#shackledbiotic

It had been a complete accident, running into her at the spaceport, and he meant that quite literally. He’d been too busy trying to find his fake ID and talking to Kolyat to see her where she was walking towards him, tall though she was.

He’d apologized immediately, rambling as he bent to pick up the papers she’d dropped and only just registering the Alliance blue on her sleeves as she bent to pick them up as well. He wouldn’t have paused much longer than that, eager to get on their way to some place called New Mexico when he spotted it.

Shepard.

Captain Hannah Shepard read the paper, though a quick scan revealed the names Sun and Kira as well. His friends, neither of which had been answering any of his vid messages.

“Do you know them?” he heard himself ask, handing the papers back to the woman he’d nearly knocked over. 

Green eyes, the color of the trees that grew so very close to the oceans on Kahje, blinked up at him curiously. “Do I know who?”

“Commander Shepard and–and the Lieutenant-Commander,” he explained, aware that Kolyat was now looking at him in exasperation. Too long here and they’d miss their flight.

She smiled, though, and the sight was warm and sweet. “Oh! Yes. Kira is my daughter, and Sun’s my niece. Do you know them?”

“I did,” Thane answered quietly. “I helped them fight the Collectors. I–do you think you could get some messages to them? I can pay you for your trouble.”

She laughed, nodding as she hugged her papers to her chest. “Of course. And, no need to pay me. I’m sure they’d love to hear from a friend.”

“Thank you,” he replied earnestly. “You have no idea what this means.”

“No worries,” was all she said, smiling as she tapped something into her omni-tool. “Send them to me and I’ll make sure the girls get them.”

He didn’t see her again until after his vacation, until after Kolyat insisted that he check himself permanently into Huerta Memorial.

It was, again, an accident, though he managed not to knock her over this time. It seemed she was there to visit someone she knew, one of the doctors, but she recognized him immediately when their eyes met from across the room. He didn’t expect much more than that, but then she was in front of him, smiling and holding out a hand for him to shake.

“We meet again,” she said as he took her hand. “My daughter tells me your name is Thane.”

He blinked, smiling a little. “And yours is Hannah.”

She seemed surprised by that, furrowing her eyebrows and squinting a little. “You remember that from the papers I dropped? I believe the email address I gave you only had H. Shepard on it.”

Thane smiled, and his chest felt strangely lighter than it had in days. “Drell have perfect memories. We can relive any moment in our lives with perfect clarity.”

She was still holding his hand. “Sounds useful. Some days I can barely remember if I’ve eaten breakfast.”

He let her hand drop then, tilted his head with a hum. “Perhaps. It’s difficult to control at times. Some of us disappear into…mmm, let’s call it solipsism.”

“I…don’t think I know that word, sorry.”

Thane chuckled a little–neither of her relatives had known it either. He opened his mouth to explain, only to be cut off by someone calling for her.

“Captain! Admiral Anderson is available on vid-comm. Says it’s about your daughter.”

Hannah turned towards the officer, nodding. “Right, tell him I’ll be right there.” She turned back to him, then, smiling apologetically. “Duty calls, I’m afraid. Perhaps we can pick this up another time? Maybe over drinks?”

“I don’t know that the hospital staff will agree to that.”

She laughed again, and the sound was just as warm as he remembered it had been. Not too loud, but not soft either. The laughter of someone comfortable in every part of who they are and where they are.

“I’m a Captain in the Fifth Fleet with my own ship, Thane. I’m sure I can work something out.”

They did end up getting drinks, about a week later.

She brought him somewhere near the Silversun Strip, but not quite on it. A tiny bar on the edges of the lights and sounds of the strip, quiet but not too quiet. There was jazz music playing from a–what did humans call it? A jukebox?–in the back of the bar. She ordered something called a ‘Sex On The Beach’, which nearly made him choke on the breath he was taking, but only nearly. 

When the bartender turned to him, though, he found his words strangely missing, and instead ended up mumbling something about whiskey that was apparently good enough as they turned and left without another word.

“I looked up the word solipsism,” Hannah said pleasantly after a beat, leaning forward on her elbows on the table, “and I’m still not quite sure what you meant.”

He hummed, having expected that. Many other species found it difficult to understand. “Then, let me try to explain it another way. When a memory feels as real as life, it’s as valid as life. Thinking about a moment brings back the smell of cut grass, the warmth of another’s hand in yours,“ he paused, considering the already warm flush on her cheeks, and her full lips. "The taste of another’s tongue in your mouth." 

She coughed abruptly, covering her mouth as her ears turned the strangest shade of pink. "I was,” she began, strained, clearing her throat. “I was gonna say that I got it, but you lost me there.”

