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Hey, everyone! Wow, so far the reception of Constellations is positive, which is something I'm incredibly grateful, surprised, and pleased about. In any case, I'm glad you're all enjoying it.

Seriously though, the main arc of this is almost finished, and then I'll continue this as a collection of one-shots. I have more info on all of this on my profile page, so check it out. Thanks in advance, you guys! : )

This chapter is ridiculously long, as it should be. It needs proper respect, and it makes up for the weeks between my updates (kind of). Also, I listened to "Dreams On Fire" from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack while I was writing the ending of this. It's a pretty song, altough more than a little too sappy, but it seemed to help me finish this up on a positive note. Just in case anyone was wondering what I listen to when I'm working.

Obligatory disclaimer: I blame Bioware.

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I'm shuffling through the cargo bay to the shuttle in a borrowed suit of armor. I don't know how the hell Garrus goes around wearing this shit all the time—it's really freaking heavy and none too comfortable. Maybe it's a turian thing, or maybe this armor is just too big on me.

"Be careful on the ice, Jeff," EDI says. Oh, damn; I forgot about that. Even with my braces on again for the first time in over a year, I could still end up in a cast from the waist down if I fall. And there's bound to be ice everywhere out there, worse than Noveria because Alchera's uninhabited. It sucks to be me sometimes.

Felicia appears from the elevator in her black and red armor with her breather helmet tucked under her arm like a football, with Garrus, Tali and Dr. Chakwas in tow. Did Tali decide to come with after all? No, she's probably just seeing us off. She's not wearing her new heavy-duty suit.

Dr. Chakwasis rolling a collapsible wheelchair with her. "I thought it would be a good idea to bring this with us, so you don't risk falling out there."

"I'm not that breakable anymore, Doc," I lie, eyeing the chair with contempt. I haven't needed one of those things in years. I'd rather break both my legs than use one now.

"There's no harm in bringing it," Felicia says. "We can leave it in the shuttle and get it if we end up needing it."

I keep glaring at the chair, but don't protest to it coming along for the ride. Dr. Chakwas rolls it into the shuttle and goes about strapping it into place.

Tali pulls me aside, near a heavy ammo container. She wrings her hands. Her eyes look glassy through her visor, her voice hushed. "Please don't forget to bring me something. I'd very much like a keepsake from her."

"I won't forget. Don't worry."

She nods. She makes like she's going to hug me, but decides against it. We go back to the shuttle, where Garrus is volunteering to drive and Felicia is fidgeting with her helmet's seals.

"Ready to go?" I ask.

"As I'll ever be," Felicia mutters, stepping into the shuttle. I follow suit, letting Garrus and Tali have a bit of privacy before we take off.

I kind of feel bad for them, for Tali and Garrus. I might not be his best friend or anything, but Garrus's a nice enough guy and Tali is Tali. It's hard not to like her. Other than Felicia and Gabby, Tali is the only girl I can talk tech with and not feel like a total nerd around. And, Tali's like everyone's kid sister, but with a shotgun and the most badass attack drone ever. Even if Chiktikka is pink, which isn't badass at all.

Tali gets it. She knows what it's like to be pitied and sheltered and fragile and looked down on. She knows what it's like to like someone and not have it work out over and over and over again because of some stupid physical problem that keeps everyone at a literal distance. Granted, I've had it marginally easier than she has, but she has someone to fall asleep with at night. I have EDI.

"Hey," Felicia says. "You okay?"

"Yeah." No. "Why?"

She shrugs. "You looked bummed out."

"I'm nervous," I admit. "I'm not used to the whole running around in armor thing. I'm chafing."

"You'll get used to it," she says, shrugging. It looks funny when she's wearing armor, all bulky and out of proportion. "It's not so bad after a while, you know? Besides, you have a backup option if you get too uncomfortable." She nods in the direction of the wheelchair.

"No I don't," I snap. "I'd rather suffer through a stress fracture than use that thing."

"Is your pride really worth a few broken bones and a few hours in the med bay?"

"Don't argue with him, Commander," Dr. Chakwas says. "He's impossibly stubborn."

"Really? I had no idea." Felicia says, her words dripping with sarcasm. She knows better than anyone how stubborn I can be. I'm almost as bad as she is.

