When he woke again his bare claws dug into the wet dirt and dead leaves under him. He groaned and sat up, looking down at his naked body. "What the…" he muttered and looked over to his right when he heard something shift. Shepard was lying on her side, curled up by a small fire in only her smalls. Above it hung their clothes on a makeshift clothes line made from two sticks in the ground on either side of the fire and another laid over the top of them. His mandibles twitched into a smile and he moved over to the fire, throwing another log on to it.

"You go commando." Shepard said beside him. It wasn't a question.

He chuckled. "Yes, most turians do." he said, checking to see if his clothes were dry.

"So…" Shepard said and sat up. "Out of that slit?" she asked.

Nihlus nearly dropped his shirt in the fire, managing to catch it with only getting the sleeve singed. "Um…" he looked down at himself. "Yes… out of that slit." he confirmed, sedating her curiosity about their pervious conversation about anatomy. "Are we playing show and tell now?" he asked, looking her up and down and winking.

She gave a nervous laugh as she looked down at herself. "You have already seen me naked." she reminded him.

"Yes," he nodded in agreement as he pulled his pants off the line and slipped them on. "But that was back when I wasn't even sure if you were a woman."

She rolled her eyes and stood up, taking her beater off and spun around in front of him, her chest bare. "Happy?" she asked. "I'm in the military, Nih, I've had to change in front of men before."

"You're still wearing your panties." he teased and she threw her beater at him, catching him in the face.

"Alright, stop being perverted and get dressed." she said and went to get her undershirt back. He held it above his head out of her reach and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her against him. She tensed, her bare skin pressing flush against his hard muscles and plates. For several seconds they just stared at each other, a coy grin in his flared mandibles. She wondered if he was smiling because he could hear the pounding of her heart as clearly as she could in her own ears. She swallowed and tried to take deeps breaths to clear her mind, the same way she used to before a tournament.

Nihlus watched her face, trying to trace the thoughts playing out in her breathing, the flush on her cheeks, the nervous twitching of her eyes. 'Just be blunt with her…' he thought, thinking back to the bartender's advice. "Shepard…" he said, flattening his hand on the small of her back.

The motion seemed to pull her out of her trance because she jumped up at him. For a moment he thought, hoped, that she was going to kiss him. Instead she put a foot on his hip and used it to boost herself up and grab her undershirt. He moved his arms around her hips to support her. 'Don't do it.' he kept telling himself, resisting the urge to taste her skin. "Shepard, don't do that." he said as she pulled her shirt on, taking away the temptation to taste the soft pale flesh.

"You're fault." she said and tried to get down, but Nihlus held her in place. "Um… Nihlus? I kinda need to get down, you know so we can finish the mission, catch the crazy salarian guy?" she asked, trying to pull back from him.

"We need our armor." he said and reluctantly let go of her.

"I managed to get yours out of the lake." she said, pointing over to where it was by the fire. "Dried it the best I could."

Nihlus moved over to it and finished getting dressed, pulling on his armor as he talked. "What about yours?" he asked, looking at her as she pulled on her under armor and her armored greaves.

"It's at the top of that cliff, I had to take it off or I would have been too heavy to swim." she said with a sigh and brushed her hair out of her face to pull it back into a ponytail. "I tried to get to it until my fingers bled, but the cliff is too steep, the mud is too slick, and frankly I'm shocked we haven't gotten rained on yet."

"I'm going to have to start charging you for armor at this rate." he teased as he sheathed his guns. "Good job on the guns by the way." he said, referring to how they had cleanly been stripped and all the pieces dried.

"I am a soldier, guns are one of my best tools, my life line." she said with a smirk of her own as she strapped on her guns.

Nihlus nodded and they took off from the lake. "We still don't know which direction we need to be going in, but if you're still willing to climb a tree that is probably our best bet." Nihlus said as they walked into the jungle, looking for a suitable tree that could take Shepard above the canopy.

"You know on earth there are only a handful of rivers that don't flow south." Shepard said as she fell into pace beside him.

