Approaching Normal

Elizabeth looked over at Kaidan, saw him staring out the window of the swiftly moving transport. He rested his chin on one hand, the other hand drumming his fingers against his thigh; his knee moving rapidly up and down. She had never seen him so anxious. Not when face to face with a thresher maw, not when boxed in by batarian pirates, not when confronted by a giant plant that had tried to kill them by belching clones of asari commandos.

The thought made her smile and she slipped her hand into his, forcing his fingers to stop their restless movements. He stirred at her touch, straightening in his seat and looking away from the window to glance at her.

She squeezed his palm, her smile widening. "Nervous?"

He exhaled loudly, wiping his free hand on his pants and shaking his head. "No…"

She cocked an eyebrow skeptically.

"It's just… I… I haven't seen my parents in five years."

The statement didn't really surprise her; Kaidan had told her before they'd left the Citadel that it'd been a long time since he'd returned home, and given the rarity with which he spoke about anyone in his family, she had long suspected his domestic situation was less than functional. But she didn't see why she couldn't pry a little bit, especially now, when they were literally only miles from said parents' house.

"Why not?" she asked lightly.

He looked at her again and she held his dark gaze, tilting her head to give him an honestly curious look.

He sighed, shifting in his seat. "Er… well… we kind of got into an argument. Not that things were great between us before, anyway… the whole incident with the BAaT program caused a lot of stress and… misunderstanding… and…" He trailed off, grimacing. "It just wasn't very pleasant."

"What about your sister?"

Kaidan smiled a bit. "Kaylee? She's never mad at me, at least. I got to see her last time I had shore leave, actually. She writes me a lot, too. Always wants to know what planets I've been to, what I've seen, what the ships are like…"

"I thought you said your mother writes you as well?"

The smile vanished again; his eyes flicking back to the window. "She does sometimes. But it's always about the same thing. The same thing we argued about five years ago."

Shepard waited patiently, watching him, not pressing. She'd learned the technique from him, actually. It was hard not to open up when someone you felt comfortable around just sat there and offered to really listen to you, without any extra advice or comment. Sure enough, after a long, quiet moment, Kaidan elaborated.

"She wants me to leave the service."

Shepard frowned. She hadn't expected that. "What? How come?"

He shrugged. "She worries. She never really wanted me to go to BAaT, that was more my father's idea. After it got shut down, and the reasons behind it were classified, she grew kind of paranoid. Especially since… well, she could tell something bad had happened. I was a mess…" He looked down to his hand, intertwined with hers. "It was pretty rough for awhile there. I didn't feel like I belonged at home, having been away for so long. My parents felt like strangers; I wasn't even there when Kaylee was born. The friends I made at Brain Camp had been my family, but then we all went our separate ways and I never saw any of them again. The one person I felt closest to was terrified of me. The last day we were together, Rahna wouldn't even look at me."

He paused, swallowed hard. "And truthfully, I terrified myself. For months I just stayed in my room. I didn't want to hurt anyone else. And my migraines were… they were bad. Worse than ever. It could have been the stress, the grief, or just my body still trying to cope with the new implant, I dunno. But my mother knew something was wrong, she blamed the government for messing with our minds. My father, on the other hand, was convinced we were all failures, and that's why BAaT had closed down. His dreams of having a famous biotics-wielding son were ruined. He wasn't very happy."

Elizabeth blinked. "But Kaidan, you are a famous biotics-wielder."

He gave a grunt. "Yeah. Now. After you stopped Saren from destroying all life in the galaxy."

She shook her head. "I wouldn't have gotten past the spaceport on Eden Prime if not for you and the rest of the team, and you know it." She thought of all the times he'd miraculously managed to defuse a bomb just in the nick of time. All the times he'd opened locked doors. All the times he'd hacked encrypted files…

"I guess," he admitted grudgingly. "But even still, I didn't turn out the way my father had envisioned the day he'd shipped me off to Jump Zero."

"What exactly was he expecting, then?"

"I don't know. Some kind of super-soldier, or something." The lieutenant lifted his free hand to massage the bridge of his nose briefly. "Every time I come home… my mother tries to get me to retire and my father demands to know why I haven't got promoted yet – no matter what rank I am. Then he's always telling me about these new studies they're doing to try and make biotic ability stronger in humans…" He sighed explosively, leaning his forehead against the cool window. "This was a bad idea, Shepard," he said. "I never should have dragged you into this. I don't even know what I'm doing here…"

Elizabeth smiled again, scooting closer to him on the seat and resting her head on his shoulder, glad for the opportunity to be able to freely show her affection for once. "It's Christmas," she said simply. "You wanted to come, remember? And you didn't drag me into anything, I volunteered."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," he muttered.

