I was procrastinating writing this chapter so much. I don't deal well with conflict and Garrus's father... I was about ready to throw it all down and set it on fire halfway through.
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"So, do you think we have everything we need?" Shepard asked, looking over the bags of food spread out in the kitchen and spilling into the living room.
"I think we can feed a platoon with everything we have here." Garrus answered. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"I didn't hear any suggestions from you how turians welcome their boyfriend's parents, so we are stuck with the human tradition now. I cook something for them, and they can complain about it to you later and we will all sit around the table, awkwardly trying to come up with something to talk about. And the one rule for that: don't mention the war." She gave him a weak smile. "At least that's how it always goes in the movies."
Garrus had a slight panic attack, basing potentially life changing moments on movie scenes did not sound like a good idea. But she was right, he did not have any better suggestions. Normal turian procedure would have been to bring his potential mate to his parents, not the other way around.
He started to sort the ingredients by amino-style and by course order. Four piles of food just about fit on the counter, leaving no place to actually prepare the food. With a sigh he put four boxes on the floor and moved everything off the counter.
Shepard came over and helped him. "It's getting a bit cramped in here, isn't it?"
Garrus looked around and nodded in defeat. With all the extra food he needed for Shepard, he had had to stack crates full of levo-food against the wall, making the place look like an unfinished store.
"This place was never meant for more than one turian, you know?" He said, fluttering his mandibles at her.
She grinned at him. "Not leaving, sorry."
He stepped over to her and nuzzled her cheek. "Wouldn't let you, sorry."
Shepard laughed out and made a dramatic pose, waving her arm and acting like she was fainting. "Help, help, the big bad turian is holding me captive!" With big sigh she fell backwards against the couch and tumbled over the backrest. Garrus caught her arm and pulled her back up, ignoring her dramatic shrieks mixed with laughter.
He pulled her close and kissed her like he had wanted to all morning, while they had been grocery shopping.
Spirits, kissing must be the best human invention ever.
Shepard let her hands wander along his fringe and he cursed his armor for preventing him from feeling her body pressed against his. He calculated in the back of his head if they would have time for some more intimacy. His parents would not be here for another two hours at least and her scent was everywhere anyway.
He made a decision. Who knew how this day would turn out and he wanted to have at least one good thing to remember about it.
His hands slid under her shirt, pushing it upwards but he stopped and tilted his head at her in question. He knew that she recognized this kind of turian body language and would know what he meant. With a bright smile her hand went to the latches of his armor but stopped before she opened them and she tilted her head in question herself.
He chuckled and whispered, "Yes!" with a slightly urgent trill at her. A breathy laugh came from her and she whispered, "Yes!" herself. In an instant the pieces of his armor fell loudly to the ground and her shirt tumbled on top of the pile. Shepard's pants slid to the ground, just as his codpiece fell down. She didn't bother with his leg and arm greaves and she still wore dark socks on her feet.
But that didn't matter. All that mattered was, that he could finally feel her, feel her body pressed against his and her hands touching the plates on his back. In a, by now, familiar move, she jumped up on his hips, standing on his spurs.
She was teasing him, moving her wet folds slowly over the tip of his penis. She looked him straight in the eyes, her mouth in a wide grin. Garrus leaned forward, carefully keeping his balance and moved the tip of his tongue lightly over her lips. The shape of her mouth changed, he still found it fascinating how much movement she had in those lips, and her own tongue peeked out to meet his. Her concentration had shifted and Garrus used this moment to pull her down and sheath himself inside of her.
The sudden move caught her off guard and the moan that left her heated his blood even more. She was so wonderful, so sensual, she always gave him everything, never held back.
Holding her tight to him, he carried her over to the bedroom. Every step made her gasp, it seemed to rub her in just the right way. To test that theory, he stopped and made a turn around the room. When he had arrived back at the bedroom door she was panting and moaning and Garrus knew that she was close to come. He hurriedly carried her to the bed and went down on his knees to sit her down. She was holding on to his neck, her nails digging into his skin, her eyes wide in wonder. He loved that look on her, like she couldn't believe what she felt.
