He hears her tiny feet on the floor the moment he turns the coffee pot on. A small smile tugs at the corner of his lips, but when he sees a flash of blue skin dart past the entrance to the kitchen he pretends not to notice.
Instead he waits for the coffee to brew, then sits down at the kitchen table with a cup when it's done – thick, strong and, as Alenko used to insist, unfit for human consumption. Watching the doorway out of his periphery, he uses his omnitool to activate the view panel's datafeeds and open the shutters to let the morning sunlight stream in. For a moment he squints, and by the time his eyes adjust there is a small figure worming her way into the seat beside him.
"Well look who's up early," Shepard says, and slides his cup towards her in offering. She takes one sniff and wrinkles her nose.
"Gross," she declares. "Mommy doesn't know how you drink that stuff."
He grins. "Mommy has bad taste in coffee."
Her face crinkles in consternation, mouth opening to object before she screws it shut again and collapses her elbows on the table in a huff. Shepard's grin widens. No one tells Amina that Liara is bad at anything, and there's only one reason he's getting away with it this morning.
"So?" he asks. "What has you up this early, Butterfly?"
Her shoulders hunch, a shy grin spreading across her face. She runs the fingers of one hand subconsciously along the rills of her crest, feet kicking under the table. "Happy birthday, Daddy."
Shepard leans over and kisses her temple. "Thanks, kiddo."
She wriggles in her seat. "I got something for you. Mommy wanted me to wait until she got back, but."
He raises en eyebrow.
"I can't," she complains.
The chuckle is out before he can stop it. "All right," he says. "How about I don't tell if you don't?"
Her blue eyes light up to the same shade as her skin, and she's off the chair so fast Shepard has to reach out to steady it in her wake. When she returns she's holding a rectangular box out in front of her, covered in winkled paper and hopelessly smothered with tape. She offers it proudly, and Shepard takes it from her with due reverence.
"Now what could this be?" he muses as she bounces with excitement.
"Open it, open it," she whines. "I picked it out. By myself. Mommy didn't help. Well. She took me to the market. But I picked it out."
Shepard picks at the tape, taking his time even though his daughter is hanging on his arm, about to explode. He doesn't get enough moments with just the two of them. When they come, he likes to savor them.
In the end she helps him tear the paper off, flinging it on the floor with a dramatic flair he's pretty sure she picked up from Tali's visit a few months ago. Once he gets a look at the box underneath her trappings he falls silent, fingers tracing the label on the front as a wistful look creeps across his face.
"Oh, Butterfly," he murmurs.
On the cover of the box is a photo of an Alliance frigate, the newest model that rolled off the assembly line last year. He remembers Joker saying something about it the last time they talked, complaining about a quirk in the maneuvering thrusters that the Alliance was going to regret not following up on. She's sleek, elegant, with a curve that reminds him of the Normandy.
"Did I do good?" she asks, gripping his arm as she hoists herself on her tippy toes.
He sets the model ship box down in his lap and bumps his forehead against hers. "Yeah, kiddo. You did good."
She beams. "Can I help you build it?"
"Well it wouldn't be much fun if you didn't," he declares, getting to his feet and reaching his arms out to pick her up. Instead of jumping into them she hesitates, biting her lip as her eyes flick to her feet.
"What is it?" he asks, mentally turning over every moment of their time together since Liara left two days ago, looking for some transgression he's committed that could have triggered her reluctance. The last thing he wanted when Liara returned later this morning was to explain that he managed to break their child.
"Mommy said I shouldn't ask you to carry me."
Shepard's brow furrows, arms crossing over his chest. "And why does she say that?"
Very gently she rests her hands against his left hip, with the care she might apply to something made of glass.
She's not far off.
He inhales deeply through his nose, lets it out slow.
"Mommy worries too much," he says, then offers his arms once more. This time she jumps into them. As he straightens he presses his lips into a firm line, swallowing his grimace when the familiar shot of pain lights up the ailing joint like someone just set it on fire. But with her head nestled against his shoulder, small body warm against his chest, petite arms looped around his neck, it's worth every second.
He spares a hand to grab the box, then makes his way through the house to a small room he only occasionally uses.
