Shepard knew when she was being head hunted. There was no way she would have been invited to an Alliance retirement party unless the brass had wanted to persuade her to work for them again.

"This party will be lame," Jack complained. "I'm all for the free booze, but I don't get why they've invited you. And I really don't get why they invited me."

"They want to lure me back," Shepard explained. "They're going to play on my sense of patriotism. Clearly they want you, too, probably as a contracted undercover agent. You'd be the perfect person to infiltrate smuggling operations."

"Screw the Alliance," Jack scoffed. "Bunch of pussies. You're not going back to them are you?"

"Unless they can provide me with the same resources provided by Cerberus, I'll have to respectfully decline."

"I'd rather rudely decline. Preferably with hand gestures." Jack flipped the birdie to clear up any confusion, just in case Shepard had assumed she'd been referring to sign language or jazz hands.

Shepard shrugged. "You can be rude to them if you want, but that might stem the flow of free booze."

"Shit." Jack scowled and stuffed her hands in her pockets.

"In the meantime," Shepard said, "I need to find a clothes store. I have nothing to wear to this function."

She told herself that her desire to attend the function had nothing to do with the fact that Kaidan might be there. She told herself she definitely was not going to corner him and try to convince him she was the same person he had loved two years ago. It would be pointless; he had seen too many Cerberus atrocities. She reminded herself of all the reasons it was better to be single in her line of work. Stay rational, she told herself. It will help.

It didn't. Her throat felt tight, and her heart still felt as though he had ripped it in half.

"There's no way I'm going clothes shopping with you unless I can get drunk first," Jack declared. "I'm thinking the Darkstar Lounge. It's just up the stairs."

"I'll come with you. I could use a drink or three." Shepard followed Jack to the bar and ordered a beer for each of them. She tried to socialize with Jack as often as was practical, to try to draw the former pirate out of her destructive mental spiral. Jack wasn't used to being treated with kindness, and responded by seesawing between hostile suspicion and wary friendliness. It was a bumpy road.

Shepard was just about to take a sip of her beer when she overheard a feminine voice mention Kaidan's name.

"Sure I'm related to Commander Shepard," said the voice. "It's pretty obvious, isn't it? I look just like her. I'm a shoe-in to land Alenko."

Shepard looked behind her and saw a vid conversation on a guy's omni-tool. The pretty caller on the screen did look vaguely like herself, albeit a lot more glamorous.

Shepard leaned over the guy's shoulder, causing him to jump nervously, and she narrowed her eyes at the woman on the holo. "I wasn't aware I had a living relative," she drawled.

The glamorous caller looked decidedly shocked, as well she might. "Oh, well... a distant one, maybe," she faltered. "Let me introduce myself, I'm Shawna, I'm a doctor on the Citadel."

"Never heard of you. We're not related."

"Anything's possible. We look the same."

Shepard frowned. There was a superficial resemblance, aided by the fact that this woman had adopted Shepard's hairstyle. It was even the same colour, except that this woman had black roots showing through. This woman was trying to copy her.

"Why the hell would you want to look like me?" Shepard demanded. She had always longed to find some family, even if it was just a cousin, but she knew there was nobody. This shallow copycat was digging up old wounds with her perfectly manicured nails.

The woman looked shifty. "I copied your look so I could get the attention of that poor Lieutenant Commander you deserted – and it worked."

"What?" Shepard spluttered. She felt sick. "I didn't… you can't… that's pathetic." She spun around and bumped into Jack, whose hobbies apparently included eavesdropping on people. Shepard would have to work on that as well.

"I don't know what Lieutenant Commander she's talking about," Jack said, "but she sounds like a snotty bitch. I should totally go to her place and shoot her. You want me to?"

"Thanks for the offer," Shepard said between gritted teeth, "but you'd better not."

She practically ran to the docking area, her shopping trip forgotten. With every step she told herself it was pointless to get upset about another woman angling for Kaidan. It wasn't possible to return to the Alliance – not in the immediate future, anyway – which meant Kaidan was eventually going to get snapped up by another girl. The thought that the other girl would probably be Shawna made Shepard want to punch something. Ideally she'd like to punch Shawna, but that wasn't likely so she would have to punch something else.

"Commander Shepard?" said an irritatingly familiar voice. "Khalisa Al-Jilani, Westerlund News."

A bit of luck at last.

Shepard had a quick flick through her wardrobe. It was depressingly sparse. All she had was a dress uniform that Dr Chakwas had salvaged for her, and several sets of cotton civvies.

She called an informal meeting with Kelly and Miranda to see whether she could borrow something of theirs. As an afterthought she invited Jack as well. Miranda and Jack needed to learn how to spend time together in the same room without ripping each other apart.

Miranda was late, but Kelly said not to wait because she totally had the clothing issue covered. Shepard assumed the yeoman was speaking figuratively, as Kelly's outfits didn't cover much.

"My outfits are all here on my omni-tool," Kelly gushed. "Scroll through them. What do you think?"

Shepard had a quick browse and cringed inwardly. "Thanks, but I'd rather not show off quite that much skin. And come to think of it, I'd rather my outfit had a built-in armour weave, just in case."

Jack pointed to her vest. "You can borrow this," she offered. "I got it off a dead mercenary. I think it's totally badass. I've been keeping an eye out for another vest like it but it's freakin' hard to find decent black clothes."

At that point Miranda shimmied in, wearing a new, black, leather-look catsuit.

"Nice," Shepard said.

"Thanks."

Jack was jealous.

"Where did you loot it?" she demanded. "Was it from an Eclipse sister?"

Miranda was horrified. "Good God, I didn't loot it," she said. "I had it custom made for me by Jacques at Kassa Fabrications." Kelly covered her mouth and made muffled sounds of mirth.

"Are all your outfits custom made for you?" Shepard asked.

"Sure they are," Jack sneered. "Just ass her."

Miranda glared at Jack. "Yes, they're all custom made."

Shepard doubted Miranda's custom outfits would sit well on her own modest curves. Unless Dr Chakwas could perform an emergency ass transplant in the next 10 minutes, Shepard was all out of options.

She dismissed the girls, resignedly put on her dress uniform and looked in the mirror. With her no-nonsense haircut, mannish uniform and athletic body, she looked about as feminine as the pistol strapped under her jacket. Oh well, it couldn't be helped. And anyway, she reasoned, being feminine never saved anyone from being killed, whereas having a pistol certainly did.

Thanks for reading, I hope you're enjoying the story so far! There'll be more Shenko action in the next chapter, I promise. :)