Garrus stalked past her, and Shepard knew without asking that he was heading to the main battery. He wanted to be alone, and she did not fault him for it. She, instead, lingered by the mess—it was late, and the area was deserted. She knew that Garrus would ultimately move past this. It was easy to see that the turian was upset by her choice to block the shot destined for Sidonis, but she also knew what his final reaction would be. He would have regretted it. He said that they were not alike, that her decisions did not and could not match his.

But she knew about revenge.

She knew all about being surrounded by the dead and the dying, not able to save any of them. She ran when she was sixteen, fled the shrieks and the desperate cries for help, somehow managing to survive while the slavers continued merrily on with their lives. When the Alliance ships had found her she was nearly dead from exhaustion—there were so many to be buried.

And then on Akuze, the same thing happened again. This time she was able to fight back, but for what? The end result was the same. She burned the dead that time. She had learned her lesson.

So Garrus thought that she knew nothing about loss. She knew far too much for her own good. It was why she was so hesitant to take life now. There was so much death in the galaxy; did she really need to add to it? Her history had not turned her into an idealist, but it had made it so death was always the last choice. Minimize suffering. Minimize the nightmares.

Revenge didn't bring her family back. It did not bring her squad mates back. She had tracked down the slaver ship and brought them to justice, but no lives were saved. Only more were lost. The thresher maw was dead, but it brought no relief. Garrus might say that betrayal would change her outlook, but would it change the outcome? There was always only more death. What Garrus didn't seem to realize, but what she hoped he would eventually come to understand, was that it was too easy to bring more death to the galaxy. Too many people took that easy path. It was harder to preserve life, and too few chose that route.

But it wasn't that simple, and Garrus knew that. What does one do with shades of gray?

She rummaged through the cupboards in the mess for something—she knew not what—and sighed when nothing looked appetizing. She rubbed the back of her neck, fingers threading through her short hair. She needed a shower.

There was a shuffle of feet behind her, and she turned to find Thane. "Commander." He nodded politely at her.

He always seemed to be lurking about. "Hi Krios." He had been on the Citadel with her and Garrus, a silent presence in the back of their vehicle, not offering anything in the way of an opinion while her and Garrus batted the issue back and forth. She had valued his silence.

He moved past her, bringing a kettle out, filling it with water and flipping on the heat. "Could I interest you in a cup of tea?"

He looked strangely domestic, wiping his hands on a towel and gazing at her expectantly. She tried to picture him with a family, a home, a wife. She knew he had possessed all of that, at one point. Did he ache to go back to such easy domesticity? Or perhaps such bliss in the home was something that happened only in nostalgic memories and holovids.

"Yeah, thanks." She answered, and he turned back to get two cups out. "Do you cook much besides tea?"

He turned around to lean against the counter, the picture of leisure, arms folded loosely across his chest. "Irikah was the cook. It is, perhaps, stereotypical, but I have never learned to truly cook for myself. Or perhaps I just preferred it when she would make the meals. She was very good."

"My mom tried teaching me. I never had the time for it."

"You were as busy as a young girl as you are a woman?" His lips curled in amusement, and she wondered if he were trying to picture her as a child.

"Kids always think they have the luxury of time." She waved her hand dismissively. "It's only when we grow up that we realize that so many paths have been overgrown."

"Ah, too true. But you speak as if you could never learn to cook—it is still a skill you could possess."

"As could you." She grinned at him, and he blinked and hummed. Thane's voice was an enigma—she felt there was always more that she couldn't quite hear, that was just out of her range of hearing. She wondered what that hum would sound like to another drell.

The kettle began to whistle, and Thane turned to attend to it. "I have had the advantage of serving alongside you on several excursions now, Shepard. If I might say, you are not what one brings to mind when one thinks of a soldier. I thought that you would be—breaking into Nassana's office, guns blazing. But you are not."

Shepard felt she could say the same about him. "How do you mean?"

He set a cup before her and sat down across from her, leaning his elbows on the table—a common posture for him. "A soldier shoots first and asks questions later. A soldier relies on her weapon more than anything else. But you... you engage in dialogue. You offer second chances. You offer mercy."

"You can't have met too many soldiers if you think they're all like that." The tea smelled of forests.

"My apologies, I did not mean to offend." He laid his arms on the table, palms up, and Shepard wondered if that were some drell gesture of submission. "I merely intended on commending you for your reserve in judgment. I appreciate that you consider all avenues available to you before you decide on a course of action."

She smiled at him, and he relaxed, returning to his original position. "I learned early on that there are many times when you are stripped of the power of choice. Sometimes your free will is removed from you, and no matter how hard you try, nothing can stop it. Therefore, when you do have the choice, when you do have the power, it is vitally important that you exercise it."

"And you believe that sometimes you remove that choice from yourself, prevent yourself from seeing it." He took a drink, eyes fluttering closed.

"Mm-hmm." She took her own guarded sip. It reminded her of fresh saplings, and she closed her eyes to savor the memory.

"And this is why you blocked Vakarian's shot."

Her eyes flew open. "Yes. And what do you think? An assassin yourself? I am sure you've experienced that vantage point many times."

She felt her tone tread on the accusatory line, but he did not seem affected by it. "Indeed I have. And sometimes we need someone to save us from ourselves." He looked at her pointedly. "It is a heavy burden you bear, Shepard. A savior."

The weight suddenly felt impossible on her shoulders. The cup was unnaturally heavy. "I don't need you to tell me that."

"I know." He said simply, taking another drink. "I wonder, do you think that you carry it alone? Do you think that you will have no one to save you?"

She didn't want to answer. She took a drink to delay the response, but his eyes were on her constantly. He was more intrusive than Kelly, more pointed than Mordin. What gave him the skill to see past the surface? Was it what made him a good assassin? What better way to kill your targets than to know them better than they knew themselves? "How does one answer that, Thane? I know that there is the answer that you want to hear, and then there's the truth. I have always been alone. I have always been the one that others depend on. I have tried my hardest to be worthy of their trust."

"You are worthy. Your crew trusts you. But, do you trust them?"

The question was unspoken—did she trust him? "It's hard to. When you trust people they have an uncanny knack of dying on you."

"We, all of us, are mortal. That should come as no surprise to one who deals in death. Yet, you speak your words with such weight. Why?"

She stared at her tea, the dark green reminding her of Thane's eyes, all seeing, all knowing. Shepard had enough of the questions. She felt like she was back in the psychiatrist's room, her secrets being pried out and laid in the open like obscene trophies. Every secret was a victory, another garish head to tack on the wall. There was a reason she let her crew prattle on at her—she preferred to listen, not to speak. She had nothing to speak of.

Her gaze went a little higher to stare at his hands, wrapped around his mug. How many lives had those hands taken away? As many as hers?

Shepard had been silent for too long. Thane cocked his head to one side, curious at her stillness. "Another time, perhaps." Her voice sounded unnaturally loud. "Thanks for the tea."

She shoved her chair back, and he stood with her, hand half way out as if he thought about stopping her. "Shepard, I did not mean to pry..."

"No, it's no problem. See you around, Krios." She wondered, as she rounded the corner to the elevator, if she turned around whether he would still be staring at her, his expression clearly readable by her for the first time.