Sorry for the long delay, dear readers. I had to climb over a rather sizable writer's block before I was able to get anywhere with this one. Also, I blame ME3 multiplayer. I swear, it's not my fault!

"I'll just be over here, Shepard. You know: not touching anything."

Normandy SR1

"Doctor, Dr. Chakwas! I think he's waking up!"

Shepard blearily opened his eyes to find Chief Williams and Dr. Chakwas leaning worriedly over him. He put a hand to his forehead and sat up, immediately recognizing the Normandy's medical bay.

"You had us worried there, Shepard. How are you feeling?"

He shook his head a little, trying to dispel the pulsing of a lingering headache.

"Minor throbbing… nothing too serious. How long was I out?"

"About fifteen hours."

Shepard glanced around, noticing Ashley. Why is she here? She's not part of Normandy's crew. Still, he was grateful for her presence, and said as much.

After going through the usual reassurances that he felt fine, Shepard noticed that he wasn't the only patient being tended to. On a stretcher on the other side of the medical bay sat the kid that had led them to Ashley, arms wrapped around his knees. What was his name again? Oh yeah. Conner. Shepard nodded to him encouragingly, but received only a weak grin in return, quickly replaced by nervous rocking. Though Shepard had no idea why Conner would be nervous…

"So," he finally interrupted, cutting off Chakwas's medical analysis and Ashley's worried apologies. "Any particular reason we have a crazy civilian in our med bay?" He made sure to put some humor into his voice, but Conner still gulped. The poor kid looked absolutely terrified of something.

"Captain's orders," Chakwas replied, checking her datapad and striding over to where Conner sat. "Something about 'classified intelligence leaks.' I also noticed that there seems to be some difficulty with his various implants, biotic and omnitool. If I didn't know better, I'd say they were very recently installed and that his body is close to rejecting them."

"Re-re-rejecting them?" Conner stammered, rubbing the back of his neck and breathing hard.

"I said close to, not actually rejecting." Chakwas tried to place a comforting hand on Conner's shoulder, but he flinched and scooted away as far as he could manage without falling off the stretcher. "In any case," Chakwas continued, "I'm recommending he be confined to the medical bay for now. He hasn't spoken about what he witnessed down there, and he's showing signs of post-traumatic stress."

Before she could elaborate, the bay door whooshed open and Captain Anderson walked in. "How's our XO holding up, doctor?"

"Well all the readings look normal; I think the Commander's going to be fine." Shepard breathed a sigh of relief. One less thing to worry about. He glanced over at Ashley and they exchanged grins.

"I'm more worried about our newest guest, though." Anderson's expression turned aggrieved.

"Doctor, I didn't order him to be escorted up here because of his medical concerns-"

"But you did ask that he be given the same considerations as any other soldier," Chakwas cut him off. Apparently this was a touchy issue between the two. Shepard felt very much as if he were watching a tennis match.

"He displayed knowledge of both the Normandy's systems and our mission when he came aboard, both of which are highly classified." Anderson folded his arms, sounding more cross than Shepard had ever seen him. "He could only have learned what he knows from an inside source."

"He's in no condition for an interrogation, Captain." Now Chakwas appeared to be losing her temper. Shepard had never heard her raise her voice in all his time aboard the Normandy, and it looked as though he might break that record.

"He did help us down there, sir." Shepard felt he at least owed Conner a little support. "Without him we wouldn't have gotten to Ashley when we did."

"Heh…" Conner looked away and rubbed the bridge of his nose anxiously. Shepard barely caught his whispered "Yeah…"

"I'm still not convinced that-"

"Captain, do I have to site regulation B11, section eight?" Chakwas smugly placed her hands on her hips. The right of an Alliance medical doctor to countermand a superior's orders regarding the health of his/her charge…

Only then did Anderson capitulate, glaring daggers at the young man who, despite his patchy knowledge, claimed to be from the past. "No. I remember how well that went over last time." He straitened his collar and cleared his throat. "Shepard I need to speak to you. In private."

"Then the med-bay's out of the question," Shepard laughed, gesturing at Dr. Chakwas and her patient. Conner opened his mouth, obviously having something on his mind, but seemed to think better of it. "What?" Shepard raised an eyebrow and leaned against the med-table.

"It's just…" Shepard could tell Conner was having a hard time working up the courage to speak at all. "You said you wanted to talk and… I just thought that it'd be best to get it out of the way now while we're still on-route to the Citadel-"

Shepard started, giving Conner an odd look. "Did you say where we were going, Captain?"

