Disclaimer: This is a not-for-profit fan work. I am unaffiliated with BioWare, EA, the Mass Effect franchise, or anyone that has anything to do with any of that.

This one has been bouncing around in my head for a while and I finally sat down and wrote it all out. Though, I have to say, the Citadel DLC that just came out, I—erm-*blush* I'm not completely sure, but I think someone at BioWare must have read Glass Coffin and referenced it in a little of the banter. If they did... hooooooly shit that's cool. I'm most likely reading too much into it, though.

The affair between Commander Shepard and Advisor Vakarian during the Reaper War wasn't exactly unknown to the press or to the history books after, but it also wasn't a huge point. The gossip columns at the time saw see-saw interests. With such a massive war, people would either ignore the frivolous news in favor of anything that could update them on the matters of their families in distant star systems, or they indulged heartily to escape the reality of situation. But the affair, while it had gained some hits for the news orgs, did nothing for either consumer and annoyed both markets.

So what if the human commander and the turian advisor were romantically involved?

There were books written and documentaries made about the subject, but it was still a subject that took back-seat unless someone was trying to explain why Shepard went so quickly to Palaven and attempted to stir up a little bit of sexy controversy and make their term paper more interesting to write. It was reduced to one of those factoids that teenagers chuckle about during class, like "Hey, did you hear about the human queen Catherine the Great who fucked an animal?" or "I heard your dad had sex with Commander Shepard."

That last one wasn't one that Astor Vakarian heard infrequently, and in fact he knew about it long before one snickering boy, still a few years before they go to boot camp, turned to him in class. And, unluckily for him, this factoid wasn't false like the one about Catherine the Great.

The way his father talked about Commander Shepard was more like how a man talked of a great friend, for the most part. Maybe the more intimate facts were hidden to Astor because of his age, but Garrus Vakarian otherwise spoke of her in the special, glowing terms that only a soldier close to their commanding officer would speak. It was only the looks of something else that came and went only briefly as he thought of her that would tip to anyone that there was something more—something deeper—at play.

So, Astor didn't really suspect anything until he heard it in passing during a vid, and then he researched it all on his own, and everything made sense. But he didn't get the nerve until many years later, coming home from his first year of service with his head full of youthful indestructability.

"Father, do you miss Shepard. I mean... you two were... close, right?" The emphasis on "close" was purposeful, since that aspect had never been brought up.

Garrus was drinking a turian brandy he favored at the time, and he looked over at his son with brows up. A sort of "here's where the conversation starts?" look was on his eyes. "Well, sure. Every once in a while, no matter how bad they were, I miss the old days."

"Yes, but do you miss her?"

His father blew out a sigh and his mandibles made a clatter back onto his facial plates. "I do, but it's easier now to think back to her without getting lost in the memories. If it weren't, I don't suppose I would have met your mother." He cracked a smile at Astor. "Though I do think every once in a while that I would have liked for you to be able to meet her. I think you would have liked her."

"Would I even be here if she were still alive?" He blurted before he could think, and he almost shot a hand over his mouth as dread trickled down his shoulders like it did when went out of line with his drill sergeant. Not that his father was ever so forcefully imposing—apparently, his grandfather had been that way to Garrus and Solana, but Astor couldn't believe the sweet old man had a strict bone in his body—but he definitely felt like a line was crossed.

The pause was short, but it felt like a hundred years. Then his father chuckled and shook his head. "There's no such thing as a perfect future, I guess. Don't worry, though; I wouldn't trade you for anything.

Embarrassment flooded over Astor such that the next too-far question was washed away by it. He rose from where they were sitting and was about to excuse himself when his father said, "But, there is one time where it's still hard."

Astor risked it. "When's that?"

"Sometimes I dream of her. That isn't so bad, I guess; dreaming about loved ones you lost. It should be comforting.

But, every time I see her in a dream, I can't just enjoy it. I know that she's dead, and I end up waking myself up. Maybe it sounds a little silly, to want to 'hang out' with something your brain is conjuring up, but... I don't know how to explain it, really. I guess it's something you'll understand as you get older."

He added in a somber tone. "I just hope you never have to get there the same way I did."

Astor was barely out of his required service when his parents had divorced. Like any child who grew up in a stable family for his entire childhood, the news was upsetting. He immediately went to his mother's side to find that she wasn't quite as affected as he was about it.

But she made it clear that she liked having her adult son visit her, for whatever reason. "How about you stay for dinner? I have a cut of damma I was going to roast."

Astor huffed in exasperation and sat down at the kitchen table. "How are you so calm about this? You and father are divorced. Not separated, not taking a break, divorced. Just... all of the sudden no longer married. What happened?"

