A/N: Are y'all still enjoying this story? I enjoy writing it, but there is no point if you guys don't like reading it.

The sun had long ago set. Shepard had lost track of time, engrossed in the conversation. Well, it was more of a debate than a conversation. By the time Shepard had regained awareness of how late it truly was, it was already late into the night. "I think I should go. It's getting late, and I think I've taken enough of your time."

The man chuckled before responding. "No, no you've taken no time at all. I'm an old man anyway, what better way to spend it than with visitors."

John's face remained stoic, even as he said "thank you" and began to get up.

Marcus looked out the window to see… nothing. "It's too late for you to go trudging through the woods back to your ship." It was pitch black out there, and he would feel too guilty. "You should stay the night."

An exasperated sigh escaped from Shepard before he replied. "I've taken enough of your time already."

"But it was time well spent, and it wouldn't bother me, not in the slightest."

Shepard's head tilted to the side, his eyes suddenly becoming serious. "You put too much trust in people, especially strangers."

Marcus snorted. Understanding what Shepard meant, he found it sadly comical. "Well, I don't have much to lose anyway. What could you possibly take from me that I already don't have? And besides, you're no stranger, not to me. There's an extra bedroom down the hallway if you would like."

Shepard slowly sat back down in his chair. He would take this man's offer of shelter, but not of sleep. He didn't feel like sleeping. He'd rather savor and remember every moment of his time here; he might not return in a long time, and if he died out there before then, he would never return. Marcus spoke his farewells and left, leaving Shepard sitting all alone, staring into the smoldering and dying fire in front of him.

He hated sitting around and having nothing to do. It made him think, and thinking always brought him down a dark path of painful ideas and self-doubts. His mind was a storm of thoughts, despite his quiet and uncharacteristically calm exterior. He felt the presence of the now-vacant room around him. A dying fire crackling opposite from him, the furniture in the living room, the lights that cast an eerie golden glow over everything. What he was feeling, it was existence, and he hated it. The feel of everything, the rough clothes on his back, the warm air on his skin, the residual taste of tea in his mouth, the light that met his eyes, it all felt like a poison, slowly creeping into his soul, blackening everything. Existence was a curse; it was meaningless; it was pain. But most of all, it is arbitrary. It must be, because the world was so absurd, random, and chaotic. Disorder and agony defined everything. People were alive one day and died the next, seemingly at random; few ever got the privilege of knowing when they would die, and it was debatable if knowing how much time you had left was a gift or a curse. Yet most people always hoped for the next day, hoped that it would bring them happiness and relief from their pain and suffering. But no, it only brought them one day closer to death, whether they realized it or not.

Shepard knew firsthand how little meaning life had. He was convinced that man was not born with some internal essence, purpose, or destiny. No, they were all just collections of atoms in one big soup of atoms, randomly colliding with one another, without choice. Free will, what an idealist concept! To believe that some spirit or consciousness of mankind could somehow break the rules that all the particles in all our cells obey, the very cells that make our organs and bodies and most importantly, brains, was pure fantasy. In this sense, existence was so ironic, at least to him. On one hand, it was so ordered and rule-based, being governed by the laws of physics that not even he could begin to comprehend or understand. But on the other hand, what did all this order result in? Chaos, anarchy, death, and destruction. It was…inevitable; the rules of the universe foretold it. He questioned why he did anything at all, if all we were to end up as was a pile of bones, rotting in the field or cremated into ashen dust. Why strive to build and create when it could all so easily come down? Why not just embrace the chaos and welcome the inevitable with open arms, maybe even help it along its journey.

This is why he hated himself. He hated himself because he knew all these truths, that life was meaningless and contradictory and arbitrary, and yet despite all that, he could not get rid of the small part of himself that cared. Not that that part of himself ever really influenced his actions, but it was always there, watching him, judging him, making him feel like utter crap. It made him feel weak that he cared because all of his experiences told him that he shouldn't. And no matter how hard he tried, he could never cast it aside. It was embedded in him, like a parasitic worm, eating away at his sanity, slowly driving him insane with guilt and sadness and despair. He didn't want to feel this way, but he did. And instead of curing his infection, visiting this place seemed only to spread it. The worm was now buried deeper than ever, multiplying, infecting, grafting itself into his mind.

