Title: Broken Places

Author: Lucky Gun

Description: A mission gone wrong leaves Kaidan and Shepard injured and alone in the dark. Paragon FemShep/Alenko, Shenko, mid ME3

A/N: No idea why I referenced the movie The Blind Side in the first two lines of a story for a video game about fighting aliens. Oh well. Consider it some of the usual insanity I am well known for. Also, there are references to one of my other ME one shots, In Each Other. If you're read it, you'll catch them.

The Brute was massive and quick as a hiccup.

What might be a rare and expensive combination any other place was nothing less than deadly on the battlefield. It had come out of nowhere, its roars hidden behind the screams of a hundred husks, and Kaidan felt his eyebrow twitch in frustration. He ejected a thermal clip and ducked behind cover, glancing at his radar to see where his other shore party members were located.

It took him a few seconds to remember at the radar was dead, same as half their electronics and helmet to helmet comms, due to the chemical composition of the rain that never stopped falling in this area of the planet.

Kaidan growled, popping up and whipping a blast of sheer biotic energy at a pocket of husks while his rifle spit death at some others. They were getting closer to his position, but there was, unfortunately, nowhere else to fall back to. The overwhelming number of enemies had dwarfed every intelligence report they had received, and while they had landed in the middle of the city originally, they had slowly and steadily been pushed back to the outer edges of the slums.

"Fire in the hole!"

His commander's shout echoed over the sound of a million raindrops on metal, and he ducked and covered just two seconds before there was a rattling explosion in front of his position. Kaidan immediately came up, advancing a few feet, his rifle pressed against his shoulder. He took out the husks that had been stunned or wounded by the blast and then turned and sprinted to her dugout. He slid in the mud as he shoved himself into her cover, shoulder to shoulder.

"We've got to get out of here!" he shouted through his helmet, edging around the corner to pop off a few rounds. Kaidan tried to see through the thick downpour, tried to get a count of their enemies, but couldn't manage one. Shepard ducked down beside him as she slammed a new thermal clip into her own rifle. Her armor was dark but the red lights on her back were brighter than usual; he realized she'd lost her shotgun and sniper rifle at some point.

"I've already tried contacting the Normandy. All I could make out was that they got Garrus out before the comms went dead. We're on our own, major," she bit out, and he responded with his own huff of annoyance as he joined her at the top of their barrier for a minute.

Kaidan dropped before she did, ejecting another thermal clip, and slid his last one home while he looked around. They'd been pushed to the edge of a cliff, slick red mud dripping over the edge, Prothean ruins scattered throughout the area. Below the cliff, maybe three or four hundred feet down, was a massive lake, frothy with the neverending deluge. They were already flanked left and right, and they were quickly running out of anything resembling options.

Shepard came down again, panting, her shields cycling blue before shorting out entirely. He didn't hesitate as he reached forward and jerked her left forearm to him, angling it so he could read her omni tool. His eyes narrowed as he read the burned out battery and empty medi-gel notifications on the display. Snarling, he shoved her arm back towards her, no gentleness in his movements, before jumping up to take out a few husks that had gotten within a few meters of their position. Dropping again, he found his anger had overwhelmed his professionalism.

"Just when the hell were you going to tell me you were in such deep shit?" Kaidan snapped, eyes already taking in the scorch marks on her armor and the telltale oil-slick of medi-gel oozing from the seams. Shepard gave him a cold look and bit back, "You answer to me, major, not the other way around."

She moved to stand, but he grabbed her shoulder and shoved her back into place.

"Keep down, dammit! You can't take another hit!" he shouted as he stood, rifle swinging into position. He sighted a few husks and dropped them before pulling out his last incendiary and throwing it. He didn't give her a warning, simply ducked and kept a hand on her head to keep her in place. The grenade exploded and there was a cross between a roar and a scream, way too close to them.

He looked, world slowing, and he could almost see the individual raindrops crashing onto his visor.

