She hadn't meant to snoop. The bubbling blue depths of the fish tank reflected her face back at her. She dropped her eyes from the reflection. On the edge of her vision, she could see the datapad still laying on the corner of the bed. The screen had long ago gone dark. She couldn't forget the words she'd read there. Words not meant for her. She shouldn't have snooped.

She had just been moving it. That's what she told herself anyway. It was at a precarious angle on the edge of the nightstand, and her thumb had slipped over the screen. For a second, the bright light had blinded her, then she saw the words. She shouldn't have read them, but she did. It only took six sentences before she dropped it onto the bed like a burning pistol.

Now she stood in the dark watching her fish. The datapad's message was still etched into her vision, despite how many times she tried to blink it away. It had nothing to do with her, yet her heart was pounding and it was all she could think about.

The cabin door chirped. She hesitated. It chirped again, and she finally trudged to the door. It could be Liara with new Broker intel or Garrus rattling her out of the cabin to share an after-dinner drink in the lounge. The ship's captain drinking would have created shockwaves a few months ago, but the structure was crumbling around them. The end drawing near. For some, nothing mattered. For other's, what mattered had never mattered more. Situations like this, she had always had the mindset of the former. Kaidan was different. It was Kaidan at her door.

"You all right?" He frowned.

"Checking up on me?"

"I thought you'd be in the mess. You missed dinner."

She gave a limp shrug and looked away.

"What's going on?" Kaidan stepped closer.

Shepherd crossed her arms under her breasts and angled away. "I'm all right. Just taking some time. Time to think."

"About what?"

"About this," Shepard blurted and stared him hard in the eye. "Us, the war, everything."

"Us?" Kaidan went still. His hand, halfway to her elbow, dropped back to his side. "I don't understand."

"I read your datapad." Shepard choked out and searched his eyes.

Kaidan's brow wrinkled, and he glanced past her into the dark cabin. "I can't even remember what's on it."

"I shouldn't have read it. I don't know what I was thinking. I'm sorry."

The line between Kaidan's eyes deepened. He slid around her, scooped the datapad off the bed, and flicked it on. Shepard drifted to the top of the stairs and waited as Kaidan read it. Kaidan's eyes skimmed over the screen. Slowly, the knot in his shoulders loosened. He looked up.

"I'm sorry," she repeated quickly.

Kaidan tossed the datapad on the bed and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He gave a weak smile.

"I don't care you saw that," he said.

"But," Shepard's words fumbled, "it's to your mother. It's private."

"It's not to my mom, though I have one for her too. I wouldn't call her by her first name."

"Then …"

"It's my sister."

"Sister?"

Shepard pinched her mouth to the side but pushed that question aside. It didn't matter.

"How's that make it any better?" She clutched her elbows and shrugged. "It's the same thing. I shouldn't have seen it."

Kaidan came up the steps. "Hey, I don't mind you saw it. If it was so private, would I have left the screen unlocked? Left it here? I really don't care."

Shepard took a step back from him. "A good bye letter though …"

"Better to be prepared than leave them nothing."

"Them? Your mom and sister?"

Kaidan gave a single nod.

"The idea of something happening to you though …" Shepard closed her eyes. She forced herself to say it: the truth. "If something happens to you, it's because you're with me."

"What? Shepard, if something happens, it's because I'm a soldier."

"A soldier could be anywhere in the battle, but you won't be just anywhere." Shepard met his eyes. "You'll try to be by my side, try to take my bullet. You'll fall to keep me going."

"You'd do the same for any of us. We're soldiers."

"That's not really it, though, is it?"

"Isn't it?" Kaidan touched her elbow. "You think if we weren't together, I wouldn't feel the same way? I'd still want to be there with you. I'd still do whatever it takes for you to reach the end. To make it out."

"You have family to leave behind."

"So do you. They're aboard this ship."

It wasn't the same thing. Shepard clenched her jaw, but he didn't flinch from her leveled stare.

He stepped up to her. "Come on. I love you. Don't push me away now." He framed her face with his hands and smiled. "Don't worry about my letters. I'm exactly where I want to be."

He kissed her. His lips moved slowly, a soft insistence. The tension stiffening her spine melted. She curled her fingers under his elbows and pulled him tight her body. Dammit she was weak, but he was so earnest. There was no doubt he meant it. If he said this was where he wanted to be, it was true. Shepard drew his breath into her lungs with deepening thirst and kissed him back. Selfishly, she didn't want him anywhere else either.

