The first thing that caught his eyes as he stepped into the luxurious Captain's quarters wasn't the enormous fish tank to the left of the cabin nor the glass monter display a variety of starship models.

The first thing his eyes came to rest upon was the breathtaking appearance of Jane Shepard as she strode out into the room from the shower alcove. His heart jumped at the sight of her slender, feminine body, her every curve and shape accentuated by a tight black dress.

He could just fall into her arms and die right this moment and his life would be complete in every sense …

A twinge of terror curled around his spine. This was the moment of truth. There was no turning back. Did she want him still? Would this even work … or would this precious thing be just another, monumental, failure on his long list of failures?

Was he really ready for this? Would he pass the test?

Palaven, it was hot in here! Wasn't it?

Looking down at the wine bottle in his hand, his heart surged in his chest. Was it good enough? He'd spent good hours anguishing over what to get her, what would be appropriate for the occasion. In the end he'd settled for wine. Wine was always appropriate. Wasn't it?

He knew so little about human customs, what little he thought he knew he'd picked up from secretly watching couples dine together. One thing he had noticed was that there was always wine, preferably expensive wine at that. This token of his wasn't nearly as expensive as he'd have liked it to be but it was the best he could do at the moment.

Shepard drifted close to him, accepting the bottle graciously from his hand and smiled coyly. "Chocolates would've been nice, but this will do."

Chocolates? Oh … a human custom he was unaware of.

A pleasant waft drifted into his nostrils. Her skin smelled of some exotic fruit .. apricot if he wasn't mistaken. Or perhaps it was peach, come to think of it. And her hair was still moist from showering and …

He gulped, suddenly very self conscious and embarassed, because he hadn't showered or even washed before coming here. Because turian women liked …

Damn, and there he went again. He still kept thinking of Shepard as one of his own kind, still expected this to work like any amorous encounter between man and woman. That she would react and respond to him just like a turian would. He kept anticipating this to work his way.

Suddenly the tiny bubbles rising to the surface of the fish tank beside him thundered like explosions, as if every sound had been amplified a million times. His heart boomed like cannon rounds, the blood coursing through his veins roared like thunder.

And Shepard turned and walked away from him. He wanted to reach out and catch her, bring her close to him, needed to feel her warmth against him .. because he so desperately wanted something to go right in his life. Just once .. just this once.

She settled the bottle on the table by the couch, there was a tiny clink of glass touching glass and she reached into a tiny cupboard, producing two glasses and a second bottle, then offered him to sit.

The drink was exquisite, far better than his pitiful offer. As much as he enjoyed it, he wanted to move on, before he lost his nerve. He gulped the last of it down and set the glass back on the table and realized that he was shaking all over.

Her glass half empty, she turned and looked him in the eye. "Garrus …"

His gaze shied away, expecting the worst.

He was sweating as well. He could feel the thick fabric of his tunic sticking to his back and at the same time needles of ice lanced his spine.

She would reject him now and it would be all over before it had even started. She would send him back and he would spend the night alone again, curled up in his sleeping pod, cold and shivering and lonely, and it would break his heart.

Her hand came to rest on his shoulder and he forced himself to meet her eyes.

"We don't have to do this if it makes you uncomfortable."

He remembered what he'd told her earlier, that she could make him nervous, but never uncomfortable.

He shook his head. There was nothing he wanted more than to be here, with her. Being close to her, in her arms, was everything he needed.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was leaning into her, embracing her and feeling the softness of her neck against his cheek. A moment later she was holding him as well, one arm behind his back, the other on his hip.

"We don't have to do this if it makes you uncomfortable." Clearly he was shaken and afraid, his eyes darted here and there, not quite daring to linger on her form.

She was expecting him to let her down, to throw her some half-hearted excuse and bolt out of her quarters.

Instead, he threw himself at her like there was no tomorrow, clinging to her like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood, letting her know without begging in so many words just how much he needed her.

Rough skin grazed her cheek and the boney structure of his mandible pressed against her neck. She felt a hot, moist breath against her ear. This close, she could smell his breath .. a foul stench of carnivore. When he drew back and his face lingered in front of hers, her gaze caught momentarily on the rows of sharp teeth, moist with saliva, in his jaws. His tongue had tiny barbs. It was dark blue, nearly purple.

Alien. And yet part of her wondered what that tongue would feel like against her skin … against her lips.

She touched his cheek. His pupils dilated in response to her touch. She let her hand drift farther back, stroking the thick skin on his neck … exploring the bony plates protecting his spine. He seemed to like that as she could hear him let out a long, slow breath at her touch.

