I don't own Mass Effect, any of it's characters or anything connected to it, and if I did it certainly would not have ended the way it did.

This story is set after my other post-war fic, "Priority: Shepard." It should be standalone but if it seems weird that's probably because it's a sequel.

Thanks for reading!

"Homey touches," Shepard muttered, staring around her cabin. Their cabin, actually. Kaidan seemed to think that sharing the captain's cabin, officially, was some sort of milestone in their relationship. At the time it sounded great. After what happened on the Citadel, and after months of not knowing if she'd ever see him or the rest of the crew again, she was pretty happy to wake up every morning in his arms. That was certainly a perk.

What she hadn't realized was his stuff would be coming with him.

Shepard tended to travel light. When she joined up from Earth the day she turned eighteen she'd brought exactly three things with her. And in the chaos of the past few years she'd lost all those little sentimental bits and pieces. Her old dog tags were the only dead weight she hauled around. Except the pets. And the collection of photographs. But really, Liara kept track of the photos for her. Her copies kept getting blown up.

The Normandy was currently parked on the lawn outside Kaidan's family orchard. She saw now where she'd miscalculated. Kaidan had suggested, oh so innocently, that they take his mother home and use the orchard to hide out from the news crews for a few days. His mother, her eyes shining as she hung on his arm, enthusiastically endorsed this plan. Liara had wanted to see a real Earth farm, she was hoping for some green spaces to ease her heart after the long war. And then Tali said she wanted to see it too because she was going to have to be a farmer. And Joker didn't want to be left out. And neither did Cortez, who had come to see the Normandy crew's return. And if those pendejos were going then James was going too. Garrus, to her great surprise, said that Palaven had waited this long for him and it could wait a little longer- he wanted to see where his old friend grew up. Maybe he didn't want to be left out either. With a wide and trembling smile Kaidan's mother had assured them all of the hospitality of their home and that was that.

It took Kaidan maybe forty minutes after their arrival at his old family orchard to fill "their" cabin with his little "homey touches."

An entire library of data disks crammed the wall of her office. A lot of the texts were technical manuals and high-brow war time analyses, but a lot of them were fiction too. Hero stories. She remembered him saying he liked those when he was a kid, and she wasn't surprised he still did it was just. . . there were so many. A real dead fish mounted on a freaking hunk of wood was taking up space on the wall of her state-of-the-art spaceship. And his photos, of his father and his mom, were arranged among her model ships like the ships were just some elaborate frame for them. Not just photos of back home, they were photos of people long lost. A group of kids that looked like his crew from Brain Camp, pictures of Ashley and Jenkins and other crew from the original Normandy. A picture of her that she barely remembered taking. It was back when she still had her scars. Back before she died. A picture Ashley took, she thought. Anderson's photo from the day they gave him the original Normandy was up there in a place of honor. And then there were others, people she didn't know. His students, maybe. Maybe. All she knew was that looking at that wall made her unspeakably, unbearably sad.

But it was important to Kaidan, to have them there.

But she came to her cabin for refuge, not to be reminded of everything that had gone wrong.

She needed a drink.

More than that, she needed a drink by herself. She knew that if she asked, Kaidan would take every photo down. But what if that meant he didn't feel like their cabin was his home? It was so rare that he asked anything of her. And his smile, putting them up, had nearly split his face. She couldn't ask unless she was sure that was what she wanted. More than she wanted him to be happy. Crap.

The lounge of the Normandy was well-stocked when they left the Citadel after shore leave. It was less well stocked now. And, she noted with sharp annoyance, the lounge wasn't empty. She thought about turning around and just thinking it out in her cabin. But then she'd have to face all those photographs.

Tali was slumped over the bar in the lounge. This scene was familiar. A wry smile tugged at Shepard's lips. She'd found Tali almost exactly like this after that second mission to Horizon. Blasted infernal planet. What could be bothering the quarian this time?

"You keep coming down here, I'm going to start thinking you're some kind of lush," Shepard said. Tali started, and shook her head when she saw who it was. Shepard moved behind the bar. They had all the stuff for her favorite drink, a Full Biotic Kick, but those things reminded her of Kaidan. She wanted something else just now.

