not_a_whinerHe'd been right - it had not been a good night. Still wasn't, actually.
Kaidan had spent most of the night in his room, on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. His body felt tired, but his mind was racing; every time he turned to sleep thinking he'd silenced his mind, the thoughts crept back in and put a stranglehold on his brain. He needed sleep - if he stressed himself out and combined that with sleeplessness, he was going to wind up having migraines for most of next week. He knew that.
But it didn't calm his mind.
Eventually, he gave up. It was still dark out, but on the new day's side of the night - just a couple of hours and the sun would come up. He'd already tried doing push-ups, a voice in the back of his mind urging him to finally start picking up the slack, become better, faster, stronger, until he'd slid back into bed thinking I'm tired now, but not sleeping.
Now? Now he was giving up. Getting dressed.
Walking out the front door and jogging down the road. Down a few flights of stairs. A few laps around the inner city. When that didn't help, he took the path downwards to the beach.
It was the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks that finally drove him out of numbness. He remembered that sound, the way the waves did the same thing on Virmire, over and over against the coastline. The water washing up the legs of his armor as he leaned heavily against the bomb, firing rounds at the geth as they kept coming at him.
He sat down on one of those rocks, right next to the patch of sand where just yesterday Ash had, in a streak of poetic inspiration, written lines in the sand. They were all gone now, of course, and he couldn't remember most of it. 'We gave our lives to Normandy', and then something, something.
He released a breath and dropped his face into his hands. He listened to the waves.
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