Happy Saint Patricks Day for those who celebrate. For those who don't - Happy Weekend. I hope life is treating all you good people well. Sorry, it's taken so long for this next chapter. Bouncing between several stories means that I have to change mental gears each time. That's what that smell of burning rubber and over heated metal is from. LOL Thank you to all those who continue to make my day by faving, following, or leaving a comment. You are all awesome.


Settling In

Garrus

By the time he and Ms. Tannenfeld got outside. Dasken and Rose were walking up the road. Dasken was pulling a hoover dolly behind her with, Garrus was surprised to see, his armor and weapon's cases. He'd left those at Jorge's, meaning to pick them up when he brought the dolly back.

Also there was a pan of cooked meat. Chicken he thought from the smell. The one thing most every human seem to swear that everything else in the galaxy tasted like.

After his exchange with Vega, the big human had gone and showed him a picture of the things. Rather silly looking to his way of thinking and Spirits the noises they made. But, then again, this was an earth bird. According to Vega they could act as silly as they looked. For once he hadn't thought Vega was pulling his leg as the humans said and Vega was wont to do.

He hurried over to take the dolly from Dasken.

"Thank you, Dasken." He said politely. Then he realized that he now had two dollies to contend with.

Ms. Tannenfeld

Realizing Garet's dilemma, she took charge. Too many years of supervising hyper-sugared kids and/or moody distracted teens.

"Garet, why don't you take Jorge's dolly back to him. Dasken can help me get the chicken inside while Rose looks after your things."

With a click of agreement, Garet pulled his dolly to the side so it wouldn't be in the middle of the road. They didn't have much vehicle traffic but blocking the roadway was asking for someone to come along. He took hold of the empty dolly and headed back towards the Citadel and Jorge's place.

Dasken picked up the pan of chicken. Wisely they had a good tight lid on it. Kept out the dirt and the bugs.

"Rose, if you don't mind, please keep an eye on Mr. Vakan's things until he gets back." She told her ward, and then added. "It shouldn't be long."

"Okay." Rose said. She was eyeing his belongings, with all the unbridled curiosity of a teen, having recognized them as weapon's and armor cases. Rose might be curious but she wouldn't pry into his things. Fortunately, for the Turian, his stuff didn't carry any Hierarchy or Alliance marks that she could see; and Rose couldn't read Palaveni. Though she noticed that any truly distinctive markings were either covered or had been scraped off. She didn't think that all of that was accidental.

Dasken followed her into the house. Easily making her way past all the furniture into the kitchen.

Once there, Cheryl took the pan from her. She checked the temperature of it. Still warm but not so warm as to mess up the cooler's thermostat. With a great deal of relief, she put the pan into the now very functional cooler. Finally they could keep perishable food longer than one day.

"Spirits, is that a cooler or a collection of shrapnel." Dasken exclaimed on getting a good look at the thing.

"I think it's both." Cheryl commented and Dasken laughed.

"He did a good job." Dasken said after quickly checking everything over. They all made a point of looking out for one another now; the war had drawn them all closer. About the only good thing that had come out of the Reaper war.

"He's a craftsman and a worker." Cheryl was careful to keep her praise neutral. She didn't want Dasken to get an idea that Garet was anything other than what he claimed to be.

"I'm sure you showed him the boys."

"Yes." She laughed. "Fred was his usual talented self and fell off into the water dish."

Dasken chuffed in amusement at that, very familiar with the clumsy lizard.

"He talk much about his past?"

"No. He isn't much of a talker." Cheryl told her. "And I think he was more interested in the Chipeeks."

Dasken suddenly made a gagging sound. "Spirits, I'm beginning to sound just like Paty."

That got Cheryl laughing. "No one can quite sound like Paty. She all ready trying to set you two up?"

Dasken gave a chirp of annoyance. "From the moment he walked in the door. She was even 'suggesting' some stress relief." Her mandibles clamped to the side of her jaw for a moment in irritation. Then she paused and gave a low exasperated hum. "What she can't hear is that he's mourning someone."

Cheryl knew she was referring to sub harmonics.

"A lot of people are mourning someone." Ms. Tannenfeld remarked.

"Sometimes.." Dasken was quiet. "I envy you humans."

Tannenfeld looked at her curiously at that admission.

"You can't hear most sub harmonics and they can be so over whelming." Her voice was just on the edge of a keen.

Without being asked, Cheryl slipped over to the Dasken and put an arm around her shoulder. The Turian woman shuddered as a low keen escaped her throat and turned into the embrace. Tannenfeld couldn't fully hear her sub harmonics; but she could feel them, and she held Dasken until the younger woman finally calmed.

