A/N:

So…surprise!

I have finally reached the 'acceptance' stage of grief regarding the endings of the ME games, and for the first time since it came out, I have picked up ME3 again and did another full run through. Several friends have been very…insistent (much love, you know who you are)…that I try and play through the Citadel DLC. So, I finally caved and did so.

Which turns out to be good (or bad) for all you fine folks, because this is the result!

These are the way the events of the Citadel DLC- mission and party- would have likely played out had they actually been included in DE3. I cannot claim this is actual DE canon as it doesn't quite fit into DE3's course of events (conflicts with Traynor, some elements of Shiva, timeline, etc), so consider it as you will. Is it an AU so incredibly close to DE3 canon that these events are literally the only difference between the universes? Just a fun 'what if'? Or maybe you can figure out a way to fit it into your head canon with DE3 in a way that works for you? Have at it!

It will, like everything else DE, be a bit left of canon. Also, I cannot say right now how long or short it will be. At the moment, the plan is to continue this and DE5 simultaneously, posting at least one chapter per week on each, minimum. If it comes down to I can only post one chapter on one story in a given week, that will automatically default to being a chapter for DE5. I cannot justify putting that on hold for this.

But…like many of you, I am already missing Del. This will be a nice chance for us to revisit her again.

As usual, I write with the understanding that the reader has played through ME at least once, and the Citadel DLC at least once. I do not apologize for spoilers.

Please, enjoy!

Dark Energy: Citadel

The river was slightly swollen due to rains in the high mountains, but not far enough to creep much closer to her boots than it did on other days she had sat on this rock.

The rock itself was long and low, and not truly a natural formation. Given this was a nature preserve, the rangers and conservationists were extremely careful that even manmade objects within it were more or less impossible to discern from natural phenomenon- at least as far as the animals were concerned. Benches, like this one, were molded rock. Campgrounds had hidden lights and mosquito grids secreted in artificial trees so lifelike a camper had to use their omni-tool to locate and activate the nearest one. Even trash receptacles were disguised as old stumps, or clumps of brush.

The nature preserve edged up on the grounds to her school and the base, and much like her parents, the young asari often turned to the natural in order to find serenity and peace when she was much troubled. This small campground was usually deserted, easy to reach, and provided a perfect base for her to soak in the stillness of life when she desperately needed it most.

She almost didn't hear the soft boot steps moving down the path behind her. With the slightly more enthusiastic rumble of the river and the singing birds far ahead in the trees, the sound wasn't nearly loud enough to draw her attention. In truth, she probably wouldn't have noticed at all, if the birds hadn't suddenly fallen silent.

She didn't look around, still watching the foaming dance of the water in front of her. A gentle hand landed on her shoulder, and cloth rustled as a body settled in next to her. Another shift, the faint snap of a lighter, then the rich smell of cigar smoke momentarily overwhelmed the odor of pine and sod.

Then, the clink of glass, and a bottle was held in her view. She looked at it with mild surprise, then looked at the person offering it.

Del Shepard smiled slightly. "Just don't tell your mother."

Melara took the bottle of beer with a mute nod, cracking it open. Beside her, Del pulled out a second bottle from a small thermal case she had set down beside her, and did the same, taking a healthy swallow. "Ah. Good stuff. Go on, Pain. It won't bite you."

Mel sniffed at the mouth of the bottle, wrinkling her nose a little, before taking a taste. When her expression didn't change, Del lifted a brow.

"Most people don't taste their first beer and like it," she said.

Mel shrugged weakly. "It is no worse than your cooking."

"Oh really?" Del scoffed with a faint grin. When Mel returned it she nudged her with her shoulder. "Guess who's walking home now?"

Mel just shrugged again, took another tip of the beer. It honestly tasted like nothing to her…not that she really would have noticed. Her thoughts were a year in the past, and had been all morning.

It had been here that she'd found Bethayla, agitated and pacing, fighting against a torrent inside of her that she neither understood nor could control. It had been a year ago, today, that Mel had watched Beth walk out of the hospital with the Justicar, watching her head toward a life she had never planned for or expected, trying to come to terms with the idea that every thought she'd had of the future had just melted away like ice under a desert sun- banished forever by a cruel trick of biology.

Mel knew why Del had tracked her down. Her father knew what day it was as well as she did. She also knew that Del would not bring it up, not unless Melara indicated she wanted to talk about it.

