Chapter Three: In Which Shepard Receives a Shock

The beeping of the comm unit startled her awake, and in her haste to shut it off she fell out of bed and landed on the floor in a heap of disorientation and tangled sheets. Blearily she peered up at the clock perched on the nighstand. 1306. She couldn't be sure what time it had been when she'd finally drifted off, but she thought she'd gotten at least five hours of sleep in. Not exactly what she'd been hoping for on vacation, but she could survive on much less.

The comm continued its ringing as Shepard hastily extracted herself from the bedsheets. "I'm com-ingggg," she groused, wondering in annoyance who would be calling at such an early hour of the afternoon.

It was Rana Thanoptis. "Hello, Comm…ander…" Her greeting trailed off as she took in Shepard's mussed hair and the pillow imprint on one side of her face. "Um, I hope this isn't a bad time…"

"Oh. Oh, no, not at all," she replied airily, trying (and failing miserably) to discreetly to pat her bedhead into something more presentable. "No, I was just getting up anyway. What can I do for you?"

"Oh. Well." The scientist pressed bravely on, although she was clearly flustered by Shepard's less-than-professional appearance. "I wanted to update you on our progress with Mr. Kryik. We've moved him out of Cryo Storage and into the main lab, and in just a few hours we're going to begin the procedure. It'll take a while, but if all goes well—and it absolutely should—you'll be able to see him tomorrow."

Butterflies fluttered up in her stomach once more. Nihlus' piercing green eyes, those facial markings like the wings of some predatory bird…with a start, Shepard realized that she was staring off into space with a slightly silly grin on her face. She forced her attention back to Rana, who was watching her quizzically. "That's great news, Rana. Let me know when you start, I'd like to be kept up to date."

"Not a problem. I'll speak to you in a few hours, then."

Shepard tapped the disconnect after a polite good-bye, then collapsed back onto the bed, the smile remaining in place despite a jaw-cracking yawn. "I suppose I should probably round up some breakfast," she mused to her pillow, which remained silent as usual. Before food, though, she took another shower; she was determined to enjoy the novelty to the absolute fullest. The very thought of returning to the Normandy's meager facilities filled her with dread. At least her apartment on the Citadel had a proper shower stall, even if the water pressure was atrocious.

She soaked under the pounding water until her fingers felt like they were going to shrivel up and fall off, but finally she forced herself to turn the water off. While she was drying herself, she checked the gardening forum again and ran a search on turian ornamental plants. Garrus had never expressed any interest in keeping houseplants, but Lorik might appreciate a small flowering shrub. He seemed like he could be the type. Nihlus, on the other hand, was probably a connoisseur of fine galactic art. Half an hour later, she was quite dry and had completely forgotten about breakfast, busy instead with scouring an online art auction for rare and expensive paintings.

Fortunately for her bank accounts, nothing caught her eye ("Modern art these days!" she scoffed to herself), and before long she was moseying around Port Hanshan, searching for a café that wasn't outrageously expensive. She had to save money somewhere, after all.

Outside, the weather was as inclement as ever, although the winds appeared to have died down for the moment. The snow was drifting down in fat clumps, settling in frosty banks against the expansive windows. Shepard found a bench in a secluded corner, tucked away next to a quiet fountain, and watched the snow as she ate one of the donuts she'd purchased at a coffee shop. I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas popped into her head, and she began absently humming the tune. She hadn't been expecting to enjoy the sights much even if she was on shore leave, but Noveria was proving to be more relaxing this time around. When she managed to forget about her emotional entanglements for five minutes, anyway.

For a moment, Shepard regretted her utter tone-deafness; if she could carry a tune in a bucket she would be inclined to at least whistle. She stuck with humming into her donut while she checked her e-mail on her omni-tool. Much to her chagrin, the two top messages were from Garrus. The next few were spam—"No, I don't want to impress her in bed, thank you very much, yeah sure you're a rich asari princess and you'd like to send me free money, does anyone seriously fall for this crap"—and then there was another from Garrus.

