Christmas In Space:

A Mass Effect Christmas Special

Far above the surface of an un-named planet in a dark and unknown corner of the galaxy, a silver ship glides through space inside a bubble of Newtonian impossibility. Outside, the irradiated winds of space tare by, but inside the ship's belly, protected from the storm, the crew is just waking up …

Garrus Vakarian blinks sleepily, shifting his weight from foot to foot and drumming his talons on the stainless countertop. Tik tik tik. The staccato beat is a little too staccato, and Garrus lifts his hand to eye level, examining the talons critically. Time to blunt them again, he reflects, running his tongue over the tips of the wickedly curved utensils. A mark of shame to some and a sacrificial point of pride to others, talon-dulling is a necessity to all turians with mates who do not have the evolutionary luxury of armored plating. Of all species, she had to be quarian, Garrus thinks, smiling a little smile to himself and going back to his tapping. Something about the thought of her, fully conscious of her fragility and yet allowing him such great liberties, sends a wave of warm shivers down his neck. I would do the same for her, in her place. What a thing, to have someone's trust so completely.

Breaking Garrus's fuzzy musings, the machine chimes, switching its light from red to green and ejecting a puff of fragrant steam into the air. Garrus waits as a stream of scalding liquid fills the mug, then he hooks his talon around the handle and raises the cup to his nose, inhaling deeply. The turian "coffee" was a gift to himself, a token of the return to semi-normalcy after the suicide mission. Of course, "normal" is always a relative term on the Normandy, and the spicy concoction the Citadel vendor has sold him is nothing like the bean-water humans seem to enjoy, but it is hot and it is good and Garrus is happy to take what he can get.

The door to the cockpit is open, and since most of the ship - including the part for which he is blunting his talons - is still asleep, Garrus takes it as an invitation. "Morning, Joker," he says, and he takes a look out of the viewscreen. "Where are we? I thought we were on our way back to the Citadel."

Joker looks up from his datapad, quickly tilting the screen away from Garrus. "Oh, we were. Shepard was up early, though, and he wanted to stop here for some reason. He took a ground team down a few hours ago." Joker glances at the navigation console. "They're due for pickup now, actually."

Outside a snow-covered forest whips by below them, complete with snow-covered trees, snow-covered rocks, and snow-covered snow. Garrus squints at the vista, but can't make out any sign of a snow-covered Shepard. "Why would he want to stop here?" he wonders aloud.

Joker shrugs. "He wouldn't tell me. He seemed pretty happy about something, I'll tell you that."

"I suppose we'll find out." Garrus tenses a little anyway, despite this morning's good mood. I hope it's nothing serious. We don't need another life-or-death mission so soon.

Joker nods, flicking his eyes suggestively from Garrus to the door. "Yep. So, ah, nothing's going on here. Why don't you go down to the hangar so you can meet the commander when he comes in?"

Garrus's eyes narrow. "What are you writing there?"

"Nothing!" Joker tucks the datapad behind his back. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a ship to fly."

"Alright, alright," mutters Garrus. "I'll be down in the hangar."

Joker swivels in his chair, poking his nose over the headrest and watching closely as the turian strides away down the corridor. When the coast is clear he swings back around, theatrically punching the door control. "Alright," he says, shifting to a more comfortable position and laying the datapad back down in his lap. "Where were we?"

"Jeff," says a synthesized voice from somewhere in the walls, "I must point out yet again that publication of such a fictionalized history could be considered highly unethical."

"Fictionalized?" Joker activates the datapad, smiling to himself as he scrolls down the page. "There's nothing fictionalized about this, EDI."

"I hardly imagine that the official reports of our exploits feature the 'Pirate Whores of Ilium,' Mr. Moreau. Nor 'Captain Jeff the Handsome.'"

Joker waves his hand dismissively. "Don't bother me with minutiae, EDI. That's just the title, anyway. The actual story is at least one hundred percent fact."

"Including the segment regarding the seduction of the thresher maw?"

"Look," says Joker, directing a scowl in the approximate direction of the intercom speaker. "We can easily make some edits. Want to start with the description of the 'gorgeous co-pilot?' Maybe we should take out the part about her 'glossy hair' and 'goddess-like hips.'"