He leaned her back, to give himself a good angle and slowly drove into her. Almost immediately he felt her tighten around him and her moans turned into passionate yells. She held on to him even tighter and pressed her face against his mandible, rolling her hips. That move made him explode in passion, and he groaned out his orgasm in three hard thrusts.
Slowly they calmed down, their faces pressed together. He felt her smile against his mandible and she whispered, "Hey, angel, I'm not going to leave you, just because your dad will make some nasty remarks."
He stilled, how did she know of this fear in him? "What do you mean?" He asked, trying to sound surprised.
She leaned back and put both her hands on the sides of his face. "Don't think I didn't recognize the urgency. This was, 'at least I have something nice to remember, even if she leaves me' -sex. And I'm telling you that you don't need to worry." She placed a row of kisses on either side of his face. "I'm not leaving you because of your father." Another row of kisses. "I'm not leaving you."
Garrus swallowed. He wanted to say something, tell her how his cowl was bursting from all the feelings for her but he couldn't form any words. Only his sub-voice was singing his love for her loudly, telling her everything that he could not say.
Her voice copied his hum, singing love like he did. Garrus pulled her close and thanked all the Spirits that they had let him meet this woman.
Shepard let her finger trace over his markings. He was still kneeling between her legs, his naked torso inviting her hands. Her touch was soft but he had noticed that she pressed into his skin a bit more than in the beginning. She probably took into account that his skin was so much thicker than hers.
"Tell me about your markings." She whispered.
"What about them?"
Her eyes met his. "I remember you said that Batius let the family lines of his markings fade. What lines of your markings are colony and which are family?"
He traced his markings with a talon from memory alone. He had had them since he was 13 and he usually touched them up himself. He knew them well. "The thick line here from one side to the other with the dot on top here is colony. The shape on the sides with the little dash here, on my mandibles, is family. They go together with the markings below my cowl."
Her eyes followed his talons and then she traced the lines again with the bud of her finger. "What about Nihlus? The markings on his face are so large..."
Garrus thought about the large pattern, he had once learned all colony markings in school and tried to remember the lines. "His colony markings are on the sides, I think. The family lines are on his forehead."
"I always wondered about something. The turian councilor has almost the same markings as Nihlus, are they related?" Shepard asked, one eyebrow raised higher than the other.
Garrus had to smile at her expression. "They are from the same clan, I think, but not directly related. You might see many turians with similar markings who don't even know each other if the clan is big. My clan is rather small, you don't see my markings often."
She followed the lines under his cowl with her fingertip. "So they fade, that means they are not tattoos, right?"
"Tattoos?"
"Humans use needles to inject ink under the skin. That way a tattoo is permanent, it doesn't really fade." Shepard said.
Garrus tried to wrap his head around that description, knowing what he did about humans skin. "Doesn't that hurt?"
"Oh, yes, it does." Shepard said with a grin. "That is part of the process, to endure the pain to get it. I wanted to get a tattoo on Elysium, in celebration of my N7 rank. But the attack... I didn't get round to it. But I want to get a tattoo soon."
Garrus shook his head. "Humans, you get stranger the more I know about you. Our markings are not tattoos, the paint kind of etches into the plates but they need to be touched up regularly. Otherwise they fade."
"So, you paint them with a brush?"
"Yes, some people like to have an artisan do it for them, but I usually do it myself."
Shepard looked over his markings with a fascinated look. "I'd like to watch that. When you paint your markings."
Garrus nodded. "I'll paint them again in two days, I'll let you watch then."
He began tracing her scars with his talon. Her most prominent scar was cutting through her right brow, but she also had a faint slash on her chin. "Where are these from?"
"The one on my eyebrow is from my first assignment as an N4. I almost lost a teammate on this stupid pirate camp. They had the whole place rigged with explosives and Svend triggered one. I managed to pull us behind a tree trunk but some shrapnel hit us. This cut was from a piece of metal, searing hot. It cut me and cauterized the wound right away, I didn't even bleed." Her finger felt around her chin to find the faint line there.
