"Congratulations, Commander," Anderson held out his hand. Shepard shook it with a bland expression on her face.

"Your squad couldn't stop raving about you," Anderson continued, leaning on the balcony railing, "And the Citadel has sent through their thanks in your assistance in capturing Jacob Taylor."

Shepard was still silent, "Is that all, sir?"

Anderson turned to look at Shepard, leaning his butt against the railing.

"Yes, Commander."

"Thank you, sir."

Anderson sighed as he watched the stiff young woman walk away. She had passed into N2 and would be offplanet by the end of the day.

"I'm sorry, General, she is still angry at the deception," he spoke to the turian who sat in silence in the shadow of the pillars. Garrus rose and approached the instructor.

"I'm not surprised," Garrus was weary with regret, "I'm sorry that I had to use your program this way. It was a regrettable circumstance. I do appreciate you taking on the turians from my squad though. They will benefit from the time. It is a good idea, and a good program. In the next year we should see the first humans working with the turian military."

Anderson held out his hand, and Garrus shook it, "It is quite alright, General. I suspected something was off, I'm just disappointed we did not pick it in Taylor."

"He was a charming man," Garrus shrugged, "But not, I think, nearly as clever as he thought."

Tiredness ran to her very core. She had broken ribs, been bruised, knocked out, starved, tortured, done HALO drops, zero grav manouvres and now she stood staring out at the harsh landscape of Palaven. The turian homeworld. N5. So close. She scrubbed a hand across her face, the muscles playing through her bare arms. She had dropped any spare fat she had at the end of N1 - which wasn't much. She was the fittest she had ever been, and with the half dozen other N5's, they had been put through their paces again, and again, and again.

Now she was heading to the turian military for a month long iteration of vicious hand to hand combat. The kind that aliens with hard metal plates and talons on their fingers indulged in just for fun. She was looking forward to the challenge.

And she refused to think about a certain lying bastard turian Spectre.

"Your quarters for the duration," a turian instructor pointed at the room with the half dozen beds.

Shepard wandered in and dumped her duffel on a bed. Her omnitool beeped. She checked it and gave a faint smile. Ash.

WE MADE IT! VEGA, ALENKO AND I ARE ALL HEADING TO N4! HELL YES!

Shepard typed a reply, and sat down on the bed, she leaned back on the hard pillow and closed her eyes.

"Not wanting to explore, Shepard?" Shaan, a scary strong vanguard, queried.

"Nope," Shepard replied to him, "I'm going to catch some rack time."

"No sweat."

Shepard gave a vague wave and was already drifting when she heard her omnitool sound another message. She groaned. What more could Ash have wanted to say?

She opened one eye and keyed in her access. And frowned. And sat up. Anger flickered across her hard features.

"Oh you have to be fucking kidding me."

She swung her booted feet onto the ground and got up to stride toward the door. She stormed out into the common room they had passed through earlier. It was mostly empty, bar one. A tall turian stood by the windows, staring out at the bleak landscape.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Shepard demanded fiercely.

Garrus turned to look at her, "Hello to you too, Commander Shepard. Congratulations on getting to N5."

"No thanks to your efforts," she snapped, "Why the hell are you here the very day I come to Palaven?"

Garrus' expression was pained, "I was turian military before I became a Spectre."

"So what?"

"Hand to hand combat? I …uh…was one of the best," Garrus turned to stare back out of the window.

Shepard narrowed her eyes, "So what? You will be an instructor?"

"I am /the/ instructor, Shepard," his was faintly apologetic, "I know that you will have an issue with me, but I'm afraid you are going to have to tolerate my presence for the next month."

"What about your work as a Spectre?"

"I have leave from the Council to do this," Garrus shrugged, "Once in a while, I get a break, and I just closed a case."

Shepard raised a hand and rubbed the back of her neck.

"You do that when you are worried," he spoke again.

"What?" she glanced up, puzzled.

"You rub your neck," he tapped her hand with a long finger. She jerked back.

"Don't touch me," Shepard snapped.

"You are going to have to get used to it," Garrus shrugged lightly, "Because for the next four weeks, we are going to be doing a lot of it."

Shepard raised her eyes to the ceiling, and sighed, "Someone up there hates me, don't they?" Without another word to him, she stalked from the room. She wasn't in the mood to sleep any more. She wanted to hit something. Hard.

