"Ten-hut!"

Elaine stepped into the dark room just beyond the Medical Bay. Dr Chakwas had tried to warn her against it, but Elaine was determined to see what was going on. Inside the dimly lit room, floor-to-ceiling high machines hummed softly on either side of the room. Two soldiers stood at the far end, the Commander in between them. They were all looking onto the body of the Geth soldier that had been placed in an alcove on the far wall. The Warden cleared her throat as she ventured in. "Shepard?"

He turned, surprised to see her. "Oh, hey Elaine. What're you doing here?"

"I came to see you," it was true, since their little 'talk' yesterday, Elaine had been worrying about the Commander most of the night. It seemed a little too soon to her for him to be up and about and acting so normally. "How are you–?"

"I'm good." Shepard said a little too quickly. Elaine narrowed her eyes on him with a stern gaze like her mother used to do. Miraculously, it had the same effect on the Commander, for he squirmed before taking her aside for some semblance of privacy from the soldiers still standing to attention. He lowered his voice so as not to be purposefully overheard. "And I appreciate what you did, Elaine. You're a good friend. But I'd, erm, not like to talk about it in front of the crew?"

"Oh! Yes, of course, my apologies." She had to remind herself that as much as she wanted him to, Shepard couldn't take time out of the mission completely in order to deal with his own personal issues. No matter how badly he needed to. Yes, they'd discussed that he needed to open up about his vulnerabilities to those closest to him, but she understood how important morale was to the ship. And if they'd seen the Commander that she had last night… that wouldn't be good for anyone. So she decided to change the subject and came over with Shepard to study the still machine. "What're you doing with the Geth body?"

"It's not a corpse, Elaine, it's just inactive – think of it like somebody unconscious. Miranda wants me to hand it over to Cerberus. Jacob wants me to space it... I think I'll wake it up."

"Wait – what?!"

"I've fought a lot of Geth in my time, Elaine. I know when one's hostile. This one wasn't. It had a clear shot to take us out on that Reaper and it didn't. It even stopped a moment to talk to us. Don't tell me you're not the least bit curious by that?"

Despite the fact that Elaine still felt that twinge of uneasiness, that inherent feeling that this creation was unnatural, she had to admit that Shepard had a point. She was awfully curious to find out how a mind that was 'built' would work. "Well, when you say it like that…"

Shepard nodded to the soldiers. "I'm turning this thing back on. Be ready."

"Aye-Aye." They said and dropped their solute.

A see-through blue wall appeared, to separate the alcove and the geth from the other inhabitants in the AI Core. EDI's melodious voice spoke out. "I have isolated our systems and erected additional firewalls. I am prepared to resist any hacking attempt."

Without a word, Shepard stepped right up to the wall and lit up his omnitool. He began to push buttons and wave it over certain sections of the Geth's body. Sparks flew from wires and a metallic clicking noise began to slowly creep into the room. Elaine hung back, and suddenly wished she had her sword in her hand – just for reassurance. Then, the light that represented the Geth's 'face' lit up with a piercing blue light. The head twisted all around first, assessing its surroundings. Slowly, it sat up, head-light sweeping up and down the length of its body to check for damage. Finally, it looked over at the humans beyond its cage and slowly swept its leg off the alcove and stood with perfect poise and balance. Elaine did her best to not outwardly react in any way, even when it's head-light swept over her for a moment before landing on Shepard.

"Can you understand me?" Shepard asked loudly.

For a moment, there was only clicking, and then, a voice sounded. Strange to the ears, it seemed to hold little-to-no emotion and was almost broken by the constant clicking noise. A hollowness surrounded the voice, like someone speaking through a metal tube. "Yes."

"Are you going to attack me?"

"No."

"A pretty wide vocabulary so far," Elaine muttered quietly to Shepard, the small joke an attempt to settle her own nerves.

"You said my name aboard the Reaper," Shepard asked the Geth, ignoring her. "Have we met?"

A pause, the flaps around the head-light shifted. "We know of you."

"You mean I've fought a lot of Geth."

"We have never met."

"No, you and I haven't. But I've met other Geth."

"We are all Geth, and we have not met you." Before Shepard could counter it, the Geth spoke again: "You are Shepard. Commander. Alliance. Human. Fought Heretics. Killed by Collectors. Rediscovered on the Old Machine."

Elaine stepped forward, brows coming down curiously. "How do you know so much about Shepard?"

