If It Meant Living: Tales - We're Dancing Now

If It Meant Living: Tales

"We're Dancing Now"

A/N: Entry for #GamingLoveInterests “Caught in the Rain” contest.

– “Caught in the Rain,” Revis

November, 2185

Vancouver

Kaidan stepped out of the spaceport to overcast skies. Figures, he thought.

Unlike the Seattle neighborhoods further south, it rarely rained in Vancouver during the fall. But it was almost winter now, and if it were going to rain, today would be the day.

He was running. He supposed he was running home, though he doubted he would visit his parents while here. He was definitely running away – from Horizon, from the miracle and the nightmare that had been coming face to face with a ghost.

He had stopped at the Citadel just long enough to drop off his report and grab a change of clothes, then had taken weekend leave and caught a shuttle for Earth. He hadn’t spoken to a solitary soul; he was a shell, an automaton putting one foot in front of the other as required to get from one place to the other. Yet on the inside his mind reeled and thrashed like a drowning castaway, unable to find a mooring from which it could get any kind of grip on what had happened.

He was probably in shock, he thought idly as he descended the wide steps and turned left onto the pedestrian walkway that curved toward English Bay. But since he was Kaidan Alenko, he seemed to the outside world like his normal self – calm, controlled, even.

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the damp, cool air as he reached the beginnings of the park that stretched for kilometers along the Bay and into Burrard Inlet. The heavy clouds had warned most visitors away; the foot and bike traffic was light. That was good. He wanted to be alone.

She was soaked in sweat; her hair was an absolute mess. A piece of her black armor was cracked and dangling off her arm; husk gore streaked the rest of it. She was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

She had stood confidently in front of him, as though she were somehow real, risen from a frozen grave.

There had been no greater moment in his life than saving the galaxy at her side. Oh god he had loved her, so very, very much.

 But that was impossible. No one came back from the dead. No one.

He lurched forward, grabbing her arm and squeezing it hard. “Are you even really her? What are you? Are you a clone? A machine?” His grip tightened. “Do you even feel this?”

She threw his arm off roughly. “Yes, goddammit!” Her eyes were wide and pleading; they sparked and flared, swirls of blue threatening at the edges. “I…I’m me. I don’t know what else to tell you… Don’t you know? Can’t you see?”               

His eyes darkened and turned cold. Dead. Empty. “The Shepard I knew died two years ago at Alchera. I don’t know who you are.”

His hand came to his mouth as he choked back a cry. How could it have been anyone else when she looked at him that way?

But if it was her, then…she had left him. Turned her back on him, on the Normandy, on the Alliance, on the Spectres. To work with terrorists. Terrorists he had truly believed she despised.

He was a well-grounded guy. Maybe a little idealistic, but hardly whimsical. He had no illusions about the way the world worked. And there was simply no way in which he could arrange those disparate facts within his concept of the universe that made any sense.

He recalled something she had said once, when he had been struggling to understand the infuriating decisions made by the Council. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

No one came back from the dead. But what if she did?

The first raindrop splattered on the bridge of his nose.

***

Nodacrux: Two Years, Six Months Earlier

Garrus hiked a foot up onto the dash of the Mako as it bounced lightly along the uneven ground. “Remind me – what exactly are we doing down here?”

Shepard glared out the windshield. “We’re tracking down readings of some kind of rare polonium, because Adams wants some rare polonium. And since we don’t have a fucking clue where Saren is or how to find him, we have nothing better to do than indulge Adams’ whims.”

Garrus nodded tightly and studied the suddenly interesting dashboard. “Right.”

Kaidan was a little taken aback at the unusual sharpness in her voice, but not overly surprised. He knew she was frustrated and feeling the pressure. Every day Saren remained on the loose was a day that brought the Reapers closer.

Abruptly the Mako came to a halt. She looked over at them. “Anybody want to go for a walk? The next reading is up in those hills; I could use the exercise.”

He peered out the side viewport. The air here was breathable, the temperature reasonable. He shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Garrus frowned. “I know it looks nice out there right now, but the files indicate this planet’s climate has a propensity for kicking up nasty thunderstorms out of nowhere.”

Shepard gazed at him plaintively, like a child desperate for the new toy on the store shelf. “Come on, we’ll be fine…”

His mandibles twitched. “Tell you what. I don’t care about the exercise – I’ll stay with the Mako, and if you get caught in a storm, you can comm me and I’ll come save your asses.”

“Are you sure? You’ll be bored.”

He chuckled. “As opposed to now? I’m sure.”

She practically squealed in delight. “Come on, Lieutenant. Let’s take a stroll.”