She picks her head up when she sees where they're going, squirming a little in distress before pulling back just far enough to look him in the eye with a somber gaze. "Daddy, I didn't mean to make you sad."
His eyebrows jump in surprise as his feet come to an abrupt halt, arms tightening around her out of reflex. "Sad? Amina, no. Why…why would you think…?"
Her eyes dart to the door before she buries her face against his shoulder. "You go in there when you're sad," she says, voice muffled against his shirt.
Damn. Vega had tried to warn him kids were a lot more perceptive than anyone gave them credit for. Shepard probably owes him a beer.
He sets the box on a table to the left of the door, then slides his newly-freed hand protectively over her back, rubbing circles between her tiny shoulder blades. For just a moment too long he's silent, the only sound a clock ticking in the living room. The explanation she needs is too much that's too big to distill into terms a five year old can understand. But maybe that's just another way he underestimates her.
He shifts his weight again, trying to take some of the sting out of his hip.
"I've never talked to you about the stuff that's in there, have I?" he says softly.
She shakes her head, still refusing to look at him.
"Amina," he whispers. "Nothing about you makes me sad. Ever. Okay?"
She nods into his chest, unconvinced.
He bumps his head against hers. "Hey. Butterfly. Look at me."
It takes her a minute to comply, but he knows better than to rush her. When her blue eyes finally peer up at him he smiles, tracing her cheek with a finger. "The things in that room come from a long time ago. Before you were born. Remember how daddy used to be a soldier?"
"You fought the big crawdads," she said, waving her fingers in front of her mouth like tentacles.
"Yeah," he says with a chuckle. "The reapers. Well, it wasn't very fun. Some of the stuff in that room reminds me of people and friends I knew who aren't here anymore. And sometimes…sometimes that makes me a little sad."
Her face scrunches, wheels turning in her mind. "So why do you keep them?"
Shepard smiles a little. "Because it's important to remember, kiddo. A lot of people sacrificed a lot of things so that you and me and mommy and all of your friends could be happy and safe. We can't forget that. Ever. Even if it makes us sad sometimes."
She lays her head against his chest, arms tightening around his neck as she digests this.
"Okay," she says finally.
"Do you still want to go in?"
She nods.
"Good. Because I need your help to build this thing."
He picks the box up and unseals the door. The office isn't much. It's the smallest room in the house, because he's the only one who uses it, and in retirement he requires significantly less bandwidth and resources than his wife. There's a desk cluttered with datapads and a few empty coffee cups that Shepard keeps meaning to bring back to the kitchen. A forgotten jacket is slung over the chair, along with a plaque he's been meaning to hang and a dozen other things that he hasn't found a place for yet. But where the desk and its surroundings are a wreck, the décor is painstakingly hung and immaculately kept.
A display case takes up the entire left wall – a virtual replica from his cabin on the Normandy, and every space in it is occupied with model ships, from the Normandy to a quarian liveship and even a Kodiak.
The back wall consists of rows of shelving, heavy with relics Shepard knows by heart without having to look.
Most days he doesn't look. Today isn't going to be one of those days.
He sets the box down on his desk and carries Amina to the back wall, where her eyes rove over every item with wide-eyed reverence.
Shepard presses his nose against her cheek. "Before you were born, your mom and I served on a ship. That's how we met, actually."
"She said you met in a volcano."
He chuckles. "Well. If you want to be nitpicky about it, when I met her she was stuck in a bubble down inside a volcano, and me, Uncle Kaidan and Uncle Wrex had to get her out."
She giggles, and Shepard has a feeling that's going to come back to bite him later.
"Anyway," he continues, bopping her with his forehead. "There were a lot of people we served with on that ship. Some of them you know."
"Aunt Tali. Uncle Garrus," she recites.
"Yup. But some of them you didn't meet." Shepard swallows.
She toys with the fabric of his shirt, never taking her gaze off the wall. "Are these things they gave you?"
"Sort of," he answers, as she reaches for a small book, one of two that rest on the shelf. The cover is black, worn around the edges. Some of that wear came with it, but Shepard has added more over the years. He picks it up and hands it to her, watches as her small fingers open up the cover and flip the pages.
