10/11/13-Fixed with line breaks! Thank god. Forgot to fix the formatting from the AO3 to .

Sometimes it seems like three days is long enough for the universe to blow to pieces when you're gone. That sounds really stupid now that I've typed it out, but this isn't the Normandy. I got spoiled having everyone around all the time. Vidcalls aren't the same thing at all. A picture on a screen won't take my hand when its crossing the street. I still think that's really cute, you know. You're this big badass that eclipses everyone around you and you won't cross the street without holding someone's hand. Is that a human childhood thing? I thought you didn't even grow up on a planet, in which case, where do you pick up something like that?

Three days is way long enough for the universe to blow to pieces especially when I am involved which is not a reason to tease me and if you mention the fish I will come home and I will kill you after I give you a very thorough hello. Three days is long enough for me to hunt some sorry bastard to this god forsaken planet in the middle of fucking nowhere even in space which is all the middle of fucking nowhere just so I can put a chakram between his eyes and watch his head go up like the Fourth of July. Three days is not very long subjectively when you are as brilliant and as clever as I am that is a joke but also somewhat serious because I missed doing this Garrus this is what I am good at this is what is going to keep me going because I have been waiting and waiting for something to happen but nothing ever does so I am going to hunt down something and blow it up and when I come home we are going to have a very long talk about your lack of knowledge of life on a human ship.

Typing with Henry in my lap isn't fun. He likes to help with the keys, which surprises me, because I didn't think Henry liked anything. How did we end up with such weird kids? I keep waiting for your terminal to say "this hurts you" when I push the letters and the minute it does I'm launching it into the sun. I see your typing hasn't gotten any better. Nora, when you were a kid, did you not have to go to school? Did you teach yourself English? Is that why you're a digital motormouth? I'm so glad I came with you from C-Sec. If I didn't, I would never know what it's like to share a bed with a bloodthirsty madwoman. Pretend I have my eyes on the back of your vicious little head. You never miss when I have your six.

You're my old man Vakarian of course I'm going to pretend you're watching my super cool new helmet because this one has runner lights along the edge and they're a real nice teal I think you would appreciate. That is the most juvenile thing I have said since I was fifteen years old and it is once again your fault. We hit insurgents today and fucked around with their files (etc etc I am a wizard with an omnitool this is an accepted fact) and they have a mysterious figure for a leader which means its probably someone I shot in the leg twenty years ago or something who knows maybe its another clone oh god I take that back. If there is a merciful god which I think my life is evidence there is not then it is not another clone. I miss you more every time you email me but at least when I'm out trying to kill the worst of the world then I'm not home strangling you because I had a nightmare and if leaving sometimes is the price of keeping us both safe and alive that is a price I would pay. I would pay any price for that. Give everyone kisses but not the embarrassing kind so no tongue and tell them Commander Mom will see them as soon as she can which frankly is not soon enough and also too soon. It's nice being able to shower alone.

I didn't mean to take two days to answer you but you know how it is with these little monsters sometimes. Vahan is growing real teeth now-almost three months early, let me tell you-so it's probably a good thing you left when you did. He's been chewing on me. I can't say I've been enjoying it but you'd enjoy it even less. The vid I sent you this morning is Jas attempting swimming, I don't know if you've seen it yet. You know those creepy bugs you showed me in London before the final push, the ones that walked on top of the puddles? That's what she reminds me of. No one warned me that biotic children might choose to skitter over the water instead of in it. She wants me to swim with her, but I said no, on the crazy idea that she might not want to see me drown.

Come to the Citadel as soon as you can there are ticket vouchers attached please just get here as soon as you can because you're not fucking going to believe this.

The kids don't make shuttle travel easily. Jas is a pleasure, even when her drive for attention leads to blatantly fake histrionics in the middle of the terminal and it sets off a dozen other children. She can corral Henry and she's big enough to carry him for a bit on her back, one of the only ways he'll consent to move when he isn't drugged up the gills on his meds, while Garrus is trying to balance an extremely active and athletic infant on one side and the various accoutrements of traveling with children on the other side.

