Author's notes: The new picture is compliments of KayMarieRose, if you're a Miranda fan you should definitely check her out DeviantArt cause her work is dope.

Anyway here's my personal headcanon ending for Nate and Miranda Shepard.

Thanks for reading. Peace.

"I'm sorry Miranda."

I had half expected the first words out of Nate Shepard's mouth to be a joke or him teasing me for crying.

"For what?" I asked rhetorically.

"I said I would find you. I didn't and i'm sorry."
His tone was as sincere as the tears in his eyes as he said it.

I offered him the most reassuring smile I could muster and told him, "It's ok. You have a lifetime to make it up to me."

His brown eyes drifted toward the window, an easy grin working its way across his lips. "A lifetime with Miranda Lawson huh?" he mused before looking back at me. "I think I could live with that."

I could too.

That was five years ago. Seeing the picture of me holding his barely conscious, severely injured body against the backdrop of a destroyed Citadel still brings back memories of that little conversation in the hospital.

Khalisa Al Jilani's broadcast to the galaxy hailed that picture as "the defining image of the Reaper Wars", while the subsequent interview with newly promoted Commander Ashley Williams called it "a beautiful example of human nature at its most raw and touching."

But the joy of that day soon gave way to worry in the following weeks as I watched Nate toss and turn in his sleep, constantly apologising to Legion and the millions of Geth he says he murdered.
Night after night, he would cry out for Garrus and Tali while blaming himself for the thousands of Turians that died of starvation on Earth.

My worries were further compounded when I saw him force his sleep deprived body past its breaking point as part of the reconstruction effort's ground team.

Being too busy spearheading the rebuild, I suggested that he see a therapist. As I expected of someone whose name had become synonymous with resistance, he refused. They were his demons he said. He had to fight them alone in his own way.
But I just couldn't do that. I just couldn't leave him to fight alone. I'd done that throughout the Reaper Wars and I was going to be damned if I did it again. I had to help him. I had to take his mind off of the demons that were plaguing him. I needed a plan.

Five years later, I see the fruition of that plan on the lawn of our new home. My son. Our son. David Garrus Lawson-Shepard. Just looking at him brings back a raft of memories, some of them good, others bad at the time but funny now.

I still remember the tears of joy that flowed from his father's eyes when doctors told us I was pregnant and the subsequent vow he made to get past his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For the weeks leading up to David's birth, Kelly Chambers assisted him as best as possible. She even stopped bloody flirting with him.

I still remember trying to co-ordinate the reconstruction of Earth with swollen feet unable to support my increased weight and an illogical craving for chocolate. In the end, Admiral Hackett had to force me to cede control to Oriana. A task she succeeded in rather easily. She was my sister after all.
I was just thankful that one of us was restoring the name Henry and I had brought into disrepute.

But above all I remember the delight at seeing our blood and mucous covered bundle of joy's first tentative steps into the beautiful new world his aunty had created for him, and the accompanying wave of relief that washed over me when I realised that I had successfully reversed Henry's final curse. It wasn't hard really. I could revive dead people after all.

David is four now. He turns five next week and he is perfect.

"Perfect." I can't help but scoff at that word having seen the galaxy saved by a man who is anything but. David is different however. He truly is perfect.

He shares a sense of humour with the godfather from whom he derives his middle name and the gentle soul of his namesake, the late Admiral Anderson.
At the age of just four David shows signs of having the fighting spirit of a Shepard with a nimble mind that is unmistakably Lawson. Even his skin is, as his father so succinctly put it, "the perfect blend of his chocolate and my vanilla". That man always did have a way with words.

Perfect. That word again. It's still the only way to describe him.
David is the wonderful little curse that stole hours we should have spent asleep, demons from his father and his mother's ability to work but in turn gave us peace.
He sapped the willingness of his father to continue serving with the Alliance and my aspirations for greatness but gave me a sense of accomplishment far greater than rebuilding Earth and reviving a dead man, even if I was now married to that dead man.

Oriana has taken a seat next to me. "How the hell do an orphan from Haiti and a woman raised by that bastard Henry raise such a beautiful child?"

I have only one answer to her question, "He had an excellent father."

She rests her hand on my shoulder and reassuringly tells me, "And a brilliant mother."

I look back at her. "I wanted you to have a normal life. Marriage. Children. Things I could never have." A slow smile is creeping across my face. "And now I have them."

She matches my smile and asks, "So how is it Randa?"

We both watch Nate throwing David in the air. It looks dangerous. I should slap him.
But as I hear my son laugh and see my husband looking rested and free of the ghosts that had haunted his sleeping and waking hours alike, I find myself unable to stop the broad smile on my face from getting even wider.
Nor can I muster the necessary anger to give him the biotic slap he so thoroughly deserves.

I have only one answer for Oriana, "It's all I ever wanted."

And I never knew I wanted it until David came along.