Nihlus led Shepard down the stairs and off to a bench to await the Council's decision. "You did well," he tried to soothe the concern too clearly written across her face.
She gave a slight nod, but couldn't find her voice to speak. Now that she was off the stand without all the pressure driving her forward she felt the full weight of the situation. The Citadel was a massive station full of aliens; most didn't even know she existed yet. They were currently at the top of a tower that protruded out the base of the five armed station. Below them was the Presidium, which as far as Shepard could tell was really just a fancy dog park for the rich, and the occasional less fortunate to play in. Then past that was an elevator that would take them by the central headquarters for the police force, and finally to their ship—Nihlus' ship. If she didn't feel so caged and surrounded by aliens that might very possible want to kill her she would have been taken back by the idea that it was their ship. It was starting to feel more like home than her apartment back in D.C.
She took a deep breath and prepared herself to speak, when the other factor to why she would never stand a chance trying to flee started approaching behind Nihlus. They didn't wear any special uniform, any mark of their position, but it was in the way they held themselves, the same way Nihlus did. These were other Spectres.
There were only three, a salarian at the front, an asari behind him, and a turian dragging up the rear, looking a lot like he didn't want to be there.
"So this is the new species?" the salarian spoke first.
"Yes, this is Shepard." Nihlus said, bowing his head slightly at his fellow Spectres. "Shepard, this is Jondum Bau, Tela Vasir, and Saren Arterius." he introduced her before turning back to the other three. "Did you all download the program I sent to the Council with her language?"
"The Council asked me to send it out station wide two days ago, when you were first supposed to appear." Tela said, with a shake of her head. "Ever the rebel, Nihlus."
"I wouldn't be a Spectre if I wasn't." Nihlus chuckled.
"So you do remember that is your position, and not some weak child's babysitter." Saren scoffed from the back.
"Weak?" Shepard said, standing up and going up to Saren. "I am not weak and I am not a child."
Saren let out a sub-harmonic growl and Nihlus quickly pulled Shepard back. "Sorry, I've had to confine her to a bed for the past few days, she gets a little stir-crazy." he defended. "And Shepard, please don't piss off my mentor, ok?" he added giving her shoulder a light shove.
Her hand twitched at her side, but she took a calming breath and nodded. "I apologize for my overreaction." she said, but Saren just rolled his eyes. She ignored it and continued. "But don't underestimate me based off appearance, I know how to handle myself." she said with a friendly, unreturned smile.
"Don't mind him," Jondum said, offering her his hand. She shook it and he pulled her close, looking over her features in a very salarian manor.
She really didn't mean to, but reflexes happen. Her hand tightened around his and twisted it around his back; her foot jabbed into the muscle right below the back of his knee, making his legs bend. And then he was on the ground, his arm pinned firmly, and painfully, behind his back.
Saren made a move for her and she flipped backwards, landing on her feet out of his reach. "Sorry, reflexes… I've been on edge." she said to Jondum as Tela helped him up.
He looked at her in shock. "I guess you can handle yourself." he laughed and the rest of the Spectres, Saren excluded, joined him.
"Can all…" Tela looked to Nihlus.
"Humans," he said, knowing what she was looking for.
"Can all humans move like that?" she asked, looking like she was trying to figure out how she would perform a backflip.
Nihlus looked at Shepard too, curious. "Um… I guess all have the potential… I mean Joker wouldn't, but being handicap he would be an exception…" she rambled as she commonly did when questioned about herself. Nihlus gave an inward sigh of relief; she was back to her normal self. "But… no, most humans wouldn't be able to without proper training."
"Ah, so it's a special branch in your military?" Jondum pried.
"No," Shepard said, rubbing the back of her head and took half a step back. "I used to be a gymnast as a kid." she explained, but their all looked lost so she sighed and explained further. "Gymnastics is a type of sport where you compete in agility and coordination. Sometimes it's by doing flips on a beam, vaults, stuff like that." she tried to explain without making it sound as silly as it could be. For example Joker explained it by saying it was to see who could act the most like a monkey.
"So that is why you can contort your body in ways that hurt just to watch." Nihlus commented.