There is a frosty silence in the cockpit. Joker grins and cracks his knuckles. "That's what I thought. Okay, 'Chapter Three … '"

…

When the door of the drop ship lifts, it takes a moment for Garrus to decide what he's looking at. All of the ship's available space seems to be taken up by green branches and needles, and as Garrus watches with wide eyes some sort of plant pushes its way out of the shuttle, flurries of snow pouring off of it. "Shepard?" he asks tentatively, wondering if his help is required somehow.

Shepard's face pokes out from in between the branches, the gleeful smile stretched across it showing no sign of alarm at the vegetation that seems to be eating him. "Garrus!" he cries, shaking a snow drift from his hair. "Look at it! Isn't it great?"

Garrus cocks his head to the side a little, wondering if his translator battery is running low. "It's … it's a tree, Shepard."

Shepard bobs his head up and down, still grinning. "Yes! Come on, hold it up, I want to have a look."

Garrus joins Shepard by the snow-covered tree, taking hold of the trunk very carefully. "Shepard," he says, trying once more. "Why do you have a tree?"

Shepard stands back, assessing the tree critically. "Well, it's more of a sapling, really," he says, leaning forward to brush snow from the lower branches. "The full grown ones are pretty large around here, I doubt they'd fit in the mess hall."

Garrus closes his eyes for a few seconds, wondering whether he really made it out of bed at all this morning or whether this is all some outlandish fever dream. "It's going … in the mess hall?"

"I'll explain in a minute," says Shepard, grabbing the tree by the branches and dragging it off toward the elevator. "Come on, I asked Joker to gather the crew together."

Garrus looks around for help. Mordin and Jacob, apperently comprising the ground team, have just climbed out of the shuttle. Jacob shrugs at him, as if to say I just work here, then goes to help the commander drag the tree. Garrus gives up and joins them, resigned to waiting for later for things to make any kind of sense.

"Interesting behaviour," murmurs Mordin, trailing after them and tapping rapidly into his omni-tool. "May be onset of viral infection in brain. Should monitor closely."

…

"Is that … some kind of conifer tree?" whispers Tali.

Garrus shrugs helplessly. "Apparently. Shepard's not in the mood to explain himself."

"Well, at least if it were something serious he'd have told us already," reassures Tali.

"I guess so," sighs Garrus. "He was asking me what I thought about it. What was I supposed to say? It's a tree."

Tali eyes the tree with a manner of appraisal. "Well, I suppose it's … nice," she ventures. "I mean, we have gardens on our live ships in the Migrant Fleet."

"It's getting snow everywhere."

"Hello?" calls Shepard from the top of one of the mess tables. "Is everybody here?"

Garrus looks around, standing on the tips of his toes to get a better view. Indeed, the entire crew has managed to pack into the mess hall, crowded around the center of the room where Shepard stands, the tree leaned against the table next to him.

"Commander," calls a voice from the crowd. "There's a tree in here."

"He knows that, Kenneth," hisses a female voice.

"Thank you, Ken," says Shepard, smiling at the pair of Cerberus engineers. He turns back to the assembled crew, clasping his hands behind his back. "Many of you may be wondering why we stopped to pick up some native flora this morning. I imagine those of us unfamiliar with human history are a little confused right now."

"To tell the truth, commander, I'm a little confused, too," says Jacob. "I studied Earth history and all that at the academy, but I'm not sure I remember anything about tree collecting."

From across the room, Garrus sees the elderly doctor Chakwas smile. "I remember, Shepard," she says, nodding to the commander. "My grandmother and I used to, well, I'll let you explain."

All eyes are on Shepard again as he smiles back at Chakwas. "I knew somebody would remember. Anyway," he continues, raising his voice again. "I've had it in my head since yesterday, when I noticed that today, on the ancient human calendar, would be December twenty-fourth. That means that tomorrow is Christmas."

Shepard is grinning again, and then, seeming to realize that he's looking at a room full of blank faces, he amends himself. "Right, sorry. It's a holiday, a human holiday celebrating the birth of an ancient god. The religion behind it is mostly gone now, but back in England, where I was born, we used to make a tradition out of it anyway."

Mordin looks up from his omni-tool. "Most interesting, commander. It says here that it is indeed traditional to bring a tree inside of one's domicile, although I have not yet ruled out brain infection."

