#siawrites

So it’s only on PC?  Damn.  Definitely can’t play it.

You wanted angst, prepare for some hardcore angst. 

An alarm spikes in Shepard’s HUD right before a 96 kph gale of wind catches him in the chest. He swears under his breath, but there’s no one on the comm to hear. He’d shut it off before taking the shuttle alone, half an hour before Garrus was supposed to meet him in the cargo bay.

Alchera was something he needed to do alone.

The wind kicks up a drift of snow, but the storm itself is passed. Through the widening seam of retreating clouds, hundreds of stars watch him from above, each one of them bright, silent, far away.

Another piece of the Normandy’s hull gleams from its final resting place wedged against a cliff. He trudges towards it, head bent against the wind, handful of dog tags clenched in one palm.

Only the faintest hint of starlight filters into the shattered remains of the crew deck. He doesn’t know why he goes in in the first place, other than to maybe get out of the wind. There’s nothing to find, nothing left for him here. Just the wreckage of his old life neatly preserved under the snow and a blanket of stars.

He runs a gauntleted hand over the edge of an overturned table from the mess. That table hasn’t seen a poker game in over two years, never would again.

Stupid thing to get sentimental about.

A row of lockers tilts and sags to his right, two of them crushed, one still mostly upright, somehow still sealed shut.

(Come on, Kaidan. I can get a salute from anyone on this ship.)

(I always leave a way out. You know that.)

Shepard exhales, breath rattling in his ears. He’d given Kaidan his way out, all right. He sinks down to the ground, swiveling to lean back against the frozen lockers.

(It’s that easy huh? Ok then. Everything will be fine.)

It had been, in a way. They’d won. The mission came first. It always came first. That had never really been a problem until he’d finally come across something he cared about more than the fucking mission.

But he’d done what a good soldier was supposed to do.  

He still remembers the feel of Kaidan’s hand closing over his. How Shepard had damn near knocked him over getting to his feet, but Kaidan braced himself and took the weight, kept them both upright. The warmth he radiated, that close, close enough for Shepard to feel his breath on his cheek, had kept him up at night.

After the mission, he’d told himself. After Saren was dead and they could breathe easy he’d revisit his priorities. Maybe put something else first.

One moment. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything. Maybe it would have changed everything.

Instead it had ended here, right here, before it ever began. The few steps between the bridge and the escape pod too great for him to cross.

It had all burned up in the atmosphere, plummeted into the snow and been buried under the stars.

“Where are my clothes?”

Miranda Lawson looked into the scarred, unimpressed-looking face of Jessica ‘Jessie’ Shepard, raising perfectly-shaped eyebrow at the box the subject and success story of Project Lazarus had just dropped on her desk. “Those are your clothes, Shepard. I’m positive they fit.”

Shepard’s scowl deepened. “These are clothes, but these are not my clothes. I’m not wearing this shit; it’s got the Cerberus logo stamped on everything but the underwear!” Miranda blinked and took a second look at Shepard; she’d been so distracted by the question, the box on the desk and the fact that Shepard was so well able to confront authority figures so soon after her slightly-early awakening that she hadn’t noticed Shepard’s state of undress. At least Shepard stalking into her office wearing nothing but a sports bra and a pair of underpants gave Miranda a good look at how the various surgical scars were healing. While Miranda processed that, Shepard went on talking: “You brought me back exactly as I was; I’m assuming that means my measurements too, so I want my damn clothes!”

Miranda stifled a sigh. “Shepard ... you’ve been dead for two years. Your uniforms are Alliance property and your civilian clothing went to a charity organisation to help refugees. Your clothes are gone. I understand that you might be a bit ... reluctant to wear a Cerberus uniform--”

“Reluctant, hell; I’m just not fucking doing it,” came the reply. “If your Cerberus leash-holders know half of what they say they do about my military history, you’ll know why. Or does ‘Akuze’ not ring any bells for the waste of space you call a records division?”

Ah. Miranda had expected this, to a point, but not the violence of the reaction. Most thought that Jessie Shepard’s anger management issues stemmed from the loss of her squad on Akuze. The fact that she’d learned that Cerberus was responsible for what happened there ... was unfortunate. But they worked with what they had. Which gave Miranda her only real argument as regards the topic of clothing: “First of all, the ... incident on Akuze was not this division. Perhaps the Illusive Man signed off on it, but I couldn’t say.” ‘Couldn’t’, of course, could mean many things. Miranda kept it vague because Shepard hated liars, and this deal they’d cut to have her stop the Collectors on Cerberus’ behalf was a hard enough sell as it was. “We’re on our way to Omega, and I’m sure you can find something more to your tastes there. In the meantime, in the interests of not distracting the crew, perhaps--”

Shepard interrupted Miranda by the simple expedient of rummaging in the box of Cerberus uniforms, pulling out a bottle of liquid accelerant and a M-3 Predator, her weapon of choice. As Shepard emptied the bottle of accelerant over the piles of cloth in the box, Miranda had a moment to remember that Shepard favoured incendiary rounds, and figured out fairly quickly what Shepard was planning to do. “Shepard--”

Ignoring Miranda completely, Shepard fired into the box. As the flames quickly devoured accelerant and cloth alike, she said, “If the crew finds my tight, firm ass distracting, they can fucking cope, or they can give Chakwas more business as I break any roaming hands. N7 armour in the field, and anything that doesn’t have that fucking corporate logo on it aboard ship. If all that leaves is underwear? I can live with that, and you’re going to have to live with that. You wanted me back? This is me. Fucking deal with it.” Without another look at the conflagration she’d caused, Shepard left the room.

