The months pass slowly. His leave ends and he goes back to Arcturus. James has shipped out already and that's OK, because Kaidan wouldn't be very good company anyway. The hole in his chest that has seemed to jump from Shepard to him by mere contact and loss makes sure of that.
His mom calls. He puts her off but something in his voice must betray him because his dad calls a few days later and asks him how he is. His dad is never the one to call first.
"You've been quiet, son. What's on your mind? I know you, Kaidan. There's always something going on in there."
The whole sordid tale tumbles out of him in a rush, as if he is five again and Daddy will chase away the monsters.
"I got a woman pregnant, Dad." Kaidan leans forward at his desk in his quarters, holding his pounding head as a migraine races through it. He prays he doesn't slur his words, lest his dad think him drunk. "But she's having problems and wants nothing to do with me."
"Drug problems, Kaidan?" Casimir asks instantly, nonplussed in that way of his, too many years in the military to panic easily. "I know some good doctors. I can help get her the help she needs. Red Sand? It's Red Sand, isn't it? We'll sort it out. Get her and the baby medical attention. I have some creds tied up in property, I'll get her the best-"
"Dad, no."
"Care-"
"Pa, no. Stop. It's not drugs. She doesn't take drugs, OK? She's just been through some things. Her friend died in front of her, right around the time we found out about... the baby."
"Oh," Casimir says, the wind taken out of his sails. "Well, that's good. At least it wasn't drugs."
There's a pause and then Kaidan has to confess the whole truth, his conscience eating at him.
"It's someone I used to work with. A colleague."
Casimir hisses in a sharp breath. "Kaidan… when you say work with-?"
"We don't work together anymore, it's OK, Dad."
"Good, because you know how I'd feel about that."
"Yeah."
"Combat role?"
"Yeah, you could say that. She's an Adept, so she's frontline material."
"That how she saw her friend die?"
"Yeah."
"Damn. PTSD," Casimir mutters. "I saw my fair share of that in my time in the service. Listen, I'll talk to your mother, see if she has any idea-"
"Oh, don't tell Ma. She has enough to deal with. Plus," Kaidan adds ruefully, "she'll kill me."
"You make your bed, Kaidan, and you lie in it."
Kaidan groans, used to his dad's hardass attitude, but somewhat hoping in vain that it had at least mellowed a little in his old age or with the news he's to be a grandfather. No such luck.
"Now," Casimir continues. "Where is she? Have you tried apologizing? You have taken responsibility haven't you? You have a duty and Alenko men do not back down from duty."
"Apologizing? What for? I didn't tell you I did anything wrong."
"Son, in these matters it's always best to apologize and ask questions later. Trust me. Apologize until you're blue in the face and grovel if you have to."
Kaidan barks a surprised laugh. "Is that how you deal with Mom?"
"You bet your ass it is."
"To answer your other questions," Kaidan continues. "I don't know where she is. That's the problem. And of course I've taken responsibility. I wouldn't let her do this alone if I had the choice."
"Alright," Casimir says and Kaidan can hear Major Casimir Alenko assert himself, no longer his aging father but the keen and sharp military mind he used to be. "You said she's gone. Where would she go? To family?"
"No." Kaidan shakes his head, even though his dad can't see him. "She has none and she's not with the friend who she would stay with. I've searched where she lived. She's not at her apartment. She's not on Arcturus. She could be anywhere, Dad. Terra Nova, in the Citadel Wards, anywhere. There's billions of worlds out there and billions upon billions of people to get lost in."
"She needs to eat. She needs money. She's still in the Alliance, yes?"
"Yeah. The Alliance is all she knows."
"So narrow it down to places she could work with the Alliance in a non-combat role. Use your brain, you're not an idiot. They probably stuck her in a desk job. Scope around. You'll find her. It's probably where you least expect it. She's military; she's a survivor, frontline material. She'll be thinking like you're the enemy and hide right under your nose. Where wouldn't you expect her to go?"
Kaidan frowns, thinking hard. "Earth…" he answers slowly. "She's not fond of Earth."
"No better place for Alliance HQ, is there? I suggest you come to Vancouver and see your mother, and while you're here, you find your girlfriend."
Words tingle on the tip of his tongue, longing to burst free, to confess this one small thing to his father.
"I'm in love with her, Dad."
