Version 1.11 Notes: Made minor changes to alleviate overused identifier noun phrase variations. Acting on tip from reader review, removed all instances of the moniker "Donnie" for Shepard, except where specifically spoken by Marcus Royal. Added mentions of Royal's southern accent, which were intended to be present in first iteration but were forgotten in the rush of caffeine that served as fuel for the chapter.

PROLOGUE - ORIGINS

Mindoir – 2170 CE

Smoke, heat, the stink of bodies, and the cries of victims not yet taken overwhelmed Ensign Marcus Royal as he darted from cover to cover, taking precautions against an enemy he had yet to see but which could be lurking around the very next corner. He was on his own, his recon team having fanned out to cover more ground when no large grouping of opponents was detected. To make matters worse, this was the first time he'd ever been alone in a hot zone, and he was pretty sure his beaten hand-me-down of a sniper rifle had a fifty-fifty chance of blowing its ammunition block into his face if he pulled the trigger. If the batarians caught him unawares, the young special forces officer would have stood a significantly lesser chance of making it back alive. He kept a firm grip on his Hahne-Kedar pistol as he vaulted over a crate and dashed quietly over to the far corner of the nearby prefab housing unit.

Peeking around the edge cautiously and doing a quick visual scan, he finally caught sight of a target. The ugly, four-eyed humanoid matched the descriptions of the batarian people he'd had in his childhood schooling, and the lightly armored, non-military issue hardsuit and turian-manufactured assault rifle marked him as a mercenary. He was standing guard near an armored ground vehicle and a stack of empty cages. Royal didn't see any sign of other slavers or their intended human captives, but that didn't necessarily guarantee that the batarian was alone. More could have been inside the truck he was guarding, or else hiding in the prefab structure that the cages leaned against.

Royal brought up his omni-tool and lightly keyed the haptic interface, sending a silent message to the other members of his squad that he'd made contact, then weighed his options. He didn't like the idea of popping out of his cover to take a shot with his pistol. If the batarian's suit was equipped with even the most basic of kinetic barrier technology, his shots would never find their mark—at least not before the batarian's assault rifle cut him down, or the other slavers popped out of hiding. Lining up a shot with the sniper rifle was probably a better plan, but he didn't trust the weapon and any allies the batarian had would immediately come barreling in his direction. Either way, firing presented too much of a risk without the rest of his squad to back him up—and, judging by the blips on his omni-tool that represented his teammates, he would be waiting at least three minutes before any of them showed up.

Waiting was not Royal's strong suit, but he had other options. Wiping some sweat from his broad, pale forehead and raking his fingers through his dark hair, he keyed a new command into his omni-tool. The batarians' truck was alien, but it was common enough that the human Systems Alliance had schematics. The hacking program built into his tool happened to work for this model's on-board computer.

The revving of the vehicle's engine startled the lone batarian, but that wasn't enough of a warning. Less than two seconds later, he was flattened beneath its three left-side tires and the cages had been scattered. An instant later, the driver popped out of the side door, leaping to the ground to check on him. The driver wasn't wearing any protective gear, and had not taken time to send off a radio message. No other batarians emerged from the prefab buildings to see what had happened.

In one quick, fluid motion, Royal whipped around the corner and sank two rounds between the driver's upper set of eyes. Though he'd made less noise than the truck, he took a look around to see if anyone else had bothered to respond. Thankfully, he remained alone for the moment. Again raising his omni-tool, he sent the all-clear message to his squad, telling them to ignore his earlier signal and continue searching other areas.

A moment later, after he grabbed a quick drink from his canteen, Royal was ready to move on when he heard an alien voice shouting something from a couple of buildings away. Ducking quickly back behind the cover of the previous building, he watched and listened, thinking for a minute that he'd been discovered. When no retaliatory force emerged, he cautiously stepped out again and advanced in the direction of the noise.

He passed one prefab building, then the next, without seeing anybody. The voices, however, were getting louder, so he persisted. Now he could hear human voices mixed in with the batarians. They were unintelligible, but it was clear from their tones of voice that the humans were pleading for their lives while their captors mockingly refused, toying with them. As he got closer still, he heard a cry of rage, then a gunshot.

Peering around the corner of a third unit, he found himself perhaps thirty yards away from three batarians surrounding a small family. The father had just been killed—his blood was still pouring out onto the grass while his wife and child watched. The boy, who Royal guessed to be fifteen or sixteen years of age, with dark hair like his own and a lean, wiry build, stood silently in shock with his deep blue eyes staring wide in disbelief. The red-haired wife simply bawled in a combination of grief and terror.