"These letters are funny."
"They're drell."
"Like Feron?"
"Yeah. Like Feron. In fact he helped teach me to read it."
"What do they say?"
Shepard runs his fingers over the pages. "They're prayers. Prayers an old friend believed in. I'll teach them to you sometime, Butterfly."
She nods wisely before handing it back to him. Shepard sets it carefully back on the shelf, once again readjusting his daughter in his arms before he picks up the next book.
"This," he tells her, "belonged to a very good friend of Daddy's. She was very, very special. She did an incredibly brave thing that helped me stop a very bad man."
"What is it?"
"It's a poetry book. You might like a few of them, Butterfly. You're a lot like her, actually."
"Will you read them to me sometime?"
"You bet."
This time she points to a set of dogtags hanging over a display box, their silver metal glinting against the black padding.
"You have those," she says, turning back to him and feeling under his collar for the thin chain around his neck. She pulls the tags out from under his shirt and examines them closely.
"Yeah," Shepard says, swallowing a lump in his throat. "The ones in that box aren't mine, though. They belong to someone else. Someone who stuck with your daddy when most people didn't believe in him. And at the very end of the war, when I was hurt and it looked like we might lose…he was right there. Sitting right next to me." He holds her a little tighter. "He wasn't actually your grandfather, but if he were here today…he'd treat you just like you were his."
"Is that his, too?" she asks, pointing to a piece of N7 armor on the next shelf. It's the right pauldron, ragged with wear and deep scouring, but the red stripe is still discernable.
"No," Shepard replies. "That actually…belonged to a geth."
"A geth? Like the ones Tali talks about?"
Shepard nods. "The geth and the quarians used to fight. They didn't get along very well. The geth who wore that piece of armor…it helped end the war so they could be friends."
"That was nice of it," she remarks.
He chuckles. "It was, wasn't it?"
Her eyes stray to the right, and Shepard's body tenses. Don't ask about the helmet, he prays. That's something he has trouble putting into language he can even understand.
There are just some things he never wants his daughter to know.
Thankfully she peruses past it, possibly because she assumes its former owner is the same as the pauldron – which is true in some respects, he supposes – but more likely because her eyes fall on something far more familiar. Something she has context for.
"So this is what you do with all them!"
With a delighted grin she reaches for a conch shell, one of many brightly colored seashells that cover an entire shelf. There's no rhyme or reason to any of them, just a haphazard collection of varying shapes and sizes, all crammed onto the shelf however Shepard can make them fit.
He hands her the one she's set her sights on, and she holds it to her ear with a grin. "I can hear the ocean," she says in a singsong voice that draws a laugh from his throat.
"I found this with you on the beach," she says, a note of puzzlement entering her voice. "It didn't belong to someone else. We found it."
"That's right," Shepard says, mind drifting to the Normandy, back when the meeting room was a science lab and a certain salarian had roved back and forth between his samples, occasionally singing patter songs. "One of daddy's old friends wanted to retire some place sunny after the war. Collect seashells. But he never got the chance. So I do it for him."
With a grunt he sets her down on the floor, still holding the conch shell, hoping she doesn't see his grimace as he straightens up and braces his left hip with one hand. "Here," he says, reaching for a bust on the top shelf. "I have something for you. Was going to save it for your birthday, but...well, I guess you get your impatience from me."
Very carefully he removes the necklace hanging from the bust, strung with seashells. They all bear hues of yellow – Amina's favorite. "Here," he says, lowering it gently over her head. "Made that for you."
She looks down, fingering the seashells with an expression of wonder. "For me?" she squeaks.
"Yup. From me and a model scientist. Probably the only person you couldn't out chatterbox."
She huffs, clearly in disagreement. But almost immediately her lips take on an anxious twist. "But…if you're giving this to me now, what about my birthday?"
He tilts his head, considering this for a moment with his hands on his hips. "What if I give you Uncle Garrus for your birthday?"
Her eyes light up. "Really? He'd come for my birthday?"
"There's one person in this room he'd drop absolutely everything for, kiddo, and it ain't me."
She squeals, fingering the seashells and hopping in place.
