Amy sits at her grandfather's feet, staring at his hands. Mama said Grandpapa had been a famous painter, and his fingers are long and delicate, not old and withered like the rest of him. He tells stories, and she thinks that might be what she loves best about him. He tells her about the Great War and it's not all dry and dusty stuff about treaties with krogan like the history books. His stories have romance and betrayal and fighting. Much better. Well, except for the end.
"And, as far as we know, Matthias Shepard did manage to take control of the Reapers. They repaired the devastation they had caused and served as protectors of the galaxy. You still see them from time to time in the Traverse or the Terminus Systems. As for his beloved Miranda, she used the newly rebuilt relays to return to her sister. The Lawsons are the ones who figured out a way to stop indoctrination, and it turned out Miranda was wrong. She became even more famous and loved for that than anything she had done while traveling with Shepard. But she never remarried and every year she laid a single red rose at the memorial on Mindoir."
Amy frowns. She'd cried in the beginning, but this story is too familiar for that now. "I hate this story. Shepard saved everybody, and he didn't even get to go back to the woman he loved. And it's not like they get to spend a lot of time together before that. It's not fair!"
Grandpapa smiles indulgently. "Life—"
"—is never fair," Amy finishes for him. She crosses her arms. "I still don't like it." There are other stories of people who love each other and come back together after all kinds of things. Cupid and Psyche. Jane and Rochester. Grandpapa has told her about them too. She doesn't see why Shepard and Miranda should be any different, just because their story actually happened. "What good is all that hurting if they still end up miserable in the end?"
Grandpapa tilts his head to one side. His brow furrows. Amy suddenly believes that Mama is right and he really was a great painter. He sees her, but not just her. All the things that the story makes her feel, including the fear that's never been spoken aloud: if Shepard and Miranda can lose everything, then Mama and Papa and Grandpapa and Grandmama can be taken away from her too, with no more warning than a flash of electricity.
"Would you like to know what happened after the end?" he asks at last. "You're old enough now to know, if you want."
"But he died. That's the end." Memories of other stories flicker in her mind. Of course, sometimes death is just another monster for the hero to beat, like a dragon. "Is it happier?"
"I'll let you be the judge of that." Grandpapa leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers. His voice is low and rhythmic, and Amy leans forward, all pain and longing forgotten. Grandpapa's own form of indoctrination. "You must remember that for a long time, no one knew what had happened. The Reapers switched from attacking us to fixing the relays in an eye blink. The first relay they fixed was the one from Earth to Mindor."
"Where Shepard was from and where he and Miranda hid Oriana?"
"Right. So it surprised absolutely no one that Miranda was one of the first people through the relay. But she wasn't just looking for her sister. She was looking for answers..."
Miranda wandered through the house. She twisted the ring on her left hand. She supposed it was her house now, though it was strange to think about. Married. Widowed. She was a widow. The word didn't suit her. Widows stood cringing by the door as they waited for news. Miranda had been in the thick of battle when blue light filled the sky. She had let the search through the Citadel and found this strange silver chamber where the Crucible had docked. No trace of Matt had ever been found. There were only the now-friendly Reapers who said they wanted to atone for eons of genocide. That had been enough for the exhausted galaxy.
They were all so happy just for this war to be over, but it didn't feel like peace. Miranda looked out the window. A Reaper destroyer loomed overhead, casting a shadow like a cloud over the field. Harbinger himself had fixed this relay. The aqueducts and power stations damaged by a Cerberus raid functioned better than ever. No one knew why the Reapers had come to this quiet backwater when Thessia and Palaven lay in ruins. No one knew what they planned to do next. They merely hoped the Reapers were telling the truth. Miranda had never been one to depend on hope.
She kept walking. The room the end of the hall was one she knew well. Matt's studio. Here, Matt had allowed himself ambition: oils and canvas instead of charcoals and a sketchbook. Paints and canvas were neatly stored in a closet, but the smell of them still lingered in the air. They had practically lived here in the weeks after Aratoht as Matt worked feverishly to realize all the dreams he had put on hold when his biotics had manifested. A few weeks to cram in the decades they should have had. Life was never fair. All they had ever been able to do was devour the scraps Fate had deigned to give them.
