Summary: The road to love is a rocky one for this renegade Shep, and it takes a near-death experience for her to realise how much Kaidan means to her. Rated M for Shenko action in later chapters.

I love feedback - good or bad, it's all appreciated. Just because this story is 'complete' doesn't mean I won't tweak it if someone really wants me to (I've already made Kaidan more 'Kaidan-y' in response to a request from theblodeuwedd).

Many thanks go to my beta quantumparadigm, who is an excellent writer, and to Bioware, which owns all.

PROLOGUE

It was clear that Kaidan was throwing away his life.

And for what? Kurt asked himself.Remorse? A sense of duty?

He gripped the steering wheel and glared at the traffic lights, their red glow bleeding through the driving rain. He thought for the umpteenth time about what he would say to his only son when he saw him. Any fool could see that the Alliance Navy would snap Kaidan up in a second, but the boy had chosen to stay on Earth to study electronic engineering. Kaidan had claimed it was what he really wanted to do, but Kurt had his doubts.

He sighed. It seemed that all his son's time at BAaT was going to be for nothing. By all accounts it had been a harrowing experience, one that had visibly affected the boy for months afterward. Kurt winced at the memory of his happy-go-lucky son shutting himself up in his room, hollow-eyed and withdrawn.

Still, in spite of Kaidan's bad experiences at BAaT – or perhaps because of them – Kurt didn't want Kaidan's biotic talent to go to waste.

He finally pulled up at a the house in the university student block. The sound of strident music and laughter slammed his senses from the street. Kurt gave a polite knock at the door, and when it opened the noise level reached ear-bleeding proportions.

"Great timing Dad, the pizzas have just arrived. Sorry about the noise."

Kurt walked in and saw that Kaidan had his omni-tool switched on, with its vid screen displaying what looked like an asari fashion show. The same vid was screening on a large holo display in the lounge room, around which seven or eight young men were sitting, beers in hand. The asari were sashaying to strident music and weren't wearing a great deal; one wore what looked like three bottle caps held in place by a faintly glowing magnetic field. Her entrance was greeted by high fives from Kaidan's friends.

"Good to see you son," Kurt said, giving him a hug. He gestured towards the holo display and its collection of rapt viewers. "Is this standard practice for a Tuesday night? Don't you have studying to do?"

"I've been doing my study at the same time," Kaidan said, pointing to a circuit board on the kitchen table. "We don't normally watch this stuff, it's just that Matt bet me 50 credits couldn't hack into asari pay-per-view. They've been watching the Fashion Channel for two hours now. Matt says it's the best bet he's ever lost."

Kurt laughed. "So why aren't you watching it with them?"

"I did for a while but I wanted to get this circuit board finished. Anyway, asari aren't really my type."

Kaidan grabbed the pizza boxes and gestured for Kurt to follow him upstairs.

"Let's eat in my room Dad, it'll be less noisy there. My omni-tool has a lousy broadcast range so the boys will lose their asari show, but they'll just have to deal with it."

The pair made their way up the stairs, and when they reached the top floor Kurt heard anguished wails coming from the room below. He grinned.

"So," he said, as they both sat down to eat, "how is the course going?"

"It's going OK, I've been offered an internship with Future Mech."

Kurt was impressed; FM was Earth's largest robotics company.

"Does that mean you'll quit your job as a bouncer?" he asked. "You don't need to keep doing that, you know. Your mother and I would be happy to pay your way through college."

"I'm nineteen Dad, that's too old to be taking your money."

"Not as we see it. Anyway, if you did your degree through the Alliance Navy they'd pay all the fees – plus give you a salary."

Kaidan smiled. "Yeah, I know."

"So you'd rather be bouncing, eh? Do you like using biotics on the trouble-makers?"

Kaidan shook his head. "I don't really need to. I occasionally give antagonists a small push or lift, but usually I just put them in an arm-hold and calmly tell them the error of their ways."

They ate for a while in silence, and Kurt cast his eye around the room. He had expected it to be decorated with posters - essential items in student decorating - and it was. However, instead of displaying scantily-clad women or expensive cruisers, Kaidan's faintly-glowing posters depicted snapshots from distant planets. There was a crumbling prothean pyramid, a vast city protruding above thick clouds, and a small moon with a massive volcano erupting into space. They weren't the kind of glamorous images you'd seen in a tourism ad, but they all had... something. They held the tantalising promise of adventure in far-off places.

