Chapter Text
Oxfordshire, England, Earth - 2211 CE
Jane Shepard, first human spectre, Hero of the Citadel, the woman who defeated the Reapers, Admiral of the Systems Alliance Navy and N7, was not feeling particularly heroic. It was 3am, and she wasn’t asleep in bed with her wife and their dog, or even out at a pub like many of her neighbors were. Instead she stood on the balcony that opened to her bedroom, having stumbled outside, bleary-eyed, a few minutes earlier.
Next week, Jane mused, when she saw Miranda, she had to remember to complain about the shitty job Cerberus had done rebuilding her joints. They clearly hadn’t been meant for long-term use- typical for those bastards. Jane had woken up from a very old nightmare, and kept awake thanks to the pain in her left knee. The random aches, zaps, and pulses of light from under her skin were slowly becoming more frequent as the years went by. The doctors assured her she would easily live to 120, and Samantha thought it was incredibly attractive when her cybernetics became more visible, but it was still a literal- and figurative- pain in the ass.
Unable to get back to sleep and not wanting to wake her wife, Jane had walked out onto the balcony to bask in the beauty of a summer night in the English countryside. She took another step towards the railing, and promptly stepped in the dog’s water bowl.
Jane grumbled to herself as she pulled her dripping foot out of the now half-full bowl, chastising her own stupidity. Served her right for stumbling around in the dark, bleary-eyed, without her glasses or contacts.
She shook the water off her foot and slumped into a padded chair, looking out over what little she could see of the rolling hills of Oxfordshire. Jesus Christ, she was getting old. Not even sixty and she couldn’t take a couple steps without glasses and too-bright light. Thirty years ago, before… everything, she’d have fearlessly stormed into a nest of Thresher Maws and walked out with her head held high. She had done exactly that several times during the hunt for Saren, and had the scars to prove it. Even after Akuze, she’d been at the peak of physical health. Dying seemed to have a negative impact on your health. Funny how these things worked.
Not that she’d have given up any of it, for anything. Jane had some regrets, missed the friends she’d lost dearly, and of course wished the Reaper War had never happened, but never once wished she’d sat on the sidelines of a mission or battle rather than diving into the fray. Kane didn’t love combat, but didn’t know who she’d be if she wasn’t a good soldier- regardless of what her old COs had to say about her. Probably a few things about insubordination, talking back to superior officers, disobeying or ignoring orders, taking situations into her own hands, etc, etc. If Jane hadn’t been made a Spectre, she probably would’ve been court-martialled long before the Battle of the Citadel. Even now that she spent most of her time in a command center in London rather than on a battlefield, she was a Spectre, with all the privileges that brought her, and authority over Systems Alliance and Council forces alike.
Besides, she wouldn’t have met any of her closest friends or family without the War. Her old crews had become as good as family, with a few exceptions. She’d never admit it, but she even missed Kasumi some days. God knows where that lunatic had disappeared to after the end of the War, but Jane suspected that the loss of hundreds of thousands of credits worth of rare equipment from the Crucible project just as it ended was probably connected. Zaeed was a pain in the ass too, but he’d been dead for a decade, passed away in his sleep on a beach in Costa Rica. Maybe not the end the old murderer deserved, but one she could hardly begrudge him.
As if on queue, the only crewmate who had literally become part of Jane’s family slid open the balcony door behind her.
“You’re up early, darling. Miss space that much?”
Jane chuckled as her wife placed a hand on her shoulder, brushing aside a lock of greying auburn hair. She placed her own hand above Samantha’s, smiling softly when she felt the wedding ring on her finger.
“We’ll be on a ship this time tomorrow, Sam, I can wait a few hours. I just couldn’t sleep, figured I’d enjoy the fresh air before we’re breathing recycled shit for a couple weeks.”
“You’re a sorry excuse for a spacer, you know that?”
“Says the Colony kid who moved to the same country on Earth her parents left.” Jane said with a grin.
Samantha playfully swatted her arm before moving to lean against the railing beside Jane.
“We did agree on the house with the white picket fence, it just so happened Oxford was hiring and you were assigned to London. Having regrets, love?”
