Chapter Eleven

Bloodties

"Where the hell did you get that?" Shepard snarled.

Castis watched her coolly. "Bloodhound extracted it from your medical files. Atala saw it, didn't understand it, naturally, and passed it on to me."

Shepard's heart was pounding. There were already too many people aware of just how much she had changed in the wake of the war, and she and her crew had been trying to prevent more from being added to the list. There was the team of salarian doctors who had put her and Garrus back together, but Chakwas had assured their confidentiality. Her crew knew what was going on, but they were not a concern. Since the strands seemed to be necessary to communicate with the Ascendent, Admiral Ra'an and the team on Rannoch working with them had been brought into the loop. Admiral Hackett was the only non-Normandy human aware of what had happened, since he was her immediate commanding officer.

She probably would have told Castis and Atala… she figured. If… she truly became a member of the Vakarian family. She had complicated feelings about the whole thing. There had been many allusions; references to strengthening ties, to her and Garrus' relationship becoming even more than it was, but… none of it had actually happened yet, and they hadn't had time to actually sit down and talk about the giant it that everyone was dancing around - much less all the incredibly complicated implications that it carried. Shepard couldn't even believe those kinds of things were going through her mind right now, when she was trying to deal with the stolen medical records being projected in front of her.

"She naturally passed it onto you?" Shepard seethed. She was done being polite. She'd been polite all damn day and yet here she was.

"Yes." Castis said with maddening calm. "She knew I was meeting with you later. My son has been clear that he is going to be in a relationship with a human. That is fine if it is what he chooses." He gestured to the scan again, to the strands that ran through her whole body. "But that is not human!"

Shepard's eyes were cold. "If I'm not human anymore will you stop your goddamn xenophobic behavior?"

Castis ignored the jibe. "What are you? What are these things?" he demanded. "When I first looked at them, I thought it was just extensive scarring or some kind of surgical mesh. But now I can see that they clearly aren't scars, and there is nothing like them in the synthetics industry."

"It's none of your damn business!" Shepard spat.

Castis laughed; his laugh surprisingly similar to his daughters. "You are sleeping with my son, you landed in the city I am rebuilding, you want to meet with my Primarch and Councilor." His eyes narrowed. "It's absolutely my damn business. I am the Chief of Security for the Reconstruction. Nothing else is happening until I understand if you are a threat to my people and my family."

"I'm not a threat." She said. But even he could hear the doubt that she could not keep from her voice.

"You died stopping the Reapers from attacking, died waking the "Ascendent" as you wish them to be called, but then came back. How?"

"We don't really know." Shepard said through gritted teeth.

Castis scowled. "And how am I supposed to consider you anything but a potential threat if that's the case? Cerberus brought you back so that you could be their attack dog 's to say they didn't have some way of doing that a second time? Have a way of making you an even more dangerous weapon that they could wield? Especially if you can communicate with the Reapers?"

"I destroyed Cerberus and killed the Illusive Man." How many times had she said this? It felt like a thousand times, but she'd lost track off whether they had been while she woke or walked the shadows of her haunting dreams. She was exhausted. Shepard pressed her hands to her forehead. Something flashed in her mind and she stopped seeing the room before her, instead she saw the flaming Citadel. She was so tired. She could stop it all. Wasn't that what she had wanted? The answer to the fears, the nightmares, that chased her gasping from sleep for weeks? That conjured images in her mind of blue armor with far too large a hole… or a Marauder with blue clan tattoos and scars. Shepard shook her head. No, she couldn't afford to have this shit happen right now. Now of all times. She took a long breath. She focused on the room she was in, on Garrus in the other room. She was dealing with a foreign dignitary with his head up his ass. This was nothing new.

She forced herself to speak slowly. "The Crucible could operate in three ways, all of which were going to end with me being dead and unacceptable consequences for organics and synthetics. Liara T'soni and EDI helped me create a different option. It was going to require a template of heavily mixed synthetics and organics. And that template," she said, pointing at herself, "was going to be completely consumed by the process of changing the Reapers, but it was the only way to spare everyone else." She lied. After everything today there was no way she was telling him the actual reason it was believed she had survived. It had been hers - that secret was hers. There was no way she was discussing that with him. "For some reason, it changed me. It didn't kill me. I have strands of a material that is both synthetic and organic running through my boy. It reacts to my biotics, and I can use it to communicate with the Ascendent."

Her heart was pounding. The deep breaths weren't working. Moria could smell smoke. Hear the sound of crashing and explosions. The ground beneath her face shook occasionally and her mouth tasted of ash and blood. She rubbed her hands across her face again. "It's like I can plug into them and then communicate mentally." Deep breaths. Just a pissy turian. Not a big deal. No real danger. She didn't think it would be too long now. There was a new pain in her side, and a wet rasp to her breaths that was unmistakably the sound of a punctured lung.

"Can you control them?" Castis asked.

"I don't know." Shepard said softly. "And I'm not going to find out. They were controlled for eons. Now they are free and they are going to stay that way."

"How do you know this wasn't all part of Cerberus' plan?" Castis demanded. "Create a human link they could use to control the Reapers themselves?"

"Because I watched the Illusive Man die trying to control them himself. He would never have entrusted that power to another if he could have it." Shepard snarled. She took a deep breath. "I could have chosen to use the Crucible to control the Reapers, but I didn't, it's no longer an option. Look, no one understands what these strands are or what happened." She said glaring at him. "But lots of people far smarter than you have run every test on me that they can think of. Whatever this is, it's got nothing to do with Cerberus. I'm just… synthetic and organic, at the same time, like the Ascendent. I'm not dangerous." Her head was pounding. When you needed a weapon, the answer was simple. You became one.

Castis' expression was stern. "How could anyone possibly know that? You don't even know what you are."

