There were days when Shepard found herself thanking the gods for Garrus Vakarian.
Then there were days when she simply hated him.
Today was, unfortunately, one of the latter.
She stormed towards the elevator, giving an evil eye to any grunts unlucky enough to get in her way. She then proceeded to tap her foot impatiently and glare at the door of the incredibly slow elevator, as though she could simply intimidate it into moving faster.
She was a soldier on a mission and she would not be denied.
She was going to kill that scaly turian. Hell yeah! She was going to make an example of that two-legged dinosaur! She was going to show the world precisely what the consequences of disobeying Commander-motherfucking-Shepard were!
For that is what that turian bastard had done. He had disobeyed her direct orders on the field, in front of another squad member no less! The sheer nerve!
Alone in the elevator and away from prying eyes, she let her 'Commander' face drop for a moment and pouted at the door.
She'd had it all planned out. When Garrus had approached her with the request to track down Dr Saleon, she'd agreed to it in a heartbeat. In her mind, it had been the perfect opportunity to secure his loyalty and appoint herself as his unofficial mentor. Oh yes, a mentor!
Commander Shepard did not have an ego, oh no she didn't! Yet, there were times when she wished she had someone to pass all of her wisdom and general awesomeness down too; and while she was aware that there were many marines out there who would kill for an opportunity to be mentored by the great Commander Shepard herself, sadly none of them seemed to cut it for her.
She had almost given up hope of ever getting to play the whole 'wise mentor' thing that Anderson seemed to pull off so well, until she'd met Garrus Vakarian.
He was everything she had ever hoped to find in a prospective apprentice: he was a badass, he had mad skills and had a great passion for justice. While there was a tiny problem of him not being human, for the most part Shepard found that she didn't really care. He was more than willing to listen to what she had to say; heck, he practically lit up with joy whenever she went down to the cargo bay to talk to him. It was plain to see that he looked up to her and was eager to learn.
Finally, she had someone willing to listen to her great wisdom, borne of so many difficult experiences. She would stand like Anderson, hands clasped behind her back, striking a pose of great knowledge and say all those badass sounding lines she'd come up with (she'd spent hours on the extranet looking them up, dammit). She was going to turn that turian into a paragon of virtue. Oh yes, she was!
She pouted some more. She'd even had an entire script prepared for their eventual encounter with the sneaky salarian doctor.
She could tell from the way Garrus spoke that he totally intended to put a bullet in his head. She'd let him continue with his delusion, and when the time came she would refuse to let him gun Saleon down. Instead, she'd tell Garrus to take him into custody and hand him over to the military police, using the whole "we-need-to-find-out-how-he-did-this" excuse.
Of course, she had no desire whatsoever to hand the guy over to the military. Heck, they'd probably laugh at her for doing something as mundane as arresting criminals! She was a Spectre, for crying out loud!
Here came the truly ingenious part! If Saleon was half the bastard Garrus made him out to be, he'd use this moment to pull a gun on them. Then Shepard would gun him down, and Garrus being his usual sarcastic self, would say something like, "So he dies anyway? What was the point of all that?"
Then Shepard, in all her glory, would proceed to give him this nugget of wisdom: "You can't predict how people will react, Garrus. But you can control how you'll respond. In the end, that's what really matters."
Ha! He'd floored by that! Anyone would (she'd spent the whole night thinking it up, after all). She could practically see him staring at her in awe and admiration, Ashley behind her mirroring his expression (that was the whole reason she'd brought Ashley along after all; woman practically worshipped the ground she walked on).
It was supposed to be perfect! But of course, he just had to go and ruin it, didn't he?
"We'll take him in. Drop him off with the military."
"Look out," Garrus bellowed, pointing at the ceiling. "It's a giant geth hopper!"
Shepard lifted her weapon to immediately cover the ceiling, belatedly realizing that there were no such things as giant geth hoppers.
A single shot rang out, and Saleon's brains were splattered all over the floor.
"Dammit, Vakarian!" Ashley snapped. "We were supposed to take him into custody!"
"I saw him reaching for his weapon and acted on instinct," Garrus turned to regard a seething Shepard with an innocent expression on his face. "I'm sorry, Commander." He didn't sound sorry at all! If anything, the bastard seemed oddly pleased with himself.
"Back to the ship!" she barked as she stormed past the smug-looking turian. Oh, he may not be feeling very sorry now, but he was going to be.
Right before she disembowelled him.
Putting her 'Commander' face back on, she stormed into the cargo bay, fully intending to make an example out of the offending turian.
