Well, this is a very short little mshenko kid fic thing. Part of a larger series, but can stand alone. If you'd rather read it on AO3, you could do that.
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Karin Chakwas stepped out into the hallway and gently closed the bedroom door behind her. She’d been to the Shepard-Alenko apartment on the Citadel enough times: they were comfortable with her seeing herself out. She suspected today would have been a special case, regardless.
She found Shaun standing out in the living room, idly pecking at the low keys on the piano. Waiting for his dads.
“Well Shaun, I wondered if I would see you this visit!” The boy turned, and Karin saw the worry on his face. Something about the way his eyebrows knit together reminded her of the look of worry on Kaidan’s face. But he was developing into his own person, too, and Karin smiled inwardly to see this boy she’d known for 9 years look like such a little stranger. She stepped closer, put one hand softly on Shaun’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”
“And what am I supposed to be doing different, Kaidan!? I haven’t been slacking with any of the therapy and—you heard Dr. Chakwas—I’m no better than I was two years ago!”
The sound had followed her out from the downstairs guest room, where Shepard kept his workout equipment. Where Shepard always took his check-ups.
The boy looked up, eyes dry, but swallowing hard.
“How’s my dad?”
Karin searched his eyes for a moment, tried to give him the warmest stare she could before she answered his question. She sat down on the piano bench, her hand still on Shaun’s shoulder.
“He isn’t doing very well, today.”
“Today?”
“Well…” She looked back down the hallway. Kaidan’s voice was raised, but still an indistinct, low mumble on the other side of the wall. Shepard’s voice could be heard clearly though.
“Bullshit! I saw the chart. She said ‘less than a 13% improvement’! That’s nothing! That’s nothing for years and years of dealing and trying and—”
Karin patted the bench next to her, beckoned Shaun to sit. He remained standing.
“Your dad had a relapse—do you know what a relapse is?” Shaun shook his head. “When we say someone has had a relapse, we mean that an old problem we thought we’d taken care of is popping up again.”
“The Big Accident?”
Chakwas thought a moment. The Big Accident is how Shepard and Kaidan had chosen to talk to Shaun about it since it happened. According to Kaidan, the boy had never asked his fathers to explain the incident further. Kaidan and Shepard may have been blinded by relief at not having to recount the event again, but Karin could see the questions brimming in the boy’s mind. He was a sensitive kid, like his dads. Had figured out by this point what questions he was and wasn’t supposed to ask.
“It’s always this, though! And I wait, and I know the appointment’s coming and I worry, and I wait—but I keep up with the program and for what? What?! To get news like that, every time!”
“That ‘Big Accident,’” Karin continued, tilting her head to draw Shaun’s attention. “Yes. It’s not my place to tell you about that accident, but—”
“No! I can’t, Kaidan! I can’t keep doing this!”
Karin sighed.
“Let me tell you something about your father,” she said, speaking low so the boy had to lean in—concentrate on her instead. “Your father is a miracle. That he’s with us right now is nothing short of a medical miracle. And, if you ask me, nobody in the galaxy deserves it more. You know why your dads have so many friends?”
“You saved the galaxy together.” Shaun looked over his shoulder, down the hall, where Kaidan’s rumbling, raised voice was beginning to quiet.
“Yes, we did. Your father was the one who brought us all together, who kept us going when things were most grim. He’s kind, and he cares about people, and he’ll do anything in the universe to help a friend in need. When anyone else would have given up hope, your dad never did.”
Shaun’s eyes were wandering, but sheepishly looking back once in a while. He’d heard all this before, Karin figured. Plenty of people always trying to tell Shaun what stand-up soldiers his dads were.
“Why can’t you accept that I’m not getting any better?”
“Alright,” Karin raised her own voice, sat upright on the bench. Shaun turned his face up and Karin took the opportunity to hold his gaze. “Your dad winces once in a while, hm? Standing up, climbing those stairs?” Shaun nodded. “He should need a mobility exoskeleton to walk at all, after the ‘Big Accident.’ In my opinion I think he should still try one. But best not to nag him right now, hm?”
Shaun’s mouth attempted a smile, but that seemed to finally allow for his eyes to become glassy, his lashes wet. She squeezed his shoulder.
“Take it from his doctor, and his friend: your father has improved tremendously. Even after this latest relapse, he’s in far better condition than any of us imagined he could be when the… the ‘Big Accident’ happened.”
“—and how can I just keep asking you to put up with this? There’s no way I can make this fair to either of you.”
Shaun nodded, but a tear that had been trembling at the corner of his eye tumbled down. More followed. He stared at Karin mutely.
“So now you’re wondering ‘if things are so good, why’s he yelling’?”
Shaun shrugged.
“It’s because for all the aches and pains, what’s hurting him most today is grief. Have you heard that word?”
Shaun nodded. “It’s being really sad, like after someone dies.”
“Yes. We do reserve that word for funerals, don’t we? ‘Grief’ is the sadness of lost possibility. When we lose someone we love, we grieve because we can’t make new memories with that person. Do you understand?”
“My dad is grieving?” He struggled with the word, but nodded.
“Let’s just say he may be, and he’d have every right to.” She leaned her back against the piano, “A relapse is when your health has been recovering more and more, and then it gets bad again. Things you were able to do, now suddenly you can’t! Imagine how impossible things must look in that moment. It can feel like you lost the person you were.”
“—so tired! And I know you’re so tired, Kaidan! How can I ask you two—”
Karin scooted over as Shaun finally sat down, then continued.
“Grief takes time to quiet, and it takes love. But grief also can isolate us from people who want to give that love. Grief can make us feel that time will not help. Because it hurts so much, we behave as if grief were contagious—we hide it, thinking it will spare the people we care about.”
Shepard’s voice could still be heard as indistinguishable murmurs through the wall, and Kaidan’s voice had grown even softer.
“But I know your father’s going to be okay. Because he’s surrounded by so much love, and because he has all the time in the world. A part of him knows that, and your dad will help him find it. He won’t lose hope, and neither should you.”
No more shouting, no more noises from the bedroom. The husbands had either gone silent or were talking to one another in normal tones. Shaun didn’t say anything, but dragged his sleeve over his eyes. They sat there for another few minutes in silence, Karin looking at the fire, Shaun looking there too.
The door to the guest bedroom opened and Shepard stepped out, Kaidan’s hand on the small of his back, trailing behind.
“Dr. Chakwas,” Shepard cleared his throat, drew his posture up when he noticed her sitting there at the piano. “Glad you stuck around. Shaun, you keeping her company?”
“I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but we could hear some shouting through the wall.” Karin gave Shepard and Kaidan a sympathetic smile.
“Oh god, I’m sorry, kiddo.” Shepard rushed forward, and then carefully got to his knees to hug his son. “It wasn’t anything about you, it wasn’t anything you did, and it’s nothing you need to worry about, okay?”
“You’re hurting?” Shaun sniffed. Shepard looked up at Kaidan, who rested his hand on Shepard’s shoulder.
“Yeah. Today hurts extra bad, but that never means I’m not your dad. I’m always your dad and I’m always gonna love you.”
