Author's Notes- So here we are, one week late. Who knew you don't have more time when you're on break? Anyways, sorry about being late with the update. I want to also apologize as I'm going to go to an update every other Friday. I wanted to make the chapters longer and of some sort of quality, and I can only do that with time. Anyways, I hope you enjoy, and follow, favorite, and review, even just to say hi!
Chapter 11
All in the Family
As Garrus walked into the room he and Shepard shared together, he saw the folded Alliance uniform was taken off the armchair and the light of the bathroom gleamed under the shut door.
He set down the silver gleaming packets of food on a table and moved to the chair next to it, debating what to say to Shepard about his talk to Solana and the recent revelations his father had told him. She would support a resolution, as she wanted to get to know his family. She never had a family growing up and being part of one would mean the world to her.
When she finally opened the door, he had decided to put it off until they at least had eaten, because Shepard wouldn't eat if he told her about it. She would be worried about Solana and him, her caring personality working against her.
As she walked out of the bathroom, she smiled, looking a lot better than earlier in the morning, when she yelled at his sister.
" Hey, big guy." she said as she walked up to him, her smile radiating a warmness that made him giddy whenever it showed.
She motioned to the packets. " I see you got us something to eat."
Garrus returned the smile as she picked up a levo packet and started to bite into the cardboard-looking material. " Yea, I went out to see the progress on the refugee camps and I came across food for us both. I know we both could use use it." He said as he clawed at her hips to pull her over as she let out a small yelp from the abrupt contact.
She laughed as she finished the small piece of cardboard. " Someone's touchy today."
" Well, when Turians have a bit of a dry spell, we get a little touchy," he chuckled as he guided her onto his lap. " When we get out of here, you'll have to help me with it," he whispered as he nuzzled her neck.
Shepard looked at her omni-tool, checking the time, as she got up to grab another packet. " Maybe…if you're good, you won't have to wait until Barcelona."
Garrus got up and grabbed a packet for himself and pushed himself close to her to be a tease. " You don't want to tempt me…"
Playing along, she pushed herself against his chest. " I would love to tempt you," she said as she pushed on his chest, " but, it's going to have to wait until after we head out tonight."
Garrus sighed and moved to the bed, deciding now was the time to tell her. Her in the mood would help. " Tonight I'm having dinner with my sister. It turns out I've missed a lot that's happened in my family over the last few years."
Shepard moved to lay next to him and squeezed his talons. " Are you going to be okay?"
He started to massage Shepard's hands, wringing his thumbs in circles o her palms. " Yea, I should be fine, but I'm more concerned on what you're going to do. You're in a camp of only Turians with nothing to do for a few hours."
She got off the bed and worked the knots in her hair from laying down. " I'll be fine. I actually have to check on Corporal Heldos. I promised to talk to him and say goodbye." She looked at Garrus and sighed. " He obviously has no-one to talk to or look after him considering his circumstances, it would probably help to talk to another outcast."
Garrus smiled at her, embracing her tiny form. " I love that about you. You don't care about what others think."
She chuckled and pushed off of his body. " Well, you have a dinner to get to," she said as she moved a hand to Garrus's face. " You need to settle it before we leave, and you need your family back."
He sighed, resigning himself to the dinner with his sister. The man who had faced down three of the largest mercenary gangs, destroyed the Collectors, and faced Reapers head on couldn't think of facing his distraught sister.
" Well, I'm going to leave you to get ready," Shepard said, breaking his concentration on the impending dread coming his way. He stared at her as she walked out the door, shutting him in to get ready.
As Shepard walked through the small camp at the front of the hotel, she noticed the piles of stares directed toward her, obviously due to the difference in physiology.
As she walked through the collection of medical tents in search of the injured Turian she had befriended, she was asked multiple times, rudely, if she was in the right place. Each time she grew more agitated as they would only question her, not point her in the right direction.
After a good hour of searching in the retched, desert heat, she fount the tent that Heldos had been moved to.
As she walked up to the flaps of the tent entrance, she poked her head in, darting her eyes back and forth looking for Garrus's sister, trying to avoid her until Garrus himself had talked to her.
When she was satisfied the woman wasn't anywhere to be seen, she slowly walked in, scanning the room looking for the young Turian's bed. Like everywhere else, she was met with evaluating stares from around the room.
Confident she had found the right bed, the only one with a Turian not sporting clan markings on his face. She walked over to the Turian, noticing him playing with a piece of paper.
" No fucking way. You know origami?" she loudly asked when she finally noticed the paper being fashioned into a small bird. The boisterous woman gaining even more stares from the tents occupants.
