(Revised edition, updated August 2017)

04: ONE OF THOSE FACES

ALBACUS
2157

Albacus passed the omni-tool hardware from hand to hand, worrying a circle around the projection ring with idle thumbs. He was too tired to be nervous, and too well-trained besides, but he allowed himself to indulge in a momentary feeling of dread as he left the main body of his torini in the square and made his way alone to the industrial quarter.

Hannah Shepard's supply hub was crammed into a rough, riverside area to the west of the city proper, and it was a desolate mess. The entire block looked as though it had been ramshackle to begin with, and the ambiance had been little improved by the orbital debris that he himself had dropped down from above, smashing half of the structures to rubble. A lopsided, impoverished collection of useful but ugly buildings: metal refineries, lumber mills, and several smaller food processing facilities, all of them gaping and silent now.

General Arterius would never approve of Albacus handing any meager scrap of technology to the humans, even this first-tier Elkoss Combine plaything with no melee capability. The General rarely approved of much, as far as diplomatic approaches was concerned, but Albacus had yet to find anything in this situation that was worth compromising several centuries of inherited ideals. Spending a year in his youth as political aide to an asari Matriarch had taught him a thing or two about the importance of negotiation and compromise. The General could take his ambitious, self-serving warmongering and hang with it.

Their hands had already been bloodied; a soiling so deep it would never be cleansed. It made no difference if the Citadel Council appeared in person and ordered the Tenefalx to exterminate civilians and children. The only reason Albacus would knowingly allow his ship to continue to risking innocent lives was if he himself were dead.

An omni-tool was the easiest way to help a solitary human manage the enormous logistical task of supplying the colony, and there were other benefits that had nothing to do with the possibility of mutinous assault. For one, the rudimentary communications app would allow him to contact her in case of emergency, and emergencies were inevitable. It was hard to say which side was more likely to crack first, but it was certain to happen sooner rather than later. He refused to be responsible for catching Shepard's child in the crossfire. Overloads, sabotage, even an underpowered shield might help the two of them survive a few extra minutes if the storm broke without warning. He owed her that much after dragging her into this.

He had no concerns about the human female's ability to handle the tech; she was surprisingly adaptable. So far, most of the humans seemed to be. The human general - Williams - had adjusted to several galaxy-broad political concepts in the span of minutes, and his willingness to cooperate with the surrender had filled Albacus with shaky respect. It was never easy to relent to a superior enemy force with minimal bloodshed - Albacus understood that all too well from his own forced cooperation with Arterius.

As he approached the depot entrance, he nodded to Obren Ilmek, taking note of the tired ashen patina of the lieutenant's plates. He would require a relief soon; the torin looked liable to die on his feet if he was forced to stand much longer. Albacus had personally posted his own sub-lieutenant to Shepard's guard detail - he trusted Ilmek not to mindlessly open fire over a translator glitch. He was a just and reasonable torin with two decades of service on his record, nearly half of those aboard the Tenefalx . Albacus would have trusted him to guard his own blessed matrem , had she still been living.

For now, General Arterius was allowing Albacus his attempt at cooperation. Nonetheless, Albacus had made every attempt to keep Shepard and her child surrounded by his own trusted hands, in case Arterius' feelings suddenly changed. Albacus knew the Tenefalx crew like the back of his own hand, and was likewise familiar with the sister crews of the Miriton and the Bexitani , but the rest of the shakedown fleet was a mishmash of junior officers fresh out of the recruitment hall, with General Arterius' own hot-headed brother among them. None of them were ready to be considered real falxi of the Blackwatch, and Albacus would have loved nothing more than to send them all home to their compulsory service colleges. The juniors were far too inexperienced, far too headstrong and eager for blood, to be trusted alone with human prisoners.

Especially not Shepard, he thought. She was unpredictable in her own right.

"All quiet here, Regidonis." Ilmek reported, shuffling his armor around a stiff neck. "Tulubri is inside. She said the human started working as soon as the sun came up."

"Has the mother given you any trouble?"

"No, not as long as the child is in her sight."

"I suppose at this stage, we can count that as progress."

Albacus shoved open the stiff, un-powered door and stepped into the cavernous darkness beyond.

