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March 8th, 2187
Mars was a planet that had never found it’s place in the universe. Not quite terraformed, old style domes protecting the few civilised areas, buildings that weren’t even prefabs, created with concrete and brick and metal. A year ago, Kaidan had his brains bashed out against a shuttle door while a dust cloud raged above his head, an ignoble almost-death on a backwater planet. Nowadays, Mars was the only place in the universe. It was Base One for Citadel salvage. It was the Council’s new home. It was Alliance HQ. It was a cold, bitter, crowded wasteland that offered no comfort. And the dust storms still raged against the domes.
Kaidan kept his head down as he walked through the one of the only affluent residential zones in Lowell City. A few people called out or waved or simply snapped pictures, he didn’t respond. He and the others had only been back in the centre of the universe for a few days, he was still a novelty among them. He missed the solitude of the Agincourt and the Normandy, where he still had function and purpose. His function to return home. His purpose to be by her side. By the time the doorman let him into the secure residential block and he had reached the apartment, Kaidan had a crick in his neck. The door cycled open and he entered the hallway, greeted by the sounds of a swelling set of chords, a grunt of emotion and a crash of drums.
“Hey,” Shepard called from the living room. He crossed through the kitchen, noting the dishes piled in the sink, and found her sprawled on the sofa under a blanket, a few empty cups on the coffee table and a vid playing on the screen. Shepard craned her neck to look at him, her hair tied back in a scraggly bun, her prosthetic arm lying at an odd angle, the fingers flicking as she shifted to look up at him. “How was your day, sweetie?” she purred, while the two figures on the screen started a rather clothed humping session.
His breath caught in his chest, snagging on the exposed nail of his grief, and instead of responding his gaze settled on the beer bottles. “Not as good as yours, by the looks of things.”
One seriously dented pillow fell to the carpet as Shepard rearranged herself. “Evil clone,” she said simply, fixing her attention back on her show.
“Sorry?”
“Evil. Clone.” Her grin was teasing him. “You saved the wrong girl. Seemed like I should tell you one day.”
Kaidan tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his lips. He leaned forwards, resting his arms on the back of the couch, looking up at the screen.
“Hey,” she leaned forward, her lips brushing his cheek. “What’s wrong?” Her good arm looped over his shoulders and he closed his eyes, screwed them shut against their mess of an apartment, her broken body, his stinging tears . . . “Kaidan, darling, what,” she began whispering in his ear, her prosthetic arm wrapping around him too. “Baby what happened?”
The tears stung his eyes like fire.
“Baby,” she whispered, pressing kisses into his hair and against his ear and on his salt stained cheeks.
“They found-” he managed.
“Oh,” she understood, or at least understood something. She pulled him around the sofa and under her blankets, settling him against her throne of plush pillows, her hollow warm with her body heat, smelling faintly of sweat and coffee. She curled up in his lap, drew the blanket up over both of them and pressed her face into the crook of his neck, stroking his chest with her good hand as he wept. “Your parents?” she whispered, as he could feel his chest heaves slowing and his tears stop flowing.
Whatever vid she had been watched had cycled through its credits and now the news was on, muted, footage of the Citadel salvage playing on a loop. He had worked his hand under her shirt, splayed his fingers over her back, feeling the scars that crisscrossed her back, the silvery reminders of what he still had. He licked his lips, swallowing past the pain in his throat. He wanted to tell her, but the words were lost.
“Kaidan,” she murmured, smoothing errant curls off his forehead. “I’m so sorry.”
It hurt. It hurt with echoes and emptiness, so he breathed in deeply, the smell of Shepard’s stale sweat, a hint of soap, coffee, something that shouldn’t have been nearly so comforting as it was. “People have lost so much,” he murmured.
Her fingers were dancing along the line of his jaw. She kissed him on his cheek.
“People lost everything. And I knew. I knew they probably weren’t,” he swallowed again. “I knew there was no chance.”
“Doesn’t stop you hoping though,” she said, her voice firm and low. She sounded so much like The Commander that his body stiffened, instinct trying to build a wall between the woman he loved and the woman he’d sworn to follow. He had no need for those walls, he fought it off. “Hope is pretty damned hard to shake,” she continued. “It has to be.”
He looked at her at last, the bruises under her eyes, the new scars on her face that were still not hidden by surgeries. He kissed her forehead, on impulse, and cupped her cheek with his hand. “I still have you. I didn’t dare hope for that.”
Her smile faltered, only a moment, and she shrugged. “Unless I’m the clone,” she teased, settling back against his chest and selecting a new vid for them to watch. They didn’t move for some time.
March 14th, 2187
“Shepard!”
It was a good thing, Shepard reflected, that she didn’t scare easily. She continued concentrating on dicing this pathetic excuse for a celery stick with her prosthetic hand. The blade moved slowly, her prosthetic not keeping up with her mind, the chopping board revealing scars as her knife cut too deep, exerted too much pressure.
“Shepard!” Kaidan hollered again, emerging from their bedroom with sopping wet hair, a towel loosely wrapped around his waist, soap suds flying from his shoulders as he stalked towards her. “You used my shampoo!”
Ah. Yes. She’d half hoped he’d realised she’d finished the toothpaste. The shampoo was going to be a completely different issue. “I’m making you dinner thought,” she said, consciously setting the knife down and flexing plastic fingers towards a plastic palm.
“My shampoo,” he insisted, having to tug his towel back up. “My shampoo I specifically bought for me.” He was watching her intently as she tossed the veg into the pot.
“Darling. What’s mine is yours,” she purred, trying not to look at him. Instead she stirred the simmering mixture and sniffed. “You think this might need some turmeric?”
“The shampoo that isn’t being made anymore. That doesn’t exist anywhere in the galaxy.”
“Pity we can’t get turmeric,” she muttered, good hand on hip, prosthetic hand reaching the other hip just a moment later. “What can I say, Kaidan? Evil clone.”
That startled him. He blinked at her, amber eyes refocusing on her, going from rage to concern like a downshifting gear. “Shepard . . .”
