Shepard awoke with a start, she had been dreaming of Nihlus again... She firmly blamed the sleeping turian sharing the room with her.
Grumbling, Shepard got up and gingerly stretched out her joints... She was sore from the explosion, though it wasn't something unfamiliar to her – the soreness, that is. She'd felt worse after some of her "training program".
Shaking her head at her own thoughts, she moved around their prison and tried to figure out the best way to escape...
They would need to work together there was no two ways about it. The only problem with that would come with whether or not the turian... Er, Garrus, wanted to cooperate with her. It wasn't so much cooperation that she needed, but trust. Trust was a lot to ask of someone with whom you had just become acquainted... After attempting to kill them.
She sighed and moved over to the rubble pile that was once a hallway. She attempted to move a few pieces of concrete to see how feasible it was for them to simply dig their way out.
After only moving a few of the smaller pieces, she decided that they would sooner die of starvation rather than dig themselves out within a reasonable amount of time. That and they would only grow weaker as their food stores depleted... She wasn't sure about Garrus, but she only had a few protein bars in her pack that managed to survive the events of the previous day. Garrus didn't seem to be carrying a pack with him so she had to assume he didn't have much food either.
A flutter of wings caught her attention and brought her eyes to the ceiling. There were some holes that they could possibly get through. One of them would have to be hoisted up and while she could probably get the turian up to the hole, she wasn't sure she'd be much use to anyone afterward as her back would most likely have collapsed from the effort.
Him hoisting her up seemed unlikely, but it was pretty much their only option. She could go find some rope to help him climb up. She never thought of abandoning him to his fate after she got free. They got into this predicament together and she would honor her promise to a truce. With the truce they were as good as friends, and she never left a friend behind if she could help it.
Garrus woke slowly from his dream. He wasn't sure what he was dreaming about, he had no memory of it other than a lingering feeling that it was new. Something he had never considered before.
A noise in the room reminded Garrus of where exactly he was and why. The woman, Vienne, was moving about the room doing spirits know what. He decided to observe her for a few moments before alerting her that he was awake.
She was quietly moving around and obviously looking for an obvious escape route. He figured she found none when she gave up trying to move a rather large piece of rubble. Then, he watched as she looked towards the ceiling after an animal made some fluttering noise.
It struck him then, as she brought her face to the sunlight, that even to a turian she was attractive. Clear complexion, startling bright eyes, and a solid yet feminine frame. Wait, had he just considered her attractive? No. He was merely making a passive observation. He would never consider a human attractive enough for...
He shook his head and cleared his thoughts. She wasn't even a friend let alone a possible...
Garrus smacked himself in his face to stop his thoughts from materializing and in the process announced to Vienne that he was awake. She looked at him curiously as he rubbed the side of his mandible that he had just smacked, trying to lessen the pain.
He grunted something that sounded like a greeting and tried to look anywhere but at her. She seemed content to let him wake up and get situated at his own pace while she stood on the far side of the room while attempting to look unassuming.
He wondered if the human was ever unassuming.
Shepard allowed Garrus to do his own thing for a few minutes while she collected her thoughts on how to ask him to go along with her plan. Besides, he looked like he needed the minute to collect himself after he had loudly smacked himself in the face. Even with all of that body-plating she doubted it felt very good.
After a few minutes she cleared her throat and brought Garrus' attention to her. She smiled a bit and tried to work out the translation of her question.
"You hoist me up, I get rope and help you."
She knew it was broken at best, but damnit it's not like she had a lot of practice anymore. She was fairly confident the meaning went through anyways since Garrus at first seemed amused by her question and then... Well she didn't know what he looked like really but if she had to guess... She would say he looked perturbed.
"You want me to push you up there and then trust you to come back and save me?! After you blew me and my team up!?"
She flinched as she worked through the angry words to discern his meaning. She hadn't really expect him to be dancing and singing a chorus at her plan and she couldn't really blame him for his disbelief, but she had hoped he would be a little more receptive.
Garrus couldn't believe the human had suggested he help her up and then went on faith that she would come back to help him. Yeah, sure. She'd so do that.
He watched her sigh and move to sit in another corner, leaving him to his silence. She didn't deny his unspoken accusation, but he wasn't sure if that was because she didn't know how or she couldn't refute it.
Either way, he wasn't about to go with her first idea without trying to think of some of his own.
Garrus moved around the room and studied the layout, the rubble and the ceiling. If she had another grenade she could just put it near the wall and they could hope that it was an exterior wall... And they could hope that the rest of the room didn't cave in on them.
With the human construction he couldn't be sure where the support beams were to try and minimize the threat to them. He hated human construction.
