While the actual meeting with the Council was fine, the after conversation with Udina sent their tempers off. He denied planting the devices, and tried to blame it on the Turians. Accusing even Garrus himself that he was the reason they were there, even though the Turian had never stepped foot into the apartment before Shepard. They stepped onto the presidium floor, angry and tense. Garrus' hands twitched to have his rifle in his hands so he could at least feel a bit more in control. He turned to Shepard, "I'm going to a shooting range. I'll meet-"

"I'll join you," she crossed her arms, "You know a good one around here?"

He blinked, staring at her in surprise. "Why do you want to join me? You don't believe Udina?"

"Why the hell would I believe that jackass?" she bristled at the question, and he rubbed his neck. Waving off his embarrassment, "I'm going to kick your ass, that's why I want to join you. You're probably a shit shot anyways."

He crossed his arms, "Then, let's make this interesting."

"Oh?"

"When you lose, you'll be stuck on bathroom duty for the next six months," he grinned down at her.

She laughed, "Yeah, and when I win, you get to buy me the new thermal scope."

"No way, when I buy one, it'll be for me," Garrus snorted, "Try again."

"Fine. Then you'll make me breakfast for the next six months."

"Hm. Okay, you have a deal," he held out his hand. Shepard stared at his hand for a few seconds, and he started to pull it away when he felt her grab it and give it a firm shake. The feeling of her short five fingers around his longer three was odd and, while he would never admit it, it felt nice and warm even ask brisk as the contact was. "I'll call us a shuttle to take us there."

He headed over to the terminal, and summoned the shuttle. Instead of heading back to her, Garrus stared out at the Presidium. It was…nice having a friendly debate with her. He grumbled to himself. After only a few days of being around her constantly, he was already warming up to the idea of being near her. Platonically of course. He was certain he would never fall in love with her and he would do everything in his power to ensure that he wouldn't.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw her gazing over the Presidium with awe. Some Turians looked at her with disgust but didn't comment. He felt oddly irritated by the Turians, and wanted to go and stand beside her. To show his support of her being there, she was his wife after all. It was all for appearances, of course. Other than that, he had no reason to want to be beside her, or so he told himself.

The shuttle showed up a few moments later, startling out of his blatant staring. He called his wife over, and as he opened the door, Shepard appeared at his elbow. Looking at her Omni-tool. "Did we have any food in the fridge?"

"Uh, yeah, both dextro and levo," he climbed into the shuttle, and settled into the drivers seat. "Why?"

"I was trying to find some decent food on the Citadel in case there wasn't anything," she closed him omnitool with a flick of the wrist and stepped into the shuttle. Changing the subject, she added "Where is this shooting range?"

"Well, since you are coming with me, I made the executive decision to take you to the simulation range. Make this bet a bit more interesting. Anyone can shoot at a still target, not everyone can take on a bunch of moving targets as a sniper."

"I was in the navy-"

"Anyone can get lucky."

She snorted, "Is that how you got through the war?"

"Isn't that how everyone gets through a war?" he asked quietly, and his companion fell silent. He wondered if he should've said that but he heard her agree quietly, and wondered if she regretted fighting in the war.

He wouldn't, couldn't ask her that. He knew logically that she wouldn't regret it. She was a soldier, and all soldiers believed in their side of the battle. That's why they fought.

He didn't regret being part of the war.

It didn't surprise him when the rest of the shuttle went by in silence and when they arrived at their location they exchanged only a few words as they decided the parameters of their fight. No too hot or too cold locations, but Shepard got to pick the location since she hadn't used the machine before and he had. They randomized the opponents and decided to both use the same gun, an Avenger X.

"Get ready to have your ass kicked, Vakarian," Shepard taunted as they stepped into the room and the VI began booting the parameters into the simulation.

"Keep talking, it'll just distract you from your goal," he replied and the simulation spread out in front of them, simulating a large industrial building. Shepard already moving away from him to locate some place to set up shop.

Garrus moved in the opposite direction, the map was one he used frequently when he went here during his CSEC years. Industrial was the most common place he would be involved with after all while he worked on the station. Anything else would've been wasted on him, after all he was never going to be a Spectre since his father was firm on that, and leaving the Citadel to fight seemed like a far off fantasy before the war.

He found his normal small outcrop easily and settled down, settling up the rifle and opening his comm. with Shepard.

"Are you ready?"

The comm. crackled slightly before she replied with confirmation.

The simulation fired to life, and he sat there staring at the entry points, wondering and calculating which entry the enemies would be entering in this time.

After a tense couple of seconds, the right door opened and a smoke bomb flew into the centre of the room. Denoting the moment it hit the floor, and soon most of the area was covered in the dense smoke.

"That thermal scope would be so handy right now," Shepard muttered to herself, and Garrus had to agree with her, but settled for looking through his own scope and waiting.

A flash of movement in his scope, but in the second before he could pull the trigger he heard the crack of another rifle and the simulated batarian dropped out of the smoke.

"Yes," Shepard laughed, "Eat lead asshole."

Garrus quickly lined up his next shot and got it before the human could. He grinned, "Scoped and dropped."

"Is that your best line?" Shepard taunted, taking out two more rapidly.

"Oh, I can do better, but can you?"

The two traded off insults until the last of the Batarian enemies fell. When the simulated corpses flickered out and the arena reset for the second wave, he could hear Shepard move.

"Where are you going?"

