Of Soon-To-Be Mothers-In-Law

Shepard stared listlessly at the terminal across from her, flickering through something she wasn't paying attention to. She was convinced she was going insane. Or would, if she was stuck here much longer.

Already bored she glanced down, moving her foot. The small action gave her a measure of satisfaction as she then pointed her toe away, then back, then away again. It gave her hope that she'd recover, even if she never made it back to a hundred percent. After all her hundred percent seemed to be most peoples' one hundred and fifty percent, which was more than enough.

Even the visits were tapering off, as people were recalled by their species and the rebuilding efforts skyrocketed to impressive lengths. Her mother and, of course, Kaidan were her most regular visitors, Kaidan often sleeping in her room overnight. But as he was taking over both of their Spectre duties even his presence was beginning to diminish. And even Joker hadn't been able to get away - as one of the Alliance's top pilots, he was needed for any intricate shipwork in repairing the relay or the Citadel.

She picked at her blanket with a sigh. The damn hospital blankets were so itchy.

She reached for her datapad only to find the rolly table an inch out of her reach. Kaidan - no, Garrus was the last person who was there, so he must have moved it.

She tried to shift slightly, only for the nurse at the nurse's station to eye her suspiciously - come on, it'd been a month since she'd tried to escape last. At least a month. Her sense of time was oddly distorted.

So then she tried to refocus on the TV. Right. They were talking about the rebuilding process. Wonderful. Shepard leaned her head back on the bed and sighed.

"Well, they could turn the heat up in this place."

Shepard figured she must have dozed off, because the next she knew her room had been invaded by a petite, dark-haired woman who looked like she had some southeast Asian in her lineage. Michael had been right on her heels, stumbling into the room after she'd already settled herself down. Shepard was absolutely speechless, and looked up at her orderly. "Sorry, I don't believe we've been properly introduced," the woman said, without prompting. "I'm Kaidan's mother, Helena."

Shepard stared at her even more blankly, which gave Michael time to attempt to save face and return to the nurses' station. "Y-you're Kaidan's mom?"

"Of course I am. They're treating you all right here, dear?" She pulled a pair of gigantic knitting needles out of her bag, wound in a beautiful emerald-green yarn that she began to unwrap, revealing an in-progress afghan. "The food has been atrocious since the end of the war."

Shepard blinked.

"So, then, Commander," Mrs. Alenko continued, unwrapping it enough to work and beginning to stitch. "How long have you and Kaidan been together?"

Shepard realized she was still staring, and closed her mouth and swallowed. "You can just call me Marrakech, or Marra, I guess. Not many people do but there's no need for formality or anything. And, well, it's been . . . Um . . ." She blinked. Did she count the time she was dead? Probably not. What about those eight months she was a known terrorist? Probably not them, either. "I-"

"I know it's complicated. What do you think?"

She blinked again. She was completely out of her league. "Well . . ." God, that total made it seem like nothing. But she cleared her throat. ". . . Three months?" Helena glanced up with a raised eyebrow - when she did that, Shepard could definitely see the resemblance. "I would count the time between the Normandy going down in 2183 and me waking up in 2185, but I don't know if he would."

The smallest edge of a smile hinted at the corners of her mouth. "He said the same thing, you know."

"Oh." Then that settled that. She toyed with her ring, sitting heavily on her finger. "So, um, how is everything? You know, outside the hospital."

"They found a group of survivors holed up in the Amazon. Not many. It's still touch and go, but I hear New York is starting to get power back. You became involved around the Battle of the Citadel then?"

Shepard swallowed. "Yes?"

"Mm." She frowned at her knitting. "You're feeling better, I take it? The last time I saw you, you had just been pulled off the Citadel, after all."

"I . . ." Confused for the moment that she'd come to visit her when she'd still been braindead on the Montreal, Shepard frowned adn then nodded. "Yeah. I'm still on low-grade painkillers and I've only just managed to walk ten steps before falling, but I'm a lot better than I was."

"Good. I don't believe I could have borne it if Kaidan had lost you twice." She counted her row, and Shepard blinked.

"What?"

"Have you thought about children at all?"

Shepard blinked. "I-"

"Of course not. Kaidan says you haven't had the time to discuss it. And both of you have several years, don't you?" She looked up and smiled. "I'm not trying to badger you, dear. I just know that Kaidan's gone for the week and I didn't want you to feel alone."

