A/N: Sorry for the long delay. I was involved in the Fogapocalypse in Baltimore on Monday (aka trying to fly home and all flights ended up cancelled that day) and otherwise still trying to do a bunch of research for my thesis.
In other news, Happy Apocalypse from the Eastern Seaboard! If we all die, it's been a pleasure having you as readers. /sarcasm

(About the apocalypse thing, not about you guys. Cause you're awesome.)

Release

Unfortunately for Shepard the rumors only desisted until the Council's first press conference the next week. As part of the mission team, she was behind Tevos as the asari announced that the relays were once again safe for travel, and that they would be moving the Citadel back to the Widow Nebula as soon as the logistics were worked out. Shepard was just visible to her rear left, behind Hackett, wearing her dress uniform again with her shiny new Major's stripes and leaning heavily on a hospital cane. Kaidan was next to her, his hand invisibly ready to support her if she suddenly lost her balance. This event was unlikely, as she'd basically regained a sizable amount of her muscle mass and figured out how to walk with the large rod permanently stabilizing her femur.

A couple of days later, someone reviewing the footage examined it and noticed that Shepard was wearing jewelry. Not any jewelry, but jewelry that looked suspiciously like either a wedding or engagement band. Like all good journalists, they did their research and determined that a very similar ring had been "sold" by a jeweler on the Citadel, who had managed to survive and recalled it being picked up by a "mysterious-looking hooded woman" about two weeks after the second human Spectre had commissioned it. She'd said she was an official representative of the Spectre in question, showed a written authorization, and he was sure she'd swiped a museum quality eighth dynasty jade bracelet he'd had on display on her way out.

In fact, she had seemed rather gleeful about the whole affair, but he'd never heard from Spectre Alenko and so assumed that he'd either forgotten about or received the ring. When he was showed a high-quality still of Shepard's hand from the ceremony he had nodded profusely and said that was the ring he'd crafted.

The journalist did what any good, observant journalist would do when handed a story that had the potential to be either the most beautiful love story since Shakespeare or completely ruin two of the Alliance's best soldiers' careers.

He went straight to her editor holding the story, properly sensationalized.

She did what any good, solid extranet editor would do.

She published it.

EDI spotted the article first mere seconds after it was published (and about ten after hospital visiting hours had closed), coupled with frantic chatter from the Alliance. Joker, although he seemed rather amused by it to the rest of the crew, managed to seem concerned when he passed off the article simply titled Both Human Spectres Engaged - To One Another? to Kaidan.

The next morning as soon as the hospital opened Kaidan rushed to Shepard's room, finding her sitting in her usual spot by the window. He closed the door behind him, a numb feeling in his gut. "So," she asked, the edge of a wry tone in her otherwise flat voice. "Honorable or dishonorable discharge?"

"Shepard, I don't-"

"Really they can't discharge us," she continued, almost as if she hadn't heard him. "We're both Spectres. Nothing in the rules saying Spectres can't fraternize. And we did just save their asses. You'd think they could be a little grateful."

"It's the press. That isn't really in their dictionary."

Shepard shook her head as he sat next to her. "No. It really isn't." She sighed, and looked down at her hands. "I don't care that the press knows. I just ... I didn't want ... I wanted something in my personal life to stay personal. I wanted us to stay personal. I wanted to have something that was mine. But everything gets plastered all over the extranet and ..." She dug her palm into her eye. "I just want one minute where I'm not the only thing in the public eye. For God's sake, the mass relays just fucking opened. You'd think they'd have enough to deal with talking about how everyone fared over a year of separation! But no, let's have an over zealous reporter dig into Shepard's personal life just for kicks. It wasn't Al-Jilani, was it?"

"No. She was on the Citadel when it got moved. She's been dealing with the war fallout with nearly zero interest in you. Whatever happened to her seems to have gotten that bug out of her for the time being."

"That's a first."

"I wouldn't get used to it."