"We used to decorate them." Shepard looks down at the tree, smiling a little sadly as if remembering some time long past. "We'd get the whole family together, string it up with colored lights and streamers and things. Back before … well." He stops abruptly, looking back up at the crew and blinking quickly. "Anyhow, I thought that what with the mission going so well, and being free from Cerberus at last, no offence Miranda, well," Shepard shrugs, "I thought maybe we had something to celebrate. Christmas isn't really about the old religion anyway, it's about peace and happiness and family. It's about being together and looking out for eachother. Oh, and gifts."

"Gifts?" enquires Grunt.

"That's right, I almost forgot. On Christmas you can buy or make gifts for the people you care about. It doesn't have to be something expensive, it's just a token to show that you're thinking about them. It's to show you care more about others' happiness than your own. On Christmas eve, that's tonight, all the presents get wrapped up and put under the tree, then on Christmas morning we all gather around and open them together." Shepard looks around, looking a little abashed. "That's how we used to do it, anyway. I thought it might be nice to try, it's up to all of you, of course. I'm going to put the tree up in the mess tonight, to get in the spirit of things."

Shepard hops down from the table and the crew begin to disperse, most of them murmuring to each other and casting amused looks back at Shepard and his tree. Garrus turns to Tali. "So that's what it was all about. An ancient holiday."

Tali shrugs, watching Shepard as he struggles with the tree. "I don't know, some of what he said made sense to me. You have to admit, peace and happiness have been in short supply around here. Maybe we could use a holiday."

"You're right about that," Garrus admits. "But going to all this trouble? Don't you think it's a little ludicrous?"

"Maybe," says Tali, leaning back against his chest. "Maybe not. I think I like the tree. I'm putting your present under it."

Garrus wraps his arms around her, giving her neck a playful nuzzle. "Don't tell me you've caught Shepard's craziness too."

Tali giggles, squirming away from him. "I must have caught it last night, while I was out of my suit. Now go on, go help him with that thing before it falls over and crushes him!"

…

The tree stays in the mess hall, propped up against an old ammo crate that Shepard must have dug up from somewhere. Garrus spends the rest of the morning finishing a stack of targeting algorithms in the main battery, and the tree is still there at noon when the Normandy docks with the Citadel. It's still there when Garrus and Tali get back from lunch at a dextro-levo fusion bar in the wards, and it's still there at 17:00 when Garrus finishes his shopping list of parts that need upgrading. The crew doesn't seem to be paying the tree much attention, except for mess sergeant Gardner, who mops up the melted snow every hour with some amount of grumbling. As for Shepard, Garrus barely sees him all day. The commander is keeping busy with something, and Garrus can hear the air-lock opening and shutting over and over again as Shepard comes and goes. When he comes out of the battery in the late afternoon Garrus almost runs into him hurrying in through the airlock under a stack of boxes.

"Sorry, Garrus," says Shepard, sidestepping and barely keeping the boxes balanced. "I'm having a hard time seeing around these."

"Want some help?" asks Garrus, eyeing the the teetering pile. "What is all of that, anyway?"

"Would you mind? Thanks," says Shepard, gratefully shifting half of the stack into Garrus's arms. "It's just going up to my cabin," he says as he punches the elevator button. "Just some things for tomorrow."

The boxes are of all different shapes and sizes, all of them sealed tightly. In any case, today doesn't seem to be the day for speedy explanations, so Garrus follows Shepard into the elevator and up to the captain's quarters. He's been inside the commander's cabin a handful of times, but when the door cycles open the view inside is completely unfamiliar. Strings of tiny, colored diodes hang from the ceiling and walls, filling the cabin with gentle rainbow light. A pair of scissors lie on the desk in the midst of a scattering of tree clippings, and a circle of branches have been twined together and mounted above the bed. When Garrus sniffs in he can taste their sharp, alien scent in the air. "You've been busy," he remarks, setting the tower of boxes down next to Shepard's desk.

Shepard shrugs, looking around at the decorations. "I guess so. I tried to remember everything we used to have at home, but that was so long ago." He looks away, scratching the back of his neck. "It's not quite finished," he mumbles.

There's something unfamiliar in the commander's tone, something very out of tune with his usual Shepard-ness. Could it be self-consciousness? wonders Garrus. Spirits, he almost sounds embarrassed. Detecting something out of balance, Garrus's first inclination is, as always, to flee the scene before anything too emotional happens. But, because his time with Tali has taught him a thing or two about running away, and because he knows that she would expect better of him, he squares his shoulders and clamps down on the part of him that's scared to death of the fragile, far-off look in his commander's eyes. "Do you … want to talk about it?"