He glanced at her and smiled, "You don't talk about earth much." he commented. "What is it like?"

Shepard pulled out her pack of cigarettes, glad Nihlus had gotten her a waterproof case, and stuck one in her mouth. "What part? Earth is very diverse. I live in America's capitol, Washington D.C… Well more I live about an hour and a half outside of it, 'bout as far away as I could get and still make it to work on time."

"I thought you were fighting over in Afterstand or whatever the hell that place was called."

She sighed, "Afghanistan." she corrected. "I served over there for about two years, but not counting that darker time of my life I worked at a military base in D.C."

"A desk job?" Nihlus asked, looking at her in shock. "I never would have pictured you for that sort of thing."

She blew out a puff of smoke away from him. "It wasn't ideal, but…" she swallowed a lump in her throat and took several breaths through the cigarette before she would continue. "But it was better than being out there, in Afghanistan… I've had to do things, Nih." she said and looked up at him, pausing in her steps.

He stopped and turned to look at her fully. "We've all had to do things, Shepard. It doesn't mean you're bad." he tried to sooth, knowing exactly the type of thing she was upset about. On occasion he had to kill civilians, whether it was because they got in the way to the point he had no choice, or if he had to silence a witness to stop a criminal get away. He wasn't proud of those moments, but sometimes there wasn't another option, and he always looked for another option. He knew that, given the type of person she was, Shepard, too, always looked for another option.

She took a breath through her cigarette and blew the smoke out her nose. "Yeah… shooting kids doesn't make me bad." she said sarcastically and started puffing her cigarette again.

Nihlus felt bitter sweet. She was opening up to him about sensitive topics, showing that she was starting to trust him more and more, but talking about said topics brought them to the surface of her mind. "Why did you shoot them?" he asked.

She sighed and started walking again, heading towards a large round tree they could glimpse through the trees around them. "I was ordered to." she said as she tested the footholds.

Nihlus was quiet, silently taking in yet another turian like quality. It made him smirk that he was a bad turian; she said she was a bad human, but she would make a great turian. He wondered if he would make a good human.

Her voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "The rebels in Afghanistan were becoming disparate. We were slowly loosening their hold on the land. They started turning orphaned children into walking bombs. They'd strap C4 to the poor kids' chests and have them run at our soldiers, bases, camps, that sort of thing. Being a sniper… my guard duty was shooting them down before they reached their target…" She started climbing up the tree, pausing about a dozen feet up. "I quickly switched myself to convoys… less child brain matter." she added before she continued up.

Nihlus watched her go, slowly going higher and higher in the tree until he couldn't see her past all the foliage. "You're not bad, Shepard… Just following orders and protecting your own…" he said quietly and settled down at the base of the tree to wait for her.

She kept climbing, her fingers gripping into the rough bark so she could lift a foot, shoving it in a crevice to push herself up higher. 'Nihlus has been acting weird…' she thought as she climbed, trying to distract her mind so the climb wouldn't feel so hard. 'Normally he gets all wound up when he hasn't had any, but he stayed out all night right before we left.' She frowned at the recollection. 'Not that I should care, Nihlus is a big boy and can do whatever he wants… I'm just… so used to having him all to myself all the time, sharing is something I'll just have to get used to.' She grunted as she pulled herself up onto a thick branch and leaned against the trunk to rest for a second.

She thought of Nihlus below her on the ground. He loved to tease her, obviously, loved to watch her squirm as he sported his experience around her. She picked at her fingernails. It wasn't her fault that in all her life the only person ever interested in her was back in high school when she was fifteen. And then she only slept with him to piss her parents off. If she had to guess she'd say that her emotions on knowing that he goes out and sleeps with other women and her reactions to his teasing were a form of jealousy.

She stood up on the branch and punched the tree trunk. Denial was bliss, but now she was aware of it. It was so much worse. She had a crush on Nihlus. He was the ideal for suckers of the romantic idea some soldiers had when signing up. Tall, strong, a great soldier with a kind heart, if he was a human he'd have women swooning to him, though from the looks of it he still did. 'Would I "swoon" to him too?' she asked herself. She thought back to their conversation on Nos Atros, about their species likely able to… mingle and blushed a deep red. "Stupid jackass," she muttered and tried to banish the thoughts.

