Garrus: Quarian

"I think we're all clear," Shepard declared softly into the waiting silence.

"Good," Garrus nodded, striding over to where the quarian lay, her chair having been knocked over during the fight. The girl struggled as if she could somehow slip her bindings, but Garrus suspected she struggled because it was the only constructive thing she could do.

"You might want to dial back, Vakarian. Stomping around like that, you're going to scare the kid. Put your cop hat on."

Garrus wanted to roll his eyes, but decided that would be pointless since Shepard couldn't see the gesture. Instead, he knelt behind the quarian, helped her sit up and untied her hands. "Are you hurt?" he forced himself to sound reassuring and realized Shepard had a point: the effort he had to put in moderating his tone suggested he would have sounded callous at best and aggressive at worst.

And aggressive wasn't what would help.

"I like it when you wear your cop hat."

He was so glad she approved.

"Y-Yes," the quarian rasped. Her faced was obscured, except for the hint of vivid eyes, currently painfully wide. "I-who are you? Not that I'm complaining, but maybe I should be—"

"Tell her your name, not who you're with."

"Will you stop that?" Garrus demanded, putting a hand over one audial well. "It's distracting."

"If she shoots you for intimidating her, I didn't see anything."

He could feel the spot she'd bruised ache a little.

"I-sorry?" the quarian asked.

"Our esteemed third party consultant…" Garrus grumbled. "I'm Garrus Vakarian. That's Wrex… and the voice in our heads would be Tavia Shepard."

To his chagrin, Shepard chuckled at this. Suddenly, there was a sound of someone falling and Shepard yelped. The uncontrolled sound made Garrus clamp a hand to his audial canal. "Shepard?" The ringing in his ear would go away, but there had been a note of genuine fright in her cry.

Damn that knee… he was sure that was the culprit.

"I'm okay! Just slipped a little!" But there was pain in her tone. "I'm okay."

"Dammit." With that, Wrex strode over to the source of the sound. A moment later, he appeared with Shepard leaning on his arm, her limp more pronounced than ever. Her face looked a bit pale and any feature that could be contracted seemed to be. Ruts of pain etched themselves in the skin between her eyebrows.

Unabashedly, Shepard righted the quarian's abandoned chair and sat down, one hand on her knee, the other rubbing her shoulder. "Okay. That did hurt," she allowed.

"Some warrior," Wrex grunted.

"I can still shoot you," Shepard returned tartly but without rancor.

Wrex snorted, but Garrus thought the twist of his mouth might have been a smile. If Shepard wasn't careful, Wrex might just follow her home. What a thought.

"Are you going to be okay?" Garrus demanded. He didn't moderate his tone, this time, and caught exactly how biting it was. "Sorry—adrenaline. Do I need to get you a medic?" he asked, moderating his tone.

Shepard nodded understandingly. "I'm fine. It's just… been a longer day than I'm used to. More exercise, too." She turned her attention to the quarian who, by now, seemed almost bemused if still cautious.

Garrus wasn't sure he believed her, but he said nothing. He simply followed suit, finding a patch on the arm of the quarian's suit. "You're the one Dr. Michel treated, aren't you?"

"Yes," the quarian answered nervously. "She-why would she…?"

"She didn't know," Garrus put in gently. "This isn't Dr. Michel's fault. She really believed that Fist would help you."

The quarian wrung her hands, but continued to try sounding confident. "So, if you're not working for Fist, who are you working for?"

"I am an investigator," Garrus answered cagily, "the krogan—"

"Wrex," the old krogan put in darkly. "He has a name, and it's Urdnot Wrex."

"…is an independent interest. And Ms. Shepard is a security consultant." Garrus glanced at Shepard, who sat studying the quarian thoughtfully, her rifle laid across her knees.

"What's your name?" Shepard asked affably, as if this were all very normal.

Whether because of her tone or because she asked a personal question, the quarian responded well to Shepard.

Garrus repressed a smirk. Cop hat, indeed.

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," the quarian answered, turning her head to regard the human. "Are you… okay?"

"Old injury," Shepard made a point to stand up, smiling. "See? No problem." She lifted one foot, balanced for a few moments on the damaged limb, then put her foot down. Garrus wasn't sure the quarian saw it, but he did: it had cost Shepard a real effort to make the display that all was well. "Were you hurt at all?"

"No. I can look after myself… ah… to an… extent…" the quarian quelled under Garrus' stern glance. This was not his definition of taking care of oneself.

