"So this is what turian ships look like." Shepard looked around, nodding to herself as she made mental notes of the things she deemed interesting. "Huh."

"I don't know what you were expecting, Commander, but this is about it." The turian mechanic was observing her exploration of the ship from a safe distance and hadn't spoken until now.

"It's all very…" She swiped her hand on the metal inline of the wall. "...militarised, for a diplomatic vessel."

"That's how we do things, ma'am."

There was a long beep and the automatic door to the cabin opened with a hiss. Shepard immediately looked in that direction, momentarily distracted from her exploration of the ship.

It had been a long time since she'd seen Garrus wearing any sort of official outfit such as this one - in fact, she hadn't since he'd stopped working at the embassy. He looked good. In fact, he looked so good that she found herself blushing as soon as he laid eyes on her, even though she'd promised herself to keep this trip professional.

"Commander. I was looking for you." He looked at the mechanic. "It's fine, you can leave us."

"Yes, sir." The turian quickly saluted and just as quickly walked away. Garrus silently followed him with his eyes.

Shepard raised her eyebrows, unable to fight off a smile.

"Did that guy just salute you?"

"Well, yeah, I'm, um… Kind of the highest-ranking officer on this ship."

Shepard smirked. "That's hot."

"Aside from you," Garrus added after a moment's consideration.

"That's even hotter," she laughed.

Garrus put his hands on her waist. His bright blue eyes were seemingly fixed on her, flickering with the reflected lights from the control panel by the wall but not looking away.

"Pfft," Shepard snorted, unable to take his concentrated gaze with a straight face. "What are you doing?"

He tilted his head slightly to the side, eyes never leaving her.

"Looking," he replied slowly. He stroked her cheek. "Admiring."

"Flatterer." Shepard cleared her throat. She realized she was blushing. "Wow! Okay!" She quickly moved away from him as soon as she'd started feeling warm. "Um… Wow. This, uh, wasn't supposed to be a romantic getaway."

"Right." Garrus awkwardly coughed into his fist, immediately taking a step back. "You're right, of course. This isn't a vacation." He paused then swiped his foot on the floor in a poor attempt at casual. "So… What were you, uh, doing?"

"Just looking around. I've only been on one alien ship before and back then, I was too stressed to actually focus on it." Shepard paused. "Never mind the ship. I'm going to actually walk on an alien planet."

"Didn't we meet on Shanxi?"

"That's different. This is an alien alien planet. With actual aliens."

Garrus looked at her with a vaguely unimpressed expression. "Say that on Palaven and we're golden."

Shepard laughed. "Okay. I'll try to be more eloquent when I talk to government representatives."

"That's all I ask." Garrus rolled his eyes, but he couldn't resist smiling. "You were looking around?"

"Well, yeah," Shepard admitted hesitantly. "I know I'm not as great at the technical stuff as you, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested. I mean, this technology?" She mimicked an explosion around her head. "Wild." She pointed to a fascia by the wall. "What's this do?"

Garrus walked up to her.

"This is the dashboard for controlling the environment inside the ship. You know, artificial gravity, temperature, all that." He swiped his hand over the console. "Every section corresponds to a specific part of the ship. This one's maintenance—that's where we are—this one's commandment deck, this one's crew quarters, see? All nice and clear. Colour-coded for easy reference."

She looked at him as if he were crazy.

"It's all just red and pink."

"What? No, it's not." Garrus pointed out with a finger. "That one's mellory, and this one's a faded arkshi."

"...This is just red," Shepard deadpanned.

"No, it's not. It's arkshi. That's the turian term for it, at least. I think the asari call it infrared?"

And that was when it clicked. A smile broke out across her features and she shook her head, unable to take his confusion seriously anymore.

"Garrus…" She bit on her lower lip. "I can't see infrared."

Garrus jerked up a brow plate.

"You're colourblind? I had no idea."

"I'm not…" Shepard brought a hand to her forehead, laughing to herself. "Garrus, honey, humans can't see infrared."

"You have words for colours you can't even see?" He tilted his head, confused and thrown off.

"Yeah. And for the record, I can't see ultraviolet, either."

"Don't be absurd. No one can." He thought on that for a moment. "Maybe it's a good thing. I can't imagine you with stripes."

"I can't imagine you with stripes!"

"I don't have stripes. Turians and quarians, we have spots."

"Well, I certainly can't imagine you with spots, either." Shepard giggled. "Here I've been thinking of you as a bunny when all along, you were a dalmatian."

"Pfft. You're one to talk. You're a zebra."

"Dalmatian."

