Chapter 2 is done and dusted! Yay!

I hope you all like the first chapter and that you like this one. If you do, or if you find any problems in it then don't hesitate to let me know via reviews.

Oh and please forgive any spelling or grammar errors, I do what I can to try and catch them but some will likely fall through the cracks.

Dyslexia truly is a cruel mistress.

Anyway I hope you enjoy! :)

Chapter 2:

Shepard sat in the Normandy's Med-bay, re-reading her after-action report for the third time.

No matter how many times she read over the events of the mission, it just didn't sound right, not that it wasn't accurate, it was, maliciously so, and that might be the problem.

It read like a scene out of some over the top action vid rather than an official military report.

She let out a sigh, and placed the datapad on the desk glancing up to where the teen lay, she assumed he was a teen, he was defiantly young, too young to have to go through something like this.

She had just woken up a few minutes ago herself, after debriefing with Anderson and chatting with some of the crew she had learnt that they would arrive at the Citadel in about 6 hours, which meant she had time to kill.

She stood and walked over to the bed that he was currently occupying and began to look over his injures. There was the plasma burn on his right lower leg, by far the most obvious and surprisingly the least serious, then there were the long cuts down both of his arms which were definitely going to leave some scars. Lastly was the concussion he had received by face palming the ground. All of which had been treated by Chakwas, she had assured both her and Anderson that he would wake up before they arrived at the Citadel.

Her gaze moved over to the t-shirt he wore, plain black with a white capitalized E in the centre of a ring of stars, a logo she didn't recognise. She then glanced over to the bright red hoodie laying on one of the other beds. She had to admit he didn't look like a colonist, they mostly preferred more muted colours and practical outfits.

His look was just one of the many things she wanted to question him on.

I groaned gently as I slowly opened my eyes, after noting that I was laying on a fairly comfortable bed I let them flutter closed again.

Just 5 more minutes.

Wait… this isn't my room!

My eyes shot open as I sprung up, quickly regretting that decision as a sudden feeling of light-headedness came over me.

Fuck, it feels like waking up with the worst hangover of my life.

Again.

"You're awake. Good."

I quickly looked to the source of the statement. And saw Commander Shepard! The Commander Shepard!

Wait.

We've already gone through that, come on brain catch up!

I groaned bringing a hand to my head, and wincing at the sudden pain that throbbed at the point of contact. "What happened?"

"You tripped over one of the dead Geth and knocked yourself out." she answered, very matter of factly, though I did see her trying (and failing) to hide an amused smile at the memory.

What?

Really?

That's how I got on to the Normandy?! You gotta be kidding! No having to convince her to let me stay, no dramatic act of self-sacrificing heroism showing her I could help.

No.

The thing that got me onto the most advanced human warship ever built, bar the SR2, was tripping on a DEAD robot and smashing myself out cold like a clumsy moron.

I must have been making a pretty amusing face as Shepard began to quietly chuckle as she pushed herself off of the wall she'd been leaning against.

"How are you feeling?" she asked moving to the opposite bed and hoisting her up to sit on it.

I moved my legs off the bed to face her. "Well I'm not dead, so I'd say I came out better than the other guy." I said offering a small smile. One which quickly dropped as I remembered that the 'other guy' in the case would be Nihilus. "Oh, sorry."

"What for?" she asked tilting her head to the side slightly and cocking an eyebrow.

"About Nihilus." I clarified, and her face drew together into a look of… concern, surprise maybe. I don't know, she's kinda hard to read.

"It wasn't your fault." She stated, again very matter of factly.

I sighed I lowered my head, "Yeah, it is. I should've-" What? You should have been faster. You should have realised sooner. You should have told them.

"He was already gone by the time you got there." She responded, pausing slightly before saying 'gone', probably was about to say dead but thought it better to try and sugar coat it slightly.

"I should have moved faster." I said lowly, more to myself than her. I glanced at my hands, there were still some faint traces of blue blood. His blood.

"Listen, that entire mission was a shit show, no one was expecting this. We lost some good people down there. And the only ones to blame are the ones who pulled the trigger. We shouldn't blame ourselves, especially you, after you ran through an army of Geth and whatever those zombie things were to try and help. That takes guts, and I wish more people had that kind of drive."

I looked up at her, her entire face was firm as if she was certain of every word she said. A part of me was so inspired by that. I mean here, sat on the NORMANDY, talking with the COMMANDER SHEPARD, and she was praising me for something I did, and it was something that by all accounts was completely stupid.

That alone made this whole trip, dream, thing worth it.

Then I latched on to a part of what she said, "We lost some good people down there." Jenkins, he died right after they landed.

"I'm Sorry…"

"You're English right?" she asked out of nowhere.