"Hrm, yes… looking death in the face has a way of showing you what's important in life," she mused, snuggling into him to further illustrate her point.

He made a noise of agreement, releasing her hand to wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her close. He rested his chin on the top of her head. "You're right," he said at last. "I shouldn't let disagreements get between me and my family. The truth is… if anything had happened to me during the fight against Sovereign… I would have regretted not reconciling things with them."

"See?" Shepard said. "Now you'll have that chance. You won't have to worry about having regrets."

"I hope I won't be in another situation where I have to worry about having regrets again any time soon," Kaidan put in.

Elizabeth nodded against his shoulder. "Well, that's true. One threat of galaxy-wide-extinction a year is probably about the most I can handle. But I'm glad we're going regardless. I'm looking forward to meeting them, actually. I've spent so many holidays alone… being with other people – non-military people - will be nice."

Kaidan squeezed her against him. "I'm sorry," he suddenly said into her hair. "I must sound like an ass. I didn't mean to… I mean I didn't think about… well, sometimes I guess I take my family for granted. I shouldn't complain about them."

"No, you shouldn't," Shepard said, being honest. Losing her family in the raid on Mindoir had scarred her deeply. She still had nightmares about that night. Being a teenager at the time, she had also taken her friends and family for granted. She had not realized how very much they meant to her until she'd watched them be slaughtered right in front of her. Ever since that day, she'd had little patience for those who were unhappy with their parents, siblings, or extended relatives. At least their loved ones were still alive, even if annoying, irresponsible, manipulating, or stubborn.

"I'm sorry," Kaidan whispered again.

Elizabeth lifted her head, giving him a small smile. "Apologize to them, Kaidan, not me. I think you're lucky. Your mother and sister obviously love you very much. And your father… well, he sounds like someone who is very proud of his son. He just has a hard time expressing it."

Kaidan snorted. "I wish he could figure out a better way of expressing it, then. It would sure make things a hell of a lot easier."

"We'll have a nice visit," she said, patting his knee reassuringly. "At least it will be better than sitting around the Citadel watching the repair work."

Kaidan closed his eyes and exhaled a long, slow breath. "I hope you're right, Shepard. God, I hope you're right."

The Alenko abode was a trim, neatly kept, moderately-sized house on Vancouver's beachfront. The air was chilly as they arrived; the sky a flat gray and the same color as the surf that lapped and foamed not far from the white-painted deck that spanned the back of the house. The front had a nice roofed porch Shepard thought would be very pleasant to sit out on when the weather became more favorable in the spring. Sometimes she wished she had more time for just sitting.

The private military transport dropped them off at the driveway and Kaidan made triple sure the driver knew to come back and pick them up that evening. The two of them pulled their presents from the rear of the car and then the sleek black vehicle pulled away, sliding almost silently off down the perfectly manicured street.

"Nice neighborhood," Elizabeth observed, noting how the houses were spaced and maintained. It was hard to find such a roomy place on Earth these days.

Kaidan made some sort of distracted noise and Shepard turned back to him to see a truly terrified look on his face. Once again she was struck by the difference in his attitude. She hooked her arm in his, hoping to encourage him. "Come on," she said gently. "Really, it'll be fine."

Truthfully, she had no idea at all that things would be fine, that the visit would go smoothly, that his mother wouldn't throw a plate at her head or his father wouldn't come to blows with his own son – she'd heard plenty of such stories from other people – but the plain fact was… she could handle any of that. Compared to facing hordes of armed geth, any of that was easy.

They had not taken one step down the sidewalk before the front door burst open. "Kaidan!" a woman shrieked, and Elizabeth instinctively tensed. She swiftly unhooked her arm from his and slid a step backwards as the woman bolted toward them and then threw her arms around Kaidan's neck, almost knocking him over.

He staggered for a second, then regained his balance, smiling ruefully. "Hey, mom."