She sighed a little and, somewhat guiltily, opened the oldest message.

My dear Commander,

I hope you're enjoying Noveria, and that the politics aren't driving you crazy. Everything's pretty quiet on the home front—can you explain that one to me? The extranet isn't helping me out very much with it. Anyway, I've been getting your mail for you like you asked, and there was one thing addressed to both of us. I hope you don't mind if I opened it. It was from Liara and Lieutenant Alenko—the twins are going to be six months old in a couple of weeks, apparently. They sent us an invitation to the party, although I'm pretty sure they don't expect us to actually come.

I don't even know what to do with babies, so it's probably just as well.

Shepard suppressed a snicker. She could well imagine Garrus' befuddlement when presented with a wriggling, screaming bundle of drool—err, joy. She knew she'd have the same reaction, so she had to agree with Garrus' assessment of the situation. She did make a mental note to send each of the girls a present—perhaps one of her HMWP VII's, or an amp.

I know it's your shore leave and all, but I miss you. The Citadel may be big, but it can be pretty lonely. I'll write again soon.

Yours,

Garrus.

Shepard sniffed back a tear, suddenly ashamed to be gallivanting about the galaxy, consorting with other turians while her devoted boyfriend stayed at home and wrote sweet words to her. Perhaps she should just forget the whole thing—of course it was too late to halt Nihlus' resurrection, but she didn't have to stay. Her expertise wasn't needed at BH, and she could appoint an executor from the Citadel as well as she could from Noveria.

And after all, Nihlus may have been a panther, but Garrus was a lion. Hmm. A lion? She pondered the analogy. Did she really need to keep it in the cat family? Maybe he was more like a bloodhound. When he was on an investigation, nothing could distract him. And boy do I mean nothing, she thought with some annoyance. She'd learned from experience that few things would tempt him away from work when he'd thrown himself into it—and Shepard had pulled out all the stops on more than one occasion. Typical obtuse man, she thought to herself grumpily, and then immediately felt bad about it. Garrus was a sensitive, fluffy romantic at heart. He just happened to have a tough layer of duty around it.

Lorik, on the other hand…she had to admit that he was probably not a closet romantic. A proper animal comparison escaped her, but that wasn't terribly important. He was certainly the more mature of the three turians—settled, stable, a perfect gentleman. Garrus could be a bit rough around the edges, and Nihlus was straight as an arrow—no mincing of words there.

"What am I doing," Shepard muttered to herself, despondently propping her chin in her hand and gazing out at the snowscape. "It's not like they're grav-cars to test-drive before deciding which one to buy." Nonetheless, she found herself wondering how Lorik would compare to Garrus or Nihlus in a firefight. Obviously the latter two, as career soldiers, would outclass him, but she could easily picture him holding his own with an assault rifle and omni-tool…perhaps in that lovely set of Colossus armor that she had stashed in storage back on the Citadel…

"You look troubled today, Commander. A penny for your thoughts?"

Shepard started, instinctively reaching for her pistol, but it was only Lorik Qui'in who was standing before her, a querying expression on his face. He was wearing a dark red suit. Suddenly her face felt hot.

"Are you all right, Shepard? Your cheeks are a quite vibrant pink. Is that normal?"

"Um, yes, I'm fine, thank you. It's just, uh, warm in here." She quickly closed her omni-tool display screen. Unbidden, the comparison that had escaped her just moments ago sprang to mind. Lorik Qui'in reminded her of a wolf, regal and proud but with a dangerous edge. She could feel the flush deepening as those obnoxious nerves rose up again.

"Indeed? I find it quite comfortable, but then we turians do prefer the warmer temperatures." There was a momentary, awkward silence. He trailed his fingers through the water that pooled at the base of the fountain, she examined her boots. It suddenly struck her that he might not be completely at ease either. After all, he might be an experienced businessman, but she killed people for a living. Legally. The thought emboldened her.

"Did you grow up on Palaven, Lorik?"