Shepard rubbed her forehead. She grabbed the slab of concrete with her broken hands, pulled with all her might, plunged into the void where her biotics had been, threw back her head and - And despite fighting as hard as she could for several minutes she felt it happen. She felt the spark go through her, saw Castis' pale face bathed in green light. Watched as the turian took a step back in alarm. She could feel her biotics sparking in the air around her, tossing her hair around her.

"You're right." She snarled, her eyes emitting their own light. "I don't know what I am." She gestured to the city outside. "I lost one of my best men getting a cure for the genophage so that the krogan would come fight for your homeworld. He was the one person who might have had a prayer at understanding this, and he died under my command. I was ready to die on the Citadel so that the Reapers would stop, so that the races could continue living unchanged, so that there might be a chance for the turians and asari and humans who were mutated by the Reapers." She took a ragged breath. "But I didn't. And now I'm this." She gestured to herself, her voice tinged with pain and disgust. She stared at her hands, streaked with green light. "I don't know what this is, but it let me save your son on the Citadel, it's let me speak with a race that were wiped out cycles before the Protheans even existed… and it's not going away." Her breathing slowed and the light in her eyes and across her body finally died. "I can't get rid of it." She said softly. "No matter how much I wish I could."

Castis' face was unreadable.

Shepard stared at him. she continued, her voice now hollow. "I gave everything for this peace." She said. "And I'm still fighting for it." She cast a scathing look at the stolen medical records. "Garrus has been here for all of this. He's seen everything I can do. Everything I am." She laughed bitterly. "You and I are actually more on the same side than you know. I've told him he shouldn't be dealing with this." Castis frowned. "I've told him he is free to leave." She snorted bitterly. "And even though I want to kill her for giving you my records, Atala's right about the carachi and white wine. The red is too heavy."

Her head hurt. She was done with this. She had the Normandy; she would find a way to meet with Victus. She took a few steps towards the door, protocol and manners be damned. She paused before she left and looked back at Castis. "Can I ask you something?" she said.

Castis straightened. "Yes?"

She stared at the retired C-Sec officer. "You've served as a defender of your people your whole life. You said the war changed you." She asked. "Did it leave you with dreams?"

Castis' nostrils flared, but he answered. "Yes."

She raised her hand before her, and brought strands of light across her hand and in her eyes to life. It was easy as breathing and for a moment she felt that she was in complete control. She could feel Joker's fingers on the controls of the Normandy, could feel Echo playing with the spray of the waves, could smell the fear of the other marauders restrained in the dreadnought's hull.

She gave him a long look. "The worst ones I get involve something happening to Garrus. Those are the ones I can't shake hours later." The light danced over her hand. "And I will do anything I can, and use everything I have, to make sure they never come true."

She released a small blast of her biotics, the displaced air pushing the door open and walked outside.

Garrus looked up suddenly from where he had clearly been pacing the hall directly outside the door. Atala leaned against a column a few meters away. Garrus' eyes searched Shepard's face in concern. "Are you-" he began.

"We're going." She said flatly.

His expression hardened and he nodded. He followed her towards the door to the apartment. She was tired. So tired.

A cold voice spoke from behind them. "I'll have the staff makeup rooms for you in Venatura." But Shepard just kept walking. She was done with games. The door to the apartment closed behind them. Garrus took her hand as they set off down the hall, squeezed it slightly, and said,"I told you I'd be sorry for whatever happened on the other side of that damn door."

/././././././././././././././././././

Garrus' appreciation for humans as a species was growing with each passing day, and he didn't think it was just because of how crazy he was about Shepard or how appallingly his family had been behaving. Humans were a remarkable little species because the human embassy had the only bar in Prometra. "I need a stronger drink." Shepard said the minute she had clambered into their skycar. She was now hunched over the bar slowly nursing a glass of ryncol like she had a death wish. Garrus sat next to her sipping from his potent but less poisonous drink of choice, watching the room when not distracted by watching the lights dance on the gleaming red of Shepard's hair.

None of the turian bars in Prometra had survived the Reaper attack, to his great disappointment. The city had once had a thriving bar scene that he had hoped to share with Shepard. Despite his passion for wine, The Chief of Security for the Reconstruction had not considered rebuilding those establishments to be worth the resources. Totally sober Garrus probably would have agreed with him, but totally sober Garrus had disappeared a very angry two drinks ago. Still seething and slightly tipsy Garrus considered the lack of bars a clear sign that the Chief was unfit for service.

The humans had apparently chosen to convert a large conference room usually used for discussing customs protocols into a bar in the first few days after the fighting stopped. It was clearly doing well and now sported lights, a small dance floor, comfortable booths along the wall and even a little outdoor deck with lights and plants. Being the only bar in Palaven… it was completely full of turians. Garrus had been shocked when the human Alliance officer manning the door had immediately offered Garrus an antihistamine so that he could freely enjoy his evening and the selection of drinks they had to offer. Garrus had declined; he had been taking an antihistamine regularly since he had started dating Shepard. It had made life on the Normandy easier in... several ways. The bar was being tended to by two turians and a female human. Of the relaxed and happily laughing patrons, he could only spot about eight that were human. The rest were turian. The two species were mixing easily in a way he had only seen on the larger stations or the Citadel, places where a variety of races had been living together for years. He had never seen anything like it on such a heavily turian populated area like Palaven. There was even another human-turian couple enjoying each other's company in a corner booth. Garrus hoped there was a small part of Shepard that was taking this in, but he feared that she had been too angry upon their arrival, and that now that she was nearing the end of her second glass of ryncol, such powers of observation were beyond her.

Many of the bar's customers were clearly regulars; they would enter the bar and be greeted with a chorus of friendly calls or good natured insults. Garrus had heard the female turian bartender tell a human lieutenant that there was no way that she was letting him drink anything cheap that night as the human had just gone through a break up and therefore all drinks were on the house, unless he made a mess of the bathroom. That generous bartender had instantly realized that they had not been in before, clearly recognized Shepard from vids about the war, and told them that here they checked rank and race at the door and everyone was just someone in need of a good time and a good stiff drink - if they could keep to that, they were welcome. After Garrus had chatted with her for a while, (Shepard had only been interested in drinking in silent anger) he had learned that the green tattooed, impressively scarred female was not a bartender by trade, but a high ranking officer in the reconstruction who had taken to working here at night, not for any extra credits, but a dose of the normal world. Maybe not the normal world, Garrus thought as his eyes drifted around the joyous space and to the wearied Commander next to him, but a new world.