"Kaidan!" she blurted again, as if she couldn't believe he was actually standing there. "My baby, oh my baby!" She clung to him and reluctantly Kaidan set down his packages, finally returning her death-grip hug, if a little less enthusiastically.

"I don't see you for five years and the only thing you've got to say to me is, 'Hey mom'?" she demanded suddenly.

A grimace crossed his face and he opened his mouth to reply, but she was already moving on.

"Oh Kaidan I missed you! I've been so worried about you!" She clutched him as if she thought he'd bolt off down the street the second she dared let go. "When I heard about the attack on the Citadel and how many ships were destroyed I just thought – well I just feared the worst…"

"Jay!" a new voice cried, and Shepard's eyes went to the new person running down the sidewalk; a young woman with dark hair and dark eyes whom Elizabeth immediately knew must be Kaylee.

"Kaylee," Kaidan said, confirming her suspicions and sounding a bit relieved as his mother finally released him so he could hug his sister. "I'm glad you could make it."

"Of course," she said, her eyes bright as she stepped away from him. "Any time you can make it to our part of the galaxy, I'll be here."

Shepard saw Kaidan's eyes flick over their shoulders to the open front door; she followed his gaze to see a big, burly man silhouetted by its frame. But he didn't leave the house, just stood there and waited.

"Oh my God!" Kaylee burst out, startling Elizabeth. She looked back to the girl only to see the younger woman looking straight at her. "You're… holy shit you're the human Spectre! Ha!" She spun toward Kaidan and punched him on the arm. "You didn't tell me your girlfriend was Commander Shepard! Jesus, Kaidan, that's kind of an important detail! Yah hi sis, just wanted to let you know – I'm dating only the most famous person in the galaxy!"

Elizabeth glanced to Kaidan, feeling the tell-tale burn of embarrassment beginning to grow under her collar, only to see his face was already flushed.

"We should go inside," he stammered finally.

Proper introductions were made once everyone was inside and safely hidden away from any chance observers who might also recognize Shepard or Kaidan. The very last thing either of them wanted was another media circus. They'd had more than enough of that over the past few months.

The house's interior was as neatly kept as the exterior – not so much as to make Elizabeth feel she'd stepped into the home of a neurotic, but organized enough that she suspected Mrs. Mary-Anne Alenko didn't have much else to occupy her time. Shepard stood awkwardly in front of Kaidan's family as they sort of gawked at her, feeling more at a loss now than she ever did when standing before the all-mighty Council.

"Well," Mary-Anne spoke up finally, breaking the uncomfortable silence, "how about some coffee while we catch up? I'll go brew a pot. You two take off your coats and make yourselves comfortable, would you? And you can set the presents over by the tree, dear," she said to Kaidan on her way to the kitchen.

"I'll give the commander a tour!" Kaylee volunteered brightly as Shepard shrugged out of her long, black coat and hung it on the rack by the door.

"Please, call me Elizabeth." She already had enough trouble getting Kaidan to call her by her first name; she didn't want his family addressing her as 'Commander', as well.

"Really?" Kaylee actually clapped her hands together, a behavior that made her look even younger than her eighteen years. "Kick ass! I get to call the first human Spectre by her first name!"

"Kaylee, come on," Kaidan scolded from across the room where he carefully set their brightly wrapped presents beneath the heavily decorated Christmas tree. "You could at least try to act like a grown up."

The girl turned to give him a 'you're-no-fun' glare and Shepard tried hard to suppress a smile. "Oh be quiet, Jay," she shot back, crossing her arms. "You're just jealous. I haven't heard you call her by her first name, and if anyone should be able to it's you."

This made Elizabeth giggle – because it was so true - and she brought a hand up to cover her mouth quickly. But Kaylee had heard her and turned back to give her a toothy grin. Kaidan straightened from beneath the tree abruptly, shooting Shepard a look that begged her not to encourage his sister.

"Come on, Elizabeth," Kaylee said, skipping away across the living room. "You wanna see Kaidan's old room? Mom's kept some of his stuff – this will just crack you up…"

Shepard followed the girl eagerly, her interest piqued, and arched her eyebrows slyly at Kaidan as she passed. He opened his mouth helplessly, maybe planning to protest his sister's so-called 'tour', but Elizabeth turned her back on him and vanished quickly down the hall.