As his eyes adjusted, he could see Sergeant Tulubri standing at attention, thankfully without a weapon drawn. Ris Tulubri was his best hand-to-hand practitioner; she could disarm a charging krogan just by looking at him. If Shepard started trouble, he knew this was the tarin who could end it swift and clean, without an untimely death on either side.

For a moment, Albacus thought he might be imagining things in the dark, but after a few seconds of squinting, he realized that the shadowy blur near Tulubri's right side was in fact the human child, and she was holding the sergeant's hand like it was made of precious salarian spunweb. Not merely holding Tulubri's hand, she seemed to be studying it, pulling the fingers right down to her tiny face, and as Albacus approached, he saw why. The tarin had removed her glove to show off the long, smooth lines of her talons. Surprisingly intimate for the sergeant - he had never known her to be sentimental before. Then again, he reflected, he had never seen her around a child, much less an alien one.

"Getting friendly, I see."

Tulubri gave him a polite nod, then looked down at the little one, her mandibles flickering in an embarrassed grin.

"She's very curious, and kind of cute, for a monkey. She reminds me of my niece, back on the Citadel."

"Still," he teased, allowing a welcome bit of warmth into his sub-vocals for once. "Never thought I would see you bare-handed and petting a baby ."

"Is it still a baby if it's a monkey?" she asked, rubbing one talon curiously along the soft and fleshy side of the little human's face.

"She's not a monkey," said a voice. Albacus dimly recognized Shepard's drawl, though she was calling down from high above him, somewhere near the ceiling. Like some kind of spirit. "She's a great ape."

He peered deeper into the shadows and spotted Shepard dangling from a large steel shelf as if she were climbing a tree, apparently doing her utmost to remain true to her ancestors' distinguished primate origins. When she prised open a sealed bin and then poked her head inside, she retched. Reeling away from the stench, she barely kept her grip on the scaffold.

"No, it's all bad. Once we lost the air conditioning it was a fool's hope anyway. Damn."

So far, Shepard had been economical with her words in front of him - this felt like her longest sentence so far.

"What do you have left?" He asked, watching Shepard scrambling back down to solid ground.

"Almost nothing," she said with finality.

He palmed the omni-tool and begged the spirits for a damned reprieve.

Shepard jumped the last few meters to the floor, and when she stood at her full height, Albacus was once again surprised by her stature. She seemed taller by half than the rest of the humans in the colony, with arms and legs almost as long as a full-grown tarin's. Nor did she seem intimidated by much, with the exception of any threats to her child's well being.

Whenever she spoke to him, she looked him square in the eyes; something that her own general had been too dwarfed to attempt.

After measuring Albacus' intentions with another one of her perceptive once-overs, she wiped her hands on an immaculate white cloth that was wound around her torso and sighed.

"The computer has been down since day three of the bombardment," she said, looking as if she were trying to internally calculate several large figures all at once. "This morning, I've been trying to take an inventory of this storehouse, but it's slow going… damn near impossible."

"I have something that may help with that," he said. He held out the small hand attachment of the Elkoss Cipher Mini. "I smuggled you an omni-tool."

"Is that one of those…" She floated her right hand around her opposite forearm, mimicking the familiar haptic interface.

"It is. I pre-loaded it with all the data we could mine from your storage media; one of my engineers was up all night cobbling this together. A few things were lost or corrupted, but it should be usable for the most part." He tossed it to her, indicated how to fasten it to her wrist and power it on. "I apologize, but this model does not transform into anything lethal."

"Figures." She said, as the omni-tool flared to life on her arm.

As soon as the omni-tool was illuminated, Shepard's child let go of Tulubri and rushed to her mother's side with a reverent ooooooh. Shining, bug-like eyes stared into the glowing orange hologram with unabashed wonder.

"Yes, Jane. Definitely 'oooooh.'"

The child reached out to touch it. Shepard looked to Albacus, her expression rock-hard.

"Is it safe?"

"Completely."

She prodded it a few more times with a bare fingertip, just to be sure, and then lowered her arm within reach of the little one.

"Ooooooooh" the child said again, squeezing the orange hologram between her many chubby fingers. "Orange!"

"Jane, I need to talk to Captain Regidonis now. It's important." She withdrew her arm, but was well prepared to redirect the child's frustrated whine. "Hey, where's Lionel? You should show him to Sergeant Tulubri."