He smiled—he hadn’t had quite this much fun teasing anyone in a while, even if it was entirely harmless. “Drell can get lost in our memories if we aren't careful. Wouldn't you rather lose yourself in such a memory than spend a night alone, staring at walls of steel and plastic?”

She considered him for a long moment, eyes darting between his like she was trying to find the joke, or the lie, or some sort of tell about whether he was really flirting with her or not. He tilted his head at her, waiting, and she snorted, rolling her eyes as the bartender arrived with their drinks, taking a long sip before sighing and pointedly changing the subject. “Right. Anyway. You’re around my age, aren’t you? You got any kids?”

“One,” he replied, shifting in his seat. “Kolyat. He was with me the first time we met.”

Hannah rolled her eyes upward again, thinking this time. “He was blue, wasn’t he?” When Thane confirmed, she smiled again and asked, “Where’s his mom?”

Thane only just managed to keep himself from falling back into that particular memory. “Dead,” he answered flatly. 

Hannah hummed, but unexpectedly didn’t push farther than that. “Kira’s dad is dead, too–though I’m sure she told you about that. I hunted down the bastards responsible for it, though, and I know she doesn’t know about that.”

He went quiet for a long moment, eyes cataloguing her face–freckles and sun-kissed skin and tiny scars peppering her cheeks like she’d been hit with shrapnel. He tilted his head. “Perhaps you and I are more alike than I previously thought.”

She winked, laughing as she took another drink. “Doesn’t sound so bad to me.”

No, he thought. No, it isn’t bad at all.

The third time they met, the circumstances weren’t even close to ideal. The reports had just come in that Earth was under siege by the Reapers, and Hannah was in the hospital this time apparently visiting a friend who’d been hurt. She was sitting in the waiting room when he found her, her braid disheveled as she hung her head, Alliance dress blues wrinkled and dirty from whatever had happened.

He only just registered a new stripe on her shoulder when he came up to talk to her.

“Hannah?” he asked gently, not sure how to approach a possible grieving mother.

She jumped a little, looking up at him with tired eyes. She smiled weakly when she recognized him. “Hi, stranger.”

He wasn’t sure what to do in a situation like this. “Have you heard…?”

“From my daughter? No. I know that the Normandy made it off Earth, though, so I’m hoping…”

Carefully, Thane sat in the seat beside her, sliding down in the cushions and fixing his gaze on the Presidium out the window. At length, he took as deep a breath as he could and said, “I’m sure she made it.”

Hannah huffed. “What makes you say that?”

“I fought beside her for a year. Her and the Commander. If anyone could have made it away from the Reapers…”

She looked over at him miserably, head propped up by her hand. “I hope you’re right, Thane.”

Reaching over and taking her free hand carefully in his, he squeezed gently. “I am.”

They didn’t get to spend much time together, in the end. She was too busy with the Fleet, and her ships, and the war–and he was too sick to help, but that didn’t stop the affection from blooming.

It was slow, at first. Friendly greetings and ‘how are you?’s across the extranet evolving into longer letters. They told each other everything, anything, to distract from their own predicaments. He told her of Irikah, and how they’d first met, and she told him of her favorite flavor of ice cream and how she still couldn’t eat it because it reminded her of her late husband. They talked about their children–their first steps, their first words, the first time they laughed. Hannah talked of how she and Kira used to stay up a little too late making up bedtime stories in which they saved the galaxy together, and Thane talked of how Kolyat used to love to dance.

Emails turned into chats, chats to voice-messages, voice-messages to vid comms. Sometimes they’d sit up late into the night, both obviously exhausted but giggling anyway at whatever they were talking about. 

It was fun. It was strange. It was oddly familiar.

It felt like home.

She came to visit him one more time, just before the Cerberus coup. She took him out to dinner, and they slow-danced in the middle of a dimly lit bar. They still spoke of nothing, still both wrapped up in their own problems, but then her eyes locked on his for a moment too long as a car’s headlight lit up her face.

Emeralds in the sun, pools of water tinted green from the summer foliage growing around it. Sparkling, iridescent, incorruptible. 

He had just noticed a fleck or two of gold in her left iris when she kissed him for the first time.

Her lips were just as soft as he’d expected, sticky with her lipstick, but warm all the same–much warmer than he was used to. His heart pumped an unsteady beat in his chest, even though the touch only lasted a moment, and he found himself captivated.

He followed after her when she pulled away with an apology on her lips.

Words were scarce after that, and for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t afraid of tomorrow. Thane felt his heart beat and the breath fill his lungs, felt soft fingers on his skin and realized that, whatever came, he was glad to have this moment, this night. 

And he would always be glad for that happy accident, that day on Earth.

FINALLY got to write something for my rarest of rarepairs. thank you and enjoy