As Shepard continued to murmur reassurances to his son, Karin stood up at made her way towards the exit. Kaidan joined her by the door, he spoke in a low voice.
“Thank you so much for sitting with him, Karin.”
“Just told him Shepard would be alright. Told him he’s grieving.”
Kaidan looked over at his husband embracing his son.
“He’s grieving the kind of father he thinks he’s supposed to be, I think.” He was tired, he sighed. “Just a step at a time.”
“Love and time.” She leaned in for a final hug, then she took one last look at the tableau of father and son.
She couldn’t hear what Shepard was saying, but Shaun’s wet eyes were smiling up at her over his shoulder.
“You see, I knew your Dad was on-board the Normandy.” Shepard bounced his son on his knee, handing him the model of the Normandy SR-2 the boy had plucked from the glass case. It was his favorite model, and that always gave Shepard a warm feeling.
“He was?” Shaun took the ship by one of its engine components.
“Mhm,” Shepard nodded, fixing Shaun’s hands to a less fragile part of the hull to hang onto. “I had just barely escaped the first Reaper attack, and your dad was in the Normandy and was coming to get me.” He looked up at Kaidan, sitting across the living room, reading a data-pad. But Kaidan wasn’t really reading from his pad anymore, looking over the top of it at Shepard with a wry smile.
“He was looking for you?”
“Absolutely. Anyway, I had gotten into a fight with a bunch of mean Reapers. I was pinned down, I was trapped!” He gingerly lifted the Normandy model out of his son’s hands. He made whooshing sounds as the model swiftly dropped down over the boy’s head, whizzing past him and settling on his lap. “When all of a sudden, whoosh! Down comes Daddy in the Normandy.”
“Was Uncle Joker flying?” Shaun piped up.
“Course he was,” Shepard smiled. Tapped where the shuttle bay would be on the real Normandy, “The shuttle bay opens up, and out pops Daddy, wearing his armor, got a gun in his hand: saves me from the Reapers!”
Kaidan rolled his eyes on the other sofa and suppressed a laugh.
“He shot the Reapers?”
“He did!” Shepard nodded firmly. “So I jump onto the Normandy, and you know what happens next?”
“What?”
“Your Dad takes the gun out of my hand, and lays a big kiss right on me!”
“Did he really!?”
“Mhm. Told me he loved me very much, and wanted to be with me.” Shepard turned his son’s chin so father and son were both looking at Kaidan on the opposite couch. “Can you just picture it? Daddy in his big blue armor? Smoking gun in his hand?”
“I can picture it!”
“That’s right. That’s when I knew he loved me. Then, when we flew to Mars, he forgave me for working with the bad guys all that time.”
“Wait, was that your first kiss?”
“Sure was.”
Kaidan set his pad down at his side and gave Shepard a look.
“I guess that’s pretty romantic,” Shaun said, authoritatively, as if appraising one of his favorite episodes of Duty and the Sword.
“Damn right it, is, kiddo.”
“And that’s really what happened when you and dad made up?”
“You asked, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but Daddy never told me you guys kissed and stuff!”
“Oh,” said Shepard mirthlessly. “So you already asked your Daddy to tell you this story, huh?”
“Yeah, last night,” Shaun replied. Kaidan raised a challenging eyebrow.
“And what did he say about it?”
“He said he was still angry at you for working with the bad guys, and you were still mad at him, too. He said you two fought until he had to go to the hospital.”
Looking dead at Kaidan, Shepard leaned down to kiss his son on top of his head.
“My version’s true.”
“What?” Kaidan finally guffawed.
“Anyway,” Shepard took the Normandy model out of Shaun’s hands again and scooted the boy off his lap. “Besides, it’s time for you to go to bed. Go get ready and Daddy and I will be up to tuck you in, okay?”
Shaun ran off and Kaidan stood up from the sofa, coming to sit next to Shepard.
“A big kiss and a heartfelt ‘I love you,’ huh?” Kaidan smiled. “You filling our son’s head with lies, Commander?”
“Just well-intentioned revisions,” Shepard begged. “It wasn’t like I didn’t know how I felt about you, even then. And now that I knew you felt the same way about me, makes sense to condense the timeline, don’t you think?”
“I think it’s important how we got together,” Kaidan leaned in to smile against his lips. He kissed Shepard for a long moment.
“Me too,” Shepard answered, returning the smile. “And someday he’ll understand how two people can love each other and be furious with each other, someday he’ll understand how fighting can bring two people closer together, and god-willing, someday he’ll learn what it’s like to be in love despite all odds.”
“I’m ready for bed!” Came a cry from balcony.
“Until then,” Shepard stood up, holding out his hand to help Kaidan up. “Why not tell it the way I wish it would’ve happened?”
“That’s a slippery slope, Shepard. Telling the things the way you wish they would’ve happened.”
It’s time for some more domestic Mshenko fluffy kid fic stuff. That’s right. As always, read it in wide columns here over at AO3
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Shepard frowned.
“No, those definitely aren’t marshmallows,” he glowered at a bag of Skyllian ruza puffs the grocer had placed on the counter. “They’re… they’re like pillows made of sugar. Uh, sweet… they’re sort of… cylindrical and squat. You know, you can probably just look this up on the extranet.”
The shopkeeper blinked at him slowly, large, impassive salarian eyes scanning over the puffs one more time.
“Look, this place doesn’t specialize in human delicacies—“
“It’s not a delicacy it’s more of a—“
“—so if you want to get your fancy marshmelons you’ll have to go somewhere else.”
“But I don’t have time to get all the way out to Bachjret ward before my kid’s birthday party starts.”
The shopkeeper smiled for a moment.
“Oh, well if it’s for a birthday party, why didn’t you just say so.” He frowned. “We still don’t have any marshmelons. Now if you’ll step aside please, you’re holding up the line.”
Shepard was kicking himself. Today was Shaun’s birthday, and it would be the first time he was having his birthday on-the-day, in their Citadel apartment. Shepard didn’t necessarily understand why it was such a big deal, but Kaidan seemed to make a lot of it, and that meant Shaun did, too. Normally, Shaun would have one or two friends over for dinner and cake whenever they were next on the Citadel, but this year, he had asked for a ‘real party’—a sleepover and everything.
All Shaun’s friends would be over—the house would be packed with kids. Honestly, it made Shepard a little uneasy to think about. But it was for Shaun, so he would do it, he had to do it. What a difference the years made, the idea of being nervous about a child’s birthday party—when he had executed so many war campaigns without his temper failing at all—was nothing short of ridiculous.
But a lot had changed. He used to wake on his stiff mattress a minute before his alarm, dress and rush down to the CIC, conversing with EDI the whole way about their situation. How far until the next relay. What the situation was with Earth. Any messages from the Citadel Council.
This morning, he woke up 30 minutes after his alarm went off, to the sound of Kaidan singing at the bathroom sink and his son bounding up the stairs to tell him about the new high-score he made on STG Street Fight: 4.
Kaidan had done most of the planning for the upcoming party, and Shepard trusted him the way only a former commanding officer could trust his husband. But it was nagging Shepard that he hadn’t done more to help.
