"What?"

Shepard said, dumfounded.

"I'm sorry child it's, it's just we can't do anything about it."

The reality hit her like a blunt fist. She had nowhere else to go. She had been so naïve to think that it would all work out well in the end and Anderson and that woman Kahlee, who he constantly droned on about, would take care of her and they would have her own happily ever after. But fairy tales are bullshit. She should've realised that back on Mindoir, but she entertained the thought of a happy ending long enough to actually believe in one. I was so stupid she thought.

"So…" she looked up at Anderson who was sitting across the cramped military room that he was kind enough to get for her. And then to Smiley who was sitting perched on top of her bunk, seemingly distracted by the wall in front of him. "What do you we do now? Do I just get dumped at some orphanage?"

"It's not going to be like that Shepard." Anderson said with sincerity.

"Yes it is." Smiley interrupted bluntly. "We have to ditch her at an orphanage." He muttered "No point in lying to her."

Anderson shot him a stern glare. That shut him up but not without a shake of a head in protest.

"But-" Shepard was worrying; her uncertainty coated her like thin ice. She looked to Anderson for reassurance. "Is that just it for me? What about a future?"

"You will still have one; I'll make sure of that. You'll just have to trust me."

The comfort Anderson provided was abruptly killed by the cynical snort from Smiley, which earned him another deadly glare.

Shepard was still worried. "What will happen to me?" She asked generally concerned. "I don't want to be sold to some asshole people."

"Let me just get this clear" Smiley interrupted "because you need to be prepared for what you're going into. You don't have to go off with someone you don't like the look of; it's your decision who adopts you. So if you see someone who looks like a murderer or a sex offender…"

"Smiley" Anderson warned, "Enough."

A long silence cut through the room, Shepard looked to Anderson then to Smiley then back down at her feet in defeat.

"Can't I just take care of myself?" She asked innocently.

"No. You have to be eighteen to live by yourself." Smiley's tone lacked compassion; it was the unusual dead seriousness that Anderson witnessed after Mindoir.

Anderson spoke up "On the bright side you can still go to school."

It almost made Shepard laugh. She couldn't have a home but she could go to fucking school.

"You have to face the facts. I don't want you believing in some fairy-tale bullshit for you to suddenly be in an unpredictable hell" Smiley continued "being an orphan is pretty shitty. There are plenty of political assholes that will see a nice pretty orphan like you and use you, you don't want that."

Shepard did not like the sound of that, she quivered at the thought. Anderson's eyes screamed at Smiley to shut up.

"Miles!" Anderson yelled but then he quickly regained his composure. "It's not going to be like that-"

"Don't bullshit her David! You know that I know better that anyone that false hope drives people insane! That a happy ending is a bunch of fairy-"

"Get out!" Anderson snapped. "Now"

Miles met his stern gazed as the air in the room seemed to go stale. They stared at each other in silence urging the other to back down, tightening the invisible ropes that were present when they both entered the room to tell her the news. Tension was so tight she bet if one of the ropes snapped she would be cut in half by the backlash. Miles and Anderson were both postured for the kill, both ready to whip out at each other.

Suddenly Miles jumped down from the bunk and left the room, seething. Not once did Anderson make eye contact with him, his gaze fell to the floor like a lifeless body, defeated. This time it was Shepard who broke the silence.

"I'm sorry if… you know… if I made things icy between you two."

Anderson looked up. "Smiley will get over it; he's not one to hold a grudge."

Shepard thought about the things he said, she tried to reassure herself but it wasn't working. His words lingered like a bad taste in the back of her mouth. "Why does he have to be such an ass?"

"Smiley's been through more than any sane man could take. Sometimes I wonder if he finally has gone mad." His thoughts drifted off. "His sarcasm hides a lot of things; you have to keep an open mind when talking to him. You can't condemn a man for being a bit broken, or for being an ass."

She smiled a sour smile. "So, the things he said were true huh?"

Anderson speculated about it. He knew the reality of being an orphan was cold as water under a frozen lake. He wasn't going to lie to her. Smiley was right; too much false hope will destroy a person, he probably should've told her the truth a few days ago when they picked her up on Mindoir.

"Yes" he said "but I promise I'll see to it that you will have a bright future ahead of you."