"Puh-lease," Tali said, her voice vibrating with drink and suppressed emotion. "You're the one with a bar and a pool table on her war ship."

"Yeah, I'm not sure why the Alliance left them in," Shepard said. Maybe Traynor's influence there, the comm specialist was very important to the retrofits. And she knew Traynor used to bartend in college. She wished Traynor were here now for just that reason. But the crew had dropped Traynor, and most of the other support staff, off on an Alliance base in the early stages of their risky journey home.

Tequila would be too extreme, wouldn't it? But wine not quite extreme enough. Experimentally Shepard filled a glass half full with vodka and half with a pinkish wine Miranda had liked. It wasn't the worst thing she'd ever drank, but it wasn't the best.

"Should you be drinking at all?" Tali asked, her voice concerned. "I know you're still in rehabilitation for your injuries."

"Yeah, no," Shepard said. She took another sip. "I really shouldn't. But I shouldn't have blown myself up in the first place, so. It's a little late to develop a self-preservation instinct."

"You'd better start thinking about doing exactly that," Tali said, "Or else please lock up your Major before he goes crazy on your behalf. Again. You didn't see what he was like when we were trying to get the data to fix your implants. I'm shocked we all made it home, I really am."

Christ. Shepard threw back the rest of her glass, gulping. But Tali had done the same. Shepard knew what part of that bit her ass, what was bothering Tali?

"Seriously," Shepard said. "Why are you down here? We've won. You've got your home planet back. Everything is sunshine and puppies from here on out. Or at least it damn well better be. What's the issue?"

Tali stared silently into her empty glass for a moment. Shepard hoped she wouldn't throw the question back in her face.

"I never thought I'd get this far," Tali mused. "I haven't planned for it. Keelah, I don't even know how to plan for it. It was the sight of all those farm outbuildings that did it. I can just picture Rannoch, little pieces of old spaceships converted into barns dotting the landscape. My people aren't agrarian, we haven't been for a long time. Even before we lost our planet. That was half the reason we invented the damn geth. We wanted them to handle the farming and manual labor while we focused on improving technology. On art. And instead, we became this."

"And now you have to become something else," Shepard said. She was facing a similar problem herself. Even banged up as she was, with all her new scars and aches and pains, she'd bet on herself against any back alley thug or batarian pirate in the galaxy. But that didn't mean she was fit for actual active duty. The place for her commanding ass was in a nice cushy chair up in the CIC while real soldiers did the fighting. Assuming, of course, that there was any fighting to be done. Peace was good, peace was the ideal. It was just. . . what the hell was she supposed to do with it?

Screw it. She poured herself another glass of the wine. But she skipped the vodka. It just made it taste bad.

"And Legion died for nothing," Tali snarled. Her voice vibrated in Shepard's very bones. She put the drink down, and laid her head in her hands. She'd done a pretty good job not thinking about the geth. About what happened to the geth when she destroyed the Reapers. Both women stood there in silence for a good long time. Finally Tali sighed, and shook herself as if shaking off dark thoughts. "Sorry. I don't blame you. And neither would Legion. The old machines are dead. Keelah Se'Lai."

"Is that still the right phrase?" Shepard said, trying desperately to lighten the mood. She hadn't come here for this. "You have your homeworld back. You can see it whenever you want."

Tali poured herself another drink, and fiddled with the straw. Emergency induction port, rather.

"Can I, Shepard?" she asked, softly. "Or maybe . . . should I? I've spent my whole adult life serving my people. I don't know how to do anything else. And I'm an Admiral. Whatever that's worth now. But. . . so many of the friends I would want to share the homeworld with are dead."

"Kal Reegar," Shepard said, nodding. Tali fitted the straw into the slot in her helmet and sipped her drink. "I always thought, the way he talked at your trial, the way he asked me to take care of you. . ."

"You thought we were lovers," Tali said. She laughed humorlessly. "Quarians don't just do that sort of thing whenever they feel the urge, you know. Our immune systems wouldn't let us. Reegar was a hero. But no. We were just friends."