"Noted." She looked over at Kaidan, and he reached out to grasp her hand. She looked like half of her world had crumbled, and he knew why. She'd worked so hard to have exemplary service records - the Aratoht Incident had been the first major things to happen, as stealing the Normandy had been overshadowed in the wake of the Battle of the Citadel. But this ... this was a personal thing, something she tried very hard to keep away from the media. She knew her service record would stand on its own. And she knew this was part of the hero job, having every little bit of her life drug out for public view, even in the wake of the Reaper War...

But the look in her eyes bore far more pain than it should. Concern, really. Pained concern, maybe.

"What's the Alliance saying?" she asked quietly.

"Surprisingly not much, except - and I believe these were his exact words - Hackett's on the verge of making another media storm by telling a reporter that you'd saved everyone's ass and they could be a bit more respectful." Shepard smiled weakly. "The Council though ..."

"Oh God."

"I think you'll, uh, like it less than the fact that the news is out."

She winced. "That bad?"

He paused, searching her face. "Rumor is - from Hackett - that they want a flashy ceremony. Something for morale. The Alliance looks like they're going to agree."

Shepard stared at him, wide-eyed, then shook her head. "No. No, no, no, absolutely not, I am not getting married in some god-damn frilly hullabaloo."

He smiled weakly. "We may not have a choice."

Shepard glared out the window, almost as if she were judging the world at large. Kaidan smiled slightly and ducked his head. There she was. "I fucking hate the universe," she complained. "Why can't I ever have something the way I want it? I wanted to shoot Harbinger in the face. That didn't happen. I wanted to - fine. Just, fine. I don't even care anymore." She leaned forward, letting her head settle in her hands. "I don't know. I just wanted quiet."

He sighed. "I know, sweetheart. So did I. But you know, well, everyone and ..."

"It's not like you or I are that apt to disagree."

"No." She blinked, then looked at him and grinned with all the brilliance of a plan striking her like a freight shuttle. "Hey. Can't we get someone to marry us privately the way we want, then-"

"I think they'd find out."

She huffed. "Well, I'm going to make some calls."

Kaidan grinned, reaching forward to take her hands. "You do that," he said. "I'm not happy about it either."

Shepard leaned forward and rested her forehead on his. "I love you," she murmured, intertwining their fingers. Kaidan let his free fingers play over her neck, tilting her head to kiss her.

"I love you too," he murmured.

"The things I am gonna do to you when we get out of here ..."

Kaidan grinned, brushing her lips with his thumb. "And the things I'm gonna to let you do while planning my triumphant comeback."

Shepard replied with a surprisingly girly laugh. "I bet something will be coming back, at least."

"Heh. Stop it, Commander. You'll make me blush."

"Maybe I like it when you blush. Maybe-"

"Am I interrupting something?" Like a shot the two broke apart. Kaidan's hand instantly rose to the back of his neck, and Shepard's posture got five hundred times better. Her therapist chuckled. "Ready, Major?"

She nodded, and Kaidan stood then stooped to kiss her forehead. "I'll, uh, be back later, sweetheart."

"You'd better."

She waited for Kaidan to leave before settling down in the chair opposite Shepard. "How are you feeling today?"

Shepard shrugged. "I'm sure you've heard the news."

Alawai nodded. "And?"

"I'm fucking pissed." Shepard played with her hands for a few seconds. "But that's not what you're here for. You're here for the PTSD."

"I'm here for whatever you-"

"And right now I want to resolve that shit, all right? I don't want to think about this."

"Fair enough." She made a note. "How have the nightmares been?"

Shepard played with her hands, spinning her ring around her finger. "I keep seeing this kid," she said finally. "The same kid from before. Only ... not."

"How so?"

"It's glowy. Like a ghost. I don't ... is that even supposed to mean something? It-"

"What else happens?"

She shook her head. "Just ... fire, then. Like an explosion. Then nothing."