"Okay! Tulu-bee, come find Lionel. It's important!"

With the child and the deadly hand-to-hand tactician sufficiently distracted, Shepard approached and held out her left arm.

"Show me," she said.

He slowly walked her through the menus that would pull up the relevant documentation; shipping receipts, inventory records, maps of her suppliers. She caught on quickly.

"There are some viable crops in the southern quadrant, soybeans maybe." In an unconscious, droning voice, she explained the contents of her ledgers. Endless financial figures and budget estimates whizzed by, which Albacus' translator could process, but he himself could not. "The corn might be ready in a few weeks, if it's still standing. I have no idea what sort of yield we could expect, but someone should be assigned to comb the farms, in case there's anything we can salvage."

"I can have a junior detail supervise a small group of cooperative human workers - how many do you need?"

"Can't your men drive a tractor?" She paused to look into his face, and her soft, foreign expression was similar to one he'd witnessed on more than one asari: sarcasm. Was she joking with him? In the middle of a crisis? He blinked.

"Nevermind," she amended, voice flattening out. "A dozen farmhands should do, if you allow them to use a transport."

Slowly, clumsily, she pulled up a map, then pointed to several areas of interest.

"I have some storehouses in the north. Dried goods: rice, flour, beans. Some of the apples and root vegetables are probably still edible. Cans and boxes too, we can use all of it. I'll need a full shipment as soon as possible. Send a convoy. And this time, don't blow it up."

"Anything else?"

She stared at the omni-tool and tried swiping through a few screens, but quickly got lost in a sub-menu, unable to find the return command.

"Here, like this." He reached over her shoulder and tapped her back to the correct area. Despite his proximity, his armor, his visible weaponry, Shepard didn't flinch, or even blink, when he got too close. Her fortitude continued to impress.

She studied the omni-tool again, frowning. "Looks like… a mess. In the best case, we've got enough supplies in remote storage to last a few weeks. We lost too much in the bombardment. Half the farmland is as good as salted now, and we don't have time to turn it over. If your people are planning to hold this colony for any length of time, additional supplies will have to come from off-world."

"The General will never allow your ships through his blockade. Aid will come through us or not at all."

"Do you have spare rations?"

She might have been kidding, but he took the question seriously.

"Unfortunately no. We have different protein structures - our food would be useless to you, possibly deadly - never mind that we barely have enough for ourselves. I might have some levo relief stocks available, but it would be asari, salarian… completely foreign. Chemically sound, but you might have a difficult time convincing your people to take it."

"If you can get it to me, I can cram it down their throats."

"Maybe I could —" he cut himself off. It would be a huge risk, trying to slide a message under the General's watch. Benezia would help, Albacus had no doubt about that, but the General would be a problem. Once an asari Matriarch saw what was going on down here, Arterius' grandiose theatre of war unearned would be as good as curtained.

"What?" Shepard asked, turning to face him more directly.

He buried the hope for now. See if his restless torini would settle into a work detail. See if some semblance of cohesion could be maintained for more than an hour. Then he could worry about sending distress signals to Benezia. The Matriarch had taught him that, after all: always walk the longest roads one step at a time.

"Preparations to secure your supplies from the north and south will start within the hour." he said, willfully refocusing on problems that were immediately solvable. "If you like, I could assign a supervised work detail to help you clear away this mess, maybe restore some power. I understand that since you agreed to assist me, there have been some tensions between you and the other colonists —"

"Nothing fixes tension like sharing a work load. Yeah. Send them over. I'll give a few sad sacks something to do. Keep 'em busy, and show them I'm not feeding you all of humanity's secrets."

Firmly, suddenly, she grabbed hold of him, enclosing his gloved palm between her many strong fingers.

"Thank you," she said. "For taking this on."

Her hand squeezed his. Once, strong and certain. Then she disappeared into the shadows, calling for the little one named Jane.

JANE
2183

Shepard leaned into the walking stick Chakwas had forced on her and tried keep her head from swimming. Ambassador Udina was throwing his second hissy fit in as many minutes, and Shepard was already disoriented for any number of reasons, most of them related - directly or indirectly - to the psychotic turian who had stabbed her on Eden Prime. The constant burning ache in her abdomen had sapped her patience, but Udina's constant bickering threatened to break her completely.