Shepard swallowed heavily past the lump in her throat. She was almost sure Kaidan had asked her to sit with her . . . And if he hadn't, then she knew where he got his heart from. "Thanks, ma'am," she said quietly, looking down at her hands.

"Please, just Helena. Or Mrs. Alenko, if you still feel the need to be formal. We are family now, after all."

Shepard smiled for what felt like the first time in years.

#

Mrs. Alenko made a habit of coming back every day while Kaidan was out with the Normandy, always bringing the jewel-green blanket that Shepard was secretly lusting after the more it grew.

Finally, the third day, she set down a pair of large-caliber knitting needles and settled back in her chair. Shepard picked them up, turning them over in her hands. "What is this?"

"It looks like you need something to do. So I brought you some yarn, and I thought I'd teach you to knit."

Shepard pursed her lips. She'd picked up knitting once, over a decade earlier. She told Helena this, and she laughed. "That just means it'll be easier to pick it up. What color yarn do you want?"

"What am I making?"

"We'll start on a scarf, I think."

She considered for a few more minutes. "Do you have a nice dark blue?"

"Of course." She fished out for the appropriate ball. "It's the only one I have left after the war, though. So we'll have to not be wasteful."

"I'll do my best."

Helena leaned forward on the bed and helped her cast the first few stitches on. "Now, let's get down to the actual knitting. First, slide the needle through your first stitch ..."

"I'm going to regret this again," she muttered, scrunching her brow at the needles and the yarn.

"Don't be silly. How much do you remember?"

"It's been ten years."

"It's like riding a bicycle. Hold the needles like this." Shepard studied her fingers for a second, then worked hers around the needle. "All right. Just hold the yarn like this, and . . ."

Ten minutes later Shepard threw her needles on her lap. "This is insane. How is this even done? This makes absolutely no sense and I just ... ugh."

The amount of patience reflected on Helena's face possibly would have netted her a saintdom had Vatican City and the Pope not been eradicated during the war. She calmly picked up Shepard's needles, undid the bundle of knotted yarn, and held them up. "All right. Watch closely." Shepard sullenly watched as she slowly but deftly cast on a row of stitches, then knitted two rows. "Think you may be able to try it now?" She nodded and held out her hand. As Helena handed back the needles she casually undid her two rows of work, and Shepard's face fell.

"But-"

"You aren't used to anything being simplistic, are you? Now stop complaining and try again."

Shepard picked up her needles and glared at them with a stare that could have melted the Normandy's hull.

#

"Major. Follow me please."

Kaidan had barely walked into the hospital lobby, finally back from the far rim of the Sol system, when Admiral Shepard's sharp bark caught his attention. He saluted, and she motioned him after her. Kaidan swallowed and wordlessly followed.

So was this what it would be like? Would he constantly be caught somewhere between Admiral Shepard's underling and her (future) son-in-law? Not for the first time he imagined her using that voice over vidcomm if she ever disapproved of how they were raising her grand kids.

Granted, he and Shepard had never discussed that so he couldn't be sure it'd even happen, either in their relationship or due to her trauma.

They stepped out onto a balcony that overlooked Vancouver, cranes and ships holding material steady as buildings were being patched and repaired. Hannah leaned on the balcony and was quiet for a few moments, Kaidan waiting patiently for whatever oncoming onslaught he was apparently going to get. He'd been in the military long enough to see the tells on officers.

"So. I initially consented without much concern because all simulations indicated that no one was coming out of this alive," she started. Kaidan nodded. "Now that Marrakech appears to be recovering, I have questions for you."

"I'm sure you do, ma'am."

"Cut the crap, Alenko."

He nodded again. "Yes, ma'am."

"I see why she likes you." Hannah turned back and leaned against the balcony railing crossing her arms over her chest. "How long have you two been involved? And this is off the record. So ... no shit, Alenko."

"Right. Uh. The Battle of the Citadel, ma'am, after we stole the Normandy. We'd, uh, sort of been skirting around the issue for a few months beforehand."

"Good. I'd suspected something around there. And in those two years she was gone?"

"Do they matter? I nearly didn't walk away from them. She did. We both said things we regretted, or at least I did."

Hannah nodded quietly, almost as if distracted. "And when the war started?"

He almost told her that the war had started for them on Virmire, for more than one reason. "We talked about it during the operation on Mars, when we weren't fighting Cerberus. Then I ended up in the hospital. We settled up."

