The mission on Zorya hadn't gone as planned, to say the least. The shuttle ride back to the Normandy was filled with a tense silence, broken only by an occasional muttered curse from Zaeed as he applied medi-gel to his wounds. Having been threatened with having his sniper rifle shoved down his throat when he tried to help, Garrus had resigned himself to sitting in the cockpit with a fuming Kat. He knew better than to try to talk to her when she was angry, though he was curious as to why she was. He also thought it was a bad idea for her to be flying the shuttle at the moment, but he wasn't about to voice that particular concern.

If the shuttle ride had been intense, it was nothing compared to the elevator ride from the shuttle bay up to Deck 3. Kelly had the unfortunate luck of being on her way back from lunch when the elevator doors opened. If looks could kill, she would have been dead a thousand times over from the look thrown her way by Kat as she stalked out of the elevator towards the med-bay, Zaeed and Garrus following close behind. As he'd made it through the mission relatively unscathed, the turian escaped to the sanctuary of the Forward Battery as quickly as possible.

Zaeed's injuries weren't as severe as he had initially believed, but Dr. Chakwas ordered him to be left out of the rotation on the next few missions just to be safe. Kat nodded curtly and stalked out of the med-bay without a word. By the time he'd made it up to Deck 1, her armor was scattered across the floor and she was lying on the bed, facing the wall, clearly in an attempt to ignore him.

He didn't care. "Kat, look at me," he said firmly as he began removing his own armor.

When she didn't respond, he limped across the room and sat on the edge of the bed. She shied away from the hand he put on her shoulder and he sighed heavily.

"It wasn't your fault," he said, shifting further on to the bed.

"Was," she muttered angrily.

"I was the one who triggered the bloody explosion. You did what you had to in order to save the factory workers."

She sat up against the headboard and brought her knees up to her chest. "And if I hadn't been there, you would have found some sneaky way to get in without blowing up the factory."

"Maybe," he said as he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. "Or I would have done the same goddamn thing and a hell of a lot of innocents would have died."

She shook her head. "You're not heartless."

"Under normal circumstances, I might agree with that," he muttered against her hair. "But if I'd been on my own, I would have been solely focused on killing Vido. Wouldn't have spared a second glance at the workers."

"Why did you agree to let me help with Vido?" she asked after awhile. "That day I came to see you on the Citadel-"

He silenced her with a kiss. "I realized that you needed me. If that meant putting off killing Vido for a few weeks, so be it. And this isn't the first time I've found and lost him. I've been hunting the son of a bitch for twenty years. I'll find him again." He cupped her face in his hands. "After we defeat the Collectors."


The Normandy made an emergency trip to Tuchanka after Grunt began tearing up his quarters. They needed to find out why, and fix it fast.

"I'm sorry, Wrex. You're gonna have to repeat that," Kat said as she gawked at the former bounty hunter. "I could have sworn you just said Grunt was... becoming a teenager."

Wrex chuckled. "That's exactly what I said, Shepard."

"That's just great." She shook her head. "That's all we need, a hormonal teenager."

"Aww look, your little baby is growing up so fast," Joker said with a smirk.

Kat glared at him and he went to hide behind Garrus, who was doubled over with laughter.

"Relax, Shepard." Wrex patted her on the back so hard her knees buckled. "He just needs to go through the Rite of Passage and he'll be back to-"

"Being a giant killing machine."

He grinned. "Exactly."


Zaeed had an intense sense of foreboding as he watched Kat leaving with Grunt and Garrus. He glanced over at Wrex. "So what does Grunt have to do in this Rite?" he asked more casually than he felt.

The krogan shrugged. "There's three rounds they have to survive. First two are standard. Most anyone would get from that are a few bites from the varren, a burn or two if they get too close to the klixen."

"And the third?"

"Thresher maw."

Zaeed shot up out of his seat. "Fuck!"

"Sit down before you hurt yourself again, Massani," Wrex snapped. "She's not going in blind. I remember how much trouble she had with the maws we fought back a couple of years ago. So I warned her about the third round. Only one it needs to be a surprise for is Grunt. And Garrus is with her. This isn't Akuze."

"I know that," Zaeed growled. He hated waiting around, unable to do anything. By the time Grunt's Rite was over, the mercenary was well on his way to wearing a pattern into the rock of Wrex's dais and his leg felt like it was about to fall off.

All three looked like they'd been through hell but didn't appear to be physically injured. Kat headed to the ship without so much as a glance in Zaeed's direction. When Garrus headed that way as well, he pulled him aside.

"What the hell happened out there?"

Garrus shook his head. "Nothing."

"What do you mean nothing?"

"I mean nothing happened," the turian repeated as they began walking towards the shuttle. "She didn't so much as flinch when the thresher maw came out of the ground. She just shoved us both behind a wall, well as much as you can shove a krogan, and pulled out the Arc Projector. We couldn't do much more than just follow her from point to point. Damn thing was dead in about a minute and a half."

"Shit. Any idea why she went back to the ship so suddenly?"

"She's going back out, with Mordin to find his missing student. So I'm gonna guess she's swapping out her armor or her weapons. We all got hit a few times by klixen fire."

"Going out again?" Zaeed shook his head. "This is not going to end well."

By the time Zaeed and Garrus made it to the Normandy, Kat was ready to head back to Wrex's camp. They followed her into the shuttle, hoping to get her to say something, anything at all, but she blatantly ignored both of them. The moment the shuttle was on the ground, she was heading out to talk to Wrex's scout leader, to see what information he had on Mordin's missing student. And then they were gone. Alone.

Hours later, they came back exactly as they'd left, just the two of them with no sign of the salarian they'd gone out to find. Zaeed wondered what the hell had happened out there as neither was in a mood to talk, which said something in itself. Normally, Mordin never stopped talking.

Instead, the doctor headed straight for the shuttle, while Kat said a quick good-bye to Wrex and ordered everyone back to the ship. They were finally headed back to Omega.