For those of you who might not be aware (and I have a feeling that would be "most of you"), my canon universe has gone through some shuffling. There was always Amanda (my canon) and her cousin Devin and their parents. Ash is always left on Virmire, and Amanda and Kaidan always end up together.

Except some things have changed.

There's a full rundown available on my tumblr (same username as here) under the "Mass Effect Fiction" page, and I highly encourage you to go check it out (there is not only a massive family tree, but also a whole lot more writing that's never made it to here). But the short version is this: my universe(s) and eleneripenneth's universe(s) have sort of...intersected. Her Rose Shepard became Rose Kattalakis, Devin's cousin on his mother's side (whereas Amanda is his cousin on his father's side). Eleneri's Declan Shepard became Declan Martin, a friend Amanda made on Elysium who ends up as a part of her family through that friendship.

And in the process of Declan joining the universe, I finally admitted something I had been fighting for ages: I decided to retcon Ash's death in my canon universes.

Before, in canon, I had written a drabble where Joker tries to convince Kaidan to finally cope with Amanda's death as the first anniversary of Alchera approaches. He ends up goading Kaidan into getting an "A" tattoo, reminiscent of Joker's "W" for Ash (they had a thing).

But when Ash made it off Virmire instead of being left behind, when it became clear that Ash and Declan Martin were an item (and thus she wouldn't have had a thing with Joker), that story had to change. Kaidan's tattoo was no more. And he didn't appreciate that. So this is step one of an attempt to rectify that for him.

One of the main realities of the spacer life, besides the long stretches of boredom occasionally alleviated by sudden flashes of action, was that mealtimes were always a social thing. Crew would gather with the rest of their watch and catch up, talk about families, about duty issues. It was a time for, if not camaraderie, then at least noise.

The fact that the mess was near completely silent as Staff Commander Hannah Shepard dragged her fork through some of the grey glop optimistically being billed as chipped beef stew was not a good sign. The only marines making any noise at all were the small group of noncoms clustered at the far end of the table, whispering among themselves.

With a careful turn of her head as she reached for her glass, Hannah discretely sized up the operations chief, Belano, sitting in the heart of the group. He flinched as soon as he realized her had her attention and went - a little too quickly - back to his plate, slopping some of the stew down the front of his uniform as he hastily tried to shove his fork into his mouth. He refused to meet her eyes.

Damn it.

Hannah took a moment to mentally curse the fact that she'd used their stopover at Arcturus Station last week to check in at the Athena Diner. If she hadn't wanted a good meal, or to visit with Andrew and Helena and Irene and not be so terribly alone for a few hours, maybe she would have missed that ridiculous reporter. Maybe, if she'd gone out the back instead of the front, she wouldn't have been recognized. But she had gone, and she hadn't snuck out, and that damn reporter had shoved a holo-camera in her face and breathlessly asked her about how she felt about the upcoming anniversary of the loss of the Normandy. About the loss of her daughter.

Hannah ran her tongue across her teeth, steeling herself. Looking at the recruitment posters that were still damn near everywhere when she was stationside and seeing an edited version of her daughter's face, hearing her daughter's voice attached to those mockeries, was bad enough. She was absolutely not going to put up with the gossip of her own crew on top of that.

"Chief," she finally said, keeping her gaze on her glass, "if you have something to say, I suggest you share with the entire class. You'll find it's better for your health." She looked up at him then, her eyes cold, the unspoken but very real promise of untold eons of latrine duty hovering in the air between them. She smiled, very thinly.

Belano went as grey as his stew, and Hannah's pulse thrummed in her own ears.

"Yes, ma'am," he snapped off, the barest edge of a crack in his voice, as he pushed quickly to his feet. "Sorry, ma'am. It's just - I thought-" His nostrils flared and he nervously moistened dry lips. Hannah simply watched him with cold impassivity, letting him swallow his own foot. After clearing his throat, Belano blew out a terse breath and then levelly met her gaze. Hannah could practically see his back straighten and his shoulders square, and she almost wanted to smile with pride at his nerve. Almost. "Was the Commander Shepard who commanded the Normandy really your daughter, ma'am?"

