epilogue.
The condo's nice.

It's not Anderson's place on the Citadel, but since that's buried somewhere in Earth's ocean, this'll do. It has a view of the ocean, thanks to the Reapers bombing the previous shoreline into nonexistence, and she let herself splurge on the penthouse because hey, she's saved the galaxy, she deserves a little quiet.

Not that it's quiet now, though Glyph is manning the DJ table and refuses any and all attempts to coax him to turn the music up to decibels deemed harmful for organics. Tali's half-buried in an access panel somewhere trying a workaround, and Shepard vaguely hopes she's not so drunk as to cause any lasting damage to the electrical system. The Normandy has the largest supply of dextro-friendly alcohol this side of the relays, and the quarian has enforced strict rationing throughout the reconstruction period in order to have plenty of options to indulge herself when the time came.

And tomorrow, the relay opens back up; the fleets stuck in the Serpent Nebula have finished their repairs, and the first known post-war relay travelers will take Tali and Garrus and Wrex and Grunt with them. Liara thinks the best place to rebuild her network is still Earth, despite the devastation, but one day she will go, too, and Javik will probably go with her. And who knows how long it will take to get the next relays working, and the next, how long it will take them to reach the places they long to see, let alone how long before they decide to leave them again.

There's an irony in that, that she who never had anywhere to call home is the first one to get there, though she's not sure this penthouse is quite the place. But Kaidan's got one arm around her while his other hand lifts a beer to cheer Jacob on as the latter attempts to arm-wrestle Grunt and it's the best kind of home she knows.

Everyone's made their way here, even Zaeed Massani, who's currently showing Jessie off to a vaguely intrigued and definitely drunk Wrex. Jack and Miranda are at the bar and apparently not killing each other, which is nice, and Garrus is collecting bets on the arm-wrestling with a smug look on his face that she thinks means her lover—ha—is about to get fleeced. And sure, half of them are still in braces or on crutches, even all these months later, and she herself can't do much more than stand up and lean, but they're here, and it's more than she would have ever dared to hope for if she wasn't such a damn fool as to hope in the first place.

Grunt finally stops toying with his opponent and pins Jacob's arm so hard the other man barely manages not to yelp. "Damn," Kaidan says.

"I told you," Shepard says, taking advantage of his disappointment and stealing his beer. After a swig, she adds, "They used to do this all the time on the Normandy."

"Maybe it's just a Cerberus thing," he says. Raising his voice, he says, "Vega! We need you to—"

"No, man, I got this," says Jacob, who has apparently taken it upon himself to have all the alcohol that Brynn can't. She's somewhere in the apartment, nursing the baby and last she saw talking to Kasumi about her tactical cloak. "One more try."

"You wish," Grunt says, baring his teeth and flexing his fingers just before Jacob grabs his hand again.

"Hey Kaidan!" Garrus says. "Five-to-one odds, this time."

"Sucker bet," Shepard comments. "Do you even have anything to bet with?"

Before Kaidan can reply, the music changes, something slinky and spicy and around the corner James appears leading Catie through a complicated set of steps that cuts right across the arm-wrestling, knocking Jacob's chair out from under him.

"He can tango," Kaidan says, as Garrus tries to help Jacob up and Grunt decides to tackle both of them in a hug. "Of course he can."

"Of course," Shepard agrees, and they do make a pretty pair, which is a weird thing to think when one of them looks just like her—well, just like she used to look before she took a nosedive from the exosphere, though the skin grafts are getting better every day—but she's never really gotten to see her sister put her ballroom skills to work and of course she makes it look effortless, though her carefree grin hides an intense concentration as James puts her through her paces.

"Ooh," Samantha says, neatly stepping over the krogan-turian-human groaning on the floor to join them. "They're so fast."

"Oh my," Kasumi says, leaning on Shepard's other side. "Shep, your sister's so—graceful."

"What are you saying?" Shepard asks, with only the mildest of accusations in her voice. She'd like more beer, but eventually Miranda will notice and start lecturing her about pain killers and retarded healing ability and all those things she'd rather not think about.

"I'm saying she'd be an excellent cat burglar, and you would not."

"Hey," she protests, but before she can get another word out James dips Catie and the spectators start catcalling. She cups a hand out her mouth and hollers, "Vega, that's my sister!"

James doesn't reply, though he grins through his frown of concentration. "Thanks," Catie says, as she comes back up, and then he throws out his arm and she follows the motion with spins, turning in quick succession until her own arm is extended and she nails a pose. "But I got this."

"Yeah you do," James says as she spins back into him.

"I think he's actually hitting on her," Shepard says to nobody in particular.

