This is one of my favorite chapters, telling a little about Mia's past! Enjoy!

Sick Day

It was ten minutes past seven. In the month and a half that Garrus had known Mia, only once had he beaten her to work, and never had she been late. He looked to the desk next to him, filled with mementos of her. Her family, small trinkets from military missions, and a memo to get a "Christmas tree," whatever that was. He suddenly felt bad for the way he'd treated her. She was just as worthy as respect as any other turian. She'd been through just as much, if not more.

"Heron," he said to the Officer who scanned people into the Zakera Ward, "have you seen Mia?"

"You gave her quite a beating yesterday," he said, shrugging. "She's probably licking her wounds at home." That meant that she wasn't in C-Sec. Mia lived in Bachjret Ward, so she would have had to go through Heron that morning to get to work. "She's just human."

A human who's been pushed into my life...like hell she's just gonna walk out of it. She had all of the information on their case. He hadn't even thought of copying it because she kept adding more. She was the one who was always on time to meetings, covering for him if he was late. And she was the only other person he felt would do this job justice.

Damn it, he thought, standing up and moving towards Pallin's office, I wish I didn't respect her. Pallin was sitting at his desk when Garrus came in and the old turian looked up with a blank expression. "Garrus, what can I do for you?"

"Where is Mia Luna-Galván?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest for effect. It didn't work because he was out of breath and worried that he may have been a little too rough the day before.

"She called in sick," Pallin said, touching his claws together in front of his face. "She didn't contact you?"

Garrus heard the smile in the Executor's voice but didn't point it out or let himself acknowledge it. "We're not exactly...close."

"I saw your little battle in the ring yesterday," he said off-highhandedly, making Garrus's fringe rise in anger. "I would caution you against using your talons against a human. She may act tough, but she's just as malleable as the rest of them." Garrus knew that he should have said something, but he felt angry that the older turian saw through him. "Oh...and she put in a partner-exchange request in your name, saying that you didn't want to be her partner anymore. Is there a reason for that?"

"She's just sick, probably a little delusional," Garrus heard himself say. He tried to convince himself that they needed to be partners because she had all the information, but he knew better. Unfortunately he knew that it was because she was right—he needed her. Not just for the information, but because they watched each other's backs. Now they just needed to trust each other.

"So you want her as a partner?" Pallin asked, one eye plate rising. "Because I can easily transfer this case to you and Chellik, if you'd like. Luna-Galván will be transferred from Probational Investigative down to Enforcement. You will still be able to make Investigator, if you want."

This was something that pulled him in, but he wouldn't work with Chellik even if it was to be the leader of all the armies on Pavalen. "Yes, I want her as a partner. She's not bad...for a human."

Pallin smirked. "I thought I was doing something right when I put you together."

Garrus, still not one to talk back to his superior officer, nodded and gave his turian salute. "Right."

Pallin then lowered his eyes, working on the thing he'd been messing with before Garrus had interrupted. "You have an hour or two to go check up on her. Then, when she's better, healed, whatever is wrong with her, I have a different assignment for you."

The younger turian couldn't help but stagger after hearing that. "But sir, what about—"

"Your mission with Saren is full time. This will only take a few days, maybe a week. I've heard talk some rumors...I'll let you read the file." He passed the data pad over to Garrus, who snatched it up. "Don't look at it until you're both fit for duty. Dismissed."

oOo

"Mia," Garrus said into her intercom for the third time, "dammit, open the door!"

Once again, there was no answer. Garrus finally gave up and started hacking her security console. He thought that it would be easy, but he was surprised to find four firewalls and an automated drone ready to attack him as he hacked his way in. Finally, though, after twenty minutes of looking suspicious in the complex's hallway, he made it through.

He walked into a white, open area. On his left were two couches and three chairs, all angular and black, surrounding a glass coffee table and sitting in front of a hologram television. On his left was a black wooden table, surrounded by dining chairs of the same material. A single glass vase with a rather pretty red flower sat in the middle. Up on the left was an open doorway that he guessed led to the kitchen.

