and she dies anyway and she comes back and she Understands his pain. she understands his reaction, she forgives him like it's breathing bc she thinks of herself finding mar alive but working for cerberus.... she would have the same reaction.

“She going to be okay?” she asked with a tilt of her head.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah! She hurt herself running around the Citadel.”

She hummed in acknowledgment, and her gaze drifted back to the girl who’d now jumped off the bed and began playing with two kids and a makeshift ball. A disbelieving breath escaped her as a smile pulled the corners of her lips.

“I don’t know how they do it,” she stated. “They’ve escaped their home being destroyed, and here they are, still finding ways to be kids.”

Her gaze fell for a moment, trying to remember when she’d run around like that. Probably at a station, with other spacers. But the instances were far and few in between that left her with a distant longing.

“Yeah…” Kaidan agreed. “They focus on what we forget. It’s infectious, isn’t it?”

Shepard nodded, making no effort to move, which Kaidan took as a sign to keep talking.

“Kara, the little girl, told me that you are very pretty and that I should tell you I’m a hero—you know, to impress you—when she saw you staring,” he said and then smirked, raising his eyebrows. “Since she’s, and I quote, ‘too young for me, sadly'.”

“Always the ladies’ man, aren’t you, Alenko?” Cal laughed, turning her head to face him.

He ducked his head, cheeks slightly more red in color.

Something fluttered in her chest at the sight. Lately, the only emotion she’d seemed to evoke from him was anger, and for a long time it seemed like it would stay at that.

“Only with someone special.”