"I'm about to strap you three to my chest and sprint down the runway," Garrus says conversationally to Vahan as he waits at the final security check point. He thinks he can see Kaidan out past the airlock, which means Shepard won't be far away, if she's on the Citadel yet. Vahan makes a happy yowling noise, throwing himself to the side and nearly falling out of Garrus' grip. He wants to stick Vahan in his cowl, but then Henry will want to and so will Jas and he wouldn't be surprised if Vahan threw himself out of the cowl, too. He doesn't like to hold still.

"Stroller, Daddy," Jas says, holding Henry tightly to her side with a grip on his upper arm. Henry lolls his head a little. "Should've brought one."

"That's not a bad idea," Garrus says. "Know what we could have put in the bottom of it?"

"Snacks."

"Well, yeah, but what else?"

"...More snacks?"

"Yeah, that too."

"Guns?" Jas asks, tipping her face up. She usually looks sweet and round faced in the vague way that all human children do to Garrus, but now she has a miniaturized version of Shepard's bloodthirsty expression. It's a little unnerving. Jas isn't a violent child. Garrus knows that Shepard doesn't want any of the kids to be overly encouraged into any one field, but he can't help the way he was raised. It seems unnatural not to emphasize duty and service, which they do, but not in the kind of way that would lead to enlistment.

"Yeah," he says. "Don't tell anyone, but I'm wearing four."

"I'm wearing five," Jas says, a little viciously, but then she smiles enormously and like that the aggression is gone. "Six! Because I put one on Henry. I have so many guns, Daddy."

The terminal security doesn't look pleased by the conversation, but the line is moving and they're through the checkpoint. Jas releases Henry and hurls herself at Kaidan, who looks more than a little pole-axed for a moment before swinging her up. Garrus knows he's going to have to have a talk with Kaidan and Shepard at some point and he really isn't looking forward to it. Henry staggers forward a little.

"Kaidan," Garrus says, shaking the man's hand and awkwardly lifting Henry to the side of his torso not balancing bags. Kaidan's grip isn't as tight as it usually is.

"Garrus."

"How've you been?"

"Doing alright. C'mere, I got a skycar. Watch your step, kid, I don't care if you think you can catch yourself. Whoops, up you go. How are you doing? Didn't you see Liara? How's she?"

"Put your shoes back on, Jas."

The highlight of the trip had been Jas taking her shoes off for the x-rays, then wandering through the scanner like a tiny businesswoman while security tried to herd her back through. She puts her shoes back on, hunching over at a weird angle around Henry, then returns to slumping against Kaidan's side. Kaidan tips his torso to make her more comfortable.

"We're fine," Garrus says, counting off heads to make sure no one wandered off. "Liara's doing well. She and Javik have been fighting a lot lately, so she stayed with us a few days. It was pretty nice."

"We should try to get everyone up here."

"I like the idea," Garrus says, pulling Henry onto his lap so he can't wriggle to the ground. "Did Nora tell you we're moving to the Citadel?"

"She mentioned it, yeah. Need help with anything?"

"Just get your sorry ass there, Alenko."

"Haha, yeah, okay, I can do that. You talked to Jacob lately? Shep's birthday is in a few weeks, I guess."

Garrus counts back. Shep Taylor's going to be twelve.

"Haven't spoken to him, but we'll probably have a gift for the kid."

"Yeah, and Wrex has a whole pack by now. We're going to have some killer parties."

Henry wriggles and kicks, still not using his words, until Vahan takes one of his hands and the little monster stills. Human children are so obviously not prey animals. They're loud and weak. Turians hadn't been prey animals in quite a long time, ever as far as anyone can tell, but turian children are quiet and at least smart enough to roll under things if you put them on the floor. That's just plain sense.

