His heart was broken. It broke freshly every morning when he woke up and realized his dreams were not real. His face was raw from tears, his were eyes puffy and red, and he had almost gotten used to the sad looks from his friends and family. Alternating between sadness and denial of his emotions was his new normal, and he often found himself breaking down so easily on occasion that it would shock even him.

Luckily there had been a lot of reconstruction that needed to be completed after the war, so Kaidan was able to lose himself in hard work on a regular basis. He and a group of young biotics worked clearing rubble, which drove them to near exhaustion daily. Downtime became his enemy. He avoided meals because as soon as his body started to rest the pain and loss would encroach upon his mind.

His family was concerned for him, but he tried his best to avoid them because he didn't wish to inflict any further pain upon them after they had just lost his father. His mother still called him daily, and one day informed him that a small Reaper had moved onto their orchard and was actively clearing rubble. It was extremely gentle and careful, and avoided harming any of the family's crops. They'd been able to get back on their feet much faster than anticipated thanks to the extra help.

Kaidan realized at that time that a Reaper had also been following his reconstruction crew. They had conveniently found caches of food and supplies at regular intervals and he wondered if the Reaper had anything to do with it.

Kaidan wasn't sure what Shepard had done on the Crucible, but he knew that the Reaper's docile behavior recently had something to do with it. He knew she was dead- the Alliance rescue team had only found small traces of her DNA on the Crucible and there had been no sign of a body. They concluded that she had been disintegrated. He hadn't taken that news well.

A few months after the final battle, still a Major in the Marines and a Council Spectre, Kaidan decided to take a leave of absence from his duties. He retreated to his family's orchard and allowed his mother to fret over him. He couldn't believe he had survived that long without Shepard. He had honestly thought before the war that she'd survive and they'd get their happily ever after. He felt a bit like a fool. From his perspective, it was now clear that she was never going to survive that conflict.

Three days a week he talked to a professional about his PTSD and depression. The rest of the time he threw himself into the Alenko orchard, harvesting crops, caring for their trees, and watering plants. His crying jags were fewer and less frequent and he mostly kept them to himself. His mother was saddened by the fact that her once optimistic and cheery son had been replaced by someone broken and dejected by life.

Over time, Kaidan found himself talking to Shepard whenever he was alone. He told her about the orchard, how one cares for apples, pears, peaches, plums, and various nut trees. He told her stories about growing up on the farm as a kid, about being in brain camp, about joining the alliance, and what he did during the years she was presumed dead after the Collector attack. He felt like she was there with him and started to take comfort in that fact. It hurt less now to think of her.

And that little Reaper in the far fields was always there. One day after seeing his doctor, on a whim, he went out to that field with some corn seed. It was planting season, and his family had never grown corn, but he was able to requisition some seed from the Alliance on the pretense that it could help feed his town over winter. The Reaper had seen him coming and retreated into the hills behind the field. But he shouted to it anyway. He told it how to sow seeds, pointed toward the seed bag, and walked away.

The next day the seed was planted, and he could see the Reaper watering the crop.

When the corn was budding, Kaidan observed how well it had been cared for. He stood at the edge of the field watching the Reaper work. When it noticed him, it started to wander off but Kaidan shouted for it to stop. It did.

"What are you?" he shouted, almost crying. " Who are you?"

It just stood there with its back to him and shivered a little. It looked like it was struggling with itself.

"Are you Jane Shepard?" Kaidan finally asked, his voice breaking on her name.

It turned, as if to look at him, and then walked away into the hills. Kaidan fell to his knees and cried. He thought it had given him the answer he wanted, but instead of feeling relief, he felt intense anger and frustration.

Out of everyone that fought in that war Shepard had been the most dedicated and had sacrificed so much. She'd had a hard life. She had been through so god-damned much. If anyone had deserved to survive that final conflict, it was her. But instead, somehow, some way, a part of her was in that thing. She was in all of them. Were they her? He wondered. If they were, then she was still working- she was rebuilding civilizations. She was rebuilding his family's home. She was still watching over him. After everything that had happened to her, she was still watching over him.

And there wasn't anything he could do about it.

After the harvest later that year, Kaidan went back out to that field to confront the Reaper. It stared him down this time, it seemed to know he was there to talk to it.

"I'm leaving," he told it. "Will you stay here and watch over my family?"

I just stayed still, as if staring at him.

"I think a part of her is in you. And I'm sorry," Kaidan told it, crying. "I wanted to be there for her in the end. I'm sorry that she had to do it alone. I'm sorry that she had to die alone. I loved her. I love her ."

It looked down, and lowered itself as if to sit, but still stayed upright to avoid crushing the field below it.

"It's not right," Kaidan said. He was gasping from the tears. "I wanted everything for her. Even if it wasn't with me, I wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to have a good life."