"Vakarian! Front and center!"
Garrus immediately stopped his tinkering with the Mako and assumed the turian-version of attention.
"What the hell was that supposed to be, Garrus?" Shepard demanded.
Garrus merely looked at her innocently. "What exactly are you referring to, Commander?"
"Don't play dumb with me!" She felt her blood pressure shoot up further. "Why the hell did you disobey a direct order, marine?"
"He was about to pull a gun on you," he lied smoothly. "I acted on instinct."
"Instinct, huh? And what about that 'giant geth hopper' crap? Was that your instinct as well?"
"False alarm, Commander," he said calmly. "Besides, that salarian was never going to come quietly. I don't see what the problem is."
The problem, you scaly bastard, is that you ruined my dramatic moment. . .
"Not the point!" she snapped at him. "When I say we take someone into custody, we take them into custody. That's my policy!"
"Yeah? Well, when I see despicable salarian doctors who sell organs illegally to krogan who are already suffering from the horrors of the genophage, I shoot the bastards, that's my policy." His voice steadily grew louder at the end.
She gaped at him. Since when did a turian become so sympathetic to the krogan's plight? And why's he shouting like that?
"What's that about the genophage?"
Oh, you son-of-a-bitch. . .
"Wrex," he nodded at the krogan approaching them. "On our last mission, we came across this sneaky salarian scientist who's infamous for selling black market krogan testicles, claiming they cure krogan infertility."
"What!?" Wrex bellowed. "It's bad enough the salarians inflicted the genophage upon us, now they want to exploit that for our credits! You should've shot the piece of varren shit!"
"I did," Garrus said, as Wrex nodded approvingly. "But our illustrious Commander feels that we should've arrested him instead."
"What?" Wrex rounded on her. "You wanted to take that bastard alive! What the hell are you playing at, Shepard?"
"That's-That's not the point!" Shepard sputtered, shooting a venomous look at the smug-looking turian hiding behind the krogan. "He disobeyed my direct order! He. . . ."
"You're damn right he did!" Wrex fixed her with his beady glare. "I though you understood, Shepard. I thought you of all people would side with the krogan instead of those slimy salarians. Instead, I see a turian willing to do what's right by my people, rather than a human!"
"Wrex, it's not like that. . . ."
"We're done here, Shepard." He stomped away.
"Wrex, wait!" she hurried after him, only pausing to shoot a death-glare at the cunning turian leaning against the Mako, casually admiring his handiwork.
Damn you, Garrus Vakarian!
Later, an exhausted Commander Shepard made her way back to her cabin, holding an ice-pack to her head.
It had taken her the better part of an hour to calm down an irate Wrex. Eventually she'd managed to cajole him by offering to help retrieve his family's ceremonial armor. Wrex however, had insisted that they seal the deal the krogan way.
Damn krogan and their armored heads. Why do they have to head-butt each other to get their point across!?
She poked gingerly at the red bruise on her forehead. This was all Vakarian's fault!
She swore under her breath. Next time she ran across any sentient mind-controlling plants or giant singing insects, she was going to feed Garrus to them. Let's see how smart he is when his scaly ass is being served up for lunch. . .
Or maybe, she could convince Wrex to eat him after running that small errand.
Nah, wouldn't help crew morale to find out their Commander was considering feeding them to krogan as punishment for insubordination.
On the other hand, it might help reinforce my reputation as a badass.
Hmmm, something to consider later.
If she had to be totally honest with herself however, Garrus' insubordination didn't really bother her as much as it ought to. It was probably because she knew that he hadn't done what he did because he disrespected her or anything. It was just Garrus being. . . well, Garrus.
She also couldn't help feeling a certain perverse sense of pride at his defiance. Shepard had always disliked mindlessly obedient subordinates, who were so blinded by hero-worship that they could rationalize any order she gave using the whole "She-knows-what-she's-doing" shtick. Unquestioning loyalty was rarely worth the trouble it caused, and Shepard honestly didn't have any use for people who couldn't think for themselves.
Besides, Garrus' rebellious attitude brought back fond memories of her own youth.
"First Lieutenant Shepard! Front and Centre!"
She snapped to attention, struggling to fight back tears.
This was it. After all that hard work, she was going to get kicked out of the ICT program at N6; and all because she couldn't follow her instructions for the mission to the letter.
How was she supposed to know that damn batarian guard was sleeping with two of his eyes open? They had four bloody eyes dammit! How was she supposed to know that particular guard had mastered the art of sleeping with half his eyes open, literally!?