"Nothing?"

"I wake up." Alawai made a note. "What does that mean? Isn't that something like dying in the dream?"

"Dream analysis is a pseudoscience," Alawai replied. "It just means you woke up. However, this sounds like a flashback . . . which may mean we misjudged."

"Misjudged what?"

"Doctors initially attributed your event amnesia - after all, you remember nothing after your confrontation with the Illusive Man, or so you've told me - to an injury you sustained in a secondary explosion, but if it were psychologically-based rather than a result of the skull fracture you received afterwards . . ."

She leaned forward. "Think of it this way," Alawai continued softly. "You go through something that hurts so badly, that is so painful you can't stand it, and if you remembered it later in full, the amount of pain it would cause you may be too much to bear. It's a self-protection mechanism by your own mind. It's similar to how you don't remember your death." Shepard nodded. "Perhaps whatever occurred on the Citadel would be too traumatic to remember in its entirety, and therefore your brain is filtering it out."

Alawai leaned back in her chair again, then shrugged. "Or not. It's just a theory, really. It could also merely be a side-effect of the PTSD. Were you able to sleep afterwards?"

"Not really." Shepard sighed and looked away. "I just . . . and then . . . then I feel like what happened to the synthetics, to the geth and EDI . . . maybe it was my fault."

"Did this glowing child say anything?"

"I . . . he did, but . . . I don't remember."

She nodded and made another note. "Did you smell anything?"

"What?"

"Could you make out a smell?"

Shepard thought for a long time, perhaps several minutes. Alawai waited patiently. "It was like I was standing too close to a drive core," she said finally. "That metallic smell that you get when you just walk into an engine room."

Another note. "Feel anything?"

"No. Not . . . not really." Her implants had hummed, though, again like she'd been standing too close to the Normandy's drive core.

A nod and a note. "Taste?"

"Does blood count?"

Another note. "It certainly sounds more like a flashback, in my opinion."

"I didn't think flashbacks happened at nig-"

"They don't. But they can occur when you're waking up." She made yet another note. "Have you had any problems falling asleep? Irritability? Hypervigilance?"

"I'm always hypervigilant. I have been since Elysium."

"Hm." Yet another note. "Startle response?"

"Not anymore."

"The other two?"

"Yes."

"Any desire to avoid situations reminding you of the event, or have we worked through that?"

"I asked Hackett to go back on the Normandy. So I would say that's resolved."

"Any other persistent thoughts from the war? We've focused mostly on the Citadel, but I'd like to start going further back."

Shepard stared out the window. "Two things," she said. "Stopping the coup on the Citadel was rough, but I've seen dead civilians before. Same with helping Aria T'Loak with Omega. Banshees will never not be terrifying, so I think even normal people have nightmares about them. But . . . leaving Earth, knowing I had to leave everything behind . . . that comes back, sometimes. And Thessia."

"What about when your fiance was injured on Mars?"

She rubbed her hands together. "I wasn't going to talk about that."

"Does that ever come back?"

Shepard nodded quietly. "Not often, now that I know nothing happened. I more have nightmares where he . . ." She swallowed. "Where he doesn't recover." She didn't need to go into the fact that they were nightmares where she was holding him in the empty medical bay, Chakwas trapped in an R&D lab on the Citadel, watching as the monitors she'd managed to hook him to showed his heart stopping as he slipped away from her.

That was something Alawai didn't need to know.

"Hm." She made a note. "And Thessia?"

"The fact that we couldn't save it." Shepard shook her head. "But nothing's blocked. I remember it all. I remember watching buildings fall on Earth, I remember the screaming on Thessia, I remember Leng. I don't know why I can't remember the damn Citadel."

"If you ever find out, let us know. I'll write a paper on it." She looked up and gave her a thin smile. "Do you think it's because you don't want to remember?"

Shepard shrugged. "Maybe I don't. How could I tell, if I can't remember?"