"Sorry." Dasken coughed to clear her throat. Turians didn't sniffle like humans.

"It's okay." Cheryl patted her on the shoulder. "It takes time; and Jostel Banns was a good man."

Dasken gave a shaky hum. "Jostel Banns was a stubborn idiot and you know it." Came her retort.

Tannenfeld smiled slyly. "Well, I wasn't going to mention that fact or that half the people in town called him mule headed."

That surprised a short chirp of laughter out of Dasken who knew the term. Cheryl was relieved, the younger woman was still getting over her mate's death and from time to time she'd succumb to a deep depression. Fortunately though such spells were getting less frequent.

"We better get back outside and rescue Garet." Cheryl turned towards the door. Dasken cocked her head in question.

"Rose spotted Garet's armor and weapon's cases and as soon as he's back she'll be bending his ear." Came the explanation.

Dasken laughed out loud. "True. I hope he can deal with adolescents."

"NO ONE can deal with adolescents." Cheryl retorted and they both laughed.

By the time they got back outside, Garet had returned and Rose was peppering him with questions, barely taking time to breathe or to let him answer. He, at least, seemed to be answering them very patiently.

"Why is it so big?" Rose was pointing at his armor case.

"It's for heavy combat armor." Garet replied gravely.

"Heavy combat. What's that like? I bet it's exciting." Rose's voice spiked in excitement.

While Ms. Tannenfeld couldn't hear sub harmonics she could feel some of them – and the ones that suddenly rolled off of Garet made her feel cold and exhausted.

"Heavy combat is exhausting and mind numbing." He replied all trace of emotion gone from his voice. His flanging twice as noticeable as before. "And against Reaper troops it was also sometimes daunting." Tannenfeld was surprised to hear a Turian admit to that; but, then again, this man had been on the front lines and had probably faced foes that none of them could even begin to imagine.

Rose was taken aback at that as Dasken nodded.

"What excitement is in knowing that you survived and that your fellow soldiers survived and that you protected the innocent." He didn't give Rose a chance to interject. "All that is tempered by knowing that many friends didn't make it, by your exhaustion, whatever wounds you took, and those you couldn't save."

He glanced away for a moment and Tannenfeld could literally feel him wrest his sub harmonics back under control.

"It is not glorious – it simply is." With that he turned away to fiddle with the dolly, effectively ending the conversation.

Before Rose could open her mouth, Cheryl motioned to her to go inside. Rose looked to protest but Cheryl shook her head and pointed again, more emphatically.

Looking very dejected, the teenager scuffled her way back inside.

Once she was out of earshot.

"I'm sorry Garet. Rose has no idea what real combat is like, the fighting didn't really get this far. And," here she sighed, "sometimes her mouth gets ahead of her brain."

He'd turned back around and gave a short chirp of acknowledgement. Still looking very 'Turian' Cheryl would say. Closed off, his face fairly expressionless, his sub harmonics somewhat repressed. "Understood. Most adolescents are, what is it humans say, clueless."

He didn't add, she noticed, that it was most 'human' adolescents who were clueless. Turians were raised in a culture of combat and fighting for the common good. Turians knew the cost of battle from an early age.

Garrus

More than ready to put this conversation behind him, he turned back to the dolly. He hadn't really been upset at the teen-ager, rather it brought back memories. Memories of those rare nights when it had been a nightmare of Mindoir that had awakened Shepard and left her wrapped in his embrace, tears streaking her face, while he soothed her with his sub harmonics.

He was one of the few (he knew Anderson had known and he was certain that Chakwas also knew) she'd ever told the complete story of what had happened the night of that Batarian raid. The night she had lost everything and everyone she cared for.

Rose had inadvertently brought all those memories to the surface. An innocent teen-ager, surrounded by those who cared for her – facing unimaginable foes – winning but losing it all.

He wasn't quite sure what inner strength it was that allowed Shepard to pull herself free of the trauma of such a night – he'd only known that she had a core of steel. A core of steel that allowed a frightened sixteen year old to overcome her shock and fear to take out her enemies and keep herself alive.

Garrus would never wish a Mindoir on anyone. He'd seen Turian colonies hit by Batarians and the resultant trauma the survivors had suffered from. Humans would fare even worse he knew, they didn't come from a military culture and Mindoir had been an agricultural colony.

Despite all that he was fairly certain that without the background of Mindoir, Jess wouldn't have become Commander Shepard and his mate; and the entire galaxy would have been 'harvested'.