"We should take her back to C-Sec," Garrus declared.

"Why bother?" the quarian snapped. "The crisis is over. I don't need their help now."

Unseen by Tali, Garrus motioned Shepard to continue. It was clear that the quarian's bitterness over earlier behavior toward her put Shepard in better stead to get the girl talking.

"I know you spoke to a real asshole the other day. But he wasn't C-Sec—he was a secretarial stooge. And I've met a couple C-Sec assholes, but we're not C-Sec and we do want to help you," Shepard declared.

"Why?" Tali demanded mulishly, though she did seem more inclined to consider what Shepard had to say.

"Because the garbage we took care of here tried to kill me, too. And I take that sort of thing personally." In those two sentences, Shepard exerted such a force of personality that the quarian instinctively took a half step closer to her. It was the tone of someone who would go through fire and water to fix this situation, complications be damned.

"Why would they want to kill you?" Tali frowned.

"Because I have something up here that might be a liability," Shepard answered, tapping her head. "A human colony was attacked by the geth," the quarian sucked air, "because of a Prothean artifact. I know something about the artifact."

It was more information than Garrus wanted public knowledge, but he couldn't argue that the 'we're in this together' cant worked for Shepard.

"…and I know something about the geth…" the quarian trailed off, her hand-wringing beginning again. "I-I won't talk about it here. I want to go someplace safe."

"Give me a minute to… make arrangements," Garrus declared, his mind turning over possibilities. He wanted a way to prevent—or at least discourage—another nighttime raid on his witnesses.

"I don't like that pause," the quarian declared to Shepard, moving closer to the woman.

Garrus almost didn't hear Shepard. "You can trust Vakarian. He's heading this operation. He's good people."

"If you say so," the quarian mumbled.

"I do."

Tavia: Proofs

Tavia was glad Vakarian didn't drag them all back to C-Sec.

Wrex, mission fulfilled, went his own way as soon as Vakarian announced that arrangements were made with the C-Sec officers who had (finally) responded to her call. She suspected they were a bit slow on account of the Spectre doing the Spectre-thing. Waiting meant fewer bullets.

Vakarian's 'arrangements' proved to be another 'safe' apartment—this time Tavia suspected it would be surrounded by C-Sec guards. It was wise not to take Tali back to the Academy.

Tavia had no sooner settled in one of the chairs than her short night and long day began to catch up with her. Suddenly, weariness suffused her body, making her knee pulse with pain. It wasn't the worst the damaged joint ever gave her, just a pointed reminder that it was not up to the life adventurous.

"Tavia? Do I need to get a medic in here?" Vakarian asked the question so hesitantly this second time that she chuckled.

"No. A couple of painkillers might be nice, but I'm okay. Thanks for asking." It was true, too… or so she told herself.

Vakarian nodded, then proceeded to raid the cabinets until he found a bottle of generic painkillers. He even poured and brought her a glass of water so she wouldn't have to pop them dry.

"I like it when you wear your cop hat," she declared for the second time that evening, raising the glass of water as if in a toast before tossing back the pills.

"So you are C-Sec," Tali said accusingly, snapping her head away from the window at which she stood to scowl at the pair of them.

"I'm not, but he was—past tense," Tavia put in, firmly, holding up a finger. She'd meant what she said about Vakarian being good people and calculated that, by now, coming clean about Vakarian's former C-Sec connections would be advisable. No surprises when it inevitably came out. His turning out to be a Spectre would be more… acceptable… in a way. "Tali—may I call you by your first name?"

"Sure…" Tali answered, a little self-consciously.

Tavia though she understood what that was about: quarians were widely reviled for the geth's existence… despite the fact that the geth had, until now, minded their own damn business. As far as Tavia was concerned, the geth weren't this generation of quarians' fault or problem. The generations responsible were long dead. Her personal code of ethics required that children (or multiple times great grandchildren) not be blamed for the mistakes, indiscretions, or stupidity of their forbearers.

Although, she had to admit, she was a little more cautious about the krogan than the quarians. Krogan lived for centuries and their grudge was kept fresh with every successive generation. She believed that there had to be some kind of compromise, but at the same time couldn't think of a solution that wouldn't end in a galactic bloodbath.

She shook herself; moralizing to herself was pointless. "I hate to get straight to business, Tali, but we need to know what was so important that you had to die for it."