"Ahh," Casimir sighs. "There it is. Ami kept telling me you sounded weird on the comm. I thought she was being paranoid. In love, eh?"
Kaidan doesn't answer and his silence is enough.
"I know you too well, Kaidan. You fall in love with your whole heart. I still remember that Rahna girl and what she did to you, you know."
"Shepard is nothing like Rahna," Kaidan snaps. "Nothing."
Casimir goes dangerously quiet. "Shepard? You knocked up the Savior of the Citadel, the first human Spectre?"
"Shit."
Kaidan hears the clunk of the dropped comm terminal and then, "Ami! You need to have a chat with your son!"
"Why is he my son all of a sudden?" he can hear his mother snap at his father.
"Because he knocked up humanity's golden girl, that's why. I told you he was too quiet for his own good! I told you, Ami! He always gets up to trouble when he goes quiet."
He can hear his mother squeal and his head resumes its pounding.
"Kaidan Alenko, when you get your ass home to Earth I am going to give you a damn good talking to!" his mother tells him (reminding him forcefully of Shepard and her fire) and then her tone softens. "A baby, though, Kaidan. Oh, that's wonderful. I do hope you patch things up."
"I'm trying, Ma. I'm trying."
The next shore leave Kaidan obtains, he heads straight into Anderson's office and doesn't wait for permission to come in.
"She's on Earth." he says bluntly, making his face closed and hard, counting on Anderson buying his bluff.
"How did you find out, has she contacted you yet?" Anderson asks, eyes wide with surprise. "She's barely speaking to me as it is. I have to rely on updates from my friends in London."
Kaidan grins. "I didn't know. You just told me, right now."
Anderson lets out a heavy sigh. "Well played, son. Yes. She's in London. I approved her transfer to the Alliance HQ there since she preferred any other place than Vancouver. She's staying in my old apartment. I was born in London and I own some small property there."
Kaidan doesn't wait, just salutes briskly and turns to leave.
"Alenko?" Anderson calls. "For what it's worth… I think you're the best hope I have of ever seeing her smile again. I was wrong not to tell you, I think."
"You were only trying to help her and do as she asked," Kaidan sighs and then leaves to catch his ride to Earth on the next transport.
London HQ isn't as large as Vancouver's but it is older, a quirk of the city Kaidan thinks. It's raining and miserable as he disembarks the transport, hefting his duffle bag on his shoulder and turning his collar up against the rain.
"London calling, eh?" a burly marine grins to him. "It's good to be 'ome."
Kaidan squints up at Big Ben, just visible in the sprawl of city and a passenger skycar whizzes by.
"Not home," he answers. "But I'm here looking for her."
"Good luck, mate," the marine laughs. "Girl trouble. That's the worst of 'em." He heaves his own duffle bag onto his shoulder. "I'm heading to the pub to 'ave a pint. Too long on that damn Citadel without a decent brew. If you find that home of yours, you come 'ave one on me, all right?"
"Sure," Kaidan agrees easily. "Enjoy your shore leave."
He wanders down the Thames slowly, taking in the London sights through the torrential downpour. It's not like Vancouver, with its clean, sleek grey lines, but a strange mish-mash of old and new. A high rise juts towards the sky, neon lights and jagged angles, and beside it a fast food place is entrenched in an old-fashioned store, its lights dim and quaint in comparison. He blinks and just for the space of a breath he imagines a woman with a red ribbon in her hair standing in front of it.
The vision clears when the sun shifts behind a cloud and gloom returns.
As he makes his way to Alliance he rehearses the speech he has in his head over and over, wondering if she'll listen to him, if she'll kick him out, tell him to go back to Arcturus and never contact her again. If there will even still be a baby.
He flashes his ID to the guards at HQ and asks for directions to her. One grins at him.
"Shepard? Ah, Captain Anderson said you'd be coming. Oh yeah. She works in admin on the third floor. Hell of a firecracker, that one. Watch yourself, sir."
Kaidan nods. "I'll do that."
"Hey, buddy?" the other guard calls to him, a strong Scottish brogue thick in his voice. "Tell Shepard that Fred down in security said thanks. Sonja loved the scarf she knitted."
Kaidan stops in his steps, turning back slowly. "Shepard knits?"
Fred nods enthusiastically. "Oh yeah. She's great. She's kind of like the favorite officer around the enlisted, but don't tell her I told you. She's been learnin' to knit for the wee bairn, you know?"
