Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own character and plot idea. The rest are all BIOWARE'S.

Rule #9

Trust is earned, not given

"Which door?" Saren asked in a low voice. After bidding their time and waiting for dinner time to arise, the two slowly crept up to the guards outside and knocked both of them out cold. Then just for good measure Shepard injected both guards with a long lasting dose of a sleeping aid. Once that was done, they entered the building by taking one of the guards key cards.

"Corridor on the right seems to be the dining, cafeteria, and sleeping area. Middle door is access to the shipping dock. Then the door on the left leads to the labs." Shepard explained looking down at her map. Saren nodded and began to move to the left door. "But there might be a hallway that connects the labs storage, to the storage units of the right corridor."

"Might be?" Saren asked turning around. Shepard then went up close to his body and offered her arm for him to see. Saren had to control his breathing with her so close. Her joke from last night kept replaying in his head. What if he had? What if he hadn't waited for her to finish her joke, and just would have reacted by taking her right then and there? What would she have done?

Even though he thought about it (a lot), he knew he wouldn't have. There was something that kept holding him back, and he wasn't quite sure what it was. At the beginning, he would have chalked it up to the fact that she was a human, but now nothing was quite set in stone.

"See." On the map, there was a room beside the labs and one by the storage unit directly across from the other. Each room only having three wall leading to the possibility of a connecting hallway.

"Then we'll just have to check when we get to it." Saren grunted and began walking towards the left corridor.

Quietly, they made their way down the empty hallway. The lights weren't very bright leaving shadows in various places. It was a good thing for sneaking, but it also meant that the chemicals they were dealing with were probably highly reactive. That meant their guns were going to have to be a last resort.

When they reached the end of the hallway, Saren placed his back against the wall of the door on the other side of the doors control panel. He then nodded for Shepard to check out the possible hallway. She gave him a quick nod and made her way to it. As she left, he concentrated on the sound of her footfalls, and the area around him. Infiltration was always a nerve racking part of their job, especially when someone catches you off guard.

Suddenly, the door sprang open. As soon as a scientist stepped out, Saren wrapped an arm around his waist and held a knife to his throat. Shepard then appeared by his side, "I wasn't able to take a look, but I put a lock on it to give us sometime in case something happens." Saren nodded and pulled out his gun with his free hand.

Once they were inside, Saren aimed his gun over his hostage's shoulder at the petrified scientists. "You are all under arrest by law of the Citadel Council. Hands up and make your way to the back wall." Most complied from fear, but a few attempted to try and contact the muscle elsewhere in the compound.

"Don't bother. We've jammed the signal." Shepard said. 'She jammed the signal,' Saren thought still relishing in the fact he didn't have to tell her to do something like that. Any other trainee or fellow Spectre it was like he had to approve every single action they took on a mission. He understood mostly it was because of his hard edged reputation, but they're supposed to be the elite of the elite, not common soldiers. He shouldn't have to micromanage all the action taken on a mission. Thankfully, he didn't have to anymore.

Once the scientists realized there was nothing else they could do, they complied by following their peers to the back. When the last one joined the others Saren let go of his hostage and kept his gun trained on all of them. Looking at them more closely Saren noticed the scientists just had on lab coats and gloves. Then with a quick scan around at the lab tables he noticed their masks on them, and their instruments recently cleaned. He concluded that the 'cooking' was done for the day, and he didn't have to worry exposure to anything toxic. "What's stopping all of us from taking you both down right now?" A human scientist threatened.

Saren stalked up to the man slowly. Then he bent down to stare into the humans eyes. Even though the human was trying to keep a strong facade, in the back of his cloaked eyes Saren could see the fear. Not to mention the quivering balled up hands, "The fact that I'm a Spectre, and I can easily take all of you down with not even the slightest exertion of energy. I've done it before and I could easily do it again."

"Impossible. There are no human Spectre's." A Salarian scientist scoffed towards Shepard. Saren could hear her sigh loudly as she continued hacking their laboratories data base.

"They do, as of a few months ago." She replied annoyed. Since she had graduated from Spectre training that seemed to be everyone's response whenever she was on a mission. Then there would be the patronizing comments about her species to her. Then they'd demand knowing her qualifications. After all that, they either walked away bruised, or afraid. Ignorance always rubbed her the wrong way.

Rather than go further into answering the Salarian, Shepard kept her focus on the task at hand. She had to admit whoever did their computers programming did very well. For once it was quite the challenge for her. She hand to dodge numerous amounts of firewalls, while simultaneously putting in discovered passwords to prevent others from being alerted about her raid. Yet, it wasn't something she couldn't handle.