Grabbing the Turian's attention, he looked up and gave her a Turian smile with his mandibles spreading wide. " Yep. It's really hard with only three fingers though," he groaned as he tried finishing the bird, to no success.
Shepard reached out and snatched the bird from him. " Here, let me."
She shifted the small paper in her hand, noticing the sharp angles and marveled at the skill it took the Turian to fold the paper, especially with three fingers. It's hard enough for Humans to do it. I wonder how he does it, she thought as she continued to examine the bird, long enough to make the Turian nervous, until she found the issue.
She finished the small piece of paper with lightning fast precision that came with years of practice. As she handed the bird back, it wasn't hard to see how surprised he was about the skill. " What?" she asked as she held her hands up as if she didn't do anything wrong. " I gotta do something with all my mission report drafts. I don't want to waste all that paper without getting at least some personal satisfaction out of it."
He accepted the finished bird and gave a light chuckle. " Don't we all. All that paperwork is a pain in the ass." He inspected the paper and shifted it back toward Shepard. " Thanks for the help. You can have it."
Shifting the bird in her hand to get a look at it, she responded without looking at the Turian. " Why? You did most of the work, and it's beautiful."
Caeus shifted and got off the bed, " Well, I make them for anyone here that will accept them, and I already have a lot made. Many Turians don't accept them because they don't appreciate Human art or don't want to associate with me, for obvious reasons."
Shepard looked up at the Turian towering over her. " Well, wanna go for a walk? It's the last night I'm here and I don't know when I'll see you again."
" Sure, Commander," he replied as his eyes lit up, undoubtedly from the interaction.
Commander, how she hated that title, especially when used by friends. " Please Caeus, my name is Laura."
The Turian bowed his head, probably a form of respect. It's not everyone who is on first name basis with a hero of the galaxy.
" Thank you, Laura. I can only imagine where I would be right now if you hadn't talked to me," Caeus said as they started their walk, moving away from the medical section of the camp.
" Well, I would like to think that Garrus's father would've taken care of you, but I don't want to leave that to chance. Speaking of which, how is Medical Sergeant Vakarian treating you? Not driving her crazy yet?" Shepard said as she looked over, watching the Turian try to hide the pain walking was giving him.
" She's fine. As best as I have gotten before," he said, shrugging his shoulders in the process. " She's not as openly bigoted though. At least that's a positive."
As they walked toward the edge of the camp, they came across the dried out remains of one of the fountains that populated the Strip. The Turian pointed to the giant hole of sand and questioned the woman. " What is this place? You Humans don't just dig holes just to fill them with dirt again, or build giant buildings to leave them abandoned?"
She chuckled as she looked over the Turian's confused face. " No, this place was once a great gambling destination. Think of the Citadel, throw in a lot of gambling and entertainment, and this is what it was. The place closed down around the time we discovered the mass relays. Why gamble with Humans in a desert, when you can travel space and gamble while watching an Asari pole dancing?"
They settled on the railings that surrounded the empty pool, starring into the hills of sand that occupied the pool, when the Turian spoke. " This is a far shade from where I grew up."
Shepard perked up, as she found something to talk to the Turian about. " O yea, where was that?"
" Serrice, on Thessia," he replied, not risking a look at Shepard.
Shepard stole a look at him. She got a look into his life that most didn't, and revealing he had grown up in the heart of Asari space. It was rare for someone of another race to grow up on Thessia, even more rare for Turians. They held a phobia that the element zero rich planet would give them biotics as if it was a cancer.
If he grew up there, he must have biotics, she thought as she shot him the question just to make sure. " Since you grew up there, I bet you have some talents the need to remain unnamed?"
The sigh the Turian let out as he turned to look at Shepard is all she needed to know for her answer. Not wanting to hit another nerve with the Turian, she held off on asking about how he didn't bare family markings.
" Come on, lets get you back to your bed. Don't want your nurse coming to kill me," she said as she placed her hand on his back, breaking up his thoughts with her light touch.
As they walked back into the medical tent, they were met by a Vibos Vakarian talking to everyone and anyone who walked through the tent.
He turned to greet the new entrants to the tent. " Executor. Just the person I was looking for." He shifted into a parade rest position. " My son said you would be down here. I would like to extend an invitation for dinner."
After she settled Caeus back onto his bed, she turned toward the elder Vakarian and smiled. " I would be glad to. Just give me some time to finish with the Corporal."
He nodded in agreement. " I will be in the command tent when you're ready." He had bid both Shepard and Heldos a good day and exited the tent.