She knows this is something no words can fix, she thought. She knows nothing can be said that hasn't been already.

She was suddenly, deeply, incredibly grateful for her father. Del understood that sometimes, the only thing that could be done to help was to just be there.

Watching the water rush along as her father silently smoked beside her, Melara suddenly wanted her mind to be anywhere else. Glancing over at Del, she measured the human woman silently for a while.

To the galaxy, Del Shepard may have been a legend and a hero. To Melara, she'd only always ever just been 'Bába'. Now in her late fifties, Shepard's hair had started to go silver. A streak of it had always been silver, to Mel's memory-the result of a close shave with a bullet- but now the streak was starting to slowly expand, taking over more territory as new pale strands appeared elsewhere in the black.

The left side of her face, the side now closest to Mel as they sat in silence, was marked with burn scars- faint, perhaps, but unmistakable. Mel had seen pictures of her father from when she was much younger, of course- before she had those scars, when her hair was solidly black. Back when she was young, powerful, cocksure.

That was before the war.

Those scars-and ones that could not be seen carried on the flesh-were eternal records of her father's life. She carried them not only proudly, but insistently, bearing the road map of what she had been through and what she had survived like badges of honor.

I suppose I have my own scars now, Melara thought. The ones inside hurt the worst I think.

Her thoughts drifted a while, pondering her father and her scars. Through it, Del just silently smoked and watched the river, occasionally taking sips of her beer, but not intruding on her youngest daughter's silence. Then Melara looked at her again.

"I'm angry," she said, as evenly and as calmly as if she had just announced she'd kind of like a snack.

"You've got a right to be," Del told her.

"This kind of anger though…it's strange. It has no target. No direction. I cannot be angry at Beth…what happened was not her fault. It was not anyone's fault…it was just..."

"Bad luck."

"Not even that. I heard you tell Irie once when her dress was ruined because of a sudden rainstorm. She got so mad, and you told her-"

"Can't get mad at the ocean just for being an ocean," Del nodded.

"Yes, exactly. But that is what I am. I am angry at the 'ocean'. I can't do anything about it, but I can't stop hurting either. I don't like feeling this way."

"No one does, kiddo. If I could take it away, I would."

"I know you would, but…it makes me wonder."

"About what?"

"If Beth hadn't been Ardat-Yakshi…my life would be different now. I would be different. I wouldn't be angry for one. My future, my whole life from here on out, would be different."

"Yeah."

"But is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"I'm not exactly following you, Mel."

"Well, you. Look at you," Melara said, looking intently at her father. Her brows were set stubbornly, the look on her face the same as she always got when trying to solve a particularly puzzling problem. "I know how you grew up. No parents, living on the streets, fighting just to find food. Losing Paul. Torfan. Then all the people you lost in the war and before…how you tried to get people to listen to you, to warn them, but they made fun of you or just ignored you. That all made you really angry, didn't it?"

"Unbelievably angry," Del said with a nod. "At times, destructively so."

"But you learned to harness and channel it, to use it to your advantage."

"I did what I had to do. Not only to survive, but to be able to look at myself in the mirror."

"Yeah, I guess. What's funny is- all that stuff you went through, all that anger you felt…you wouldn't be the person you are today if you hadn't had it, right? I wonder what you would be like if you'd never gone through all that stuff you had to go through. It was all so horrible, but in the end so much good came out of it. Am I selfish because…I mean, should I try and understand that good can come out of the pain and anger I'm feeling right now? That something far in the future will…will somehow be better, all because I lost Bethayla, because of this pain I'm feeling now? Is it terrible for me to even think that losing Beth might be in any way a good thing, eventually?"

"I can't answer that for you, Mel. Can bad things be turned into good things? Sure. Can pain and anger be turned into the motivation needed to accomplish what you never thought possible? Yes, they can. I can tell you that. What I can't tell you is if the hurt you feel right now will birth that in the future. Only you can determine that. You have to make a choice. Are you going to take that anger and hurt and try and use it to your advantage, or…well, or not?"

Mel made a sound, a faint huff, and looked toward the water. "Doesn't feel like it. Right now, the only thing it's motivating me to want to do is punch a tree."

Del chuckled softly and nodded. "Yeah, I know that feeling well. I recommend against it. Hurts like a bitch."