"Hand to hand combat is not just beating the hell out of each other with fists and feet," Garrus spoke in his calm, assured way, "Pair up, I want to get an idea about what I'm working with. I catch anyone using biotics or tech, you can forget being here, might as well pack your bags. We will work with those later."

Shaan and Shepard met eyes and nodded. In black pants and tanks, their knuckles wrapped, they faced up, bowed their heads in respect and began to circle one another. The mats were soft under their booted feet.

Shepard circled, staring at Shaan's shoulders, solid and strong under the simple tank he wore. Garrus circled the room, watching everyone. There were grunts and thuds. Shepard and Shaan grappled with smooth deftness, each evenly matched. While others fell and were helped up with chuckles and groans, the two fought on, the one not able to get advantage over the other.

Shaan got Shepard's arm locked, but with a deft boot to the knee, Shaan released her. They punched, kicked, defended, feinted with steady intensity. Shepard finally snuck in a vicious short punch to Shaan's ribs and he grunted, his torso buckling. She took advantage, kicked his feet out from under him, and with a chop to the chest, Shaan went down. Shepard grinned coldly, kneeling on his chest, one fist ready, "Give up?"

"Shit, Shepard," Shaan groaned, "One day I will kick your ass."

Shepard rose to her feet and held her hand out for Shaan to grab. He did, and she heaved him up. And realised that everyone was watching them.

"What?" Shepard asked, puzzled.

"Damn, Shepard," Carlos Van Der Giel called out, "Remind me not to piss you off."

Shepard cleared her throat and rubbed her neck in embarrassment, and her gaze was drawn to the enigmatic expression of Garrus Vakarian. She jerked her head away and focused on Carlos, "Get faster on your feet, Carlos, then I won't be able to kick them out from under you."

She stalked over to stand with the rest of the squad, Shaan limping beside her. Carlos gave her a high five, and slightly startled she returned the gesture.

"Alright, N5's, if you were fighting anyone other than human, you would be dead by now," Garrus interrupted their self congratulatory celebrations. He stepped onto the mat, "You need to learn to be faster. Look for the gaps in armour, natural and artificial. The throat, the joints - crush, shatter. Your joints," Garrus held out his hand to Shepard. She briefly hesitated, but joined Garrus on the mat. He took her arm and slid his hand from her shoulder to her hand and lifted her arm.

Shit. Shepard tried to prevent the goosebumps that rippled over her skin, and was grateful that Vakarian's attention was on the squad.

He gripped her wrist and turned it, "The bones of the human wrist are fragile. Compare it to the turian." He lay their arms side by side. His arms were long, elegant but strongly plated, "I could shatter Commander Shepard's wrist with a twist. But she could not do the same to me." He touched the inner skin of her elbow, and she cleared her throat. He glanced at her, blinked, and turned back to the squad, momentarily distracted.

"Your elbows are also fragile, but here is a weakness for turian and krogan," he rotated his arm, and revealed the smooth flesh of his inner elbow, "We have no natural protection here. Shepard, hold my wrist steady, and demonstrate…slowly…how you would break my arm."

Shepard gripped Garrus' wrist, holding his hand firm against her chest, and using her bodyweight to bring her other hand up and over his elbow, using her foot to automatically lock against his leg to stop him shifting. He glanced back, "Good." Briefly his fingers held hers to steady himself as he straightened.

"Partner up, practice that take down from a punch. Like Shepard demonstrated, use your feet," he touched her lightly on the shoulder, and noted that she didn't move away from him. Shaan stepped up to take Vakarian's place.

He leaned forward, "Do you and the General know each other?"

Shepard narrowed her eyes, "Why do you ask?"

Shaan just grinned, "Nothing."

"Shut up," Shepard muttered, "And pay attention." She threw a punch at Shaan's face to distract him.

Shepard groaned and held an icepack to her shoulder. She turned her head to look at Shaan. His good natured face was pale, and bruises were already showing up on his arms.

"Those bastards are solid," Shepard muttered, "Its like getting hit with a metal pipe."

"I would nod, but I hurt," Shaan complained.

Carlos drawled from the next bed, "I think my brain hurts."

"That's just because you had to use it to think, Carlos," Shepard sniped, her voice rich with amusement.

"Careful, Shepard," Natylia Griffin groaned from her recline on the floor, "That was almost a joke."

"Bite me,"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure that General Vakarian wanted to take a big bite out of her," Shaan's laugh cut off with a groan as a semi-solid pillow whapped him in the face.