Kaidan watched Shepard bound off after his little sister and closed his mouth, knowing it was useless. Frustration welled in his chest but he pushed it away stubbornly, also resisting the urge to follow them. It didn't matter. There was nothing in his old room to be ashamed of. Shepard knew him well enough. The only thing his room would prove to her was that he always had been, and probably always would be, a tech geek. There wasn't anything wrong with that. Hell, it had saved their lives more than once…

He turned away from the hall and took off his coat, walking over to hang it on the rack next to Shepard's. Seeing her in civilian dress – seeing himself in civilian dress – was still strange. Neither of them got out much; it almost seemed wrong for her to wear anything but an Alliance uniform or her scuffed and battered hardsuit. But it also had kind of a reassuring effect – reinforcing the fact they were together on a personal level, like normal people, like a civilian couple who had not spent months fighting unforeseen foes side by side at the edge of the galaxy…

Normal people. Ha.

He took a seat in the comfy armchair across from his father, who had greeted him cordially enough – shaking his hand heartily, clapping his shoulder, and actually looking glad to see him – but who had since claimed his favorite chair and remained eerily silent.

Retired Rear Admiral Jonathan Thomas Alenko stared at his son with his piercing blue eyes, one leg resting on the other ankle to knee, his unlit pipe held in his right hand and his mouth creased into a frown. In the kitchen Kaidan heard his mother happily humming while she made coffee, and his heart sank. So this visit wasn't going to be any different.

Kaidan sighed heavily, leaning back in his chair. "Go ahead and say it," he muttered.

His father arched one eyebrow, an expression eerily similar to the way Shepard looked at him when she didn't think he was giving her the whole story. "Say what?" Jonathan Alenko asked in his deep, rumbling voice. It was exactly the kind of voice one would expect to come from a Rear Admiral.

"Go ahead and ask why I'm not a lieutenant-commander like Shepard," Kaidan scowled, already feeling defensive.

Mr. Alenko gave a grunt, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly, and Kaidan shifted in his chair.

"Nonsense," Jonathan said, shaking his head. "You made lieutenant since last I saw you. That's good work. Got yourself assigned to the Normandy, a prototype ship, a very important ship – a ship that obviously gets assigned very important missions."

Kaidan's fingers unconsciously gripped the heavily padded arms of his chair. He could feel it coming…

"I was just thinking," Jonathan continued, studying his pipe before turning it over and tapping out the old ashes into the tray on the table beside him. "I was just thinking… I suppose now I know why you let yourself be reassigned to the Tokyo." The man's eyes came up to meet his son's again. "And I was wondering how you could possibly let an opportunity like the Normandy slip away?"

Kaidan steeled himself, swallowing back the fiery retort that first came to mind, and cleared his throat. "First of all, dad, you should know better than anyone that I didn't let myself be reassigned. It happened; I didn't have a choice. I'm happy to serve on any boat that needs me." Way to pull the noble soldier card, you lying son-of-a-bitch. "It was an honor to be a part of the Normandy crew, and yes, if I had a choice, she'd be my first pick, but…" He trailed off, shrugging. "It's better this way, anyway."

"Better than being court-martialed for fraternization, you mean," the elder Alenko commented mildly.

Kaidan inwardly bristled, but knew better than to take his father's bait. "Well they weren't going to take Shepard off that ship," he said finally, trying not to volunteer anything specific.

"You could have just never gotten involved with your CO in the first place," the man muttered, digging in his shirt pocket for his bag of tobacco.

Kaidan looked at his father, looked him right in the eyes, and wondered how the hell he could ever explain that being around Shepard was like stepping past the point-of-no-return at the edge of a black hole. Everyone was drawn to her, everyone on the right side of the law respected and admired her; it was impossible to spend a day in her presence without developing almost a sense of awe about who she was as a person – about who she had become despite all that had happened in her past.

Eventually he let out a quiet breath, shaking his head. "You think I'd do something like this lightly?" he asked, his voice low but serious. "Why don't you tell me the last time I got involved with anyone assigned to the same ship? Why don't you tell me the last time I got involved with anyone even in the Navy?"

Jonathan Alenko's frown deepened as he stuffed his pipe. "You've never done anything like this, son," he said honestly. "It's unusual. And that's why it concerns me."

Kaidan rolled his eyes, leaning forward in his chair. "It's unusual because Shepard is… unusual. She's different. She's special."

The older man raised his eyebrows, now searching for the lighter he always kept within reach. "Oh, I can see that. I think everyone in the galaxy can see that."

