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Shepard approached Kaidan with some reservations. Despite his schooling experience, the lieutenant seemed to hold the Alliance in high regard.
Should he avoid mentioning the Shadow Broker’s agent?
He could really use some casual interaction, or feedback, though.
Should he talk to Garrus instead?
He doesn’t really know either of them well enough to anticipate their reaction to all this.
“Can we talk, Lieutenant?” Shepard found himself asking before he’d reached a conscious decision. “Nothing official, if you're up for it,” he added, just in case.
If Kaidan had a headache or wasn’t feeling social, Shepard didn’t want him feeling obligated to humor his commander.
“Sure, Shepard,” Kaidan agreed easily. “What’s up?” He gestured at a nearby chair as he sat.
Shepard folded himself onto the seat in the most casual physical arrangement possible: feet propped at the front edge, arms wrapped around knees, folded up against his chest. He caught Kaidan gaping in surprise for a moment before he shook himself and relaxed his posture.
“I wish we’d had enough data to pursue Cerberus into extinction,” Shepard grumbled, eventually.
Kaidan nodded in agreement, unsure if he was going to continue, at first.
“An agent of the Shadow Broker contacted me after Bintu. The Admiral had agreed to trade the data he found there for the locations he sent us to.” Shepard paused to check Kaidan’s reaction at this point, hoping to gauge his approval, or lack thereof.
His expression hadn’t shifted at all, so far. “The deal obviously died with Kahoku, but…” Shepard let the sentence hang as he glanced back at Kaidan.
Now he was clearly interested, without a hint of concern or judgment.
“Given official affiliations, I could see the Alliance just sitting on the data indefinitely, and that’s such an infuriating thought…”
Kaidan nodded again, gently, encouragingly, when Shepard hesitated again.
He was about to admit to treason, essentially, but Kaidan hadn’t seemed alarmed thus far, and he was a Specter now. “I copied the data for the Broker, in hopes of someone managing to go after Cerberus before I can. They can’t be left alone, no matter what the official Alliance position is on the matter. Not after Akuze, and Kahoku, and whatever other atrocities we don’t know about yet,” he finished quietly. His voice had grown defensive and he couldn’t quite meet Kaidan’s gaze again.
“I get it, Shepard. You still turned over the data to the Alliance?” Kaidan pressed.
Shepard nodded, reluctantly.
“Then, mission accomplished. Hopefully someone can dig up something useful from it by the time we’ve dealt with Saren and the geth.”
Kaidan’s voice was so easy and reassuring that Shepard felt absurd about his earlier anxiety about the conversation. That feeling expanded exponentially when Kaidan laid a hand on his shoulder with a warm, reassuring squeeze.
Shepard swallowed a gasp of relief at the passing moment of casual contact.
In its absence he could forget, but with a reminder, he was hit with a violent awareness of his bone-deep loneliness, suddenly so consciously touch-starved his chest ached.
He should return to his quarters if he’s going to stare into empty space while lost in thought. He intended to do so immediately. Yet, somehow, he stayed curled up in that chair long enough that his leg was asleep when he finally stood. With furious determination he breathed through the jolting ache of pins and needles to head to his room fueled by the focus now required to use the dead limb.
Back in his quarters Shepard collapsed onto his bunk. In a fit of desperation he burrito-ed himself into the blanket and burrowed beneath the pillows at the head of the bed. It wasn’t human contact, but it was probably as close as he could get for the moment.