Shepard opens the door as quickly as she can when the bell rings. It's not easy these days; nausea is her constant companion. She hasn't heard from Kaidan since she listened to the announcement of the landings at Normandy on the radio.

But he's probably busy, she decides, taking the fight to the Germans in France.

Jimmy stands there with one leg heavily bandaged, leaning on crutches. He's in his uniform and it's as neat as Kaidan presses his. As neat as the day he met her by the fish and chip shop.

"Lola…" he starts and she knows.

She starts to sink to her knees and Jimmy has to catch her. "Oh no. Jimmy, no. Please no."

"I'm so sorry, Lola. He was hit by a grenade as we landed. He was uh, pretty torn up."

Shepard vomits all down his neat Kaidan-like uniform. He doesn't look as handsome though, oh no. Kaidan's hair was always so handsome even when it was wild curls or slicked back and neatly parted with brylcreem.

She sobs into his shoulder and he pats her hair. He's sobbing too. "I d-dragged him into cover. But…but he was bleeding out too fast. He told me to take care of you, and he told me to tell you-"

"No Jimmy! No! He's coming back. We're…We're going to get married and paint the baby's room yellow."

She beats wildly at his expansive chest, her heart screaming. Her other half is gone. Her husband, her best friend, the father of her unborn child.

"He was happy, ok?" Jimmy comforts and lets her wail and scream and cry. Another Shepard, in some sectioned part of her brain that has not lost all hope watches from a distance as Ash arrives and drops the shopping from the neat little paper bags all over the floor. She thinks that she's crying too as Jimmy says, "He was happy about the kid. Wouldn't shut up about it actually, would tell everyone in the squad who stood still for two seconds."

She wants her Soldier-Boy back. She wants to go dancing. She wants to flirt and smoke with him. She wants to have her night in that barn back. She wants him to tie a pretty red ribbon in her hair.

Shepard marries Jimmy in a small ceremony. They both know that it's a marriage of friendship and gentle love, for the baby and a promise to a lover and brother. She grows to love him as best she can and she knows Jimmy loves her in that simple, easy way.

It's not like her and Kaidan. She doesn't see stars in his eyes and when he touches her she doesn't catch on fire.

But that's alright with her. Nobody could ever live up to Kaidan, the way he made her feel.

She doesn't feel much at all for a long time. Her pregnancy is hard; she has trouble eating and loses weight. She tries and tries to stop the grief for his baby, to do her best to keep on breathing every day in a world without him.

She gives birth to a daughter a month early; six months after Kaidan bled out on Normandy's shores and names her Mary.

The war ends when she's three months old and Shepard prays Mary never experiences another one every night. She prays she never meets a boy with dark hair who loves her and leaves her.

But she also prays that she experiences that intense love, the kind that made the world brighter.

Jimmy is a good dad and they move to America. There's nothing in England for Shepard anymore. They call her a war bride and she thinks that's apt.

They start an orchard and Jimmy gives Mary piggy back rides and teaches her how to hit a ball and ride a bike and builds the best cubby houses.

Shepard doesn't teach her how to shoot.

Mary has dusky skin and almond shaped, dark brown eyes and her father's laugh and kindness and every time Shepard looks at her she thinks of 'Lamb' and hears a snatch of music.

You promised me green grass, not to tell what you 'eard

Whispering grass, say you can't keep your word

Keep your word, sing Lofty

Mary gives her hope.