XXX

Arm draping his forehead, Kaidan's eyelashes lay still above his cheeks as his chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm. Blue energy veiled the window above them. The light undulated over his features giving Shepard a warm feeling as she watched it. She hadn't had this much to lose since that harvest afternoon on Mindoir over fifteen years ago now, the day she first saw death. She traced a finger down a vein in Kaidan's bicep. She had gone so long with nothing and now she had everything to lose again. She had this ship, her friends, this beating heart beside her. Everything was safe, just for a moment. Kaidan's lips curved up.

"You're awake?" Shepard lifted her head.

His eyes slit open. "You're tickling my arm."

"You're a dainty sleeper. I barely touched you."

A smile brightened his eyes. "Good morning."

"It's not morning." Shepard twisted to see the clock on her night stand. "It's the middle of the night."

"Middle of the night?" Kaidan sat up on an elbow and rubbed his eyes. "I'm hungry. Are you hungry? You didn't have dinner."

"I'm okay." Shepard rooted around in the covers and held up a torn protein bar wrapper. Kaidan frowned at the foil in her fingertips. He twisted to look at the back of his arm.

"I am sleeping in crumbs." He brushed off a sprinkle of crumbs. A few half-hearted grumbles she couldn't understand, then he was sliding out of bed. "Come on. Let's get something real to eat."

"I have more protein bars." Shepard scooted to the edge of her bed. "I think you just like the midnight thrill of raiding the mess during afterhours."

"Hey, if you didn't want to get caught raiding the mess, you never should have gone for a bad boy."

Shepard snorted. "You know, last time I was down there stealing food during nightshift, I ran into Javik. Said my hands would have been cut off in his cycle."

"Yeah, well. He told me more than just my hands would have been cut off for being intimate with the commanding officer."

"Ooh. I hope we run into him again then. Knife block for both of us."

Kaidan cringed. Shepard scooped her T-shirt off the floor.

"Lead the way, Bad Boy."

XXX

"Eggs?" Shepard poked at the yellow fluff on her plate.

Kaidan slid down on the bench across from her. "Better than a MRE, right?"

"Marginally." She rested her chin on a fist. "I thought you're going to make me something."

"I did. Eggs."

"I wanted beef, bacon, and beer."

"Snoop around the kitchen. You'll find your options are canned lima beans, outdated spam, and freeze-dried prunes. Be happy for the eggs."

Shepard stabbed her fork into her eggs. She chewed open-mouthed for emphasis.

"Never graduated finishing school, did you?" Kaidan waved his fork at her. "Crumbs in your bed. This. Not even a thank you for scrambling you eggs. I could have opened a can of beets and set it in front of you."

Shepard smiled over a mouthful of eggs. She reached across the table and squeezed his wrist. "Thanks. They're good. You know I'm just … egging you on."

"And my decalf-entated joke was an embarrassment?" Kaidan raised an eyebrow. He leaned forward. "You have egg on your face."

Shepard narrowed her eyes. Her fingers itched to touch her cheek.

"The conflict." Kaidan grinned. "Is he being figurative? Literal? Will checking make him insufferably smug?" He took a bite off his fork and dragged it out between his teeth.

"You're already intolerably smug." Shepard jammed another forkful into her mouth.

"You still want to check, though, don't you?"

"Don't provoke a food fight, Alenko. Do you know how bad I want to get egg on your face?"

"This a scale one to a dozen?"

Shepard bumped his foot under the table. "You're a smart ass. You're like this now, what were you growing up with a sister?"

"Probably worse, but she's pretty smart ass herself. Don't feel bad for her."

"Before six hours ago, I didn't even know you had a sister."

Kaidan dropped his fork and took a sip of coffee. "I've mentioned her before. Haven't I?"

"No." Shepard's eyes followed the coffee mug back to the table. She looked at the dribble left in her own cup. "You got us decaf, right?"

Kaidan frowned down at his mug, then twisted and squinted at the counter.

"You weren't so scrambled, you used the red bag, right?" Shepard followed his eyes.

"I used what was out. Traynor and Joker had coffee at dinner."

"That was six hours ago. You don't think anything's moved around?" Shepard spun out of her chair and shot to the counter. "The red bag. Kaidan! This is what night shift had out."

"Oh." Kaidan lifted his mug, evaluated the damage, and then picked up her cup to compare. "That changes things."

XXX

Shepard gazed up at Kaidan. He stroked her hair idly, his eyes fixed on the observation window. She was starting to feel sleepy again. The eggs were settling in her stomach. Her heart beat slow and hard to the rhythmic brush of his fingertips on her temple. With her head on Kaidan's lap and the stars glittering before them, it couldn't get more peaceful on a military vessel.

