A/N: Played through the second conversation with Ash in the hospital and the unveiling of Liara's project, so spoilers for that included below.

I had originally planned to have some fun with narrative styles in this piece – unfortunately, FFN won't let me use super-advanced HTML code like tables. Snort. So, I've had to improvise. This piece is meant to be read together, but I've had to post Shep's side first and then I'll post Ash's side in the next chapter. Text/thoughts in common are bolded.
(And trust me… it was much cooler in three columns.)

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings,
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- Ozymandius, Shelley

Today, Liara asked me how I'd like to be remembered.

I didn't know what to say to her.
I still don't.

Until I was sixteen, I thought I'd be remembered by the family I created or the home that I built.

Father had land set aside for each of us to make our own one day.

When Alan married at twenty-one, Father gave him one of the empty plots as a wedding gift. We spent that summer helping him prepare the fields and lay the foundation for his home while his new wife sat with Mama and talked of the family they'd raise together.

They never got the chance, of course.

I told Liara she knew me well enough to write something on her own. I didn't expect that she would know what my insides look like.

Mindoir was the first thing she mentioned, how it never held me back. But it is with me always.

I guess she sees that.

We were helping Alan build that day.

Mama stayed behind at our farmhouse with Ella and Alan's wife. Mark's girlfriend was there too, helping them with the cooking. We all expected to be helping him build next.

The rest of us were just a few minutes down the road: Father and Mark with heads bent over blueprints, Alan and I tilling the fields. There was one a little farther out than the others, and Alan's eyes kept shifting back to our farmhouse, to where his wife was waiting.

Lookin' strong today, Johnny-Come-Lately, and clapped me on one thin shoulder with his big hand. You put those muscles to work out on the far field while I try to get us fed.

I just laughed and started working. I never disagreed with my brothers.

So I went.

And I wondered as the hours passed why Alan never came back. Now I wonder what would have happened if I'd gone instead.

Maybe they were taken by surprise or maybe I was too far out in that last field… But I never heard a thing.

By the time the Alliance patrol came running through, I was nearly finished tilling.

It's not the screams that haunt me at night – it's the silence.

Well, that and the question…

Why them and not me?
I don't know.

I've learned that's one of the questions that, no matter how many times I ask, I'll never find an answer to.

Liara's right: I never let Mindoir hold me back. But, it's with me always.

As I said all those years ago, there's nothing after-the-fact that you can do. All you can do is learn from the past and resolve to do better where you can.

Now, my ears strain through the silence.

And I'm not contented to follow orders and wait.

But when I think of Liara's question, I still don't have an answer.

How do you measure a man?

I'm not an amateur philosopher like Mark or a farmer like Father or Alan. I don't even know if I'm half the man that any of them were.

All I can say is that I'm me.

But I want to be remembered by the things that I've done and the lives that I've touched, both good and bad.

I want to be remembered by the imprints on my heart, by those I've met and those I've lost, because they are the ones shaped me.

I hope that I'm making them proud.

And I hope that, at the end of everything, there will be a galaxy left to measure and remember me.