He looked surprised by the question, and for a moment he only watched the ripples his fingers made in the water. "Yes. I had a very unremarkable childhood, I'm afraid—nothing as exciting as yours, Commander. I lived in one of the bigger cities until I was old enough to join the military, and afterward I elected to pursue business. Quite a normal life, really."

Shepard raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Most normal people don't end up managing semi-legal artificial intelligence research companies on shady planets beyond the official reach of the Citadel."

"Why, you make me sound so intriguing," he rejoined dryly. "A lifetime of shrewd business maneuvers has brought me here, nothing more. Synthetic Insights is a company that is 'going places,' so to speak. I prefer to be on the cutting edge…as the one doing the cutting, and not the one being cut."

She noted with some amusement that he didn't even try to deny the questionable legality of Synthetic Insights' research. "Still, surely those business deals were an intense battle of negotiating skills, a heart-stopping race to see who could dig up the most dirt the fastest? Thrilling verbal fencing? Under-the-table deals taking place in dark, moldering alleys?"

Lorik chuckled, an oddly human sound that made Shepard grin in return. "You have a vivid imagination, Commander. I see that no matter how I deny it, you will always have an image of me making back-room deals with my business partners at gunpoint. I must stand by my assertion, however, that your profession is much more exciting than mine."

"Uh huh."

"You know," and he lowered himself onto the bench opposite her, "my wife used to say the same thing. She was always convinced that rivals from other companies would attempt to kidnap us in the night. We kept shotguns under the bed and pistols under our pillows. She thought everyone's life was as danger-filled as hers."

There was a moment of complete silence as Shepard stared blankly at him, her mind stuck on 'my wife' and barely comprehending the rest of the sentence. "Oh. That's…um…that's a great habit. For anyone." She searched her mind frantically for something else intelligent to say, if only to keep from blurting out, "You're married?!"

"Does she live on Noveria, too?" Well, it could have been worse. She could have broken down sobbing.

"No." He paused, and the previous humorous undertone was absent from his next words. "Unlike me, she decided to stay in the military after her first service. She was stationed aboard one of the ships destroyed during the Relay 314 incident."

"Ohh," Shepard said. "I'm sorry…"

Lorik raised a hand as if to forestall any further apologies. "Please do not feel the need to repent on behalf of your species for something that happened only a few years after you were born, Commander. Mistakes were made by both human and turian. I bear no ill-will."

"That's…a very generous outlook." Saren immediately came to mind; Shepard was too grimly familiar with how his brother had been killed in the First Contact War and how it had fueled his hatred for humans. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only story of its kind, either, although thankfully Saren's was the only one that had sparked a murderous quest to destroy all sentient life.

"Yes, I suppose so. To be truthful, for several years I carried a not insignificant amount of anger toward humanity. But as you have noticed, I am a very logical turian at heart. It was clear that humans were not wholly responsible for the tragedy, nor was the Hierarchy entirely blameless. In order to overcome my somewhat irrational feelings, I began to study mankind to better understand you. My fascination eventually overcame my anger. I have not forgotten her, of course. But there is no longer any strong connection in my mind between her death and your species."

"I see."

They sat in a silence that was somehow awkward and companionable at the same time, the gentle splash of the fountain their only company. Shepard found herself watching the snow again; the wind had picked up sometime during the conversation, and the flakes were blowing against the windows in great swirling gusts. The only thing missing from the scene was a fireplace to warm their hands by. She was most certainly not overly warm anymore.

"You seem to enjoy the weather here quite a bit more than most do, Shepard."

She nodded, relieved to be on safer ground. "I grew up in Miami—it's a pretty warm part of the planet. I never saw snow until my third year in the Corps. I guess it's still kind of a novelty to me—I never had a white Christmas, but I always wanted one. Guess I'm just trying to make up lost time."

"A…'white Christmas.' The term is familiar, but I can't recall the exact meaning. It is a part of a religion, is it not?"

