Author's Note: I want to go ahead and warn readers about the content of this story. It contains stalker themes and might be triggering for some. As such it is not recommended for all readers.

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Obsession – Chapter 1

The Clone was starting to worry her.

He'd been rather quiet over the last few days. That in of itself wasn't a bad thing; the real Shepard tended to be somewhat soft spoken as well. But this was not a natural silence. This was the kind of silence that surrounded oneself when you became resolutely focused on a single task or idea. Leaning on the doorframe to his room, Hope Lilium looked upon the Clone, a sense of dread settling in her chest as she watched his single minded quest.

The teaching had been going well. He'd been learning everything there was to know about Shepard; his moves, his tactics, his mannerisms. The Clone had been watching playbacks of Shepard's missions during his stint with Cerberus when things started to change.

The mission on Horizon. The Clone ignored everything useful to be gleaned from the events, from the Collector connection with the Reapers to how Shepard and his team operated. No, instead the Clone became fixated with one single person.

Ashley Williams. Hope knew Shepard had bumped uglies with his crew member back during the Saren mission, but she'd done her best to keep that little piece of information away from the Clone. What did it matter who Shepard slept with? When the Clone became Shepard, he could have his choice of any number of mates. Multiple of them, probably. Why should the Clone care about some military grunt?

But Hope didn't know about the falling out Shepard had with Williams after the colony was saved. Didn't know Williams confessed she had loved Shepard. That was what took a hold of the Clone's attention. Hope tried beating it into him that love did not exist, that it was a silly trick people played upon themselves. But he never listened. The Clone believed in love, and he had found someone to fall in love with.

From there his studies had completely veered off, no longer about Shepard, but about Williams. He meticulously read through every bio he could find, memorizing details from her early life, to her middle years, and through her military career to the present date. She'd become quite the confidant among the Alliance, and there were rumors she might be next in line to become a human Spectre.

But his research was not entirely professional. The Clone found every scrap of William's love life he could find, from high school boyfriends to chat room rumors about her affair with Shepard. He went back through old logs of the Saren mission, discovering details he had looked over before that alluded to Williams and Shepard being together.

And now he was just sitting in his dark room, his terminal's low blue light washing over him as he devoured the pages on the screen. The Clone had created a new folder, but this one was entirely purposed to showcasing pictures of Ashley Williams. He'd somehow amassed hundreds of photos. School pictures, stills of her in combat, photographs snuck of her while out and about in casual wear doing more mundane things, nothing was safe. Hope was loath to think of how he would act if he could find pictures of Williams that were more… tawdry.

Hope cleared her throat. The Clone ignored her. She cleared her throat more loudly. He only spared her the briefest of glances before going back to his 'work.'

She sighed and pushed off the wall, walking into the sparse room. "I still don't see how this woman is so fascinating to you," she said condescendingly.

"She's perfect," he whispered reverently.

"Perfect?" Hope sneered. She looked over his shoulder to get a better look at one of the pictures. Sure, Williams had a nice body, and she could certainly fill out a set of armor, and she wasn't all that bad to look at. But there was nothing special about her. Brown hair, brown eyes, a larger than average nose. Williams didn't even possess any biotic or advanced tech skills, choosing to simply be a dumb, gun toting military soldier.

"If you want perfect, why not go after Lawson?" she suggested. "She was practically engineered to be best a human could be."

The Clone shook his head. "That's just it; she was engineered. She's the sum of egotism and genetic manipulation. There's nothing natural about her. Besides, how is she so perfect if she can't even have a child?"

Well, Hope did have to give him that point.

His voice dropped back down to the reverent whisper that unsettled her. "But Ashley is natural. She's perfect because evolution has led to this point, a series of random genetic load outs that have eventually led to her. Strong, beautiful, capable. The only augmentations she has are an in utero treatment that prevented her from being near sighted and a Class-B Infantry Upgrade Package. Ashley was built from her superior genes and her own accomplishments, not what was designed for her."

"You do realize her grandfather was the general who surrendered to Turian forces during the First Contact War, yes?"

The Clone merely shrugged. "I do not believe in punishing the son for the sins of the father. Besides, most people would hide from a heritage like that and shun it themselves. But Ashley did not. She embraced it, and kept moving forward even when the Alliance threw all they had at her to keep her down. If she is not bothered by her family's history, why should I be?"

Hope didn't like how he kept using Williams' first name. Too… personal. "Where are you going with this?" she asked, exasperated.

The Clone finally turned to her with a stoic expression. "What is it you once told me? What I'd become after I surpass Shepard and defeat the Reapers."

She looked at him with a queer expression. "I said you would be like a king, ruling all from upon the stars." Hope also planned on being the New Shepard's adviser, pulling the strings so that the real power always lay with her. But he didn't need to know that.

"Why?"

In a voice devoid of any doubt, he asked, "What kind of king would I be if I had no queen?"