"This one is really old, I was ten, I think. I ran outside and tripped over the last step. Cut my chin and bled all over the carpet like a stabbed pig. Face wounds bleed like crazy."
Garrus could see the grief rise in her as she was thinking back to a time where she still had a family. "Unless you make the cut with searing hot shrapnel." He said, trying to bring some morbid humor into her thoughts. It worked, she gave him a little smile.
With a sigh he carefully pulled her head towards his and pressed their foreheads together. This time he heard her start the love-hum and his hum fell in tune.
A buzz from her omni-tool finally pulled them apart, he raised himself up and sat down on the bed next to her. She huddled herself against him as she called up the message.
"Ah, the team roster. Let's see, who we will be working with." She scrolled through the list. "Alenko, of course, I should have known. Pressley, hmm, not sure I know him. Oh, and Jenkins! Glad to see him on board." She turned around to look at him excitedly. "I had been assigned to him for a week to teach him shooting at the N-Academy, he's a fun kid. So excited to see some action. A bit careless, I hope he has learned to use cover by now. Him and Alenko will make a good team." She turned back to the list. "Who will fly the girl? Moreau? Oh, right, Joker!" A happy smile spread on her face. "I keep forgetting that he has a real name, Joker is great, awesome pilot. You'll like him."
Garrus nuzzled her hair, he loved how it felt on his mandibles. He tried to distract himself from the fear that he may not accompany her on the Normandy. "Why did you say that you should have known that they put Alenko on the crew?"
Shepard sighed and scooted lower so that she was lying across his legs, her head resting on his thigh.
"Kaidan Alenko is an Alliance guy through and through. He's so much, 'by the book', he probably recites the rules for breakfast. Not to say that he isn't also a damn fine soldier, an incredibly strong biotic. But I'm much more relaxed with the rules, his unofficial second job probably is to watch over me and keep me inside the guidelines." She looked up to him and her blue eyes were shining.
"I'm a bit of a loose cannon, as the higher-ups like to say. Alenko is their perfect soldier and if it weren't for the Blitz on Elysium, he would have passed me in rank by now, I'm sure. Soon he will rush past me and I'll be under his command." She grinned mischievously. "So I have to enjoy it as long as I still can that I outrank him and can boss him around!"
Garrus stroked her cheeks with the back of his fingers. "So, Alenko is the better soldier?"
"As in following rules and orders? Definitely." Shepard said. "I have a long list of complaints for insubordination on my file. I'm not exactly the Alliance's dream soldier, Kaidan is."
She sat up and looked to the window, her face serious. "I have no illusions about me and the Alliance. I joined the Alliance because they saved me on Mindoir. Anderson took me under his wing, visited me at my aunts whenever he could and told me stories how the Alliance is making the galaxy a better place. And he didn't do it to influence me, Anderson really believes that."
She turned back and looked Garrus in the eyes. "So of course I wanted to join the Alliance. Before the attack on Mindoir I had no idea what I wanted to be one day, something with tech, an engineer maybe. The Alliance could give me that along with the combat training, so I joined them. If some pirates had rescued me and taken me under their wings? I'd probably be a pirate or a merc today."
Garrus was surprised, he had assumed that being a soldier had always been her dream job. For a turian, it was never even a question whether he or she would join the military, every turian served the Hierarchy in some way after turning 15.
Shepard continued. "I'm not that much of a romantic that I think that the Alliance is making this world all better but, yes, I'm glad to be on the good side most of the time. The Alliance is not some club of do-gooders, they did horrendous stuff during the First-Contact war just like every military in times of war and there are some shady Alliance black-ops groups around. But on the whole, they do good stuff, laws and justice and all that."
She got up and they walked back to the living room, picking up clothes and pieces of armor. Shepard kept on talking, as if she had wanted to say these things for long time.
