Thank you all for your patience, and for reading. I don't own Mass Effect or any of it's characters or locations or anything.
Shepard watched the Normandy disappear into the atmosphere and tried, very hard, to keep her panic off her face. They were just going to Vancouver. They'd be back in a few hours. There was absolutely no reason to feel like she was never going to see Kaidan again.
She should have gone with them. To hell with making sure her alien friends weren't left alone in a strange place, she should have insisted.
Joker was eager to get the Normandy repaired and refitted, so they could fly again. Flying was all he had, so she understood entirely. Problem was that the only person certified to co-pilot the Normandy, officially, was Kaidan. Tali could certainly have handled it, and Liara probably could have as well, but the Alliance brass didn't need to know that. Kaidan's certification was old. Joker probably wouldn't let him touch the controls. But they needed a co-pilot to bring her in to an Alliance port.
And of course, Cortez had seized the chance to catch a ride back to Vancouver. He had work, apparently, running a bunch of junior pilots through their new duties. A lot of the fighter jocks thought that supply runs and medical transports were beneath them. Cortez had a knack for making them realize that they could save more lives by running equipment safely and cheaply than they could shooting down bad guys. And anyway, it was peace time. Vega went, too, though he wasn't sure if he'd stay in Vancouver or come back with Kaidan and Joker. It depended, he said, on what the brass wanted from him. He was N7 now, and he had responsibilities.
Elizabeth put a hand on Shepard's shoulder, and Shepard barely kept herself from flinching. Pure nerves. She gave the older woman a wan smile.
"It's hard to watch them go when you just got them back," Elizabeth said. Of course. As a military widow, Elizabeth knew all about watching ships disappear into the atmosphere. "Come on. I've got just the thing to take your mind off it."
"Not more food," Shepard said. The Alenko clan was going to feed her until she couldn't walk. Her weakened joints wouldn't be able to take the strain. Elizabeth smiled. Liara, on the other side of her, smiled too. And rubbed her stomach in sympathy.
"I was thinking I'd take you on a tour of the orchard," Elizabeth said. She included Liara in her smile. "Both of you. You may find it interesting from a historic perspective, Dr. T'soni. The orchard has been here for a long time."
"Certainly," Liara answered. Shepard smiled and nodded. And let herself be led off to the garage, where there was a little white cart with black wheels waiting for them. Garrus and Tali, she was given to understand, were still repairing the summer kitchen. The cart rumbled to life at the touch of a button and they were off. She hadn't been in a wheeled vehicle since the Mako. Every bump reverberated up through the cart and her spine.
"This will also give us a chance to talk about current events," Liara said. Shepard raised an eyebrow. She wanted to talk about Shadow Broker intel, here? Now? Shepard glanced from Liara to Elizabeth and raised her eyebrow. Liara just smiled.
"I wouldn't want to bore Mrs. Alenko," Shepard said, by way of a broad hint. Elizabeth snorted.
"Yeah, I'm only a small business owner and mother to a Spectre. Galactic news is boring," Elizabeth said. Shepard blinked at her.
"In fact, Elizabeth and I have been talking for some time," Liara said. "She's the one who gave me reports on your condition. Miranda tends to focus on the technical, not the psychological."
It only took a few seconds for Shepard to unravel that. Liara had set Kaidan's mother to spy on her? Which, wait a moment, made Kaidan's mother an agent for the Shadow Broker. Whether she knew it or not. Shepard's lips stretched wide in a fierce grin. Oh, he was going to hate that.
"And Liara gave me information about what my son was up to," Elizabeth said. "He was always too stubborn and independent to listen to good sense. Not sure at all what I think of him being in command, I surely don't. He's going to be last out of a burning building some day and he won't even think twice about the sacrifice."
"Um," Shepard said, and her brain stalled out like a broken engine. Elizabeth was right, of course, but hearing her say it out loud was bizarre. She'd had to order Kaidan out of danger more than once.
Wait, could she still do that? Order him out of danger? Would he listen?
"In any case," Liara said, "I thought you might want to give some thought to where we are going as soon as the Normandy is ready. There's several options. Some problems are more urgent than others."
