A/N: Sara does consider suicide at one point in this chapter. Not graphic.

She was thirteen years old, had just seen her mother killed by a beast which appeared out of nowhere, and she couldn't stop screaming.

Her bedroom door banged open, her parents rushing into her room.

Her father entered first, loaded gun in his hand, eyes moving around the room in a professional assessment: window, closet, under the bed. Clear.

Her mother followed, not waiting for her father's all clear, and came immediately to Sara's bed, sitting beside her and enveloping her in a hug.

"Shh, darling, shh. What is it?"

Sara sat there, clinging to her mother, gasping for breath. Her eyes stared wildly around the room and she was surprised to see it's familiar confines.

"I saw my mother die. Some… some beast…" her voice trailed off as shivers coursed through her body.

"I'm right here, darling. You couldn't have seen that. I'm right here." Her mother pressed a soothing kiss to her forehead, one hand brushing Sara's dark brown hair off her face.

Slowly, Sara looked at her mother, her eyes focusing, and some of the terror leaving her. "I… I guess I didn't see it, exactly. But I felt it. I knew what had happened… the shock when the animal appeared, then… terror. And grief."

Alec Ryder sat heavily on the other side of the bed, his free hand gripping Sara's. "A dream, sweatheart, just a dream. See, you're safe here; your mother and I, and Scott… all safe."

Sara was nodding, her eyes fixed on her father's calm face. She missed the look her mother shot her father, but when Ellen spoke, her voice was equally calm. "We're all safe, darling." Her mother kissed her again, and helped her lie back down. "Get some sleep now, we're all safe here."

Sara laid down obediently, and her parents left the room. She wasn't able to go back to sleep though. The dream replayed in her mind; the quick flash of images swiftly fading, but the emotions staying vivid and present.

Eventually, she drifted back to sleep, vaguely aware of her parents' tight, tense voices, arguing long into the night.

Sara Ryder woke up sobbing.

She was fifteen years old, and had been... betrayer, betrayed... all at once. Guilt for the betrayal, anger for the guilt. Sorrow at being being betrayed, emptiness following hard on its heels.

A wordless feeling: it was time to give up on finding perfection, and settle for happiness - however brief. It wasn't betrayal, it wasn't. Perfection couldn't always be found, couldn't always be had. Was it so wrong to want happiness?

She had lost something she had never had, but had wanted desperately, though she didn't even know what it was. And now she would never find it.

Scott found her, laying in bed, crying her eyes out and unable to explain what was wrong, except that she had "lost" something or someone that she didn't know. Frustrated with this girlish nonsense, he went to find their mother.

Ellen came, took one look at her sobbing daughter, and sent Scott off to school alone.

Sara turned over to face the wall when her mother sat on her bed, unwilling to explain yet another dream that left her overwrought and emotional.

Her father had long since lost patience with her and her dreams; he kept insisting that she simply needed to better master her emotions, not let them run away with her. Sensitive he called her; foolish is what she suspected he meant. Nonetheless, he had taught her some meditation and calming techniques to help her recover herself. Usually they helped, Sara thought they helped more than her father realized… she certainly felt these odd, swooping, slightly distant emotions more often than she let on.

Her mother had never been anything but patient and understanding. Whether her teenage daughter had crying fits for no reason, felt sullen and angry but couldn't explain what had caused those feelings, or woke from nightmares with a shout, Ellen was always a calming presence, soothing, reassuring, and ready to forgive or offer comfort.

Sara looked back at her mother through eyes swollen with weeping.

"I'm going to be alone forever, now. I don't know why. Just… part of my heart is gone. Lost. I can't explain it any better."

Ellen sighed, one hand rubbing gently down her daughter's back, as she stared into space. "It may not be forever, darling. You never know how things will work out. You may get it back eventually. Not all stories end the same way."

Sara frowned. "What do you mean? Aren't you going to tell me it's just a dream?"

Ellen's eyes snapped back to her daughter, her brow furrowing slightly. She glanced at Sara, then away.

"That's not what I meant, darling. I understand how real all this feels, that's all. That's all I meant." Ellen picked at the fabric of the blanket, then stood abruptly.

"Get some rest, Sara. I'll bring you breakfast in a little bit." She stood and was gone before Sara could say a word.

Sara stared at the door, then got up, quietly, and shuffled down the hall, being as silent as she could. In the kitchen, she could hear her mother's voice, tight with more emotions than she could name. And answering her from the vidcom, her father's voice.

"Alec, we have to tell her. This pretending it's just dreams nonsense isn't working."

"No, Ellen. We can't, you know we can't. How many people manage to lead a normal life, knowing this? Not many. If it works out, great, then we'll tell her. But you know how rare that is. There are just too many people in this galaxy, the odds against it working out, or even of her finding him are astronomical. It's better this way. She needs to live her life, for herself, not for some phantom. No. We can't tell her."

Ellen nodded sadly, and shut off the vidcomm, while Sara made her way silently back to her room, wondering what in the world she had just overheard.

Sara Ryder woke up gasping for breath.