Quick. A distraction was needed. In a moment they’d be having a heartfelt talk about her issues and what she thought about herself. She stood on tiptoes and leaned forward to kiss the tip of his nose. “It smells like you,” she said as he started blinking all over again. “I’m sorry.” A pout, a squeeze of the boobs with her upper arms, a saucy wink as she turned back to the food. “You can use mine.”
“You don’t even have curls,” came the rebellious mutter as he padded back to the bathroom.
She smiled, smelling her stew once more and lamented the lack of spices. An evil clone should have had curly hair though, if she was everything Shepard was not. Curly hair and a free conscience.
March 21st, 2187
Chakwas was perched on the low ottoman, Shepard on the end of the sofa, and they both peered intently at the hands Shepard laid, palms upright, atop her knees.
“Touch the tips of your fingers towards the palm,” Chakwas said, blowing a strand of grey hair from her face.
One hand obeyed immediately, fingertips depressing skin. The second followed, sluggish like a vidcall over four relays.
“Hmm.” Chakwas glanced up as Kaidan passed behind the sofa, a bowl of noodles in hand. “Excuse me, I’m with a patient.”
“It’s okay, doc,” Shepard assured her, repeating the exercise, frowning at her prosthetic as it worked. “He hears me moan about it often enough.”
To cement his authority as chief recipient of moaning, Kaidan half sat on the arm of the sofa, watching Chakwas’ inspections. “Besides, we’re in my house,” he said, slurping some noodles. When Shepard looked up he proffered the bowl and obligingly forked some noodles into her mouth.
“Hmmm,” Chakwas said again. She slipped a small metal probe from her bag and pushed the needle against each of Shepard’s fingertip. “Your reactions on the prosthetic are definitely slower than acceptable limits, Commander,” she announced. “That model should be almost indistinguishable, reaction wise, from a synthetic skin and vat grown one. Not as sophisticated looking . . .”
“I don’t care about how it looks,” Shepard interrupted, clenching the uncannily plastic hand into a fist. She leaned back against the sofa. “I just wish I could feel things with it.”
Kaidan reached down to squeeze her shoulder. She grunted in a release of irritation and leaned back, scowling fiercely at Chakwas.
“Well, continue with the exercises,” Chakwas said, sliding her tools back in her bag. She chewed on her lip for a moment as she contemplated Shepard’s hands. “We don’t have the resources right now to replace your arm, but I will see if we can’t hurry it up.”
“No. Don’t do that.” Shepard sighed, dragging her real hand across her face. “There are more important things out there. It’s just irritating, that’s all.” She turned her head upwards to look at Kaidan, her upper lip curling back to reveal teeth in a grimace. “If I had only kept my good copy, I could have taken her arm.”
“Evil copy,” he corrected.
“Yeah whatever.”
March 23rd, 2187
Kelly Chambers was one of the few fully trained psychiatrists who was still functional enough to practice. This won her an office in Lowell City, small, cramped, without a chaise longue which just felt wrong to Kaidan. She also had a waiting list as long as a hanar’s tentacle, neatly circumvented with a message starting ‘it’s about Shepard’.
Chambers was typing rapidly when he entered but she stopped mid-sentence and rose to greet him, extending a hand to shake. The woman was a bubbly, cheerful sort, those were hard to come by these days. “Kaidan, I mean, uh, Major Alenko. Spectre Alenko. I’m not really sure!”
“Kaidan is fine,” he assured her with a hand raised to stall her comments. “I really appreciate you seeing me.”
“Not at all, not at all.” Kelly motioned for him to sit on a chair that was piled with reports. She sat on the desk, knocking a small plush toy from its perch and he stooped to reach it. It was a little elcor, very soft, one eye replaced with stitching instead of a bead. He stared at it for a moment, wondering who had loved it so much, what that person was doing now. “I found it on the Citadel. After the coup,” Kelly murmured. “Keep hoping that one day . . .”
Kaidan swallowed roughly and replaced the toy. “You never know,” he said in that falsely breezy tone that was so commonly overheard these days. He displaced the reports, setting them on the floor for want of any input from Kelly, and sat himself down. His limbs were too long to sit comfortably on the low chair so he sat with his legs out straight, crossed at the ankles, wondering how to begin.
Kelly reached up to pat down her red hair, waiting him out.
“I’m worried about Shepard.”
Kelly had remarkably green eyes, he noted, and they pierced him. This performance was not good enough, they seemed to say, why had he displaced countless soldiers who needed counselling to talk about a woman who everyone knew was damaged?
“She’s, uh, she keeps mentioning something.” He was frustrating himself now. “She has a lot of guilt, Kelly. She feels responsible for the geth, for EDI, for people stranded on the wrong side of a relay.”
“Yes,” Kelly said sombrely, nodding. “Do you think these feelings are getting worse?”
“I don’t know,” he did know. “She’s started something. As a joke, I think, but every time she says it, I can’t help but think she means it. Whenever she does something that might be irritating or . . . socially unacceptable . . . she says she is her evil clone.”
Kelly’s eyebrows shot upwards into her fiery halo and the calculating green eyes suddenly took on an amused glint. “Well she’s always had a sense of humour.”
“This feels different,” he mumbled.
In an attempt to remain professional, Kelly made a noise of encouragement and nodded at him. “I imagine it must be quite disorientating for you, Kaidan, but in my experience Shepard has always greeted adversity with a smile and a wink. Guilt is to be expected, but not encouraged. I expect she is simply using humour to explore the situation, and perhaps to give herself an excuse to be ‘socially unacceptable’ now and again.”
“You think I’m overreacting.”
Kelly subsided for a moment, suppressing a smile. “No, no, I think it’s perfectly natural for you to be worried about her. It’s been, what, a month or so since you returned from Eden Prime? You’re beginning to see the cracks now, I suspect, but believe me, she is a much healthier Shepard than the one we picked up from the rubble.”
Kaidan’s gaze was caught by the plush elcor once more. It was resting against a pen pot, its good eye watching out of the window for its owner, staring out over Lowell City’s tall skycrapers, where they tickled the dome arcing above them. “I wish I could have been there,” he murmured.
