A/N: Hehe, fun with italics :D. Maybe over did it, maybe didn't...

The attic was dusty and making it much too hard to breath on the two teenagers' lungs. Benjamin drifted forward, eager to discover some mystery as it was his idea to search the annex, and had recruited his sister's sharp sight to help. Terra had obeyed her older brother's begging and even though she wasn't going to admit it anytime soon, she too was curious as to what hid inside the untouched portion of the house.

Cobwebs seemed to find a comforting home in the upper level of her home, spinning their silk freely as if they had bought and payed for it. She was glaring at a messy web she could identify to a black widow and it suddenly popped into view. The arachnid's beady orbs of kohl dared the teen to step any closer, her legs propped for an attack. Terra shook her head at the personification her mind had created for the deadly thing and strode up ahead, murmuring the humiliation of loosing a stare-off to a less intelligent animal.

"Over here," Benjamins voice carried over, "Check it out. Old disks! These must be Mom and Dad's!" The older sibling's attitude turned one of a toddler as he laughed triumphantly, pointing a finger at his sister. "I told you we would find something." Benjamin was very proud at the moment. Though he mostly likely failed to notice that his sister's shut mouth was not out of failure but of the fact that her brother had just posed in a heroic stance, with his fist bent to touch his sides and his knee bent to rest on an invisible object. Like the guy on the beer boxes.

Oh, God, Ben.

Benjamin continued talking. "Here," He shoved a box towards her, labeled with her mother's name, "You can search through these. Make sure to tell me if you find anything good. I'm still fairly certain Mom hates Aunt Elisa, but only this will tell." Ben lifted a box for himself, the name of their father's name plastered on the side. Terra looked at the box in her hands and thought back to the arachnid she had just visited in the corner. She released.

"What are you doing?" Her brother's whisper-yell was shocked as Terra dropped the box onto the freezing floor. Dust whipped around from under the container, climbing the sides. They both coughed as the dust bowl subsided. When Ben looked back to his sister she was rubbing her hand on her pants vigorously, as if they carried illness. Her voice sounded very much like that of a young girl seeing a scary costume on Halloween, "Check it for spiders first."

Girls are such wimps. Benjamin exhaled slowly and lifted the box to check after setting his own down. He pointed to all the corners in a silent 'nothings there'. "Now, come on, we have to check these out before they come home." Terra's mouth formed to shout her protests but her brother continued. "Don't be such a girl scout. It's better for us to find them than some strangers millions of years from now, right?" These could be relics in the future. What rights do stranger have to look at our parents' belongings but not us? The box was tossed into her hands.

Terra took a breath and nodded her head at her brother's words. These files were just stored in cyberspace, just waiting to be explored. And they where the only ones with a slight reasoning to look at them. They walked down the stair; Ben pulled the door shut behind him with a dull thud.

She broke off from her brother, each going into their separate rooms on opposite sides of the spacious hallway. The door shut behind her, and she sat so that her knees bent before her and her ankles crossed each other, the mattress of foam forming to her comfort. The box tore open with a dull shink as the tape split. Terra brought her arm up, the orange omni-tool glowing around her forearm as she adjusted the settings to fit those of the old data she held in her hand. A video started to play and everything but the omni-tool faded in her mind. A woman came into view, her mother. Mom...

»»»»

The table shook slightly as she fell into her chair. She wiped her hands in her hair as if she could not believe what she was about to do. The breath she exhaled only emphasized the woman's frustration.

Her arm went out of the screen for a second, not realizing it was already recording. The mumbled push of the button could be heard and the woman steeled her nerves as she rung her hands.

"Damn it" She mumbled. It was followed by a rough exhale. Her eyes focused slightly towards the side. Probably looking towards the mirror. Close to the lens but not quite looking at the camera.

"My name is Tzorah Shepard. I am part of the Alliance Military and, recently, the first human Spectre. I am twenty-nine years old, and command, and serve, on the SSV-Normandy." The woman was, indeed, her mother. Red hair, blue eyes, dark freckles that didn't bring attention... Scar cutting across from her eyebrow to her check on the opposite side of her face. That certainly wasn't there now. Maybe it was the quality of the recording, but Terra could swear that her mother's eyes were a shade lighter.

"I've been a girl-scout my whole life! I never broke the rules! This-This is ridiculously wrong!" The red- haired Shepard mumbled to herself. Her hands were rapped in her hair, pulling at her mind for an answer. Tzorah's face slowly looked upwards again. "I am what humanity thinks is the best and I can't even keep the first rule in the whole damn Alliance!" She shook her head again, "I could die tomorrow and I should be feeling scared, or horrified, or disgusted with myself. And all I can do is fret around like a little child. I blushed today! The commander of an advanced warship and I blushed!

"Mom, I'm going to do what you always ordered me to do. Talk through it." Tzorah sighed again and her anger with whatever she was referring to was turning into an upset child. She was never good at talking. Her frustration could be sung through the bullets she fired and sadness through gun-salutes and folding flags. She could share emotions with the people around her.

When she was on ships with her parents, and someone would pass away, everyone else would know them and mourn with her and her family.

But now there weren't enough bullets to deal with the emotional singularity she was feeling. She was sick of sharing emotions, and as much as her conscious would not admit it, she enjoyed being the only one to feel this. Even with the self-agonizing tries of 'This isn't right, snap out of it.' This was her being not being selfless. She would not share this with anyone. She wasn't even sure if she was going to tell him.

Tzorah's voice was cracked when she next spoke, and neither of them knew if the fear was what caused it the tremor, or the feeling of the hammer at Tzorah's chest,

"I am in love with my lieutenant."

I was thinking of making this multi-chapter but I'll let you decide. If I did multi-chapter then I might include Benjamin's watching of Kaidan and his video. I also might have them wondering if their parent is talking about their spouse (So like Terra wondering if Tzorah was talking about her dad or another man and Ben wondering if Kaidan is talking about another woman. Not sure if their parents were in love with other people...)...

But you guys decide if they are confused about the people their parents are mentioning. And you also decide if this is a one-shot or multi-chapter. :D

Thank you for reading and drop a review if you can.

Thank you!