There was silence for a long while, then Mel said, "I guess it could go both ways."

"How so?"

"Maybe things wouldn't have worked out if you hadn't been through all that pain- maybe the war would have been lost. But we don't know, right? It could go both ways. Maybe, if you hadn't gone through all that…maybe it would have been won faster. Maybe it could have worked out better. You could have done everything you did, but without dragging that anger and hurt along with you every step. We just don't know. I just don't know. Even if I turn this into something good…how will I know I couldn't have been even better without it? Right now, that's all I can think. Everything would be so much better if this hadn't happened. I could be…Beth and I could be happy. We could have been great together. I wouldn't have this hurt. I wouldn't be so mad. I feel like this is going to hurt forever. How could I not be a better person without this hurting-I…?" She suddenly gasped, then ducked her head. "I'm sorry Bába…"

"For what, sweetheart?" Del asked softly.

She shook her head. "I'm just…I'm just trying to figure all this out. I…I mean, I love you, Bába. You're amazing. I didn't mean to imply that you are lacking…that somehow you would be better if you hadn't gone through what you did-"

"Hey, shh. I didn't take it that way, Mel." Del put her arm around her daughter's shoulder and hugged her briefly. "I knew what you meant."

"I just-"

"I know. Would it have been easier for me to do the things that I did if I didn't have the childhood I had? Maybe. At times, probably definitely…but I suspect, on the whole, things would have really been much, much worse."

"You do?"

"Yeah. I do. My anger gave me a reason to focus, to fight. It gave me drive, determination. I knew how to control it. How to use it. My childhood taught me perseverance, tenacity. It taught me the drive to fight, deep inside. Without my anger, I don't know if I could have accomplished that. I don't know if I would even have made it as a marine. Just to get through boot, I had to take my anger and…"

"Make it your bitch?"

Del barked a started laugh. "Melara!"

The wan smile her daughter gave her was more than enough to forgive the mild transgression. She shook her head, giving her another squeeze.

"Yes, well. That's as may be. Thing is, we don't know…and we can't know."

Releasing her daughter again, she drew out a second cigar, having dumped the spent butt of the first into the dregs of her beer.

"No, we can't," Melara said wearily.

"But…one thing I do know for a fact. Without my past-the bad and the good-I would have been a colossal, self-centered, weasley little jackass."

"What? I do not believe that!" Melara said, surprised. "You're a good person, Bába! Why would you even think such a thing?"

"I don't think it, I know it."

"You can't possibly know that! It's ridiculous. I'd sooner believe that…that Uncle Grunt could be a ballet dancer, than you being self-centered or…or weasley."

Del roared with laughter at the thought of Grunt doing ballet. Shaking her head with a grin she said, "I notice you didn't include the 'jackass' part in your disbelief."

"C'mon Bába! You know I meant that too. You are not a jackass."

"I have my moments," Del said, still grinning. "Still, I'm not kidding. I know for a fact that's what I would be."

Mel scoffed. "How can you possibly know that?"

"Well, if you've got a little while, I'll tell you. That is, if you can stomach listening to yet another 'war story'."

She was teasing her of course. While Irie would listen, sometimes intently, she had only so much patience with hearing stories from the war from her parents. She'd heard most of them a million times- not just from Del and Liara, but from the news media, from school, and from the seemingly endless list of honorary aunts and uncles that had fought alongside them in the war.

Melara, on the other hand, never got tired of hearing them. While she had a lot of them memorized she would still hang on every word, as intent and awestruck as if hearing the story for the first time, instead of the millionth.

"I think I could manage to sit through one," Melara said, then shook her head. "I think I've heard them all though, and I don't remember one that would even partly explain how you could know what you say you know."

"I'm pretty sure you haven't heard this one. You wouldn't have shut up about it for months, if you had. You ever hear the name 'Maya Brooks'?" she asked. Mel slowly shook her head.

Del grinned. "Then you definitely haven't. You comfortable? It's a long story."

"I am fine. I wasn't planning on going anywhere else much today anyway."

"All right, fair enough. Ok then, let's see…" Del chewed the end of her cigar a moment, gathering her thoughts, before she looked at the river.