"How many does he have?" Kaidan asks, adjusting Jas a little. She's dozing off, not entirely asleep, but with a slackness around her mouth like Shepard does when she's been in the shower too long.

"Dozens," Garrus says.

"Got his own football team, I guess."

"His own biotiball team, probably, too."

"He got biotics?"

"One or two, I think?" Garrus shrugs. "Just by sheer numbers, probably."

"I heard a krogan can lay up to a thousand eggs at once."

"Oh, hell," Garrus says. "That's way too many of the little bastards. The galaxy won't be able to hold that many tiny Wrexes."

Kaidan swings the skycar up against mooring, waiting for the magnets to lock into place, and opens the top. Most places on the Citadel have dedicated parking, but this area of the Presidium has mind-blowing amounts of traffic and all the space is at a premium. The skycars all have to hover over the Presidium and the people in them take ramps down to the Presidium proper. Vahan goes noisily into Garrus' cowl, Kaidan takes Henry, and Jas pinballs between their hands like a dervish. The crush is incredible up here, but the crowd thins the closer they get to Council housing, where the Councilors and their guests stay. Shepard is supposed to be waiting for them there.

"I shouldn't even be back here right now," she says first thing when they all stagger into the apartment, staring at the five of them wild-eyed. She's pacing impatiently, but pauses to swoop down and offers hugs.

"It's good to see you too, honey," Garrus says.

"Hi, baby," Shepard says to Henry, tapping his nose. To Garrus, she retorts, "You really aren't going to believe this. You'll understand why I'm distracted."

Jas tears free of Kaidan's hand, charging across the room like a miniature vanguard and crashing into Shepard. Shepard flings her arms around Jas, lifting her and whirling around a few times, before regaining her balance and setting Jas back on her feet.

"Jas!" Shepard says.

"Mama!" Jas says.

"Does Vahan-" Shepard starts, sees Vahan's tremulous stare over Garrus' cowl, and snaps her mouth shut. "Right."

Shepard looks good, with a haircut and armor buffed out. It's like the last decade's rolled back and she's about to throw a husk off a bridge.

"Can you-" Shepard says to Kaidan, who bustles the kids and their stuff out to a Council-recommended nanny and comes back with the brusque efficiency of a man used to being told what to do and relieved to return to form.

"It's the clone," she says, the minute the door's swung shut and it's the three of them. "She's back. I don't think she ever really went anywhere."

"Of course," Garrus says with a sigh. "It's never Cerberus with you."

Shepard snickers.

"Not at all," she says. "But are you actually surprised?"

"No."

"Get it now, though?"

"Oh, yeah."

Shepard rolls her shoulders, a quick smooth motion that clinks her guns together. She pauses, looking a little awkward, and looks briefly over her shoulder as if to scold the guns for drawing attention to themselves.

"I've been working with a salarian. I guess she's on a fast track for Spectre nomination herself and hunting down this insurgency with me is going to be like Eden Prime the first time was for me," Shepard says, shifting her feet restlessly. "She's quick as a whip but not very good in organized maneuvers, so I think she'll work with us just fine."

"I didn't bring my armor," Garrus says. "Not that I was in a panic or anything, but it sort of slipped my mind."

"I can hook you up," Kaidan says. Garrus doesn't doubt it. True enough, Garrus is suited up before the hour is gone. Shepard takes her chakram launcher apart and cleans the insides at least twice while waiting.

"Excellent timing," Shepard says when the door begins to whir and opens after a moment. Even the doors on the Presidium are more sophisticated. Doors in the Wards don't have anything more than basic biometric identifiers. The one leading into the room has, among other things, DNA collators, voice scans, retinal identifiers, and neural mapping.

"Nevyan Giyadas," the salarian in the doorway says. "Assuming you were wondering who I am, because I know who you are, Vakarian, sir."

"Unnecessarily polite, though," Garrus says. "I'm retired. Vakarian's fine. Vakarian, sir, is appreciated, but all you're doing is stroking my aging ego."

