Commander Shepard did not trust Garrus Vakarian.

Not even in the slightest.

Shepard was no xenophobe, not really. She was a spacer brat through and through, having spent so much of her time on spaceships floating in the void of space, that the very idea of living on a planet was completely foreign to her. The galaxy as a whole was her home and she had no problems whatsoever sharing it with the asari, the salarians. . . hell, even the ever-annoying hanar.

But turians on the other hand. . .

Turians had been the bogeymen of her childhood. With both her parents, and nearly all of their family friends, having fought in the First Contact War, she had practically grown up on stories of turian brutality and viciousness. The fact that the Turian Hierarchy had balked at paying reparations to humanity even after everything that happened at Shanxi was, in Shepard's opinion, proof that they continued to look down upon humans and cared little for their presence in the galaxy.

The attack by Saren Arterius, a turian Spectre, on a peaceful human colony like Eden Prime just to get his hands on a hunk of Prothean metal only served to vindicate her on this matter.

Naturally, when Anderson suggested she take Garrus Vakarian with her on The Normandy, her response had been, "I don't need a turian shooting me in the back when I least expect it, Sir."

Shepard grimaced slightly. She really shouldn't have mouthed off to Anderson like that. The Captain had been nothing but good to her, even going out of his way to give her much needed guidance during her N7 training. He'd also gotten her a rather prestigious posting on the Normandy SR1, something any officer in the Alliance would have killed for. He had even handed over command of the ship to her without a single word of complaint. She owed him more than she could ever hope to repay.

So what if she had to face a little bit of flak for bringing a turian aboard an Alliance vessel? Heck, if half of what she'd heard about Anderson's history with Saren was true, there was no one out there who deserved to hold a grudge against turians more than him. Yet, he had been the one to recommend Vakarian for her team.

She sighed. She could only pray that she'd be half as open-minded as him by the time she got to his age.

Besides, it wasn't like she was expected to do bring him on the field with her or something. The turian officer had made himself at home in the cargo bay, fiddling with Mako, and as far as she was concerned he could stay there. She was under no obligation to entertain him or his preferences; she didn't owe him a damn thing, and as long as he stayed out of her way they'd get along just fine.

She only hoped he was smart enough to figure that out for himself before she'd have to spell it out for him.

FUBAR.

Shepard was never one to use that term lightly. After all, in her career as an N7 commando she was expected to deal with less-than-ideal situations on a daily basis.

But right now there was simply no other way to describe her mission on Therum.

The mission to rescue Liara T'Soni from a Prothean ruin had been a disaster of epic proportions. Between the scorching heat and molten lava, the krogan battlemaster with an army of geth and the ancient ruins collapsing on top of them, it was a miracle she and her team had escaped in one piece.

Way to go, Jane. Your first mission as a Spectre and you succeeded in blowing up half a planet! That'll be one for the record books, all right.

And what had all her efforts gotten her? A ditzy asari nerd with zero social skills who had, literally, been living under a rock for the past few decades!

Prothean expert, my ass!

It was bad enough that T'Soni had nothing new to add to their mission in the way of information, now the Council and even her own crew was questioning her on the wisdom of allowing Matriarch Benezia's daughter free run of the ship! Shepard scoffed in anger. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could tell that she knew nothing about her mother or Saren's plans, and the day someone like T'Soni became a master of espionage would be the day Shepard'd start kissing turians.

Oh Commander, I'm so sorry for being such a nerd and knowing nothing about the Protheans, despite spending fifty years digging up their graves!

She knew she was being childish, taking out all her frustrations on the young asari. But what else was she supposed to do? When she'd been given her new Spectre status and command of the Normandy, she'd been practically giddy with excitement. But it was only now that she realized how little she had in the way of resources.

Saren was out there, with that behemoth of a ship and an army of geth at his command. His experience in running operations of this kind meant that even without his Spectre status he was more than capable of continuing with his plans. It didn't hurt that he had a powerful asari Matriarch backing him up with her considerable resources either.

And what did she have to throw against that? A ship that, while useful for reconnaissance, would be absolutely useless in a straight-up firefight; a ground team consisting of a biotic boy-scout with health issues, a loud-mouth marine, a bloodthirsty krogan mercenary and a quarian techie who was practically a kid?

How the hell was she supposed to beat Saren again?

Get a grip, Jane. Getting frustrated this early in the game will only cause trouble.

Shepard sighed. She was being too hard on herself and her crew.

Despite the clusterfuck of a mission, she had to admit the ground team had outdone themselves out there. Given how Wrex had gone toe-to-toe with that other krogan, she felt the old warrior had pretty much earned his place on her ship; Tali was steadily becoming Shepard's favorite because of her mad hacking skills; Williams was a little rough around the edges but had some real potential in her; and with Liara on the team, maybe she could take some pressure off the lieutenant in the biotics department.

Still, it didn't change the fact that she had very little in the name of resources, and neither the Alliance nor the Council seemed eager to give her any more help than they already had. Given how closely her performance as a Spectre was being monitored, it wouldn't be in her best interests to constantly keep prodding her superiors for more aid.

Of course, that meant she'd have to do the best with what she already had.

She sighed deeply as she opened the file on Garrus Vakarian that Alliance intelligence had forwarded to her. She'd really hoped it wouldn't come down to this.

Her eyebrows shot up into her hair.

Huh. . . interesting.

AN: This story is based on my first playthrough of Mass Effect. I hope to incorporate a more realistic dynamic between the characters, especially Shepard and everyone's favorite turian.

To that end, I'll be taking some liberties with the story and the characters. My aim is to make Shepard seem like more like the battle-hardened soldier she's supposed to be. That means she's going to be more thick-skinned, more Alliance centric and pro-human, and more pragmatic in her outlook towards situations and other characters. Of course, she's not going to stay that way, since there'll be character development and all. Just don't expect her to turn into a mushy, emotional, goody-two shoes paragon; neither do I plan to turn her into a psychopath renegade. I'm aiming for a middle ground here.

I'm also going to take a more logical approach to the whole FemShepxGarrus thing. Its always bothered me how well Garrus and Shepard seem to get along with each other in the story, considering their species were fighting each other barely a few decades ago. So yeah, that means Garrus is no longer going to start looking upto Shepard because she's so awesome and all, and Shepard's not going to become his mentor anytime soon (if at all).

This project is going to be a pretty long one, so please don't mind the infrequent updates. Enjoy :)