Shepard rolled her eyes and in one movement slid down into a split. "Yeah, pretty much, comes in handy in a fight, so I kept it up." she said with a grin.
Jondum cringed at the sight. "I didn't even know anyone could—or should be able to- do that." he commented. They four of them shared another small laugh as Tela helped Shepard to her feet.
"Spectre Nihlus and… Commander Shepard, we are ready for you." Tevos' voice called out clearly as the Council members' holograms reappeared and the Council members themselves stepped back up to their podiums.
Nihlus nodded goodbye to the other Spectres before he and Shepard ascended the stairs to their platform for the second time that day.
"Commander… we have decided that given the situation we will let you off easy." Sparatus said, his hands behind his back as he peered down at her. "You will be held under supervision until further notice. Whenever you are on the Citadel you will be under guard. And you will be required to give us a log of all your crew." he said and she scrunched her eyebrows.
"Until further notice? That is a very vague term, I'd feel more comfortable with an actual unit of measure." she said, causing Sparatus to scoff at her.
"Until a time period we can assure that you aren't a threat. Besides thanks to these two" he gestured to the two other councilors beside him "it shouldn't be a problem because they have assigned your current babysitter to the case."
Shepard looked at Nihlus, who was standing to the side, trying to hide his surprise.
"But, Nihlus, if she steps out of line again we will have to take more drastic actions." Tevos said and Nihlus quickly nodded.
"Of course," he said and put a hand on her head. "I'll keep her out of trouble." he promised, ruffling her hair.
"Please, you can't even keep yourself out of trouble." Saren said from the top step behind them.
Nihlus smiled and gave a chuckle. "Nice to know you have such faith in me." he said and scooped Shepard up and over his shoulder, enjoying when she yelled at him to put her down and struggled to get out of his grasp. "Now if you'll excuse us I've had enough of politics for today." he said and started down the steps.
"Oh and Nihlus," Tevos said, causing him to pause. "It would be best if, for now, you kept up the impression that she was an asari."
"She is very…" Saren started, but a slight glare from Nihlus caused him to rephrase what he was about to say "tiny for an asari."
"Why does everyone keep calling me short? I'm actually above average for a girl." Shepard griped from her spot on his shoulder.
"Maybe for a human, but that just means humans are all short." Nihlus teased and continued to the elevator. He set her down inside of it, hit the button to go down to the presidium, and fit her helmet back on her head.
Shepard leaned back and waited for the elevator to slowly move. "How come you guys have all this high tech and your elevators move slow as hell?" she asked who moved to lean on the back of the elevator with her.
"They are prothean." he said with a shrug. "I don't know why they haven't been upgraded to move faster."
"What's a prothean?" she asked, tapping her fingers on her arm to a beat in her head.
"Ancient alien race, they are the ones who made the Citadel, Mass Relays, the original design for our ship drives, stuff like that." he explained.
Shepard nodded, but her fingers stilled. That would explain it. She had snuck off to the ship drives on Nihlus' ship a few weeks earlier. She wasn't an engineer, but she knew the design was too similar to the ones on the Normandy. "Hey Nih," she asked, drawing his attention back to her "when you go through the Mass Relays don't you have to signal the relay with your own ship?"
He nodded, "Yes, the drives let out a pulse of a mass effect field that syncs up to the relay, why? what are you getting at?" he asked.
She frowned. "I'm starting to think that it wasn't an accident that we went through that relay." she said, biting her thumb nail.
"You think that your government sent you to the relay's location and made the ship send off a pulse to connect to the relay?" he asked, connecting the dots.
She nodded, "Maybe not to go through it, but there have been rumors that element zero wasn't the only thing found on Mars, that there was some sort of alien technology, and the Normandy's ship drives were similar to the ones on your ship, granted bulkier and highly toxic to be near, learned that my first day on the ship." she said and watched as Nihlus' mandibles twitched as he processed the information.
"What do you mean you learned it on your first day?" he asked, not wanting to get her to shut him out by letting on that humans finding a prothean device, maybe even a beacon, would be something the entire galaxy would want to know about.