Nothing was out of place. He couldn't see a spec of dirt anywhere in the vast space. He almost felt bad for walking on the pristine white marble floor. It was almost like the neighborhood she lived in—clean, quiet, and almost too perfect.

Garrus followed the room back to a hallway, leading to where her scent was the strongest. The first door on the left was a bathroom, and the first on the right was a guest bedroom. The door at the very end held a smell that was very her...and smelled also of blood.

Garrus hesitantly opened the door and peered in. He was met with baby blue walls, sand-colored floors, and a daybed. But clothes scattered the floor. There was a mess of bandages coming from the left, following down to the bottom of the bed. He then saw Mia lying on the floor, her face in a pillow, the blankets thrown off of her.

"Mia?" Garrus asked, stepping forward. He noticed that she was practically nude—she wore a pair of cloth underwear and a loose chest piece made of the same fabric. (Cotton, he believed.)

What really made him stop and stare were the long, thin, blood-red scars running up and down her spine. Those, mixed with obvious acid burns, coated her back and the back of her neck, leading down past her underwear. The marred flesh covered almost her entire body from her neck to her waist and down to her thighs.

She groaned and hid herself behind her tangled black fringe. "Go away, Garrus." She hadn't bothered moving and he could barely hear her voice while it was muffled in the blankets.

Garrus crouched down near her, wanting to reach out and comfort her and not knowing a way to do it. He watched the skin on her back shift and roll from the muscles and bone underneath. Even her back was colored as darkly as the rest of her body, the only exception being her scars, which were white. He resisted the urge to run a hand over an unpuckered portion of skin to see if it was as smooth and soft as it looked.

"What's, ah...what's wrong?" He then noticed the bruises all up and down her long, tanned legs, around her waist, and all up and down her bare arms. "Oh." Next he saw the three long, deep gouges that his talons had made on her thighs. She'd wrapped them in bandages, but the scabs had broken again and she was bleeding. If possible, it looked worse than it had yesterday. The wounds were inflamed and a scary-looking red.

"Yeah...oh." She groaned again and tried to get up, but failed. When he tried to help her, she doubled her efforts and pushed him away. She made it high enough to get on the bed before she collapsed again, this time on her back. The pained groan that came out of her lips made his mandibles flutter in embarrassment and regret.

He realized that the front of her neck had the acid burns on it as well. Her shoulders and chest were fine, but her hips, above where her underwear was, had burns too. He could almost see the cybernetic implants working to keep her alive and almost see the skin weave that had fixed the burns. Well, most of them.

Her stomach was as toned as her legs. Muscles ripple underneath her abdomen, wrapping around her waist and coming to an indent in the middle of her belly. Humans are so strange.

"Don't look at me like that," she said lowly, in a voice that sounded as though it were full of tears. He looked up to see that her face was stone cold, her jaw set tightly.

"I wasn't—"

She then turned her head away, using one hand to clutch the blanket she was lying on. "I can take it when others look at me with pity or disgust. But not you, Garrus. I don't know if I can stand it if you do."

He wasn't quite sure what to say to that. Instead, he stayed silent. He moved down to her legs and started undoing the soiled bandages around her thighs. She hissed, but otherwise stayed silent as he took the ointment he found on the floor and gently spread it on her soft, oh-so-very-human skin. It almost made him laugh when he realized that human blood actually was red and not blue.

When he was done with that, he gently tried to situate her without jostling her too much. She groaned in pain, but he finally got her lying down with her head on the pillow and her feet down at the end of the bed. He sat there for a few moments, trying to catch her eyes, but she wouldn't look at him. "Mia," he said simply, gently touching her arm.

She jerked her arm away from him and still wouldn't look at him.

Garrus sighed and shook his head, cursing her stubbornness under his breath. "Would you at least tell me how to help your bruises?"