Shepard turned to Caeus, seeing him stare at her. " Well you must be more important than just a hero of the galaxy if the Councilor is inviting you to dinner." He shifted uncomfortably and looked back at Shepard. "It wouldn't happen to have something to do with his son would it?"
Her blushing was all he needed to know as he chuckled at her turning several shades darker. " That's what I thought," he said as he returned to his origami.
" How would you know what blushing is?" she questioned. " You Turians have issues reading our body language."
" I grew up on Thessia, remember? The Asari blush, but not the same color," he shot back.
Amazed on how he had gotten an Asari to blush, Shepard had to know how. " Wow, how did you even get an Asari, who are never embarrassed, to blush?"
The Turian chuckled. " Well, there's not much choice in the way of romantic options on Thessia, now is there?"
That got Shepard to blush again, drawing laughter from Caeus.
When he finally settled down, he turned back to her. " Thank you for stopping by, Commander. I would love to talk more...," he looked back up at her, " but you've got some heat to lose and a father to impress."
" Executor, I'm glad you could join me tonight," Vibos said as he pulled out a chair for Shepard.
" Wow, aren't you the gentleman," she said as she sat down in the chair.
" Well, some things are just universal," he replied as he uncomfortably took a seat in the human chair. " Sorry about the choice in food." he said motioning to the packets of military MREs.
Shepard chuckled at the mismatch of the manners from the Turian with a meal of MREs in a dusty abandoned building. " It's the life we choose to lead, Councilor."
Vibos nodded in agreement. " Well, our days of living like this are limited, at least for you for the time being. Life is going to be better once we get settled in the new council. Speaking of which, who is your race's councilor going to be?"
Shepard shrugged as she opened the silver packet that looked like the identical cardboard she had been eating for the past day at the camp. " We have no idea. The Alliance will vote on it, but at this point were lucky if we can do anything at all. We have to have everyone vote on it."
The Turian chuckled " So the joke about how many Humans does it take to activate a mass relay is true? I thought they were exaggerating a little too much."
Shepard released a loud laugh that could be heard through most of the hall, enough to attract the attention of the room, if it were populated. " So why is it that you treat me to MREs and talk business? I honestly thought you were doing this to keep me out of Garrus's fringe as he was to have dinner with his sister."
Vibos took bite and swallowed his unappetizing looking meal that looked just as gray as his plates. " Well, that was part of the reason. I wanted to have dinner to get to know the bond-mate of my son, talk business," he slightly paused to catch his breath and empathize his next words, " and keep you out of Garrus's fringe for a few hours."
Shepard set down her food and leaned forward, to empathize that he had her attention. " Well, lets talk business first."
The Turian bent over to retrieve a data pad and brought it to the table. " First, I must know if you decided to take the job offer from the Council."
Garrus and herself had discussed to job offers and decided to take them, even though the job of Executor was more suited to a C-SEC lifer than a Spectre who is the hero of the galaxy. In the end, they both decided to agree, if they could figure out why she was being offered the position of Executor.
" I would love to say yes, but I need to know why I am being offered the position in the first place. It's more of a position for you or Garrus than a Council Spectre."
Vibos tilted his head as he looked at her, deep in thought before regaining his composure. " Well, I guess if I tell you why, that's the only way we'll get you to accept." He handed the pad over and gave her time to look over it. " CON-SEC. We want to create a Council Security force that's sole purpose is to defend Councilors. The Executor position will be split between you and Commander Bailey. We feel that C-SEC is great for investigating and keeping the peace on the Citadel, but not for defense of Citadel Space's leaders."
Looking through the data-pad, she noted the reports on the Citadel invasion by Cerberus, Sovereign's Reaper forces, and the final Reaper invasion that killed the previous Council. " Where are most of these agents going to come from?" she asked as she looked up from the pad.
" The same way Spectres are chosen, through the best the militaries have to offer. We also want to reassign Spectres to CON-SEC, with you being the first and the leader of the organization."
Shepard swapped the data-pad for the ration she had opened before. " I like the idea, but is it purely defense, or a Spectre-like organization that could theoretically silence dissenters of the council?"
Vibos shook his head at the question. " Not at all. You cannot be ordered to take missions, only defend the Council."
The response helped put her at ease. She was tired of the obscure targets and missions that she had heard of from her time in the Spectres, and didn't wish to become a terror to the people that she was supposed to help.
Shelve a warm smile to Vibos and stopped eating into her meal. " Well, Councilor. I think you found your Executor."
Vibos leaned back in his chair and widened his mandibles in a smile of his own. " Good. Now that we got the painful stuff out of the way, I want to get to know you better if your going to be calling me Father soon. So, tell me about Commander Laura Shepard, hero of the galaxy…"
