Click

His heels clicked against the floor of the hallway leading to her cell.

        Were his thoughts not a jumbled mess, were his heart not in his throat, hammering out any words he might have been able to form, he might have paused to ponder why so few people were in the normally crowded hall. Perhaps that was for the best; he was so anxious he wasn't entirely certain that he could have said anything to anyone…how he was going to form words to the one woman he needed to speak to more than anything in the universe was beyond him at this point, but he pressed on nonetheless. He recalled the last time he felt this way, the last time he looked into her sapphire eyes and heard her voice, and his heart sank at the thought that both were in the same memory. His words that day were things he only barely thought of before he said them- and only now was he trying to come to terms with the repercussions. Thoughts flitted in and out of his mind like smoke; untouchable, unable to be grasped, but their presence omnipotent all the same.

His feet came to a halt at her cell door.

        He paused and released a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair with a trembling hand in a failed attempt to stay his nerves. Literally, all that separated them, after months of wringing his hands in worry, of constantly checking his omni-tool for a reply to his message, pacing in his quarters praying for sleep to take him, all that stood between them was a metal door and every word he threw at her on Horizon…

He swiped his military ID for clearance.

        With a quiet beep and a flicker on green lights, the door slid open. He stepped in cautiously, almost reverently, his eyes sweeping the place to find her. She had nestled herself into the corner of the room. Perched atop the windowsill, she was quietly reading a datapad, her normally sapphire eyes a darker shade of navy from the clouded lighting outside, signifying it was going to rain soon. Her head snapped up at his entrance, her eyes widening from shock a moment before lowering to her lap in silence. Wordlessly, he made his way over to her side of the room, his gaze never leaving her. A flash of lightening streaked across the sky illuminating her deep red hair, her deep blue eyes almost a pale sky blue for the briefest of moments.

        "Commander Alenko," she nodded her greeting when she finally composed herself. She slid off the sill, standing upright and snapping a salute to him. He grimaced.

        "You don't have to do that. You're not in the Alliance anymore, Shepard." No…no, no, no, no, no, this wasn't how he wanted to started this, this wasn't what he wanted to say! She lowered her head, and his grimace darkened in disgust for himself.

        "That's true."

        "Shepard, I didn't…" he sighed. "I came to talk…" her head whipped up at him, her eyes flaring in anger.

        "When things have settled down a little, maybe. I don't know." He was taken aback by the cruelty of her words. He squared his shoulders and met her glare with one of his own.

        "That isn't fair, Shepard-"

        "Is being called a terrorist, being called a traitor, 'fair,' Alenko?" She shot back at him. His temper flared, but she held her ground. He opened his mouth to retort, but she waved a hand, walking over to the window and facing away from him to look out into the view of Vancouver. "Nevermind, Commander. Please leave me alone."

        "No," he walked up to her, though barely refrained from touching her, from grasping her shoulders and making her look at him. "I'm not your Staff Lieutenant anymore, Olivea. You can't just order me away when you don't need your bed warmed anymore!" Oh God, he didn't really just say that, did he? She whirled around to face him, eyes wide and mouth agape in horror. He stepped back, uncertain of how he could have worded it so horribly. Thunder echoed off in the distance, a low rumble, a warning of the coming storm.

        "Is…is that what you think? Do you really think that low of me?" He noticed her hands trembling at her sides, and he ached to reach out, to try and keep the bridge between them from burning. But his anger, his hurt, was growing painful in his chest, and fire was catching…

        "I don't know what to think of you anymore!" He roared, stepping closer until he was in her face, his anger manifesting at the worst time. "The only thing you've ever been in love with was the idea of saving the galaxy from the Reapers! I was just there to take the tension off of you. But with me gone, you probably found some other toy to twist and bend until it breaks, didn't you?" Fire spit from his mouth unbidden, and the bridge between them was crumbling…when his rage subsided, when it freed his conscious with a snide grin, he felt heavy. The weight of what he had just said to her made him physically sag under it. She just continued to stare, the pain on her face palpable.