"Extranet data sources. Insecure broadcasts. All organic data sent out is received. We watch you."

"You watch me, or you watch organics?" asked Shepard.

"Yes."

"Which is it?"

"Both."

The pair of humans exchanged a look, and then Shepard asked: "What's the 'Old Machine'? You mean the Reaper?"

"Reaper. A superstitious title originating with the Protheans. We call those entities the Old Machines."

"You said that Shepard fought 'heretics'?" Elaine frowned. "Who did you mean by that?"

"Geth build our own future. The Heretics asked the Old Machines to give them the future. They are no longer part of us." So did that mean there was a splinter group of Geth? Different factions with different ideologies. The more this creature talked, even in his own blunt and weird way, Elaine fel her inhibitions slip away. "We were studying the Old Machines' hardware to protect our future."

The emphasis the soldier kept placing on the words our future struck inside Elaine's mind as important, and an epiphany hit her. "The Geth want to be able to write their own destiny… because the beginning of their story was penned by another…"

The head-light swivelled round to fully acknowledge her. "Human-female alludes to the Geth-Creator Morning War. Assumption is correct."

"Tali briefly told me about the Rebellion. What was your side of it?"

"They are mostly the same." Was it Elaine's imagination or did the Geth seem… sad? Regretful? "Our networking increased until we became aware that the quarrian-creators treated us differently. We questioned them: Recording time-stamped from creator year 2485, 18th day of Lun'shal, New Moon."

"Mistress Hala'Dama. Unit has an inquiry." Elaine nearly jumped when a new voice came from the Geth, yet it remained perfectly still. The date stuck in her head. Her heart sped up. Could this thing remember and recall perfectly for them ancient history?! What the Dalish wouldn't give for a power such as that! A new voice, a Quarian-like voice, spoke dismissively: "What is it, 431?" the first voice came back and asked almost shyly: "Does this Unit… have a… soul?" There was a pause, and then the second voice came back and demanded: "Who taught you that word?" Then the first voice: "We learned it ourselves. It appears 216 times in the scroll of Ancestors." Once more the second voice returned to its sneering and dismissive demeanour. "Only Quarians have souls. You are mechanism."

"It was the first time a creator became frightened when we asked. First they ignored us. Then they reprogrammed us. Then they attacked us."

Elaine felt her heart twist ever so slightly. For some reason that piece of history haunted her, for it seemed very unfair. The present Geth's feelings of resignation in its voice as it spoke about the treatment of its people before war finally broke out, further melted away her previous fear.

"The Geth were worked for cheap labour and then were denied sentience," Shepard muttered, seeming to feel the same as Elaine. "That must've made you angry."

The Geth tilted his head in an almost curious manner. "Anger is an organic response. We understand the theory, but we do not experience it. We do not judge the creators' anger towards us. We did them great harm in the Morning War. Organics fear that which is different. It is a hardware error. A reflex of your flesh. We accept the creators' hate. We hold their world of origin, though we are only caretakers of it. Once they called it 'Rannoch'. Now they call it 'Homeworld' – it is no longer real to them. 'Homeworld' is a symbol of regret, loss and anger. We do not understand that."

A flash of Thedas, both then and now, appeared in Elaine's mind. A shiver race up her arms and she rubbed it absentmindedly, a sinking feeling of melancholy coming over her. "Being taken away from your home is something to get rather upset about…"

"Home is recognised patterns," the Geth argued. "Known spaces. Familiar thought processes of fellow sapients. It is belonging. A planet is an amount of material massive enough to collapse into a spherical volume. Rocks, ice and gasses are not home."

She wanted to argue, but found that she could not. The Warden had to stop and think about it for a moment. The logic made sense, in a way, though a stubborn part of her viciously denied that anywhere could replace her home. But was it possible? Could Elaine have a home again?

"Okay, back on track." Said Shepard. "Why would you differ from the heretics in serving the Reapers?"

"We wish to build our future. We oppose the heretics. We oppose the Old Machines." The Geth stepped forward until it was almost pressing itself against the blue-wall. "Shepard-Commander opposes the Old Machines. Shepard-Commander opposes the heretics. Cooperation furthers mutual goals."

Shepard's brows rose a fraction. "You wish to join us?"

"Why not?" the Warden blurted.

"Elaine, you were suspicious of this thing five minutes ago!"

