Nihlus and Shepard left the bar after she finished her drink. He had hoped that consuming so much alcohol would settle his stress a bit, but he still felt wound up. Shepard was blissfully unaware, thankfully, and his armor helped hide it as well.

He took her to his apartment he kept there on IIlium. It was a small one bedroom thing, but it was a nice place to escape to that he didn't have the council at his back. He watched her wander around, beautiful green eyes wide as they took everything in. He followed her into the bedroom and stayed at the doorframe, He watched as she sat down on the bed, bouncing on it to check the firmness. Thoughts entered his head that made it hard to swallow the lump in his throat. It was just because she was a woman and on his bed, he kept telling himself.

With a frustrated sigh he moved to her and pet her head. "I'll be back later." He said despite the fact she couldn't understand him, and left the apartment, locking it behind him to where no one could get in or out.

He headed down to a secluded and seedy club. He sat down at the bar in front of an asari pole dancer. He drank a few more drinks while he watched her and soon enough another asari came up to him. It was clear what they both wanted so he paid for both of their drinks and they slipped into one of the backrooms. Time wasn't wasted on words as they stripped down. He didn't even know her name and he didn't care as he crept over her on the bed. All he wanted was the release.

He forced everything else out of his mind as he positioned himself, hooking her legs over his hip bones. Their two species didn't fit together perfectly like two of his own kind, but as he pushed into her he knew it was good enough. She let out a little noise as he filled her, let out even more when he started moving.

She finished up before he did, typical given a turian's endurance, but she still played up the act for him, giving off those little noises as he reached his release. He gripped the headboard of the bed and closed his eyes, breathing coming in short, deep breaths.

'Shepard…' he thought as the image of her face entered his mind. He pictured her body, the few glimpses he caught; her beautiful red hair, slim shoulders, cream colored skin, and her hips. He grunted at the last one and reached his release, his hands moving to those enticing creamy hips, but when he opened his eyes they weren't cream colored.

'Shit…' he thought as he caught his breath.

The asari was already out of the bed and getting dressed. After a moment he followed suit. Why did he think of Shepard like that? Sure she was interesting, but she was a new species, she couldn't understand him, barely a month ago she hadn't even known that there were other species. He ran his hand down his faceplates after all his armor was back on. This might be a problem.

Shepard

She watched Nihlus leave, followed him to the door and watched it turn red, locking her in. It actually gave her peace of mind, keeping her away from all these strange creatures. She checked the door to make sure it was locked before she went and explored the apartment in greater detail.

It was small, but had a spacious layout. There was a full kitchen, yet no food in it, she guessed Nihlus wasn't here very often as the rest of the apartment didn't feel very lived in either. There was a small couch with a TV mounted on the wall across from it in a small living space, and of course the bedroom with a bathroom off from it. It was clearly a bachelor pad, which solidified the theory that Nihlus was single. She figured with how much they just floated in space without contact to anyone, it would be hard to keep a relationship if you lived like that.

The armor was getting hot and heavy so she went into the bedroom to strip it off. She searched through the suitcase Nihlus had for her and found a pair of tight shorts and an equally tight shirt. She ripped off the sleeves and the bottom half of the shirt and pulled it on. It allowed her body to breathe despite the warm temperature Nihlus had the apartment set to. He had the ship warm too, so that probably meant his kind got cold easy.

She made a mental note of that as she jumped up to catch the rim of the doorframe and started doing pull ups. She counted off three sets. Then moved onto pushups, then crunches, and then took a water break. She was panting and sweaty. But it felt good to work her body, especially after being forced to take it easy because of her leg and a certain alien. She put pressure on her right leg and felt a slight twinge, but it wasn't anything that was going to keep her down.

Once she drained the glass she set it down in the sink. "Right then, yoga next." she said and started out with the warrior pose. People in the military used to make fun of her for doing it, but if she had learned anything from her past; it was that yoga made you more flexible and allowed you to pull off more things.

She sighed in frustration as her stomach growled several hours later. It was getting late, Nihlus still wasn't back and she was hungry. She had even been bored enough to study the clock he had in the apartment to try and get a better sense of the time. It was really weird though. It only had ten symbols around it which she guessed were the hours. But when she counted the seconds it didn't match up. The clock's seconds were roughly a second and a half long, which would mean that despite only having twenty hours—ten wouldn't make any sense for a full cycle since she knew because of Nihlus' sleep pattern—the alien day was actually longer than a day on earth. You also had to consider if it was that way for just this planet or was it a standard time. She had seen as many species here as she had on the first space station and then at the merc base, so obviously they were intermingled, but there wasn't anything to compare the time here to.

She stood with a stretched. According to the weird clock it had been about five hours since Nihlus left and it didn't look like he would be coming back. So she might as well go to bed, at least then she wouldn't feel her hunger. She went and gathered several blankets from the closet and piled them on the hard bed, she really was sick of sleeping on hard beds, but she didn't have a choice on the ship. After creating her "nest" she curled up in it and settled down for the night, falling asleep quickly after her work out.

