A/N: My special wholehearted thanks to all of you lurkers, reviewers, readers. Your support really helps motivate me on a daily basis. So thank you for taking your time to do that. Shout outs to those who put me on fav author, the story on favs, and alerts!

Thank you sooo much to my co-monkey, betalicious beta, awesome author, sneaky minx and all around great friend RandomWittering, you are the best. Thanks for always being there to make sense of what I'm actually trying to say.

Special thanks to Isabella Monroe, for all the help, the late night brainstorming sessions, the last cannoli, being a wowtastic beta, mentor and great friend. Thank you for letting me bug you endlessly.

You two are amazing in your talent, and in your patience with me. I am so grateful to you both.

Last but not least, Warrose had to be in this box for being a good friend and slightly scary supporter.

To all the wonderful friends and sneaky monkeys I did not mention, I love you all too..

BioWare owns Alistair, New York owns the rest

Chapter 1

He stood there confused and bewildered, wondering where on... what had the old woman called it? Whatever this place was. Staring blankly, he ventured to ask her.

"I'm sorry ma'am but..ah..hm.. New York City?"

She regarded him for a moment before she turned her head slightly with an amused grin spread across her face as she spoke. "Yes sonny, New York. Where did you think you were? On Mars?"

'Oh great' Alistair thought to himself, not only was he very confused by what was going on around him, but now he had this old woman in front of him speaking in riddles. What the heck is this Mars she was talking about?

"No...yes...no..I don't know. I'm just a bit confused at the moment, I'm not really sure how I got here." Shaking his head, not knowing what to do or say.

He thought that maybe he was stuck in a dream, but a weird one, complete with lights, dogs being eaten and old ladies who liked poking people with sticks. He knew his name was Alistair, but the rest of his memory was extremely patchy and fuzzy. He wondered if he might be in some other part of the fade, maybe an alternate fade of some sorts. He thought back for a moment and he could vaguely remember a door made of light, but he couldn't remember where he saw it or what it did. He wondered if it might have been a fade door, but if it was, how would he find it again and if he found it, where would it lead?

"Oh, this is all so...so..unreal" Alistair said while slumping his shoulders in defeat. He rubbed his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose.

The old lady burst out laughing. "What's so unreal? The fact that you are in New York or that you look like the tin man from the Wizard of Oz? Where did you get those rusty old plates that you seem to think are clothes anyway?"

Alistair inspected his plate armor for a moment, while trying to remember where he had got it from or even how the heck he had gotten into it to begin with. "Uhm...I don't know exactly."

"Well, I can't stand here talking nonsense to you all day. The sun has set and I have things to do and not a lot of time to do them. So if your buddies still intend to rob me, I suggest they get on with it, if not then, good luck with doing...whatever you were doing. Goodbye sonny." And with that she turned around and started walking away.

Alistair watched in bewilderment as he watched the old woman walking away. He had no idea what to do or where to go, so he started following her as she was the only slightly familiar thing in this strange place. He kept his distance so that he didn't startle her. She walked slowly but steadily and he saw her crossing the frozen black river, walking in the direction of another dark alleyway.

He wondered to himself why an old woman would be walking in the dark as he followed, entering the alley after her. As he walked into the alley, he was shocked as three men jumped out in front of her.

"Hey, yo, grandma! Give up your purse, jewelry and your cellphone" the first thug sneered at her

"Yeah, grams. Give it up, unless you wanna get hurt or worse" the second man said as he stalked closer to her, trying to intimidate her with his size.

Alistair looked at the men in the alley as they preyed on the old lady, and he hesitated for only a moment before dashing in and jumping in front of her, putting himself as a shield between her and the them.

He stepped up to one of the thugs "What starts with come here and ends in ow?", The guy just looked at him as if he was crazy and Alistair sighed, grabbed hold of his weird tunic and jerked him towards him, headbutting him. He smiled in satisfaction as the thug howled 'OWW'

He KNEW fighting, he didn't know how he knew but he knew this, the adrenaline, the feeling of power. He knew he was missing a sword but he would just have to make do without it. He saw the glint of metal in the second man's hand and his lips peeled back in a feral grin as he was rushed at. He grabbed the hand holding the knife, letting it screech along his armor and as the momentum carried the man past him, twisted the hand behind the man's back, and forced him to release the knife. Alistair followed it up with a solid punch that staggered the thief.