Shepard blinks, drawing himself away from whatever distant memory he has been staring into. "What, about my holiday?" He shakes his head, smiling a smile that vanishes before anybody has been convinced. "No, I think everyone's sick of hearing about it by now."

Garrus shifts his mandibles, his internal discomfort growing by the second. Not running is one thing, he reflects. Finding the right words is another thing completely. Tali would know what to say, but she's not here, and Shepard would know what to say, but it's not as if I can ask him. "I can tell it matters to you, Shepard," he manages. Come on, you can do it. "If something's getting you down, well, of course I want to hear about it."

Shepard looks at him for a very drawn out moment, and then he sits down carefully on the corner of the bed and rests his elbows on his knees. "Oh, I don't know, Garrus," he says, and he seems to deflate a little as the words leave him. "It's not that I'm disappointed, exactly. I mean, I didn't expect it to mean anything to any of you. Plenty of the humans on the crew have never even been to Earth, and I know you all have your own traditions. I suppose I just thought, after the hell we've been through, the crew might enjoy a break."

Shepard looks up at the lights again, and he looks so crestfallen that Garrus's sympathy gets the better of the awkward knot in his stomach. "Tell me about it, Shepard," he says. "Tell me what it was like." He realizes to his dismay that he has unconsciously lowered his sub-vocal chords, softening his tone to that used by turian parents for comforting their young - a condescension that would be unforgivable on a turian vessel. Working with all these aliens must have messed up my head. Thank the spirits he can't hear that well.

"It was … special," says Shepard, still staring at the softly glowing lights. "We didn't have much, back then. We lived in a little house, like the kind you see in pictures of Earth, with plaster walls and shingles on the roof. There were only a few rooms, and in the winter we had to push a rug under the door to keep the wind out. It's funny, the little things I remember …"

Garrus can see the far-away look washing back over Shepard's face. Silently, he pulls the chair out from Shepard's desk, and, after dusting off the bits of tree, he sits down and waits for the commander to continue.

"I remember the last Christmas the most clearly," Shepard says slowly, gazing off at something Garrus can't see. "It must be almost twenty years ago now. My father had a book of songs, holiday songs from ages and ages ago, and he would bring it out every year and play his guitar for us. It was in my footlocker on the old Normandy, I found it when we surveyed the crash sight …"

Shepard rises as if in a dream and glides across the room to his closet. Garrus watches as he pulls a battered container out of the shadows and unlocks it. The lid lifts with a faint snik and Shepard picks something out, returning the box to the closet and dropping back down on the bed. In his hands is a tattered red binder, cardboard showing through at the corners where the plastic is peeling away. Shepard opens the binder like a treasure hunter handling a long-buried relic, and under the cover is a stack of paper, real paper, yellowed and stained with age. Garrus leans in, watching with fascination as Shepard turns the brittle pages, revealing rows and rows of spidery symbols rendered in fading black ink.

"Silent Night," says Shepard quietly, and when he looks back up at Garrus there's a mistiness in his eyes. "He was teaching it to me that day. The chords were too big for my hands …" Shepard trails off, his gaze falling back down to the page in his lap. When he speaks again his voice is faint, almost a whisper, and Garrus has the feeling Shepard has forgotten he's there. "That was the last time we saw him. He wasn't the same anymore, after he … after he started again. You can't understand what it's like. He was never the same. It ate him alive, and in less than a year we buried him. It ate her, too, it ate right through her liver and killed her, but by the time they buried her I was gone …"

A single droplet rolls down the side of Shepard's nose and his hand moves, lightning fast, catching it before it can hit the page. Shepard looks up, barely seeming to see Garrus, his eyes blurry. "It's so childish," he says, and he laughs, a single, harsh jerk of his throat. "Ha. It's so stupid, but I think that I really believed this would bring them back. Like I could somehow recreate it, here. But I can't. It's gone forever, and so are they. I'm such a fool."

Garrus opens his mouth, but there just aren't any words in there so he shuts it again and looks down at his hands.

"Thanks for helping me carry the things," says Shepard, a little choking sound coming from somewhere in his throat. "I think I need to be alone for a while now."