She was pulling the large piece of meat from the preservation unit and unwrapping it, taking a good look at its quality. "It was a long time coming, actually. We were drifting apart and we decided we were better off ending our marriage before we started getting bitter about it. It's not even rare for two adults to separate like that. I know most of the vids focus on undying love and all that, but, you know, that's why one of them dies before the end of the story half the time. A passionate relationship ending in mutual agreement to part ways years later just isn't interesting." She chirped an affirmative to herself about the meat and plopped it into a broiling pan.

The anger and helplessness was still pricked up to the rim of Astor's cowl, though, and he voiced that one too-far question that he would dare not ask his father fifteen years ago as she bent to thrust the pan into the oven. "Did Dad drift away from you because he still loved Commander Shepard?"

She gave him a strange look. "Where did that come from?"

"Come on, Mom. It's common knowledge that he and Shepard were involved. I mean, its obvious he loved her. Maybe he still loves her. Is it so unreasonable to think that maybe he couldn't bring himself to love you the same way?"

His mother made a reprehending, subharmonic chitter in his direction. She was obviously displeased with his conclusion. "If it were something like that, do you really think we'd have been together for over thirty years before we separated over it?"

"Well, you did have a son," he returned.

"A son who went into his civilian duties and became an adult halfway through it. Honestly, Astor. You're a bright young man. I've raised you to know better."

"Fair enough," he said, waving a hand, "but you can't tell me something like that didn't put a stress on the relationship. Always comparing yourself to The Great Commander Shepard. An alien legend who saved the entire galaxy along side Dad."

She hummed and sat herself beside him at the table. "I wont deny I thought like that earlier in our relationship. I told you how we met, right?"

Only about a hundred times. "At a shooting range right outside a political gala on the homeworld."

"Right. He was there, shooting at a target that I could hardly see at the far end of the range, still clad in his nice suit. I thought it was odd at the time, but I didn't recognize who he was and yelled at him to put on some ear protection since the range's sound dampeners were down. It started an argument and before I knew it, we were scheduling a date.

"I figured out who he was by then, though, and at the time I just thought of how lucky I had to be. Then, a few dates turned into something steady and before I knew it, I was in love with the silly man." She smiled. "Then, while we were walking together through the Presidium once, I saw a statue of Commander Shepard that was erected by the Council."

This part was new. He leaned in with interest.

"We both looked up at her and Garrus had this... look. Like something that was just out of my reach, but I didn't know how to get there. And as I looked up at the statue and saw this representation of an undeniably strong, unhesitating, powerful woman, it dawned to me what position I was in. I wasn't Commander Shepard. I could never even hope to be anything like her. And yet, she and I both loved Garrus.

"Your father is too perceptible for his own good, though, and he later asked what was wrong and why I was less lively than usual. I confessed it was because as much as I loved him, there were parts of his life that was just outside of my reach. I wasn't anything like Shepard. And you know what he said?"

That was a silly question, but instead of making a smart-ass remark, Astor shook his head.

"He said, 'Everything after Shepard died is outside of her reach. But you are here, alive, with me, and the man I am now is completely within your reach.'" She scratched at her small crest a little. "That was actually a pretty big turning point for us, where our relationship started becoming more serious. After that, well, I'd be lying if I didn't sometimes try to compare myself to her, but I never really worried about it since then."

Astor sighed. He got the point. "And Dad?"

"Your dad has more ghosts in his past than her, Astor. It makes him bitter sometimes. But what really had us drifting apart has been our careers. We simply don't see that much of each other, anymore, and when we do see each other, we're finding that we're growing as people while we're apart. Pretty soon, the divorce just... made sense." She looked over at the timer. "It'll take a while longer. How about you make yourself comfortable and start a vid or something while I program the timer into my omnitool?"

The SSV Normandy SR-2 was finally getting decommissioned from service after a long run under several commanding officers. A ceremony would take place the next day, but Astor came ahead of his father to settle some accounts and get them both hotel rooms. He found himself invited on deck for her last day, and, despite his better judgment, Astor accepted.

Astor had met both the current captain and the ship's AI before, but not on the Normandy itself. Seeing the captain in funtional Alliance blues and hearing EDI's voice float in from everywhere seemed jarring to him. He introduced himself to the rest of the crew, starting with the current pilot.

"Hey, you're family friends with Moreau, right?" he asked, and before Astor could actually answer, he continued, "Could you tell the old man to leave the young flyboys alone next time you see him? He keeps sending messages through EDI about how much I'm messing up. The old asshole's supposed to be retired."

"I do not see how it matters, as I am being taken out of service and put on display tomorrow," the AI chirped bitterly.