Kaidan felt the frustration well up again. "Well then I don't understand why you're –"

"Coffee's ready!" his mother suddenly called, sticking her head out of the kitchen and beaming, completely oblivious to the mounting tension between her son and husband. "You still like yours black, dear?" she asked, turning toward Kaidan.

"Yes," he said, somewhat distractedly, only glancing briefly to his mother before turning his dark glare back to his father. But the man was looking down to his pipe, lighting it, his expression devoid of any sign that he remembered what they were arguing about.

"Coffee's ready!" Mary-Anne Alenko said again, louder this time, obviously meaning it for Kaylee and Shepard.

Which brought Kaidan's thoughts abruptly back to his sister, and he wondered what the hell was taking her so long to show off his room.

Kaylee skipped into her older brother's childhood room without a second thought, stopping in the middle of the floor and holding out her arms as if she'd arranged it all herself.

"Ta da!" the girl said dramatically, turning in a little circle. "Welcome to the mad scientist's lair!"

Shepard walked to the doorway, then hesitated, her eyes casting about the space as she tried to come to grips with the fact this room was where Kaidan had come from.

This is his space. It saddened her sometimes that soldiers never really had any personal space in the barracks or on ships. No area to really call their own, to show who they really were.

This is Kaidan. She took a few steps inside, feeling almost a sense of awe at the extent of objects he had strewn over every visible surface. Gadgets, parts, pieces, tools… everywhere. Things that looked like little robot spiders, things that looked eerily similar to sections of a Terminator. Miniature models of virtually every vehicle ever built. And a… lightsaber? Elizabeth moved over to his desk, gingerly lifting the gleaming metal haft. She held it upright, away from her body, and thumbed the switch. There was a crackle, a sputter, and then a blue blade shimmered into existence.

"Holy shit," she muttered.

"It doesn't actually cut anything," Kaylee said, appearing at her shoulder and startling Elizabeth. "He never figured that part out."

Shepard blinked, staring at the blade. "But still… he got it to terminate at a certain length…"

Kaylee shrugged. "Yeah, whatever. Some technical geek stuff, I'm sure he'd love to tell you about it sometime."

Shepard switched off the lightsaber and carefully placed it back where she had found it, remembering what he'd told her on the way over to the house. "For months I just stayed in my room…" Well, he certainly hadn't been wasting his time. "Wow," she breathed, walking further into the room, seeing the posters still plastered on the walls. Movie posters, band posters, a galaxy map, and… Elizabeth squinted, stepping over to get a closer look at a digital calendar hung near the twin-sized bed. The calendar had long since broken; the image for June frozen permanently in place, the days no longer automatically changing as they should have. She raised her eyebrows.

"Space Vixen, huh?"

Kaylee giggled, coming to stand beside her again. "Yeah. Boys will be boys, right?"

Shepard tapped the dusty screen, giving an amused grunt. "I thought that was a comic?"

"They made a live-action movie awhile ago. Well, they've made a few by now… I think number seven was the most recent one. Kaidan didn't mention wanting to go see it?"

Elizabeth laughed, shaking her head. "Well, I'm sure they've switched actresses by now. I've got a good idea little miss Space Vixen here doesn't quite look the same after sixteen years."

Kaylee snickered. "Probably not. But Jay doesn't have to worry about that, he's got the whole comic collection - in which Space Vixen never ages!" The young woman went to the towering bookshelf against the far wall and motioned to a long row of commercially produced data-pads, all with shiny golden cases and emblazoned with the words 'Space Vixen: Heroine of the Universe!'

Shepard's mouth fell open at the sheer number of them. She joined Kaylee and began reading over titles of the other data-pads there, her eyes crossing after a few minutes of seeing names like 'Electricity and Magnetism', 'Conservation Laws', 'Elements of Physics', and 'Continuum Mechanics'. Good God, why isn't he a Ph.D.? She decided the thought of seventeen-year-old Kaidan reading comics about sassy, scantily-clad women flying around the galaxy saving people from ridiculously impossible situations was much more comforting. "May I ask why you call him Jay?" she suddenly said out loud, directing the question at Kaylee, who had wondered off to inspect some of her brother's old projects again.

