Chapter 28: A very long day.

The asari archeologist stood there, in the hangar of the Normandy, the blue glow of her biotic powers surrounding her entire surface, and extending a few centimeters beyond it. The light she produced was distinguishable in the dim illumination of the hangar.

Opposing the asari, a few meters away, stood a female woman and a male turian, both soldiers, both veterans of war. Both tense and ready to reply to the attack of the Shadow Broker if necessary, but neither wanting to harm her if it could be avoided. Liara's words still resonated in Shepard's mind: "Garrus Vakarian, how dared you!?".

"Liara, please calm down," said the Commander using a conciliatory tone. She tried to impress her voice with all the persuasion she was capable of.

"I'm not talking to you, Shepard," replied the asari upset, her threatening attitude not receding a millimeter.

"No, but I was there," insisted Melody moving her head slightly, "and you'd probably agree with us if you had been there too."

"Agree with what?" asked T'Soni bitterly. "With turians and humans bullying the entire galaxy?"

"If you just let us explain..." pleaded Garrus. From his body language, Shepard could infer that he really didn't want to hurt the asari, even less that the Commander wanted it herself.

"Fine, explain," said Liara categorically. She dropped her right arm and even opened her hand, that had been turned into a fist a moment before. She stood still facing them, and the blue glow around her started to fade until it disappeared. Her face was still contorted by anger and her blue eyes glared as if they could expel fire, but at least she wasn't ready to attack. Shepard also relaxed a little.

"The Dalatrass and Matriarch Codas," started Garrus with a steady tone, "were dangerously mistrustful of other races. They refused giving them new embassies and even said accepting the humans into the Council was a mistake. Their attitude would have led to a new war with the krogan, and we can't just betray them."

"Wrex believes that the salarians are working on something worse than the genophage," stepped in Shepard, raising her hands. "And you know what? I believe that too. And so should you, T'Soni. You were with us on Sur'Kesh, saw the experiments they were doing with the yahg, how they planned to uplift them."

"'Full deniability'," quoted Garrus from what the three of them had heard from the salarians logs more than half a year before. "We don't want to associate with people that still don't want to believe there is a chance of us working together, even after everything that happened."

"I..." started Liara doubtful, lowering her head a little, "that's not what I was told. The Matriarch is saying that the turians and the humans want the asari to resign our independence."

"That's not true," replied Vakarian shaking his head. "None of us is resigning our governments and the right to decide for ourselves. We did say we wanted a stronger Council, one with more power to decide on its own over galactic matters, things that affected all of us. But you know why we want that. You know what Shepard saw, and even if the Reapers didn't come back, there could be other threats and the previous Council wasn't prepared to respond to them fast enough."

"They kept saying that they didn't want the Council to decide for them," said Shepard shrugging, "and that wasn't even what was on the table, but they wouldn't listen."

"Well," said Liara taking a few steps to her right, and then back to her previous position, "it is true that if the Council had more power and independence, we'd have to resign some of our own..."

"You mean, like not hiding prothean beacons from the rest?" asked Shepard bitterly. "Who knows what other little secrets your people are hiding to preserve your superiority."

"That's not true, Shepard!" yelled the asari, leaning forward a little bit, her eyes glaring again.

"Isn't it?" insisted the Commander. "Don't think like an asari for a minute. Think like the Shadow Broker. Now tell me again I'm lying."

"I..." once again Liara lowered her head and began stumbling with the words. She took breath and raised her arms a few times, and then dropped them. After a minute of two of total silence, she said, "Perhaps we hid things, but we were the first species to discover the Citadel in this cycle. We created the Council, we shaped it... we cannot be expelled from it!"

"Fine, we'll call ourselves the 'Group' or the 'Gathering' or something," said Garrus, sarcasm dripping from his tone. "It doesn't change how we feel. If what happened doesn't change the galaxy I don't know what can. We were only offering more cooperation and unity, but if that gets in the asari's way, we'll let you do whatever the hell you want. Just don't cry for help later."

"You don't have to talk to me like that, Garrus," complained Liara glaring at him.

