Jas is a warm weight against Shepard's sternum. Henry is in one armpit, Vahan's nubby head in the other. She dozes, comfortable and unalarmed. Here on the couch, there are no terrorists and no old memories. There is only the gentle heaviness of her children. Jas isn't crashing around the house knocking things over with her skull, pretending to be Bakara or Wrex or Shiagur or Grunt, depending on the day. Henry isn't struggling to balance his own weight against the pressure in his brain. Vahan isn't having difficulties bonding with a human parent, despite bonding fine with Jas and Henry. They're all just happy.

Garrus takes several photos with his omnitool. Shepard is drooling a lake onto the couch. In the afternoon, she's leaving for the Citadel, and they won't see her in person for nearly three weeks. She and Garrus had said most of their goodbye the previous night; now she's catching up on sleep. The kids seem to think Shepard is a body pillow. It's nice to see. Jas has never been very tolerant of prolonged contact, which had begun the whole biotic-baby-floating thing that Shepard still uses for Henry and even for Vahan. Vahan likes to be held, but not by Shepard, and Henry is too sluggish to protest when he's lifted. He has an appointment with the neurologist not long after Shepard gets on the shuttle. Garrus thinks it'll be nothing new; Henry is two now, and he's been plagued by tumors from Shepard's eezo nodules his entire life. He's only recently begun to really talk, and he still doesn't walk in any way that could be called walking.

Henry is the first to notice that someone is watching-doesn't speak well for Shepard's awareness, until she slits her eyes open further and Garrus knows she's known he was there the whole time. She closes her eyes again, leaving Henry to peep furiously at Garrus until Garrus gives in and picks him up.

"You can use real words now, you might want to practice," Garrus says, going into the kitchen so as not to wake anyone else. It's only eleven in the morning. Shepard has a few hours still.

"Da," Henry says, with great determination. "Food."

"It figures that the only thing my children ever want is food. None of you ever want my company, you just want to be fed." Garrus swings Henry up above his head, hoping for the shrieks of laughter he gets from Jas, but only gets a pissy hiccup. He tucks Henry back against his side and digs around in the levo cupboard, looking for one of the few things that Henry can eat without it being prepared. He doesn't want to wrestle with the blender.

"Fed," Henry repeats. "Plee."

"I know you can say that one."

"Pleeeeee," Henry says, dragging it out. Garrus hadn't thought two year olds could be dicks to make a point.

"Yeah, I know. I'm working on it."

Henry rejects the honey-no great loss, that one's gross-and then the strawberries-that's a pity, Garrus likes those even though he's genuinely allergic to them instead of just not being able to process them. It seems to Garrus that there are very few joys in Henry's life other than sleeping and being carried around.

"Okay, okay, what do you want?"

Turns out, when deciphered from Henry's garbled English words and asari nursery rhyme phrases, what he wants is what he has for breakfast almost every morning: half-chewed peach slices that Jas has gnawed on and then stuffed into his mouth.

"That is disgusting," Garrus tells Henry, lifting him up to look at him face to face, like men. "That is so disgusting."

Unfortunately, it's one of the only things he'll eat. So Garrus has to go and wait for Jas to wake up and tumble onto the floor by accident, then scoop her up before she shrieks in surprise, and bundle her into the kitchen to chew up the peach slices and feed them to Henry. This is great fun for the both of them. Vahan sleeps peacefully on Shepard's chest now, thin rattly whirrs coming from his chest.

"Where did the two of you even come from?" Garrus wants to know. "I wasn't this weird when I was your ages."

"From the sky, probably," Jas says, mouth full of popcorn. Garrus doesn't know where the popcorn is from. He is a terrible father. "Like on a baby shuttle with grandad."

"That's more accurate than you know, Jas."

Shepard groans loudly, then inhales a sharp breath. Garrus whirls around in time to grab her hand before she screams. Her face relaxes; she must have been tired. Shepard rarely actually falls asleep in the daytime, though she'll pretend so she gets a few minutes alone.

"Why does mama do that?" Jas wants to know. She can move surprisingly quietly for a being that sometimes seems more Wrex's kid than Garrus'.

"She's had bad dreams for a while," Garrus says, waiting for a moment to make sure it's over before he goes back into the kitchen. He can still see the couch, anyway. "The war wasn't a good time, J."

