i. April 11, 2160
Even out in the garden, where she's been sent to play until dinner, she can smell the really, really, really good smells coming from inside the house. She thinks it's a cake. A lemon one. Lemon's her favorite. She likes it more than chocolate, even though her friend Vivi says that's stupid and everyone knows chocolate is better. Vivi's okay, but sometimes she says stupid things, and besides, Vivi's never had Mama's lemon cake so she doesn't even know what she's missing.
She creeps closer and closer to the kitchen window, but it's too high and she can't pull herself up on the ledge to see what her mama's up to. Her papa catches her there, dangling from both hands, and sweeps her up in the air, spinning her in a circle until she shrieks with laughter and almost forgets why she was sneaking around in the first place.
"And just what do you think you're doing, little Miss Mischief?" he crows, holding her aloft, a delighted prisoner. "I thought your mother gave you strict orders to stay away from the kitchen."
"Out of the kitchen!" she insists, because Mama always says words are important, and away isn't exactly the same as out. "Wasn't going in. Just looking."
Her father lowers her, until she's still dangling above him, but her face is close to his face. He's giving her the serious look and her tummy does a little twisty flip that doesn't go well with all the spinning and hanging upside down. Then, like sun breaking through clouds, a huge grin splits his face and he laughs. He laughs and laughs for a whole minute, and she doesn't know what's funny but the serious look is gone. He laughs so hard tears run down his cheeks, and she reaches out and touches one. It's salty.
"We'll make a lawyer out of you yet, sweetheart," he says, pressing a kiss to her cheek. His chin is scratchy, but she doesn't care. He shifts her in his arms, settling her on his hip and snuggling her close. She knows she's a big girl now, because her birthdays take up more than one hand's worth of fingers, but she doesn't protest as her papa carries her into the house. He's big and warm and smells a bit like lemon cake.
"No lawyer. I wanna be a magician," she says. "Or maybe a libarian."
"Librarian," he corrects gently. She repeats the word, careful to include the extra r, and Papa ruffles her windblown hair. "You know, what, kiddo? The sky's the limit. You want to be Prime Minister of the Systems Alliance, I think you can be Prime Minister of the Systems Alliance."
She pulls a face. "Papa," she says. "No. That's boring. Libari—librarian is much better." She pauses, thinking for a moment. "Or maybe a ballerina! A librarian magician ballerina!"
"Well, then," he says. "How does our resident library magician ballerina feel about cake?"
She shrieks her joy—she knew it, she knew it!—as her mama comes out of the kitchen, her face lit up by candles, and her parents start to sing.
ii. April 11, 2171
She has been living with the Callahans for almost a full year. She tries not to think about her last birthday, or other wretched anniversaries that happened after it. When she asks—pleads really—to have this particular occasion overlooked, Mrs. Callahan (and she always thinks of her as Mrs. Callahan, even after almost a year) only laughs her fakest laugh and waves the protest away, saying, "My dear girl, we're happy to do it. Don't trouble yourself over the expense."
She hadn't been, of course. She doesn't care about parties and presents; she never has. It's something Mrs. Callahan, with her apparently endless lines of credit, refuses to understand. If she has to have a birthday at all, she wants it to be small and quiet. She wants her mother's lemon cake with a thick slathering of cream cheese icing.
As soon as she sees the poufy white dress with its pink ribbons (God, she's seventeen, not seven) and the decorations and the vast cake that has not one, not seven, but seventeen layers, all different flavors, she realizes she maybe should've been thinking not only about cost, but how she was going to be asked to repay it. Nothing comes for free here, no matter what the Callahans say. No matter what Mrs. Callahan says.
At the party, Mrs. Callahan hovers over her shoulder, answering questions for her, never letting her speak more than a few words without interruption. She recognizes only a handful of faces, and most of the ones she does know are reporters and politicians and top-level executives from the various companies the Callahans have ties to. She tries to remember the exact shade of her father's eyes and finds she can't.
After a while, she stops pretending the evening has anything to do with her. Mrs. Callahan keeps a hand on her elbow, preventing her from escaping. Her feet throb inside the too-high, too-new shoes. Her stomach aches with something like hunger and something like horror, and she can't actually figure out which. When Nicholas offers to bring her a piece of the giant cake, she declines. Not because she doesn't want one, but because he's started giving her strange looks that don't belong on the face of someone Mrs. Callahan insists she should think of as a brother.
Besides, as far as she can see, not one of those layers hides a lemon cake.