Garrus rises too quickly, nearly knocking over his chair. He reaches out a hand to steady it, then looks down at Shepard, whose face is buried in his hands. Garrus stands rooted in place for a moment, his mind desperately drawing blank after blank, until finally he does the only thing he knows how to do and leaves.

…

Garrus Vakarian's wandering feet take him down the familiar corridor to the ship's main battery. The battery is a safe, logical place where mathematics flow steadily from computers to weapons of mass destruction and superior officers don't need comforting from their subordinates. Garrus settles into his seat at the console, meaning to run a soothing set of routine calibration checks, but for some reason he finds himself opening an extranet browser instead.

Surprisingly, the extranet has a lot of information for him about ancient human holidays. Garrus scrolls through page after page full of images of colorfully lit trees, always coniferous for some reason, covered with all manner of shiny things. Along with the trees he finds hosts of other images, some of which make more sense than others. The crackling fire is a common theme, easy enough to decipher. Obviously the holiday is as Shepard described, a celebration of family and companionship, which explains the symbols of hearth and home, and the gifts to symbolize compassion and altruism. Other aspects of the celebration are far more puzzling. For one thing, there seems to be some sort of running joke about inedible cake filled with candied fruits that Garrus eventually gives up on, deciding it must have something to do with humans' overly complex ideas about irony. Another baffling image is the striped cane made of sugar that shows up in nearly every Christmas-related picture on the extranet. Why would they give their children candy shaped like a crutch for disabled people? After a few more inconclusive extranet searches it seems likely that the shape of the candy is some obscure religious metaphor. His head swimming with more than he ever thought he'd want to know about human culture, Garrus pulls up a video site.

The videos prove much more straight forward. Garrus finds pages of clips from old human movies about the holiday. He selects a few at random, not sure what to expect. Turian cinema has always been fairly straightforward, the majority of it composed of documentary and informational films. The few famous turian dramas have usually been state-sponsored and much more concerned with political loyalty than deeper inquiry into the mind and spirit.

Human films, however, seem to be quite the opposite. Garrus watches with mounting fascination as stories unfold, not of military victory or civic virtue, but of forgiveness, understanding, and redemption. He finds himself sitting forward in his seat, hunched over the computer as time ticks by unheeded, moving from clip to clip in a sort of a trance. On the screen, families of rosy-cheeked humans crowd around their hearths, sharing something that Garrus has no memory of in the household of his own upbringing. There is a kind of unspoken connection between these people that seems to go beyond filial obligation or loyalty. Garrus tries to imagine Shepard growing up in a home like this, with this same warm energy. It sends an unwelcome pang through his own chest to think of his relationship with his own father, and for a split second he finds himself wondering how things might have been different if his family had ever shared a celebration like the one in the films.

Garrus has just reached the end of one of the older human movies when the door to the battery hisses open. He looks up, blinking to refocus his eyes, and then lets out a sigh when he sees who it is. "Tali! Spirits, you startled me. You'll never guess what I've been watching."

Tali listens intently as Garrus begins to tell her about the Christmas thing, surprising himself at how much he's able to remember. He explains the tree and the fire, the story of the child god, and even the mysterious cake-with-fruits. He tries to find words to describe the bond between the families in the videos, but the rhetoric is just too far beyond his reach, so instead he launches into a detailed summary of the film that's just finished playing on his screen. The movie, an ancient hand-drawn animation, had centered on a village of human-like mammals living in the middle of a snowy mountain range. Like the humans, Garrus explains to the attentive Tali, the little creatures had been preparing for a Christmas celebration, unaware that there was a monster living at the top of one of their mountains. The monster, which Garrus likened to Lakai, the turian spirit of evil, was offended by the happiness of the villagers and descended in the dead of night to steal all of their gifts and decorations.

"Don't you have a story like that?" interrupts Tali. "You told me about it once, the one with the ruler who builds his feasting hall, and then the monster attacks it?"

"Yes," says Garrus. "And then the great warrior kills the beast and brings honor to his people. All turians know that story, and I thought the film would be the same. Humans are just as blood-thirsty as the rest of us, after all. But that's not how it ends. Instead, when the monster sees that it can't destroy the people's happiness, it redeems itself. It rights its wrongs and becomes good. Nobody dies."

"It sounds like it left an impression on you," Tali says, the smile showing in her voice.