"I won't apologize for saying what I think," replied the turian crossing his arms over his chest.

"We're going nowhere," said Shepard also crossing her arms, her eyes shifting from her turian companion to the asari archeologist. "Liara, if you want to be upset there's nothing I can do about it. I just hope you'll still cooperate with Admiral Hackett, because Cerberus is a common enemy."

"Of course I will," said the asari raising both her hands in annoyance. "I gave my word, and won't go back on it. I..." she added shaking her head. "I need time, Shepard. I need to think about the things you told me," after a brief pause, she said, "I think I'll also try to find out if something else's going on."

"I understand, Liara," said the Commander dropping her arms to her sides.

T'Soni walked past the turian and the human, and both remained silent long after the asari had disappeared on her way out, staring at the exit of the hangar.

"What a long day," finally commented Shepard letting go a sigh. Her eyes went back to the Normandy, standing tall before them. Her own spaceship, and for the galaxy the symbol of survival. "Wanna go home?" she asked the turian standing next to her, with half a smile crossing her face.

"I thought you'd never ask," replied Vakarian and he started walking towards the entrance of the ship.

The cargo bay was empty. They took the elevator straight to their chamber. They didn't say it, but none wanted to talk with any more people that day. Not even with Joker, even if the pilot had only funny remarks to make.

They were mentally exhausted, because none of them was truly a politician, but the circumstances pushed them to play a decisive role in galactic configuration. Shepard wouldn't admit though, not to Garrus and not even to herself, that she felt partly responsible for the galactic fate, and that a part of her thought that other people couldn't do it as well as she could. After all, she hadn't decided on the turians and humans parting ways with the salarians and asari, but she had been insisting that other races should be taken in consideration. She even planted that idea in more than one mind. And when the meetings themselves took place, some of the representatives of other alien species trusted them because Shepard was involved. She didn't want to think about any of that, she didn't want to realize what she had just done. Not yet.

The Commander took off her shoes upon entering her chamber, and walked towards her bed. She dropped herself on it, using a pillow to keep her head partially lifted. She could see Garrus taking his armor off until he had nothing but the suit he wore underneath. He removed even his visor. The turian walked to the bed, and laid down on his side, looking at Melody. She turned on the bed so she could be face to face with him.

"Garrus," she whispered, lightly caressing the scarred side of his face, that was the side not pressed against the pillow.

"Want to talk about something that's not of galactic importance?" asked the turian caressing in turn her face and head. His hand traveled to the back of her head, removing the band that held her hair tied. He started playing with strands of her hair.

"Yes please," she replied in a soft tone, slightly louder than a whisper. "Tell me something about your childhood on Palaven."

"My childhood?" asked Garrus, chuckling. After a moment, he said, "Fine. Remember how I told you my father was strict, how he always kept pushing me to do things right?"

"Yes," replied the Commander, lowering her hand to caress his chest. "One of the first times we talked, you told me he says 'Do things right, or don't do them at all'."

"I remember when I told you that," said Vakarian in a lower tone. "It was on the cargo bay inside the first Normandy, before I had the scars... before you... died..."

"Don't turn nostalgic on me," she said, chuckling lightly. It was all too personal with Garrus and a part of her loved it, but the rest still didn't feel comfortable. Nobody had ever been that close to her, and she wasn't used to it.

"You started it, asking me to tell you something about my childhood," joked the turian. His finger traced one of the scars on her face, one of the visible reminders of the Battle of the Crucible on her face. "Anyway," he shook his head slightly over the pillow, "I have some good memories with my father from my childhood. Well, with my mother too, but she was always kind to me. She wanted me be a good person, but as long as I was she encouraged me to do whatever I wanted, instead of what 'was right'. The good memories with my father are very few, and that's probably why I treasure them... is that unfair?"

"Not at all," replied the Commander softly. "It's only natural that we have different relationships with our parents, they're different people."