She loosened the top button of her formal blues, desperate for any kind of relief from the sour atmosphere in the Ambassador's office. The meeting, now in its fourth hour, had finally escalated far enough to demand the Council's direct attention.

Full-size holographic projections of the three Council members flickered in the center of Udina's immaculate, palatial office. Sparatus, the ghostly turian third of the holographic trio, glanced at Shepard and raised an ethereal, disdainful brow. Straightening reflexively, she realized the Councilor had been watching her fidget, had noticed her disheveled uniform. A humiliated flop of acid lined her gut, and she dropped the impatient hand from her neck. Goddammit.

Just as she was settling into a good grovel, Udina's sharp, high voice ruined the effect.

"This is an outrage!" the Ambassador cried, practically stomping his foot.

Shepard clamped her eyes shut as a new wave of nauseating overstimulation tore her last nerve to shreds. Yes, it was an outrage. Why did humanity's foremost representative have to be so loud? Sowhiny? Politicians were supposed to be all about tact, weren't they? She wondered if Udina had misplaced his somewhere.

"The Council would step in if the geth attacked a turian colony!"

Sparatus rolled his eyes and countered automatically, dry as a bone. "The turians don't found colonies on the borders of the Terminus Systems, Ambassador. You knew the risks when humanity went into the Traverse."

Kryik had been looming moodily at Shepard's six, but the Spectre couldn't keep his silence any longer. He knocked Udina out of the way before the Ambassador could embarrass himself any further.

"Forget humanity's poor choice of colony worlds," Kryik said. "What are you going to do about Saren? You can't just ignore him, not anymore. With so many dead, you won't be able to stay quiet regarding Eden Prime. He was there. Somehow, word will spread. You have to condemn him, revoke his Spectre status, declare him traitor to the cause. Anything, to keep the Alliance and the Hierarchy from bombing one another to ash. And you have to do it now."

Sparatus flared his mandibles and looked ready to cut the Spectre in half, but Councilor Tevos insinuated her voice between the two turians with all of her customary asari diplomacy.

"Nihlus, please restrain yourself. Aside from the testimony of the people in this room, there is no evidence to suggest that Saren was involved. In any way. As far as the public is aware, Eden Prime was destroyed in a random geth incursion. Tragic, of course, but one of the many perils of maintaining a resource-rich settlement in such close proximity to the Terminus."

Valern, the salarian Councilor, interrupted with a bland, lecturing tone. "Citadel Security is investigating your charges against Saren. We will discuss the official findings at the hearing tomorrow, not bef-"

Abruptly, Kryik brought his fist down on Udina's console, ending the call.

Shepard wondered if becoming a Spectre meant she too would get the opportunity to be so dismissive to the most powerful dignitaries in the galaxy. The idea of cutting off the Council mid-sentence; it made her tingly all over.

A voice muttered from the balcony, "And that's why I hate politicians…"

Williams. Briefly, Shepard met her eye. Williams quirked a thick eyebrow, then looked back out on the Presidium, her shoulders tight. Beside the Chief, Lieutenant Alenko shook his head, too polite to agree out loud. Nonetheless, Williams had read the room with great accuracy. It hadn't gone well.

That was no surprise. Anyone with half a brain would be skeptical of the story that the Normandy had brought back from Eden Prime. Galactic stability would be left dangling by a thread if those three Council assholes overreacted, and so far, everything Shepard's team had reported smacked of madness. Corpses on spikes… the dead come to life… hordes of mutated geth… a rogue Spectre torturing a beloved Matriarch… a world-swallowing alien dreadnought...

It sounded insane, even to Shepard, and she'd been the one almost stabbed to death in the middle of it. At best, her crew's combined credibility was dubious. At worst, it was complete crap. She knew better than to think this story was believable to anyone who hadn't been there.

The bitterest pill of all: every surviving eyewitnesses was useless. Alenko and Williams had only seen half of the action. Kryik had a public, pre-existing grudge-match against Saren. Shepard had just come out the wrong side of a brain-blitzing from the Beacon, in addition to having more personal reasons to besmirch the Arterius family name than anyone. And, of course, every useful scrap of data from Eden Prime had been obliterated along with millions of colonists, every corroborating soul dead to the last.