It wasn't fair, dammit! She'd gone through hell to get all the way here; and now she was going to get kicked out because of some freaky, incompetent batarian with an expertise in napping on the job!
"Tell me, lieutenant, what part of 'complete the mission without alerting any of the guards' did you not understand? Were you dreaming during the goddamn briefing, marine!?"
Shepard steeled herself. She'd practiced this several times. All she had to do now was present her case convincingly.
"The mission could never have been completed within the set parameters, Commander. Even if we'd eliminated the target without attracting any attention, we'd still have to fight our way through half the complex to get to the evac point."
"So you decided to draw everyone's attention by stuffing a grenade up your target's ass!? Holy shit, marine, you've got one fucked up sense of tactics!"
"It did the job, Sir," she said a little defensively.
Commander Hartman zoomed in on her like a heat-seeking missile. "Then explain to me, how in the name of Jesus H Christ did you end up killing all the goddamn squints in the base!?"
'God, I think my eardrums just exploded'. "Sir, there was a guard. . . ." she said hesitatingly.
"That was a rhetorical question you dumbass! I've read your mission report!" he howled.
"With all due respect Sir, I still stand by what I did. Intel fucked up big time on this one. I did the best with what I had." The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
The silence that followed was deafening. The rest of her squad held their breaths as one as Hartman stepped closer to Shepard until he was practically nose-to-nose with her.
'Oh god, oh god, this is it. I'm so screwed. He's going to feed me my own intestines before he kicks me out. . .'
"Intel did not fuck up on this, lieutenant. We purposefully gave you false information. The whole mission was a test of your ability to improvise in the face of overwhelming odds, and out of the entirety of your team, you were the only one to figure it out."
He gave her a feral grin. "I admire your honesty, Shepard. Hell, I like you. You can come over to my house and fuck my sister."
"Umm, I appreciate it, Sir. But I'm not into women. . ."
"That was a joke, you dumbass!" he bellowed. "Apparently, you're so fucking thick-headed that even obvious sarcasm bounces straight of your skull. Fortunately for you, since you're the only one of this worthless pile of shit who seems to have a single brain cell, you are hereby promoted to N7. Con-fucking-gratulations! You start your training tomorrow with the other N7s, 0800 hours sharp! Dismissed, lieutenant!"
Ah, the good old days.
She snickered at the thought of old Hartman dealing with Garrus' insubordination. Old man would probably space him first, then ask questions later.
For some strange reason, she was finding it increasingly hard to stay angry with her turian friend.
Friend, huh? Where did that come from?
Shepard had always been a staunch believer in the navy's "No Fraternization" rule. Perhaps it was because she'd spent her whole life on ships, but she'd never really had many friends, especially of the opposite gender. Her mother's constant attempts to set her up with every single bachelor officer she ran across most certainly did not help matters.
It was a mark of how much she'd come to respect and rely on Garrus Vakarian that she didn't feel the least bit awkward in calling the turian her friend. The man was an exceptional soldier, a great sounding board for ideas on strategy and tactics and had incredible leadership potential. She almost felt bad for pulling him away from C-Sec sometimes. Almost.
It helped that he was pretty easy on the eyes, for a turian anyway. That height, those broad muscled shoulders, that incredibly sexy voice that sent shivers up her. . .
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold that line of thought right there!
What the hell was wrong with her? How in the hell did she go into that territory all of a sudden? He was her subordinate for God's sake! And they weren't even the same species!
Still, gotta admit, that voice. . .
She found herself grinning stupidly at the thought.
No, no, no. . . get a hold of yourself, girl.
She swore loudly and slammed her head down on the desk, momentarily forgetting about her bruise.
Damn it! Where's that fucking icepack?
AN: Hehe. The last couple of chapters were rather serious, so I decided to post a more light-hearted one. Hope you guys like it.
As you can see, Shepard's finally starting to realize her feelings for our favorite turian. But is she going to act on them? Stay tuned to find out.
BTW, one of the reviewers pointed out that I should probably think about giving my Shepard a first name. I was going to go with the generic "Jane". but I already plan on using that name in my long-term project "Friends and Enemies".
Since I don't have any good ones on hand, I'd like to ask my readers for help on this one.
Please leave your ideas for first names in the reviews section. I'll shortlist any five names to my liking and you guys can vote for whichever name you like. Winner gets to see my Shepard named after their choice, not just for this story, but for the next two sequels as well :)
Oh, and Commander Hartman is a shout-out to one of my favorite movies of all time: Full-Metal Jacket.