"You nearly shot her."

"I didn't ... it was complicated."

Hannah hmm'd and nodded. Kaidan realized where Shepard's way of expressing fifty things in one nonsensical syllable came from. "I have standards for her, you know. Every parent does." He nodded. "But you happen to full fill most of them, considering that Marra ended up in the Alliance rather than safely elsewhere." The latter part he was fairly certain he wasn't supposed to have heard. "That being said. You have no intentions of just running, do you?"

"Ma'am, if I was intending to run, I'd've done it long before now. Trust me."

"That's what I wanted to hear." She studied him for a few moments, and Kaidan resisted the urge to shift awkwardly on his feet. "Kids?"

"We haven't discuss-"

"I don't care. Answer the question."

"Maybe, once things settle and I know she's all right."

"And where are you going to live?"

"She'll want to live in space. I'll go wherever she does."

"I expected you to have more of a spine."

He grinned ruefully. "That's something you learn to bend a lot when you're in love with your daughter."

Hannah grinned back. "She was always like that. The first day of school she skipped was to go the Arcturus recruiting office on her eighteenth birthday and manage to get into OCS out of high school."

"You need-"

"Somehow she got in concurrently. I don't even know how." Kaidan raised an eyebrow. "You didn't know that?"

"She never talked about it. What does she have?"

Hannah shook her head with a small smirk. "Xenobehavioral psychology."

Kaidan echoed her head shake. "I'm really not surprised. "

"In light of what she's done, neither am I." She held out her hand and, a little confused, Kaidan shook it. "Major, I don't think she could have picked a better person. Welcome to the extremely small Shepard family."

He cleared his throat, trying to keep from looking relieved. "Thank you, ma'am."

"She's been all right this past week," she continued, releasing him. "I'm on my way back to the Orizaba, the admirals are having a meeting. Your mother is in there now. She's a lovely woman."

"She is," Kaidan agreed,

"Good talk, major." Hannah strode past him, and he stared after her a few seconds.

If he had ever questioned how Shepard was the way she was, his questions were all answered. Straightening his shoulders, he headed for Shepard's room.

When he got there, he was surprised to see both Shepard and his mother still in there, both of them ... knitting? With a shrug he stepped through, letting a warm feeling attack him as Shepard looked up, spotted him, and let a bright, brilliant smile light up her face. He hurried forward and she dropped her knitting into her lap, reaching out to meet his embrace. "How's the relay project?"

"Good so far." He kissed her cheek. "How's the Shepard project?"

"Going," she replied as he pulled away and went to hug his mother. Kaidan settled himself on the bed, letting Shepard settle back against him. "What're you making?"

Shepard held the strip of knitted fabric up, then wrapped it around his neck. He glanced down, then back up in time to see her catch her tongue between her teeth. "I think another few inches," she said thoughtfully.

"You're making this for me?"

She nodded, pulling it off his neck and setting it back in her lap. "The color reminded me of your eyes when you're flared." Shepard closed her eyes after the statement, nestling closer to him. Helena stood, and patted Kaidan's leg.

"You don't have to leave, mom," Kaidan said quietly. She shook her head.

"I'm sure the Commander is more than tired of seeing me," she said gently. "You two should be alone."

"I like her," Shepard murmured after the door closed. Kaidan settled himself more against the raised mattress, letting her nestle closer to him.

"She likes you too. Or at least I think she does."

"That's good. And you'd better like this damn scarf. You've got no idea what pain it's putting me through."

Kaidan chuckled and kissed the side of her head. "I like it already. Don't worry."

"You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure."

A/N:

Diana: Honestly, like I told radiogirl, Marrakech was initially a placeholder (basically, the CSN song "Marrakesh Express" came on as I was staring at the first chapter of Chiaroscuro blankly when I needed her name, and my three existing Shepards at the time didn't have names I felt strongly about). I'm so glad it grew on you, now that she's my baby. And thanks, I didn't miss those complements you slipped in there, I'm just too busy flailing over them.

Kensie: Thanks so much! I hope you think so when the actual plotty part starts happening ... o.o

I love everyone who reviewed! This week has been particularly tough for me. I really should be working on a paper right now, in fact ... presentation due Tuesday, paper due by Saturday ... It's gonna be another fun week. Emphasis on the sarcastic implications of "fun week."