Child/Teenage Years
Echo was born to Gregory and Meredith Manco, Sadly aged 2 tragedy struck when her father was killed in a carjacking gone wrong. She was then raised by a single mother who worked tirelessly as a nurse (where her love for Medicine stemmed). From a young age, she was tasked with the responsibility of raising her younger twin siblings, Jeremiah and Anabelle as their mother was absent trying to provide money to put food on the table for her kids. She grew up knowing the impact of Love and Care. From a young age she was also taught the weight of sacrifice, always putting others before herself.
Despite the overwhelming responsibility of raising two young kids, Echo found a passion in Paramedicine. She would spend hours reading medical texts, watching procedures and practicing what she could. But no amount of training would prepare her for the loss that would define the rest of her life:
Her brother Jeremiah, murdered right in front of her.
She tried to save him. She really did. But no amount of training could’ve prepared her for this. No matter how hard she tried. He died in her arms and she couldn’t save him. She was just Seventeen after all.
This Death struck a cord in her. The grief suffocated her and instead of facing it, she ran. She packed her bags and caught the next flight available to Los Santos.
January 10th, 2019
In Los Santos, Echo threw herself into working. Becoming a paramedic was more than just a wish and a career. She thought it’d be her salvation; it would save her from the grief that was tearing her up inside.
So she worked relentlessly, pushing herself until she had nothing left to give and quickly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a Captain.
Along the way she met a man named Richard Mangerson, He went by "Dicky". He was her first proper patient and her first friend in the city. Once he was stable on his feet he said to her ‘I have a mission. I’m going to get everyone’s phone number and that’s my challenge in life.’ Echo loved Dicky’s outlook on life, he was so hopeful.
They went on little adventures together, eventually making a little group of friends. One of which included someone called ‘Drew Drewson’. They used to dress up in Ghillie suits and hide in bushes just generally causing chaos together.
A month or so passed and it was them against the world. Echo was working hard to get her next promotion when she suddenly got a call from Scott Chegg.
Dicky was brutally murdered by Drew Drewson because he snitched on him.
Turns out Dicky found out Drew was drug running between their adventures and was intending on pinning it all on Echo. Dicky was going to report it to the police but Drew got to him first.
Echo had lost her closest friend. In response, Echo quietly reported Drew Drewson for producing, harvesting and running drugs and he went away for life. She never told anyone about this.
Another month had passed, her friend group split up so she continued to spend all her time at the station.
There she met Jax. Jax Mangerson. Dicky’s younger brother who came searching for him. Something about him struck Echo. He reminded her of her younger self—angry, grieving, and trying to survive. So she took him under her wing. Echo finally felt like she did something right.
Spending more time in the station meant she finally met some new faces.
The most prominent to her was
Samuel Raider & Evan Williams - Two police officers that were often on scene with her. Samuel was a blonde Welsh guy and Evan was a ginger American ish- guy. Echo felt like these two were made for being her friends. Most of the time she spent on her phone was texting them in a group chat called ‘Bad Drivers’ .
Naomi Hawkins - Naomi was a blonde American Woman. She was a fellow paramedic, climbing the ranks with Echo but only getting closer after they became Lieutenants. Naomi had this thing where she’d light up every room she walked into. She managed to crack Echo’s hard walls and she grew to be Echo’s best friend.
Alex Gerkin - Alex was a Welsh guy with black hair. Something about him drew Echo in. The way there was a silent sadness in his eyes that she could relate to. He was steady, patient and he saw her. Not just the mask Echo put on, but her. That terrified the crap out of her. Her feelings slowly grew with stolen moments between calls, the way he would always get her coffee, the way he would always text her good morning and good night. Echo and Alex once dyed their hair blue as a harmless joke to tease Naomi — but while Alex washed his out the next day, Echo kept hers, and the colour ended up becoming part of who she was. Echo danced around with her feelings, trying to avoid it, hoping if she just ignored it long enough, they’d disappear. But they didn’t.
Eventually Alex stopped waiting for Echo. He found someone else—someone who wasn’t too much of a coward to choose him. Someone who didn’t run at the first sign of happiness. That Someone was Naomi Hawkins. They got married, and Echo told herself it was for the best.