As the last thug gaped at Alistair, the old woman came out of her shock and smacked him hard over the head with her stick and they gave up, shouting abuse as they ran away. Suddenly he and the old woman were facing each other, not knowing what to say

"Well you aren't just a cute guy in a tin can are you?" She said.

He gave her a sheepish grin and said. "No ma'am, I guess I was sent here to be your personal protector as well"

She looked into his eyes for the longest minute and then said, "You really seem like a kind soul, and I'm very good at judging people just from looking into their eyes. Yours look so sad young man, what happened to you?"

Alistair averted his eyes from her, trying to hide the fact that he didn't know what she saw because he wasn't sure himself, he didn't know where to go or who else he could turn to so he decided that telling her the truth would be the best thing in his current situation. It might also be the worst thing he could do, but he was going to have to take that chance.

"Well you see, it's like this. I woke up in an alley over there" pointing back in the direction they had come from. "I have no idea how I got here or even where here is. I don't know where I'm supposed to go or what I should be doing" He looked her squarely in the eyes, not hiding anything from her gaze.

"Do you have a name my boy? Or do I keep calling you sonny?" She asked, giving him a small smile.

"My name is Alistair, my lady, and it is an honor to meet you." He stretched out his hand to shake hers.

She shook his hand, "My dear boy, my name is Contessa, although everyone calls me Tess."

"I am pleased to meet you then Tess. May I escort you somewhere safe? I know you can be quite a terror with that walking stick of yours, but I would feel much better if I knew that you were safe" He said as he gave her his most honest smile

"Already being a charmer I see, trying to get me to take you home, huh?" She asked with a small smile creeping into the corners of her lips

"Ah..no..no ma'am. I honestly just want to know that you get to...wherever you are going, safely." He avoided looking at her as his cheeks warmed, intently scoping the rest of the alley to see if anyone else would bother her.

" Well alrighty, my knight in a tin can, you can come with me, but I need to make a pit-stop first" She declared while starting to walk to the opposite side of the alley.

"Thank you ma'am" he said as he fell in step beside her.

"No, no calling me ma'am or Madam, I'm Tess, just plain old Tess" she said as they were walking.

"As you wish then, Tess" He said.

They walked for quite a while and Alistair looked around in amazement as to all the new things that he saw. There were buildings that looked like they could touch the sky, there were these huge iron rods holding up lights on the sides on the frozen river, which Tess told him was a road. People walked around in their funny clothes, speaking their funny version of his language that Tess had called English when he'd asked about it. There were lots of stores selling a such a wide variety of things, he wouldn't have thought were needed at all. Some he didn't know what they could be used for or what he could even do with them. He looked at the displays in the shop windows, and saw weird statues that were definitely not made of stone, standing there with all types of odd clothes on. Some of the clothes they were wearing were great looking too, and he wondered what he would look like if he was wearing them. He saw one particular window display that he found fascinating. The shop was selling all kinds of pretty small clothes for woman and to him it was quite a sight to behold as he stared dumbly at how the well the panties and breastbands fit on the female statues. As he was reveling at the sight and blushing beetroot red as he did, he heard Tess speak.

"Now don't go ruining my good impression of you by turning into a perv," she said as she tapped on the window with her walking stick, to get his attention..

He smiled sheepishly at her, blushing even more than he was before and stammered, "Uhm.. sorry...sorry about that"

Tess just chuckled at him and said. "Come on, we still have some walking to do. We have to get all the way to little Italy before we can stop for a bit"

As they walked on, Alistair saw something that really grabbed his attention, he stopped mid stride and marveled at the window display in front of him. The whole window was stacked with big and small black boxes that had people in them. His eyes were glued to them and he wondered how the people got in there and how they got trapped inside. "WOW" was all he could get out before Tess grabbed him by the arm and muttered.