Matt smiled at her. Shy, hopeful, and boyish, with none of the swagger he adopted as Commander Shepard. "It's done. Would you like to see? "
She nodded, and he stepped back to allow her access. Miranda inhaled. The other her stood enraptured by a bank of monitors plastered with models of mass relays, DNA helixes, a model of the human body. Holographic cities rose up around her. She was mistress of and witness to all manner of human excellence. Miranda knew she was severe in her demands for competence, but this woman's eyes shone with ambition. Oriana stood next to her, holding a datapad. All her life had been a series of choices: she couldn't have both Cerberus and Oriana. It must be either family or work. And yet, Matt had allowed her to have both.
"It's beautiful," she whispered.
"Truth usually is. This is what you're going to have. My Illusive Woman, advancing humanity with her sister by her side. They'll speak of you the way they speak of Curie or Copernicus."
Her cheeks warmed. He couldn't believe all this rapturous praise, surely? Matt was a romantic, her own personal knight in shining armor. And the knight in shining armor must idolize his lady. "Says the man so important to the survival of galactic civilization that he had to be resurrected. I'm content to be a supporting player."
His expression changed. The intensity of the woman in the painting was reflected in the eyes of her creator. "I stopped the Collectors. For some reason, Hackett and Anderson think I'm not going to be summarily executed and that I might live long enough to fight the Reapers when they come. But fighting isn't the same as helping the galaxy thrive. Everything I've done with the Alliance is an ugly, necessary evil that I did because no one else would or could." He gestured expansively around the studio. "I'd rather be remembered for all this and let the bloody Hero of Elysium, Savior of the Citadel, or whatever the hell else they call me, be forgotten. I know it won't happen." He stroked her cheek. "But you can build things. Kick the Illusive Man off his station. Mass produce my implants. Give the colonies a real voice instead of being beholden to the Council or fat cats on Arcturus." He kissed her, hard. "And I'll die if it means you have that chance."
Well, Matt had died and she had Oriana. But what was she supposed to do when the Reapers were still here and her brilliant, darling boy was gone? Grief gnawed at her. She'd survived, but those speeches seemed like so much nonsense now. Maybe they always had been. Matt had been the dreamer, and Miranda had always followed in his wake, breathless with terror and excitement.
"It was mostly excitement," said a voice like metal. "And you said resurrection was possible. That automatically makes you more optimistic than I ever was."
Miranda rounded furiously. She was going mad with grief. She must be. But behind her was shadow, a wisp of smoke in the rough form of a man. Miranda stared as features emerged in quick succession, broad shoulders, high cheekbones, a nose slightly too large for the face. And yes, a hint of auburn hair. The back of her neck tingled and she felt hundreds of eyes watching her.
"Miranda," said Matt.
Miranda had just enough time to back against the wall before her knees gave way and she sank to the floor. Matt was dead, and there was no such thing as ghosts. The laws of nature could be bent so far and no farther. She would not cry. That would be accepting the insanity. She would will it away like the shades from fairy stories.
The shadow took a tentative step toward her as it frowned. "I'm not a ghost. Not really. This was the price I paid for taking control of the Reapers. My body dissolved, but thought and memory remained. It took me so long to learn how to do even this much." He extended his smoky fingers. "But I promised that I would find you."
He felt like a cold wind as he touched her. And that made it real. If Miranda were going mad, she would have given him warm, strong, and slightly callused hands. Not this spectral touch. Hot tears sprang from her eyes. Matt was here, transformed almost beyond recognition. Dead and not dead at the same time. "How?"
He told her about the final confrontation with the Illusive Man and the meeting with the AI who wore the face of a child. "I want you to know that I had a choice. I could have enacted the solution it wanted. It was very tempting. But I couldn't say that the geth or EDI weren't people and they needed me to turn Pinocchio into a real boy. The thought of changing you without permission was even worse. And I could have destroyed them. It would be simpler, less frightening for the galaxy. And for me. But…" He trailed off as abruptly as he began.
The knife twisted inside her. "But what?" Why had he allowed himself to be consumed by the Crucible and kept the Reapers on his bizarre leash? He who had despised even the idea of the control chip or rewriting the heretics.