“You’re here now. You remind her of that when she’s low. When you’re worried about her, tell her you love her. You’ll be surprised what that means to her.”
When he reached home, and it was home now, he found Shepard singing along to some salarian pop group, dancing around the living room as she cleaned. She was standing on tip toe on the table, balancing with a hint of a biotic field as she dusted top of the extranet screen and she swivelled on the ball of her foot to face him when he came in. “Morning, honey,” she said, in a tone dripping with promises.
“This is all very domestic,” he blurted in surprise, taking a look round at their ship shape living space. “You are a complex woman, aren’t you?”
She puffed out her chest and stared around the room. “Well I don’t know about that,” she said in her best colony drawl. The accent fled as quickly as she’d assumed it and she sighed. “I looked in the mirror this morning and I swear to you, Mama Shepard was staring right back out at me. She told me to stop moping around watching bad TV and waiting for the world to get better.”
“Well if your mother nags you any more, let me know. I think you deserve a break.”
Shepard grinned. In an unspoken agreement, because they could, because it wasn’t old yet, she launched herself at him, wrapping arms around his shoulders and legs around his waist, making him stagger backwards against the wall as he raised his arms to catch her. She was chuckling, the noise shaking in her chest, a rumble of warmth against him, insulated by clothes. Too much clothes. Shepard’s lips were on his, pulling at his, transferring heat and longing and life. By hooking her prosthetic around his neck, she used her dextrous hand to peel off his shirt, letting it fall to the floor by the bedroom door.
With a groan of protest, Kaidan dropped her to the mattress, his back relieved at least. Shepard kept her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer so she could work on his trouser buckle, cursing when her hand didn’t comply. She giggled as he had to help, her giggling only doubled when he kissed her cheek. “You know, lesser men don’t like it when their women laugh at their efforts,” he drawled in her ear.
“Lucky I’m not with a lesser man.” With a flare of creativity, she slid off the mattress and straight into his knees, sending him crashing to the floor and ending with her straddling his waist, hand searching and exploring his bare chest, a satisfied expression on her face. The acrid tang of cleaning products clung to her like a veil, something that was not the usual. Something to remind him this was real. Unpredictable.
“Ow,” he said flatly, helping her with her shirt, peeling her pants down over her hips, revealing soft underwear that he could slide a finger under, separating cloth from skin, enjoying the way she tensed at his touch, muscles jumping under healed skin, the way her cool would be melted by his ministrations.
With no time for jokes and games, she lifted herself off his hips long enough for him to slide out of his pants, letting out a moan when Kaidan’s hand met the warm, hidden places between her legs.
“I love you,” was said by both, because it still had to be said.
Shepard took him in, rocked forwards and backwards, riding for want of a better word. Her prosthetic reached backwards to steady herself on the mattress, her feeling hand alighted on his breast, where his heart thumped under flesh, where love resided. Kaidan felt the hard cord of the carpet between his shoulder blades, friction burning his skin with every sway of Shepard’s hips, his hair rustling against the floor as they moved together.
It was long hours later, curled in bed together, that she felt the weight of the bed dip down at the corners. Kaidan’s arm was wrapped around her, his other curled up behind the pillow that supported his head. He slumbered on as she lifted her cheek from the soft foam, peering into the gloom illuminated by Lowell’s lights.
There was a click, a hiss of gas, and the flare of a cigarette.
“You smoke?” she asked the face that was cast into an orange glow by the flicker of the lighter.
The woman on the end of the bed inhaled deeply, flicking the silver mechanism closed and leaning backwards. With two good arms, she propped herself up on the bed, watching Shepard watch her. “A good entrance shouldn’t be wasted.”
Checking Kaidan was still sleeping, Shepard gently extricated herself from his security and sat upright, drawing her knees up to her bare chest and looping her arms around them. “Why are you here?”
The clone blew smoke rings in the air, sending one through the other. “Oh, all the reasons,” she teased. “I have to say I’m proud of you. There you are, you could have saved everyone and of course you chose not to.”
Shepard pressed the tip of her tongue against the bow of her upper lip, the tiny gesture giving her a moment to remember her defences, to hastily arrange her walls.
The clone mimicked her, protruding her tongue too far, looking as though she was parodying a simple minded fool. “No,” the clone said. “You saved your own kind. Organics.”
“I made a choice,” she whispered.
“Hmm.” The clone stubbed the cigarette out on the sheets, leaving a smouldering circle of ash where the fire died. “You know, I think it’s sweet your brain concocted some illusion of EDI to give you peace. ‘Oh kill me, kill me, let me be the sacrifice, that’s much harder’,”
“Stop.”
“All so you could come back here, fuck yourself silly on the floor, play little house while your man goes out fixing the galaxy you broke.”
Shepard clamped her hands over her ears. “Stop!”
The clone crawled over the sheets, her smoke stained breath touching Shepard’s lips. “You wish you were me. You wish you had my strength. You wish you’d been able to save them all, been willing to do what was necessary, you wish you had joined us all under the stars, you wish you’d died instead of me.”
“Shepard.” Kaidan was sleepy, but his arms were strong and tight around her, keeping her from thrashing under the sheets. “Ssh, just a dream, Shepard, just a dream.”
She caught a scream of ‘stop’ in her throat and sat bolt upright, staring at their unburned sheets, inhaling air free of smoke, remembering with certainty the hollow shell of her body that had only six months of poison in its mind, dropped to gravity.
“Hey,” Kaidan was more awake now, roused by the urgency of her terror. His knuckles brushed the tears from her cheek, his arms encircled her shoulders, and he waited for her to become coherent.
She scrabbled from the sheets, her legs tangled in their threads, making it to the bathroom in time to hulk over the toilet and retch. Kaidan joined her, smoothing hair back from her face, rubbing her back, crouched on the cold stone floor. “That was a bad one, huh?” he murmured when she had done. He left her, his hand print cooling on her spine, pouring her water and returning to press the glass into her shaking hand. He pulled the towel from its heated rail and draped it over her shoulders.
“Sorry.” She leaned against his side, screwing her eyes closed.
“Want to talk about it?”
