Author's Note (and Apology)

Dear friends and followers,

I am sincerely sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to my beloved Shenko fics... I have a trillion excuses, none of them great, so I won't bore you with the details. I will just say I am back, in a better place with more time to devote to my lovelies, and lots of good ideas of where to go with them.

I know I left us in a crucial spot in Twist the Knife, and I will be returning to that soon, but in the meantime, I had a half-complete sequel to Reflections started when I took my long sojourn from writing, and it has drawn me back in... Plus, I'd like to get it out there before ME4 makes it completely irrelevant/totally AU. The first half of the fic is written, the rest of it is completely outlined, and I'm writing on a nearly daily basis again, so I promise to not leave you hanging here! Still, if you prefer to wait until its complete, I do understand :-)

To anyone new to my fics, or who skimmed the last two paragraphs, let me introduce to this new story. It's called Fight for the Future and it is as I said a sequel to my first ever fanfic, Reflections. If you haven't read Reflections, or it has been a long time, don't feel like you need to leave and do that now! I'll summarize here to get you up to speed... If you're a completionist like me and a summary won't do it for you, then enjoy and hurry back (and you can skip the following.)

Reflections is my "what happens after the end of ME3 - even with the extended cut" story. It is Shenko (as always) with a paragon femshep (named Katriona - Kat for short) and the destroy/extended cut/full war assets/full paragon ending - so TIM kills himself, breath at the end, Kaidan doesn't hang the plaque on the memorial wall, etc. With me so far? Good. So, Reflections begins with finding Shepard under the wreckage and getting her to the hospital in London, while Kaidan and crew on the Normandy begin the slow process of getting back to Earth the non-mass relay way. The fic is, as the title indicates, a number of short reflections/memories of Shenko's relationship - fleshing out the cannon story and never contradicting it unless I screwed up and didn't notice - as well as dealing with the aftermath of the Crucible and War with the entire crew while Shepard goes through the grueling process of recovering from life-threatening injuries (with a VERY protective Kaidan hovering at her side.) At the end of Reflections, our happy couple is married, living in Rio and Kaidan has taken up his work training biotics there, while Kat is now a Captain, and an instructor in the N7 program. Oh, and they're expecting a little Alenko! That should bring you up to speed for this fic, and I think I've done a decent job of filling in the blanks from there.

This is my first attempt at going completely off the ME rails with a mostly original story, within the canon ME universe. I sincerely try to do heavy amounts of research as I write and I have played the trilogy extensively. Still, if you see any glaring errors, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I have writing it...

- Arin