape pods, he looked around, hoping to see her.  He wanted to go find her, to help her get Joker off the ship.  But he knew if he stayed, she'd kick his ass, so he hopped in the last pod and hit the button, launching it toward the planet below.  Kaidan wasn't an overly religious man, but he prayed to every god past and present, human and otherwise, to look after the woman he loved.  And later, when only Joker climbed out of that final pod.... anguish didn't even begin to describe what he'd felt when he realized he'd lost her.

- - - - - - - - - -

Garrus and Kaidan were able to talk Admiral Hackett into letting them borrow the Normandy.  She was still the only ship in the galaxy with that infamous stealth technology.  Sure, a couple of other fleets managed to produce something similar, but none of it was as good as what was on the Normandy.  The SR2 could get in and out completely undetected, which they needed for this mission.  And it helped tremendously that after Shepard retired, the Alliance gave the ship to now-Lieutenant Commander Vega, who was more than willing to lend a hand getting “Lola” back into safe territory.  And having Joker still at the helm was a huge bonus, too.  Of course, in exchange for being able to use his ship, they had to let Vega come along.

At first they refused.  James had to think of the soldiers under his command.  And his ship.  “I have an XO, you know.  If things go south, she takes over.  No worries.  Beside, Lola would do the same for me.”  The big man crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head, almost daring Kaidan and Garrus to argue with him.

They simply looked at each other and Kaidan shrugged.  “You know him better than I do.  It's your call.”  Garrus twitched his mandibles and sighed.

“Fine, Vega.  You get to come along.  But if Shepard wants to kick your ass for it, don't look at me to save you.”

“You, Scars?  Save me from Lola?  Please,” the young commander scoffed.  “I can handle her.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, kid,” the turian muttered under his breath.

They were under way within the hour.

- - - - - - - - -

You turned your back on everything we believed in.  You betrayed the Alliance.  You betrayed me.

The instant the words had left his mouth, he regretted saying them.  And the hurt that had flickered across her face didn't help any.  The change in her expression was instant, but he'd caught it nonetheless.  And that only added to his guilt.  What was he supposed to do?  She'd been gone for two years – he'd thought she'd been dead – and then she shows up and announces she's working with the very people they'd tried bringing down while they were chasing Saren.  He'd never felt so many emotions at once – elation, love, anger, betrayal.  It was overwhelming.  Sure, he'd apologized.  Granted, it was in an email, but at least he said he was sorry.  And that should have counted for something, right?  He knew she'd seen it, but she never responded.  It was probably for the best – he was sorry for the things he'd said on Horizon and for hurting her, but even after sending it, the thought of her having teamed up with Cerberus angered him tremendously.  And if they'd actually spoken again, that anger might have gotten the best of him and he'd have said something he'd have regretted.  Again.  She needed to finish the mess with the Collectors.  Maybe afterward, they might sit down for that drink and talk things out.  Maybe even start over.

- - - - - - - - - -

Pragia.  Garrus seemed pretty familiar with it – apparently Shep had helped take care of some business there for one of the people who'd helped her with the Collectors.  He didn't offer any more details than that, and Kaidan didn't ask.

“Damn, Scars, you could have given me a heads up about the weather!” James complained, looking up at the sky.

“It always rains here.  And if you were that worried about the weather, you could have asked EDI for a forecast.”

After Shepard had triggered the Crucible to fire, the resulting pulse did a number on all artificial intelligence in the galaxy.  EDI had been severely damaged, but Traynor, Garrus, and Joker had worked non-stop trying to get her back in working order.  They'd determined that the Crucible's energy pulse was designed for life forms with a combination of organic and inorganic materials – just like the Reapers.  Why it affected AIs so much and not other life forms was a mystery – one that became moot when EDI was finally able to say hello to Joker.

“Yeah, well, I didn't think about it.  I guess that's something I'll have to remember for the next time,” James said as he jumped off the shuttle and into a puddle.  “I just hope I don't melt.”

“You won't have to worry about that, Vega,” Garrus said, grinning.  “Shit splatters.”

The pair laughed as Kaidan looked on, suddenly jealous of the camaraderie he apparently missed out on by not re-joining Shepard on the Normandy.  That was something he always missed about the original Normandy – chatting with Garrus while he tinkered with the Mako, meditating with Liara when he had an L2 flare, debating with Tali about what made one omni-tool better than another, physical training with Wrex, and, prior to Virmire, trying to get Ash to understand that she wasn't her grandfather.  They were a family and Shepard was their matriarch.  They had all loved her in their own way.  From the way Garrus and this Vega were acting, it was pretty much the same thing on the SR2.  He wondered how things had been on the ship while Shepard was chasing the Collectors.  If he had to guess, they had been a family, too, with Shepard probably easily and unassumingly filling the role again as the grande dame.

- - - - - - - - -

It would take a lot to rebuild the trust that we'd need.  And so, I respectfully decline, ma'am.