As Shepard kept hacking and duplicating their files she came across a certain heavily guarded file. It was a very small file that seemed to just be a message sent to one of the scientists. Obviously, it was something important, something she needed to see. Quickly, she began focusing her attentions on getting pass the locks and encryption. Then after a few minutes she was able to get in.

The drug needs to be better, stronger. When are you going to do your job! Also, we expect you to start incorporating the virus. We also need faster transportation of supplies. These Quarian children are agreeing less and less.

Do not fail us anymore. You are replaceable. We are permanent.

'We? Who are We?' Shepard wondered adamantly. Yet, she felt that whoever this 'We' was they had tenure. Someone who could boss around the Blue Suns was definitely a force to be reckoned with.

Swiftly, Shepard began copying the message, "Saren." Shepard asked over their comm. Saren, still with his gun trained on the scientists hit his comm button on his wrist. "There's a message on this terminal to what I'm assuming is the lead scientist. It has evidence of what I was hypothesizing on the ship earlier."

"And?" He asked confused.

"Well, there's something el- AHHHH!" Shepard started explaining but was stopped by a sudden sharp pain in her leg. Ignoring the pain and tingling feeling, she swiftly bent down and swiped her leg at whomever it was that attacked her. She saw as the enemy jumped up effectively disengaging her stealth field generator.

An Asari with scars etched all over her face grinned at her, and backed away, "I hate little cockroaches. I didn't think that failed batch would come in handy, but it seems I was wrong. Enjoy your little trip I pray it will be your last." The Asari brought out a gun from under her lab coat and aimed it straight at Shepard who was still on the floor. Shepard then noticed on her map a blip coming from the woman, but before Shepard could address this, Saren shot the woman through the head.

Then like cascading dominoes, everything went crazy. The lights in the lab flickered and a loud siren wailed throughout the building. "Shit. She had a heart alarm." Shepard swore and attempted to stand up, but found that her legs were useless. Whatever she had been injected with just gave her paralysis. Since it worked so fast there's no telling what else could happen If she were to move. Yet, she knew staying there would equal certain death. "Saren gather the gear!"

Saren glared at the cowering scientists for a brief second, daring them to make a move on them. Then he turned around and quickly gathered their hard drives. Once he was done, he went over to Shepard and knelt down. "Got it, let's go." He said as he grabbed her wrist to help her up. Once he stood her up however, he noticed the lack of strength in her legs.

"It's some sort of paralysis, but I have an idea. Latch my legs around you and place them into your spurs." Shepard explained as she pulled out his pistol and her own. "Do you trust me?" She stared into his eyes with a fierce intensity.

Saren hesitated briefly for a number of reasons. Trusting people, even the ones he worked with, was a difficult thing for him. 'For her as well', he assumed from watching her interact with other people. There was also the fact that she would be wrapped around him so close, and since he was going to be doing the running, he wasn't going to be holding onto her back.

"It's now or never Saren!" She shouted to bring him back to the present.

With a loud grunt he hefted her up and roughly latched her legs into the cradle of his spurs. He swore that if his lower region 'reacted' as they ran, he was going to make her cook for the next 6 months. "Okay are you ready?" He asked.

"I trust you to." She said quickly as she placed her arms on his shoulders.

"What?"

"Since you trust me, I want you to know that I trust you as well." Shepard explained seriously. Saren nodded and with a deep breath waited for the door to open. Once it did he took off in a sprint.

He dodged, and plowed down Blue Suns and refusing to look back, or worry if he was bring shot at. He could hear her firing back at the shooters, and even heard a few of their dying shouts. He also heard and felt her wince with pain from shooting both of the pistols. Saren knew her hands were going to be broken by the time they got out of here, but that was a concern for later.

Suddenly, a large metallic sound came from out in front of him. Before crashing into it, Saren had to quickly bend around it. Once he did, he stumbled slightly, but caught himself on an open door frame. He then looked at the large metal giant, and froze in surprise.

Standing right before him was a Geth solider. They weren't supposed to be here! They were supposed to be behind the Perseus Veil. "That's a Geth!" The two Spectres shouted, but before they could even start to wonder why it was here its metal arms brought up an assault rifle and started to aim. Quickly, Shepard shot through its large LED headlight. It stumbled backward and fell against a wall. It's light and screen cracked, dead.

Without time to think, Saren started running again being even more cautious for the potential of more Geth. He kept running even as he rounded the corner to the front entrance. He quickly halted once he saw a large group of Blue Suns aiming their weapons at him. As he stared down the guns he couldn't help but think that this wasn't quite how he pictured his death to be like. Most Turians that do some sort of combat for a living; imagine a glorious death on facing off against a worthy opponent. At least that's how Saren felt his death would be. He hadn't even considered the possibility of dying as he clenched the butt of a human.