"I know that I could have just as well turned out to be a pirate, I could have ended up on the other side of this gun. That's always in the back of my mind. That pirate over there is probably just some kid who took a different turn than me somewhere."
Garrus was astonished. He had never taken her for a mindless killer but he also had not thought that she was so understanding of her enemies. As he picked up the pieces of his armor he wondered what his life would have been like, if he had not grown up on Palaven. If he had been some barefaced kid, with no other perspective for his future than the Blue Suns. Would he be a merc today, working for the highest bidder? Would he be the one in Shepard's scope?
She was raking through her hair, she did that often when she was agitated. "But of course, when it comes down to it, I don't have whole lot of mercy in my heart for pirates. We always have choices and choices are what make us. That kid took a different turn but he stayed on that path. That was his choice."
She had put all her clothes in a pile on the couch and put her arm around his waist, leaning her head against his cowl. The pieces of his armor were in a pile on the floor and he took off his greaves to add them to it.
Shepard kept on talking. "I like to believe that I would have left the pirates, that I would have had my moral compass pointing me in the right direction, away from that life."
He made a questioning trill and she nodded. "Yeah, it's easy in hindsight and we will never know but I still think leading that kind of life is a choice at some point. A choice you have to own up to. And it might mean that you stand on the business end of my gun one day."
Garrus put his arm around her waist and pulled her close. "And that's a very unhealthy place to be, I happen to know."
She giggled and gave him a kiss on his forehead before moving away from him. "So shower and then food preparation?"
"Sounds good." He rumbled. He followed her towards the shower, determined to not let her go into the shower alone. He loved showering with her.
"Is this right?" Shepard asked, looking curiously at the casserole. They had marinated the artificial dextro-meat in a special sauce that Garrus had made after a recipe he had found in a cookbook. He hoped it was at least comparable to the sauce that his mother had always made. Apparently it looked very strange to Shepard but he considered her own casserole to look very weird too.
Shepard had made a small casserole with something she called Lasagna and it was covered in that synthetic stuff called cheese. To him, it looked like some kind of mud with yellow sheets and the cheese gave off an unpleasant aroma. But his food probably smelled just as strange to her as hers to him.
The dextro meal was far more elaborate than hers. They had a starting dish of gemarsu soup, the kind his father had often made. A main meal with the marinated kalkenda meat and bazellas and a dessert. The dessert they had bought, Garrus did not have the right equipment in his kitchen to make frothed telhyla.
He felt as if he was on a mission that he had not prepared for. He had messaged his parents, telling them that he was expecting them, and that Shepard and him invited them to dinner in his apartment. That way he had made clear that he would not hide her, not try to cover up the relationship.
But he could not make any prediction about how the dinner would go. This was uncharted territory, he had never even spoken about relationships with his parents before, let alone introduced someone to them. And now he was throwing all traditions out of the window by inviting his parents into his home to introduce them to his human girlfriend.
And he had not even told her that he loved her and saw her as his mate.
This evening had only one direction to go and it was towards disaster.
Garrus had put on his best formal suit, dark blue with yellow offsets. Luckily it still fit him perfectly. Shepard was actually wearing a dress, and by the way she was pulling at it all the time, she was clearly not used to it. The dress had been a real surprise, it looked vaguely turian but Shepard had said that it was human, influenced by an old earth culture. It was called Han-style, something that apparently came from an Earth country called China.
The dress was dark red, with black borders and it wrapped around her body and was closed with a bow on the side. The sleeves were long and wide. A yellow scarf was draped over her shoulders and fell loosely down the sides. The dress and the scarf went all the way down to her ankles, leaving just enough of a gap to the floor so that her feet in small red shoes were visible. The shoes had a higher heel and it made her walk differently, a bit like a turian.
The dress was not overly sexualized like many asari dresses were, but it still showed enough of her curves for Garrus to appreciate it. And the shoes - the shoes were doing things to his imagination that he could hardly put into words. Just thinking about her walking around naked, only wearing those red shoes, her lean legs, how her gait would change - it was enough to make his plates shift.