"TV will rot your brain, although I must say, last week's episode of CSI was a beauty"

As they continued on then turned a corner, Alistair was hit by all kinds of aromas. He could make out the smell of freshly baked bread and while the other scents were strange, they were equally alluring and it made his stomach grumble endlessly, his mouth beginning to water. Tess stopped in front of a building had large glass windows and quite a few tables and chairs inside. There was a kind of music playing he had never heard in his life, people sitting or standing around and having loud conversations, making jokes. He thought to himself 'Hmm, they really are a noisy bunch, but a noisy bunch that seem to be having a wonderful time'.

Tess looked at Alistair and said. " Come on in with me and I'll find you somewhere out of the way to sit, I just need to go check up on a few things." He followed her obediently and as soon as they entered, the noise level increased a great deal and it was a little overwhelming at first. Tess found him a table in the corner by the window and wall, away from the main bustle and noise.

She waited until he'd sat down and smiled at him, "I will be back soon so don't go anywhere. I come here every night to see my granddaughter and to make sure my family isn't mucking up my business."

"Okay Tess, I'll be right here if you need me" he regarded her with a smile.

She patted his hand and wandered off into the crowd, and his attention quickly taken by everything going on around him.

He was amazed at the sights in front of him, the people sitting and eating some type of stringy food and little balls of meat. There was a bar where others sat and enjoyed the overall feel of the friendly little establishment. He was startled out of his observations as Tess came back for a brief moment putting a plate down on the table in front of him. "Here ya go, this is a dessert called cannoli, it's the best thing to come out of Italy since 'Le Mans' or 'Alfa Romeo'. I'll be back soon, so enjoy!" and she was off again.

He looked at the dessert in front of him, it was a tube-like pastry that had the most interesting looking cream stuffed inside it. As he gazed at it his stomach began to grumble again. He took a small bite and discovered the most heavenly taste. He tried to savor it and failing miserably, stuffed almost the whole thing into his mouth in a very unceremonious fashion. Very disappointed that his little piece of cream filled heaven was now finished, Alistair looked around to see if he could find Tess anywhere. 'Mmm, I wonder if it would be rude to ask her for another one' he thought.

He continued to look at all the people drinking wine and having laughs as they sat at their tables enjoying their meals. He walked over to the side to stand in a little dark corner of the establishment and he saw several of the loud and very noisy people giving him odd looks. He wondered for a brief second why they were looking at him like that, when he realized that he was in fact the most weirdly dressed person there, and that's when he saw her.

She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, long brown hair that cascaded past her shoulder blades and the face of an angel. He couldn't see what color eyes she had, he was a little too far away, but somehow, she looked familiar to him, as if he had seen her somewhere before.

Standing in the corner trying his utmost not to draw attention to himself, Alistair looked as Tess strolled over to the woman gripping her in a fierce hug. He could see that they were very close and that made him wonder if she was the granddaughter that Tess was talking about. She was wearing some sort of uniform, black shirt and pants with a silver badge that seemed to be covering her heart. There was also writing on it, but Alistair could only make out the letters N.Y.P.D. He wondered what they meant.

He saw her walking onto a stage taking a little pointy thing in her hand which she brought close to her mouth and spoke into it. He was startled as he could hear her voice as clearly as if she were standing right next to him.

"Good evening all you wonderful and extremely hungry people, How are you doing this evening? I will be entertaining you with a song this evening, or at least try to, because my Nonna will beat me with her stick if I don't" she said with a chuckle

"You bet your ass I will" Tess piped up with a big smile on her face as she winked at the girl.

"I also know that my dear Nonna would just love for me to sing 'O sole mio' again for the hundredth time, but I really wanna sing something else for you tonight. It's not heard in Italian bistro's very often if at all, so please excuse my weird song choice" she said as music started playing out of nowhere, and she started to sing.

"Every now and then, I get a little bit lonely

And you're never coming round.

Every now and then, I get a little bit tired

Of listening to the sound of my tears.

Every now and then, I get a little bit nervous

That the best of all the years have gone by.

Every now and then, I get a little bit terrified

And then I see the look in your eyes.

Every now and then I fall apart, Every now and then I fall apart

And I need you now tonight, And I need you more than ever

And if you only hold me tight, we'll be holding on forever.

