Security scanners flared over Kaidan's body. Two guards nodded him through into the Normandy's conference room. Ahead, the war room buzzed with activity. Kaidan peeked through the doorway. Across the war room, the QEC stood dark and silent. That confirmed it then. He'd looked everywhere else that was public. This was intentional.

Officers in the war room noticed him and saluted. Kaidan saluted them back then drew away from the door. Now his suspicions were confirmed, he'd need to get creative. His eyes fell on the ladder in the corner of the conference room. That felt right.

He didn't use the ladder rungs and dropped straight down into the processing core. His boots clomped onto the metal floor, and he braced himself against a wall of blinking buttons and clicking monitor feeds. Shepard sat in the corner on the floor. The orange glow of her Omni-Tool revealed a scowl.

"Huh. Imagine meeting you here." Kaidan picked his way around the control boxes and exposed wiring.

The room fell into darkness with a click. Shepard's Omni-Tool had turned off. Kaidan paused and switched on his own light.

"I already saw you. Little late to hide in the dark, Shepard."

"It occur to you, I'm down here to not see anyone?"

"Did cross my mind." He crouched next to her. "Hey, think the commanding officer should really be hiding in the autoprocessing control room?"

"I'm off duty. I have my Omni-Tool. There's EDI. Anyone can reach me."

"Right." Kaidan slid down beside her and thumped his back against the wall. He rested his elbows on his knees. "Control room's beautiful this time of night cycle. Look at all those buttons."

Shepard groaned. "Kaidan …"

"Hey." Kaidan put an arm around her, but she shied away.

"It's not you," Shepard added quickly but put her palm up to stem any more attempts to touch her. "I just want to be alone."

"Could have hidden in your cabin. It's not like I'm the wolf outside a straw house. You can tell me to go away."

"I didn't want to have the conversation. I just want …" She gave a ragged sigh and looked him in the eye. "I'm sorry. I want to be alone."

Kaidan studied her then shrugged. "Maybe I don't want to be alone."

"What?" Shepard sputtered. "Go – I don't know – have a drink with Joker or Vega. Cortez, Chakwas, Traynor, do something with them. Get wasted. We all should."

Kaidan picked up a bottle of krogan liquor by her knee. Half full. Not ryncol, thank God. "I want to be with you. Not Vega, Joker, Donnelly, or anyone else. You're drinking alone down here in the dark. On Christmas. Don't tell me that's what you really want."

"This is what I've done every Christmas for fifteen years. We all like our family traditions." Shepard ripped the bottle away from him and took a long slurp. She punctuated it with a satisfied sigh and emphatic glare. "Ah. Tradition."

"Hell, Shepard. My throat burned just watching that." He pulled the bottle away from her, took a gulp, and squinted as it flamed down into his stomach. "Yep. That's strong. Tell me this wasn't full."

"I just got down here and you dropped in. Give me that."

"Ah ah." Kaidan lifted it away from her with one hand, but she rose on her knees and grasped after it. He pulled her down by the elbow. "Come on. Let's talk before you get too absorbed in your Christmas tradition."

"Dammit, Kaidan." She shoved his hand away. "You've got something else coming you think this ends well for you. I'll blacklist you."

"Blacklist me?" Kaidan stretched the bottle further from her hands. He slid it across the floor, liquor sloshing against the glass.

"Oh. You're blacklisted." Shepard stared at the bottle with a smoldering frown. "Blacklisted from my cabin."

"Yeah? We'll see how long that lasts."

"What?" Shepard hissed and stared him hard in the face. "You doubt I can resist sampling your charms, hmm? I have a private cabin. I'll sample my own charms. No 'you' needed."

Kaidan laughed. He reached an arm around her again, but she scooted further down the wall.

"Ah, come on." He grinned. "Are we really fighting about this? I want to spend time with you on Christmas, time you're not drunk, and you're threatening me with that? I don't care if you follow through and banish me. I just want to talk to you. For a moment. Then you can drown in alcohol and wallow in misery to your heart's content. Deal?"

"I don't wallow in misery." Shepard folded her arms and gave him a pinning stare. "Fine. Go. Talk. Sing me a Christmas carol and magically make everything merry and gay. Half of humanity's dead. Just more eggnog for the rest of us."

"This," Kaidan waved at her, "it isn't about the war."