He'd been furious when Shepard told him what Atala had given his father, at the interrogation his father had submitted Shepard to. He'd been ready to march back in there and let them know exactly what he thought of their behavior and maybe give Atala a few new scabs for good measure. But Shepard had just wanted to get away, and after everything the Vakarians had put her through that day, he couldn't deny her escape. He was exhausted too. He knew convincing his father that there should be a synthetic voice on the Council was going to be difficult, but he didn't think he was going to have so much opposition from Atala.

Shepard shifted next to him, her head and arm now resting on the bar. None of the other patrons said anything or even gave them a second glance. Garrus had a feeling each of them had looked like Shepard on one of the evenings they had been here. "I liked her." she lamented with a slightly slurred growl. "She… she was funny… and… good officer." She laughed to herself, "Reaper Roulette… should'a thought of that." Her brow furrowed. "Bitch."

Garrus brushed that stray lock back from her face. "Right now, I don't like her either."

Shepard's brow furrowed as if she was trying to remember something. She held her hand before her face. "I controlled it…" she said. Garrus had no idea what she was talking about. "I can do it again." She stared at him for a long moment and then took a deep breath, the strands across her hand began to gleam. She laughed quietly, "Did it."

Garrus' eyes widened in alarm and he wrapped her hand in both of his own, leaning close to whisper, hoping he seemed to everyone around them like just an affectionate boyfriend in a bar "Shepard, not a good idea in here."

"Fine," Shepard grumbled.

"We don't have to go to Venatura." Garrus said, playing with Shepard's hair. "We can find another way to do this." He sighed. "I know it was my idea, but I didn't realize that I came from a clan of asses."

"Yours is great…" said Shepard.

Garrus laughed. "You're drunk."

She made a noncommittal noise. "Pissed. Not drunk. Wanna shoot or punch something." She rubbed clumsily at her head. "Can we go see Grunt?'"

Garrus smiled. Yeah, he was definitely dating a tiny krogan. "We can do whatever you want."

Shepard's eyes kept drifting shut. "Want to punch… till everyone's safe…" And she was out.

Garrus pushed her practically empty glass away from her so that it wouldn't get spilled, drained the last of his drink and signaled for another. He took a long sip. He knew bringing Shepard to the Vakarians was going to be difficult. But he had never expected his father to push back this much, or his sister to be so freaked by the Normandy's Cerberus connections. Shepard hadn't even met the family member he had actually been worried about. He had waved off all her concerns because there was nothing she could do about the reasons for his family's prejudice, and he genuinely thought things would be different after the war, after what she'd done.

Garrus heard a strange thump from the ceiling of the bar and frowned. The green tattooed bartender heard it too and scowled. "Trouble's on it's way." She called to her co-workers. One of them nodded and started making a drink. A dark hooded figure swung down off the roof and in through the open doorway leading to the patio, landing easily and heading for the bar. Garrus tensed, but then caught the new arrival's scent and scowled.

Atala, having changed since the disastrous dinner, pushed back the hood of the dark suit she was wearing, her Vakarian tattoos catching the lights of the bar. She grinned and waved at a few of its occupants as she crossed to where her brother sat. Instead of taking the chair next to Garrus she hoisted herself gracefully so that she was sitting on the bar next to him, staring out at the rest of the room. Her eyes flicked to the passed out Commander and her expression became tinged with remorse. Garrus pointedly ignored her.

"You can't use the actual door, Atala?" The green tattooed bartender asked with a raised eyebrow.

Atala shrugged, "I'm a spy, Evadi."

The bartender rolled her eyes continuing to mix the drink she had been working on. "You're a shit spy if you keep telling people."

Atala shifted so that her feet were on the bar and she was hugging her knees, chin propped on top. Evadi frowned at her. Atala gave her a slow smile. "I only share that information with really important officers."

Their eyes met hungrily, then the bartender shook her head, handed Atala the drink she had been making and said. "I get off at two."

Atala raised her eyebrows. "Presumptuous, but ok." Evadi gave her a scathing look. "I don't mind the confidence."

Evadi sighed. "The spirits gathered all the trouble in the world when they made you." She nodded to Atala's drink. "Let me know if you need another." and stepped away.

Garrus looked at his sister over his drink. "Did you have to do all that right in front of me?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Oh grow up. Everyone starts wondering how it works between humans and turians the minute you and the Commander walk in a room."

Garrus took an angry sip of his drink. "How did you find me?"

Atala laughed. "You're a Vakarian." she said. "I went where the alcohol was."

Garrus' lips tightened. He couldn't fault her judgement there.

Atala chuckled to herself. "It's how I found Dad, actually. I started asking around for an exhausted turian with Vakarian tattoos that would look at the vintage of the bottle before he started drinking. In the first days after the war, that behavior made him pretty memorable."

"Spirits." Garrus rubbed his head. "Are we destined to turn into them one day?

"One day?" Atala said with a raised eyebrow. "You might hide it under your sarcastic drawl and 'Spectre training dropout' persona, but you're just as much of an uncompromising hardass as Dad is."

Garrus swirled his drink pensively. "And you were going to hunt down Reapers with your Cabal till they killed you?"

"Duh." She said softly.

"Well you clearly have Mom's unflinching drive." Garrus said darkly. "Are you here to just pick up a date and get concrete dust on the bar?"

"The bar will be fine." She said tersely. "I came to apologize for Dad's completely unacceptable behavior."

