"You can still change your mind, you know. It's not too late to still do the mission that the Council gave you." The old man said.

Anderson had free run of the ship. He knew no one was going to hurt him; Ezmay had expressly forbid it. He didn't have enough familiarity with the Normandy's upgraded systems to hijack the ship, and let's face it, he didn't have the balls needed to take Joker hostage and steer his way back to the Citadel. So Ezmay let him wander. It's not like he was going to go anywhere in deep space. Right now, he sat in the mess hall, staring at Ezmay over a chicken breast. She sipped at her coffee, black, strong, and spiked with a bit of Elysian rum. The heavy, sweet flavour of the rum put her in a good mood, and gave her the strength to sit here and gaze back at her old captain.

"Pardon me for being a bit reluctant to please after this last visit to the Citadel. You threw me under the bus, and that turian councilor…."

"Velarn."

"That asshole…"

"Look, Ezmay, I didn't mean to keep you in the dark." Anderson looked vaguely embarrassed, as if he were copping to having cheated on his math test. "The fact of the matter is that the Council is status-obsessed. There's a hierarchy even within the four of us. Since I'm the newest addition, there's a lot I don't get told."

"That's a pretty piss-poor excuse." She said, frowning into her cup of coffee. She was about to say more when the lift stopped and opened. The sound of the footfalls told her it was Garrus, left foot leading and gait determined. The turian was on a mission, and she suspected it had something to do with the rank odor that was coming from Gardener's pots. She never understood why Garrus's food smelled like scorched sugar.

"It's not an excuse, Shepard.'

"Sounds like it to me." She said, aware that Garrus would be able to hear everything. The chair scraped back from the table suddenly, and she was up and strolling away. Didn't want to talk to Anderson anymore. She was starting to forgive him, but right now, the anger was just too much.

Garrus stopped her as she passed him on the way to the lift. His talons curled around her forearm, and he pulled her close. They had just a second of privacy there in the hallway. Her lips went to his mandible, raising the coffee cup up out of the way.

"Hey, are you eating?" He murmured into her hair.

"Not hungry." She gestured to her coffee.

"I can bring you something up." In truth, he hoped to catch her down here, but she seemed to need some space. Garrus sniffed at the air; the old man was in the mess hall. Ah-ha.

"I'm good. I'll be in our cabin."

Garrus nipped playfully at her skin and let Ezmay continue on her way.

The smell of delicious food was soured by Anderson sitting sullenly staring at his plate of food. Maybe it was just Garrus, but the old human looked more tired, more aged since the days of Saren. Two years was a long time. He kept his eyes on Anderson as he accepted a plate from Gardner. He was almost distracted by the smell of the food. His stomach growled.

Anderson gave a short, sharp laugh from across the mess hall.

"Something funny?" Garrus turned, eyeing him.

"I'm just realizing how alike we all are."

"We're not alike." The plate of food settled on the table louder than he'd intended. Anderson looked up sharply at the sound of ceramic hitting the tabletop. "Not really."

"I remember when Ezmay was just getting started in her career with the Alliance. Her mother's a damn fine officer. Her father wasn't anything special, really."

Garrus didn't answer; only plopped down and started digging into Gardner's concoction.

"I don't know what happened to Ezmay in her training, but she's not the same girl that went into the service."

"She grew up." Garrus said around a mouthful of vegetable. "Seen a lot of people stab her in the back."

"I'm not talking about recently. She got a raw deal from the Council. I'm not denying that. I'm talking about Torfan."

The rich food went to sawdust in Garrus's mouth.

"What about Torfan?"

"She's always a kind of no-nonsense person, but to do what she did on Torfan, that requires something else."

"What's your point, Anderson?"

The old man shook his head, looking up at Garrus.

"I guess….I don't know, really. I never thought she'd put a knife to my throat."

"Didn't leave her much choice, did you? This whole mission was heavy-handed from the start." Garrus put down his fork and focused on the human before him. What did he want Garrus to say? That it would be okay, that she didn't mean it? "You had to have known that Velarn was out for her from the very beginning."

"Velarn's complicated. I suspect there's something in his history that has to do with humans; he's never acted as if I was truly part of the Council. I knew he was hung up on Ezmay's keeping your tattoo, but I didn't know how badly."

