AN: I had to rewrite the first half of the chapter twice before I was happy with it, which is annoying. I'm quite pleased with this chapter, as it's something I have been planning for a while, or at least the first stage of what I have planned. More will come soon enough.

Chapter 33:

[POV: Jack]

"… Leader …"

I could faintly hear something on the edge of my consciousness. Oh, who cares, it felt like I'd dropped into my bunk about 5 minutes ago.

"… Leader?"

What is that? Some sort of call or … I suddenly felt my entire body being shaken back and forth. It made my head jerk up and down and instantly brought me back to consciousness. Might have had something to do with the dull pounding in my head that was being exacerbated by the movement.

Out of instinct, my currently free hand punched out at whatever was touching me, colliding with a solid impact that was enough to jar my arm with the poor form I'd used. Opening my eyes and squinting, I found a pouting Krogan rubbing his arm above me. Grunt? What are you doing here … it doesn't matter. I could still feel the pull behind my eyes, not having rested near enough since the mission.

"You better have a good reason for waking me up." I grumbled, not awake enough to be anything more than sleepy.

"Bossman said we were going to debrief about her mission after we got cleaned up and out of our armour. I saw you were back so I figured you should hear it as well." Grunt nodded, crossing his arms. I closed my eyes as I exhaled all the air in my lungs. I was woken up for a fucking debrief? Couldn't it wait?

"Did it have to be now?"

"She said it would be better to do it before her team crashed, some of the others apparently get tired after too long without sleep. Heh." I get tired too you know, I grumbled internally. It took me a moment to process what he said as I was still waking up, but it processed soon enough. Grunt meant well, he just didn't seem to realise I wasn't a Krogan as well. To be fair, almost everyone else treated me like one as well. Come to think of it, how'd he get so close without me waking up?

How I wished I actually was a Krogan right n ow. It would probably help with the aches and pains all over me. Still, Grunt seemed excited about the debrief, so I may as well go. This resolve of mine wavered as soon as I stood up, my legs trembling beneath me, having stiffen up significantly since I laid down. I had to grab onto Grunt to stop myself from falling back onto my bed, that was difficult too.

I hadn't had a workout that good in a long time, and it showed with the DOMS I was currently feeling.

"Leader! Are you alright?"

"Fine." I grunted. "My little trip with Miranda was tougher than anticipated."

"As tough as Horizon?"

"Close." Wasn't quite as risky, but it took nearly as much effort on my behalf. There was just too many of the damn Eclipse, none were particularly dangerous but there was damn sure a lot of them. Even worse was how many obstacles they put in our way. My channelled blade technique wasn't easy, I'd never figured out how to make that one work properly. It's why I normally stuck to just a short time reinforcement of the blade, that and I couldn't perform the more advanced technique fast enough for proper use.

"Lucky." Grunt muttered. "I barely got to do anything fun. The others hogged all the enemies."

"You'll get your chance." I patted him on the shoulder, walking past. I had to limp a little as I did, my stump a little tender after all the strain I put it through yesterday, guess I hadn't been fully healed.

Grunt fell in behind me as we walked to the briefing room in silence, the door open when we got there. I stepped in to find everyone but Shepard already here, including Miranda? I walked over to her and dropped into the empty seat with a sigh.

"Weren't you asleep?" Miranda mused, tapping away at her data-pad.

"I was." I grumbled. Miranda looked up from the pad and glanced between me and Grunt before chuckling. "You seem fine, shouldn't you be even worse off than me?"

"Ah, but I haven't gone to bed yet. I had to write the report for you." She waved the pad at me.

"Why else would I save you?"

"Indeed." She deadpanned, turning back to the pad.

I may have said that, but I didn't really mean it. I hate to say it, but Miranda grew on me during our mission together. I think it was mostly because I got to see what was behind her mask. I freely admit I wear one of my own, it's why I was so leery of hers. But last night made hers drop, and it showed me who she really was. In the end, she was just a woman trying to keep her sister safe, no matter what she had to do. Her actions may not always agree with me, but I could see how she would justify them to herself. She was also quite fun to needle, for a Cerberus agent.