Garrus shakes his head, smiling a little himself at the strangeness of it all. "It's just completely unlike anything we have. I still don't think I fully understand it, I doubt I could without being human, but I think I do understand why it means so much to Shepard." Garrus suddenly remembers the state he left the commander in, and his gut twists guiltily. "Have you seen Shepard at all since this afternoon? He … was in a bad way when I was with him."

Tali nods, her voice dropping a bit. "Yes, actually, that's why I came looking for you. There's something I think you should see."

Garrus follows Tali out of the battery. Most of the crew are finishing up their work for the day and powering off their consoles. Garrus checks the time on his omni-tool, shocked at how much time has gone by. I hope Shepard's alright, he thinks, the guilt returning. I wish I could have done something. Maybe he's gone out to the Citadel.

As they descend the steps into the mess hall, Garrus immediately notices a difference. The tree still stands in its water-filled ammo crate, but the deck beneath it is strewn with brightly-wrapped packages. "Where did these come from?" he asks, astounded.

"Take a look," says Tali.

Garrus obliges, leaning under the tree and hefting one of the parcels. A snippet of wrapping paper has been folded up and taped to the top of the package. Garrus unfolds it, reading the block letters aloud. "To Sergeant Gardner, From John Shepard." Comprehension strikes a second later, and Garrus's eyes widen. Oh, no … He puts the package back, picking up another one and unfolding the tag. "To Miranda Lawson, From John Shepard." All those boxes. He looks up at Tali. "He didn't."

She nods grimly. "He did."

Garrus sifts through the pile. "He can't have. There are so many."

"One for each member of the crew."

Garrus turns away, but not before a label catches his eye from the other side of the pile. To Garrus Vakarian, From John Shepard. "Spirits," he breathes, rising and running a hand over his fringe. "Where is he now?"

"He went back up to his cabin," says Tali. She clasps her hands, her fingers working over each other in the same nervous dance that Garrus knows so well. "I think he went to sleep. It's late, you know. I thought about going up to see him, but his cabin door was locked, and I don't want to wake him ... oh, Garrus, what are we going to do?"

Garrus crosses his arms, staring down at the pile of gifts. The bright red and green wrapping paper looks out of place on the dull grey deck, a little island of light in dark, drab surroundings. Garrus looks at the presents, he looks at the sagging tree, he turns to Tali and opens his mouth to chalk it up to another failure of the irrational world, opens his mouth to say something helpless and unhelpful, and then … he closes it again. He looks back down at the presents. He looks up at the tree. Words are beginning to come to him, from somewhere, from whatever foreign place that words come from, a place that has never liked Garrus much. Somehow, that same place has grudgingly cracked its doors and let slip some words, a lot of them actually, and they are pouring into Garrus's brain and he thinks that perhaps, just maybe, he might be able to do something wonderful with them. "Tali," he says slowly, chewing on the idea and trying to keep it in long enough for it to finish incubating, "can you gather all the crew together? All of them but Shepard, that is."

"I think so," says Tali, looking up from her hand-wringing, her voice puzzled. "But what do you want them for?"

"Just bring them," says Garrus, still chewing. "I've got an idea. I think."

…

The crew is restless. They shift about, a little annoyed to be diverted en route to their suppers and a little confused at being gathered up for the second time in one otherwise uneventful day. "Hey, Garrus," calls Jack, spying him through the crowd. "What's this about?"

"Just a minute," says Garrus, climbing up on the table. "I want to make sure everyone's here first."

"We are all present, Garrus Vakarian," buzzes Legion.

"Yeah, where's Shepard?" demands Jack. "Your girlfriend said he wanted us here."

"He does," says Garrus, attempting to quiet everyone down by waving his hands at them. "He just doesn't know it yet. Quiet, please … Come on, shut up for a minute."

After a few more minutes of grumbling, the crew silences itself enough for Garrus to be heard reasonably well. He clears his throat, shooting a look at Tali for encouragement. She nods at him, completely in the dark but completely confident in him. He smiles at her, loving her for it. "Alright," he says, turning back to the crew. "So who remembers Shepard's speech this morning?"

"About the tree?" rumbles Grunt.

"Yes, about the tree. About Christmas. You remember that?"

"Yes, Garrus, we remember," says Miranda, a little shortly. "Is there something important going on here?"