"How about not sparring with a human?" she said lowly, a bite in her already harsh voice.

He almost had to bite his tongue to keep from telling her where she could shove her sarcastic attitude. "Okay, how about something I can do that I haven't already done?"

She was silent for so long that he thought she wasn't going to tell him. Finally, though, she mumbled, "Ice. In the freezer, top box. Wrap it in a bag and put a towel under it. Get me a few bags...please."

He smirked and poked her in the nose with his talon, earning him a glare. "That wasn't so hard, now was it?"

She growled and told him where he could poke himself, but he turned and left before he could say anything stupid.

Considering that Garrus had never seen ice, or felt the cold that often, he was surprised at the blast of frigid air that greeted him in the fridge. He grabbed the top box, hearing it rustle with solid objects, and then a few plastic bags from under her sink. When he found a towel, he made his way back to her room.

Her eyes were closed, her mouth in a soft 'O' of slumber. He almost didn't want to disturb her, but he knew that she needed healing. So he sat down on the side of her bed and poured some of the strange, clear cubes into a bag. He placed the towel on a large bruise on her torso and placed the bag on top.

Mia groaned and laid her head back further, fully exposing her neck. Bumps rose up all over her body, almost tightening her skin where the puckered flesh wasn't. "God, that's cold..."

Garrus couldn't resist the urge to run his talons over the puckered flesh on her neck, ever so curious as to how she had gotten the acid burns. She became utterly still beneath him, even her breathing measured and controlled. She watched him warily, like a cornered pyjak. He couldn't help himself as he asked, "How much did it hurt?"

His talon felt her swallow, felt her throat expand as she breathed. "Like a thousand suns burning into my flesh. But, by the time I was done, I didn't have any nerve endings to feel it."

He suddenly felt respect and regret for this female. She had been through so much, and yet she somehow still found the passion to live. "When?"

"2177 CE. July 5th. My Marines and I were on a mission to find a missing pioneer team." Her eyes glazed over and she became silent for a moment. Garrus took this lapse to place more ice on her body, especially around her thighs. She didn't seem to notice. "I lost fifty good men on Akuze that day. Most of the pioneers. One of them survived to be an opera singer here on the Citadel. Another was pregnant. Her son is a little genius. The last one, he was the head researcher."

Garrus found his thumb rubbing over the scars on her hip. They stopped in a perfect line, as if the skin weave had been cut perfectly to fit just that spot and nothing else. "It was a wonder that you survived."

Mia's eyes looked to his, staring at him for a moment but not really seeing him. She looked this way...almost haunted...until she blinked and the glaze went away. She blinked a few more times and kept his gaze. "My stubborn will, I guess."

He found himself smirking in amusement, chuckling and shaking his head. "Yeah, I guess."

She looked at him for a moment again before turning her head and looking at the window behind her bed. The room was deathly silent as he listened to her erratic heartbeat"Why are you here?"

"My partner called in sick. Now there's no one for me to irritate at work."

Mia turned her head again and frowned, a wrinkle appearing between her eyes. Garrus almost reached out to smooth it, but refrained from doing so. She didn't say anything, just stared at him with the half-frown.

She was going to make him say it. He groaned and leaned back against the backboard of her daybed. "What, do you want an apology?"

A small huff came out of her, but, when she spoke, it was soft and he almost didn't hear it. "Well...it would be nice."

"Well then, I'm sorry!"

She stuck out her human, pink tongue at him and smirked. "There. That wasn't so hard, now was it?" She then pushed the ice off of her body and pulled the covers over her, slowly, so as not to pressure her body any further. "Now, if you don't mind, I think I need some rest."

"Didn't you sleep last night?" he asked, standing up and moving away from the bed.

Mia deadpanned with, "I was a little too busy bleeding out."

"Well, have you at least eaten?"

With a look around the room, then to him, she raised an eyebrow and motioned to the spot she'd been lying in before. "Does it look like I've moved from that spot since last night?"

"Of course you haven't."