"What? What did I miss?" Natylia protested, sitting up.

"Didn't you see the way he looked at her?" Shaan defended the boot that followed with a flick of his biotics, "These two know each other."

Shepard leaned back on her pillowless bunk and put her arm over her eyes, the olive hued skin already patterning dark with bruises, "He nearly got me thrown out of N1."

"What?" Natylia scrambled up and jumped on Shepard's bunk. Shepard peered at the woman, plain, blonde and one of the toughest sentinals she had ever served with, "Come on! Tell!"

"He came to the Villa," Shepard shrugged, "I was on one of my assessment missions and another N1 tried to mess it up. Vakarian covered up what Taylor did, and if the instructors hadn't been fair and given me a second chance due to lack of his word against mine, I would have been thrown out."

"Taylor? Jacob Taylor?" Shaan sat up, frowning, "He was after him? Why?"

Shepard shrugged, "Taylor was Cereberus."

"Those xenophobic assholes," Natylia scoffed, "So come on, what happened between you and General Vakarian."

"Nothing," Shepard protested, holding up her hands, "Honest. We just..talked a couple of times."

Natylia leaned forward, leaning her forearms on Shepard's bent knee, and rested her chin on her arms, "Honey, if Shaan is right, and he usually is, the smarmy bastard, that turian wants to do more than talk with you."

"Oh, don't be fucking ridiculous," Shepard snapped, pushing Natylia off her legs, "He knows what I think of him."

Shaan and Natylia just glanced at each other and grinned.

"You can both fucking shut up,"

Natylia just laughed as a half melted ice pack slapped her in the face and slopped onto her lap.

"I rest my case," she tossed the pack back onto Shepard's chest, who sighed and applied it back to her shoulder.

Shepard walked stiffly out onto the shaded balcony. Her eyes were shaded from the glare of the Palaven sun. She leaned on the railing and took the rare moment of peace to enjoy the harsh landscape. It was beyond beautiful, she admitted.

"Are you alright?" Garrus Vakarian's voice tripped her senses, and she groaned, laying her forehead on her clenched hands.

"What? Do you have a tracking device on me or something?" Shepard muttered.

"Oh, hush," Garrus drawled, and leaned against the balcony beside her, his back to the view, "You took some hard falls."

"Risk of the job," Shepard replied, though there was little abruptness in her tone. She went to straighten up and groaned. She tried to rotate her shoulder and went pale, "Ow."

Garrus straightened and sighed, "Turn around."

"What?"

"Turn around," he lifted a hand and twirled a finger.

"Why?"

"Spirits, woman, you ask too many questions," he moved himself and stood behind her. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders for a moment. She frowned and glanced backward, "What are you…oh gods…"

His thumbs slid into the stone that had replaced her muscles in recent months. She reached out and fumbled for the railing, her head falling forward as she groaned. His thumbs slid up her neck, sliding up the ridges of muscle, and back down again.

Her knees were losing their ability to hold her up. His hands were literally pushing the tension from her muscles. His palms created an incredible frission down her spine, and as he travelled back up, his thumbs smoothed out the muscle either side of her spine. Goosebumps rose on her arms and she didn't care.

When he came back to her neck, and slid up into her scalp, she gave up and leaned back on his chest. It wasn't comfortable. It was ridged. But it was solid. He was a wall to prop herself up on while his hands worked their magic.

"The hell did you learn this, Vakarian?" Shepard groaned when he manipulated a particularly sensitive spot.

"Spectre training," came the bland reply.

She frowned, "What?"

"I'm kidding, Shepard," his chest rumbled against her back.

"I should punch you, but right now…this feels too damn good,"

He rumbled a laugh.

Her omnitool erupted into sound, "Shepard?" it was Shaan. Shepard sighed and rose her hand to her comm. She stepped away from Garrus and spoke to Shaan, "What it is?"

"Where's your location? The hierarchy are taking us out on a tour."

Shepard glanced at Garrus, who stood there with his arms folded across his chest. She took a shaking breath, "I will be right there."

"Roger," Shaan signed off.

"Better go," Shepard rose her hand to rub her neck, before clenching it to drop at her side. She wasn't nervous or worried, damn it.

"See you at dinner," Garrus nodded, and stepped forward before she could move. He touched her cheek, just briefly. She stilled, wary, "You really are an incredible woman, Miri Shepard."

Shepard stepped back, and with a last look at him, turned to head to the shuttles.