She reached the strap that secured his visor in place and tugged at it, experimentally. It released with a sudden snap causing the piece to slide down the side of his face.

"Oh .." Startled, Garrus caught it before it hit the floor. He blinked in surprise but made no effort to put it back on again. It slipped out of his grip and came to rest on the seat between them.

She looked him in the eyes, for the first time seeing him as he truly was. Here was the man confiding his darkest secrets in her, the warrior fighting by her side, saving her life more than once. Here was the devoted friend and faithful comrade who'd been missing from her life.

He was a man of flesh and blood .. but he wasn't human. And it didn't matter anymore.

Without his visor he looked strangely vulnerable, avian eyes darting everywhere and finally, uneasily settling back on hers.

Her fingers brushed against the collar of his tunic. She inspected it, looking for buttons or a zipper or something, anything, that would undo his garb. His eyes seemed to search hers for confirmation. Her touch was her answer to the unspoken question.

Gently he slid off the couch to stand above her, then guided her hands to his back, to the hem of the they pulled upwards, sliding it gently over his head, careful not to let it catch on mandibles or fringe.

The smell rising up from his naked skin wasn't a pleasant one.

The reality of what she was getting herself into suddenly hit home.

This was Garrus standing half naked in front of her. Garrus, her friend. Garrus, the turian.

This wasn't going to be a romantic night of passion, cuddled up against a viril man, it was going to be something very different .. and whatever it turned out to be, it was more and more threatening to become an ordeal.

And so what if it did? It would be nothing compared to what he'd endured to prove his loyalty and his devotion to her.

He must have read her involuntary reaction to his smell because he stumbled backwards, retreating in shame. "I .. I didn't know … washing was mandatory in human culture. Turian women … prefer the musk," he mumbled, embarrassed.

At that she couldn't quite bite back a chuckle and she shook her head. No, she wouldn't back down now. She wouldn't let him down. She could stand a little stink if it meant comforting him when he needed her like this.

And so, she inspected her prize. He was thinner than she'd expected. His chest had a certain width to it but his torso tapered into an impossibly narrow waistline and there was a spindly appearance to his limbs.

And he was more alien than she could have ever imagined. His thorax resembled the carapace of some ancient marine creature she couldn't quite name. Sharp, angular plates aligned and intersected to form an elaborate suit of natural armour. His back swelled into an unsightly hump and his shoulders were covered in tiny, interlacing plates that actually resembled a bird's plumage. A bony ridge ran the length of his chest, dissolving into thick calluses of hardened skin, like frozen waves rolling over his abdomen.

She dared a touch, gently, inquiringly. It wasn't so bad.

He didn't know when he stopped shaking with fear and started trembling in delight but it must have happened somewhere near his midsection. As her tiny fingers explored every fold of sculpted skin and teased their way around edges and scales, waves of pleasure rolled up his spine and made the firm plates along his neck shift slightly. This was too good to be true .. it had to be.

And somewhere along the way, it occurred to him that he had not yet so much as touched her in return. Did he dare to? Would she object to the touch of his alien talons? Only one way to find out …

Just as he reached out for her, his trousers loosened around his waist and something dipped inside. Not quite prepared for this, and suddenly very conscious about the fact that he wasn't wearing anything underneath, he reflexively jerked back ever so slightly. His jaws, parted from the delight wrought on by her tantalizing touch, snapped shut.

An intense twinge of pain exploded inside his mouth causing him to cry out in surprise. Alarmed, his left hand raced to his lips and when he felt a sticky wetness form on his finger, he realized what had happened. He'd impaled his tongue on a tooth!

"Garrus, what's wrong?" He could hear the concern in her voice. "You're bleeding!"

He did, he could taste his own blood and what was worse, he was spilling it onto her carpet. Thick blue stains formed in the fabric …

"Oh no … I .. I'm so sorry, Shepard. I …," he stuttered and tried to staunch the flow from his mouth. Damn, it hurt!

"Hold on." She turned and grabbed something from the bedside table, offering him a piece of tissue paper and helped cover the wound. "There, put some pressure on that."

He did and standing there, halfway undressed, with his fingers in his mouth and tissue paper between his lips, he felt like an idiot. Too good to be true indeed …

He watched as she dropped detergent on the stains and wiped her carpet and it felt like forever until his tongue stopped throbbing and the bleeding ceased. Spitting out wet pieces of paper, he managed a weak smile and coughed. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay. Now, where were we?" Shepard looked him in the eye and placed her hands on his hips. "Promise you won't bite yourself this time."