Matt traced the outline of her cheek. "I wanted to bring Oriana back to you."
Oh Matt. She wished suddenly, desperately, that he didn't love her so much. Or, if he insisted on loving her, that he not have the power to make such grand gestures. She wiped her eyes and forced herself to her feet. Wishing never accomplished anything. Matt controlled the Reapers and was without a body. She would simply have to accommodate herself to this strange new world. "So what are you going to do with them? Is this all even safe? Half the galaxy is terrified out of their minds that the Reapers are going to start shooting any moment."
He gave her a familiar look. Boyish grin. Slightly raised eyebrows. The same look he'd given her when he activated Legion. Unshakeable confidence in his own ability. "As safe as houses, Ms. Lawson. I'm going to make the Reapers rebuild everything they destroyed. I'm going to make sure the Leviathan never rebuild their empire." His smile turned sad as he glanced at her wedding ring. "And I suppose I'll watch you move on without me."
Miranda stared at him. "Without you?" She shook her head. "Oh no, Matt. I play for keeps. I brought you back once. I'll do it again. If I have to spend the next century studying the Reapers and the wreckage of the Crucible, I'll do it. I'll build you that better world, but I want something for myself too."
"It might not be possible. My mind, it's different now. I can feel things I didn't before. I don't know if I can have a body again Miranda. And you deserve better than a shadow."
She forced a smile. Impossible. So many things had seemed impossible in those months she had been on the run from Cerberus and cut off from everything she loved. And perhaps Matt was right. But he had wanted her to rebuild Cerberus. And she had loved Cerberus because it let her make the impossible possible. She plunged herself into the shadowy form, the best she could do for an embrace. Someday, she would hold him again and not feel cold. "Things are never going to be easy for us," she whispered, "but I'll always want you in my life."
"Did she?" Amy asks breathlessly. "Did Miranda bring him back?"
Grandpapa doesn't answer for a long time. When he does, he sounds older, older than the oldest man in the galaxy. "Miranda never remarried, and Shepard was never seen again. She disappeared herself, almost two hundred years later. I like to think that Shepard bought her to be with him and they're together even now."
Amy crosses her arms. "That's not happier. She screwed up. They deserved better, and she screwed up!"
"So seeing each other one last time isn't happy enough for you?"
"No! They deserve kids and a dog…and everything." Her mind races. There has to be a way that things could have turned out right. "You said that maybe Shepard brought Miranda to him? That would make them both immortal, right? If they wanted to become human again, they had forever to figure out how to do it and still keep the Reapers. Maybe they'll figure out how to do it. Maybe they already have." She feels stupidly pleased with herself to have thought of it. If history won't oblige her, Amy will make her own happy ending.
Grandpapa opens his mouth to say something and then closes it again. Amy feels even prouder to have come up with something he hasn't thought of.
The door opens, and they both turn. Grandmama walks through the door. She's as old as Grandpapa, but still beautiful. Cold, some people say. Amy has never seen it. Just the small, private smiles she and her husband share when they think Amy isn't looking. "What have you been telling her now?"
"About Shepard and Miranda. She didn't like the ending and decided to make up her own. Shepard and Miranda live happily ever after with children and a dog."
"As long as it's not a Labrador." They share another of those private smiles. Grandmama tilts her head to one side. "Someday, Amy is going to grow up and give you a punch in the nose. And I won't stop her."
"Never. You love me too much. Right?" Grandpapa ruffles Amy's hair, but his eyes are on his wife.
They talk of other things after that. A gallery on Illium is doing a showing of Grandpapa's most famous paintings. "And, you know, I think I'll pick up the brush again. I've still got a few pieces in me. Maybe I will do one of Shepard, since my stories are so sadly inadequate. An artist's tribute to an artist."
"What he wanted to be remembered for," Amy says slowly. What Grandpapa will be remembered for. He was right. Life wasn't fair. Sometimes genius was celebrated and sometimes it was ignored. Sometimes the lovers got their happy endings and sometimes they didn't. But as long as there were paintbrushes or stories, she could create that just world.
Grandmama brushes her lips lightly against his. And these people she loved and who loved her had gotten their happy ending. That would have to be enough.