Kaidan started to walk away, his shoulders shaking. He turned back. He stared for a few seconds, taking deep breaths.

"It's not right," he said again, trying to gain control of his tears. "She deserved better. But…"

He looked it in the eye, as if talking directly to the Reaper lifeform. "Thank you for looking out for me. Thank you for looking out for my family. I wish... I wish there was something I could do for you."

That conversation was like the end of a chapter in Kaidan's life. In a sense, he could finally move on. After getting clearance from his doctors, he reported to the Alliance base in Seattle, and returned to active duty.

He lead a group of biotics traveling to various colonies helping with reconstruction and resolving conflicts. Occasionally he was called to help one of his friends from the Normandy with an issue or to attend a wedding or the birth of a child. And always in the background, a Reaper ship would be floating there. Sometimes it would come in for support in a firefight, or to help stage a rescue. The sight of the Reaper made his team uneasy at first, but eventually they grew accustomed to it. They came to appreciate it for the backup and support it provided.

Kaidan also now served as "Shepard" for eight Urdnot Krogan children-Urdnot Bakara had invented the appointment recently to help Krogran children learn about other cultures and forms of government. The young Krogan were a bit too small to be asking questions or seeking advice, but he was assured that they would be contacting him soon enough. Urdnot Bakara in particular had taken a special interest in Kaidan, and made a point to catch up with him on a regular basis. Kaidan loved his time with the Krogan cubs, and they all adored him when he was around.

After a few years of service, Kaidan helped to clean out a Batarian slave market in the Terminus systems. His Reaper shadow had helped make sure that no Batarian slavers escaped alive. Upon his search of the facility, amongst many of the controlled slaves, he came upon two children that hadn't had control rods implanted yet. One a human girl of six, and one an Asari child of ten. They were hugging each-other tightly, having grown close during their time together. The human girl had red hair, green eyes, and freckles. She reminded Kaidan so much of Shepard it gave him chills. Neither of the children had names or memories of where they came from, and Kaidan decided to take them home to his family orchard.

He hadn't thought about adopting children, but he had thought seriously about retirement from the military. Those two kids made him smile and feel like he had a purpose in life again. His path ahead was suddenly clear.

There had been romantic interests and trysts in the time since Shepard passed, but no great loves. No one he could see himself settling down with. He realized eventually that he could continue to make an impact upon the galaxy by raising these kids, by giving them the love of a father, a good home, and full bellies. So at age 48 he was honorably discharged from the Alliance Marines, and focused his life on his two girls.

He named his human daughter Annie, she had requested it after reading Little Orphan Annie with Kaidan on the flight to Earth. His Asari daughter had asked him to name her after a strong woman in his life and Kaidan suggested Bakara after telling her about the Krogan female, of which the girl wholeheartedly approved.

Kaidan was an extremely dedicated father. He enrolled his girls in local public school, helped them with their homework, and told them stories of Commander Shepard every night before bed. He had used up all of his G-rated Shepard stories, and had started to make up new ones that he thought would make them laugh. The girls were doted on and spoiled by their Grandmother Alenko, who cherished their presence in her home. They also grew up knowing they had eight Krogan cousins on Tuchanka, and they visited each other often.

To the Alenko girls, that strange Reaper in the back field of the orchard was normal. They were not alive during the war and had no reason to fear it. Every year the Reaper helped with the planting, watering, and harvest, and always appeared on the horizon when Kaidan was near. The girls started to call it Shepard after their father's stories. Whenever they talked about it Kaidan felt a pang in his heart, but believed it was a fair reminder of the women he loved and still so desperately missed.

During the summer months, Kaidan made a habit of sitting on the back porch of their big family home in a rocking chair so he could stare across the fields and watch the Reaper. Annie and Bakara would often join him. In those quiet moments his daughters learned about the value of being in someone's company without talking, of just enjoying the silent moments. They knew instinctively that their father was sad during those times but that all he needed was their company.

It was fitting that both Annie and Bakara grew up idolizing Commander Shepard and both desired to join the Alliance to be like her. When Bakara was eighteen she was accepted into the Alliance Navy Academy. She hoped to go on to medical school in the next few years, so she moved to San Francisco to start her education. Annie was sad to see her go, but she was her father's daughter, and was glad to be home with him for a few more years.

During their time alone, Annie coaxed more out of her father, about the Reaper War, and about his relationship with Commander Shepard.

One late spring evening, sitting on the back porch with him watching the Reaper plant corn seed in the back field, Annie, now seventeen, decided to ask him about something she had long suspected.

"Is the Reaper Commander Shepard?" she asked, turning to him. He was rocking in his chair, staring intently at it. "I mean," she clarified. "Not the name we gave it, but did Commander Shepard… is Commander Shepard a Reaper?"

