She couldn't resist taking him down planetside on every mission she went on. She knew other people on the crew had noticed, particularly Williams—and she had had several choice words for the gunnery chief about her obvious racism... She had requested that if the chief couldn't open her mind that she at least shut her mouth. And the chief had, at least for that day...

Wrex had laughed to himself from his corner of the cargo bay after she had finished speaking to the gunnery chief.

Garrus had kept his eyes lowered as he and Tali had loaded into the Mako in preparation for the drop planetside.

Shepard couldn't help but notice that something was off with her team, which was upsetting, because the three of them usually worked well together, especially when they were expecting to deal with any kind of tech.

"Don't worry about Williams." She said as Garrus somehow folded himself into the front seat next to her. "I've got a plan for her." In fact, Shepard's plan was to place the turian and the human on the ground team together for the next week or so. The though of forcing them to work together was... oddly satisfying as she watched them start to work together even as they bitched at each other across the loading bay.

"It's fine, Shepard." Tali said quietly. She always loved how the quarian's accent curled around her words, but her tone raised Shepard's warning meter. "I think we all know that you don't feel the same."

"That's right, I fucking don't." She agreed quietly. "That woman… She's a great soldier," She shrugged. "I've already threatened grounding her, but we need her." Shepard sighed. She looked between the two of them, Garrus was watching her carefully, and Tali's mask as opaque as always. "This stays between us, of course. I don't think Wrex cares too much, but I know that things she's said have bothered you two. And can I ask… if you were me, what would you do?"

Tali shook her head, and Shepard noticed her slump a little deeper into the jump seat.

"You can't force people to change their minds. That's something I've already discovered on my pilgrimage. Plenty of people have something against all quarians just because of what happened years ago, and now because we don't live like they do. But knowing it doesn't help but so much. It's… it's hard no matter what. " She tilted her masked face towards Shepard and shrugged a little bit. She looked towards Garrus.

"Ultimatums are always fun." He said quietly.

"It's just that we've saved each other's asses so many times… and no one should ever have to prove that they're worth being treated like a human being. Or... sentient being?" She grimaced over her fumble.

"Shepard, really, there's always going to be something… someone like that. I was warned that this would be part of my pilgrimage. That someone is going to give me trouble because of my people. You can't change that all by yourself."

Shepard sighed and pressed her forehead against the steering wheel.

"Who cares what Williams thinks? I'm here to help you finish this." Garrus said quietly, shifting his knees against the dashboard panel.

Shepard picked her head up and looked at him. She felt like she could see something in the way his eyes held hers in the artificial dashboard light, but she wasn't sure what. She sighed and dropped her hands from the steering wheel. She was already indebted to both of them.

She looked out the windshield of the Mako. The planet outside of the Normandy's docking bay was reddish, they would be landing on the sunny side. Scans showed the atmo was thin, letting in almost intolerable amounts of UV from the local star. She wondered if it looked anything like Palaven.

"Wanna drive?" she asked him. His mandibles twitching an expression that she interpreted as some sort of pleasant surprise.

"Why Shepard, I thought you'd never ask." He said quietly, mandibles flicking in a grin.

"Oh, keelah, Garrus, please drive!" Tali exclaimed from the back.

"Really?" Shepard asked, turning around from the drivers seat to look at the young quarian. "You really don't want me to drive that badly?"

"Shepard, you couldn't see the bruise on my head under this suit." Tali said derisively.

"Fine, fine, I'll take the gun. For everyone's health." Despite her sarcasm, Shepard surrendered the driver's seat with a grin and watched as Garrus took it proudly, starting the engine, and radioing Joker that they were ready for the drop zone whenever he was.

"Ah… No offense, Shepard." Tali placed a hand on her arm as she stepped into the passenger seat. The vehicle gracefully dropped from the Normandy.

"I could call this mutiny, you know."

"You like us too much to actually press charges." Garrus retorted. Shepard stuck her tongue out at the back of his head, causing Tali to giggle.

"I love it when you two take me planetside with you." She said, turning to watch the landscape rush towards them and gently slow its approach as Garrus deployed the landing thrusters.

"When we…"

"Us two? What?" Shepard felt his stomach hit the floor even though she was at the back at the raised gunnery seat. "I take everyone down on missions. I need all of you." She heard Tali giggle like that again, and just wanted to run. That spot between her shoulder blades felt hot—her warning sign. Was she showing favoritism? Did she need to reexamine her leadership choices? She couldn't help it, over the past several months tracking down leads on Saren, she rarely felt more safe and sure of herself than she did with Garrus at her back, making jokes at her expense. He didn't really feel like a team member—a subordinate—he felt like a friend. A second. He'd become irreplaceable.

Shit.

Irreplaceable.

And that thought—that realization got her even more worried. But Tali kept talking as if she had no idea there were panicked thoughts running through Shepard's mind.

"Oh sure! I can tell that. Liara spends all of her time doing research and tracking down information for you, Chief Williams takes care of all the equipment for you, I think Wrex speaks for himself," the quarian seemed to acknowledge their team's krogan as an obvious choice, "But you two are always together. You make me laugh." She said, and her masked face glanced back to Shepard.

Garrus was conspicuously silent, she could see both of his hands locked onto the top of the steering assembly as he drove them towards the marker silently blinking on the radar. She felt she could read some sort of alarm into the grip of those six fingers on the Mako's controls... and then immediately shook that thought off. Shepard took a deep breath and put on her diplomatic face, trying to steer them back to the task at hand.

"Well, Tali, today's your lucky day, because Garrus seems to be taking the slowest path possible to our downed probe." She ended with a jab to the turian's driving, which seemed to help, because not only did Tali giggle again, but Garrus finally piped up and defended himself.

"I just like getting there without cracking my fringe on the display console."

"But seriously, we could get there today, Garrus." He retorted with a burst of power to the Mako's engines that knocked her head against the targeting grip.

"Right. Got it, Vakarian."

"I think you called it 'backseat driving' the other day?"

"I think I did."

"Well stop doing it. You said I could drive."

"I didn't think you'd drive like a grandmother though…"

"I'd just like to not have to put drive shaft back together tonight."

"Fine, Vakarian. I guess you get tonight off."

"Oh, why thank you. I could think of some things to do tonight instead, Shepard."

"Shut up."

She glanced between her two teammates, and as her eyes settled on the back of Garrus' fringe poking over the back of the driver's seat, she wondered what the hell was wrong with her.