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Miranda would have liked to believe that she waited to deal with the package intentionally, as some kind of show of dominance or because it just wasn't that important to her or some other legitimate, ego-preserving reason, but the truth was, when Shepard finally opened the door of her office and leaned in with her now-standard "Hey there, Lawson," Miranda still had no idea how to feel.
Never let it be said, however, that she couldn't grab the bull by the horns nonetheless. "Shepard," she said, and put a hand on the open case, fingertips just brushing the lacquered green wood of its contents. "What exactly is this?"
Shepard raised an amused eyebrow. "That's a Yugunwenwin violin, Miranda. They're made by some colonial master craftsman out of crazy high-tech string alloys and the wood of the yugunwenwin plant, which is native to Dakuuna. As I understand it, they're as incredibly beautiful to listen to in the hands of a master as they are unforgiving to play. Put a finger a tenth of a centimeter off and they screech like a dying drive core. Can't say for certain, I've never actually heard one in person, violins aren't exactly a common elcor export." The amused eyebrow had turned into the beginning of a smirk. "I'd think you of all people would know this sort of thing."
Miranda stared at the commander. Shepard... was Shepard teasing her? Shepard teased Garrus. Shepard teased Joker. Shepard sometimes teased Tali or Kasumi. Shepard teased people she liked. People she trusted. Shepard did not tease Cerberus operatives.
Shepard did not randomly give Miranda Lawson an incredibly rare and expensive and perfectly-tailored-to-her gift.
"...You can't possibly have just bought me a Yugunwenwin," said Miranda, who could not have felt more surprised and out of her depth if Shepard had suddenly unzipped her skin like a bad suit and been a turian underneath.
"Nah, I know a guy who collects rare instruments, he owed me a favor. He had a Stradivarius too, but I don't like you that much," said Shepard, scars crinkling in faint suggestion of a grin.
Miranda focused on the suspicion that Shepard knew she'd prefer the Yugunwenwin anyway. It helped keep her from gaping like a fish.
"Shepard..." she finally managed. "Why?"
The commander's already-phantom smile collapsed like it had never been and her shoulders hunched slightly, the closest she'd get to drawing defensively in on herself, but she met Miranda's eyes when she said, soberly, "I wanted to thank you. For... for bringing me..." She shook her head. "For the Lazarus Project. Whatever your intentions were, whatever your motivations, whatever you would have done differently if you could — The fact is, I'm standing here because you put two years of your life into making it happen, and that matters to me. I'm sorry it took me this long to show it."
Miranda sank back in her chair, eyes locked on Shepard, suddenly needing the support.
"... You never talk about it directly," she eventually said, carefully neutral, with just a shade of dispassionate curiosity. "The Normandy crash yes, we're all a little unsettled by your occasional very detailed threats to airlock people —"
Shepard smirked faintly, and Miranda counted it a victory.
"— but not after. You don't even like saying that you're 'back.' It's always vague euphemisms."
"Not true, I indulge Joker's bad zombie jokes," said Shepard mildly, but after a moment of patience from Miranda, the commander gave a heavy sigh, and walked into the room, staring out the viewport with her back to her XO.
"... I've never really seen the appeal of nirvana myself," she said, a little distantly, "but I always admired the bodhisattvas. To achieve something that difficult, to break the cycle of death and rebirth and reach the state of peace and enlightenment that you've dedicated everything that you are to finding, to touch a level of existence you believe infinitely superior to mortal life, and then just... let it go. Give it all up, for the sake of faceless strangers who won't even spare you the time of day, much less thank you for trying to help them achieve the same gift.... When I was a little girl, that was everything I wanted to be. That level of will, of compassion, of wisdom, of service... I suppose I never really outgrew it. I've aspired to that kind of strength my whole life."
She paused, like she was waiting for Miranda to make some kind of dismissive comment about the naivete of her idealism. Still, Miranda suspected she surprised herself more than Shepard when she chose to stay silent.
"When I think about... being brought back from death. If I think about being brought back from death. I try to tell myself that I must have finally achieved it. That fighting this battle, protecting the galaxy, was big enough, important enough that I wouldn't move on. That I found a way to break the cycle, to return with my knowledge of the Reapers intact. That this body isn't a shell, memories and muscle with a vacant hole where the soul used to attach. That you woke me up two years later because I'd been banging on the door all that time, and not because without this fragile pile of carbon I wasn't anywhere and never would or could be again."
That hung in the air for a moment, heavy and oppressive, like a mass field thickening the very atmosphere between them.
Eventually, Miranda surprised herself again by not making a comment on superstitious comfort or ego-stroking self-delusion, but merely asking, quietly (and perhaps to her even greater surprise, sincerely), "And do you believe it?"
The stars pinwheeled silently outside the window for a very long time, before Shepard finally turned around and aimed a broad, stiff smile at Miranda. "So can you play that sucker, or are you planning to use it as a paperweight?"
And there, at last, was Miranda's comfort zone, so she gently lifted the instrument out of its case and raised it to her chin. She'd tuned it that morning, when it arrived, asking EDI for benchmark notes and running through a single scale before her awe and disbelief finally reached critical levels and compelled her to put it down, so now she just picked out a simple melody, deeply ingrained in memory from ten thousand hours of adolescent practice, still shaken by the rich resonance of the alien wood.
"Really, Lawson?" said Shepard, before Miranda had even finished the first phrase. "Canon in D?" But her smile was actually genuine now, a real, sincere, lopsided curve lighting her face, so Miranda blithely ignored her and carried on with the piece, the Yugunwenwin singing in her hands, watching Shepard with a sideways glance as the commander leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, arms crossed, sinking into the music.
And if Miranda would never have the privilege to hear in person the bright, easy laugh that had once permeated every newsvid, if this one soft fleeting smile, more rare and exotic than the instrument in her hands, was all that was left, if this moment was all the apology Miranda would ever be able to give... well, Shepard was certainly more than entitled to it. And for now, just in this moment, as the melody took them, maybe it was enough.