A crowd formed amongst the gates of the Vancouver Alliance HQ. Protesting, angry shouting voices asked and pleaded for what they thought was right. Waiting for the Normandy to arrive on Earth. And all Joshua Beckman could think about within the crowd was how fucking freezing he was.

He checked his omni-tool. Eight degrees in April.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he muttered to himself while bouncing in place, trying to get his blood flowing. A lit cigarette soon followed to warm him up. Just as quickly an Asari near him nagged at him to put it out.

He threw it on the ground and snuffed it with his boot.

"Happy?" Joshua gave her a sarcastic bow. The bitch blew him off and turned her attention back towards the base.

Goddamn asari, superiority just aired off the whole lot of them. They may look human, but they were too uncanny. What could anyone find attractive in them? Tentacles? Scales? Or whatever their skin was made of. He shivered just thinking about touching it. It was that thought, or probably the cold that causes it.

Shepard would probably be complaining about the cold too once she got here. She didn't like it either, from what he remembered. Maybe he was just pampered by the southern weather, where the sun bore down on him, and he could relax on a beach.

But for now, he'll wait for her, freezing amongst the crowd of humans and aliens alike. Even with being surrounded by others, he still jittered in place. He pulled his light coat closer to him. He really should have planned this out. The announcement of her arrival came without warning and he just jumped on a shuttle bus from LA and within an hour, he was in Vancouver.

Joshua sighed and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. Soon it will be Shepard's birthday. She'll be thirty-two. It will be her birthday, and she'll be celebrating it in a jail cell. Something he'd always tried to prevent.

Not that she was ever helpful in the matter, there were too many times to count where she wasn't careful with her abilities or getting caught high on a job. Almost getting herself or someone else killed when she was on the Sand.

An old anger began to warm in Joshua's chest as he thought about her.

Whenever her time with the Reds became mentioned in interviews, she had made it seem like she joined the Alliance to get away from them. That she was a victim of her circumstance and just joined to survive, but she was just as bad as them. The only reason she got off the Sand in the first place was to join the Alliance and learn to control her abilities.

That was the plan, their deal. Four years to learn to control her biotics and come back ready to work for the Reds again.

But she never did. Every single photo or vid she appeared in on the news from Elysium to her Spectre ceremony, to saving the Citadel, and even her death was a smack in the face to him. She was supposed to come back.

But now the photos were from her time with the Tenth Street Reds on the news. Of a girl with short spiky poorly dyed red hair and a strung-out look. He was even in a few of them.

After everything he had taught her, wanting to keep aliens off Earth, she ended causing more to come here. He just wanted them gone and away from Earth's affairs, not for anyone to be killed. But that did not stop the media from blaming her upbringing for destroying some shithole of a colony that was out in far edges of the galaxy.

All of Citadel space had felt her betrayal, the first fucking human Spectre, killing thousands of innocents. Well, he and all the Reds had felt that stinging betrayal long before they knew or even cared about her.

Where was the Alliance when she was just some fucking bruised up kid digging through a dumpster to survive? The Reds had given her everything, and all she did was take. Drugs, money, anything. Shepard was just another goddamn user.

The heating anger built in Joshua's chest as he thought of her more. She was like a little sister to him. But the moment she got a leg up in this galaxy she forgot about them. Honestly with how she treated her actually family, her own siblings, should he had been so surprised?

Shepard had complained of an abusive, piece of shit, step-dad, a drugged out mother, a sister and a brother who stopped talking to her after she'd only asked for money.

They were a lot smarter than him. Joshua should have known better than to trust a junkie. They'll always find to way screw you over even if they stopped using. That kind of user mentality doesn't change.

The last time he'd had actually spoken with Shepard she had threatened to kill him. It was right after she reenlisted and went against their plan. He began selling to her mother again soon after that. Within a week she was dead. Somehow it was his fault that junkie bitch didn't know how to handle her shit.

Shepard could have visited in those four years. Her mother probably offed herself anyway. Joshua would have if he had a life like that. How dare she blame him for it. She would have been nothing without him.

Like mother, like daughter, Shepard was just another apathetic user.

The anger began to spread to his forehead, causing a headache to stir behind his eyes. The blood pounding in his ears drowned out the crowd.

All that fame and she wouldn't have made it past basics if he didn't train with her every day as he got her off the Sand when they came up with the plan. Well that was mainly Doc Branson and his kid who helped her with the constant detoxing, but Joshua still supported her through it.

Joshua stiffened a bit as he thought of the doc. Poor bastard was gunned down last year in his clinic. That wasn't Joshua's fault; his men were just supposed to scare him. The doc had been becoming more of a pain in their asses on the operation they were running. Trying to break up the Reds for good.

He didn't want to think of how Shepard would have reacted if she knew. They had crossed paths just a few weeks back, just before she destroyed that batarian system. If she had known, she probably would have followed up with her threat and killed him on the spot.

Joshua didn't normally like to leave Earth, but Finch had fucked up with a contact on the Citadel and almost got caught with C-Sec. He had to go to straighten a few things out. And of course, Shepard was there on the Zakera Ward. In full armor and enough guns strapped to her back to rip the shit out of him.

He had recognized her from the snort in her laugh, it was loud and called attention to herself. She had stood by an ad pillar with a turian Joshua thought he remembered from her memorial vids. At least he thought he did, they all look the same to him.

"Oh, come on! They're only going to be showing Francis Kitt's Hamlet for a few more months now. When are we going to get a chance to see that again?"

"I'm not sitting through 14 hours of that."

"Fine then, we can rent the vid and watch it up in my cabin. It'll be fun!"

"I think we could be using that time a bit more productively in your cabin." The turians gloved hand, claws, talons or whatever trailed around her barely exposed neck. At first, Joshua wasn't sure at what he was seeing.

"I like the way you think." She smirked and tugged the turian towards the transport cab. That smile disappeared when she saw Joshua.

"Come on, we should go," her voice had become short and monotone. Joshua had thought she was going to kill him there.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, keep moving Vakarian." She pushed the turian along and away from Joshua.

He had honestly thought Finch was speaking in a metaphoric sense when he said she was in bed with the turians. A pit of disgust began to rise in his stomach. He didn't want to know or think about any of it.

The sounds of a more agitated and swaying crowd snapped Joshua out of his thoughts. The fence in front of him began to shake as others in the crowd pushed against it. Holo signs projected out over the protesters. He didn't care to read what was on any of them.

He finally noticed what was getting into the crowd. The Normandy had just prepared to land. A slick, larger than life ship that was a lot more daunting in person.

Joshua moved towards the fence. His fingers laced around the metal, holding and shaking along with the crowd around him. The fence shook with him as he shouted and pounded it along with the rest of the protesters. The crisp April air no longer bothered him as he let his anger finally pour out of him.

She was supposed to come back, but not like this.

Thanks for reading! :)