"I promise," he said, quietly. And with that, she undressed him.

Smiling and feeling suddenly shy and with a forming hotness in her cheeks, she looked him over.

There was a tiny thing there, between the bony structures forming the contours of his pelvis. An orifice. It made sense, she told herself. The turian homeworld was subject to intense radiation due to its unusually weak magnetic core, and thus every living thing had evolved to cope with those conditions.

Reproductive organs would naturally have formed to be sheltered inside the body to avoid harmful mutations to arise from the radiation. It made perfect sense that Garrus' equipment lay hidden from view and would only reveal itself when needed.

On closer inspection she realized his opening was clamped shut by muscular valves. They reminded her of petals …

And the sudden mental image of Garrus with a bold red rose growing between his legs caused her to smile.

He shivered under her intense scrutiny, unsure what the smile meant. "What?" Was she mocking him? Was he really that different from human men?

From the corner of her eye, she could see his abdominal muscles contracting, the petals retracted inward, sealing him even tighter.

"Nothing, I was just reminded of something." The smile on her face died as she saw the uneasy shadow that had fallen over his face.

"Shepard .. I …" He took a step back, away from her, without even realizing it.

"What's wrong, Garrus?" There was genuine concern in her voice now.

"I …" No. He couldn't back down now, abandon her when she needed him the most. "I just … It's … This is difficult for me, Jane. I'm sorry." He shook his head to clear his thoughts. If only …

She stroked his chest and she looked him in the eyes again. "I'm not trying to pressure you, you know that. If you want out, just say so. I won't hold it against you."

But he didn't want out. He wanted this, more than anything, but he was afraid. Afraid it'd all fall apart at his hands, leaving him lost and confused again.

"No. It's just … I …"

"Come." She took him by the hand and led him to the bed. "Lie down with me." She climbed in, he followed. And then she kissed his cheek. "Let's go sweet and slow. Would you like that?"

Her hand released his and trailed, slowly, gently, up his arm.

Heat rose up his neck and embraced his face. "Yes." He would like that, very much.

Lying next to Garrus felt wonderful. The proximity of his body was far more sensual than that of any man she'd been with before. She couldn't put her finger on what it was, exactly, that made her feel that way, but there was the comforting warmth of his rough skin against hers, of scales rubbing against her, the shy touch of his hands on her body and the feel of his talons, tracing circles in her skin … careful, yet dangerous. And when she touched him, she could hear his breath quickening in response.

She couldn't smell him anymore. Kissing the coarse, leathery skin on his neck and running the tip of her nose against him brought nothing but his warmth into her nostrils.

It was starting to feel the way she'd imagined it. Sweet and romantic and very arousing.

Her hands burned like branding irons on his buttocks, teasingly dipping into the crevice in between, tracing the contours of his form and prodding the muscles underneath … and he was cupping one of her breasts in his hand and fondling the peculiar patch of dark hair covering her entrance with his other hand …

… and Palaven , it was too much! He could hear his breath rasp in and out of his bone-dry throat, his mandibles quivered in anticipation and down there was the sensation of his testes rising inside his groin, preparing him for imminent release. His gaze travelled down her body one last time, to that mysterious place, and halted … and then …

There was nothing subtle about his arousal. Pressure had been building steadily until there came a point of no return, a moment in time when necessity overrode embarassment, and he could no longer contain it within him.

Like releasing the catch on a bolt it emerged in all its wonderful, horrible alien glory … and the urge to penetrate – deep – hit him like a sledgehammer to his gut, knocking the air from his lungs.

She coughed in startled surprise at the sight of him and the reaction made it perfectly clear that that was not what she'd expected.

She felt something shift in him, he tensed and the grinding of his teeth next to her ear gave way to a gasp and something exploded out of him like a spear. It thrust itself along her thigh like a missile, hot and hard and leaving a wet trail on her skin. The smell coming off it, like ammonia, stung her throat. She took a deep breath … and dared a glance.

It was long and thin and it immediately occurred to her that none of the human condoms she kept in the drawer in the bedside table would fit him.

Very well, on to plan B. There was half a glass of water and a bottle of antihistamine pills waiting for her just in case they made it this far and she'd need them. She reached out for the glass and …

Suddenly Garrus was on top of her, on all fours pressing down on her; his hands on her arms, grabbing so tightly she'd bruise ... his legs pressing her thighs apart and eyes wide and black and gleaming, a feral look on his face.

