Author's Note: This chapter falls after my other fic, "Family Reunion." If you want to read more about Hannah and Cadmus, you are welcome to read it, but it is not necessary to read to understand this chapter.

Hannah sighed in her seat, listening to another ambassador drone on and on. It was her own fault she was in this position, forced to sit through one boring speech after another. After all, she'd been the cause of Cadmus' accident. The least she could do was help him out now that his daughter had gone back to Palaven.

She spied Cadmus staring at her with her peripheral vision. She turned her head to him and he gave her a chastising look that demanded her silence. She smiled demurely and chuckled. Cadmus shook his head and fixed his attention back on the Drell ambassador. Hannah had met Cadmus only within the last week. When she'd arrived on Concilia to visit Jane, Garrus and Terra, Jane had surprised her with the news that Garrus' father and sister were coming by for a visit as well. She'd finally been able to meet the other side of the family.

At first, she and Cadmus, Garrus' father, had argued right off. She couldn't help it. Cadmus had the utmost respect for Jane's character, but not her methods. He'd openly criticized her joining Cerberus to stop the Reapers. Hannah had no choice but to come to her daughter's defense. However, to satisfy Jane, she'd played nice the rest of the time and actually come to enjoy Cadmus' presence. He was a stodgy, dutiful, utterly reserved turian—and maybe that was what she liked most because she could easily get a rise out of him. Over the week, she'd come to think he secretly liked her prodding at his stuffy ways. He'd been the one who asked her to come to this Earthside conference with him, help him out. If he didn't like her being around, why would he ask her to come?

Hannah stifled another sigh, trying not to annoy Cadmus. Truth was, she liked being around Cadmus because he was as old as she was. They were from the same generation and they were both watching the younger set pass them by. Oh, they had a number of years left in them yet, but they came from a different time and place. Younger ones didn't have the hindsight they had. It was freeing to talk to someone who understood what it was like to grow old. Maybe that was what Cadmus appreciated in her, too—someone to commiserate with as age caught up with him.

The Drell ambassador made an introduction, transitioning to the next speaker, Cadmus Vakarian. Cadmus stood to take his place at the podium, ready to expound on the turian points of view regarding whatever pressing concerns currently occupied the ambassadors of the galaxy. He hobbled up the stairs on his forearm crutches. Hannah grimaced. She'd been the source of his broken toe. If she hadn't pushed her Aqua Racer so hard…Well, she had to let bygones be bygones. Cadmus didn't blame her, so why did she need to blame herself?

Hannah thought back. She'd always found it easy to berate herself over her mistakes and she'd made many of them. She even chastened herself for perceived mistakes, from not being able to rescue Daniel from the creature on Demeter to losing her ship to seeing Toureau sucked into space in the final Reaper battle. She hated her failures, even when she told herself she could have done nothing to prevent them. Stop it, Hannah, she chided herself. Don't be a melancholy sap. She had every reason to be grateful for life as it was now. Despite mistakes and pain and the stress of the last few years, she had become a happier, more relaxed person, closer to the care-free life she used to live in the old days.

As Cadmus delivered his carefully worded remarks, Hannah surreptitiously flipped on her data pad. She scanned through her e-mails. She was pleasantly surprised to see she'd received a message from Keta. She hadn't heard from the batarian in a couple months.

Hannah, hi there! Sorry I haven't written in a while. Zavie keeps us busy these days. She's doing well. I attached a picture. Lucas says "hi." Actually, I do have an ulterior motive for writing you. I need to ask you again to talk to your Admiral friend. You know how hard it's been to rebuild my people's space. We're still not getting the requisitions promised from the Alliance. Our ambassador on the Citadel's done what he can, but we're pretty much being ignored. Great to be the dregs of the galaxy, isn't it? Thank you to the Hegemony for making batarians so very loved. Sorry for the rant. Let me know when you've talked to your friend. Keep in touch. Keta.

Poor Keta, Hannah thought. She did have her work cut out for her. Batarians had always been regarded as a blight on the galaxy. Even though they'd participated in the last Reaper battle, prejudice against them hadn't entirely died down. Many old grudges still held firm.

Hannah pulled up the picture Keta had sent. It was of Lucas holding a small batarian child in his lap, Zavie, now over two years old, and reading her a book. Hannah's mind was thrown back years as the picture echoed one she'd loved of Daniel and Jane. She tabbed over to her photos. The first to pop up was her favorite, one of Jane holding Terra with Garrus standing right next to them. The backdrop was their new home, the colony Concilia, with its lush green and flowering plants. Terra was now nine months old, a strong child, growing quickly, soon to be as tall as her daddy if her turian genes held true. Hannah adored her granddaughter. Every leave she got she spent on Concilia where she basked in the precious moments of a new family. It was almost like getting to live the early days with Daniel and Jane all over again. Hannah drew her finger across the pad, perusing her pictures. She finally found the one she was looking for, an old picture of Daniel on the couch in their apartment on Mythos with Jane, probably around four years old, sitting next to him, rapt with attention on the book he was reading. Daniel had sent it to her when she'd been on one of her tours.

