A kiss because they’re running out of time; because time’s run out. 

At first, Shepard joked about the benefits of having enough energy to run around after the kids. She joked about not having to color her hair or waste a small fortune on products promising youth in a bottle. 

Shepard stopped joking around the same time Dr. Chakwas died of old age, while she still looked the same as she’d looked when she rolled off Cerberus’ resurrection table. 

Miranda said, “I’m sorry, Shepard. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

#

When Garrus’ plates began to dull, Shepard took herself to a discreet stylist and had them brush silver through her hair. She grew as adept at at painting wrinkles as she’d once been at rimming her eyelids with kohl. She cultivated a wardrobe suitable for her actual age, even if her physical body stubbornly refused to cooperate. 

Garrus knew, of course, but at least they got fewer stares, fewer uneasy glances. His hand grew frailer in hers; his grip weaker. The children grew up, had children, who had children. When her grandchildren started to look her age, Shepard had her discreet stylist turn her copper-auburn hair tarnished silver, root to tip. She added age spots to the wrinkles. She became as fastidious about hunching her shoulders to match her husband’s increasing stoop as she’d once been about keeping parade rest perfect. 

Miranda, with only a few silver threads in her hair, said, “I should have warned you.”

#

The morning of her hundred and fifth wedding anniversary, while she was in the kitchen making their breakfasts, Shepard heard something shatter in the bedroom. 

She could still run a six-minute mile; it didn’t take long to cross the distance. Garrus was on the floor; his fall had knocked the lamp from the bedside table. Shards of glass twinkled in the incongruous sunlight. He looked impossibly old, impossibly feeble, and she knew, she knew, she knew.

His mandibles flicked into a self-deprecating smile. “Always said… I wanted a… a hundred years,” he whispered. “Got lucky.”

“No,” she said in a voice untouched by age. “Garrus, hey–” Her throat tightened as she dropped to knees that didn’t even have the decency to crack. Pressing her brow to his desperately, she said, “No Shepard without Vakarian, remember?”

His ha was an exhale, an ending, a kiss goodbye. “I’ll… order for y–”

Human voices didn’t need subharmonics to keen.

#

Miranda said, “Shepard, there’s nothing I can do.”

“How long?” When Miranda didn’t answer, she pressed, “How long?”

“I don’t know,” Miranda finally answered, tears in her pale eyes. “A hundred years? Two? The tech was so experimental.”

Shepard nodded her understanding. When she turned away, Miranda reached out, her slender fingers closing tight around Shepard’s wrist. Miranda’s skin was thinner, older; the age spots weren’t painted on. “What are you going to do?” she asked. 

“Nothing, yet.”

“And later?”

Shepard enclosed her friend in her arms and pressed a soft, swift kiss to Miranda’s cheek. “Later,” she said, “don’t you dare bring me back.”