Chapter Two

Reaching into his backpack, Garrus pulled out a modest supply of rations. The swooshing sound it made as it opened made the stranger glance over her shoulder as she stood in front of a small burner and hob just a few meters away from the turian.

"You don't have to eat that crap you know." She exclaimed, turning her attention back to the cooker.

"Oh?" Garrus momentarily ceased fumbling around inside his pack. "Are you suggesting that I'll be eating whatever it is that you're having?" He snorted abruptly. "Talk sense."

The stranger shrugged coolly, "No, but I can fix something up for you. It would beat having to eat that sludge that you consider rations, right?"

"I'll pass." Garrus answered as politely as he could, but there was the unmistakable hint of straining in his tone. Memories of eating at human establishments that masqueraded as turian restaurants were beginning to make his stomach feel like it was caving in on itself.

"I'll cook you something." Her tone became more insistent and from this point he could tell that she wasn't going to back down easily.

"No, really… I'm not even that hungry anymore." This wasn't beyond the truth; Garrus was beginning to feel queasy now that the memory had distracted him from everything else.

"If you don't want it just leave it, but I think you'll feel a lot better once you get something nutritious inside of you."

Garrus no longer cared to argue about the matter, he wouldn't be to blame if she wasted supplies on him. He shook his head disapprovingly before shoving his backpack aside to the end of the table as the stranger opened a small mini-fridge beside the counter and went straight to work on preparing the dextro.

He watched her in silence from time to time as he went about repairing his mangled omni-tool and noticed that she was slicing up some defrosted Taruumi meat. Taruumi were plentiful on Palaven, a small and metallic-skinned opossum like creature that were mostly prey animals for turians. They were quite easy to breed and cultivate in specialized, artificial biospheres, in fact the elcor had made quite the profit of producing these for developing turian colonies.

Whilst thumbing out pieces of shrapnel from the fractured Logic Arrest Tool's tiny circuit board, he assured himself that looking good is one thing but settling well on his stomach was another.

After a good twenty minutes, the stranger made her way back over to the table after clearing up after herself. Garrus didn't look up and acknowledge her as she placed a bowl down in front of him; he seemed to be completely absorbed in repairing the omni tool. The stranger sat down and began eating in silence, never taking her eyes of her own food. It was the awkward silence that made Garrus cut a soldered link by accident; he growled under his breath and cursed in turian as he furiously slammed the screwdriver down onto the table.

The woman raised a cynical eyebrow at him from behind her bowl. "It's getting cold." She motioned with a nod towards his omni tool. "Maybe you should leave that alone for now."

Garrus sighed and tilted his head back to stare up at the ceiling for a few moments before meeting her at eye-level again, the sudden eye-contact made him feel uneasy and he hastily dropped his eyes to stare at the contents of his bowl.

"Taruumi stew." She followed his gaze that fell upon the bowl "Be thankful I didn't slip you any sedatives."

Garrus raised his eyes again to meet hers but this time he didn't look away, he wasn't going to allow her to intimidate him. He eyed her up cautiously for a few moments then picked up his bowl, ravenously chugging the contents down his throat. The stranger began laughing with a childlike innocence, there was no hint of maliciousness in her tone yet he couldn't help but rest his eyes on her again. He was genuinely confused, what caused her to laugh like that?

"What?" Garrus frowned questionably at her.

"Ah, don't take it personally. I just get the urge to chuckle every time I see you guys eat." She shook her head slowly from side to side apologetically, the laugh dying down into a softer giggle.

Garrus gave her a cocky, self-reassured look "Well, knives and forks aren't exactly very practical for us."

"I know." The stranger directed a smile down towards the table, hiding her embarrassment at the sudden outburst. "It's just… endearing in a very scary way."

Garrus couldn't help but smirk, the intimidation game had backfired on her and he felt somewhat victorious. The stranger shrugged, silently admitting defeat whilst grinning back at him and something contagious stirred between them, they were both chuckling to themselves while eating and the atmosphere felt more relaxed between them.

As Garrus conversed with the stranger in a more comfortable manner, he noticed that her teeth looked a little sharper than the average human, the canines in particular. But he recalled he had read codex entries over the extranet that humans who chose to predominantly carnivorous had subtly evolved in a way that made their teeth appear sharper in comparison to a human who chose to be strictly vegetarian. He never noticed this with the human crew of the Normandy when he was a part of Commander Shepard's crew and neither did he really notice it when he was working with human civilians and officers alike back at C-Sec.

He felt rude for staring and as soon as he was finished eating, he sat his bowl down and yawned a little in contentment and finally, it was the right time to break the silence.

"That was pretty good." He admitted as he stretched his legs out underneath the table.

"Yeah…" The stranger nodded in agreement before trailing off as if she was in deep thought "…I'm just thankful I wasn't cooking for an elcor, then I'd be in trouble."