Her face looks so young when she sleeps.
Kaidan didn’t tell me that. I suppose that would have been a strange thing to say. He never really did talk that much about her, anyway. The few times he actually visited these past few years, she was either dead or a “traitor”—and that didn’t leave much room for conversation. Still, there was never any doubt in my mind that he loved her.
Loves her.
I’m not sure which at this point. They declared my son, my Kaidan, MIA three weeks ago, along with the rest of the Normandy crew. Except her. They found her in the rubble, broken and bloody and barely alive. She’s been in a coma since then, with thousands of worried admirers but no one who really cares.
And so I came. To look after her, when Kaidan couldn’t. To find some of my son in her, and maybe she will find some of him in me. Maybe, together, we won’t miss him as much.
Or maybe we’ll miss him more.
Sometimes the despair seems overwhelming. I’ve already lost my husband, I can’t lose my son, too. It’s then, when the darkness presses in at the edges of my vision, that I talk to her. I tell her about Kaidan, how he was growing up. How despite the complications of his biotics he was still just a child who ran and jumped and laughed and cried and lived like any other. I tell her how he used to love to help me make dinner, and that I hope he had the chance to cook for her. And how we used to play jazz music around the house, and Kaidan would sing along to every word.
I tell her how he came home after they defeated Saren, unable to contain a smile as he told me he had met her, had fallen for her—that she was it. I asked to meet her then, but he said it was too soon. We never knew there might not be a later.
I tell her how he was broken after her death, in every sense of the word, and he wouldn’t let anyone help him pick up the pieces. I only saw him twice in those two years, and I barely recognized the man he had become in her absence.
I tell her how, a few months ago, he had contacted me to ask for my mother’s wedding ring. How I had cried, to know that out of so much darkness and fear could still come love. And to know that my son would be happy.
I never got the chance to give them to him. He never got the chance to ask her. The death and destruction of war took its toll, with their happy ending just another casualty. I just hope its not too late.
I brought the ring with me—it’s on her dog tag now, a reminder that she is loved, no matter what. It breaks my heart to think of what it will be like for her to wake up without those she loves most. Anderson, who was like her father, dead. Her entire team, all of her friends, missing. And Kaidan along with them.
I don’t want her to wake up alone. I need her to know there are still people who care for her. That I still see her as my daughter, even though we’ve never met.
I hope she knows that. I hope she knows she is not alone. I wish there was more I could do for her, more than simply be here. After everything she has done for my son, I wish there was more. But this is it it, this is all there is left.
I just hope it’s enough to get us both through.
This is so incredibly sad.