Tali came closer, pulled up a chair, and sat facing Tavia. "I'm on my Pilgrimage, my rite of passage into adulthood," she explained. "I'd been hearing rumors of geth moving outside the Veil… before your colony was attacked…" Tali sounded so guilty that Tavia put a reassuring hand on her arm. "If I'd thought anyone would listen—"

"It wouldn't have mattered," Tavia said bracingly. "But I appreciate the thought."

Tali nodded. "What I found is this, data I salvaged from a geth memory core—"

"I thought geth wiped their memory cores on destruction," Vakarian frowned. To Tavia's relief, he didn't sound accusatory.

"They do," Tali answered. "But if you're careful and lucky, sometimes data can be recovered. This was what I found." She cued her omnitool. There was no visual, only audio static.

"Eden Prime was a major vic—"

"That's Saren," Vakarian tensed, his eyes riveting on Tali's omnitool.

"Shh," Tavia waved him to silence, feeling herself tense as well. So, that was the voice of the shadowy figure making her life difficult and disrupted…

"—beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit."

"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

Tavia's world suddenly seemed to pitch, sliding sideways at the woman's last word. Her breath stopped, the word Reapers screaming in her mind, bringing with it jagged visions, snippets from the beacons. Black terror pulsed through her veins, that black pit in her mind with all its demons, devils and fiends opening up so fast she thought it might pounce and swallow her down. Sweat immediately formed a thick coating on her skin and she had to force herself to start breathing again, the sharp breaths of a cornered creature. The muscles in her chest tightened and she found herself shaking uncontrollably.

"Shepard?" She heard his voice, knew it was Vakarian, knew that the three-digit grasp that closed around her arm was also his.

But at the same time her brain seemed to lock up, hedging out anything not directly pertinent to the threat, the great threat, the legion of calamities…

Tavia yelped, almost falling sideways out of her chair. Her eyes saw Vakarian, reaching for her shoulder with his other hand. Her mind, reeling from the resurgence of the beacon's flow of images, of the inarticulate terror the beacons had twice marked her with, saw a hand-like ship rushing her. She tore loose and hit the ground with an 'oof!" raising her hands to protect her face.

The pain was more real than the terror, more pressing… but not enough to free her from the slow sink into the mire—

"What's wrong with her?" Tali demanded, her tone sharp with concern and helplessness, chair clattering as she stumbled back to give Tavia room.

"Shh, hang on. Shepard? Tavia?" A hand appeared from nowhere to rest on her forehead. The palm was cooler than her own body, rough as if completely covered in calluses, but nonthreatening. Since she couldn't see it, it brought no memories that weren't hers, no sharp visions of ships with finger-like appendages reaching out for her.

Tavia raised her eyes to Vakarian's face, craning her neck ridiculously far back so she could see him clearly. "They're coming…" she whispered before her world simply blanked out.

Garrus: Fair Warnings

After taking the rest to the quarian's briefing—in which she explained how the geth and these 'Reapers' were connected—Garrus found that he hadn't liked leaving Shepard and the quarian unattended.

Partly it was Shepard's sudden episode, even though it passed quickly, rather like a nasty flashback that stalled action and reason. She had passed out, true, but had come back to herself moments later, as if her mind had simply initialized an emergency restart.

It was also partly because both women had been attacked on the Citadel within spitting distance of the Presidium.

However, he couldn't just sit around and watch them pour over Fist's data drives. It had been Shepard, of course, who suggested that no one was better suited to cracking the security on them than a quarian and an engineer—he still couldn't help but think of bridges and fortifications when she said that. She had him there, though she went on to point out that if Saren had plants within C-Sec maybe it was best to avoid accidents and make sure he, Garrus, knew where the drive was and who was handling it.

She really had him there.

The only drawback was the fact that the quarian and Shepard both needed rest. He hadn't realized how much time had passed since getting the call from Anderson about the attack at Shepard's apartment. He rubbed his own eyes, wondering if pushing himself like this was wise. Especially when the best source of evidence was currently in the hands of an engineer and a quarian… and out of his.

He took a deep breath. He needed to plan, to come up with a next step. Obviously he had to find out what was on the drives, to find out if there was any more concrete link between Saren and Eden Prime… though the words out of his own turian mouth should be damning enough.

If he wasn't a Spectre.

No, Garrus thought grimly, diverting from his route back to C-Sec to head to his apartment. Shepard had his communication information now, and could reach him directly if she needed to. He could draft his reports at home as easily as at C-Sec.