It made him angry. Angry at the world, because it wasn't fair. Angry that he cared, because it wasn't logical. And most of all, angry at himself, because he could not fix either the world or himself. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how far he was willing to go to get the job done (whether for himself or for others), he could not find peace. It wasn't fair! Why did other people always get what he wanted? Why did the little things he did have disappear, day by day and year by year? He so badly wished to end his existence, to destroy his awareness and just be like all the objects around him, without essence or thought or problems. But he couldn't do it; he was too weak.

He was unsure that death would provide him with the answers he was looking for anyway. No one truly knew what lay afterward; and he was scared, scared that if there was something, he would be cast to the worst and darkest regions. Even then, he found the act of ending his own existence somewhat enraging. He was a stubborn asshole who never gave up, who never allowed someone to tell him no or that he couldn't do something. To kill himself, to let the pain of existence and the unfairness of the universe defeat him was irreconcilable with what little he did value. He would not surrender, he would not fall down, not until he won or until everything around him was nothing more than dust in the wind.

He came here wanting answers, specifically about his past. But he would be leaving with more questions than he came with.

For starters, did he even deserve to be here, to make amends with his past? What right did he have, knowing that he had robbed so many others of that same choice? He was antithetical to everything this place was and to everything that his parents were. But that begged yet another question again: why did he care? He wanted to stop caring, for the innocent baby that left here was not the same mangled wreck that had returned; he was a blight on this place, a blight on the name of goodness. Oddly enough, maybe he was as innocent as a baby in some regards. While some parts of him were so old and broken, black and rotting, others had seldom been used or developed. It was as if he were a car, but some parts were aged by 100,000 miles while others were fresh off the factory floor. He was a hodgepodge of experience about pain, and inexperience about how to live; fully functional, but not comfortable.

Why does everything hurt? He thought that after a life of being abandoned, left for dead and suffering, his skin would have been made tough enough to withstand anything. Well, his skin was, but his mind? Not so much. He still felt just as broken and lonely as the first day of his life that he actually remembered. He had a hole inside of himself, a hole that he did not know how to fill or why he cared about filling it in the first place. He had been searching for something this whole time, but he did not know what. And every time that he felt himself about to achieve something, he felt it slip out of his hands like everything else in his life, leaving him angry, hurt, and afraid to try again.

Why do we exist? Yes, the classic question. Two horrifying possibilities existed. One, God made this terribly horrifying and evil place. Who would do that? What kind of person would bother to create a person such as John Shepard? Or two, they were just random accidents who refused to accept that they had no purpose, despite what they believed. Shepard liked neither answer, and maybe that was a contradiction, but humans are messy creatures, after all. We are all people who go out searching for meaning in a world we cannot even begin to understand, mumbling in ignorance as we fight over pure conjecture.

But his biggest question was what the hell he should be doing. Before, he thought he knew. But he achieved his goal already. Or at least, he thought he did. How stupid he was to think that killing one ship captain would have fixed everything. Thousands of pirates had probably been involved in that raid; it was impossible to track them all down and find the revenge he was looking for. And the one pirate he did kill came at a great cost: dozens of clueless people, people so like his parents, good, hardworking people, dead. Was he condemned to being a walking slaughterhouse for the rest of his days, spreading misery and suffering so people could be just as miserable as him? With every day that went by, he felt that the answer was yes. But there had to be more, he… had to be more.

Unfortunately, sitting alone, late at night, was not conducive to staying awake. His eyes grew heavy, but he did not want to sleep. So he resigned to simply closing his eyes for a brief moment, resting them before he would open them again. Except his eyes never did open again. A man so sleep deprived such as himself would seldom be able to resist sleep's clutches in such a cozy place.

Everything was black. He could not see. Everything was silent. He could not hear. It was just him and the knowledge of himself. John was alone and afraid. He grasped out into the darkness, searching for something, anything, to contrast against the void. As he moved his hands, he felt like he was moving through molasses. He tried to take a breath, exhaling through his nose, but when he tried to breathe in again, nothing filled his lungs. He tried again, but nothing came, and his lungs burned. He waved his arms and legs around in a panic, struggling against the viscus liquid around him.