Kaidan raises his eyebrows quizzically. "'Wee bairn?"
"Aye," Fred laughs. "What is it you Yankees say? The bun in the oven?"
"I'm not American," Kaidan says faintly, a little overwhelmed by the mental image of Shepard knitting.
"You better be off. The Commander was in a pretty foul mood this morning and I dare says she could do with a break from paperwork," Fred says with a friendly wink.
Kaidan leaves Fred to regale the other guard with his knitting and strange sayings and heads upstairs, his heart pounding as the elevator counts down the floors.
He walks out as if in slow motion, to a floor of desks and HUD panels with giant monitors plastered to the wall, some kind of central information center.
He spots her immediately, recognizing her butt anywhere. He almost laughs as she bends over a desk, fiddling with a stapler and a pile of datapads and paperwork scattered around her.
"I have had it up to fucking here with this motherfucking stapler!" she huffs. "Jeanne," she calls to the woman the next desk over. "I give up."
With that great pronouncement, she waves her hand and the stapler flies across the room unnaturally fast to embed itself in the wall.
"You know, I don't think a desk job is quite your thing, Shep."
The words fall from his mouth. Not what he intended to say at all, but the only words that come to mind. Her back stiffens and she turns slowly, the blue corona still dying from her body.
"Kaidan…" she breathes and he is lost.
She's gorgeous, clad in casual Alliance BDUs, her stomach round and somehow far bigger than he imagined, still picturing how small she was three long months ago.
Her hair is long and lush, shiny in a way he's never seen before. He knows it's a cliché, but she is practically glowing, her sallow pallor from before gone to be replaced with peaches and cream, rosy cheeks and rosebud lips. Her eyes gleam at him, twin riverbed stones and far more precious.
She walks to him in slow motion and uncaring of any one in the room, grabs his head and brings his lips to hers kissing him fully on the mouth. Her tummy bumps between them and she laughs.
"Sorry. I'm a whale."
He laughs, his hand coming up to hold her chin. "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in the whole wide galaxy." He draws her closer to him, pressing them flush together. "But," he says, lowering his voice. "Should we be kissing like this?" His eyes flicker to the watching administration staff.
Jeanne, her friend, gives Shepard a wolf whistle and two thumbs up.
Shepard sticks her middle finger up and tells her, "Fuck off, Jeanne, you old bitch."
"Come on, Shepard," she calls back. "I heard you moan over that man's dick enough for three months. This is like ultra-delayed gratification for me."
Shepard turns back to him, grinning, her eyes radiant. "No, it's OK. We're not breaking regs, right? Everyone knows this isn't an immaculate conception here." She motions to her tummy. "Besides, what have I got to lose right now, except the one man I always wanted? I've been alone for too long. I don't wanna be alone anymore."
"You won't be," he promises gruffly.
"Listen, come with me," she says, pulling him away from the desks and into a quiet, smaller conference room. She laughs with nerves and he's so happy to see her smiling again.
She holds her hand up to forestall him when he opens his mouth.
"First things first," she says. "I'm sorry. I got lost in the raincloud and I couldn't deal with anything. I had to take a step back from everything and I thought that coming to London was best for everyone. In a way it was. Whatever thing is out there taking down ships, realizes that I'm out of reach and has stopped trying." She smiles crookedly. "For once, Earth and its fleets were my safe haven. I'm only sorry I hurt you."
"I was worried about you, Shepard," he says gently. "I was out of my mind, every single day we were apart."
"I've actually been working up the courage to call you. To say sorry. To say anything. I've been talking to Jeanne and she used to be a therapist. It's helped but I've been taking baby steps. I feel guilty over Joker. It's still my fault he died." She takes a deep breath. "But I've learned to try and work through the pain, to not let it overwhelm and bury me. The baby's helped. He gives me a future to hope for. I have you to thank for that."
"You look great, Shepard," he says again, scarcely able to believe what he sees in front of him, that this radiant woman cares for him.
She smiles. "It's been rough and I have takeout pizza more than I care to admit, but I've been seeing a doctor and taking vitamins. I only wish I could be as brave as you and had contacted you sooner."
"Don't be. You are brave. Braver than anyone I've ever met. Even Wrex."
She kisses him again, fully and long, using her tongue in the way he likes, heedless of Jeanne with her nose pressed against the glass door.