Brutes couldn't really hide on a battlefield. How he had lost track of the thing, he would never know. It was beside them, a snarl in its teeth, and it already had its head bowed as it started to charge. He jumped up and backpedaled, trying to draw the thing away from his commander. Simultaneously, Kaidan leveled his rifle and squeezed the trigger tight, aiming for the cove of bone and shell over the brute's skull. He saw the bright yellow of ricochets and the hulking creature sprinted towards him.

At the last second, he ducked and rolled, feeling a glancing swipe at his left shoulder as the thing thundered past. The hit stunned him, cracking through the last of his shields in a heartbeat, and threw him towards the cliff. He was on his back, staring up at the clouds that never thinned, and sucked in a deep breath of air as he tried to compartmentalize the pain that was echoing from his body. He grit his teeth and propped himself up on his elbows, his armor sliding in the muck, and he glared at the Brute as it turned on him again.

His rifle was lost in the darkness, the rest of his guns overheated and useless. His amp had burned out awhile ago, and using pure biotics had taxed his implant to the point of numbness. So the major stared at it from thirty meters away, his hands clenching into fists, and he swallowed hard. There were a lot of ways he thought he might go since joining the Marines. This was not one of the more pleasant ones.

Then, as the thing charged, he abruptly realized he wasn't alone. Like a flash, his commander was suddenly in front of him, her biotic movements lightning fast. He'd seen her amp level on her omni tool, knew it was overclocked, and reached a hand forward in a helpless gesture to stop her.

She surprised him and grabbed his hand with hers, the swirling power in her eyes washing out the green as she met his gaze through their helmets. Then he felt a deep nauseousness in his gut as he moved, beamed, transported, or whatever it was that she did when she used her biotics to charge through pockets of space-time.

There was a heavy sensation of falling, completely disorienting him, and he felt more than saw himself spin in mid-air. Then, there was a crash, like slamming onto concrete from fifty feet up, and he was in the lake. He felt the thickness around his throat as his environmental seals automatically engaged and brutally reminded himself that he wasn't drowning. He clawed through the water, praying he was moving the right way, and the relief he felt as his helmet broke the surface of the water was nearly palpable. He tread water as he spun, ignoring anything that resembled pain, and was thankful for the visor that kept the splashes of rain off the surface of the lake from his face.

"Commander! Commander Shepard!" Kaidan shouted, looking around quickly. There was no moon or stars, nothing that could cut through the heavy cloud cover. He couldn't see anything other than the splashing, foaming water around him, and he pushed down the panic in his gut.

He paddled forward a little bit, trusting the seals in his suit to not only keep the water out but also help keep him afloat. He breathed deeply, the cool oxygen mixture from his tank settling his thoughts. He mentally reached for his implant and exhaled as the blue slowly began to coat his body, the raw power dipping and spiking without the amp to regulate it. Still, he'd been taught how to do this at Jump Zero, and he forced himself to keep treading water while carefully activating a simple barrier.

Then, just as it had been since the first day he met her, he felt his skin tingle with the answer of her own biotics. It buzzed harder on his right and he quickly turned that way, exhausted but still pushing through the water. His figure cut like a ghost through the waves and he blessedly, mercifully, found her only a minute later.

Shepard was floating on her back, her black armor fading into the water, unmoving. He came to her and wrapped a tight arm around the top of her shoulders as he pulled her against his chest, turning to float on his own back.

"Commander! Commander, can you hear me?" he yelled, his helmet to hers, the light of their comm systems completely dead inside their visors. He lifted his hand and laid it over her rebreather, letting the blue from his biotics wash over her face. Her eyes were closed inside her headgear, her lips slightly parted, her skin smooth in unconsciousness.

Cursing, he dropped his hand and kept his arm over her while glancing at his HUD, hoping for some sign of a direction. But while it didn't give him any answers, the sky cracked lightning above him, and he could see, just for a moment, a shoreline about fifteen hundred meters away. He swallowed hard, testing his own exhaustion, then looked back down at her. Shepard was still unmoving, body dipping just below the surface of the water, the buoyancy in his own suit barely keeping the two of them up.

With a sharp exhale, Kaidan wrapped his elbows under her armpits, picked his direction, and started kicking.