The pilot snorted. "You are the only intelligence I know of that would think that a high-preforming, smoking-hot robot body as a severe limit."

"An advanced warship with stealth capabilities, extended fuel cells and Tantalus drive core is undeniably superior to a bipedal chassis with limited sensor range and no FTL capabilities by design," she responded indignantly.

"I wouldn't be so angry about it if I were you, EDI," Astor said. "After all, you're technically the only crew-member from then that's still in active duty at all. Surely you could just enjoy your retirement with Joker."

"You'll understand when you're older," EDI said, which sounded like a rather illogical response to come from an AI. It's not like Astor was a child anymore, after all, and he was even well decorated for his age. But it wasn't like Joker was necessarily the best of influences.

"Come on," the captain said, clapping an arm around the turian's shoulders, "Why don't I show you around the place?"

The tour was short even though the ship was large. Parts seemed to have been constantly in disarray, most likely from changing functions of posts as needs came and gone through the ship's service. But even though it was clear that there had been a lot of shuffling around, Astor had to express his confusion when the captain noted, in passing, that the large room in Deck Three was the captains quarters. "I thought the cabin was on a deck above the CIC," he mused aloud.

The captain looked over with brows raised. "Your father talk about it?"

"From time to time."

The captain turned towards him and crossed up his arms in thought. "I see. Well, that's not wrong in the least. The current captains quarters were actually built for the XO of the Normandy before her first retrofit. No one's slept in the top deck since Commander Shepard; Normandy tradition. Your, ah, father started that, actually."

Astor raised a brow at him. "Really?"

"Yeah. He probably told you about when the ship was stranded on an uncharted world for a while. Well, during that time, he ended up taking position as commanding officer of the ship as Major Alenko was still not as well trusted by some of the crew, and he refused to sleep in the cabin. But he did visit it daily, same time every day, straightening up things and such. Now every captain sleeps in this room and visits Shepard's room daily to housekeep, check her messages on her terminal, and pay respects. Sounds a little... cultish, I guess, but we've all done it without missing a day if we could."

The captain ended up convincing Astor to do the last round in Shepard's cabin because, after all, his father did start the tradition, and it seemed poetic that the son should finish it off. The elevator ride up was unusually slow and he became nervous during the ascent. Some part of his brain, as illogical as it sounded, was afraid of what he would see. When the elevator opened to a walk towards a door, the fear crashed over him. He stood before it for several minutes before he input the code to turn the red panel green and open the door.

Within was not an inner mausoleum with a mummified human Spectre sitting on her throne, waiting for the bastard son of her lover, nor was it a shrine holding a larger-than-life goddess of a woman, clad in armor and looking down on him with judgment in her eyes. It was just an officer's cabin, albeit a very nice officers cabin. The bed was large, there was a leather couch with a well-polished coffee table, model ships for display in one wall, worn guns in a makeshift rack that looked to once house an aquarium on another.

It looked immaculately clean, which he supposed it should after so many years of housekeeping, and though he doubted everything was exactly the same as it were when Shepard was alive (this room felt more like a museum than a place to sleep), he doubted it changed much. He did as the captain asked, lightly dusting and straightening up, then looking over her terminal to see her posthumous messages.

512345 new messages

Great Spirits, and they were just from today. He clicked on a few of them. Most of them were thank yous, some prayers of various religions and species, and other well-wishes. There was one that seemed hateful and asinine and racially motivated, which he deleted. But he wasn't about to read all of then, and ended up marking them all as read.

Then, he noticed a message saved in drafts.

It only requires a mild curiosity to look around at easily accessible things on a terminal, so he clicked on it.

This message has not yet been sent.

Garrus,

It's getting harder to focus on these reports. I know too well that tomorrow is coming, and that I'm not going to survive it. I'm trying the best I can. I'm trying to make us all survive this war, but, when it comes down to it, I can't see myself on the other side of it. I've fought for too long, and I can almost taste it. I'll be there, in front of the Reapers, and I'll rain hellfire down on them. I almost can't wait.

But that means loose ends that I need to tie up. I want to tell you how much I love you, how much I will always love you. I want to talk about a future for us. I want to think that we could at least have enough time together that we could get tired of each other. How long would that take? Five years? Ten? Fifty? A hundred? I don't care. I want to be with you until you're sick of me. That's how long I want to live.

You're a loose end I can't hope to tie up or cut off before the time comes, and I don't want to.. But I'm going to be giving my all to kill the Reapers tomorrow. I'm going to be selfishly throwing myself into the front lines. It's selfish because that's what I want. I know people worry about me. I know you worry about me. But you know what? I don't see any way but forward, and forward into Hell doesn't look too bad to a monster, even if the monster is in love.

