In the End of the World

Chapter 14: Intel

"Garrus, I need you in my room, stat."

She heard him chuckle over the comm. "Shepard, we only just left your room a few hours ago. The crew is going to start to get suspicious if we stop doing our jobs entirely."

She scoffed. "Oh, get over yourself. This is business."

"Alright, alright, I'll be there as soon as that damn elevator permits."

She cued up the file on her omni-tool as she paced in front of her aquarium impatiently. The door slid open and he stepped in.

"What's going on?"

"Listen to this."

She played the audio file for Garrus, and he listened warily. When the file was over, she clicked her omni-tool off and looked at him. "What do you think that means?"

He thought about it. "It sounds like they're running some creepy experiment. 'Dosage'... It's almost like maybe they're giving someone medical treatment." He shook his head. "I'm not sure. It's definitely weird. You should have Tali take a look at it."

"I will," she assured him. "Right now she's reconfiguring the Cerberus spyware so that we can set it up in Miranda's office and the conference room. Tali and Miranda will be on the ground with me, so while we're gone, I need you to plant the bugs and put a chip in her computer."

"Got it."

"Oh, and another thing..." Her eyes, full of unease, met his. "The Illusive Man mentioned right before I hit the record button that he's planning to kill Liara for monitoring Cerberus communications. I sent her an Extranet message and I'm waiting to hear back from her."

Garrus' expression was dark. "We aren't going to let that happen to her."

"Damn straight."

She sounded confident, but he heard the waver in her voice, and wrapped his arms around her. "Liara knows much more than you give her credit for. By the time you sent that message, she was probably already in hiding."

"I hope so," she mumbled against his chest.

"Shepard, you should probably consider investing in some sort of holding cell for the ship, because when we figure out what Miranda is up to, we'll need somewhere to keep her. You know Liara's going to want to have a little 'chat' with her."

Jane laughed weakly, and he smiled at the sound. "Maybe as a welcome back present I'll get her a set of carving knives."

"That's my girl."

She looked up at him. "I'm really glad you're here with me."

"And I'm glad to be here with you. Even after the whipped cream."

"You promised to never bring that up again."

"Sorry, the flashbacks have been haunting me all day. I may have post-traumatic stress disorder."

"That reminds me," she grimaced, "Tali and Jacob know about us... And so does Mordin."

He stared at her in shock. "That fast? Shepard, I didn't realize you were such a gossip. Weren't we trying to keep it casual for the sake of the crew?"

"Well, Mordin picked up on it on his own and gave me some vids to watch on inter-species intimacy... I had a talk with Jacob and told him I wasn't interested in him, and he accused me of being involved with you. Last but not least, Tali walked in on us this morning."

"Shit. So she knows about the whipped cream disaster?"

"That's what I asked when she told me. Apparently we were just sleeping, but now she knows something horrible happened, and that it involved dextro whipped cream."

He sighed. "At least if our cover is mostly blown, you got us some porn out of it."

"Those vids are supposed to be educational!" she protested, turning red.

"Not that we need to be educated in the matter," he smirked.

"Actually, some of us could stand to learn the proper usage of a whipped cream canister."

"Look who's bringing it up now."

"I guess I'm scarred from it too."

He chuckled before letting her go. "Look, I know this isn't the right time, but we still have some stuff to talk about. I want to know what you need in a relationship, and we should figure out what exactly it is that we're doing."

Jane nodded. "Yeah, you're right."

"And also," he was more serious now, "We need to discuss what happened with Sidonis. I understand now why you did what you did, but it's still a conversation I'd like to have with you."

"I thought it might come back up at some point." She sounded distressed again.

"Hey," he chided, "Stop worrying. It's just a talk."

"I know, but that doesn't make it -"

"Commander Shepard, the shuttle is ready."

"Thanks, EDI." She turned back to Garrus. "I have to go." She kissed him, briefly but meaningfully. "I'll have Tali bring the cameras to you before we leave."

"We'll talk later, then."

"Yeah. I suppose so."

He waited in Jane's room so Tali would know where to find him. Now that Jane wasn't here to consume his attention, he studied his surroundings.

Her room was mostly tidy, saving her disorganized desk, where papers sprawled over datapads and pens. He picked up one of the pens and examined it. Of course he had been taught how to write by hand back when he was in school, but datapads had almost entirely replaced pens and papers long ago. It seemed Jane still enjoyed the traditional method of writing. He looked at the papers to see what human words looked when carved by hand. Her writing was slanted and scratchy, but organized. It was a very routine-looking language, with simple characters repeated in each clump of pen strokes.

He searched for a blank piece of paper and, holding the pen awkwardly in his talons, scrawled something in his own language across the paper. It was a short message, so he wrote it in large characters that took up most of the middle of the paper. He doubted Jane would be able to read it; omni-tools had a hard enough time converting typed languages, let alone hand-written ones.

As he set down the pen and paper, the door slid open and Tali approached him, carrying a box filled with electronics.

"Hello, Garrus."

"Hey. That's a lot of cameras."

"Yeah, I wanted to be sure we'd have enough. Shepard didn't say anything about Jacob, but he works for Cerberus too. It's probably a good idea to put a few cameras in the armory as well, just to keep an eye on him."

"I'll try to think of something to lure him out."

She nodded, and turned to walk out. "Oh, I almost forgot to mention." She turned back to face him. "If you hurt my friend, I'm going to have to kick your Turian ass back to Palaven. Nothing personal."

He smiled. "Would you believe that's not the first time I've heard that?"

"Yes, actually," Tali chuckled. "Shepard is... She's going through a lot, but she's a good person. It's easy for me to think that not many people would want to see her unhappy. She cares for you a lot, Garrus. Don't ever take advantage of that."

"I plan not to."

(A/N): Put the pieces together, Shepard! The answer is so obvious!