She rubbed the back of her neck, "Well you know how I get when I'm stuck somewhere. I started to wander about and ended up in the room that housed the drive core. It was like that scene from Star Trek that… that you have never seen, never mind." she stopped herself mid rant about a human movie from over a hundred years ago. "Anyways everyone freaked out, considered not letting me out in fear of contamination, eventually just put me under observation in the med-bay." she summarized.
"So you were exposed directly to active element zero and you're not dead?" he asked, standing up straight when the elevator pinged that they had arrived.
"Yeah, they said I was lucky my body had a rare ability to process the ezo." she said, following him out into the presidium.
"You know…" he said, pausing as they passed by a couple with their arms linked together. "You may be a biotic." he teased, glancing at the interlocked arms and then at Shepard.
"A what?" she asked, obvious to where his eyes were looking.
He shook his head and chuckled, "A biotic, they are special individuals with the ability to make mass effect fields themselves. Most require implants to be able to do much of anything with their abilities though." he explained, putting his arm across her shoulders and pulled her closer as they went through a crowd of people.
"How would I know if I was one?" she asked, looking at the people as they passed.
Nihlus watched her, "You know for someone who is so observant you are completely oblivious." he commented instead of answering her question.
"What?" she asked, snapping her head to him and he got the feeling she was glaring at him from under her helmet.
"Nothing," he laughed and pulled her against him even though they were out of the crowd.
"Jackass," she muttered, but didn't try to pull away. He just laughed again.
They stayed on the Citadel for a few days; Mordin told them he wanted to observe Joker. He didn't like it, but Shepard convinced him to give Mordin a chance, maybe he could help with Joker's disease.
The guards Shepard had to have every time they left the ship irritated both her and Nihlus, so they tended to stay on the ship with Joker and Kolyat most of the time. In short both of the busy bodies were starting to reach their limit of just sitting around.
"You know…" Shepard said, pausing to take a long drink from her water bottle. "When I offered to help you with your stress, I never knew it would be so… frequent." she said, leaning against the hull of the ship and slid down into a sitting position.
Nihlus watched her from a few feet away. "Maybe it's also in part that I like to spar with you." he admitted, looking her up and down. They had been sparing for the better part of two hours, neither coming out the victor.
She poured a bit of water on the wrappings around her knuckles and spread the moister on the back of her neck. "Yeah?" she asked, attempting to get up, but stopped and just sat there. "Give me a bit to catch my breath and we can go for a tie breaker." she offered, her head laying her head back against the cool metal and let her eyes close.
Nihlus swallowed a bit and now that she wasn't looking his glances turned into stares. Her hips in the tight shorts she wore when they sparred, the sweat soaked beater clinging to her body. Spirits she was beautiful. He was torturing himself with these sparring sessions. Yes, they helped his stressed, but sparked another form inside of him.
"Alright," she said, getting up and tightening the bandages around her knuckles. They had learned after the first time that her punching his hard plates repeatedly wasn't a good idea. She moved back to their little sparring ring and lifted her fists up, moving to be light on her feet. "Ready." she signaled before she charged in.
She was quick, but he was powerful. She was flexible, but he has reach. Normally it made for an even match, but she was tired, so was he of course, but reach took less energy. She moved in for a low jab, but he sidestepped, wrapped an arm around her waist and tossed her to the round. She went to get up, but Nihlus was too quick for her exhausted body. He moved on top of her, his legs pinning her to the ground, her wrists caught in his hand and pinned above her head.
"I think I win," he said, trying to ignore her hips pushing up against him as she struggled to get free.
"Cheap shot," she panted, laying back in defeat and he let go of her hands when she stopped struggling.
He chuckled, but the sound got gurgled in the back of his throat as her hands started roaming over his plates, her fingers following their outline.
"It's rare that you're out of your armor like this. Is it a turian thing?" she asked.
"Um…" he started, but no words could formulate and properly leave his slacked mouth. Finally he grabbed her arms and held them in his. "Sort of… most males preferred to be in armor in public and… naked in their homes." he said, able to think with her hands stilled. 'The things you do to me.' he thought, their green eyes locking together.