So I'm going to die. I don't think I could stand having you die before me. I already see too much dead in my dreams and

Astor blinked at the sound of his own mourning keen.

He knew his father loved Shepard once, but it never really occurred to him that Shepard loved his father. And she did love him. Deeply. She wrote this message the night before she died and never sent it, never even finished it. He wondered if she spoke her feelings at any point before the end.

And in the end, she was just a woman. A flawed, mortal woman, who had fears, who dreamed, who felt love. She was strong and unyielding; he could feel that in her words. But she wasn't a god.

Did his father ever see this?

When he met up with his father the next day before the ceremony, he hugged him tight around the shoulders with a little more emotion than he usually exhibited, but he said nothing.

Garrus Vakarian's health eventually deteriorated after many, many long years. It hurt Astor so much to see his father stuck in a hospital bed. It didn't suit him; he looked too much like his grandfather before he died.

"Stop looking at me like that," Garrus grumbled. "I'm a soldier. I'm not about to die in a bed like an unstable invalid if you take your eyes off me."

"Sorry, Dad. I'm just worried, you know?" Astor said. He left his own mate and kid at home; the hospital didn't like a bunch of family clotting up the place around the patients, and he figured his father's pride would prefer a little more privacy.

"Yeah, I know. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. I'm used to bouncing back from injuries and getting back to my duties, not getting hospitalized for my copper levels being slightly too low."

"If you're that eager to work, I'm sure I could ask the Primarch to send you some forms to fill."

Garrus grunted. "I raised you too well for your own good, or rather for my own good."

They started talking about any thing that came to mind. It tended to drift and center around new gun mods coming out, but then Garrus made some sort of reference to the modding table on the Normandy and Astor blurted out that he had gone in Shepard's cabin for the captain's ritual.

Garrus looked a little astonished. "They still do—I mean did—that? Not that's there's anything wrong with having something to remember her by on the ship, but that's what the wall on the Crew deck was for. I would have thought they'd rather have the space."

"I guess not. They kept the place pretty well preserved. Down to the, uh, terminal."

"Huh. People were still sending messages to Shepard's account, I take?"

"Yeah, but they weren't quite as interesting as the... message in the drafts folder."

"Message in the draf—oh. Oh." Garrus's mandibles settled in a frown. "You read that, huh?"

"...Should I not have?"

"I don't mean that. It was just... It was a sensitive time, I guess." Garrus settled back in the bed.

Astor couldn't help himself. "What did you think of it?"

Garrus scowled. "Honestly? I was pissed. I was stuck on the other side of the galaxy with no way of knowing what happened, and I end up reading a message my girlfriend was writing for me about how she was resolved to die. It felt like she gave up."

He looked down at his hands. "But I read it over and over again, every single day. I couldn't stand the idea of sleeping in that room alone, so I stayed in the Battery. Then, on the day that I put her name up on that wall, I was able to let her go. It was... hard, but it was necessary. I never read the message again after that, but by then, I had it memorized." His hands came up before him, miming putting up the plate. "I remember, as I smoothed out the plate, making sure it adhered properly, her words about always moving forward. So, I resolved to do just that."

Astor fidgeted, his jaw tight. "I would have liked to have met her."

"She would have liked you."

Garrus Vakarian passed away peacefully at a hearty age well into his hundreds. Astor took over the funeral arrangements, not wanting it to turn into some public event, and made sure that the ceremony was equal parts respectful and somber. It still wasn't a small gathering. Survivors of the Normandy, their families, and members of the Vakarian clan were all present.

Even though the news had hurt Astor, the process of preparing the funeral had given him plenty of time and opportunity to grieve. Still, when his aging mother came and hugged him, he gratefully accepted it.

She exhaled as she pulled away. "I ran into the Primarch on the way in. He's wanting you to give a public eulogy whenever it's convenient for you."

"Not to disrespect the Primarch, but that may be a while."

She grinned. "Take your time. Just because you've been coming to terms with his death doesn't mean all of that won't just rush up on you when you preside."

He nodded and looked over towards the front of the mourning place. "I have to admit, even though I've been working on all of this, I'm at a loss of what to say. I mean, a grand warrior like him died in bed. That doesn't seem right."

She tittered under her words at him. "We're turians, not krogan."

"That's not what I mean. Dad just seemed... he hated being in hospitals, you know? I think he might have been happier if he died in battle."

"I wouldn't say that. I think he went exactly the way he wanted to go," she said.

Astor looked at her questioningly.

Her answer was soft. "He died before he could wake, this time."

His eyes widened with realization, and he looked towards the front again, at a holographic representation of his father when he was his age, and imagined a human woman, scarred and flawed, standing beside him.