"The female, too," Royal heard the largest one say. "She's going to make my head explode with that wailing. Too frail to be useful, anyway."

A second later, another batarian had placed his pistol to the mother's temple and pulled the trigger, splattering her brains over her already-traumatized son. Royal felt himself swell with anger, but he restrained himself from charging after them. Even if he fired now, he probably couldn't save the boy. But he could try, and at least ensure that the alien bastards paid the price. Signaling his team yet again, he pulled his second-rate sniper rifle from his back, relieved to see that it at least uncollapsed normally. Stealthily slipping out from behind the building and taking shelter behind a nearby crate, he leaned the barrel on the container's lid and lined up a shot on the lead batarian.

Before he could fire, however, one of the henchmen leaned down to slap cuffs on the stricken boy, which lead the boy to a feat that Royal would remember forever. Letting out a sudden roar of bereaved rage, he lashed out with his fist, and sent the batarian flying backward with a biotic throw, straight into his boss. Both aliens tumbled over each other and crashed into the opposite building, then lay—whether they were stunned or dead, Royal couldn't tell, but they weren't getting up.

Both Royal and the remaining batarian froze where they were, unbelieving. Biotics—the ability of uncommon individuals to manipulate the universe around them by using element zero nodules throughout their nervous systems to create mass effect fields—was heard of in humans, but exceptionally rare. There certainly hadn't been reports of any noteworthy biotics on the colony of Mindoir. Yet here was a boy who clearly showed high-level ability. It had caught them all by surprise.

But this wouldn't save him forever. It seemed the boy had used up all his power already, for he did not duplicate his impressive feat. He stood there, drained and ragged, while the third batarian finally found his nerves and raised his pistol, now intent on eliminating the last remaining family member rather than enslaving such a dangerous specimen.

That was when Royal at last pulled the trigger. The batarian's head exploded, his body thudding wetly to the ground and joining that of his murdered victims. Immediately afterward, Royal sprinted out towards the bloody scene and put a pistol shot in the head of each of the other batarians to ensure that they also were dead.

Safe for the moment, Royal turned his attention to the boy. He was shaken, bruised, and holding himself gingerly on a sprained left ankle, but he looked like he would be okay. His eyes bored into the dead batarian at his feet, lips pulled back in an angry snarl, breathing shakily, erratically. Royal saw more than anger there. He saw defiance, an indomitable will that refused to be broken. His family lay dead around him, but he did not shatter with grief or fear in the face of his own death by the same hands. Suddenly Royal understood what had driven the uncommonly powerful biotic attack.

"You all right, son?" He asked the question in his best comforting voice; he was often told that his light southeast-American drawl and stubble-ridden visage had a warm and homely quality to it, and he was counting on it to help calm the child enough to get him to cooperate.

That, and persuade him not to toss him into the wall along with the batarians.

"They're dead," the boy replied, his voice a haggard whisper. "You killed them. I'm still alive." He seemed to be convincing himself of the facts, reaffirming reality so as not to lose his grip on it. Royal could understand that. He'd seen his fellow soldiers do it more than once. Even he had done it when he first saw a team member die.

"That's right," he said, patting his young charge even while looking around for possible enemy reinforcements. "You're alive. I know you can't be feeling good right now, with your family... gone. But you can still make it out of here. Maybe you can even get back at these bastards one day."

"N-no, I can't," the boy argued solemnly. He was still staring intently at the batarian corpses. "You already k-killed them."

Royal bit his lip. The kid had a point, from a narrow point of view. He knew he should probably just carry the kid out of here, but he'd rather have the boy cooperate, possibly even lend his biotics to help them both get back safely.

"That's true," he conceded. "But one day you could help stop this from happening to someone else, on some other colony. You could avenge your parents on all the mercenary scum who would orphan some other kid. I can help get you there, if you stick with me."

The boy at last looked up. Tears streamed from his eyes, but his determination was unwavering as he nodded. Royal found his gaze almost scary, even though he knew the anger was not meant for him. He took his hand off the boy's shoulder, peeked around the corner, then motioned for him to follow.

"This way," he directed. "You're running L3 implants, I'm guessing?"

"No. No implants."

