Garrus had been a bundle of nerves and hormones since his night with Shepard. He was apprehensive about having marked her without talking to her about it first; that whole general consensus discussion on where their relationship was headed. Hell, he wasn't even sure if she wanted anything permanent with him and here he was, marking her as his – permanently. Well, permanently in his mind.
He had made a few honest attempts to talk to her about it as they headed out for another mission, this time to pick up some sort of biotic mastermind prison inmate; but, every time he tried she would touch him on his neck in just the right way… or nudge against his waits in a suggestive manner. At those points his rational thought was gone and all he could focus on doing was making her scream out his name. He had never been this single-minded in all of his previous affairs.
He knew that when a Turian male marked a woman there was a sort of honeymoon period where his only thought was to continually bring her pleasure (a resulting side effect being to impregnate her, but that was obviously not going to happen in this case); but, Garrus had thought himself above that. He had thought that he had enough self-control to be able to sit down and have an adult discussion with his Commanding Officer… and lover… about the turn he inadvertently took their relationship on.
He knew he was full of shit at this point.
"Self-control my scaly Turian ass." He muttered into the calibration console. He knew he was only fooling himself.
Garrus had a lot of time to think about the why in this situation. He knew that he had reacted strongly to her coming back from the dead; he knew that he was possessive almost to a fault over her ever since she came back. Garrus also knew that his feelings for her went further back than just when she had sent him that damned message before he found out she died. They had never talked about the message, he wondered if she even knew he had responded since he doubted that she had access to the Alliance mail system now.
He needed to admit to her what he had done, he knew it wasn't fair to her to hide it and she needed to decide if it was something she wanted to pursue or if he needed to cut his losses right now.
Spirits he did not want to have this conversation with her right now, he was not ready to cut his losses yet.
Shepard was standing in her bathroom, examining the bite mark on her shoulder. Her mouth slightly agape as she processed what she had just read. In a moment of curiosity, Shepard had done an extranet search for "Turian shoulder biting"… Or marking, was what it was apparently called. Garrus had marked her as his mate.
How did she feel about that? Exhilarated, enthralled… a little scared. She had never considered herself the marrying or mating type, being someone in her line of work it wasn't always a viable option unless the person understood the pressures and responsibilities that she would be under. She couldn't be there for kids, she couldn't be there for holidays… And Garrus would understand all of that; in fact, he would probably be right next to her during all of those times, fighting alongside her.
With that realization, she asked herself if it would be such a bad thing for her to be mated to Garrus. Her whole body screamed a resounding "NO" to her unspoken question. No, it wasn't a bad thing, she found herself wanting this.
But why hadn't he told her? He had plenty of opportunity over the past few days. Shepard had a sudden spark of realization, again – He did always seem like he wanted to discuss something with her when he was coming to her quarters, but she had been too busy throwing herself at him to really allow him to talk. Bollocks, she had probably given the impression that she only wanted him for his sexual abilities.
She solemnly swore to allow him to speak next time he came to her quarters, she wasn't going to give in to temptation.
The Normandy docked with the prison station and Garrus, Shepard and Zaeed emerged from the ship. The guards uselessly tried to get the trio to give up their weapons, but Shepard was having none of it. No, she would keep her guns thank-you-very-much. Luckily, there wasn't much of a need for her to make her point with violence since the king of this little prison island was going to appease her and let her keep herself armed. Good.
The made their way in the direction of "out processing", only stopping to dissuade a guard from continuing a beating of an unarmed prisoner; a Turian beating an unarmed and probably untrained Human seemed viciously unfair.
Shepard had to admit that she wasn't overly surprised when the out processing room turned out to be a trap, everyone just had to have an angle on her. She had enough, this king of the shithole was about to get a piece of her mind and none of her credits.
"Worth more as a prisoner? We'll see what I'm worth when I burn this place to dust, FUCKTARD!"