True, but Vigil tells you one of the ways the Reapers won was destroying the Protheans' leadership. So, at least one or two of my Shepards keep that in mind and save the Destiny Ascension.

Yeah, like I said, I’m basically metagaming with that particular tidbit. It’s the kind of decision I only make because I, the player, have that knowledge of things that the character doesn’t, but I go through with it because of the equal player knowledge that, in tangible terms, the Council never receives any firm comeuppance for their mistakes throughout the series, on top of how I’m at a point where I firmly believe that they are only giving Shepard the assignment to go after Saren in the name of expecting them to fail so they can yank the position away, cite it as reason for humanity to be pushing too far too fast.

Since I figure Wren and Josie end up adopting like a baseball team

“I’m never moving, ever again!” Wren moaned, collapsing back onto the bed, her arm flung dramatically over her eyes as she sighed loudly.

Josephine rolled her eyes, and started to pick up the trail of discarded outerwear and boots that Wren had left in her wake. She placed the damp boots by the fire, hung up the scarf and jacket in the wardrobe.

“You were the one who started it, mi amor,” she said lightly, making her way toward the bed.

Wren lifted her arm, blinked open one eye to glare at Josephine. “They,” she stressed, “were the ones who started it. I finished it.”

Laughing softly, Josephine sat on the edge of the bed. Ran a hand over the top of Wren’s head, between her horns, and found her hair was damp from all the snow. The children had thought it would be funny to attack their mama with a bundle of snowballs the moment she had appeared outside – after much goading and pleading and flatout begging – the resulting war had lasted for hours as Wren refused to concede.

“I am sure they have learned an important less,” Josephine said in all seriousness, even as she noticed movement at the door to their bedroom.

She had to presse her lips to keep from laughing as she noticed the gaggle of kids quietly sneaking forward, a sheet piled high with powdery snow clutched between them. Josephine watched as they all crept forward, trying not to laugh; she pressed a finger to her lips.

“Just remember something?” Josephine said quietly, leaning forward and pressing to her exhausted wife’s lips.

“What’s that?”

38. Have you sharedyour outline of your story with someone? If so, what did they think of it?

Well, as much as I’d like to keep my betas unspoiled forwhat’s in store for the Family Resemblance crew, I’ve let a few things slip.And @pagerunner has very patiently listened to me spill the beans at length onpretty much everything I have planned :P Even though she hasn’t played Mass Effect, she seemed to like where I’m going with things.

39. Do you base yourcharacters of real people or not? If so, tell us about one.

I’m sure I’ve taken traits from people I know and foldedthem into my characters, but generally, they come from the plot. I need Hannahto show how the Systems Alliance recovers its reputation after Shanxi and ascends to aposition of respect and authority on the galactic stage, so she needed to be loving, diplomatic, political, optimistic, and generally open to cooperating with nonhumans.I need Michael to, likewise, show how Cerberus grows in power and reach, so heneeded to be cautious, distrusting, disillusioned, and cynical to make him theperfect recruit. Alli will eventually find herself in a bloodbath that she’sresponsible for, and the anxiety and emotional disposition she’s starting tonurse in her youth will be an exacerbating factor.

That being said, I can see a lot of my younger self in Alliand even some of my adult self in Hannah. I can see quite a few of the boys Igrew up with in Michael, which I think is actually fitting given his narrowworldview. I identify with Dess’s feelings of never being quite enough, andthere was a time in my life when I also kept my emotions tamped down anduntalked-about like she does (oh! and her eye color comes from a girl I went to high school with because I always thought they were impossibly pretty). In Hannah’s mother, I see a lot of Emily Gilmorefrom Gilmore Girls, but that was very much on purpose :P

40. Original Fictionor Fanfiction, and why?

Both? Both!

I do write original fiction, but for a long while, I put toomuch pressure on myself to be brilliant because I wanted there to be a sale on the other end of it. Eventually, I found myself unableto write because the stakes I set for myself were too high. When I startedwriting fic, it was like a breath of fresh air. Not because I felt like I couldor should write poorly, but because I knew I’d never be able to sell it, so Ihad more room to experiment and play than I allowed myself previously. Most importantly, the community I’ve found in writing fic has been immeasurably beneficial. I’ve made awesome friends and grown in ways I never would’ve expected.

I’m weird, too. I love running. Or I used to.