Oh god, he would take her by force ..! She cried out in sudden fear …

"Garrus!"

The scream, like a slap to the face, startled him and brought him back to reality. He was on his fours over her, his face mere centimetres from hers. He'd grabbed her arms so tightly he could feel his talons digging into her flesh. And he was leaning into her, pressing her into the mattress with all his force. He could feel his thighs spreading her wide and his pelvis was poised to ..

His mind recoiled when he realized the horrible truth about the situation. His heart nearly stopped at the realization of just how close he'd come to raping her.

His mouth flew open, he tried to speak but nothing would come out. Horrified, he took the only course of action available to him and beat a hastied retreat out of her bed, away from the object of his desires, away from Jane Shepard.

He had to get out, away from here! Now!

He felt sick, he needed to regurgitate .. but where? He made for the pile of clothes on the floor and fell to his knees. He retched but brought nothing up.

"Oh ..," he moaned as wave after wave of nausea swept through him and his abdominal muscles contracted in vain to purge him. "Oh, Shepard .. I'm so sorry. I never meant to …"

The last remnants of his arousal dispersed in a thread of thick saliva that snaked its way between his lips and fell on his tunic. His erection retreated into his groin, granting him the bitterness of total defeat.

It was over. He'd lost her, lost everything that ever meant a damn to him.

"Garrus?" He felt her kneel by his side. "Garrus, are you all right?" She put a hand on his shoulder.

"No!" He jerked away from her touch, violently. Somehow he got to his feet and stumbled away, falling into the leathery seat of the couch.

Crunch!

The sudden noise and the sensation of something breaking under his weight caused him to jump to his feet again. Spinning around he discovered the remains of his eye piece, mangled beyond hope, adding further insult to injury.

His throat constricted, there was an unimaginable tightness in his chest. This was the end, the end of everything. He felt like he was dying.

His world had crumbled beneath him, slowly but surely, and now … now this was crumbling away too.

"Garrus …" Shepard wrapped her arms around him and this time there was no fight left in him. He let her touch him, just stood there, frozen in place, empty and bereft of hope … a shadow of a man.

"Garrus, it's all right. Really, it is." She stroked his back, gently. "I know you didn't mean to."

He did not have the strength to turn his head and look at her, instead he blinked and blinked in a futile effort trying to hide the moisture forming in the corners of his eyes.

She didn't know how turians physically showed affection for one another, the best she could do to comfort him was to hold him and touch him the way she would have held and touched a human man. She wasn't sure it was doing much good though. It was as if Garrus had retreted into a corner of himself where she couldn't reach him.

"So …," she said slowly. "What happens now?"

His chest expanded in a shuddering breath. "Now?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I want …" His eyes closed and he gripped her hand so tightly it hurt. "There's nothing I can say that will make it right …" Pain spilled over in his voice. "All I wanted …" A strangled sound escaped his throat and the burning in his eyes intensified. How could he tell her what it would have truly meant to him, for them to be …

"Yes?"

"I wanted … For once in my life I wanted something to go right. Just once. Just ..."

"Garrus." She stroked his mandible and when he dared open his eyes to look at her, she was more beautiful than he could remember. Dark eyes staring into his as if peering right through him, directly into his soul. Her hair, soft and gleaming in the faint light as it gently touched her shoulders. Her lips, pink and soft and serious now. "It's not too late for that." And she leaned close to him and whispered in his ear. "Garrus, take me to bed. Make love to me."

Make love … There was no turian equivalent to describe it quite so beautifully. But if she'd still have him, Palaven, he would indeed make love to her.

If anything, it felt better this time. He knew what to do, where to touch and caress her and he knew what her touch would elicit in return. Part of him screamed that he was crazy for attempting this a second time, the other part was grateful for having the opportunity to set everything right.

And when his moment came and he was revealed once more, he waited for her permission before lowering himself onto, and into, her, slowly and carefully.

It wasn't as awkward as he'd feared it would be. She wasn't all that different to a turian. And to his delight, she had flexibility. When he slid inside and pushed forward, inching his way into her, she accomodated him with ease. The first thing that had gone right all evening.

He breathed out a sigh of relief, relaxed his muscles and felt the warmth and comfort of Jane Shepard all around him.

Was this a dream? No, it couldn't be; he could feel her under him, smell her scent and hear her breathing. And when he opened his eyes, she was there, with him. And any moment now he would reap his reward. She would send wave after wave of pleasure crashing down his length, tensing around him again and again until she drove him over the edge and into his climax …

But something wasn't right. She wasn't spasming.

