[A/N: Just read through the last chapter with a fresh set of eyes, and honestly I don't know what is going on with my sense of sentence structure at the end there. Sincerest apologies. I'll try to go back and edit when I can. Thanks for your enduring patience. I'll have to consider getting a beta reader at some point, but I think that will probably interfere with my updating schedule so I will see how I manage over the next few chapters.

We've got a bit of a time-skip here, a little over a year has passed. The council's new space station, Persephone, is nearing completion and replaces the Citadel in orbit of Widow. I'm imagining a very deathstar-like construction. Big, planet-sized, and well defended. Shepard and Garrus are now married, and Shepard-Vakarians have just moved into their very own base on Horizon, known as Prometheus.

This chapter is going to be a lot of short paragraphs from various points of view as they get to know the base, and we'll be meeting a couple of O.C.s here too. Bit of a token chapter, just to ease into our new environment rather than flooding you with details next instalment.]

Shepard

Touching down on Horizon, Shepard wanted to kiss the dirt. This was home now. Fresh soil beneath her feet. Trees, grass and flowers growing. No trace of Cerberus, who had defiled this planet in the facility they named Sanctuary, no trace of the Collectors, who had come before them. This, she thought as she took a deep breath of fresh air, is what hope smells like. This is what we've been fighting for. Hauling little Juno up into her arms, she looked up at the home they had been built. It was bigger than the others on the base, designed in the style of an old British manor house, ideal for entertaining. The long driveway rolling up to it wasn't quite what she had in mind, but she supposed it would sufficiently impress visiting dignitaries.

Walking inside and looking around, she found the interior was still minimalist and desperately in need of decoration. She carried the little girl upstairs and placed Juno down in the cot in her room, and much to Shepard's surprise, the little girl laid down to sleep. She tucked her in and whispered, "Sleep tight, sweetheart." before blowing her a kiss and leaving the room. Downstairs, she set herself to work unpacking. At least she could do something to make the large house feel like a home.

She had already started hanging photographs on the living room wall when Garrus came in, another crate of items from their cabin in his arms. "How could we possibly have stored so much stuff in such a small room?" He groaned.
Shepard chuckled, taking the box from him. "We have a child. Children always end up with a shocking amount of stuff."

Mark Babineaux

It was certainly unusual to have been recommended for the Spectre program. He'd served a number of years in the Alliance Special Forces as a young man, and now as he was nearing his forties settling down on Earth, watching his brother's kids grow up around him, he was nominated for the job he'd dreamed of for a lifetime, but had never actually thought would come. Horizon didn't look anything like he'd imagined it when listening to the news reports or watching the vids of the Collector attacks. It looked peaceful. A lot like Earth, actually. That, he found surprisingly comforting. He headed for the barracks with renewed determination in his step.

Lantar Sidonis

It felt strange, landing on Horizon. The planet, while by no means untouched by the Reaper War, was surprisingly free of lasting damage. The few people who had come here at the time of the war were subject to indoctrination experiments by Cerberus, and thus there wasn't anything to attract the attention of the Reapers when they came. What was even stranger, was knowing that he'd been selected as part of the new Spectre training program, after everything he had done. His cowardice on Omega should have been enough to get his name crossed off the roster as soon as it appeared. He was sure this must have been an oversight, and didn't expect to stay long. However, as he looked around the base, and found his room in the newly built training barracks, he found himself wishing he could never leave. Atonement felt like it was within his grasp at last.

Cera Henderson

Grabbing her sea-bag and jumping off her shuttle, Henderson looked around anxiously. Being selected as a spectre candidate was scary. She'd only served a few short years in C-Sec and most of that had been spent doing fairly mundane beat work. A little bit of assisting in investigation, but nothing that made her stand out a great deal, until Udina had attempted his little coup. She'd found herself in a corridor with Cerberus troops coming towards her, and had taken out a number of them with her side-arm before being overwhelmed. She'd also been the one to administer first-aid to a few of her colleagues saving a couple of lives. That was the extent of her heroism, though, so she really wondered why she was here...

Kaidan Alenko

Looking around the base, Kaidan considered that giving up his role as a Spectre may have been a mistake. The place was certainly beautiful compared to how Horizon had looked when he'd last been here, during the Collector attacks. He still regretted the things he said to Eloisa that day, but at least now things were more comfortable between them. He'd never have her back as more than a friend, but as the days passed, and they finally got to know each other again, he realized that it could be enough. She'd been right when she said they hadn't been meant to be together. Maybe they could still find a place in each others lives. Maybe, just maybe, he'd even love again.

He watched the recruits filing off various shuttles and heading towards the barracks. There were 23 recruits in total this cycle. Kaidan estimated about 10 of them might make it through the training Shepard and Garrus had planned. He spotted a few humans huddling together instinctively, they probably weren't going to make it through, the tendency to stick only with your own species would definitely go against them in the challenges the next few weeks held. Same with a few Turians, another few Asari, although they would naturally do better at mixing due to their innate curiosity about other species. On the outskirts, he spotted the more promising candidates, carefully looking around, judging the situation, weighing up what they could see of the other candidates personalities.

He spotted a young human women he recognized as a C-Sec officer. She'd always been exceptionally polite when he'd walk past her back on the Citadel. Yeah, he thought, smiling to himself, I hope she makes it through.