Note: Many thanks to Elana.S for beta-ing this chapter.

Blue

2168

The day after he turned eighteen, Erik went to Toscani with some friends to celebrate. At least, that's what he said. When he came home, he showed their parents the Alliance recruitment papers he'd signed with a look of mingled defiance and wariness.

"You signed up without me!" Andie accused him, not seeing the blank look of shock on her parents' faces.

Erik looked a little guilty. "I'm eighteen now, Andie. I'm not going to wait another four years just to have my baby sister tag along."

Andie glared at him, fury and betrayal swirling in her gut. She clenched her fists, trembling with anger, and suddenly the room spun as if the floor was heaving under her feet and for a brief, horrifying moment, she didn't know which way was up. The feeling passed and she felt weak, drained as if she'd worked herself to the bone. By the looks she was getting from her family, she knew she'd glowed blue again. It was happening more often than it used to, ever since the mid-air shuttle collision at the beginning of the summer.

"You could have told us, son," Matt said, frowning at Erik.

Erik scowled, crossing his arms. "Yeah, and then told to get out to the fields like a good little farmer boy? No way."

"Don't you take that tone with your father, young man," Jo snapped. Three-year-old Gabby, sitting on the floor in the living room with some toys, looked up, eyes wide at the tension in the room.

Matt rested his hand on his wife's shoulder and she relaxed a bit, though her eyes still held a mixture of hurt and anger.

"Erik," Matt said, in a calmer but no less firm voice, "the only reason I kept you working the fields was because you didn't have a clear idea of what you wanted to do—or so I thought. If you'd just talked to us…" He let his other hand fall helplessly at his side.

"I never wanted to be a farmer, Dad," Erik said, a little petulantly.

"That's been obvious for years," Jo said, raising an eyebrow. "You think we're blind?"

Erik shifted, looking uncomfortable, the defiance fading.

"I didn't want to make you mad," he mumbled. "I was going to talk to you about it, but then Colby and the guys were laughing, saying that all my talk was just that and I... I don't know, I snapped. Had them pull over at the recruiting station and signed the papers before I could really think."

Matt and Joanna shared a look. Jo sighed and went to Erik, kissing his cheek.

"If this is what you really want to do, we'll support you. Goodness knows your aunt Esther has been waiting for another Shepard to join the Alliance."

"Thanks, Mom." Erik smiled, the tension bleeding out of him.

Andie wasn't so ready to forgive him. She sat in stony silence through dinner, avoiding any attempts at conversation by stuffing her mouth with food every time someone looked at her. But her plan worked too well; instead she had to do her best to ignore the excitement in her brother's voice as he talked the test he was supposed to take, the physical exercise regimen he was going to start the next day, and the training he would eventually receive on Earth.

Later, after dinner, she sat at her piano, fiddling with her interface gloves before deciding on a melancholy Chopin nocturne, which called to mind cloudy skies and the gloom of falling rain. It wasn't as if she was jealous of Erik—not a chance. Who wanted to be in the stupid Alliance anyway? She had grown up on Mindoir, under open sky and wide fields. Why would she want to live in a cramped ship or station? She didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay here in this house with Mom and Dad and Gabby and baby Isaac and Lucky and Macbeth to the end of her days. Her fingers slipped, hitting a dissonant note.

"That didn't sound right," said Erik, coming to stand beside her.

Andie curled her fingers away from the keyboard.

"What do you want?" she said grouchily. She hated it when others noticed her mistakes.

"Hey, no reason to bite my head off," he said, raising his hands in defense. "I just wanted to see what's up. You looked ready to cry at dinner."

"I'm not crying," she said, swallowing hard.

Erik looked at her.

"All right." After a moment, he sat down on the bench beside her, his elbow going uselessly through the haptic interface keys as he leaned back. "I didn't think you were serious that time, when we talked about entering the military."

Andie shrugged, picking at her interface gloves. It was hard to voice the struggle inside her. Erik had been her best friend as long as she could remember; he'd been the one she followed around when she was little, the one who taught her how to do cool things like dig for worms in the soft mud around the river, or how to hide in the tall grasses so still that critters would come right up to them, convinced that they were part of the landscape. Things had changed as they got older. Andie now understood a little of Erik's frustration with her when he was fifteen and she eleven. Gabby was at an age now to follow her around everywhere. She even tried to get into the bathroom with her sometimes. But Andie couldn't help it; she missed him. Maybe her claim to want to join the Alliance was less about the exploration of space and more about capturing those all too few memories of their time together.

"I…" Andie licked her lips. "I want both sometimes." She stroked a few keys. "I think it would be really cool to be a soldier like Aunt Essie and do stuff like fight pirates, but I don't want to leave Mindoir either. It's stupid."

"Not really," Erik said, surprising her. "You know how excited I am, but to tell you the truth, I'm kinda scared too."

Andie looked at him for the first time, eyebrows raised incredulously. "Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, I've never been off-planet. Even on Mindoir, I've only ever traveled to Toscani. The thought of being millions of miles away from you guys is a little… freaky." She could see it in his face now, the tightening of his jaw, the worried furrow to his brow. He was scared. But he was going to do it anyway.

"Why?" She blurted out. "Why are you going when you're scared?"

Erik smiled and ruffled her hair, chuckling at her scowl.

"Because some things are worth doing, even if you're scared."