Kaidan's heart seems to swell to an impossible size, begging to burst out of his chest.
"I have… things I want to say. Looking back, I have a few regrets, but not many. That's pretty damn amazing, right?"
She nods. "My regrets could fill a black hole. You're a good man. A better person."
He shakes his head. "No. You're too hard on yourself."
He gets to his knees before her and holds her hands.
She looks at him in alarm, red blooming across her face.
He takes a deep breath. "I've planned this out since I left the Citadel, across the vastness of deep space and the emptiness of my dreams without you. I'm probably gonna screw it up, but just go with me here."
She nods, her face curious and tentative.
"Shepard, Shepard, impossible, beautiful, angry, funny, imperfectly perfect Shepard. I love you. I'm in love with you. I always will be. I've loved you since the moment I saw you try and read Ash's poems, just to make her happy, too scared to tell her you couldn't really read and trying so damn hard anyway."
His hands shake with nerves as tears fill her eyes and his voice cracks a little like he's sixteen and having sex for the first time.
"I've loved you since I saw you throw a merc across the room and then turn and flick your hair out of your eyes. I've loved you since you told me biotics were a gift and not a curse, and I didn't have to be afraid anymore."
"Kaidan, I- oh my god," she whispers, a slow smile stretching across her face as her tears start to spill down her cheeks.
"I've loved you since you made me laugh so hard on Noveria that the whiskey we were drinking in the bar came out my nose and it stung for a week. I seemed to fall in love with you in increments and then all at once, so fast I didn't even know what had happened to me, only that seeing your face was the best part of my day. I don't believe in love transcending lifetimes, but I believe mine will for you."
"Kaidan," she sobs. "Stop. The baby is kicking me because I'm so fucking happy."
She grabs his hand and places it under her shirt, over the swell there and he feels a tiny foot boot him in the palm. Tears start streaking down his face, too.
"I-I didn't love you when I first saw you, so long ago in that Rio docking bay," he stammers, scarcely able to think from the feeling in his chest, "but I grew to know you and I saw the real you. I know you. And I can't unknow you. I never want to. I want to marry you. I want to give everything up for you. I never want to spend so long apart or miss another thing. I want to raise our son or daughter-"
"Son," she blurts, sobbing her heart out.
"What?" he asks, lost for a moment.
"Our son." She grins. "It's a boy."
"A baby b-boy?" He stands and unable to help himself, crushes her against him, feeling her belly against his stomach and the flutters there.
"Uh huh. He really likes his dad, too," she laughs, pulling back from him with a snotty nose and the biggest smile he's ever seen. "He hasn't stopped going crazy since you walked in here. The doc says he's perfectly healthy. No eezo nodules. Nothing weird. Just a normal little baby. I've been thinking of names, but I want to talk about them with you. I'm glad you came for me."
"I couldn't leave you behind, Shepard. I never will."
"I'm in love with you, too," she says softly, that shy light coming back into her eyes, like the moments in sex after she comes or the first time she ever said those words to him. "I always will be. I've loved you since I first realized you were the perfect one for me, that maybe your little black raincloud could chase away mine. I'm not scared anymore. Joker would want me to live. That's what he died for. And I'm going to live well, with you and our boy."
He kisses her once more and doesn't even hear the office outside erupt in cheers, led by one very nosey Jeanne.
He asks her later how on Earth she coped with a desk job while being illiterate.
She grins at him and says, "By throwing staplers at the wall and threatening anyone who complains about my spelling or handwriting that I'll start ranting about giant fleas from dark space if they don't get off my back. Plus, Anderson is a dirty rotten player of favorites and got me easy work. I'm pretty sure I owe him my firstborn now."
The moon spills into Anderson's tiny London apartment through the window. The walls shake every time one of the massive passenger transports takes off from the nearby airport. Kaidan doesn't care. He's wrapped in her arms, skin-to-skin, heart-to-heart again.
They take it slow, the sheets a nest of comfort and safety, a shield from the draughty breezes that creep through the old walls to steal their heat away.
She's not like she used to be and that's OK. There are more sides of her to discover, to explore the new softness to her eyes, to feel how she's changed.
"Kaidan..." she breathes as she always has, her mouth to his neck, her lips soft and exploratory.
Her hands are everywhere and nowhere, feeling how he has changed, too. The months had been hard on him and his muscles are wirier, but she doesn't care, her hands as gentle and insistent as they've ever been.