Even Shepard had to admit that the Council - conniving spiders though they were - had been wedged between a rock and a hard place. Their self-serving obfuscations had led to Eden Prime's destruction, of that she had no doubt. But as much as Shepard despised the slimy, spineless tactics that had gotten them all into this mess in the first place, she had to allow that the politicians had a grueling clean up ahead. She didn't envy them the task, even if they'd brought it on themselves.

Anderson gave Shepard a brief, exhausted look, then went to collect his star witness marines.

Kryik approached, nodding his head toward the door of the Ambassador's office.

"Walk with me, Shepard."

Udina, meanwhile, had installed himself at his desk to sulk. He failed to acknowledge either Shepard or Kyrik as they passed him on the way out.

As soon as the office door was closed and Udina was safely out of earshot, Shepard muttered, "What an asshole."

Kryik kept walking, already several paces ahead. Shepard, enfeebled by her medically-mandated walking stick, was moving much slower than she cared to admit.

"Thank you, Shepard," Kryik said, speaking over his shoulder without slowing up. "Do you have any other witticisms that might help us single-handedly incriminate a rogue Spectre and take down his army of the alien undead?"

Shepard tugged at the uncomfortable lump of her stomach bandage. She rankled beneath her uniform, an itch so deep that she longed to scratch the regenerating skin of her internal organs. It was the most perverse craving she had ever felt, disturbing enough to stop her dead in her tracks. She smoothed the front of her blues, swallowing the itch. Kryik got to the sliding glass partition on the far end of the corridor before he realized he was alone. With an irritated grunt, he doubled back to fetch her.

As he rounded, Shepard continued to pick at her uniform, just to be a brat.

She said, "Here's an idea. Let's tackle one insurmountable task at a time. We aren't going to disavow our mutual friend without solid evidence. So - where do start dusting for fingerprints?"

Kryik smacked Shepard's hand away from her uniform, too classy to say smart ass out loud. All the same, she smirked.

"I've got some Shadow Broker contacts," he said. "Old eyes and ears. I'll start there. Until the Council officially makes you a Spectre, you should stick to the lawful channels, keep your hands clean. Unlikely that C-Sec has much, they've always failed me in the past, but who knows, maybe you'll get lucky."

Shepard knew she was being handed the grout-cleaning detail, and had no choice but to smile and take the toothbrush.

"Hired transport," he said. "This way."

Keeping pace with her now, Kryik led Shepard to a cab and helped her fall gracelessly into a seat. He grunted instructions to the driver, a smallish, bronze-colored salarian who seemed thoroughly bored with his job.

"Kithoi. C-Sec Academy."

The salarian nodded, and Kryik engaged the privacy screen.

Now unobserved, he leaned toward Shepard and said, "I'll get you through the door, introduce you to Executor Pallin. He'll be useless, as far as hard evidence is concerned, refuses to believe that a Spectre could have anything but the Council's best interests at heart. You'll have to coordinate with whoever he's got working the official investigation. Hopefully someone halfway competent this time, but my hopes aren't high. I'll make sure Internal Affairs gives you full Spectre clearance, and I trust you to push that advantage as far as you can. Upend every data system in their office if you have to. Pallin can whine about it all he likes."

"Spectre clearance? Isn't that premature? I haven't officially agreed to this candidacy —"

Kryik cut her off.

"Like it or not, you're going to be a Spectre, and soon. The public response to Eden Prime is already turning ugly. Saren's name hasn't been dropped, but it will. The Council doesn't want to admit they failed, but they need a flashy diversion right about now. That's you."

No matter how incensed she was by Kryik's maneuvering, Shepard couldn't pretend to be surprised. As a Spectre, Shepard could be a double-edged sword disguised as an olive branch. A desperate grab to placate the human interest groups who were still demanding reparations for Shanxi, all while bending the knee to Palaven. Exactly as she'd suspected: a show animal.

"Before all this shit hit the fan, why did you really nominate me?" She stared out the window and clutched the walking stick for dear life. "All this grand gesturing on your part… but really? You just wanted to strike a petty blow at Saren, didn't you?"

He didn't answer immediately. In her estimation, that could only mean yes.

"I don't appreciate being made into your pawn," she added.

"Get used to it," he said, cold and firm as a packed snowdrift.

