April 11th, 2183— 9:43 pm

Garrus Vakarian plopped down on the couch with a single, unsettled shudder, clutching the stark white sheets he'd borrowed from Shepard, around his half-naked body. He had no qualms about nudity: 1) turians weren't as puritanical about naked bodies as they didn't always view nudity as sexual, and 2) both he and Shepard often had to strip and suit up along their squadmates in enclosed rooms. But from the way she'd stared at him while he'd been eating the microwavable dextro meal she'd bought him, and the way she gawked at him as he'd come out of the shower with a cold, clinical gleam in her eye, he felt safe to assume she hadn't spent too much time with other turians before. When she'd inquired whether the fawn-colored hide between his plates was fuzzy or not and then pontificated on an evolutionary hypothesis, his answer had been:

"Then, why don't you strip for me so I can study you?"

Her face had turned the color of the sands of Menae. He'd learned from C-Sec colleagues that humans tended to turn red when embarrassed and, the lighter the color of their hide, the more noticeable it was. When he'd seen her blush, he'd immediately regretted it, wondering whether she'd taken it as sexual harassment.

"Yeah. Feels bad, doesn't it? That's how you're making me feel," he'd said before inquiring about the washer/dryer.

His long legs were currently sprawled across the sofa, the towel covering up to his knees and the sheets wrapped around his nude torso while he waited for his clothes to dry. If he'd been home, he would have been happy to prance around in the nude, to eat a homecooked meal prepared by none other than himself and eat it on his own couch, legs spread comfortably, scratching himself wherever the hell he pleased, whenever he pleased. But all of that was gone, singed to a crisp, brittle, useless. A dual-toned groan rumbled in his throat at the thought.

Flashing orange lighting alerted him he'd received a message on his personal terminal. When he opened the message in his omnitool, he saw it was that damned commissioner again. What now, Chellick?

Vakarian,

I need you both down here ASAP. Captain Anderson got a lead on Saren.

Chellick

When the timer went off on the dryer, he uttered a quick thanks to the Spirits and got himself dressed. The soap's artificial floral scent made the inside of his nostrils burn, though comparing it to Bailey's aftershave— whatever the hell that was — it wasn't too bad. Then again, the flowery scent plus the earthy scent of human skin inevitably stuck to the fibers of his clothes would likely make him the object of every turian's derision in C-Sec. He smelled like Shepard: like wet soil, petrichor, and those citrus flowers they had on the Presidium. Another groan spilled from his lips as he tried to shake the thoughts loose from his head. It didn't matter; nothing mattered except catching Saren, humiliating him and making him pay.

A quick rap of his knuckles on her door produced no effect. Silence. Maybe she was asleep. As soon as he probed his head in the room to check, though, he saw that his theory had only been half true. A small body shifted about underneath a crinkled comforter, a mass of dark hair spilling from the top. Her fists were balled up tightly with snow-white knuckles, a blueish-purple aura crackling around them. Her hide— or skin, or whatever —was covered in glistening beads of what appeared to be water, though it smelled more of rage and panic and guilt and violence.

Shepard was having a nightmare.

"Hey," he crooned, still at the doorway.

Blunt, clear fingernails clawed into the peach-colored duvet, breathing staccato, dark brows furrowed together. Her mouth parted to mumble a pathetic cry that his translator was unable to pick up.

"Shepard. Wake up."

Her head lurched to the side, a wave of fuzzy black curls crashing over her face.

"Shepard!"

A second and a half was all it took for Garrus to realize that touching Shepard— even if done so firmly and on the shoulder — was a near-fatal mistake, as he soon found himself looking up at her and the ceiling as her background, his crest scraping the headboard and her fingers, glowing with murderous biotic energy, digging around the soft tissue over his windpipe. The usual gold in her eyes had gone black with adrenaline, as if he were staring into the edge of the universe, the vacuum of dark space sucking up the words from his mind and tongue.

"Shepard!" he yelled again, voice dry. "It's me, Shepard!"

How had she flipped him? He was a turian, an apex predator of the galaxy, covered with thick, natural armor, his senses— senses of sight, smell, and sight, at least — were hundreds of times sharper than any squishy, hairy ape's. And yet here he was, trapped between her thighs, at the mercy of her many, blunt fingertips. It would be easy to grab her huge, fuzzy crest with one hand and slit her throat with a single claw on his spare hand. But, if he didn't find a way to calm her down, and she chose to employ her biotics, she'd break through his plating before he could realize it, and she could definitely rip his throat out through the softer hide lining his cowl.

"Anderson is waiting for us," he croaked, swallowing hard. "We gotta go."