"War's bad," Jas agrees solemnly, eating more of the mysterious popcorn. "Do I ever got to be in one?"

"Not if your mother and I can help it."

"What if I'm a soldier?"

"If you're a soldier and there's a war, then yeah, you probably will be in it. But you don't have to become a soldier unless you like to fight. People do for other reasons, but that's a pretty big one to think about."

"Daddy, I'm six," Jas says, pulling a face. "I don't care about reasons. Can you teach me to shoot?"

"Maybe when you're bigger than the gun."

"I'm bigger than one of the small ones."

"Not the kind I shoot," he says, looking Jas over appraisingly. "You got a few years, J. You already gave your mother one minor heart attack."

In the last week and a half, Shepard has been on edge every time Jas sneezes. Nearly one in five times it sets off a biotic charge. Lucky she hasn't torn through a wall and brought the house down, or farted and gone nova. That's Jas all over, though: her mother's charm, her mother's looks, her mother's sheer stupid-minded stubborn luck.

"What if I do it again?" Jas asks speculatively.

"We don't blackmail in this house."

Not until you're much older, he thinks.

"We'll see," he concedes. "Soon. So if you don't want to be a soldier, what do you want to be?"

"President, maybe?" she asks, picking a shell out of her teeth. "And also I want to fly a ship like EDI and then probably I want to buy a hundred planets and put puppy colonies on all of them."

"Don't ever give up your ambition, Jas," Garrus says. "Also, the ship is the Normandy, EDI isn't a ship."

Jas shrugs. She doesn't care much for distinctions. Doesn't know much about shades of grey, and that's just fine by Garrus. He doesn't want her to ever have to learn those kinds of things. His kids can all stay coddled, spoiled small children, and that's not a problem by him.

"How old is Vahan?" she wants to know. She's accepted Vahan more easily than Henry has-not a surprise, really, Henry is stressed out by bathwater changing temperature. She doesn't seem too inclined to make the jump from small cooing pet to sibling, but Garrus is confident that if anyone in the house other than himself is going to love Vahan, it's going to be Jas.

"He's about a year old."

Jas stares at him in incomprehension.

"He's smaller than Henry," Garrus clarifies.

"Oh. Okay. But he's like you, so he can't eat my food?"

"Right."

"Okay. So was I like you when I was smaller than Henry?"

"No, Jas, you've always been human." He wanted to say like Shepard, but Jas has no idea who Shepard is, she's just mom. "So was Henry."

"Okay," Jas says, sounding a little put out. "I'm gonna go lie back down with mama."

"Hey," Garrus says, lifting her when she puts her arms up. He's not going to be able to do that for too much longer, with the way she's growing. "What do you say we see if we can get everyone into your room and all sleep together for once?"

Jas makes a pleased noise. She takes Henry, carrying him much the same way the Garrus does Shepard and Vahan-scooped up, hunched across the back from the weight, with a little bowlegged stagger. Garrus would never tell Shepard that she's nearly too heavy for him, cybernetics and everything, and she almost never allows herself to be carried anywhere, but he likes being able to now and then. Likes being able to take care of the savior of the galaxy instead of the other way around, when she isn't furious because it feels like she's in the hospital. Shepard is obviously awake or nearly so, from the contented sound that sighs from her chest, but Vahan doesn't stir, and Garrus makes it to the bedroom without incident. Jas is a little slower, having to lug Henry's twisting weight without the benefit of military training.

It's a tight fit on the small bed, but they make it work for a few hours. Shepard smells like warmth, like home and Reaper-killer, and Henry smells like sugar. Jas doesn't smell like much of anything other than soap. They all smell soft and vulnerable and familiar, even Vahan, slowly growing into plates and hardness.

Garrus wishes he understood what was wrong with Henry; he saw his mother's sickness, and that ended in misery. He saw his sister's slow descent into fever and inability to climb back out. He sees Shepard, still struggling with her own head. None of it is helping. As a baby, Jasmine had been loud and demanding, true, but also easily delighted, always headstrong and laughing. Henry is no longer a baby, but he's still a miserable howling tyrant. He won't eat and he won't sleep and he's a failure at thriving. It weighs on him, in the little place in his heart that is still, even now, terrified and worried and almost repulsed by the idea of living with humans, always being in their spaces, surrounded by their culture and their people and being an island adrift in a sea of aliens. There are less than one hundred turians on Eden Prime at any given time. There are over half a billion humans.