In his frenzied swim, blind to anything in front of him, he eventually hit a collection of rocks. He tried to swim past it, but no matter how far he went, the rocks were still there. It was a wall of sediment. He smashed his arm against the wall, angry and upset. His lungs felt like fire, but he could still inhale nothing. He tried to swim back from where he came, an impossible task in the dark. Eventually, he hit something else, but it was the same wall. He tried again, and again, and again, and no matter where he swam he was confronted with the same obstacle. He was boxed in, like a caged animal.

He began to attack the wall, savagely clawing at it and tearing bits and pieces off. He threw a punch, and his fist when several inches inside the wall. He pulled back his hand, tearing away the strangely smooth material. Piece by piece, chunk by chunk, inch by inch. But no matter how hard he tried, how far he went, the wall was still there. He ceased his efforts. Without oxygen, his tired limbs burned and ached, losing strength and sometimes refusing to follow his commands. He gave up, slamming both his arms int the wall in front of him. He tried to feel it with his hands to get a sense of what it was. As his right hand traced the patterns in the rock, he realized something: this was not rock, it was bone. Disgusted, he pushed himself off, for he feared this more than he feared the unknown and meaningless void. But the wall, with all its thousand hands, reached out towards him, grabbing his body and pulling it back. He struggled against his attacker, snapping its bones in half and tearing them off himself in great handfuls. But more just took its place, wrapping around him, encasing him. He found himself unable to move, suffocating in despair. The bones began to squeeze even tighter, crushing and squeezing the life out of him. He began to hear snapping and popping noises, but it was not the bones around him, it was his ribs breaking under the strain. He was in indescribable agony, the pain enough to jolt him awake.

His eyes shot open, and he was relieved that he could actually see this time. He took ragged, deep breaths, thankful that he could now breathe. His body was covered in sweat. He was scared. He didn't know why, as he couldn't always remember the dreams that haunted his sleep. But he could tell that they were anything but pleasant.

Shepard got up from his chair, no longer comfortable there, and approached a window. It was still night outside. Why couldn't he sleep through the night, just for once? Was it too much to ask?! He would only ever get enough sleep to be functional, but never enough to feel rested. He always blamed it on being in the front lines or sleeping in uncomfortable barracks. However, he was on a comfy sofa this time!

His brow was furrowed in anger as he made his way towards the front door. As he opened it, a wave of cold air hit his sweaty skin, causing him to shiver and his eyes to water. But he'd faired far worse before. If he couldn't find peace anywhere, then there was no reason to be anywhere. Yet, he felt like something was wrong. He felt guilty, and he hated that he felt guilty. Shepard wanted so badly to not care about anything, but he couldn't, no matter how hard he tried. His impulses were simply too strong this time.

He retreated back inside the house, looking for something, anything, he could leave a note on. His eyes caught an old, wooden credenza. That's where one would keep them, right? He flung open its doors, and in the dark recesses of the cabinet, he found a stack of notepads. Shepard quickly flipped through them, trying to find a blank page. He saw rows and rows of numbers, some with dollar signs, others with abbreviated units. They were probably Marcus' crop yield records or something of the like, but he'd never be able to tell. Finding a blank page, he ripped it out and grabbed one of the pens he found in a pencil box. He found it odd that anyone still used these crud implements, let alone had them in their home. But he was grateful he found them because he didn't have the balls to face this man one last time. Shepard was a coward at heart, and hell was other people. They judged you and made you want to crawl back into your own shell.

He placed the sheet of paper on the desk. It had been years since he'd written anything by hand, not since barely passing officer school at the N7 academy. Yes, his only formal education: war. He pressed the tip of the pen to the paper and began to write big, crooked letters and misspelled words on the page. No autocorrect would be helping him this time.