Her chin lifted involuntarily, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Yes," she said simply. "She was."

"My condolences, ma'am. She was a hero." Across the table from him, Westin's omni-tool flared orange, and she watched as Westin input a series of commands. It would have been innocent enough but for the sag to Westin's shoulders and the set of her mouth.

Hannah narrowed her eyes at Belano, then Westin, and the look on her face was enough to make them both flinch visibly. Her jaw ached with tension as she gritted her teeth, and she found herself having to deliberately relax before she could speak. "You made a bet about my daughter?"

Belano's eyes went wide, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he gulped. "Yes, ma'am. But that's not how it started. Honest."

Hannah raised a single eyebrow, her mouth tingling from how tightly her lips were pressed together. "Then perhaps you should tell me how it did start. Now."

"Commander Shepard came up in simple conversation, ma'am. My sister sent me an email this morning. She said she and her crew just got bailed out of a tight spot by Commander Alenko." He hesitated, and Hannah could see him fight the urge to cast a side-long glance at her. His entire body swayed minutely and a muscle in his thigh jumped just before he cleared his throat and clarified, "The Spectre."

"I'm aware of who Commander Alenko is, Chief," Hannah's grasp on her glass was so tight, she was almost surprised it didn't shatter under her fingertips, "and my patience is waning. Quickly."

"Westin and I were talking about Commander Alenko and what my sister said he did, and that turned into talking about Commander Shepard and what she did, I said she had to have been your daughter. Chief Westin disagreed."

It really had been innocent in the end, but agitation still thrummed through her like a circuit, looping back on itself, growing with each pass. She hadn't heard much about Kaidan lately despite her best, careful efforts to keep track of him, and in spite of the gnawing ache in her chest, she couldn't let this opportunity to rectify that pass her by.

Hannah dragged her thumb through the condensation dripping down her glass, watching as droplets rushed back in to track through the void. "Just what did your sister have to say about Commander Alenko, Belano?"

Belano visibly reeled, his eyes going wide as he blew out a quick breath. "She said it was like fighting with a god in her unit, ma'am. That he was unstoppable. She said he took out two geth Colossi almost entirely by himself. My sister's in the N program, sniper trained, one of the best out there right now, and she said Commander Alenko dropped four times the synthetic bastards she did before she stopped tracking his kill count."

Hannah sniffed to hide the twitch at the corner of her mouth. She was both immensely proud of Kaidan's performance and equally concerned at what it might indicate. "Sit down, Belano. Finish your meal." She looked up at Belano from under her bangs, letting the silence grow and become heavy. Giving him a minute to squirm. "And never make a bet involving my daughter again."

"Yes, ma'am," he answered immediately, snapping off a crisp salute to match. Wisely, he maintained attention as Hannah scooped up her own tray and deposited it in the cleaning station of the mess before heading to the XO's quarters.

Her hand raised to her mouth of its own accord as she rounded the wall separating the mess from the elevator, and she chewed at her thumbnail as she waited for the doors to cycle open. The elevator was blessedly empty when the doors finally cycled open, and as soon as she'd punched the button for Deck 3, she sagged against the back wall, letting it support her weight.

She scrubbed a hand down her face, wishing like hell John were here. He would have taken her hair down and held her while she cried. He would have let her work it out of her system until it didn't hurt anymore, his large hands rubbing soothingly in looping patterns across her back. And then he would have helped her fix what he could.

A phone call wasn't what she wanted, but it would have to do.

Hannah was already reaching for her bobby pins as the elevator doors cycled open onto Deck 3.

By the time she made it to her quarters, her hair was a tumble of loose waves down her back, and she'd already undone the fastenings of her harness. She locked the door behind herself with a simple wave of her omni-tool and carelessly dumped the handful of bobby pins onto the desk, letting them scatter with tiny metallic pings across the stack of datapads.

