That Blurred Line

Author's Note: It doesn't stray TOO far from the central story, but I may have let some experimental imagination juices drip into it…I did change some shit about the romantic subplot, I was quite upset when Kaiden yelled at my Shepard...

Pairing: SHENKO…loves it.

Rating: M for MATURE…means dark, sexual, and graphic.

Disclaimer: Don't own any of it, damnit. I'm dealing with it.

~*~

"You betrayed the Alliance…you betrayed me…"

Her dreams haunted her, black nightmares whose soundtracks always provoked the deep-rooted pain Shepard had carried with her since she was awakened. The only thing she had asked for, to find him, had been pointedly denied, until it had been Cerberus' opportune moment. His words, the sadness and anger that had dripped from them when she'd finally come face to face with him, had stabbed her in the heart. Her shock had prevented her from defending herself properly. She never had the chance to make him understand.

"It could never be the same…"

A dim light filled her cabin with an eerie blue glow; the soft hum of the newly designed engine in the lower decks slowly brought her back to reality. Covered in cold sweat, Shepard rose from her bed and made a quick trip to her private shower.

"Be careful, Shepard…"

Even awake his voice still echoed in her ears. She couldn't even begin to count how many different nightmares she'd had about him. Other worries, fears and guilt-trips would leak in once and a while, but it was Kaiden Alenko who starred in every one, every night. She'd watched him burn in the scattered wreckage of the original Normandy, had been stuck watching him love another, and had watched him kill himself in efforts to join her…just to name a few of the more recent.

Ever since Horizon the dreams had become more vivid. Just the other night she'd dreamt he came to her, all the passion and intensity he'd shown the night before Ilos simmering just under the surface, waiting for her to invoke it, and she could've sworn when she touched him that she was awake, that it was real. That he was here, that he wasn't leaving. In the end though, he always left, willingly or otherwise. Most of the time, it would be a scene of him being dragged away from her desperate arms.

Maybe she was going crazy; maybe she should've been left for dead. She sure as hell didn't see how much use she was going to be when the only thing she wanted in this universe didn't want her anymore. She just, couldn't concentrate with this hole in her heart.

"Joker to Shepard, we're approaching the relay."

Shepard lifted her head from her musings; still only half dressed from her shower she realized she'd lost herself to her moping again and shook her head.

"I'll be there in three minutes."
"Aye aye, ma'am."

Shepard sighed, running her fingers through her wet auburn hair a couple more times she tied it up into a loose loop of a pony tail and donned her shirt. Exiting her cabin via the elevator she arrived at the command center and looked over the workplace.

The beeping of working machines and the purr of the ship itself calmed her, but only a little. Her crew working diligently at their posts was reassuring, everyone else seemed oblivious to her inner turmoil and that was the way she wanted to keep overheard a conversation between two of her techs as she made her way to the cockpit, and the word 'Reapers' floated up from their hushed voices.

Every muscle in both of her arms tensed at the name. The Reapers had been the main source of her hate and fear for what felt like forever. They had taken everything, or had tried, and now their newest weapon was closing down on them, abducting them. To find the Collectors, to stop their abductions, to find their connection with the Reapers, for she was sure they were working together, this was her mission. This was what she'd been brought back to life for.

They were currently enroute to the Citadel to give Shepard a chance to appeal to the Council; she felt she needed their support, as bitter as they had been with her during her last campaign, she had hope that her sacrifices as a human and as a Spectre would earn her their respect. She wanted to believe she was fighting for the good guys, and working with Cerberus left a bad taste in her mouth, even if they had brought her back, she needed to feel loyalty to something. Even if that something was a group of politicians that always resisted her ideas. Even if the only thing she really felt loyal to was a man who didn't want anything to do with her anymore.

Shepard picked up her pace to the cockpit to watch their jump front row. It was something she didn't usually miss out on. She arrived in time to hear the tail end of snide words between Joker and EDI, and smirked as she listened.

"Mr. Moreau, your improper use of the jump coordinate system could result in multiple hull breaches, injury to crew and…"
"I got it, alright. You quote any more regulations while you're trying to drive from the back seat and I'll find a way to shut you down damnit, so help me I'll set your memory core adrift into the nothingness of deep space."

Shepard smiled wider, if only a little more. It was comforting to know Joker was here with her, after all that happened, considering who they were both working for, he was possibly the only thing keeping her sane. She didn't need to make her presence obvious; Joker knew better and began to run through his pre-jump calculations, even though the Commander didn't need to hear them. Chalk it up to routine.