"Oh, I know," Giyadas says. "But it's a simple way of finding out what you prefer to be called."

"Salarian social courtesies are going to make my head hurt," Shepard says brusquely. "It would have been easier to just ask him, Giyadas."

"Yes, but then I wouldn't know how likely you are to respond to his name, Commander. Don't worry about it. You wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't being obtrusive on purpose."

"Christ," Shepard says, massaging her forehead. If this is what she's been dealing with for the last week, Garrus is surprised she doesn't have a throbbing vein as well as a headache.

"Tell us what you've got on the ships, because I know you've found something while you were gone," Shepard says. In most cases, this would sound like a threat. In this case, it's a safe assumption. Salarians make it their business to know what's going on.

"Details," Giyadas says. "The magnetic field generators are human, which was a surprise, because I didn't think humans could do much of anything that would be picked up over another option, but then I suppose there wasn't another option. I'll need to look into that. Salarian plasma weaponry, which was not a surprise, that's proprietary tech that hasn't even left homeworld labs."

"So she's been to Sur'Kesh."

"Looks like it."

"My clone went to Sur'Kesh and all I got was this lousy terrorist group," Garrus says. "How much power do their ships need? Where are they getting it?"

"Abandoned orbital stations," Shepard says. "Lot of 'em hanging around still. Weren't worth the effort of clearing them out if there was no one living there."

"The magnetic fields guide the plasma to the surface. It's all automated through the ship's computers. The little programming we've-the Commander, mostly-has scraped is like nothing I've ever seen before, it's incredibly complex," Giyadas says. Garrus isn't anything like an expert on salarian body language, but Giyadas looks like she's caught up in a revelation, like Mordin in his lab or Shepard in the field. "The field collapses on impact and the plasma detonates. It's kind of like a nuclear explosion, actually, but on a huge scale. The pyroclastic surge can burn for weeks. Look at Elysium. It's been, what, three weeks? A month? It's still burning. And the ash and debris will take decades to clear. Elysium's looking at a hundred years of impact winter, without serious terraforming efforts."

"Fascinating," Garrus says. Shepard shrugs.

"We know they need a stable power source," Shepard says. "And in any case, we've tracked them to a cell on Shanxi."

"Hilarious," Kaidan says.

"Significant colonies," Shepard says. "Like Antarius said. Eden Prime, Shanxi, Elysium, Horizon, all of Sol system, even."

"What are we talking for casualties on Elysium?" Garrus asks, morbidly curious.

"Billions," Giyadas tells him. "Nearly the entire post-war population was obliterated."

"Seems kinda funny now, that my dad thought they were batarian," Garrus says. "Not ha-ha funny, fuck-this funny."

Shepard gives him a look. She isn't disagreeing.

"Right. We're leaving in a few hours."

"Normandy?"

"Hell, yes."

Shepard in action is still a brilliant maniac, even a decade later. She's still in her physical prime, stocky and muscular, with the biotics that first made her notable after Akuze and the gleeful headlong rush into danger that made her famous. Garrus is glad to see it. The post-war Shepard would never have moved like this, even if she'd been able to stump her way into a combat zone. She hasn't Garrus' aim, but she is utterly content to bolt ahead of him into cover and sling mercenaries sky high.

Shepard goes belly behind a crate. Biotics aren't exactly like telepathy or anything, but they do give her a very fuzzy sense of how large the warehouse they're in is, and she's well practiced at turning that indistinct sixth sense into real numbers. The ceiling is vaulted-somewhat unusual for a warehouse, but then this isn't just a warehouse, and there are platforms all over the place up there. There are a few very large objects on the other side of the building, out of sight behind construction equipment and cruisers, lumbering around. There are a few dozen people as well, but their motion is faster than the big objects, making it a little harder to pin down a specific number.

