Garrus is not easily surprised. Further, when he is surprised, he's fairly unflappable. He's always been a little proud of that. It's something he got from his father, like so many other things.
But here, now, for the first time in his life, Garrus is well and truly flapped.
"Hi there, Blue," the human says, sauntering slowly across the room. "Got a little bored in the cruiser, so I figured I'd come and see what's up."
The batarian is backing up, keeping the hostage between him and whatever is happening. Garrus keeps his eye on them, but he says nothing. He can't find the words anyway.
Once the human is between him and the batarian, she stops and tilts her head. "What's the matter?" she asks, smiling at Garrus. "Cat got your tongue?"
He looks at her like she's crazy. Then she punches him square in the jaw. Garrus stumbles backward a single step. The asari behind him gasps.
"That's for ruining my night," the woman says, shaking the ache out of her hand. "Jackass."
The batarian, meanwhile, is still on edge. "Who the hell are you?!" he shouts.
The woman, for the first time since she entered the room, turns her attention away from Garrus. "Name's Shepard," she says. "I'm your golden ticket."
"What?"
"Look around you, four-eyes. All your friends are dead. More cops'll be here soon. Things just aren't going your way." She turns and walks over to where Garrus dropped his gun. The batarian stiffens, arm tightening around the waist of his shield as Shepard picks up the weapon and checks the heat sink. "I can get you out."
"And why should I trust you?" he asks.
The woman turns and smiles again. "Because I'm no friend of Johnny Law over there. Because I just got picked up down in Chora's Den and I don't want to go to prison. Because I've got a ship in the docks that the cops haven't impounded yet. And mostly because I know a way out that'll take us right under their noses."
The batarian doesn't move, doesn't blink any of his eyes. He briefly glances at Garrus. "Keep talking," he says.
"Citadel's always changing, y'know? Keepers moving walls and floors and patching holes. Lotta disused tunnels around here. Lotta places to run where no cameras or scanners are gonna be able to pick you out until you're long gone." Shepard paces slowly, keeping her new pistol leveled squarely at Garrus's chest. "Ain't that right, Officer Vakarian?"
Garrus says nothing, merely scowls at her. Shepard laughs and approaches him, getting within arm's reach and keeping her gun pointed up at his chin.
"If looks could kill, huh?" she says. "But they can't. This can, though." She wags the pistol slightly. Garrus tenses, balling his hands into fists. "Ah-ah-ah," Shepard chides, still smiling. "Remember the collateral, Vakarian."
He glances over her shoulder. The batarian is still wary, but he's calmer now that he recognizes that the scales have tipped in his favor. The child in his arms is sobbing, dry heaves that leave her gasping in his arms.
"Please," the asari mother pleads, somewhere over Garrus' right shoulder. "Please, just—just let my daughter go, please—"
"Shut up," Shepard says. "Keep your distance and no one hurts your daughter. Ain't that right, Vakarian?"
Garrus holds one hand out, palm back to the asari, gesturing for her to move back. He's still waiting for the opening he needs, but a civilian being so close makes it almost impossible for him to go for the gun.
"How's it feel, big guy?" Shepard hisses, almost a whisper past her wide smile. "Not so funny, now. Stnr."
Garrus blinks. His translator had caught on that last word. It had been too soft, and her lips hadn't moved when she said it.
"Come on," the batarian says impatiently. "You know a way out, let's go before more of them get here."
"Just saying my good-byes," Shepard says loudly. "You'll miss me, won't you, Vakarian? I'd miss me."
Then she smiles and there's that word again, so quiet his translator catches again, but this time he understands it: "Stunner."
There's a short moment where outright confusion replaces the anger on his face, and he hopes the batarian isn't familiar enough with turian expression to see it. But he recovers quickly.
Garrus doesn't trust this human, this Shepard. Not in the slightest. But it's the only play he's got, and they're right next to each other, and now he glances down and sees her hand on her hip, index finger tapping and indicating her pocket.
He glances pointedly at the batarian. Shepard seems to get the message and shifts slightly, hiding her left side from her new compatriot. As quick as he can, Garrus snaps open one of the pockets on his armor and retrieves the stunner, then throws a right hook at her chin.
He'd been trying to telegraph the blow, and it works. Shepard catches the arm and brings it down against her side, where Garrus slips the stunner into her pocket.
She winks, then. Garrus wishes he knew what that meant.
Then she cracks him with the butt of his own pistol. Garrus falls, dazed, onto one knee as Shepard backs away from him.
"Nice try, cuttlebone," she shouts mockingly, expression both amused and angry she sights him down the barrel of his pistol. "Really aren't too bright, are you? I'd shoot if I didn't feel like wasting the sliver of metal it'd take to end you."
Shepard spits on the floor between them. Then she turns and walks away. "Come on, four-eyes. Let's blow."
The batarian is hesitant to turn his back, but he does, after a few steps, jogging after Shepard as she leads him towards the back aisle of the grocery. The asari tries to chase after them, but Garrus grabs her hand. Blue biotics start to blaze up and down her skin, and he squeezes her wrist.
"Don't," he says. "You'll just get yourself killed."
"I don't care!" she cries, trying to wrench free. "They've got my daughter!"
"No they don't."
All at once, the blue glow vanishes. She looks at him with wide eyes. "What?"
Garrus sighs. He still doesn't trust Shepard. He still isn't sure. But...
"Give it a minute."
/
Shepard leads the batarian and his hostage, still sobbing, back down the stairs and to the half-open door she'd come in. She slaps Vakarian's pistol to her hip and it attaches to the armored hold beneath the fabric of her pants.
"You wanna give me the kid?" she asks.
The batarian looks at her suspiciously. "What?"
"Don't think she likes batarians." Shepard shrugs. "Probably the teeth."
He hesitates. The gun in his hand starts to rise, not towards her, but to the child. Shepard rolls her eyes.
"We still need a hostage," she explains seriously. "And the kid's gonna cry all the way to the dock, so unless you want to give away our position and get a ton of alien snot all over yourself, I can probably keep her quiet better than you can."
The batarian considers this. His top two eyes blink, and then his bottom ones. Finally, he nods, and with the difficulty of someone who has never handled a child before, passes the asari girl to Shepard.
"It's okay, it's okay," she whispers to the girl as she struggles and sobs in Shepard's arms. "You'll be back with your mother soon as we're gone."
"You kidding?" the batarian grumbles as he tries to squeeze through the door. "That kid's the only thing that's keeping us alive. And the only way I'll see any kind of profit from this fiasco."
Failing to sidle through as Shepard had, he sets his shoulder against the door jam and pushes, sliding it open further.
"Well," she drawls, "I wouldn't say it was the only thing keeping you alive."
The batarian chuckles dryly. "Yeah. Thanks for that."
"No problem. Hey, four-eyes?"
He turns his head. The stunner goes straight into one of his eyes and she holds the trigger down as he spasms and seizes. After a good three seconds, she releases the trigger and he crumples against the doorjam.
"I don't like batarians either," Shepard says.
The batarian gurgles and drools in response.
Shepard turns her attention to the little girl in her arms. She's not crying anymore. Just looking at her with wide, shocked eyes.
Shepard smiles and bounces her a little in her arms. "C'mon. Let's go find your mom."