It doesn't bother him most of the time. He and Shepard are retired somewhere warm, if not necessarily tropical, with a radiation level low enough not to fuck with Shepard. She's his main concern these days. There are no monsters to hunt through the relays, after all. Garrus is a loyal man and not an easily frightened one, but he thinks it might take a heart of stone not to quail at the idea of being hundreds of thousands of miles from home and food you can eat without dextroepinephrine additives and neighbors who aren't from a species whose communication is mostly nonverbal cues you can't read. He's learning, but not fast enough, and Shepard is the only one he can read with any reliability. Humans subconsciously read tone shifts and miniscule muscle movements that make turian body language seem like screaming into a loudspeaker. It's bewildering for a species that isn't exactly subtle.

At least with the move to the Citadel looming he won't be the alien in the neighborhood. They're not following Shepard up there for some time, but it's a nice thought in the interim. So is the idea that Henry and Vahan and Jasmine are growing up in the first generation after the discovery of a new species (not that that's never happened before) and they're in the first generation after the war. This is what they fought for, for the chance for things to grow. This is what Shepard is continuing to fight for, when Garrus knows she wants nothing more than to lay the war to rest and raise her children.

"Come on," he says, when Shepard's omnitool starts to beep and she just yawns at it. "Hey, Nora. Get up."

Shepard's never been a messy waker. She's spent nearly her entire life in and around the military and waking is as easy as stepping out of the shower. She rolls to her feet without dislodging the wall of sleeping small children, landing as light and deft as someone without an extra hundred-odd pounds worth of cybernetic reinforcements.

"Do I have everything packed?" she asks, staring fuzzily into the mid-distance for a few moments before her head clears. "Yeah. Of course I do. Okay. Let's go."

They're all up and moving within the half hour. It's a short shuttle ride to the spaceport, but it seems an eternity with Henry and Vahan both screaming into Shepard's ears. She pats Henry absently on the lower back, away from his latest sutures, and gently rocks them both to either side, but to no avail. Jas doesn't look happy, glumly swinging her legs in the seat beside Garrus and tightly gripping his hand. Garrus and Shepard are hardly smiling themselves, but this kind of parting is nothing new, and at least now they know when she's coming back.

"I'll see you in twenty days," Shepard says to the kids. She waves to Kaidan, visible through the summer heat haze. Jas moves her white-knuckled grip to Shepard's hands, pinching hard enough to white-knuckle Shepard, too.

"Please don't go," she says. Her voice doesn't tremble and Shepard is so proud. "Please-please come back, mama."

"I always come back, don't I?" Shepard asks, looking around at her family, and repeats the question somewhat louder to Kaidan.

"Every time," Kaidan agrees.

"At least as long as I've known you," Garrus says, shrugging.

"So," Shepard says. "You have a whole bunch of proof I'm always coming back, no matter how long it takes me to. You listen to daddy, alright?"

Jas scowls.

"Thought you're s'posed to tell me I'm the man of the house," she says morosely. "I wanna be man of the house."

"You've been watching way too many vids, kid," Garrus says.

"Wow, I wonder where she gets that?"

Henry is howling both before and after the goodbyes. Shepard's ears ring, but that's nothing new. She touches Vahan gently on the forehead, pulls her hand back before he can clasp his teeth in her palm, and adjust the bag on her shoulder. Garrus is the last and the hardest to say goodbye to.

"War is coming again," Shepard murmurs into his ear before stepping back. She doesn't know what's left to fight about-it should have all ended eleven years ago. "Soon."

Shepard makes it onto the shuttle before she drops her head into her hands and groans. This is the only concession she allows for fear and misery before she focuses on the issue at hand. Kaidan looks exhausted, but otherwise no different from the last time she saw him.

"It's been a bit, hasn't it?" she asks.

"Yeah, I guess it has."

They both shift awkwardly.

"Look," Shepard says, exhaling. "I'm sorry I punched you. I'm sorry for throwing you out."

Shepard shifts again, tucking her hands under her legs. "And I'm, uh, I'm sorry for...saying I wish I stayed in a coma."