And we'll only be making it right, cause we'll never be wrong.

Together we can take it to the end of the line,

Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time.

I really need you tonight, forever's gonna start tonight,

Forever's gonna start tonight

As Alistair stood there looking at her in astonishment, he wondered why an angel with such a beautiful voice was singing such a sad song. He could only venture a guess that she was trying to express what she was feeling without anyone actually knowing it. He could see the heartbroken expression on her face and that almost tore him in two as she continued to sing, it made him feel incredibly sad for her.

Once upon a time I was falling in love,

But now I'm only falling apart.

There's nothing I can do,

A total eclipse of the heart.

Once upon a time there was light in my life,

But now there's only love in the dark.

Nothing I can say,

A total eclipse of the heart"

He saw her looking at him for the briefest of seconds before returning her gaze to the the crowd of people standing up and clapping their hands, whistling and shouting 'Encore, encore' She took a bow and walked off the stage in a hurry, Alistair could see something was really bothering her, because she was holding her face as if she was about to cry.

He saw Tess walk to meet her and pulled her into a hug, rubbing her soothingly on the back. Tess then led her into a room where Alistair could only watch them disappear behind a door.

He waited there for a while, listening to the strange music that continued to playing out of nowhere.

After what seemed like an hour or two, Tess reappeared and hurried up to Alistair as she said, "Alright, Ali'boy. Let's go to my house. I am sure you are hungry, looking for a bath and not to mention someplace warm to sleep."

"That sounds wonderful, Thank you Tess, but are you sure I won't be in your way?" he said very thoughtfully

"Ha ha, of course you'll be in my way, but you kept me safe from the baddies, so I do owe you something for that at least. And as I said, you seem to be a kind soul, I doubt you'll be as much of a pain in my ass as the rest of my family are most of the time" she chuckled as she saw the surprised look on his face, as he lead her to the door.

They got to an apartment building that had a large staircase leading up to it. Alistair was in awe at the sight of it. It was a huge building with lots of windows looking out towards the street, very strong walls that looked as if they would still be standing there a thousand years from now. Tess said that it was called a 'brownstone'. They walked up the stairs that lead to the door, Alistair trying to look everywhere at once as Tess opened the door. They walked into her home and he was once again stunned and amazed by what he saw.

There was a large room with what looked like very comfortable couches, a small table in the middle, and a big cupboard that had one of those big black box things she'd called a T.V in the center of it.

She showed him the three bedrooms, all with an assortment of closets, beds, vanities and paintings in each and every room. Alistair was most amazed by the 'bathroom' that had indoor plumbing. An outhouse but inside!

Tess noticed the look of confused astonishment on his face and looked thoughtful for a moment.

"This is the toilet Ali, just push down on that handle there when you are done" she said and tore off a piece of toilet paper hanging beside it. She threw it into the water and demonstrated the flush. The look of utter amazement on his face as it disappeared, made her want to chuckle but she kept her face straight.

She told him how to work the bath, then left him to it, patting him on the shoulder as she walked out and closed the door behind her.

He couldn't resist flushing the toilet a few more times, still amazed at the flow of water that rushed through. He swore he heard a chuckle from outside and blushed, quickly turning his attention to other things.

Tess had told him earlier that he smelt like yesterday's bad tuna, whatever that was, so he decided that a bath was first on the to do list. He wondered how the water that came running through the tap was hot but Tess hasn't explained that and he decided to just go with it.

It took him a little while to figure out how to get out of the plate he was wearing but he found if he didn't think about it too much, his fingers knew what to do. The relief of getting out of it was huge.

He managed to fill the tub and to a temperature that wouldn't take his skin off and relaxed in the heat for a bit. Then he took on the task of giving himself a thorough scrub. He got out the bath and dried himself off. He pulled the plug as Tess had told him to and he watched the water drain until it had all gone down the hole. Shaking his head at wonders he knew nothing about he nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard a tap at the door. Nervously he opened it and let out a sigh of relief as he saw that Tess had left some clothes there for him to wear, because he didn't want to even think about going through the tedious task of trying to put that big plate suit on again.