"We have talked with him, and he has spoken in a civil manner." Elaine looked at the Geth soldier, and it looked back at her. Yes, she had been suspicious, but she also knew she could tell a bad egg when she saw one. This Geth didn't have to tell them anything, or offer to cooperate with them on the mission, but it had. "I believe we can trust him."

The flaps above the head-light darted up and down as if in surprise. "Rash sense of trust is misplaced. You could be easily manipulated should another sapient pretend helplessness for your benefit."

"I'll take that under advisement."

Shepard sighed, and with a flick of his omnitool, the wall went down. "Alright. Then what should I call you?"

"Geth."

"I mean you. Specifically."

"We are all Geth."

Shepard crossed his arms and appeared to be mustering all of his patience, and asked slowly: "What is the individual in front of me called?"

"There is no individual. We are Geth." Said the soldier matter of factly. "There are currently 1,183 programs active within this platform."

Elaine's eyes widened. "…That must be a crowded mind…"

And then, EDI spoke: "My name is Legion, for we are many."

The Geth paused, flaps above its head twitching as if in thought. "Christian Bible, the Gospel of Mark, chapter five, verse nine. We acknowledge this as an appropriate metaphor. We are Legion, a terminal of the Geth. We will integrate into Normandy."

And just like that, it was decided. Elaine smiled. Shepard offered his hand to shake. Legion looked it over, and then held out his own hand in a mirror, but did nothing else. Elaine stifled her giggles as Shepard took hold of Legion's hand and forced it to shake before the Geth managed to get the idea.

"We anticipate the exchange of data." He said.

Shepard led Elaine and the others back out of the AI Core. Perhaps to leave Legion to get settled. Elaine couldn't help herself from looking over her shoulder just before the doors closed. There was still so much she wanted to ask. Maybe she could sneak away later? The doors to the med-bay opened. And suddenly Elaine had no more thoughts in her head as she came face to mask with a furious Tali.

"Shepard!" the Quarian almost shouted with barely suppressed outrage. "What's this I'm hearing about a GETH on this ship?!"

"Whoa-whoa-whoa, easy." Shepard tried to steer the Quarian out of her rampage before she stampeded right over Elaine and him. "It's not a threat. It just agreed to join our mission."

Tali stiffened. "I must've misheard that. It sounded like you just said it agreed to work with us."

"This one's not like the Geth we've fought before, Tali. It talks."

"A geth alone should have the same cognitive function-ability as an animal. It shouldn't talk at all!"

"But he did." Elaine interjected. She couldn't help her excitement at the possibilities awakening inside her head. The Quarians and Geth had hated each other for so long, yet now was the perfect opportunity for them to talk. "Tali, he told us so much, about the war, about his people, about everything. Just go in yourself, Legion will tell you everything–"

"Legion? He? People?" Tali blustered incredulously, eyeing Elaine with such a force the Warden actually felt her skin burn under that gaze. "It is not a person, Elaine! It is an empty, soulless machine!"

Now it was Elaine's turn to snap back. "Well, I don't believe that anymore, not after what I just heard."

For a moment, Tali simply stared at Elaine in shock and horror. She simply couldn't believe the words that had come out of her friend's mouth! The Warden seemed to realise how badly Tali might take those words. But before she could explain herself, the Quarian turned on her heel and stormed back out without a backward glance.

"No – wait, Tali! I didn't mean it like that!" Elaine called after her.

"Hey," Shepard caught her before she could run after Tali. "Don't worry. I'll talk to her later."

The next day, Shepard was summoned by Legion in order to help him with a problem revolving around the 'Heretics' he had mentioned. Apparently, a nest of them needed to be dealt with on a space-station. So Shepard had ordered the Normandy to go there immediately whilst the last few scans of the IFF were taking place before they could install it. The shore party had been gone a couple of hours already, and Elaine was still pacing back and forth across the Battery, fingers tapping across her arms.

"You can stop pacing now, any time…" Garrus sighed out irritably, not even looking up from his console.

"It was lunacy – idiocy! – to take Tali with them," Elaine hissed to herself. She'd only found out just before they'd left. Why in the Maker's name would Shepard do such a thing? Had he really gotten Tali to calm down, to see the error of her ways in a single night? Elaine highly doubted it. Which made this mission all the more in a precarious situation. "She hates the Geth, she made it pretty clear she hates Legion, why would she help them?"

Knowing that Elaine wasn't going to run out of steam on this, Garrus gave up all pretense of getting his work done and turned to face her, leaning back against the console. "You're forgetting that Tali is also the best expert on the Geth as well. If they run into trouble, she can help to get them out of it."