Hiding a smile, Shepard moves back to his desk, clearing a space and setting the model ship box down in the center. The abandoned jacket gets tossed to the side as he sits down. The chair creaks as he settles into it – Shepard knows exactly how the chair feels – and he reaches for his daughter. There's less torque on his hip this time, making it easier to take her weight, even though he encourages her to sit slightly right of center. It's a song and dance they've done dozens of times, mostly without realizing it.
He opens the box and spreads the pieces out across his desk. Amina gives them a dubious look.
"That's a lot of pieces."
Shepard cracks a grin. "Don't worry. We got this. Just don't go dropping any in the fishtank. Or do what I did when I was a kid and swallow one on accident."
She giggles, hunching as she puts her hands to her mouth. "You ate one?"
"I wasn't as smart as you are."
Her shoulders straighten proudly.
Shepard finds part of the starboard wing and holds it up, then hands it to her. "You know, this is something I used to do with my dad."
"You had a dad?"
He can't stop his chuckle. "I did, if you can believe that."
"Can he come for my birthday, too?"
He runs an affectionate hand over her crest, then kisses the top of her head. "He died a long time ago, Butterfly."
"Died? Like Starfin Sunburst?"
Stupid Sunfish. Stupid forgetting to refill the automatic feeder. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Dammit.
"Yeah," he says aloud. "Like Starfin Sunburst. But you know, my dad loved model ships. In fact, he had an office a little like this. Model ships everywhere, and he was even messier than me."
"No one's messier than you, Daddy."
He jostles her with his leg, grinning when she yelps in dismay.
As they both sort through the pieces she falls suspiciously quiet. Shepard frowns to himself. Emergency tactical assessment. Unpredicted movements on the battlefield. Status report.
Problem is, enemy intel is a lot easier to predict and decipher than the inner workings of a five year old mind. He opts for a direct assault.
"Quiet Butterflies are usually trouble," he informs her. "What's on your mind, kiddo?"
She chews her lip, determinedly swirling a few pieces of polymer around on the desk with her finger. "Those things on the shelves. Those people died too, didn't they?"
Shepard is silent. Leans forward until his cheek lines up with hers. "Yeah, baby. They did."
More silence. He waits. Finally she comes out with it, and his heart twists.
"Are you going to die?"
He forces a smile. Thanks to Alenko his poker face has gotten pretty good over the years. "Not anytime soon, I hope."
She cranes her head to look behind them, at the wall of mementos. "But they did. And they were soldiers like you." She fishes for his dogtags and pulls them over her shoulder, clutching them in a fist. "This means you're still a soldier."
He exhales, hoists her up and shifts her around so he can look her in the eye, nearly strangling himself on his tags in the process. "Hey. My fighting days are done. Being here with you and your mom? That's my job now."
"But wasn't that your dad's job? And he died. Why do people die, Daddy? Why do they do that?"
Her blue eyes water. He wipes them gently with his thumb.
"It's just part of life," he tells her, tongue thick in his mouth. "Something everyone goes through. One big cycle."
She wipes her nose and sniffles. "Like the caterpillars," she whispers. "They make cocoons and turn into butterflies, then make more caterpillars."
He smooths his hand over her forehead. "Yeah. Kinda like that." He gestures behind him. "Those people? My friends? Without them, I wouldn't be here right now. I'd never get the chance to pick you up and hold you even if Mommy thinks I shouldn't. Sometimes people die before they're supposed to because…because they believe they can make something good happen. Because they know that even though it might make some people sad, it'll help others."
"How do they know that?"
Shepard shrugs. "Sometimes you don't know. You just hope. I did a lot of things during the war that helped people, but I couldn't have done any of them without my friends. Because of them, I get to have you. And you know what? I think they'd say it was worth it."
She mashes her face into his chest, hands twisting in his shirt as he wraps her up in a hug and leans back against the chair, bringing her with him. "You don't need to think about all this stuff, Butterfly," he murmurs in her ear. "The point is, I love you very much. And I don't plan on going anywhere for a long, long time."
"Promise?"
He presses a kiss to the top of her forehead. "Promise."
The small, fragile body curled against him heaves a sigh, burrowing deeper into his chest.
Yes, Shepard thinks. It was worth everything.