His terminal was beeping and blinking when he got home with messages diverted from his omnitool based on sender or subject line. In this case, he wished he didn't have the filter: one of the messages was from Anderson, wanting to discuss Shepard's involvement with this mess immediately. It was politely worded, but clearly the aging captain was genuinely worried for his former comrade.

"Anderson. It's Vakarian."

"I was starting to think I'd have to camp out at C-Sec. Where's Tavia?"

Oh. She was 'Tavia' today instead of 'Shepard.' "Safe, and doing me a favor," Garrus answered.

"Favor?" Despite the surprise in his tone, the captain didn't ask any questions about what that favor might be. "How's she holding up?"

Garrus frowned at the terminal. "Glad to be doing her real job." He'd left her still feeling shaken from her sudden attack, but increasingly happily playing with the datadrives with her new best friend.

For a moment, Anderson maintained a dark sort of silence. "I'd avoid that topic. It's touchy with a lot of people. Better medical retirement than a psychological discharge. That would have put a real dent in her life."

Garrus looked away. So that was where the friction between Anderson and Shepard was: she'd wanted to stay, Anderson had wanted to protect her future since staying was not an option. It was a real mess. "You just call to check in on her? I thought you had her information?"

"She turned the damn thing off."

"…well, she's been busy…" Garrus offered lamely.

"Right. You should know that her involvement is starting to get… political."

That asshole ambassador. Garrus had had nothing to do with the man personally, but he knew people who had. And anyone who saw Udina making noise could tell he wasn't the best man for the job. Pushy, arrogant, and prone to spitting when he got worked up, Garrus usually pitied the Council over having to deal with him.

Not so much this week, though. He was with the salarians: what goes around really should come around.

"If you connect Saren to this, Udina wants to use it as a platform to push harder for a human Spectre. I'm telling you because Tavia makes the most likely candidate. In his eyes, at least."

"There's nothing wrong with her that a support team and a few surgeries wouldn't fix," Garrus grumped, caught in a vein of fairness. The Turian military wouldn't have been so wasteful.

"You don't think I didn't try to convince her to get them done?" Anderson snapped. "She won't. She wouldn't tell me why, but she won't. When I saw how much it upset her every time I brought it up, I stopped pushing."

"Have you seen her shoot?" Garrus asked. A support team would negate the need for her to be incredibly mobile.

"Why was she shooting?" Anderson demanded, startled.

"…because there were thugs in the club." Garrus knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't help stringing the officer along just a bit.

But Anderson seemed to catch on and gave a 'hmph' that reminded Garrus forcibly of Wrex. "Didn't want you—or her—caught flatfooted by this. I don't think it'll fly, but you never know."

"Thanks for the warning. Is there anything else, Captain?"

"That depends on how things go from here. I'm not at liberty to discuss it."

Which meant, Garrus supposed, that the Alliance would continue to court his favor if the thing with Shepard fell through. As he signed off from Anderson, he considered the possibilities. Shepard could coordinate well, and Spectres often took damage as their careers progressed.

He was glad that his opinion was unlikely to matter in the grand scheme of things. He was the new guy. He didn't get to weigh in on possible other new guys.

Tavia: Agendas

Tavia's good mood over having cracked the security on the datadrive—due in no small part to Tali's input and assistance—evaporated as soon as she checked her messages. It evaporated so much and so fast that she let her fork of eggs drop onto her plate and refused to eat another bite.

She tried not to let Tali see the irritation that threatened to blossom into full anger, but she failed.

It showed in the way Tali gave her plenty of space and stopped talking. The girl was loquacious and Tavia hadn't minded. Now she wished Tali would chatter just to fill up the apartment with sound—even if she wouldn't incline to participate much in conversation.

Vakarian arrived late in the morning, looking like someone who hadn't gotten enough sleep. "Oh… I see Anderson got ahold of you. Uh… wow…"

"He left me a message," Tavia answered bitterly. She got to her feet, trying to control the scream of fury building up in her chest. She was not given to intemperate displays but in this case, she felt as enraged as she would have if some drunk had tried to feel her up. Well, as enraged as she would be after she beat him to death with his own… well. Her teeth were grinding, and any train of thought she embarked upon ending in flames. "Don't worry. It'll never happen."

"You don't want it?"

Vakarian's question seemed genuine enough, so Tavia fought to curb a snarled answer. She felt trapped, like a wolverine in a trap. "They threw me away. Damned if I do anything to advance their political agendas. I need a damn shower. I feel dirty." With that, she stalked off to follow through with her declaration.