It would have been wrong of him to be glad that Garrus was staying behind. He liked Garrus. Garrus was pleasant company. Yep, definitely wrong. He quickly grabbed the resource pack and scrambled out of the Mako after her.

Her mood seemed to lighten in the fresh air. They chatted as they hiked through the rolling hills; she shared tales of crazy things she had seen on special forces missions, and she somehow managed to get him to talk a little about his childhood.

It was easy; comfortable. He thought maybe they were becoming friends. He decided he was definitely glad Garrus had stayed behind.

By the time they reached the polonium deposit, the skies were starting to cloud over. They crouched down with the excavation tools and dug out as much as would fit in the pack. He quickly cinched it up as the first drops of rain began falling.

In an instant it was a downpour. Fat, heavy drops splashed on the ground and on his head. In seconds he was soaked to the bone. He stood, draping the pack over his shoulder, and turned to Shepard.

Her face was lifted to the sky, her arms spread and palms open. Her fiery hair was plastered against her cheeks and neck, but her expression was one of pure joy.

She was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

He struggled to tamp down his suddenly racing heartbeat. Realizing he had been staring openly at her for an inordinate amount of time, he cleared his throat. “Um, Commander, should we tell Garrus to come pick us up?”

She laughed and spun around in slow circles, spreading her arms even wider as if to capture more of the rain in her orbit. “What, you don’t like dancing in the rain, Kaidan?”

It was the first time she had called him by his first name. It had fallen effortlessly from her lips, the lilting tenor of her voice gifting it with qualities he had never known it possessed.

Several of his internal control mechanisms immediately short-circuited upon hearing it. He grinned in amusement. “We’re dancing now, are we?” Ma’am. He had forgotten to say ‘ma’am’…oh, to hell with it.

Her lips quirked up. The left side of her mouth rose slightly more than the right, he noticed. It made her look young, innocent, carefree. He loved it.

Her hand reached out to him. “Sure, why not?”

Not daring to stop to think, he dropped the pack on the ground and took it.

They danced in the rain. Playfully, lightheartedly – and chastely. Arms-length apart, they swung each other around, laughing as they tried not to slip in the rapidly muddying dirt. He lifted an arm high and she pirouetted beneath it, twirling like a ballerina, if a bit clumsily in combat boots. Then he grasped her other hand and sent her in the opposite direction; she arched her spine and leaned back dramatically, tossing her arm out in a flourish as though she were a ballroom dancer. As she straightened up she curled back in toward him.

He probably was supposed to spin her again, or back away to circle around once more. He didn’t.

She came to a halt in front of him, no more than centimeters away. Her hands were clasped in his. Droplets of water were streaming down her face, lingering on her thick lashes then caressing her cheekbones before tracing her neck and pooling in the hollow of her throat. She was breathing heavily from the exertion of the “dance” and the thin atmosphere; her chest rose and fell rhythmically. Her lips had parted slightly.

Her eyes were wide, as if she had been caught by surprise. But she was the one who had stopped. And she was making no attempt to move away.

His own eyes longed to trace every curve of her face, the outline of her lips, the arch of her eyebrows – but they were held hostage by brilliant lavender irises. They glittered brightly, reflecting the rain that fell in the miniscule space between them. Space that seemed to be getting smaller and smaller of its own volition –

– Her comm squawked loudly. “Hey, Commander – it looks like you’ve got a rainstorm headed straight for you. Want me to come pick you up?”

She blinked rapidly. Her throat worked until finally words came out. “Um…” her brow furrowed in consternation at him, as if he were some peculiar alien artifact she had happened upon “…yeah, I suppose so. We’re not going to be able to do any mining in this weather anyway.”

She was still staring at him strangely as her comm went silent. In an act far outside his usual prudence, he brought one of her hands up to his lips, bowed, and kissed it softly. “Thank you for the dance, Commander.” Then he gently let go and took a step back.

She bit her lower lip, sending his pulse into a dance of a different kind. Her eyes shone, bringing light to the rain. “Please, when we’re alone, it’s just Shepard.”

He swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump that had materialized in his throat. “Are we, um, going to be alone more in the future?” Jesus, had all his internal control mechanisms short-circuited?

She just grinned mischievously at him, then tossed the pack over her shoulder and started down the rain-soaked hill.

***

Vancouver

The Bay was a misty, gunmetal gray under the heavy sheets of rain. He was drenched, he suddenly realized, the rain chilling his skin through his BDUs. How long had he been standing there, lost in the memory?

He looked around for a temporary shelter, and hurried over to a nearby snack hut. When he reached it he leaned against the wall under the meager canopy and activated his Omni-tool.

He didn’t care that it didn’t make sense; he didn’t even care that it was impossible.

She was in this world, and nothing else mattered.

He called up her address, opened a new message, and began typing.