The rest of the cab ride droned on in awkward silence. Shepard passed her walking stick between her hands and stared at the sprawling cityscape as the cab descended into one of the darkened ward arms, wishing that her stomach would stop hurting as if she'd had part of her guts ripped out. It was a petulant, childish kind of thing to want, but Shepard didn't care - she hated the inconvenience, the sheer bodily embarrassment of being injured this badly. It made everything more difficult than it should have been, even avoiding Kryik's eyes.

Nearly fifteen minutes later, near the center of Kithoi Ward, the cab finally slowed in front of the entrance to C-Sec Academy. Groaning, Shepard peeled herself out of her seat and lumbered onto the taxi landing. "Alright. Show me this Executor Pallin so I can start trying to work the stick out of his ass for you."

"By all means." Kryik gestured broadly toward the entrance, as if presenting her with a game show boobie prize. "We're just in time to interrupt him mid-reprimand."

Kryik's judgmental stare pointed her into the main lobby of the C-Sec offices, where the Executor was energetically arguing with a turian officer half his age.

Shepard had to admit that Kryik's personal vendetta against the head of C-Sec made him seem ever so slightly more relatable. Only people with feelings could hold grudges, and while Kryik certainly had a bullet saved for Saren, that was too obvious, too easy. Hating Pallin seemed like such a low bar in comparison, and with no real explanation. There were a million scenarios Shepard could come up with for why Kryik might have had it out for the Executor. Her favorite and most ridiculous was: nasty top versus bottom breakup.

She snickered stupidly, then followed Kryik toward his prey.

"Saren's hiding something. Give me more time. Stall them."

This from the young officer that Pallin was attempting to berate. Shepard's ears perked, glad that at least one officer in Pallin's department was willing to push back.

"Stall the Council? Don't be ridiculous. Your investigation is over, Garrus."

As Kryik approached, drawing Pallin's attention, the Executor's face earthquaked into an expression tantamount to murder-by-eyeball.

"Pallin," Kryik said, sub-vocals dull and unflattering. "Is this who you've got heading up C-Sec's investigation into Saren?"

"He was , but it's over now. As usual, there was nothing to find." Pallin growled, his patience long gone. "I'm about to finalize the report for tomorrow's hearing. After this latest failure, will you finally be done wasting my time and budget on this fruitless grudge between Spectres?"

"Unlikely." Kryik snubbed the Executor and turned to the younger torin. "Did you find something I should know about?"

"Maybe. I got a surprise lead this morning but I haven't had the chance to follow up on it."

"I can pull some strings upstairs - get you as much time as you need." Kryik turned his acidic glare back to the Executor. "Now, Pallin, if you don't mind getting back to all that beloved paperwork you left in your office, I need to borrow your detective."

The sulfur in the Spectre's tone brooked no argument, and Pallin relented, stomping off with a surprising amount of bluster for a torin of his age and rank. Shepard was delighted by the theatrics; it was the best entertainment she'd had in weeks. Kryik: confirmed top.

He addressed the young investigator again, terse and to the point. "C-Sec, you really think this lead of yours is enough to prove Saren's gone rogue?"

"It's as close as I've ever gotten to that slippery bastard; I'll make it good enough."

"Do whatever it takes. I'll keep Pallin off your back. We need to nail Saren to the wall this time; he's become too big of a risk. I've got my own angles to work, so I won't be tailing your investigation personally. This is Commander Shepard. She's a protégé of sorts, reports directly to me; full disclosure. Whatever intel you dig up on Saren, share it with her, no questions asked."

Having acknowledged the C-Sec officer to the best of his ability, Kryik rounded on Shepard as if the other torin had suddenly dropped into dark space.

"We'll reconvene tonight for dinner at Anderson's. Your Captain wants a heart-to-heart. In the meantime, pick the Citadel clean." She thought he was done, but then he cut back in with a strangely accommodating sub-vocal. "And make sure you rack some hours. You may think you're still training at Cipritine Academy, but you're operating on far too little sleep for a human. Not to mention this new hole. That can't be good for you."

Kryik poked her crudely in the side, a few inches above the raw soreness of her oozing abdominal wound, surprising her with the literal stab at humor. She nodded, not trusting herself to respond, and watched him walk away.