"Where's she live?"

"Hmm?" Kaidan's eyes dropped to her face.

"Your sister. This person I've never heard about. She's not in Vancouver?"

"I wish she was at the orchard with Mom." Kaidan's eyebrows bunched. "She lives in Nashville. A teacher. I haven't heard anything. Last I heard, Mom hadn't either."

Shepard pulled his hand away from stroking her hair and interlocked their fingers. "You're worried?"

"She was due two months ago."

"Due?" Shepard jolted. "Pregnant?"

Kaidan looked away. "Yeah."

"That's a big deal. Why haven't you said anything?"

"You have enough to worry about without adding more. Plus, there's nothing you could do. I know it frustrates you not being able to fix that sort of thing."

"I still want to know."

"You worry about everyone else's worries. Let me worry about yours."

"By not sharing your worries with me?"

"That's not true. I told you about my dad, my mom, my students. After a certain point, I'd just rather be the one listening than piling on more. I thought you, at least, knew she existed. I haven't mentioned her since the attack maybe, but before then."

Shelard chewed her lower lip. He had a big family. It was possible he'd mentioned his sister. Early on when first serving on the SR-1, she may not have recognized the importance of remembering such a detail, because she hadn't recognized the importance of him. Yet. Whether he had mentioned his sister or not, he was confiding in Shepard now. He was obviously worried.

"You know," Shepard put brightness in her voice. "There are plenty of medical providers in the urban shelters. I'm sure she's okay. The baby too."

Kaidan gave a wan smile. "True, and Rob's there for her, their two girls. Kate's tough. I'm sure you're right." His gaze drifted back to the stars, but the frown settled back on his face.

Shepard sat upright. "Hey. You're making me feel guilty not knowing all this stuff about you. Sister, brother-in-law, nieces. What else don't I know?" She twisted on the bench to face him.

Kaidan smiled sideways at her. "That's about it. All my secrets."

"There's got to be more." Shepard folded her legs on the bench and pulled his hand into her lap. "How about … Hmm. What did you want to be when you grew up?"

"What?"

"We ever end up on a couples' game show, I need to know the basics." Shepard settled her knees more comfortably and looked him in the eye. "Don't hold out on me. What did you want to be?"

"What did you want to be?"

"Make me go first, huh? Fine. What did I want to be when I grew up? Well, not a farmer. Not a biologist or ecosystem engineer." Shepard ran her thumb nail along the side of Kaidan's finger. "I didn't know what I wanted to be. I only knew I wanted to be in charge."

Kaidan's smile stretched. "You had your calling young."

"Ha, yeah, I guess." Shepard considered the idea. "When I think about it, I could have gone a lot of different ways. Could have ended up commanding a ship of pirates or smugglers, being in charge of a team of Terminus System mercs. Who knows? But instead, fate put me on the straight and narrow."

"You realized the good you could do by joining the Alliance?"

"Wish it was that altruistic. I saw a chance to punish the bad guys. By eighteen, I'd been imagining it for two years. I just needed a gun, a ride, and the galaxy's blessing. I cared a lot more about who I punished than who I helped."

Kaidan rotated to face her and pulled his knee onto the bench. "You care about people, Shepard."

"Not always. I went a long time not caring. After Akuze, when they told me the thresher maw was dead, I felt nothing. It surprised me. I wanted it dead so badly, but its death didn't bring them back. It didn't dry anyone's tears at the funeral. All those years fighting the bad guys, making the evil bastards of the galaxy pay, it never filled anything inside of me."

"But helping people did?"

Shepard studied their hands clasped together in her lap and nodded. "My first tour after Akuze, there was a colony under attack in the Attican. A system gang that had been extorting protection money was unhappy when it ran out. My unit chased the butchers out of the settlement. The gang scurried into the forest like rats into a wood pile. I had a fresh clip. I could have killed more of them. I could have even prevented them reaching their ship, if I was fast. True justice, right?"

"But?"

"But there was a kid, a boy, twelve or eleven maybe, pinned out in the open. Gunfire being exchanged right on top of him, grenades tearing up the soil around him. The gang leaders were fleeing, but the boy was right there. So close. I saved him instead."

Kaidan put his other palm over their hands. Shepard met his eyes.