Kaidan smiled at her sadly. "I think sort of," he admitted. "I've thought a lot about it."

He rocked in his rocking chair a few more times before continuing. "I think she gave them her mind. I think she died up there," he paused, looking at the stars starting to form in the sky. "But they took her ideas, her thoughts, her… heart."

"Ah," Annie responded, starting to tear up. "Did you love her? Commander Shepard?"

Kaidan smiled at his daughter sadly. At her red hair, freckles, and green eyes, so much like Shepard, and wondered again if Shepard had sent him Annie and Bakara somehow.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "It was impossible to not love her," he told her with a fond smile.

"She was so proud and strong. She was loud and crass. She was an awful dancer and a terrible cook. She loved bad jokes. Sometimes when she'd laugh, she'd snort and then just laugh more. And for some reason she decided she loved me."

Annie smiled at the image he gave of Commander Shepard. It was different from what she had learned in school, different from the woman she saw in the old news vids and interviews, and from her father's silly stories.

"I have something to tell you," she confessed, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her feet on the seat of her rocking chair.

"Bakara and I never told you because we knew it would make you sad, but we always felt like Shepard was our mother," Annie admitted softly, looking down at her knees. "You talked about her all the time and always said how much she'd love to have met us. In a way, we felt like she raised us, too."

Kaidan cried into his hands in response and was unable to talk. Annie moved to sit on his lap and wrapped her arms around him.

"I'm sorry for making you sad, Papa," she whispered.

"No, no," he told her, wrapping his arms around her. "I just, I wished she could have had a family. She would have been honored to be thought of as a mother to you and Bakara."

They both stared out towards the Reaper in the back field, drying their tears. The Reaper had stopped working during their conversation, as if it had been listening to them talk.

When Annie turned eighteen, she enlisted in the Alliance Navy, hoping that one day she could go through N7 training school like Commander Shepard, and captain her own ship. Kaidan proudly watched his daughters succeed in the military and attended all of their graduations, pinning ceremonies, and promotions.

When he was 62, he attended a special ceremony for Commander Shepard. She was made an honorary Admiral in the Alliance Navy, and Kaidan and his daughters stood up for her as her family. Also in attendance were all of their friends that could make it, Garrus, Tali, Liara, Traynor, Joker, EDI, Vega, Wrex, Bakara, Grunt, Jack, Jacob, Miranda, Kasumi, and many, many more.

The ceremony was held outside, and in the distance a Reaper could be seen on the horizon. Kaidan had a hard time taking his eyes off of it to concentrate on the proceedings.

Many years passed and Kaidan spent much of it on his porch watching that same Reaper wander the fields. When he was alone, he'd talk to it and sometimes it seemed like it would pause and listen to him. He told it about what his daughters were doing, and about how he was satisfied with his life. He had done his part in the war, he had served with honor and distinction in the Alliance Marines, and had raised two amazing young women.

Bakara Alenko was now an Alliance physician serving aboard the SSV Urdnot. It was built in cooperation with the Krogan, and served as a peacekeeping vessel in the Krogan DMZ. She especially liked being so close to her Krogan cousins on Tuchanka. Commander Annie Alenko was XO aboard the SSV Normandy SR-3 after successfully completing the N7 Academy. The Normandy SR-2 had been decommissioned a few years prior and was now a permanent museum installation in the San Francisco Navy yard. Kaidan had attended the opening ceremony, family and friends in tow.

Kaidan was unbelievably proud of his daughters. He visited them often and proudly toured their vessels, happily allowing them to show off their once famous father. He sung their praises at every opportunity, and took great joy in their embarrassment.

Bakara eventually retired from the military, and moved to Thessia to commit more time to her research and to learn more about her Asari heritage. She knew she had a long life ahead of her and wasn't ready to settle down to raise a family. Liara, living on Thessia at the time, had promised to keep an eye out for Kaidan's daughter.

Annie on the other hand soon married and had children of her own. Her husband, Tahir, a colony kid from Eden Prime, moved to Canada to raise their kids on the Alenko farm, while Annie continued her deployment for a portion of each year aboard the Normandy.

Kaidan was pleased as punch to be there to help raise his grandkids. Annie and Tahir had three children, two boys and a girl, named Kaidan, David, and Jane, and they were loud, ill-mannered, and messy. Kaidan loved every moment of it, and laughed more in those years than he had his entire life. And always in the distance was that Reaper.

One summer when the oldest boy didn't come home one night from the orchards, the Reaper was instrumental in helping to locate him. That evening, after tucking the little troublemaker into bed, Tahir had sat out on the porch with Kaidan, rocking silently in unison with him for some time.

"The kids call that Reaper Shepard," he remarked, nodding towards the silhouette of the machine in question.

"Mmhm," Kaidan responded, moving to scratch the side of his face covered in grey stubble. "Annie and Bakara chose that name when they were little."

