Disclaimer: All credit goes to BioWare!

Opening: One-X by Three Days Grace

Do you think about
Everything you've been through
You never thought you'd be so depressed
Are you wondering
Is it life or death
Do you think that there's no one like you

We are
We are
We are
We are the ones
We get knocked down
We get back up and stand above the crowd
We are one
We are the ones
We get knocked down
We get back up and stand above the crowd
We are one

The life I think about
Is so much better than this
I never thought I'd be stuck in this mess
I'm sick of wondering
Is it life or death
I need to figure out who's behind me

We are
We are
We are
We are the ones
We get knocked down
We get back up and stand above the crowd
We are one
We are the ones
We get knocked down
We get back up and stand above the crowd
We are one

The life I think about
Is so much better than this
I never thought I'd be stuck in this mess
I'm sick of wondering
Is it life or death?

We are the ones
We get knocked down
We get back up and stand above the crowd
We are one
We are the ones
We get knocked down
We get back up and stand above the crowd
We are one

We stand above the crowd
We stand above the crowd
We stand above the crowd (Crowd)
(We stand) We stand above the crowd
We stand above the crowd (We Stand)
We stand above the crowd

(We are the ones) We stand above the crowd
(We get knocked down get back up) We stand above the crowd
(We are the ones) We stand above the crowd
(We get knocked down get back up) We stand above the crowd

We stand above the crowd
We stand above the crowd
We stand above the crowd

Day one at Normandy High
6:41 AM Monday morning

The Shepard Household

The alarm clock buzzed and buzzed, waiting to be turned off. The alarm had been set for 6:30 but John Shepard had still not woken up.

"Get up! John!" Jessica said with frustration, she stood up above her twin brother trying to get him to get ready for school. With a sigh she pushing her light blonde hair out of her face realizing this could take a while.

John groaned, He didn't care if he was late for his first day of school. All John wanted to do was sleep. But it was becoming clearer and clearer that that wasn't going to happen.

"Get up John!" Jessica repeated grabbing one of the pillows on his bed and smacking him in the head with it. This action finally caused him to open his eyes. He looked up his dark brown eyes locking with Jessica's light blue ones. With a blink he noticed she was already fully dressed and ready to go to school.

"just give me a sec" he sneered slowly dragging himself out of bed one limb at a time until he found himself standing next to Jessica. Slamming his hand down on the alarm clock realizing it was still going off. "Ok I'm up." He yawned

"Good get ready." Jessica smiled with succession as she walked out of his room.
John yawned once more as he put his truck into Ignition, backing out of the driveway. "What kind of coffee do you want?"

"Coffee? John we are already late! And I don't want to be late on day one!"

"So no coffee?"

"Yes."

"Wait yes for no coffee or yes for yes I want coffee?" John smiled; he loved to mess with his 'little' sister. She merely glared at him, even while driving he could feel her eyes pierce him, sending a shiver up his spine.

The pulled up to a red light, getting serious John turned to Jessica. "Why is this so important that we get here on time?" Jessica sighed "This is our senior year. I want to make a good impression I don't want anything to go wrong." The light turned green and John turned to concentrate on driving. "You are the sister of the student who is a football. Your good impression thing been there!" he laughed.

The rest of the ride continued in silence until they passed a sign Normandy High and pulled into the parking lot. "Finally we're here!" Jessica said with a smile looking at her watch and they still had 10 minutes to go find their classes.

20 minutes later

John had said his good bye to Jessica as they went to find their first period classes. He had finally found the class room re-reading the paper once more to make sure it was the right one.

Teacher: Samara
Biology
Room: D207

Yep, this was the right place. He told himself walking into the classroom, everyone was already seated as a asari in the front of the room did the attendance.

"Kasumi" "here!"

"Jeff" "Joker! Not Jeff!" "Yes of course sorry joker"

"Kelly" "Hi!"

John was not sure whether or not to wait for the asari to finish or say something,but in the end he didn't have too. John realized the asari was looking straight at him. "Is there something I may do for you?"

