Hours.

Mindoir

Andie idly tossed the football up in a lazy spin, caught it, and did it again. Off to the side her older brother Erik was arguing with his friend Colby. She rolled her eyes and huffed out a breath that lifted the fringe of her hair. This was stupid.

"He's just jealous that we won the last time because of my touchdown," she yelled, cupping her hand around her mouth to shout toward the boys.

Colby cast her a cold look and started toward her. Erik put a hand on his arm but the other teen shrugged him off. "No, it's because you're a cheat, freak," he sneered, stopping to loom over her. "There's no way a little girl could run that fast. You were glowing. I saw you."

Andie frowned, but stood her ground even if she was starting to get a crick in her neck from looking up at him. "What are you talking about? We won fair and square. Even Marie said so and she's always on your side."

Colby scowled. "That's 'cause she wasn't watching. You were glowing, Andie. I don't know where you got red sand, but that's an unfair advantage."

Andie blinked, confused.

Erik angrily grabbed Colby's arm. "She's a kid, Col; twelve years old. She doesn't do stuff like that. Besides, this is just a stupid game. It's not like we're on the school team; we're just playing for fun."

"If it wasn't sand, then what was it?" Colby glared at them both as they remained silent. "Because of your little glowy trick, I tripped and my ankle swelled up. I couldn't run during tryouts, which means I didn't make the team at school and it's your fault. Freak!" He spat.

Andie didn't reply. She had felt that weird sensation during the game last week—that funny feeling like gravity was trying to shift around. And she knew that she was different. She'd made her stylus move just by looking at it once—even if Erik didn't believe her, she knew what she'd done. Was it possible? Had she cheated without knowing it?

"I'm going home," she said, swallowing, and dropped the ball. It rolled away in the grass.

Matthew Shepard was watching a vid when she walked into the house. His broken foot lay propped up on a footstool—he'd gotten it caught in some harvesting equipment he'd been trying to fix. "Hey, sweet pea," he said, muting the volume on the vid when she came in. "What're you doing in so early? Thought you were going to play football for a couple of hours."

Andie shrugged. "Didn't feel like it."

Her father eyed her for a moment, then held out his arms. Lower lip trembling, she ran into them, curling up on the couch beside her father and laying her head against his broad, warm chest. She was getting almost too tall to fit into his arms as easily as she did last year, and she snuggled into the warmth of his shirt.

"Daddy, am I a freak?" she asked after a moment. She felt his arms tighten around her.

"Have your friends been calling names?" he said, brows furrowed.

Andie licked her lips. She didn't want to be a tattler. "I... glow sometimes," she said instead. "Weird stuff happens around me. I'm... different. I am a freak, aren't I?" She gulped the last words, throat painfully tight.

Matthew sighed and kissed the top of her head, which was tucked against his collarbone. "You are different, Andie. But that isn't a bad thing... Your mother and I have known for awhile, though maybe we should have been talking with you about it before now. You were born this way—it wasn't anything that you did or didn't do. It just happened." He paused, stroking her hair. "Do you remember all the doctor visits we took you to when you were little?"

Andie frowned, trying to remember. "Yeah a little, but I don't remember much. Kids go to doctors all the time, right?"

"Sometimes," he said with a smile. "You, however, are special. You," he tapped the end of her freckled nose, "sweet pea, have biotic potential. Do you know what that is?"

Andie hesitated, then nodded against his shoulder. "We learned about them at school. Asari are biotic, right?" A memory came to her then and she gasped, surprised that she'd forgotten. "And that drell! He was biotic!"

"That's right, he was. Humans can be biotic too with a lot of luck and special training. You can't do much now, but in the future, if you want to, you could be able to do a lot more. But only if you want to, sweet pea."

Andie stayed quiet, calmed by the sound of her father's heartbeat through his shirt, his strong arms holding her close and safe. She didn't want to leave this, ever.

"So I'm not a freak then?" she asked in a small voice.

"No," her father said, smiling. "You're a Shepard. Now," he said ruffling her hair, "your mother told me you learned a new song that I haven't heard yet. Will you play it for me?"

She jumped up, retrieved her interface gloves and flicked on the piano.