It's not like her little crush on the soldier boy mattered anyway, he was a bachelor enjoying his prime with no interest in settling down with anyone.

She climbed faster, as if she thought that if she got high enough she'd leave her emotions and thoughts behind.

Nihlus checked the time on his omni-tool and tried not to worry. How high was the tree? How much time should it take her? When should he start worrying about her wellbeing? Well that last one was foolish to ask, he always worried about her wellbeing. "Why wouldn't you just wait on the ship." he muttered, tapping his finger against his arm impatiently.

"So we actually aren't far off." Shepard suddenly said from beside him. He jumped and looked at her, hanging upside-down on branch above his head, their heads level. "You know, this reminds me of a scene from Spiderman." she said with a slight laugh.

"Spider-what?" he asked as she let go of the branch and flipped to her feet, landing in a crouch.

"Old movie based off of even older comics… I had a teacher back in boarding school that was really into old movies and shit, he introduced me to a lot of it." she explained.

He rolled his eyes and ruffled her hair. "Alright, well where is the base? I don't know about you, but I'm hunger and just want to finish this mission and get back."

"I want to sleep in a bed instead of the ground again." she said and ran a hand on the back of her neck.

"My bed," he teased and smiled. She shoved him and he nearly tripped over a root from the sudden force. They both shared a look and a smile before busting out laughing. "You are going to be the death of me." he said and shoved her back.

Once they knew the correct direction they made it to the base within a few hours. It wasn't big, but it had a large pole topped with a solar panel coming out of it and reaching above the top of the trees, which is how Shepard had seen it from her perch in the tree.

"Pretty basic building, only guards are security mechs. Whole thing looks to be built to be self-sustaining." Nihlus said from their forty meters out and safely hidden in a thick shrub. He looked at Shepard, who was supposed to be setting up a sniper to give him cover fire while he advanced. "Are you smoking again?" he asked, going to take the cigarette from her lips, but she pulled back.

"It helps calm me down and keeps my mind off my stomach trying to eat itself. This is the second time I've almost starved because of you." she said, shoving him off as he persisted.

"You could set our cover on fire." Nihlus protested, pinning her to the ground and tried to get the cigarette.

Shepard switched it to her hand and held it out of his reach. "The shrub is green and the ground is wet, neither is going to catch on fire from a cigarette." she protested and tried to shove him off.

He growled and let her go. "Fine, just make sure it doesn't affect your aim. Mechs are stupid, but they still hurt." he said as he left the cover and started towards the small base, his pistol out and ready to fire at any threat.

Present

Nihlus and Shepard walked in silence, the salarian out cold over Nihlus' shoulder. There was a sudden sound of thunder over them that made them pause. "There is the rain; I knew it was only a matter of time." Shepard said, trying to make light of the situation. A second later and the water reached through the canopy to them, soaking them through quickly.

"I hate the rain." they both said at the same time before continuing their trek out of the forest, guided by a compass Nihlus had pocketed from the base.

They were both tired, hungry, and daydreaming about being back on the nice cool ship with food and a soft, Shepard would disagree about that, bed. Nihlus paused in his steps, his instincts alerting him to danger right as a burning tree fell a dozen feet in front of him. He looked back at Shepard to make sure she was there.

She was staring at the tree, an unlit cigarette in her mouth and her lighter in her hand. "I didn't do it." she defended. He rolled his eyes and they took off running away from the burning tree and the fire creeping up behind it to join it.

"Lightening must have struck a tree." he said, ducking under a burning branch. "Though it could have been a discarded cigarette." he teased.

"Shut up and call the ship." she panted as they fought to dodge the burning jungle around them.

"There is no way I am going to be able to tell the ship to do anything from here if we can't even talk on com." he said throwing Gavil over a fallen log, thankfully this one wasn't on fire. "Your turn." he said and picked Shepard up, getting ready to toss her over.

