A/N – for those of you who don't play the spacer background, you may not realize how little Bioware gives us fanfic writers to work with regarding Shepard's parents and their character. I decided I needed to do a bit of extrapolation working from the end result – my Katriona Shepard as I see her – and work backwards to flesh out who the people who had made her were and what her background would have been. Therefore, very little of the chapters dealing with Hannah are canon, per se, but rather the products of my fertile imagination. I hope they don't conflict too much with your perceptions.
I'd like to give a special thank you to jena, my first reviewer. You, too, made my day, thank you so much! This new chapter is dedicated especially to you
She came out of the anesthesia to see her mother sitting beside her, holding her hand and looking at her calmly. She decided that the fact that she was seeing her mother and that she didn't look overly worried were good signs that her surgery had gone well.
Hannah smiled at her daughter when she opened her eyes and breathed a silent sigh of relief. The doctors had told her all was well, but seeing the proof before her was much better than their reports. She reached out and stroked Kat's hair back from her forehead, grateful that she had managed to carve out some time so she could be here when she woke. Kaidan would return from his dinner break soon and she would have to return to the Kilimanjaro.
"Mom," Kat said then cleared her throat when she heard how husky it was, "did it work?"
Hannah nodded, "Everything is fine, they said, and by the time you're ready to test them, your biotics should be fully functional again. No crates this time," she said pointing a finger at her daughter, remembering the destruction in her cargo hold all those years ago.
Kat laughed quietly. "I told Kaidan that story only yesterday," she said to her mother. "I also told him you didn't ground me."
Hannah chuckled. "You were lucky I didn't, but the sight of you curled up, so small, tears drying on your cheeks got to me. I couldn't bear to punish you."
"Thanks, Mom," Kat said. They sat in companionable quiet for a moment, each lost to their own thoughts before Kat spoke again. "Mom?" she opened on a questioning note.
"Kat? What's wrong?" Hannah replied, alarm filling her tone. Perhaps something had gone wrong, or there were complications.
"How did you do it?" Kat asked her mother. "I mean, being married to Dad. How did it work?"
Hannah relaxed, seeing that the emergency at hand wasn't medical in nature and took a moment to frame her answer. "It was difficult, I won't lie. When we met, we were both on shore leave, so it was outside the military setting. That helped. We spent a week together and your father, well, he swept me off my feet. By the time it was over and we had to return to our postings, the thought that he was a superior officer didn't really matter to me. We weren't posted together anyway, so fraternization regs weren't in question."
Kat winced, she knew her mother didn't mean it as a criticism, just a statement of fact, but the Alliance in her still gave her a few twinges of guilt over breaking regs as blatantly as she and Kaidan had. It had been a first for both of them, and although the tables had been turned in this most recent stint on the Normandy – with him technically the superior officer - she wasn't exactly a subordinate to him. Still, in strict terms, their entire relationship, save for her time with Cerberus, was against fraternization regs. And what little they had of relationship while she was working with Cerberus was against different regs. Nothing between them had been easy either.
Hannah continued her story, "We didn't see each other for nearly six months after that first shore leave. At least, not in person. We wrote, frequently, and once or twice managed a holo conference. By the time we made plans to be together in the same place at the same time again, I knew I loved your father. Michael, well, he might have taken a bit more convincing," Hannah had a smile on her face now that Kat was sure she knew the cause of, and didn't want to think about, and she nodded as her mother continued. "By the end of that leave – we had two weeks that time – he asked me to marry him. I don't think I let him finish the entire question before I jumped in his arms and said yes."
Kat grinned at the picture of her parents so young and in love. It was something she had almost never had a chance to witness herself since she had spent her childhood being shuffled between their individual postings with only two weeks a year spent together as a family. "Was it worth it? Did you ever regret it?" she asked.
Hannah looked startled at the question then sighed and gave her daughter the truth she deserved. "I did." She saw surprise flicker on Kat's face and clarified, "for about six months after your father died I wished everyday that I had retired and had just been his wife and your mother. But, Kat, the truth is, we wouldn't have seen each other anymore than we did as things played out. I would have been settled somewhere planetside with you, waiting for your dad whenever he could steal time away from his ship. And I would have been miserable. So, eventually, I came to terms with it and life moved on. But was it worth it? Oh yes, every moment I had with him was the best of my life. And he gave me you, honey. That alone was worth it."
Kat saw the tears streaming down her mother's cheeks and gripped her hand, offering what little comfort she could. "Kaidan asked me to marry him," she told her. "I said yes."
"Oh honey," Hannah breathed, "that's wonderful! He's such a good man. And you will make it work. I know there are a lot of questions and decisions ahead of you, but I also know how much he loves you. I saw it every day we sat here, watching, waiting. And I don't doubt you love him just as much. The soldier I raised would never break regs for just any man."
Kat laughed, thinking that her mother had just managed to criticize in the nicest way possible. Admiral first, mother second, she thought, shaking her head.
"Yeah, Mom, we will make it work. We deserve it," she replied, feeling much more at peace with the thought. She'd have to let her fiancé - ok it was getting easier - know that they had her mom's blessing as soon as he got back.