CHAPTER 1
With the suicide mission over with nil casualties, Normandy has docked in the Citadel. Shepard has met with the council in person and debriefed them about the details of the entire collector saga. Without any surprise the council still seemed sceptical about the existence of the Reapers accounting the Collectors as just another genetically twisted off-shoot of the Protheans. Disgusted with their continued denial, Shepard left them and headed for Ilium for a month shore-leave.
Dr. T'Soni has terminated the ever-permeated Shadow-broker with the help of Shepard and his friends and has herself assumed the role of new Shadow-broker. This event took place soon after the Collector ship mission when Shepard thought if he can help Liara eliminating the Shadow-broker and rescuing Feron then she may agree to join his cause just like old times. But he was wrong!
Before acquiring the Reaper-IFF, Shepard has also destroyed the mass relay in the Batarian space while rescuing Dr. Amanda Kenson from the planet Aratoht (where he went alone after receiving a request from Admiral Hackett), thereby delaying the Reaper Invasion and accounting for over 2000000 death. There he witnessed the Reaper-artefact vision one more time and have confronted with Harbinger who in turn threatened him to wait for their final Arrival. After returning and meeting Hackett in the Normandy med-bay, he had to convince himself that somewhere down the timeline he has to face the music of what he had done to Batarian system.
John Shepard is a soldier by class and by heart. An earthborn without any family, he joined the Alliance, whether by fate or destiny he doesn't know (but that's a different story). He was awarded the Star of Terra award after he had almost single-handedly dealt with the Batarian pirates and slavers at Elysium, thereby saving hundreds of lives in the human colony.
Shepard, as he views himself, is actually alone, very much alone in his mind; though he shares a great camaraderie with his squad members, he had not yet picked up any love interest. He sometimes considers himself solitarist in his personal life but never ever let his friends understand this, though some of them (like Kelly, Kasumi, Samara, Miranda and Dr Chakwas) have guessed his all-time loneliness. Shepard had always thought that he may be suffering from a disease where a person gets pleasure in the agony by isolating himself from the rest. He had tried really hard to have a control on this issue. Hence, he had made it his routine since Normandy SR1, to visit and interact with each and every squad members twice a day, if possible, with a hope that this initiative will help him get over with his condition.
While he had been following this up as a 'medicine' initially, later his routine became his addiction to share and feel the joy, miseries and sufferings of his fellow team-mates; treading on which he developed great friendships of various degrees and variation with all the squad-mates. He truly considers all of them as his family. Feeling so he has tried, till his last sweat, to help them in every way possible – to help someone uniting with either the sister, who was in danger by her own father or the son who became disconnected, to help someone finding ten-year lost father or one time student and colleague, to help killing the daughter by her own mother or the long-time lost mate who blew half the other's face or to convince someone not to shoot someone who has betrayed his own teams, to help someone rescuing either the dead lover and his memories or from the dreadful memories developed in a abominated Cerberus base, to help someone either finding a clan and a krantt or helping clear the name in a case of falsely unjustified treason.
For Shepard even the Geth platform was evolving – not an evolution from unicellular to multi-cellular organism but from inorganic sentience to an organic consciousness, which goes true for the ship's artificial intelligence also. Shepard in other sense was really fascinated by life all across, by consciousness ever pervading. Perhaps, this was the reason he was so bull-headed to conserve and help life all across the galaxy even if it meant by his own life.
As for other relations were concerned, Kasumi had got Jacob crushed on her which was a huge gossip few months back until they were 'officially' declared as a couple just after the Hagalaz mission.
While there has been something going on between Joker and Kelly but none were able to catch them 'red-handed' as both of the couple has been playing safe till date. It was Dr. Helen Chakwas and Dr. Mordin Solus who saw the smoke first and guessed there would be fire - told the commander during one of his routine round.
The ex-convict who never even dreamt of in her wildest nightmare to consider the 'Cerberus bitch' to be even an acquaintance has now developed a peculiar love-hate relationship with 'her' cheerleader. Though Miranda is not sure of the prognosis but it was evident to her and even all other crews that both of them are presently grazing on a land beyond friendship.
Sometimes back there was a spicy gossip that the ex-mercenary warlord has some crush on the Normandy's doctor, the feeling which probably developed soon after the collectorship mission where he suffered a near fatal injury to his chest and was in the med-bay for a week or so. Though Helen apparently pretended ignorance about this but confessed to her commander after both of them shared a bottle of Serrice Ice brandy after Zaeed's recovery. Now-a-days both the doctor and the mercenary warlord are seen together either in the med-bay or in the mess gossiping or god-knows-what. To everybody's surprise, the mercenary warlord has undergone 180 degree rotation in his attitude after this 'relation' with the doctor. He has become a father-like figure to Jack and a mentor to the tank-bred Krogan, though till today he has not ceased his past habit of exorbitant story-telling even if getting a small window of opportunity.