The datapads, the reports, the requests for interviews, they could all wait.

Stripping out of her uniform was perfunctory, habitual. Sliding into one of John's old undershirts was a vaguely hollow comfort. The woodsy smell of his aftershave still clung to it, and she simply stood there for a minute, the middle of the shirt bunched in her hands and pressed to her nose, taking in deep breaths of the scent she loved so much, trying to beat back the tears already pricking at the back of her throat.

When she finally felt capable of holding a coherent conversation, Hannah crawled into her bed. She tugged the spare pillow lengthwise against her stomach and curled around it, wishing it was her husband's side she was able to fold herself into and not a thin lump of stuffing and sheets. Propping her arm up on top of the pillow, she called up her omni-tool and dialed John's number.

"Hey, baby doll," he answered almost immediately. Hannah closed her eyes and let the warm closeness of his deep voice wash over her.

"Hey yourself, old man," she said gently, knowing he would be able to hear her smile in her voice.

John chuckled, a soft rumble of sound that made her heart ache with longing. "You getting ready to hit the rack?"

"That's the plan." She licked her lips and pressed her cheek against her pillow, wishing like hell she were pressing her cheek against John's cupped hand instead. This conversation was going to hurt, there was no way around it. She just wished they could have had it in person. "Are you busy?"

At once, she heard the muted plastic-on-wood clicking of a datapad being carefully set down and the greased squeak of the bearings in his chair as he turned it - ostensibly away from his desk.

"I'm all yours, babe," he said, his voice low and soothing. "Talk to me. You okay?"

No, she wasn't okay. She'd never really be okay again.

"Hannah?" John asked again. Even though he couldn't see her, Hannah quickly swiped a hand under her eyes to stem the tears that raced their way down her own cheeks.

Hannah swallowed and then cleared her throat. "Sorry," she breathed out. "Rough moment. I've got this."

"Mmm. Been having a lot of those lately?" There was a gravelly timbre to John's voice.

"Like you haven't?"

"You sure you're not the one in intel, baby doll?" He chuckled a little, but the sound was a little too flat for humor. "You always did see right through me. Love you for that, you know."

"I do know." Hannah wished suddenly that their transmission was visual instead of bare-bones audio, so she could see for herself how he looked. He'd never tell her if he wasn't sleeping or eating well, although John had too much professionalism to compromise his duty by not taking care of himself. Still… there were all sorts of shades of grey to "taking care of yourself", and the closer they got to the first anniversary of Amanda's death, the more they both stretched those boundaries.

Where Hannah had shown her grief by shutting down, screaming into her pillow or her husband's shoulder, and then ferociously throwing herself into her work, John's grief had been quieter than hers, kept closer. It was in the way he would stroke a single finger against Amanda's face in the picture on his desk, in the tight, pained set of his mouth as he did. It was in the way he had stopped cooking her favorite foods for six months after she'd died. It was in the way he continued to put his peanut butter MREs in the cabinet of their apartment where Amanda had kept a small hoard of them. When Hannah had discovered the stash during that year's spring cleaning, they'd both broken down and cried.

But at least her pain wasn't completely constant anymore. She could get through a day or a week where it wasn't sharp and fresh. It was only in stumbling upon the unexpected reminders and the personal touchstones that she was doused in fresh waves of it.

There was someone else who was suffering like she and John were, and Hannah feared Kaidan was drowning in his grief, that he had been since the Normandy went down.

"Have you," she paused to sniffle, and the breath she blew out that followed almost sounded like a chuckle, "have you heard much about Kaidan lately? I've been trying to keep tabs on him, but it's almost impossible with the amount of work he seems to be doing. One of my operations chiefs had a sister who just came off a tour with him. The things she told my chief were…. scary. Honestly frightening, John."

"Hannah." There was warning in her husband's voice even as it cracked at the edges.

