Shepard let out a bored sigh. She had been stuck in this bed for two weeks, Nihlus came and went and when he was gone she had absolutely nothing to do. At least when he was here she could play on his little arm computer thing. Nihlus had called it an omni, whatever that meant. She frowned and with a glance at the door she swung her legs off. She pushed herself off the bed and onto her good leg. Her right was still in a cast, but it didn't hurt that much and seemed to be healing faster than should be possible. Logically she should still be bed ridden or at least unable to move without crutches, but here she was, slowly putting weight on the leg as she had done a few times in between nurse checks.

She limped over to the door to the bathroom and reached up and grabbed the door frame and started doing pull ups. Damn it all if she was just going to lay in a bed bored and like her muscles atrophy away. She worked too hard to get where she was, she wasn't going to back slide now.

The nurse came in while she was still going and the blue girl let out an eep, hitting a button to call the doctor. But she stepped away from the door and Shepard saw her chance. She bolted past her and ran through the hospital. Everyone she past just stayed at her, making her want to run faster to get away. There were all different kinds of aliens, even some she hadn't seen yet, but there wasn't time to sit and stare. A door slide open to her left and she recognized it as an elevator and slammed into it, scaring the salamander alien that was inside. Shepard grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back and pushed her out before slamming her hand down on a button. Any button, she just hoped it would take her to some kind of loading dock, or the exit, or something.

She leaned against the back of the elevator, panting hard. Now that the drugs and adrenaline where wearing off she could feel that her leg did still hurt, a lot, but there wasn't any turning back now. Nihlus had been nice to her, but they couldn't understand her and she needed to go find her crew. Who knows how long it had been while she was out, they could all be dead. Her hands tightened into fist against the cold metal behind her. She couldn't think like that, she had to keep her head in the game. Failure wasn't and option.

The door pinged and opened and she bolted out. Everyone stopped and stared at her, whispering, screaming, she didn't care, all she cared about is that they got out of her way.

Then one that looked like Nihlus didn't get out of her way, actually he pulled a gun. She skidded to a halt feet from him, sliding back on her left leg, her left hand skimming on the ground behind her, and then she was off again to her left, stunning the alien with the speed of it. She ran off through some civil area and looked around to try and find out which way the docks would be. This place was clearly some sort of station, some sort of huge station, it had to have ships.

She was so busy looking that she didn't notice the Alien in front of her until she slammed into him, falling back onto her ass. He kept his gun pointed on her, sniper rifle by the looks of the barrel. She let out a tremble before she grabbed the barrel of the gun and twisted it out of his grasp. He growled and fought to keep grip on it, finally managing to beat her off, but she was back on her feet and that is what mattered. Before he near what happened she was already sprinting further down the civilian ward, sliding over a police car as it touched down in front of her. Yeah, touched down, their cars could fly. They shouted at her, but she grinned, she was going to get away. And then she fell. Gripping her leg in pain as blood poured out from a bullet wound. She looked up to see which one had shot her, and locked eyes with smug pale blue ones. The sniper. Damn it.

Nihlus

Nihlus had been seeing a supply of levo food onto his ship when his omni-tool pinged and he got a message from C-Sec that Shepard had escaped from the hospital and was causing a disturbance, apparently she had already broken the arm of a salarian at the hospital and C-Sec was authorized to use lethal force to put her down. He growled and shoved the datapad to the dock worker and rushed off to her last known location.

Once he picked it up her path was easy to follow, just follow the path of shocked people standing with their mouth opens. He made a final turn and saw Shepard sliding over the hood of a C-Sec car. She was out of ear shot though so he had to get closer. "Don't worry, she isn't going anywhere." a C-Sec turian said as he pointed a sniper at her.

"Don't," Nihlus said and grabbed the barrel of the gun right as it went off. He watched as Shepard went down and stood there shocked at the C-Sec went to join the rest of his group.

He followed after a minute and pushed his way through the group as one of the turians held Shepard by her fringe and she spat up at him, landing it on his armor. He growled and shoved her back down and Nihlus returned the growl with one of his own. "Let her go, Spectre authority, if anyone harms her I will see their badge hanging on my wall." they all froze and looked up at him, the one holding Shepard dropped her and he moved quickly to catch her, setting her down gently. Then he turned to the sniper that had shot her. "What is your name?" he barked at him, his mandibles flaring in rage.

"Garrus Vakarian." the sniper replied shortly.

Nihlus sneered, "Oh, you're Vakarian, the failed Spectre."

Garrus growled, "I didn't fail, I turned down the training." he barked and Nihlus couldn't help but smirk at how this boy turned against his natural instincts to tell him off, too bad he turned the training down, he would have been a pretty good Spectre.

However, that didn't mean he wasn't pissed that Garrus had shot Shepard. He gripped the front of his ridge and jerked him down to eye level. "Who gave you orders to shoot someone under my protection?" he growled and the rest of the turians flinched, but not Garrus.

"Pallin, the head of C-Sec," he replied calmly.

Nihlus shoved him back. "You are lucky I don't take your badge, I'm above C-Sec." he growled.

"I got the job done," Garrus barked. "Who cares if I stepped on some red tape?"

"You didn't step on any red tape, you had orders, but you crossed a Spectre." Nihlus said and turned to pick Shepard up. "And next time you do I will turn your badge into a pair of fringe rings."