Garrus laughed. "One, the person who you should be apologizing to is asleep." He said nodding at Shepard. "And two: you were the one who stole the medical records and gave them to him."

Atala pressed her lips together. "When I did that I had no idea you were dating, and I had no idea she was going to be at dinner." She stared at Shepard who snored very softly. "I won't ever apologize for doing my job and keeping those of our clan safe. We're not losing any more Vakarians while I'm in charge."

Garrus looked at her. "And who exactly put you in charge?"

"I did." She said evenly. "The day I got done with training and was assigned to my Cabal I stepped into the power void from when Mom got sick." She preened slightly. "I even call the Kafu cousins every two weeks to yell at them."

Garrus actually looked impressed. "Good. Someone needs to. I managed to talk this C-Sec Commander, Bailey, into giving them community service instead of prison time when they got busted before the war for selling baby krafyn as goldfish...but you can only pull those kinds of stings a few times. And it doesn't work if the fish grows and eats its owner two months after purchase…"

"Hey, not all of us can be General Vakarian, Commander Shepard's right hand turian." Atala's eyes lingered on Shepard again. "I really am sorry for how all this went down," she said. "I was just trying to protect our clan. I didn't know that meant protecting her too."

Garrus shifted on his stool to face his sister. "What exactly brought you back here after all your anit-Ascendent opinions? It didn't exactly feel like you were on our side."

Atala bit her lip. "Dad was talking to me as he was running some scans on the office after Shepard used her biotics." Garrus rubbed his forehead in frustration. "All the readings were normal, they just suggested she's strong. But he also said that if the two of you did join us in Venatura that he was going to have to get more white wine because the Commander had said it doesn't go with the carachi… and they'll be in season." She shook her head. "Why would she do that? After everything today?"

Garrus finished the last of his drink. "Because she's Shepard."

Atala watched his face for a moment, her eyes tracing his scars. "You really want her to take part in the Joining?"

"Yes." He said softly. Shepard made a quiet snorting noise beside him, a few strands of her hair falling across her face. His mandible twitched and he reached over and carefully brushed them back, tucking them behind her ear with a tallon.

Something in Atala's gaze shifted as she watched him. She sighed quietly and then pulled a knife, a dining knife, Garrus noted, from their dining table, and made a shallow cut in the highly flexible exoskeleton of her palm. She tossed it in the air and caught it easily by the blade, offering him the handle. Garrus stared at her in surprise but she merely prompted him with a nod. He took the blade and made a similar incision along his palm. Atala clasped her sliced hand in his and said, "Then by the spirits I will stand with you both and guard her as my own. May her enemies be mine and my victories hers." She continued softly, "and may she ride with our ancestors when she lays down her palen blade."

Garrus tightened his hold on her hand, swallowed and said, thank you," his voice hoarse.

Atala grinned, released his hand and clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't mention it. It doesn't exactly look like I'm in charge if I say, "bad idea," and you go do it anyway. I'm just going to have to find a way to make it look like marrying you off to another Reaper killer was my idea."

Garrus shook his head. "Does Dad realize that you and your scheming are actually the

biggest threat to security?"

"Nope." She said with delight, finishing her drink. "And he never will." She nudged her brother, "Bring her to Venatura. I know how much you would love to show it to her, especially since Prometra is such a shit show."

Garrus sighed. "I don't know. We… invited someone to Palaven to meet with the Commander and help her explore… what's developed since the war. They would likely need to stay there as well."

Atala shrugged. "It's not like we lack for space. Hell, Shepard could bring her whole damn crew."

"I think Dad is struggling with the guest list as it is." Garrus said. He chuckled. "This addition would make him lose it."

"Who did you invite to Palaven?" She asked with a frown.

Garrus gave her a long look. "A Justicar."

Atala's mandible dropped. She threw back her head and cackled, drawing the eyes of several bar patrons. Shepard continued to sleep like the dead. She looked back at Garrus, eyes shining.

"Spirits! Now you have to bring her to Venatura. Please? I will never forgive you if you don't!"

Garrus shook his head. "I don't think we have much of a choice. It's about the only place with sparring rings and enough open space for the two of them to work."

Atala chuckled. "I'm so glad I lived to see this."

"Hey, Vakarian." A voice called. Across the room Evadi untied her apron and tossed it on the bar. Her eyes locked on Atala's and she nodded towards the door to the balcony with a raised eyebrow.

Atala grinned wickedly. "Well that's my cue." She gave a parting look to Shepard. "Get the Commander back safe, and don't get blood on her robes. They look just as good on her as I expected." She lept gracefully from the bar and prowled to Evadi who now stood waiting in the doorway to the balcony.

Garrus shook his head and turned back to Shepard. She was still out cold. He reached over the bar, took a napkin and wrapped it carefully around his palm. He gently scooped Shepard into his arms, marveling at how light the crazy powerhouse human was in Palaven's gravity. He tucked her head against his side so the muscles in her neck wouldn't be strained and carried her out into the night. He breathed in her sweet scent and knew he would proudly bear the scent of her till the end of time.

/./././././././././././././././././././

"So what other horrible shit are we going to come across?" Shepard asked, staring out the windows of the skycar as they soared north to the range of mountains where Venatura lay.

"Well, you have to look out for the stearios; carnivorous local wildlife that like cover the way a sniper does but don't leave bodies behind."

Shepard laughed. "After yesterday I think that sounds fantastic. Better than waiting for the damn slowly circling sharks to end it."

"Sharks?" Garrus said with a frown.

Shepard thought for a moment "They're like krogan that live in water. They're drawn to carnage and go crazy at the smell of blood."

He raised his eyebrow at her, "So krogan."

"Yeah but they have bigger tails so they swim incredibly fast, and have smaller brains."

Garrus shuddered. "Earth sounds terrifying." He gave her an appraising look and added. "No wonder you're so good at taking on monsters."

