They had their hands full of coffee and whiskey which she didn't realize he could drink—apparently liquor didn't affect the dextro/levo dichotomy. They had chatted and joked while making coffee, and in her case, digging through the mess cabinets for the booze she knew would be stashed somewhere. However, now he stopped at the entrance to her cabin and stood there awkwardly, hands laden with the two coffee mugs he insisted on carrying for them.

She sat down the whiskey and the two shot glasses at the nearest desk and then looked at him and then across her empty and blank cabin. He seemed to be staring at her lone duffel on the big desk with some sort of trepidation on his face. She sighed. That dislike and discomfort she felt in this room was back.

"I don't have much to fill up a cabin this big." She said quietly. His mouth was still open slightly, and she couldn't hold back the amused chuckle as his head swiveled to meet her eyes. "But… It would probably help if you came all the way in."

He shut his mouth and took the two steps to set the mugs down on the middle desk and sat himself in the chair. Then he stood back up and turned the chair around. She did laugh this time, and went to sit on the bed and laid out the two shot glasses. She poured, and he drank his, and she hers.

Whoever bought the whiskey had no idea what they were doing, she decided as she fought the urge to gag.

"Oh, that is awful!" She proclaimed.

"All of your human stuff is awful, if you ask me." Garrus said, his mandibles were fluttering in what she assumed was his equivalent of the grimace she was trying to calm. "I'd take ryncol any day."

"Yeah, well, it is technically an Alliance ship… I think bad whiskey is the usual contraband." She shrugged. She figured she might as well bite the bullet as she saw him staring at the unmade blankets on her bed. Bad whiskey made her brave. "So, what exactly did you figure about… my neck?" He brought his eyes back to her face, calculating.

"Well, tell me how good of a detective I am." He began, "The Spectre that went with you to Eden Prime, his name was Nihlus, right?"

"Yeah." The voice that wanted to confirm that he probably wasn't too bad of a detective got stuck in her throat. Hearing him say it hurt somehow.

"I know he was turian. So how well did you really know him?" She looked up at him, again surprised. This damn turian. She couldn't decide what she saw before her. Suddenly she wasn't sure if he was the nice guy offering to be her friend again, or if he was here in her cabin now, playing the damn C-Sec officer inquiring into a conspiracy. Nihlus' words rang back in her head.

"Before I'm even supposed to have met you? Even Spectres have a little accountability. Think about it, if I show up for a mission to evaluate a recruit I requested and she is covered in turian bite marks?"

He knew someone would ask questions. He fucking knew; he knew it would look bad, and he went and bedded her anyways, and left her with that stupid hope that it could be something more, something wonderful, and fucking Saren murdered him.

She dropped her head into her hands and sighed. She was stuck in this mess now.

"It wasn't like that."

She cursed. She didn't realize that those stupid betraying tears were back until her voice caught in her throat as she spoke. She immediately backtracked, breathing deep and reigning in that emotion. Whether Vakarian was really interested in being her friend or not, C-Sec officer or not, she definitely needed him on the ground team, needed his aim and quick thinking, and needed at least a working relationship. Devolving in tears—she was sure—wouldn't win her that with a turian.

"It wasn't like that," She tried again, and her voice came out clearer. She looked up, to realize he had stood up and was oddly frozen, one clawed hand reaching towards her knee. "I only met him the night before—some fucked up coincidence. I was looking for…" a way to escape my old teammate? Someone to fuck so she didn't have to think? "Someone to spend shore leave with… and we went to some hotel."

He dropped his hand and stood next to her bed like he wished he could leave, so she kept talking.

"I had no idea who he was, but he knew me. So when he started naming details about the mission, I almost knocked him cold in the middle of the bar and ran, but I figured that would cause more of a scene than finding a way to take him out quietly, but then I… I liked him." She smiled a little to herself.

"You walked up to me!"

"Ah… That's not exactly what I figured." He confessed, and moved the chair to sit closer to her, more comfortable.

"What," she asked, again trying not to be offended, trying to joke like they had a moment before, "didn't take me for a one-night-stand type?" As soon as she said it she knew it was a jab and regretted it, but he gave it right back.

"No, I ah... just figured the first human Spectre had a little help." Her eyes cut up, ready to fall into the training that let her pin Nihlus to the wall, that got her through Akuze and her N-trials—but faltered when she recognized one of those crooked turian grins.

He said something about being her friend. Do friends really insult each other like that? But she saw him smirk.

"If you want to play it like that, Shepard, I can give as good as you can." She wasn't sure what kind of warning that was supposed to be.

"So you don't think I earned this? You think I got stuck in this fucking position… what? Because I fucked my way to the top?" Her head was spinning. She felt like she was about to throw something at him.

"No, no, put the bottle down. I didn't say that." She realized she was clutching the neck of the whiskey bottle, and set it on the floor, but laid her fisted hands back on her knees.

"Wow." She said.

She forced a deep breath down into her lungs, and then couldn't stop the laugh that came back out.

"Wow. I'm not sure I could mess up more with you if I tried." He rubbed the back of his neck in an embarrassed gesture as he moved towards her, gently smoothing her hands down onto her crossed knees.

"Vakarian… I'm on a mission to take down the man who killed my… he wasn't even my boyfriend—he wasn't my... anything—and you're the only person who seems to have put together that there was anything happening. He's dead, and I can't let on to anyone that anything happened, because they'll all assume exactly what you just did. So if you want to keep talking, feel free to shove your foot farther down your throat, but just know that anything could happen down on the ground on this next mission."

"You wouldn't."

"I would. If I had to." She stood up from her bed and stood a few feet away from him. "But I like you so far. I don't want to have a fight with you. I'd much rather…" we figure this friendship thing out. She sighed. Sat back on the bed. This was becoming downright melancholy now. "I should probably… You should probably go."

The cabin was silent for too long before she finally looked up to see him staring at her again. Still. Once her eyes met his she realized he was challenging her. He didn't want to leave, he was making that clear and she felt the heat of anger rise from her shoulders up her neck again. She took her shotglass and her bottle of whiskey and stood back up. She stepped into his space and resisted the urge to be so obvious as to buck at him—she didn't even know if that was a physical gesture that turians understood—but she couldn't stop her chin from lifting. She didn't like the challenge to what she said—she had suggested that he leave… why wasn't he leaving? The tiny lights of his eyes weren't locked on hers though, and she was momentarily confused. They darted all over her face before they finally settled on her mouth.

Which she was not at all okay with.

When he didn't back down, she slammed the bottle down on the desk, probably harder than necessary, but he still moved. He walked around the desk and picked up his mug. He was very pointedly not leaving until he began to walk very slowly towards her cabin door, facing her the whole way, watching her the whole time. As he took another sip of his coffee, she really wished she was better at reading him.

"Get some sleep and, ah… Let me know if I owe you another coffee in the morning."

When the door slid shut automatically she wished she could have slammed it in his damn face.