Garrus made his own attempt to move some of the rubble away from where the hallway had been, but he couldn't make the large piece of concrete budge either. Another reason to hate human construction.
No, it appeared that the only way they were getting out was through the hole in the ceiling. And he was going to have to push her through it, spirits be damned.
He was going to have to trust her.
"Fine... We'll do it your way." He ground out to her, not missing the way she jerked her head in his direction to look at him in a way that he could only assume meant that she was surprised.
After a moment she nodded and climbed up the rubble a bit, motioning for him to come closer.
This was going to be degrading. A human on his shoulders.
It was a good thing they didn't need to communicate for this part, it was fairly straightforward. He was sure she wouldn't appreciate the strings of cursing that he was growling under his breath.
As she jumped onto his shoulders from the rubble and he grunted with the effort to get her in a position that she could climb from, Garrus was not above noticing how light she was.. nor how soft she felt.
He shook his head again. Human. No. He needed to get laid or to spar, this was not going to work otherwise.
He helped to steady her as she stood on his shoulders and reached for the lip of the hole. She ended up having to jump slightly to secure her hold. Garrus couldn't understand why such short creatures would build such tall hallways.
Garrus let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding when he saw her start to hoist herself up over the lip of the concrete. He watched her as she gracefully pushed herself up and was about to hook her leg over the edge as the ceiling gave way.
Both her and a large chuck on the ceiling fell and Garrus rushed to simultaneously catch her and throw both of them out of the way from the concrete.
Spirits damned human construction.
Shepard was just marveling at how the day was going in her favor when she went to hook her leg over the lip of the roof. She was just thinking that she shouldn't be fantasizing about the turian helping her to climb up onto the roof and about how he smelled nice once she got closer to him. She was just thinking of where she could find some rope, when the ceiling collapsed with her on it. She instinctively bit back a scream as she fell and was quickly trying to orient her body in such a way that she wouldn't end up under the concrete slab.
Before she really had time to orient herself, however, strong armored arms were around her and jerking her backwards. She fell with a grunt on top of the turian, who also grunted with the force of their fall.
She really couldn't bring herself to move right away and he didn't immediately shove her off. She sighed and said mostly to herself "Well, we're fucked." It looked like a lot of digging was in her future.
The crash from the collapse alerted the search party. The group moved cautiously around the building looking for a way to get to the roof, they would probably have a better vantage point from up there. T
There leader holstered his gun as they came upon vertical stairs and made his way skyward.
Garrus wondered if the human was ever going to move. He grunted again for good measure to try and insinuated that she should move. It was all he could do because he, for some reason, felt himself unable to verbally ask her.
She moved abruptly and scrambled to the corner opposite him, her face becoming red. He wondered what that meant, he had never heard of humans changing color before. He was about to say something to her when he heard footsteps approaching.
Raising his hand to her he made sure she knew to be quiet. They were both in danger until they knew who was on the roof. If it was humans, he was in danger. If it was turians, it would be her. He wasn't sure how he felt about her being killed or captured at the present.
The steps were too heavy for humans and he motioned for her to get as out of sight as she could. There wasn't a lot of options, but at least if she kept still they would be unlikely to see her and Garrus had a better chance of distracting them in to not noticing the human.
Garrus moved to the center of the hole in order to be the first thing that caught whoever it was' attention right away.
A shadow loomed over the hole and Garrus gulped when he looked up into familiar green eyes.
Shepard was sure she was about to be captured. She knew as well as Garrus did that whoever was on the roof was turian. This did not bode well for her and she tried her best to blend in to the darkest corner of the room.
She silently thanked Garrus as he moved to block her from sight as much as possible, she appreciated the effort even though it would probably be pointless.
She wondered briefly if he would get in trouble for not killing her – she knew she would if their roles were reversed right now.
Shepard gulped and held her breath as the shadow fell over Garrus. He seemed to relax minutely before tensing again. He had recognized whoever it was... And he wasn't sure that was a good thing.
Subconsciously she pressed herself even harder against the wall, her nails digging in to her palms as she clenched her fists, preparing for a fight.
Garrus and the other turian spoke to each other briefly but she couldn't understand them, blood was rushing through her ears and was distracting her from their conversation.
Something caught her attention, however, something about the other turian. Without thinking she pushed herself off of the wall and craned her head to see the face of who was, no kneeling, near the edge of the hole.
Garrus jumped when he heard her moving and tried to signal to her to stay put without being obvious. It was a failed attempt since she didn't notice, all of her attention was skyward.
The other turian's gaze instantly went to her and for a split second he went for his weapon. He stopped when she spoke, her voice relieved and full of emotion.
"Nihlus..."