Now it was Garrus's turn to feel ashamed. Here they were talking about betrayal, and he had yet to reveal to Ezmay that he'd taken a gift from the Shadow Broker. Speaking of, he still hadn't heard back on terms of repayment yet. His mind clicked away.

"There's a part of turian society that still loathes humanity." Garrus's voice felt too loud in the deserted mess hall. Gardner had cleaned up and left in the short time they'd been talking.

"Shanxi."

No point in referring to it as the Relay 314 Incident, really. Each race had their own name for humanity's inglorious entry to the galactic stage, but each of the names tried to be delicate about it.

"Shanxi." Garrus nodded. "You know there were turians and humans that got….pretty friendly after that."

Anderson raised an eyebrow at him.

"There's xenophiles everywhere. Even among turians." His laugh came out cynical, self deprecating. "Hell, look at me. I even have a relative that was a so-called human-lover. If you don't fit in the Hierarchy, or if you buck the system, there are harsh consequences."

"So Velarn's getting back at you through her?"

"He's old-school. Probably didn't like her to begin with. Humans are seen as impulsive and individualistic, which is considered dangerous and counter-culture. I'm sure her keeping the tattoo pushed a button somewhere. But yes. He's probably trying to get me back in line too."

Anderson was quiet. His chicken had long since gone cold, and Garrus had no interest in finishing his own plate. Times like this, he would have liked to have a glass of turian ale in front of him. The silence on the Normandy was stifling. There was something about this conversation that was eerily like a debriefing session.

"Do you want to know what the information is?" Anderson volunteered.

"For the Shadow Broker? I guess." The look on the old human's face made the hide under his fringes constrict; he didn't like it.

"It's archaic, from old Earth history. I don't imagine many turians will look too fondly on the Alliance when it gets out. If it gets out."

"And?"

Anderson didn't have an omni-tool, so he handed Garrus a data chip to plug into his. He snapped the small black card into the hardware, and orange light illuminated the dining area. Garrus blinked at the data. Was that right? More than two hundred years ago?

"There was an air force base on Earth that was called Area 51."

The turian's eyes slid over to Anderson, and then back at the data.

"Turians crash-landed there. They strayed too far out on patrol, got curious. The government, then the United States, took them into custody. Poor bastards lived out the rest of their lives as science experiments."

Garrus cocked an eye at Anderson.

"You're screwing with me, right?"

"No. There are names. Look at them. They should ring a bell."

Garrus's eyes found the list of names. Interesting…that the captured turians supposedly worked out a way to communicate with human scientists.

Ituil Haran, Evraz Xiyvo, and Volocin Vakarian.

He frowned, staring at his own surname glaring back at him. This was impossible. Every member of the Vakarian lineage going back five hundred years was known to him, and there was no cousin, grandparent, whatever….named Volocin.

"This is bullshit. They gave you a story, not information."

"I thought that too, but then I checked turian records…missing ships. There's a missing ship listed at the same time in history."

"Alright, but how is this valuable? I mean, maybe to a history buff, but it's happened so long ago..."

"You don't think this would be explosive to the right people?" Anderson fixed him with a look. "Humans experimenting on three captive turians?"

Garrus waved his claws at the dataset.

"It happened nearly three hundred years ago. No one's going to care."

"You're not reading all of it." Anderson reached out and scrolled down the orange data stream. All at once, Garrus saw something that made his hide crawl and his throat close up.

"Hybrid breeding…what the hell?"

"Now you see what I mean?"

"Why the hell would you want to give this to the Shadow Broker?" Garrus was suddenly angry. If he could have pegged releasing this information on scale of idiocy that slid from 1 to 10, he'd put it at about a 37. Human history wasn't wasted on the other races; He knew about Nazism, monks burning themselves to death in protest, genital mutilation, and crusades. If one has something under wraps, why go exposing it for the world to see?

"This was sent to us. It's already floating out there. Eventually, it'll get to the Shadow Broker and be traded away. If we presented it first, we wait and see who the other informant is. Then take down the entire network from the inside."

"That's a pretty big 'If.' You've got to many variables in play." Garrus told him.