Much to Garrus' relief, the panting woman straddling him began to loosen her stubby fingers from his neck, dilated pupils shrinking as the rush slowly drained out of her body, and he couldn't help sigh at his regained ability to breathe. The mattress creaked as she got up. He saw her slump over the sink, heard the hiss of the sink, the soft squelch of water being splashed over her face.

He took that opportunity and left the bedroom, making as little noise as possible before he heard her say:

"Give me a minute."


Even with Captain Anderson's booming tenor voice echoing the room, even with the sweeping hand gestures he made over the brightly lit holographic galaxy map, Jennifer Shepard found herself distracted, the incessant chatter of her jumbled thoughts stopping up her ears and rendering all outside noise as a droning, deaf hum. She'd had that soul-shaking nightmare more than an hour ago and she still felt its aftershocks running through her mind, behind her eyelids, over her skin and in her blood.

"What the hell are you doing, kid? You're bleeding!"

At the sudden change in pitch, she looked down at herself. She'd been digging her fingernails into her forearm so hard, she'd cut herself. She slapped a cupped hand over the scratch and dismissed Anderson's concern, insisting she was fine and that it wouldn't even need medigel. He, in turn, only gave her one of those narrow-eyed looks, the kind he'd give her whenever she'd say something they both knew was complete bullshit.

"Anyway," he continued, "We've narrowed it down to the last three places Saren was spotted: Feros, Noveria, and Therum."

"Feros. That makes sense. The Traverse is a nice place for scum to hide. But they've also got 387,000 regulations that say we can't do anything about it."

The older human's lips flattened in a straight line, one knuckle against his chin and the opposite hand supporting his elbow.

"It's still nowhere as bad as Noveria. But Feros' ExoGeni facility seems like a good place to start. Agreed?" he asked, glancing at Shepard for approval.

She had no qualms about it. Both she and Garrus'd had a long day and, while she was itching to solve the crime, she hadn't exactly had much time to investigate— nor sleep, even. The hypercritical nerve lying in wait within her twinged painfully: If only she had caught Fist alive, if only she'd gotten there before Saren shot a hole through Nihlus' head, if only she'd drank more coffee earlier and stayed up to help Anderson.

She headed over to the break room, poured herself a mug of black coffee. Bitter, watery, burnt. It offended her taste buds, but she rendered her consumption a need, more than for pleasure. She pulled a chair away from its table on the far corner of the room, grinding her teeth at the shrill sound of metal against tile, at the annoying vibrations traveling through her arm. She took a seat and sipped on her muddy water, thankful for the silence.

Well, until a few loud, rowdy C-Sec officers decided to present themselves for "good ol' ribbing", or whatever it was people did.

"— I'm telling ya, she's like a fuckin' robot," a male laughed from outside the door. "One time I said something about my vacation in London and she started spouting off facts about the Thames and shit."

"She could still kick your ass, though," replied a female.

The door slid open and a tall, balding, middle-aged human walked in with a smirk, an unamused female she recognized as the Customs Officer working under Captain Bailey and another male, blond, with a similar uncomfortable look. Shepard was just thankful they didn't notice her. Maybe she could get away unnoticed.

That was until Garrus showed up and made his way to the carafe.

"My question is, didn't we wipe out retards with gene therapy? Like, your momma could just fix that shit up before popping you out, right?"

"Your mother obviously missed something with you, Harkin. You're more of a giant, walking asshole than a human." the Customs Officer said.

"It was a legitimate question!" he insisted. "Gene therapy is a thing!" He turned toward the blond man and made a snapping gesture with his palm as if he were punctuating something. "Lang, you know what I mean, right? Your, uh— what was it? Sister? She was gonna have to wear glasses and shit."

Lang rubbed the back of his neck and avoided eye contact.

"Yeah, sure. Glasses. But, I really don't think—"

"—And they just let her loose in the galaxy, representing humanity like some sort of social justice charity case. All because the bitch's momma ain't get her brain fixed."

She could feel Garrus' eyes burning over her skull, but she wouldn't look at him. Not if he was going to pity her. That was the last thing she wanted, the last thing she needed. She already knew she was considered an alien among her own species. She felt the stares lingering on her skin after each conversation she ended prematurely, after every cue she'd apparently failed to pick up.

"My parents were farmers," she finally said. By the way the humans flinched at her voice, they hadn't even known she was there. "We were poor. And I'm autistic. Retarded isn't even an accepted medical term anymore and it's not even the same thing."

Harkin said nothing in reply, but she saw him roll his eyes and purse his lips.

