Loving Commander Shepard who's fighting the Reapers, kicking ass and taking names isn't the same as loving Commander Shepard who fought the Reapers, got her ass kicked, and feels more broken than triumphant. That kind of experience changes a person. Changes people. And you don't realize it until it's after the fact because you've been so damn focused on everything but yourself.

It leaves a bitter taste in one's mouth, ill-fitting pieces that just can't be forced back together again. What was it Miranda had said? Even if we pull this off everything will be different.

She had been right.

Priorities change when the biggest threat to the galaxy isn't synthetic life forms intent on wiping civilization off the map. People spend their time rebuilding instead of running, looking for food instead of ammo. Time feels like a precious commodity now. If you don't keep your eye on it you'll lose it. Or someone will steal it out from under you. Time is no longer there to be wasted. The Reapers had convinced the galaxy of that.

But that's the funny thing about time. It's not really there to lose. Time can be made, and it doesn't take any expensive materials to do it. It just takes a willing heart.

If it's important enough the time will be there; it will be found.

If it's not? Well then people are just shit out of luck. Even beat up old soldiers that had given it all.

When it's over, really over, things are different no matter how much time was spent wishing they weren't. Sighs full of bottled-up fear and hopelessness were released. Families began rebuilding the shattered remnants of their pasts while figuring out their futures.

A once rogue C-Sec agent returned to the family that had survived the onslaught, ready to help a planet rebuild. A young quarian who had just been a kid on her pilgrimage at the start of the war rose up as an Admiral prepared to help her people settle on the home planet they had lost centuries ago. And friends who had seen it all together parted ways with a tense nod, because sometimes when the death of loved ones lay between two people even the best of friends have to find a way to accept it. Or not accept it. Only time would tell.

And lovers would find that love, despite the promise in all those poets' prose and all those writers' musings wasn't always strong enough to withstand. Sometimes duty came first even when the opposite had been promised. Because loving someone in war time isn't the same as loving them in peace time. Especially an old soldier with more war wounds than happy memories.

The Alliance had wanted her to come back to work. They'd give her all the time she needed to heal before they put her back in her blues. The galaxy needed her, they said. She could still do a world of good.

But she'd already done a world of good, and she'd come to realize that the galaxy would never stop needing someone. It didn't have to be her. She was just convenient. Brass had taken her formal resignation like it was some kind of joke; like in a few months she'd realize that she was needed too much to walk away. That was fine with her. Let them think she was just going through a phase as she boarded a shuttle headed out to the Attican Traverse.

Away from everything she knew. Back to everything she had once known…a long time ago.

Time made many promises it had never intended to keep, and maybe eventually it would heal old wounds. Or maybe it was all a trick. A way to lure a person into believing things would get better.

Or maybe it was just about letting yourself believe.

Looking out over an old planet she hadn't stepped foot on for decades, she thought maybe that wasn't enough.

"There are no happy endings," Shepard muttered to herself as she stepped off the transport.

"What was that?"

She shook her head at the lieutenant beside her, "Nothing, just… nothing."Just an old soldier coming home.

He studied her for a moment too long before saluting her. "Welcome home to Mindoir, Commander."

This planet hadn't been home in a very long time, or maybe her coming back meant it had been even when she thought it hadn't.

She heaved out a heavy sigh.

Time played cruel tricks indeed.