Fluttering his mandibles he tried to clear his head of these thoughts, not quite successfully.
They had set the coffee-table, because Garrus didn't have a dining table and he even had to borrow a couchchair from a neighbour to have enough seating. They had put the food in the oven to keep it warm, and now they could just wait. While traffic between the relays was quite regular, docking at the Citadel could be a bit unpredictable, so they didn't know exactly when his parents would arrive.
Shepard had settled down on the couch and flipped through vids on the big screen. She was extremely nervous, he could see that from miles away. Just as nervous as him.
He sat down next to her and took her hand away from her mouth, before she actually bit through her nail. "It's okay, Jane. We will get through this, none of this is your fault."
She gave him a crooked smile. "You know, I've had life-threatening missions that I felt more confident about than this." She leaned her temple against his shoulder. "Let's run away. I'm sure there is a transport going to Illium right this minute."
He chuckled. "Not sure I like Illium. How about if we go to Earth?"
Shepard had to laugh. "You have no idea what kind of a hell-hole that planet is, do you?" She turned to him. "How large is Palaven's population?"
"About 6 billion, I think."
"Earth has a population of more than 11 billion. The planet is covered with cities, huge, ugly, sprawling complexes, full of people, noise and pollution. There is a reason why moving to colonies is so popular for people from Earth." Shepard said.
Garrus let his talons rake through her hair. "I still would like to see it one day. See what kind of world has brought these horribly nosy humans into this galaxy."
Shepard laughed out. She was about to answer when the door chimed to announce a visitor. They both froze and stared at each other. Simultaneously they jumped up and began to straighten their clothes. Garrus looked at her and whispered, "Are you ready?"
She shook her head, "No, can I jump out of the window?" Her grin was a bit shaky but she stepped up beside him to face the door with him. With a nod to her, Garrus issued the command to open the door.
His mother stepped in first, followed by his father. They both halted in their steps and just looked at them as the door closed behind them. Garrus noted with some fatalistic amusement that the four of them must look very strange, standing there in two pairs, facing each other. Finally, Garrus made a respectful nod to his mother and greeted her with a friendly trill. He saw some of the tension fall from her face as she answered with a trill of her own and stepped forward to take his hands.
"Son, I am glad to see you are well." Talina Vakarian said to him and she lowered her forehead towards him like she had always done when he had still been a small child. He was taller than her now and had to bend his knees to get down to her to let his forehead gently rest against hers for a second.
They stepped apart and Garrus nodded respectfully towards his father. Aethius Vakarian made a short trill and said, "I'm glad to see you well too, son." They both turned their eyes to Shepard who looked like she was about to faint.
Garrus stepped closer to her and put his hand on her back. He felt her react to his touch by straightening her back and some of the tension left her face. He felt her take a breath, probably to greet his parents, when his father spoke up with an angry rumble. "Can't she talk?"
His mother hissed at him to quiet him down. Shepard looked between them and then settled her gaze on Talina Vakarian. She nodded and spoke, her voice sounding more confident than the slight tremble under Garrus hands suggested. "Matra Vakarian, Dome Vakarian, I am glad to meet you, my name is Jane Shepard. Please, come in and have a seat."
Garrus was surprised that she knew how to address his parents by using the correct turian expressions. He saw that his parents were equally surprised. Talina moved towards one of the chairs but Aethius stopped her with his hand on her cowl.
He stepped in front of Shepard, using his superior height to loom over her. He showed his teeth in an unfriendly version of a turian smile, indicating that he did not take her serious. "If you are the one who my son has been willing to give up his clan for, I expect to be addressed in the proper way." He shouted at her even though his face was just a few centimeters apart from hers.
Shepard showed incredible control by not even flinching. She held his gaze, stubborn determination on her face. Garrus opened his mouth to say something, only to feel his mandibles fall slack as he heard his wondrous human girlfriend answer in the turian main dialect Palaveni: "I am honored to meet the parents of my mate." She took a step back and turned to Talina and gave her a humble bow while she made a trill that expressed how honored she felt. Aethius was left standing with his mouth open.