"Uh…sort of. It's kind of hard to explain." Shepard thought for a moment, propping her chin on her hand once more. Lorik, consciously or otherwise, adopted the same pose, waiting for the forthcoming explanation. "Christmas is sort of a religious holiday. I mean, that's how it started, anyway. But eventually it also became an excuse to buy expensive things that you can't afford, wrap them up in colorful paper, and give them to other people. That's the idea, anyway. Usually it ends up being more about the getting than the giving. But it's in the winter, and for a lot of places in the United States that means it's snowing. That's the stereotypical image of Christmas…a pine tree decorated with ornaments, a blazing fire in a fireplace while the pretty snow falls outside, presents under the tree, and lots of quality time with your family."

Lorik nodded understandingly. "It sounds like a strange sort of celebration, but I imagine many turian traditions would seem similarly odd to you."

Shepard snorted a laugh. "No kidding." She could remember several occasions when Garrus had tried to explain various aspects of turian culture to her and usually failed. The extranet was often a better teacher than Garrus was—not that she blamed him. His attempts were valiant, but patience was not his strong point. She rarely fared any better when expounding on Earth's history and culture. They had eventually come to the mutual decision to consult books when they had questions, rather than each other.

The beeping of Shepard's comm cut Lorik off just as he was about to say something; she grimaced and mouthed an apology as she tapped it on. "Shepard."

"Commander, it's Rana Thanoptis. I wanted to give you an update on Mr. Kryik—we've just begun the revival process, and everything is going excellently. Would you like to observe? I can let Adelia know you're coming. Or, if not—well, it's a slow procedure, I'm afraid nothing really exciting will be happening for a few hours…"

"Ah, um, yes. Thank you, Rana. I'll be there shortly." She tapped the comm off again and turned back to Lorik. "I'm sorry, but business calls."

He waved dismissively. "Of course, Commander. No need to apologize; I understand all too well." He paused for a moment, and then added, "But if you truly feel as if you've slighted me, perhaps you could make up for it by agreeing to have dinner with me tonight."

A smile slowly spread across Shepard's face, and she stood up, extending her hand to shake on it. "Deal."

Lorik rose and took her hand, but instead of shaking it he brought it to his lips and brushed a turian kiss across her knuckles. Her figners tingled where his mandibles brushed them. "I look forward to it," he murmured, and Shepard felt the heat come back to her face in full force. "Until then, Commander."

* * *

A few minutes later, as Shepard stood beside Rana and looked through an observation window at the slowly-thawing body of Nihlus Kryik, she wondered what on Earth had possessed her to accept Lorik's invitation. To actually see Nihlus again after so long had made her hear skip a beat; though he was still and stiff, his powerful presence filled the room. The scientists bustling around, delicately attaching wires and monitors, seemed like insignificant worker drones compared to the somehow dignified turian.

Little of what Rana said made any impression on Shepard. She was seeing the future: her and Nihlus, the unstoppable Spectre team, battling crime and evil and annoying security officers, back-to-back, laying down cover fire for each other, hunting down and destroying the Reapers together…they would weather through the dark times, the hard fights, save each other in dark alleys and from the furthest corners of the Terminus systems…

"Commander?"

Shepard jumped. She suddenly realized that she'd been smiling dreamily through the window at Nihlus and possibly sighing happily. Clearing her throat in embarrassment, she turned to Rana. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

Rana looked a bit unsettled, and her gaze darted nervously between Shepard and Nihlus. "Err, I was just asking if you were going to stay for the entire procedure." Her eye twitched. Shepard could only assume that either she intimidated the scientist (although why that might be, she couldn't imagine) or she was simply itching to get back to her subject.

"No, I have…other business to attend to today. But I want to know the minute he's awake."

Rana didn't bother to hide her sigh of relief. "Of course, of course. The very moment. If you'll excuse me, I should—" and she gestured almost frantically toward the door.

Shepard nodded. "I'll talk to you later, then." The asari fled the room, and Shepard resumed her contemplation of the turian before her. The thought occurred that, if Garrus attained his long-desired Spectrehood, it could very well be the two of them in the same future she'd been envisioning for Nihlus.

"Except Garrus doesn't wear Phantom," she muttered to herself. It was an important distinction.