"No. I didn't." Anderson's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"I- cripes…" Conner buried his face in his hands, mumbling "I shouldn't have said that…" How does he know so much? If Shepard didn't know better, he'd have thought this kid was afraid of him.

Anderson looked at Conner, at Shepard, then back to Conner. Then he sighed, and offered his arm to Dr. Chakwas.

"We'll leave you two alone for a minute. I'll debrief you both-" he pointed his chin at Ashley, who saluted and chose that moment to follow them out. "-Once you're done."

That said, Anderson closed the door behind him and left Shepard alone with Conner. Seconds passed. Then a minute. And still Conner said nothing. He looked at the walls of the med-bay, not meeting Shepard's eyes. Finally he unfolded himself from his fetal pose and set his feet gingerly on the floor, almost as if he was afraid it might disappear.

What is he so afraid of? For the life of him, Shepard couldn't figure out why Conner was acting so scared. The kid stared around at the bay, touching the stretchers and the wall. He crouched down and put his hands on the sterile floor, shaking his head and whispering "Real. This is real."

"What's the problem?" Shepard asked. "You're acting like you've never been on a starship before." Couldn't be. Conner looked up at him with a rueful expression. "You're kidding." Conner shook his head.

"I'm not." Conner slowly stood, his gaze downcast. But it didn't appear as though the ship was what he was afraid of. It almost seemed like… like he was afraid of what he had to say. Of Shepard.

"Whatever you want to say to me, say it. I think you owe me an explanation, Mr. Time Traveler."

"Yeah, about that…" Conner shuffled his feet. "It… isn't the whole truth."

"Ohhhhhhhhhh?" Shepard drew the word out. Conner nodded, looking decidedly uncomfortable. "I'm waiting," Shepard added, crossing his arms and tapping a finger.

Conner's eyes met the floor again, and he took several deep breaths. He raised his head with his eyes closed, and let all the air out of his lungs. Shepard just stood there, completely mystified.

"Do you play video games, Commander?"

Shepard blinked. Where did that come from? "A little, when I was growing up," he said slowly. "What exactly does that have to do with-"

"Everything." Conner clenched his fists and bit his lip. Shepard could tell he was mentally stealing himself. "What would you do if you suddenly found yourself…" -kid looks like he's close to hyperventilating-"Inside the world of your favorite video game?"

Silence. Dead silence. Shepard couldn't believe he was hearing this. A videogame? There's no way… He uncrossed his arms and stared at Conner. The implications started trickling into his mind one by one. None of them were particularly pleasant.

"Are you implying that this-" he gestured around him, indicating (more or less) reality

"To me is a videogame. Or at least it was…" Conner started to talk very fast, as if he was relieved to have finally said it. "Until I crashed the car I was driving. Then the car turned into a fighter, and that thing shot me down and then you guys came along and-"

"All right, hold it." Shepard grabbed him by the shoulder. "You're telling me… that this universe is just: a videogame? How is that even possible?"

"I don't know!" Conner started shaking. "I don't know how I got here, I don't know if this is real, all I know is that Commander effing Shepard is staring me in the face and I'm on the Normandy and we're in space!"

Shepard counted slowly. He spoke again only when he was certain he could do so without scaring the kid shitless: "If what you say is true… then who is the player character?" He knew enough about video games to consider that much.

Conner swallowed. Hard. He looked Shepard straight in the eye and said one word:

"You."

I was screwed. Completely, utterly, totally, screwed. I had just told Shepard, the Shepard, my hero, that this world, his world, was a fabrication. An illusion. Nothing to me but pixels on a screen.

That's without mentioning the fact that Shepard was-

"How… how much control did you have of me?" Shepard whispered through clenched teeth. "What kind of game was it?"

"It… was-well-IS a role-playing shooter game. The player could customize your combat specialization, appearance…" I stopped for a second when Shepard put a hand to his forehead, and plunged on. "military reputation and… and homeworld."

Shepard froze. I knew just what that meant. But nothing could have prepared me for what I suspected was coming.

Growling savagely Shepard slammed me against the wall of the med-bay, forearm pressing down on my windpipe. "Mindoir? You chose-" through the roaring in my ears I could hear him breathing heavily. "-that I lose everyone I cared about? My entire childhood?"

