I have a feeling that I may have screwed locations up...Kaidan did stay in the same place as Kasumi in the third game, didn't he? I'll have to check up on that.

EDIT 7/8/13: Everything should be fixed now. Working on next chapter, may take a while. Thanks for the help, I knew I could count on you guys!

Anyway, sorry for the wait. Enjoy this chapter. I think most of you guys will. ;)

xoxo

THR

Chapter 37

Your name was Commander Liz Shepard and you were disgusted. Whenever you sensed this feeling coming on, you usually found some sort of way to vent or forget about it. Whether it was through retail therapy, sparring, shore leave or a fanatical sexual encounter, finding an outlet to dismiss these emotions was easy to come by most of the time.

None of these outlets were available while you were supervising Kaidan as he moved his belongings into the Normandy to prepare for the upcoming mission. It had been weeks since your incident with him and you had spent no time on repairing you fractured relationship. Being able to call him an enemy was an understatement; as far as you were concerned, the two of you were in a full on social war. If you had had things your way, Alenko would have been kicked off the ship and discharged from the Alliance the second he put a hand on you. Part of you advised yourself against it and you were still trying to figure out why you had done nothing. After all, the Normandy wasn't quite an Alliance regulated ship yet. Although it was technically Cerberus property, you still had jurisdiction over what went on as long as you retained your position of Commanding Officer. Something inside of you was urging your entire being to keep the other man around. He was a good soldier and someone that the team couldn't afford to lose. You used that as an excuse until you were able to figure things out in your mind.

You had limited your actions with him since your encounter. The agreement you both made was simple: speak only when spoken to and interact in a civil way when it came to the battlefield or matters concerning the assignment. You and he concurred that there was no reason to screw things up for each other. The hatred was allowed to be mutual, but its extent could reach just so far without getting out of hand.

The man you were too afraid to admit your former love for had chosen to reside in the lounge. As angered as you were about him taking over Samara's old stomping grounds, he refused to be anywhere else and you weren't about to ignite another biotic firestorm aboard a rather small ship.

"Why are you here?" he asked while setting the box down on the ground. "You were the one that wanted to stay as far away from me as possible."

You leaned against the wall near the door and responded with a snide chortle.

"Considering that I'm still the CO, Alenko, I don't think you have the right to question me. Alliance or not, I'm your boss until Hackett says otherwise." you purred. Your tone was flirtier than you had intended and all that seemed to do was piss him off even further. The box of belongings landed with an angry thud.

"Just because you're still on top of me doesn't mean that you can act like a bitch." he responded. Pushing his buttons was unprofessional. It was the most easily accessible source of entertainment aboard the ship, though. Considering that you weren't exactly on duty yet, you figured that a bit of teasing wouldn't hurt.

After all, you did hate his entire being with every bone in your body.

At least that's what you wanted to tell yourself.

"On top of me?"

You raised an eyebrow at him and he rolled his eyes at the childish remark.

"You haven't changed at all, have you?" he muttered.

You departed from your post near the door and walked towards a shelf. A seemingly innocent cluster of glasses filled with colorful liquids lined the storage area. As long as your ex was on board, liquor was going to be imported in by the gallon. You decided on a light blue beverage that you had taken the liberty to purchase on your last trip to the Citadel.

"Fucking a Turian can do some things to you."

You took a swig and realized that this was the most intimate setting the two of you had been in without killing each other. The hostility was still there, of course, but it felt like things were a little lighter. If this was a subconscious attempt on your part to be friendly, you planned on mentally kicking yourself later.

He snorted in response and eyed the drink in your hand. He hadn't consumed a single alcoholic beverage since the incident between the two of you.

You cleared your throat and finished off your beverage with one last swig. Realizing that the environment had gotten tenser from your reference to your current partner, you bit down on your lip firmly and looked at him with genuine sympathy. Even for you, the comment had been out of place.

Besides, you didn't hate him that much, right?

You chose not to answer that question.

"Kaidan, it was a joke. It was unprofessional and I didn't mean to—"

He threw his hands up and strode away from you.

"Forget civility, alright? I'm going to pretend that I never heard that."

His back faced you and you forced yourself to stare down into your empty drink glass. The remnants of your beverage were at the bottom; light blue droplets circled the container as you allowed yourself to get lost in the color that mimicked the color of Earth's unpolluted sky.