"Dear Marcus,

Your probly wondering were I went. Im ashamed to say I left, but I couldn't handle it. It was nothin you did, it was me. I dont belong hear, and I think you now that. But I didn't want to leave without saying anything. Well, I guess I just wanted to say thank you. You were very nice. Nicer than most people I've met, and probably nicer then I'll ever bee. I know I'm a difficult person, I have bin all my life. But you didn't mind. I guess it was only for one day, but it's more than most would handle. I hope this quiet little town stays as it is. I probably will not hear from you again. But if you watch the news, you'll probably hear about me. I never wanted that attention, nor do I pay attention to it, because I know the media doesn't know what I know, that I'm not as heroic or glamorous as they make me out to be. But you will probably see me out there, nonetheless, for better or for worse. I'll probably die, before you do if my luck has anything to say about it. But until then, you've given me an impossible burden that I will have to carry each day that I'm alive. I hate my life. Hell, I hate everything. I'm not sure why you think so highly of me because I don't deserve it. I'm not sure I can be the man you think I am, or the one you or my parents would have wanted me to be. That's the burden. If you are feeling down after reading this, cheer yourself up knowing that you are not me. Your a far, far better man than I could ever be, and the end you go to will be far nobler than my own.

I would also feel guilty if I didn't leave this: jshepard54 earth_systems_ . In case you ever need anything serious; I am a Council Spectre, after all.

Regards,

John Charles Shepard"

He put down the pen on top of the letter. It felt odd to write his middle name because he'd never done it before. It was not even legally official, it just felt like the right thing to do. And it reminded him of something else. He walked over to the table from earlier. The empty tea kettle sat in the middle, and two empty cups resided at either end. He picked up what he was looking for. He put the ring in the pocket of his jeans and carefully tucked the photo into the pocket of his jacket. He would not leave these things here, even though he could feel them weighing him down. He would not insult the man by denying this request.

He exited the house, hopped down the steps, and walked down the dirt path. The night air really was freezing, each breath he took making his chest feel cold. He looked to the sky, a scattershot of bright twinkling stars. Somewhere out there was Saren and his geth armies, plotting to destroy everything. This galaxy, it was infinite, with endless possibilities and places. He felt like nothing compared to it. Well, he was nothing. We all are. The galaxy would always be here, no matter how many times we wiped ourselves out or killed each other in wars. When people say that "the entire galaxy" is at risk, they are wrong. He'd learned that the galaxy will be just fine. We are the ones at risk, trying to sustain what little we have for a little while longer before it all inevitably disappears. It was so useless because everything ended, that was the nature of life; or rather, the nature of death. But there is freedom in death. After you die, nothing you do matters anymore. Death was the great equalizer. You can postpone it via certain means, but once it takes you, you're done, finished, annihilated. The parts you leave behind are not you, they are somebody's mediocre recollection of who you were, if they bothered to remember you at all. He remembered what Marcus had said: if a person remembers you, then maybe you never really die. But what happens when the people who remember you die? What happens when the people who remembered those people die? Sure, maybe if you are famous you would be remembered. Now that he was a war hero, and let's not forget, humanity's first spectre, he'd be remembered, for better or worse, for a long time. But why does that matter? Why do we care who or how others remember us? He sure as hell didn't. He lived his life how he wanted. He lived to…

He couldn't complete that thought because he didn't know what he lived for, except for revenge or spite or out of general hatred for the world. Maybe as a body, he wasn't dead, but what was inside surely was. He realized the things he would be remembered for: not the person that he was, but the things he had done. This thought depressed him. What was even more depressing? He realized that if he was remembered for the former option, it would be just as bad as the latter. Again, for the millionth time that night, he wondered why he cared at all. He didn't know the answer, but we do. He was born a normal person, not a psychopath. If his parents had never died, he would be a very different person, even he knew that. See, it isn't always what manifests itself that matters. Potential is often just as important. At heart, we all intuitively know what is wrong or right. Our potential speaks to the goodness of our nature, but the world has a way of trying to steal it from us. For some people, it becomes like a silent gene, always there, slowly watching in the background, but never really expressed. People are all conscious of the gene's existence, but that doesn't mean they have to act on it. Sometimes, that silent gene turns on sporadically, triggered by one event or another; not enough to effect change, but maybe just enough to make us see what we've done. It is…painful.

A/N: I don't know, I like it when I right using "stream of consciousness." It's fun, at least for me. Hope you like it too. I'll try not to overdo it in the future.