I glower as forcefully as I can at her. She glares at me, only her eyes narrowing in displeasure and the rest of her face blank. We stare at each other for a minute when it occurs to me that it would be really insanely easy to make her laugh right now, so make the dumbest face I can muster. The corner of her mouth twitches, but she doesn't grin or laugh or anything. She's good.

Her face relaxes only slightly, enough hat she's not giving me the stink eye anymore. She leans forward a bit toward me and runs her tongue over her lips in that over-the-top porn star way. I start laughing despite myself. She's good.

XXXXX

I sit back in my seat with a satisfied smirk on my face. Jeff's laughing at me, and it's not his usual laugh, either; it's his nervous one. His ears turn all red like they do when he's embarrassed, and it's really obvious when he's not wearing his hat.

Actually, I had kind of forgotten what he looked like without his hat. The last time I saw him without one was years ago when I took it from him right before I got into the shuttle to the Officer Candidate School on Luna.

*#*#*#*

"So," he said. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the window. He watched the shuttle pull up to the dock. I know he was watching it because I was watching it, too.

"So," I said. "I guess this is it."

"Yeah. I guess so." He looked at the floor like it was the most interesting thing in the world. He didn't look sad, not really. Just lonely.

"I'll come and see you when I finish basic," I offered.

He nodded, his lips pressed into a fine line. I remember thinking how strange he looked unshaven, because he wasn't aspiring to be all scruffy back then.

I felt terrible for leaving him at the Academy all by himself for another year before he went off to flight school. I knew that I was the only non-relative of his that bothered to spent time with him.

He had told me about his theory—Moreau's Law, he called it—that he didn't exist in the grand scheme of things because he was a loner by nature. I told him I though it was bullshit, but deep down I knew he was right.

"First call for all cadets boarding the 0310 shuttle to the Officer Candidate School on Luna," said an annoyingly articulate VI next to the airlock. The three other cadets I was being shipped off with got up and started saying their goodbyes to their friends and family.

"I'll keep in touch, I promise," I said. I was dangerously close to crying.

The other cadets started boarding the shuttle. It meant that I had to get on soon, so I handed him my prized possession: the ignition switch from my homemade motorcycle.

"No, come on," he said, trying to hand it back to me. "I can't take this, Felicia. Keep it."

"No, I want you to have it."

"Seriously, I can't—"

"Jeff!" I snapped. He jumped at the tone of my voice. "Keep it. I want you to keep it. For old times' sake."

He sighed, but tucked it into his sweatshirt pocket. I fiddled with the end of my ponytail and looked at my feet, trying to think of something to say to him.

"Final boarding call for all cadets boarding the 0310 shuttle to the Officer Candidate School on Luna," the VI chirped.

"You should go, before it leaves without you," he mumbled.

I nodded. We hugged. I hadn't noticed how much taller he was than me; he actually had to stoop a bit to hug me. I stood on tiptoe so I wouldn't choke him. I squeezed him tightly, clutching his sweatshirt and trying to swallow the painful lump in my throat.

We pulled apart when the VI announced that I wasn't aboard yet, and that I had to be in the next two minutes before take off.

"I'll miss you," I told him, backing up to the airlock door.

"I'll miss you, too," he said. I was shocked when he took off his hat and handed it to me. "Here. I know you like this one."

That's when I started crying. I hugged it to my chest and smiled at him before I got into the airlock.

*#*#*#*

XXXXX

Felicia's been staring at me since the shuttle lifted off from the Normandy five minutes ago.

"What?" I ask. "Stop staring at me. You're really creeping me out."

"Wearing a hat all the time for ten years has given you the hat hair from hell," she says, like it's some major revelation or something.

"Fifteen years, actually," I correct her. "I started wearing them when I was fifteen."

"You look weird without one."

"So the porn star face was what, a Freudian slip?"

"A whatslip?" Garrus asks, turning around in the driver's seat. We're inside Alchera's atmosphere now, circling around and trying to find the Normandy's wreckage through the swirling snow.

Dr. Chakwas explains to him what a Freudian slip is while Felicia turns her attention to the widow. She cups her hands against the glass to cut out some glare from the cabin lights. It's strangely childlike and kind of cute, in a weird lolita sort of way.

"I see her," she whispers after several minutes. She turns around, and I can see the fog of her breath on the window. "I see the SR-1."