"And just so you know," he continued. "All of these problems between us won't be an issue when it really matters. Let's try to make it work."

Your name was Commander Liz Shepard and for once you truly had no idea what to say.

Your name was not important. You were, however, a government worker in the extensive network of the Batarian Hegemony. There wasn't much else to know about your life; on Kar'shan, there were wasn't much else that mattered. The Batarian homeworld boasted nothing more than an isolated communist government. Its workers were private yet countless. The military was unseen to anyone who wasn't a Batarian. You tended not to question what went on around you. After all, anybody could be listening to you at any time.

Your life on your home planet revolved around your job, which was more crucial than you would have liked. You were rather old for someone of your species and had spent a good deal of your life climbing the career ladder. On such a poor world, this didn't get you any higher than an assistant to a top ranking government official. You didn't get the opportunity to become a big shot like some people in a high class did. Instead, you worked right under their noses. It was a high paying job but it wasn't enough to pay the steep fees that the Hegemony requested. Even if you wanted to quit, it would be next to impossible. You knew better than to gripe and complain. Your parents told you from a young age to deal with what was handed to you. If you didn't, you would end up enslaved or put in jail.

The Batarian government was essentially useless to people like you. Kar'shan was divided into nation-states. The single most influential or richest man on that part of the planet was appointed (never elected) to a position in the official Hegemony Council, which was the supreme form of government. They convened in the capital city from time to time and debated over outdated laws and endorsed terrorist organizations that plagued your planet into exile. As each nation-state representative argued with one another, they all had a meager assistant to hold them back and take care of their dirty work. This was your job.

On a normal day, you sat outside your representative's office and took calls as well as opened messages that weren't very interesting. Sometimes they would be complaints from other officials and other times it would be spam from some sort of Extranet porn site. Either way, it wasn't quite a job that someone would want to have.

Today was a different day, though.

For the first time in a long time, a name came up in the sender box of your email and it was truly a familiar one. Councilor Quentius Valibus was a person who you had never met in person. You had heard tales about him and his dealings with your government. He was the Turian councilor on the Citadel and wielded power that was almost unmatched by anyone on that piece of Prothean junk.

For a majority of the time, the Hegemony had ignored the Council and bashed it from afar. Propaganda and empty threats were hurled at every planet and race under the Council's jurisdiction. However, they had declared that your race was just a problem that had to be ignored.

That is, until the Bahak Relay Incident involving Commander Liz Shepard. You heard that those under Council jurisdiction had given it the codename of Arrival and it sounded pretty stupid to you.

You were sure that the Hegemony had given their people a skewed view on what happened, but you had been there during the briefing of the incident. Three hundred thousand of your own had been slaughtered just so an Alliance soldier was able to bring back a scientist that was being held hostage. A single woman had destroyed a mass relay, your people and an entire system. When the representatives found out, they resumed contact with the Citadel for the first time in a long time.

They demanded that Commander Shepard be enslaved, put to death or tortured. This was during the time of the Reaper War, which had changed things indefinitely.

Once the war had been conquered, the conflict resumed.

The Hegemony had threatened to send the entire Batarian fleet and every terrorist ring to the Citadel to destroy the place even more than the Reapers had. Long story short, they gave in and vowed to keep Shepard in solitary confinement. They kept up with their end of the deal to not attack and checked in month after month to assure that the Commander remained unstable.

You clicked on the email in your box and began to read over it.

To your horror, it revealed everything that the Hegemony didn't want to hear. Shepard was alive and had been released. She had figured out the truth and was most likely going to be acquitted of any sort of charges brought against her.

You closed the email on your computer in fear of someone looking. There was no way anybody could find out about this without a few heads rolling.

With a reluctant sigh, you stood up and opened the door of your representative's office. With your omni-tool flashing, you read out the contents of the email to him.

Your name was still not important because your head was one of the rolling ones that day.

Your name was Garrus Vakarian and you had forgotten how much sex was a strenuous labor of love. Between the medications and the meticulous movements that were planned out to the utmost degree, caution and steadiness were more important than uncontrolled lust. You didn't want to hurt Shepard and she didn't want to displease you. Considering that it had been a long amount of time since the two of you had gone at it like animals, she had meandered over to the bathroom to prepare herself for what was about to ensue. That had been five minutes ago. By this point, she normally was trembling too much to even bother injecting herself with anti-inflammatory medication. The fact that she hadn't exited the lavatory made the minutes feel like hours.