On Mars, he'd implied that he didn't believe her when she'd said she didn't know why Cerberus was there.  During Udina's failed coup attempt, he doubted her honesty that Udina was working for Cerberus and had been behind the attack.  Yet she stood just outside the airlock, asking him to continue to fight by her side.  And like a fool, he'd turned her down.  His refusal to rejoin her team hurt her – she made no effort to hide the pain on her face.  Instead, she shook his hand. “Best of luck, Alenko,”  she said so quietly he barely heard her.  But he definitely caught the fact that she called him by his last name.  As they walked away, he realized that he should have said, “Yes.  I'll fight with you as long as you'll have me.”  But when he turned to say something, to try and take back his 'no', she had already disappeared into the airlock.  He took a couple of steps toward where she'd vanished and heard her faintly sniffle.  It was a sound few heard because she rarely cried in front of other people.  And it was a sound that broke his heart.  He knew that even if she would still have him back, after everything he'd said and done, he didn't deserve it.  Not now.  Not by a long shot.  Kaidan hung his head and trudged back onto the Citadel.  That night, his apartment walls had several new holes in them.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The batarians were ill-equipped to handle what Kaidan, Garrus, and Vega threw at them.  The facility was poorly guarded and what guards were there didn't seem to be able to hit the broad side of a barn.  Kaidan was surprised that for having such a high-profile hostage like Shepard, the security was as bad as it was.  The trio made short work of whatever got in their way.  No alarms sounded, no additional forces came running out of side rooms to take them on like might have happened years ago.

Garrus was able to hack a terminal and find out exactly where Shepard was being held.  And when they got there, Kaidan was nearly sick to his stomach – she was stripped of all her armor, clad only in the garb she wore under her armor.  The thin shirt was pink from the blood that had soaked it.  It was ripped in several places where it looked like she'd been sliced with an omniblade.  There were bruises on her arms and her fingers were splayed in awkward directions as if they'd been broken.  And her face....  Both of her blackened eyes were swollen shut.  Her lips were both split in several places, and the discoloration and swelling on her cheeks made him think they'd actually broken bones in her face.  Kaidan rushed forward, gently picked her head up, and tried wiping some of the blood away from her eyes.

“Kaidan,” she barely whispered, looking at him briefly before passing out.

“I'm here,” he said, fighting back tears.  “I'm here and I'll be here as long as you'll have me.”

They all stayed with her until a medical team arrived from the Normandy.  They stabilized the Commander, and rushed to get her back to the ship for more treatment.  Once on board, the doctor explained that her injuries were pretty severe and that she'd been beaten nearly to death.  The batarians had actually attached a device to her biotic amp so that when she used her biotics, she'd give herself a shock strong enough to nearly stop her heart.

Kaidan never left her side.  He didn't know how she'd react if she woke and found him there and he really didn't care.  He'd spent entirely too long wallowing in self-pity and letting his stubborn pride keep him from reaching out to her.  If she woke and he was still there, he'd apologize.  Profusely.  And if she believed him, great; if not, well, at least he could say he'd tried.

The trip back to the Citadel seemed to take forever.  Joker was pushing the ship as much as he could, with EDI constantly reminding him what she could and could not make the Normandy do.  But the pilot didn't care.  He was just as glad as everyone else to have Shepard back home.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

When she finally woke, Garrus was the one by her side.  That didn't surprise her – he was her best friend and had been her rock since she picked him up on Omega all those years ago.  He was reading a datapad and hadn't noticed her eyes opened.

“What's a girl got to do to get a drink around here?” she croaked.

Garrus jumped at the sound of her voice and scrambled to get her some water.  He fetched the doctor, who was relieved that there didn't seem to be any permanent physical damage.  While she was being examined, Garrus excused himself to let everyone know she was awake.

Once things settled down in her room and Garrus came back (with food, God love him), she told him what had happened – the whole thing had been a set-up to get to her.  To make her pay for the Alpha Relay incident.  They batarians were arrogant – most of the galaxy thought they'd pretty much all been wiped out.  This group wanted to try and recapture the glory of the Hegemony and bring batarian slavery back.  Pragia was a backwater planet that no one was interested in and seemed like the perfect place for the wanna-be slavers to start their business.  They had very little money & couldn't afford decent mercs or weapons.  That's where Shepard came in – the plan was to sell her to the highest bidder and use that money to get their slavery ring off the ground.  She said that Garrus's timing was perfect – she had been slated to be shipped off that night.

Shepard sighed heavily and began nervously playing with her fingers.  “Garrus, there's something else...” her voice trailed off and she twisted her fingers around each other.

Garrus raised a browplate and asked, “What?”

Shepard didn't answer right away.  She opened her mouth a few times to speak, but no words came.  Garrus reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.  “Shep, what is it?”

Shepard looked at her friend and said, “I'd swear, on Pragia, before I blacked out...  I mean, I think I saw...”  Her voice trailed off and she sighed.  “You know what?  Never mind.  I was probably hallucinating.”

“What did you see?”  Garrus sounded concerned.  “Maybe it's something we need to tell the doctors about.”

“No, no. Nothing like that.  It's just...  you've listened to me rail and rant and cry about Kaidan over the last few years and you're probably sick to death of hearing about him and you probably wish I'd just be done with him, but...” she resumed playing with her fingers again, dropping her gaze.

“What about Kaidan?” Garrus gently prodded.

It was a few moments before Shepard looked at him again and spoke.  “Garrus, I swear, before I passed out, I saw Kaidan there.”

Garrus smiled slightly and simply nodded his head in the direction of the door.  Shepard looked where he'd pointed and saw Kaidan standing in the doorway, his hands shoved in his pockets, fear and nervousness written all over his face.  Tears welled in her eyes as she murmured, “Hey.”

Kaidan searched her face, looking for anger, trepidation, doubt, anything to indicate her greeting was mere politeness and that she actually didn't want him there.  But he saw nothing.  Nothing but hope and maybe a little happiness.  And that was all it took for him to take a tentative step into the room.  The corners of his mouth turned upward in the slightest smile.  “Hi,” he said, as the door closed behind him.