Hi All. Happy mid of the week. This story has about come to an end; though there will be one more chapter. Which is unfortunate as I'm really enjoying writing it. I think though that I'm going to do a tale of Teskal and Castis working together. (Not a match made in Heaven.) More like the Odd Couple. Mr. By the Books and Mr.I don't give a pyjak's ass. As always thank you to everyone who's faved, followed, submitted a review or a comment. You make this all worth while. Have a terrific day.


Coincidences

Garrus

Despite being off the grid on a special mission, still some mail and messages managed to get to him. A message from Solana, and one very soft, lumpy, and atrociously wrapped package.

"What on earth is that Garrus?" Shepard had come into the cargo hold while he was reading the letter attached to the package. Taking a break from repairing what ever damage Shepard had done to the MAKO this time. He was finding Geth parts in some of the strangest places.

"It's from an old friend in C-Sec." Garrus told her. "Says he found it at the bottom of a closet he was cleaning out in an old duffle."

"Sounds like a real organized guy." Shepard joked.

Garrus smiled at her. "Not really. Shared an office with my dad for a short time and drove him insane with all the stuff he had laying around."

Shepard snorted. "Why am I not surprised that your father would be a neat freak. Let me guess – everything in its place and a place for everything."

Garrus gave a startled clic. "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess." She chuckled. "Well, go ahead open it, unless it's something alive." She paused and eyed the package warily, unsure if it was just settling or actually moving. "It isn't is it?"

"No, Teskal isn't that dirty." Garrus was focused on the package and didn't see Shepard kind of start at the name.

Using his talons he carefully cut the over abundance of string and tape that had been used to wrap the thing. Or possibly contain it. Or possibly just done to annoy him. Teskal had always teased him about his neatness. No doubt because he got it from his father.

Shepard

Meanwhile Shepard was running the name Teskal over in her mind. She knew it, recognized it; but she couldn't pin down from where.

Garrus finally got the string and the tape off, but not without getting some stuck to his talons. "Damn" He swore under his breath. "Stuff's almost as bad as tunnel tape."

"Tunnel tape? What the hell is that?" Shepard couldn't even image what that must look like or do.

Garrus hummed under his breath for a moment. "That's not the right word exactly. Grey stuff that every human engineer seems to have a roll of around somewhere."

"Oh you mean duct tape?" That made more sense to her, but she could see where tunnel tape came from – given translator approximations, which were sometimes not that approximate.

"Yeah." Garrus was distracted, trying to unwrap whatever it was from what seemed to be a boulder of wrapping paper.

"Your friend's not much of a gift wrapper." She commented, laughing quietly at his frustration as yet another layer of paper unfolded.

"We're lucky it's not in an evidence bag. He's been known to use those to mail stuff."

"Your father must have loved that." She snickered.

"No comment."

Losing patience Garrus finally grabbed one end of the paper and yanked sending the whole package spinning into the air and flinging the contents onto the ground.

It was a battered, dusty old jacket. An old model Alliance OD Jacket, she'd recognize those colors and that style anywhere. She'd gone through several of them in Basic. There were a couple of stains on it she thought might be oil, then she realized that they were probably Turian blood, dried Turian blood. What the?

"What the hell is your friend doing with an Alliance Off Duty jacket?"

Garrus had picked it up and was studying it with a look Shepard couldn't begin to decipher.

"It's mine." He replied quietly. "In a way."

"Yours?"

Garrus leaned against the MAKO, still holding the jacket. Shepard settled against a nearby crate.

"I was just barely through my first year of Basic." He was gently running his hand over the battered fabric. "I and my family, were visiting my dad on the Citadel." He sighed and looked off to the side. "Solana and I had snuck out to look at the Presidium lake when we realized that someone was trying to capture us."

His mandibles flared out then snapped back tight to his face. "I managed to hide her and lead them off; but got my inexperienced self caught." His mandibles pulled even tighter to his face if that was possible.

Meanwhile, Shepard's head was whirling. It couldn't be, it was impossible. Out of all the Turians in the Hierarchy, she had managed to become friends with the one Turian she'd always wanted to meet up with again. Now she remembered why Teskal's name had seemed familiar.

"Old enemy of my dads. I was hauled off to that old derelict space station the Alliance called Long Wall." He sighed. "Scrubbed off my colony paint, muzzled me, and put on a control collar, then he proceeded to beat the living crap out of me as you humans say, then tossed me in a service duct where I…"

"Ran into two Alliance Privates hiding from their own troubles." Shepard spoke up and Garrus jerked upright to stare at her in confusion.

"Yes. What? How?"

She stood up and stepped over to him and gently reached up to put two fingers where the electrodes from the collar would have been. He shivered when she did that. Now that she looked closer she could see two very faint scars.

"I always wondered what happened to you." She said softly looking up at her towering best friend. So very different from that scrawny, beat up, silent youngster she'd helped to rescue; and yet so very much alike.

Garrus's mouth literally gaped open in shock. "Alliance?"

"It's a small universe, isn't it, Scrappy?" She grinned at his surprise.