I do not own Mass Effect or any of its characters or settings. Thank you for reading!


She'd definitely had too much to drink. She felt like she'd been full-contact sparring with Wrex. Naked. But she was warm, wrapped up in Kaidan's arms. She shifted and he woke with her.

"Good morning," he said with that little smile he always had when they woke up like this. She couldn't help but smile back. He leaned in to kiss her. His hand traced a slow and gentle path down her side to her hip.

"Morning," she said. "Think we have time for a leisurely start?"

He chuckled. Then he flew backwards across the room, slamming into the floor by the door. Aria T'Loak strode through the opening, her face a study in rage. She flung out a hand and her biotic lash picked Kaidan up again before he could get to his feet. One more hit like that would kill him.

Shepard woke with a start, her heart pounding. She was never going to heal if these nightmares didn't stop.

The world outside her window was barely light. How did people live with all this time to sleep and stare and contemplate? Aside from her shore leave on the Citadel, she'd been going non-stop for years. She'd never spent this much time just lying around.

And it was still going to be two weeks before she could even start her physical therapy.

And then what?

Maybe it wasn't too late to take Jack up on that offer to teach her how to be a pirate.

She had to do something. Watch a vid? Read a book? She didn't have either.

She could call someone. There were plenty of people in the galaxy that she wanted desperately to talk to. But only one she was pretty sure would be awake.

She punched in the comm code for the Normandy, and then the secondary code to send a special ping to the cockpit. If she knew Joker he would be sitting in his pilot seat and staring out at space. He always said his pain medication kept him awake. She thought it was more forgetting to take the meds that kept sleep at bay, but it was his pain to manage. She had her own now.

It took a while for him to come to the comm. But then, he really couldn't move very fast.

"Shepard," he said as he limped into the vid pick up. "I heard you woke up yesterday. I was going to call."

"You were?" That was a pleasant surprise. Kaidan said he was in a bad state. She was worried he might be upset that she'd made the call that killed Edi. If their situations were reversed she'd damn well be upset.

"Yeah, well. It's boring out here. And before he died Anderson told me to take care of you." Joker shrugged. "So. You know."

"I thought I'd be the last person you wanted to talk with," Shepard said. She should leave it alone. Not look a gift horse in the mouth. But she just couldn't leave it unsaid. "Because of Edi."

"Shit, Shepard." Joker pulled off his cap and ran his hand over his head. She'd never seen him do that. She wasn't sure he even had hair under that thing. "If Edi had been standing right next to you when you made that call she would have told you to do it. She told me about how she'd altered her self-preservation parameters or whatever. And she told me why. I'm pissed, yeah. And I won't pretend that it doesn't still hurt like a son of a bitch. But she would have wanted us both to carry on."

"She really would have," Shepard said. "Kaidan seemed convinced you were in a super depressed state."

"No, I just didn't want to talk to him," Joker said. "Dude's a fucking hypocrite. I would have thought he'd be the most understanding. I mean, you were dead for a while. He ought to know what this is like from my perspective. But he's all platitudes and awkward encouragement."

"Maybe that's what he wanted when I was dead," Shepard said. Joker snorted in derision.

"I don't know what you have to do to go from being a Lieutenant to a Major inside of three years but it doesn't involve 'getting to be at peace with what happened.'" Joker gestured quotation marks around that phrase and said it in a dippy tone. Shepard flinched.

"Ouch."

"Yeah. I mean, I'm not about to go headbutt a krogan warlord or whatever he did to deal with you being dead. I'd get splintered. But hearing him talk like that just pisses me off."

"I get that," Shepard said. She felt lighter, happier, just knowing that Joker wasn't irrevocably pissed at her. "How's it been since I went down?"

"Quiet, boring, and yet somehow incredibly dangerous," Joker said. "Did I already say quiet? Because it's way too quiet."

Probably because you got used to Edi being around and now that cockpit is just you and empty space.

"Think of it as a vacation," Shepard suggested. "Down time."

"We've had more than enough down time," Joker said. "I miss really flying. Are you thinking of your hospital stay as a vacation?"

"You make a solid point," Shepard said. "This is maddening."

