Garrus had always thought he had humans pretty well figured out while serving in C-Sec. Either Commander Shepard was an anomaly even among humans or he hadn't understood them as well as he thought he did, because Garrus found himself constantly surprised by her.

He actually found it easier to follow her thinking when he forgot she was human at all, and thought of her as a fellow turian: she got results; she was military from her weird human hair all the way to her too-many toed feet; she never swerved from the truth or took a less than honorable path; she was unhesitating on the battlefield. So when she told him that she expected him to resolve whatever was between him and Nihlus, he knew she meant it.

He'd given it a few days, and then, when they were returning from one of the Alliance missions Shepard insisted on completing, he hummed a sub vocal request to the Spectre to speak privately. Nihlus hung back, looking slightly annoyed and slightly curious. They waited until the Shepard had stepped into the elevator; as the doors closed and Nihlus turned towards him, Garrus activated his omni tool. A second later, Nihlus' tool beeped a confirmation as the files transferred between them.

"I get it, ok? I know how much we hated it in C-Sec when there were internal reviews and investigations into our agents; I can't imagine Spectres appreciate it any more than we did. So I'm sending you all the information and evidence I managed to collect. Not just the things I got after the investigation was official, but also the stuff that convinced Pallin to let me open the investigation in the first place. If there's anything else that comes up, I'm sure Shepard will make sure you see that too. It's the best I can do."

Nihlus watched him for a long moment, his mandibles flexing thoughtfully. Finally he nodded, his subvocal tones humming gratitude.

"Just… read it, ok? Pallin's a stickler for evidence and facts, he wouldn't have allowed the investigation if it didn't have a firm foundation. It can't make things better, but it may make them clearer."

Nihlus nodded and left without another word; no more was said on the subject.

When Shepard started running a four man team, he had at first doubted her decision. It was clear that she didn't have the common human issues about being in control; he had already realized that she meant to take Nihlus' mentorship of her seriously. But to give Nihlus equal authority on the ground squad? Everyone knew that merc training was insidious: the watch-your-own-back-first, loyal-to-yourself-and-your-paycheck mentality was nearly impossible to break out of.

Garrus' father had favored him with stories of Nihlus' disgraceful military service when Saren first took him on as a Spectre candidate. Of course, his father had been using it as an example of the "type" of people who became Spectres, but the lesson had stuck. A disappointment to his father and C-Sec he may be, but that kind of blatant disregard for authority had set even Garrus' teeth on edge. He was concerned that, given authority equal to Shepard's, Nihlus would place them all in danger. He couldn't bring himself to question Shepard to her face, though, so he kept his concerns to himself.

It wasn't long before he was glad he had. Nihlus was actually an excellent ground commander, his tactics meshed well with Shepard's, and he was always aware of what was going on with each member of their ground team. With this common ground, Garrus and Nihlus managed to work together.

They hadn't spoken since Garrus had shared his information on Saren, and he was beginning to wonder if that had been a mistake, after all.

The night after the Feros mission, he was working late on the mako when his omni tool beeped at him. Calling up the interface, he was surprised to see a new message from Nihlus. There wasn't any text, but there was an attachment. Shrugging, he opened it.

The attachment was large, and filled with files marked "confidential." As he scrolled through the information, Garrus was surprised to find that it was mostly reports that Saren and Nihlus had filed with the Council; reports that filled in some of the details that had been missing from his own investigation. Abandoning the mako, Garrus gave the files his full attention.

What he found was eye opening. The information slotted together with what C-Sec had discovered to paint a picture of suspicious activities and dangerously out of control methods. Taken alone, neither set of information really pointed to any obvious abuse of power and authority; taken together, they certainly did.

So it definitely hadn't been a mistake to share information with Nihlus; not only had it smoothed things over between them, but it had led to Nihlus sharing information that otherwise would have been impossible to obtain.

He didn't have time to read through it all right now; they would be landing on Noveria soon, and he needed to be well rested for whatever they ran into there. He knew that if he started going through the information in detail, he'd be up all night. Reluctantly, he closed down his omnitool and got ready to sleep.

Almost as an after thought, he pulled the message up again, and sent a reply.

Thanks for the information; I never could have gotten it on my own. I'll go over it in depth after this next mission. Let me know if anything jumps out at you; I'll do the same. ~G.V.

….