"It was near the end of the war. We were on the Normandy, still trying to do what we could to get resources for the Crucible and rally the other species. In fact, we'd just left Rannoch a few days before, and the ship was in need of some repairs. Communications with Earth had finally been somewhat established, even if they were still a bit spotty. Round about that time, we'd get data packages of messages in surges. The crew was running ragged, and every packet from home was hope that someone would hear from family…they were like gold. I remember being surprised this time that one of the messages was to me from Anderson- and it wasn't exactly war business."

"What was it?"

"Well, it seems he had this apartment…"

"He wants you to take his apartment?" Liara asked. She and Del were standing behind Joker at the helm, watching as he brought them in to dock at the Citadel.

"That's what the man said," Shepard told her. "I didn't even know he had an apartment on the Citadel. I certainly don't know why he would even be concerned about something like that at the moment. With everything happening on Earth, everything happening up here-"

"Perhaps that is why," Liara told her. "He knows the strain you are under, and he most certainly has read the mission reports from Rannoch by now. Having a quiet place to retreat to every now and again…perhaps he thought it would help."

"I have the Nest."

"The Nest is still on the ship. You can be far more easily interrupted there."

"Well, he shouldn't be concerned about my strain," Del told her. "Hell, compared to what he and everyone on Earth is going through right now, fighting every minute just to stay alive…I can't lounge around on the Citadel while millions on Earth are lucky to see a few minutes shut-eye on hard concrete floor."

Liara looked at her love. "If I remember correctly, Hackett ordered the Normandy into dry-dock for the next several days- both to repair the damage from Rannoch, but also to complete the upgrades and retrofits. Did he not also order the entire crew to shore leave while the work was being done? I am pretty sure you are part of the crew."

Del scowled, glancing over at her. "How do you know that?"

"I have a few small errands I must run first- I need to put the finishing touches on a few resource allocations in Turian space. However afterward, I would be more than happy to meet you at the apartment. We can tour it together."

"Li," Del said, as the asari turned to head back toward the CIC. "Did you read my mail?"

"I do not know to what you could be referring, Shepard," Liara said, not pausing.

"You read my mail!"

Li cast a coy look back. "I should be there in about ninety minutes. My errands shouldn't take long."

"You Shadow Brokered me? I can't believe it! You're not supposed to Shadow Broker me!"

Liara just lifted a brow, then vanished into the CIC. Shepard threw up her hands.

"I don't believe it."

"You don't?" Joker said, looking around his chair. "C'mon, even most normal couples peek through each others' mail, you know? Read each other's diaries? You had to know dating the Shadow Broker would only be worse."

"Joker, I'm not in the mood."

"Yeah, I know; that's part of the problem."

"Joker-" Her tone was warning.

"What? All I'm saying is, this entire war depends on you-and no offense, but you look like the ragged end of a varren. You're exhausted, you're stressed, and if you don't take a breather soon you're going to crack. When you do, I'm fairly certain it isn't going to be pretty and I don't particularly want the backsplash landing on me. I mean, you were just nearly blown up by friendly fire and ended up spaced-again. And that was right before you had to fight through virtual geth reality and face a damn reaper on foot. Alone. I don't know about you, but that by itself would land most folks in the hospital having a nervous breakdown. So do everyone a favor, all right? Take a few damn days. The ship isn't going to be able to go anywhere. Spend time with Liara. Spend time with Tali. Drink a few hundred beers and smoke a few cases of cigars, and get your focus back."

"I'm just fine. I can handle it."

"Yeah, well, if you can't your crew are going to be the ones to pay for it. Not to mention everyone counting on you to pull us through this."

"Joker has a logical point-"

"Thank you EDI."

"- and Liara is correct. We are under orders. It would be unlike you to disobey a direct order from your superior."

"Jesus fuck." Del pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine. As soon as we're docked and the retrofit crews are on board, clear the crew for shore leave. I'll be…in an apartment, apparently. Drinking a few hundred beers and pretending the war doesn't exist…just like everyone else on the Citadel."

"You really are a downer," Joker said dryly. Shepard glared at him, then headed off. He half turned and called after her. "Hey, I think I'm going to stay aboard ship, help out with some of the upgrades-"

"No, Joker. If I've got to be on shore leave, everyone has to be on shore leave. That includes you."

"I don't trust those engineering crews. If I'm not here they could do anything to my baby-"

"Shore leave or I toss you in the brig!" She yelled back, before vanishing into the CIC. He turned back around with an irritated sigh.

"Fantastic."