It would have been kinder to hit her.

        "So that's what I've become to you." She whispered, her face falling from pained to hurt to enraged. He stepped back, his mouth desperately trying to form words, trying to say something, anything to douse the flames that licked both of them. But the bridge between them was ash. "I've fought and died and fought again for you." She took an assertive step closer, and he stumbled back, hands reaching out but the gap between them was so vast…too vast, and far beyond his reach. "When I woke up after Project Lazarus, I thought of you." She advanced another step, and he was pushed back once more. "When I landed on Horizon, I thought of you." Another step, a finger jabs in his direction that he narrowly avoids by a backward stagger. "When I jumped through the Omega 4 Relay, I thought of you." Another step, another retreat. Tears began to form in her eyes, began to try and control the damage his fire was doing to their precious bridge. "When I turned myself over to the Alliance, I thought of you."

        "Olivea-"

        "And this…this was what I had to look forward to? Same shit, different accusation?" She bowed her head, turning back to the window. He shook his head frantically, trying with all he had to think of something to alleviate the tension between them. "But to answer your question: my bed's been cold since the Normandy was lost." The lump in his throat that he was sure was his heart pulsed painfully at the thought that, despite everything, she had in the end stayed more faithful to him than he had to her.

        "Mine, too…" he lamely replied, trying to meet her half way, hoping she would believe him. A particularly loud crack of thunder rippled out of the atmosphere outside to fill in the silence of the room. She snorted softly under her breath.

        "Oh? The doctor didn't check you over as thoroughly as you implied? You sure were eager to talk about 'trying to have a life again' in your letter." He cringed, but wasn't going to allow her to guilt him into giving in, into being the first one to break. He wasn't so timid anymore, and he wasn't about to back down.

        "I was getting over your death! I was trying to forget you! I felt like dying every time I thought of you when you were gone!" His fists clenched. "After Horizon, I stopped seeing the doctor. I stopped seeing my friends. I stopped being human, because the one thing that made me feel like a human was working for the very thing I stood against!" He roared, and felt the distinct burn of bile creeping up his throat. He hated this, this guilt, this anguish that he just wanted to go away. "And then, just when I think things have settled down, just when I think we can work things out, you had to go and destroy a mass relay and murder three hundred thousand Batarians, Shepard! What am I supposed to think of you? What am I supposed to think of any of this?!" Half of him wanted her to explain things to him, because that half of him knows that things tended to seem okay as long as she would talk to him, as long as they could be the way they used to be.

The other half of him knows he's destroyed every chance for that.

        He stood there, the delayed realization of what he had just said to her beginning to sink in. Dread filled his veins, knowing he had just, in essence, called her a terrorist…again. And now he could only watch as the bridge between them was reduced to ash. He stared in horror, his mouth trying to form words, only choked sounds escaping the jumble of emotions tying his throat in knots. She turned slowly away from him, her fiery red hair tumbling down to hide her from him.

A curtain call on their relationship.

        "Olivea-" he croaked, not knowing what to say but trying to atone for what he's already managed to spout out already. She didn't lift her head, didn't face him, just stared out at the window as rain began to trickle onto the glass.

        "I think you should go, Staff Commander," her shoulders began to shake as she added a hushed, "please." He reached a hand out to her, to try and say something, anything. His hand stilled, knowing he was too far away to even begin to hope that he could ever touch her again, ever hold her in his arms. With a shaky sigh, he let his hand fall.

        "I'm sorry, Olivea…" he bowed his head. "I'm sorry for everything." She still didn't turn her head, didn't acknowledge she had heard him at all. His body dragged all but his heart to the door. He hesitated, his hand hovering over the holo-lock, before he turned his head at the sound of her quiet sobs. She was trying so hard to keep composed that, even as the door hissed closed behind him and he stood in the empty hallway, he could still hear her trying not to crumble into pieces.

His heels clicked against the floor of the hallway leading away from her cell.