Of Secrets and Hearts
She played with strands of her hair as she stared at the Mako's interior ceiling. She let out a soft smile as she could hear Garrus cursing underneath her.
"Drives like a fucking psycho. No matter how many times we tell her mountains aren't shortcuts. Kaidan hand me the wrench will you." Garrus cursed to himself.
She heard Kaidan's quiet laughter as she smiled at the memory of their date.
After dealing with Finch, she had gone back to the Normandy to change into actual casual clothing. Slipping on tight black leggings and a sweater dress and combing her hair into order. The look on Kaidan's face was priceless, and once the lights dimmed in the movie theatre she found herself on his lap with his hands and lips on her.
"So did you find out what set her off?" Kaidan asked Garrus not realizing that Shepard was hiding in the Mako.
"Yeah. But I didn't catch all of it. It just looked like someone was threatening her and she disappeared into Chora's Den." He rumbled uneasily.
"She seemed fine when we went to the movies." Kaidan responded quietly.
"You alliance and your strange anti-fraternization rules." Garrus just as softly making sure no one else could hear their conversations.
"It's different on turian battleships. Fraternization is fine as long as it doesn't cause problems with your duties. No wonder the lot of you are so stressed out." He continued.
"And once it starts causing problems, one or the other is moved to a different ship and everything is forgotten." He mumbled as he pushed himself out from under the Mako.
"Anyway, shouldn't you be starting your shift? Shepard might bite your head off if you're slacking." Garrus continued as he stared at Kaidan leaning against the Mako.
"Where is she anyway? I haven't seen her all day." Kaidan asked as he looked around.
Emily bit her lip in the darkness and waited for Garrus to rat her out.
"She's probably in her room nursing that hang over from last night. I'm still shocked she tried to out drink a krogan. Surprising even when she almost matched him shot for shot." Garrus responded, laughter rumbling his voice.
"I'll check on her after my shift. Thanks for the convo Garrus. You're a good friend." Kaidan responded as he patted Garrus on the scaled muscular shoulder.
Garrus looked at the Mako and shook his head.
"Opening the door Shepard." He said quietly as he pushed the button to see the woman laying there staring at him.
She quickly sat up and curled her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her knee and stared at the opposite wall through the fringe of her dark brown hair.
"Thank you." She said quietly her voice whisper soft.
"For what?" He said, quirking his brow plate at her as his mandibles twitched slightly.
"You lied to him. About the whole business with Finch." She said while turning her dark eyes on him.
"How do you know I lied?" He asked smoothly, counting his blessing that turian faces aren't as expressive as humans.
She smirked at him and blew a breath of air, causing her bangs to move out of her eyes.
"Turian hearing is pretty good, it wasn't too loud outside the club and you were practically behind me if I recall. Plus your voice changed pitches when you answered him." She shook her head at him.
"Fair enough. But I figure, it is your past. Something you have buried and left behind you and if you wanted him to know, you'd tell him. Plus I know you're avoiding him so we're even." He teased as he reached a talon and tugged her hair.
"So how did the date go?" Garrus asked going straight for the problem he knew she was having.
She sighed and plopped back and rested on her elbows, staring at the ceiling.
"Let's just say, there are times I wished the situations were different. That I wasn't his CO, or that I wasn't part of the Alliance. But ever since I joined, the Alliance has always been my home. Unlike him...if I leave...I don't have anything to go back to. I have no family, no home, or heck I don't even have any place to call home." She said sadly.
"He still has his family, his home and a life outside of the Alliance. Hell every shore leave I have I end up just staying at base going over paperwork, or target practice and train my biotics. If word gets out, my career would be over." She continued quietly.
He shook his head ruefully at her.
"I say, just go for it. We're going after Saren, who knows if we'll come out of this alive." Garrus drawled softly as he cleaned his hands.
He turned his bright blue eyes on her again, noting the stillness that most humans seem incapable of.
She stood up and stretched, rolling her head from side to side.
"On to a different topic, Wrex asked me to help him hunt down his family's ancestral armor. I'm still a bit shocked that his own father tried to kill him." She said softly as her attention turned towards Wrex and Ashley who was looking through a gun catalog of all things.
"So tell me about C-Sec, anything stand out mission wise?" She asked as she plopped onto the floor, tucking her legs under her which still has a habit of making him wince in pain.
"I had one mission, I was sent to investigate a salarian scientist. The case was a well to put it bluntly completely fucked up." He said while leaning against the Mako, arms crossed.
"Fucked up how?" She asked.
"You've heard about the black market yeah?" He asked, and when she nodded he continued.
"Well, in the black market you can get pretty much anything. Even Krogan testicles."
"Krogan...testicles? Do I even want to know?" She asked her voice slightly amused.