"Um yeah. How'd you tell?" I asked, seems like a pretty wired question to ask at this point to me.

"The accent…"

Do I have an accent? I mean I know I speak pretty clearly and well pronounced, but it's not that noticeable is it.

"And the constant apologising." She added with a small smirk.

Well… yeah, she's got me there.

Still, nice to some things don't seem to have changed.

"What made you leave Earth for the colonies?" she asked after a second and I realised something horrifying.

I was the NPC on this conversation!

Oh god that's a wired feeling to have.

Anyway, back to the question, I didn't technically leave Earth per say, more randomly teleported into an alternate universe, or at least I think I did. Somehow.

But that would make me sound crazy.

So let's do what I do best.

Deflect with humour or references.

Sometimes both.

"There were a few reasons." I answered, let's take the Doctor Who approach and constantly keep it ambiguous and contradicting.

"Like?"

Ok, so she going to push for an answer.

"I'll let you know when I think of some." I shot back.

She smiled slightly, before her smile dropped, "Must have been something big to just up and leave your family behind."

I looked to her as my smile dropped.

"We ran a search for any next of kin on Eden Prime, nothing came up." She explained.

My family.

"You ok?"

I didn't even get to say goodbye, I might not ever see them again. Tears started to form at the corners of my eyes.

I'll never see them again. They'll never know what happened to me, I'll just have disappeared out of nowhere. They don't even have the closure of finding a body and knowing I'm gone.

My head lowered to the ground, and my breathing hitched.

"Let- Let's just say I didn't exactly have- much choice in the matter." I managed to get out between sharp intakes of breath.

I was right, this definitely wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare.

Shepard didn't interrupt, she just sort of stood there with a concerned look on her face. After a minuet her omni-tool pinged.

I looked up and she was reading something, "What that?"

She lowered her arm after a moment with a noticeable frown. "I just got a message from the Captain. He says there's no record of you in the Alliance records. No date of birth, no family, nothing."

My eyes widened slightly.

Shit. That would look suspicious.

I mean a colony gets attacked by a rough Spectre and an army of Geth for a Prothean beacon and someone with no records just appears out of nowhere right in the middle of it.

Yeah, totally don't look like a spy or anything right now.

Ok so two options. 1, bullshit my way through this. Eh… don't think I can be that convincing. 2, tell her about the games and what I assume is an alternate universe or dimension or timeline or whatever and risk looking like a crazy person.

I brought my hand up to wipe away the tears, "Ok, so before I explain that, can I ask what happened to the beacon?"

She narrowed her eyes, wow really not helping the whole suspicious thing.

"It was destroyed after the Lieutenant activated it." She answered bluntly.

"But you threw him out of the way instead." I cut in.

She wasn't expecting that if the shock on her face was anything to go by.

"Yes."

"And it knocked you unconscious."

"…yes."

"And you had some weird nightmare while you were unconscious."

"Yes."

"And you've only told Anderson about it."

Ok she looked really shocked right now, dropping the name of Captain Anderson probably helped with that.

"How could you possibly know that?"

Ok here it goes please, please, please work.

"So what I'm about to tell you is gonna sound completely insane, I know, just please try to keep an open mind."

Her face had morphed from shock to scrutinising by this point and she crossed her arms over her chest. "Alright I'm listening."

I took a deep breath before I started. "Ok, so as best I can tell I'm not from this… err world, um universe, I think."

And now cue the 'This guy's completely lost the plot' look.

"Yeah! Yeah, I know! I know that look I'd be making the exact same one in any other situation." I stated pointing to her as if pointing out a key piece of evidence that would prove me right. "Just think, you yourself said there's no record of me, no one on Eden Prime knows me and, and I don't have an omni-tool or any stuff people should have just a phone that's a few decades out of date and a wallet… MY WALLET!"

I looked around the med-bay until I spotted my hoodie that had been carelessly thrown over one of the beds and threw myself towards it. Causing Shepard to move back several paces and take up a defensive stance.

Really not helping with the whole not crazy thing.

I fumbled with the hoodie, which seemed pretty determined not to hand over my wallet. "Come on, don't make me look stupid here." I muttered to the hoodie.

Yeah, TOTALLY not crazy here!

Eventually I was able to liberate the wallet and I proceeded to shove it in to Shepard's face.

Which was a mistake, since she responded by grabbing my wrist and twisting it behind my back, really painfully.

"Ow. Ow! Ok, right sorry. Got a bit over exited there. Please let go."

After a moment she released me and let me spin to face her. Man she looked concerned, or pissed.

Can't tell.

I open the wallet and remove my provisional driving licence.

Yes provisional. I'm 19 and I've only just started taking lessons, alright?