"Getting a different angle," she grunted, and he heard her huffs and grunts of effort through his ear piece until her head popped up over top of the edge of his platform. The woman stared at him in surprise for a second then scowled, "You've played this map before, haven't you?"

"Guilty," he gave her a sheepish look.

"Damn," she lightly punched the floor of the platform and looked around. The VI started to count down the seconds left between the two matches. "Fuck it." Shepard climbed the rest of the way onto the platform and set herself up beside him. "I'll change locations after this round, besides; you can see a pro in action now. Maybe pick up a few pointers."

"Funny, I was about to say the same about you."

She chuckled, and turned her attention back to the arena as the next round started.

This time it was a mixture of Asari and Turians.

Their banter wasn't as frequent this round, as the difficultly ricocheted upwards. Besides the occasional cheer if they shot down an enemy the other was going for, they were practically silent and professional.

"How many do you have?"

"Twenty three, what about you?"

She got another head shot and grinned towards him, "Twenty four."

The simulations knew where they were, but due to the angle and the position of their location, it was hard for the enemies to shoot them. Below, he heard a grenade go off, and the enemy counter dropped.

"Those don't count," Garrus insisted when she opened her mouth to add them. "They weren't killed by your rifle."

"Fine, fine," she waved a hand, lining up another shot and taking down another Turian.

Garrus noticed an Asari's body glowing blue before a burst of energy shot forth. "Biotic blast incoming," he quickly ducked down.

Shepard, however, just yanked her rifle out of the way and raised her own hand which started to glow blue. She shot a blast that collided with the other one, cutting the force of the blast by more than half.

When she grabbed her rifle, she glanced at Garrus and then her eyes flickered away immediately, returning back to shooting the others.

"You're a biotic? How?" Garrus blurted out, "Humans can't be biotic naturally-"

"Later, Vakarian, you're losing by four now."

The fact of losing the bet wasn't truly enough to force his curiosity out of him, but he complied knowing that from the set of her shoulders and face she wasn't about to talk about it. Whatever happened wasn't something she wanted to talk about, at least yet. They only knew each other for a few weeks, and the time where they actually got along was shorter than that.

He resumed his previous post, and put his entire focus back into shooting down the enemy. This time, there was no banter. Just quietly tallying up their own scores, and occasionally Shepard would deflect or lessen other biotic shots with her own powers. Though he could tell she was reluctant to do so.

Perhaps while there was the smoke, she had been using her biotics, but he doubted it.

When the round ended, she packed up her rifle, and moved without saying a word to him. He saw her a few seconds later, taking up position across the room. Forcing himself to focus on the enemies, the rest of the fight went by quickly. On the last enemy, neither of them had a clear shot. He glanced up towards Shepard and saw her looking at him. "First one to take him out by hand to hand?"

"Sounds good to me."

He quickly stashed his rifle away and climbed down from his platform. The industrial map wasn't exactly large, but with all the different crates and machinery it was like a maze. Fortunately, Garrus knew approximately where their target was.

Without hesitation, he made his way around and over to where he had last seen the Asari. He employed the help of his visor to help, but mostly listened and crouched to sneak up behind the Asari. However, the moment he stepped behind the woman, she twisted around and went to use her biotics. When he ducked he heard a snap and the woman went down. Shepard dusted her hands off as the simulation was declared over and the room returned to the square box it was.

"Why didn't you use a cloak?" she asked once they were out of the arena and removing the equipment they had borrowed. "You would've probably been able to win if you had."

"I don't have one," he replied, "If I had, she probably would've noticed me. I'm not an infiltrator."

The woman hummed, but said no more of the subject.

"Speaking of the Asari," he decided to see if he could approach the subject delicately, "You're pretty good with biotics."

The woman tensed, and froze as she was putting the rifle away. "Look, Garrus," she turned towards him, "You seem like a smart and pretty decent guy, so I'm going to tell you once to drop it. I don't want to talk about it with some guy I barely know. Let's just drop the subject."

Garrus knew when pressuring someone to reveal their secrets was going to be pointless, and from the way she held herself and the furrow of her brow he could tell she wouldn't and he would probably be knocked flat on his ass. Not something that anyone should witness.

"Okay. Consider it dropped."

"Good."

"There is one thing I am curious about, not related to your biotics," he added quickly when she twirled towards him, mouth opening ready to snap at him no doubt, "Why did you defend me back there? I thought you hated me, and were just putting up with me."

Her face softened slightly to a look of contemplation. "It was for me as much as it was for you, Vakarian. They were implying something that I didn't care for, and well," she reached up and pushed some of her hair back with her left hand. Her ring catching his gaze. She didn't say anything else.

He nodded. "Thanks, Shepard…you're not bad for a human."

She laughed, "Yeah? Well, I guess you're not bad for a Turian."

"Oh? People have been telling me I'm a bad Turian for most of my life."

Another laugh, the tension easing out of her shoulders, "I can see why. The stick up your ass isn't as bad as some of the others."

"Stick up my ass?" he paused, "What does that one mean?"

"It means you're very…proper, ridged, and not flexible."

"Well, you are right, I'm not flexible, but I've got the reach."

"Then you're lucky I'm flexible," she replied back, and then the smile fell off her face and she tensed up. He stared at her in confusion as her cheeks tinted and turned away sharply to gather up her things.

He gathered up his own things, wondering why the change of demeanour. As she was logging them out, it hit him.

Did she just flirt with him?