"I'm sorry for punching you back. And for, you know, not telling you about donating my sperm. Didn't know they'd mix it up," Kaidan scowls and sighs, both self-consciously. "It was kind of embarrassing. It still is. I'm also pretty sorry for saying that you were better off...dead."

"I think we can forgive each other."

"I hope so. I was...pretty drunk. I mean, Elysium."

"So was I," Shepard says humorlessly. "Let's just not ever have that conversation again."

"God, no," Kaidan says vehemently. He pauses, his face softening a little. The exhaustion falls to the wayside. "Do you have any pictures of her?"

"Yeah," Shepard says, keying up her omnitool, and they both hunch in silence over the pictures of Jas.

"You said she charged?"

"Yeah. Sneezed and blew backwards into the dirt. Gave me a coronary."

"Wow. She's incredible."

"Yeah," Shepard says quietly. "You're telling me."

Jas in the images is flat and small. The pictures are blown up twice the size, and the poor quality washes out her scabs and skin to the same blotchy pixellated brown.

"Her hair."

"I know, I don't know where it came from."

"It's so red."

"Yeah, which I thought was a recessive gene. Weirder things have happened, I guess."

"Wow," Kaidan whispers, then, "wow."

Shepard gives him a moment to collect himself. She supposes she can understand. It's not every day a guy finds out that his former superior officer is accidentally the mother of his child, and not even in the fun way. It's definitely not everyday that same guy gets socked so hard in the jaw by his former superior officer that he is knocked flat on his ass and stays unconscious for three hours.

"Lucky I got your six while you're staring out the shuttle window like an idiot," Shepard says casually, leaning back against the seat and putting her elbows up on the top of the cushion. She isn't wearing any armor, which means there's actually enough space to fit her arms up there. "Keeping an eye on you, for once."

Kaidan gets touchy when anyone references his helicopter mom behavior around Shepard. He says it isn't his fault, it's just that she died twice when he wasn't around, so maybe if he sticks around, it won't happen again.

"Don't even," he says, but there's no sting to it. He's still soft around the eyes. Jas doesn't look much like either of them, beyond Shepard's hair and Shepard's nose, but Kaidan says,

"I think she has my eyes."

"I'm not sure," Shepard says with a shrug. She's amused and fond, but more than ready to change the subject. "So. Where are we off to today?"

"Citadel first. You've got an advisory meeting and then I'm supposed to escort you to lunch with some ambassador."

"So I have a meeting and then we're disappearing for three hours."

"Yeah, sounds about right."

The shuttle ride is peaceful as it ever gets with Normandy crew. Nothing explodes, but there is a minor incident with the electrolysis systems. Shepard blames it on a Tuesday and leaves it at that. Citadel security escorts them through back ways carved out of old Keeper tunnels, footsteps rattling off the high ceilings. Shepard pulls her arms in close, wishing for her armor and thankful for the chakram launcher slung across her back. The air is cold and heavy in here. She would rather be out in the crowded Citadel proper, even with the security cordon and the news cams and the tight press of strangers. This is all part and parcel of the process of finding herself again, though, so she forces herself through the chilly empty air and the sting in her nose that feels like the beam up to the Citadel.

She wants Garrus on one side and Javik on the other, armor as heavy as her own body and a clanking stride on the tile. None of this feels right, no matter how often she does it. Shepard is not meant to be a civilian, and definitely not one in fancy clothing that would tear at the first sign of a punch in the chest. Shepard is used to durability, unyieldingness.

The Council meeting is as dead-dull as ever until the last twenty minutes, when human business is finally addressed and Elysium is brought up.

"Who knows how many ships these insurgents may have?"

"With these kinds of capabilities, and what they would cost, I'm thinking not a lot," Kaidan says. Shepard knows he isn't actually supposed to be there, but she likes having his support. "This is all experimental tech, all jammed together. It probably doesn't work very well, either, I don't know."

"We can't bank on that," Shepard says. "I mean, if we get really lucky, we'll find the sorry bastards and their tech will explode and kill them before I have to. But if they're going to glass my goddamn planets, I'm rooting every last one of them out. What do we know?"

"Only what Antarius told you," the turian councilor says.

"I'm going to need to be reinstated again," Shepard says.

"Done."

"Quicker than I expected. Time to get started," Shepard says, getting to her feet.