She nodded, eagerly being enfolded by his arms once more, collecting her thoughts under the harsh glare of the bathroom lights. “Sometimes I’m so sure I did the wrong thing. I feel like someone would rip me limb from limb, make me pay.”
Kaidan kissed her neck. “I know you did the right thing, Shepard.”
“Hmm.” She was shivering now. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because I’m here. You’re here. The Reapers are gone.”
“But we lost so much.”
“No one ever said war was going to be easy.”
The grunt that escaped her was more sob than snort, but she felt the bands start to unwind. “It’s just not fair,” she whispered.
“Hmm.” Kaidan hiked himself up, pulling her along too. “My ass is cold. Come back to bed.”
“Let me brush my teeth.” Clasping her towel around her, she turned to the sink. In the mirror, her reflection was ghostly pale, scarred, uneven. The shadow of her mother, so strong this morning, was gone. Kaidan was watching her, tawny skin less washed out by the fluorescents, a little better rested, a little stronger. “God knows why you stay,” she said, without meaning to, toothbrush jammed into the side of her mouth.
Kaidan’s brows furrowed and he stepped forward, meeting her gaze in the mirror. “Because you’re still you. And you know what? It’s long past time we celebrated that.”
April 13th, 2187
She had never been, nor would ever become, the kind of woman who asked how her dress looked more than once. So having had Kaidan’s blanket seal of approval - though it was quite literally a blanket seal ‘baby, you could wear the blanket and look fine’ – she stared at herself in the mirror. The little yellow dress had skinny ribbon straps, tied into bows at the top of her shoulders. The right bow sat on the join of her prosthetic arm to her body, where plastic fused almost seamlessly with flesh. It drew attention, she couldn’t help but think, tugging at the strap once more. She had chosen to eschew the latest aesthetic, not for fashion purposes, but because this was one of the only nice dresses she could find in the poor selection on Mars. As such the skirt hit her knees, loose and flared, patterned with tiny flowers stitched in white. In the catalogue it had seemed cheerful, carefree, maybe innocent. Now on her, it looked as though she was trying to dress mutton as lamb. She dragged her hands through loose hair, falling in waves back over her shoulder and drew breath to curse.
“Damn, Lola.”
“James?” She had to lean to spot him standing in the doorway. He had dressed up too, a pale blue shirt cut snug around his biceps and tailored to show off his body. He was grinning at her with typical, Vega-esque joy at having found her so compromised and then he pursed his lips to let out a low whistle.
“You trying to break hearts tonight, huh?”
“You think?” It didn’t count if you asked someone else. “You don’t think this is a little?” she gestured at her general self and screwed up her face in irritation.
“Lola, I think that is a lot,” he said. “Kaidan asked me to come get you. Says people are arriving.”
“Including you?” She hooked an arm over his and walked into the hallway. This apartment on Lowell City had nothing on Anderson’s in size, but it felt more like home. It had photos, it had books, on every shelf was a rock from a planet she had been. Yellow sandstone from Mindoir. Green slate from Rannoch. Sharp, grey granite from Tuchanka, that had dug and dug and dug Bakara’s way from her cave. A piece of rubble from Earth, a neatly shorn iron strut poking out from the crumbling concrete that was still stained with her blood. That strut had kept her from bleeding out.
“I offered to help with the food, but have you ever noticed your boyfriend gets really irritated if you eat everything before it gets to the table?” Vega asked.
She grinned, leaning into him and squeezing his arm. “Yeah, he’s fussy like that. Why don’t you go help him unload the beers and I will join this crowd of cooing ladies around Liara.” She spotted the asari sitting on the sofa, although the crowd of cooing ladies was a little exaggeration on her part. Traynor was on the couch beside her and Tali was making a beeline towards them from the front door. Tali raised her hand to wave, gloved, but not hermetically sealed. Her helmet was off, a red veil still wrapped over her dark hair, but her almond shaped eyes crinkled at the edges when she smiled at Shepard.
“Yeah, you guys enjoy that,” Vega said, neatly releasing Shepard’s arm and aiming for Garrus.
“You look good,” Tali greeted her, the note of surprise in her voice made Shepard smile. How do I normally look? She wondered, thanking Tali and sitting beside Liara.
“You do,” Liara agreed. “Civilian life suits you.”
“Well,” she shrugged. Civilian life. She hadn’t thought about it so much, every five minutes there was another journalist wondering how she was doing, what her opinion was on the Council’s latest edict. When she wasn’t catching up with the galaxy she had been saving, she was sleeping off anaesthetics or Chakwas was testing her many repairs.
Liara shifted, one hand resting on the swell of her belly as she made room for Shepard. Tali sat beside Traynor and leaned over the comms specialist to put her hand on Liara’s stomach. “So what’s it like?” she demanded.
Liara chuckled, staring down at the rise under her sweater. “Odd, to say the least. I’m young to have entered the matron stage but it feels good. It feels so right to be making life, now, especially.”
Tali was nodding and Traynor reached for her beer, taking a quick, deep gulp. Shepard bit her lip, searching for Javik in the group gathering in the kitchen. Traynor set her bottle down on the coffee table with a nervous shudder. “I think it’s ghastly. The whole idea of a little creature in there. Eating the food that’s meant for you. If that’s not a parasite I don’t know what is.”
This prompted the others to laughter and Shepard checked her indrawn breath, reminding herself that all her crew were friends, that this was a place people could joke like that. That it was acceptable to joke about that at all. Liara’s cheeks were flushed purple with amusement, she took no offense at Traynor’s horror, laughed at this little miracle in a way that Shepard couldn’t quite dare. “It is offputting,” Liara agreed. “She is still coalescing now, we do not quite function in the same way you humans do, from what I understand.”
“You guys start big,” Traynor agreed. “You looked pregnant before we even left Eden Prime.”
“Not long now,” Liara rubbed her stomach.
“And how is Javik?” Tali asked, with great curiosity.
Their garrulous asari took one look at where Javik was discussing and her smile faded a little. “Good,” she said, her voice firm and her eyes guilty. “He’s good.” Shepard reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I mean, he misses his people, but part of him, I think, is curious to know more about the baby.”
