Normandy SR-1 March 10, 2183

Patience was a virtue Shepard rarely embodied. It fell upon her on the battlefield, mostly. It came in moments of focus, staring down the scope of a gun, timing her breaths as she measured the distance between herself and a target. The moments where do or die filled everything, and there was simply no time to question her purpose or doubt what she was doing.

The downtime between missions was the opposite of that. There was simply too much time to question. She preferred to keep herself busy, preferred to have a task to ease that restlessness. It was different when she was on leave. Her purpose was different. More than that, there was enough time to let go of the restlessness beneath her skin and just exist somewhere quiet.

There was little quiet on the Normandy. Living in close quarters, more than two dozen people did that. What there was, however, was a nigh endless supply of things to do. The Normandy's crew had grown used to her restlessness when Anderson was in charge, and neither Tali nor Wrex knew any different. But Garrus did.

He knew her like the back of his hand. He'd kept quiet about her fussing as he made small talk with the rest of the crew. But all but inevitable that he would fall into her orbit eventually. Or maybe she fell into his.

Shepard had a strange affection for the mako — the beast of a ground vehicle that lived in the Normandy's vehicle bay. It was her foster brother's fault for the most part.

Darius had talked her ear off about the mako on more than one occasion, the last time they'd been assigned together. He'd gone over specs and maintenance logs, what she could handle and what she couldn't. He'd let her manhandle the mako in a way he probably shouldn't have with the excuse of "It's fine. She's a tank. She can take anything you can throw at her."

The stress of T'Soni and the Artemis Tau cluster growing closer had left her digging through the mako's systems, checking over and over again that calibrations were just right.

And Garrus was there too, watching quietly from his locker as she climbed the wheels of the mako to inspect the mako's cannon. He waited for a moment for the few people in the bay to filter out before he crossed it towards her.

"Shepard," he drawled, leaning against the makos' front wheel.

"Garrus." She didn't look up from her work. In truth, her inspection wasn't really needed. The mako hadn't seen any use since it had first been loaded onto the ship. She was sure Garrus knew that as well as she did.

But if he did, he didn't mention it.

"I figured you'd want to hear the latest news from Palaven."

She paused, glancing over the makos canon at him. He shot her a look of mischievous glee.

"Dad sent his disappointment, along with a 'Why am I not surprised you ran off with Shepard?'" He imitated Castis poorly.

The words took a moment to sink in before she huffed a laugh, draping herself over the canon. "Right, I'm not sure what Castis was expecting to happen. He knew I wasn't one for rules. Though, the spectre thing wasn't by choice."

"He probably had some hope the Alliance would straighten you out or that you'd turn them down. As for me, I don't think he's surprised." Garrus grinned. "I mean, from what he tells me, you were a bad influence before we met."

"Castis would imply I committed arson every Tuesday. Of course, I'm a bad influence in his eyes."

He snorted. "Well, there was that one time…"

"That doesn't count, Garrus." She scowled, moving to stand.

"I don't know, Lils," He grinned. "It was a pretty big evacuation…"

"You know I almost wish I left you behind now." She gave the mako a quick pat, taking a few steps towards the edge of her roof. "I could still turn around."

His grin widened, calling her bluff as he offered her a hand. She was half tempted to get him back for the teasing another way.

She took his hand, letting him help her down from the makos roof.

"You wouldn't dare."

Therum March 11, 2183

Reaching T'Soni was always going to be a challenge. If she was easy to reach, the council would never have given the task to Shepard. They'd have done it themselves.

But as it was, the doctor was alone on a remote volcanic planet that also happened to be swarming with geth. They'd been forced to drop further from T'Soni in the mako because of it.

It'd been a while since she'd driven the mako, but it was exactly how she remembered it being. Heavy and hard to maneuver. She could admit she wasn't the best driver. But she'd pushed the mako well past anything its engineers thought it could handle on more than one occasion, much to Darius's displeasure.

Like most questions nowadays, it was less a question of could she do something, but should she. Usually, if she had to ask, the answer was no. No, she shouldn't immediately floor the mako and test if the armour on the sides was as strong as she remembered. But dammit, it was fun, and she was still annoyed at how long it had taken to get to Therum, despite her knowing that there was no way to have sped things up.

"Lila!" Garrus gripped her shoulder. "Can you maybe try not to kill us?" He hissed.

"Mako can handle worse than this." She pulled the brake drifting into a geth colossus.

Garrus let out a string of curses. "I think we'd all rather it didn't."

She glanced back, noting that Ashley also looked ready to hurl and eased off the gas a little.

"Ruin my fun, why don't you?" She murmured as Garrus slipped into the gunner seat beside her.

He shot her a glare before taking aim at the geth ahead of them. "You're a terrible driver commander, and if Ashley throws up on me, I'm blaming you."

In comparison to the drive, the dig site itself was deceptively calm. The geth that had littered the surface of the site had grown scarce the moment they stepped underground.