Then Jax vanished without so much as a word, and Echo believed he was gone for good, dead like Dicky. That loss cut deep, a wound she buried beneath her relentless work. So as Echo did, she ran. Not towards anything but away. She left Los Santos behind, transferring to a different hospital out of state and leaving them all behind.
28th November 2021
On the 28th November 2021, Echo got a phone call. It was Alex Hawkins. He was sobbing hysterically begging her to return to the city. Naomi had passed away and Alex needed someone to help support him, someone to grieve with. But Echo- She was so caught up in the loss that she hung up. Alex Hawkins tried to reach out after that. He called. He texted, he fucking emailled but Echo ignored him.
He tried to reach her in any way possible, but Echo let every message go unanswered.
Because facing Alex meant facing the truth. Naomi had died and Echo wasn’t there to protect her. Alex didn’t protect her and she started to resent him for it. Why didn’t he save her? Why couldn’t he!?
1st of May, 2022
Eventually, the calls, texts, emails one day they all stopped.
She got a letter in the post on May 1st 2022. It was from Alex. She opened it up and it started with ‘Hey Smol Bean. If you’re getting this then I’ve died.”
Alex Hawkins had died to a psych patient and after years they finally caught him.
Echo wanted to scream. She wanted to undo everything she did. But it was too late. She had pushed him away and now he’s gone for good.
She blamed herself for their deaths. She could’ve saved them but instead she ran. Leaving everyone she loved deserted. Everyone she had loved was gone.
16th August 2024
Once she had settled everything at home, she finally returned to Los Santos. In the years she had been gone, San Andreas Medical Services split into San Andreas Fire & Rescue Services (SAFR) and San Andreas Hospital Medical Services (SAHM). She joined SAFR and moved in with Evan Williams & Samuel Raider. They had more house mates and she got introduced to:
Maxir Evengard - A soft spoken very tall Swedish Man. Who worked in the Fire Department with Echo. Often living at the station instead of home. Someone who would grow to become Echo’s closest confidant.
Elijah Colten - A young british guy, Very similar to a Puppy. He worked in LSPD as an Officer.
While off duty, Echo was fishing at the docks and there she bumped into a woman who had red hair put up in a bun. Echo awkwardly stood next to her and said ‘Any good catches today?’ They went back and forth, getting on like a house on fire. This woman introduced herself as Lena Ashwood. Lena’s wit, humour and warmth drew Echo in. She started breaking down her walls for Lena. She so desperately wanted to ask her out on a date or just ask her out in general but the fear of losing someone else- it was too much for her, so she kept her feelings to herself. Echo had fallen hard for Lena.
But then Lena asked Echo to be her bridesmaid. Lena was getting married. To Dan Smith.
Echo couldn’t cope watching Lena marry someone else. So she rejected the offer.
1st October 2024
After a lot of thinking, Echo reached out (3 hours before her wedding) to Lena and confessed everything. How much she loved her and how she doesn’t want to watch her lose her last name. How she wished she wasn’t a coward and asked her out sooner.
How much she doesn’t want her to marry Dan Smith. But also that if Lena decided to go through with the wedding, Echo would bury her feelings and let Lena go.
She then went home, sending Lena one last message before going to sleep. It said ‘ I love you. Do what makes you happiest.’ but it didn’t send.
Lena married Dan and Echo did exactly what she said she would, She stood by and tried to swallow her feelings.
She couldn’t let Lena go but fucking hell she was going to try. She turned to work, busting her arse, she was rarely home and when she was- she was drunk, or high. She was ripping herself apart each day to try and cope with it..
10th December 2024
This day was like any other day for Echo. She went to work, dug deep and cracked on. Suddenly a dispatch came up ‘Station for Mas-Cass’ Echo rocked up with other co-workers and waited until the all clear. It was a money wash, Criminals got caught and started firing. There were about 15-20 people who drowned or were injured. Echo worked through her load before her eyes eventually landed on a lady, with red hair in a bun. Lena Smith. Echo’s breath caught in her throat, She walked up to her body and her eyes almost looked lifeless. Her co-worker ran in, taking charge of treating her while Echo just stared at her. Her hands were shaking from the fear. She had to excuse herself and she ran outside. Trying to stop her heart from hammering out of her chest.