"Annie said it looked out for her when she was a kid," Tahir continued. "I always thought she was talking about how it helped with the farming. Eden Prime had a Reaper when I was a kid- it helped with construction, to put out fires, to stop raiders and the like, but mostly it just orbited. This one's different."

"Yeah," Kaidan agreed, nodding, He was 75 now, and saw no point in beating around the bush. "Pretty sure there's some of Commander Shepard in that one. Probably in all of them. They follow me. Protect the kids."

"Ahh," Tahir nodded. The conversation stopped and all that could be heard was the creaking of rocking chairs and the chirping of crickets. Kaidan wasn't sure if Tahir had stopped asking about it because the idea had sounded too crazy to be true, or if it just made sense in that moment.

When Kaidan was 87, early one summer Tahir took the kids to visit their mother, now a Captain and CO of Normandy SR-3. Kaidan sat alone on the porch. He'd slowed down in his old age, and wasn't able to participate as much in the running of the orchard. The Reaper had seemed to sense this, and had taken to helping with the care of the fruit bearing trees closer to the house. Kaidan hadn't spoken to it in a long time, and one summer morning found himself striking up a conversation.

"Do you actually like farming?" he asked it. "You've been doing it for forty… fifty years."

It didn't respond, but it never responded. It just continued working.

"I think you love my family," he said. "They love you, too. When Annie and Bakara call home, they ask about you. How you're doing. Even though you're always the same. Maybe a little dirtier these days."

"Maybe she sent you here to protect us and maybe you didn't think you'd fall in love with us, too. Or maybe I'm a crazy old man."

He rocked in his chair for a while and watched it work.

"I have a feeling something's happening in my brain," Kaidan confessed, rubbing his head. "Heard some of the old L2 biotics have been dropping from stroke."

The Reaper abruptly stopped working and stared at him.

"I was going to ask you to watch over them, but I'm thinking you'll probably be in that field until the day you break down."

As if in acknowledgement, the Reaper went back to work.

A few months later Kaidan suffered from a stroke that left him bed-ridden. Bakara rushed home to care for him with Annie close on her tail.

"Papa, if you just let us transfer you to Huerta on the Citadel, I am sure they can give you more time," Bakara pleaded at his bedside.

"Sweetheart," Kaidan responded, grabbing his daughter's hand. "I've had a long life. Longer than I ever thought I'd get. I'm ready to go."

"But we're not ready to lose you, Papa," Annie cried, at the other side of Kaidan's bed.

"My daughters have their own lives now, they don't need me. Bakara," he turned to his Asari daughter who still looked like she did the day she went off to the Alliance Academy. "You have your research on Thessia now. Liara told me how impressed she was with your work."

"Annie," he turned to look at his other daughter. "You have the Normandy and your family. What I hear from old Admiral Vega is you serve an integral part of his fleet."

Annie and Bakara cried quietly by his side. "I'm so proud of both of you," he told them. "You both saved me when I found you that day in the Terminus. You gave me a purpose in life."

"Papa, you're the one that saved us," Annie said quietly. The strong starship captain was gone, and in her place was his little freckle-faced six year old kid with mud stains on her knees.

"You gave us another chance," Bakara cut in. There was his brave ten year old, with little white flecks dotting her head, unwilling to let go of that old volus plushie so her papa could wash it.

"I'm ready to be with her," Kaidan admitted softly. The candle he'd lit for Commander Shepard had never gone out.

"I'm sure she's been waiting for you," Bakara responded sadly. She wiped a tear from her cheek.

"Papa," Annie gasped softly, as she sat back in her seat. Her eyes were directed towards Kaidan's bedroom window. When Kaidan turned his head to look he saw the circular outline of the Reaper's eye directly outside. It glowed a soft white, and blinked slowly in the bright sunlight.

When Annie and Bakara turned back to their father he was already gone. The Reaper walked slowly back out to the field.

Some time later…

Kaidan was standing on the back porch of his farmhouse in the bright sunlight. He was in his old Alliance fatigues, his body didn't ache anymore, and when he looked down at his hands, he realized that he was a young man again.

"It's about damn time," he heard someone remark ruefully from afar. When he looked up, he saw a dark silhouette in the distance and watched it coalesce as it got closer.

"Shepard?" he called out as the figure started to become clearer.

"Kaidan," she said softly. He could finally make her out. She was standing before him in her N7 hooded sweatshirt, her black fatigue pants, and boots. She looked the same as the last time he saw her: red hair, freckles, green eyes, and that snarky look on her face.

"You always took your time when coming back to me," she said to him, smiling, stepping up onto the porch.

Kaidan laughed and fell into her arms. "God, I missed you," he confessed, squeezing her tightly.

"Me too," she said. "Me too."