"Sorry," Shepard said. Tali leaned back, tilting her head.

"Sorry I didn't take a lover from my old squad?" She'd never heard Tali actually sound angry before. Not at her. "I'm not like you, Shepard."

"Hey, how many of those have you had?" Shepard asked. Tali made a disapproving sound that, in a human, would have been a snort.

"Enough to have trouble fitting the emergency induction port in the slot," Tali said. "Not enough to feel better."

"I'm not sure there's ever enough to feel better," Shepard said. Tali sighed. "I never thought you'd be jealous of what I have with Kaidan. Or is it just because it's so much easier for humans?"

"It's nothing like that," Tali said. She leaned forward again, her elbows on the bar. "It's Garrus. All right? You collect high-ranking military geniuses the same way you collect ships. Riches beyond measure. And I don't even know what to do with the little bit of wealth I have."

Ok, whoa. She was definitely not drunk enough to be having this conversation.

But it sure beat talking about the dead.

"Let's get something straight." She put her glass down and drew herself up to her full height. "I never 'collected' Garrus. And Kaidan isn't some damn trophy, either."

"No, no," Tali said, waving her hand. "Not what I meant. But you don't have to spare my feelings, Shepard. I know how close you and Garrus were when we were going after the Collectors. And that's okay. I shouldn't have implied that it wasn't."

"We never. . ." Shepard cleared her throat. "Garrus is my best friend. That's all there is. What you remember, what we almost did. . . we never actually went through with it."

She still remembered the confusion on Garrus's face when she went from hitting on him to suggesting they just be friends. But the comraderie they shared had smoothed over that little lapse in judgement without a hiccup. If she hadn't been his commanding officer, if he hadn't seemed so unsure and torn, if she hadn't worried that hero worship was making up the difference between 'maybe' and 'yes', things might have gone differently. But he'd just given up on his pursuit of vengeance because she said so. She knew he'd do anything she asked. And she was terrified that he was just going along with it because, well, she was Commander Shepard. The legend. The icon. The commanding freaking officer.

So why hadn't she ever worried about that with Kaidan?

Crap. Maybe she was. Maybe that was at the root of this issue with the stupid photos. The things she said had this weight, even with the people closest to her. Crap, crap crap.

"Why in shexiah not?" Tali said. Shepard wasn't sure if her translator glitched or if that was just some quarian curse she wasn't familiar with. "If I could just take off my suit and jump on that turian without risking my stupid life I'd do it five times a day."

"I thought. . . um," Shepard said. Tali slammed her fist down on the counter.

"We did. But then I got sick, because of course I did, and he suddenly just wanted to talk and maybe cuddle with my suit on. Chivalrous bosh'tet," Tali swore.

"Um." That was all Shepard had for this one. Fortunately, Tali didn't seem to need her input to continue.

"And now I can just go home. And build a world. My world." Her voice softened and she slumped down into her folded arms on the bar counter. "And leave him behind. It's the smart thing to do. What kind of Admiral abandons her people to snuggle with some guy she saved the galaxy with?"

"Ah," Shepard said. "You have your people and he has his duty?"

It was a line from Tali's favorite vid, Fleet and Flotilla. A vid about a turian and a quarian in love, who couldn't be together because duty tore them apart. The parallels were obvious. Tali hit her head gently and repeatedly on the bar counter.

"I never even asked him," Tali said. "I want to make my decision first."

Shepard laughed. And then she drained the rest of her glass in one long swallow. The wine sat uneasily in her stomach with the vodka.

"I know what you mean," she said. "We're better at killing Reapers than talking to the menfolk, that's for sure."

"Menfolk," Tali said scornfully. Shepard wasn't sure if she was unhappy about the men themselves or just the terminology. Either way she didn't raise her head from the counter. "I'm going to have to learn about livestock, Shepard."

"I won't tell Garrus that your mind made that leap," Shepard promised.

"Livestock," Tali repeated. "And breeding. And plants. Keelah, the plants. Rannoch is practically a desert now because we weren't there to carry the seeds. I'm an engineer, Shepard."