Royal stopped mid-stride, having to shake off what he'd just heard before regaining his wits and pressing forward with the same caution as before. No implants! All biotics, except the naturally-gifted asari, needed special implants and extensive training to generate mass effect fields of any significance. To think that this kid had just smashed two batarians into a wall with his will alone...

"Who are you, kid?"

"D-Donovan," the boy answered. "Donovan Shepard."

Earth – 2172 CE

Donovan wasn't his son. He wasn't even remotely related by blood. But Royal felt a big brother's pride all the same when he took the kid to enlist on his eighteenth birthday. He'd spared no expense for the occasion—half of his Lieutenant's commission that month had gone towards renting out the state of the art luxury shuttle to take them from Royal's posting on the SSV Madrid to the Military Enlistment Processing Station back on Earth, as well as the executive suite where they were currently staying. For all his progress, the boy deserved no less.

He'd come a long way in the year and a half since his family had died. Royal's military contacts had quickly identified him as a potent specimen of biotic potential and subsequently bequeathed him with the most up-to-date L3 implants. He wouldn't be able to learn from military instructors until he enlisted, but Royal had put him in contact with several friends on the outside, both human and alien, who had taught him a few things. Beyond that, the boy had been living the spacer life, continuing his education from on-ship tutorials and e-books and seldom going planetside.

Whenever Royal took authorized leave, however, they rarely stayed in one place for longer than a few hours. The older man taught him the thrills of space exploration, dragging him along through systems known and unknown in spacecraft either rented or borrowed from friends. From Elysium to Rakhana, from Thessia to Palaven, they saw the best and worst of the galactic community, doing everything from hobnobbing with asari matriarchs to being tossed out of turian bars.

At first, the young Shepard had complained, not understanding why his guardian insisted on hauling him off to these places and getting into such trouble. After a time, however, he saw the value—building relationships with and learning the customs of alien races enriched one's life in more ways than one. A person would begin to see things from new perspectives, with an expanded philosophical or logical viewpoint, or talk one's way out of a situation he could not hope to fight his way through. And, all that notwithstanding, it was a hell of a lot of fun.

So it was that, with less than two years between his soul crushing loss and his enlistment, the traumatized teenager had become a learned, strong young man.

"What are you doing out here, Marcus?"

Royal snapped out of his thoughts, turning his head and grinning as he saw his young charge joining him at his side. They were on the balcony overlooking San Francisco, the night sky cloudless and star-spangled overhead. Luna was a few days away from showing her full face to the planet below, but her pale light still painted the city in gorgeous hues.

"Thought I'd take a moment to relive your glorious rise from the ashes," he said, chuckling to himself. "Few kids in your position would have come this far in so short a time. With willpower like yours, I'm pretty sure you'll be outranking me in a few years."

"If I have risen higher, it's because I've stood on the shoulders of a giant," Donovan replied. He grinned back—the slightest upturn of the lips, though his eyes lit up like blue beacons.

"Paraphrasing Newton? Come on, Donnie... you've been all over the place. Hit me with something original."

"Sorry, I got nothing," the young man admitted. "But I do mean it. I never would've come this far alone."

Royal nodded, returning his attention to the scenery outside. It was late spring, and the air was quite warm even on the higher floors of the building. The draft felt good on his bare arms and face. He got comfortable there, watching the skycars flit endlessly past below them; a metaphor for the flow of their lives.

"So," he asked, "You still doin' this for the same reasons as before?"

"To keep the mercs and slavers away from the other colonies?" Donnie replied. "Yes. But you taught me more than that. I'm doing this to protect innocent life everywhere."

Royal gave him a look of mock surprise. "Everyone, huh? You sure you wanna take up a task like that? You know you can't save everyone."

"I can try." Donovan leaned over the balcony and stared down at the traffic much as his guardian did. "I feel like I owe it to them, you know? As a survivor."

"Actually, I don't know," Royal admitted. "I'm a spacer, Donnie. I've lost marines in the service, but I've never lost most of a colony before. The student becomes the teacher in this case."

For a while they just stood at the balcony, savoring the quiet and the warmth of the night air. In this moment, each could see the other for what he was, what he had been, and the numerous paths stretched out before them both. They had shared their experiences and profited from each other's company as best they could, and now it was time for them to part and forge new paths on their own. Like the calm before the storm, each was bracing himself for the imminent shifting of the winds.

"Madrid's headin' back to Arcturus in a few weeks," Royal said, breaking the silence. "Send me a message when you know where you're getting stationed."

"I'll catch the very first burst."

