Identity (a Mass Effect fanfiction)

Namesake

Jacob grinned, his expression an odd mixture of shyness and pride. "Brynn is—she's ... Well, we're going to have a baby, Commander. I'm going to be a father. And I'll be a damned sight better one than my father ever was," he added, his voice hardening.

"I don't doubt that you will," Shepard assured him. He was happy enough for Jacob, although they had never been particularly close. Still, Jacob's father had been a piece of work, and it was good that he was going to get a chance to fix the mistakes of the past by devoting himself to a different kind of fatherhood.

"She wants to name it after you."

Shepard thought of that, interested in the idea. Given that he had earned his own name under such unusual circumstances, he thought maybe he liked the idea of another baby being given it with meaning attached. "Aaron Taylor?"

"Aaron?" Jacob looked confused, and then his face cleared. "Oh, no—she was thinking Shepard."

"Shepard Taylor?" That sounded odd.

"Yeah, I'm hoping to talk her out of it. Hope you don't mind. I was thinking more along the lines of Jacob, Junior."

"Of course. That makes sense." They stood looking at one another awkwardly until Shepard decided there really wasn't much else to say. He stuck out his hand. "Well, good luck, Jacob. Keep me posted."

"Will do. I'd say the same, but the whole galaxy's going to know what you're up to." Squeezing Shepard's hand tightly, he added, "Make us proud."

"I'll do my best."

Shepard got on the elevator and headed down to the Presidium. One of the kiosks had in some new equipment and were offering him a discount, so he had promised to come check out their stocks. On his way down the hall he passed a salarian chatting to someone through a comm link. He had his back to Shepard, who didn't immediately recognize him. But his voice carried. He was speaking to someone about a successful clutch.

The voice was familiar to Shepard—or maybe it was just that all salarians sounded like Mordin to him these days—and he stopped to look at the salarian's face. Shepard remembered him now; he had found a set of heating unit stabilizers for the salarian so that his colony could fertilize their egg clutches.

He didn't want to disturb the salarian, who was intent on his conversation, so he didn't say anything to him, but it was nice to know that something he had done had worked out well, that little salarian babies would live because of him.

The salarian said, "Yes, my sister said she wanted to name the firstborn after the person who helped us."

Shepard held back a bark of laughter with some difficulty. To think of a salarian named Shepard. Of course, he didn't know enough about salarian naming practices to know how that would work, practically speaking. But on top of Jacob's girlfriend having the same impulse, it was food for thought.

He wasn't a fool, or completely oblivious—he knew there had been little Shepards of all species since as far back as Torfan. He had never given it much thought before; what other people named their children was really none of his business. Now it occurred to him that no one knew Shepard wasn't his real name. It had never come up. On his official Alliance intake paperwork, he'd left his parents' names blank and given Rachel and Doug's names as next of kin. To the best of his knowledge, no one was aware that he had started off life as a nameless street rat.

How would it be different if they knew? Would they look at him as if he didn't belong in the Alliance uniform? Would people still want to give their children his name if they were aware of how little meaning it had?

Shepard leaned against a railing, looking out over the lake, thinking about it. It occurred to him, now that he took the time to stand and consider, that he rather liked the idea of little namesakes, a legacy to leave behind that symbolized a new start. Because, really, what had he left behind when he died before? Besides a few friends—and maybe that was enough, maybe it was more than everyone got—and a reputation for killing a lot of things, not a hell of a lot. And if he died today? Not all that much more. His reputation was already murky. Between the whitewashing of the battle of the Citadel, his work with Cerberus, the secrecy behind everything he had done ... The world would remember Commander Shepard, but they'd have questions. True, he had an apartment, now, which he'd never had before, belongings, but most of those were more truly Anderson's than his. On the other hand, he had Jack, and he had to think that her life would be better after he was gone than it would have been if she had never met him, never been with him.

After this war, he thought, if he could really take down the Reapers, if the galaxy could learn to get along without him saving it all the time ... maybe he'd convince Jack to actually let him take her back to Earth, finally introduce her to Doug and Rachel, assuming they'd survived, possibly even go back to Tulsa and take a stab at figuring out where he came from. And then, if the time was right, maybe he'd even sound her out about the possibility of making a little Shepard of their own.