With a small smile playing on her lips, and Garrus knew that she was damn well aware how much she had nailed this moment, she indicated the two chairs for his parents to sit on. Garrus and her settled down on the couch on the other side of the coffee-table and Shepard began filling three bowls with the soup.
Aethius and Talina Vakarian looked both slightly dumbfounded but Talina was the first one to find her composure again. She looked at Shepard with a friendly smile as she handed her the bowl and asked, "Is this a human tradition, to invite the parents of your mate and make them food?"
As his mother mentioned the word 'mate', it finally sank in for Garrus what exactly Jane had said. She had called him her mate! His mind was reeling. Did she know what that meant? They had not even spoken about that yet, did she really mean it or was it just a phrase she had found in a dictionary? Maybe the word had a different meaning for her? Or it didn't and she had meant it exactly as she had said.
A small nudge on his arm brought him back to reality, realizing that Shepard held out his bowl for him, one eyebrow raised in an amused question. He took the bowl, looking into her eyes, trying to find an answer to all the questions in his mind. She turned her attention back to his mother to answer her question.
"I have to admit that I have no experience with this, but I believe, yes, this is a common human tradition. As far as I know, you are expected to dislike the food and worry that your son will never be fed right from now on." Shepard said with a bright smile. Talina looked unsure from her to Garrus and back and finally laughed out. Garrus felt some of the tension fall from his shoulders when he heard her laugh. Both Garrus and Shepard joined in her laughter.
The older Vakarian did not join, but Garrus could tell from his hum that he was amused as well. The laughter of his wife had always been the one thing that could break Aethius's bad mood.
Shepard went to the kitchen counter and began to prepare the plates with the main meal. Garrus noticed that Aethius was watching critically every step Shepard made, while Talina was more watching him.
The rest of the meal went on in silence, only interrupted by a short compliment from his parents on the food. Luckily the sauce had turned out to be just the right amount of spicy. Both his parents looked curiously at Shepard's food, which she was wolfing down hungrily, until she caught everyone staring at her. Her face turned pink and she started to eat a bit slower.
Garrus was about to get up to get the dessert when Shepard's omni-tool chimed loudly, indicating a call. She excused herself and went into the bedroom. As soon as the door had closed behind her, Garrus found himself under the intense stare of both of his parents.
He swallowed. "I appreciate that you didn't yell at her." He said to both of them.
His mother turned to his father with an angry hiss. "Well, some of us dohave manners."
Aethius looked at his food, a tiny, defensive growl coming from his subharmonics. "This is a very clever tradition, the humans have here. It makes it almost impossible to go into an argument without negating the hospitality granted to us. We would come off as ill-mannered. Very clever." He turned to Garrus. "You do know that this, choosing a human as your mate, has consequences. Far more severe than you might think."
Garrus waited for him to continue. But they were interrupted by angry yelling from the bedroom. They could only hear bits of the conversation but it was clear that she was upset about something, that she had thought to be already taken care of. Garrus felt worry in him rise, he had the distinct feeling that this had something to do with him.
Shepard stormed out of the bedroom, an angry frown on her face. She stopped and visibly fought for composure. "I'm sorry, but I have to leave. I've been ordered to get on board immediately. They have pulled the shakedown run of the Normandy forward and I have to leave right away."
Garrus stood up but froze when he saw and felt the pain in her eyes. She stepped up to him and took his hands in hers. "You can't come with me. Your transfer has not been approved yet and they won't let you on board. I'm so sorry, there's nothing I can do."
Garrus nodded, "I understand." She stroked his hands once and then ran back into the bedroom, probably to change. He let himself fall back onto the couch and he couldn't stop the sad keen that left his throat. His parents both made a worried trill at him.
Suddenly they both started talking at the same time. Aethius asked, "She is ordered on board the Normandy? The new stealth ship?" While Talina asked, "What transfer was she talking about?"
