A/N: I recently took a break from Uploaded and decided to publish a new short series called Dear Diary: Nef, some sort of spiritual successor to my very first story on this site and an expansion on Nef, the girl who was murdered by Morinth in Mass Effect 2.

Check it out, will ya?

Sorry if the updates are taking a lot longer and substantially shorter and subpar in quality. School this semester is really, really tough.

The poll's still up and OC submissions are still welcome, so you know what to do!

Carly's head snapped to the direction of the voice.

Oh shit.

Her brown eyes scanned the surroundings, looking for another pair of eyes that were similar to hers. True enough, the teenager found her sister glaring straight at her.

Carly hopped off the stool and prepared to make a run for it, but the massive brute seated beside her grabbed her arm.

"Hey, lass! Where're ya goin'?"

Crap.

"I gotta go, like really, really gotta go. So, umm, see ya!" she muttered with lightning speed.

"Whataya mean?" he asked innocently. "We haven't finished talking yet."

She tried to shake him off, but sadly her toothpick-arms were no match for his impossibly ripped one.

"I uh, have a stomachache!" Carly bent over, placed a hand over her stomach and whined. "Need the toilet!"

Unexpectedly, the man turned her around instead. "Toilet's that way, dear girl! Off you go!" he said rather cheerfully, pushing her in the direction of her very angry elder sister, who was now shoving her way through the rowdy dancing floor and humping couples.

Please let me live, she silently pleaded to whoever was up there. I don't want to die. Is this a nightmare? Please let this be a nightmare.

Lady Luck wasn't on her side tonight.

"Hey!" I shouted at Pearson while awkwardly coming in-between a couple who were grinding like a jigsaw against a steel bar.

She continued to rush forward, shoving aside inebriated junkies who were in her way.

I called out her name another three times, then she stopped, though it wasn't because of me. Pearson had her back to me, and coupled with the rowdy environment, I couldn't really see what she was doing. I only managed to reach her after tripping over a delirious Hanar (don't ask) and spilling an Asari's martini all over her thousand-credit dress.

"Pearson!" I yelled over the deafening electro-pop-techno, tapping on her shoulder.

"What?" she screamed back, pulling my arm off her and twisting it with painful familiarity.

I might or might not have yelped a little bit.

Okay, fine, stop looking at me like that.

I did yell in what others might call a slightly unmanly way.

Pearson seemed to snap back from whatever violent blackout she was having at my shouting, releasing me from further torture and possible limb detachment. She reverted her attention to whoever or whatever was in front of her. Puzzled, my eyes followed her line of sight, and I found myself looking at a rather short, petite girl, with her choppy blonde hair cut at shoulder-length. Her eyes were brown, but not just any brown.

They were familiar brown.

I slowly shifted my gaze back at Pearson.

"Umm..." I muttered cautiously. "Pearson, you okay?"

I really didn't want to shock the Hell out of my terribly violent colleague and have her snap my neck.

Please don't let me be right, I prayed.

"Kovac, can you cover me at Ashland's? I need to send my sister back home."

Oh, dang it!

Why wasn't I ever so lucky when it came to hitting the jackpot at Vegas?

The girl was barely 17. No wonder Pearson was furious.

"Umm, you can't?" I answered, though it sounded more like a suggestion than a disagreement. "We have protocol, remember? Female protection officers have to be around the VIP at uh, all times?"

I didn't want to go against her, not directly at least. Pissing off a very angry older sister was one of the top ten stupidest things anyone could do, even in a videogame.

Why I knew? Because I was the elder sibling at home myself.

A long time ago, anyway.

"Oh, shoot," Pearson said, as if remembering the existence of Miss Wonderful Personality for the first time in years. Then she looked me in the eyes, gaze hard and cold. "You. You can send my sister back home, right?"

"Of course not. Citadel to Pearson? We're on the clock, the both of us, remember?"

"But you're a guy!"

"Well, no shit."

"You're a guy."

"Yes, I am a guy. Do I look like an Asari to you?"

"Technically. you're not obligated to remain around the VIP 24/7. So maybe you saw an underage minor at someplace she wasn't supposed to be in, and being a trustworthy C-Sec officer, you escort her out of said place and..."

"And because I'm such a nice cop, I will see her home myself instead of dragging her back to C-Sec and tainting her squeaky clean records?"

"Exactly. I'll message you the address."

I stole a glance at Pearson's sister, who now looked like she was ready to scream. Something told me she wouldn't appreciate my 'kindness'.

"Umm... maybe I should get someone from HQ to come down here and send her home instead?"

"Bad idea. Nope, no way at all."

"But-"

"Kovac," Pearson said, grabbing my shoulders. "You do me this intsy winsy little favour, and I promise I'll start to try liking you."

"Ah hah! So you do hate me!"

"Did," she corrected. "Provided you send my angelic sister home in one piece. Deal?"

Man up, Grayson. You're a fully independent 32 year-old man who is trained professionally as an elite law enforcement officer. You will not get punked by a girl who is almost half your age. Especially not in a God damned videogame!

I sucked in one big breath and nodded.

Her name was Carly and she hated anything and everything affiliated with C-Sec.

That was pretty much as far as self-introductions went.

We were just about 20 feet from sweet, sweet liberation from the God-awful electro-mumbo-jumbo when I found this giant, red-haired and oddly black-bearded, 2-metres tall, buff-as-Dwayne-Johnson chunk of a man blocking our exit. Dressed in leather and rags of tattered fabric along with an eyepatch, I would've thought our human obstacle was a Blackbeard-wannabe who got his hair colour wrong.

