Maj. Kaidan "LT" Alenko (logicarrest) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2014-08-10 17:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, ashley williams, kaidan alenko |
Who: Ashley Williams and Kaidan Alenko
When: Thursday, August 7, 2014, day of Kaidan's arrival through the tesseract
Where: Respective corners of Earth (France and NYC)
What: Future Skype, now
Rating: There's an f-bomb or two
After the initial shock wore off, it didn't seem that strange to have been transported to an alternate dimension. Humanity had discovered and developed interstellar travel within his lifetime, so how much weirder was interdimensional travel? It still didn't feel quite right. The last time Kaidan Alenko had seen Earth, he had been fleeing with Shepard and Admiral Anderson, and now everything seemed so peaceful and quaint, like stepping into one of the old vids. He should have felt relieved, but instead he felt unnerved and guilty. A universe away, everyone he had ever known was fighting in the biggest war the galaxy had seen in millennia, and he had no way to find out what had happened to them. No one even knew what a Reaper was -- except for one person. Kaidan had needed to have the name repeated when he'd been told that Ashley Williams was alive and well, and just an ocean away, well within communications range for his omni-tool. In fact, she was the only person with a compatible device within range. He hesitated before confirming the call to her, unsure about what kind of long-buried memories the conversation might dredge up, but he tapped the holographic button nonetheless. How long had it been since her omni-tool had lit up? Sometimes Ashley wondered why she even kept it with her. Sure it was patched into the network, into the internet here, but she was the only one on it. It had been over a year. Honestly Ashley had pretty much given up hope of seeing another familiar face again. So she had carved out a life here without them. And now she had her omni-tool lighting up. And there was only one reason for that, one that made her heart skip just slightly. The escargot had a lot of empty rooms now that they had cleared HYDRA out. Ashley took up residence in one, closing the door before answering. The face that popped up was, well, she was not really sure who she should have expected. But that strange mix of joy and guilt washed over her all at once as she couldn’t stop the smile on her face. “Williams here. You rang?” "Williams," Kaidan repeated. He couldn't mistake that face and voice, even if perhaps something about her had changed, or maybe his memory had faltered in the years since her death. Sometimes, Virmire felt like yesterday, and sometimes it felt like the distant past. Kaidan's clearest memory was how he had felt after, so sure that Shepard had made the wrong choice. "It's Alenko." Ashley was not ashamed at admit that as soon as she heard him her eyes began to tear up. Everyone else at home she knew was alive and well. Except for maybe Shepard, her memory didn’t go far enough forward now to know what decision they made on that ship. But Kaidan, Kaidan was gone. In the time they had known each other he had become almost her other half, the two of them rarely separated on the Normandy. Until Virmire. So yeah, her eyes clouded with tears as she continued to smile. “Took you long enough, L.T.” "Major, now," Kaidan corrected gently. She wouldn't have had any way to know. He mirrored Ash's misty smile, full of joy at reuniting with a friend he thought he had lost forever. A small part of him wondered if he wasn't in some kind of strange afterlife and the crew wasn't putting his name on the memorial wall, back on the Normandy. "Been a while, Chief." “Major doesn't have the same ring to it.” Ashley wiped one of her eyes with her sleeve, just to keep it from pouring down her face. Get it together Williams, you’re a grown woman. But it was Kaidan and hell he deserved more than just a few tears, he always had. And maybe for once the tesseract was looking out for her. “Yeah, it has.” her words stumbled slightly in the rough laugh she couldn’t resist. “You look like you’re starting to go grey. What the hells with that?” "What can I say? War ages you." Kaidan reached a hand to the few salty strands at his temple. The galaxy had been an entirely different place, back when he'd seen Ash last. "The Reapers came back," he explained. "They whole galaxy's pulled together to fight them." Ashley’s smile fell slightly, a little more tired and world weary. “I know, L.T.” Maybe at one point she hadn’t but that memory dump had put years on her, years of collectors and reapers and his death. The death of so many people throughout the galaxy. All those colonists, the people who had died during the invasion of Earth. “They explain this whole... other universe thing to you?” she asked,wondering just how to break it. "Sort of," Kaidan admitted, a hint of confusion entering his voice. It was a testament to his military conditioning and possibly all the other weird shit he'd experienced that he didn't sound more confused, mere hours after being dumped in a new universe, where the only familiar face had been dead for years. "The scientists who brought me here -- they said they were with a group called S.W.O.R.D. -- they showed me this device they called the Tesseract. Looked like it was powered by eezo. They told me you were here too, but not a whole lot else." Great. This science stuff really wasn’t what she was good at. And explaining it was even worse. Not that it really seemed like science anyway, it was more like magic. “Okay, so this world? It’s another universe. Superheroes and stuff. Our universe.... well here we exist in a game.” It sounded so stupid to say aloud but Ashley kept going. “A game where you can make choices. So it can be different. Because the way I remember it? I’m the one Shepard dragged off Virmire.” She went quiet to let that sink in. It wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to tell someone. But it was better to just drive right in, right? "A game, huh?" Kaidan repeated. It did sound stupid, but also a bit like the beginnings of an existential panic. Alternate universes? Sure, fine. But being a fictional character in at least one of those universes? That made him wonder how much of what he had experienced was real. Still, Alenko responded as he often did to crises, with a quip. "Going back to old saves has gotta be useful against the Reapers." “Don’t pull that on me, Kaidan.” Ashley shook her head, sighing softly. She knew it was a brave face because she had put on one too. It was terrifying, did anything they do even matter? If all they had gone through was a choice made by some kid who hadn’t ever dealt with the reality of the war they had stared down. That she had lost him just because it was dramatic? “It’s messed up. But there’s no real changing it.” "You're right, Ash," Kaidan conceded. "It's fucked up, but even if our entire galaxy is all made up, it still felt real to me. Our friendship, that's real." Shepard had once accused Kaidan of being a romantic, and he couldn't deny it, then or now. He hadn't posed the statement about their friendship in any way to cast doubt, but he still clearly wanted confirmation. Whatever Ash had experienced since Virmire, she had to be fundamentally the same person with whom he had bonded in the crew of the first Normandy. Ashley snorted lightly at that. Not that it was funny, it really wasn’t. It had been a bit of a crisis when she had shown up, thinking she had died and seeing all those people who had gone on without her. But it was a little bit because that did sound just like Kaidan didn’t it? Straight to the heart and with all the emotion that she didn’t always have the best time with. “You weren’t straight for sappy, didn’t you L.T?” she chided lightly. “Damn I’ve missed you.” "You know me, Chief. Missed you too." Kaidan smiled fondly at the holographic face hovering on his arm. He had fully intended all sappiness, and it was completely genuine. Though he'd need time to sort out the existential questions and fret over the people he'd left behind, he'd still been reunited with a friend once thought lost forever. "See you when you get back to this side of the Atlantic?" Laughing, she shook her head slightly just at the thought of it. Now she didn’t just have Renee on her back, but Kaidan too. It made it all a little harder to resist just packing up and going home. But they were actually getting some success with their missions, and HYDRA was a threat too big to ignore. “Yeah, I’ve someone to introduce you to when I get there.” |