You who stand above them now,
Your hatchets blunt and bloody,
You were not there before,
When I lay upon a mountain
And my father's hand was trembling
With the beauty of the word.

- Story of Isaac, Leonard Cohen

"Steve!" Rose rushed to the side of her shuttle pilot, who was bleeding badly.

"Let's get some medi-gel, guys!" She ducked into cover as the pirates opened fire, returning fire, and watching as they fell. Dragging Steve by his arm, Rose felt a chill run down her spine. She glanced up, not daring to look at Steve's injuries, knowing they were severe. How many more deaths would be on her hands? Slapping an application of medi-gel on the worst of Cortez's injuries, Rose hoped it would be enough to stabilise him—at least until the return shuttle arrived.

"Stay here, Steve. We'll be out of here soon enough."

"Rose, I just want to say…" Cortez began, but Rose cut him off with a look that brokered no further talking.

"You're not going to die, not on my watch. Save your goodbyes for later, okay?" Rose said firmly, trying to convince both Steve and herself. She wasn't sure who she was trying to convince. Probably herself.

Rose fired a volley, ejected her thermal clip, and reloaded. It seemed the pirates weren't going down without a fight—or going gentle into that goodnight. Rose wanted to make sure the pirates weren't going to harm anyone, or anything other than themselves. Squeezing the trigger on her favourite shotgun, Rose fired once, then twice, then a third time for good measure. The pirates fell back, and Rose launched a biotic charge towards them, hitting three of them square in the chest.

They were too organised for regular pirates. Rose suspected these pirates had at least some knowledge of combat, working as one group. It reminded her of when she and Liara had fought the previous Shadow Broker's troops, except Liara wasn't giving the pirates helpful combat tips.

Across the way, Urdnot Bakara aimed and fired at the pirates, and Rose saw Wrex and Grunt standing shoulder to shoulder like the comrades they were. Rose, reloading her gun, saw Wrex charge, the full fury and might of the Krogan like thunder. She saw Liara send a biotic blast, taking down another pirate, and Garrus sniping from above, hit another pirate. Rose activated her omnitool, sent a quick distress message to Nellie, and then jumped headlong into the battle once more.

"Hey Wrex!" Rose shouted above the din of battle, "Do these guys look familiar or what?"

The Krogan clan chieftain charged an enemy as he heard Rose's shout.

"They look like the pyjaks we fought in the Citadel Archives!" His voice boomed over the gunfire, as they continued their relentless assault.

They definitely looked like the pyjaks they'd fought, Rose thought bitterly, aiming her gun again and firing on a sniper. The sniper fell, with little fanfare.

So much death and destruction. Wasn't the war over? Why the fuck were there still battles to be fought, when the galaxy ought to be celebrating. The question plagued all those who Rose had spoken to on the subject. Surely the mercenaries knew the war was over, that the threat of the reapers was ended. It reminded Rose of something she had once learned in N7 training: peace treaties took time to finalise, to make sure the signatories were either satisfied or penned in by the restrictions.

She ducked into cover, and raised her shotgun once more, firing it. She reached for her other favourite gun—the one from Sur'Kesh that the Salarians had designed. Firing it, she watched as the sticky bombs caused absolute chaos and dismay in the enemy's ranks. Rose smiled grimly, glad for the panic. In the heat of a battle, anything could cause such chaos, and Rose was the architect of that chaos. As a vanguard, she knew the value in disabling and causing chaos, fighting on the frontline. She charged valiantly, and knocked the mercenary in front of her off his feet, then finished him with a headshot. The blowback was disgusting, but she was long since immune to the nastiness of battle.

Rose wondered whether, in her past life, she had been a berserker. They were known for displaying an ancient primal rage that flowed and took over in the heat of battle, immune to pain and injury, numb to anything except the feel of battle.

Moving towards Kaidan, Rose used her biotics to throw a sniper into the air and fired rapidly at him. There were many snipers, many enemies in general. They just seemed to keep coming, an endless supply of willing victims. How stupid. Her shields took a battering, her vision blurring from the blood and the pain, and she charged once more. If this was to be the end, she wanted it to be glorious and bloody. Strange, how often her thoughts turned to glory and bloodshed—as though the two words shared a symbiotic relationship. Perhaps in another cycle, she would've been a Krogan male.

When the battle was over, Rose felt the rage die down. It both terrified and thrilled her in equal measure. The harnessing of that rage was potent, it allowed absolutely no doubt in her mind. It was kill, or be killed. Few things came as close to that harnessing of rage as when she had survived Akuze—it'd been the biggest reason she'd made it out alive.

"I just checked in with Steve—he's fine, it's just a minor injury that bled a lot." There was relief in Rose's voice as she sat down next to Kaidan. "And before you ask, mine was just a scratch."

Rose opened the bottle of whiskey that sat on the table in front of them, and poured two drinks. Rose took one sip and handed the other glass to Kaidan, snuggling up next to him. He wrapped an arm around Rose's shoulders, and she sighed contentedly.