"Anyway," continued Garrus as if he was removing some invisible ghosts from his head, "I remember this one time he took me hunting. I was probably four, five years old. Where I was born, it is customary for parents to take their children to hunt certain animals that live in the area. It's normally a father-son or mother-daughter activity. These animals aren't very dangerous, so we hunt them with our bare hands. They breed really fast and could become a plague, so it's a sport. Also, their taste is delicious. Normally you can find a few places to cook them around the hunting areas.

"Well, after tracking down a certain specimen for almost two hours, we finally cornered it and my father told me to attack it. I was happy because it was my first prey, he had taken me before but he had killed the game. Anyway, I was very inexperienced and one of my talons hooked between two of the animal's plaques. The animal was scared and cornered, so it bit me on the arm and I screamed. My father drew a side pistol and shot it on its head. He immediately came to check on my hand and arm, and bandaged me. I was embarrassed because I couldn't kill it and because I had screamed, but my father said 'good hunt' and he grabbed the prey. When we were eating it, among other groups of parents and their children, he told everyone that I just had my first hunt."

"That was great of him," commented Shepard getting closer to him. "I would treasure that memory too."

"What about yourself?" Garrus asked smiling. "Have any memories you want to share with this guy from another planet?"

"What does it matter where you're from? Planets are not my thing."

"Sure, Melody, do what you always do," he said feigning annoyance. "Get everyone to talk about themselves and never share anything personal."

"Fine!" she said, chuckling, "I think I will tell you the story of the first time I wore a dress. I was nine years old, and the Captain of the ship decided to celebrate Christmas."

"Christmas?" asked Vakarian, perplexed.

"It's a..." tried to explain the Commander, moving her hand as if trying to search for the words. "Well, it started like a religious celebration, but now it's a tradition in many places on Earth even if you aren't religious. Which we weren't."

"Oh," said Garrus, nodding slightly with his head over the pillow.

"Everybody was dressing up," she continued, while caressing his chest again, "because they all had very little chances of doing that. We had few celebrations on board, some people hadn't had a real party for years. That year we were in orbit around a safe colony and the Captain thought it was time to give everyone a break. When he announced the party, for some reason my father decided he would buy a dress for me.

"I guess you can imagine how I looked at it. I had seen dresses only in pictures, because colony women and Alliance personnel don't use them. The thing was blue and white, with ribbons and lace and everything else that's considered 'pretty' for little girls to wear. I remember my mother staring at him like he had lost his mind, but my father pleaded: 'Please, Melody, at least try it on. You don't have to use it for the party if you don't like it.' Of course I did what he said, because I wanted to see him happy. His smile was so wide when he saw me with it, that I decided to keep it on.

"However, after the dinner and the toast, I got really bored. There were a couple other children on board, most of them sons and daughters of garrisoned soldiers. Anyway, we decided to organize a treasure hunt. It's a game where someone hides an object and the rest have to search for it. The winner is whomever finds it first, and gets to keep the object."

"Sounds like fun," commented Garrus, absorbed in her story. She could tell for the way he looked at her.

"Oh, it's really fun!" she exclaimed. "We searched through the entire ship. We got into maintenance tubes, the engine room, even the armory because I'd spied when someone was entering the codes earlier. I won the game, but as you can imagine, when we went back to the party my dress was nothing but rags and scraps. My father looked at me, started laughing and said: 'Well, I guess you're not a dresses kind of girl.' And you know what? The second time in my life I wore a dress, was when Kasumi Goto insisted on it, because she needed me to infiltrate a party."

"I don't suppose you kept a picture?" he asked, mischievous.

"Why should you care?" she said in turn, rolling over her side until she was on top of him. "It's not like you could feel attracted by what I wear..."

"You're right," he replied, playing with the clasps of her uniform, with a grin on his face, "I feel more attracted by what you don't wear."

"Really, Garrus?" she asked, chuckling and letting him remove the upper part of her formal uniform. "A turian liking the body of a human?" She used the tone she normally employed when she was teasing, and she knew Garrus understood it.

"Huh?" he asked as if waking up from a dream. His steel-blue eyes focused on hers, and she could feel the intensity of his desire. "Acquired taste," he murmured, gently placing a hand on one of her breasts.