"I think so," says Garrus. He takes a deep breath, strengthening his hold on the words that came to him so suddenly. "Look, honestly, when Shepard got up here and started talking about the tree and the gifts and all that, I thought it was a ton of crap. Nobody said anything, but I think most of us did." He takes a pause, seeing agreement written on most of the faces before him.

"So," he continues. "Nobody really paid it much attention. It didn't seem important, and to us, it wasn't. But to Shepard it was. It was really important. He played it down in front of us, but I think he really wanted us to get into the spirit of the thing."

"Do you honestly believe that commander Shepard, the commander Shepard, really cares about whether his crew follows an ancient human custom?" Miranda is looking at him with a very-snidely raised eyebrow. "Really, Garrus? The idea of it is absurd."

"Maybe the idea of it is absurd to you, Lawson," says Garrus, feeling his temper flare. "But some of us have been with Shepard for long enough to call him a friend. There's a lot you don't know about him." He looks around at the crew. The words are still coming, for now at least, and he pushes them out before they can evaporate. "You don't have to be commander Shepard to know what it feels like to lose a home. For a lot of us, home and family are things we left behind a long time ago. For some of us, they were never ours in the first place."

There are a lot more downturned eyes in the crowd now. Garrus presses on, able to see the finish now and determined to make it there before panic seizes control. "He didn't say so, but I think what Shepard wanted was to make the Normandy a little more like a home. And would it really be so bad? To show a little gratitude, to be happy for who and what we have? I mean, we just fought our way out of a 'suicide mission,' and we're all still here. If there's not time to show some compassion for each other now, I don't know when there will be."

There's a moment of silence in the mess hall, then Jacob speaks up. "That sounds nice, Garrus, but what are we supposed to do about it? We've kind of missed our chance, and none of us know anything about Christmas anyway."

"I do," says Garrus, pulling himself up a little taller. "We don't need to share a faith or culture to understand the idea. It's something we can all use, and that's what Shepard was trying to tell us."

"Alright," says Jack. "So what's the big idea, then?"

"Look under the tree," says Garrus. "Shepard spent all day collecting gifts for us, and there's something for each of us there. Let's follow his example."

There is another silent pause, and then Legion turns abruptly and begins striding toward the airlock. The crew watches the geth for a moment, mesmerized. Joker is the first to snap out of the collective trance. He breaks off from the group, limping after Legion. "Come on, you jackasses," he calls over his shoulder. "The shops are open for another hour still!"

Garrus watches them go, a warmness spreading through his chest. I guess talking to people isn't so bad sometimes. Suddenly he remembers something, and he calls out to the retreating crew. "The lights! Don't forget about the lights!"

…

The little clock in the corner of the display blinks once, and in a single flash every digit turns to zero. The pilot sits hunched over his datapad, his nose a few inches from the screen. Inside his bubble of lamplight all is quiet, save the rhythmic tapping of his fingertips against the haptic keyboard.

"It is midnight, Jeff," says a synthesized voice. It would take a careful listener to recognize that the modulation of the AI's tone is slightly gentler than usual. "You should retire to your bunk to ensure that you are fully rested in the morning."

"In a minute, EDI," says Joker, his fingers flying over the keys. "I'm almost done with the chapter."

"Very well, Jeff." The cockpit is silent again, but only for a moment. "Jeff?"

"Yes, EDI?"

It would take a very careful listener, perhaps with a doctorate in linguistics, to notice the hesitation in the AI's voice. "Will you read the new chapter aloud, so that I can check for errors?"

Joker smiles. "Sure, EDI. Just like the last four."

"I was only checking." A few more seconds tick by. "Jeff?"

"Yes, EDI?"

"I have run cross-checks with human literary precedent, and based on my calculations there is a ninety-eight percent likelihood that Captain Jeff will save his copilot from the dragon."

"Well, you're just going to have to wait and see. Maybe he will and maybe he won't."

"I find it probable that he will."

"Do you want me to finish or not, EDI?"

"My apologies, Jeff. Please continue."

…

Inside the empty cockpit, the little clock flashes its way to 1:00. Nobody stirs.

…

Garrus Vakarian opens his eyes. There is something different about the morning, but he can't quite place it. Tali is already awake, sitting on the edge of the bed at his side. She reaches out a finger and tickles his chest gently. "Look who's awake."

"Morning, you," Garrus murmurs sleepily. "There's something in the air today. I feel … good, for some reason, but I don't know what I'm so happy about."

