"I thought you were still Alliance."

Kaidan set down his duffel just inside the front door and looked up at his dad. "I am, Dad. Nothing's changed."

Dad gave him a once-over and then cocked an eyebrow. "Oh. I'm just surprised that they're still letting you serve with all that hair."

He knew Dad was joking, despite the stern face – the old man was always good at playing serious, but he'd never quite mastered how to hide the twinkle in his eye. But Kaidan put a hand to his hair subconsciously all the same.

"Oh, leave the boy alone," said Mom as she padded down the short hallway of the condo, wiping her hands on a tea towel. "Hi, love," she added, leaning in to kiss Kaidan's cheek.

"All I'm saying is that we always had strict regs on that sort of thing, in my day. Any longer than a half-inch and you got doused with engine oil."

Kaidan chuckled. "Things are a little different now, Dad."

"Just ignore your father," Mom said flatly, taking Kaidan by the arm and leading him into the condo. "He's just jealous because he hasn't got any hair left to grow past a half-inch even if he wanted to."

Dad laughed as he opened the fridge. "Beer, son?"

"Yeah, that'd be great, Dad."

"How have you been, Kai?" Mom said, turning to face him, running a thumb over his cheek.

"Been good, Mom. Just busy."

Mom's eyebrows knit together slightly. "Is that why you haven't been here in so long?"

"Give him a break; he's a desk jockey now – that shit consumes your life."

Kaidan took the beer from Dad and they clinked the necks of their bottles together. Dad wasn't entirely wrong – Kaidan had found that time went by a lot quicker when every day was routine – but there was a lot more to it than just that. Now wasn't the time to get into it all, though, not when Mom looked so concerned.

Kaidan leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, right over the knot in her brow. "Sorry, Mom. I won't leave it so long next time."

Mom smiled up at him warmly and patted his cheek. "I had better get that in writing," she said as she walked to the kitchen.

Kaidan turned around and saw that Dad had moved onto the large balcony. He followed, and leaned on the railing next to him.

"It's good to have you here, son. I know it's been a difficult time. After the Normandy."

Kaidan took a sip of his beer and nodded, looking out at the Pacific as it merged with the late summer sunset. "Yeah, it's been… Well, yeah. It's been tough."

He hadn't told his parents about Shepard. When he was still serving on the Normandy, there hadn't been time. And then, after Shepard died, it had been too hard. He'd tried, once, over vidphone six months after the attack, but he'd broken down before he'd even said her name. Mom had practically started packing a bag for Arcturus right then, and he knew that when he did eventually tell them, it would have to be in person.

Kaidan had lived a lot of places in his life, as a military brat and as an officer, but the place that felt like the closest approximation to 'home' was Vancouver. It was probably because it was the only place his parents had ever really put down any roots, so there was a consistency to it.

Whenever he'd visit, he'd walk into the same condo, stand on the same balcony, and look at the same view of English Bay. He'd wake up in the same guest bedroom each morning, and emerge to the smell of the same brand of coffee already brewed, with Mom ready to put together breakfast for the three of them. Dad always wore the same robe and read the day's news in the same order: Alliance news briefs, Earth politics, Terminus System current affairs, interplanetary sports, and obituaries, but never the editorials – 'why should I care about what those narrow-minded stylus-wielders have to say about anything?' he would always say as he pointedly flicked past the section on the datapad.

After breakfast, they'd go out and do the same things – hiking up Grouse Mountain, day trips to Whistler, or sometimes just relaxing on the beach near the condo. If Kaidan was around for long enough, they'd spend a few days up at the cabin on the Sunshine Coast, which was always Kaidan's favourite because it was so unlike his day-to-day with the Alliance – quiet, isolated, and not a single space port within less than two days' travel.

"You going to be at a desk for the rest of your career, son?" Dad said, as he brought the grill to life.