John just stood there for a sec trying to think of what to say but all he thought was damn she's hot! A second passed but it felt like an hour finally thinking of the most basic thing to say. "Yes, I'm John Shepard" The asari looked down at her papers for a few second, her blue finger trailing down the list of names. "Aw yes. I see your now …" she looked at her list again "Shepard, take a seat next to Mrs. Nought so we may continue with class"

"Why are you putting this loser next to me?! Why not sit him next to Kasumi? There is an open chair their too!" Jack huffed, causing Kasumi and most of the rest of the class to roll their eyes. There was no need to start an argument over this. "You're calling me loser and you didn't look at yourself in the mirror this morning? Smooth." John snickered, with a blink he stared at Jack and the red flecks in his eyes seemed to flash. Jack opened her mouth ready for a comeback but noticed the flash in his eyes, noticing his appearance, a black hat covering his face his features were lost under the shadow of the cap. he had old grey sweatshirt on with the hood up to cover up even more of his face one hand in the hoodie's pocket the other holding onto his backpack which had been slung over on his right shoulder, his light blue jeans had a tear going down his jeans stopping right below the knee on both of the legs.

Jack wasn't sure what to say, looking at him something seemed different about him, but…give up a reason not to get in trouble. she wasn't going to pass that up. "Ohhhh. What a bad ass comment" she said sarcastically "Samara can you sit this dildo someplace else I mean you dident even ask me if I wanted him here? F that. I mean like just because you're the boss lady, dosent mean I want to make friend's with some loser. Or.. Actually whatever. I don't care he can have my seat. Peace out! Mother F***er's!" She picked up her backpack and walked out of the back entrance. Hoping to find Aria for some smokes.

Samara sighed and made a quick phone call to the security to get Jack back, as John made his way to the back of the class room. "Ok, like said before welcome to Biology class, and we all know Jacquine will be back with security escort so until then lets starts todays lesson everyone place grab a textbook and turn to page 394."

Just as the bell had rung Jessica had walked into her first period class. She had Math with a Mr. Solus "Hopefully everyone did their homework over the let's get it out so we may correct it!" the teacher said enthusiastically Jessica had talked to salarians before but talked so quickly the only word she caught was homework. As Jessica walked over to the empty seat at the end of the row Mr. Solus spoke louder "We have new student, and his name his Garrus Vakarian. Welcome to Nomandy High!" the turian sat up eyes half open clutching his football which at the moment had become his pillow, with a hiss he put it in his backpack not wanting to do as told.

While fumbling for his homework Jessica sat down putting her bag under the desk. "hello." The turian spoke, not looking at her concentrating on the innards of his backpack. "hi." She replied back sweetly "I'm Jessica" "Garrus" he said with a grr unable to find notebook missing homework. "Having some trouble?" she giggled. "Maybe just a little" he smiled listening to her giggle.

"Garrus, since this is your first day, I would just like you to try and follow along." He gave a nod to 's instructions. Jessica tried paying attention but found the turian more interesting, pulling out a red binder she saw a picture of a cool looking sniper rifle on the front. She watched as he went through it. He had pictures and drawings of all sorts of guns in there. Mostly sniper rifles though. "shit." He closed the binder and turned around "hey." he whispered "Hey you" Liara looked up from her class work without saying a word. She was playing with a green pencil with her fingers. "Can I copy off you? You know he's going to kill me if I don't have notes" Liara rolled her eyes and looked up at Solus. Quickly while his back was turned she handed it over. "You owe me" Garrus only smiled at her was ok with that.

Jessica didn't really pay attention much during class and nothing else noteworthy happened, she mostly whispered to Garrus and Liara. She learned he has a lot in common Guns, Movies, all kinds of stuff, but what stood out most is that all 3 wanted to try and help people. Jessica was positive Garrus would become fast friends and with it being a new school, Friends was one thing she was short on for the moment.

Lunch time

"So then Jame's goes 'the elcor started it!' as he was being put in the security office by Coach Anderson." Jessica burst out laughing as Liara finishes her story; they had grabbed their lunch and were finding a spot to sit. "gonna be hard for me to top that story!" Jessica said as she started to calm down. They had taken a seat near the windows aligned on the far side of the cafeteria, she craned her neck looking for her brother, as Liara waited for others to grab their lunch and join them.

"Come on pyjak! I can pay ya!"

"For the last time Grunt no! Go do your own work, now please leave so I may eat my lunch in peace."

"But if the work doesn't get down I fail the semester and then I repeat the grade. But I'm too busy. And I can make it worth your time.."