He looked over to the side of the room and saw a small washing basin that had a mirror attached to the wall just above it and he moved closer to look. He saw a metal cylinder and a small stick type of thing next to it. There was a flimsy slip of metal attached to a handle and he had seen something like this before but couldn't place where. He ran his finger over it carefully and saw that it was very sharp, enough to give him a rather nasty cut. As he looked at himself in the mirror, he saw that he had started to grow a beard without even knowing it and something clicked as he looked at the sharp metal strip again, deciding to use it to get rid of the ever growing fur on his face. He nicked and cut himself more than a few times before he was finished and grimaced at the several bleeding cuts. He was splashing some water on his face when he heard Tess calling.

"Hey, Ali'boy come down to the kitchen and eat something. I don't like it when food gets wasted"

Alistair's stomach decided that it was the perfect time to agree, as it started to grumble. "I'm on my way, thanks Tess"

He walked into the kitchen, when Tess almost dropped a plate as she saw him. "What the hell did you do to your face, boy? It looks as if you've been playing with the neighbor's cat. What did you do?" She asked as she put the plate down on the cupboard.

"I saw this thing with a strip of metal attached to it, and I used it to shave. Did I do it wrong?" He rubbed his face which was burning as if someone set it on fire.

"Why, didn't you use the shaving cream that I left on the basin for you? It would have helped prevent you from cutting yourself up so badly." She said as she walked closer to him.

With a confused expression he asked. "Shaving cream?"

Tess just shook her head, walked towards the bathroom. Alistair stood there confused and feeling more than a little stupid. She returned with the metal cylinder that had been in the bathroom and showed it to him. "This is the shaving cream, use it next time you want to shave without looking as if you just walked out of a nightmare on elm street movie"

She pressed the little button at the top of the can and a fountain of foam sprang out of the little hole at the side. Tess held the cream in her hand and continued. " You put this on your face the next time you want to shave, the cream protects your skin so that the razor doesn't cut your face to pieces."

In his flabbergasted state, Alistair looked at the cream and put some on his finger, feeling the texture between his thumb and index finger. "Wow, thanks Tess, I didn't know it could do that or what I could use it for...It's quite amazing I've never seen anything like this before in my life"

She looked at him curiously for a moment before saying. "Well just gimme a shout the next time you want to shave and I'll come and help you. But now we have to get back to dinner"

They walked back into the kitchen and Alistair sat down at the dinner table. Tess brought over a plate of food and set it down in front of him.

"This is Capellini Pomodoro, with roma tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil and extra-virgin olive oil tossed with capellini. Served with Italian vegetables over angel hair pasta tossed in a light garlic-butter sauce. It's my grandmother's recipe that she brought over with her from the old country." She said proudly

Alistair had no idea what she meant but it looked delicious anyway and thanked her before picking up the eating utensils on the side and started to eat, if a little clumsily with unfamiliar food. After dinner Tess bid him a good night and went off to bed. Alistair couldn't think of anything better than to fall onto a nice soft bed and drift into sleep, but as he laid there in the room Tess had told him to use, sleep would not come.

He got up and walked back into the living room wondering what he could do to keep himself occupied. He strolled over to a chair that had looked very comfortable from where he was standing earlier.

As he sat down, he felt something hard and pointy under his rear. Just as he moved to see what it was, the T.V on the cupboard came to life. The noise that emanated from it was so loud that Alistair jumped out of his seat due to the shock of it. He walked closer to the box and he saw there was a man inside, a weird looking man. He had a blue and red suit on with a cape and a weird 'S' across his chest, he also saw that the man had his smallclothes on the outside of his pants. Alistair chuckled a bit at that, while wondering how the man got in there in the first place. He saw there were some buttons on the big box so he pressed one of his fingers against it, and suddenly the man was gone and he was replaced by a different man who was talking to a woman who was standing on a stage, he asked her why she was throwing a chair at her brother. Alistair wondered for a moment what she meant by 'He was porking my husband behind my back'.

He was just about to press the button again when he heard the voice of a woman bellowing straight at him.

"Freeze dirtbag! Make one wrong move and I'll shoot your ass off"

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