Thank you all for reading!

Shepard had just sat down in her quarters to start going over the day's reports when a knock came at the door. "Who is it?" she called, hoping it wasn't something she'd have to get up and go deal with. She just wanted to finish reading these over and go to bed.

"Dr. Chakwas."

"Doctor?" Shepard got up and opened the door, frowning at her visitor. "Is everything all right?"

"Well … I never thanked you for procuring this bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy for me."

"Oh. You're very welcome." She'd picked it up in the bar on Omega, but had forgotten about it after Garrus's injuries, finally delivering it to the doctor's office several days later while Dr. Chakwas's attention was on her patient. "You didn't need to come all the way up here to say that."

"I didn't. I was … just looking at this bottle and thinking of the one I lost aboard the original Normandy. I'd been saving that one for a special occasion—and then it was too late. I didn't want this one to suffer the same fate, so I thought …" She lifted the bottle. "Share it with me now?"

It hadn't been in her plans for the night, but Shepard liked the doctor—always dependable, putting the good of the crew before her own at all times, and with a dry sense of humor that peeked out every once in a while. Shepard imagined she must have some good stories. "That sounds good. Come on in."

Dr. Chakwas smiled. "It reminds me of my time in medical school, and the girls in the dorm. I've lost track of them all long ago, more's the pity."

"Occupational hazard?"

"Indeed." Dr. Chakwas held out the bottle and a corkscrew. "Care to do the honors?"

"I warn you, this isn't something I find a reason to do very often."

"I find you succeed at most things you attempt. I'll trust you." Dr. Chakwas took a seat on the bed, watching as Shepard carefully screwed in the corkscrew and pulled the cork free of the bottle triumphantly. "There, you see?"

"First try. I can't believe I did that." Shepard retrieved two glasses from her small cupboard and poured some of the brandy into it. "First toast: to the Normandy?"

"To the Normandy."

They drank, the brandy smooth and cool on Shepard's tongue, until it hit her stomach with a pleasantly fiery warmth. "Wow. Nice stuff."

"Very. Hence the price," said the doctor dryly.

Shepard took a seat, refilling the glasses. "What shall we drink to next?"

"Absent friends."

She glanced at the doctor, wondering if there were hidden subtexts there—Dr. Chakwas had been very fond of Kaidan, always concerned about his migraines—but it seemed a sincere enough suggestion. "Absent friends," she echoed, raising her glass.

"Do you remember Jenkins?" Dr. Chakwas asked abruptly, as the fire from the second shot had eased, leaving a warmth spreading through Shepard's limbs.

"Of course I remember Jenkins," she said. She tried to remember everyone who had served under her—and especially never forgot those who had lost their lives under her command. It was her duty to remember, and her responsibility to see that she was more careful next time with her most precious resource, her people. "Poor boy. He thought war was going to be fun."

Dr. Chakwas nodded. "He did keep us on our toes, didn't he? I remember he snuck up behind Lieutenant Alenko once and put a chunk of ice down the inside of his uniform, just at the end of lunch. The lieutenant didn't pause a moment, just turned and hit Jenkins with the full force of his biotics. Jenkins was thrown halfway across the mess and came down on a table full of dirty plates. I thought Alenko's biotic display might have broken Jenkins' back, and I didn't know which of them to scold first, but then Jenkins popped up, and, uniform dripping with oil and vinegar, said, 'That was awesome! Do it again!'" She acted out the scene herself, managing a good impression of Jenkins' enthusiasm and accent.

Shepard laughed. "I heard about that. Naturally, I had to discipline him, but it was hard to do when everyone in the room kept laughing about it. Even Kaidan." Only when the name had left her lips did she wish to call it back.

The doctor ignored the mention, though, sinking back against the sofa cushion with a sigh. "Oh, Jenkins. Soldiers like him make the Alliance great." Then her face lost its smile, her green eyes meeting Shepard's with a hint of sadness. "Cerberus seems to lack the same enthusiasm."