"Excuse me," she said, before leaving the room. Coming down here had been a mistake. Had Anderson come to save her because he'd felt sorry for her? Was that why he'd sent her to N-School, why he'd paid for the L5n prototype implants, why he took her along to every mission? Pity? No, what sense did that make? No. No, no, no. Just forget about it.

"I've seen her punch a hole through a metal floor before, Harkin. If you were smart, you'd stop talking," purred a familiar baritone voice. "Though I'd pay a million creds to see her snap you in half with her bare hands."

"Now there's a satisfying thought," the woman chimed in.

"Oh, fuck off. All of ya."

When the doors to the main office slid apart, she'd been expecting Bailey or Chellick. Instead, she got Garrus, still holding his mug in his hand. He took a casual sip.

"Eating and drinking outside of the break room and personal desks is against C-Sec protocol," she said.

"How the hell do you even know that?"

Shepard pointed at a sheet of paper tacked to a bulletin board. He clicked his tongue in annoyance and chugged the rest of it before giving him an unwanted view of his empty, toothy mouth and long, dark blue tongue.

"Happy? Now, did you get that message from the Councilor?"

"What message?"

Another figure walked into the room. Anderson.

"Kid, I know you hate tech, but you've gotta answer your personal terminal. It's part of your job. Councilor Tevos wants to see us before we leave."


The asari matron paced about her chambers, high heels clicking, a hand slithering to needlessly smooth down her parted scalp. Her bottom lip was tucked under her upper, white-marked lip, pinched like the general feeling in the room. Garrus heard her suck in a quick breath before delivering her request in her usual low, diplomatic tone.

"I find myself in the humbling position of asking the Alliance for help," she began, two indigo hands clasped together over her lap. "And you too, Detective. And I need you to understand that this is a sensitive matter."

The arrogant asari councilor, begging for assistance, in a position of complete vulnerability. That she was asking the Alliance was proof enough of her desperation. How satisfying.

"My daughters were both kidnapped three years ago. One hadn't even entered her maiden stage yet." A violet tongue swiped over her cracked lips. "I've been working day and night ever since to bring them back home. And I'd found nothing until I reached out..." He detected her voice catching in her throat as if the information itself was too much. "I reached out to the Shadow Broker."

"That was a bad move," Shepard blurted out, causing Anderson to nudge her with his elbow. She arched her eyebrows for a microsecond but said nothing more, choosing to stand at ease like the posterchild for the Navy.

"I know. But after three years, he finally gave me a lead: Saren." Her steely eyes swept across her audience of three. "The woman in the recording. She's a double agent for the Asari Republic: Matriarch Benezia. She's... — I hired her to investigate for me."

"Did she go rogue, too?" Garrus asked.

Tevos shook her head.

"She used to report to me at the end of each week. The last time she sent me a vidcom, she didn't make any sense. When the attack on your apartment happened, I realized it was some sort of code. I believe she thinks Saren is on to her."

"So?" Anderson asked. "What do you want us to do about it? You probably know more than we do."

"I'm pulling Benezia, but her terminal has been disconnected since the bombing. None of my agents can find her. Not even the Shadow Broker. But... — and here is where I really need discretion — I own a few assets within the Human Alliance System. Three eezo mines."

"I don't get it. Why does that matter?" Garrus shrugged a shoulder, arms crossed.

"Because it is a violation of Council Law for a councilor to conduct business outside of Council Space."

"I still don't understand why you think we should help you," Shepard said. Her voice betrayed no anger, but he detected a twinge of sadness in it. "You're a slave-owning criminal. And if you had just taken time to decode your spy's message, Detective Vakarian would still have an apartment and hundreds of people in Kithoi Ward would be alive. People you, as a Councilor, swore to protect."

From the corner of his eye, he saw Anderson place his brown palm over his face, heard him sigh out his vanishing patience with Shepard, with the Council, with the eternal quagmire lingering like a bad stench around the Citadel.

"I hired a team of scientists to study one of my eezo mines. The eezo is inactive and I'm paying them to figure out why. —Well, I was, until someone kidnapped them. The only one left is Dr. Liara T'Soni. I need you to search for her and rescue her."

"Yeah... I'm still not getting why the hell we should help you," Garrus replied.

"Dr. T'Soni is Matriarch Benezia's daughter. She'll know where to find her. And where you find Benezia, you'll find Saren Arterius."


April 11th, 2183— 11:23 pm

Shepard found the wait between the request for departure and take off to be unnecessarily long, often wondering whether the officers at Citadel flight control took the so-called "pre-flight" checks to mean "break time". The plastic on her garment bag crackled as she set it down on the top bunk in the crew quarters. The last of her personal belongings that she considered essential: her dress blues, two extra pairs of fatigues, three under-armor suits, several clean pairs of underwear, and an outdated datapad full of old books and a few reference materials.