They don't have sex for once. They don't use it as a bandaid, a crutch for being unable to speak. Instead they just use their hands, their lips, their words to tell each other how they feel and somehow, it's the closest Kaidan has ever felt to her since that day long ago when Pressly made a decision for them.
"I love you," she sighs.
"I know you do. I'm the luckiest man alive."
They marry three weeks later in a tiny ceremony in the Alliance officers quarters presided over by the Alliance non-denominational officiator. James catches a shuttle in from a warzone to be his best man and Anderson walks Shepard down the aisle. His parents fly in from Vancouver for an awkward meeting and he swears sparks actually fly when Casimir and Shepard meet.
"So, you're the one my boy knocked up," his father grunts.
"So, you're the one Kaidan gets his frown face from," Shepard grunts back. "I can see the family resemblance," she sniffs. "There's that pole up your ass."
Ami hides her face in her hands and Kaidan feels like doing the same.
He waits for the explosion.
"You're alright, Shepard," his dad says instead. "At least my grandson might be born with some damn steel in his spine."
"Maybe, old man," she says loftily. "Maybe."
"Ma, I think hell just froze over," Kaidan says.
Ami nods dumbly. "I have never seen your father hate someone so much and love them at the same time."
They don't dress up.
Ami curls Shepard's hair and slicks some pale pink lipstick on her lips. She wears her dress blues, better fitting ones than Joker's funeral, and Kaidan does the same, feeling ten feet tall and braver than he's ever been. His father helps him press his jacket.
"Now, my boy. Now the real test begins. You treat her right, like a real man should, you raise your boy well, and you get your ass back into your job now that this fraternization business is cured."
"Aye, aye, sir," Kaidan answers his father, dressed in a sharp suit, but Kaidan can see the phantom echoes of medals on his chest, the wisp of blue across his chest. An Alliance man, through and through.
"Now go out there and get yourself married to that harpy of a woman."
"Dad! She's not a harpy," he laughs. "She's just unconventional."
"Kaidan, the woman is a public menace, but damn if I don't respect the hell out of her."
As the officiator runs through the quick ceremony, he loses himself in her eyes, drowning in the stars that fell out of her galaxy map to pool in her eyes.
He barely hears to the prompts, but finds himself murmuring, "'Till death do us part."
She gives birth, scarcely a week later, premature enough that it catches them both off guard. They were going to move her to Vancouver to live with his parents after he had to go back to work, but their son was as impatient as his wife and announced his arrival by making Shepard's water's break all over Kaidan's shoes as they stood kissing in her tiny apartment kitchen one morning.
"I hate you so much," she sobs after they race to the hospital and endure hours of screaming labor. "I hate you so much, Kaidan Alenko. You hear me? So much."
"I hear you, sweetheart," he promises, holding her hand tight as she bears down at the nurse's urging. "I love you, too. You're doing great."
"Fucking stop patronizing me, you fucking cock of a man. Why don't you squeeze this baby out of your ass, and come back and tell me how great I am?"
The nurse raises her eyebrows.
Kaidan shrugs. "She doesn't mean it."
"My ass, I don't," she scoffs, before being lost to more agonizing contractions. Kaidan winces in sympathy, not just for the pain on her face, but for the fact that he's about 99% certain she's broken his pinky finger. He's just glad that she didn't throw a nurse through a window with her biotics.
Their son slips into the world early in the morning, announcing his long and hard fought breath of life with loud wails and a screaming red face, covered in afterbirth and mucus.
Kaidan has found his newest favorite, real, mini-human being.
Shepard cradles him in her arms, a sobbing mess.
"Look what we made, Kaidan. Look what we made. He's perfect. He's the most perfect thing I've ever seen."
Kaidan wipes his tears away, kissing her as hard as he can on the side of her head, pulling her sweaty hair away from her face. "I love you and him more than anything in this galaxy. I'll do anything to keep you safe. He's perfect."
His son's bellows his displeasure as Kaidan presses a kiss to his gross little face.
"What should we call him?"
"Miles," she answers, beaming sadly. "For Ash and her poems. For my brother. Because we have miles to go before we sleep and can't ever give up. Even when it's hard. Especially then."
She holds the wrapped, flailing bundle out to him. "Here, Miles. This is your daddy. Say hi."