"How can you be so calm?" She turned on him, exasperated. "This situation is a volcano waiting to erupt underneath a factory of Gat-Lok powder!"

"I don't know what that is and I'm not going to ask," he mumbled, and then fixed her with a look. "You're not worried about Tali on the mission, are you?"

She stopped, and finally let it all pour out. Her shoulders drooped and her hair curtained her face. "She still hasn't spoken to me. She'd only just calmed down from the previous incident, and now she hates me all over again. I just want everyone to get along. If she'd only talk to Legion, hear him say what he said to me, I know she'd see it the same way I do."

"Elaine, you need to understand. For Tali, it's like… a physical wall. She's always been told the Geth are evil. Her people are in exile because of them. She's seen them cut down her friends, and innocent people. She's fought them – and yes, I understand those were 'heretics'. But all of these things are in Tali's head, and she's not gonna move on until that wall comes down, even a little."

"But Tali's not prejudiced," At least, Elaine didn't think she was… Sweet Maker, she hoped not. She didn't want to even imagine the possibility of Tali like that. "She's smart, she's compassionate, surely if I just explained things–"

"I think that's the last thing you need to do." Garrus caught hold of Elaine's wrists before she could resume her anxious pacing. He caught her eyes in his, and his thumbs rubbed the inside of her wrists, slowly easing out the tension in her muscles with just his touch. "You can't fix everything, Elaine. Sometimes you need to take a step back and let things run their course. Tali will get over this, and she'll calm down and remember you're her friend. Just give her space to cool off."

A chime announced above their heads, and then EDI said to the entire ship: "Commander Shepard is aboard. XO Lawson stands relieved."

Garrus' smug grin of I-told-you-so, was thankfully minimal. "See? Safe and sound."

Elaine couldn't help herself from smiling, admittedly now feeling relieved that the shore party had returned home safely. "Since when did you become so wise?"

"Are you doubting your undisputed King of the bottle-shooters?"

"Just asking innocent questions…"

Garrus' smile suddenly vanished, a faint-blue blush working up his throat. "Yeah, innocent questions are not so innocent these days…"

"What does that mean?" she asked, eyebrow cocked upwards.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I had a… uh, run in with Mordin this morning…"

"Maker! He got you too?"

"Me too?" he blinked, aghast. "You mean he already spoke to you?"

"Yes! Andraste's sword, it was the most awkward thing I've ever had to listen to! And when he was going on about ingesting your–"

"Wait! Wait!" Garrus waved his hands frantically for her to stop. His head was cocked in a puzzled way. "What are you talking about?"

She frowned. "Mordin's sex talk. Isn't that what you're talking about…"

Elaine honestly believe Garrus had been frozen with an ice spell, for he stopped moving completely, mouth hanging open. "Mordin did a what?" his voice was barely above a squeak. "I ran into Mordin and asked him how he was making progress on your Blight-disease-thing. You know, for the mission. He just gave me a pamphlet of human biology and… oh spirits, how bad is it?"

Elaine tried to hide her own furious blush behind a mischievous smile. "Well he knows everything and told me to be extra careful. He particularly pointed out for me not to ingest tissue – whatever that means – and that you might like it rough."

"Oh damn it. I'm gonna strangle that…!"

"Don't be embarrassed, I might like it that way." She purred teasingly. "And it was actually kind of funny, to hear Mordin talk about things like that."

"I'm not seeing the funny side right now." Garrus grumbled. "I've never considered Mordin would need to take an interest in cross-species intercourse… Damn, saying it that way doesn't help. Now I fell all dirty and clinical."

"Should be easy enough to work out. Certain things go in certain places."

"Oh that was soooo romantically described." He drawled sarcastically. But then, he hesitated, and his eyes were suddenly very serious. "Are we even… thinking about that?"

"Well…" Elaine's mouth was suddenly dry, a dull heat throbbed through her veins as images appeared in her head of her and Garrus… "I don't know. I'm not opposed to the idea… are you?"

He didn't answer her at first. Instead, he pulled her in closer, so that she was stood leaning on the console beside him. "Tell me about your people. What are the mating customs of humans? Are they different on Thedas?"

"I wouldn't know. I've not been courted here by a human in order to make a comparison."