"You know something," Shepard said. "When I saw the Alliance fight on Mindoir, I wanted to fight alongside them. I knew right then. I had this feeling, I should be a part of it. I thought it was so I could make the bastards pay who did things like that. But I was wrong. It wasn't about that. It was so I could be the one who got there sooner than help came for me. It was about helping the helpless, not killing the worthless. I wanted my family back. Wanted what happened to them to mean something bigger by my actions going forward. But it wasn't dealing death like I thought, it was saving life. That gave meaning to it. Gave me meaning."

Kaidan touched her cheek. "Shepard, your family would be amazed what you've done. You've made them proud a hundred times over."

Shepard's lips tickled with the beginning of a smile. She kissed her palm.

"What about you?" she said. "Your dad was military. This is what you always wanted to do?"

"After what happened at Brain Camp? No." Kaidan's fingertips traced down her jaw. He covered their hands with his palm again. "I always liked tech. I majored in engineering at the university in Vancouver. I think I've told you that."

"Engineer Alenko?" Shepard cocked her head with a soft smile. "You wanted to map power grids and design Omni-Tools?"

"Something a little more exotic maybe. Off world. There were companies that contracted all over space, colonies or urban worlds. Variety of tech systems, challenging, a lot of movement and chance to see things. Opportunities to be on the edge of the unknown connecting comm systems and terra forming energy platforms."

"Not a bad gig."

"I didn't think so. The right company, I could be working with interspecies engineers, learning with new technologies, applying outside ideas. See the galaxy, the cultures, the worlds."

"Then what happened?"

"Well …" Kaidan drew his hands away and fidgeted with the boot propped on his knee. "After Jump Zero and everything that happened, you can probably guess. I didn't know what to do with that part of myself. I wanted to be normal. I enrolled in the engineering program at VU. As students failed and dropped out of the program, the ones of us who pulled through became close. By the third year, we left the engineering dorms. We roomed together in a large house on the edge of campus. We studied together, went out together. I even stayed with some of their families."

Kaidan rolled the boot lace between his fingertips. Shepard shifted on the bench and waited.

"And?" she prompted softly.

Kaidan hesitated but met her eyes. "The summer after our third year, there was an applied internship program. Prestigious, competitive. Teams submitted grant applications and project binders. GPA, extracurriculars, interviews. Our team was one of the teams selected. There were ten of us working on the project proposal. We all moved to Boston for the summer and first part of the fourth semester."

"Something went wrong with your project?"

"No." Kaidan chewed the corner of his lip then sighed. "Four months into the internship in Boston, I was at the lab. We all were. We were starting to get into the software application, running tests, joking around. I can't even remember. Men showed up for me."

"Men?"

Kaidan leaned an elbow on the back of the bench and touched his forehead. "I forgot to register. Forgot to inform the Bureau I changed residences, left the BC area. The Biotic Registration Bureau had tracked me down. They showed up at the lab since they didn't know where I was staying."

"They made a scene?" Shepard ventured.

"They were polite enough, I guess." Kaidan eyed her for a moment, then sat up straight. He cleared his throat. "You see, I had never told anyone. Told anyone I was a biotic. Maybe they could have recognized it if they knew anything about biotics, but you know how it was, it was new. I'd never met another biotic myself outside of Brain Camp. It was rare, unknown, stigmatized. I just wanted to be normal. I felt like it shouldn't matter. I didn't use my biotics. I had good control, never flared. It was like they didn't exist, at least, from the outside. Maybe I was in denial or caught up in being what I wanted to be instead of what I was, but either way, the result was the same. The Biotics Registration Bureau showed up for me. My friends, my best friends I'd done everything with for three years, they were shocked."

Shepard reached over and gripped his forearm. "They turned their back on you? Because you were a biotic?"

"They turned their backs on me, but not because I was a biotic. What they might have thought of me being a biotic, I'll never know. I never gave them a chance to find out. They rejected me, not because I was a biotic, but because for three years I never told them."

"You weren't lying."

"Yeah, but I wasn't telling the truth either. We finished the project. After the internship, I finished the fourth year by myself. I saw them in class, but there wasn't any going back."

"You dropped out?"

"No," Kaidan said sharply. "Of course not. I finished my degree."

"But your plans to join a galactic tech company?"

"That last semester changed a lot of things. My dad …" Kaidan grinned at the floor. "My dad never quite gave up on the military angle. More than his own experience, I think he knew what I couldn't accept: that it was a place where my being different wasn't a liability but an asset. Where this part of myself I wanted to leave behind could actually be used for something good instead of just alienating me, scaring or hurting people. I think he knew it was the best path for me to accept myself, even be proud of it. I could belong somewhere, find meaning, help people, see the galaxy. Really, in a lot of ways, the perfect fit."