The next span of time was lost to motion and a sort of bone-deep weariness that he would swear he would never be able to shake. There was no more lightning, no more helping hand from mother nature, and he continually prayed that he was still going the right way. He dimmed his biotics to nothingness as he swam, the effort of keeping them in check too taxing, and didn't risk lighting them again in case enemy troops were looking for them.

More than once, he stopped to check Shepard, to grab her left arm and palm her omni tool into existence. Its brightness was low, power drained, but he could see the pleasant green of her oxygen levels. It was a very different from his own, which were trending towards a yellowish orange, and he thought that, maybe, he might start using a rebreather mask in the future.

His carbon dioxide warning had sounded for the fourth time when he felt something underfoot. Instantly, every terrifying scenario of sea monsters lurking in the deep surged through him. Before he could panic, though, his other foot also found purchase, the ground giving like the mud of the battlefield above them, and if he'd had the breath, he'd have thanked what deity was giving him half a break.

Gasping as his vision spun with static, he pulled Shepard's listless body up to the shore, stumbling. He fell to his knees and hooked a hand in the back of her armor, dragging her with him as he crawled up the bank. He didn't even check if she was completely out of the water before his fingers scrabbled at the latches under his chin, desperately trying to interrupt the seals on his suit. But the mud around his fingers was too thick, and he couldn't grip anything. He exhaled sharply as he palmed at his omni tool, but the display didn't even flicker. The headache that had swarmed his mental defenses abruptly broke through, and he fell onto his back, quick pants passing through his lips. There was nausea and cramps in his gut, and he absently tried to curl in on them even as he forgot why he was hurting.

There was a beeping sound in his ears as a red light glared in his eyes, and he shuddered hard as he looked away, shutting them out. He tried to count the beeps even as his chest ached, tried to hold onto something he didn't even realize he needed, and when the first wave of seizures hit him, he didn't even notice.

Lights he thought he knew flashed in his eyes, looked like something from a memory, and he tasted cherry blossoms instead of copper. He felt a hand in his, a phantom touch, the brush of sunlight on his forehead. He smelled something clean and peppery, the dampness light instead of heavy.

The sensations shorted out abruptly and he awoke with a start, instinctively sucking in hard, feeling rain on his face and weight on his chest.

He jerked as he blinked, water flooding his eyes and blinding him, and he felt something unusual pressed against his face. A soft hissing sound echoed in his head as he gasped, and there was a cool breeze over his lips, and he realized it was a mask very unlike his own. Reacting instinctively, Kaidan shoved it hard against his mouth and greedily inhaled, the sweet oxygen flowing through it battering back the pain in his lungs. The world was still spinning, so he shut his eyes and gulped down the clean air desperately. Finally, feeling nearly drunk, Kaidan's right arm fell and his glove clanked against armor that wasn't his own.

Kaidan craned his neck and, in the slim light of his armor, the entire world seemed to freeze.

Shepard was laying beside him, her head pillowed against his shoulder, her arm over his breastplate. Her helmet was removed and in two parts, half of it beside her and the lower section on his face. His own helmet was several feet away, looking as though it had been thrown, and he could feel the grime of mud under his chin. She was on her side, her left leg between his, a position that could've been intimate if it didn't look like she had just collapsed as she was.

Her short blond hair was plastered to her face, and she didn't move.

Cold terror wove its way up his core and he bolted upright, cradling her in his arm, keeping her head off the ground. Her mask clung to his face, the head wrap holding tight, and as his vision tilted, Kaidan decided to leave it in place.

"Shit...Shepard? Can you hear me?" he asked breathlessly, his words slightly automated behind the rebreather's mouthpiece, and he cussed again when she didn't move or respond. He looked up, trying to get his bearings, and felt his implant hum quietly in the back of his head.

There wasn't the answering touch of her own L5, and the silence was deafening.

Not since she'd been unconscious, spent and broken following their final fight with Saren, had her biotics been quiet against his.