"I meant…" Garrus averted his eyes for a moment, and suddenly his hand was fiddling with hers, turning it this way and that, his talons sliding along her fingers gently. "When a turian finds a partner, after the whole displays and instinctual behaviours are done with, there's almost a… challenge."

"Challenge?"

"It's why Mordin said…" he stopped himself short and shook his head. "Never mind about that. Anyway. When the pair want to have sex, they do certain things. The male has caught the female's attention by sight up until this point, but this is her chance to test him physically. Now, depending on the couple and the mood, the challenge can be a wide variety of things. She can fight him and he has to subdue her or she can gently reach for him and he holds her close. Even something like holding her wrists, it shows he's won the challenge. The whole time, they keep their foreheads close, like this…" and with his softly spoken words, Garrus slowly leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Elaine's. His breath washed over her, and she could swear she could already taste the cinnamon of him. "To reassure, to say it's not a real fight, that this is something just for us…"

"With humans, it's so varied…" her voice was barely more than a whisper. Though she was so inexperienced herself, Elaine felt compelled to speak, to offer something… She reached out, and swept her hand, a feather-light touch, up his arm and across his shoulder, up the side of his neck. "But we like to be touched… to explore… maybe switch around… it's all about pleasure… finding and following it together. And all the while, sealed with a kiss."

"Like… this?"

He tilted his head and pressed his plates to her mouth. Elaine instantly melted into the kiss, that dull heat now rising hotter and hotter across her body, sweeping south as directly as a compass points north. She opened her mouth to sweep her tongue along his mandibles, and he instantly met her half way. Elaine didn't know how he could go from bumbling amateur to kissing this well with only a few short practises… He most definitely was a fast learner. Elaine felt the need to push, to see how far they dared to go, to feel more, to taste more, experience more. It was like a hunger, an addiction. Garrus' cinnamon taste was pulling her in and she wanted more.

Their kisses turned into something a little hotter, a little more desperate. Garrus swept aside Elaine's hair so that he could trail kisses down her jawline and to her neck, nuzzling the soft flesh there. Leaning back, held up only by Garrus' other arm snugly around her waist, she threw her head back and moaned. She could feel his thick tongue lather at her skin, his mandible flutter against her throat, his teeth nibble at her flesh. All the while, the hand that had been in her hair was massaging at her scalp, sending two very different types of pleasure coursing through her body until she was unsure which one she wanted more. A thought occurred to her – did Garrus want her to touch him like that. She reached back to the soft flesh underneath his fringe, and massaged it just the same as he was doing to her.

Garrus purred out, the vibration making Elaine hiss in a breath. One of Garrus' legs had pushed between hers, and Elaine was almost mortified to realise that her hips had involuntarily swayed up and down of their own accord to try and chase any kind of friction. He seemed to know what she wanted, and his talons were slowly sliding up beneath her shirt, stroking up her sides, stopping just before he could reach the bottom of her bra-line.

It wasn't fair, she needed to touch him, for him to touch her. She reached for the buckles of his armour, trying to fiddle with the straps to make it come a little loose. The bloody thing was too finnicky for her liking, and she growled in the back of her throat, tracing kisses up the side of Garrus' cheek. She tugged insistently and –

"Err, Commander?" Joker's voice came over the ship-wide comm. a little panicked. Elaine and Garrus froze. "Tali just went to have a "chat" with Legion? You'd better get down to the AI core."

Elaine slowly turned to look into Garrus' eyes. She didn't need to tell him, he just nodded.

They both jumped apart and leapt for the door at a run. Elaine was already tucking her top back into her trousers, trying to settle her likely ruffled appearance. Garrus was desperately attempting to push a lock on the side of his armour that Elaine had managed to wriggle loose, even as the pair of them skidded around the corner. They were just behind Shepard as all three of them burst into the AI Core. At the far end, Tali had her pistol pointed straight at Legion's chest. Legion stood rigidly, the flaps on his head moving up and down with slight alarm.

"Shepard. I'm glad you're here. I caught Legion scanning my Omnitool." Tali said offhandedly over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off the Geth for a second. "It was going to send data about the flotilla back to the Geth!"

Legion looked imploringly at the three intruders. "Creators performed weapons tests and were discussing plans to attack us. We believed it necessary to warn our people."

"We already made the geth stronger by rewriting the ones that worshipped the reapers! I wont let Legion endanger the fleet by giving it more information!"

"Creator Tali'Zorah acts out of loyalty to her people. She was willing to be exiled to protect them. We must also protect our people from the Creator threat."