“It is how the krogan felt for hundreds of years, I suppose,” Traynor noted. She sighed suddenly. “I’ll miss Wrex tonight.”
“He was funny last time,” Liara agreed. “We do need to figure those relays out quickly!”
“Anyone want a drink?” Shepard asked, rising to her feet and brushing her palms off on her skirt.
“Me, please, we brought brandy,” Tali pounced on Shepard’s vacated seat, taking this opportunity to more closely inspect Liara’s bump.
The short distance from the living room to the kitchen was enough for her to smooth a smile on her face, enough to greet Garrus and Javik with affection. Kaidan flashed her a quick smile, abandoning his food prep to answer the door again. Vega took over, spinning a knife in his fingers as he resumed the job of chopping carrots. “Hey, Lola.”
“So what’s going on over here?” she asked.
“Discussion of food,” Javik told her curtly. He had procured himself a bottle of beer, though she had never quite figured how alcohol affected him. At their last party, their prothean had drank more than most but seemed least affected, up until others began sobering, and then he stumbled from wall to wall, touching everything he came across with his sensitive fingers.
She smiled at Javik, leaning on the kitchen island. This apartment was a good few bars down on Anderson’s, she guessed that her beautiful kitchen was going to become the epicentre of tonight’s drinking. “Carrots and hummus is an old earth delicacy.”
Javik peered at the bowl resting beside his elbow. “I preferred the ‘sushi’.”
“This is good too, you dip a carrot in like this, see?” She led by example, much to Garrus’ amusement, and crunched the carrot hard. “Fresh vegetables, Javik. We spared no expense.” Seeing that she was no closer to convincing him of her primitive delicacies, and noticing who the newcomers were, she left him to it. “Jack, Miranda,” she greeted Miranda with a kiss on the cheek, Jack just raised an eyebrow. “Jacob,” she added fondly as he made it through the door. “You came.”
“So did I,” whispered a voice in her ear and she was sure she felt a hand brush the join of her shoulder and prosthetic. “Love the dress.”
They were decidedly overly represented on humans, all in all. With Wrex and Grunt back on Tuchanka and not able to visit simply for a party, they had no krogan representatives. Samara, operating out of Lowell City as a keeper of the Council’s tenuous peace, had been able to bolster Liara for the asari contingent. Tali and Garrus, of course, were never too far. Asides from that, Javik was the only other non-human face in the apartment as the party kicked into gear. Jacob was soon drawn into Liara’s conversation about children, little Shepard Taylor was apparently the colicky type. Shepard did not join that section of the sofa, not keen on learning how many children now bore her name. Miranda and Jack had cracked straight into the vodka on breakfast bar, soon joined by Joker and Javik. People drinking to not remember, people drinking to not think. Samara, Zaeed and Vega seemed to be playing some kind of game on the other end of the corner sofa, with Samara cross legged on the ottoman. As near as Shepard could tell from her vantage point in the corridor, the game involved guessing how often Samara’s breasts had successfully distracted an enemy and neither James nor Zaeed seemed bothered when Samara laughed at them. Tali, Garrus, Traynor and Cortez were further in the kitchen, arguing politics from the sound of raised voices and the amount of hand waving that was going on. She drifted closer, bypassing Kaidan, Gabby and Chakwas having their ears wagged off by Ken and caught Traynor’s last argument.
“The colonies were what saved the galaxy. They were the battlegrounds and the factories and the breeding grounds for all your armies.”
“Colonies are expendable,” Tali said firmly, her thin lips tight with anger. “They are the pressurised compartments you vent to save the ship. What matters is the homeworld. This is why my people cannot truly settle on Titan.”
“Yet you seem to have made yourselves quite at home,” Traynor folded her arms.
Spreading his hands in the air, Garrus glanced between the two. “There is room for middle ground here. Yes, the Reapers hit the colonies hard, hey Shepard.”
The four were sitting at the dining table, their respective drinks resting on the glass. Cortez pushed a chair towards Shepard with his foot, giving her a grin. “So what’s your opinion on the Council’s neglect of colonies?”
“They are not neglecting colonies,” Garrus said with exasperation. “Look, there is a lot of rebuilding to do. Palaven, Earth, Thessia, Surkesh. They were all hit hard.”
“Surkesh, not so much,” Cortez pointed his beer bottle in Garrus’ direction.
“And with the seat of government here, effectively, it’s more important than ever for the Council to keep their heads out of their asses and to realise there are people out there who need them,” Garrus finished.
“The colonies are the only reason we’re out there in space in the first place,” Traynor said.
“And the damned hardest thing to protect,” Cortez added. “I think Garrus is right, Sam. Consolidate power first. Repair the homeworlds and the homeworld relays first.”
The tight knot in her chest that accompanied the word ‘relays’ made its presence known and she sipped her beer. A pair of warm, heavy hands landed on her shoulder and the most comforting voice in the world said, “I’d like to think the love of exploration is one of the reasons we’re out in space, Sam.”
Shepard tilted her head back to look up at Kaidan. “My romantic,” she murmured.
He grinned. “Maybe. But it’s not all minerals and cred chips out there, right?”
“Right,” she took another drink and drew her breath. “It’s independence too. Mindoir, a lot of the colonies I’ve been to, the people there want their freedom. Horizon was like that too, Traynor. We should be helping those who need it, the homeworlds aren’t everything, but colonists strike out alone for a reason. It’s a tricky line to walk. We just have to hope there’s enough decency around to make sure no one’s taking advantage.”
“My romantic,” Kaidan teased, kissing the top of her head.
“A nice ideal,” Tali agreed, “but we still haven’t discussed non-Council homeworlds. Rannoch, Tuchanka, damn it, what about the ones we lost? Kite’s Nest is cut off from us and when we last saw it wasn’t a place that was going to breed charity. Shouldn’t the Council be sending the likes of Samara there instead of keeping her around to keep their asses safe?”