“Me? Regret living with the love of my life, in a beautiful town, with beautiful children and an… acceptable dog? Never.”
Sam poked her in the side playfully. “Hey! Just because David wasn’t careful about his name doesn’t mean he’s anything short of lovely! You were babying Jeff just as much as you did our actual babies just the other day!”
Jane groaned and buried her head in her hands. Letting their son rescue a dog after their first cat died had seemed like a great idea, up until David came home with an (admittedly adorable) mutt named Jeff. It turned out, despite meeting him dozens of times, David had no idea what Joker’s real name was. He didn’t think anything of getting a dog that shared his honorary uncle’s name, who absolutely refused to respond to anything else. Joker thought it was hilarious, Shepard thought it was mortifying. But she had to admit, she did love that dog.
“That fucking dog,” she muttered.
“When you fell asleep he was curled up on your chest, and I haven’t seen you look that peaceful in decades,” Samantha said gently.
“That’s because we had children Sam, and they’re finally old enough that we can sleep through the night.” Jane and Samantha were both on the verge of cackling at this point, trying their best not to wake the two teenagers sleeping down the hall. Sam knew her wife too well to be fooled by her façade of good cheer, however, and looked worriedly at her in the way Jane found absolutely adorable, her lips pouting and forehead crinkling.
“Was it another nightmare, or your leg?”
Jane sighed and rested her head on her wife’s shoulder without falling, and making even more of a fool of herself.
“Both. Thessia, this time.”
Samanatha put an arm around the old Spectre, pulling her closer and kissing her hair.
“I’m only awake because I dreamed of Horizon. You made it through, darling. You survived the war, all the wars. We both did.”
“That must have been terrifying, I’m so sorry my love.” I’m sorry I couldn’t defeat the Collectors sooner, so you never had to experience being trapped in stasis as they hauled away your friends. I’m sorry for the countless billions that died before the Reapers were defeated. I’m sorry your home was turned into a death camp because I made the mistake of working with a terrorist. Shepard leaned further into her wife’s touch, taking comfort in the fact that she was warm, and there, and alive, and beautiful, and correct as always. Her regrets couldn’t be helped, but they’d survived. The past couldn’t hurt them, and the nightmares ended when they woke up. That hadn’t always been the case.
“I’m more worried about the scolding your mother will give me if she shows up this afternoon to find her daughter sleep-deprived and covered in the dog’s water.”
“You saw that, huh?” Jane asked, cheeks burning.
“I did, yes.”
“Thank god you’re already stuck with me, that can’t have been attractive.”
“Oh I don’t know, you’re cute when you’re tired and annoyed,” Jane’s wife teased.
“Cute enough for you to risk my mother’s anger?”
“Oh god, not even close. Especially when she’s babysitting. Your mother is terrifying.”
“Ash is thirteen now, it’s hardly babysitting when they’re both teens,” Jane argued, “And she practically begged to watch the kids for us.”
“You’re right, it’s not babysitting, it’s managing teenagers. Your mother may be an Admiral, but even she must have difficulty wrangling teens. So come on, let’s get back to bed love. You need rest.”
“So do you!” Jane protested.
“I don’t need rest, I have tea. It’s a shame bringing you to this country didn’t instill that habit in you.”
“Nope, I’m too Canadian. My mother made sure I would only drink bagged milk and neat maple syrup.”
Sam wrinkled her nose in disgust, the uncultured heathen. The greatest failure of Jane’s marriage was failing to make her wife appreciate the horrifying wonders of Canadian food. “I still can’t believe you actually brought me on a date to Vancouver, of all the places.”
“Yeah, but you had fun. The hotel had a really nice shower.”
Sam gently poked her in the side for that, causing her wife to giggle.
“You do keep your promises. And I seem to remember you promising to get a good night’s sleep before the trip to the Citadel.”
After getting pulled into an even tighter and more comforting hug, Jane has no choice but to acquiesce.
“Damn you and your very convincing cuddles, Traynor.”
“You know you love me.”
“More than anything”, Jane grinned, and kissed her wife. She reluctantly made her way inside, careful to avoid the dog bowl and telescope. Samantha followed her. They were both deep in dreamless sleep within minutes.