It was almost too easy to reach. Not that Shepard expected otherwise. Garrus was a man who spent his days off at the range, and Ashley was a woman with a grudge. They'd made record time to the drill, even with the brief stop to greet the trapped Dr. T'soni.

It had been her own doing, activating the ancient security system of the ruins to escape the onslaught of geth. Though, getting caught in a containment field hadn't been part of her plan.

It had been strange speaking to T'Soni through the containment field. It was the same nostalgic feeling that came over Shepard sometimes, like it had with Anderson so many years ago or Nihlus, Joker… Just about everyone on the Normandy felt similar. But T'Soni felt like more, like she was an old beloved friend Shepard hadn't seen in years. Maybe that's what it was. The other Shepard in the back of Lila's mind, longing to embrace T'Soni.

If the short conversation had done anything, it had cemented the gut feeling Shepard had had from the start. Dr. T'Soni wasn't involved with the Reapers. She carried that certainty with her as she searched the seemingly empty dig site for a way around the barrier between her and T'Soni.

It wasn't hard to find a way around the barrier. The site was littered with mining equipment and excavation tools, the largest being the heavy mining laser on the lowest level. More than that, whoever was leading the geth in on Therum had pulled their forces back, hiding in the dark while Shepard worked out a bypass for the laser's security.

She hesitated for a moment as the drills controls came up. There was a good chance breaching the barrier would lead to an ambush. It was too obvious. The geth should have been thickest inside the site, but there was barely a handful. It was clear they were after T'Soni, and that they hadn't given up. Regardless, the only way to draw them out was to play into their hand.

Ashley whistled as the drill activated, not noticing them. "You did that… Alarmingly fast."

Shepard shrugged, dropping into the hole left in the drill's wake. "Call it a hobby."

"A hobby? What, am I supposed to believe you rob banks in your spare time?" She snorted.

Shepard thought about it for a moment, taking just long enough for Ashley to shoot her an alarmed look.

"Broke into a few private vaults, never a bank."

Garrus shook his head. "She contracted with a company that tested security systems before she joined the Alliance." He patted Ashley's shoulder. "It was legal."

"Mostly." She added.

"Right. Remind me to never get on your bad side, commander." She muttered, dropping into the tunnel.

Shepard was quick to navigate to the trapped asari doctor. Barely pausing for a breath before prodding at the terminal just out of T'Soni's reach.

"We won't have much time. We should hurry." Shepard murmured, more to herself than anyone.

"You got past the barrier? I didn't think…" Liara shook her head, watching her prod at the prothean device.

"Yeah, well, sometimes a hammer is the answer to getting through a locked door." She paused, noting the tremor that ran through the structure.

"The place is probably gonna blow with us in it if we don't move quickly." She added, finally activating the keyboard.

"Yes, we should probably hurry before more geth arrive." She struggled against the containment field.

"Wait, can we even trust her." Ashley cut in. "Her mother's working with Saren. Who knows if she is too."

Liara opened her mouth, shutting it when Shepard answered. "I trust her."

Garrus tilted his head, then banished whatever confusion he had.

"I… Thank you. I haven't spoken to my mother in years. I don't know what's gotten into her. But I have nothing to do with her..."

Ashley ignored Liara pressing the issue. "Commander, if she's lying..."

"She's not." She cut Ashley off, tapping at the prothean keyboard until the field was deactivated. "But even if she was, the dig site is coming down, and we came here to get her."

She looked at Ashley as the defences went down. Ashley still looked ready to protest as she caught Liara steadying the asari. "Like it or not, she's coming with us."

Shepard had no patience for the krogan working for Saren. They could talk big all they wanted, but T'Soni wasn't going anywhere but with her. She eyed the krogan running her eyes over him. There really wasn't anything exceptional about him, but he carried himself like there was. Krogan had a habit of overconfidence when they faced off against anyone but their own. It was something about only seeing brute force as a threat. It was easy to exploit.

She rolled her shoulders, ignoring his demands to hand over T'Soni.

"So, why Saren? Don't the krogan hate turians?" She drawled. "He can't be paying you well either. He's made an enemy out of half the galaxy. The number of people he's got to be paying off. Woof."

She whistled, watching the krogan twitch in irritation. "So, let's make a deal here. You turn around and go home before this place sinks into an active volcano, and my team and I will leave here with T'Soni."

The krogan growled. She cocked her head to the side, pretending to examine her nails while she counted seconds in her head. It never took very long.

The krogan let out a snarl before he charged. She lodged two bullets in his eye before dodging to the left. God, they were always so predictable.

"Why do you always have to bait them?!" Garrus snapped, pulling T'Soni into cover with him.

"Well, it's just so fun G." She took out a geth trooper behind him. "And krogan are just so easy."

The fight didn't take long. Shepard was unusually good at taking down krogan, and her team wasn't too bad at it either, despite their complaints.

She shot the last krogan twice for good measure as she punched the lift button to leave. Evac would be close. But then, it always was. She was used to Joker's sarcastic complaints about it. Though the earful she would get when she visited later was another story.