Shepard laughed. It felt good, considering how strenuous the morning had been. She had awoken with one of the worst headaches she had ever experienced. Garrus normally would have said that it was her own damn fault for drinking enough ryncol to kill a whole ship of volusl, but given what his family had put her through the day before...he braved Chakwas disapproval. After some creative explanations and pleading, he procured some restorative resources from Chakwas, who said that next time they were going to need this many aides in the morning she better be invited to come along.

After taking the meds to get rid of her horrible headache, Shepard had been in the middle of dressing, Garrus still in bed reading reports about the progress of Palaven's reconstruction, when the door to her cabin opened and Atala, naturally uninvited and unexpected, walked into the room. (Should these scenes be in chronological order? I'm confused about what happened when.)

"What the hell do you think you are doing on my ship! Much less in my cabin after yesterday!" Shepard bellowed, sending a blast of biotics at the invading turian.

Atala shielded herself quickly but made a noise of protest as Shepard's blast met her shields.

"Calm down! Calm down!" She snapped.

"CALM DOWN?" roared Shepard.

"Just listen! You want me here!" Atala said, still maintaining her shields. "I'm here to take this idiot to the doctor!"

Shepard was about to hurl another blast at Atala, but paused. She frowned. "Why?" She demanded, still sounding pissed. She was only half into the suit that went under her armor and was holding the top awkwardly across her chest.

Sheepishly, Atala said "Because his medical records said your doctor wanted him to see a turian doctor as soon as he reached Palaven." She narrowed her eyes at her brother. "He hasn't made an appointment yet so I made one for him."

"You haven't made an appointment?" Shepard growled.

"Of course he hasn't made an appointment," Atala sighed.

"You told me you made an appointment!" snapped Shepard.

"I was going to make an appointment!" said Garrus.

"He's lying to you." said Atala.

"You lied to me?" Shepard said, glaring. "Chakwas ordered you to see a doctor!"

"He hates doctors." supplied Atala.

"I'm always seeing doctors." snapped Garrus.

"You're always getting shot." the two females said in unison. They made eye contact for a second.

Shepard nodded. "Ok, get him out of here."

"Right away, sir." Atala said, beginning to cross to Garrus.

"I'm not wearing pants!" Garrus yelled. Shepard and Atala paused.

"Alright." barked Shepard. She pointed at Atala. "You, out of my cabin. Wait for him outside, get him to that damn doctor, and do not board my ship or come into my cabin uninvited again or I will use you to test my strength in Palaven gravity." Atala had the good sense to look slightly perturbed by the threat. "And you," Shepard said, rounding on Garrus, "Get some damn clothes on, get to that appointment or I'll call Jack and have her work with me and let her varren use your cabin as a playpen. And both of you get out of my sight quickly - I'm half dressed, my head hurts, and I have a lot of shit to do this morning."

Atala turned on her heel and exited the room and Garrus started pulling his clothes on the morment the door snapped shut behind her.

Shepard had ordered the whole crew to take four days of shore leave. When they returned they were to consider her deployed for an indefinite diplomatic mission, although Shepard desperately hoped it would not take more than a week to get an opportunity to speak with Victus. Traynor was appointed officer in command while Shepard was gone. Before leaving she had a quiet word to Traynor and Joker and made it clear that if Joker felt his precious Normandy was in danger in any way, he was to do whatever he thought best to keep it safe. With how fast things were changing in this post-Reaper War world, Shepard trusted his extremely possessive feelings for the Normandy above any diplomatic protocols, if shit hit the fan.

Once they got back to work they were to assist the human embassy and turians with rebuilding. She wanted updates every twelve hours ( "Because you're a control freak." Joker had grumbled) and she wanted to be called right away if anything caught fire.

She was a little bit of a control freak, Shepard thought as she walked to the medbay. Chakwas had insisted on one more physical before Shephard went off for such an extended period of time on a non-human planet away from the Normandy. But it wasn't because she didn't trust her crew, it was because she didn't trust the universe to not throw some new unimaginable horror at them. Considering all that she and the Normandy had faced, she had a pretty small roster of dead, but each one was still devastating. Now that there was peace she was especially determined that those numbers should not grow. Shepard crossed the threshold of the medbay feeling tense. She was very glad that Garrus was at his own medical appointment this morning, as him being off the ship made the appointment she was about to have a little less awkward.

Chakwas looked up from her tablet. "Good, Shepard, you're here." She patted an exam table. "Lie down for me." She continued talking as Shepard followed the doctor's order. "I've packed a month's supply of antihistamines on the shuttle for both you and Garrus. I've also done an update to the med functions of both your omnitools. I had the geth and quarians create some new programming for me while we were on Rannoch. Your omnitools now have trauma and stasis functions, as I don't trust either of you to stay in one piece anywhere." Shepard bit her lip and Chakwas continued. "According to Joker it would take the Normandy about an hour to get to you in Venatura at maximum speed. If something truly awful happens, as I am sure it will, use the stasis mode. That should buy me the time to get to you and have a shot at doing something to keep you idiots alive." She picked up a large scanning device and came to stand by Shepard's abdomen. "I don't know what kind of medical infrastructure they have over there, but no one is more familiar with the tangled mess of scar tissue and synthetics inside the two of you than I am."

"Deeply appreciated, Chakwas." Shepard said.

The doctor shrugged. "I should have realized that you getting me that raise was just going to mean more work." She grinned at Shepard. "My liquor cabinet is benefitting from the financial boost but I'm sure my sleep won't." She held the scanner over Shepard's pelvis and tapped the screen. "Ok, let's see how the blockers are holding up."