She couldn’t breathe- She couldn’t even think straight.
She took the people in her ambulance to the hospital before clocking off and driving home. There she started mixing alcohol and painkillers. That didn’t stop the feelings so she went to her safe space. Somewhere her and Sam go when the world gets too loud. Mount Chiliad. Maybe she was hoping reaching the top would fix her. The alcohol and pills were still in her system, and as she stood near the peak, the world blurred beneath her feet. She took a wrong step and suddenly she was falling. Hard.
The only thing she remembers of that night is Evan and Maxir screaming her name while searching for her.
18th December 2024
When she woke up, the world felt different.
The hospital told her she was lucky to be alive. She didn’t feel lucky.
She felt empty.
She tried to move her left arm but- nothing. She couldn’t feel it. The whole left side of her body became paralysed from the fall. Turns out she had a haemorrhage, this caused her to have a seizure which impacted her body.
That same day she woke up, she retired from the department. Deciding to call it quits. Her career as a paramedic—the one thing she had dedicated her entire life to—was gone. The job that had given her purpose, that had made her feel like she was worth something, slipped through her fingers. She left her department as she didn't want others to see her as a liability.
After everything—after Jeremiah, Naomi, Alex, Lena—she had always managed to hold onto one thing: her work. And now, even that is gone. So, she did what she did best.
She ran, as she always did.
19th December 2025
Echo ran to where she knew she’d be taken care of, her childhood home. Her mother nursed her back to stability, taking months to literally get back onto her own feet. Her mother was patient and kind with her. Standing by her side even through the angry outbursts. Once Echo was finally stable enough, she noticed the decline in her mother’s health. Their roles had suddenly swapped and Echo was now nursing her mother. On February 14th 2025, Meredith passed away quietly in her sleep.
Echo now feeling like the house was a void, locked up the house and left, returning back to Los Santos. Echo spent months in what felt to her like a void. Spending day in, day out doing mundane jobs, trying to push herself to the point of exhaustion.
She had reached out to an old friend Helena Cassidy-Wren and her new husband Theodore Cassidy-Wren. They offered to let her live in their house but that felt too much of Echo to ask. The Cassidy-Wren’s gave her a three wheeled car. This became Echo’s home. She lived out of that three-wheeled car, doing postal work to keep her mind busy.
Then, suddenly she saw a poster SAHM was hiring, Something about it, called to her. So she applied. It took a bit to get used to but because of her prior experience, the new things came to her like second nature.
Then one day, while Echo visited the same docks she met Lena on. She heard footsteps behind her.
Lena had found her.
15th March 2025
After months of silence, Lena just appeared. She ripped Echo a new one for disappearing with only just a text. She explained how she, Sam and Evan had spent months trying to find her. Only for her to be where it all started. Echo tried to justify herself but- nothing she came up with could explain why she just left. She apologised and it was awkward for the first week. But they eventually fell back into a pattern of messaging and seeing each other often.
Echo eventually got the balls to ask Lena to be her girlfriend and they started dating.
1st July 2025
They dated for 3 months. Echo eventually moved in with Lena. It was simple things that Echo loved. Coffee in the mornings, laughing at dumb things at night, the comfort of knowing someone was actually waiting for her at home. That’s what Echo cherished the most.
Lena invited all of their friends over for a nice party. Unbeknownst to Echo, Lena was intending on proposing at the party and everyone bar Echo knew. Once the party had settled, Lena and Echo took a late night drive just up Cassidy Creek. They settled on the shore of the river before Lena got on one knee and asked her to marry her. Echo choked out a ‘yes’ between her sobs. They planned to marry just 11 days later. It was a bit rushed but Echo was ready. If she could’ve, she would’ve married Lena a year ago if Lena had asked.
After the proposal, Echo drove to the adoption agency. A surprise. A promise of family. A little baby girl with black hair and green eyes waited for them. She signed the papers and had it all sorted within the week, ready for her new family to be united under one name.