"Zebra."

Shepard shook her head. "I love you," she laughed. "Even if you're a big polka dot monster, I love you."

"I have no idea what that means… And I'm not sure I want to know."

She smiled. He might not know polka dot, but he does know zebra. Garrus had been picking up on human culture like a prodigy, even now when he was no longer working in the field. In all honesty, sometimes she felt she was being unfair with how hard he tried to learn all this stuff for her sake. She didn't know half as much about turian culture as he did about hers. Maybe this could be her time to learn.

"Oh!" Garrus grabbed her hand. "Come on, we're about to jump the relay."

"You're excited," Shepard noticed with a raised eyebrow.

"I want you to see this. You didn't get to last time around."

"Approaching the Apien Relay," the pilot's voice came from the intercom, as if to confirm what he was saying.

Garrus eagerly led Shepard to the command deck and then to the pilot's cabin.

She hummed with appreciation at the (still terrifyingly) impressive size of the mass relay their ship was approaching. And then Garrus had to hold her still when she realized she'd just unconsciously tried to appropriate a turian mannerism just as they jumped into FTL flight. She almost fell over.

"You okay?" He looked at her with a completely neutral expression, so she couldn't tell if he'd even noticed anything off about her behaviour.

She nodded.

"Yeah."

All of that was forgotten the minute they came out of hyperspeed and she saw the new star-dotted blackness of space around them. The sun in the distance wasn't the same colour she knew from Earth's system. This star resembled orange more than yellow and seemed to shine brighter, somehow. Shepard found herself staring out the window, mouth agape.

The turian pilot smirked at her expression.

"First space flight, ma'am?"

"You could say that," Shepard replied absently.

"We'll be entering Palaven's space territory soon."

The radio flickered to life with some static almost immediately.

"This is Palaven Flight Command. Your vessel is entering Hierarchy space. Identify yourself."

Shepard felt a knot in her stomach. It was probably at this point that it started really dawning on her that this was really happening.

The pilot looked at her, her mandibles flared out in a brief smile. She turned on the radio.

"We read you, Palaven Command. This is the SSV Signanix. We're a diplomatic vessel from the Citadel, with a scheduled arrival. Reference code five eight zero one. Requesting permission to land."

A short silence as the flight command probably checked their validation.

"Permission granted, Signanix. We'll be tagging you."

Shepard smiled nervously. She hadn't felt this stressed for months. Garrus put a hand on her back.

"And surprisingly enough, this went without complications."

She remembered him saying how they were a hotspot for trouble earlier.

"It's going to be easy from now on, right?"

Garrus patted the pilot on the shoulder.

"You did good time. Great job." He turned to Shepard. "Come on."

She gave one last reluctant gaze out the window, but she followed him to the crew deck. (This ship was really small. She'd learned already that it only needed a crew of four or five, but it was still ridiculously little space. She couldn't imagine working on a spaceship now.)

Garrus handed her a grey-coloured bundle and she took it, if only out of reflex.

"Okay, here's the radiation suit we ordered for you."

Shepard looked at him with little to no enthusiasm.

"Remind me again why I have to wear this thing," she complained.

"Because you don't have an exoskeleton and the radiation can be a lot unless you're immune." He pushed the suit's helmet into her hands. "And you're not."

"This is not fair," she complained, reluctantly putting the whole thing on over her clothes. "I'm going to look ridiculous."

"Yeah, you might. But here's the thing..." Garrus patted her on the shoulder. "I like you—I like you alive. So wear the damn suit."

Shepard sighed.

"Oh, I am so jealous of that turian delegate on Earth right now."

"Well, I can see why you're not used to the cold." Shepard wrinkled her forehead. It wasn't maybe extremely hot, but still much warmer than what she was used to. "And this is evening?"

"It'll get hotter after the sun rises," Garrus nodded. "At that point you might want to rethink taking your helmet off. Neither radiation poisoning nor sunstroke are to be trifled with. So keep that enviro-suit on."

Shepard looked up at the moons. Both much closer than the Earth's own, they seemed larger. It made nighttime that much brighter than on Earth.

"I know. I just…" She held the helmet in her hands. "I wanted to look around. This is where you come from."

"And you're also the first human to ever set foot on this planet."

"Yeah, that… That too."

No one else had ever been here, no other human in all of history. No one before had been here, millions of light years away from anyone remotely similar to her. Standing on this alien world, under the light of its two moons, as far from home as possible.

And now here she was.

Alone.

Garrus grabbed her hand.

"Not alone," he said softly.

