We're going to need a bigger boot.

Kaidan... wasn't really the kind of guy who felt completely comfortable chaperoning a high school dance. He did it, because he saw it as part of the job, but... that was about it.

So in order to steel himself for the night, he'd let Dean wheedle him into invited Dean over for a movie afternoon before the dance started. Some terrible sci-fi movie from two hundred years ago that he'd gotten for cheap on the extranet, after Dean had asked about it.

He opened the fridge to hunt down a couple of bottles of root beer (chaperoning tonight) and set them down on the coffee table. Okay. Movie. Drinks. Now it was time for--

"Crap, I should've gotten snacks."

Social occasions. Sigh.

[[ for Dean, but can also be open to housemates! ]]

If Kaidan's orders were anything to go by, this might be the first full week he'd be spending at Fandom in some time. He didn't mind, exactly - he saw enough action lately to relish the time off that he got. Still, it meant that after about four days back on the island, he was starting to run out of stuff to do.

Right now, he was keeping himself occupied by reading through some reports from various Alliance outposts, cup of coffee resting on the coffee table. The frequency of Cerberus attacks had gone up these past couple of months, though many of the incidents weren't nearly as horrible as what he had seen in the early days.

Didn't mean he should drop his guard about them, though. If anything, it might mean they were up to something. He took a sip of his coffee and flipped on to the next report.

[[ open! ]]

Without a class to teach, life had been... quiet. Not that Kaidan objected to 'quiet' on principle, just... quiet. Yeah.

And then he'd been woken up that morning by the Alliance barking orders over his omni-tool. Which, again, was fine: he was starting to feel a little useless down here, a couple of weeks out from his last assignment. Maybe he should make it clearer that he really had no problem taking anything at all as long as it didn't fall on his one day of class.

Or even then, really. Missions were more important than class.

Anyway, he had a huge bag sitting by the door with all the big necessities. Still a couple hours to kill before his portal left. So... eggs. And bacon. Those were things he'd be cooking.

[ open! ]

Kaidan's return to the house was summarized quite well by the loud noise he produced as he collapsed backwards onto the sofa. Nice, comfortable sofa. Sofa good. Sofa very good. (He probably wouldn't admit it aloud, but this was the flop of the satisfied; he always did feel better in the days after seeing some action. But shh.)

"Nggghhhh," he added a moment later.

"Hey, do we have steak?" he continued to no one in particular.

"Oh, and coffee," he realized shortly after that. "Steak and coffee. Yeah."

[[ open, sure. ]]

"Alenko?"

Kaidan wasn't going to get used to hearing that voice again. Which was probably a good thing - by tomorrow evening, it would be gone again, wiped out everywhere but in recordings, snatches of video.

He kept pouring the coffee. It was a self-defense mechanism. "Morning, Ash," he said.

She dropped her shoulder to the wall and watched him. "You gonna turn around?" she asked. "Because I'm not going to disappear, you know."

"Not yet," Kaidan agreed, but he did turn around. "Sorry. It's just... well, it's weird. I... can't wrap my head around you being here. It doesn't feel real. More like I'm dreaming."

"I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space, rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came, and went and came, and brought no day, and men forgot their passions in the dread of this desolation," she quoted quietly. "You dream about me a lot, LC?"

"I dream about Virmire," Kaidan said softly. "All the time. Not just this week. And I dream about Shepard-- about the Normandy. It's... it's not easy being the only one left behind, Ash."

"The others are still alive, aren't they?" Ashley asked. "Joker, Adams... the aliens..."

"Some of the crew died in the attack," Kaidan said, picking up his mug of coffee. "Everyone else... they're spread out across the galaxy. Joker dropped out of contact. Tali and Wrex went back to their own people. Garrus went back to the Citadel, and then he left for somewhere else. Didn't leave a number. Liara... nobody knows where Liara is." He took a sip of his coffee. "And even then, it's... not the same as the three of us, y'know? Shepard was the thing keeping that crew together."

Ashley took two steps forward and took the coffee out of his hands, then set it down on the table. "When I... died, I thought it was going to be okay," she said. "You and the skipper had each other, you know? You were going to go kick Saren's crazy turian ass and everything was going to be okay."

Kaidan hadn't meant to laugh, but he did. It came out a little twisted, warped. "I was almost past this," he said, "Shepard would stop by to talk a lot... it helped. I could sleep at night again. Stopped thinking all the time about how I got you killed--"

"Hey, hey," Ashley snapped. "You didn't get me killed. I fought to buy you guys time. And I'd do it all over again. It was not your call, it was mine, dammit, don't take it away from me."

"Okay, okay," Kaidan said, holding his hands up. "But if Shepard had gone to back you up instead of me--"

"You'd be the one blown to pieces by a really big-ass bomb," Ashley retorted. "And the Alliance would be a whole lot worse off."

Or maybe Shepard would still be alive, he didn't say. Did think it, though, and going by the look on Ashley's face he almost thought she'd heard it anyway.

"For a tech-head, you're pretty stupid, you know that?" she continued. "It was my choice. It was the right choice. And you damn well know it." She uncrossed her arms. "Now, you owe me a damn hug, Commander."