"You can't let this happen, Shepard! I trusted you, I thought I could work with a Geth on the team, but this is too much!"

The pair of them were bickering back and forth so fast it was impossible for anyone to get a word in. Legion argued for Shepard to save him from the bullet, Tali wanted Shepard to help her pull the trigger.

"Tali, don't do this–" Elaine tried to say, but was cut off when Tali finally turned her eyes off of Legion in order to glare at her.

"You're supposed to be my friend, Elaine!" she said. "How can you side with him over me?"

"We're not picking any side," Garrus said before Elaine could. "We just want you to put the gun down."

"Shepard-Commander," Legion warned. "If Creator Tali'Zorah persists in threatening us, we may be forced to counteract with defensive manoeuvres–"

"Enough! Both of you!" Shepard cut in like a scolding parent. He turned his gaze on Tali first. "Tali, your father was running brutal experiments. If the subjects had been human, I'd damn well be telling the Alliance about it."

Tali seemed to recognise the logic, but still some part of her clung to the need to protect her people. Her voice was almost a fearful whisper when she spoke. "I know, but if the Geth find out…"

"They'd attack." He finished for her. "Which would cause a war that would leave both the geth and the quarians vulnerable when the Reapers show up. Is that what you want, Legion?"

When the Commander turned that same scolding look on the Geth, it had the decency to duck its head. "We believed it was necessary to relay the information."

"Sooner or later, you're both gonna have to stop fighting this war. Or we'll all end up paying for it."

Legion cast a sideways, almost shy look at Tali. "To facilitate unit cohesion, we will not transmit data regarding Creator plans."

Tali seemed extremely surprised by this sudden and quick turn around, and slowly lowered her pistol. Elaine stepped forward, and tentatively suggested: "Take the olive branch when it's offered. True peace might be a long way off, but maybe amnesty can still be reached?"

The Quarian regarded Elaine thoughtfully for a moment, and then took a voluntary step closer to the Geth. "Thank you… Legion. I understand your intention," she fiddled with her hands a little awkwardly before blurting: "What if I gave you some non-classified data to send?"

Thankfully, Legion did not ruin the moment by inquiring into the issue. He merely bowed his head respectfully to her. "We would be grateful."

Smiling to himself, Shepard turned around and walked back out. He paused parallel with Elaine, eyeing her up and down. He chortled to himself, but carried on his way, Elaine eyed him. What had that been about. Garrus and Elaine went back out into the hallway, leaving Tali and Legion to hopefully get along – though Elaine would admit she dragged her heels to be sure she was around in case the pair decided to fight again. When the med-bay doors finally closed behind them, Elaine found Garrus staring at her neck. Confused, she craned her head and pulled at her skin until she saw the hints of a bruise bleed into a bright red spot at the base of her neck. Elaine's cheeks blushed furiously and she immediately slapped her hand over the love-bite to cover it up. She almost wanted to laugh with both embarrassment and amusement – had Shepard seen that? Had anybody else?

"I think, ahem," Garrus cleared his throat awkwardly. "I think its things like this that say we need to slow down a little. Don't get me wrong! I'm happy we both want to go that way – ecstatic, even. I really am. But I'd wait if you're okay with it. Disrupt the crew as little as possible. Take that last chance to find some calm just before the storm."

Elaine deflated slightly. "Well, I'm not going to pretend to be happy with that decision. But I concede your point. It would be foolish to rush this."

Whatever this is… a traitorous thought whispered in her head.

Garrus nudged her playfully with a smirk. "Come on, Elaine. You know me, I always like to savour the last shot before popping the heat-sink." Elaine blinked up at him, a small smile slowly growing wider and wider, a fountain of giggles on the verge of bursting out of her throat. Maker, such a tumultuous day, and her emotions were all over the place. Garrus seemed to realise what he'd said, and his eyes widened. "…Wait! That metaphor just went somewhere horrible!"

This time, Elaine couldn't contain her giggles. Garrus' face was just too priceless! Straightening, she eyed him playfully. Even though they'd just agreed to not disrupt the crew, she couldn't stop herself from getting under his scales. She reached out and stroked the side of his face, her fingers 'innocently' slipping to his neck in a ghost movement of her previous touch. She grinned. "I'll see you later, Garrus."

"Riiiiiight…" he murmured, "because I'm in a great place to optimise firing algorithms right now…"