You could swear that it used to be more romantic than this. Having your girlfriend suddenly stop sucking on your tender mandibles to go and take pills and a shot wasn't something that you looked forward to. It was a mood killer and it left you sitting alone while the area between your legs throbbed. The periods of time between administering the prerequisites and the beginning of foreplay were the longest ones of your entire life. Now it felt worse than ever.

She hadn't bothered to strip you down yet and curling your talons around the edge of your pants was inevitable at this point. You had waited an entire year for this moment. The hours you had spent alone fantasizing about her couldn't compare for what was about to happen. For once you were going to be able to prove your love to her so that doubt was no longer a sensation in her mind. Forgetting your flaws was going to become natural while your body tuned into hers. It would take strength and flexibility, but you were determined to make things work again. It had been a long while since you had watched the vids that Mordin sent you almost two years ago. You had been so naïve back then. Figuring out optimal positions and learning what made Earthborn females tick had been a strenuous process. What started out as an awkward encounter ended up blooming into something deeper than love. It was a bond that had more depth than one was capable of imagining. You both put more trust than you ever had into each other. The risks and uncomfortable moments evolved into a type of interspecies pleasure that was irreplaceable.

You and Shepard had been pros a year ago. The last time you had been with her, she could finally last as long as you and you had decreased the amount of scratches and bruises that ended up on her sensitive skin by accident. Sex had been highly experimental between the two of you up until the last time you had it. The two of you had, in theory, achieved perfection at that point.

You wished that you could relive that moment again and again. Not even the Reapers interrupted the two of you. The way you pulled on her hair and the perfect bite marks she left had turned into an art form. Tempos had balanced and kisses were gentler than ever. The two of you went at it for the entire night until her chest heaved up and down uncontrollably. Another memory that you loved to recall of that night was the way she slept. Sweat made the strands of her loosened hair stick to her exposed forehead. She curled up into a ball on her bed, making the sheets swirl up around her. Her skin melded into the satin of the fabric and she was truly at peace for the first time in months. You were concerned that she would no longer be able to experience that.

It was then that you determined that this night would be about her. As much as you loved the thing that her kind called a "blowjob", you weren't going to make her do anything strenuous. After being put through hell, this woman deserved to feel like a normal person again. If evoking this feeling required you to act as a subordinate, then you were going to swallow your pride and do it.

You pulled your talon out of your pants and cursed your subconscious urges.

You couldn't take this anymore. It was physically impossible.

Walking over to the bathroom had been quite a task. Like Shepard's type, Turians had erections that were capable of being more painful than expected. From what you had seen in the vids, your anatomy was similar to that of a human male. The differences were more than noticeable, however. This didn't seem to put Shepard off. She had admitted to preferring Turian anatomy compared to other men's. It had been a questionable comment but you weren't going to argue with it.

You uttered a soft moan as you put your hand on the door in an attempt to knock. You felt your own length beginning to get sore and you gripped the knob for support. She must have heard you, because the sentence she mumbled broke your heart.

"Unless you want to see an ugly ass human putting a needle in her arm, I suggest you stay outside."

This didn't stop you from opening the door with an overwhelming amount of force. The woman that stood in front of you was the most breathtaking one that you had ever seen and you were going to be sure that she would never forget it.

Her clothes had been tossed aside and had been replaced with a set of lingerie that you hadn't seen since her Cerberus days. It was loose on her due to the weight she lost in muscle and fat. Fortunately for you, this hadn't affected the size of her breasts, which were an asset of hers that you had grown to love. Turians lacked the same sort of mammary glands as humans. It took you a while to understand why men found them so voluptuous. Once you saw them bare, though, you gave into their everlasting appeal.

You counted each one of her ribs, which were on full display. She had also let her hair down for you, allowing the color to clash against her sickly skin. Each one of her flaws was exposed to you; scars, liquor fueled tattoos and freckles were spread across her body. You longed to kiss each one and make sure that she never thought any less of herself because of them. You were sure that she was too thin to be considered healthy. However, you couldn't help but marvel at her slim waist, which mimicked a Turian female's all too well. You were beginning to prefer your women without scales. The softness of other species' skin was looking sexier and sexier by the minute. The sensation of letting your talons wander across Shepard's was something you didn't think you were able to wait for.