Jessica watched from the table Grunt bothered the Salarian "hey? who's that" Liara turned around in her seat. "Oh goddess not again.. With Grunt being Krogan he KNOWS he's bigger than everyone and always tries to use that to his advantage " she rolled her eyes at that. Liara was partly in that group too and found nothing wrong with it she just hated being labeled.

"Size isn't everything" Jessica stood up and walked over to the two. "Jessica what are you doing?" Liara watched in horror. Her mind playing over a thousand scenario's in a second most involving the quickest way to get Jessica to the nurse.

"Go away Grunt"

"Come on Kaidan! Maybe we can come to a agreement" he cracked his knuckles.

"He asked you to leave" Jessica said,her voice bellowed confidence.

Grunt laughed as he turned around to face this uknown figure

"Haha, a human with some guts." he took a step forward and looked down at her, he was a good foot taller than her. "What do you think you're going to do about it?" he smiled

Jessica smiled brightly, She hadn't noticed but everyone in the cafeteria was watching her. "This." She swung her head all the way back and then collided it into Grunt's head plate Causing a loud banging noise, forcing Grunt to take a step backwards and fall to his butt as he tripped over a chair with a loud clang of the chairs metal .Grunt sat their astonished at what a human did. Then laughed for what seemed to go on forever "You've got a quad human!" he bellowed as he slowly got up. During this time Kaiden was able to pack up his stuff and walked away. "Thank you" he had said before hurrying to find protection. Grunt was now on his feet and in the same spot as before being knocked down. "For once a human has a pair! And you don't even have a pair! I admire that about you." He started to laugh "names Urdnot.."

"GRUNT!" Anderson's fists were curled as he made long strides across the cafeteria over to Grunt "What do you think you are doing this time?! Verbally Abusing students! Disrespect of school property. You are coming with me!" By this time he had made his way over to Jessica and Grunt was all that she could get out before Anderson shook his head "Both of you come with me!" he walked away then turned his head making sure they were both following him. Jessica huffed. She didn't really do anything wrong. She just stood up for the human. She had also just noticed that every set of eyes were fixed upon her and Grunt. Nobody was saying a word. She waved shyly to John who had just walked into the cafeteria, he had no idea what happened and couldn't wait to tell him. Anderson held the door open for them as they walked out, as soon as he shut the door she could hear everyone talking at once. Mostly likely about what just unfolded?

John stood speechless as his sister had been led away. He turned to the nearest kid. "Hey? Hey you!" he called out as a male quarian in a red suit turned around "me?" "ya! We're they taking my sister?!" The quarians light in his helmet lit up every time he spoke "Your sister? Damn impressive. She is being taken to Anderson's office. Probably for questioning" "what did she do?!" He demanded, the quarian seemed to be getting fidgety with all these questions. But instead tried to laugh. "You didn't see? You missed a good show. Grunt was picking on Kaiden and she just walked up and head butted him! He even fell to the ground." The quarian smiled, even though it was unseen from outside his suit. John clenched his fists in anger and walked away, to go get his sister.

Jessica told her side of the story as did Grunt, they even brought Kaiden down to get his side of the story. In the end Jessica and Grunt got 3 days detention while Kaiden was free to go.

"Like I was saying my name is Urdnot Grunt, and I will be seeing you around school,Shepard." Grunt walked away with his stumpy walk, and once he went around the corner Shepard went the other way hoping to get back to lunch before it ended.

"Jessica! What did you do?!" a familiar voice came from behind her, blocky loud steps as it angrily walked down the stairs. Jessica smiled "I stood up for some human no biggy, this dude had it coming! And in the end I even think I made a friend out of him. How has your day been?"

"My day?! I just watched my sister get pulled out of the lunch room! And she has been the one worrying about me all morning!" what seemed like a low growl emitted from John's voice. Jessica could only continue to smile. She wasn't ashamed of the fact, she was quite proud.

The bell suddenly rang. "Come on we have next class together. Let's go." Jessica continues to smile, today started out a crappy day but ended up pretty amazing. She was pretty sure she made a good impression on everyone. While John may have not done anything as amazing today. He was sad he missed his sister knock that krogan to the ground

End of the 1st Chapter. Any suggestions? Comments? Hope you enjoyed.