Satisfied, the Lieutenant turned and headed back into the hotel, shutting off the light behind him. It was nearing midnight, and both of them would need their rest for the following day. Tomorrow, Little Donnie would become Serviceman Donovan Shepard.

Akuze – 2177 CE

The initial reports had looked disastrous. An entire colonial pioneer team wiped out, probably the whole team of marines they'd sent to investigate, as well. Apart from the colonization effort on Akuze being completely ruined, a couple hundred people were dead, fifty of them good soldiers. This search effort was not expected to turn up any survivors.

Lieutenant Shepard had insisted on going, anyway. His friend had been a part of that team, and he had no intention of giving up on him without at least seeing for himself. His superiors had been reluctant to let him go, but being the hero who'd fought off a slew of batarians single-handedly during the Skyllian Blitz on Elysium a year ago had earned him more than enough pull to get him what he wanted. They'd given him only a small team and an unarmed shuttle, but he wouldn't need more than that. He wasn't the scared kid he'd been back on Mindoir, not anymore.

Now seven years older, he sported a half-day's worth of stubble on his face—like Royal, he was possessed of an adversity to shaving, though not his accent—as well as oaken hair cut high-and-tight, and an N7 insignia on his hardsuit. His blue eyes retained the same commanding determination that had got him noticed by his biotic instructors, his boot camp drill instructors, and his special forces training coordinator. His very presence commanded respect. More so now, since his face was well-known for his deeds on Elysium.

"You sure about this, sir?" The question had come from Private Meers, one of the four junior marines given to his command for this mission. The man was as green as a soldier could be, fresh out of boot camp.

"I'm sure," Shepard confirmed. "Don't worry. We're just making a quick sweep. In and out. If we don't pick up survivors, we don't even touch down."

His words seemed to relax Meers a little. Then Shepard afforded the recruit a small, reassuring smile, and he relaxed more. The Lieutenant knew when to ride his subordinates, but otherwise he preferred to be friendly. He was harsh to those who deserved it, but generous to the innocent. It was a behavior he exhibited in deference to his most important teacher out of all of them, the one who'd picked up on his steadfast determination first—the one he was about to drop onto Akuze to rescue.

Ten minutes later, they were in the atmosphere, flying over a small dust storm. Through the shuttle's viewports they could see little beyond the swirling red-brown clouds of dirt and debris. But Shepard knew they were above the colony. The blurry outlines of broken prefab units and one or two dead thresher maws were barely visible. Any minute now, if there was anything alive to find down there, the shuttle's sensors would pick it up.

"Got a signal," the pilot called back. "It's weak, but definitely Alliance. Taking her down for a closer look."

"Land as soon as you get a visual," Shepard ordered. He stood up, checking that his shotgun was securely buckled to his armor. Then he adjusted his bio-amp quickly and looked to his team. They were ready, though Meers had gotten a little nervous again. "Remember, we want this to be quick in case the thresher maws come back. Grab whatever survivors we find and haul 'em out, fast."

Less than a minute later, the shuttle airlock opened and Shepard led his team outside. The dust was choking, but the team was equipped with breathers. Leaving the shuttle hovering where it was, the marines drew weapons and advanced toward a small outcropping of rocks with a small, makeshift barricade filling in between the stone formations. They presumed this to be the source of the beacon.

They barely had time to look around before a tendril burst from the ground twenty feet away and came down on top of them. Shepard managed to deflect it with a biotic throw before it hit anyone, and scored a hit on it with his shotgun before it withdrew. It hardly mattered—the maw knew where they were. In a few seconds it would be upon them with its main body.

"Back to the ship!" Shepard yelled.

"What about you, sir?" Meers asked frantically.

"Get out of range! I'll call you when it's safe to pick me up."

The other marines hesitated, Meers included. They knew the Lieutenant was good—he'd proven that in the Blitz. But was he good enough to survive a thresher maw alone and on foot? There was a reason that they were trained to run like hell when they saw one.

This was one of the moments when Shepard found it appropriate to ride his subordinates. He turned and waved his hand angrily in the direction of the shuttle, shouting a single word that had the force of a hundred.

"GO!"

Nobody argued further. Less than ten seconds later the shuttle was high in the air, leaving Shepard on the ground by himself.

The Lieutenant pressed on, toward the makeshift bunker. From twenty feet away he couldn't tell if there was anyone alive inside. If the thresher was still hanging around nearby, though, Shepard believed—or maybe hoped—that someone was still alive inside. Of course, it could simply be that this particular beast had just lain where it had consumed its previous meal, having no reason yet to go searching elsewhere. He didn't like thinking that way, however. None of his brethren were dead until he saw the body himself.