He takes the warm weight in his arms and looks down into the miniature face of him and his wife. Shepard's perfect eyes and a riot of curly black hair.
"Hi Miles. I'm your dad. And nothing bad is ever gonna happen to you while I'm around."
One year later, 2185 CE.
"Ma, Ma, Ma," Miles babbles, toddling on his fat little legs down the rows of sunflowers. Shepard laughs and holds his hands, helping him when he stumbles and stopping him falling flat onto his face. Ami walks beside her, chattering in her usual way about the day-care teacher and how she's just an idiot who obviously doesn't realize how gifted Miles is.
"Ma," he can hear Shepard call. "You're sounding a tiny bit like an over proud grandma there. He's just a normal little kid who likes to play up in care. He just needs you to stop spoiling him rotten."
"Nonsense, Shepard! I don't spoil him."
"He's your only grandchild. You so do."
Kaidan walks further back with his dad, a feeling of complete contentment warm in his chest.
"How did the doctor's go?" Casimir asks, plucking a sunflower stalk and inspecting it for pests.
"Good," Kaidan answers. "He says as long as she keeps feeling like she is, then it's safe to say that she's recovered from the post-natal depression. She's not had a bad day in months... even with the anniversary. We went to the memorial with Miles. She let Hilary hold him. She only cried after we got home, but we put Miles to bed, I held her and we were OK. It was good for her."
Casimir nods, the movement brisk. "Good. Tough woman, that wife of yours."
"I know," Kaidan answers simply. "I won't lie. There's bad and good days. But there's more good than bad and how many people get to say that?"
"Damn few."
"Shepard's prone to depression. We know that now and we can plan. She has meds for when it's too hard and she has me. I'm never going to leave her behind. The baby was always going to be a challenge for us, and maybe he wasn't something we planned for, but I think we dealt with the cards we were given as best we could."
"That's all you can do, Kaidan," Casimir says, patting him on the shoulder.
"We're happy, Dad. My son is everything to me and I... I never knew you could love someone so much; I wasn't even prepared loving Shepard. He's a part of her and a part of me, and that's never going to change."
Casimir's black eyes shine a little with moisture. "It's hard, being a father. It's something you can't bare to fail at and it's one thing that inevitably you're going to make mistakes. I regret a lot of the things that I-"
"Pa," he says, the childish nickname slipping from his lips, voice cracking. "Don't. You did the best you could. I've had a good life."
"I never should have let those damn scientists stick that junk in your head. I never should have let them haul you off to that hellhole to become old before you even became a man. It wasn't right."
Casimir fiddles with the sunflower stalk, uncomfortable with his burst of emotional honestly.
Kaidan looks away. "Without the L2, I might never have joined the Alliance. I might never have met her. You can't predict the future and I'm grateful for the life I've had, even all the things that led me to this moment. The pain is worth it."
His father clears his throat. "I'm proud of you, son. So damn proud."
Kaidan watches his wife run after his son and thinks he would like to freeze this perfect moment, this exact feeling in his chest, this perfect, full love he feels.
Time won't wait. He knows that. So instead, he savors the moment, locks it away in his heart to be pulled out and examined when the days turn dark again. He knows the little black raincloud will always come back. The trick is to be prepared when it does.
"Hey, hey, hey, little man," Shepard calls as Miles tries to toddle away from her. "Not so fast. Look what your daddy brought home from work."
From her satchel bag that's slung over her shoulder, she produces a small model Normandy.
"Now," she says, plucking the boy up from the ground and carrying him over to a soft part of the found where some sunflowers have been flattened. She sinks down onto them, cradling the baby to her chest and holds the model ship aloft with her biotics. "I'm gonna tell you a story."
"Ami, love," Casimir says, jogging ahead, his curly hair caught in the light breeze. "Let's walk on. I think Chris told me there were some worms in the apples near field three. We'll have a look."
He makes a meaningful gesture towards Shepard and Ami cottons on. "Oh, of course. Yes. Kaidan, Shepard, dears, you come find us later. Sun's going down soon and the cold's coming. I'll cook us up some nice soup and bread for dinner."
Kaidan smiles as Shepard takes Miles' hand and waves bye.
"We'll come back soon," Kaidan calls and sinks down beside Shepard. His parents wander down the rows of flowers, holding hands.
"Hey, Casimir?" Shepard calls smirking. "Your ass looks fat from this angle."