“Yes,” Shepard said quickly, before thinking. “And ‘non-Council homeworlds’? That shouldn’t be a thing. We all won this war together. We should all be on the Council. It’s silly to keep races out based on whatever the asari thought thousands of years ago.”
“A krogan Councillor?” Garrus chuckled. “That would be ever better than a Blasto movie.”
Kaidan released her shoulders and circled around the table. She could see something ticking over behind his eyes. “You sound like you’ve been putting some thought into this. Maybe you’d like to take over as the human Councillor?”
She sat back in her chair and cross her legs, feeling like he’d slipped a particularly cold knife between her ribs and left a blade sticking there, unable to remove it, lodged forever in her body and soul. “Ah yes,” she drawled, raising her hands in faultless imitation of Sparatus. “Reapers.” That gained a laugh, gave her a moment to turn the idea over in her head. Councillor Shepard.
“I think you’ve got it down, Shepard,” Garrus informed her. “But enough politics, come on. I want to take bets on who’s going to end up sharing the spare bed tonight. Clearly it’s not going to be Javik and Liara this time.”
This conversation, mixed with commentary on existing relationships, sustained her through half a beer. She could feel the tightness in her chest easing, kneaded away by the constant buffeting of laughter. This was what the group by the breakfast bar needed, she thought. The beer was beginning to buzz through her, so she made an excuse and wrapped her fingers around the bottle’s slender neck, carrying it along, bumping it against her thigh as she walked to the bar. Jack glanced round at her, her gaze snagging on Joker. “Our money’s on Ken and Gabby in the closet by midnight,” she announced, leaning on the bar beside Jack.
Miranda took one look behind her and rolled her eyes. “That’s a safe bet, he has his hands all over her already. I do not get what she sees in him.”
“Oh I think they’re sweet,” Shepard responded, stung. She could see Ken had his hand on Gabby’s ass, forgetting those in the kitchen had a clear view. Chakwas had finally wrestled the conversation from him and was speaking animatedly, hands up in the air – the Jenkins story, if Shepard had to guess.
“He’s a letch and she’s too good for him,” Miranda declared.
“There’s something to say for letchs,” Jack purred, resting her arm, if not her whole weight, on Joker’s shoulders.
“I’m trying not to be offended,” said the pilot.
Whatever courage had propelled Shepard towards her old friend was failing her now and she took a shaky sip. She felt too close to Joker, too aware of his solitude. Jack snorted suddenly, jerking Shepard’s head around. The tattooed woman was rolling her eyes. “Now, see, if you hadn’t destroyed the Citadel, Shep, we could have had that great little bar with the poker table, that was a real drinking hole.”
“Well done, Jack,” Miranda said dryly. “Always cutting straight to the heart of the matter.”
“And Glyph was a way better DJ,” Jack added, to Miranda’s murderous glare. “And hell, EDI was always good for a laugh.” The full red lips pouted down at Joker. “There. It’s said. Now the two of you should toast her memory and get fucked.” At this, Jack left sauntered off, leaving Miranda fuming and Joker and Shepard staring intently into their drinks.
Slowly, Joker lifted his glass, aiming it more in Miranda’s general direction. “To getting fucked,” he said.
“Amen to that.” Shepard clinked her bottle off Joker’s glass, quickly enough so he couldn’t resist. And she drank. Jack returned to drag her off, demanding more men be brought to the party.
“Men who aren’t attached,” Jack added, pulling her towards Vega and Zaeed. “You’re looking hot tonight, Shepard, you should be partying.”
“You keep pulling me away from my drink.” She dropped to the sofa between Zaeed and Vega, rearranging her skirts as Jack perched on the back of the sofa behind them. “Someone bring me my beer?” she begged, pleased when Kasumi decloaked beside her, bottle in hand.
“Samara here’s telling us what she used to do for fun in the old days,” Zaeed said, gravelling his words out while he nodded respectfully to the Justicar.
“Now I bet that’s a story.” Sipping her beer she wondered if she could feel Joker’s eyes boring into the back of her skull or if it was just imagination.
“You wish me to regale you with a Justicar Tale?” Samara’s eyes were creased with amusement. “Surely we’re all a little old for storytime?”
“Speak for yourself, Blue,” Zaeed muttered.
Someone, Shepard suspected Ken, changed the music selection to a considerably faster set of tracks. Kasumi flickered in and out of the rooms, wherever it looked as though someone might be about to dance. When Samara left to get another drink, Miranda appeared in her place with a round of shots for Jack, Shepard and herself. The bootleg vodka burned on the way down and Shepard coughed, leaning forward as Zaeed thumped her back.
“Another!” Miranda exclaimed, snapping her fingers at Vega.
“Really?” Shepard wheezed.
“Be good for you,” Zaeed assured her. “Put hairs on your chest.”
“I’m not sure that’s what I want,” she moaned, but Jack was already sliding a glass into her hand and she obediently tossed her head back and tipped the fire down her throat.
“Looks like you need rescued,” Chakwas muscled in, offering a hand to help Shepard from her spot wedged between Jack and Zaeed. “I must say, you’re looking well!” She scrutinised Shepard carefully as they headed for the window. “How’s the arm?”
“Uh, improving.” Self consciously, she flexed the prosthetic fingers. “Still not great, but-”
“Good, and the headaches?”
“Uh, getting better. Less of them I mean.”
“And the new digestive track is working out-”
“Doc!” she exclaimed, folding her arms and glaring at her old friend. “Could we not hold a consultation in the middle of the party?”
To her credit, Chakwas blushed, two dots of colour appearing high in her cheeks. “Sorry. I worry, that’s all. We all do. Wrex sent me a message telling me to keep an eye on you. Apparently he thinks Kaidan hasn’t been telling the whole truth.”
Shepard twisted to catch sight of her partner, still serving up drinks in the kitchen and turning the full charm on Tali, who judging by the sway of her shoulders and the giggling was well on her way to inebriation and would have found Urz charming, never mind Shepard’ beloved, but sometimes slightly awkward biotic. “You keeping watch on me?”
“We try,” Chakwas sounded distinctly irritated. “Kaidan’s always been a private man. He keeps you private too. He only ever comes to us when he’s terrified for you.”