Shepard looked back, shocked beyond reason. She was almost certain she hadn't said anything aloud. Of course it no longer surprised her that Garrus knew her, but she hadn't been aware just how well he could read her.

"Thanks," she whispered.

The elderly turian in charge of the spaceport begrudgingly led them to a skycar lot nearby, all the while eyeing Garrus suspiciously. He spoke to Shepard very politely for someone who'd never seen a human before, even if his tone seemed dry and forced, but her boyfriend was getting so many askew looks that it felt almost as if he were the alien.

Shepard cleared her throat, irritated, when she caught it happening again.

She stopped walking.

"Is there a problem?"

The spaceport director hesitated.

"I heard there would be another human accompanying you, but instead…" His gaze rested on Garrus, who only bowed his head at him.

"Sergeant Vakarian, Citadel Security."

"Oh." The turian seemed abashed. "Of course. I— I should have figured they'd want to send someone to oversee this."

Shepard was about to protest that that wasn't what had happened, but Garrus looked at her and shrugged. Maybe he was right and it didn't really matter.

"This skycar will take you to the city. Direct route, away from regular traffic. Should be safe."

Shepard had just begun to wonder what that last part was supposed to mean, but the director had already left. Another, younger turian replaced him and introduced himself as the chauffeur assigned to their skycar (even though Garrus protested that he could drive it himself. Shepard suspected he just wanted to be the one to show her his homeworld.) and immediately tried striking up a friendly conversation. There was still a lot of tension in his moves, and every now and then, Shepard would feel his curious gaze on herself. Every time she caught him staring, he quickly looked away, abashed.

"So, um… Is this your first visit to Palaven?"

The question was obviously rhetorical and just a conversation starter, but Shepard decided to at least give the kid the courtesy of answering.

"Yes," she said, looking out the window. "Anything I should know?"

He waited for a few seconds before answering.

"I don't know. We have three climate zones. Two continents. Population of roughly six billion people."

"That's less than Earth," Shepard noticed quietly.

"Give Earth a while. When you people really start moving to colonies and space stations, your homeworld will become less populated too." He shrugged. "It's a natural process. Happens to every species out there." He paused. "Almost every species."

"Quarians?" Shepard guessed the reason for his hesitation.

"Quarians. But that's a completely different story."

"I thought there would be more people…" Shepard felt kind of stupid saying something like that aloud. Maybe she'd overestimated her importance and was now coming off as megalomaniacal? She couldn't tell.

"There will be time for that when we get to Cipritine."

"Why aren't there any spaceports in the city?" Shepard leaned forward, absently rubbing her hands together. "Wouldn't it be more strategically sound to have transport closer to your most populated area? What if there's a natural disaster or an attack?"

She looked out the window. The forest here looked unlike anything she might have classified as such.

"This is Palaven. In all of known history, this planet has never been invaded. Down here, there's no need for all that caution you're used to off-world. We have the best fleet in the galaxy and immaculate early warning systems. Besides, if that will quell your concerns, the airports in military bases around the city are designated for civilian evacuation should a time of crisis ever come."

Shepard blinked, surprised. She looked at Garrus, who only shrugged.

"I told you. Turians." His subvocals dipped slightly, closer to a growl than words. "Surgical precision. Meticulous and convinced they're completely invincible on their metal planet with their giant fleet and—"

He stopped when Shepard grabbed his hand. She lowered her voice to a whisper.

"Are you okay?"

Garrus clicked his mandibles, seeming slightly baffled. "I… Yeah. It's just… It's like you said. It's hard coming back. But… I actually am."

"I'm sorry I forced you to come here."

"Oh. No." He gently cupped her face in his hand. "No, you didn't… I wouldn't be here if it wasn't where I wanted to be." He touched his forehead to hers, a soft purr escaping him even though the chauffeur probably could hear it. "And by your side is exactly where I want to be." He glanced over her shoulder, at the window, and smiled widely. "And hey, look. We're getting close now. You can see the city from here."

Shepard looked out the window.

"Oh." She sucked in a breath. Garrus's nostalgia-ridden description had made her think he was just being homesick, but now she was deciding he hadn't oversold this sight. The sun was just rising and true to his word, everything seemed to glisten with reflected light.

Garrus had described Palaven as green, blue and silver — Shepard was more inclined to only focus on the silver. The city was encircled in a dome, making it look from afar almost like a snowglobe. A tall and majestic snowglobe, indeed seemingly carved out of a single block of silver.

"That's the radiation bubble," Garrus explained once he saw what she was looking at. "Keeps the sun out at midday. Most big cities have them."