Still, now wasn't the time to be distracted. He had come here for a reason.

"So," he said casually, "you've never had cause to use your biotics properly?"

Kaidan's eyes gleamed. "Yes, once. It was another biotic and he was in the club causing trouble, knocking people around. I kicked him out, he made a fuss and I suggested we quietly settle it in the football field after I finished my shift. He came, and we had a dual of sorts. It went pretty well."

Kurt smiled at this understatement. Kaidan had always been modest, almost to a fault.

"When you say it went 'pretty well'," Kurt said, "does that mean you kicked his ass?"

Kaidan laughed. "Yeah, I guess I did. I haven't seen him since."

"And how did it feel to do that?"

"You know, it felt really good." Kaidan's hands unconsciously curled into fists. "The guy was an asshole, and dangerous."

"So why don't you join the Alliance Navy and kick the stuffing out of dangerous assholes everywhere? You've always been one for helping the underdogs, for fighting against injustice. Here's the perfect way to do it. You've got biotics; use them."

Kaidan's good mood vanished. He pushed away his chair and started pacing. "Ah Dad, you don't understand," he rasped.

"What don't I understand?"

"There is a risk I could lose control and... do something terrible." The pain written on his face wrung Kurt's heart.

Damn that bloody Vyrnnus, he thought. He enjoyed making our kids' lives a misery. Will he keep on tormenting Kaidan, even from beyond the grave?

"Son, I know how it feels to kill someone for the first time," he said, softly. "It is right that you should feel it – it shows you're human – but you can't keep beating yourself up over it. You need to move on."

Kaidan suddenly rounded on him. "Is that really what this is about?" he asked, frowning. "Did you honestly come here to help me move on, or are you searching for some sort of redemption for letting them take me to Jump Zero?"

Kurt scowled. "OK," he said, grudgingly, "so you've got a point. So what? How could I not harbour guilt over what happened to you?"

"Yeah, well, I guess we're both dealing with the fallout," Kaidan muttered, grimly. He clenched his fist and the empty pizza box crumpled into a ball and slammed into the trash can. Blue fire flickered along his arm and was gone. "Dad, why do you have to dredge this up? Nothing will change the fact that I lost control that day. I saw red and killed someone. Can you blame me for not wanting to jump into the military and use offensive biotics in high-stress situations?"

"Yes, I can understand your feelings, but you need to believe in yourself. You are older now, and in your workplace you have used your biotics responsibly and with restraint."

Kaidan sighed. "I guess so, although it's hardly a stressful environment."

"Whether a situation is stressful or not depends on the individual. You don't get stressed because you take a calm, rational approach."

"I guess," Kaidan murmured, looking thoughtful. "Nowadays I try to think before I act. I suppose I have Rahna to thank for that."

Kurt itched to shout that Rahna was a witless ingrate with the spine of a hanar, but he held his tongue. Rahna-bashing wouldn't help.

"Look, Kaidan, you don't have to decide anything right away," he said quietly, "but will you at least think about what I've said? Fight against injustice? Dispel your inner demons?" And mine?

Kaidan hesitated, and looked over at the glowing poster of the volcanic moon. In the background of the image, dark alien planets loomed and stars glittered like diamonds.

"OK Dad. I'll think about it."

Corporal Matthews picked her way through the remnants of the northernmost colony on Mindoir. The grass was burned black, still smoking, and the pathetically small domiciles were scorched and partially melted. There were a few dead bodies, but not many. The colonists were simply gone.

As soon as the Alliance backup had arrived, the batarian slaver ship had taken wing, leaving some of its cut-throat crew still planetside. Typical batarians, she thought, scornfully. They only care about saving their own wretched skins.

Matthews would have loved to be able to shoot the slaver ship to pieces, but that would have been too risky; captured civilians could have died. She could only hope that some of the Alliance frigates would be able to track down the ship and safely cripple it.

Flakes of ash filled the air, a grim parody of snowflakes, and she felt them brush down her cheeks like tears. Through the swirling haze she saw a few abandoned slavers looking in vain for their ship.

Matthews signalled to her squad to take cover, and they were able to take out the batarians with little trouble. This small victory should have lightened her mood, but it didn't. What satisfaction was there to be found when you're too late to save anybody? She kicked one of their corpses in disgust and was about to head back to the shuttle when she heard a commotion coming from a barn. With her crew silently following, she crept along the outside wall and looked through a crack in the door.