They trundled slowly and bumpily through an avenue of apple trees. Last year's harvest had come during the war, and no one was picking apples then. The ground was littered with the rotted remains of last year's apple crop and the air was sickly sweet with the scent.
"Okay, what's most urgent?" Shepard asked. Liara's lips quirked.
"There's the official line, and there's the truth. Officially the biggest threat of disaster comes from the krogan. They want to expand, they want ten new planets. Right now with resources so strained that request looks pretty belligerent. Wrex and Bakara are running it, so it's all pretty aboveboard. They're going through proper channels."
"So that's not the real emergency," Shepard said. "They've got it under control. What's the real emergency?"
"That question gets a little bit trickier," Liara said. "One answer is, the asari. We lost Thessia. Palaven and Earth have been the recipients of a lot of aid from the galactic community, but not Thessia. We asari have been mostly left to recover on our own. Or asked for help. And many of our leaders remember what the krogan and the rachni did to our galaxy. Watching them rise in the wake of this war has encouraged some to. . . take steps."
"Crap," Shepard muttered.
"Yes," Liara said. She paused, then said reluctantly, "My father is encouraging the other Matriarchs to change some of our cultural practices. To become more war-like. She thinks that if our maidens were encouraged to train militarily instead of dancing in bars we would not have lost Thessia. And she may be right. But these cultural movements are happening under the surface."
"So far I'm not hearing anything that's a problem," Shepard said. Liara looked away, out over the warm green fields.
"You can't train an army without something to fight, Shepard," Liara said. "My people are fractured. Unstable. Our culture is. . . fragmenting. You saw how much a good fight can bring people together. How having a powerful enemy can force people into cohesion."
"So, who would the asari fight?" Elizabeth asked.
"Either the humans or the turians," Liara said. "Or, I suppose, the krogan. But the turians and humans are competitors for the same planets and resources that the asari need. So unless we do something to redirect the asari, we could be looking at another war very soon. Within a decade."
Liara's definition of soon, Shepard was reminded, was based on a much longer lifespan than she could hope to enjoy. She sighed.
"So we ought to go talk to your father," Shepard said. Liara nodded.
"That, or, well, the other emergency is less urgent, but it's something no one else can address. The rachni are spreading throughout the galaxy. And they are, so far, helping rebuild. But no one knows what their goals are. They don't communicate with anyone else. Several governments are already putting plans in motion to wipe them out if they show the least sign of violence."
"But the rachni wouldn't go easily," Shepard said. "Fighting them would just bring about a new war. It wouldn't be over quickly."
"Exactly. And you're trusted by the rachni queen. You might be the only one who is," Liara said. Shepard sighed. She was never, ever going to be done, was she?
"And then there's the goodwill tour," Elizabeth put in. They came to the end of the row of trees, and Elizabeth turned the cart to go down near a broad blue lake. "Don't forget. You have to shake hands and kiss babies with every major ally. Turians, salarians, asari, quarians, batarians. Everyone. Even the hanar. You're the face of the human resistance. Now that you're on your feet and you have your ship back people will expect you to come to their planet and thank them for their help."
"Shouldn't they be thanking us for our help?" Shepard said. Elizabeth grinned. And for a moment, Shepard could really see where Kaidan got his sense of humor from. His twisted, subtle sense of humor.
"The best thanks for a job well done is another job," Elizabeth said. Liara snorted. Delicately. But still. She was clearly learning bad manners from all the soldiers she was hanging around.
"I like working from the Normandy," Liara said. "So I would want to come with you. It provides a certain mobility and anonymity. No one seems to question me being an information broker who works with you, they all just assume you're paying well. Or that I'm besotted. Either way it's a good way to work."
"I couldn't do this without you, Liara," Shepard assured her. Alliance intelligence was always a little underfunded. She'd come to rely on Liara's information absolutely. Liara's smile widened to hear that.
They circled the pond and followed an overgrown dirt path into a patch of thick trees. The trees looked old, to Shepard's eyes, but then the part of Earth where she grew up didn't have very many. They were tall anyway. More than twice as tall as her. It was cool under their shade, and the wind in the leaves made a sound that soothed her. She suddenly understood why, despite all his wanderings through space, Kaidan thought of this place as home.