"Wait… talk… Joker is a pilot, maybe he can get the ship down here." she said, making him pause.

"He has never flown a turian ship… or any alien ship." Nihlus protested.

"You said they are all based off of prothean technology, they should be similar to the Normandy." Nihlus thought about it before he shook his head and tossed her over. "He is the best damn pilot I've ever seen." she said, standing up on the other side as he climbed over. "He can do it."

Nihlus picked up Gavil and threw him back over his shoulder. He looked at Shepard for a long moment, thinking over her proposition, testing her resolve. He moved a hand to the com in his hear. "Joker, can you hear me?" he asked, getting only static back. "Joker, we are in the middle of a wildfire, if you can hear me you better pick up."

"I-I m h-h-re." came back a barely audible response.

"I need you to fly the ship down here and pick us up, you should be able to get our general location and we will head to higher ground to help." he said and they started moving again, going away from the fire and uphill the best they could.

"W-what? I c-can't fly th-the sh-p."

"Yes you can, Joker, it's based off the same tech as the Normandy. Your omni-tool will sync up with the ship's computer and translate the monitors for you." Nihlus said bringing his arm up to block a falling tree, allowing Shepard time to get under the deadly flames.

"Fire proof armor… nice." Shepard commented as he pushed the thin tree away.

"Well, fire resistant." he correct and they continued to climb up the slanted ground.

Joker

"This is crazy," he said as he slid into the pilot seat and started searching the buttons. It was all gibberish to him and then all at once the text changed to English. "Ok… that is kinda awesome."

"J-Jo-k… h-rry." Shepard's broken response played over the com.

"Alright, I've never done this before." he said and started tapping buttons. The ship jerked and dropped them out of obit.

"What did you do? We are going to crash!" Kolyat said behind him, stumbling into the cockpit.

Joker kept hitting buttons, trying to get the engines to balance out and do what he wanted. "Shepard and Nihlus are trapped in a wildfire, they need us to come pick them up." he said, hitting buttons faster as the ground approached them.

"We are going to die." Kolyat said and started muttering a prayer.

"Hey, have some faith." Joker said as the ship shook and they slowed down just in time to miss slamming into the canopy. "There we go, just got to show her who is boss." he said and moved them forward, racing towards the visible flames and to where it said Nihlus and Shepard were.

Shepard and Nihlus

'Come on, Joker, I know you can do it.' she thought as they topped a small hill to come face to face with a tall wall of flames. "Shit… what now?" she asked Nihlus, who was looking around for a way out.

His mandibles twitched in thought as the fire crawled towards them. He dropped Gavil on the ground and picked her up, getting her to curl into a ball, and shielded her from the flames the best he could. "Nih, this isn't a solution." she said in his arms, shying away from the heat that consumed the air around them.

"I'm not letting you get hurt again." he stood firm on his decision, ignoring the heat at the fire lapped at his armor. "I'd rather die."

Shepard pulled away and looked up at him. He patted her head as the fire caught the ends of her hair. In the face of death there wasn't another way he'd rather go than to have her in his arms. They were going to die here, he had lead them to their deaths, and he was still too scared to tell her how he felt. But he couldn't go out without leaving some sort of mark on her, some symbol of what he felt. He tilted her head up and brought his teeth to her shoulder, biting down through her shirt. She tensed and he could taste her blood and he groaned, the arm around her tightening and held her closer to him.

Then the flames where gone, or at least lessened, as his ship lowered itself to them. He let Shepard go and shoved her towards the ship while he went back for Gavil.

He met her in the cargo bay and dumped Gavil into one of the cells along the far wall.

"Damn, Nih." she said, coming up behind him, her shirt pulled away from the bite. "I think this might scar."

"Sorry," he muttered as he locked the cell. He really wasn't. Seeing his bite on her skin was a really big turn on. He took a deep breath before he turned to face her.

"It's ok, you were in pain." she said as she lifted her shirt over her head, leaving her in just the beater and allowing the wound to be exposed.