"Do with it as you will." Now the councilor sagged against his chair. He suddenly looked fatigued. "I'm turning in for the night. Will you tell Ezmay that I'd like to talk with her again, if she'll see me?"

Garrus was taking the chip out of his omni tool as the councilor stood. The small black card turned over and over in his claws, his mind suddenly working overtime.

"I'll tell her..." He mumbled. Barely noticed as Anderson walked away.

This…this information on this little black chip…It would mean something to someone. Likely the Terra Firma party, or any number of barefaced turian mercs. In that little data chip that Garrus turned over again in his claws, he saw the potential for war. It was inconsequential information to him…true. But not to other people. Not to conservative turians patriarchs that still argued against allowing the brash, relatively young species of humans on the Council. Not to human extremists who could easily look at all the genetic information on here and try replicate the research, or worse. On it, he saw everything he and Ezmay had worked for in the past three years destroyed. Garrus saw more strife where the universe needed to be equalized and united. He saw the budding relationship between the Alliance and the Hierarchy crushed and discarded in favour of supremacy. The term "scorched earth" had been bandied around a bit on the Normandy, usually tongue-in-cheek and referring to the Reapers. But that was really how the turian military operated. On that little data chip, he saw the colonization and subjugation of the human race, which could never be trusted because of their propensity for atrocities. Nevermind the fact that nearly every species in the galaxy had probably violated the rules of war at one time or another.

He saw him and Ezmay, never free to live in peace, always questioned, always harassed. It would make the racism they dealt with now look like polite inquiries as to when they were going to start having children, or what their wedding colours were. Garrus saw Ezmay torn away from him and he didn't like it one bit.

He opened his talons, and saw the remains of the chip, crushed beneath his claws. The small copper innards glittered in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the mess hall. His chair nearly tipped backward as he stood, shoving it behind him.

This could never get out. Never.

The garbage disposal groaned and protested when he dumped the remains of the chip down the sink and flicked on the power. It shuddered, and then finally returned back to its normal hum when it had completely swallowed the copper and plastic. He could imagine it mixing with the chemicals in the disposal tank, meant to dissolve any kind of waste and liquefy it. Might even be shooting out into space as he stood there, running water down the drain.

When Garrus reached their cabin, he found Ezmay hunched over her terminal, dealing with ship reports. For a moment, he just leaned against the wall and watched her. She'd heard him, because she'd murmured something to him, but her attention was focused on the computer screen. He looked at the glossy black hair and the smooth caramel skin. It kind of tickled him now, remembering how he'd always been curious what human hair felt like. Always imagined it to have some kind of nerve ending, or be some organ unto itself. Which was silly, because he'd learned enough human anatomy in his military training to know it was mainly decorative. But all the fuss humans made over their hair. Garrus laughed at himself. Pushed himself away from the wall and came a step closer to trace a claw up the nape of Ezmay's neck. He was pleased with himself when he saw the skin on her arms prickle. She called them goosebumps. It was a silly word.

She looked directly up at him, standing behind her chair. Her eyes were amused. It didn't seem like she could ever look at him in anger, or be cross with him. How large and expressive human eyes were!

Hard to believe that at first he'd been the shy one. And yet here he stood, letting his talons slide down over her collarbone. Garrus bent to nuzzle at the top of her head.

"Insubordinating…" She said beneath her breath. The quality of her tone told him that he was doing everything right.

"How so?" He growled into her hair.

"You're interrupting me."

His talons went over her back, up under her arms and he plucked her out of her chair. The furniture toppled over. Garrus pressed Ezmay against his body, the soft curves of her cushioning his plates. Let her feel his plates shift and his arousal begin to peek outward as his hands roamed over her body. Ezmay's head lolled back against Garrus's cowl. His mandibles brushed against the skin of her neck, nipped at her.

"I'll interrupt you when I want." His voice was low against her ear, pleasure making the flanging more pronounced and guttural. He felt her shiver against him. They knew all the steps to this dance. His being arrogant was to be rebutted with her pulling rank.