She flips signs above her back: snipers, tractor-maybe-truck, soldiers, listen closely. She hasn't used standard military hand signs in probably twenty five years. She finds they don't have the kind of nuance that her brand of missions often need. When you need to know if it's a solder, a mercenary, or a husk, enemy just doesn't have the same panache. The people with her need an idea of what to expect; obviously there are enemies ahead if they're in enemy territory, but what kind of armor are they packing? Do they have the easily-jammed weapons of the really cheap mercenaries, or are they slow and unpredictably jerky like husks? Are they paramilitary, with the kind of weapons and heavy explosives that even Shepard can't take a direct hit from? Are they actual military, meaning some jurisdictional line has been crossed in the worst kind of way? Shepard hears the very soft spit of static from the back of her helmet. Garrus, acknowledging his orders, and the same from Giyadas a moment behind.

This is the first time Giyadas has gone out with Shepard, but she trusts her to have the necessary flexibility to keep up. STG isn't full of idiots. Shepard rolls to the side, hitting the edge of the crate. Garrus drops a man before he can turn at the clinking. Shepard pulls the body behind the crate with her, rolling until her back hits the wood and she's sitting partially upright. She examines his armor. It's midgrade, nondescript, with red piping very similar to Shepard's own. It's not an uncommon touch, since Shepard has the most iconic armor in the galaxy, but it only confirms what they already know.

Shepard drops the body and and returns to the edge of the crate, bellying ahead to one a few feet forward. The warehouse has a slow perimeter guard; one only passes by every twenty minutes. Shepard clicks her tongue. Sloppy. She'd expected better from her clone.

Getting in isn't difficult. There's a good three hundred feet of warehouse before there's any kind of choke point, all of it littered with decent cover and poorly armed mercenaries. Shepard swings herself up into the riggings of a half-assembled zero grav crane. She goes stiff with shock, and the only thing that keeps her from falling is the rigging.

There are six brutes wandering around the other side of the warehouse, nervous looking humans darting around underneath them. No wonder the warehouse is understaffed.

Shepard reaches behind her back and very slowly, she begins to form signs she hasn't needed in more than a decade. Reaper-brute-six-caution-prepare to move-fire at will. The acknowledgement static is much longer coming this time. As the shock clears, Shepard's nerves start to frazzle. It's a battlefield, which is nothing new, and she at least has Garrus, but Nevyan Giyadas was born fifteen years too late to have any idea what to do with Reaper forces. Shepard can only continue to trust that she's flexible enough to keep up. She thinks maybe she should have brought Kaidan instead.

She lights up a warp bubble as Giyadas begins shooting. When Giyadas had insisted on bringing a grenade launcher as large as she was, Shepard had balked, but now Shepard's glad Giyadas had a fit. She doesn't know what else Giyadas could bring to bear against a brute otherwise.

"Jump to one side if any of them charge at you," Shepard snaps over the comm. There's no time for signals, and their cover is blown. She sets up a singularity and launches a warp at it, sending two brutes reeling at the explosion. "Brutes move in a straight line."

"Got it!"

Shepard fires off a shockwave, rolling to the side, and ends up pinned against the crane staring down three brutes.

"Any minute now, darling!"

She hears acknowledgement static and then the tiny head of the nearest brute explodes. She whips three lift grenades at the next, and by then the third is too close for much of anything but trying not to be knocked aside. Shepard makes a valiant attempt, but she winds up winded on her back, groping for her pistol. The brute slams its knuckles down on either side of Shepard. She fishes harder for her pistol, hands gone shaky, and pries it off her leg. The brute screams and knocks it away.

"Shit," she says faintly, staring up at it. Her biotics sputter like a dying lighter and then she tears it apart with the strongest warp she's ever produced. Dizzy and suddenly starving, she twists onto her stomach, searching for Giyadas. Giyadas looks like she's having the time of her life, firing downwards off of a brute's corpse into a cluster of scientists. Shepard swears she can hear manic laughter. A woman after her own heart, that salarian. Garrus starts his mop up. Shepard pushes herself up onto hands and knees, then up onto hands and feet, fighting through physical therapy flashbacks. She surges fully upright, staggering forward, and stands in place like the biggest idiot in naval history until Giyadas bolts to her side.