“You’ve never had a birthday party, Shepard.” Kaidan had laughed, “You’ve never been to one either. Don’t worry about it, you’ll do great.”
But, at the threshold of the shower, an idea had struck Shepard: marshmallows. Toasting marshmallows was a thing people did when they wanted to bond. That would surely be suitable for a birthday party. He hadn’t bothered showering at all, throwing his pants and hoodie back on in a flurry and letting Kaidan know he’d be gone for a few hours to buy some last minute supplies.
Three grocers on the Silversun Strip had turned him down, and now Shepard was practically tearing out his hair trying to think of where else to go, not to mention his hip was killing him from all the walking. At last he found them, of all places at the Casino bar—his last-ditch effort.
Shepard got back to the apartment and found Shaun still playing STG: Street Fight 4. He made his way upstairs and heard Kaidan getting out of the shower. He knocked once on the door and peaked his head in.
“I’m back.”
“Come in. I started to wonder if something had happened to you,” Kaidan smiled. It was a veiled smile, though, as it hadn’t been so long ago that the same could be said with a straight face. It had been months after the accident before Kaidan let Shepard go anywhere without him, and it had been years before he stopped worrying. Shepard was sure that, in his own way, Kaidan still worried. That was just what Kaidan did.
“Turns out finding marshmallows on the Citadel is harder than I thought.” He leaned back against the wall, the slight steam mist on the tile soaking into his hoodie. He watched Kaidan shave his face smooth, the stubble itself as much a steely gray these days as the deep black it had been when they married. In nothing but a towel, Kaidan was still a revelation to Shepard: a bead of water running down the line of his chest, his taut stomach and the trail of dark hairs that disappeared beneath the towel wrapped around his waist.
“See something you like, Shepard?” Kaidan smirked at him, eyeing him out of the corner of his eyes.
“I do.” Shepard pushed himself up, walked behind Kaidan and placed his hands on his hips, moist skin beneath his finger tips and the smell of Kaidan’s soap taking over his senses. “How much time do we have?”
“Before the kids get here? Less than I’d like.” Kaidan pushed back against Shepard, leaning forward with a smile when Shepard placed a gentle kiss against the back of his neck. He turned, pulling his towel loose and using the corner to wipe the remaining shaving cream from his face. It was seductive, and Shepard suddenly forgot all about the pain in his hip.
“Well, damn.” He leaned forward and met Kaidan in a kiss, pulled Kaidan in closer till he could feel him through the towel. Pulling away, Kaidan lightly pushed him back, giving a rusty laugh that melted Shepard.
“Hold that thought until after the 10 screaming kids leave our house, okay?” He wrapped the towel back around his waist and took Shepard’s hand, leading him out of the bathroom and down the hall to their bathroom.
“Mm, can do.” Shepard looked down into the living room, seeing Shaun still absorbed in his show. “Maybe I can join you in the shower next time?”
“Maybe we can take a bath?” Kaidan chuckled. He removed his towel again once their bedroom door was closed and ran it through his hair. Shepard always cherished the moments he could see Kaidan’s hair mussed out of place. “I think the s’mores are a really good idea, Shepard.” Kaidan said at last.
“Hm?”
“I mean it. Getting those marshmallows, that’s going to be real special. Good thinking.”
Kaidan was always complimenting Shepard on his parenting, and if he was a little honest, Shepard usually didn’t believe him when he said things like this. Parenting was effortless to Kaidan, saying just the right thing to his son or to his husband to solve the situation, make the day, whatever needed doing. Kaidan was a kind soul, and that was part of the reason he was Shepard’s biggest cheerleader when it came to raising their son.
“Thanks,” Shepard muttered, watching Kaidan walk into their bathroom to fix his hair. Maybe it was worth believing Kaidan, this time around. He had promised he would try.
Not much later, the kids were piling in until the whole downstairs seemed a blur of running tiny turians, humans, and quarians. Kaidan somehow wrangled all of them together to help with baking the two cakes for Shaun’s birthday.
Shepard sat back and watched, enthralled at how easily Kaidan got all the kids to work together to bake two, honestly not-so-bad-looking cakes. Shepard ordered some pizzas while the kids ‘worked’. Once the cakes were cooling, Kaidan put on one of Shaun’s favorite movies, and the kids scrambled out of the kitchen to watch.
“You nervous about tonight?” Kaidan picked a pepperoni off the discarded pizza.
“No, not at all,” Shepard lied.
“Liar.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“It’s fun to make you squirm, sometimes.” Kaidan leaned over and kissed Shepard’s cheek before helping himself to another pepperoni.
Kaidan had an early meeting tomorrow morning, meaning Shepard had late-night Dad duties to attend to. In a lot of ways, Shepard knew he should view this as a victory. It wasn’t too many years ago that Shaun was warned to never wake his Papa up if he was sleeping because of the way Shepard would jolt awake, throwing fists and kicking his feet.
Now he would be sleeping downstairs with the kids—or trying to sleep, anyway—the chief Dad on duty.
“I can stay up,” Kaidan provided. “You can sleep in our bed, I’ll stay down with the kiddos.”
“No, you’ll be exhausted tomorrow. I have time to take a nap.”
“Won’t be the first sleepless night I’ve had in this job. Part of what I signed up for as a dad.”
“Part of what I signed up for, too.” It came out a little more forceful than Shepard had wanted to. Kaidan stopped chewing and came around the counter to stand next to Shepard, an arm snaking around his waist.
“But since then, a lot of stuff has happened you didn’t sign up for.”
The Big Accident. It had stolen a lot from Shepard. It felt trivial to call it the term they used to talk about it with Shaun. ‘Total Implant Rejection’ almost sounded sinister enough to encompass what it had done to Shepard when Shaun was just two years old.
“I’ve got this.” Shepard laid his head on Kaidan’s shoulder. “I want to do this for him. For you too. And for me.”
“Alright.” Kaidan pulled him closer. “Good.”
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The only light in the room was the fireplace, crackling away merrily in the main room. All the tables, chairs, and couches had been pushed to the edges of the room to make space for everyone’s sleeping bags, but all the kids, pajama-clad, were huddled around Shepard. Their faces looked awestruck in the firelight as he opened a pack of marshmallows.
He showed them how to carefully skewer the marshmallow on the thin, metal roasters. He toasted a marshmallow to a perfect golden brown. He felt strangely proud of that marshmallow for some reason. Shepard was not always a patient man, and he could imagine Kaidan downstairs right now teasing him about setting a marshmallow on fire while his own marshmallow was perfect. He looked up and noticed the light was still on underneath their bedroom door.
Shepard prepared the s’more and handed it to Shaun, his eyes huge in the firelight as he bit into the treat.
“Ow ow ow!” Shaun cried out. “It’s hot!”
“It was just in the fire, son,” Shepard chuckled.
Pretty soon all the kids were roasting marshmallows, none of them with the patience to produce anything but a black and charred marshmallow on a s’more that was mostly chocolate.
Their sticky faces smiling, the kids began to roll out their sleeping bags.
“Hey, let’s tell scary stories!” Shaun exclaimed. The kids were on board immediately, and there was the awkward moment as they looked around for the first person to say something.