"I don't know, Dad. It's just what I'm doing now." Kaidan shrugged a little, hoping to dismiss the topic, and handed the tray of food to Dad.

"Is it really what you want to be doing, though?"

Kaidan watched as Dad tested the heat of the grill, trying to think of the best way to answer. Of course he didn't want to be at a desk forever, but the alternative – serving on a ship again – still felt wrong.

"It's not that bad," he answered finally.

Dad focused on the steaks for a while, pausing intermittently to sip his beer. "That's not what I asked you, though."

Kaidan let out a deep sigh. "No. I know."

"Right. So there's your answer." When Kaidan didn't answer, Dad lowered the lid of the grill and moved to sit next to him. "It's your last night here, Kaidan - indulge me. I know it's tough, getting back on a ship after something like this."

Kaidan nodded, and started picking at the label of his bottle. "I'm not scared of another attack."

"Did I say you were? Look, son – don't forget that I've lived that life before. We never had it as bad as the Normandy, but we had our share of bumps and scrapes. And there were always losses."

Mom came out onto the balcony then, glass of rosé in hand. She perched on the arm of Kaidan's deck chair and draped her arm around his shoulders. She smiled warmly at him when he looked back at her.

"You lost your CO. That's always the roughest –"

"She was more than just my CO," Kaidan blurted out involuntarily, interrupting Dad. He regretted it almost instantly – he'd wanted to bring this up some other way.

He saw Mom and Dad exchange a quick glance.

"Who was she, love?" Mom said softly, squeezing Kaidan's shoulder.

Kaidan sighed. "She was… She was something else." He shot a sideways glance at Dad, wondering how he would react. He had always an open-minded man, but he'd also been moulded by the Alliance navy, and regs were regs were regs.

Dad got up and went back to the grill. "We've all heard the official stories, son. Shepard sounded like she was a hell of a soldier."

Kaidan swallowed past the lump in his throat. "Yeah, Dad, she was. She was efficient, and smart. But she was compassionate too – she helped release a rachni queen that was being used for experiments, back on Noveria."

Dad turned around from the grill with a raised eyebrow. "Are you sure she wasn't also crazy?"

Mom gasped and threw a balled-up napkin at Dad.

Kaidan chuckled and patted Mom on the knee. "It's okay – we all thought the same thing at the time. But Shepard had a whole conversation with that thing, and it actually seemed like the right decision at the end of the day."

"What was her name?" Mom asked, moving into the chair next to Kaidan.

"Selina."

"That's pretty."

Kaidan nodded and took a sip of his beer, noticing that the lump in his throat had gone away. "I would've brought her here, you know."

Mom smiled, her eyes a little glassy. She looked out over the view and smiled again. "That would've been so nice, Kai."

A couple years back, he'd made Mom come to terms with the fact that it would be a long time before there'd be any possible grandchildren for her to spoil, but he'd also never brought a girl home, or even mentioned bringing one home, and he figured that even the missed possibility, however slim, was hard for her.

Thankfully Dad always had a good sense of timing. "What would Shepard say about you riding a desk, son?"

That was, actually, not something Kaidan had ever considered. He'd taken the desk job out of pure necessity, really. But as he thought about it now, he knew exactly how Shepard would react.

"Probably nothing good," Kaidan answered eventually.

Dad nodded and brought the platter of food over to the deck table. "I'd hope so."

"Give it a rest, honey – if Kaidan wants to keep the desk job, he's perfectly fine to," Mom said, as she started dishing out food onto their plates.

"I don't want to," Kaidan muttered. "Not really."

Dad laughed and winked at Kaidan. "Of course you don't! You miss the ships – how could you not? You weren't raised for a desk job, son. I made sure of that."

Kaidan laughed and cut off a bite of steak. "Fine, Dad. You win. I'll see about putting in a call."

Mom scoffed and put a hand on Kaidan's forearm. "Just make sure that the entire Systems Alliance knows that it was his idea. Or else we'll never hear the end of it."