Story Notes

I own no Mass Effect content, nor the characters. These characters belong to Bioware and the developers of Mass Effect. I am just simply a fan.

I'm also using this as a writing exercise to get in touch with writing different characters; I've found that in my original stories, my characters are becoming rather stale and generic. Hopefully trying to emulate the different characters of this story will help me get out of my funk.

The alien who leaned against the elevator that night had his eyes closed. He seemed to be incredibly weary; in fact, he seemed to be favouring one side of his body more than the other. He had his head hung, his mandibles slackened, and his entire composure seemed to be one of weary acceptance. However, when the elevator doors opened with a pneumatic hiss, he shrugged himself off the side of the elevator and walked through the doors with a slow pace.

He stuck out one of his talons towards the door, inputting the code and the door gave way for him. It revealed an elaborate room; a fish tank stretched along half of the left-side wall, with plenty of fish from many different planets co-existing inside. The mandibles on the alien's face twitched upwards slightly. He'd feed the fish for her later. But for now, he had a job to do. He walked into the bedroom, to reveal a small office space beside him, with blinking and buzzing monitors. In front of the little office space, there was a display case full of different models of ships. He smiled at that too; she had always had fun with collecting those as they travelled. His brilliant blue eyes scanned the rest of the room; the couch, still with a virtual chess set set up. She always did love to play with Specialist Traynor... granted, she was always walking around, talking with her crew, becoming friends with all of them. She had the belief that they were all a family... all of the men and women that served on the ship. It didn't matter who belonged to what faction; as long as they were on the SSV Normandy, they had a home and a family to return to.

He looked over the rest of the room, and then his jaw slackened a bit, his mandibles spaced out as he let loose a deep sigh. He then walked towards the office space and immediately pulled up a seat at one of her monitors, pressing the illuminated and orange buttons with nimble swiftness. Then, he leaned back and stared at the monitor for just a moment.

He felt so foreign in this seat; while coming into this room was barely an issue for him anymore, he felt bad to sit in this seat. It seemed... unfaithful. He tried to relax, and took off his visor for a moment, rubbing his eyes with the tips of his talons. He set down the visor on the table and opened his eyes, glancing at the names of all of his teammates... his squad mates on Omega. He glanced over the scratching of one name; Sidonis, the one that he thought had betrayed them all. It had been her... She had figured out the truth, that Sidonis wasn't a traitor, just simply a coward. One that he couldn't shoot. She had convinced him to give Sidonis a second chance, to live up to his mistakes.

He grimaced a little and then put the visor back on, fixing it onto the left side of his face with great care, before he opened up the computer in front of him. The screen was blinking at him with a green light, and he typed through the settings until he found the video logs. Plenty of them were there, one for almost every day of the missions that she had served upon the Normandy. He resisted the urge to look at them, and instead he started up a new log, a new journal entry.

He coughed once into his hand and stared at the screen. He hunched his shoulders so as to fit his tall torso into the shot, enough for his scarred face to show. He then made a great sigh.

"Alright... how the hell did you even start one of these? Well... I guess I'm improvising." The turian chuckled a little and shook his head. "What else is new... I'm really not cut out for this crap. But... anyway.

It's been a day since the Reapers were wiped off the face of the universe. I don't know if this is going to count as some new era for all of organic life, so I guess I'll just call it Day One. The SSV Normandy has crash-landed on Eden Prime... the place where it all began with the Reapers and Saren. It's funny how things work out. We're not doing too badly though. We managed to escape from the blast when the Citadel and the Catalyst destroyed the Reapers, and to get to Eden Prime? Not bad at all. It's relatively close to the Sol System, the Apien Crest... hell, most of us will probably see our homes sometime in our lifetime.

It's a grim day, though. When the Reapers were destroyed, EDI went along with it. I knew that she had Reaper technology within her, but I didn't think... I thought maybe that she had enough technology separate from the Reapers that she could survive. She didn't seem to mind though. EDI never does... Joker's taking it alright as well. I feel for the guy... finally finds a bit of love in this universe and then-"

The turian stopped, as if trying to get his bearings. He looked down at his hands and his mandibles quivered a bit. He looked devastated for a quick moment, and then he seemed to regain his composure. His eyes narrowed and he looked back up at the camera, giving a deep sigh.

"This isn't a personal journal. Gotta focus. Repairs should go pretty quickly, actually. Joker managed to get us all out of the worst of it.

We had a little ceremony, for those that had died. Legion, Mordin, EDI, the Admiral... you." The turian grimaced. He didn't feel like going through with this, but honestly... looking at the screen, pretending that someday she would come back and hear it all... he had to address it this way. It was the only way he was going to get through the entire log. He took a deep breath again and continued.

"I didn't put your name up on the wall. I thought you were dead once. The others keep telling me that it's likely idiocy, that there was no way that ANYONE could survive that. But, I'm ignoring them. There are some who voice it out loud, their thoughts about me not putting your name up on the memorial wall, and there are others who are keeping silent, but I know that they're all thinking the same thing... that you're dead. And I'm not going to accept that.

I still haven't gotten to that bar yet. I refuse to think that you have."

He lightly bit his tongue, not enough to puncture with his sharp teeth, but enough to keep his grip. Then he continued.

"You're alive somewhere, Jane Shepard. I know you are. I know you. I don't know if I'll ever see you again until we DO get to that bar, but knowing you're alive will be enough for me. The SSV Normandy has made me Acting Captain until we get off of Eden Prime and bring the Normandy back to the Alliance forces. I intend to give them back their property, at the very least. I'll then see if I can keep the crew together; we've all got our races we have to go back to, but if anyone is going to keep the galactic peace that you put in, it's going to have to be us."

He stared at the screen with focus.

"We'll keep your peace, Shepard. You fought for it. It was everything you wanted. We'll maintain it."

He grimaced a bit, and then nodded. "Right. Well... that's it for now. Vakarian out."

Chapter Notes

- This chapter was written about a half an hour after I completed the game. I don't think I've felt inspired to write so quickly. I always have dreams, but rarely do they translate so well to the paper.

- In this game, Mordin, Legion and EDI all died; Mordin cured the genophage, Legion gave independence to the geth AND the quarians were saved, and the Destroy path was taken. At the end of the game (and much to my delight), my love interest (Garrus) didn't put Shepard's name on the wall and Shepard was seen breathing in the rubble.

- I decided that the place that they crashed was Eden Prime. I looked at the Galaxy Map, located what was close to the Sol System, and saw that the Exodus Cluster was close by, which was where Eden Prime was located. It seemed to me like a poetic place to crash land; the place where it all began. While I understand that the Mass Relay from Sol was connected to Arcturus, it just didn't make sense to me to have it anywhere in the Arcturus systems. So, I'm going to safely assume that Joker was not using the Mass Relays and that the technology gained in the future was enough to propel a ship with full fuel to another star cluster. Definitely a pain in the ass unless Fuel Depots are set up in every single cluster, but not impossible.

- This playthrough was with Liara as an ME1 interest, followed by Garrus for 2 and 3. I made each decision in the game consciously, giving reasons for each one of them, so maybe I'll disclose a chapter on that decision.

- Music listened to:
Pink - Fucking Perfect

Breaking Benjamin - Without You