“My momma told me once, on the flotilla,” Tila began, her modified voice clearly trying to sound spooky. “She had a good friend named Varya. Varya and her used to play around in the ducts on their ship. Their parents warned them not to, because the kalag had been spotted in one of the other ships…”
“What’s a kalag?” One of the turian boys asked.
“A kalag is a horrible beast with two heads. It can survive in space and jumps ship to ship in the flotilla. It can sound like anyone—your mom or your dad or you best friend. My mom says it hides in the ducts of older ships, that’s why you should never play in the ducts.
“When she was my age, she lost her friend Varya around a corner in the ducts and then she heard a scream!” She raised her arms, the fire light casting eerie shadows on her face. “She went around the corner and found Varya’s mask—cracked! and bloody!”
The room gasped and at least a few of the kids burrowed into their sleeping bags.
“But then, she heard Varya’s voice, as if nothing had happened, saying ‘Come on! Come further! Just around the next corner!’ So she got out of there right away. And they never found Varya’s body!”
“Is that true?” Shaun hissed, aghast.
Tila nodded her head definitively.
“My mom told me.”
Everyone was deathly quiet and Shepard began to wonder if it had been a good idea to let the kids tell scary stories. He looked up, the light was off in his bedroom. Had to mean it was after ten, if Kaidan was going to bed.
“Anybody else got a story?” Shepard asked the kids.
They heard a few more stories that night, something about a haunted wheel that seemed to make all the kids ‘ooo’ and ‘aaah’. There were a couple more that were clearly the efforts of a young mind trying to improvise a spooky story, and the kids reacted to these with varying degrees of skepticism and terror.
When the number of yawns started to outnumber the number of gasps, Shepard spoke up.
“Alright everybody, I think it’s about time we all get some sleep, huh?”
Shaun looked up at him and leaned in to whisper.
“Are you gonna sleep too, Papa?”
“I’ll be fine, kiddo. Stop worrying about me, you sound like your dad.”
Everyone settled into their sleeping bags and Shepard switched off the fireplace, closed the blinds. He marveled at how well they seemed to cut out the noise of speeding cars. The whole living room was quiet as a tomb, except for the occasional rustling of one of the kids.
He was nodding off in his chair when there was a sudden noise. A moan from where one of the turian boys was lying, right by Shaun.
Shepard heard a small whimper from the corner of the living room, over where Alan… maybe his name was Alex… was sleeping.
“What was that?” Tila said, closer to where Shepard was sitting.
“It’s the kalag!” Shaun hissed. Suddenly, Shepard was dealing with a whole room of terrified children, absolutely confident that they were about to be devoured by a space-beast from quarian legend.
“Shh,” Shepard didn’t like how much exasperation he could hear in his own shushing. “It’s going to be okay, there’s no klag here.”
“Kalag!” moaned Tila.
“Um, yes. Not one of those, either.” Shepard was pretty sure one of the kids was crying now, and he cursed himself for having ever turned off the fireplace—it was obviously too dark in here for a bunch of scared kids. He stood up, “Alright, everyone calm down, I’m going to turn on the fireplace again so we have a little light.”
Shepard turned the fireplace back on and turned around, seeing a multitude of shining, tear-filled eyes in the dark. The kids all scrambled to get closer to the firelight.
“I miss my mom,” choked one little voice wrapped up in a sleeping bag.
His stomach fell. Of course, Kaidan had gone to bed and Shepard was about to have a whole birthday party of kids terrified and homesick. He tried to think about what Kaidan would do—normally it was so easy for him to imagine, even if it wasn’t always easy to do. There was a strange kind of panic that came with his present circumstances that he wasn’t used to. He had fought Reapers and geth and krogans and mercenaries, and at that particular moment, he’d rather be fighting them.
But he had signed on to be a dad, now. Kaidan kept trying to tell him he could be good at that, too. He felt as scared as the kids huddling around him, and for a moment if brought a surge of terror into his chest. He had felt the kind of raw, primal and childish fear of being afraid of a kalag—the rachni, the Reapers. These days, things were not so simple. He was afraid of losing Kaidan. Losing Shaun. Of not being able to be there for his son, and now here he was, all alone and unable to do anything.
Couldn’t be as scared as the kids, though, even if it was a different kind of fear.
“Everyone come here.” Shepard sat down on the floor, back against the hearth. Shaun climbed into his lap and Shepard held him close. He waited till all the little faces had migrated over to his side of the room, dragging their sleeping bags with them. “Now, everyone just close your eyes. I’m here, okay?”
There were a few whimpers around the room, Shepard felt a small thrill when Shaun immediately closed his eyes and buried his face in Shepard’s shoulder.
“Come on now,” he said again, giving the kids a big smile. “Let’s all go to sleep, okay?”
“I’m scared,” came a reply from the back of the little group.
“Here’s what I… um, what I do when I get scared.” He swallowed. His voice shook a bit, he began to sing.
“Tell the stars to sleep, put out the moon.
Hush the trees that rustle in the wood
Tell the one I love I’ll be sleeping soon.
Tell the one I love I will see him soon.”
It was an old lullaby. Shepard didn’t know how he knew it. He never remembered his parents, and couldn’t believe they were the kind to sing their baby to sleep with a lullaby. In the Reds, he would sing it in his head whenever he got scared. Come to think of it, he had never sung it aloud.
“Tonight, remember me in a prayer
If you pray them still, and if you could
Tell the one I love I sleep without a care
Tell the one I love I left without a care.”
He had always suspected the lullaby was one of those lullabies that tried, hope-against-hope, to make a happy ending out of something unhappy. He had never imagined a happy ending for himself, not like this. Not like he had. Whatever kind of dad he was, he was more than he ever dreamed he’d be.
“Tell that ancient rider, ‘Come’
On his pale horse, in his black hood.
Tell the one I love I’m coming home
Tell the one I love I’m coming home.”
The lullaby went on for several more verses, and when he reached the end, Shepard started from the beginning again. Little eyelids grew heavy and fell closed, whimpers turned to deep, sleeping breaths. The weight of his son in his arms anchored him, even as his thoughts spun out into space and back in time. When he had sung it to himself in the Reds, it was a panacea against fear, he had been ready to die. He’d had no loved one to sing it to, then. These kids, asleep at last in his living room, would never know the kind of world where this lullaby was anything other than a quiet little song to lull them to sleep. He and Kaidan had helped to make that world.
He held Shaun tighter. His voice shook less as he continued to sing.
The rest of the night went by without much of a hitch—one or two of the kids waking up to use the bathroom, then bolting right back to sleep in the glow of the firelight.
He didn’t get much sleep, but he must have slept some, because once he opened his eyes and spotted Kaidan staring down at him from upstairs. Never heard the door open. Kaidan gave a gentle wave, and came down the stairs. Shepard stood carefully and navigated around the kids sleeping on the floor, met Kaidan in the kitchen with a kiss.
“How’d it go?”
“I let them tell spooky stories. That was dumb.”
“Oh no.”
“Ended up being okay, though,” he smiled, and Kaidan smiled back at him. Together, they woke the kids up and made everyone breakfast before parents started showing up to take kids home.
