A/N: Welcome! This story is cowritten by two people; one of us will, when she stops being lazy, go through this with a fine-toothed comb and edit the crap outta it. As of now it is a raw document. There are some mistakes that will be taken care of eventually.

They'd found her rummaging through spare parts and brought her here, their interest and concern piqued by her incredibly strange behavior. At first she had refused to go with them, mumbling something along the lines of "I need to finish dammit leave me alone," and they eventually had to drag her away, not exactly kicking and screaming, but definitely struggling.

They'd put her in an observation room. She paced nonstop, and they had been about to write her off as another crazy when one of the scientists noticed something peculiar in the brain scans.

"Massive OCD, that's what it is," one of them, a middle-aged asari said with finality.

"That's part of it, but look at this, this doesn't look like OCD at all, see..."

Inside the room, the woman pressed her hands to her face. She had been in no condition to fight them off earlier, but she could feel herself getting weaker now that she managed to drag her mind back to the present. She hadn't eaten in two days and she was parched; she'd been alone for much longer, feeling a great gap between other people and herself... the only thing that could keep her company was the horrid feeling in her brain, the need to do something very important and her hands were twitching, trying to create things out of thin air...

"Damn it," she called hoarsely. "Damn it, let me out, you don't understand, I gotta, I gotta..."

The observations continued on for a time, until the scientists did what they could to feed her. If she resisted, or ignored the food, then it was time to sedate her. For several days, things continued in this vein, until they decided to try and find out what she wanted. The woman was not exactly lucid, so several methods of communication were attempted. At some point, they gave her a simple pencil and paper; old, arcane tools that mental patients had been known to communicate with before.

Nobody knew what to make of the markings. The majority of scientists dealing with her were, after all, psychologists, but eventually someone made the connection that the drawings were mechanical in nature, so they sent off for a tech. They also delved as deeply as they could into her past, finding no record of any sort of engineering training.

They had been operating primarily with humans as far as direct contact with the woman went. They didn't want to upset her by bringing in something unfamiliar. So, they were quite disappointed to see a quarian answer their summons.

"I wasn't aware we even employed quarians," one of the scientists muttered as their guest, freshly arrived from his shuttle, looked over the drawings.

"It's just this guy, as far as I know," his companion replied. "What, you got something against quarians?"

The man shrugged. Quarians were an unpopular race. Humans had learned that almost immediately after First Contact. The alien in question raised his visored head and approached them. "I need to speak vith zis voman," he said.

His voice was heavily accented by the translator. "Zese schematics are highly detailed. You say she is untrained?"

"That's what we found."

"Zis suggests ozzervise."

There was a bit of arguing back and forth. The quarian remained calm, but insistent, and eventually they agreed to let him speak with the woman. He was accompanied by one of the human caretakers, and they had made him wear a lab coat over his enviro-suit to make him appear less intimidating.

"Miss? Someone here wants to speak to you about your drawings." The human didn't really expect a response from her, but it was worth a try. The quarian blinked his slanted eyes behind his visor.

To their surprise, she did, her countenance becoming slightly less haggard at the mention of her drawings. "Schematics!" she barked. "Told you again and again, schematics, don't you listen, you people never listen!"

She had never told them as such (other than babbling they may not have understood) but seemed to think she had.

Her gaze snapped to the quarian. "Quarian. Damn it. Always against what I gotta do. Never once do you listen to common sense!"

The quarian shook his head. "Calm down," he said sternly, as if he could by simple tone of voice, get her to do what the psychologists had been trying to for days. "I can see zese are schematics, miss. Vat are you trying to build?"

His human companion tried to resist rolling his eyes. "Sir, we've been trying to get something intelligible out of her for days."

"Zese are incredibly complex. Zhey seem to suggest somesing large. Somesing mobile. Am I correct?"

The human scowled. How on earth the quarian had gotten that from simple drawings was beyond him.

Oddly, the quarian was correct. By simple force of tone, he had the woman momentarily speechless, quiet with thought. After a moment she said, "They don't have personalities yet, but they will, they will. I can see them budding already! One, he's very quiet, always protecting me, I can see it in my head but damn it they won't let me build it!"

She whirled on the human. "Electronics! Things, so I can create! I can't stop it, it's you who's making me mad! There's nothing in here! Nothing! I can't build!" She raised her madly shaking hands. "See? See? You're doing this to me!"

