Past: Medicine Man

It was just like Shepard to pull Ashley aside in a highway as though all he wanted was to say hello. To hear her informal opinion on how reconstruction efforts were coming along. Instead of saying anything though, he'd given her a long, slow kiss. With everything finally over, the Reapers gone for good, Shepard was more open with his affection. Clearly, he was no longer worried about the consequences of people finding out he and Ashley were involved. She should have been glad, relieved even, but Ashley knew the comfortable patterns she and Shepard had fallen into could only be temporary.

He's going to leave the Alliance, she thought unhappily. He's going to go start a farm—ranch—somewhere. He's going to want me to go with him. She wasn't ready to quit the Alliance. The Williams name was no longer blacklisted; Ashley planned to rise as high as she could. It wouldn't make any sense for her to walk away. Not when she finally had a chance to make something of herself.

She wouldn't end her military career. Shepard knew her; he had to have guessed that she would nix any plan that required her to leave the Alliance. He wouldn't ask her to do that, would he? Or did he think that she was the kind of person who'd abandon everything important to her because she was in love?

No, he wasn't like that. Ashley nearly pulled away. Even though Shepard was the kind of person who would give up everything for someone he loved, she got the feeling that if she asked him to stay with her—with the Alliance—he would say no. That left a long-distance relationship as their last option. Ashley wondered if she and Shepard could function the way her parents had. Was she willing to see him only during leave time? To be tied to him while she lived a life almost completely separate from his? Would they wake up one day resenting this relationship?

She didn't know. It wouldn't be so different from the two of you both being in the Alliance but being assigned to different squads, part of her mind pointed out. Except that this way we wouldn't even have the Alliance in common anymore.

She didn't want to think about it. To distract herself, Ashley tried to make their kiss last as long as possible.

Shepard pulled away to smile at her. The expression on his face made it easy for her to imagine that he would be perfectly happy if the universe would just let them stand there looking at each other for the rest of their lives. When Ashley leaned forwards for another kiss, he moved his head back, his smile not wavering a centimeter.

"Ash," he said quietly, "Ash, I—"

She did kiss him then, if only to keep him from ruining everything with the wrong words. Eyes closed, she made a pointless wish, hoping that he would forget about talking. Forget about how he wanted to change things. But he pulled away again.

"Ash—"

"No. I don't want to hear it, whatever it is. Not—Please, not now, all right? Just promise me: no promises. At least for a little while." She looked at him seriously, willing him to understand, to keep things they way they were if only for a few days longer. Comprehension passed over his face, and the smile slipped away.

"Okay, Ash." He touched his forehead to hers, his shoulders rolling forwards in acceptance and defeat. "Okay."

It was an afternoon just over two weeks later when Shepard took her aside in another hallway and pulled a three stone diamond ring out of his pocket.

He'd explained that he'd started searching for the right stones partway through the invasion because he'd needed to have something good to look forwards to. He had told her that the two little diamonds were pink even though she hated the color because he couldn't look at pink and white Pheonix armor without thinking of her. He'd admitted that he was leaving the Alliance and that he wanted her to come with him, but he told her that he didn't expect her to. He had even said that he would wait as long as she wanted to wait, but he didn't want to leave without having some kind of tangible link to her. All he wanted was a promise.

Ashley knew enough not to look him in the eye; if she saw him smiling at her, she'd never be able to say no.

Author's Note: An incredible amount of thanks and praise to my amazing beta-readers Telemachus78 and Tryvozhna (both wonderful writers in their own right… check them out!), without whom this story would have been unreadable.

The inspiration for this piece struck while listening to the song 'Where We Went Wrong' by the Hush Sound. As such, after the writing was finished, I looked to songs by the band to provide the titles for chapters in this fic as well. You should know by now that with me you can't get away from the music.