As he retreated, Kryik called back over his shoulder: "C-Sec. Rack time. Make sure she gets it. I authorize deadly force if necessary."

Jokes, from Nihlus Kryik. Maybe this protégé thing went both ways. Shepard shook her head and turned to get a look at the young detective she'd been handed off to so suddenly.

There was something familiar about him - inviting, even - and that threw her for a loop. She extended her grip to receive his arm in proper turian form, startled to find she was suddenly nervous.

"Well officer…" She laughed, a quick cover up. "Looks like the grownups decided that we should be playmates on this one. Jane Shepard, good to meet you."

He didn't move. Instead, he gaped at Shepard's hands, at the red lacquer on her fingernails. Turians rarely showed their bare hands in public. Displaying naked talons to a stranger was considered pretty rude, so she supposed it might have been jarring for him to encounter so much superfluous decoration on a bare hand. Especially a scrawny monkey paw laden with extra fingers.

After a few seconds of baffling silence he got over the interspecies awkwardness and enthusiastically took her arm.

"Garrus Vakarian," he said.

He squeezed her elbow, looked directly into her eyes, and smiled.

In the center of her chest, something creaked.

Alarmed, she read the familia notas of his face and wondered if they'd met before, but nothing stuck. Hopefully she hadn't knocked out any of his teeth at the Academy - if she had, he certainly didn't seem bent out of shape about it. His simple, geometric marks were C-Sec blue, covering a face that was well-matched to that color. A relaxed, good-humored expression worn handsomely over young, clean features.

He wore blue all over: his eyes, his tactical visor, his armor. Top to bottom. Everywhere her eyes traveled, that color seemed to follow, and it looked especially good on him.

Blinking slowly, she eased her arm from his grip. She coughed, trying to recover.

"It's obvious that my boss doesn't take no for an answer, what about yours? Everything alright with the Executor?"

"Oh, he's always breathing down my neck about something. It's one of his favorite pastimes: wrapping his fists in red tape and using Vakarian as his own personal punching bag."

"Sounds like you really want to bring Saren down."

"Everything about Saren rubs me the wrong way, but he's a Spectre. Whatever he touches is instantly classified. Still, I know he's up to something. Like you humans say, I feel it in my gut."

She chuckled guardedly. He was charming. That could be dangerous.

"Go figure," she said, deciding to test the waters. "I have that gut feeling too. Because Saren stabbed me real bad. Right here."

She pointed. Right there.

He stared, eyes changing. His gaze, bright and intelligent, looked bluer now than ever. One of his mandibles flared in an involuntary half-grin, then he dissolved into a rich, full laugh, like he couldn't believe his luck.

Days of stress lifted breezily from Shepard's shoulders as he jostled her arm.

"Well, what would you say to some medi-gel for that stomachache? My treat." He walked beside her to the exit and took his sweet time about it, employing the occasional, unnecessary guiding touch to her elbow. Professional contact, but only just. "Our lead is at a clinic in Zakera Ward. A quarian limped into Doctor Michel's this morning with a gunshot wound - insisted she was hounded by Saren's hired thugs because she has intel about the geth."

Shepard gave Vakarian an appraising once-over as he lead her patiently towards the bustle of Kithoi. Catching her eye seemed to overwhelm him with a goofy burst of excitement, because without warning he bounded up the stairs to street level two at a time, leaving Shepard in his dust. Just as suddenly, he seemed to remember that she was walking with a limp and couldn't rush to join him. Looking sincerely embarrassed and terribly young, Vakarian checked himself and waited for Shepard at the top landing, keeping a courteous hand outreached.

"Vakarian." She called to him as she climbed, slightly out of breath. "If this is how excited you get when you can't find any hard evidence, I'd love to see what leaves you truly stumped."

"Well, there's this Quasar game Doran just installed in Flux." He laughed again. "And I've always been troubled by this particular shade of red..."

As he gripped her hand to help her up the last step, she reeled with an uncanny wave of déjà vu. The strength of his grip, the sound of his easy laughter - like a memory she couldn't place. And that beaming grin, lit by a dozen different shades of lower-ward neon, was too familiar for a stranger.

Her stomach filled with butterflies. Good or bad, she knew them for parasites. Tamping down her nerves, she tried for casual.