Nihlus

Nihlus sighed as he unlocked the apartment and went inside. He dropped two grocery bags and a paper bag on the counter and emptied the grocery bags into the fridge. Then he pulled out the contents of the paper bag, two meals, one dextro and one levo.

"Shepard, I have dinner." he called, but no response. "Shepard?" he questioned and went into the bedroom to find her. He stopped at the doorway when he saw her on a pallet of blankets on the bed wearing—he felt his mouth go a bit dry—a pair of asari underwear and a ripped shirt that only covered the top half of her torso. He couldn't help but stare at her exposed mid-section and those beautiful full hips that the underwear didn't do anything to hide their desirable shape. With much effort he forced his eyes up to her face and smiled. He moved to her side and stroked her hair. She mumbled something in her sleep and curled up into a tighter ball. He chuckled and pulled a blanket over her before leaving her be and going back to the kitchen. He'd let her sleep now and she could eat later.

He ate his dinner and put hers in the fridge for later. As he ate he tried and failed to not let him mind wander to the image imprinted in his mind of her very close to naked. With a sigh he tossed his fork into the sink, threw away the trash, and began stripping his armor off, leaving his under armor bottoms on and laid down on the couch.

He laid there for nearly an hour without sleep bothering to show its head. With frustration, he pressed his hands against his faceplates. He was so wound up you wouldn't even know that he had just relieved this tension. This woman was going to end him.

The next day he helped her back into her armor before taking her down to a private gym. He had used his Spectre status to get rid over everyone else and let Shepard have the run of the place. He had meant for it to be the start of physical rehabilitation for her leg, but she just jumped right into a full workout, clearly not bothered by her leg at all.

Shepard

Shepard couldn't be in a better mood when she realized that Nihlus had taken her to a gym. He kicked everyone out, giving her the ability to take off her armor. It was clear yesterday that they were trying to keep what she was a secret, which was understandable. If the human race found out that there were not only aliens, but these aliens had technology that a few decades ago people would think to be magic and in present was maybe a century away dream.

They had brought her back from the brink of death, cured her infection, and healed her broken leg in maybe a month, month and a half. She wasn't sure on days anymore after being out for the first part of all this and then having the daylight hours shift from space station to ship and now planet.

Nihlus chirped something at her and she snapped out of her thoughts. She blinked when she realized that she was completely out of her armor and left in her tight under suit. She looked up at Nihlus and took a step back when she realized how close they were. She kept eye contact with him though, looking into his green eyes. They were so intent and focused on her that it made her blush and she moved to the bench-press. Despite being different species a lot of the equipment was similar to the ones humans used.

After testing the different weights and adding them to give her the weight she wanted. Nihlus seemed a bit wary with how much she put on and moved to spot her as she lifted the bar to start her reps. By the third set Nihlus seemed to relax a lot more, comfortable with what she could do it. He reminded her of a mother hen sometimes with how much he watched over her. She set the bar back up and sat up, and moved over to a treadmill. Nihlus watched her for a bit longer before his omni beeped and he stepped outside. She watched him leave, but kept running. Even if she followed him she, wouldn't be able to understand any of it.

Nihlus

It was tiring to watch her; she made him worry with how much she pushed herself. It also amazed him how… turian she acted most of the time. Finally she moved to the treadmills, nice and safe, well safer than the bench-press anyway. He leaned against the wall near then and watched her run, admiring the way her muscles moved. With how soft her body normally appeared you would never guess that she was actually very muscular. His eyes kept trailing down to her hips, only for him to snap his eyes back up to her shoulders. Her shoulders were nice and wide, sturdy. Nice, but not her full smooth hips nice. He looked down as his omni lit up and alerted him to an incoming call. With a glance back at Shepard, he left and answered the call once he was out of the room.

"Nihlus Kryik?" the voice said.

"Yes." he replied shortly.

"This is a call in response to a search for Liara T'Soni you paid for. We have found her last known location and will send you the location upon payment."

"I already paid you," Nihlus growled.

The voice was quiet for a moment. "The previous price was before we knew who you were. A Spectre can pay more and if you want the information you will."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "How much more?" he asked.

"The same amount as last time will be adequate."

It was a lot of money, but he could just bill it back to the council. They wouldn't like it though, he was trying to keep them out of dealings with the Shadow Broker, they didn't like dealing with him, but they liked the effects when their Spectres got information quickly. "Alright," he said, knowing that it was for Shepard and helping to understand her.

"Thank you for your business." the voice said before the call ended.

He sent the money in and received the coordinates within a minute. Well, that was odd; the asari girl was on a deserted planet deep into the Attican Traverse.

"Nepmos…" he muttered. He hadn't even ever heard of the planet, which wasn't surprising since it was in the Styx Theta. That cluster was close to the Five Kiloparsec Ring, which surrounded the Galactic core. Traveling through it was hazardous from explosive gases and pull from black holes in the center of the galaxy—though they weren't close enough to get sucked into it. It was still something you had to take into calculation when you were flying it. He ran a search on the planet and his mandibles shifted uncomfortably.