"Your mouth looks fat from any angle," his dad calls back and Shepard breaks into peals of laughter.
"You're getting old, Cas. That one didn't even sting."
"Casimir," Ami scolds. "I don't know why you insist on persisting with this childish rivalry."
"Keeps me young, Ami. Keeps me young."
"Yeah, pity it doesn't keep your dick young. Poor Ami wouldn't have to step to the pool boy," Shepard mutters and Kaidan laughs, reaching over and smothering her mouth with his hand.
"Shepard, our son is going to grow up a little deviant," he scolds her, his eyes crinkling through his smile.
"Puh-lease, with you as his daddy, it's guaranteed," she laughs as Miles reaches up to Kaidan and pulls on his shirt.
"OK, Ok," she says, calming and pulling the zooming Normandy closer to her. Kaidan wraps around her and the baby, cradling them to him and she begins speaking softly, the setting sun setting her hair ablaze in chocolate browns and streaks of dark night.
"Once, there was a ship," she says to Miles as he watches the model hover. "It was the best ship in the galaxy and where a girl from Earth found hope and home. Where she found another boy from Earth who showed her so many things and together they had a little boy. He was born in London, on a rainy day and the girl was never as happy as when she first held him. He was so cute the girl could just eat him!"
Shepard grabs his foot and pretends at gnawing on it with gratuitous noises. He squeals and squirms, shrieking with laughter, reaching for his dad to save him.
"Shep!" Kaidan chides. "Don't you know we aren't allowed to eat Miles?! You're a bad person. Daddy will save him."
He grabs the baby around the shoulder and hauls him away from her, Miles burying his face in his neck, tears of laughter streaming down him face.
"Psh psh," says Shepard, rolling over and crawling onto Kaidan's lap, quieting down. He wraps his arms around them as she turns over so the three of them lay in the field, the navy blue sky above them and the world at their feet.
Shepard clears her throat and continues, her expression more serious.
Kaidan strokes her hair as Miles watches her raptly, his blue eyes shining, mesmerized with her voice and the power of her biotics. Mommy always made things float for him.
"But before they had their little boy, the girl was very sad because a friend... a friend died so she and her baby could live. But she never forgot him and she never took a single second of the time she was given for granted. The ship didn't last forever. Most things don't, Miles, and it's a lesson I hope you never have to learn, but the boy she fell in love with never left her, maybe even when he should have, and together they were happy."
"Happy birthday, dear Miles! Happy birthday to you!" Ami sings, placing a little party hat on the toddler currently trying to cram a whole birthday cake meant for six adults in his mouth.
"Ah, ah, you little piggy," Shepard chides, laughing as she takes a fistful of cake from him. "I swear," she says, turning to Casimir and elbowing him in the stomach. "I don't know where he gets it from."
"Please, Shepard," Casimir barks. "I've seen you eat."
"Hey, hey, hey, you two," Kaidan calls, deactivating the camera on his omni-tool. "Do we have to have a time out?"
He swoops down and plucks Miles from his high chair, pressing a kiss to his pudgy cheek. "What do you think, buddy? Time out for Mommy and Grandpa?"
"Ma!" he chirps, nodding enthusiastically.
"See, Shepard?" Kaidan smirks. "Our little man says you have been very naughty."
An impish grin breaks across her face. "Is. That. Right?" She comes up beside him and kisses Miles' nose, while patting Kaidan firmly on the backside. "Well, maybe you'll have to spank me later."
"Oh dear lord, woman," Casimir groans. "Keep it PG-13 for us old folks and babies, alright?"
"Casimir," Shepard calls sweetly. "It's OK, maybe Ami can spank you too?"
"Oh Shepard," Ami laughs. "Stop teasing him. You'll give him all sorts of ideas."
"Yeah," Kaidan agrees, jiggling Miles. "Give my old man a break. He's only human after all."
"Mmmm," she hums, settling onto the couch while Casmir and Ami start to clean up the disarray in the living room. Kaidan and Shepard offer to help but his parents wave them off, insisting while they're on leave at the orchard with their baby that they take as much family time as possible. "I'll miss you while I'm gone."
Kaidan sits beside her, holding his growing baby boy in his lap, letting him smear cake all over his shirt.
"I'll miss you, too," he murmurs. "But you've been dying to get back into the swing of field work since Miles was born and the Horizon posting is the perfect opportunity while I have some time off to play Mr. Mom."