"Oh, it isn't? Cause trillions are dying. Little hard to be singing and stuffing turkeys. And I'm pretty sure the Normandy doesn't have a chimney. Things I've done, I'm inked in on the coal list anyway."

"I know you miss your family."

Shepard's expression hardened. "What?"

"Hey." He scooted around to face her. "I miss mine too. I hope they're all right, but I don't know. A lot, maybe most, Christmases I've been deployed, but I never had a Christmas I didn't see them on comm. Know they were safe. I'll never have Christmas with my dad again." Kaidan motioned at the bottle against the far wall. "I get wanting to replace that feeling with something. But I don't want that for you. I think you should have another tradition."

"Like what?" Shepard said sourly, but her eyes softened.

"Like …" Kaidan pulled a datapad out of his pocket. It lit up. "I got you something."

Shepard sat up higher. "I didn't get you anything. I didn't know – I don't need anything."

"Well, damn, the only reason I got this for you was to get something back in return." He grinned. "It's not a returnable gift. You'll just have to take it. It's too customized to swap into my gift exchange with Vega."

"I don't want anything. You really think a gift will make me feel better? That's sweet, but …"

Kaidan contemplated for a moment turning the datapad over in his fingertips. "I considered a model ship. Couldn't find one you didn't already have. Maybe a fish, but then you have so many."

"I have everything I want or need."

"Hmm." Kaidan forced a smile. "Like I said, no use returning it. So here."

He pushed the datapad into her hands. Shepard stared down at it.

"To clarify." Shepard glanced up. "You're not, uh, giving me a datapad?"

"No. I'm not 'uh, giving you a datapad.' It's something else. Look."

She eyed him then hesitantly turned on the screen. He waited. Her brow pinched, breath tightening, and her spine went rigid. Her eyes snapped up to Kaidan's face.

"How?"

"I told you my biotics team connected with him. I know going through Hackett and Alliance channels means everything is official. With the bouys down and the interference around Earth, it's hard enough just getting updates on the invasion, let alone strategize and coordinate efforts. I know there isn't a place for personal things. Commander Uptograph talked to Anderson himself. He relayed it back to me as a favor."

"It's …" Shepard licked her lips, knuckles whitening on the datapad. "When did he write this?"

"Two weeks ago."

"Even with all the war prep? Directing the resistance? He had time for …"

"He always has time for you, Shepard." Kaidan put a hand on her knee. "He told me once you were like his own kid. I thought he might have something to say to you. For Christmas, but more than that too. Something personal, not just where to move pins on the map. And, he did."

"Anderson wrote me?" Shepard repeated. She put a hand over her mouth and stared down at the screen. "Kaidan …"

"Write him back. I don't know how long it will take getting it to him. It's in and out trying to reach my team, and I know communication isn't easy even between factions in the same region, but it'll get there. Eventually. Uptograph will make sure."

"Kaidan." Shepard looked up with a wavering gaze and bit her lip. "Thanks."

"Not a Christmas carol, but it's better than celebrating with a bottle." Kaidan squeezed her leg and started to stand. "Well, let me know if you get tired of your self-charms."

"Wait!" Shepard snagged his sleeve. "Wait, uh, hey. I have something for you too."

Kaidan frowned. This wasn't about guilting favors. He wasn't sure what it would be, but there were some things he never wanted as a guilted favor.

"Shepard …"

"Sit down." Shepard yanked on his arm.

Kaidan lowered himself hesitantly. "You know I was joking, right? About giving you that and expecting something back?"

"What if it's something I was going to give you anyway?"

"Still …" This wasn't doing much to abate his concern.

She grabbed his Omni-Tool hand roughly, arched an eyebrow, and switched on the screen. With a flick, she pulled up the screen on her own 'Tool and held them together. She was transferring something. The tension eased in his ribs.

"You think you know me, huh?" Shepard smirked, eyes reading over his face.

"Well …"

"Yeah, you do. You drop into my burrow and call me out for drinking alone. Say it's not about the war, because it's not." Her smile softened. "I know you, too, though. We might joke about those things being favors, but I know it would bother if it was. Just a favor."

"Those things?"

"Hm. I know what you were thinking." Shepard looked down at their Omni-Tools and clicked hers off. "There. A proper gift. Rip and tear. See what I gave you."