I handed to card over to her for her to inspect, come on photo ID has to be good enough to at least make this feasible.

She examined the card. Her eyes glazed to mine and narrowed. "That's impossible." She dismissed.

"Oh come on. I know about the beacon when I shouldn't, I know about the vision you had even though I was out cold when you talked about it and I even have hard physical evidence!"

She continued stair intently at me, really staring into my soul, before she held the licence out to me. "Alright, if I believe you, and that's a big IF what are you going to do?"

I rose my arms haphazardly and dropped them to my sides. "I donno! This isn't exactly something I ever planned for. I mean usual stories about this end up going completely off the rails and changing everything that should happen, or they just sort of follow the storyline without really changing anything."

What a predicament. Ok let's think this through together. If I go around changing everything it won't take lone until I have no idea what's going on anymore, whereas if I don't change anything I'll likely just end up dying when the Reapers turn up, or knowing my luck I'll probably die long before that.

Think, think what to do?

"OK here, I know you don't believe me, so just let me tag alone to the Citadel, A, I'm a key witness of the attack and B, I'm certain that by the time you end up a Spectre I can prove I know things that there's no possible way I could know without knowing the future. Deal?" I offered my hand.

She looked to my extended hand then to me, her eyes were narrowing again, I could practically see the menu in front of her cycling between the different responses. I had to fight back a cringe at that mental image.

After a few moments she took my hand a firmly shook it.

And when I say firmly shook, I mean I could head my nerve endings screaming in pain at the amount of pressure. Don't know if I said this already but damn these people are strong.

"Fine. But if you give me any reason to doubt you I will personally throw you into the closest thing resembling a cell I can find."

I gulped, Christ she's scary when she wants to be. "Um… yeah, how long until we get to the Citadel?" I asked retracting my hand as quickly as I could.

She brought up her omni-tool for a moment. "About an hour."

"Right." I looked down to my dirty clothes. "Is there somewhere I can get these washed?" I glanced back up to her. "And maybe get a shower?"

She glanced over at me, taking in my overall dirty appearance and the tears in my clothes. "Yeah I'll show you." She stated as she left the med-bay and moved towards the row of lockers just outside, taking something out of one of theme and throwing it at me.

I caught the items and fumbled with them in an attempt to not drop them, I noticed it was a black T-shirt and what looked like a pair of dark navy cargo trousers.

"You might want to change into something a little less ruined."

Arriving on the Citadel, after being stopped and hassled by C-Sec for "Not registering in their data banks" honestly I thought they were about to arrest me until Shepard stepped in. And man it really was something to see two turians shrink under Shepard's scorning.

Anyway I realised something, the Citadel was MUCH bigger in person and so much more impressive. Even if it is just an over glorified mouse-trap set by the reapers. Just, Wow.

I also realised something after spending about 5 seconds in the Human Embassy. I HATE POLITICIANS! I mean we all know Udina is a prick in the games but in real life, oh he's like a thousand times the prick you thought he was.

I'd barely set foot through the door before he went off on one of the most ear shattering rants I have ever heard. He was shouting at Shepard for 'screwing up' the mission so badly. He was shouting at me for… some reason, I wasn't exactly listening.

Oh and I was about to let him have it, though Kaidan seemed to sense that and quickly moved me over to the balcony as the council came on the holograms.

Oh great, these idiots. Just what we need.

The conversation between them and Udina went like how you'd think, Udina was shouting, the council were being the ignorant ass's they are and nothing was getting done.

After that we all quickly rushed our way over to the council tower, well I rushed, everyone else just kept this brisk pace.

Nothing interesting really happened from then, I only bumped into a turian and ended up falling flat on my back, and then bumped into an asari who slapped me after shouting something I couldn't understand.

Oh right, I haven't got a translator so I can't understand anything. Man I didn't even realise up until now mostly out of a desire to just drown out Udina and the council as much as possible.

After a few moments of standing still rubbing my sore face someone grabbed my arm very roughly dragged me, and I do mean literally dragged me, over to the elevator.

When the doors closed I yanked my arm free from, what turned out to be Ashely's very tight grasp, and looked to the three. "What?"

"What happened with the asari?" Kaidan asked whilst looking rather amused.

"I don't know, I accidently bumped into her she shouted something and SLAPPED me!"

"She called you a pervert." Ashely deadpanned.

"Why?! I only bumped into her!"

She just shrugged before seeming to notice something. "Wait, how did you not understand her?"

"I don't think I have a translator." I said back whilst carefully poking at the slightly sore spot under my eye.

This earned a groan from Shepard as she reached into a pocket on her belt, took out what looked like an Iphone earbud, only smaller and black and threw it to me.