"Oh sure!" Kaylee said, looking up from fiddling with one of the robot spider's legs. "His middle name is James. I had trouble saying Kaidan properly when I was younger, so I just started calling him Jay for some reason. And it stuck. Anyway, mom and dad thought it would be cute to name us both names that started with the same letter." She rolled her eyes. "So I like to call him Jay just to change things up a little bit."

The spider thing in her hands twitched and Kaylee shrieked, jumping away and dropping it to the table again. "Holy shit how does that thing still have any battery power left!" she demanded of no one in particular.

Elizabeth smiled, glancing back to the row of extremely complex books behind her. "I have no idea… but knowing your brother, I wouldn't put anything past him."

"Boy, you got that right," Kaylee muttered, shying away from the table with the other spiders on it and drifting back toward the lightsaber. "I always thought it was so cool that he could build all this stuff from scratch. I was really jealous, too. He tried to help me build some of my own but… I'm just not meant to be an engineer. I mean, I can barely pass my math classes, ya know?"

Shepard nodded. "I understand completely. I love the concepts of physics, but I always had to work so hard to pass the classes." She shook her head. "You'd think being biotic would give me a better understanding of it or something, but… no such luck."

"Oh yeah," Kaylee said, suddenly fixing Elizabeth with an intensely curious yet serious look. "So… you're a biotic… but you didn't go to BAaT?"

"No," Elizabeth said, feeling herself instinctively tense, morphing into the soldier-Shepard again, preparing to be vague and dance around any classified information she wasn't allowed to reveal. "My biotic ability was slow to manifest… I didn't even know I had the ability until after BAaT had been shut down."

Kaylee dropped her eyes to the lightsaber, which she now turned over and over in her hands. "Kaidan never wants to talk about the time he was gone. He gets all strange-acting and nervous if you ask about it. Says it's classified."

Elizabeth managed a gentle smile. "Well, it is classified."

"Yeah but…" she shrugged and set the lightsaber down. "I don't know. It seems a bit strange to me. Mom says he wasn't ever allowed to write or send vid transmissions or anything. He was just stuck out there on the edge of the solar system for almost seven years, and no one knows what he was doing or what happened to make it shut down."

"I wish I could help you out, Kaylee," Elizabeth said softly. "But I'm not allowed to talk about it, either. All I can tell you is that the Alliance didn't have biotics quite figured out yet. Still though, Kaidan came out all right, don't you think?" She lifted her hands as if to encompass the room they stood in and gave the girl a wink.

Kaylee gave a little laugh. "All right? Sure. Normal? Maybe not so much."

"Nobody's normal, anyway," Shepard commented, her mind flashing back to the people who'd made up the Normandy crew. Herself an orphan with her own ghosts, Kaidan with his unique experience at BAaT, Joker with his disability and resulting attitude, Ashley with her father's history haunting her own career, Garrus dealing with the weight of his father's approval, Liara with her mother's gruesome fate, Wrex with the very nature of his species… and that was hardly scratching the surface. When you got right down to it, everyone had issues – the important thing was how you dealt with them.

Her eye caught on an actual paperback book sitting on the bedside table and she moved over to it quickly, gently picking it up and turning it over to look at the very worn cover. It was a copy of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, wondering where he could have found a real printed book, and flipped it open, only to find a message penned in neat handwriting:

K,

My parents bought this for me before I left to come here. I've read it a few times since, it reminds me of our situation. I don't know if that makes me happy or scared. But I thought you would like it, too. Yes, it's a REAL printed book, so be careful with it!

Happy Birthday!

Love,
Rahna

Elizabeth's breath caught, her eyes riveted on the carefully signed name. Suddenly Kaidan's stories about Brain Camp and Rahna and Vyrnnus snapped into the realm of reality. Not that she had ever not believed Kaidan, but truly understanding another person's past experiences – especially ones as unusual and traumatic as Kaidan's – was nearly impossible unless you got a glimpse of that experience yourself.

Now, she was touching a relic of that past, a piece of his experience at BAaT. Her throat tightened and she closed the book, staring at it in a kind of fascinated awe. She tried to imagine Rahna reading it, holding it, writing that message, and what Kaidan would have thought about receiving it…

"That's his favorite book," Kaylee spoke up quietly from across the room. "Mom and I couldn't believe he left it behind when he joined the service. He used to read it at least once a year – tried to read it to me when I was five, but… I was never really into it."

Elizabeth ran her fingers over the heavily-creased spine. "I've never read it, either," she whispered.