The next morning, her arm is marked with bruises in the shape of Mrs. Callahan's fingers, and she decides then and there this will be the only birthday she celebrates under this roof.
iii. April 11, 2176
"What the hell, Shepard?" Alberts shouts, bursting into the room without the courtesy of knocking. She's like a small but mighty blonde cyclone, destroying everything in her path. Like peace and quiet. Alberts definitely has a knack for destroying that. The thought makes Shepard smile. "You were supposed to be in the mess fifteen minutes ago!"
"Says who?" Shepard asks, lifting confused eyebrows, setting her half-cleaned but already perfectly spotless gun in her lap. "Does Commander Vale want me for something?"
"Ugh," Alberts groans. "Commander Vale this, Commander Vale that. You promised."
"I promised what?"
Alberts narrows her eyes. "You're not even bullshitting me, are you? You really don't remember?"
Shepard leans back, spreading her hands wide in both surrender and supplication. "How about a clue?"
"How about you get off your ass?"
Shepard cleared her throat meaningfully.
"Sorry," Alberts says, dragging out the word and managing to sound not very sorry at all in the process. "How about you get off your ass, ma'am?"
"Better," Shepard says, carefully putting away her gun while Alberts taps a foot behind her. "How many beers in was I when I made this so-called promise to you?"
Alberts snorts and lifts a nonchalant shoulder. "Dunno. A bunch. Promise is a promise, though."
Shepard follows on Alberts' heels, and the change in the other woman's demeanor—she's practically bouncing as they approach the mess—is a pretty strong indicator that she's in for something. Even forewarned, she's not prepared for the crowd. A quick glance tells her everyone not on duty is here. They break into a terrible, terrible rendition of Happy Birthday as soon as she appears, and she winces, but survives.
Alex Smith throws her a beer, icy cold and dripping with condensation. Masaka flings a companionable arm around her shoulders and steals the beer before she gets a chance to open it.
"Jesus, Shepard," mutters Graves, smiling in the way that's making her increasingly certain they're going to have a no fraternization talk sooner rather than later. "Only you'd get so fucking wrapped up in your guns you'd miss your own damned surprise party."
A lopsided chocolate cake holds court in the center of a table, absolutely covered in lit candles.
"How old do you guys think I am, anyway?" Shepard asks, laughing, as she bends to blow the candles out. She gets them all but one. Before she can think too much about it, that one flickering flame in a sea of burnt-out stubs, Alberts presses another beer into her hands and starts divvying up the cake with ruthless efficiency, and Shepard lets herself think her childhood friend was right after all. Chocolate's not so bad.
iv. April 11, 2183
The Normandy is beautiful. Maybe it's the turian influence; Shepard's certainly never seen another ship like it. Maybe it's only that she's so new. Older ships are already set in their ways, but the Normandy is a fresh-faced and lovely girl on the cusp of adulthood, her whole life stretching ahead of her like a promise. Shepard's heart throbs with the desire to see this elegant creature in action; she imagines it must be like watching a prima ballerina. It's so sleek. She clasps her hands behind her back to keep from touching, and, just for a moment, she feels a pang of genuine envy for the crew that gets to serve on this vessel. Lucky bastards.
Her breath catches in her throat as she steps out of the initial corridor and into the CIC. The galaxy map floats at the far end, and through the ephemeral glow of it, Captain Anderson waves and beckons her forward in the same gesture.
"Sir," she says, not quite able to hide the wonder in her voice, "they said I'd find you here. You wanted to see me?"
"Commander," he returns, stepping down from the CO's station. "What do you think?"
"She's—" Shepard shakes her head. "Sir, she's a marvel."
"She's also still classified six ways from Sunday."
"My lips are sealed, sir." Shepard turns in a half-circle, taking in the CIC from the CO's perspective. The turians are on to something, she thinks. Perhaps if the Normandy does well, the Alliance will consider putting more like her into the field. It's the kind of ship a woman might aspire to for the entirety of her career. "But… thank you for letting me see her."
"I'd've put a bow on her, but that seemed a bit much."
Shepard blinks, lifting her chin and confused eyebrows as she looks up at him. "Sir?"
"It's your birthday, isn't it?"
She hears the words, understands every one of them, but somehow still can't quite put together his meaning. "Uh. It… is, sir. I don't really celebrate."
Anderson chuckles, his smile warming the landscape of his face. "How about a bit of a promotion? You celebrate those?" Her hands begin to tremble at her sides, and the sheer force of wanting makes her throat tight. Before she can choke out a reply, he continues, "I like the way you work, Shepard. Always have. You've got a solid head on your shoulders. Good eye for detail. Great way with personnel. Damned fine in the field."
"Th-thank you, sir. I appreciate the vote of confidence."
