DISCLAIMER: Much to my chagrin, Mass Effect, its characters and elements don't belong to me.

SAY YOU WILL
Tinglies in a Silly Place

The first time Garrus contemplated that thought it sent an unexpected, but not unpleasant, twist in his stomach.

One week. Seven days. That was the time that has passed by since the Red-sand dealers shake down.

And, still, he couldn't stop thinking about the redhead human girl.

Granted, it was not all the time. And it was not in a way to interfere with his duties, but whenever he had a pause and activities waned he would catch himself thinking of her. It happened so often during the last week that he even stopped being surprised by that.

She is an obstinate little thing, he'd think and go on from there. Admiring the way she couldn't stay still and watch injustice prevail after losing a friend to drug usage even if that meant putting herself in danger.

He was probably crazy, but the truth was that the time he spent talking to her, as short as it'd been, was the most relaxing he had ever since coming to the Citadel. The first time he really felt like himself in months.

And, Spirits, it felt good!

He thought it strange that, by human standards, she was still considered a child when by turian years she'd be well into her second Service year by now.

Sometimes, when he thought of her serving in the military, he'd start wondering what her specialisation would be and which would be her weapon of choice and whether or not she'd be any match for him with a sniper rifle.

He wouldn't think about how she'd fare on hand-to-hand, though. Oh, no! He'd stay away from that line of thought. In fact, that only occurred once, and… well, it had been... interesting. It'd also been weird. He couldn't quite fathom if his reaction had been triggered by memories of some of his personal experiences or by thoughts of sparring with her.

It bothered him that he'd never even felt drawn to asari before (although word is that everybody likes asari) and now he was reacting to a human. It seemed particularly... inappropriate.

There was also the fact that he was basically making her up and feared he'd been idealizing the girl because he didn't really know her. But he wanted to. Get to know her, that is. And that thought was a little bit scary sometimes, too. Human-turian animosity was still strong all around the Galaxy; after all, it had only been fourteen years since the First Contact War. Though she seemed friendly enough towards him, he didn't really know what her thoughts on the matter were and humans were said to be somewhat prudish. Plus, she wanted to join the Alliance and would be leaving in a few months.

He was in the middle of those contemplative waves when the door to the office opened and Chellick came in.

"Still here, Garrus," the other turian stared at him a bit startled and fluttered his mandibles in a grin. "Are you trying to prove that all Vakarians are workaholics or something?", he jested, getting a duffel bag from the floor by his table.

"No, I just finished filling out today's reports, that's all," he shrugged watching his partner curiously. "What about you? What are you still doing here?"

"Oh, I'm heading to the gym for the civilian self-defence class," Chellick looked up when he noticed Garrus stirring on his seat with his subharmonics thrilling with delight. "What?"

"I-I heard about the classes," Garrus said quickly, too quickly, and slowed down a bit. "I just didn't know you were the instructor."

"I'm only one of them," he explained, leaning against his table and crossing his arms. "K'Foory, from Spec Ops, and Faggit, from the Tech Department, also work with the class once a week." Chellick's expression became graver and he lowered his voice before continuing. "We were pressed by the Human Embassy to have Harkin working with us for a while, but he had some negative feedback and the embassy withdrawn the request."

Garrus' browplates went up curiously. "I'm surprised they didn't make noise about this."

"It'd be difficult to make noise when a human female, a minor at that, complains that the senior human officer at C-Sec harassed her," he explained with a deep sigh. Garrus felt a lump on his throat thinking about someone like Harkin bothering a young girl like Shepard. "The worst part of it is that the Embassy is protecting the scumbag just so they don't lose the political leverage."

Garrus remained in silence, just staring at the empty space above Chellick's head for a while. This was one of the things he was having more difficulty getting used to about working on the Citadel. Military life was pretty straightforward. Most of the time they were taking down pirates and slavers and smugglers – real criminals who destroyed hundreds of lives.

At the station, it was necessary to tiptoe around others most of the time, trying not to offend people, even criminals, unless you had some irrefutable evidence against them. He honestly couldn't understand how his father was able to live in a place like that.

"You know, if you're not in a hurry to go home, you should come and watch the class," Chellick suggested, straightening up and heading to the door. "We could arrange a demonstration of turian military sparring; I could kick your ass," he added in a daring tone, making Garrus laugh.

"Or you could try," Garrus wasn't usually smug, openly at least, but he'd been one of the best damn hand-to-hand fighters from his squad and he was still in top shape being fresh out of the military while Chellick was two years his senior on C-Sec. Then again, though C-Sec didn't exactly slack off on their officers' conditioning, the training regimen for both organizations were completely different.

Chellick fluttered his mandibles. "Seriously though, you should come and see. Some of them are quite impressive," and with that he left.

Garrus tried to come up with reasons not to show up at the training, but couldn't really think of anything convincing enough to keep him away.

The first time the idea crossed her mind, Shepard felt like she just might be going crazy.

She knew it was stupid, but still felt mildly disappointed when she didn't see Garrus at the Academy the next time she went to the self-defence class.