He swallowed and headed up the stairs to the main floor, really thankful he was in armor. "Get us out of here, Joker." he called out as he headed to the cockpit.

"Already on it." Joker said as he pushed them up into the atmosphere. He glanced at Nihlus, taking in his tense stance. "You okay?"

"No, she is completely oblivious." he growled.

"Yeah, that's Shep." Joker laughed. "So what happened, you tried to ask her out and she said you two were already outside?"

Nihlus sighed and sank down into his rarely used co-pilot seat. "I bit her." he admitted, earning a confused look from the human. "It's… a turian marking thing… she thinks it was because I was in pain from the fire."

"Ah…" Joker said and nodded. "Have you tried kissing her? That sends a clearer message to us humans."

"Yes," Nihlus said with a dry laugh. "Right after I nearly drowned."

"Wow, sounds like you two had an adventure." Joker said and went to get up to give Nihlus his ship back.

"Where do you think you're going? Now that you know how to fly the ship you do it, I hate flying this thing." Nihlus said and got up, heading back to the mess.

Joker shrugged, "Fine by me, I like to fly." he said and brought up the star map. "Where we going?"

"To the Citadel, have to bring the guy to the council." Nihlus said before he slipped into the bathroom and started to undress for a well-deserved shower.

Shepard

"Hey," Joker heard behind him, making him turn around in the chair. "Can you help me with this?" Shepard asked, holding a packet of med-gel in one hand and the other on the bite wound on her shoulder.

"Sure," he said and sat up straight. She sat down on the arm of the chair and handed him the packet. "Wow, he got you pretty good." he commented as he rubbed the gel on the wound, it stopping the bleeding almost instantly.

"We were in the middle of a wildfire, people do rash things when they are in pain." she said with a shrug. "Nihlus would never hurt me intentionally."

Joker sighed, "Yeah, sure." he said and handed her the empty packet.

"Oh, did Nihlus tell you that the salarian guy might know where Kaidan is?" she said, striking a conversation.

"No, but that is good… makes things complicated though." he said and snatched the cigarette Shepard went to put in her mouth.

"Why? Kaidan is a soldier, he may be a bit closed minded, but if we both vouch for Nihlus and Kolyat he shouldn't do anything." she said, sighing as her cigarettes were taken.

Joker sighed, "Yeah, maybe, but I just get the feeling him and Nihlus won't get along." he said as he got up. "Ship's on auto-pilot, going to stretch my legs." he said and limped down to the cargo bay where Nihlus was waiting for the prisoner to wake up.

Nihlus nodded at him in greeting. "She mad about the bite?" he asked.

"No, just like you said, she thinks nothing of it." Joker said and eased himself onto a crate. "But I need to talk to you. Shepard said this guy knows where Kaidan is."

Nihlus nodded, "He said that a black haired human was in a fighting pit, waiting for him to wake up so he can tell us where."

Joker rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah… so here is the thing… Kaidan has a huge crush on Shepard."

Nihlus blinked but didn't say anything for a long moment. "I figured as much. This exploration team doesn't sound like something you put soldiers on, especially if Shepard was able to pinpoint who it was so quick. Let me guess, he asked to be on it after he heard Shepard would be going?"

"Hit it right on the head." Joker confirmed with a nod.

"Does Shepard know?"

"Nope, and he has asked her to go to the movies with him once, she said sure and showed up with a bunch of friends, thinking it was a group thing." Joker said, making Nihlus sigh.

"Yeah, but he still has a better chance with her, at least he is the same species." Nihlus grumbled and turned to the cell as Gavil stirred. "It doesn't matter though; we are still going to save him, for Shepard."

A/N: Tada, new chapter. Leaving the last one like that I got anxious to want to right this one and get it posted. I also tried to go into Shepard's mindset a bit more because of several of you questioning if she was even interested. As you can see she is, she is just dense. Sorry for lack of her dialog most of the time, it's easier for me to get into Nihlus' head than innocent Shepard's (I'm a pervert). This also answers your questions on if Kaidan is going to create conflict, he will.

Hope you liked and please review and tell me what you guys are thinking.