“There’s nothing to be terrified about,” she said sharply.
“Don’t worry. We know not to go to Kaidan for your secrets. We find them in other ways.” Chakwas winked and Shepard rolled her eyes, prepared to debate the point further when an explosive laugh sounded from the bar. Jacob had his head thrown back and was outright cackling at something which made Joker and Garrus look like scolded schoolboys.
“Oh my God, Shep, you gotta,” and Jacob was doubled over again, drawing the attention of the whole room.
Tali stumbled towards him, looping an arm around Garrus’ shoulders to save herself. “What? I want to know. Did Garrus do his impression of the Harvester again?”
“Shep, Shep,” Jacob waved her over, placing a hand on her shoulder as she approached. “They had a damned memorial for you.”
“What?” she murmured, catching Joker’s gaze for a moment.
“Oh crap,” Garrus muttered, Tali suddenly far less giggly.
“You had a memorial?” Jack asked. “For Shepard? When?”
“On Eden Prime,” Garrus flared his mandibles. “When we crashed. Uh,” he noticed Shepard was staring at him and held up his hands. “If it helps we didn’t actually go through with it.”
Miranda had her hands on her hips. “You declared Commander Shepard dead? You’ve met Shepard, right?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Chakwas seemed spurred to say. Liara was nodding. “It was immediately after we’d crashed. We thought she was.”
“Well,” Traynor glanced over at Kaidan. “Most of us did.”
“It was so romantic,” Tali purred.
Now she was smiling in spite of herself. She raised an eyebrow at Kaidan’s exasperation expression. “Oh really?” She leaned her elbows on the bar. “Romantic, you say, Tali?”
“Let’s not-” Kaidan began.
“It was very sweet,” Liara admitted. “We placed Anderson’s name on the memorial wall and we said a few words and then Kaidan had your plaque . . .”
“And he just called an end to the whole thing,” Traynor grinned triumphantly. “Told us all to get back to repairing the Normandy. That you’d need us back home soon.”
“And then a week later, Traynor repaired the QEC and he was proved right,” Garrus turned his head to look at Kaidan. “How did you know?”
Now the whole party was looking at him, Kaidan just shrugged, meeting Shepard’s gaze. “What can I say guys? I went into battle wearing her underwear, I knew she’d be back for them.”
For a moment a pregnant pause hung in the air before Kasumi popped it, materialising by Kaidan’s elbow and peering at his ass. “Nice choice, Shep,” she said, and an explosion of laughter came from the crowd.
Shepard held Kaidan’s gaze and mouthed ‘I love you’, while the others debated among themselves if Kaidan had been joking and what they would have done at the memorial service. She reached for another beer bottle and leaned on Jacob’s shoulder. “Like you wouldn’t have held a memorial service,” she teased.
Kaidan found her, an hour or so later, staring out at Mars’ stars. Liara and Javik had gone home, Ken and Gabby vanished into a bathroom, Chakwas, Vega and Kasumi trying to teach Traynor how to play ‘bullshit’ around the coffee table. Kaidan placed a hand on the small of her back as he approached and leaned in to kiss her. “Hey. You enjoying yourself?”
She settled herself against his side and turned back to the stars. “Yes.” She knew she sounded surprised. “I am enjoying myself.”
“Good,” he sounded pleased with himself and squeezed her shoulders. “You looking for anything in particular out there?”
“No. Just watching the stars.” She pointed to one star glinting. “Watching that one.”
“That one, huh?” Kaidan smiled up at the twinkling light. “That one owes you a lot.” He thought about this for a moment, frowning. “They all owe you a lot. Don’t forget that.”
She looped her arm around his waist, rubbing her hand over his back. “Just keep reminding me.”
“Always.”
Without warning, she ached all over again for the losses, the losses he had suffered. The family she’d never met, his father, his mother, people who would never meet her and declare her ‘good enough’ for their son. And he, like everyone else, had to push all that aside and rebuild their galaxy. She wanted to crawl inside his skin, to protect his heart from all pain, to keep him safe. “There are good people on that planet,” she murmured.
“There are good people on every planet. Not just Earth. Traynor wasn’t wrong about that.”
“No,” she agreed. “And we should remember that Hackett may be our friend, but he’s still a military man and he’s practically got the Council bending over backwards to thank him.” Her breath caught for a moment and she shook her head, “The Council. Damn it, but are they even fit to call themselves that? After what the asari were hiding from us, after what the salarians tried to do on Tuchanka, the turians as broken as we are . . .”
“You realise I was only joking about the Councillor comment, right?” Kaidan asked, a flicker of something that looked very much like smugness crossing his face.
“Tali may have been joking, but the krogan deserve a Councillor. So do the quarians. This is our chance to change things, the Council should be truly representative.”
“Right,” he drawled. “Our chance. Sure you don’t mean ‘your chance’?”
She broke away from him, holding her hands up. All the same, she could feel her smile stretching her face. “Oh no. I’m retired. I’m already planning for us to move back to Mindoir. And I’m not a politician anyway. Besides I’m retired.”
“Sure, sure,” Kaidan stepped towards the kitchen. “Another beer?”
“Damn you, Kaidan,” she muttered as he retreated. “You said that deliberately, didn’t you?”
***
Her sheets, her bed, her very warm and solid lover pillowing her cheek and soothing her with the soft, steady rise of his chest – but the hand shaking her shoulder was definitely new.
“What the hell?” Kaidan startled awake, wincing as he dislodged Shepard from her nest, and he immediately snatched the covers from her and up past his waist.
“Too late, Alenko,” Jack chuckled breathily, folding her arms. “You always have such nice toys, Shepard.”
The light was a thousand pinpricks directly in her eyes, so Shepard blinked a few times until Miranda came into focus at the foot of the bed. “What?” she managed with dry and furry tongue.
Kaidan muttered something and rolled over.
“We have a present for you, Shep, come on,” Miranda waved her hand toward the door.
Jack was still eyeing up Kaidan so out of chivalry, Shepard clambered from the bed, ushering them out. “You know about this, Kaidan?”