Concerned, he adjusted his position slightly to still her need. Nothing happened.

He tried pushing further inside but bone met bone and he ground to a halt. He shifted to the side a bit … still nothing. He tried shifting to the other side .. but that didn't do anything at all.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

And then the horror of reality hit him. He wasn't adequatly shaped for her … not long enough or wide enough to cause her to spasm. Or perhaps her body was incapable of responding to the hormones he exctreted?

It was the most dreadful moment in his life and it seemed to stretch on forever. Never had he felt so useless before, so helpless. His mouth was suddenly dry again and he choked on his own tongue when he tried to swallow. Coughing and sending tiny globules of saliva into her face and hair, he could feel his erection fading fast.

With a final monstrous effort, as if sheer willpower would force him to expand to whatever shape and size she needed him to be, he pressed himself even harder against her pelvis, clinging to her soft and fragrant body for deer life. Still nothing. Not the faintest reaction. He was doomed …

For the first time in his life Garrus Vakarian found himself consumed by full blown panic. This could not be happening! His heartrate spiked, he could feel the arteries in his neck throb so violently they would surely burst … and then …

"Well?"

He snapped his head up and his wild, panicking eyes caught hers. "What?" he croaked. What am I supposed to do!

The corner of her mouth crooked into a tiny smile at his shock and horror.

"You're supposed to …"

"What!" He should have watched those damned vids! If he'd only watched the vids ..!

Her tiny hands slid off his back, to rest on her chest. The right hand formed a fist .. but not quite. The fingers didn't close entirely into a ball but left a tiny tunnel in the middle, just wide enough for a finger to fit through. The left hand's index finger pointed at the nearly closed right hand and she gently slid the finger into the imaginary tunnel. And back out. And back inside again.

Garrus felt his mandibles droop in utter bewilderment. He had no idea what that gesture was supposed to mean, none whatsoever. And he felt such an imbecile for it.

Shepard, on the other hand, seemed to relish in his confusion. A tiny smile wrinkled the corners of her mouth … it spread slowly at the utterly lost look in his eyes, and expanded to form a gorgeous smile that made his cheeks grow hot with embarassment.

"Here." She picked something up from the bedside table, hit a button and the giant screen above the bed flickered to life. Garrus turned his head and caught a glimpse of two human bodies. A man and a woman. Naked. Entwined. Making love. The woman on her back, the man on top. And …

His cheeks burned now, he could feel the pounding of his pulse in his swollen tongue.

The man moved rhythmically in and out of the woman, thrusting his pelvis back and forth in a steady, even pace. The woman moaned softly. Her long dark hair was spread all over her pillow and the mattress and her naked breasts bobbed gently to the rhythm of her lover's thrusts.

"You see?" Shepard beamed at him as he forced his gaze away from the screen to glance at her face. Two rosy spots had appeared on either of her cheeks. Oh damn, this was embarrassing and he wasn't the only one suffering ..!

"Is .. is that what you need?," he stammered. "I didn't … I never .."

She pointed to the screen. "Wanna see something funny?"

He heard her tap another button on the remote and all of a sudden the loving couple moved and writhed and bobbed twice as fast. He let out a strangled gasp and couldn't take his stunned eyes from the man's rear as it pounded its mate, in and out, at an impossibly fast pace.

It was the most ludicrous thing he'd ever seen … and he'd seen plenty during his years at C-SEC.

It started as a bubbling rattle deep down in his chest, roiled upwards unstoppable through his chest, forced its way through his throat and exploded into a frantic laughter that shook him from toe to fringe.

And he couldn't stop! His eyes watered from the effort, gaze still glued to the ridiculous scenes playing out on Shepard's screen. He gurgled and sputtered and contorted uncontrollably until the muscles in his abdomen ached and hurt, and he laughed, and laughed like he hadn't done in ages. Like he couldn't even remember ever laughing.

And the panic and hurt and fear and humiliation drained out of his body as if by magic. Vaguely, he could feel her body shaking under his and realized she was laughing as well. The chorus of their voices was the sweetest music he'd ever heard.

Oh, by the gods … what a miracle!

"I can't go that fast!," he blurted out when he managed a breath again. "I'm not a machine ..!" And then the idiocy of that statement, hard fact as it may be, made him start laughing all over again.

"Don't worry …," she smiled and gripped his hands tightly into her own. "Neither am I."