She was eighteen years old, and she had just died from a shot to the chest. Her hands clutched the fabric of her nightgown, wrinkling the thin material as she tried to reassure herself that she was whole.

Slowly, her racing heartbeat returned to normal, and a new sensation overtook her.

Emptiness. She was alone in a way that she had never been before; missing a piece that she hadn't even been aware existed. Hope was completely gone.

Sara looked around her room. It was still the middle of the night, her parents and Scott still slept. This time, at least, her nightmare hadn't disturbed anyone else.

Silently, her mind prodding again and again at this new sensation of emptiness, she stood up, and walked into the kitchen. She found a sharp knife, and carried it back to her room. Sitting in the middle of her bed, she folded her legs, set the knife in front of her, and contemplated it.

On the face of it, none of this made sense. Sleep couldn't rob her of an essential part of herself. Dreaming of death, even if it was somehow her own, couldn't kill her. Even the strange dreams and feelings, taken altogether over years, wasn't really enough to make her spend her life alone if she didn't want to.

She pushed up the sleeves of her nightgown, and studied the blue veins in her arms, feeling detached; feeling as if perhaps she had died, and her body just hadn't realized it yet.

So why did she feel as if there was no longer a reason to live? As if that essential piece of herself that she'd been longing for without knowing it - misplaced somewhere perhaps, but not gone, not really - somehow, suddenly, was gone. Beyond any hope of retrieval.

Did she really want to go through life so… incomplete?

She was still sitting there, staring at the knife, staring at her bare wrists, when her father knocked briskly, pushing the door open when he didn't receive an answer.

His horrified glance took in his daughter, and the knife in front of her, in a split second before he moved.

Alec crossed the room in two quick strides, snatched the knife up, and threw it far under the bed. In the same motion, he scooped Sara up and carried her to his own room, putting her on the bed there with a jolt which woke Ellen.

His voice shaking, he explained to his sleep-fogged wife what had happened, words tumbling over each other in his increasing panic. When Ellen's only response was to narrow her eyes and say, "I told you," in a sharp tone, he fell into a shocked silence. His eyes jerked from Ellen to Sara, and back.

"Fine. You were right. So fix it." And he practically ran from the room, slamming the door after him.

Sara stared at the door for a moment, then looked at her mother. She was still feeling rather distant from events, from herself; unconcerned that she had been contemplating suicide, unconcerned that she had been stopped, only slightly curious about her father's odd behavior.

Ellen sat up, and sighed. She reached over and took Sara's hands, and asked about the dream. Sara told her, still feeling rather numb from the enormity of the dream; though she was distantly glad not to relive the emotions as she spoke them.

When she finished, Ellen moved so Sara had to meet her eyes, and finally told her the truth.

"Darling, it will be alright. I know this has all been confusing for you, but I hope you'll understand soon.

"You know that everyone, all of us, and all of the species we've met so far, have soul mate bonds. Everyone seems to call them something different, but it all boils down to the same thing."

Sara nodded, it had been one of her favorite daydreams when she was younger.

Ellen continued. "Well, it's not common, but some people have an empathic connection to their soul mate. It seems to be more common in biotics, or as a result of eezo exposure. Not everyone with the connection can feel much from it; for most, it's nothing more than a gentle yearning. Some people ignore it completely, and get on with their lives. Hope for the best, but don't get hung up on it."

Sara pulled her hands away from her mother, disbelief turning into anger. "I don't think 'gentle yearning' quite covers things, Mother."

Ellen nodded. "I know. More rarely, the connection is stronger. You've been feeling it for years, the dreams, the odd echo of emotions… it's all been from your soul mate, whoever he is."

"But... you lied to me! Why did you lie all these years? I thought there was something wrong with me!"

"There's nothing wrong with you, darling. You're beautiful, and brilliant, and passionate. It isn't a surprise that your connection is so strong. But that's why we lied to you. Do you know how many people there are in this galaxy? We've seen cross-species soul mate bonds, so you have to add in all the races in the Milky Way. The odds against finding the one person who is tied to you like this, are so incredibly small as to be almost impossible. Most people go through their entire lives without ever meeting their soul mate.

"Your father and I thought that it would be best if you didn't have to live with that burden. If you could just believe those emotions didn't mean anything, you could find happiness of your own. We didn't want you to spend your life chasing a ghost. We've seen it, and we wanted better for you."

Sara's breath was coming in gasps now, her cheeks flushed bright with anger. "And now? What now? What happened?"

Ellen sighed sadly, and dropped her eyes from her daughter's. "From what you've said, he - whoever he was - died."

A strangled sob escaped Sara, and Ellen stood, moving to wrap her daughter in her arms, but Sara backed away, and shook her head.

"Dead. He's dead. My soul mate is dead, and I never even knew I had one. I could have looked… could have tried… something…" Her voice trailed off, then firmed. "You took that from me. You and Dad. I'll never forgive you for that."

Sara turned and left the room.

Two days later, she enlisted in the Systems Alliance and left the Citadel without saying goodbye to her parents.