"Oh you like to go all natural." she said and smirked, wiggling her eyebrows a bit. "Let it all hang out?"
"Hang out…?" he asked, confused.
"Yeah… you know… your…" she pointed down to his groin.
He followed her finger and looked back up at her confused. "It's internal." he said, still confused before it dawned on him. "Wait, you're saying humans are external?" She nodded. "How… how does that work? I mean it wouldn't have any kind of protection."
She shrugged, "Like I've said, humans don't make any sense… I think it's some sort of heat issue. Most animals on earth have external testacies and internal penises, but for some reason humans are all external." she explained.
"Even the testacies are external?" Nihlus asked, still dumbfounded. He knew that some of the other races had external testacies, like batarians, but an external penis just seemed completely illogical.
"You mean all of that is internal for you?" Shepard asked, taking her hands out of his and propped herself up on her elbows, as confused as Nihlus about this concept.
"Turian's home planet has high levels of radiation, it needs to be internal to protect it." he explained.
Shepard was about to say something, but a voice from nearby cut her off. "I come to find you guys and you're talking about genitalia and looking like you're about to suck face." She snapped her head to Joker, glaring, but then looked back at her and Nihlus, looking like she just realized how close they were.
Her face got really red and she started squirming again, trying to get out from under him. Nihlus quickly got up, stepping back so she felt comfortable. "Stop laughing," Shepard she snapped at Joker, heading towards him.
"I'm so not sorry," he kept laughing. "Finally about to pop your cherry, Shep?" he said and started trying to hobble away from her, but she was quick and got him into a head lock. "Poor Shep, twenty-three and still a virgin, right?" he kept up the teasing.
"I am not," she said, getting redder and released Joker, her hands going behind her back, head bowed in embarrassment.
"Seriously? And when have you been sneaking off to a broom closet?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck from where she had grabbed him.
She swatted him, "I don't have sex on the job, that is against protocol." she grumbled.
"So shore leave?" Joker asked, but she shook her head. "The academy?" he asked, eyebrows raised, impressed, until she shook her head. "Before?" She finally nodded. "You're telling me you haven't been with anyone since before the academy? That was almost five years ago."
Nihlus looked at her in disbelief. She really didn't have a sex drive. Five years without. He seriously thought he might die if he tried to do that.
She muttered something so low Nihlus barely heard it. "Eight years…" She glanced up at them, before she ran off, obviously not liking what she saw.
Joker finally broke the silence. "I don't believe it… I seriously thought she was snogging someone. You wouldn't believe how many men tried." he said to no one in particular.
"So she is attractive to other humans then?" Nihlus asked, making Joker look at him.
He nodded, "Oh yeah, red hair, green eyes in this day and age?" he confirmed.
Nihlus nodded and looked at the stairs Shepard had disappeared up. "I was wondering, because of the way she talks about herself." he said.
Joker shrugged, "Call it a side-effect of having parents with brutally high expectations. I blame that for her not noticing that she has a small army of men who would jump at the chance to go on a date with her. Also why she hasn't noticed that you like her." he added and started walking towards the stairs.
Nihlus followed, rubbing the back of his neck. "So you noticed that?" he asked.
"It's kind of my unofficial job to make up for Shepard's obliviousness by being observant. Granted I'm not very good at putting any of this information to use, you need a people person for that." he said, slowly making his way up the stairs.
Nihlus mulled over his next question till they reached the top. "Do you think she would be open to the idea?" he asked. "Of being with another species I mean."
He shrugged, "No idea what her type would be, she hasn't even dated anyone since I've known her." he said. "Sorry, but you're on your own with that one."
Nihlus sighed, "Thanks anyways…" he said and headed into the kitchen to get some lunch and make some for Shepard too.
"Nihlus," Joker said from his spot at the top of the stairs. "I'll say this much, she doesn't relax like she does around you with many people, only those she trusts."
Nihlus nodded and went back to the meal. She trusted him, but did she return his love. He finished making them lunch before taking it to his room. "Shepard, I made us some…" he paused and his nose twitched. Blood.
Mordin was prepping for surgery when he got a sudden call from Nihlus.
