A Purpose
Grace Shepard - Colonist, Sole Survivor, Soldier, Paragon. A small peek into the mindset and origin of Commander Shepard as she prepares to go through the Omega 4 Relay.
Her life had been defined by loss – loss of her family, her friends, all she had known, on Mindoir; loss of her entire squad, her comrades, on Akuze; loss of her crew, her ship, her life at Alchera. It had left a deep wound, no doubt; secretly, she was more than a little broken.
She joined the military because if only she had known how to shoot a damn gun, she might have been able to save someone on Mindoir. Now she could shoot all the guns, and did so repeatedly, enacting a little vengeance for the past on each and every bad guy (not that she would ever admit that to anyone). Ironically for a rocket-launcher-wielding soldier, deep down she was sensitive and emotional, but long ago erected "absolute bad-ass" walls around that fact.
But the impossibility of being the sole survivor, twice, had instilled in her a deep-seated belief that she had a higher purpose – to save everyone she could. It also made her consider from time to time whether she had found God in those dark places where she was alone, the only one left alive. The impossibility of surviving (so to speak) a third time had transformed that belief of a higher purpose into a nearly single-minded obsession.
She was, unsurprisingly, an intensely private person. But Kaidan, well, Kaidan was the first person she had ever started to let in, to see what was on the other side of the walls. Horizon had been an utter shock, though in retrospect it probably shouldn't have been – her life had been defined by loss, just add him to the list. His noncommittal message later to her could, if she chose, be a tiny thing to hold on to against the rapidly vanishing possibility of any future for them at all. But after Horizon, after discovering that Anderson, her mentor and one of her few real friends, didn't trust her, was actively spying on her, she shut off all those feelings of attachment, of weakness, of need.
Saving the galaxy had made her complacent, comfortable; but that was gone now, replaced with nothing but cold, icy determination. The universe had made it abundantly clear that she had a purpose, and it wasn't to be happy.
No, her purpose was clear - kill all the bad guys, save everyone.