Hannah glanced up at the podium, but she didn't see Cadmus; she was lost in her own thoughts. Where had life taken her? As a child, she'd dreamed of space, a career amongst the stars as an aeronautical engineer. It turned out she'd been smart, but not enough to secure the job of her dreams. She'd settled for a life in the navy, finding a way to catapult herself into the sky. She morphed her dreams then, setting a new goal: to climb to the heights of the Alliance Navy and attain the rank of Admiral with all its rights and privileges. But that dream, too, had taken a hit when Jane was born. Daniel had done what he said; he'd taken the brunt of raising Jane, but Hannah hadn't been willing to give up on her daughter completely and as such missed opportunities for advancement by tying herself to Mythos. And then Daniel had left them and she once again put herself to the side for Jane, being the mother Jane needed desperately. Perhaps she should have been bitter, but what struck Hannah now was that she didn't resent her life's direction. She hadn't achieved her dreams, but she wouldn't have had it any other way.

The ambassadors began to clap heartily and Cadmus shuffled back down the steps, sitting next to her. "Did you record the speech?"

Hannah tapped at her omni-tool, halting the recording. "Got it."

Cadmus nodded once, turning his attention to the next speaker. Hannah leaned in close to him. "When do we get a break?"

"Soon," Cadmus whispered back, not looking at her.

Hannah sighed. How could Cadmus stand this? She'd never have made it as a politician. But he hadn't been one either until after the Reaper War. How did a cop become an ambassador so easily? How could he take the lack of inaction?

With a start, Hannah brought a hand to her mouth. Not just any cop, a C-Sec cop. A memory came sailing back to her. Long ago, her first visit to the Citadel…She sent a sideways glance to Cadmus, looking him up and down, confirming what she had just dredged up from the recesses of her mind.

Hannah pushed at her spaghetti with her fork. It wasn't bad really, but she wasn't hungry. She glanced up at Cadmus. "Do you like your…what's it called?"

Cadmus looked over at her, swallowing his latest bite before talking. "Lactuca." He chuckled and shook his head. "You humans wouldn't know good dextro food even if you could eat it."

Hannah smiled. She wasn't insulted. She'd learned over the last week to roll with the punches where Cadmus was concerned.

"I've been thinking…" Hannah ventured, forcing a bite of spaghetti into her mouth.

"About?" Cadmus pushed back into his seat, focusing his analytical gaze on her.

"The past."

"Are you going to tell me another story about Admiral Shepard?"

Hannah couldn't help but smile broadly. She supposed she'd talked Jane up to Cadmus a little too much, but she'd wanted him to really understand her daughter. "No. How about one about you?"

Cadmus tilted his head. "Me?"

"I remembered something. I've seen you before."

"I thought all turians looked alike to you humans."

Hannah bit back a smile. Now he was bating her by teasing her. "Usually. But it's not just your appearance, it's your name."

"Cadmus?"

"Vakarian. I saw you the first time I went to the Citadel."

Cadmus now widened his eyes in interest. "When was that?"

"Oh, about twenty-five years ago now."

Cadmus narrowed his eyes. "Are you playing with me again?"

"No, I did see you," Hannah insisted, placing her fork down on her plate and leaning back in her chair. "I was standing at a balcony and you were investigating something. A human had made a complaint and you blew it off because humans were emotionally unstable. You called someone and ended the call with your surname."

Cadmus rubbed his chin. "I've never blown off a complaint."

"It sounded like…"

"Did you follow me in my investigation?"

"No, but…"

"Then how do you know?"

Hannah sighed, knowing Cadmus had caught her. "I don't know."

Cadmus waved his hand in the air, dismissing the accusation he thought she was trying to make against him.

"That wasn't my point, though," Hannah went on, annoyed at the turian's arrogance.

"Then what was your point?"

Hannah twisted her lips, thinking for a moment. "Do you believe in destiny?"

Cadmus' mouth opened in a turian smile. "Destiny is a human concept."

"Turians don't believe in destiny?"

"We make our own," Cadmus declared.

"From what I've read, ancient turians believed the spirits played a role in the outcome of their lives. No turians think that now?"

Now it was Cadmus' turn to look chagrined. He eyed Hannah in annoyance. "Long past."