"Gut feeling? Instinct? If you ever find out, let me know the answer to that one, too."

Shepard just sighed and stared out the window.

#

"Look who's getting out of prison."

Shepard looked up, grinning as James leaned on the doorframe. Her doctor glanced up, then pointed at another part of the datapad. She signed it.

"Look who's . . . what are you, an N5?

"Yep, figured my 'meritorious service' during the War under an N7 covered most of my training. And damn, Lola, your legs go for miles, don't they?"

She ran a hand over the dress skirt of her new blues. "Aren't you afraid Kaidan might kill you for looking at his merchandise?"

"Nah. Sparkles knows I'm spoken for." Shepard grinned, reaching for her cane to push herself off the bed.

"Resorting to Sparkles now? Still haven't found a good nickname?"

"He ignores me until I call 'im Major or Alenko."

Shepard chuckled, then looked back over at the doctor as she steadied herself. "Thanks, doc," she said. He waved his hand.

"It's been a pleasure, Major. It's about time you got out of here." He eyed her cane.

"I couldn't agree more."

"You should really be in a wheelchair."

Shepard didn't waste another second, just in case he'd try it, limping for the door as quickly as her cane would let her. James stepped out, letting her pass. "I take it Kaidan sent you to pick me up?"

"He didn't want you driving the skycar, to no one's great surprise." She smacked him with her cane. "Ow! Damn, Lola."

She laughed as they reached the skycar pick-up pad, currently taken up with a blue car bearing a large Alliance symbol. James opened the doors, and Shepard lowered herself down into the seat. "So Sparkles has one hell of a fiesta ready, you know."

Shepard chuckled. "I'm sure he does. Did he manage to keep it quiet?"

"Far as I know, the press doesn't even know you're out of the hospital."

She leaned her head on the window as the ship whizzed over Vancouver, one hand nervously adjusting her newest set of medals, awarded to her with barely any ceremony while she'd still be in the hospital on the occasion of the Council's sole visit to her room. It was similar to how she'd been promoted one rank, up to Major - the Alliance had recognized that they were too busy dealing with the cleanup to do a proper ceremony.

She was damn happy with it. They were too busy for pomp anyway.

This, though . . . this, she wanted.

"Who all did he wrestle down here?"

"Lots of folk. He's already had to break up a fight between Lawson and Jack. No one's sure if they're going to rip out each other's jugulars or start makin' out."

"It'd better be the former. Joker's mean with those crutches."

"Jack already might know 'bout that." James glanced over as she crinkled her nose and laughed. "How'd that even happen, anyway?"

"I feel like I should blame an over-enthusiastic master thief and an invasive Cerberus yeoman," Shepard replied ruefully. "I think they had charts. Up to Horizon they had me pegged as sleeping with Garrus."

James snorted. "Scars? That's loco."

"Tell me about it."

The city gave way to acres of barely-damaged forest and hill land, marred here or there by the remains of a smallish town or the corpse of a dead Reaper, so far left untouched. Shepard stared out the window with great interest, waiting for whatever Kaidan's family's land looked like. Finally the skycar began to sink lower, and she glanced over at her driver.

"Don't worry, Lola, we're there."

It wasn't much at the moment - she was sure that was because trees sat untended, their caretakers occupied or otherwise incapable of caring for them in the war. James landed the car on a pad near a modest-looking home, though Shepard didn't really know what to call modest, since she'd never really been exposed to Earth houses. But it looked sort of modest, maybe on the upper end of modest, modest enough that it had avoided Reaper notice at least. James popped the doors, and hurried over to help her lever herself out of the car. Despite being back in decent physical condition her muscles weren't used to being often used at the moment, and they were starting to be a little confused as to why she wasn't laying in bed or why she'd been sitting scoop-like in the skycar.

"Where are we going?" she asked, steadying herself on her cane.

"Thank you, Lieutenant." James saluted when Hannah walked down the house's steps. "I'd go let Kaidan know that you're back."