The ship jolted a minute later, when the first of the energy spikes latched on and started to pull them into the jump. The intense electrical surge that Shepard could easily feel every time they hit a relay was a side effect of her new biotic implant, and it always seemed as if she were the only one who felt it, though there were a couple other biotics on board. She let the tingle run unchecked down her spin, a wave of uncontrolled fear spreading with it as she once again contemplated on the possibility that the implant had a secret mind-altering device that could change her at any minute to be a full servant of Cerberus, a weapon for them to yield unmatched. It made her sick, knowing something that dreadful was not beyond them.

It happened so fast, and not but a short time later they had entered the Citadel's orbit, the sky around the massive station buzzing with traffic and C-Sec security ships. It was hard to believe it had been two years, Shepard could still see scarring from photon cannons along the arm of the ship closest to them, from the battle with Sovereign. She'd been awake for a month and a half, had come to terms with the two year coma she'd been kept in, and still it felt like she'd faced Saren yesterday. When she thought deeper on the events of that day, the bitter-sweet pang of longing for her previous Lieutenant hit her full force.

"Bring us into port." She ordered plainly, knowing it was going to happen anyway but needing the words to break her from her impending trance.

Joker easily recognized the clipped tone in his Commanders voice, her eyes tight and her face pained, though she was attempting to hide it. He decided to keep his smart remarks to himself for the time being, and paged the landing tower at the C-Sec base. Apprehension still dwelled in his gut as they descended and essentially 'parked' the new Normandy in the awaiting zone, waiting for the docking pads to turn red, waiting to be told they were grounded once more. He shook it off and looked over his shoulder at Shepard.

"Good to go, Commander."

She nodded, not sparing him a glance for fear she might lose her tentative hold on her building emotions. She had the Council to deal with, and that would be no easy feat. The last thing she needed was to be reminiscing, about Kaiden or otherwise. There were too many memories here, both good and bad. Joker knew most of them, from witnessing it or hearing the rumors. So much had been started here, on this very space station, and at the same time, so much had been brought to some kind of revelation, so much had been ended, finalized.

Consciously, and with no small amount of mental effort, Shepard put up her guard, pieced back her mask, and turned to march to her locker to prepare for the confrontation. Her only hope to be found on the Citadel today was to regain the support of the Council. God knows she was going to need any help she could get.

~*~

Kelly Chambers was working methodically at her terminal, stationed at the right hand of the Commander's platform, when the airlock and decontamination chamber hissed open. The thundering, angry footsteps of Commander Shepard didn't come as too much of a surprise, for Chambers could have easily foretold that the Galactic Council wouldn't want anything to do with Cerberus. Before Shepard had reached the threshold of the command center, Kelly's terminal blinked as an incoming message passed through her station on the way to Shepard's inbox. She looked up just as the Spectre blew past her and into the elevator, and decided against alerting the frustrated and dangerous women of the new email. If it was important it would have come through the hot line, Shepard would see it on her own time and Kelly wasn't going to agitate her already unstable rage with something so trivial. She hadn't been stationed here for her lack of skill, and reading people was her best ability.

The forlorn looks on the faces of the squad members Shepard and taken ashore with her did nothing but prove Kelly's observations correct. Garrus Vakarian and Jacob Taylor both seemed to mimic the Commander's mood, more than likely because they were both witness to what had happened at the Council meeting, both seemed to lack the same morale they had left with. As a result, Kelly knew it wouldn't be long before the rest of the crew picked up on their gathering hopelessness. She would have to speak with Shepard...later.

~*~

The elevator groaned quietly as it moved to the top floor, Shepard's private cabin. It seemed more like a luxury suite to her than just a captain's chambers, she was used to a small room with a desk and a bed as it had been on the original Normandy. Instead she now had two desks, a small sitting area with comfortable leather couches, a king sized mattress and a 400g fish tank. It seemed like such a waste of space. She would probably never use the fish tank, collecting models for the built-in display case was a mundane and needless task, and what one person needed two desks and a king-sized bed?

It was frustrating just being here, she had wasted her time pleading to the Council, Anderson had been there to offer all the support he could but even now as the first human Council member he was talked down to, ignored. He at least was able to reinstate her Spectre status, but that had been all the help he could give her, and she had taken it graciously.

Her mind was still a mess from her earlier bout of emotional misery, now to top it all off she'd just stood in front of people, whose lives she'd saved from what was obviously a Reaper, to have them tell her it was all a ploy by Saren, there was no Reaper ship, it was all in her head.

"Fuck! How can you be so stupid!" She bellowed to her walls, and without fully considering her actions slammed her fist down on one of her desks, rattling everything that sat atop it and cracking the laminated surface.

Something clattered to the floor by her feet, and she closed her eyes, knowing what had fallen. They had put it in here on purpose. To either worsen her guilt, to throw what she'd lost in her face, or because they somehow thought it would make her stronger. After another moment she took a deep breath, and bent to pick up the picture frame.