The quarian regarded her impassively. It was hard to tell what he was thinking behind his mask, and he said nothing to indicate what he thought of her words. He nodded. "You haven't been eating. If ve let you build, vill you eat?"

The human watched silently, a little dumbfounded by the exchange.

"Anything," the woman replied immediately. "Give me materials. Give me food. I'll eat, just let me build!"

Her voice rose in desperation. She fought to lower it; closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Unable to calm herself that way, she began to pace again, going back to muttering as she usually did. Only now her mutterings had more meaning to it, now that the quarian was there to listen. Mechanical details and equations spilled from her lips; they were hideously out of order but she seemed to make sense out of them.

She seemed to be excited at the prospect of building again.

The quarian picked up on them. They came in disjointed snatches, and out of order, but he could see the path her mind was struggling to take. "I vill help you gazzer the necessary materials. Let's get started."

Nobody really liked a quarian telling them what to do, but they obeyed. Their initial skepticism of his presence was assuaged by one of the salarians working on the project.

"Quarians, for their other faults, are intelligent. Masters of technology. Listen to him, and you will not regret it."

They were able to gather her rudimentary materials within six hours, and delivered them. She would only have about half of the tools required, but nobody thought to check that. So, the next day, they found her with her fingertips bloodied from trying to assemble certain components by hand. The quarian was exasperated.

"Get her medical supplies. I'll go in and assist her," he said. He didn't bother with the lab coat this time. Clearly the woman was not afraid of him.

"Stop," he commanded as he strode up to her. He wasn't a terribly imposing figure, quarians being, on average, smaller than humans, but he knew how to inject authority into his voice. "I vill help you. Do you not realize you have hurt yourself?"

"Doesn't matter," she replied immediately. "Didn't have... have... tools. I can't wait for tools."

And she went right back to what she was doing. It was hard to discern what was going through her mind, but she was obviously annoyed then that he would stop her merely because she had a little injury. She had work to do, damn it all!

At which the quarian rather calmly grabbed her wrists and forcibly pulled her away from the machine. "No," he said. "You vill do as I say, or you vill get no more parts."

In the observation room beyond, the scientists were getting understandably distressed by the sight, and one of them was even scurrying for the door.

His grip on her wrists was firm and his eyes were narrow, pale slits under the fogged curve of his visor. "If you destroy your fingers, you vill have nozing to vork vith. So. You vill tell me vat to do, and I vill do it, until your fingers are healed. Understand?" It was somewhat ironic that he was forcefully telling her that he would obey her. The scientists failed to see the humor in this situation.

The woman's eyes rolled towards him, semi-panicked at the thought of no more electronic parts. She jerked back sharply, trying to shake him off, before replying, teeth gritted, "You. Won't. You-" she paused abruptly, thinking. The quarian was smart enough to figure out that she was making a house, so to speak, for an artificial intelligence, but that was far into the future when it would come together, so maybe her fingers would heal by then and...

But damn it, she couldn't just sit there! Her hands needed to do it by themselves; she would go mad if she wasn't able to physically work on it!

"Tools," she said desperately. "Tools, I'll work with tools, no hands-on. Yes? Deal?"

The quarian did not release her yet, but instead tilted his helmet as he regarded her. "After medi-gel and bandages, yes." It was about this time that the scientists caught up, and before the project lead (who was also a female human) could angrily demand he release their patient, he did. Her face was stormy with anger. "She has agreed to … take it easy, so to speak."

There was a flurry of activity while they applied a bit of medi-gel to her hopelessly torn fingers and bandaged them up. The project lead was torn between kicking the quarian out, or keeping him around, as he seemed useful to the project. "We'll watch him for now," she told the Board of Directors.

He seemed content to remain in the cell for now, examining her machine and keeping an eye on his patient. "Ah, you made a common mistake here. See? Very unusual, to see zis combination of skill and inexperience." He was also cleaning the blood off of the components she had been working with after she'd injured herself. "Vhere did you learn zis?"

"School, of course," she replied, remarkably settling into a more lucid state now that she was finally allowed to do what she wanted. "Braseltar Institute of Technology on Illium; good school. I was a good student, too. I wouldn't look for my files though." She laughed once, bitterly. "They're probably erased."