"Look at that, Commander," Giyadas says. "I think we just experienced hell."

"You have no idea," Shepard says, continuing her search for granola bars. She knows there's a few in her armor. Biotics have ridiculous caloric needs and they need to be spare in a hot combat zone. It's been drilled into her since basic and then she still went and pulled that idiot warp stunt when Garrus no doubt was lining up the shot. She digs one out of her weapons webbing, tears off the wrapper, and devours it in about half a second. Her head stabilizes after a minute. She eats another just to be safe.

"Shepard," Garrus says, putting his hand on her shoulder. She looks back at him.

"I know," she says. They nod at each other. Time to get to it.

Shepard leads the way around the bodies-mostly human, but an asari here and there-and up the narrow flight of stairs at the very back of the warehouse. There's an overseers office at the end of the hallway where, predictably, Shepard's clone is sprawled lazily across an office chair. The clone whirls a few pens through the air with her biotics and leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees.

" I go by Noreen these days," the clone says, sounding faintly amused. Shepard frowns. She honestly doesn't think it will ever not be strange hearing her own voice, her own tones. She's no doubt the clone knew what she was thinking. They're not entirely the same, after all, but there's certainly plenty in common.

"Reaper forces?" Shepard demands. Garrus stands at Shepard's six. Giyadas moves to block the doorway, swinging her enormous grenade launcher up to her shoulder.

"It's for our new stage production."

Shepard wants to knock the wry smirk off the clone's face with her forehead.

"You're honestly going to try and tell me that the terrorists we spent the past two weeks chasing from the Citadel to here were in fact just some actors practicing for their new play?"

"Well, yes, ma'am, I suppose I am."

Shepard swears the clone is leering at her. She's not going to rise to the bait. She lines up a shaky singularity, then deep-sixes it, muttering. Still too dizzy to risk any biotics, even the non-flashy kind. The clone's grin grows.

"You really have no idea what you're stepping to, do you?" she asks. "You still think this is just about me glassing some planets. Think about it, Nora. Who would you be without all your rules? What are you capable of?"

Shepard's grip on her temper, already on rocky ground from repeated Reaper force knocks and low blood sugar, goes completely slack. She charges across the room and headbutts the clone.

"I think Wrex felt that one," Garrus says. His voice is muffled by the helmet, but Shepard can hear his amusement. She staggers around for a second, knocked for a loop.

"Call for pickup," she says shakily. "I need to go throw up."

Shepard spends most of the shuttle flight back to the Citadel with her head between her knees. Garrus keeps his hand on her shoulder and makes comforting noises, but she knows he's still deeply amused that she almost knocked herself out headbutting her clone. She doesn't say anything. Shepard's making notes of all the things that don't fit: it was far too easy to find the clone, the warehouse's suspiciously helpful setup, the clone came easy by Shepard's standards, brutes in a warehouse almost twenty years after the war. She doesn't know how to match any of these puzzle pieces to the planetary glassing, or to all of the connections the clone would need to pull any of it off. Quarian techs, proprietary salarian technology, human ships, Reaper forces: her head starts to spin again, worse than before. Trying to puzzle it out with a vicious concussion isn't going to help.

Who is Shepard without all of her rules? She has had, her entire life, responsibility and ethics and duty drilled into her. She is a soldier all the way down, and she's well aware that she's unmatched by any other human being in existence. There was no one else who could have pulled off the Reaper war the way that she did, and the idea of that kind of potential-that force, that drive, that charm and courage-unbounded by Shepard's morality is terrifying to comprehend.