It was a digital frame, one that would turn itself off until she entered the room and activated the motion sensor, so when she turned the picture around and saw nothing at first she thought she'd broken it and a small panic had started to bubble. His face blinked onto the screen a moment later, those swirling chocolate eyes grounding her, as they always did. She didn't have any other picture of him, and it was the only reason she left this one alone, hadn't thrown it against the wall to shatter it to a million pieces. Maybe the Illusive Man had known that, maybe it was strength he was trying to give her by supplying her a picture of the one man she ever really completely gave herself to. Or maybe he was just a cruel bastard pulling at her weakest points, testing his boundaries, proving his superiority.

Suddenly disheartened, Shepard sat in the desk chair and cradled the photo frame against her chest. Never had she felt so defeated than she did now, not even in the face of certain death had she felt this…lost.

Setting the picture back where it had been she allowed herself another moment to stare at his two dimensional profile, with that small grin that just barely curved the corners of his lips, the strong jaw that was set firm in determination. She wondered then when the picture had been taken, Kaiden hadn't been looking into the camera, and the background was unrecognizable. It was inconsequential, she knew, but she wondered any way.

"I thought I'd lost you…"

Shepard groaned and dropped her elbows on the desk, her face in her hands as his voice once again came to her mind. The void in her chest felt like it was getting bigger, a black hole that would slowly destroy her from the inside if she kept living in the past, if she kept holding on to a lost cause. She needed something, anything to get her mind clear, to screw her head back on straight.

There was nothing to do for now, after Horizon they still weren't any closer to finding the Collector's, let alone stopping them. Mordin had stitched together a decent armor upgrade to defend against small amounts of seeker swarm attacks, but he had said he probably wouldn't be able to modify his upgrades to protect against a full scale swarm without resources that weren't available or easily accessible to her at the moment. The ship's upgrades were proving thus far to be useful, but she wouldn't be able to test most of the add-ons until they hit the Omega 4 Relay, and at that point it would be too late to make adjustments.

"Fuck…" She said again, this time a whisper.

With a tap of her finger her display on her terminal popped to life, casting an orange light around her. She made a quick run-through of her last mission report, mostly to see if her 'superior' had read and responded yet. It usually didn't take the Illusive Man long, and she wasn't disappointed. He didn't send her any more useful information, other than a courteous reminder that she still had two more dossiers to consider, two more people to recruit. Thane Krios and Tali…Shepard actually surprised herself when she realized she hadn't contacted one of her old crewmates yet. A testament to how out of it she'd let herself become.

Marking the Illusive Man's message as read, her inbox popped open once more and she began clearing through all of the texts she'd been sent. A letter from a man named Billy that sent a sharp, icy chill through her, the dossiers for the remaining two recruits, a couple more that she marked simply as junk mail and mentally made a note to chastise Miss Chambers for allowing such crap to make it to her mailbox. By the time she erased everything that was of no use to her and catalogued everything that was, she came to her last message, the newest message, and her heart skipped a beat.

"About Horizon…" it read, and she knew immediately it could only be one person.

Shepard froze, a bright red caution sign flickering in her mind as she debated whether or not to open it, tried to decide whether or not she wanted to read it at all. The time on the message head reported that it had been sent and delivered today, not more than 20 minutes ago. In the end, she couldn't take it, and desperately grasped at whatever hope she could muster as she tapped the screen and the message expanded.

The very first thing she registered was his apology for his behavior, then his reasoning behind his reactions, then his admission of guilt and his tentative suggestion at the end.

"When everything cools down…maybe…"

Her heart fluttered, but she shot it down immediately before walking herself right into another emotional trap. He'd said maybe, and she knew he was hurting, knew it killed him to even send the message at all which was why it came a week after the incident on Horizon. Maybe wasn't a definite for anything, but it did mean there was a possibility there in the distance. Her future with the Collector's was unclear, she may never get the chance for a 'maybe' with Kaiden and she knew it. His memory was going to kill her, she was sure of it, as long as the Omega 4 Relay or whatever they found on the other side didn't get to her first.

Without the strength to even write a response Shepard shut her console down and donned her civvies before leaving her cabin for the central command. She bypassed everyone and made a beeline straight for the cockpit.

"Joker, I'm going ashore, I have some business to take care of and need to get my head in the right place. Release the crew for a 24hr shore leave, but notify them that they may be called in early. I need you to report to me anything of dire importance that comes through. Expect to be leaving port when I return."

"Aye, Commander." The roughly-shaven pilot acknowledged, carefully not asking questions about Shepard's 'business' and returned to his systems check.

~*~

Ooook there's the first chapter...not awesome, not dripping in sexy goodness, but it's a start so deal with it.