"Morning everyone!" Shepard called as she entered the room, accompanied by a physical specimen of an Asari. I suppose the mission was a success then, but damn Samara was built for an Asari. The jumpsuit she wore certainly didn't hide it, or some other things, but what was with the lack of armour on this mission? They're just begging to be hit.

"First of all, Miranda? You good?" Miranda nodded to Shepard. There was barely any evidence of the mission on her as well, Miranda having cleaned herself up and changed clothes. The only evidence left was the small bags under her eyes. My armour revealed a little more if you looked for the fresh blood stains and new scratches.

"That's good then. Now let's run through what happened with my mission. To my surprise, things didn't go quite as planned." There was a round of laughter in the room, Shepard grinning crookedly at us.

I would like to say I paid attention to the briefing, but I was still rather tired and it was all I could do just to stay awake and keep my head from dropping to my chest. I don't think I was as successful at hiding it as I would have liked.

"… and that's about it. Anyone else want to add anything?" Samara stepped forward.

"I would like to ask something." Samara stepped forward from her position leaning against the wall, having never sat down.

"Go ahead Samara." Shepard nodded, stepping back and taking a seat.

"Many of you aboard this vessel are guilty of violating my code, and while I would normally deal with you immediately there is a greater threat that must be dealt with first, so I will absolve myself from rectifying this."

Samara spoke without passion and without care. I could see how her words effected everyone though, the sudden discomfort in the air apparent. Can't say I liked her tone either.

"What I won't so easily overlook is when I don't know what transgressions you are responsible for, and whether they can be temporarily overlooked. Fury!" She called out my name and I began tensing up at the hostility I could hear from her. "For what purpose do you hide your identity? What crimes are you avoiding that you hide your face even on that cesspit Omega?"

"Samara!" Shepard barked at the Justicar, standing up.

"You can reveal your past to me so you can be judged, or I will force it from you." Samara ignored Shepard, evidently not entirely willing to follow her commands yet. I actually felt kind of bad for Shepard considering she just ran a mission to recruit her, but not bad enough to ignore the rising tension within me.

"My past is my own." I grit my teeth, standing up as well.

"That is irrelevant, now are you going to cooperate?" Samara uncrossed her arms, letting them begin to glow with biotic energy. My eyes widened at the sudden show of force, but I began to respond in kind.

"That's enough!" Shepard slammed her fist down onto the table with a bang. "Samara, I will not tolerate this hostility aboard my ship. Fury can have her privacy if she wants it, now leave it!"

"I agree with Samara, Fury's suspicious!" Tali called out from her seat, arms crossed.

"No more than you are you cretin! She asked for nothing in return for joining the mission, we had to help rescue you before you would!" Miranda called out from her seat in return, backing me up.

"Tali! Not now." Shepard growled at the Quarian.

"You are young Shepard, you will learn that privacy is a luxury." Samara spoke callously, eyes still locked on mine. I wanted to punch her in the face, to knock that superior look off her face with one blow. I wanted to rather badly, but out of respect to Shepard I wouldn't throw the first blow. I would certainly throw the last.

"Samara?" Shepard stilled after Samara spoke, her face giving away nothing as Samara turned to face the Commander. Like a switch was flipped, Shepard exploded into motion and slammed a fist into Samara's jaw, knocking the Asari back and into the wall where she slid down it.

"You will respect my command on this ship. That means following my orders. That means doing what I tell you. And that means leaving Fury the bloody fuck alone!" she roared, fed up with the whole conversation. "And if you can't do that, then get off my ship. You aren't as valuable as you seem to think, not when we already have Fury." Samara stood up from her position on the floor, eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, but she said nothing else, instead slinking away and out of the room. I kept my head turned towards her the entire time, not taking my eyes off her until she left, then I turned back to Shepard and retook my seat.

"I'm only going to say this once. Fury is a trusted member of my team, so anyone who has a problem with her has a problem with me. Am I clear?" the room was deadly silent as no one wanted to speak beneath the tension still in the room. "Meeting over."

I was seated near the exit, but I made a point to remain seated as everyone walked past. Miranda did as well. The room was still silent though, quiet enough that I heard the beep my Omni-tool let out. A familiar one. I looked down to find that it was being hacked and my security suite had picked up on it. My blood started rushing through my head and I tensed up again. This was my private device, it held a lot of information about me and my life back on Omega, and it was protected by strong security made by Treena. There would only be one person here who would do this.