She breathed a long sigh of relief. But uncertainty was still stacked on her shoulders, "Thank you Anderson." she said, anxiety still glimmering in her eyes. She paused for a moment. "Anderson… I don't want to be adopted." She felt like a cold wind past through the room.

"Are you sure that's what you want Shepard?" Anderson asked carefully.

"Yes, that's what I want. I don't want someone that pretends to be my mom or my sister or someone that pretends to love me"

Anderson bit his lip and tried rephrasing his question "That's not what I meant, what I meant is: are you sure that's what's best is for you Shepard?"

She contemplated that thought, but she was still dismissive "Isn't what I want, the best for me?"

"No," Anderson answered immediately, "it hardly ever is. That's something that you will learn as you get older and reflect back on the decisions you've made.

Shepard kept an open mind and nodded simply.

"The Einstein is heading to earth after we stop off at Arcturus. I'll see if I can pull a few strings and get you set up somewhere nice. I have also arranged for good education as well as a good councillor."

She looked at Anderson ready to protest but he just continued "It's mandatory, I'm sorry. But she's good, though in the mean time you will still have to see the ships councillor until we reach earth." Shepard still looked defeated. Her entire life was set astray during the course of the past three days. "Though you seem to be taking things incredibly well for what you've been through." He went on.

"It's not like it doesn't upset me," her eyes drifted to look at nothing "it does." She examined the bland wall opposite her. "But I just try to forget how it all felt." She shook her head violently as if she was trying to shake the clinging memory out of her brain. Then she finally asked him:

"Why is it we forget what we want to remember and remember what we want to forget?"

Anderson thought for a while, the room was shrouded in a thick silence. "I don't know," he answered finally.

He left shortly after, leaving her with nothing better to do than to take out her delicate sketch book and draw nothing in particular.

"I think you missed a bit!" Garrus said, swiping his dirty mop in Agonus' general direction. The nasty toilet water scored a direct hit on the centre of his face. Agonus laughed.

"Don't be a bony ass Vakarian!" He said as he retaliated with his own salvo of watery crap. "This is our last day, no need to ruin it by flinging shit at each other like those Humans!" Garrus laughed so Agonus continued his jest. "Did you know that humans used to be furry little balls of hair with tails called apes?"

Garrus snorted "What like Pyjacks?"

"Exactly like Pyjacks."

They both shared a good laugh. Garrus and Agonus had spent four hours after school on the day before their weekend doing community service in dumps, sewers, morgues, temples, retirement homes, rich people's houses, hospitals, factories, schools and toilets for the past three galactic years. It still surprised them both how their close friendship started off by Garrus nearly killing Agonus.

Garrus' father took up his son's defence once he realised they couldn't find a good lawyer. He managed to convince the supreme judge to give the same sentence to Agonus once he recovered; he said it was only fair after how he tormented Solana. "No good deed cancels out the bad, or the bad the good." He remembered his father saying. Agonus apologised to his sister almost immediately after waking up. Agonus even ended up liking Solana, though she still kept him at more than arm's length. But she was happy and confident again which made Garrus happy, she even got slightly thinner as an added bonus. Garrus kept all this as proof that people can change, though he sometimes wonders if he somehow rearranged his brain by smashing his head against a wall. Garrus shook his head and continued mopping. It's a silly thought, he thought.

"So…" Agonus began, wiping the manky water off his marked face. "Did you ask Asha out today or are you just generally in a good mood?"

The question caught Garrus totally of guard and he blushed madly as his mandibles flickered embarrassingly. Agonus could already see his friends answer.

"For spirits sake Garrus! What, did you leave your balls at home or something?"

"Shut up Agonus!"

Agonus huffed a disappointed laugh. "C'mon, how are you ever gonna be a Specter if you can't man up and ask a girl out?"

"I doubt Saren ever had to deal with someone like Asha." Garrus said timidly. "I mean spirits, have you seen that waist?"

Agonus pictured that waist in his head for a moment. "Tell you what" he said playfully "if you don't ask Asha out by the end of next week I will."

"Don't you dare!" Garrus blurted out but then rapidly curled up as if he was afraid someone would hear him. Curse his teenage self.

Agonus stopped for a minute to wipe the tear of laughter that was forming in his eye below his scarred forehead head. "You're hopeless, a hopeless closet romantic! Spirits Garrus you're thirteen!"