"Yeah, well… Jay loved it."

A long silence fell over them. Shepard found herself reluctant to set the book down. Not only was it a priceless antique, but it was a part of Kaidan she very rarely saw, a piece of his past he kept wrapped in impenetrable silence. He'd told her a long time ago he'd put the events of BAaT behind him, but after learning the details of what had happened to Vyrnnus, she'd been mildly skeptical of the claim. She knew from her own dark experiences that such horrible memories refused to die easily. The subconscious had a way of dredging up events no matter how hard one tried to suppress them.

"Coffee's ready!" a woman's voice suddenly shouted, and Elizabeth startled, quickly putting the book back where it belonged as if Kaidan's mother could see her and might scold her for touching Kaidan's things.

She swiped her hands on her pants as she turned back to Kaylee. "Well, I guess we'd better get back out there."

Kaidan heard giggling, and his chest tightened. His sister giggling was never, ever a good sign.

His mother brought him a steaming mug of coffee – the real stuff, he could tell by the rich aroma – and he took it carefully, but his eyes kept darting to the hall, waiting to see Shepard. Waiting to see the look on her face, the look on his sister's face.

The two of them rounded the corner into the living room side by side, talking together in low voices. A brief rush of contentment washed through Kaidan as he saw how well they were getting along, but then the worry came back as he noticed the mischievous glint in his sister's eyes. Shepard looked up at him suddenly, flashing a brilliant grin, and his heart stumbled. Her smile still did that to him. It was just so genuine, so full of life, so intimate. So rare. So different from the mask she wore as a soldier, as a Spectre.

"Kaidan," she jibed playfully, "I had no idea you were such a fan of the Space Vixen comics!"

His mouth stuck open as he stared at her, his face suddenly feeling as hot as the mug in his hands. Kaylee fell into another fit of shoulder-shaking giggles as she took her coffee from her mother.

Elizabeth sank into the armchair next to him, shooting him a sly, sideways look. "I never knew they'd made a live-action movie. That calendar is really something to see. And you even got one of the girls' autographs! That's impressive."

Mary-Anne gave a little laugh as she passed a mug to Shepard. "Oh yes, you should have seen his face that day. He was so thrilled, tripping all over himself…"

"Mom," Kaidan broke in, finally finding his voice, "I really don't think Shepard –"

"Elizabeth," Kaylee interrupted.

Kaidan shot her a glare; wishing she'd stay on his side like she usually did. "I don't think anyone needs to be bored by childhood stories. We don't really have much time –"

"You're always rushing off!" his mother huffed, looking hurt as she plunked Jonathan's coffee on the table next to his chair and took her own to the couch. Kaylee settled herself cross-legged on the floor, looking up toward Shepard and her brother with a wide-eyed, curious expression.

"Yeah, Jay," his sister threw in, "how come you haven't been coming home for leave? We miss you."

Kaidan released a lengthy but silent exhale, avoiding the intent, unwavering stares of his family and focusing instead on his coffee. He cleared his throat, racking his brain for a plausible excuse that wouldn't land him in the doghouse for explaining he just hadn't wanted to deal with their judgmental attitudes, or in prison for giving away classified secrets.

Luckily, Shepard came to his rescue. "Unfortunately, the state of things right now doesn't allow for much leave time," she said casually. "And Kaidan, being an overachiever, often declines his leave in order to get more work done." She smiled at him. "That's not necessarily a bad thing these days, especially with the mess the Citadel is currently in, but sometimes I do wish he'd let himself relax a little and take more time off."

"I could say the same about you," he muttered in reply, then busied himself by sipping more coffee.

"Oh I wish you would listen to your nice girlfriend, Kaidan," his mother said, pouting over her mug. "I'm not getting any younger, you know, and… well, I want grandbabies!"

Kaidan choked, spitting coffee all over his lap, and fell into a coughing fit. Shepard leaned over and began thumping him on the back.

Kaylee started giggling again.

This was going to be a very, very long visit…

Author's Note: There will most likely be a little more to this story, I hope while it is still sort of the Christmas season. :) But I wanted to go ahead and post the first part of it as these events occur before my ME2 fanfic "Compromise" (obviously), so I thought it would be helpful for any readers who would like to read the fics in chronological order. Sorry I did not have this up sooner... having a baby delays writing time. :P