"Yeah, and you just now started being awake for it," Joker said. He shrugged. "Maybe we're adrenaline junkies."

"I've known that for years. You're. . ." Shepard stopped. She'd heard something in the hall. A quiet footfall. She tried to turn her head to look but she just couldn't see that far. The lines of sight were terrible. If Zaeed ever came to visit her he'd definitely put in some booby traps. Maybe another exploding glass wall. She'd never thought that would be something she'd want.

"Whoever is there, you should just come in and say hi," Shepard said. What was she going to do, shoot them? Not today.

Feron, the drell who Liara had rescued from the old Shadow Broker and then made her second in command when she took over operations, stepped into her room. He had a data pad.

"I was going to wait until you were certainly up," Feron said, "but then I heard voices. My courier ship got here three hours early, and there is nowhere else for me to go. I was downloading hospital logs. But I would rather just be talking to you."

"How did you even get to Earth?" Shepard asked. Joker, still standing in the vid pick-up, crossed his arms and waited.

"I was at the Mars Archives when the battle for Earth began," said Feron. He stopped an arm's length away from her bed. Probably so she wouldn't feel crowded. Feron had wonderful manners. "Dr. T'Soni wanted me to triple-check to make sure there wasn't more information about what the Crucible really did. Since then I've been working mostly on the rachni problem."

"Oh, thank goodness," Shepard said. "Are you here to tell me you have a way to contact one of the queens?"

"Talking to the spiders always went soooooo well in the past," Joker muttered. Shepard ignored him, but the corner of her mouth ticked up. She felt more like her old self already.

"Something like that," Feron said. "I have worked very closely with Dr. Ann Bryson. Over comm link, of course. She wrote her dissertation on the rachni. We came up with a plan to contact the rachni queens six days ago. But Dr. T'Soni forbid me to implement it."

"You know that Shepard doesn't actually outrank your boss, right?" Joker said. "You're still going to get in trouble for this."

"I'm here for advice, actually," Feron said, glowering at Joker's image on the screen. "My priority is keeping Dr. T'Soni from being blown up by a rachni ship out there by that mass relay. Not keeping my job."

"If Liara said it was a bad idea she's probably right," Shepard said. "She's usually right."

"That's not. . ." Feron closed his eyes. Took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "She thinks it's unethical. But if you say it's the best option she'll trust your judgment. She doesn't know I'm asking you about this."

"Okay, Feron." He wanted her to make the tough call. Nothing new there. She'd fought long and hard to be the person who got to make the tough calls so she could make sure people made the right ones. "What is this plan?"

"The rachni cannot speak to us directly. Our methods of communication are too different," Feron said. "They need a receptive mind. An asari, or a krogan, or a drell. They can only speak to us through another species. As like a translator. But it looks like the translating person is completely taken over. Controlled. And for whatever reason the rachni seem to speak most often through the dead or the dying."

"I've seen that. But they can also speak through healthy people," Shepard said.

"Right." Feron nodded. "Dr. Bryson and I have found six systems where there may be a rachni queen. They tend to live underground so we can't be absolutely sure. In three of those systems I may be able to scramble a contact team. Our best shot - again, we went around and around on this - is to send in someone who can communicate with the rachni. An asari who is mentally ill, or a drell who is disconnected from the world."

Joker whistled. Feron paused and looked at him.

"Nothing, just, damn. No wonder Liara didn't like this plan." Joker shifted his weight. Standing this long had to be killing his legs. "That's a great way to get a defenseless crazy person killed."

"I have to agree," Shepard said. "What did you come up with for their safety?"

"We reasoned that no force of arms would be big enough to actually break through a rachni stronghold," Feron said. That sounded right. "So we thought a small team. Just the translator, a communications specialist, and a biotic soldier equipped with tools for a quick evacuation. If it doesn't work the best chance the team has is to escape quickly."

"You're not really considering this, Commander," Joker said.

What did she know about the rachni? She'd met two of their queens. They seemed like a pretty peaceful and noble species when you gave them a chance. Liara had said that it wasn't clear who had started those skirmishes. But the rachni had once been the biggest threat to the galaxy.

She was right to take a gamble on the krogan. And the geth. It still hurt to think about the geth. To think about Legion dying for nothing, his people killed by her hand when she struck that blow against the Reapers.