Thinking of Shepard made his gizzard clench and a sub harmonic keen escaped before he could block it.

Dasken

Dasken's mandibles twitched at the tone of loss from Garet's sub harmonics; then he ruthlessly clamped down on them. She didn't think Ms. Tannenfeld had heard them before Garet had stopped it. Even not knowing him, she felt for the man and whomever he had lost, his pain resonating with hers.

"We best get going, Garet." Dasken spoke up, as much because she needed to get home as to distract the man.

"Good luck with Anna." Ms. Tannenfeld said.

Garet cocked his head in question. "There might be trouble?"

"She'll approve you." Dasken reassured him, privately vowing that she'd make sure of it. They desperately needed someone to help around the place. "Some of her instructions…are…well…"

"They're distinctly Anna Steward." The older woman chuckled. "At least you'll have Dasken to translate." With a wave of her hand she went back into her house leaving the two Turians alone on the roadway.

"Should I be concerned?" Garet asked her as they started walking, Garet pulling the hoover dolly.

"No." Dasken paused to try to explain. "My partner, I guess you'd say, has some different ideas."

"Different?" Now Garet was puzzled.

"She's hard to explain; but you'll see when we get there." Was the best that Dasken could do to explain.

Garet looked at her very oddly but gave a mandible click of agreement.

As with most things in Tesken, everything was fairly close. They'd only had to walk for a short time. Making their way around a slow bend in the road that took them out of sight of Ms. Tannenfelds and the Citadel before they came to the 'compound' as someone had dubbed it.

Garet came to a stop to survey the place and Dasken let him take it in.

Garrus

He already knew that the place was an old merc base but the 'compound' was telling. It was at least two acres to a side, cleared of brush particularly in those areas that were line of sight to any of points of entrance. However in other areas, brush and trees had been allowed to remain and he was dead certain that there were a number of stands, both high and ground level, hidden in them.

It was surrounded by a low wall (but still high enough to seriously hamper a LOKI mech) the same color and construction as most of the rest of the town. The wall ended in some low, rocky hills at the back. That was also where a couple of what looked like sheds were located. From their position he would have bet that at one time they were an armory and a supply building.

The center of the place was dominated by a big, single story building that could only have been a barracks at one time; but he could see that it had been added onto and modified to soften it, make it look less stark.

Back and somewhat hidden by the barracks was a low, one story building, that had probably been for whoever was in charge of this place. Its once clean lines had been obscured by sheds and other add ons.

The place looked both derelict and like it was just waiting for the original builders to come back. The later immediately put Archangel on alert.

He let go a trill of consideration and concern.

"Whoever built this had some training." Dasken spoke up, understanding what he was thinking.

"A lot of training." He replied. "This is almost a military lay out – though not Hierarchy."

"That lets out the Blue Suns and it's not Blood Pack." Dasken remarked.

"No. Not heavy enough or battered enough for Blood Pack." He agreed.

"Eclipse?" Dasken was both glad to have someone who was knowledgeable and surprised that he'd known about the major merc groups.

"It could be; but I don't think so." He was carefully studying the place. Then suddenly he froze as something occurred to him.

"They didn't find any labs connected with this place did they?" He demanded abruptly.

"Labs? No, no laboratories only what looks to have once been a large communications center. Why?" She'd noticed his reaction.

They might be near death but he learned to be very leery of a downed foe until there was a kill shot.

"Cerberus."

"Spirits, hadn't even thought of those rabid varren. You think it was them?"

"I don't believe so. Most Cerberus places had labs attached." He paused briefly. "So I heard."

"Weren't they destroyed?"

"Most of them but there are still remnants left." He informed her.

Dasken

She recognized Garet's survey of the 'compound'. In a past life she had watched others evaluate a location strategically, evaluated some herself; and Garet's assessments were those of a master fighter and tactician.

He pointed out several areas that could be turned into 'kill zones'. She did notice that the 'kill zones' he indicated were for a sniper. He either was one or had worked with one.

She heard the screen on the front door slam and looked up to see several of the kids, Turians and humans, out on the front porch area – watching and sizing up the new one.

Here we go, she thought in resignation. The kids, despite what Anna thought, had chased off several other maintenance people, and that's what it looked like they were gearing up to do again.

Garet had looked up and spotted the kids. She heard the faintest of trills from him. No fear or concern, in fact, it almost sounded like he was looking forward to the confrontation.

Sneaking a glance at him, she realized that that's exactly what was going through his mind. She had a feeling that the kids were about to get a much needed and rather blunt reintroduction to reality.