"Shit...I can fix this," he promised lowly, standing hesitantly. His knees stayed locked but his vision still swam, and he swallowed back nausea for only a moment before giving in. He ripped the mask from his face and stumbled away a few paces before the dry heaves in his gut got the better of him. Afterward, he resisted the urge to face the sky and take the rain into his mouth to wash away the taste. Replacing the mask, he sucked in deep breaths as he turned back, trying not to drop to his knees with the motion. She was where he'd left her, and he reached a shaking hand out, carefully brushing her soaked hair off her face.

"I promise, Shepard, I will fix this," he whispered, then pulled her upright.

He should've taken her up in a fireman's carry, like she'd done for him – twice, at this point – but besides his fear that water would drip down her nose and drown her, he needed her closeness to stave off his confusion. Acute carbon dioxide poisoning, probably five or six hundred parts per million. You shouldn't have woken up without drugs, the medic in him whispered, and he tried to remember the symptoms as he shifted her around. Kaidan lifted her in a piggyback, her chin on his shoulder, her cheek again his neck, and he started walking. He should've grabbed his helmet, grabbed the other half of hers, but he didn't have the energy or the focus to do so.

He walked, one foot in front of the other, his forearms hooked under her knees and her arms over his shoulders, and he thought that this might be nice in other circumstances.

Kaidan kept the lake on his right as he moved, using the dim red lights of his armor and the light from cities burning and reflecting off the clouds to shadow his way. He stumbled a bit, the ground slick and sucking at his boots, but he simply kept moving, her mask keeping the pain in his chest from overwhelming him. For awhile, he did well. Then exhaustion, coupled with hunger and thirst, began to flare through him, and he tripped. He caught himself on one knee before he lost Shepard, and he knelt there, panting through the mask, eyes closed tight against the rain, and swallowed hard. The question in the back of his throat, the demand he had of himself, of why he was doing this, died when he felt her soft breaths on his ear.

He didn't know which way he was going, he only knew that he was moving away from something that itched in his brain.

When a dark cave opened its mouth to him, hidden in the side of cliffs coated with the same red mud that was caked on his greaves, he should've hesitated, but he didn't. Instead, he hiked his burden higher on his back and moved forward. The cavern wasn't deep, but it was far enough away from the constant rain that he was able to feel something almost like dry for a moment.

He walked to the edge of the hollow and ducked down, carefully pulling Shepard from his shoulders, setting her upright against something that could've been a log or a massive fossil. Her head dangled back as he gently gripped her arms and leaned her against the support. When her back touched, he knelt and leaned forward, one of his hands coming up to support the back of her neck as he settled her into place.

Then he pulled his arm back, and the bright shock of watery red on his palm stood out even in his dying suit lights. He froze then jumped forward, pulling her towards him, her forehead resting on his chest piece. Her head bowed, he let his biotics flare and stared at her implant.

Her port was burned, the usual shiny metal dingy and tainted with soot. Where her amp usually rested, there was a scorched, warped mass of circuitry and electronics. The center of her headjack was dark where he was used to a soft blue ring of light, and there was a steady mix of blood and spinal fluid leaking from the deepest part of her implant.

"Oh God," he whispered, unable to tear his eyes away, and he felt an intense wave of fear slam over him. This...this wasn't something he could fix. Not by a long shot. "You need...you need surgery, you need a doctor, I can't….shit, I can't do anything," he said softly, swallowing, and he felt himself teetering between sanity and losing every shred of it.

He sucked a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut, bowing his head, his forehead resting on the back of her neck, just above her implant. Kaidan forced himself to inhale through his nose and exhale through his mouth, counting slowly. The wild thump of his heart beat a little less painfully against his ribs, and the deep ache in his joints faded, if only marginally.

He remembered the taste and smell of her biotics against his, pulling him from the lowest portions of unconsciousness before cutting off abruptly, and he felt an edge of tears line his eyelids.

"Shit...goddamn it, Shepard..." he whispered, looking back up, his blue energy swirling around them unsteadily. She didn't answer, didn't move, only the slight color in her skin proving she was still alive. Kaidan swallowed hard, took a shuddering breath, tried to lock away the part of him that was hers, the part of him that shared her bed at night.

