The night before Commander Shepard defeated the Reapers, Garrus brought two bottles to Commander's quarters on the Normandy. After all, just one bottle wouldn't be right for both of them. The real pity was not being able to drink the same stuff, even if those standards were splitting hairs the way a sniper split targets.

Humans thought big. Turians were big. And it was about time for Shepard to take him up on an old offer.

They never shared that drink.

The door was shut but even the airlock seal couldn't keep out the noise coming from inside; Garrus turned before he got too close—even if neither of the men inside would hear him, all things considered.

James Vega would have said I'll have what he's having, in a colloquial and potentially humorous fashion—a new twist on an old line, as infelicitous as it was apropos of…something. But James Vega was drinking alone, and Garrus didn't plan on doing the same. Not that night. Maybe not any other.

He left the brandy with Dr. Chakwas.

It was allegedly her favorite.

#

Everybody says: it's a cliché for a reason. Whether that reason's truth or people just lack imagination, it doesn't matter.

James Vega thought he'd have more time with Commander Shepard. And after that, brand new tattoo on his shoulders making him hold them different, he'd be able to tell the truth from the cliché. Not just pick the pieces apart, either—he'd blow them apart.

Just like Shepard.

Crazy guy.

But the morning after they defeated the Reapers—with a little help, a lot of running around the galaxy, diplomacy at its finest, and none of it possible without Shepard knowing how to play the game—the man in question wasn't there to see the whole thing go down.

He was already gone.

Not 'in a better place.' Gone. That was no cliché, and James wasn't going to be the one to dress it up in formal-wear to meet whatever council it had to—for permission, for clearance, for show.

While the sky lit up way too bright—brighter than the sun ever managed, all comm devices going down, static giving way to natural sound, not evenstatic anymore but real fucking blackness, the ground itself shaking from distant blasts. Before everything went still. Right there, right then, at the end of everything, the cliché happened.

And it felt pretty real.

Diana Allers was all right. They'd made passes at each other before, a dance James knew well, even if there was more duck-and-weave involved, way more feinted punches than ones that actually landed, than he liked.

'One of these days, James,' Shepard told him once. 'you might have to learn the dance is as much about when you don't as when you do.'

'You see me dancing right now, Loco?' James had asked.

That wasn't it.

'So,' Diana said. Her voice was small but it was too loud, nothing else to shield it from the present—much less the future—and James's big heartbeat was thudding in his chest, his breathing coming in too hard. Same as always. 'That was…Damn it. I can't believe I wasn't covering the story. I was having end-of-the-world sex with a soldier instead.'

'Maybe that is the story, ace,' James replied.

She'd been sweating before. James wasn't going to flatter himself about that. He did up his uniform again and she combed her fingers through her hair, then touched the back of his neck, somewhere too high above the collar to know where the tattoo was. It was just skin there. Only skin.

#

Steve didn't have anybody to send one last radio transmission to.

After that, all transmissions ended.

He didn't know what he was hearing, what he wasn't hearing. Sweat was in his eyes and he wasn't actually flying, so he couldn't blink past it. He couldn't see a damn thing.

It wasn't like a crash-landing. Not that he would've told anybody this, but he was getting too old for those. Being blindsided was one thing but heading to that point everyone knew was coming—then flying past it—that was different.

He pushed himself off the dash, arms beat up, elbow bleeding, but other than that he was OK, depending on the definition. The ship wasn't. None of the familiar lights was on, not even flashing.

Disappointment. Relief. Nothing passed before his eyes, no memories of Robert that took shape in front of him, just a blank darkness that cleared when he wiped his hand over his eyes. He was thinking about him, sure, but he always did. Not because it kept him alive. Maybe because it kept Steve alive.

'Vega!' he heard himself shouting. 'Hey, Vega—you out there?'

Something was burning. Rubber, tar, metal, all that stuff. Wires were down and hissing brightly, spitting, snapping coils; that was enough to light his way through the hall, past Allers' overturned cameras, banging his toe on the lens. It shattered.

He could see them in a busted up airlock, through the white sparks.

Being young again would've been nice, Steve thought, already moving on to check the armory, to check for survivors, for assets.

But at least he still had the chance to be old some more.

#

There was a moment—Kaidan definitely saw it in his eyes—when Shepard didn't want to bring him along for the final ride.

Actually, there were a lot of moments like that. Just replace 'final' with 'dangerous' and there you had it. But they were soldiers, brothers in arms first, ineach other's arms second. They didn't have to insult each other that way.

Kaidan was relieved.

Kaidan was terrified.

That was what it meant to be themselves, so there they were. First kisses, last kisses, it was all in the past. They'd known the terms since the beginning: while it lasted.

They'd just…do the same as they always did, because the worst part was always having to pretend it couldn't be something random, stray shrapnel before the end, that Shepard's story—his legend—could stop short in the middle and they'd have to go on without him. And they wouldgo on without him.

I'm not ready for that, Kaidan thought. Hell, I'm not ready for this. But when he asked himself, Is Shepard? all that came back was the beginnings of an old headache, and each fired round was only making it worse.

He'd given up on thinking about survival. Now, he just wanted to be the first to die.

He thought maybe he'd understand Shepard then, the places he'd been, the places he couldn't remember, while Kaidan was somewhere else, feeling him like a soldier's phantom limb, survivor's guilt and survivor's luck.

Kaidan was ready. Relieved and terrified had nothing to do with it. That night, they were dying in London, a suicide mission in more than name only.

He thought, there's a lot of blood.

#

No more damn consequences, Shepard thought. Destroy the synthetics; destroy himself. No one could say he didn't understand the terms—intimate, personal, and now, forever.

He'd already died once. He was done with hoping, but maybe he'd be able to enjoy the best part about it the second time around.