A/N: Sorry I took so long- here's my make up gift :) I've usually focussed on the end of missions but I wanted to write this, set before reaching the STG camp on Virmire... I hope you enjoy. And I'll have a Shep POV soon. As always, thanks to my readers and please review :)

Virmire was nice; she'd even go so far as to call it picturesque. Sunny, lovely scenery, warm water to swim in (she'd bent down to feel it more than once, and wished she wasn't here on a mission. She could have used a good swim)… it was a paradise. She might have even liked to stay there if it wasn't for the geth.

But of course, there had to be geth.

"Tali, flank left, overload them," Shepard ordered. "Cover behind the Mako if you need to. Don't overload the bloody thing or Garrus'll kill me. Liara, cover my right. Use your biotics to catch any I miss. Make 'em swim."

Both women nodded that they'd understood, so Shepard charged ahead, guns blazing, biotics flying. Liara sent a geth creeping up on her right soaring neatly into the ocean, where it disappeared with an oddly strangled sound; Tali made the gun (and hand) of one on her left explode. It stared at its arm for a moment, the flaps around its 'eye' shifting. Shepard finished it off with little effort and soon the patrol was nothing more than scrap metal.

Shepard cracked her neck as she stretched.

"Good job, guys," she said, pride in her voice. She looked around her, admiring the scenery. "Pretty place," she remarked with a sideways glance at Liara which was either checking her out or worried about her. "You ok?"

Worried, then. Damn.

"Let's just keep moving, Shepard." It wasn't an answer and she knew it; but they were in geth territory and there was no time to pursue it. So Shepard, with another worried glance, this time mirrored by Tali, nodded reluctantly.

"Alright," she said, then issued her orders in her normal field voice- that is, parade ground bellow.

"MOVE OUT!"

Tali winced.

"We're right here, Shepard," she complained. Shepard shrugged.

"Making sure you got the message."

"I think the geth did too," Liara muttered and Shepard laughed as she took point. The pair fell into place behind their fearless leader. A dead geth drifted past them in the current. Grinning, Shepard kicked its head off.

"That one did," she laughed. Tali groaned and playfully Shepard kicked some water back at her. She yelped in surprise.

"Shepard!" Liara felt a smile twist her lips and chuckled a little. Both Shepard and Tali turned to her in surprise. She met their eyes (well, Shepard's eyes and the glowing spots behind Tali's mask) and gave them a smile.

"We still have geth to scrap," she said, lifting her pistol. It was her secondary weapon for when her biotics were cooling down. She was getting better with it, doing target practise with Ashley in the cargo hold between missions, but still, she was far from a military shot. Cheerfully Shepard clapped her on the back with a gloved hand.

"Right you are," she said. "You heard the lady; let's go scrap some geth." The trio set off in higher spirits than before, and Tali flicked water at Shepard every once in a while, and Shepard returned the favour.

"At least I'm not freezing my tits off here," Shepard said optimistically as she reloaded her shotgun after downing another geth.

"Or covered in creeper goo," Liara agreed with a fervent shudder. It had taken hours to get that stuff out. She kept finding bits of it stuck in her head ridges, and had heard Ashley and Shepard complaining for even longer. With it caught in all that hair it was no surprise it took twice as long.

Between them, they'd used nearly two bottles of shampoo after Feros and most of their hot water ration for the week.

"I never go anywhere exciting," Tali sighed. Shepard patted her shoulder.

"You're here, aren't you?" A rude noise escaped Tali's mask and Shepard laughed.

"Be grateful," Liara advised. "Exciting usually involves a trip to the infirmary." Tali snorted.

"And I have enough of those already," she said. "Maybe it's good that you only pay me to babysit the engine."

"I pay Adams to babysit the engine," Shepard retorted.

"So what do you pay me for?" Tali asked dryly.

"To stand around and look pretty, sweetheart."

"Gee, thanks Shepard."

"Seriously- you light it up like a Christmas tree."

"Like a what?" Tali asked blankly. Shepard gasped in mock horror, fastening her hands over her mouth for a second.

"You don't celebrate Christmas? Oh my poor girl!" Tali's bright eyes narrowed beneath her helmet and she took a step towards Shepard.

"What's a Christmas tree, Shepard?"

"Aliens," she sighed sadly instead of answering. "Missing out on all the fun."

"What's a Christmas tree?" Tali persisted and Liara smiled. With friends like this, who could ever need more?