The drell assassin and the turian had developed a friendship so far that Kasumi, Kelly and Jack termed them as gays, though that was not the reality.
The salarian genius was sometimes found wondering in the cargo-port with Grunt or sometimes in the Starboard observatory with the Justicar. When asked he would say that he was working on something to do with Krogan regeneration and Asari biotic abilities.
Legion and the quarian engineer have developed an excellent working relationship and often found quarrelling like an old-married couple on some tech issues either in the server-room or in the engineering bay. It was Legion who first intercepted a message from Tali sent to Kal Reegar (obviously without Tali's knowledge) immediately after Tali was cleared out from the charge of treason, where the stout quarian marine and Veetor had helped Shepard gaining the control of the house. When the geth showed the message to the commander requesting John to help the 'platform' to understand the emotional aspects of organic relationship, the poor commander – after going through the message felt steam erupting from his ears; increased breathing; cheeks and the nasal muscle so red – which made the geth declare that its commander was about to explode; that Shepard had to rush to the bathroom in his quarter to sate his primitive urges and save his face from the embarrassment in front of the inorganic platform. Perhaps from that day onwards he mentally determined not to check any 'private' message and also warn the same to the geth platform.
Gabby and Ken, though thought themselves to be over smart that their boss won't be able to guess about their budding relationship, but one day was caught red-handed by the master thief. While Tali staged the drama of going to the women's restroom, giving the couple a chance to be desperate but had Kasumi waiting hidden in the engineering bay just to jump on to the ripest moment when both the junior engineers were embracing each other in a kiss, probably more than passionate. The poor couple had no place to hide their embarrassment, knowing the entire act was recorded by the thief in her omni-tool. That day – both – the quarian and the thief had a laugh of their life.
It was Tali and Kelly who noticed that the ship's AI was acting out of the line when it came to Legion. Though, as per Tali, EDI was more 'mature' in relationship matter but it was still the geth who was having a headstrong trouble in building consensus on romance and facing great hardship in developing new codes on this front to be included in its runtime. Later, the ship's pilot told everyone that EDI has developed one-sided love with the inorganic platform while he was having his mid-day meal in the mess and nearly everyone present. Probably, as an act of revenge, EDI openly declared the relationship Joker was having with the ship's yeoman; as a consequence of which Joker nearly choked to death with food particles stuck in his wind-pipe; Kelly while being served by the Normandy cook – lost control and dropped her food-tray with ear-splitting cling and noise creating a muddle of splattered meat, loaf and health-soup all over the mess-floor. The turian was having his meal with a spoon in his right hand while supporting his weight on the table with his left elbow – suddenly found his elbow slipped and got his face smacked on his food tray which made Jacob choke so much that his eye-ball made such an appearance, as it were, they were about to come out of their sockets. Kasumi, who was sitting beside the ex-alliance, on an attempt to resuscitate Jacob from choking while stroking his back and chest got her hand accidentally hit on the food-tray held by Zaeed (who was trying to find a place to seat and have his meal) the mercenary got off balance - in order to stabilize the tray swayed his hips and hands like circus gymnast – finally failed miserably slipping and landed on his butt with the food tray landing on his head upside down creating another earth shattering noise of utensils and obscenities by the mercenary himself. Jack while watching all the events and having tough time suppressing her laughter finally gave up and had burst out with mirth so strong that the food which was in her mouth shot out like a concussive round and hit Miranda straight in her face who was sitting just opposite to her. Seeing this, the tank-bred Krogan who was just entering the mess hall bursted out in laughter failing to see Zaeed on the floor, just stumbled on to him and lost his foot-hold on a scattered meat-piece and slipped on Zaeed's left leg with a bone crunching sound. Zaeed was on the verge of human sanity while uttering words so obnoxious which otherwise would have melted a pack of varrens. Overall, it was a complete and typical definition of chaos. Later that day, Zaeed's was again admitted to Med-bay for 6 days with a fracture on his left lower leg; obviously much to his delight he thought to thank EDI for giving him another opportunity to spend the time with Helen.
A/N - First time writing a fiction. Please be gentle. Am not a tech guy - in the sense I may not be quoting technically correct terms from the game. My purpose is to enhance member interaction either in the form of camaraderie or romance or humor from everyone's point of view. Would appreciate the reviews.