"So maybe you build agricultural machinery now instead of ships and guns," Shepard said. Tali looked up at last. Her bright eyes were narrow behind her mask.

"I could," she said, slowly. "I could make a tour of agricultural facilities and learn about the equipment they use. Everyone uses agricultural machinery now. And I would be useful without having to grub in the dirt like some human gardener."

"Thanks," Shepard said, sarcastically. "So that's you sorted, as Traynor would say. What about me?"

"You can biotically rush mountains to make new tunnels for mines," Tali suggested. Shepard laughed, but Tali just raised her voice and continued. "It's got to be easier than headbutting krogan!"

"Oh man, it would be, too." Shepard's face felt sore and unaccustomed to stretching into a smile. It had been a long time since laughter was frequent. Maybe there would be perks to this whole peace thing. "But they want me to be an Ambassador. Hackett wants me to make sure the treaties we cobbled together for the Reaper War don't disintegrate into chaos."

"So you're headed to Tuchanka after this," Tali said. "Say hi to Wrex for me."

"Yeah, yeah," Shepard said. "It might not be that simple. The turians and asari took heavy losses and they're both petitioning the new council for access to new worlds and resources. The salarians want the krogan and the rachni to sign these insulting treaties about how fast they can breed. And the rachni are still just barely trustworthy, so no one wants them around for long. But everyone wants their help rebuilding mass relays. The galaxy's still a mess."

"And that's not even taking the agriculture into account," Tali said. The quarian engineer could certainly have a one-track mind. "There will be food shortages next. Half the garden worlds in the galaxy got burned one way or another."

"Maybe Liara will have some thoughts on how to mitigate that," Shepard hoped. "We've got a pretty good sized cargo hold. Maybe we can even help."

"The Normandy's hold isn't that big, Shepard," Tali said. She was probably right.

"Then I hope your people aren't dismantling their fleet yet," she said. "Because we might need those ships to carry food from the places where it's plentiful to the places it isn't."

"That's a thought," Tali said. "Actually, I should go talk to the home fleet about that now. Before that gets buried under a heap of other ideas and problems."

Tali slid backwards off the bar stool and stood clutching the counter so she wouldn't fall down. After a moment she stepped back, more sure of her balance. Shepard moved to help. Just then, the door opened.

Garrus himself came through. Tali wobbled. Something like a turian smile flickered across Garrus's mandible.

"There you both are. The Alenko clan would like your help in the kitchen, Shepard. I barely escaped with my life," Garrus said. Tali wobbled again.

"No one," Shepard said with conviction, "could ever need my help in any kitchen. Who really sent you?"

"I'm serious," Garrus said. "They want your help taste testing these concoctions they're brewing up. Something about needing a third opinion. Kaidan and his mother are both trying to cook about forty dishes with something they call apples, and James and Cortez keep disagreeing about whether or not the ingredients they're substituting for the things they can't get right now are working. Joker and Liara refuse to take part. So I was sent to find you."

"And me?" Tali asked. Her voice was a little fainter than usual like she wasn't sure she even wanted to ask that question.

"No, you I just wanted to find on my own recognizance," Garrus said with that flicker of a smile again. "We brought a lot of dextro food with us from Gangarin Station, and I know your palate is more refined than mine. I thought we might try to elbow into the kitchen and set up a feast of our own."

"That sounds. . . very nice, Vakarian," Tali said. "I just need to use the comm room for a minute first. Shepard and I had an idea about upcoming food shortages that I need to talk to Auntie Raan about."

"There's certainly no shortage here," Garrus muttered. "But I see what you mean. I'll go with you."

Tali nodded assent and led the way out of the lounge. She and Garrus went off to the comm room, and Shepard was left with nothing to do but go join the Alenkos in their farm kitchen. Kaidan and his mom were probably disagreeing about what ingredients to substitute for what. And they wanted her to settle the argument. Well, she'd done the same for the krogan, the turians, the quarians, and the tragic geth. What was one more?

There was no reason to be nervous. Or nauseous. Really.