I lean over and look out the window. Sure enough, I see the mangled hull of my baby laying half-buried in snow. I suddenly regret coming. It hurts to see the SR-1 like this, worse than any fracture and broken bone I've ever had, worse than every time I had to listen to Felicia talk about her boyfriend, and almost as bad as when I realized that she was dead and gone.

Garrus finds a place to land in the middle of the destruction, next to what I think used to be the Mako. There's a strange, eerie blanket of silence hanging in the air as we put on our helmets and engage our personal heat units.

"Are we ready to go?" Felicia asks quietly. Her voice is loud over the comm receiver near my ear. She gets up and opens the shuttle door, and waves us ahead of her. She's hesitating, trying to hold off on having to step out into the snow.

I want to reach out and hug her or something, just to let her know that everything will be okay, but I can't seem to make my arms move that much, so I settle for putting a hand on her shoulder. She looks up at me, and I want to think she's smiling, but I can't see her mouth.

"I'm okay," she says. "This didn't seem like it was going to be so hard a few minutes ago."

"I know. Take your time." I don't tell her that I'm here if she needs me. This emotional stuff is way out of my depth.

She nods and sighs heavily before she steps out onto the ice. She loses her footing for a split second before she regains her balance. I go to follow her when she puts out her hands to me.

"This is a sheet of ice," she explains. "I don't want you to fall."

"I don't need-"

"Would you rather I get the wheelchair?"

"No, but-"

"So let me help you."

I try to ignore the twitch in my chest as I reach out and take her hands. I try to focus on not losing my footing like she did, but it's hard while I'm holding her hands. Even covered in armor, they're really small and dainty and I like the way it feels to be holding them.

Once she's sure I'm not going to fall and break my ass on the ice, she moves next to me and takes my arm the way she would if I were the one escorting her. I can't seem to find my dignity, and I'm sure I had it here a minute ago.

We start walking carefully on the ice, coming up on what was once the Mako. It's still mostly intact, but really banged up, a testament to its resilience. Garrus is staring at it. He puts his hand on one of the broken wheels.

"I didn't think anything could destroy this thing," he mutters. His voice sounds weird and distorted over the comm, more metallic and flangy than it usually is as it's processed, translated, and filtered into my helmet.

Felicia puts her head down and keeps walking us around the crash site. We pass the remnants of the CIC, where Dr. Chakwas is reading a broken datapad. It looks like she's crying.

"What is it, Doctor?" I ask. I don't want to think it's something someone wrote in the moments before they died, but I have a horrible sinking feeling that it is.

She shakes her head and hands it to me as she wanders off to have a minute of privacy. I tilt it so Felicia can read it with me, what little of it is uncorrupted. I hear her sniffle when she finishes reading it. She liked Pressly, like an uncle, she said. He was on one of the first ships that arrived on Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz, so she had known him for a while just like she had known me and Anderson before we were all assigned to the SR-1.

I tuck the datapad under my free arm. I think Tali would want this more than some bolt or a coupling. Felicia looks at the bare bones of the galaxy map, trying not to let me see her cry. I can count on one hand how many times I've seen her cry: when she went off to OCS, after she had to leave Kaiden on Virmire, and after she thought Garrus was going to die on Omega, and after the Collectors attacked the SR-2. That's it.

She sniffles again and takes a deep breath before walking us in the direction of what looks like the bridge. I pull my arm out of her grip and attempt to run up the bridge.

"Jeff!" she cries.

I keep going until I'm standing in the cockpit, behind where I used to sit. I stand there for a minute, taking in the exposed wires and the broken console, the torn and broken chair I spent countless hours in. I run my hand over the head rest. God, I miss her. The SR-2 is great and all, but she's just not the same. She isn't my baby.

*#*#*#*

"I prefer gold to silver. You know, for my medal?" Felicia appeared next to me, eyebrow raised and arms crossed. "I figured you'd recommend me for once since I pulled your, uh, boots out of the fire."

"If we present you with a medal, you'll end up sitting on a stage listening to politicians make speeches for a couple of hours," she said. "And we both know how much you love dressing up."

I shrugged. "That's a good point. They'd probably make me shave, too. I've spent the last seven weeks working on this baby. No medal's worth that."

I turned in my seat to face her. She was usually too busy playing Commander Shepard to come up the bridge to see me right after a mission. Debriefs to make, reports to be written and filed, crew members to check in on, lockers and the mess hall to restock, turianCouncil members to threaten and other Council members to reason with, missions to plan, engines to maintain, showers to take, meals to eat, coffee to chug, turians to spar with, and catnaps to take. Life, mostly. You know how it is. I do, and I still can't get used to it.