It was true—this was a fairly serious ship. Both Jacob and Miranda, who seemed to set the tone for the Cerberus personnel, were lacking in humor, at least as far as Shepard had seen. Additionally, it appeared that the crew were as new to each other as they were to the Normandy, which meant none of them were comfortable enough with each other yet to get into any trouble … or have any fun, for that matter. "It does, rather," she agreed, sighing as she leaned back in her seat. "I wonder why that is. You'd think with all its rules and regulations, the Alliance would be the stuffier organization. Maybe because Cerberus hand-picks and the Alliance takes anyone willing to volunteer, you get a broader cross-section?"

"Perhaps."

"With your service record, you could have gotten a tour of duty on any Alliance ship. But you left to come here. Why?"

"I told you. Life on Mars was boring."

"You could have asked for a transfer."

The doctor picked up the bottle and poured another round into the glasses. Studying the pale liquid, she sighed. "Maybe … it's less about leaving and more about staying."

"What does that mean?" Shepard asked.

"As a military doctor, I mostly treat people who are in bad shape. Often they're too far gone for my treatment to work, and they die. Or, when I can help them, they move on. To another command, another ship. Either way, all too soon they're gone. Like Jenkins. Or Williams."

"What about friends? Family? Could you settle down near them?" It sounded too much like her own life to Shepard. Would this be her in another thirty years, alone on a ship, no one close to her, everyone always moving on?

Thoughtfully, the doctor answered, "No, it's not that I'm lacking friendship—and it's not that I want to settle down. I love life aboard a ship, watching the stars go by. They're familiar old friends, if one needs such things, and I have people scattered about that I love to see when I can. It's … stability, I suppose. Someone who will never stop needing me."

Shepard understood. "Joker."

"Exactly." Dr. Chakwas nodded. "Jeffrey will always have Vrolik's Syndrome. He would never admit it, but he needs my help. He always will. I … it isn't that I enjoy it. I hate to see him in pain; I wish I could fix it permanently, but … there you have it."

"Treating Joker gives you the stability you're looking for along with the life on a starship you love."

"Yes." Dr. Chakwas sighed, swirling the brandy around in her glass. "Perhaps it's this ship I love, as much as it is Jeffrey." She gave Shepard a sidelong look. "I felt much the same about Kaidan."

"I know."

"As did you."

Shepard shook her head. "Not the same."

"No. Of course, not remotely the same. He loved you very much; you don't doubt that, I hope?"

"I don't doubt it."

"But you're angry with him for moving on when he thought you were dead?"

Shepard sat bolt upright. "No! Not because he moved on! I want him to be happy. I would never have asked or expected him to stay in mourning for me for two years. I just …" She picked up her own glass, but didn't move to drink. "If he had walked away from me on Horizon because he cared for someone else, that would be easier to handle. But he walked away because of the name of the group who saved my life and built this ship and are funding our hunt for the Collectors, our attempt to save the colonists. It had nothing to do with me, or him, or me and him, and everything to do with his loyalty to the Alliance."

"A loyalty he's held for over a decade," the doctor reminded her gently.

"I know that. And I wouldn't have expected him to throw the Alliance over for me, but he wouldn't even listen. He just walked away, without giving me a chance to explain."

"It's not easy to be confronted with a ghost, especially of someone you loved."

Shepard nodded. "I know. And I understand—as best I can, I suppose. But …"

"You're alone."

"I've always been alone, but never felt it. Now, now that I know what it's like …" She looked over at the doctor. "Is this how you felt after the Normandy was lost, as though you had someone to care for and look after and then that was taken away?"

"More or less."

"But you got yours back."

Dr. Chakwas looked at her with sympathetic eyes. "Perhaps you will, too."

But Shepard shook her head. "I can't count on that. Too … too distracting. Too torturous. Hope can be a painful thing."

"That it can. But I wonder … I have the sense that those drawn into your orbit continue to come back to it." The doctor smiled. "Shepard, our immovable center. A place for a person to stop and catch her breath." She raised her glass and looked at the liquid inside. "Or maybe I'm just … happily drunk. It would be nice if things were simple like that for once."

"Wouldn't it?" Shepard picked up her own glass and clinked it with the doctor's. "Here's to simply being happily drunk."

"I'll drink to that."

They drank deeply, both dwelling in thoughts of those they loved and those they had lost.