Shepard tried to think about something other than the scans that Chakwas was running but failed spectacularly. Losing the fetus on the Citadel might have saved her from the Crucible's impact, but it had nearly killed her in the hours afterwards. Shepards' blood loss had already been substantial from her punctured lung and the blasts she had taken to her abdomen, but it was sped further along by the bleeding from her uterus. Chakwas had told her that the fetus hadn't simply vanished from within her but that for some reason her connection to the Crucible had torn it from her, taking much of her uterus with it. (Ah, I'd been wondering what happened there!) "Internal scarring has diminished." Chakwas said surprisingly softly. "Your synthetics and the strands are continuing to reconstruct tissues on their own. They've progressed a great deal since our last scans. They do seem to be following humanoid physiology." Chakwas looked up to Shepard's face. "I know you declined reconstructive procedures, but it looks like your orthetic structures-"

Shepard turned her head towards Chakwas. "Orthetic?"

Chakwas looked a little sheepish. "Look Shepard," she said. "Your charts are pretty lengthy and complicated. I needed a shorthand for what has been happening to you so I made up a word. Although, seeing as I was the first physician to deal with these new types of tissues I prefer to think of myself as being the one that discovered them, and therefore I get to name them."

"Gotcha." Shepard said with a slight laugh.

"In any case, the orthetics seem to be slowly replacing the structural tissues of the lower abdomen. As your physician I believe this is a positive development we should allow to continue. Over time we may have needed to take measures to prevent other organs in and around that area from shifting, which could have impeded function. However, the pattern of tissue growth is suggesting that the structures in that area are being replaced naturally. I would recommend we keep an eye on it. Your DNA knows you better than anyone else does."

"Yeah," Shepard said softly. "But is it really mine anymore?"

Chakwas patted one of Shepard's hands where they rested just below her ribcage. "Of course it is. If you'd actually changed in any concerning way you wouldn't be such a pain in my ass."

"Ha." Said Shepard dryly.

"Anyway, the tissues that have developed so far are structurally normal, but I'm not seeing anything that suggests your reproductive system is functional at this time."

"Good."

"So, you want to continue with the regime of blockers, just in case?" asked Chakwas.

"Yes."

"Then we will. Otherwise everything looks OK." She squeezed Shepard's shoulder gently. "You're still you."

Garrus and Shepard had made one stop after leaving the embassy and beginning the flight to Venatura. They had flown to the eastern side of Prometra where the towers of the city gave way to a still smoldering crater several miles across. They had landed the skycar on the edge and worn full armor as they walked through the ash that ran deep as the sands on Rannoch's beaches. Smoke rose from sections of the crater where still-hot metals and other structures were buried, their cooling delayed by the insulating blanket of ash. Garrus' pace had been brutal. He kept checking his omni tool and would occasionally stop to examine a heavily burned, twisted piece of metal or concrete that rose from the desert of ash. Eventually, he stopped in an area that seemed otherwise unremarkable from the yards and yards of crater they had already traversed. He stood staring around in a few directions, then dropped to one knee, digging in the ash. A new bloom of smoke found its way up from the ground as he disturbed it.

She saw his shoulders tense and then to her horror he took off his helmet. "What are you doing?" she snapped, but he dropped the helmet to the ground, rose to his feet again and stared around them, breathing hard. "Garrus, there is no way this air is safe. We have no idea what chemicals are still being released into the air, get that thing back on now."

He ignored her, still breathing hard and looking desperately in circles.

"Garrus." She shouted again.

It was like she wasn't there. His face was pale, his eyes wide as he scanned the nearly identical dunes of ash in all directions, hopelessly.

"Vakarian!" she snapped. Pulling off her own helmet in frustration. And she was right, this place was bad news. She could feel the smoky air stinging her lungs. "You need to put your helmet back on now."

"It's…." Garrus said, still looking around. He began to cough, but ignored it. "There's nothing. But… this is where. This is where it should be…" He coughed again, this time so bad he bent over. Shepard was coughing herself. She slid her helmet back on and tapped a button on the side to vent the contaminated air and refresh the content with a clean supply. Garrus was on his knees now, coughing but still looking around in panic. She grabbed his helmet out of the ashes and crossed to him carefully, slipping it over his crested head and filling it with a fresh air supply.

"Shepard-" he croaked.

"Shhh!" She said, "Just breathe." He hacked a few more times and she vented and refilled the air in his helmet again. "What the hell were you thinking?" She demanded.

"I just…" Garrus croaked. "The scan said we were here but…" He coughed again and through the visor of his hemet Shepard could see that his eyes were shining with pain. "This was… this was… and now there's nothing." He rasped.

"I know." Shepard said softly through her helmet, staring into those pain wracked blue eyes. She bent her heat, resting her helmet against his, her heart aching for him. "I know."

"This…" he said weakly, "This was my home…"

/././././././././././././././././././././././.

"And here we are." Garrus said softly. Shepard brushed a few remaining flakes of ash off Garrus' armor, hoping he wouldn't notice, as he reached forward and tapped in the commands to begin their descent. She had never seen him as distraught as he had been in that crater. Never seen him do something as stupd as take off his helmet in a place like that. She knew there was no way that he would forget the horrible emptiness of that place, but that didn't mean there needed to be reminders left sitting on his suit. He nudged her, shaking her from her scrutinising of his armor and nodded to the mountains looming before them.

They emerged from a bank of clouds, and what lay beyond took Shepard's breath away. The Aroloup mountains seemed to leap into the sky in strange, slightly twisted faces with sheer cliffs that were painted purple in the afternoon light. Lush forests swept across their bases and crept up the sides before fading into caps of the purest white snow. The range swept in a curving arc across the horizon, and nestled in the apex of the curve was a somehow still sparkling city.

Venatura seemed to have been built with the mountains rather than next to them. The city rode the undulating foothills. The crests of buildings rising from the rolling summits in gleaming silver made them look almost as if they were trying to mimic the snow caps in the distance. There were huge arched windows everywhere, and Shepard doubted there would be a single room in the city below without spectacular views. Garrus pointed this detail out and explained that it had always made Ventura notable. The city had long been a hunting destination, as the lush forests of the mountain range were home to a host of dangerous, but substantive creatures. The windows allowed the residents to spot these enormous beasts when they came down into the area and prevented them from needing to spend hours exposed to the elements keeping watch for the subjects of their hunts. The buildings had sweeping balconies, terraces and spaces where glass walls and windows slid open so that lush trees became the fourth wall of some rooms. A series of natural waterfalls cascaded down the mountains in this area, winding around and even straight through some buildings. It was unlike anything Shepard had ever seen.