She had thought, when they were helping build the Crucible, that she was right to take a gamble on the rachni too.

If she sent mentally ill people to talk to the rachni nine people might die. Nine brave, good people. If she did nothing and these skirmishes continued then another rachni war might start. Or, hell, how many people would die in the skirmishes? What did Garrus call it? The brutal calculus of war. Except they weren't at war anymore. So should she really be thinking in terms of who to sacrifice?

No. She'd fallen prey to the arguments of fear once before. At Torfan the argument was that if they didn't wipe out the slaver base they'd be hit with another Skyllian Blitz. She'd sacrificed her team, her friends, to make sure that never happened. When the dust settled into rubble she realized she was wrong. She should have found another way.

If she could have found another way to destroy the Reapers, she would have. And even now she wasn't sure she'd made the right choice. Could they really have synthesized peacefully, organics and synthetics? Could she really have controlled the Reapers? Or was her way the only way to actually end the war?

"Let's hold your option in reserve, Feron," Shepard said. "It's a very clever idea. I'm just not prepared to sacrifice people. The rachni might still try to contact us."

"If you say so, Commander," Feron said. He hung his head. "If both you and Dr. T'Soni are against this path then it must be the wrong one."

"You had to know that wasn't going to fly," Joker said. Feron sighed.

"Thanks for coming to see me, Feron," Shepard said before Joker could get any more shots in. "Is there anything else I should know about?"

"Well, according to the hospital logs there are two people who visit you every few days." Feron pulled up his data pad. "A Steven Cortez and an Elizabeth Alenko. Mrs. Alenko has been bringing apples to the hospital staff. Now that you are awake they may become permanent fixtures. If you do not wish to see them you might want to alert hospital security."

"I think that's. . . Kaidan's mom?" Shepard frowned. She'd never met his mother. Never even seen a picture. "Why is she bringing people apples?"

"A better question is are you ready to meet the in-laws?" Joker asked. He was grinning. It was good to see him grin. But no, no she was not ready. She'd never imagined meeting Kaidan's mother. Maybe she should have. But it just hadn't ever occurred to her.

"You might want a real shirt for that meet, Commander," Joker continued with a kind of unholy glee. "Maybe you'll get lucky and she won't want to know when the wedding is. Do you think she'll have embarrassing baby photos? If she does, sent 'em to me. I could use the blackmail material."

"Can it, Flight Lieutenant," Shepard said. Did Kaidan even tell his mother about us? Why didn't I ever ask him about that?

"I should get back to my work," Feron said. He didn't look too amused by Joker. "Unless there's something else I can do for you."

"Yeah." With great effort she wrenched her thoughts back to the real issue. Rachni. "Co-ordinate with Dr. Bryson and collate reports of vulnerable and mentally ill people, particularly soldiers and travelers, who have tried to tell someone something about the rachni. If the rachni queens were reaching out before it's entirely possible that high command missed it. They don't pay much attention to folks who call them up and talk about singing colors with the spider folk."

"I will do that." Feron gave her a nod that bordered on a salute and took his leave.

"That guy is way too serious," Joker said. "Just like Liara. Think those two crazy kids ever got together back on the Shadow Broker ship? Imagine how somber that date would be."

"Not everyone is as good a time as you are, Joker," she said. That won her a laugh.

"All right, now I do want to talk to Kaidan. So I can tell him you said that. That guy is underfoot for months and then when I want to see him he's a meat-cicle. Typical."

"Did you ever track down your sister or father?" Shepard asked. Joker's good humor crumpled.

"No, but thanks for bringing it up. No news is. . . is bad news. Hey, Commander?" Joker rubbed his eyes with his hand. "I stand here much longer and my legs are gonna snap. Or at least feel like they have. I'll talk to you later."

"Yeah, later," Shepard said. I am such an asshole. "I'm sorry, Joker."

"Sure," he said, and cut the comm.

After a moment's consideration she keyed the comm unit to bring up galactic news feeds. The galaxy seemed to be moving right along. Plenty of arguments about where to send resources. That wasn't a surprise. Several mass relays were getting repaired. Most of them were a little more than a year away from completion. That wasn't very long. It just felt like forever because she wanted to get her people home now.

