Neross: Well my sick sweet darlings I know I should be finishing my other stories but...well...inspiration is like a needy...needy little whore. It just will not be ignored. Anyway here is my second mass effect work. In all honesty I'd hoped to have this as an amazing long one shot but sadly...it turned out to be MUCH too long. So now I've got another full-blown story with chapters on my hands. Ah well what'cha going to do right? Read on my sick little darlings and enjoy.

Warning: This fanfiction may contain violence, strong language, adult situations, and sexual situations.

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Commander Shepard didn't do Romance. The first Normandy crew knew that. The second Normandy crew learned it after Horizon. And Garrus knew ever since he had first read her file back when he was still a C-Sec officer and she was just potential. He'd watched as Alenko had suffered his feelings for her in silence. And he'd seen the way that Liara stared after the woman whenever they were done talking or engaging in what the commander called 'girl-time'. But the commander never budged. She was focused on her mission. Had to be. She couldn't let herself suffer through emotions that would leave her cloudy at the moments when it mattered most.

She didn't seem to care that everyone thought they were all going to die in the attempt to get to Ilos. In fact it only seemed to encourage her to get them all through what was to come without losing anyone. But they had lost people. And Shepard had had to watch her friends, her crew members, the people she trusted and cared for die around her. But she was a solider...and she soldiered on. But Garrus had seen the weight on her shoulders. They way she carried her guilt and her responsibilities. She never flinched but he saw the haunted thoughts hidden behind her dark, dreaming, blue eyes.

There were times he'd catch her in the old hull, and even more so now in the new, tearing away at a punching bag as if fighting against Saren again...fighting for her life. She wouldn't cry then, but the Turian somehow sensed she wanted to. While he didn't care for bitching, or whining, or crying on his shoulder, Garrus took it as a vote of confidence in him when she'd come to him discuss some of her worries. He knew she held back, at least with him, but she shared a portion of herself with him few others truly got to see. And she took his views and support to heart. She respected him, trusted him, and he began to love her.

He didn't know when it came about, that strange feeling of affection mixed with lust...but he figured it must have started shortly after the events on Virmire. It had been the first time he'd caught her beating the punching bag in the ship's make-shift gym to death. For once she'd let her hair hang loose, no longer pulled back in that neat little bun she always kept it in. Her face looked somehow...softer...with her bright red hair framing her face. She'd cast aside her military wear and had on only a pair of shorts and an ill-fitting tank-top, and something beneath Garrus learned later was called a 'sports-bra'. But what had really thrown Garrus for a loop was her feet. He remembered it had been the first time he'd seen bare human feet in person.

They were smaller than he'd imagined them to be, and strange to stare at with all those digits. Yet she moved on them effortlessly, pivoting and sliding across the floor around the poor bag. He found himself helplessly watching the way her feet worked as she kicked, or how they shifted when she punched. It was different than seeing how her feet moved with armor on. Here he could see how each toe worked in effort, how easily she balanced on them when she rose for a spinning kick that would have knocked anyone over, human or otherwise. And Garrus found himself fascinated at how her skin changed color depending on how much pressure was placed on the muscles and joints beneath.

Eventually, however, she'd caught him staring. And, panting, she'd wiped the hair sticking to her forehead with sweat away from her face. She didn't smile at him, but she didn't frown. She merely cinched her eyebrows together in query and relaxed acknowledgment, holding out a hand to stop the punching bag from swinging on it's chain. "Garrus." she'd muttered, breathless, sending him crashing back from whatever world his mind had been on. His eyes shot up from her feet to her eyes. "Didn't mean to disturb you commander." he told her with little apology, stepping further into the gym.

There was an odd quirk of her lips but she simply nodded and gestured for him to join her as she turned to sit upon the only bench provided within the small, crowded gym. She didn't sit with dignity, as she sometimes did in the mess hall or in meetings with the crew. Instead she plopped down unceremoniously and grabbed the water-bottle Garrus hadn't noticed sitting on the floor. The Turian stalked over and took to leaning against the small boxing ring set up in the middle of the gym. Acting as a great big waste of space most of the time as few people bothered to get in the ring when any one of Shepard's squad was in attendance. And they out-rightly fled when she walked in.

The ex-C-sec officer took to watching her again, noting the way her skin seemed to change color in slight degrees as she cooled down from her exertions. It was interesting how much of her was evident in her skin. And Garrus had never seen so much of it before. Or any human for that matter. He'd done basic study of their biology back in school...but staring at pictures was nothing like seeing something up close and personal. And for some reason that was somehow beyond his reasoning, nearly instinctual, he found himself wanting to know what human skin felt like. He wondered, briefly, if it was as soft as it looked. And her hair, that hung like a curtain upon her shoulders, it looked like it was made of silk. She looked wild with so much of herself revealed. Fierce and soft and fragrant all at the same time, like some sort of wild and untamed beast straight out of the jungles of some unknown world. Savage and passionate...and beautiful. The thought was frightening. Garrus had never thought of any human like that...hell he'd never even thought of asari in that context before.

He'd seem Turian women who were beautiful, even chanced a romance with one or two of them. And although he might have found aliens to be pretty or intriguing to look at, he'd never felt that primal urge that comes from finding someone truly...beautiful. But at the moment...that's what the commander was. Wildly beautiful. He found the observation strange and foreign in his mind. At the time the thought was not tied with any recognizable thoughts of lust or feelings of love...but it was an awakening in his primal being that recognized her in that way. And it was easily enough ignored and reigned in by rationality. It was an observation. She was beautiful. Move on.

So he did, and about time too for she had finished wiping away most of her sweat and calming down enough to actually register what was said. And she was looking at him expectantly, but patiently. "Taking it out pretty hard on that old bag aren't you Shepard?" the Turian commented, his mouth flexing into his version of a smirk, though he wished to reflect worry. She looked tired, worn-down...and not just from the exercise. She sat back on the bench, her hands splaying out beside her as she leaned her back against the wall, unconsciously sticking her chest out a bit more as she stared up at him. He didn't look, well, not for long anyway. "I just needed to beat the hell out of something. And they're aren't any geth or crewman around to destroy so...the bag is just going to have to take one for the team." She meant for there to be humor in her voice, but there was none.

Garrus noticed it with ease and pushed himself away from the ring to sit beside her on the bench. She shifted, pulling herself forward, slumping a little, to maintain eye contact. Or to avoid it as she seemed to be doing now. It wasn't like her, and they both seemed to know it. They were quiet for a while, a full set of tired heartbeats, before Garrus finally, cautiously posed a question. "Is that how you deal with it?" He needn't explain what he meant. Both minds went flying to Virmire. To the bomb and the friend it took away from them. To Kaiden and the sad news Shepard had had to send back to Earth. "Yeah," she uttered quietly, her voice dark and filled with regret. "It is."

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Neross: Well I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter. I apologize to those who read this after I first posted it. My bad for not going in and editing it. I swear it won't happen again...this week. In any case I hope you all leave me a lovely little review to let me know how I'm doing so far.

Until then my sick little darlings, please stay tuned for more of my sweet torture won't you?