Second part of the magcail journey to the beginnings of Shakarian!
Our dear Hamster comes into play, and the Normandy's resident romance expert lends her professional opinion.

PART TWO
Anger, a Hamster and A romance expert

Shepard had never hated the Citadel as much as she did now. Before, she'd always looked at this place as something mythical, even after the discoveries they had made of the Conduit, but now? Now it was the place that had put a chasm between her and Garrus.

He had found Sidonis at last, he was hiding there under a false identity provided by a certain Fade. Which they had successfully tracked down, only to find it was none other than Harkin. That old scumbag was doing business stealing information from C-Sec, and she had felt no remorse or displeasure when Garrus had shot him the leg. He deserved that.

But letting him soothe his rage by kicking up Harkin and letting him shoot Sidonis in cold blood to satisfy his need for vengeance were two different things.

She would have never allowed him to walk down that ruthless path. She had done it, she knew what it entailed, and she wouldn't wish the consequences of it on no one.

Especially not Garrus.

And especially not after she had realized her feelings for him.

She would have stopped him regardless, the fact that she now knew how she felt only helped strengthen her resolve.

And she would have said so to him too, if only he hadn't stubbornly refused to either look at her or listen to her for the whole ride back to the Normandy. Garrus had disappeared as soon as they'd set foot in the boarding tunnel, taking advantage of an engineer stopping Shepard for a report. When she'd finally managed to make her way to the battery, the door was shut, the button hovering red. She'd tried to order EDI to open it, but the AI had refused on the basis that Officer Vakarian wished not be disturbed.

That what you got from having a fully sentient machine running your ship.

In a fit of annoyance, Shepard had kicked the door and mouthed some very self explicative insults at the turian, concluding with a if you don't get your skinny Turian ass out of that battery, I'm gonna punch this door down!

When everything remained silent, she swore some more but ultimately decided to let him come to his sense before she could punch some more into him.

As she made her way back towards the CIC, she was cornered by Thane. Well, cornered wasn't exactly right. She was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she had failed to see him approach. The assassin was nothing if not a gentleman, and never sneaked up on people if the situation didn't require it.

'I'm sorry to bother you Shepard, but there is a matter I would like you to help me with while we are still on the Citadel' he said, and the collected atmosphere all around him helped soothe her nerves.

'Sure, lead the way.'

Two hours later she had managed to help Thane stop his son from doing something he'd regret for the rest of his life. It felt a lot like a déjà vu, but at least Koliath seemed to be slightly more inclined to be grateful to his father than Garrus had been towards Shepard.

After she had convinced Baily to give the boy a chance, she took the opportunity to go shopping through the Wards. She was still upset about the whole Sidonis affair and, even though shopping had never been her favorite pastime, she had discovered that it was a useful stress releasing technique.

She went through several shop, the sound of her own voice endorsing all of them accompanying her, until her eyes fell on a pretty little thing resting in its cage, running on its wheel, just behind the window of a shop named The Citadel's Souvenir Shop.

With eyes full of love, all worries and anger forgotten, she literally skipped inside, smiling broadly – and maybe a little creepily, because a woman with blazing red eyes and scars, smiling like a psychopath isn't exactly a comforting sight.

'Hello, I'm Commander Shepard! Would you like an endorsement?' she quipped, smiling eagerly at the Asari behind the counter. The young woman was a bit shocked, caught off guard by the sudden apparition, but she took only a moment before her sense of business kicked in.

'Oh that would be amazing! Just a second, please!' she said as her hands hovered over the console on one side of the counter. Soon enough a blue flat line appeared, and Shepard repeated the same exact words she had used for her previous three endorsements.

When the recording was completed, the Asari smiled broadly up at her.

'Now, is there something you wish to buy with your discount, Commander?'

Five minutes later Valery Shepard was walking out of the shop with a small transparent cage tucked under her arm, a happy smile painted on her lips and the latest cause of her anger almost completely forgotten.

For the next twelve hours, no one aboard the Normandy got a glimpse of Shepard.

Joker had seen her come back with the Hamster and had exchanged just a couple words with her about their destination once everyone would be back, but ultimately she had disappeared back in her cabin.

When Tali had noticed her absence during not one, but three meals, she had taken it upon herself to go and force feed her friend. Or at least that was the excuse, because she hadn't seen Garrus as well and she wanted to know what exactly was going on.

Surprisingly, the door was not locked once she got out of the elevator. Not wasting time knocking since she could as well be ignored by the stubborn woman, she let herself in only to stop, mildly confused, when she got a look at the Commander.

Valery was sitting cross legged on her bed, a plastic cage abandoned on one side, and was giggling at something that Tali couldn't really see from where she was standing.

'Shepard?' she called out tentatively, not sure it the other had even registered her presence yet.

'Yes Tali?' she mused, still giggling and not bothering to raise her eyes from the sheets.

The quarian wondered for a moment whether the Commander might have gone crazy in the last day; maybe the pressure had finally caught up to her, or some Cerberus implant had started to malfunction…whatever the case, this wasn't the Shepard she usually knew.

'Is everything alright? You missed three whole meals' the young engineer inquired, slowly descending the couple steps that divided the work area from the bed and couch. After setting the trail of food in her hands down on the glass table, she turned to examine what her friend was up to, peering through the sheets. She was almost shocked when she noticed the little furry animal scurrying around, climbing on Shepard's legs and hands, making her all giggly.

'Did I? Hadn't realized' she mused, still basically ignoring the other girl.

Tali crossed her arms and just stood there watching Shepard.

She seemed way out of it for her likings. It was obvious she had took that little ball of fur as a distraction from her problem, a way not to think about anything.

But somehow her quarian sixth sense knew what this was all about, and she wasn't going to leave Shepard go to waste like this. She had eyes, even if no one could see them for real, and she had been present during their run on the dead Reaper. Never had she seen Shepard so frantic in the face of one of them getting injured, and Tali had watched and read enough romance stories to know what had happened to her.

'Have you talked to Garrus?' she asked after some minutes spent watching her.

Shepard's shoulders tensed for a split second before every trace of emotion washed away from her body.

'Nope' she quipped, almost too cheerful.

'He hasn't left the battery since we came back' Tali went on, set on provoking some kind of reaction out of her.

Valery let out a bored sound before saying a short 'Don't care'.

Tali sighed behind her helmet.

'Kheela, you are two fools' she grumbled, shaking her head and turning to move away. How could they be so dense towards each other eluded her.

But Shepard reacted at her words, her head shooting up so fast she distinctively heard the pop of her bones setting back into place.

'Whaddya mean?' she asked, the words spoken so quickly they merged into each other.

Tali stopped short of the door, turning to look at her from over her shoulder.

'Go talk to him Shepard' was all the engineer offered before disappearing, leaving a renewed grumpy Commander to come to her own conclusions.