I'm new to the ME fandom (picked it up to tide me over on the wait for DA4), so here I am getting excited about the original game when everyone else is on Andromeda. This is just a snippet that came to me while speeding around the planetary surfaces and imagining my poor crew members' complaints.

On her way to the debriefing room, Shepard stopped to say hello to the soldier stationed outside, a young man named Gerard, on only his second mission. He had started off so in awe of everyone above his rank—which was nearly the entire crew—that he could only stammer when asked a question, and Shepard had made it a mission to help him realize that his superiors were only people.

They exchanged pleasantries about the food. While she knew many captains had their meals prepared separately, Shepard kept to Captain Anderson's example and ate the same things that were served to the rest of the crew. If nothing else, it gave her something to talk to them about. Today, the biscuits had been rather hard, and she joked to Gerard that someone in the kitchen was thinking about playing shuffleboard while cooking.

He chuckled at that, and she moved on toward the door. Before she could touch the panel to open it, she heard someone inside say, "Are you all right, Liara? You seem stiff today."

"Oh, no, it's nothing," Liara demurred. "Just my shoulder. It'll be fine."

"Did you do something to it, or overwork it?" Ashley asked. "I know if I go too hard at the weights without stretching first, I—"

Wrex's characteristic loud guffaw broke into her words. "She didn't overwork it. It's a Mako injury! That's what it is."

There was silence in the room, and then a chorus of voices. "Oh, I should have known." "Of course. We've all been there." "Happens all the time."

Tali's voice came through the most clearly. "What happened this time? I knew it was in bad shape when it came back up to the ship."

"Shepard doesn't want you to get bored," Wrex said, and he laughed uproariously again.

"Did she flip it again?"

Liara said, "No, not this time. But we came close once or twice."

Shepard was about to charge in, irritated at all of them, when Kaidan said, "Or did she speed full steam ahead toward a sheer wall?" Her eyebrows lifted. Him, too?

There was a chorus of chuckles. Ashley continued Kaidan's line of thought, saying, "You point out to her that there's no way even the Mako can get up that wall, and she just speeds up."

"I know, right?" Wrex said loudly. "'"If I get up enough speed, the momentum will take us up, and then we'll save so much time over going around.' Don't know what she wants to save time for so badly."

"Well," Garrus suggested, "personally, I find it useful to have some extra time to apply medigel to my wrenched muscles before I get out of the vehicle."

They all laughed at that one. Shepard met Gerard's eyes, seeing the twinkle in them, the smile the boy couldn't hide, and she frowned at him. She'd feel bad later for squashing his attempt to join in the joke, but her driving was hardly a laughing matter. They all got where they were going in one piece, didn't they? Of course … that was more than she could often say for the Mako, but Tali and Engineer Adams always managed to put it back together.

"Then once you get up the mountain, she heads right back down at the same speed," Kaidan said.

"Good view, though, you have to admit," Wrex pointed out, "especially when it's all blurry from spinning around and flipping over."

"My grandfather used to tell me about these things he rode back on earth, roller-coasters," Ashley said. "The whole point was to do all that—for fun." Her tone indicated the fun was lost on her.

"Oh, I've been on one of those," Kaidan said. "Gave me a migraine."

There was a silence before Liara said, "Sometimes it is somewhat enjoyable."

Another silence, then Wrex laughed again. "Gotta love bouncing down a mountain, practically floating from one peak to another. Gravity, who the hell needs it?"

"And the skipper loves it," Ashley said. "You ever see her face while she's behind the wheel, foot pressing the accelerator all the way down to the floor? I never see Shepard that animated."

"She talks to it," Tali said. "'Come on, you can do it.' As though the Mako can hear her."

Shepard smiled. She did love it; there was a freedom in driving the Mako around the surface of the planet, exploring all the corners, no one telling her what to do or how to do it, no politics involved, knowing the Mako could take whatever she dished out to it, feeling the machine respond to everything she told it to do. She imagined it must be some semblance of what Joker felt piloting the Normandy.

Garrus agreed, "Everyone has to relax somehow, and she pushes herself very hard in the rest of her life."

"You could say she pushes herself as hard as she does the Mako. Sometimes when she has a challenge, she gets the same look on her face as she does when she's speeding toward a mountainside," Kaidan said thoughtfully.

"Yes, I think that's true. She rolls over and picks herself up the same way as well," Liara added in her gentle way.

"So Shepard's a Mako?" Wrex paused. "Yeah, I get that."

"She is not so indestructible as one," Tali pointed out.

Ashley said, "I don't think she knows that. I keep trying to help her build strength and toughen herself up, but she relies on her suit too much."

"That's what she has us for," Kaidan said. "To keep her safe."

"If she's a Mako, then we're her Normandy?" There was humor in Garrus's voice, as though he was smiling as he said it.

"Yeah, I like that. Only … I'm a lot less highfalutin than the Normandy," Wrex said.

Ashley muttered under her breath, "You can say that again."

"Hey! I heard that. Fine—I'm a lot less highfalutin than the Normandy."

Shepard could see Wrex's grin, and Ashley's pained expression, and she chuckled.

"Hey, what was that?" Tali asked from inside.

"You don't think she's out there listening to us, do you?" Kaidan asked worriedly.

Shepard stepped back from the door, looking at Gerard and lifting a finger to her lips, shaking her head while she did so.

He nodded, seeming to understand what she meant.

She went back to the cockpit, checking in briefly on Joker, who mostly seemed annoyed that she had interrupted his chat with the pilot of a nearby freighter, and then headed back to the debriefing room, hoping enough time had passed that her companions wouldn't know she had been listening.

An intensely private person, Shepard disliked being the subject of discussion—but she knew that as the first human Spectre, she was probably being discussed by many people around the galaxy at all times, so her own companions, those who know her best, should certainly be allowed to talk about their experiences with her.

As she reached for the button to open the door, there was a burst of laughter from inside the room, all six voices distinct in the sound, and Shepard realized that in talking about her, the thing that brought them all together, they were becoming a team. And for that, she was willing to let them criticize her driving any time they felt like it.

But one thing was for sure: The next pair who went out with her were getting an especially wild ride. She'd have to see that they packed plenty of medigel.