They found peace where they could, in the middle of a battle, standing back to back, in the quiet of the evening, nestled together on the sofa, and her favourite, sleeping. It was the quiet moments Rose cherished the most—the moments where the other's company was enough, without words, companionably ignoring the other as they sat together. Rose took a sip of whiskey and reached for her personal data pad, and opened the novel she was rereading for the umpteenth time.

Rose had read the Anne of Green Gables series so many times that she could quote great sections of it. She returned over and over to Prince Edward Island during the times when she had faced great uncertainty, knowing that Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe got their happy ending, their happily ever after. It brought her great comfort to know that love could lift up the unhappiness and replace it with a shining mirror. It had helped her get through Akuze, get through almost all the awful times.

It hadn't helped her when Admiral Anderson died, but that was natural—she knew she was still coming to terms with her grief over David's death. He had been more than just her commanding officer, more than just her friend. He had been her father, and she his daughter. There were many types of fathers, Rose knew, more than just the biological father, more than just the stepfather. Anderson had been neither biological or step, but he had been one all the same. He had been her mentor, her commanding officer, her friend, and she had loved him dearly. He had taught her everything she knew about honour in battle, even if honour in battle meant nothing in an all-out war against the Reapers.

Rose knew what sort of father Kaidan would be, if they ever decided to have children. She had seen him with his students—unobtrusively observing them, and knew he would be a patient and kind father.

Rose put her tablet down, and reached for her whiskey. She looked up at Kaidan, and smiled. "I love you," she said softly, nestling back into the space she fitted so well. "I don't think I say it often enough."

"I love you too, Rose." Kaidan replied, pressing a kiss to the side of her head.

Their honeymoon a few weeks ago had been cut short—Admiral Hackett had requested them back in the field, to face the threat of the yet-unknown terrorist group out in the Terminus Systems. They'd had five brief days. Five beautiful, romantic, and completely wrapped up in one another days where they weren't soldiers and comrades in arms, but husband and wife. Their honeymoon had been over too soon.

Rannoch had been beautiful. The deep reds of the cliffs, the rough and rugged stone that stretched out to the sky had reminded them both of outback Australia. Rose had been fortunate enough to visit Earth, growing up in space though she had—her mothers had taken both her and Nellie to Earth many times while they had grown up. Hannah always maintained that both girls should know where they'd come from, grounding them emotionally in the involvement of humanity's home planet.

The first time she'd visited Australia, Rose had been fifteen. Outback Australia was hot and arid, but Rose loved the red soil earth and the colours of the opals down in the mines out at Lightning Ridge. They had been down the mines in a hand-cranked bucket, and seen the raw edges of the mines. Their guide was a bitter man, who had seemingly lost out on whatever opal remained, complaining that everyone else had found their million and sometimes billion credit opal and he was bereft.

From Lightning Ridge, they had travelled south to Broken Hill, so named for the Barrier Range that an explorer had seen. It too, was a harsh and barren, yet beautiful landscape. They had gone right out to the edge of where it was possible to live, and they had both enjoyed the old world feeling it evoked in them. They had seen sites like the Dig Tree, where explorers Burke and Wills had perished. Hannah and Dorothea were both Australian, and wanted their daughters to understand their heritage.

The girls had found the bushranger history of Australia fascinating. Bushrangers were the closest thing to being the Robin Hoods of Australian history. Rose and Nellie spent many hours digging in the dirt beneath a massive tree at least five metres in diameter, having been told that some of the bushrangers had hidden their gold and treasure underground. It'd been frustrating, not finding any of the so-called riches buried in the dirt—but she and Nellie had had an absolute blast.

Rose and her family spent three months touring the country, on long-service leave from the Alliance. They had seen Uluru, Sydney and the Australian War Memorial down in Canberra. The War Memorial had added the Australian members of the Alliance who had fought and died in the First Contact War, and Rose had been astonished to find another Shepard—her grandmother—on the honour wall.

"Nana?" Rose called to Hannah, "Did your mum fight? I know you did."

Hannah Shepard looked sharply at her daughter. "Yes and no," she replied, her voice strangely choked. Hannah's mother had died three months after the start of the First Contact War. "Your grandmother was involved, but never got further than Arcturus Station. She died two weeks after you and Nellie turned three. A stray bullet from one of our own."

In the wake of the raids on the Terminus Systems, Specialist Traynor had been hard at work trying to extrapolate what data she could from the dead Terminus pirates. She frowned as she looked at the uniforms they wore—she was sure she had seen them somewhere before , but where, she didn't know. Turning to Liara, Samantha looked at the Asari, working away at deciphering the mystery of the pirate's uniforms. It didn't seem possible, but the evidence was confronting, and Samantha was reluctant to speak, trying to wrap her head around what she was seeing, and couldn't.

Or wouldn't.

It just didn't seem possible that Cerberus was still alive and kicking, especially when they had cut off the head of the snake. But no, all other probabilities and possibilities had been eliminated. Samantha had read Sherlock Holmes over and over, and now she was faced with a similarly improbable and impossible truth.

The Illusive Man was alive.