"There used to be a spring house out here," Elizabeth said. "About, oh, a hundred a fifty years ago. Down here in the valley there's some caves that connect to an underground river. Well, a stream. It's just the highest bit of ground water. But the caves were modified and built out for dry storage. We keep apples out here, preserves, bottles of cider. Hard and soft, you know, all of it. When I got married there was a still in one of the back caves but we got rid of it around the time Kaidan and his cousins hit their teen years. They were all a little too good with chemistry."
"I can just picture it," Shepard said, smiling. Liara looked all around them, her blue eyes wide with interest. For all the things that were supposedly under their wheels the woods in front of them were remarkably boring. If Liara's archaeologist's eyes saw anything other than trees and scrub she didn't mention it.
They rounded a corner and over a small rise, up a little path, stood a white wood building. It was small, almost the size of the Normandy CIC, with wooden slats on the sides. It had to be old. People stopped covering their buildings in wood almost a hundred years ago, too expensive. Polymers were so much cheaper and easier to maintain. But the wood had afforded a strange opportunity. Bright green leaves grew through the cracking paint. The woods were reclaiming this patch of land, one plant at a time.
"Wait, what's that?" Shepard asked. Obligingly, Elizabeth stopped the cart.
"It's our chapel," Elizabeth said. "It's a great story, actually. My husband's grandmother wanted to marry a Catholic man, even though her family was Protestant. Back in the day, that kind of thing was a little unheard of. At least out here away from civilization. Their families supported the match, but their churches- not so much. So the bride's father built them this chapel. His thought was if the preacher and the priest wanted to fight, they could fight. But he wasn't going to let his little girl suffer for it. Or her chosen husband. They were married right here."
"I suppose it must be hereditary," Liara said, amused. "Being stubborn."
"Oh, yes," Elizabeth sighed. Shepard hopped out of the cart and went to inspect the chapel. It was falling apart. There were great big holes in the roof and it looked like some woodland creature had taken up residence inside. Or maybe a herd of woodland creatures. But something about the chapel really spoke to her. Maybe it was the verdant life overflowing every crack and crevice.
Maybe it was the absolute visual proof that life could continue, that growth was the natural state of the world. Not destruction.
"Your archaeologists must have a very difficult time tracing your settlements," Liara said, laying a blue hand on the wooden walls. "I would think that buildings like this are absorbed back into the flora in just a few hundred years."
"Unless someone keeps them up, yes, they do," said Elizabeth. She walked up to the door and pulled. It stuck in its frame. She gave it a little yank and the door pulled free, shedding little bits of greenery as it opened.
"Should we be messing with this?" Liara asked. "One stasis bubble and this whole thing would collapse."
"Sure," Shepard agreed. "But we could just use that same stasis bubble to keep the debris off us. The day we met I pulled you out of a collapsing volcano. I think we can handle a little wood."
Liara grimaced, but she didn't disagree. It was a moot point anyway. Elizabeth had already gone inside. The older woman was making strange noises, like she was trying to communicate with the four-legged inhabitants of the space.
Shepard stepped over the threshold. It was dark inside, but that was to be expected. The windows were small, the trees overhead thick with leaves. She listened, very carefully. But heard nothing except Elizabeth's soft breathing as the older woman noticed her pausing and paused with her.
"I think whatever lived here has moved on," Elizabeth said. "Except, of course, for bugs and mice."
"We could repair it," Shepard said, without even pausing to think. "I mean, not take the trees out of the walls. But we could clear out this debris."
"If you want to clear debris, I've got a whole field to the south that needs attention," Elizabeth said. Then she sighed. "But yeah. We're here, we might as well. I'll want your help in the south fields after, though."
"Such as it is," Shepard muttered. Liara briefly eclipsed the light coming in from the doorway. Shepard couldn't see her face clearly in the dimness, but she didn't have to see much of it to know the asari was regarding her with deep suspicion. "If you go back to the house and get some brooms and some wash buckets, I think Liara and I can clear most of the debris. Biotically."
"Huh," Elizabeth said. But she shrugged, and slipped out the door past Liara. "Good idea. Biotics. I'll have my son help in the south fields, too, when he gets back. Should make the work light."