It wasn’t long before Shepard was alone in the house—Kaidan gone off to his meeting and Shaun to spend the day at a friend’s house. It was an odd sensation, being alone in the apartment after such a party. It reminded him just the littlest bit of the morning after their Citadel party during the war. Convinced he needed people in his life for the first time. Convinced he wanted to wake up next to Kaidan every day.
Maybe kids weren’t so bad. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad dad.
As he limped up the stairs to take a nap, he got a message from Kaidan.
“Proud of you. I’ve got nothing going on tomorrow, let’s make tonight special?”
Woog, okay, been some time. Here goes!
This story is dedicated to @bgbcps who has been requesting something like this for a long while. Thank you so much, and I really hope you enjoy this fluffy little mshenko kidfifc!
I must also thank @estalfaed who has been just a stand-up dude about encouraging me to post the stories I have written... I think I wrote this story back in... June? April? And have been feeling really bad about posting even what little I have written. Thanks for encouraging me.
As always, should you prefer to read it in wide columns, you may also read this story at AO3
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“Shaun!” Kaidan called down the hallway, leaning out of the door to the master bedroom. “It’s too late, babs, you’re going to be fine!”
The sink had been running in the hallway bathroom for almost 20 minutes while Kaidan bustled around the house on his comms.
“I had no idea he was so worried,” Shepard said from the bed. It was a bad morning for his back, and it had taken him a good five minutes to get his left shoe on. He was taking a breather before attempting the right shoe.
“I wish he cared about his teeth this much the rest of the year,” Kaidan huffed, sweetening the pronouncement with a hint of a smile.
Shepard stared down at his other shoe, and part of him knew he was regarding it with about the same level of excitement with which his son usually eyed-up his tooth brush. Except, of course, today was dentist day. And the only thing worse than brushing your teeth for three minutes every single morning and night was being told by the dentist that you weren’t doing it enough.
“He’s got your attention to detail,” Shepard said the words to Kaidan’s back, to his crossed arms, tried to make the words gentle enough where Kaidan would catch them as he rounded his corner, pacing the room. Getting off this morning so they could take Shaun to the dentist’s office had been hell on his work schedule, and Kaidan’s assistant had been on the comms all morning—that is, when Sparatus wasn’t trying to go over his assistant’s head for something. “He always wants to be perfect for inspection.”
“He’s scared to death of doctors, that’s what he is,” Kaidan snorted. Shepard blinked. Kaidan turned on his heel, eyes dark, like he had just come out of some sort of trance. “Shepard, I didn’t mean—“
“It’s okay,” Shepard held up a hand. But he set his palm on the mattress next to him, and Kaidan took the gentle invitation to join him on the bed. Of course Shaun would be afraid of doctors, considering the childhood he’d had. His Dad holding him on his lap in the waiting room while Papa went in for a check-up. Watching the way Shepard blanched every time Dr. Chakwas came over for an in-home consultation.
When he was a little younger, all he knew about doctors was that his Papa would look bad, would go to the doctor, and come back worse. Saw the way Shepard ground his teeth and shook his head on those cold nights where Kaidan had to urge ‘It doesn’t matter that it’s the middle of the night, we’re getting you to the clinic. Now.’
Sometimes Shepard wished he actually had the strength to talk to his son about ‘The Big Accident’. If Shaun had been old enough to remember that time, maybe he’d be a little more grateful having doctors around for his Papa.
But that was a thought that was going to get Shepard in trouble. He’d been a very different sort of man before… that. And, with the pain shooting up his back and the little trickle of fear down the back of his throat whenever it came time to take care of Shaun, he wished maybe Shaun could have that Papa instead. It made it worse when Shaun picked up on those feelings. Sort of worse, sort of better. The kid had Kaidan’s capacity to feel the melancholy Shepard was swimming in with just a touch on his Papa’s hand.
“This kid’s too perceptive for us, Shepard.” Kaidan’s weight on the bed made it easy for Shepard to lean his head on his husband’s shoulder. “It’s not either of our fault, not really. He just… he’s got a good set of eyes on him.”
“And a big heart.”
Kaidan ran a hand down Shepard’s back, thumb always finding the synthetic ganglia that ran parallel to Shepard’s spine, but pretending he wasn’t feeling for it.
“How’s your back?” He kissed Shepard’s cheek.
“Hurts…”
“I’m really sorry,” Kaidan smiled, but his brow crumpled the way it did when he wasn’t sure how sorry he should be.
“Why?” Shepard turned, nuzzled Kaidan’s nose, “I was begging for it, last night. And this morning. Would rather you listened to me, hmm?”
“You wouldn’t be hurting so much.”
“Just means I know you’ll listen when I beg you to help me with this other shoe, too.”
Kaidan laughed against his lips.
“Kiss me first.”
“Stop talking and I will…”
Barely a taste of his husband’s lips, and Kaidan’s omni-tool chirruped.
“Hell,” Kaidan growled. He looked down at his wrist. “It’s Valern. What is going on up there, today!” He checked the time, “We need to leave in the next 20 or we’re going to get caught in shipping traffic.”
“Take the call. I’m going to make sure Shaun’s ready. If he keeps running that water, you’re going to have a conniption.”
Kaidan mouthed a ‘thank you’ to him just before the screen in the bedroom flickered on and he addressed Councilor Valern with the sternest possible expression. Shepard limped out of the room, still dressed in just a single shoe, and made his way down the hall.
The bathroom was empty, and Shepard reached over to switch off the water.
“Shaun?” He knocked at Shaun’s door—mostly open, but still—and waited till he heard a squeak from inside. “Come on, bud, Dad’s on a call and then we have to go right away.” He pushed the door open, “You left the water running, is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Shaun stood in the middle of his room, hands behind his back, ready for inspection, amidst an unholy mess. “I’m almost ready…”
Shepard looked at the toys, pillows, and clothes flopped all over the floor.
“Okay, got your shoes on?”
“Yeah.” Shaun’s lip quivered, he showed Shepard the back of his shoes to demonstrate he was fully wearing them and hadn’t just slipped into them already tied.
“…okay then. How can I help you finish getting ready, kiddo?”
Shaun looked to the side.
“Okay guys, I’m done with the Councilor! Everybody ready? Baby, where’d you leave that other shoe?” Kaidan called down the hall. “Never mind, got it!”
Shepard looked down at his son again, his eyes were almost pleading, but his mouth was shut tight.
“Kaidan,” Shepard called back. “Shaun needs our help with something real quick.”
“Okay, but we’ve got fifteen minutes…” Kaidan rounded the corner into the bedroom brandishing Shepard’s other shoe. “Oh, babs, what’s up, huh?” He immediately dropped to one knee. Shepard wished he could do that so easily, sometimes.
“It’s… Urdnot Squish,” their son answered, looking back up at Kaidan. The plush krogan Shepard had given him the first night he and Kaidan had to stay in the hospital with Shepard.
“Can’t find him?”
Shaun shook his head.