12th July 2025
Echo spent the day getting ready, preparing her bridesmaids and maid of honour (Samuel) for the ceremony.
Echo was ready. She was ready to let her hair grow out and she was ready to settle down.
Echo stood at the church, waiting for the signal for Lena to arrive but that never came.
Instead an ambulance shot past the church.
A pit in Echo’s stomach had opened. She knew. She stumbled for her phone, eventually getting it and phoning Lena. One Ring, Two ring, Three. Voicemail. She tried again, One ring, two ring, someone answered. They asked who this is and Echo explained that she's Lena’s fiancé.
The person on the phone explained that there had been an accident and that Echo needed to go to the hospital.
Echo drove faster than she ever had in her life—illegal, reckless, desperate. But when she got there, it was too late.
Lena Ashwood and her close friend Dean Fletcher were dead.
The pit in Echo’s stomach never went away. Instead it got bigger and bigger, causing her to curl up in her grief. She clung to the little scraps of what she had left. The moments Lena brought her coffee, those nights where they’d stay up and just talk. Everything replayed in her head, as if it was a cruel film tormenting her. She told herself that she could’ve saved Lena, She could’ve protected her. But that didn’t matter. Lena and Dean were dead and she couldn’t do anything to save them.
But the wedding never happened.
26th July 2025
They planned the funeral for two weeks after the ceremony.
Echo and her friends each took turns with different eulogies about Lena and Dean.
Then someone who Echo didn’t recognise took the podium. Emily Ashwood.
She revealed to everyone the truth behind the crash.
Lena wasn't a victim. She wasn’t ripped away by fate.
She played Echo. Used her.
Even worse—she had planned the crash. Not to die, not to vanish completely, but to run. To escape the wedding. To escape Echo. And to kill one of Echo’s closest friends, Dean.
But Lena hadn’t planned it fully. She thought she could control it.
Instead, she miscalculated. And it killed her.
The crash wasn't bad luck. It was her escape route. Dean just knew too much.
And just like that, Echo's grief curdled into something else.
Echo stopped mourning her. She instead started hating her. She hated that she had been her pawn. That she dangled love and forever in front of Echo while Lena was quietly plotting her exit.
Echo's suit still hung in the closet. The wedding playlist was still saved on her phone. Every bit of it mocked her. Every bit was proof of how Lena had completely played Echo.
How Echo had fallen for a lie.
So Echo buried it. All of it. The dream, the hope, the version of her Echo thought she knew.
She moved out into a house with Maxir Evengard and burnt everything that was related toLena Ashwood.
Lena Ashwood had died twice for Echo. First time in the car crash where she lost Dean, the second was when Echo learned the truth.
And then, just days later, the agency called.
The baby arrived at Echo’s door after the funeral. A bag, a blanket, wide uncertain eyes that mirrored her own. Lena was gone, but their little girl remained—a living, breathing reminder of both betrayal and promise.
Echo almost sent her back. She almost refused. But when the little girl curled into her chest and fell asleep, Echo made her choice.
After a while, she chose the perfect name for her, Selene Alexis Manco.
Selene -for the moon Echo had always loved—constant, patient, a light in the dark.
Alexis - for Alex, the boy she could never forget, no matter how many years or miles stretched between them, the one she couldn’t save.
And Finally Manco.
Her name would carry only Echo’s. No trace of Ashwood. No trace of betrayal. Just the mark of survival, the mark of starting over.
Present
She wouldn’t stay for Lena.
She wouldn’t stay for love.

She would stay for Selene.
For Selene and For herself.

Through all the grief and ghosts, she stayed.
Because this time, she had chosen to live.

And now, she carries them all—Jeremy, Dicky, Naomi, Alex, Meredith, Lena. The ones who shaped her, the ones who left too soon, the ones who loved her enough to make staying worth it.
She is ready—ready to face the weight of it all: love, loss, regret, and the fragile hope of a life not defined by tragedy.

But she would have to do it without Lena.
Again.
But this time, With Selene in her arms.

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