Mass Effect: Ryder's in the Sky

by Eclipse-Sol

Starting out as a one-shot, but may become more. Natalie Ryder stands on the Ark, staring at her pod, and thinks about her journey, both past, and to come. Explores my characters' head cannon, which will be used if this becomes a proper story. (The O.C is Sara Ryder, simply my character of her.)

I stood there, staring at the small pod that would house me for the next 600-odd years, around me were those who were already in cryo-sleep. It was eerie. I didn't like it, it felt wrong.

"They have only fallen asleep." I kept repeating those word, time and time again, trying to soothe my growing discomfort.

As I stared at the pod, I began to think about what it is we were leaving, and what it is we would see when we arrive.

The great Commander Shepard was dead. The first human Spectre. Hero of the Blitz, and Lioness of Elysium. She was truly who the young aspired to be. But she was dead. When I wake, 600 years from now, I will be in a new galaxy, and everyone I know will have been long dead.

I wonder, would we be lost to the annuls of history, or would we be trail blazers? Leading the frontier. I hoped we would be remembered.

I can remember how it was that I was convinced to take part in this initiative.

Mom had just died. There was nothing me, my younger brother, or my father could do. My brother and I, we got past it, eventually, and it still hurts to talk about, but our father? He never gave up, even as we all were coming to terms with it, before she had died, he was there, making SAM, trying to find ways to save her.

I know I shouldn't but I blame myself in a way. Perhaps if I hadn't been so passive and helped him with his research, then maybe she would be here with us. I've never told anyone that. It's my burden to bare.

After mom had died, and SAM was finished, dad was approached by someone, he never mentioned it, at all, but someone had to. He had run out of funding, yet he always managed to find the money, and now he's leading a Pathfinding team? Both my brother and I agree that someone else was helping him.

He told us he was going over dinner when we all on leave one day, and being the only family we had left, we joined him. Ryders stay together. Always

Several months of briefings and absolutely insane training sessions, and here we are. The Ryder family, leaving the Milky Way.

Perhaps for the best. A new start and all.

One final glance around me 'They have only fallen asleep' and I enter my pod, closing my eyes as a cold yet welcoming embrace finds me.

A/N: Just a quick one shot at my Ryders' head cannon, before she enters cryo. Maybe I'll make it a full series, try to at least. (I don't have the best track record so far, though they aren't dead, they have just fallen asleep (Everyone who gets the reference gets a virtual cookie.)) Reviews are welcome, but I wanted to post this, the ending of the game left me so inspired, that the same night, I sent a very long letter to Bioware complete with what i thought worked, what didn't and my personal thoughts on the game (bloody amazing, by the by,) and wrote this, so seeing as this was about one in the morning, it may not be the longest or the best.