“Well, can you make do without him until—“ But Shepard stopped when he saw the way Shaun’s face tensed up. And sure enough, it was a face Shepard made all the time: the refusal to allow himself to admit just how awful he was feeling. Shepard never wanted to see that look on his son’s face… he knew all about pain, and he never wanted Shaun to feel that either. But after the Big Accident, the only thing he could imagine being worse for his child was him trying to hide that pain. “Erm… I mean, do you think Urdnot Squish can make do without you for a couple hours?”
Shaun frowned. Opened his mouth, then closed it.
“Hmm?”
“I’m his krant,” Shaun whispered.
Kaidan set the shoe down.
“Don’t worry, we’ll find him. Huh?”
Shaun nodded vigorously, something between a miserable grimace and a smile of relief.
“You remember where you left him, son?” Shepard mussed up Shaun’s hair just a little bit. The boy shook his head. “Were you playing with him somewhere? Did you take him out last time we got to the restaurant? Did you let Xia play with him maybe? Did you—“
Kaidan cleared his throat. Shepard took the hint, and Kaidan took over.
“Looks like you’ve been searching in here pretty good, babs,” Kaidan rose to his feet and put his hands on his hips: a performance that always made Shaun feel like now things were going to start happening. He turned to Shepard and said in a low voice so only his husband could hear: “God this room is trashed…”
“I can’t find him! I looked and looked!” Shaun cried.
“Okay, don’t worry. Your Papa’s Commander Shepard, he’s done his fair share of search and rescues.” He rubbed Shepard’s shoulder gently, “What’s the plan, Commander?”
Shepard chuckled. Shaun never looked up at him with as much adoration as he did when Kaidan directed his attention.
“Why don’t you two search up here and I’ll—“
Kaidan cleared his throat again and Shepard bit his lip and started over.
“Why don’t you and me search downstairs, Shaun, and Kay, you can look up here?”
“Got it,” Kaidan winked, before turning back to Shaun. “Now, you’re sure you searched in here good enough, kiddo? Don’t need me to look through here again?”
“No. I searched everywhere. He’s not here.”
“Okay, then,” said Kaidan, then, a whisper to Shepard, “I’m going to look in here again.”
Shepard nodded, tried not to laugh.
“We’ll be quick, see you downstairs in a few. We’ll, uh. We’ll re-assess if we need to.”
“Great,” Kaidan was fussily smoothing Shaun’s hair with one hand. “I’m going to make a call to the dentist and let him know we might be a little late. Then—“
“Don’t call Valern,” Shepard deadpanned.
“I should let him know, if I think I’m going to be late…”
“Don’t call Valern. Let ‘em wait.”
Kaidan sighed, but nodded his assent.
“C’mon, son,” Shepard winked down at Shaun, trying to do his best impression of Kaidan’s wink. He tapped his own shoulder twice and Shaun’s eyes lit up. He raced over to a little step ladder by the door, using the extra height to scramble up onto Shepard’s shoulders without his Papa having to stoop down.
Kaidan bit his lip at the ‘oof’ Shepard made when Shaun settled his legs on either side of Shepard’s neck, but Shepard tried to give his husband, too, a conspiratorial wink. But, of course, using Kaidan’s own fake conspiratorial wink on the man himself was doomed to failure.
“Alright, boys,” Kaidan crossed his arms at last. “Best of luck, I’ll start going through things up here.”
Shaun pressed himself down on Shepard’s head to clear the top frame of the door, and they were off.
“Where too first, son?” Shepard bounced his shoulder just a little bit.
“I don’t know,” Shaun mumbled. “I’m sorry… I don’t know where I left him.”
“I thought…” Shepard tightened his grip on Shaun’s shins when they started making their way downstairs to the living room. Shaun always got a little dizzy on the stairs when he was up on Shepard’s back. Shepard took the steps slow on a good day, but with his son on his shoulders and only one shoe, he was even more careful. “Weren’t you playing with him…? Hmm, I feel like I saw you with him… Hmm.”
“I brought him with us when we got noodles.”
“That was a week ago. And I definitely remember cleaning some Tuchanka tickler sauce off him in the car on the way back.” The living room lay before them like a galaxy full of hiding-places. “He’s pretty important to you, huh, son?”
“Uh huh,” Shaun whispered. ‘How could he just leave something so important to him and forget about it?’ Shepard knew the question was going through his son’s head. He got that worry from watching Shepard, for sure. Kids can pick up some pretty grown-up worries when their dad is an old broken soldier….
But that thought was going to get him in trouble, too.
“We’ll just have to think like Krogan, then,” Shepard tried to laugh, but he was never very good at that, either.
“Daddy said you used to rescue Krogan a lot,” Shaun quipped when Shepard turned towards the office. “What did you do?” He always got a little braver asking questions about Shepard’s past when Kaidan wasn’t there to give him a limiting shake of the head.
“Oh all kinds of search and rescues,” Shepard said. He gave the room a quick visual survey. “Bailed Uncle Wrex out of trouble a few times. First time I met him, I was trying to track him down in the Wards so we could…” His son probably didn’t need to know about Fist, or his Aunt Tali’s near-death encounter with his Aunt Liara’s predecessor. “…go on a mission.”
“Uncle Wrex told me you and him and Dad blew a mobster away!”
Shepard sighed, listened for a moment for Kaidan’s disapproving shout from upstairs, then set about inspecting the shelves, letting Shaun go through the top shelves from his elevated position.
“Uncle Wrex did the shooting.”
“Was Uncle Wrex there when Daddy found you after the big explosion?”
Shepard winced.
“No,” he said softly, pause what he was doing. Remembering being under the rubble. Remembering the hospital. “No. And Daddy didn’t find be right after the explosion. I saw him in the hospital, later.”
“You always said Dad found you.”
“Yeah,” Shepard sighed. “He did, but… well, a team of marines got my body out of the rubble but… it’s hard to explain.” Shepard trailed off, then noticed how uncomfortably quiet Shaun had become: afraid he’d gone too far in asking Papa about his past. “But anyway, uh. I know all about, um, search and rescue. And I know all about krogan, too. Should find your little friend in no time. Helped Grunt out more than a few times, too. His company got lost in the…” Shepard couldn’t remember the name of the system, anymore. And it had been so important to him. “Uh, someplace. They got ambushed and we helped to bail them out.” Shepard didn’t think Grunt would have told Shaun about that mission. “Mordin and I were with him for his rite of passage. That’s how I became his battle master.”
“Wow!”
“You know what that is?” Shepard looked up to find his son curling over his head to stare down at his Papa’s face in wonder.
“Yeah! Uncle Wrex talks about how you and Daddy and him are going to have to fight over who gets to be my battle master when I’m old enough.”
“Yeesh,” Shepard grimaced, shoulders starting to feel the strain of his son on his aching back when he got back out to the bar in the family room. “We’re your dads, we get first bid, right?”
Shaun giggled coyly.
“…don’t grow up too fast, okay, son?” Shepard said, letting Shaun off his shoulders on the bar. Eye to eye with him, Shaun sort of nodded then sort of shook his head. “Plenty of soldiers in the galaxy, only one you, huh?”
“Okay, Papa, I know,” Shaun mumbled, then hopped down to the floor.
“And only one Urdnot Squish, too. You start searching those couch cushion, I’ll go through the bar. We have to get you to the dentist.”