Out of nowhere Saren felt Shepard's thighs tighten around his torso. Then she arched herself backwards causing her pelvis to grind against his stomach as he held her up. She then brought out a frag grenade and lobbed it behind the group the enemies. Next she shot herself upward and covered Saren's face as the grenade exploded. The explosion was loud as its sound waves bounced along the rooms walls. She was grateful for her helmet being able to dampen enough of it so her ears weren't ringing.

Luckily, her gamble paid off and all the enemies were either dead or writhing around in pain. Shepard was worried that there weren't enough bodies to absorb the blast, and it was going to result in some sort of injury to them. Thankfully, it hadn't.

Saren began sprinting again and once they were out of the compound both of them quickly threw up their own stealth fields. "Six months!" Saren grumbled embarrassed and upset.

"What?" Shepard asked confused.

"Six months you're cooking for us!"

"That hardly seems fair. It's not as if I asked to be drugged." She replied confused and somewhat flustered. She was going to argue more when her heart started racing and her vision blurred. The dark red world turned purple and creatures resembling Hanar started pushing themselves out of the ground. She would be panicking if it weren't for the fact that she heard Sarens low chirps and sounds of his native tongue rather than his translated words.

It was a pleasant noise that eased her fear. He sounded like doves or pigeons when they cooed. "Saren, the drugs affecting my speech implant and I can't understand you." Sarens reply was a deep, but loud abrupt chirp. "I'm going to assume you said 'what?!' I'm seeing Honar emerging from the ground... Oh and naked males... I didn't even know I knew what a naked Volus looked like. Interesting. I must have seen it in anatomy text books Vitarian gave to me... They're quite well endowed, thickness wise."

She was blabbering like a Salarian now, but it made the crazy speed at which he was sprinting at quite entertaining. He wanted to tell her to shut up, but she wouldn't have understood it since she couldn't make out what he was saying. The fact that that drug could affect the speech implant is even more worrying. It made sense to him now why all those cases ended up violent. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to hallucinate and not understand anyone who would be trying to help you out. Yet, it wouldn't make sense why the Blue Suns would market a drug like that. There would be no repeat customers at that point. 'They must not know about it,' he realized. That meant Shepard was right, someone else was orchestrating this whole operation. 'Finally, something challenging,' he thought excitedly.

Once Saren came to the area of his ship, he pulled out his Omni- tool and set it to travel to the main hub on the planet. When they got on, the ship began to rise up into the air. Quickly, he placed Shepard down on the entrances cold ground. His legs were on fire at this point, and his lungs grasped at the air he greedily breathed in. As soon as he could, he tore off his helmet and went over to an oxygen tank by his locker. Next, he attached an oxygen mask to his face and began taking in deep breaths. Once he caught his breath, he used his Omni-tool to call out to the main hub. "This is Spectre Saren Arterius we need law enforcement to dispatch to these coordinates of an illegal drug compound of the Blue Suns. I also require emergency medical services at the dock. My partner was injected with an unknown drug, but the base of it is the new Blue Drop narcotic."

"Affirmative. Enforcement and medical services dispatched. What is the state of your partner?" A voice asked over his Omni-tool.

"Hallucinations, paralysis in the legs."

"Are they allergic to anything?"

He...had...no...idea! He cursed loudly to himself. That should have been something they talked about. Now there was no way of asking her!

He crawled over to her and carefully, but quickly pulled off her helmet. "Ask that again." He demanded. The voice asked again but Shepard shook her head and stared at him confused. "Is there a human with you? The drugs also attacking her speech implant and she can't understand alien speech." Saren explained quickly.

There was some loud moving of equipment and muffled talking over the microphone, "Sugar, are you allergic to anything?" A female voice asked over the comm link. Saren hadn't ever heard that accent of a human before. Why did she refer to Shepard as a cooking ingredient?

Shepard smiled and looked at the Omni-tool, "I haven't heard a southerner's voice in a long time. No allergies. But my mother's side had sickle cell anemia, and my father's side has blood pressure problems."

"Alright, sugar….I haven't heard a northerners voice in a long time neither."

"Boat." Shepard said and the voice on the other end laughed loudly which made Shepard smirk.

"We'll take good care of ya honey, don't you worry." The woman said and then the comm link went dead.

Saren looked at her confused. "It's a human thing. I'll explain it later. Right now I'm seeing multiple versions of you in different states of undress." She said as her eyes moved all around her. She didn't even realize she was biting her bottom lip, but Saren did notice and he definitely was going to remember that.