"Easy for you to say," muttered Liara. When Elizabeth had trundled off in the little cart, Liara folded her arms and raised an ironic eyebrow at Shepard. And waited.
After a long silence, Shepard cleared her throat and said, "Yes?"
"We aren't moving debris at all. I am," Liara said. She lifted a piece of the fallen ceiling with her biotics, in illustration, and moved it out the door. "You, I am given to understand, are not to lift anything heavier than fifty pounds."
"Come on," Shepard scoffed. "Half the crap in this room is lighter than that."
"What do you want with this place, Shepard?" Liara said. That was a tricky question. She wasn't at all sure how to answer. Mostly because she didn't know what the answer was. It was still cooking in her back brain, deep in her vaunted and highly valued intuition. This place was important.
"Hell, I'm just bored," she said. Liara sighed and lifted another bit of debris with her biotics. Shepard bent to help, picking up some of the smaller bits. By the time Elizabeth got back the little chapel was free of debris and ready to be cleaned. With all three of them sweeping and splashing soapy water over the corners and crevices it didn't take long. The results, Shepard had to admit, were less than spectacular. But she felt better for doing it anyway. They carefully shut the door behind them when they left. It might discourage woodland creatures from moving back in. Temporarily.
As promised, they then turned their attention to the south fields. Shepard found that she wasn't as useless in cleaning up after the fire as she'd thought she would be. She couldn't clear debris, but she could inspect the mechanical elements and determine what was salvageable. They were still at it, long past noon, absorbed in the task, when an Alliance shuttle swooped over their heads on the way back to the house.
"They're back!" Shepard hollered over the fields. She made her way back to the cart. She was slow, these days, slow enough that Liara and Elizabeth actually got to it before her. Which was good, for them, because she wasn't at all sure she would have waited. They rolled back up to the house as fast as the little cart would go.
"Did that shuttle seem a little big to you?" Shepard shouted over the sound of the cart bumping along the uneven ground. Liara, holding on grimly, nodded.
"That was more like a troop transport. Maybe they had to bring someone else back with them?" the asari suggested. But then they were cresting the rise, and rolling out into the big lawn in front of the house. The shuttle had made it there before them. Not a surprise. But people were just beginning to spill out into the lawn.
Lots of people.
Shepard spotted Kaidan in the crowd. Prudently, with a frustrated respect for her new physical limitations, she waited until the cart stopped before she slid off and ran to him. Well, it was close to running. There was a little more hobbling involved than she was proud of. But he met her halfway, a big grin on his face.
As soon as his arms wrapped around her something deep in her chest warmed, and relaxed. Some tight knot of fear she hadn't even realized she was carrying. When she tilted her head back to look at him his lips captured hers. She hardly noticed the cheering and hooting that erupted all around them.
So this is what it's like to not give a damn about regs.
When she pulled back, she was grinning. And so was he. He pulled her in closer for a tight hug before he loosened his grip.
"Jesus Christ, you two. You were apart for less than six hours," a very familiar voice said. Shepard turned to see Jack, in all her underdressed glory, standing with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Jack!" Shepard cried. Only then did she look around at the people milling on the front lawn. She recognized some of the students from Grissom Academy. "What are you doing here?"
"Nice to see you too, ass," Jack said, rolling her eyes. "I ran into King Boy Scout coming out of the Alliance headquarters. We decided to get our students together and have a little biotic training camp while you guys are grounded."
"A biotic training camp?" Elizabeth said, her eyes lighting. There's something very sinister about a matriarch with a list of chores in mind, Shepard thought. That south field was going to be sparkling clean by the time the students left.
"I put the word out to the rest of my students," Kaidan said, "So if they're still checking their drops they should be along when they have time. But let me introduce you around to the ones that were in Vancouver."
Shepard smiled and followed him. His students were easy to pick out, both because they were strangers to her and because they were a little older than Jack's kids. But she noticed, at the back of the group, James Vega leaning against the side of the shuttle. His eyes tracked Jack as she poked and prodded her students into something resembling order.
I can't tell if that's going to be entertaining to watch or if that's just how we all die, Shepard thought.