"It's not confidence, Shepard, and this isn't a favor. You've proven yourself. The job's yours if you're up for it. Bound to be kinks to work out. Might not always be smooth sailing. You ready to be a pioneer?"
She smiles, almost entirely without sadness. "Runs in the family, sir."
One corner of his mouth tips up a little higher than the other. "Then let me buy you a piece of cake, and we'll talk over the details, XO."
"As long as no one sings, sir," she says, letting herself take a final glance around the ship's—her new ship's—CIC. Doesn't matter even if they do, she decides. Her heart's doing enough singing for a choir.
v. April 11, 2186
She's on pull-up number forty-eight when the door chimes. She doesn't answer right away, because it amuses her that anyone bothers with the courtesy. It's a nice cell, but it's still prison. She knows it, and so do they. Two more pull-ups, and she drops lightly to her feet, dabbing at her sweating face with a towel. "Come in," she calls, half-hoping her visitor will already have given up. Sometimes they do, if she doesn't answer right away.
No such luck. The door slides open, admitting the young Lieutenant who pissed someone off enough to land himself with the dullest duty this side of cleaning toilets. "Commander," he says. She sees the flinch as his muscles try to salute, and his brain tells them it's no longer appropriate.
"Not so much," she replies, draping the damp towel around her neck. His gaze follows the motion, lingering a little on her bare arms. "But I appreciate the thought. Shepard's fine."
"Maybe for you, ma'am. Not sure I'm, uh, quite comfortable with that."
She chuckles, reaching for her hoodie and shrugging into the soft fabric. Vega looks up from the floor. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant? Didn't think I had anything on the agenda today. Someone decide they want to ask me all the wrong questions and refuse to actually listen to my answers? Again?"
"No, ma'am. I mean, I'm not here to, uh—" Instead of finishing the thought, he jerks his left hand out from behind his back, and produces a cupcake. A single precariously-tipping candle sticks out of the white icing. It's not lit. When she doesn't immediately reach out to retrieve it, he jiggles his hand. The candle tips further sideways. His smile is so nervous it looks almost pained, so she takes pity on him and collects the offering.
The scent of it wafts up, sweet and sharp at the same time, a gift and a ghost. Her throat is not tightening, and she does not blink more rapidly to keep tears from falling. She is Commander Shepard, and she doesn't cry over cupcakes.
"Is this lemon?" she asks, too sharply. Vega doesn't quite rock back on his heels, but the transformation of his expression is almost the same. The smile vanishes, replaced by a kind of muffled shame. Shepard bites the side of her tongue and shakes her head. "Sorry. Didn't mean it like that. I just—how did you know? Was it Anderson?"
Vega blinks at her. "Ma'am?"
She lifts her eyebrows in a question and gestures with the cupcake.
"Oh," he says. She doesn't think she's imagining the faint blush in his cheeks, though the color of his skin does a good job of masking it. "It's my abuela's recipe. Was always my favorite. Should've just made chocolate. You don't have to eat it."
"My mom used to make a cake just like this. Funny little piece of home, is all. Wasn't expecting it." She peels the paper wrapper away from the moist cake. Vega only hesitates half a second when she breaks the cupcake in half and offers him the larger piece. "You're okay, Lieutenant."
Vega ducks his head and grins.
vi. April 11, 2187
Miranda sighs, pushing a hand back through her hair, the silence of the makeshift medbay broken only by the sound of the machinery keeping the woman on the bed both alive and sedated. She has banished the louts masquerading as med-techs. At most, they will give her an hour before returning, ham-handed and thoughtless and loud. Her lips twist. They haven't the first idea how much trouble she could make for them, given an hour, if not for the Sword of Damocles hanging over her, and if not for the debts she owes the woman sleeping before her.
A lock of hair has fallen across Shepard's face. It rises and falls, shifted by every soft breath. Miranda reaches out, gently tucking it behind Shepard's ear. Shepard doesn't so much as twitch.
"I'm sorry," Miranda says. "It isn't much of a gift."
Shepard doesn't answer. Of course. Shepard never answers. But she keeps on breathing, and that's enough. For now.
"Shall I read to you?" Miranda asks. Shepard breathes. Miranda retrieves the book and the pen she's been using to make her notes, and seats herself at Shepard's bedside. She turns to the bookmarked page. Alice speaks to Humpty Dumpty of birthdays and unbirthdays, of the importance of words and names, all the while knowing the rhyme, the rhyme that dooms him. What a heavy burden it is, that knowledge. All the king's horses and all the king's men… Here, Miranda pauses, scribbling in the margin. Her hand shakes. She pretends not to notice. "But I'm trying, Shepard," she says. "I'm trying."