"John," she sighed, his name rasping up from the tightness in her chest where her heart ached for him. For them both. "I haven't asked you to break regs in over thirty years. I'm not asking now. I'm just asking if there's anything you can tell me. I'm worried. Aren't you?"

The silence on the other end of the line was so total and absolute that if Hannah hadn't known him as well as she did, she might have thought he'd hung up on her. She also knew better than to push. He was probably figuring out what he could give her, what he needed to sanitize despite the fact that they were on a secure line, and what he couldn't even tell her at all.

"Your chief's sister," he finally said, his voice low and careful, "was right. His file's probably twice as heavy as it was a year ago. To say he's been busy is an understatement. He's apparently very…focused."

The covert confirmation of exactly how right she had been twisted and writhed in her gut, driving the air from her lungs in a whoosh, and she sank deeper into her bed. "Twice as - John, is he even taking any time off?"

"You know as well as I do that the Alliance requires its soldiers to take six months ashore after six months deployed."

Hannah could swear she felt her heart stop. "But he's also a Spectre," she whispered, horrified and heartbroken in equal measure. "And if he wants to take an assignment for the Council while he's ashore, there's nothing they can do."

John's only response was the quiet rasp of skin-on-skin and she knew John was rubbing his knuckles - a nervous gesture he had picked up years ago when he either couldn't or didn't want to admit she was right about something. The last time she had heard it was the morning before they had been officially informed the Normandy had gone down. She had just known, had woken up knowing that their baby was gone. Neither of them mentioned that, despite his protests, his raw knuckles meant he had known, too.

"David's promised me he's doing his best," he eventually murmured, his voice thick. "But that's about the long and short of it, yeah." The fact that there was only so much David Anderson could do because there was only so much he could bury went unspoken.

Hannah's throat burned, but despite the tears she could feel slipping down her cheeks, her voice was hard. "He was going to be ours, John. He would have been our son-in-law." Anger roiled in her chest. "Fucking frat regs. She was a Spectre!" She bit it out like a curse. "They should have found a loophole for them. They should have been able to get married without risking their careers. He should have gotten that damned flag instead of handing it off to me. And then we could have helped him and Declan both. We've lost our daughter. I won't lose Kaidan, too."

"Baby doll, I'm with you on this, but this isn't like it was with Declan." John's tone was gentle, soothing, but it didn't make the words any less harsh. "This time there's really nothing we can do. We can't say anything to him."

He let the thought trail off because they both knew. If either of them reached out to Kaidan and the brass discovered exactly why they were so concerned about him, everything Kaidan had worked for over the past eleven years would come crashing down around his ears. Hannah couldn't let the man her daughter had loved lose his career to something so damn stupid as fraternization charges, especially when the woman he'd loved had been gone a year.

"I know," she breathed. "I know. But I can't watch him self-destruct. I won't. He's all we have left, John. Someone has to -" The pieces clicked into place. The answer had been staring her in the face the whole time and she couldn't believe she'd allowed herself to be so blind to it. She and John weren't alone in this. Weren't alone in their loss, and weren't alone in worrying for Kaidan. Weren't alone in their knowledge of his grief and the depths to which it reached and why. And, perhaps most importantly, they were in this with someone who, at least on paper, wasn't family.

For the first time since she had called John that night, she felt relief blossoming in her chest, loosening the knots of grief and worry, flowing through her with each breath she took. "Old man, I've got this."

"Hannah…." There was a world of warning in his voice. "I know that tone. What are you up to?"

"Absolutely nothing," she said, smiling tightly. "I'm an XO. It's my job to know who the best person for an assignment is, and that is exactly what I'm going to do. Is Kaidan groundside now?"

There was a moment's hesitation on the other end of the transmission. "The SSV Manitoba has recently been requisitioned for Council Spectre use, and it's scheduled to dock at the Citadel in two days."

"Perfect. I love you, John. Now hang up. I've got delegating to do."