My vision started to go red at the edges. I couldn't breathe, and I certainly wasn't strong enough to fend Shepard off. I tried anyway to catch even a small ounce of oxygen and convey to him how much guilt I felt without being able to speak. Seconds passed, then a minute. Flashes of light sparked in front of me, Shepard holding my life in his hands all the while.

A split second before I lost consciousness he released me, taking a step back, fists clenched. I collapsed onto my hands and knees, head throbbing and throat far worse than that. I clutched it and gulped down as much air as I could with a bruised Adam's apple, only able to sputter out the random "Didn't… wasn't… never… sorry…"

Shepard knelt before me and grabbed the front of my shirt. He shoved me against the wall again, his face consumed with the most terrifying wrath I had ever seen on a human face.

"Knowledge of the future is dangerous. I know that. But you are. Going. To. Tell. Me. Everything."

I inhaled raggedly a few times, then I did. I told him. Not what was going to happen (he didn't seem to want or expect that), but the mechanics. When Mass Effect started, and how long it was. The kinds of decisions I was able to make through him (not going into the actual decisions), the companion system, how I knew so much and so little at the same time.

Shepard just listened. A couple of times he jerked as if surprised or intrigued, but for the most part he didn't move a muscle. The fist that held me pinned to the wall (chest this time; I needed air to speak) was immovable as a stone pillar, and felt as hard.

I finally ran out of things I could tell him without compromising the flow of time (as best I could tell obviously), and fell silent. The two of us remained crouched on the floor for what seemed like hours, staring into each others' faces.

Shepard's fist slowly unclenched from my shirt and he stood up, his eyes staring straight forward and seeming to see right through the wall. Having lost the capacity (or motivation) to move, my head drooped onto my chest.

"It won't make things better, I know… but for what it's worth, I'm sorry," I whimper, a single tear crawling down my face. "I would never have put you through any of that if I knew-"

"You couldn't have." Shepard cut me off, breathing deeply through his nose. He looked down at me with an expression that I could easily have mistaken for hatred. "Like you said, you had no way of knowing… Mass Effect" he spat the words out "was real." He grabbed me by the shirt again and hauled me to my feet, as my legs weren't responding.

"You… you believe me?" I doubted that he would ever be able to take anything I said at face value.

"Given everything else that's happened, right now your story is the only one that fits the facts." He forced me to look straight into his eyes. "For now."

I gulped, wondering what other kind of cockadoodle alibi could possibly account for what was happening to me.

Shepard let me go and walked over to Dr. Chakwas's desk, leaning heavily onto it and staring into space again. I couldn't exactly work up the courage to make another move or sound, so I let him think (at least I thought that's what he was doing).

He seemed to make up his mind after a moment and turned back to me. "Since you don't have a place to go right now," I realize this in the same moment. "I'm going to offer you a deal."

"All right?"

Shepard's voice grew, if possible, even deadlier. "Be useful. Get straightened out, and in fighting shape. Join the 'squad,' and try not to screw up. Do that," he took a step forward, a medical needle in his hand. "And I might not commit you to an insane asylum."

My eyes widened, and my heartbeat pounded in my ears. That he would, I had absolutely no doubt. None of the Shepards alignments made idle threats. And given all that I had experienced, there was a high probability that I was off my mental rocker.

I closed my eyes, and considered. There was some appeal to allowing myself to be imprisoned in a nut house: free (not to mention regular) food, lodging, and (if I was lucky) no one would be shooting at me.

But of course no one else knew what I knew: the Reapers were coming. And I also had no desire to go stir-crazy, and likely legit-crazy in some ward while the galaxy burned around me.

I gathered what little nerve I had left. "What should I tell everyone else?"

Shepard glared at me for a couple of seconds, searching my face for I-didn't-know-what. "You figure it out."

My stomach clenched. Then I spoke the fatal words. "I accept your offer." I reached out my hand, then remembered who I was supposed to be. "Uh, Sir!"

"Good." Shepard's voice made it sound anything but. "We dock at the Citadel in five hours. I want you ready to go by then."

Should be easy. I'm wearing everything I own.

Shepard walked past me, ignoring my outstretched hand completely. I placed my hands on my legs and exhaled shakily. Then I noticed my pants.

"Um… Commander?"

Shepard was almost to the med-bay door when he turned around with a curt "What?"

"Where's the bathroom?"

So there you have it. The implausible beginings of a hero's journey. Here's hoping he doesn't just end up a glorified Conrad Verner. Feedback of any species is appreciated, and I look forward to continuing this journey with you, the readers.