“Not without Urdnot Squish!?” Shaun cried.
“No, of course not!”
“But,” Shaun looked up the stairs, listening for Kaidan, then scurried over to grab Shepard’s hand, “What if we don’t have time to find him?” He whispered.
“We have time. Come on, let’s search the bar together.”
Shaun took the lower cabinets this time while Shepard searched every place he could think Shaun might be able to climb up to. They searched the rest of the family room and the guest bedroom and the living room in silence: nothing. Shaun was becoming visibly agitated at the lack of progress, and Shepard was plenty frustrated, too. He took Shaun’s hand and they made for the kitchen—the unlikeliest place for Squish to have hidden without being seen, and they both knew it.
“You know, Shaun,” Shepard said softly, “You don’t need to be scared of the doctor.”
Shaun shrugged.
“He’s just checking your teeth, giving them a good clean. Won’t even take them out of your head.”
Shaun’s eyes got wide and Shepard winced, cursing himself.
“Erm, um, what I mean is: he’s the good guy.”
Shaun stopped in his tracks, sniffled.
“I don’t want to… be away,” Shaun said hushed. “I want to be able to come home.”
‘Be away.’ The same way Shepard was ‘away’ in the hospital after the accident whenever his crew tried to stop by the apartment to see their family. The excuse Kaidan gave to protect Shepard’s pride even years later whenever his condition was acting up again. It made Shepard ache through every fiber of his cybernetics and every hasty graft of regrown tissue.
“Oh sweetheart,” Shepard pressed his son to his hug in as much of a hug as his back would allow without him stooping down. “You won’t, son. You won’t. It’s just a quick little cleaning.”
“I know,” Shaun grimaced, “I just don’t like it.”
“Hey,” Shepard tipped Shaun’s chin up with a finger, “I don’t either, son. But it’s going to be alright. Daddy’s going to be there and so will I. And you’ll feel better afterwards. I always do.”
“I just… I just want to make sure I have Urdnot Squish with me…” Shaun’s ears were a little pink. “Maybe sometime I won’t need him but… I want him with me. For now.”
The kid had too much swirling around in his head. He deserved a friend like Urdnot Squish. He deserved a father like Kaidan. He deserved everything Shepard had to give—old Shepard or new Shepard.
“Yeah,” Shepard smiled. “I want him there too, buddy. Come on.”
“Okay.”
It was time to start backtracking, but Shaun had a little more spring in his step. Shepard was practically ready to start tearing the house apart to find this krogan when he stopped to rest at the piano bench. Leaning back against the keys, gently, the piano hummed softly.
Except something was off.
Shepard turned around, ran his fingers up the scale… there was a strange ‘ploink’ between B7 and E8. Shaun gasped.
“He’s in the piano!!”
“What the hell?” Shepard said, before he could help himself.
“Yeah yeah yeah yeah,” Shaun dashed over, tugging on Shepard’s sleeve. “I always wanted to lift the piano cover, because it’s so heavy, and I brought Squish along to make me strong.” He was practically breathless, bouncing up and down in place. “And I did it! And I wanted to tell you and Daddy but I didn’t because then I thought I would play a trick on you next time you played piano so I stationed Squish inside the piano to hold the strings but then I forgot about him because Destiny and the Sword was on and you and Daddy stayed in bed all morning and had the door closed and your back hurt and you didn’t play the piano and so I forgot about him!”
Shepard lifted up the piano lid and sure enough, lying on the keys with his stitched, shit-eating grin stained with tummy tickler sauce was Urdnot Squish: proud son of Tuchanka.
Shaun practically leapt up to pluck the toy from inside the piano and gave it a satisfying squeeze.
“I’m sorry, Squish. I promise I’ll be better,” Shaun assured his companion. With that he rushed off to the office, probably making a bee-line for Shepard’s computer terminal, towing the krogan along behind him.
Just like that. And the plush doll forgave him, obviously. As if he’d never been forgotten. As if he’d never be forgotten again.
Shepard had forgotten so much: so many memories were nothing more than colored points of light on a galaxy map software interface in his mind. Systems and planets and even allies his couldn’t catch the name of anymore when they swam through his mind. He was even starting to forget some of the hospital nights.
But he remembered bringing Shaun home. His first tooth. His second, third, and fourth teeth, too. And what time all Shaun’s favorite shows were on. And now he’d remember Shaun’s favorite hiding spot better, too.
“Well done, Commander,” came Kaidan’s voice, leaning on the balcony railing with a grin on his face and Shepard’s shoe in his hand.
“How long have you been standing there?” Shepard set the piano lid back down.
“Long enough.” Kaidan waggled his eyebrows, “And Shaun’s room is a whole lot more organized, now…”
“Who knows how long our resident krogan would have been on assignment if my back wasn’t killing me?” Shepard chuckled.
“I feel less bad about last night, now.”
“You shouldn’t feel bad about it at all.”
Kaidan guffawed.
“Just need to make sure we spend more time in bed on messages in the morning, less time… going for round 2.”
“And let our son tromp all over the house trying to lift things and sending his krant on unapproved assignments? We may never have sex again.”
“He’s got a good head on his shoulders,” Kaidan made his way down the steps.
“I wish I had more to give him,” Shepard sighed when Kaidan was close enough to speak in a hushed tone. “He sees how much I worry about things, and that makes him worry.”
“He worries because he loves you.” Kaidan rubbed his arm. “Now take a seat so I can put this other shoe on you. You look ridiculous.”
Shepard sat down on the hearth and his husband kneeled in front of him a moment later, guiding his foot into the other shoe. The same way he had many times on weekends and in the middle of the night to rush him to the clinic. It was going to be okay as long as Kaidan was there. Every time. Kaidan’s eyes were beach-sun warm in the firelight when he looked up at Shepard.
“What’re you looking at?” Shepard whispered with a smile.
“Nothing,” Kaidan said. “Just getting a real good look at that smile.”
“Hurry up!” came Shaun’s shout from the back office. “We’re ready to go! Let’s get it over with! Wait, I’m gonna brush my teeth again!”
Kaidan leaned up, one kiss for Shepard’s lips and another for his brow.
I suck and these should have been finished forever ago, but @bgbcps requested “ #15. Maybe something involving mshenkos son shaun “ So here goes!
#15. Trembling Hands
Also, I guess I did this prompt once? Check that one out too if you wanna.
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“Shaun?” Shepard’s voice shook, his son’s glassy eyes peeking out from behind Kaidan’s leg, little fist balled up in the folds of Kaidan’s slacks.
“He wants to see you,” Kaidan assured him, laid a hand on their son’s head. Shaun nodded and gave a full-cheek smile.
Suddenly, Shepard could feel the cold of the bedroom floor, his clothes and the room in disarray, and the burn of tear-trails down his cheeks.
“Oh, kiddo. Didn’t want you to have to see me like this…” He meant it as an accusation at Kaidan, but it came out too honest to do anything but bandage the crack through his heart. “See…. Papa’s got bad days, too…”
He could barely lift his trembling hands before the little boy had barreled into his arms, squeezing him tight. Shepard held him so close.
“Told you, Shaun,” Kaidan grinned, “He wants to see you.”
