Shepard Appreciation Week

Pairing: Kaidan Alenko/ John Shepard

Words: 961

Summary:  “Do you remember how he used to be scared of husks?” 

Liara laughs. “Yeah. He’d fight through just about anything else, but throw a husk at him and he’d run screaming in the other direction. I heard he fought a praetorian one on one while his team took down the husks on a collector vessel.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Kaidan says fondly, remembering how silly it’d seemed. Husks, John, really?

Shepard Week Day 7: Neutron Star

For #shepardweek I did a quick bio of some of my own personal Shepard’s. These are the guys and gals I’ve written stories for or am in the process of doing so. It was great fun for me, as I hope it was for you. Following is a list of all the Shep’s I shared about with links to their respective Shep week posts as well as some additional, useless very important information. :) 

John Thomas: 

Favorite Food: Huevos Rancheros because James makes them for him and they’re killer. It’s become both their favorite comfort food. When it’s John’s night to cook, he always makes steak au poivre because it’s really the only thing, besides PB&J, that he knows how to prepare.

Favorite Dessert: Root Beer Floats

Favorite Pastime: Dancing with James, but don’t tell Jimmy that, or he’d never live it down. 

Least Favorite Thing in the Universe: Tequila, though he drinks it to make Jimmy happy!

LIFE OF A STAR ► BLACK HOLES / NEUTRON STARS

After the Reaper War, Shepard stayed on Earth and received post traumatic care in the Systems Alliance Military Rehabilitation Center in Rio for 8 months, alongside thousands of her fellow soldiers. Upon leaving the facility, she began a year-long journey around Earth with her partner Major Kaidan Alenko, disappearing almost completely from the public eye.

shepard week day 7: black holes or neutron stars

There’s a line people like us have to cross. If we’re lucky, we do what’s necessary, and then we die.

Katerina Shepard was recovered by separatist forces who were investigating fragments of the Citadel that had crashed on Earth 8 months after the end of the Reaper War, which ended with the destruction of all Reaper forces.

She was held captive, tortured and interrogated by them before she got free after the facility was attacked by Alliance forces during the first Human Unification War, which saw the Alliance reclaiming control of the planet after 2 years of long and bloody military campaigns. 

Reports of a red haired woman very similar to Commander Shepard wandering through abandoned and derelict cities and towns on Earth and fighting both the Alliance and separatist forces have been reported throughout the Globe. The Alliance dismisses these rumours, insisting that Commander Shepard died on the last day of the Reaper War.

In truth, the Alliance is not interested in hunting down Shepard, as they are more focused on their military campaigns to expand towards Batarian space and the territory of the Asari Republics, which collapsed and ceased to exist as a functioning power after the War, and they prefer to prop up the figure of Shepard as a martyr for humanity.

Shepard’s current status and whereabouts are unknown.

Shepard Week: Day 7

The Normandy crew thought Shepard needed to feel appreciated so they all decided to take turns spending time with him.

Day 7: Everyone wanted to eat with Shepard…and it somehow turned into a party.

Final day. Thanks everyone! 

Again, this is not a new work, so I hope that’s okay. I just felt this fit today’s theme better than anything else I could come up with. It takes place many long years after the war. I suppose you could say its bittersweet but this has a special place in my heart. The words (paraphrased) are from the song Wonderful Life by Alter Bridge, which inspired this. 

It was amazing how fast life went by when you had the time to actually live it. To enjoy all the moments that made it worthwhile, to experience things you never dreamed would happen, to share in the company of someone your heart yearned for and loved with abandon.

There were times it was even a little terrifying at how quickly it sped by, faster than light.

Now, here they were, staring out over the English Bay together so many years later, almost all of Vancouver rebuilt. New generations were growing up around them never knowing a world at war. Life had a way of always moving onward, forgetting the misery and suffering of the past. The world that existed today had been shaped by that past. Still, sometimes those memories were better left forgotten, especially when they were brutal and painful.

Kaidan felt a hand reach for his and his mouth lifted up in a smile. Turning, his eyes noted the paper thin skin with prominent blue veins, covered in age spots, fingers gnarled and twisted by age and time. The results of a life filled with endless battles, hand molded around holding a weapon. Folding his own aged fingers around that hand, he looked up at rheumy blue eyes and felt his heart expand in love.

After all this time, that love never changed, never faded. His love for John would always be just as strong as it had been from the beginning – a forever love.

Relationships

It was a constant dance for them, though they were never quite in sync. Lingering looks, each of them glancing away if the other noticed. Removing armor after each mission together, eyes straying to watch the play of the tight bodysuit over a muscular body. Fingers brushing together accidentally. Sitting together in the mess, knees occasionally touching under the table.

Exquisite torture, in the best and worst possible way. Questions always on the surface. Did they feel it too? Were they misreading the signs or reading them all too well?

Feelings building up over time, intensifying as those questions remained unanswered. Until one day, they were.

“The bond that ties us together is something the Reapers will never understand. 

It’s more powerful than any weapon, stronger than any ship. It can’t be taken or destroyed….

The Normandy crew thought Shepard needed to feel appreciated so they all decided to take turns spending time with him.

Day 6: Relaxing with Kaidan (+3rd wheel Javik)

shepard appreciation week day 6: relationships

November 11th - Relationships

“You have something up your sleeve Nate? What am I talking about - you always do. That’s what I -”

Kaidan cut himself off, with a sharp cough.

“What you what?” Shepard sat, motioning his LT to continue.

“Uh,” he scratched the back of his head, pausing to summon the right words; any words. “It was nothing. It’s nothing Shepard.”

“Uh huh. If you keep on with this,” he gestured at Kaidan’s evasiveness, “then maybe, after this is all over maybe I’ll actually have to start listening to what you’re saying,” he said, a smirk playing upon his lips that almost made it to his weary eyes.

“Heh. Smart-ass. You’re something else, you know that?”

John Shepard had never known what it was like to have a family, a real, healthy and functional one that is. The Reds were his family once, but he was glad to be rid of them. The Alliance gave him a semblance of it, an idea, the meaning behind “brotherhood.” His time on the Normandy is what finally solidified it for him, made him realize the value and incomparable worth of this thing called family.

This unlikely band of misfits, brought together by chance and circumstance had grown to be more important to him than any other. Losing them, finding them again, it meant and still means everything to Shepard. They are the reason he fought so damn hard, but Kaidan, well, Kaidan was the reason he was willing to give it all. All his time, all his energy, even his life.

Love was an abstract concept for John, raised as he was on the streets, forming bonds with others was a dangerous game. He was wary when he joined the Alliance, skeptical and aloof. His squad mates would comment on his skill and efficiency, someone they were glad that was on “their side,” but one cold bastard.

While it was his time and the people on the Normandy that slowly worked down his walls and defenses, it was the quiet, strong and, lets be honest, beautiful Lieutenant that gave meaning and substance to the concept of love.

Someone to fight for, someone to die for, but most importantly above all, someone to LIVE for. And that, well, that was what he was really looking for all along.

Caia Caecilia Shepard is from Mindoir, Sole Survivor, Vanguard, Paragade.

LI: Jack

Face Claim: Kiersey Clemons

Background Info on Caia:

Abandoned when she was a baby, Shepard never knew who her parents were, never had a family. For the first time in her life, the crew of Normandy showed her what it means to be a family.