"Your dad brought it up to you again?"

"He'd never stopped, but that last semester he knew I was struggling. I think he knew all his talk about the Alliance only made me dig my heels deeper. I had said 'no' so long, it was almost on principal then." Kaidan laughed and rubbed his forehead. "There was a chink in my armor now though. I'd lost everything I thought I'd made since Jump Zero. I felt lost again.

"My dad had a spur-of-the-moment errand with an Alliance chum one morning. He'd picked me up from campus, a holiday or something. I was already strapped in when he told me. I swear he waited for the click of the seatbelt, then it was, 'Oh, I just remembered. Told Chisholm I'd drop by with his book while he's in town training the incoming officers.' We could both see through the story. He knew I knew, but we just pretended. I turned on my Omni-Tool and said, 'Whatever. Just roll a window down for me and don't take forever.'"

Shepard chuckled and flicked his shoulder. "Your stubborn streak is well worn, I see."

"Went pretty deep." Kaidan laughed. "But, uh, I think I come by it naturally. My dad must have known what I'd say. He said he had to return a book, but when we got to the academy, all of a sudden it was books. Not two books or three books, boxes of books. Five or six boxes stacked to the top. I remember just standing there with the hatch up and muttering, 'What the hell?' I even started digging down and reading titles to make sure it wasn't filler. I expected to see my mom's old harlequins or something else off the shelf from home, but it was all military-related. He couldn't haul in six boxes of books by himself, so I helped him. Conveniently, we took a very winding and slow path to Chisholm's classroom. Dad kept pointing out different areas. I kept saying, 'Are we going in circles? I've seen that plant before.'"

"And when you reached your dad's friend?"

"What do you know, he's in the middle of an applied skills class for sentinels. Up to that moment, I didn't even know sentinels existed, a fusion of tech and biotics. I stood against the wall, sighed, and looked around a lot. I shifted the boxes in my arms and checked the time. But I didn't forget what I saw. Dad was ready with all sorts of scripted 'off-the-cuff' questions for Chisholm about his teaching, the officer's academy, sentinels, biotics. Dad introduced us."

Shepard beamed at him. "Got over your stubbornness?"

"Yeah, I mean, I took my time about it. Couldn't fold right away. I looked into it, networked, met with some other biotic officers. I swore Captain Chisholm to secrecy. He agreed not to tell my dad, but let me audit a week of his classes. Later, do you know what Chisholm told me?"

"What?"

"He said that morning, the morning I was picked up, my dad showed up to borrow Chisholm's books. He took the whole bookcase worth. Even had a student haul it to the skycar with him. That was 0900. Then he picked me up at 0930. We brought them straight back. After I found that out, I didn't feel nearly as bad taking my time. When I had my paperwork in order, just needed to push the button, I went home for the weekend to tell him."

"Your dad was probably thrilled."

Kaidan grinned. "I set down my bag, and Mom gave me a big hug. When she stepped back, she asked if I'd heard back from the recruiter, then she slapped a hand over her mouth. Turns out, Dad knew what I was doing the whole time. I would have been mad, but I could see what it meant to him. I was so fixated on avoiding an 'I told you so' and making clear it was my own decision, I never thought about it just making him proud. He broke out the expensive whiskey from the top shelf. Then we sat on the balcony, drank, and talked a long time.

"A lot of things changed from that point out for me. One of those things was with my dad. Up to then, I was a kid. An adult, but a kid in a lot of ways. After I joined, things were different. He was still my dad, of course. I looked up to him, respected what he had to say, but we were friends too. More equal footing. I went from fighting him and trying to prove myself, to appreciating his advice. I wanted his advice. He could see what was better for me sometimes than I could see for myself. Everything with the Alliance proved that."

Air thickened in Shepard's throat. "I'm sorry he's MIA, Kaidan."

"I'm sorry about your family, too, Shepard."

She fell forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. He brushed the hair back from her face and kissed her lips. She crawled over him. He pulled back from the kiss with a tense laugh and looked over at the door.

"It's almost morning, you know," he said.

"Come upstairs with me." Shepard tugged him to his feet. "You said you're exactly where you want to be, right?"

"With you."

"I'm exactly where I want to be too." She grabbed his face with both hands. "With you. I don't want your family ever reading those letters, but I'm glad you're with me. I need someone making me eggs. You're my best friend, Kaidan. More than a best friend. More than anyone's ever been to me."

Kaidan's breath sharpened. "You're that for me too. Always."

"Always." Shepard pecked his lips.

They burst from the lounge and shot to the elevator.