She was fuming as she killed her way to Jack's chambers, she was going to get her "package" and get the fuck off of this station. Watching it burn from the Normandy would be so fulfilling later. Shepard was mildly surprised to find that "Jack" was a young woman, a heavily tattooed young woman. Shepard let out a hum of amusement, however, when the young woman wrecked two mechs with her biotics and began to tear her way through the station.
Shepard felt a strange sense of "haha motherfuckers" as she followed in the wake of Jack's destruction. Convincing the woman not to attack her and her team would be one thing, but Shepard was looking forward to simply having a conversation with this psychotic biotic.
Garrus suddenly felt the need to comment on the destruction they were both witnessing and partaking in as waves of guards after guards were pressing down on them as they moved from section to section.
"Holy Hell, I thought only you could leave a body count like this, Shepard."
Shepard couldn't help the smile tugging at her lips as she responded.
"Hey now, she got here first; I hardly have anything to shoot now, she's killed it all!"
A rocket whooshed by Shepard's head as she slid behind cover, in truth she was feeling a little underwhelmed by the situation. A heavy mech and only ten combatants? Child's play. She felt herself fall into cover next to Garrus, the two of them taking turns sniping the enemy while Zaeed took point. They made quick work of their quarry and moved on to the next room, only to find the guard captain well-fortified in his own little corner.
"What a bitch." Shepard couldn't help the statement leave her lips. She really felt like this was a cop-out of a move, he was hiding behind his own mass effect field while what remained of his force threw everything they had at them.
It didn't take Shepard and Garrus long to target each of the field generators and take them out, and even less time to put a bullet in between the infuriating man's eyes. All in all, Shepard was counting this trip as a success – all they had to do was find Jack.
Heading back towards the docking bay seemed to be the best bet, considering there really wasn't anywhere else on the ship for the young woman to go. The group walked out just in time to witness Jack's temper tantrum at seeing the Cerberus sponsored vessel outside the docking bay.
Shepard had to give it to the woman, three heavily armed individuals walk up to her after obviously making it through whatever mess Jack didn't already decimate and she had the gall to threaten them. But, alas, Jack made the comment that Shepard sounded like a pussy. Any self-respecting woman of violence should not let that stand, and in that fashion, Shepard used her fist and introduced it to Jack's mouth.
Flinging the now unconscious woman over her shoulder, Shepard triumphantly walked back to the Normandy, not missing the attempts at stifled laughter behind her from her squad mates.
Shepard waited in the medical bay for Jack to reawaken, which really didn't take long with Dr. Chakwas wafting strong smelling salts under the woman's nose. Not missing a beat, Jack surged forward and nearly hit the older woman – but not before Shepard stepped in and put a hand on the biotic's throat.
"Look here, Jack, I think we've already established dominance by the fact that you are now on my ship. I want to recruit you for a mission, if you don't want to join, fine. I'll drop you off at the nearest port. But, if you do join I promise there will be lots of things for you to kill and a pardon waiting for you."
The tattooed beast of a woman seemed to consider Shepard's words carefully before shrugging out of her grip and muttering out a "Fuck Cerberus". Shepard decided to head that off at the pass as well.
"This mission is sponsored by Cerberus, yes, but they do not own this ship nor her crew. I'm not asking you to be loyal to them; I'm asking you to help me and my crew. Once the mission is done, assuming you survive, you are free to go where you please when you please."
Jack seemed to lighten up at the declaration against Cerberus ownership, she really didn't have much of a choice at this point and why the fuck not – a full pardon would be her reward. She looked up at the Commander in front of her and made one simple demand.
"I want full access to Cerberus' files."
"Granted." Shepard didn't even flinch as she agreed to the terms, they were simple enough and Shepard didn't give a Varren's ass what the woman found in there.
"EDI, give Jack access to the Cerberus file mainframe and unlimited access to the files within."
The AI signaled that it had been done and Jack maneuvered off of the medical bed and skulked off towards the elevator.
"I'll be in the cargo hold, no one to bother me there."
Shepard had to admit, this was going to be a very interesting suicide run… And she was going to have to get her face melted off by Miranda when she found out that Shepard had given Jack access to the files.
Never a dull day on the Normandy.