"I know," she says, making funny faces at Miles so he giggles. "I just… well, you two boys are my whole life. It'll be strange not having you around. Though, I am glad that your promotion leaves us with little more wriggle room career wise. I guess… If I find it too hard to be away from him-"
"You have a choice, Shepard," he says gently. "We've talked about this. If Horizon doesn't work out, I'm happy to have you just do the mom thing and take the early retirement. But if it does work out, and you feel that old thrill of field work and command, then I'm also happy to retire and stay with him instead."
She beams at him. "Have I told you lately how much I love you, Kaidan Alenko?"
He grins. "I could stand to hear it some more."
She kisses him, only pulling away when Miles grizzles at her for her lack of attention.
"And you... my Miles Alenko! Have I told you how much I love you?" she laughs, covering his face in kisses.
It's this moment he remembers a week later when news reaches Earth of the Collector attack on Horizon and the fact that his wife was stolen from him, along with almost all the colony, save a dozen individual she saved with a biotic barrier. They all talk about her heroism, how she fought to the last moments, trying to save as many as she could before one of the seeker swarms slipped past her guard and stung her in the neck.
The creatures that chased her to Earth, that killed Joker, that almost killed her and her unborn child, finally get what they want, two years late.
Miles doesn't understand. He cries through the night for his mother. Kaidan can't understand, that old familiar hole in his chest and the little black raincloud pouring on him like that day he found his home again by the Thames.
"Ma," Miles calls plaintively, the only word he knows save for 'Da'.
"It's OK, buddy," Kaidan soothes, rubbing his back, but he knows it's not the same.
It's 3am. Miles hasn't slept all night for crying. Shepard's been gone for three weeks and every night it's the same.
Kaidan longs for the bottle of whiskey, hidden in the back of the cabinet, but he doesn't even have the freedom of oblivion to chase. Not when his son needs him.
"Ma…" Miles calls again, looking to the door over Kaidan's shoulder as if Shepard will just appear, with her soft voice, soft hands, to soothe him into sleep with a magic flying Normandy again.
Tears fill Kaidan's eyes.
"I know, buddy. I know. This can't go on like this." He closes his eyes, his face buried in the mop of his baby's hair, inhaling the sweet shampoo that still reminds him of Shepard and how she always made sure Miles' uncontrollable hair was washed and brushed to perfection.
"I love your hair," she would croon. "Just like your dad's."
Kaidan makes a choice.
"I'm gonna do something. I promised to protect you both, so I will."
An Alliance man perches at a seedy bar, a picture of a smiling woman cradling a little boy hidden in his wallet. He smokes a cigarette and drinks whiskey for comfort, at his limit and exhausted from yelling at an organization he used to trust. They won't do anything about the colonies disappearing. They won't look into his wife's abduction.
He's going to do something. He can't go home to his little boy every day, take him from his grandmother's arms and explain to him again that his mommy won't be coming home.
He made a promise. He's never leaving her behind. He can't.
Here comes the bad punch line, he thinks. A Cerberus woman walks into a bar to meet the Alliance man and says-
"Kaidan Alenko?" the dark-haired woman purrs.
"Yes," he rasps, the unfamiliar beard on his cheek pulling roughly.
"Miranda Lawson. You recently received our message. I'm your contact."
He turns and shakes her hand, vaguely noting she's rather pretty in an abstract way. Nothing compared to the woman who stares out at him from his son's face, but he supposes some men fall for her seeming perfection.
"I heard you were recently widowed and took leave from the Alliance," she says, cold blue eyes gleaming as she settles into the seat next to him.
"Not widowed," he snaps instantly. "She's not dead. I took leave to care for my son. He doesn't understand why his mom isn't home yet. I'm going to get her back for him, no matter if the Alliance declares her KIA or not. I know in my heart she's still alive, waiting for me. Can Cerberus help me? You said what happened two years ago was a rogue cell. Is that the truth?"
Miranda smiles. "It is. I think Cerberus and you could have a very mutually beneficial relationship. We need a Commander, a leader. I promise you, we will get your wife back. She's the hope for humanity and Cerberus will not let her fall."
Kaidan nods and she smiles wider.
"Now, I have some dossiers for you to look at…"
Kaidan unlocks the door and walks through.
"Some lost things can be found again."