She had even gone as far as to apply a bit of makeup to her face. Fierce catlike eyeliner had been drawn over her lids, giving her a sultry appeal that you hadn't seen in an eternity. Her tall frame hunched over in a shameful way as she let a syringe drop to the ground.

"You still have the medication, right? Last thing we need is going to that damn hospital again."

Your comment didn't lighten the mood. She instead answered with a cool nod before turning back to you with a distressed frown.

"Women were obsessed with losing weight back on Earth. It seemed so materialistic. Now that I'm thinner than most of them I'm starting to wonder what all of the appeal was for."

She had tried her best to be as close to perfect as possible for you. Her speech continued and she became more and more dejected as she spoke. The lack of vigor and spirit in her demeanor made the whole scene feel so out of character.

"I really did think that this talk could wait. The whole inferiority thing, I mean. But looking at myself now, I just—"

You couldn't wait anymore. You were too hungry to listen to her speak lies about herself and your primal instincts began to take over. Without hesitation, you pounced and pinned her against the counter of the bathroom. Shepard's arms scrounged around the sink area in search of something to grab onto, sending a glass soaring onto the ground. The shattering noise made your grip on her clench up, launching her into an uncontrollable frenzy. She was well aware of how to play your game.

In fact, she knew how to cheat it, manipulate it and win it until her own mind was content.

Other objects came crashing down while you hoisted her up onto the counter. With her ass landing perfectly in the basin, she angled herself so she could do what she did best: link her legs around your waist.

Her limbs locked in place just like they used to and a fervent growl exited her lips. While her nails dug into your neck, you took her in and watched her back arch when you kissed old spots on her body. What started as innocent forehead kisses turned into ones that were much more risqué. Tiny red marks emerged on her chest and navel area and she moved with you. Just hearing her whisper your name and ask for more was enough to keep you going.

In a sudden move of heartfelt aggression, she pushed you off and then regained her grip by catapulting you to the ground. Her strength had diminished, but the way she pinned you down on the ground was irresistible enough to keep you in place. With her nearly bare crotched pressed against your covered one, she grinded against you and kept her hips in line with your narrower ones.

"Take off your goddamn pants before I start feeling self conscious again." she teased while leaning down to kiss your own neck. "I've waited a year to feel like a woman again."

The purr of her voice was a significant change from the way she had been talking to you just minutes ago. You pulled her upon you and attacked her lips with a sense of urgency while she helped you with removing the unneeded garment, which was tossed aside without care. It relieved a bit of the pressure building up in your throbbing nether regions.

The makeouts between the two of you were a constant battle for control. One minute Shepard would be trying to slide her tongue across your mouth to put you in a trance. Equally as fast as her, you pushed her down to the ground and tried to strip her down, which failed each time. She was going to make you earn the right to devour her again, which you secretly adored yet hated.

The one thing that sent her into a state of yielding was when you hooked your fingers on the edge of her panties. She willingly gave up all control as you sent one finger down further, caressing her soft folds of skin that you had learned to love. There was one place in particular that you focused on, causing her to ball up her large hands into fists.

Her suppressed screams turned into moans as she buried her head into your carapace. You had managed to get on top of her and pin her lower half down, allowing her upper body to reach up and pepper kisses onto your jaw line as a reward for executing all of the right moves.

"J-Jesus fucking…Vakarian, don't stop!"

You increased the pace of your fingers, allowing them to move and slip into her. You made sure that their rough and calloused texture didn't cause damage, but she had insisted that their ribbed quality felt better than her own touch.

Sure enough, she emitted nothing more than a squeak and didn't control her hips as they bucked towards you. Your tongue licked your lips as you watched her before you. She looked so helpless and out of control beneath you, but the amount of trust she was displaying was monumental.

While you continued your advancements, she managed to unhook her brassiere with a shaky hand. She smiled at you when you noticed and continued to moan in a state of pure bliss. With your free hand, you threw the lingerie over to where your own pants were and began to work on removing her panties, which were beginning to become more of a hassle than they were worth.

Your name was Garrus Vakarian and you realized that nothing in the entire galaxy could replace the grin that was playing on her lips.

For once in your entire relationship, you were feeling more than good enough for her.

You were perfect again and the fun was just getting started.