A pair of batarians were shooting at a biotic energy sphere in the corner of the room. Inside the bubble were a boy and a girl, both in their teenage years. The boy was cowering behind the girl, trying to make himself as small a target as possible. The girl was holding out one arm, desperately trying to sustain the biotic shield. Her face gleamed with sweat, and her shield was clearly weakening. Instead of causing the bullets to bounce off, it only slowed them down; the bullets' momentum sluggishly carried them through the shield, stopping within an inch or two of her body.

Matthews was livid. She kicked open the door and threw a biotic slam that knocked the batarians unconscious. Her squad made short work of them.

The young girl sank to the ground, gasping for breath. The boy took one look at Matthews' Alliance Marine insignia and leapt to his feat. "It's about bloody time!" he said. "Where the hell have you guys been?"

Matthews turned to her second in command. "Give the boy an energy bar," she said. "I think the girl will need medical attention."

The girl got unsteadily to her feet. "My name is Jane Shepard," she said wearily, "and I'm OK. Just tired." With a shaking hand she wiped the damp hair away from her face. "If you have an extra energy bar that would be good though."

Matthews found a chair for the girl and gave her water and food, and applied antiseptic foam to her scratches and burns. She didn't look much older than fifteen, and had a slight body with flat, wiry muscles. Her clothes were old and threadbare, but someone had carefully patched them.

Matthews saw with satisfaction that Jane was beginning to breathe easier. The girl looked up at Matthews and tried to smile.

"What's your name, Ma'am?" she asked.

"I'm Corporal Sue Matthews. It's nice to meet you Jane, I just wish it were under better circumstances."

"I saw how you took out those batarians," Jane said, awestruck. "It was amazing."

"It's not so amazing. You could do it too if you were taught how."

"My parents didn't have the money to send me away to learn," Jane said. "It was all they could do to afford the implant. A family friend had started to teach me but he… got taken."

"And your parents?"

Jane screwed up her eyes, trying not to cry, and sunk her face into her grimy hands. Matthews tried desperately to think of something encouraging to say.

"At least you still have your brother here… or is he your friend?"

Jane sat up and scowled. "Ismalo? He's neither," she said, angrily. "He came to Mindoir to stay with his uncle, Dad's friend. They were at our place when the slavers came. We might have had a chance to run and hide in the orchard but he screamed like a stuck pig. Mum and Dad grabbed the hunting rifles and ran to the front door. When the batarians saw the guns, they launched incendiary grenades.

"I still don't know how 'Malo and I got out alive. I think I made a biotic shield of some sort, but I'm not really sure."

"It was cool," Ismalo said, between bites of his energy bar. "You made this weird space-warpy explosion. Blammo! And the bad guys all smacked into the walls. I'm glad I was hanging onto you."

Matthews put her hand on Jane's shoulder. "It looks like you did good, kid," she said, encouragingly.

"But Mum and Dad are dead," Jane said, distantly. "I know I should be glad they weren't taken to be slaves for the rest of their lives, but I… I don't feel glad." Tears were running down her face, but she didn't seem to notice.

"They would have been separated, isolated and abused for the rest of their lives. It would have been a terrible fate."

"I wasn't strong enough to save them," Jane whispered. "If I had biotic power like yours I could have. Ma'am, how are you able to use biotics like that? The man I learned from could only make a shield."

Matthews dragged a chair next to Jane's, sat down and put a comforting arm around her. What a sheltered life this farm girl must have had, she thought.

To Jane, she said, "I'm a adept with the Alliance Marines."

"What's an adept?"

"A biotic specialist who is trained to use her abilities in combat. I enlisted with the Marines because I wanted to use my biotics to help people, to protect them from scum like those slavers."

The girl's eyes shone. "I would like to be an adept."

Matthews smiled. "You're a little young yet," she said, kindly. "If you like though, I can take you to Shanxi to finish school. After that, if you still want to, you can enter the Naval Academy. They will teach you how to be an adept. You don't need money to learn, the government will pay for it." A thought occurred to her. "That's unless you want to stay on Mindoir in another colony?"

Jane shook her head slowly. "No. There is nothing for me here now." Tears still rolled down her cheeks, but her red-rimmed eyes were resolute. "I have to learn to be an adept, then I can take revenge on the slavers."

"Alright then, let's go." Matthews stood up and held her hand out to Jane. The girl put her small, calloused hand in Matthews' strong one, and they walked out into the sunlight.