Susannah O'Brien

Standing at just under 5'7'', Susannah was lucky enough to be gifted with a figure that curves in all the right places - which isn't to say that she doesn't have to work to keep it that way. Having never particularly enjoyed working out, however, she will often get up early and go for a walk instead. Most definitely an O'Connell, Susannah possesses her family's trademark rich brown eyes, but her facial features are more delicate and feminine than her sisters'. Her wavy hair falls to her shoulders and is light brown, occasionally appearing to be auburn in certain kinds of light.

At home and around her family members, Susannah tends to dress casually but smartly, wearing just enough make-up to cover the freckles that insist on appearing occasionally across her nose. At night, however, it's a completely different story - with her heavy make-up and provocative clothing, when Susannah looks in the mirror even she sometimes doesn't recognise herself.

Perfect. It's Susannah's least favourite word, and yet it's the word that's most often been used to describe her. According to her parents, she's the one O'Connell that got it all - the looks and the brains - and she was always presented as an example to her remaining siblings. True enough, her looks did attract many of the guys at school, and nobody could doubt her intelligence - after all, her younger brother Liam still retains that Susannah's tutoring is the only reason he passed High School. Susannah herself, however, has always professed a strong dislike of the idea of being idolised or admired - most likely because she knows better than anybody that, beneath her perfect exterior, she's just as flawed as everybody else.

When she was asked as a child what she'd like to be when she was older, Susannah always said she'd be either a singer or an actress. Although she never achieved that particular dream, either one would be suited to her - very aware of the importance of keeping up appearances, Susannah learnt to act from a young age almost without noticing. Although she considers her ability to lie as a flaw more than a quality, it's certainly proved very useful to her. Over the years, it's allowed her to avoid pretty much anything from being caught making out with her High School English teacher as a teenager to, most recently, letting her family find out the truth about what she does for a living. Singing, on the other hand, is a talent Susannah hasn't exercised for many years, but as a teenager she was constantly requested to sing at family parties and was known in particular for her spectacular rendition of 'Runaway' by The Corrs - her mother's favourite song.

Streetwise and smart, Susannah is always full of practical advice for anybody who'll listen and in the past has often acted as a mother figure to her two younger brothers, Liam and Donnie. The three siblings, in fact, only have a few years between them and were very close when they were younger. Susannah was also quite close to her older sister Shannon, with the two being well known in their family for their tendency to say things at the same time just to startle everybody else. Since Susannah left Boston for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, her connection with Donnie has mostly dissipated, but Liam is still very fond of his sister and - much to Susannah's disdain - puts her on a very high pedestal. In a similar manner, Susannah would do pretty much anything for her two brothers - but she's still too ashamed to ever tell them the truth about her profession. In fact, Susannah's attitude towards morality, including her own, has always been somewhat of a paradox. Although she's always resented 'perfect' Susannah O'Connell, she wants people to see her for who she is but at the same time is afraid of what said revelation might cause.

A native of the Roxbury neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts, Susannah was born into the Irish-American O'Connell family as Bridget and Seamus's fifth child and their youngest daughter. Although it would have been easy for Susannah to feel overshadowed by her older siblings, much like her younger brother Liam later did, she always managed to stand out amongst them particularly for her academic achievements and began to gain her 'perfect' reputation within the family - one she would eventually find impossible to shake. Her first fall from grace came when she was seventeen and had an affair with and lost her virginity to her young High School English teacher, Charlie Robbins. Despite the fact that most of the students at her school had an idea of what was happening, none of the staff ever found out and the relationship came to a not-so-amicable end when Susannah graduated and Charlie told her he was getting engaged. She maintains Charlie meant very little to her, even though he probably meant a lot more than Susannah will ever dare to admit.

Upon graduating, Susannah managed to get into the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Only the third O'Connell to attend college - and most definitely the only one to attend an Ivy League university - Susannah made her family immensely proud when she moved out of Boston to major in her chosen degree of Theatre Arts. She would later recall her first two years at college as some of the best times of her life - not only was she studying something she enjoyed, but she also was able to go back to Boston often to help her two younger brothers pass their final exams.

When Susannah began dating English Language student Rick McCall in her third year of college, he seemed almost like the perfect guy: funny, charming and with a wilder side that intrigued Susannah from the moment she met him. It wasn't long before she began to indulge in her boyfriend's vices, which unfortunately included drinking and using drugs. On one particular night, Susannah went out with Rick and a few friends and experimented with angel dust for the first time - by the time she was sober enough to be aware of her surroundings, she was being held on $200,000 cash bail and staring at the inside of a prison cell. As she later realised, whilst she'd been under the influence of drugs she and Rick had committed armed robbery and had badly injured a man who'd tried to stop them, almost costing the man's life. Rick had managed to escape, but Susannah, too ashamed to ask her family for help despite the fact that one of her older sisters was a lawyer, was tried and sentenced to two years in a house of correction with three months to serve.

Having unsurprisingly lost her position at the University of Pennsylvania, once Susannah left prison she faced the harsh realities of trying to obtain a job with a criminal record. From the point she was arrested onwards, Susannah didn't speak to any of her family members in Boston, deciding not to tell them about what had happened and let them believe she was busy working hard at her degree. The truth, of course, couldn't be more different. Desperate for money, Susannah eventually turned to prostitution to make a living and soon found herself caught up in a web she could no longer escape. Still too ashamed to return to Boston - and, more than that, not having the money to - Susannah remained in Philadelphia for over ten years.

In 2116, however, everything changed when Susannah suffered a severe beating from one of her clients. Although it wasn't the first time it had happened, it was definitely the worst, and a desire to feel safe again caused Susannah to save up money to travel back home whilst she recuperated. By no means a spur-of-the-moment decision, Susannah was aware of the fact that moving back to Boston would mean she would have to live a double life - but, then again, she also knew that she'd always been a very good actress. What Susannah is yet to discover, though, is that lying to your family when they're nearby is much harder than staying away to cover up the truth.