“Nuuhhhh, back t’ bed,” he mumbled into the pillow. “Head . . . have fun.”
She rolled her eyes and threw on a pair of slacks and a t-shirt, following the two remarkably bright biotics out into her living room where Chakwas and Adams were sprawled out over the sofa, Adams sans trousers. “What is it?”
“It’s a gift, come on,” Miranda hissed while Jack was all but skipping toward the door. “Before the others wake up. We think you’re going to like it.”
‘It’ turned out to be in the middle of Lowell City and took Miranda’s aggressive skycar driving only a few minutes to reach. When Shepard saw it and realised what had drawn the two of them together she laughed so hard Jack had to thump her on the back. “Guys,” she wheezed out, wasting precious water with her tears, “really?”
Miranda’s cheeks were glowing with satisfaction as she stared up at the Armax logo on the side of the arena. “Really. Trust me, Shepard. You’re going to love this.”
Still laughing, Shepard caught sight of a small group of humans accompanied by a salarian exit the competitors section. They were chatting excitedly to one another, the salarian demonstrating a flanking manoeuvre with his hands. “I can’t fight,” she told them.
“That’s why we’re with you,” Jack told her confidently. “Get you back on the horse. I know you, Shepard. You love this, you’re just too busy pretending to be sulking in your tent to admit it right now.”
“Excuse me?” she said archly, noticing that Miranda had already communicated something to the ticketer with a wave of her hand.
“I think Jack is referring to you as Achilles,” Miranda said. “Which is misinformed at best because Achilles sulked before the battle.”
“Uh, okay!” Stepping between the two, Shepard held up her hands. “Before you two start debating old Terran literature, what the hell is even in there? You’re not telling me some mechs survived that beam?”
Miranda’s beautiful face creased in pretty sympathy and Jack just pouted. “No. They’ve got the mech bodies and programmed them with simple routines, ‘seek heat source’ and the like.”
Jack chimed in. “They can’t flank you or anything but Armax say every match gives them more data to refine the programs. It’ll be VI quality in a few months. Security mechs were never that complicated anyway. They overload the armour and shields on ‘em to make it more challenging.”
Shepard blinked a few times, staring at the screens that depicted the pre-war life. Back when these things were all taken for granted.
“Armax have only programmed some nice, artificial game arenas,” Miranda added softly. “Come on. You know you love the sound of that kabooowwww.”
“Everyone loves the sound of the kabow,” Jack added, already dancing her way down the steps.
“Besides,” Miranda was doing her best sashay in Jack’s wake. “Think of the moral boost it’ll give people watching The Commander Shepard taking out some bad guys. We’ll even put it on easy for you.”
“Hey!” Shepard cried back at them. No wonder they hadn’t told Kaidan, she thought as her feet already started walking the path, he was going to lose it when he heard about this. “I do not need an easy mode.” She found herself in a small changing room, nothing like what they’d had on Silversun Strip, this was an arena built on Mars specs. Jack was already picking up her Wraith, cradling it like a baby while Miranda held her Hornet.
“We, uh, couldn’t find you a Paladin,” she said, a little lamely. “But there’s a Carnifex if you want one.”
“Ladies,” her mouth was as automatic as her feet it seemed, “I won’t even fire one shot with this.”
“Haha,” Jack slung the Wraith over her shoulder. “That’s our Shepard.” She winked at Miranda, causing the dark haired beauty to scowl. “I’m betting the order is me, Shep, you, at the end of the match.”
With her hand on the locker, Shepard hesitated just a moment, wondering if Armax could have, if they would have known . . . and when she opened the locker it was sitting there, the light weight, breathable Spirit Armour Cerberus used. The armour that had come to mean ‘fun’ and ‘relaxation’ on her last days on the Citadel. “I wouldn’t take that bet, Miranda,” she murmured, fingering the reinforced fabric. “Because I will wipe the floor with you ladies.”
The rumble of the crowd grew louder as they entered the arena, people were pressed up against the glass to see them. “Miri, watch that spawn point,” Shepard said, waving to the glow of a holo-emitter disguising a trapdoor. “And Jack, don’t get reckless.”
“Relax, Shepard,” Miranda said softly. “This is just a game.”
“A game we’re going to win,” Shepard said as the drone blared its final countdown. She aimed a singularity in the direction of the first mech group and heard Jack’s exultant laugh as she warped the field, detonating it immediately.
“Killstreak!” exclaimed the drone, the crowd roaring, their shadows flickering on the glass all around the arena. The mechs were already rallying, their feet clanking off the metal as they approached, a cadence that matched Shepard’s heartbeat. Slow. Steady. She flexed her fingers on the grip of the Carnifex and smiled. “Just watch me.”
The mechs were no challenge without the VI systems, walking directly into choke points and sailing into the air with the flick of their fingers. The crowds lapped it up, cheering, hammering on the glass. Even so, Shepard’s muscles were burning before the end, her stomach growling and churning as she manipulated gravity. When they finished, Jack grabbed her around the waist and danced around a smouldering mech, Miranda laughing. “Told you you’d like it,” she called.
With one arm around Jack’s shoulders and the other around Miranda’s, Shepard conceded.
The crowd who were waiting for them outside were applauding right up until she stepped out of the competitor’s quarters and into the floor. They hushed almost as one, whispering to one another as she passed them.
And then, at the winner’s booth where her name was emblazoned in lights, were the others. Kaidan was trying not to smile, feigning irritation as she approached “Is this your answer to every hangover?” he demanded and then the play pretence faded and he embraced her, leaning down for a kiss.
The others were talking, Vega complaining that Jack hadn’t invited him, Traynor enthusing about the mech development, Cortez appreciating Miranda’s last slam. Kaidan pulled back from her slowly, looking more relaxed than she’d seen him in years.
“Come on,” she murmured. “I think I won a free breakfast. I know how to handle your hangovers.”
“You think I’m that easy?” He took her hand as they walked to the exit, the others trailing behind.
“I know it,” she told him cheerfully. She glanced at the prosthetic hand that he was holding.
“Well.” He squeezed the fingers. “That’s because you’re the real Shepard.”