Garrus: Sympathy

Garrus frowned as Shepard stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

"She's been like that all morning," the quarian put in meekly. "What happened?"

"Politics," Garrus grunted. It bothered him, the look on her face before she covered it with rage and stormed off. "It's a harebrained scheme hatched by her species' asshole ambassador. Nothing will come of it."

He wondered how far she would go to ensure that eventuality. And it did seem dirty dealing for her former Alliance superiors to give her the boot only to require her cooperation now. You wouldn't catch the Hierarchy pulling garbage like that.

He didn't know her well, but he couldn't help the bitter thought that she deserved better than to be thrown this way and that like meat to wild animals. It left a bad taste in his mouth.

"Oh! We cracked the datadrives this morning!" the quarian cried. The effort of sounding cheerful when she'd picked up on his deep displeasure was laudable.

"Good. Anything useful?"

"I don't know. Tavia thought it was hit and miss. She summarized the data for you, but you can look over the datadrives yourself if you want to." The quarian produced a datapad and held it out to him.

It was written briskly in the style he would have expected of ex-military personnel, brisk and concise. The drives hinted that Fist had been paid through an intermediary and that ArcSec was hired through that same intermediary. She didn't have a name, just a title: the Matriarch. It was less a title and more a descriptor, as Garrus well knew, but it worried him. Asari in their last life phase were called Matriarchs—and because they had survived so long they were…

The official line was wise advisors, caretakers of the asari people, founts of knowledge.

Garrus suspected that they were more like shrewd, cunning, and intelligent women with enough life experience to see patterns from history as they reoccurred. No species was as benevolent as the asari liked to sound. A Matriarch would have the added advantage that few among the younger members of her species would want to cross her lightly.

He looked back to the datapad, watched the quarian jump as a loud 'thunk' issued from the bathroom. It sounded suspiciously as if Shepard had given way to temper and punched the wall. He felt bad for the wall.

"This looks good," he said, more for something to say than for any other reason.

"I was glad to help," came the encouraged reply, though Tali continued looking at the wall in the direction of the ominous thump.

He tuned the quarian out. Maybe some of the sternness had left his expression as he continued skimming Shepard's notes. She had carefully flagged any surmise on her part, but her logic that supported these suppositions always followed in clear lines.

Combat manipulation and data synthesis. If Shepard was an example of human engineers—combat engineers—then he'd been underestimating at least one segment of the human military. And if he was underestimating one, he knew he was probably underestimating more.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" the quarian asked.

"She's just angry with no way to work it off," Garrus answered blandly.

"I… what's going to happen to me?"

The hesitancy of the question broke him away from Shepard's discourse on somehow how obtaining business records from ArcSec would be advisable, if difficult. She didn't provide how-to or plans on this matter, but he suspected that was simply because it would be highly illegal for someone like her.

"You're going to stay under C-Sec guard until this mess gets mopped up." He sounded so cold and impassive that he backpedaled. "Once we're sure this matter is cleared up you'll be allowed to go back to your business. But right now, like Shepard, you're a guest." He forced a smile, watched the quarian's posture relax a little as her hand drifted to rub at her arm. "How's that healing, by the way?"

"It's healing," the quarian answered softly. "…I've never been shot before."

He hesitantly patted her shoulder. Turians were not a publically tactile species, but humans and asari tended to be… and quarians… well, he had to guess and used the way she'd gravitated to stand closer to Shepard when feeling threatened as a sign of comfort with proximity.

"Is there anything else I can do to help?" the quarian asked.

"Not right now, no. Just… keep Shepard from destroying the furniture."

The quarian nodded, and he took his leave.

Tavia: Pain

Tavia grabbed clothes from her duffle bag and threw herself into the bathroom. She almost tore her clothes off, glad to be where no one could see her temper overflowing. She wrenched the water on and scowled at it as steam began to blossom from the showerhead. Then she turned the water towards the colder side of the temperature spectrum.

The bastards.

She stepped under the spray, the cold shocking her skin and mind. She shivered, found her eyes stinging.

Those damn bastards.

She held up a hand, found it shaking furiously. She hadn't lost her temper in a long, long time. Oh she'd shouted a bit in the last few days but that was just venting, the outgassing of emotional pressure. This, though, this was different.