I caught it, only fumbling slightly, and brought it up to look at it. "What's this?"

"It's a translator, place it in whichever's your best ear."

I did as she said, placing it into my right ear gently moving it around until I was sure it wouldn't fall out, when it felt like it was stabbing it to my ear. "OW!" I exclaimed covering my ear. "What was that?"

"It just connected to your Cochlear nerve, you'll be able to understand any language it's programed with." Kaidan explained giving me an almost sympathetic look. "Yeah it hurts like a bitch."

After that little experience we were all stood in front of the council and the hologram Seran looking down at us. About three times through the either boring or infuriating proceedings I tried to involve myself, only for Ashely to grip my shoulder and pull me back. It was only when Shepard threatened to kill Seran next time they met and the council was about to dismiss the whole thing that I took my chance. "Excuse me Seran!" I called up to the, yet to be proven, rough Spectre, quickly dashing forward to avoid the swipe for my neck Ashely made.

He glared down at me and even through the poorly rendered hologram I could tell, he was pissed. "WHAT?!"

At this time all eyes were on me, from the downright murderous gaze of Seran to the disapproving looks from the council at having their oh so precious discussion interrupted and five very horrified and shocked human looks.

All of which made me a tiny winy bit self-couscous.

So I took a small moment to clear my throat and began furiously mashing my hands together before I powered through the anxiety. "I was just wondering, could I speak to Sovereign, or Nazara or whatever he's calling himself."

And there was the look of shock I was hoping for, the rest of the looks morphed to mere confusion but Seran, oh he looked like, well like someone had just told him they knew about the Reaper he's working with to bring about galactic genocide.

The look of shock was quickly covered by one of anger. "What are you talking about?" he snapped back, quite literally being turian and all, but there was a slight waiver in his voice. Or at least the translator made it sound like there was.

"You know, the Reaper the others left behind to call them in once the cycle is ready for another galactic genocide." I responded, flashing him my best shit eating 'just try me bro' grin.

Now he really looked taken aback, he began to splutter for a second, probably trying to come up with some "This human is crazy" explanation, but clearly too shocked to quite get it out.

This caught the attention of the council who looked towards the Spectre, and now for the kill. "I just was going to ask which species he's made up of, I never figured that out. Only if he's not too busy crawling his way into your head and turning you into a life-sized puppet."

That got him, his mandibles splayed open and his eyes widened to the size of dish plates, after barely a second of looking like a dear, or should that be dinosaur, caught in headlights, he must have cut the call as the hologram flickered and disappeared.

Well, that went well.

I turned to look at the three biggest idiots in the galaxy, who were looking back with a mix of shock and anger, the latter coming from the turian, what was his name again, Spartan? Sparatus! That was it. Anyway I looked to them with a small smile. "Now I know you want evidence proving Seran's guilt, so if you give us a minuet we'll just go and get it for you." I stated gesturing the Shepard before turning on my heel and dashing over to the sky-car down by the fountain.

Shepard quickly caught up with and grabbed my wrist, forcing me to face her. "What the hell was that?" she asked, and she seemed angry.

"Arguing with those three wasn't going to get us anywhere, I just sped that up a bit and got rid of Seran." I answered trying to get my wrist free from her grim, which was a lot harder than you'd think. "And besides we made a deal that I'd prove to you that I know what's going to happen and taking you straight to the evidence we need is the best way to prove that."

She made a face that showed she at least seemed to be considering what I was saying. "Just trust me for the next hour or so and I'll take you straight to vocal evidence of Seran admitting to his crimes."

She looked to my wrist in her grasp before looking back to me, then she let go. "What do we do?"

I cradled my wrist to me chest, "Thank you." Before looking over to where Ashley and Kaidan were watching the exchange. "Alright team!" I announce clapping my hands together, wincing slightly. "First thing we need to do is go to the clinic in the wards to go get Garrus."

"Garrus?" Ashley asked raising an eyebrow.

"That C-sec officer we met like ten minutes ago." I emphasised, giving her an 'are you serious' face.

She shrugged.

"After that we're going to C-sec HQ to pick up a krogan mercenary hired by the Shadow Broker, we'll need his help."

"And then what? We're off to go save an asari damsel in distress from a group of evil vorcha mafia." Kaidan added jokingly nudging Ashley slightly.

"Are there vorcha on the Citadel?" I asked completely seriously. He stopped chuckling to look at me in surprise. "Doesn't matter, actually we're going to save a quarrian pilgrim from Seran's assassins. The asari damsel in destress comes later." With that I turned to the controls at the rapid transport station, and quickly realised I had no idea how to use them.

"Um could one of you give me a hand with this?"