Because I totally have to now, more mshenko space dads!!! Woooo!!
I have two more longer stories in mind that I’m working on, but here’s a little shorty flashback piece!
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With the sun sinking slow in the sky, the traffic at thebeach was starting to thin out a little. But there was something about hearingthe peeling laughter of Shaun that just shut everything else out. The beach wasall for them, just their little family.
“Papa!”
“Almost there, son, tell your Daddy to hurry up.”
“Hurry up, Daddy!”
“Hey now!” Kaidan laughed at Shepard’s back. His husband’shands were slowly working the sunscreen into his shoulders, down his back,while Shaun tried his best to do a headstand in the sand a few paces away.
Out in the ocean, maybe miles out, a toppled Reaper brokethe waves, catching the glint of the sun. Now, as the sun set, it was onlyvisible as a black, synthetic island out to sea. Whenever Shepard noticed it…
He tried to take a deep breath.
“Sun’s almost down, do I really need more sunscreen?”Shepard whispered over his shoulder. God, his joints ached.
“If our son getsmore sunscreen, we all get moresunscreen,” Kaidan returned. “He’s your kid, Shepard. He’s gonna noticedouble-standards right away. Might as well start young.” That sounded aboutright… “Besides, you owe me: I can tell how much you’re hurting.”
“Who knew beach-day with a three-year-old could be soexhausting?”
“Literally everyone, Shepard.”
For an hour, the three of them had been running up and downthe beach: chasing the waves when they receded, and screaming and retreatingwhen the ocean chased them back. Shaun’s little legs were carrying him prettywell, even with the wet sand and the big inflatable water-wings under his arms.
“Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddy!” Shaun had cried when hefell behind, and with a heroic cry, his two dads had leapt back,each grabbed one of his arms to pull him up before the rushing foam crashed aroundtheir feet. “Daddy, it got you!”
It wasn’t strange that Shaun called out to his Daddy firstwhen he was in trouble: if Shepard needed to get lifted out of the surf, hewould call on the biotic dad first, too. What a strange feeling, it had been,though, to not be the one people called out to when things got rough.
“You’re all good, Commander,” Kaidan kissed the skin behindhis ear, hugged his bare chest. “I’ll be watching.”
“We won’t be going out too far.”
Shepard struggled to his feet, leaning on Kaidan’s shoulderto haul himself up, and Shaun cheered. Kaidan was better in shape, and thebetter lifeguard, so he’d be staying on the shore.
“Let’s go!” Shaun started tottering towards the water, grownmore placid now that the sun was setting.
“Don’t you dare, little buddy!” Shepard winced and realizedhe would not be running down to thewater.
They played around in the shallows, Shaun splashing aroundin his best doggy paddle. It was easy to ignore the corpse of the Reaper, outin the distance, for a while.
Eventually, though, Shepard was out just about to where hisnatural buoyancy was lifting his feet off the sand, treading in the water.
“Alright, son, come on, swim on out to me!”
Shaun, psyching himself up in ankle-deep water, plunged intothe water and started kicking with everything he had.
“Come on babs!” Kaidan called from the shore. Shepard triedhis best to call out, too, even though he reasoned Shaun probably couldn’t makeout what his dads were saying with how hard he was swimming.
The Reaper was at his back.
When he turned away from Harbinger to see his lover blastedbloody in the rain in a London crater. “Shepard!” the soldiers had called, andhe couldn’t just lift them up out of the surf… And when he had turned back, hehad been alone with the Reaper…
Like now.
The pull of the water, like a tractor beam. Lifting himweightless in the water.
When he looked up, Kaidan was at the water’s edge,bare-chest tanned and arms tanned even darker from all the work he’d been doingat the orchard. His shoulders bigger and his belly softer and his smile widerthan ever. Watching. Vigilant. Not that far, after all.
Shaun was burbling and laughing and still kicking whenShepard reached out and scooped him up.
“You did it!” He said, rolling around in a toe-kick to lifthis son out of the water. The little boy was clearly pooped, but had a smile asbig as his Daddy’s.
“Daddy, I did it!”
“He did it!”
“You did it!”
Swimming he and his son back to shore, little Shaun’s headwore the setting sun like a halo. Kaidan was at his back, and their smiling sonwas all he could see ahead.
Well since you put it out there, Number 3: Ben Shepard in The Difference, favorite line in the whole damn fic probably. "It’s all I am. It’s all I have to give. I would fight every evil in the universe, Kaidan, if it made the galaxy worthy of the way you look at it when you look up at the stars. Do you believe that?" No need to continue this with anything, just wanted to remind you how much I loved it!
Gah! Thank you for liking this line! I get pretty paranoid about my prose, especially the big dramatic gestures, so it’s REALLy gratifying to hear things people like.
This is the only line in the entire story that I wrote out by hand. I was riding the bus, trying to think of just the right way to say this sentiment to REALLY drive home the whole sea/sky conceit, and I wrote that line out on the back of a receipt.
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Honestly, Shepard had always thought Shaun was running off to use the bathroom, the minute his reading homework was done (and, to be fair, he was). But this time, Shepard noticed his son pad off to the back office after washing his hands in the bathroom.
Shepard pulled himself off the sofa, his hip protesting the movement. Probably, the kid was just going to use Kaidan’s terminal for as long as he could before his dad got home.
Still, when Shepard got to the office, he found the boy sitting on his workbench stool, the center drawer open and Shaun muttering to himself, staring at something in his hands.
“’Fff---aigh---tuh.’ ‘Fight.’“ Shaun gave the object in his hand a satisfying smirk. They had just been going over the phonics of ‘ai’ diphthongs, and at last Shaun was not frustrated in his attempts to sound out esoterically spelled English words.
“Whatchu doing, kiddo?” Shepard limped over to the desk, ruffled Shaun’s hair before looking at what his son was holding.
It was a small box, a rich, dark asari wood. A plenithaya puzzle box, where the eezo nodules in the wood could be manipulated by a skilled biotic, basically making the box impossible to open unless the biotic who sealed it reversed the polarity.
“It says ‘fight’!” Shaun beamed, holding up the box. “That’s how you spell ‘fight’?! Ew.”
“Amen,” Shepard chuckled, lifted the box out of his son’s hand. There were two sets of dogtags pinned in the box, Shepard’s above, Kaidan’s below. One of each set was badly charred.
“Still can’t read the rest of it, though,” Shaun frowned. Shepard realized he must have been running in here ever week, after his reading homework was done, trying to read the full inscription etched into the black velvet, curling around the two sets.
“You could’ve asked buddy,” Shepard had to swallow hard so his voice wouldn’t crack. He tucked this away a while back when they’d had company--it seemed too personal to leave out for strangers to gawk at--and must’ve left it in the drawer.
“No!” Shaun seemed appalled “You always tell me I should try my best to figure things out.”
“I also tell you you should get help when you can!”
“I know! But I wanted to figure it out on my own.”
“Okay,” Shepard said gently. He closed the box. Ran his thumb over the words “All I am. All I have to give.” inscribed on the lid. Then he opened it again to hand back to his son. “Well, when you figure it out, I’ll tell you what it means, okay?”