"You don't think that some lives are tied together? That you're meant to meet some people?"

Cadmus didn't answer, but his mandibles twitched uncomfortably.

"Take my daughter and your son as examples. Maybe it was destiny that brought them together. I mean, we didn't even know each other when I first saw you and here are our children, married. But we were so close to each other. Don't you find that odd?"

"A chance meeting between an Alliance officer and a C-Sec cop on the Citadel wouldn't be unheard of," Cadmus asserted, stuffing a bite of lactuca in his mouth and chewing rapidly.

Hannah contemplated his answer. Simple coincidence. Maybe that's all it was. But then again…what if she hadn't met Daniel in middle school? What if she hadn't faced Daniel in that shooting match? What if they hadn't married and hadn't had Jane? And what if Daniel hadn't died? If Jane hadn't been born, would someone else have saved the galaxy? Or was this her destiny all along? What if, Hannah thought, it was my destiny to birth the savior of the galaxy? To raise her and inspire her to join the Alliance? The galaxy had been saved because everything had fallen into the right place. Jane had been born, had chosen an Alliance career partially because of her father's death and because of her mother's example, had met the right people to pull together an unbeatable team. Everything that had happened in her life led to the defeat of the Reapers.

"What I think," Hannah spoke aloud, "Is that my plans mattered little in the course of my life. We think we're going to do one thing and then life throws us in a totally different direction. How much control do we really have? Maybe we're all bound by the destiny set out for us."

Cadmus stared at her and suddenly laughed. "That's what I like about you, Hannah Shepard. You think too much."

Hannah smiled. Actually, she hadn't waxed this eloquent in a long time. But as she and Cadmus had learned to get along, to appreciate the camaraderie that age brought them, she'd been willing to open up to him. There was something about his stoic way that made her feel she could count on his stability to be a counterweight to her complexity. She'd found someone who could converse with her again concerning philosophical matters; the last person she'd talked to in such a way was Daniel. Lucas had been a friend, but they'd never spent time delving into the meaning of the universe. Lucas just wasn't that type of guy.

"You don't talk enough. My thinking fills in the gaps," Hannah came back. She had to admit she did get too much fun out of bantering with Cadmus.

Cadmus sobered. "Perhaps," he conceded, to Hannah's surprise. He took a deep breath. "It doesn't matter if it was destiny. It happened. We deal with the outcome. But I take issue with your idea that we don't have much control. We have some control. We make choices and those choices matter, for good or for ill." Cadmus looked down suddenly, and Hannah sensed something he wasn't voicing, a regret of some kind.

"Well, whatever the case, our children have made quite a name for themselves, haven't they?"

"Indeed," Cadmus muttered, looking back up at her. "Children have to leave us. And we have to leave them. It's their turn to own the galaxy. Let's hope they treat it correctly."

Hannah pressed her lips together. Jane already had. So had Garrus. She and Cadmus had every reason to be proud. And whether Cadmus wanted to admit it or not, Hannah felt that this was destiny. She had done what she was supposed to do: raise and support the heroine of the galaxy. Her former dreams didn't matter one iota to her anymore. Who cared if she ever became an Admiral? Being the mother of Jane Shepard would always be good enough for her.

"What's your story, Cadmus?" Hannah asked suddenly. Where had life taken the turian in front of her? Where had he failed and triumphed?

Cadmus shook his head. "Why do humans always insist on asking personal questions? Eat your food."

As Cadmus concentrated on his lunch, Hannah picked up her fork, twisting the spaghetti around it and finally swallowing it. I know one thing, she spoke inwardly, fingering the rocket at her neck, thoughts of destiny swirling in her mind. When my time comes, Daniel, and I walk into that atrium above, I'm going to have one heck of a story to tell you and something tells me, you're going to relish every minute of it.

Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who has followed and favorited this story! I appreciate your sticking with me through this long story. This is the longest fic I've ever written. I've loved every minute of it. When I wrote my fic "Family Reunion," I started to wonder about the character Hannah Shepard; who was this woman? How had she influenced the heroine of the galaxy? It was then I was inspired to delve into her past and give her a story. About in the middle of her story, I suddenly also started thinking about the parental influences on my other favorite character of the ME universe: Garrus Vakarian. Who was his father? What influence did he have on his son's life? Maybe it's being a new parent myself, but I have been drawn to these parental figures, wondering what their stories are. We always love the heroes, but know next to nothing about the people that had the most influence on their lives. Anyway, all that to say that my mind has now turned to Cadmus. I've uploaded a new story, "Live and Learn." If you have any interest in Cadmus at all, you're welcome to join me as I explore his past and relationship with his son. Once again, thanks for reading. it's been a blast!