She went on. "Worked with a virtual intelligence project team after school. Lots of different aliens. Political move, I think."

After a moment she jerked her eyes over to him and added, "Mariah." She held out a hand.

He occasionally glanced her way as she spoke, but had his attention focused on the machine. "Illium. Very good place." He didn't take the bait of questioning her missing files. This could have been out of a lack of curiosity, or for reasons of his own. "Mm, vorking vis aliens is good for you. Many different perspectives!"

Her introduction caught him off-guard, though. He looked at her hand, blinked, and nodded politely. "Ahera'Lorrz vas Nedas," he said. He saw that she was still holding out her hand and hesitantly offered his own, clearly confused by the gesture.

Mariah grasped his hand firmly and pumped it once, twice up and down before letting go. "Human greeting," she explained, getting back to work.

After a moment she added, "I thought quarians stayed with the flotilla."

Ahera let her shake his arm about, quietly amused, before he went back to work. At her words, he stopped, glanced briefly over his shoulder, and said, "Young quarians leave for zheir pilgrimages, of course. I am no longer velcome on the Flotilla. I live here now."

He stood and admired her handiwork. "If I recall, you promised to eat once you had vorked on your machine a bit. Vell, it seems to be coming along nicely, so, how about you make good on your vord, mm?"

"Oh." She didn't question further, and whether this was because out of respect for his past or because she had moved on to other, more important things was not clear.

At his next words she didn't look up. "Not yet, not yet. This transmitter doesn't work yet."

He folded his arms and stubbornly put himself between her and the rudimentary machine. "No. You need to eat. Ve gave you parts, and ve are getting you tools. Now you vill eat, and rest, and tomorrow you vill have so much vork zat you vill not know vat to do vith yourself."

He lowered his visor to glare meaningfully at her, as if daring her to question his ultimatum.

The woman's hands clenched and began to shake violently again. Her sentences began to break up. "No, I-I need to-wait. Just a little more. Damn it, get out of my way!"

The quarian didn't lash out at her again immediately. He stepped closer, though, his stance aggressive and authoritative. He would try to intimidate her before he would use force. The scientists would probably kick him out if he accidentally hurt her.

And he really had no desire to. She was sick, but she was still a sentient creature. "No. Do you vant me to take avay vat ve have given you? Stand. Down."

Mariah took a step back warily. She didn't think he would hurt her, but she didn't really know. She didn't know the habits of quarians.

It really wasn't the best way to speak to someone of her state of mind, either. Her mind was spiralling out of control at this point, highly upset at not being able to continue her work. But she didn't know what to do.

She stared at him, dumbly.

The quarian held his ground, watching her. After a moment he said, "Good. Now, come vis me," his stance relaxed and he offered her his hand. He was acting on instinct rather than technique. He was an engineer, not a psychiatrist, and was unaware that his rough handling of the human's mind might cause her more damage.

The scientists hadn't interfered yet. All they saw was him standing there. He hadn't touched her, but they were keeping a keen eye on the alien.

"Yes. No. Wait." Mariah took another step back, staring longingly at the pile of electronics on the table. "But I have to..."

Ahera strode forward and, grabbing her wrist, forcibly began to drag her away from the machine. "No, it does not vork zhat vay," he said.

He made it halfway to the door before he was accosted by angry scientists. They pried him off her and sought to shoo Mariah away from her machine in a much less forceful manner. The project lead began to lecture him on her fragile state of mind, and he stared back impassively.

"She is not going to listen to you even if you are nice. You vant to drug her instead?" He asked, not seeing the point of all their objections.

She paused and glanced back to Mariah to see if her team was having any success.

Unfortunately, Ahera's rough handling of her had driven her back to pacing, and each time she tried to approach her work she was gently pulled away. This rather upset her.

After a few minutes, however, she was coaxed out of her room, and the orderlies managed to get her down the hall to where a nice private room was set up for her to eat (they didn't want to upset her by having her eat with other people, and they didn't want her to eat with the temptation of work surrounding her).

Mariah was rather pissed at the whole ordeal, but sat down and dutifully began to eat the food provided.

The team was quietly jubilant that they had been able to get Mariah to eat. It was a small step, but it was a step towards victory, and one that had almost been ruined by the quarian.