"Stand down." She turned, her body rolling against him as she did so, her hand stroking over his waist and coming to rest on his growing erection. Garrus stifled a groan. Ezmay reached up, seizing the collar of his shipsuit and shoving him up against the wall. His talons shot out and seized her wrists. A quick twist of the body and it was she who was pressed against the wall, triggering the door for the bathroom. Garrus held both her wrists in one hand. It was almost like sparring, in a way. The vast majority of their lovemaking was playful, tender and charged with a romantic energy that left them clinging to each other. Every so often, they were like wolves…twisting and snapping and struggling for supremacy over one another. Usually ended the same way, though, with gentle whispers and teasing. He knew she liked the flip-flop of not having to be the one who made all the decisions. This was why she didn't protest when he yanked open the front of her uniform suit, grabbing a handful of the high mandarin collar and jerking it down so that he could ruin yet another undershirt. His claws scraped her skin as he bent his head close and nipped at her earlobe. He found her breasts already pebbled at the center, and growled his approval behind her ear. Ezmay's breath went out of her.

She weighed hardly nothing. Garrus spun her around and hefted her up over his shoulder. He walked the few short steps to where the bed was, one hand sliding over her ass and between her thighs as he carried her. Godamn, but it was tempting to immediately leap on her when he dropped her on the bed, but he held back. Didn't want it to be over just yet, but did all at the same time. He wanted to let the anticipation build up. His talons were tangled in her clothes, simultaneously stripping them off of her, and helping her ease off the more delicate garments. He had finished removing his own clothing when she tossed a small bottle of oil to him.

Usually they were careful enough that Ezmay didn't need the embarrassing lotions and ointments that Mordin had so 'helpfully' sent to her quarters before the Collector base. Every now and again, she was grateful for the cool creams and oils on her skin. His hands were very tender, as he pooled the fragrant almond oil on her skin, and smoothed it in. The sweet scent filled the room; the tips of his claws dragged at her skin, the heat of the tips of his talons burned paths into her thighs as he smoothed the oil onto her. When Garrus finally collapsed onto her, she smelled divine. His talons tangled in her hair, smearing the sweet oil through the strands, yanking her head back so he could nip at her. They never needed much preliminaries; he slid into her with a shudder of relief and a roar. Each stroke that he laid within Ezmay tore a cry from within her. He snarled, and growled, letting his claws draw only the slightest hint of blood. She thrashed under him, pinned to the bed, fighting with him and tearing at him as much as he was at her. They settled into a swift, aggressive rhythm that spoke of possessiveness with every beat. She claimed him as much with her hips as he did with his thrusting.

Mine…mine…mine….mine..

They took their pleasure together, both smelling of almond and musk. Garrus lost all sense of time and space. Only thought of her sweet warmth around his shaft, the feel of soft, oiled human skin beneath him. The heat of her breath on his neck. The flexing of her arms as she pulled him tighter and tighter to her body, as if she were trying to pull him completely inside of her.

When Ezmay screamed out his name, he couldn't hold himself back any longer. Knew he shouldn't be releasing himself inside of her, but it hadn't seemed to hurt her yet. Besides…it just felt too Godamn good to slam into her with that one final, violent thrust, and hear her shriek in ecstasy, feel her delightful little inner muscles clench on him, and know that for that moment in time…Garrus was the only thing that existed for Ezmay.

In the afterglow, they lay with hands tracing oily paths over skin and plates alike. His thumbs ground into the muscles of her shoulders and neck and worked all the kinks away. Rubbing the tension out of her body seemed to give her almost as much pleasure as their lovemaking had. Before she passed out from relaxation, she gestured sleepily for him to lay back. Her fingertips, they had found, fit perfectly into the crevices of his fringe. She tickled him there with almond on her fingertips and massaged his fringe until he was nearly a puddle of liquid sugar on the bed.

"I need to tell you something…" His voice was slurred. His body was thrumming with pleasured energy. Garrus felt lethargic and wonderful, but he needed to get this out before he forgot.

"Can it wait until we wake up?" Ezmay was shifting slowly in the bed next to him. He felt her bottom press up against his hip, and her back resting against his belly. She called him her own personal blanket with benefits. He didn't mind. Tough, muscled turian arms laced around her.

"Yeah…." He whispered, purring into her hair as he slid into sleep.

God knows it shouldn't wait…but he was too happy right now to break up the moment.