Since their meeting with Tevos, she'd decided to remain quiet. The sharp stench of smoke lingered in her nostrils, though whether it was damage she'd received at the scene of the attack or her nightmares wreaking havoc on her psychosomatic nerves, she wasn't sure. Whenever she'd close her eyes, she'd still see the flames engulfing the farmhouse, echoing with gunshots, echoing with blood-curdling screams for mercy, echoing with her parents' disappointment and the cry of a colicky baby and her sister's melodious laughter. Whenever she saw fire, whenever she got close to its prickly heat, she was suddenly there on Mindoir, hearing her mother screaming for help, seeing her buck and shiver beneath a batarian slaver's thrusting body, watching the life drain out of father's eyes alongside the blood dribbling from his broken lips. She was there again, feeling the cool, dew-kissed grass under the soles of her bare feet as she ran, gripping the negligible weight of Melissa's little hand. She was there again, trying to rip the sweaty alien off and out of her fragile body. She was there again, her shaky hands aiming the gun at the slaver's head and pulling the trigger, the kickback ripping through the tendons in her slender wrists. She was on Mindoir again, the one place to which she never wanted to return, the source of all her guilt, her fears, her insecurities.

"You okay there, Shepard?" she heard Garrus ask from the bottom bunk.

She thumbed at her nose. Again. Once more.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," she said, climbing down to the floor. She kept her gaze on the floor. "I am sorry for earlier."

"What are you talking about?" The turian raised a brow plate, tilted his head 35 degrees over toward his right.

"I attacked you earlier. I didn't mean... I mean, I did, but I didn't know it was you. And I'm sorry if I hurt you."

Instead of the trite "don't worry about it" she'd been expecting, she heard the low thunder of an amused chuckle rolling in his throat.

"I gotta say... For such a short, squishy alien, you pack a punch." He reached up to his neck and rubbed at it. "Crap, I'd bet money on you any day. I started to think you'd really snap my neck."

"I said I was sorry," she insisted. "I wouldn't hurt a fellow crewmate. That's against Navy Regulation 600-20, paragraph 4-14d, under Article 92."

Garrus groaned and his mandibles and brows drooped.

"What I'm saying is that I'm surprised. If we were on a turian ship... Well, I mean, human and turian ships are run so differently— more operational discipline, fewer personal restrictions." The pale cerulean in his eyes glittered with nostalgia. "We have full-contact sparring sessions. Well-supervised, of course. Nobody's gonna risk an injury that interferes with the mission. Anyway, if we were on a turian, I'd definitely bet on you. Hell, I'd spar with you myself."

Shepard gazed back at him, slack-jawed, amazed and intrigued by the stark differences between their cultures.

The muffled trill of opening doors signaled Anderson's arrival. He held out his hand, containing a rectangular package. Brown paper wrapping. Neatly folded and tucked edges. Not heavy enough to be a weapon, she realized when she took it in her own hands. Light enough to be...

Yes.

"Wanted to get that to you before midnight. Happy twenty-ninth, kid."

Her fingers made shreds of the wrapping and the corner of her mouth curled up at the sight of the model kit for the Normandy SR-1.

"I've been wanting this since the Normandy was built," she murmured in awe before her eyes flickered back at the smiling captain. "Thank you."

"Wait," Garrus interrupted. "What am I missing here? Twenty-ninth what?"

"Birthday," Anderson said, and then he turned to leave, rapping his knuckles against the door. "Try to get some rest. We got a long day tomorrow."

Carefully the woman removed every single piece and lay them on the desk, scrutinizing every part to assure it was complete. When she was satisfied, she returned them to the box just as carefully. She hadn't even noticed Garrus had been staring at her until he spoke.

"Today was your birthday? Crap, Shepard. You should've told me. We could've, I dunno, gone out for drinks or something."

"Why?" she said, glancing over her shoulder. "Anderson always makes a big deal out of it. But I don't get it, myself."

"Aren't birthdays a big, human... thing, though?"

"Yeah. Doesn't mean I understand why." Once the model pieces were put away, she placed the package inside her footlocker and sighed happily, a satisfied curve to her lips.

"Well, damn. Seems we finally have something in common."

He chuckled as if his incomplete statement should have been something obvious to her, but he never finished it and she didn't inquire any further.

"Good night, Vakarian," she said, more out of panic and pressure to say something polite than anything.

Once again, he laughed.

"Yeah. Good night, Shepard. I'll try not to wake you up this time."