Kaidan held her gaze for a second then looked down. "Text files? You bought me a book?"

Shepard rolled her eyes and leaned in next to him. "Look JPEGs too."

"Comic book?"

Shepard elbowed him. "Stop being obnoxious." She clicked one of the text files. Lines filled the screen, and Kaidan's heart slowed. Words stared back at him. Words he hadn't seen in three years. "It's …"

"From the SR-1," Shepard filled in. "You said your Omni-Tool broke on Alchera forcing your way out the escape pod. The door was sealed with frost and dented in, and you slammed against it too hard."

Kaidan rolled his lips together and dropped his eyes back to the screen. He scrolled down the page of text. It was intra-ship comm records. A record of their back and forths, his and Shepard's, when they were first getting to know each other, words lost years ago. For so long he'd laid alone in the dark trying to remember them. As the years passed by, the messages had faded away in memory just like the conversations they'd shared aloud. The more he strained to hold on to them, the more the memories frayed from overuse and too much handling. Now here they were: the forgotten words.

Some of it was nonsense and most of it probably work related, but it was here. Everything they'd said to each other in the message system. Here were the nights when he'd crawl halfway into his sleeper pod and remembered something to tease her about.

"Hope you're not haunted tonight by the ghost of that monkey."

He has sent it, one foot in the pod and waited for the snarky reply. She didn't disappoint.

"I remember right, someone was on ladar. Could have warned me. Expect a visit from the monkey spirit yourself, Alenko."

There was the time he sat outside Udina's office as Udina roared at her and Anderson. Kaidan's Omni-Tool had pinged: Shepard wondering if Udina was wearing lifts in his shoes today.

"Swear I used to glare into his forehead. Now it's his nose."

"You're wearing flat boots today, Commander."

"Liked the idea better of Udina wearing stilts in his shoes."

There were times they'd be sitting in the mess at lunch. Ash and Wrex would be arguing guns.

"Credits are on Ash winning this one. Whatcha you think, Alenko?"

"How's the winner even determined?"

"It's the one that DOESN'T pound the table and storm off."

Kaidan stared at the dates and conversations. "This goes …"

"All the way back." Shepard scooted closer until their arms and thighs were flush against each other. She touched the screen and scrolled to the top. "First one: 'We're dropping in ten, LT. Get Jenkins. Meet me in the hold.'"

Air clotted in Kaidan's throat. "How do you have these? After losing my 'Tool data, there was only what was backed up on Alliance servers. The Normandy's intra-communication log didn't cross over."

"This is from my old Omni-Tool. Miranda gave it to me. And these." Shepard punched up one of the photo files. An image flashed of Ash and Shepard sitting on either side of him at a bar, beer bottles in hand, and laughing. It felt like a lifetime ago and yesterday all at once.

"These photos were saved to my extranet personal space," Shepard said. "Two years dead though. Guess the data space got repurposed. Everything was gone when I woke up. But then, there it was on my old Omni-Tool." She paused and smiled into his eyes. "In the end, I got everything back. And not just old memories." She touched his face and traced her thumb to the corner of his lips. The longer their eyes held, the brighter her smile grew.

"Thank you," he said.

"Merry Christmas, Kaidan."

"Merry Christmas, Shepard." He kissed her softly. He forced himself not to linger and pushed himself to his feet. He put a hand down. "Let's go. We have another family, of sorts, celebrating in the lounge. I'm pretty sure Donnelly was spiking the eggnog when I left, and you should have seen Vega. Singing 'Silver Bells' with every-other-word-Spanish. Adam was insisting on reciting 'The Night Before Christmas.' Traynor was insisting he doesn't. And Chakwas's menorah was making Cortez fret about the fire sensors."

"And Joker?"

"Trying to explain to EDI why lying to children about Santa Clause isn't immoral."

Shepard chuckled. The datapad by her knee lit up, and she pulled it into her lap. She gave Kaidan a lopsided smile.

"You want to read that first," he said.

"Save me a seat."

"Always do." He stooped, kissed her lips again, then moved to the ladder.

Shepard hunched over the datapad but her eyes were on Kaidan. "Glad you're back, Kaidan. Best Christmas I've had in years."

"Best Christmas I've had in years. Two years." Kaidan grabbed a rung on the ladder. "Glad you're back, Shepard."