How dare they throw her away and then want to use her again? Because, of course, they'd claimed medical retirement. And if she balked… they were able—and probably willing to—reactivate her. Another reason, she thought bitterly, for medical retirement. There had to be a way, some clause in the rules that would let them compel her.

"In case of war, break glass," Tavia growled to herself. She punched the wall as hard as she could, the pain in her knuckles failing to detract from her towering fury. Tears began to slip from her eyes.

She knew Anderson had thought he was acting in her best interests after Akuze. She couldn't fault him for going with his conscience. But this… he was too much of an Alliance man to be in her corner, this time.

Which meant she was in the corner by herself.

But that was stupid, she growled to herself, pouring shampoo into her hands for something to do. Because the Council would never accept a human into the ranks of Spectres, especially not Udina's suggestion, especially not on such specious activities, and especially not when her own military put her aside like a superglued broken toy.

It should have calmed her, but it didn't. That meant, and she knew it meant, she was not afraid of being turned into a political performing monkey; she was simply angry at the attempt to do so.

She rinsed her hair, running her hand through the lion-toned locks. The first thing she'd done after being retired was to grow her hair out, start wearing makeup and jewelry, anything to divorce herself from active duty life. Short hair fit better under a helmet; makeup ruined her skin when she got sweaty and gross—which sometimes happened on short notice; jewelry could get caught or crushed.

She sank to the floor, drawing up her knees as the freezing water beat over her. For the first time since the aftermath of Akuze, she succumbed to tears, trusting the cold water to chase the flush from her face when she couldn't take the chill any longer.

Garrus: The Councilor

Garrus had, when he set foot in the Embassy, been glad that Spectres could jump to the front of the line where Councilors were concerned… if the Councilor was willing to let them. In this case, Councilor Sparatus was willing to slip him in between the meeting he was in now and the next.

As soon as Garrus stepped into the Councilor's office, he found himself feeling much less certain.

Councilor Sparatus sat behind a large, semi-circular desk, up to his eyeballs in paperwork. He didn't look harassed or harried, but Garrus though he detected a twitch of irritation on the Councilor's face. Whether this was from his appearance or from something the Councilor was dealing with—an independent matter—Garrus couldn't even begin to guess.

Garrus shuddered at the thought: paperwork was one of the things he'd hated most about C-Sec. The better you were at your job, the more of it there was. And that seemed, to him, to be such a waste. If you were good you belonged where you could do your job, not mired in the bureaucracy. Let the green recruits do the paperwork, stay out of trouble between jobs.

"Garrus."

"Councilor." He took a deep breath, holding up his datapad. "I believe there's sufficient evidence to present to the Council."

Councilor Sparatus got to his feet, took the datapad and began to read it. The slow flick of his eyes told Garrus he was giving it real consideration. Once he finished reading, he played the attached clip from the geth's memory core.

"Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit."

"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

"And you put this through every validation you could think of?" Councilor Sparatus asked.

"Yes, sir. No sign of clipping or tampering, voice signature matched his record. It's definitely Saren." Garrus' nerves began to hum as the Councilor considered the matter stoically, giving no hint as to what he thought.

"And you believe this data came from an actual geth?"

Garrus considered the matter. He had no way of knowing one way or the other: the data was just data. It wasn't as if the quarian had brought the memory core with her… though that would have been nice. Inconvenient for her to lug around maybe, but good for his investigation. "I believe the quarian had no reason to lie about it."

"And mercenaries shooting up the Presidium," Councilor Sparatus rumbled, putting the datapad down. "You do know your human witness isn't considered reliable."

"There is nothing wrong with my human witness," Garrus declared flatly. "Any garbage with her people's political structure is completely independent of her contribution to this investigation."

"Hmph. I should have known that wouldn't stay quiet for long. What's your opinion, since we're discussing it?"

Garrus considered long and hard before answering. "I wouldn't recommend her as a Spectre. Support personnel though, yes. Her training fits her for that. But she's not Spectre material herself."

Councilor Sparatus' smile was faint, but Garrus was certain he saw it before it vanished. "Are you quite certain?"

"Very." He didn't like where this was going. He saw his investigation navigating around a roadblock based solely on his impression of Shepard's fitness for Spectre candidacy.

"I think you have enough information here to warrant the Council's attention," Councilor Sparatus declared. "I'll see what I can do. Meanwhile, don't let your witnesses go anywhere."

Garrus nodded, then excused himself.

Why did he feel like he'd just sold Shepard out?