"I think it's actually working," Samantha answers.

Kaidan turns his laugh into a cough as Shepard turns her mild distress on him. "You were out for a while," he says. "People get to talking."

"You could have warned me."

"Yeah, well," he says, as the dancing pair cuts back across the room. "I didn't realize they'd been practicing."

To distract herself from the mildly disturbing implications of this, she looks around, doing a mental tally of all her guests. Granted, most of them practically live here, but she'd sent out invitations for this and everything. Well, Joker had done most of the inviting, but the point is everyone's here and—she frowns and says, "Has anyone seen Chakwas?"

"I think Wrex dared her to try a finger of ryncol," Kaidan says.

"Wrex!"

"Relax," the krogan roars from the couch behind her. "I set her down gently."

"Where?"

Wrex waves vaguely, and she knows that the doctor has the tolerance of a tank and probably can handle something as trivial as krogan alcohol. Probably. Still, as the soberest person at the party—and boy, if that's not a blast from the past—she probably ought to check on her. She looks around for her cane; she could swear she'd left it against the wall, but when she turns she sees Joker waving it over his head as he demonstrates something to Steve, who seems to be arguing back just as vehemently. Great.

She turns to ask Samantha to tell them to knock it off when suddenly the music changes again and the bass booms hard enough to rattle the empty picture frames on the walls. Glyph squeals some indecipherable binary code in the sudden silence that follows, into which floats Tali's triumphant voice: "Got it!"

"Miss Tali'Zorah, I really must—"

Whatever the rest of Glyph's protest, it is lost to the sudden flood of bass-thumping, techno-track-booming music. Shepard winces, though not so much as the faint cries of pain coming from Jacob as he climbs to his knees. Grunt's back on his feet and grinning as Tali emerges triumphant from wherever she's been, hands raised in victory. Glyph manages to dial the volume back a touch but freezes in midair when Tali turns her visor on him, and he doesn't make a peep as she makes her way to the center of the living room and announces, "This is dancing music."

Catie laughs and releases James in order to clap; James only looks put out for a moment before it changes to alarm as Kasumi suddenly appears, shimmying next to him. Tali starts dancing with nobody, but Liara soon joins her; Jack makes her way over from the bar, waving a drink in the air and tossing it back before throwing the glass on the floor and getting down.

"Good thing that's unbreakable, huh," Shepard says to no one in particular, but Kaidan hears her and laughs, tightening his grip around her waist. She leans into him harder but can't quite stop the shifting of her shoulders with the beat, and when she glances up he's watching her with laughter in his eyes.

"You want to dance?" he asks.

"Oh," Shepard says, but she's already testing her legs. A little achy, and her left foot probably can't handle her whole weight on its own, but he's got her by the forearms and she can hold on to him and shuffle, and it's worth it for the grin on his face.

"Hey, monkey!" Catie says, sliding over to shuffle next to her despite James's attempts to ensnare her again. "At least now you have an excuse!"

"Shut up," Shepard says.

"Nah, she's right," Jack says, cozying up to a slightly uncomfortable Garrus with a wicked grin on her face. "You dance like shit."

"I think you dance better as a cripple than you did before the crash," Joker says as he breezes by on his way to the bar.

"That's mutiny," she shouts after him, but it's impossible to hear anything beyond the circle of the dance floor, and anyway, she's pretty sure he just shoots her the bird.

"It's all right," Tali says, swaying back and forth while her arm jams to the beat. "Kaidan's just as bad."

"They kind of have a point," Kaidan says, as James dances by, pauses to stare at them in abject horror, and then snags Catie to shield him from Kasumi's advances.

"Nonsense," Shepard says, looking up at him and bobbing her head to the beat. "You and I," she says, pouring every ounce of truth she can muster into the statement, "are the best dancers at this party."

He makes her wait while he thinks about it, and she bobs her head more emphatically, and somewhere behind her Catie makes a noise of despair.

"Hey," he says, "I'll buy that," and he gives her his slow burn of a grin, the one that always makes her weak at the knees; but this time he's there to catch her when she falters, pulling her close into his arms as she wraps hers around him, circles upon circles. She leans against his chest and closes her eyes as he holds her and sways back and forth. He's a little off-rhythm, and it'll drive her crazy in a minute, but for now it's perfect, his hands strong and warm on her back, the rhythm of his heartbeat under her ear the only song she wants for the rest of her life.

Well. Third time's the charm.

For now it's perfect, and true, and they go on swaying and the Earth keeps turning and planets swing around suns and the galaxy spins circles around them all, keeping time for the stars and the little piece of heaven they've found to call their own.

the end.