But why hadn't the thresher simply surfaced inside the bunker rather than try to penetrate from the outside? Shepard stopped at the single entrance, wary of buried traps. A subterranean electric perimeter with voltage strong enough to dissuade a thresher maw would be a thousand times fatal to a human. Instead of entering, he lit a flare and waited, trying to hail the occupants over the radio.

"This is Lieutenant Shepard, Alliance Navy," he called. "Is there anyone still alive in there?"

A weak signal came back, barely intelligible through the static.

"Watch your ass!"

The thresher surfaced again, as Shepard knew it would, and this time he was more prepared. He loosed a grenade at the base of the ugly worm, then threw up a biotic barrier to keep the gnashing teeth at bay. The beast shrieked in agony as a bloody hole appeared in its side. It railed against the barrier, enraged and determined to squash this annoying morsel. Shepard held his ground, but even with his strength it was difficult to hold the maw back. He dropped one hand to try to throw another grenade, but this diverted his attention from the barrier and allowed the maw to crash to the sand less than a yard away from him.

Thrown by the impact, Shepard skidded to a halt some twelve or fifteen feet away. The grenade that he had attempted to draw fell from his hand, arming pin still lodged inside it. His shotgun had also been knocked loose and lay halfway between him and the angry alien predator. Now unarmed save for his biotics—and even those were waning, as he was already beginning to tire from their repeated use—he found himself in a difficult position. He fought as best he could, scrambling to his feet and scooping up his shotgun, but the thresher was on him now. The massive jaws opened wide, and Shepard raised his weapon in the hope of getting one more good blast in.

Fortunately, luck and the last remaining survivor were on his side. A loud crack echoed in the wind as a high-powered, armor-piercing anti-material round passed through the thresher maw's skull at medium range, with just enough power to kill the creature. It slumped to the ground with a heavy thud and lay still.

"Saved your ass again, huh? What am I gonna do with you, Donnie?"

Shepard grinned inside his helmet as the voice came over the radio again, somewhat stronger. He turned just in time to see another human in N7 armor emerge from the bunker, carrying an enormous rifle with one hand. The left arm dangled uselessly, the armor and flesh encased within it shredded by thresher teeth. How he had managed to fire the weapon in such a state escaped even Shepard's able mind.

"You look like you've seen better days," he said. "You gonna make it back, Marcus?"

"Yeah," Royal replied shakily. "Don't know if I'll ever shake this off, though. Fifty good men... how the hell are they gone while I'm still here? I was trusted to lead them, and in the end the best I could do for them was sound the retreat and hide out here."

"It's okay now," Shepard reassured him. "We've killed the aliens responsible. You even got to finish it off."

"Yeah," Royal repeated, hanging his head. "But... does it really make a goddamned difference? They're still dead, and I'm alive because I was better at running and hiding than they were. You at least had the stones to stand your ground back on Mindoir."

"I didn't have the luxury of running and hiding. I waited until both my parents were dead before I did anything. And in the end you did the same thing I tried to do. We're both human. We both made mistakes, and we both did the best we could to compensate."

The elder soldier was quiet for a long time. He was lost in his head, staring back and forth between the dirt at his feet and the dead thresher. His visor wasn't tinted—Shepard could see that Royal was far from broken, but the guilt for this mission's failure and the loss of his men weighed heavily on him, and would continue to do so forever.

"You're right," he said finally. "I think I understand what went through your head all those years ago, Donnie. I just hope I can remember what went through mine."

Citadel – 2183 CE

Royal caught Shepard just as he came down the elevator from the Presidium. The Commander had just finished a meeting with the Council, and from the look on his face—that same hard, unwavering determination he'd possessed on Mindoir—the older warrior could see that things had gone just about as well as he'd hoped. Humanity had made huge sacrifices to save the Council and their flagship, Destiny Ascension, from the swarm of geth, and then to take down the monstrous Reaper, Sovereign. With such a display of bravery and sacrifice, humanity's bid for a seat on the Council—a long time coming—must have finally met with success, due in no small part to Shepard himself.

"Damn, Donnie," he drawled, popping out from behind a blackened structural pillar. "When you were talkin' about saving the whole goddamned galaxy, you meant it. How's it feel to be everyone's hero again?"