At first I tried side-stepping, but then he side-stepped too. So we did a couple of seconds of awkward step-dancing before I realised my dancing partner was blocking us deliberately.

I turned my head up and tried to recall if I had met him somewhere.

"Excuse me, sir," I said. "Do I know you?"

I almost immediately regretted asking him the question, because an overwhelming tsunami of garlic, raw onions, tobacco, pickled fish and brandy attacked my sensitive nostrils with full force as he opened his mouth to answer.

I then came to the conclusion that I definitely did not meet this guy anywhere. His breath alone was something of an unforgettable phenomenon -yep, phenomenon.

I couldn't help but ask, "Oh my God, did something die in you?"

"No," he replied, though I didn't know to which question.

I silently hoped it was the second one. I took two steps back in the most inconspicuous way possible.

He raised an arm and pointed a finger at Carly. "You," he shouted in his thick American-trying-to-be-Welsh-Cockney-Scottish-Irish accent over the trash music, which only helped aggravate the lethal stench. "Why are you leaving so soon?"

I turned to look at the teenager, who then snapped, "I told you! I have to go!"

"To the toilet. Ya never said ya had to go home, lass!"

"Do something!" Carly suddenly yelled at me. "Aren't you supposed to be my bodyguard or whatever?"

I rather reluctantly fished out a credit chit from my pocket and stuffed it into the man's hand, which resembled an exceptionally large paw of a grizzly bear. "There's seven hundred credits in there! Use it to cover the tab and buy some breath spray with the change while you're at it."

He stared at me dumbly.

"What?" I said in faux-bravado. "Take it or leave it."

The man stroked his disturbingly greasy beard. "Aye, ya got a deal, lad!"

Thankfully, he walked away without any incident.

As soon as we stepped back out onto the pristine, shiny marble floors of the hotel, I told Carly, "Those credits are coming out from your sister's bank account by the way."

Carly stared at the clouds.

Sparse, thin and flat, they were the exact opposite of those on Earth. She pictured thick, fluffy, giant clumps of cotton candy and marshmallows in her mind. Someday, she would ride atop one.

She briefly thought about the bedtime stories mum and dad would tell her when she wouldn't fall asleep.

They told her one day, she would be flying, bouncing and rolling on a fluffy, pink cloud.

Aladdin had his carpet - she would have her cloud.

They promised her that.

"Why are you smiling?"

Carly jerked in her seat. "It's none of your business."

"Okay then."

She looked at the driver. Short, neatly combed black hair, green eyes -which were somewhat of a rarity these days- though they were slightly on the small side, dressed in an all black suit, just like her sister's.

Boring.

Her stomach growled.

Ugh, damn it.

All that drinking with the rotten fisherman had probably burned a hole through her stomach. And all she had was a piece of edible gum that morning before heading out.

"I'm hungry," she deadpanned.

"I'll fix you something when we get home."

"I'm hungry. I want ramen."

"There is no ramen. It's a skycar, for God's sake, not a food truck! And I'm not David Copperfield!"

"Then find a restaurant!"

There was a short pause.

"Fine, but not before I check in with your sister."

The annoying man whipped out his omni-tool and presumably started typing a full-length report to Jade.

What a moron.

"Okay," he finally said. "Your sister gave the green light."

Carly rolled her eyes.

They did end up eating.

Just not ramen.

The stupid idiot had driven to Apollo's Café.

So instead of a nice, warm, piping hot bowl of pork stock scattered with chunks of porky goodness and thin, smooth, chewy noodles, Carly was unenthusiastically stuffing a ridiculously mushy plate of spaghetti into her tortured mouth, painful forkful after forkful.

She suspected the chefs at Apollo's had never heard of the term 'al-dente'.

The blonde glared at Gerald, Gabriel, Garfield or whatever the heck his name was.

"What are you looking at? You're hungry, right? Eat," he ordered.

"Hey, Grant-"

"It's Grayson."

"Whatever. You're a real drill sergeant, you know that?"

"Sure," he said. "Whatever."

"Stop mimicking me!"

"Start eating! We've been here for half an hour and you're not even halfway through."

"I'm a civilised human being, not some stray varren living on Tuchanka. I have manners. I know proper table etiquette."

Grayson arched an eyebrow. "Oh really? Manners? You and manners probably don't even belong in the same airspace."

"Hey!" she yelled, slamming her fork on the plastic table.

"Oh yeah, now I can add table etiquette to that statement. Just eat your food."

The ride back to her apartment was silent.

I didn't know what came over me at Apollo's. Yelling and trying to drill sense into the demented teenage sister of an estranged colleague wasn't my usual protocol.

Maybe Carly reminded me a little bit of my brother. Perhaps a little too much.

I dropped her off right outside her doorstep, and made sure she walked into the apartment, just like Pearson asked.

I called Pearson.

"Hey," I said. "Your sister's safe and sound."

"Thanks, Kovac. I don't know how much this means to you, but you really helped me out today."

"No problem at all."

Pearson gave a small laugh. "She's my sister, Kovac. I know she's a real piece of work. Nobody can tame her."

"Well, I did. How's Princess?"

"More like Sleeping Beauty. Ashland's snoring like a pig. I haven't felt this relieved in years."

"Tell me about it."

A/N: And voila!

Marcus Teach (or as I like to call him, Blackbeard wannabe) was the idea of CigarChomper. Believe or not, I went "holy shit, this guy needs to appear" the first time I read him.

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