A/N: I've played through the Krogan/Salarian/Turian meeting, rescuing Eve, and the Rachni side mission Wrex gives you - so, there might be spoilers through that included below. As always, thanks to the readers and all the far-too-kind reviewers!

Today, I asked a friend to die in exchange for an ally. In war, numbers are assets; but if Grunt weren't such a tough son of a bitch to kill... Well, I would have felt that one loss more deeply than the entirety of the Rachni.

How do you quantify a species?

I saw Palaven burn from a distant moon, its silver surface splotched with plumes of flame.
But, it's a friend's father and sister on the surface that we're thinking about.
Like I said, numbers are funny that way.

But, I have Grunt and Garrus back with me again, and that means I'm luckier than most. And it makes me wonder... maybe it's the not people around me who have short life expectancies, after all; maybe it's just the people that they care for.
Well, I guess that brings me back to you.

I heard from you again today.

After two years spent in a Cerberus lab and six months spent in an Alliance "secure relocation facility," it's easy to lose sight of how much the world has changed, how much people have changed.

Ashley Williams, human Spectre. When you stood behind me as I went before the Council, I would never have thought that one day Chief Williams would join me. Of course, you're not "Chief Williams" anymore.

Wrex: mercenary to politician
Liara: scientist to Shadow Broker
Garrus: C-Sec outcast to someone Generals salute
And I guess that brings me back to you again. Someone who has finally outgrown her family name.

No wonder you didn't believe me when I said I was the still the same guy.

I won't deny what I don't know – and what I don't know is if I'm different. I plod along a linear path while everyone zigs and zags around me. But for all I've done and seen, I feel unchanged.

Maybe that's the trick of time: you can only track your own progress against that of those around you. And sometimes, until you take a step back and look around, it's so easy to forget that years have passed.

But, I must have changed. I'm not sure when I began interjecting myself into other people's conversations and expecting them to listen, but I have. I influence things I have no right to have a say in, and people listen by virtue of it being me. Why do I do it? Why does anyone listen? Maybe it's because I need someone to remind me that I'm human, John Shepard, just a man.

I'd like to be just a man to someone again.

Kasumi was great at that – I think you would like her, Ash. I was never "Commander" to her, only "Shep." And we spent a lot of time talking and drinking late at night. She grounded me, refused to let me get swept away in the cult of my own personality. I guess if I'm aware of it now, I must have changed in that way too.

Shibui – that's what she said it was. It's a Japanese aesthetic of the beauty in the deceptively simple. A tea set. A bowl. A poem. A singer or artist so endowed with natural gift that they embody effortless perfection. Or me, a soldier and sometimes orator who makes it look so easy that others want to appreciate. A person, a little rough around the edges, but so full of promise and spirit that others can't help noticing. The best of everything and nothing. The beautifully imperfect.

I don't know if I agree.

Shibui has many meanings. One I found: "this balance of simplicity and complexity ensures that one does not tire of a shibui object but constantly finds new meanings and enriched beauty that cause its aesthetic value to grow over the years." Or another: "A team member is said to be shibui if they contribute to the underlying success of all without themselves standing out."

Maybe if you tried to quantify humanity... But I still think I'm too conspicuous for that.

Simplicity, implicity, modesty, silence, naturalness, everydayness, imperfection – "beauty that makes an artist of the viewer."
I guess that brings me back to you.

I think I'm more wabi-sabi, if I'm any of Kasumi's Japanese aesthetics: rough, simple, and full of suffering and longing, solitude. But you...

Seeing you again lying in that hospital bed, bruised and battered and so full of life... I have never found a better definition for shibui.

Beautiful.

Direct.

Imperfect.

Like a hand-shaped bowl, each time I see you, I find new details to appreciate. The chips and scratches worn against you with time only make you more special to me.

I'm a soldier, not an artist, and these are words and concepts from a world of those far smarter than I.
Hell, I don't even know if I'm using the term right, or if I understand what Kasumi was saying at all.
But, that's how I like to think of you: shibui.

Do you remember the last time we were on the Citadel together? I bought you a word of the day calendar and wrote some stupid note, something like "to my not-a-word person." I didn't have the courage to write anything this time, when I visited you at the hospital. I hope the Tennyson book spoke for itself – better than the calendar did – but, if I could write an inscription, that's what I would put: "To Ashley, the one who makes me better for having known you." Beauty that makes an artist of the viewer.

I think you'd laugh if I said that. Then again ... maybe not. I have to keep reminding myself that you're not "Chief Williams" anymore – and it's hard to separate the woman from the memory.

I tried to be honest when you asked, though. It might not have been pretty or poetic, but it was the best that I could give you: honesty.
It's always been about you, Ash. Even when it was just a memory or a thought, it was a memory or a thought of you.

It's how I quantify the galaxy.

I want to tell you about numbers.
About art and imperfection.
About time and change.

About the ones who make us better for having known them.
Not the loudest, or most colorful, but the shibui.

And, it's always been about you.