Eyes sharp as a hawk's but gentle as the ocean on a calm day found him immediately. Shepard was definitely weathered from his ordeals, and yet he found a way to look stronger than ever. His lips twisted in a rare smile as he altered course to come stand with his former mentor.

"Marcus," he said. "Good to see you. Was your ship out there with the Fifth Fleet?"

"It was," Royal confirmed. "Perugia. One of the lucky ones who didn't take a direct hit. Would rather have had your job though, I think."

"If anyone else deserves to have their name put in for the Spectres, it'd be you." Shepard shook his hand firmly, standing near the bulkhead but not leaning on it. "You wouldn't believe some of the people that ask me for recommendations. One of them hadn't even served a day in the Alliance."

Royal took a minute to look the Commander over. They hadn't seen each other since the incident on Akuze, and he'd changed significantly. If nothing else, Royal could see that he'd become substantially more powerful, as befitted a Spectre. Even through the ablative armor plating, it was evident that Shepard had put on muscle, and he carried himself with the deliberation and grace of a natural predator as well as military professionalism. Not only that, but rumor had it that he could snap a krogan's spine with a single biotic push.

He, by contrast, still looked much the same as he had on Mindoir when he'd first met Shepard. His hair was longer and slicked back, and his gun-metal irises seemed more tired in their blackened eyesockets, but that was about it. Not that he hadn't changed at all—the arm he'd shattered on Akuze had been repaired and enhanced with extensive cybernetics, and his skill as a sniper and a hacker were rivaled by few others in the service.

"I'd be honored," he finally answered. "But I gotta admit, you look the part much better than I do. Now, are you goin' to answer my question, mister badass Spectre?"

Shepard gave a small sigh. "I'm relieved that we stopped Saren," he said. "But we lost too many people in the process."

"I heard about Chief Williams," Royal nodded. "It sounds like she was a hell of a soldier. The salarians and the turians are both talking about giving her some posthumous medals."

"She was a good friend, too," Shepard assented, his face falling for an instant. "But it's not just about her. Look at how many had to die just to stop one Reaper. If we have to fight a whole fleet of those things..." His words trailed off, and he shook his head.

"I hear you," Royal said. "A lot of folks are decrying your story as a load of horse shit, but I believe it. You wouldn't lie about this kind of thing, Donnie. For what it's worth, anyway."

"It's worth a lot." Shepard's determination returned, but his smile didn't. "Thank you."

"You're going to see this through to the very end, aren't you?"

Silence hung between them, louder than the explosion of a thousand suns, yet the drop of a pin would have shattered it. Each man stared into the eyes of the other, seeing all the roads that had led them to this point, and knowing that there was now only one road for both of them to follow. The storm had broken; now was the time to build the arc, for the flood was coming.

"Never mind," Royal said finally. "I already know. And I'm proud of you. With this, I can leave the Council and the Alliance in your capable hands."

Shepard took a step back, confused and bewildered.

"What do you mean by that, Marcus?"

"I mean that I'm resigning my commission. You and I both know that these Reapers are more of a threat than anything organic life has ever faced. They need to be fought with everything we have, and I can't contribute if I'm stuck on the Perugia. I'll have better luck on my own."

"But what can you do?" Shepard seemed to realize he was right, but still didn't understand where he meant to go. "Without a ship or a crew, you won't be much better off."

Royal smiled. He wasn't quite ready to tell Shepard about the ace in the hole he'd been saving—he doubt his old friend would approve, especially since he wasn't even certain that his sources hadn't been hallucinating. If the information was good, however, he just might have uncovered a weapon that could be adapted to send the Reapers right back into obscure mythology.

"Trust me," he said. "I'm a survivor, too, remember? I'll find what I need. But I need to know that I'm leaving the greater galactic community in good hands. I need to know that they'll still have their hero 'til I come back."

"Why not come with me?" Shepard suggested. "There's room on the Normandy, and we could use someone with your skills."

"No, Donnie," Royal said, shaking his head. "Our little two-man army can't ride again. Not yet. But if my own errand goes well enough, I'll be back in half a heartbeat... and I'll be packing."

The tides of fate crashed around them. Royal felt the waves drawing Shepard back out to the roiling seas. He was being drawn out, as well, on a parallel but—for now—separate current. The two sized each other up once more, then shook hands.

"Good luck, Marcus," Shepard said.

"Good hunting, old friend," he answered.

They each gave the other a nod, then turned and walked away.