"So why don't you tell me why you're really here, Commander?"

"I missed your pretty face," she said. "Do I need a better reason?"

"Uh, yeah, actually. We don't want anyone to get the wrong idea."

She sighed. "Fine, you win. You mind if I ask you a few questions?"

I don't know what happened, but I snapped. "Oh, I can see where this is going. You did a background check on me, didn't you? I'll tell you the same thing I told the captin: you want me as your pilot. I'm not good, I'm not even great. I'm the best damn helmsman in the Alliance fleet! Top of my class in flight school? I earned that. Those commendations in my file? I earned every single one. Those weren't given to me as charity for my disease."

I knew I corssed a line when her Commander face slipped and Felicia lokked at me with wide, concerned eyes.

"What are you talking about?" she asked. I felt terrible, ashamed even, for getting so defensive over an innocent question. "Are you sick?"

"You mean-you mean you didn't know?" Until then, I had no idea that she hadn't known what was wrong with me. She never asked, and I never said anything. She knew I had trouble getting around and doing certain things on my own, and she helped me, but she didn't know why. "Ah, crap."

I explained to her the specifics of Vrolik's Syndrome. She waited until I stopped talking to say anything.

"You aren't going to break a bone flying the ship, are you?" she asked. She was leaning on the edge of my console, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

"I don't fly with my feet, Commander," I told her. She looked down, embarrassed that she even asked. "I'm fine as long as I'm in this chair. I gotta be real careful whenI get up to take a piss, though." She didn't laugh. "I can do my job bas well as anyone else on the ship. Better, actually. So don't worry about it."

She got up and got down on her knees next to me, so our faces were level. I remember thinking that she hadn't changed, still the same soft features and red lipstick, but I had never noticed how blue her eyes were. They looked like the drive core on the engineering deck. I was so distracted by her candy perfume and her eyes I was surprised to feel her arms around me. As quickly as it happened, it was over, and she was gone. And, just as quickly, I wanted her all over again, as badly as I had while we were in the Academy together.

*#*#*#*

"Jeff?"

I nearly jump out of my skin when I hear Felicia's voice behind me. She's standing on the bridge, a few feet away from me.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you like that."

"It's fine. I just didn't hear you coming. I was-"

"Reminiscing?" she asks. "I could tell."

She closes the gap between us, looking at the cockpit with the same homesick look in her eyes I know mine have. She puts her hand on the back of the chair, inches from mine.

"What were you thinking about?"

"When you came to see me after Therum," I say. "When I told you I have Vrolik's."

She shakes her head. "I forget that you used to be so breakable. You've come a long way, you know? I mean, you can walk around without your braces, save the Normandy all by yourself, handle an assault rifle..."

"EDI helped," I remind her. "I can't take full credit for that one."

"But EDI doesn't have a body," she says softly. Oh shit. "You could've fallen down and broken your leg and been taken away by the Collectors, and we wouldn't be here right now. If the Collectors got you, we couldn't have saved the crew. No one else knows how to pilot a ship. We-I can't do the hero thing without you."

"You told me that this morning." Oh shit.

"I know," she says. She puts her lhand over mine. I make myself look at our hands instead of her eyes. "I just want you to know how important you are. To the mission, to the crew. To me."

Oh shit. I don't know what to do with that. Felicia is Felicia. I'm me. We're friends. Best friends. We've known each other for years and years and I like-like her and she doesn't like like me that way. I'm her constant, and she's mine. I don't know what to do with that.

"Is this the part where we make out?" I hear myself ask before I can stop myself. "I think the helmets will get in the way."

To my surprise, she laughs. A loud, honest to god, happy laugh. "I really set myself up for that one, didn't I?"

"So we don't get to make out?" I try not to let myself look too disappointed.

"Not now," she says. "You're right. It won't be all that easy all suited up anyway."

She adjusts her grip on my hand our fingers lace together. "We'll hammer out the details later, okay?"

I'm afraid I'll say something absolutely retarded if I open my mouth now, so I nod. I can tell she's smiling.

"Come on," she says, pulling me back to the bridge. "Let's find Garrus and Dr. Chakwas and finish up here. I've had enough angst for one day."

Me, too.