My head snapped up and I found the Quarian walking past typing away at her Omni tool innocuously. That's it, now she's gone too far. My form lit up with biotic energy as I held out my hand and picked up the Quarian, slamming her against the wall harshly. She cried out in pain when she collided with it, her legs dangling beneath her as she struggled to breath through the grip I held on her.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing!" Shepard shouted, trying to throw a punch at me from her position close by. I caught it with my other fist, stopping it cold.

"She just tried to hack my Omni-tool." I hissed, clenching both my fists. Tali moaned from the added pressure but I couldn't find it within me to care. Shepard's eyes were hard as she stared at me, but they flickered to Tali and back before she took a deep breath and exhaled it.

"I don't care. Let her down and I'll deal with her, not you. This is my only warning, don't attack the other members of my team." I growled at her but released my glowing fist and let the Quarian crumble down to the ground rather than lower her.

"I don't start things Shepard. But I finish them." I whirled around and stomped out of the room, my head pounding from using my biotics again so suddenly, my system still feeling some of the strain I put it through yesterday. I wasn't nearly recovered enough for a confrontation like this. I moved quickly to return to my room when a hand landed on my shoulder. I tensed up at the contact and whirled around to find Miranda who quickly backed up from me.

"Fury, it's me!" she said warily. Seeing who it was, I let my fists unclench and crossed my arm, waiting to see what she wanted. "I wanted to see if you were alright."

"I'll be fine. But they won't be if they keep trying this sort of thing."

"I agree." She nodded, "just don't take it out on Shepard, she's had a hard time of it and even if it isn't fair, they may be needed for this mission. If only as a meat shield." She quirked her lips at me, and despite my misgivings I did chuckle at the thought.

"Fine. I'm going back to bed."

"Me too, enjoy the rest of your night." Miranda called out as she turned around as well.

[POV: Shepard]

Well, that was a clusterfuck. I watched as Fury stalked out of the room in a ball of rage with Miranda rushing after her, the door closing behind them. I just recruited Samara and now I might need to get rid of her. I couldn't afford to lose my team's unity, and Fury was the lynchpin for it. She was too valuable to lose for such petty reasons. I'd gotten a chance to observe how Samara fought over the last 24 hours, and while she certainly had more finesse than Fury, she had nothing on the endurance and glimpses of power I'd seen from Fury. That's why I whirled around to face the still recovering Tali, Fury hadn't gone easy on her, but at least she left no lasting damage. She could have just straight out killed her if she wanted to, it would have only taken her applying more force with her biotics to crush the girl like a tin can.

"What the actual fuck Tali!"

"Fury is suspicious." Tali coughed, standing up with none of my help. "We need to know what she's hiding before it comes back to bite us in the ass." Tali didn't sound sorry and I could feel the control on my emotions beginning to strain. I was exhausted, hungry, and sore from the mission to recruit Samara. And then all of this shit. It was too much.

"She's no more suspicious than you were when I first brought you aboard the Normandy! Or Wrex, or Liara! Mordin's bloody more suspicious than her so why are you so God damn focused on Fury?!"

"Because she's also a threat. To me … and to the team. You don't seem to see the danger she poses but I do. That's why I hacked her Omni-tool. She must have had someone make her security for her, it was good." Tali praised begrudgingly. "Probably press-ganged a poor Quarian into doing it." She muttered straight after.

It felt like she struck me when she admitted she actually did hack Fury. I was hoping Fury was wrong and just wound up by Samara, but I had suspected Fury wasn't. Tali had been antagonistic to Fury from the beginning and I'm not sure why, but the results of the antagonism were obvious.

"Why did you try in the first place, Samara had gotten her riled up and she was obviously woken up for the briefing and still exhausted. What made you think it was a good idea to do it now when she was on a hair trigger? Or even in the first place!" Why was everyone seemingly trying to create conflict. We were going to lose people to this mission, we didn't need to lose any to each other.

"Let me be clear Tali." I glared at her. "If you try this again I won't stop Fury. I'm not sure I even could." I admitted, trying to get her to see the danger she was putting herself in. Tali was a friend, and at this point so was Fury, I had so few of those as it was and I didn't want to lose the ones I had.

