What was she supposed to do with this weight? She felt like a giant walking holo-sign that said "Hi, I'm not okay." She knew she was broadcasting her grief to the world but she could only hold but so much of it back. She knew that no one knew what exactly had happened; even Alenko and Williams only knew that something or some combination of the things that had happened planetside had affected her. Alenko had tried to say something about losing Jenkins, and Shepard had just nodded. She knew she should have felt worse about losing a team member on a mission, but she just felt… somehow broken.

She didn't realize she had felt so strongly for Nihlus until she saw him lying awkwardly in a puddle of his own blood and all she could think about was how she'd never get to actually go on a mission with him.

How she wouldn't get to lie in bed curled in his arms again, and how she'd never get to see what happened when they didn't need to be hush-hush anymore.

She would never get to know.

That was what hurt the most. It was just a giant question mark about what could have been. It was somehow even more unfair because it seemed he was interested in finding out what would happen between them, too. She hadn't found herself that absorbed in a relationship in a long time. She'd tried to make a point of avoiding others like that.

Although, it wasn't even a relationship. She had picked him up in a bar, they had fucked, it was great, they'd flirted, and engaged in some more heavy petting before he was… taken down. Killed.

But that promise of something more had been there from the beginning. They had definitely had… something.

And no one even knew what she was grieving. She just had to make sure she looked like she could still do her job. It certainly helped that she now had even more reason to find Saren.

As much as she wanted to hole up alone somewhere and mourn Nihlus' loss and her own, she was here, running around the citadel, taking care of business, gathering information.

So she was a little embarrassed when she walked into the Citadel Tower and again found herself staring at an encounter between two turians, one older in dress armor, and the younger in C-Sec blues. The younger male seemed pissed, and as her ears tuned in to their conversation, she realized that they were talking about Saren. She couldn't help her obvious eavesdropping, now. She was blatantly staring.

When the older turian turned away, she walked the short distance to the younger and prepared to introduce herself, but he had already noticed her, called her name, and introduced himself.

"Commander Shepard, I'm Garrus Vakarian."

Did every turian on the Citadel know her by sight?

"I'm the C-Sec officer in charge of the investigation into Saren."

Apparently so.

But as he spoke, she realized she liked something about him, as he explained the leads he'd been following. It was something about his righteous anger. He seemed to be chomping at some invisible bit, straining to do what he believed was right. She promised him to follow up on his leads; and she realized as she said it that she turned it into a vow not only because she needed to do it for herself, but because she wanted to do it for this frustrated young officer who knew what was right.

So when she followed his info on the quarian to a med clinic, saw him sneaking around the counter with that turian smirk on his face she really wanted to know how this would play out.

So when the team of thugs caught Shepard and her team walking in the door, pulled a gun on her, and the good doctor's captor suddenly went down with a hole in his head, she was a little taken aback.

Not in a bad way, really, in fact she couldn't keep the smile off of her face, even as she returned fire to the other men holding the doctor hostage. Maybe he wasn't as constrained as she thought earlier. What a surprise. That was a fucking risky shot to take.

She gave him just a cursory reprimand... and then without hesitation she welcomed him to the team.

He apologized, too formally, like something he'd done before, and proclaimed he was only interested in stopping Saren.

Which she decided would be just fine.