Tali leans down over him, and Garrus recognizes her smile by the tilt of her eyes behind the visor. "It's Christmas, silly," she says.

…

Garrus steps into the mess hall to find that Shepard has risen before him. The commander is standing frozen in the doorway and Garrus steps up alongside him, surveying the crew's handiwork. The pile below the tree has grown into a haphazard mountain, packages ranging from relatively box-shaped to suspiciously lumpy spilling out across the deck. The wrapping has been attacked with gusto but without any sort of method or planning, and most of the parcels have been mummified in yards of paper and several rolls of tape each.

Once the crew really got going they attacked the task as they attack all things, with an energized blend of clinical pragmatism-thanks to Mordin and Legion-and frenzied aggression-from Jack and Grunt. Miranda of all people had shown a surprising instinct for decoration, and thanks to her prowess with sticky-tack and a staple gun, the walls of the mess are adorned with wreaths of branches and ribbons.

The tree itself had been a communal effort. Each crewmate had selected their own ornament, with varying adherence to the holiday tradition. Standing in the doorway, Garrus can pick out a beautifully rendered glass snowflake from doctor Chakwas, a pair of crossed rifles from Jacob, a model of the flagship Ascension from Joker, and a worryingly realistic severed head from Jack. And of course, the lights. The tree glitters from top to bottom with strings of colored bulbs.

Maybe I should have drawn the line at the head, Garrus reflects, but when Shepard turns to face him his eyes are sparkling, tears reflecting the light of the tree.

Shepard blinks the moisture away, smiling wider than Garrus has ever seen before. "Thank you," he breathes, and any doubts Garrus had about the night's work are swept away.

…

And so it came to pass that the crew of the Normandy SR2 celebrated their very first Christmas. Admittedly, it was not without its hitches, but after some hasty work with a fire extinguisher and a resolution that Mordin should not drink eggnog ever again, all was eventually made right. The presents were opened, layers of paper torn off of a pair of crystal earrings, a new spatula, a fresh deck of cards, a bottle of gun oil, and a model of a krogan battleship with a top that opened up to let out a squad of tiny figurines.

Garrus personally unboxed a tiny sculpture of a turian carved out of soft rock of some kind. When he lifted the figure to his eye he was able to make out slight scarring on the side of the turian's face, which glared back at him with startling intensity.

"I've been working on it for a few weeks," explained Tali shyly. "I worked off of a picture I had of you. It wasn't easy to hide it when you kept coming down to visit me, but I kept it under my desk. I was waiting for a good time to give it to you, and then, well …"

Garrus stared at the sculpture open-mouthed, lost for words. "This is amazing. I had no idea you could do this."

Tali shrugged. "I work with my hands. I needed something to do when I wasn't fixing the engines." She tried not to show it, but her eyes met his through her visor and Garrus could see how pleased she was.

When Tali's turn came, Garrus couldn't hold himself back nearly so well. He lept up, helping her unwrap a painting, with real oils on canvas, of a sunset over a beach. "It's Rannoch," he explained, although he could see that she had recognized the landscape instantly. "I met an old quarian in the wards who had a stand full of paintings. He gave it to me for free when I told him about you."

Too touched for words, Tali wrapped her arms around Garrus's neck and refused to let go even when Jack started making rude noises.

Finally Shepard, who had not stopped grinning all morning, was forced by the crew to open their present to him. The paper fell away from six bright new strings and an ornate wood body, and before long the first gentle notes of Silent Night were sent ringing throughout the ship.

It was a strange day, to be sure. An outside observer would have been quite confused to see possibly the most dangerous individuals in the galaxy gathered around a lighted tree, exchanging gifts and sarcastic comments in relative peace and harmony. True, there were a few minor scrapes and burns, and an over-enthusiastic toast nearly caused a dent in the hull, but nothing exploded that couldn't be fixed and medi-gel exists for a reason, after all.

And after the paper was cleaned up and the soot was scraped off the walls, the tree remained standing. It stayed in its water-filled ammo crate in the center of the mess for several weeks afterward, maybe because of simple laziness, or perhaps because nobody wanted to forget about that day just yet. Whatever the reason, the day would go down in history not only as the Normandy's First Annual Christmas, but as, quite possibly, the Best Christmas Ever. But then again, there have been marked inconsistencies in the history of the Normandy, some of them involving dragons.