"Quasar?" Dropping his hand, she made two stubborn fists, hiding her nails - for all the good it would do. "You a gambling man?"

He shrugged, moving toward a lift station.

"Sort of. On my nights off, I've been trying to trace a credit-funneling hack I found on one of Doran's new Quasar machines. It keeps pinging me around half the lower wards. Stumped."

"Really." She frowned, smothering a weird, nervous smile. "Let's make a deal. If we manage to make significant headway on this case by happy hour, we'll swing over to the bar and take another look at your misbehaving slot machine." She cracked her neck, suddenly thirsty. "After the shakedown cruise going FUBAR, I could use a break. Wouldn't say no to a long tall Tom Collins, either."

She closed her mouth; that had come out of nowhere. FUBAR indeed.

"Who's Tom Collins?" he asked, a completely unfamiliar sub-vocal lacing his voice. Not unfriendly, but unfamiliar, almost like he was in on some great joke without her.

There was a temporary lull as Vakarian summoned an elevator; they stood shoulder to shoulder and she suddenly realized just how tall he was. Tall, warm, and standing much closer than he needed to.

She tensed. This was stupid. She had to disengage.

"Oh, he's a drink: an old-timey Earth favorite I picked up from my C.O."

"Really."

"Truth is, I'm zero fun in bars. That 'wild redhead' human myth is a complete fabrication. One drink limit, and no dancing. Ever."

"No dancing."

"Ever."

The elevator arrived with a polite ding, and Shepard tried to avoid Vakarian's raking gaze as they stepped inside. She was surprised he was pushing this far, and this fast. Moreover, she was surprised to find herself pushing back.

The squeeze of impatient citizens forced them to stand closer together, and she noticed that twinkle in his eyes again. It was twinkling far too brightly for comfort now, strobing blue-blue-blue like a flashing police light. He pulled her over, leaned even closer, stepped more intentionally into her space.

Shepard tried not to notice, tried to feign genuine interest in the tinny muzak and the bored mutterings of the crowd. She attempted an advanced study of the gaudy, gold-plated enviro-suit of the volus standing directly in front of her, but it was all for nothing, Vakarian was standing too close.

"Jane Shepard." He whispered her name deliberately, moving closer still. "You know, there's something awfully suspicious about you…"

Her stomach plummeted.

Oh no. Not this. Anything but this.

"I have one of those faces," she said, forcing her voice to go white and starch-stiff, waving the flag of surrender.

"No. Believe me, Red. You really, really don't."

She bristled at the cutesy nickname - some low jab at Regidonis, surely. Vakarian had seemed so nice. It would be pure cosmic schadenfreude if the charming C-Sec investigator with the dreamy Presidium-blue eyes turned out to be just as much a pest as every other trumped-up torin with a bone to pick.

Her muscles tensed, fists tightening. Would she be forced to recite the same tired script until the day that the universe finally dissolved into entropy? How many times would she need to repeat: He was the only father I ever knew. Now take your hands off me, you insolent coward, and prepare to duel et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum. She was tired of throwing punches.

First, she tried peacekeeping: "Let's not do this, okay? Leave the past where it belongs."

Recognition scribbled across his features with even bolder lines.

"Spirits, I can't believe it's actually you."

So much for the kindness of strangers. All she could do was mourn her good mood as it plunged straight to the bottom of the elevator shaft with a wounded and stifled kerplop.

Insulting, but she'd been forced to fend off worse.

Vakarian was practically on top of her now, asserting himself just like the countless presumptuous, aggressive torini that had come before. The sharp jut of his hip probed suggestively into her lower back, his hot breath tickled the side of her neck, and he leaned so close that she could smell him: aquatic and refreshing. Goddammit, what a waste.

He leaned down to whisper directly in her ear.

"I know exactly what you are."

She braced for impact, preparing. He was the only father I ever knew, now take your hands off me -

"You're the wild redhead I arrested on my very first night at C-Sec."

Original words and phrases:
- Falx: Blade, scythe. Military professionals.

Words and phrases courtesy of MizDirected's turian dictionary:
- Familia notas: The colony markings that turians wear on their faces.
- Torin/Torini: Male turian(s)
- Tarin/Tarini: Female turian(s)
- Patrem/Pari: Father/Dad
- Matrem/Mari: Mother/Mom