The real surprise was how much of the news focused on her. Her face stared back at her from the screen in several; dozen different programs. People were discussing her past, her fight against the Reapers, where she was now. Some of it sounded borderline religious. That was super weird.

She was halfway through an extremely romanticized account of her childhood on Earth- re-enacted by a young girl who didn't look much like her - when she heard a knock at the door. Cortez was standing in the frame. He was grinning at her. And right behind him in the doorway stood a short, chubby woman whose black hair was held back from her face in an elaborate bun. She wore civvies, and she was carrying a basket of apples.

Even money says that's Kaidan's mom.

She was so not ready for this.

But she smiled and beckoned them both in.

"It's good to see you awake, Shepard," Cortez said. "This is Elizabeth Alenko. The Major's mother."

"It's nice to meet you," Shepard told her. The older woman smiled a little anxiously and set her apples down on the edge of Shepard's bed.

"It's nice to meet you, too," Elizabeth said. "I'd like to say I've heard all about you, but my son isn't the most communicative."

"Really?" She'd sort of pictured him being the type that wrote home every week. But maybe the reason he hadn't talked a lot about his family was that they just weren't that close.

Or maybe he hadn't wanted to say much when they first got together, because he thought they'd be touchy about their boy breaking fraternization regulations. They were a military family. And then she was dead. Then she was with Cerberus. Then. . . by the time they reconnected his father was MIA and his mother was on Earth during the Reaper invasion. Not a lot of time to chat.

But surely he could have brought her up to speed while they were traveling to the Omega system.

"When's the last time you heard from him?" Shepard asked. She glanced at Cortez but his smiling face wasn't giving her any clues.

"About a month ago," Elizabeth said. "He told me all about their plan to go to Omega. And he asked me to take care of you if anything happened to him."

"He asked you to what?" What could he possibly expect this pleasant, plump, middle-aged Navy widow to do for her?

"I think he was trying to give me some direction. He knows that it's been hard since his father went MIA," Elizabeth said. "And he was terribly worried for you. I take it. . . I haven't heard anything from him. Have you? I think you would hear before I would."

"He's still on Omega," Shepard said. She was relieved to have some not-as-bad-as-it-could-be news to offer. "One of the major players on that station had him and his whole team cryogenically frozen. They're being held in reserve as a bargaining chip."

Elizabeth blew out her breath and closed her eyes. Maybe in relief. Or at least in less fear. "That's something at least."

"I would never bet against the crew of the Normandy," Cortez said. "Not in any situation."

"That's a good point," Elizabeth said. She gave Shepard a speculative look. "What he did say about you was that he'd fallen in love with you. And that was why he behaved so, so recklessly after your death. But he wouldn't ever really tell me what happened with the two of you."

Well, we spent a lot of great nights together.

No.

I'm really tired, could we talk about this later?

That would just postpone the inevitable.

"We never talked much about what to call what we were." Shepard said. She'd never had to meet a lover's parents before. And she'd certainly never had to explain her actions to any kind of motherly figure. "But we were close. And given the chance I'd like to be close again."

"You guys got together on the first Normandy, right?" asked Cortez. She fought not to glare at him. He obviously didn't realize how little he was helping right now. The man was married, he'd had actual in-laws. He probably thought this was a bonding experience or something.

Elizabeth smiled and perched on one of the stools near Shepard's bed. They were settling in. Awesome.

Well, she'd wished for something to do to take her mind off things. She should have been more specific.

"Tell me the story," Elizabeth said. "Kaidan never really talked about any women, not even when he was young. Or any men. I was worried he was shutting himself off from that part of life. And I think we could all use a good romantic story right about now. All I hear about is wrecked places and people not getting the things they need."

"Ain't that the truth," Cortez agreed. He leaned against the nearest wall.

Well, why not? She could leave out all the less-dressed parts. It wasn't like she had anything better to do.

"We met the day the Normandy SR-1 left dry dock for her shakedown cruise," she said. "All the officers had to gather in the bridge to listen to Anderson's big speech. He was a legend, even then. And right beside Anderson there was this Spectre, Nihlus. . ."