Shepard

Shepard grunted as she was picked up roughly by hair by one of the spikey aliens and spat on its armor. The turian was about to slam her back down when they all froze and turned to face one of them. It was Nihlus. She watched as he seemed to bark orders at them and they all listened and backed off. 'Who are you…' she thought as she watched him chew the sniper out and then come to pick her up. She locked eyes with those pale blue ones again and then raised up her hand and flipped him off with her middle finger, getting weird looks from all the aliens.

He brought her back to the hospital and Mordin started working on her leg as Nihlus fiddled with his omni. He gave a face that she guessed was something close to dread and annoyance as he hit a button and a voice came through on it. He spoke back to it, getting cut off several times and eventually he stopped speaking and listened. He barked one last thing at the voices before shutting it off and turning to Mordin, who already started moving quicker. Mordin told him something and Nihlus turned to the bedside table and found a small chip.

Mordin said something else and Nihlus nodded before grabbing Shepard's right arm and putting the disk against the underside. She looked at him confused before there was pain and the chip burrowed under her skin. She tried to jerk her arm away, but Nihlus held her fast and the pain vanished and was replaced with a numbing sensation. She jerked her arm one more time and Nihlus let get go and messed with his omni again a bit as Mordin talked to him, his hands busy wrapping up her leg.

And then Nihlus picked her up again and left the hospital in a hurry. What was going on?

Nihlus

Nihlus took her back to the hospital where Mordin was already waiting for them and started working on her leg, repairing the damage from the bullet wound. He watched until his omni beeped and he brought it up to see a bunch of messages from the council, as he was reading them they called him and proceeded to chew him out.

"Do you know the mess you have made?"

"It injured at least one person."

"That thing is not staying on this station, it is obviously too aggressive to function in society, we will find out where it came from and disable the Mass Relay."

"And Shepard?" Nihlus asked.

"Your pet will be put down."

Nihlus growled and shut the omni-tool off and turned to Mordin. "Can you go faster, I need to get her to my ship ten minutes ago." he asked and Mordin sped up.

"Look on table. Omni-tool chip, modified it to work with her. Synced up with yours, you can add in words to translator as learned. No time to have asari come sadly, still couldn't find one willing." Mordin said as Nihlus picked up the chip and proceeded to put it into Shepard's arm, holding her still until it was fully in place. "Will take a few hours to fully set it." Mordin warned him as he finished.

"That you, Mordin, for everything." Nihlus said as he scooped Shepard up and started towards his ship, trying to avoid crowds.

It took a lot longer than normal because he had to dodge C-Sec that were already looking for him, under the council's orders this time, which he couldn't overrule like C-Sec's. They finally made it to the loading dock and he cursed as there were three C-Sec officers waiting for him, including Vakarian. He growled and still walked up to the ship, being circled by the officers to try and block an escape.

"We have been given orders by the council to take the shepard from you to be disposed of." one said.

Nihlus tightened his grip on Shepard. "Just try and take her." he growled and tensed his body to react as they started to pull out their guns. And then both of them dropped.

"That won't stun them for long, you better get going." Garrus said as he slid his gun back into his holster. "I want round two with her once she isn't injured." he said and stepped aside for Nihlus to board his ship.

"Thanks," Nihlus said as he moved into the decontamination room. "And… rethink the Spectre training." he said as the door slid shut.

Nihlus set Shepard down in the pilot's chair and leaned over her to hit several buttons that made the ship undock and start moving. He plotted a course to the Mass Relay and then looked down at Shepard. "You are a handful." he muttered and helped her up, guiding her to the mess down the hall. He set her down at the table and pulled out a pack of levo food and a pack of dextro food. Then he sat down in front of her. "Shepard's food." he said as he held up the levo pack. "Nihlus' food." he said and held up the other one. Then he mixed them up and set both in front of her.

She stared at him and then down at the packets. After a bit she reached for one, but it was the dextro and he smacked her hand. "Nihlus' food." he said and she picked the other one up and he nodded, hoping that was good enough for now that they do not eat the same things.

She ripped it open and started eating it and he stood up and went back to his pilot chair to guide the ship through the mass relay.

Shepard

Shepard watched him leave before pulling herself up and hopping after him. She looked out the window as she sucked on the crap Nihlus thought was supposed to be food. When the same structure that had started all this appeared she dropped the food and tried to move Nihlus' hands to reroute a course away from it, did he not know what it did?

He pushed her away and continued to guide the ship towards it. She gripped his chair as the rings started to spin and the center glowed and caught them, shooting them forward. Only there wasn't a jerk like last time, it was smooth, like they were by it one second and now they were in the middle of who knows where. She looked down a Nihlus and he cupped her cheek comforting, his other hand leaning down to pick up her packet of food and hand it to her.

Nihlus

That was a weird reaction, but he guessed the theory that her ship had stumbled across and accidently went through a mass relay was pretty much proven now. After safely through it he cupped her cheek to calm her down. Then reached down and picked up her food and handed it back to her.

"Don't worry, I'll keep you safe." he promised her.

A/N: I wrote this whole chapter in less than two hours so if there are grammar mistakes I'm sorry, it's late and I don't feel like going through it again. Anyways sorry for the wait, I've been working a lot, but I have been giving this story a lot of thought and have panned out a good majority of it, now I just have to get time and string all of the plot together in writing. But enjoy and please review, I like the feedback.