Kaidan released a loud breath, a hint of chuckle mixed in with the exhale. "I'd almost forget I outrank you," he murmured, and then he slid his arms around her for a firm hug.

It felt good. Too good. For a moment he was on the verge of crying.

He reeled it in.

[[ post is open. ]]

In retrospect, Kaidan should've known one of these times, one of his missions was going to run long. This long? Well, that hadn't really been in the cards at all, he'd thought, even with the Alliance lifting some of the restrictions on deploying him. But sometimes, one thing just... led to another, one mission necessitating another one ASAP.

His portal finally dropped him off in Baltimore sometime that morning. By the time he came walking down the causeway, one pack in hand and the other slung over his shoulder, it was just past noon. A little more time, and he was at the house, dropping the bag with his M-8 Avenger in it onto the steps so he could unlock the door.

Walking back into this place seemed... almost surreal, after a week's worth of derelict vessels and listening posts crawling with rachni. He almost expected something to hurl itself at him as he opened the door, but... not so much.

He heaved a great big sigh, and dragged his other bag back into the house. He'd unpack his armor and guns soon enough, though - right now he really needed to sit down with a glass of water.

[[ open post, la! ]]

Having a migraine aboard an Alliance shuttle on the tail-end of a mission... hadn't exactly been an easy ride. Now that he was back at Fandom, though, Kaidan was grateful he at least wouldn't be collapsing on the couch this time-- dragging his way up the stairs hadn't been easy the first time around.

Instead, he made it in feeling okay - even if he still looked a little pale and weary. He did make a beeline for the kitchen, though, put on a pot of coffee and sat down at the dinner table. These past couple of days had made up the most routine mission he'd done in over a year; it felt almost surreal not to be dealing with husks or extremists or ancient, malevolent intelligences.

He felt better. Doing something, the promise of more missions in the future... kept his mind off of other things.

As did the smell of coffee.

He poured himself a cup, sent off a message to Allie to let her know he was fine, and took a nice, long, deep breath.

Okay. He could tackle this new semester. No problem.

[[ la la open for phone calls and everything else. ]]

After the events of last night, Kaidan wasn't sleeping so well. In fact, he was awake again by the time the sun came up, just... sitting around in his room. Waiting. Didn't want to check back on Jack and wind up with a face full of werewolf again - eventually he was going to wreck the ceiling if he kept slinging biotics around this place.

But by the time the sun had been up for almost an hour... waiting had taken long enough.

He stepped into the hallway. No sign of Derek there-- wonder where the guy had gone?

Couple of steps down to Ronan's old room with the kinetic barrier still firmly intact in front of the doorway. Kaidan heaved a sigh. "Hope the window looks the same way," he muttered.

[[ open to either-slash-both werewolves! Wolfy details NFB plz. ]]

Kaidan didn't really know where he was, but that wasn't really such a surprise these days. The house itself seemed empty - another upside, because he'd never actually gotten as far as waking up in other people's houses.

He wasn't sure what that meant. It didn't matter.

Kaidan trudged downstairs and collapsed on the couch. It was nice. Kind of classy. Reminded him of his aunt's drapes. But that didn't really matter either; it all felt dull around the edges. He rubbed at his face with the palms of his hands.

He might stay around here until someone kicked him out. Avoiding explaining anything to his parents... yeah, that was a good thing.

There was an ancient television set in the corner he turned on to something completely terrible, and then he curled up on the couch. He refused to think about anything today until he had to.

[[ open. ]]

Jack was gone for Thanksgiving and Kaidan didn't really have any classes to teach - or any preparation to put into them. He had an empty house and no real work to pour himself into; his parents had celebrated Thanksgiving over a month ago, and...

Well, Allie was probably still around, since she couldn't leave. But she was outside, and going outside was a feat Kaidan couldn't drive himself to accomplish, somehow. He just... sat around. Alone. With his thoughts.

It wasn't a winning combination.

He hadn't really been genuinely alone since the first week here. Had forgotten what it was like when he didn't have something to keep him occupied (or make slightly pointed remarks about him going outside and talking to people). He roamed around the house - TV? No, he didn't feel like it - picking things up and putting them back down.

Sometimes pictures. ... A lot of times, pictures.

Eventually he wound up in his room, staring at them. Feeling stupid, ridiculous for obsessing. Feeling a lot like there was a hole in the world he'd been trying to cover up and it wasn't working. Like his room was too big and the silence too loud and he wanted to crawl into bed and use the blankets to blot it all out.

He wasn't a kid, though. Couldn't do that. Except... he had nothing else to do.

He sighed and threw the pad with the latest snapshot - Shepard, alone - back onto his nightstand, then collapsed back onto his bed. No responsibilities, right?

Felt like hell.

Couple minutes later, the call came in from Hackett, telling him to grab a portal to Alliance Command that night for a mission. Call Kaidan stupid, call him crazy, but the idea of going out into hostile territory and fixing something for a change-- well, it was a life raft he was going to grab onto with both hands before he drove himself crazy.

He yanked the blanket off of his head.

[[ mostly establishy but can be open, la. ]]