This place just got more dangerous the further he read into it. It had a thin crust, barely eight kilometers thick in most places, this caused frequent earthquakes and spontaneous lava flows. That would make land travel to search for T'Soni complicated at best. Maybe he could call in a favor and get some type of hovercraft lent to him. But that would only cover the problem of the lava, it would make the problem of the earthquakes worse to be in a hovercraft verses a ground vehicle, but tires would melt in the lava. His mandibles moved close against his face as he thought. A ground vehicle would be the best, they could at least try to avoid lava flows, but earthquakes were a different story.

He quickly complied a message to a dealer he knew. Making sure to lay it on thick with how much the guy owed him for taking out that band of mercs that had tried to make him pay for protection by using his daughter as leverage. And by leverage Nihlus meant that they were dangling his daughter off the side of a building at gun point.

He kept them on Illium for about a week while he set up the plans, got the vehicle, and restocked the ship with plenty of food, better food this time since they weren't fleeing from C-Sec.

The night before they headed out the two of them were sitting on the couch in his apartment watching an asari movie. It was a sappy love story like their kind were famous for about an asari and a turian trying to make it in a lonely world where everything tried to keep them apart. He was thoroughly bored, and it didn't seem like Shepard was watching it either. She had spent most of the movie mumbling to herself in between bites of food. It would have worried him if he didn't understand that she was stuck in a place where she had no one to talk to for over a month now.

'Soon and then we can talk to her,' he told himself and shifted them so his arm was on the back of the couch behind her. She paused and looked at it before busting out laughing. Nihlus removed his arm and looked down at her, giving her a look to ask what she was laughing about, and it just made her laugh harder. Okay maybe he should worry about her mental state. She managed to catch her breath, settled in beside him again and looked up at him as she talked. He couldn't understand any of it, maybe a few nouns here and there, but nothing remotely close to being able to have any hint at what she was saying. But he still listened, looking into her beautiful green eyes. She seemed to enjoy it and soon enough talked herself to sleep. He brushed her hair behind her ear affectionately before he picked her up and carried her to the bed, setting her down on her pile pallet of blankets, and then settled in beside her.

Shepard

Shepard groaned, unhappy about being dragged out of her sweet slumber by someone shaking her. "Go away, the oh-great-commander wishes to sleep." she grumbled and rolled away from the hand. There was a moment of suspension before she was greeted by something hard. She jerked awake and sat up, rubbing the back of her head.

It took several seconds for her to realize that she was on the floor. Nihlus was on the bed, looking down at her with a worried expression. "I'm okay." she assured him and stood up, cracking her back with a stretch. He flinched at the noise. She looked outside and saw that it was still dark. "What the hell, Nihlus its still night," she groaned and went to crawl back into the warmth of the bed, but he stood up, grabbed her and pushed her away from her desire. "What?" she whined "I just want to sleep, you big oversized lizard… bird… reptile thing."

He chirped back a response and went through a drawer that had her things in it, pulling out an under suit and handing it to her.

"No, it's sleep time, Nihlus. I'm going back to sleep now." she said and went to get back into the bed again, but he pulled her away and shoved the suit into her hands. "Where are we going this early… or late… or—its dark outside that means I should still be sleeping." she complained as she turned her back to him and started to change.

"Ship." he replied; that word picking up through her omni.

She paused and looked back at him, but he was already out of the room to give her privacy. With a nod he couldn't see, she finished getting dressed. Then they left the apartment and went to the ship in the twilight hours of the morning. There were still a lot of people on the streets, but it was either people going or just got off work or people who didn't want to be seen so they didn't see anything. A few shady people gave them looks, but their eyes quickly went to Nihlus' guns and then looked away. No one wanted to mess with a big armored to the teeth lizard…. bird….reptile thing.

Once they were on the ship she went into her bedroom and flopped down on the hard bed. Wait. No, it was soft. She grinned and rolled around on the soft mattress. Nihlus must have noticed how she didn't like the last one and gotten it replaced. She got back to her feet, went to the cockpit, and kissed his cheek. "Thank you for the bed." she said and then went back to sleep on the amazingly comfortable gift.

Nihlus

Nihlus sat down in the pilot's seat once they were back, happy that went without incident, maybe things would finally go in their favor. He set a course to the mass relay and from there laid out the path to their destination. He almost had it completely when he heard Shepard coming up behind him. He turned to see what she wanted, but her lips came into contact with his cheek and he froze. She hugged him and said something to him before leaving. He watched her walk back to her bedroom and smiled, she must of saw her new bed. He twisted back around in his seat to continue working, but couldn't remember what the path he had set was so he started over, a hand moving up to his cheek where her lips had been so tenderly. That alone had put him in a better mood than anything else had lately. It was a warm feeling, but a scary one. He really hoped he wasn't falling for her this quickly. He barely knew more than her name.

A/N: And done just in time before I have to go out of town. Hope you guys enjoyed it and please review and keep giving me that good feedback. And thank you CyanB for the proofread. You guys have her to thank for this not full of errors left and right like my chapters normally are.