Notes:

Like everyone else, I think the dialogue, characters, and gameplay for ME3 are amazing; the EC and Leviathan added SOO much to the endings. A huge improvement. Updates will continue to be slow, but I hope my readers will stick with me for the ride.

All standard disclaimers still apply. Although I don't own the characters or universe, I do work hard on my little stories. Please don't print or repost without my knowledge. Thanks.

Chapter-specific notes: Takes place pre-ME1. Also written in the first person. Would be interested to hear if you like this or prefer 3rd person for Shep-PoV.

And thanks again to all the people who've taken time to encourage me by adding me or my story to favorites or alerts. And, most especially, thanks to those few who've written reviews. I welcome your interest, thoughts, and ideas-even constructive criticism. Your support is always appreciated, and often instrumental to maintaining the inspiration necessary to develop a story.

Waiting.

I shifted on the blocky, nondescript sofa-I'd never quite been able to figure out what it was about modern society that dictated all furniture had to look exactly the same or that the standard had to be so milk-mild and boring as to be forgotten even when you were in the room with it, but...

the furniture wasn't my problem. Indicative of it, maybe.

I felt like my entire life up to this point had been spent here, on this sofa, uncomfortable and unmoving, but not entirely fixed. Static. A hiss.

White noise.

What a way to describe a childhood.

Sitting here, waiting to sign it over, consign it to the history books, I wanted to look back on my childhood with one last valedictory glance. Tender, fleeting, bittersweet.

The turning of a page.

Maybe it will be. Maybe it is.

But the page is blank.

Waiting.

It is, oddly, the only fitting way to end my minority.

If only I weren't so tired of it.

Tired of waiting.

I've done so much of it... try as I might to remember practical jokes, wild adventures, drunken parties, hopeful daydreams... what stands out, what remains constant through all the jumble of the years is the waiting.

Waiting in plain vanilla little rooms like this one, an anteroom to nothing- or maybe everything- a coffin, a box, a neat little package, all wrapped up and containing air, not hot, exactly, but warm-warm and a little stale. Containing me.

Contained.

Constrained.

Never speaking, never taking action.

Yes, that is me.

Waiting.

Just waiting.

Waiting to be told Mom-or Dad-but usually Mom-has a new assignment. Waiting to be told we're moving.

Waiting to adjust to the new Alliance outpost.

The new world. New gravity. New sun. New sky. New plants. New people. New expectations. New and new and new again... until the very new seems old. Or maybe just constant. Worn and repeated. Plain. Uninteresting.

Like the room I'm in.

Waiting, waiting, waiting to say goodbye, the final hug, the final kiss, the final walk up that long, narrow plank and into a ship... the final launch into the sky... again and again and again... the final isn't final, and that's a relief, but it always could be... and someday it will be... and you won't know... not then, not until it's over, not until it's too late... waiting, always waiting, waiting to know when-if- you will say hello... and then goodbye... again.

It's hard. The waiting.

Maybe the hardest part of it all is that it doesn't really seem hard. It seems easy, far too easy.

Waiting is being bored and worried and angry... but you can't complain...

or you can complain as much as you want.

I did more than my fair share of it. I remember.

But my parents didn't stop and listen. The Alliance didn't stop and listen. The wide open sky, the distant rock vistas, the close dark trees, maybe they listened. Sometimes I thought they did... sometimes I knew they didn't.

Whatever was beyond them, the stars, the great black void, adulthood, eternity...

whether they listen or not, there's no telling. They're unchanging. Unmoved.

And like them, whatever you tell them...

It is what it is and you have to live with it.

Unless you prefer the alternative.

And most people don't.

I hear the words in their voices-my mother's voice tight and impatient, my father's voice calm and almost amused-and I'm not sure if I'm smiling or scowling at the sound of them.

And that is when I hear the recruitment officer call my name.

I stand up and walk over to his console and hope like hell my step looks confident, because I can feel my knees shaking.

He reels off the standard boilerplate. I hear all of it and listen to none of it.

I am what I am, too.

I wish contracts were still signed with a pen or an old-fashioned computer stylus, something heavy, something I could feel the weight of in my hand. Something I could reach out and take...

but there is just a glow of energy hovering above a plain, flat desk.

I know I can't, but I think I can feel the slight warm hum of it washing up into my face, coloring my complexion, changing my face.

I take a breath.

This is it.

Soon, I will be the one walking away. The one walking up that plank, and eventually back down it, full stories to tell. A veritable tome of experience, a vivid memory on every page.

I hold out a thumb, press it into the empty, oddly-lit space.