"Can we please change the subject?" Garrus said feeling mortified.

"No. We were talking about Asha's waist yes?"

"Agonus!" Garrus moaned.

"Alright, fine! You're no fun at all." He joked. "So, Specters huh?"

"Running around the galaxy chasing down bad guys with no rules to hold you back…" Garrus let a deep sigh escape his lungs. His eyes twinkled at the thought of the dream that he never really believed would come true. "What's not to love about that? It's like something out of those old fantasy adventure books. Just imagine it!" He was already starting to get lost in his own fantasy which exists only inside his head. Oh how he dreamed. Fantasised of a life full of action, adventure, justice, romance…

"Chasing after hot alien babes from one corner of the galaxy to the next…" Agonus said, ending his mental soliloquy.

Garrus fired another round of rank water at him which made him chuckle. "Is there anything on your mind that doesn't involve sex Agonus?" Garrus said, rolling his eyes.

"Nearly everything has something to do with it; it just depends on how you look at it." He replied smugly which earned him another overly dramatic eye role.

Garrus returned to his mopping duty, trying futilely to polish off the last reminisce of irritating crap from the stained floor. He tried to return to his fantasy about being a Spectre to pass the slow crawling time, but his mind just told him it was just a stupid dream. His mood dropped like a sack of weights.

"I'm sick of my dad overshadowing me." The sudden change in tone caught Agonus' attention. "Everyone who meets me says 'oh you're Marcus Vakarian's kid' and they always, always compare me to him. The teachers say 'Marcus was twice as good as you when he was your age' or 'when you grow up you should be a cop like your dad.' I'm sick of it." He said with strong animosity.

"I take it you're going somewhere with your monologue."

"My dad is never going to let me be a Specter." He said deflated. All the hopes and wonders vanished from his sub vocals and were replaced by a more morose tone of dejection.

"You don't know that!" Agonus said, trying to restore his friend's faith in his dream. It didn't work.

"Oh but I do."

"Could I ask you something?"

"Sure ask me anything"

In all her previous visits to the Einstein's councillor, Shepard never could word the question properly. But since they were to arrive at earth later that day and this was her last chance to ask it she thought: fuck it.

"I've been having this dream" She started, "it's been the same dream every night for a week, ever since we left Mindoir."

"That's to be expected, people suffering from PTSD tend to get recurrent dreams of what they've experienced." The councillor said, seeming somewhat bored. From what Shepard could tell, she couldn't blame the therapist since she was being quite bland; also, so many people had gone to see her after Mindoir, Zabaleta included. Shepard could see black weights of fatigue under her eyes.

"No this is different," she protested "this dream is completely unrelated." She paused to think. The councillor waited attentively for her to speak. "I'm skiing, which is weird because I've never seen real snow" she drifted slightly "but then there's a sudden avalanche and before I realise what's happening I'm buried under the snow."

"What happens next?"

"It's completely dark and I feel like I can't breathe even though it's a dream. I try to dig myself out but the more I do so the more snow falls in and the more it seems like I'm suffocating… which is silly because it's a dream"

The councillor stared at her curiously "Did you ever get out?"

"No. After a while I just let myself freeze and suffocate so I can wake up." The councillor thought about all that as a whole, yellow light glinted off her glasses as tilted her head in thought.

The councillor spoke "Well dreams consist of our thoughts, images, and emotions that are made as a by-product of our neural processes when we sleep." She shrugged "Some say they're influenced by our conscious experiences. So I don't think that they're completely unrelated to what happened on Mindoir…"

The councillor paused for a moment and then shrugged.

"They're just dreams Alex, they don't really mean anything."

She was a bit disappointed at the sudden anti-climax. "So, should I do anything about them?"

The room fell silent. It seemed to stay silent for an awkwardly long time.

"Record them somehow." She finally said. "Give it to your next councillor and maybe he or she will help you further."

Shepard nodded understandingly. The councillor was tired and needed sleep; she didn't want to be a burden on her. So she said thanks and got up to leave.

"Oh, Shepard one more thing: If you get that same dream again, don't stop digging until you're out of the cold."

She was halfway out the door before she realised what she said. She wasn't quite sure what she meant by it but she made a note to try it if she found herself buried in her dream again. She went back to her room and broke out her ancient sketchbook, now she knew exactly what she was going to draw.