"And the Reapers all just left this?" Shepard breathed. They were winding through the foothills now, about a five minute flight from the Vakarian residence according to the display of the skycar.

"It was winter here when they first attacked Palaven,'' Garrus said softly. "And the winters are brutal so nearly everyone heads somewhere warmer. Anything worth hunting hibernates through the colder months, so there is little reason for people to be in the area. It has plenty of places to get supplies, and one of our best hospitals, but there's no real infrastructure."

"Why is one of your best hospitals here?" Shepard asked with a frown.

"Ranged hunting is considered boring and too easy." Garrus said, "And it isn't primarily done because we need the food, although turian culture is very strict about not wasting a kill. Everything up here worth hunting has a nasty set of horns, teeth, claws or spines so we have a very active trauma unit.

"Sounds like a krogan paradise." Shepard chuckled.

"We tend to get a pre-mating ceremony party of krogans a few times through the summer months. They cause more than a little frustration because they're as likely to take out a wall or grove of trees as they are to take out their target." He banked the skycar steeply and said softly "And this is us."

They landed on a flat grassy outcropping before a large and majestic home. It had a tall central building with a sweeping, pointed-arched glass ceiling and a wing of large windowed rooms extended to each side. A waterfall danced down the sheer wall of the mountain to the rear of the building and the thick foliage of the forest in the valley below spread down the hillside. Shepard followed Garrus from the skycar into the beautiful home.

The inside was bright and spacious. The walls and floor were of pale stone, sturdy and well worn, but comfortable furniture filled the rooms. The main living space had a wall of arched windows that faced out on the forests. The pale bark columns of the trees beyond seemed to echo the lines of the elegant floor to ceiling windows.

"There you are!" called a gleeful voice. Shepard turned to find Altala leaping down a gently curving set of stairs by the door through which they had entered. "I was worried that you might not decide to come after all." She noticed the look of wonder on Shepard's face and grinned. "A pretty neat spot, isn't it?" She said with a grin. She gave Garrus a hopeful smile.

"It's so open…" Shepard said, still gazing around. She imagined that sitting on the couch for any period of time would make her feel like she was spending an afternoon in a forest clearing. She was so busy taking in the incredible home that she forgot to be mad at Atala for a few minutes.

"Sometimes it's a little too open, to be totally honest." Said Atala. "Garrus actually ended up killing an endeoner in the middle of the living room when he was fourteen. It had wandered in and started scratching up the banister of the stairs with its horns. Dad was furious about all the blood on the carpet." She gestured towards the stairs. "Come on, I'll show you where you're staying."

As they followed Atala up the stairs, Shepard turned to Garrus. "How are you ok with all these windows?" She asked. "You and Zaeed were very concerned by the security hazards the windows in Anderson's apartment on the Citadel posed, and they were nowhere near as bad as this!"

"Yeah, but that was on the Citadel." He said. "Here we have scouts posted on the outskirts of the city to comfortably make sure nothing too big and vicious wanders in, and then the grounds for our property are actually pretty thoroughly booby trapped. My grandparents were very concerned about the threat of invading humans and added security measures concealed in some new garden features. Plus the house is built on the hilltop and we have a sheer cliff face behind us. Makes it pretty secure from a ground assault, and you know, it's not like it was built without an armory."

"It has an armory?" Shepard said incredulously.

Garrus rolled his eyes. "Of course it does, Shepard. People live here."

/././././././././././././././

Atala showed them to a suite of rooms on the second floor that were as stunning as everything else, with more huge windows and a large private balcony and bathroom. To Shepard's immense delight she saw that the bathroom had an enormous tub. On Rannoch she would have given nearly anything for the ability to soak her sore muscles from working with Javik in hot water for an hour or two, but it hadn't been an option. She had a sneaking suspicion that working with Samara was likely going to be just as difficult. She returned to their main room and saw that Garrus had stepped out onto the balcony and was leaning on the railing, staring out into the trees. She walked to his side and leaned against the railing as well.

"What do you think?" He asked her, studying her out of the corner of one eye.

She shook her head. "It's incredible."

"I can't…." he shook his head slightly. "I can't believe it's still all here. Especially after this morning." He nodded to the trees sweeping out before them. "Atala and I used to play on those trees from dawn till dusk. We would climb the trees and build 'space stations' in them and pretend we were fighting in the Unification War. Eventually Dad would find us and drag us down the hill to an open meadow for hours and hours of shooting practice." His face darkened at the memory. "Atala used to be a better shot than me. She was free to go once she'd hit her targets a few times. But it took me ages…" His eyes were cold as he gazed into the trees. "Damn, I hated that meadow."

He straightened and stretched his neck. "Anyway, I'm a better shot now. I'm glad she's moving so well."

Shepard snorted. "She certainly doesn't seem to have trouble getting anywhere." She said bitterly.

"Yes," Garrus siad, "But a broken leg is bad for us, Shepard." She gave him a confused look. "Any time you break a limb with an exoskeleton it's a serious deal. The tissues inside are usually crushed until you can get a medic to repair the damage. Blood flow can get cut off and there can be extensive nerve damage. You can get really sick." He had a haunted look. "Our Mom did. She was in a hit and run accident before I joined C-Sec, when she was in charge of our relations with the human embassy. They got her to a hospital pretty quickly and it looked like she was going to be ok, but the nerves that had been crushed by the car later sickened and started to die." Shepard was quiet but laid a hand on his. She could count on one hand the number of times that she'd ever heard him talk about his mother. He took a deep breath and continued. "She developed something called Corpalis Syndrome, a neurological disease that's been slowly attacking her nervous system; makes it impossible for her to walk and physically function sometimes."