"Yes, ma'am." He saluted, then winked at Shepard. "Knock us dead, Lola."

Hannah watched him leave, then shook her head. "I can't believe you and Kaidan are-"

"Conspiring to undermine the sovereign Alliance's attempts to meddle in our personal affairs?" Shepard retorted. Hannah smirked, then straightened her daughter's hat.

"You ready? This is the legal and binding bit, you know. The Alliance can do what they want later."

"I think so." She grinned back at her mother. "It's more important to him, I think."

She studied her daughter for a few seconds. "You're happy about this?"

It was phrased as a question, but Shepard knew if she answered "no" her mother's next action would be dangerously swift. "Kaidan's the only man I think I could ever love, mom. He's the only man since Elysium who's seen past the name and the uniform. He gets me. He's the first person in a long time who has."

Hannah nodded. "Just checking. Come on." She stepped to the side without the cane and motioned Shepard along. "By the way, I had to bribe half of your crew with booze. Who's going to cry?"

"Kasumi. You. Probably Mrs. Alenko. Can turians cry? I don't know. I don't have enough of a sample base."

"I suppose we're about to find out. Provided everyone hasn't already passed out while Vega was off fetching you from Vancouver."

"They won't have." She glanced over, leaning heavily on her cane as they rounded the house. Hannah reached out a hand to steady her. "I'm fine," she snapped.

"Don't backtalk me, Marrakech Amelia Shepard."

"Sorry. It's . . ." She looked down at her feet. "I'm sorry."

"It's hard. I know." Hannah touched her arm gently. "Trust me. I know."

Shepard smiled back at her again.

"Hey, look who it is." Jack was leaning on the corner of the house, wearing a plain Grissom Academy Instructor t-shirt and her usual cargo pants.

"Hey, look who put on a shirt," Shepard replied.

"I was told there was a dress code," she retorted. "Who the fuck made one of those?"

"I believe it was me," Hannah said pointedly.

"Hey, Admiral," she replied. "Figured it'd be you. C'mon, Shep. You're late."

"It's not my fault. If Vega had let me drive-"

"We wanted you here in one piece." Shepard half-leaned around Jack as Tali appeared next to the biotic, and she and the quarian quickly embraced. "It's so good to see you on two feet, Shepard."

"Yeah. What's it been?"

"Three months. I've been on full-time geth repair, then full-time Citadel repair. It's been busy."

"I know." She stepped back and grinned. "It's good to see you. Had you, uh . . ."

"Kal?" Tali asked. "We found him." Her tone seemed happier than Shepard had expected, and she quickly continued. "He and most of his team were actually alive, but running out of antibiotics. We made it just in time. They're recovering."

"Tali, that's . . . that's great!" Shepard had liked the quarian when she'd met him back on Haestrom, and she'd been able to tell that the duo had a . . . special connection. Very special. Tali had been crushed when they'd heard he'd been killed in action.

"Meanwhile," she said, taking another step back. "This is supposed to be a special day for you and Kaidan, isn't it?"

Shepard shrugged. "Supposed to be. Less, now that the Alliance is trying to usurp it."

She knew Tali well enough to recognize when she was grinning, even from behind her mask. "Well, we should hurry up before they can, right?"

"I'll go get the fuckers in line," Jack said, tapping her fingers to her head in a sarcastic salute. She and the quarian disappeared. Hannah and Shepard waited, and a few seconds later they heard her again. "All right you fu-guys, sit your asses down and shut up!"

"I can't believe they hired her to teach children," Hannah said quietly.

"She actually does really well. I take it Jacob's here?"

"With his son, yeah. Probably why she censored herself." Hannah looked over at her. "You ready?"

Shepard straightened her shoulders and nodded. "Ready as I'll ever be, I suppose."

A/N:

Faretta: You too hun, and thanks! Your kokoro will be damaged, but it will not be irreparably, I promise.