Tried and failed.

He felt his implant burn, a little warmer than was comfortable, as he kept his biotics flowing. He sat down hard next to her and wrapped and arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him. Her head rested on his chest and he brought up a hand, carding his fingers through her hair, ignoring the nausea that roiled through his gut. His head pounded, his vision tilted, and he felt a fuzziness that had been asleep in the back of his brain abruptly come awake.

He wasn't entirely aware of his hand slipping from her face, even as he felt his control over his biotics fade into nothingness. His eyes closed and his implant completely shut down; he couldn't stop the soft whimper of relief from slipping through his lips as the back of his head immediately started cooling. He inhaled slowly, a sort of deadening malaise drifting through him, and he coughed once, tilting his head to the side. He felt her hair on his face, brushing the skin just above the rebreather and under his eye, and he nuzzled her slightly.

"I love you, Shep," he breathed, mindlessly leaning against her, her lax hand clutched tight in his.

It was the first time he'd said it, and as he drifted off into a deeper, darker lake than they'd escaped from, he wondered if it was going to be the last.

Hands on his face, white light in his eyes, cold touching his implant and the skin around it. He thinks he might sob at the sensation, the ice against the scalded neurons in his brain, but he's turned, more hands touch his face, and he hears words he couldn't begin to understand. There's a prick then a second one in his neck, agony he didn't realize was choking him dying down, and his hand spasms, empty.

He lets the memory of cherry blossoms take him.

It was four days later when he awoke, sore and bleary but alive. He was on his side in a familiar infirmary, an oxygen mask on his face and a thick metal line dripping a delicious numbness into his implant. A rubber line tapped into his left hand, clear liquid slipping into his veins. There was a new line of scars down his left arm and shoulder, just visible in the edge of his vision, and he had a hazy, dreamlike memory of a Brute swiping at him on the edge of a cliff.

Whereas before, before Saren, before the damn Collectors and Mars, he would've had a chance to panic and no balm for it, this was a very different after.

Chakwas had situated him so he could see Shepard, deep in sleep, gauze and tape edging around the sides of her neck. She was facing him, only a thin nasal cannula wrapped under her nose, and her left hand was slipped under her pillow while her right rested against the bed under her chin, a drip ending in the top of her wrist. She had a similar metal line as his dropping from a stand beside her bed, dipping behind her and ending in her port.

He stared at her for time he couldn't count, ignoring the burn in his eyes and the pull of sleep in his bones. It's less terrifying now, this exhaustion, and he knew there was no darkness or rain on the other side of it. Still, he resisted, waiting, studying her, memorizing her face.

His gaze dropped slowly, and he sighed, breath fogging the mask on his face, and he felt his muscles relaxing into the mattress.

Behind his eyes, there was a soft buzzing, a touch of summer skies against his biotics, and he slowly blinked, focusing on her after a few moments. Shepard was quietly watching him, her own features reflecting the same weariness he felt, but there was a stark relief in her emerald eyes that took his breath away. She slowly stretched out her left hand, sliding it from under her pillow, and he felt a lazy smile tip up the edges of his mouth. He reached out with his right, a shudder of comfort rolling through his body as his fingertips brushed her palm.

There was the familiar bite as their ports grounded out on each other, but even as they were – his damaged, hers rebuilt, both drugged to the edge of deactivation – he could still feel her energy lap like gentle waves against his implant. She smiled softly, fingers wrapping around his hand, and she squeezed slightly.

"I love you too," she whispered, punctuating her breathy words with a tender brush of her thumb over his knuckles.

He blinked twice even as his biotics surged briefly against hers, and he knew she was feeling warmth, tasting coffee, smelling his aftershave and gun oil and eezo. Kaidan felt the heaviness in his limbs pulling him down, fought against it for a moment longer, taking one more breath to soak in her bright green eyes, her dark blond hair, her tan skin, fingers calloused and steady against his.

A picture of her life and love, one that could sustain his dreams, followed him into sleep.

~ The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places. ~