"Wow." She hated that the thought even crossed her mind, but she thought that this made it easier to understand why they'd initially seen hers as a primitive species.

"It's really something, right?" Garrus smiled at her. "It's…"

"Your hometown."

"I mean… This is a 15 million city." He chuckled. "Hometown sounds so small and rural."

"Yeah, sure. Get hung up on linguistics, why not."

Shepard wasn't sure why she was even surprised they'd been dropped off at a military base instead of a proper hub. She wanted to sigh or roll her eyes, but she decided it probably wasn't the best idea. People were looking at her. Still… Military. So much for diplomatic mission. She really should have read up more on turian society. She knew they were very militarized, but it had never occurred to her to ask just how much.

Garrus looked around. He looked about as out of place among all the turian soldiers as she did—in his diplomatic dress uniform and very clearly nervous. Shepard found it kind of endearing that he never did learn how to hide it. She was almost certain that, regardless of their emotional state, she looked more collected than him.

Garrus put a hand on her shoulder and gave it an encouraging squeeze.

"I'll have us checked out."

"You are so sweet." Shepard smiled. She kissed him on the nose. "Thanks."

"There's the welcome committee you wanted earlier." He pointed out with a nod of his head. There was indeed a small group of turians waiting at the far end of the room. "I'll be right there."

Shepard smiled. Filled with a new confidence, she approached the group.

A grey-plated turian with blue colony markings was the one to greet her.

"We heard there would be a human diplomat coming by today." He nodded at her to walk with him along the catwalk. Two armed soldiers followed them. "I trust you'll find we've prepared everything for your accommodation."

"Thank you. That's considerate."

"Allow me to brief you on the situation - and I assume you already know this isn't a regular diplomatic mission."

"I gathered as much, yes." For whatever could be said about the radiation suit, it wasn't nearly as heavy as a set of armour would have been. Moving in it was actually comfortable. Which actually helped with adjusting to the stronger gravity of this planet. (She still felt a bit sluggish because of it.)

"The terrorist organisation responsible for all those attacks against your people, Ordo Veris… They're not new. We've been building a case against their leader for years now."

"Right. I... heard that." Shepard was feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. She'd had almost this exact conversation with Garrus already.

The turian stopped. His nose was twitching slightly, but when he turned to look at her, all she saw was determination.

"This isn't only a human problem. They're responsible for the deaths of dozens of turians, of my people. So I imagine we both have a vested interest in bringing them to justice." He clicked his mandibles. "Or am I wrong?"

He was going to protect his own. Just as she was going to do whatever it took to protect her people. They wanted the same thing. Allies.

"You're not wrong." She held up her head, an inherently turian sign of respect she had probably picked up from Garrus. "I'll be happy to help however I can."

"In that case, I think you and I had better get acquainted with each other." He surprised her by shaking her hand, a human gesture she hadn't expected to be known outside the Citadel. "I'm the officer in charge of the investigation here on Palaven. Castis Vakarian."

"Oh!" Shepard blinked. "Oh. Wow! It's, um, it's a pleasure to finally meet you, sir." She shook his hand eagerly. "Jane Shepard."

"Ah, of course." He nodded. If he was surprised, he hid it well. "I heard about you, Commander, and what you've been doing. I'm impressed." He clicked his mandibles, as if hesitant to touch onto this subject. "And I trust my son hasn't been too much trouble?"

"What? Garrus? No. Never." She laughed nervously. "No, he's been… He's been a big help. I wouldn't be here without him."

Almost as if summoned, Garrus entered the room, looking through a datapad.

"Good! Shepard. I've been looking for you. I signed all the..." He drifted off when he looked up and recognized the turian she was talking to. "I… Dad?"

Shepard wasn't sure which one of them to look at, because the following few seconds were probably the best display of turian facial expression she'd ever seen, with a wide range of emotion on both their faces.

"Garrus." Castis wrinkled his nose. "Of course, you didn't say you were coming."

"Well, um… Yeah, I…" Garrus flared his mandibles, nervously tapping his foot on the floor. "It was a bit of a… sudden development."

Shepard was starting to contemplate leaving. She'd never really talked with Garrus about his family, other than the times he sometimes spoke of his mother, so she didn't know what she'd just stumbled into, but it was clear that this wasn't the best relationship.

"I'm so sorry, Commander, that..." Castis cleared his throat. "That was unprofessional of me. I'm certain you're not interested in your coworkers' personal life."

Shepard tilted her head, confused.