He rubbed his face, staring out at the trees. "Atala and I have spent the last ten years doing everything we can to find a way to help her. There's no cure; there's barely any treatment. We managed to get her into some trials at the Helos Medical Institute just before the war." Shepard nodded.

She knew some of this, but Garrus had no idea of that. When Liara became the Shadow Broker, Shepard had spent some time looking into members of her team through Liara's new extensive resources. She had wanted to get an idea of what kind of intel the former Shadow Broker had on them, to try and anticipate if some of it could cause problems if it had been shared or sold. Some of what she'd come across with Garrus she had read through avidly, hungry for details on the sarcastic, flirtatious, emotionally distant and very private turian in her crew that she spent way too much time thinking about.

She'd chuckled through the detailed list of extremely personal ways he had taken out scum on Omega, like killing smugglers with their own smuggled goods. The fact that he had the names of his lost crew carved into his visor had broken her heart. It had been part of the reason she had been concerned for him when it had been destroyed on the Citadel. Now she wondered if his new one bore those same names and if he had added to the roster of the dead he carried with him.

But Shepard had come across messages between him, his sister and the Helos Medical Institute as well. She had felt awful after reading them; it felt like she had violated his trust. She feared what his reaction would be if he was aware that she knew what his family was going through. She'd asked Liara to finish evaluating how exposed their crew were and drank heavily in her cabin that night while trying to find a way to add him to the Alliance's payroll without showing her hand.

"Were the treatments working?" Shepard asked.

"I don't really know." he said, his voice edged with shame. He stared down into the valley below, watching the wind through the trees. "I let Atala deal with too much of that stuff." His voice grew quiet. "I don't cope well with it. It's killing her and I can't see it… I can't shoot it. I'm completely useless to her. It was easier to join C-Sec, try to feel useful by clearing out the scum on the Citadel and just send back money when I could. Not that it made much of a dent in the bills."

"I don't understand," Shepard said softly. "Why was it so hard to pay for her care when you have a home like this?" She asked, gesturing around at the sweeping estate.

Garrus sighed. "It's not really ours. Our homes, all turian homes, belong to the clan, not the individual family unit. If your family grows significantly and you need more space than the Residence Department will add on a wing or build a new home so that there is enough room. Where you live depends on what your role in the Hierarchy is."

"But you have staff, too." Shepard said.

"They are junior officers, turians out of bootcamp serve in some of the lower ranks and civilian positions till they advance or have completed their civic service and have the option of going into the private sector. Atala and I did the same kind of thing when we were younger. If you're serving, most of your medical expenses are taken care of, but Corpalis Syndrome is rare. It doesn't affect a lot of turians, it's not really a threat to the integrity of our ranks, it just affects a handful so there's no covered treatment." He scowled. "They would cover keeping her comfortable till she passed, but there's no way in hell Atala and I are letting that happen."

He gave Shepard a long look. "Speaking of which, Atala came to the embassy bar last night to apologize for how horribly Dad behaved, and for invading your private records." He said. "You're completely justified to hate her. I grew up with her, she's more trouble and can have less manners than the entire populace of Omega put together..." he tilted his head to one side for a moment, considering. "Maybe that's why I didn't mind being there so much… point is, she's not easy to deal with but she's loyal, she was just trying to protect our clan. She said she 'just didn't know that meant she needed to be protecting you.'"

Shepard made a noncommittal noise, still frowning.

Garrus shrugged. "Well… you should at least go open your closet."

Shepard followed his suggestion, thinking as she walked that if Atala thought her forgiveness could be bought with something like clothes then things were going to continue to be difficult. Shepard did need a range of dignitary options here on Palaven, and having Atala deal with it had just seemed like a great way to kill two birds with one stone. She sighed slightly and opened the closet. There was a stack of boxes on the floor of the closet, the top of which was open to indeed reveal turian robes of a deep blue, but that wasn't really what got Shepard's attention. The guns did.

Fifteen, maybe twenty guns (Shepard kept getting distracted by the make as she tried to count them) ranging from pistols to the long, sleek sniper rifles that Garrus loved so much were carefully arranged on a rack in the closet clearly built for this specific purpose. There were many that she didn't recognize and each one she did she knew to be top-of-the-line pieces of turian military equipment. A small folded note was perched on the barrel of a large shotgun directly in Shepard's line of sight. She opened it suspiciously and read the message.

Several of these weapons are restricted builds that are only assigned to Cabals of the turian military. Due to your service history with General Vakarian you have been assigned special operations privileges on Palaven and have access to the Cabals arsenal. I crossed a line. Please feel free to test out any of these on me with some concussive rounds. -A

Garrus came up behind her and brushed her ear with his nose. His brows rose as he examined the firepower in her closet. "I didn't realize she would be getting you this many." He said, sounding just a little jealous.

Shepard snatched the enormous shotgun off the rack and began examining it carefully. After a moment she looked up at Garrus. "Not that I'm complaining," She said, "But what exactly are we going to be doing here that requires this many different ways of killing something?"

Garrus grinned. "We're taking you hunting, obviously." he said. "So you needed your own set." He started towards the door to the hall, calling back, "I know Dad and Atala are a territorial pair of rabid varren, but they're not rude."

They headed back downstairs, Garrus mentioning that he wanted to try and get a more concrete timeline from his father about speaking with the Primarch. Shepard was not particularly looking forward to seeing Castis after last night, but didn't exactly feel like she had an option. They were passing the doors that opened onto the west wing when Atala emerged from them, carefully closing them behind her. "Dad's in the study." She called, nodding towards the east wing. Garrus raised a hand in thanks and then suddenly froze. His nostrils flared and his eyes widened. He whirled to face Atala, staring at her for a long moment before shifting his gaze to the door behind her. Atala's shoulders tensed and her lips tightened as she looked guiltily back at her brother. He didn't react. His eyes were still fixed on the door behind her. After a long silence, he breathed, "Mom is here?"