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Kaidan Alenko is dragging his feet. He knows this; he’s been reminded by Admiral Anderson countless times to complete this task, but cannot find the drive to carry out orders. Which is something he’s usually pretty good at.
When it comes down to it, this isn’t the Normandy. Not really. Not his Normandy, at least. Kaidan recalls the real Normandy being half the size of this flashy warship he’s standing before now. He sighs, steeling his willpower to make him walk to the airlock. He would really rather be doing anything than this.
Anderson had asked him a week ago to appraise the SR-2. She’d barely been docked more than an hour before he had been called to Anderson’s office.
“Alenko, I need a favor.” The admiral had said, hands crossed behind his back, staring out of his window with a look of deep contemplation. Anderson then turned halfway; a tight smile on his lips and Kaidan had a sinking feeling about where this was going.
“I need you to assess the SR-2.”
The last thing in the galaxy Kaidan wants to do is step foot on this damned ship. This damned Cerberus ship. Anderson had told him the vessel had already been swept for bugs, bombs, and any other corrupt tech, so what good was Kaidan’s walkthrough going to do?
The airlock opens with a slight hiss as he starts his inspection. He makes his way to the cockpit first, eerily quiet and dark without her pilot. Kaidan lays a hand on the chair, real leather (much to his grudging approval), and he actually snorts out loud when he sees the hand written label of Joker’s Ass Only on the seat of the chair. There are catches on the edges where it looks like the Alliance retro-fitting team has tried to remove it and he can’t stop grinning.
Shaking his head, Kaidan makes his way across the bridge to the CIC. Everything is set up similarly to the SR-1 and he’s (unfortunately) got no complaints about the upgrades. He thinks the armory being on the second floor is unnecessary and makes a mental note to tell the retro-fit team to move it to the docking bay for logistics’ sake.
Kaidan’s tour continues for another hour as he explores each level of the ship. He actively avoids one particular area, but finds he cannot put it off any longer after he’s scoured every inch of the rest of the SR-2. With a deep sigh, he enters the elevator and selects level one, dreading this part the most.
The Captain’s Cabin is incredible. Which, in hindsight, shouldn’t surprise him knowing that Cerberus spent a fortune building the whole ship. However, the sheer size of the quarters nearly leaves Kaidan speechless.
He steps slowly inside, trying to ignore the fluttering in his chest at the faint scent of Shepard (gun polish and an earthy musk). His eyes squint at the electric blue of the fish tank along the wall…
This is the first time he’s seen her since Horizon. It hasn’t been that long, but that feels like a lifetime ago. He stands on the sidelines, hidden amongst the other soldiers, gawking at the events unfolding before him.
Commander Shepard in handcuffs, head held high as she’s surrounded by a platoon of military police. Her reputation precedes her, but he knows she doesn’t intend on escaping. She’s just turned herself in for genocide, after all.
Anderson and Hackett are pushing through the MPs, but the soldiers are trying to usher her inside the base as quickly as they can.
She is silent for the entire proceeding, but he sees her make eye contact with Anderson and says one thing only, “I need someone to feed my fish.”
And then she is taken away.
“A fucking fish tank.” He says in disbelief, shaking his head as his eyes adjust to the blue glare. It seems that her one request was ignored as it is completely empty. Kaidan’s not sure if the fish survived the retro-fit team or if they’d just been relocated. He’s sure they’d been examined in the Alliance’s thorough search for Cerberus bugs.
He moves on slowly, pondering if he should even tell Anderson about the missing fish. An empty hamster cage sits on a shelf nearby and he tries not to think of the fate of its inhabitant. Her personal terminal is black, surely unplugged and decrypted. Kaidan gazes at the model ships she’s collected, smiling wistfully at the SR-1 as the centerpiece of her display. He wonders, selfishly, if he can swipe it for his own quarters.
His fingers glide across her Star of Terra and makes a mental note to tell Anderson to collect her personal items. Whoever she is now and whatever she’s done doesn’t erase her past achievements.
Kaidan sees a holo face down on her desk. Idly, he picks it up and rights it next to her medal. His blood abruptly runs cold as the holo flickers to life and his own face smiles back at him.
He steps back quickly, heart racing, as though burned by the image. Why would she have this? A million thoughts stutter across his brain as he tries to rationalize his presence in her quarters.
This wasn’t his Shepard. His Cora. This was some clone, some carbon-copy of the woman he loved and lost. He had no connection with this one, no history, no relationship. Why would she have a holo of him like some foxhole memento? His blood suddenly went white-hot in indignation. How dare this imposter pretend to be his?
But was she an imposter? Everything about this room screamed Cora Shepard. Her immaculately made bed, her whimsical assortment of model ships, her N7 hoodie perched on the back of the chair. All of these things were Cora. Kaidan knew, without a shadow of a doubt, the other things he would find in this room upon further inspection: a bottle of brandy hiding in the desk drawer, her favorite lipstick on the bathroom sink, a Carniflex hiding under her pillow…
Kaidan falls heavily into the desk chair, feeling nauseous and overwhelmed, a migraine flitting at the edges of his vision. He stares at the black screen of her personal terminal and tries to talk himself out of looking through her emails. He fails at this and boots it up, thankful that the Alliance had scrubbed her password. She’s archived all of her messages except one and he’s met with his angry emotional ramblings after their meeting on Horizon.
It had irked him for months that he’d never received a response from her, assuming that this false Shepard had just ignored him. Again, he’d been wrong. Kaidan parses through her drafts to find at least fifteen half-finished replies to his message, each attempt a different emotion…
Anderson wouldn’t let me contact you.
Do you think I fucking asked for this?
I am so sorry, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.
Maybe the Collectors will finish the job this time.
I loved you, too.
Each reply hurts on a different level, and Kaidan pushes away from the desk and out of the seat in quick moment, as though given an electrical shock. The migraine is getting worse now and he rubs both hands over his face, trying to erase Cora’s words from his memory.
He turns to the fish tank and rests his forehead against the cool glass with a dull thud. He didn’t think this woman could tear him up any more than he’d already been, but he feels a wet prickling at the corners of his eyes.
“Damn it, Shepard.” His breath fogs the glass and he listens to the sluggish bubbling of the water inside the tank.
Kaidan’s omni-tool beeps and he sees a message from Anderson. He doesn’t want to meet with the admiral right now, but finds he can no longer stand to be on this ship. Kaidan sighs and turns from the tank, taking one more look at the quarters.
Walking to the desk again, he stares down the holo of himself, trying to ignore the tightness in his chest at the implication. He tries to smother the image forming in his head of Cora looking at his holo before running head-first into a suicide mission.
Kaidan shakes his head again, another omni-tool beep saving him from wallowing. He takes a deep breath, gun polish and musk, and marches to the door with a soldier’s purpose.
He stops abruptly in the doorway, clenching his jaw in resolve, and walks back to her desk, swiping the N7 hoodie. It is just as worn and soft as he remembered it and her scent afflicts him tenfold as he puts it over his arm and exits the cabin.
The worst of Cora’s unsent replies flickers in his mind and follows him away from the Normandy.
I still love you.