Garrus sighed. "Father, how do you even know about this ship? I thought it was a secret project between the Hierarchy and the Alliance?"
Aethius made a smug tone. "You underestimate my connections. How do you think we ever got you a praecipit convenire with the niece of the Primarch? Not that you made anything of that incredible opportunity..."
"Aethius!" Talina called out piercingly. It became quite clear that she had ordered her husband to behave before they came, which explained his unexpectedly civil behaviour. She turned back to her son, her features turning soft. "What transfer did she mean? Are you leaving C-Sec?"
"Frankly, I've already left C-Sec. For the past few weeks I've been working with Shepard for ANIS, an interspecies agency for criminal investigations that the Alliance has founded. We have been investigating the Spectres." Garrus said.
Aethius made a surprised trill. "Spectres? You investigated the Spectres? Did you investigate Saren Arterius too?"
Garrus shook his head. "I'm not going to ask how you know about that but yes, we also investigated him. But since he is a Spectre, everything he touches is classified. We were sort of at a dead end. Shepard's assignment to the Normandy was a new development, I'm not sure if we will continue our investigation. But it was a great opportunity, the first turian-human collaboration on a new stealth-frigate."
He looked towards his mother, the one who never wanted him to go to the military after his mandatory service. "To join the Normandy, I needed to re-enlist with the Hierarchy and get officially transferred." He didn't fail to notice the hushed keen his mother made. "I know you don't like this, mother, but I don't want to miss this chance and I want... I want to be with her, with Shepard."
My mate.
Aethius took a breath to ask something but in this moment Shepard came out of the bedroom in full armor. She was an impressive sight, her dull, dark grey armor with hard angled shoulder guards. A red stripe with white borders went down her right side, a sign for her N7 rank on her chest. She had a sniper rifle, an assault rifle and her heavy pistol snapped on and her helmet under her arm.
Garrus got up and walked over to her, to take her in his arms. He felt more than heard her sigh. He nuzzled her hair and hummed for her. When he stepped back, he saw the worry in her face.
"What's wrong, sunshine?"
Shepard sighed. "I'm not sure, I just have a bad feeling about this. I wish you could come with me. It's... I would feel better if you were around."
"Hey, this is just a shakedown run, what could happen?" Garrus said.
Shepard's voice turned hard. "But the thing is... have you ever heard of an emergency shakedown run?"
Garrus shook his head. That did indeed sound strange.
"See? Me neither. Something is very wrong here, I don't like it." Shepard said.
She turned towards his parents and made a small bow towards them. "Matra Vakarian, Dome Vakarian, I'm very sorry that I have to leave so early. It was a pleasure to meet you both."
She turned back to Garrus and gave him a kiss on his mandible. Garrus took her face in his hands and pressed his forehead against hers. With a quiet hum he released her and she walked towards the door.
Talina Vakarian stood up and walked after her with fast strides. "Shepard, may I walk you out?"
Shepard looked confused towards Garrus and then back to his mother. "I'm sorry, I'm in a bit of a hurry."
"Don't worry, I'm sure I can keep up." Talina said and her subharmonics made clear that she did not ask for a permission. Shepard shot him a panicked look that Garrus could only answer in the same way and he shrugged his shoulders. That earned him a frown from his girlfriend, telling him that he was not helping.
"Well, if you insist. Please hurry, a transport is waiting downstairs for me." Shepard said and with a last panicked look she left with Talina Vakarian following behind her. Garrus turned back to his father, who made a thoughtful trill.
"She is right, you know. There is no such thing as an emergency shakedown run." Aethius murmured.
"Yes, I know." Garrus answered. His subharmonics sang a clear song of his worries.
Spirits, please don't let anything happen to her.
()()()
Taking a page out of Blade Runner and Firefly, assuming that China will have a huge influence in the future.
Thanks to Rama-Kay for helping me come up with some turian names for the food.
And thanks to Credete, who I keep nagging all the time to edit with me.