"Actually, Garrus and I—"

"Oh." Garrus stiffened. "Hm. Um… Commander, can I talk to you alone for a moment?" He discreetly grabbed her arm and practically pulled her away from the others.

Shepard looked around, initially puzzled by his behaviour — until she realized what it meant.

"He doesn't know?!"

"Well…" Garrus drew out the syllable, not sure how to continue that thought.

"You didn't tell your father," she hissed.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I—"

"You didn't tell your father!" She hit him. "What's with you?!"

"Ow! Shepard!" Garrus wrinkled his nose. "We've only been dating for a year. Besides, I… We don't have that kind of relationship, okay? I'd tell him if we were getting married, but I'm not going to update my father on every little detail of my life!"

"Detail?" Shepard inhaled. "Okay, I'm going to give you a few seconds to decide if that's the word you want to go with here. And really think about it."

"Oh!" His eyes widened. "Oh, no no no no no! That's not what I meant! I love you! You're not a detail! I just…" He winced. "My dad can be… He's more of a by-the-book kind of guy. You'd get along with him great. But I don't. We just don't have that kind of relationship. I mean, we talk, just not about… important stuff. And… not often."

"That's incredibly sad."

"What? No. It works. We both know we're very different. We respect that. We have boundaries and we have a good enough relationship." Besides…" He looked away. "He's been reaching out to me lately. The last few months. Trying to talk. I've been blowing him off, but I just…" He sighed. "I don't know. You know, when I was a kid, he always pushed me so hard."

"You mentioned he was the one who trained you as a sniper."

"Yeah… Dad always said that he wasn't there to make my life easy but to prepare me for being an adult. I, uh, didn't have the nicest childhood."

"I can imagine."

"Still, I guess he did make it. I wouldn't have survived as long as I did without all the effort he made me put into training - I certainly wouldn't have lived to meet you. Who knows how things would have gone then."

Shepard scoffed. "Are you suggesting our relationship changed the world?"

"Are you suggesting it didn't?" He didn't wait for her to answer. "The bottom line is, I love you, and I'm really really happy to have you in my life, but I… This really isn't your concern." He consciously tried to avoid looking in her eyes. "My relationship with my father is my own problem. Besides, I'm alright. I really am. Why does it bother you?"

Shepard exhaled slowly. She took off her helmet and held it in her hands, looking at it rather than at him.

"Garrus, take it from someone who's lost both her parents: you're extremely lucky to have a father who takes an active interest in your life and tries to support you. You have no idea how lucky you are. You can't just push him away. I… Look, I'm not going to ask you to do this as a favour to me, that's not fair, but… For your own sake, maybe you should consider changing things between you two. Just… Just consider it. Because if something happens before you patch things up with him, I can promise you—" Her breath got funny for a moment. "—you will regret it for the rest of your life."

Garrus felt a lump in his throat.

"Shepard, I… I had no idea."

He put his hands on the sides of her face, brushing her hair away with a thumb. Once he did, he was faced with the heartbreaking sight of her eyes, glistening like marbles and fighting the tears she refused to cry.

"I'm so sorry… That's terrible." He rested his forehead on hers. "I'm sorry. I had no idea..."

"That's okay." She stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. "I don't talk about it. You couldn't have known."

He moved away, mostly so he could take her hand and enclose it in both of his.

"I just… want you to know that… You have me. I'm here." He looked down, avoiding meeting her eyes. "I know it's not the same, but… You're not alone."

That's all I can give you.

He wanted to give her more, but he also knew it was impossible. He wasn't going to get hung up on the impossible, even if it pained him to see Shepard hurting.

Maybe being around his family had caused her to think about her own, about what could have been. And he absolutely hated that there was nothing he could do aside from offering her a shoulder to lean on, maybe cry on.

It was in moments like this that he was faced with the shocking realization that his Shepard—absolutely wonderful, strong and powerful and capable Shepard—was a very small and fragile thing. When he held her hand now, he could feel every tiny bone under her skin, painfully aware of how little they were. As always, he felt this irrational desire to protect her. Even though she didn't need protecting, even though she was more than capable of defending herself… He still wanted to shield her from getting hurt. And it destroyed him that he couldn't.

He closed his arms around her and held her close to his heart, hoping that maybe even with no words, he could still let her know that she wasn't alone. She didn't have to be.

"Garrus?" Shepard's voice was muffled a bit, so he pulled away.

"What?" He searched her face for any clues as to how she was feeling and what she needed. "What is it?"

"We have to get back." She took a step back, biting her lower lip to keep herself from smiling too much. "Because, not sure if you realize this, your dad just watched us hug for like five minutes."