Something is wrong with Shepard. Please hurry.
Nihlus
"Hm…" he said as he read it on the omni-tool on his right arm, a scalpel inches from the patient's skin in his left. "Need to go. Have emergency." he said, setting the scalpel down.
"But doctor, the patient is..." His nurse said, following him out of the room, but he cut her off.
"Is not my only patient. Another doctor can perform surgery on this one. Only I can see my other one." he said, already taking off his mask and gloves.
The nurse just stood there, disbelief written across her face. She knew Mordin had some random tendencies, but leaving in the middle of a surgery was weird even for him.
Mordin arrived at the ship shortly, his scrubs still on. Kolyat answered the airlock and let him on. "Nihlus says Shepard is bleeding. She says she is fine, but won't tell us what is wrong… and Jeff won't stop laughing." he added the last bit as they passed Joker trying to hold in his laughter.
Nihlus was standing outside of the bathroom door, banging on it. "Shepard, you're bleeding, you are not fine." He glanced at them, and started banging on the door again. "Mordin is here, he can help." he tried.
"What? I don't need Mordin, I'm fine, this is normal." she tried again from inside the bathroom.
"Bleeding is not normal or fine." Nihlus started as he pulled out a hacking device to get into the bathroom.
"It is for female humans once a month." she snapped at him.
He scoffed, "You've been in my company for more than a month and this is the first time this has happened." he said, breaking apart her story.
"I was on a shot to stop it, it must have worn off." she defended, opening the door on her own and stood in front of them. "See, alive and in one p-piece." she stuttered the last part, arms going around her abdomen. "Just… cramping… normal." she tried to comfort, but Nihlus wasn't having any of it.
He grabbed her from behind and pinned her arms to her back. "Alright Mordin, check her over." he said and Mordin brought up his scanning app on his omni-tool.
"Hm… uterus looks similar to one after a miscarry." he said, examining the data as it came in.
"Yes," Shepard said, struggling against Nihlus. "Sort of…" she corrected, looking at Nihlus' shock expression. Hadn't they just gone over that she hadn't has sex in eight years? How long were humans pregnant for? She sighed in defeat and bowed her head. "Every month after a woman hits maturity their ovaries release an egg and prepares for a baby, if the egg isn't fertilized then the body expels the egg and the liner it prepared."
"That is extremely inefficient." Mordin said.
Nihlus released her. "So humans bleed every month because they didn't get pregnant?" he clarified.
"Yes," Shepard said, rolling her shoulders.
"For how long?" he asked.
She thought about it. "Five days is normally the average, mine tend to be about three, but it can last seven or eight days." she said.
"Let me get this straight, human females bleed for a week straight every month and they aren't all dead?" Nihlus said, trying to process yet another weird fact about humans.
"Well the body has specially made it and it wasn't needed so it's expelled. I'm not losing anything that my body hasn't already accommodated for." she assured him.
"And it expels from your…"
"Vagina, that is correct." Mordin finished for him. "Fascinating, completely inefficient, but if you are not dying I have an operation to complete. Another doctor might get it wrong." he said and left without another word.
Nihlus ran a hand down his face plates. "The human race as a whole gives me a headache." he grumbled.
"Sorry for the scare." she said, leaning against the door to the bathroom. "But at least now I know how long it's been."
Nihlus looked at her confused so she explained. "The shot was supposed to last for another four and a half months after the launch, if it has worn off and we were on the Normandy for a week and a half that means I have been with you for right about four months."
A light bulb went off in his head, "How many months does your planet have in a year?" he asked.
"Twelve, why?" she asked.
He went to his pilot chair as he explained. "Because I can use this to help find out where your planet is; there can't be many habitable planets with the exact same length of a year."
"So I can get home." she said, but didn't seem all that excited about it.
Nihlus looked up at her, taking in her body language. He smiled and pulled her into his lap. Liara's words played in the back of his mind. "She is alone."
A/N: Sorry if this is typo ridden, Cyan is on vacation. If you find any horrible ones please PM me and I'll correct them.
Any who, I hope you guys enjoyed. Please review and tell me what you think.