The kids are waiting at terminal, all four of them. Jas is blissfully asleep on Grunt's shoulder, slung across his upper body in a fireman's hold. Henry, for a pleasant change of pace, is on his feet, and Vahan is peacefully dozing in his carrier. Some part of Shepard cracks in relief, and under the concussion and the bruising and the metabolic spike, the warrior settles back to sleep. Shepard lifts Henry to her chest, tucking her nose into his hair, and breathing in his baby smell.

"Hey, guys," she says. Garrus presses his forehead briefly to hers, and then sets to the business of corralling several very sleepy people into Kaidan's skycar.

"What went on?" Kaidan asks, looking up into the rearview to see Shepard.

"Nothing much," she says. She leans over, sighing deeply, and rests her head against Garrus. He hands her a granola bar. She eats the granola bar. "Debrief later. I need a nap. Half hour."

"Yeah, we'll see."

She ends up sleeping for most of the next twenty-seven hours, with most of the family tucked in bed as well. Even Vahan gives up chewing long enough to sleep on Shepard's belly for a few hours. When she wakes up, the world is still rocking, and Kaidan is nowhere to be found for a debrief. That's alright. She wants to spend some time with her kids. They're growing real fast these days.

Henry is yowling again, snapping his flat little teeth into Grunt's arm and screaming his displeasure when Grunt doesn't start bleeding. Jas plucks at Shepard's shirt, struggling to be heard over the baby, until Shepard takes Henry and settles him on her hip.

"Henry wants to be you, mama," Jas says insistently. "I got to first and then you come home so he didn't get to."

Shepard gives Grunt a long, measuring look. A krogan would know something about not fitting, she thinks, about being an aimless and furious piece in a poorly shaped puzzle. Small Henry, who has never found a part of the world that doesn't make him miserable, might even at his age find something in common with that. She nods, swinging her old N7 helmet off the shelf with one hand and offering it to the toddler on her hip. God bless Kaidan's sentimentality.

"Want to wear mama's helmet, badass?" she asks him.

"Yeah," he says indistinctly. "Plee."

"Here we go," she says, setting him on his feet, waiting till he catches his balance, then settling the helmet over his head. It tips backwards, bringing the nosepiece up under his eyes, so that all she can see is blue eyes and a tiny fringe of red hair. Henry staggers around to face Grunt, grasping at the helmet to bring it down, and charges. He belts out a yowl in his reedy little baby voice, thocking his helmet against Grunt's forehead, wobbling, and falling flat on his ass.

It takes an effort, but Shepard doesn't yank Henry back to his feet. She watches him struggle for a few moments, grunting and kicking his legs like a grounded beetle, before he rolls over, adroitly shoves the helmet off, and gets to his feet. This is the first time she's ever seen Henry get up by himself; is it the last surgery, or is he thinking like a krogan? Shepard suspects she'll never know. Grunt swings him up, chuckling boisterously though Henry doesn't shriek with laughter like Jas would. Henry hangs from Grunt's grip, staring him dead in the eyes, and bares his teeth.

"Take a bite out of me, would you?" Grunt demands. Henry widens his mouth further. It almost looks like a smile.

"Yeah," he says.

"Looks like you didn't hatch a bunch of turians after all, Shepard," Grunt says, sounding satisfied.

"Humans don't actually hatch, Grunt," she says, stepping around to clap him on the shoulder. "We burst fully formed from our mothers in a froth of blood and screaming."

"I'm not impressed."

Shepard can't help laughing. It's been a difficult few months, but some things never change.

"Hear that, squirt?" Grunt says to Henry. It's mild, compared to some of the things Shepard has heard Grunt call even the humans he likes. "I'm the older brother. I get to tell you what to do."

"Go easy on him," Shepard says. "He's not even big enough to lift a gallon of milk. Let him learn a few more words, too."

"So only one hundred miles to start with," Grunt says, tucking Henry under his arm like a football. Henry bursts into gales of laughter and Shepard's heart lightens some.