"Well uh...Krogan believe having a testicle implants would increase their uh virility." He laughed softly at the look of shock on her face.
"Virility? I.." She struggled to find something to say.
"Hey, if anything you can ask Wrex about it. I'm sure he'd love to tell you all about it." He teased.
"Uh no...no never mind. So some guy was selling body parts in the black market?" She asked, trying to dispel the mental images.
"Yeah, one day we caught a break. Found some guys liver ya know? Anyway we went to the guys house and there he is. Standing perfectly healthy and not having a clue what was going on. We let it go since the guy obviously wasn't dead. But we later found out he used to work for a Dr. Saleon, he's a geneticist. Unfortunately when we checked his building we found nothing at all to suggest that something else was going on." He drawled, eyes focused on his talons.
"Damn that's gotta suck." She said while planting her hands on her legs in a gesture of frustration.
"Oh, it gets worse." He said softly. "We caught another break, I was 'interviewing' one of them. I came across something suspicious. One of the detainees started bleeding profusely during the interview. We offered to patch him up, but he started freaking out. After we sedated him we discovered his body was covered with incisions. They weren't just his employee's, they were his fucking test tubes." He growled low in the back of his throat in anger.
"Wait...you're saying this guy grew organs in actual people? That's sick." Emily said her hand now biting the flesh of her thumb.
"Yeah. To make matters worse, when we finally went after him. He managed to get away. And my orders were over ridden when I told them to go after him. They wanted to spare the hostages." He turned to look at her.
"They just let him go like that? Wow." She said standing up and leaning against the wall.
"Yeah well...I did manage to track him down but haven't had the chance to go after him." He continued.
Emily tilted her head to the side, looking at Garrus through her bangs.
"Give me the coordinates." She said softly.
"Yeah, wait what?" He said confused.
She smirked at him and shook her head.
"Give me the coordinates. We'll go after him. Being a Spectre does have its perks." She teased as he typed something on his omni-tool and her's let out a quiet beep..
"We'll head there after we pick up wrex's armor from some smugglers. Then probably head to Feros." She said as she stretched and nodded towards her room.
"Catch ya later big guy." She said as she made her way to her room.
They arrived at the MSV Fedele, noting the eery silence of the place. She suppressed a shiver as she slowly unclipped her shot gun and looked around. She motioned Garrus and Ashley to stay back while she slowly rounded to corner to come face to face to a strange humanoid shape that spit out green acid on her armor.
"SHIT!" She screamed out as she felt it eat away at her armor. She quickly looked up as more of the creatures started to swarm her. She backed up a step and tossed a warp in front of her.
"Keep your distance, those fuckers spit acid!" She called out as both Ashley and Garrus quickly dispatched the creatures. She leaned into a wall, ripped a med-gel and applied it to her suit. Hissing as the cooling relief spread across her exposed skin.
"C'mon, think that's all of them." Ashley said as she pointed towards the front of the ship.
"Door's locked, and the cockpit is empty." Emily looked at Garrus and nodded to the only other door.
"Take point, Garrus." She said as she and Ashley took a step back. She could feel Ashley's eyes on her back and she turned to give her a quick smile.
"Thank you, thank you for saving me from those things..." A Salarian man said nervously.
"Commander. That's him. That's Dr. Saleon." Garrus growled out, taking a menacing step towards the doctor.
"What? No! My name is Heart. Dr. Heart. Please, get me out of here!" He begged, taking a step away from Garrus.
"Are you sure that's him?" She asked as she took a step next to Garrus.
"Yes, I'm sure." He said to Emily.
"There's no escape this time. Doctor. I'd harvest your organs first, but we don't have the time." Garrus growled out.
"You're crazy. He's crazy! Please, don't let him hurt me!" The doctor begged, taking another step away from Garrus.
"We'll take him in, and drop him off at the Military, they'll know what to do with him." Emily said reaching to restrain the doctor.
"But...but we have him. We can't let him get away. Not again." Garrus looked at her in shock.
"Think Garrus, if we kill him, the families of his victims would never get their peace of finding out what happened to their love ones." She said softly while staring at Garrus' face.
"You...you're right." He said to Emily. "You're lucky. Doctor, at least this time you're not going to get away." He continued as he moved to grab the doctor.
"Yeah, not going to happen." Doctor Heart said coldly while he pulled out a assault rifle, but before he could pull the trigger, Garrus shoot and killed him.
"He died anyway, what's the point?" Garrus growled out as he lightly kicked the body of the now deceased Doctor Heart.
"Well, Garrus. You can never predict what a person will do. But you can control how you'll respond. In the end, that's what really matters." Emily said confidently.
"Yeah. I don't think I've ever met anyone like you. Commander." Garrus responded respectfully.
She smirked up at him and walked away.