It'd made her unreasonably sullen and short-tempered for days; she was especially bothered by the persistence of the idea of questioning someone about the blue-eyed turian, it wasn't like her to get stuck on unreasonable ideas like that. The only thing stopping her from following through on that was the fact she hadn't run onto Chellick yet.

What's wrong with me?, she wondered while entering the Academy gym.

It troubled her that, even as she went through with her daily motions, she wouldn't stop thinking about the blue-eyed turian. It made no sense that her head kept remembering their chat in the car, the colour of his eyes, the timbre of his voice.

She shivered.

She couldn't deny that Garrus had drawn her in in an unusual way, his presence making her feel safe like she hadn't in a long time. It wasn't anything like she felt around Chellick, either; because, though she trusted the older C-Sec officer, she didn't feel so at ease with him.

Thinking about the devil, she mused, looking said turian enter the gym and take position at the front of the class to start the warm ups and exercises.

God! I must be needier than I thought if a random act of kindness gets me swooning like an idiot, she chastised herself. It's almost like I'm…

But no, it wouldn't be possible, would it? They didn't even know each other except for that brief conversation. And no matter how nice he'd been to her, they were from completely different species. It seemed unnatural. And, still, thinking about him made her heart flutter inside her chest.

She had never really believed in the whole love at first sight thing before. That thought made her frown, upset, and without noticing she tossed her training partner on the floor for the third time in a roll.

"Shepard, take it easy there or you'll really hurt the kid," Chellick scolded her, making her take a pause and pay attention to what she was doing.

"Sorry, Chorban," she panted giving the skinny salarian a wry smile. "Got a bit distracted and forgot to pull up my punches," she wiped the sweat from her forehead.

"Only you would become more dangerous while distracted," he shook his head and narrowed his eyes. "You have been really holding up on us, haven't you?"

Shepard shrugged, rubbing her neck uneasily with the prickling of a headache building up. "I'm stronger than I look."

She didn't feel like getting back to practice right away. Her thoughts were an utter and complete mess. So she turned to the instructor. "Chellick, can I sit the next round-", she trailed off seeing just who he was chatting with.

No one other than Garrus Vakarian himself.

She immediately felt her face heat up and her heart started hammering.

Chellick turned around and narrowed his eyes, nodding his agreement. "If you're not feeling well then you better take a break," he motioned to the benches where Vakarian was and walked past her, putting a hand on her shoulder just briefly. "I'll work with Chorban on his form. He's slacking on his defense again."

Her steps were uncertain as she approached the turian that had inhabited her thoughts for the whole week. He remained seated, his piercing blue eyes steady on her, making her feel the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach.

"Hey," said she as way of greeting.

"Hey, yourself." His mandibles flickered a bit, the planes and sharps of his face shifted giving him a softer expression.

The first step, Garrus was told, is the hardest.

In retrospect, maybe going to watch Shepard fight wasn't such a good idea. The images in his head would be hard to get rid of and he wouldn't be able to pretend anymore that the way her body moved didn't do things to his insides.

He had openly watched her during the practice. The way her body would twist, her muscles moving under the fit workout clothes she wore. He watched with great interest to her block and charge and toss her salarian partner to the floor.

He had watched her so intently that Chellick took notice of the fact. And the other turian hadn't been a bit surprised.

"She's brilliant," he said with a touch of endearment. "Sharp and brave; she's destined for greatness, you mark my words."

Then she was coming in his direction and his visor was spilling data about her temperature and heart rate being even higher than it'd been while she was fighting. That bit of information threw him out of balance and he wondered if that was due to his presence there.

She sat beside him, not near enough to invade his personal space, but closer than most people would.

Unsure about what to say to each other, they made a bit of small talk watching Chellick correct a few stances and fell silent after that. They were restless, avoiding eye contact; Shepard gave the turian a sidelong glance and opened her mouth as if to say something before snapping it shut with a sigh.

Garrus tugged at his uniform's collar and rolled his shoulders, one at a time, then he cleared his throat, the girl beside him shifted and straightened herself up on her seat, expectant. He found nothing to say, though, and remained silent, making her sigh again. Garrus couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed at that. He'd waited the whole week for an opportunity to see her and talk to her again, but now he couldn't think of anything clever enough to impress her. And, Spirits, he wanted to impress her.

When the time came to Chellick end the class, he called Shepard to rejoin the group and she sighed deeply as she got up.

Garrus felt his heart drum and, as if his body had a mind of its own, he held her arm before she could step away. "Shepard, wait!"

"Yes?" Her answer came too quickly and, if he had to guess, he'd say she even seemed hopeful.

"I'll have a day off at work in three days and I was wondering…", he saw her tip her head to the side a bit, encouraging him to go on. Oh, come on, now, Garrus! You can do this! He took a breath, looking her straight in the eyes and blurted out. "I was wondering if you would like to have lunch with me…"

She smiled widely and nodded, opening her omni-tool. "Here's my contact info," there was a ping on his 'tool. "Send me a message with when and where…"

He couldn't hide the grin on his face even if he wanted to as he watched her join the others.

The next two days would be the longest he'd ever had.