"Then it's a good thing I didn't just try, I was successful. Now let's see what Fury's trying to hide." Tali opened her Omni-tool and began browsing through the stolen data. Fuck!

"Why the fuck won't you listen Tali?! This is wrong!"

"Because you're biased. Here, I'll send you the data as well, see if you can find anything." Tali sent off the data to me which I opened with almost an afterthought. The first thing I saw was an image of a group of Asari and one heavily tattooed Human girl. They looked happy, and the sheer revulsion of the violation of privacy knocked me out of my shock.

I … what do I do now? Tali's put me in a tough spot here. I should rightfully go tell Fury what she did, but I … it was too much right now. I needed to sleep before I decided what to do, but I don't know if that would help.

"Tali, just … just go to bed. I can't deal with you right now." Tali waved her arm and walked off, too distracted by the data she was still looking through. I could have stopped her but I Just walked to my room in a daze and slumped down on my bed and put my head in my hands.

Tali might have just fucked me harder than I have been in years, and I don't know what to do. I laid down with my head still playing through the events over and over, but my fatigue must have caught up to me as I slipped into a fitful sleep.

[POV: Miranda]

I was sitting at my desk once more, doing even more paperwork. This time it was for Shepard, I swear she finds more use out of me for doing paperwork than actual missions, which, ouch, but probably fair. I have my new armour being fitted on board as we speak, I picked some up while we were on Thessia, and I really wish it had been ready for my mission to save Oriana. Things turned out well enough in the end.

The same couldn't be said about the night after. The sudden attacks on Fury were startling, and even more than that disturbing. Samara had been on board for less than an hour when she accused Fury. I know she lives by her code but I think I can see why Justicars are so unpopular with their government.

I may have tried to find out as much as I could about Fury, but at this point I had given up in finding out anything she didn't want me too. The most information I'd managed to get from her was what she told me willingly.

Tali backing up Samara about Fury being suspicious wasn't entirely unjustified, but Fury had more than proven she could be trusted with her actions, and the fact that was being ignored enraged me. It also left me feeling uncomfortable that I was doing the same as Tali, that I had tapped the Omni-tools of nearly everyone onboard. It left me feeling guilty, but at least I was only monitoring their communications. I had EDI scanning the data, looking for anything suspicious that she would alert me to. If it wasn't important, then I didn't know and I certainly wasn't trying to investigate their past dealings, only their current. It was a violation of privacy, sure, but only out of necessity. What Tali tried to do was past that and moving into malicious actions no matter how you looked at it.

"Ms Lawson, I have a matter of concern." EDI spoke up, catching my attention. She would only alert me to these things when I was alone and free.

"What is it?"

"Last night Ms Zorah transmitted a file to Commander Shepard. Its contents concerned me as while listening to the conversation she confirmed that she had successfully hacked Fury's Omni-tool and passed on the data to Commander Shepard. Would you like to see the file?"

Oh … oh shit.

"Pull it up on my pad." I ordered.

"Of course, Ms Lawson."

The file appeared shortly with the first image already open. It was a group of Asari and one human all smiling at the camera. The image stopped me short and made me consider what It was I was doing. This was a violation of Fury's privacy in its entirety. I severely doubt she would be keeping anything about her actual combat ability on here, so there wasn't even that on here. No, all this file could tell me was about Fury's past … and I was uncomfortable in going behind her back to find out about it.

Also, that human. That was Jennifer, wasn't it. The girl who had been wronged so much by Cerberus. I figured the two were close, but … no, I wasn't comfortable doing this, not anymore. I closed the file and saved it to my data-pad in a secret folder, fir evidence.

"EDI, delete the file on your storage."

"Are you certain? It isn't protocol."

"Override alpha-3-mu-terra." I ordered using the override I had been granted by the Illusive man when I began this mission. EDI only backed up her memory when we entered and left an access point to the Extranet, so the file would only be on her current servers.

"File deleted."

"That will be all."

I could do that much for Fury, after all she'd done for me. She deserved it and more, because she was the first to truly do something for me for nothing. There was no way I could force her to help with Oriana, nothing I could offer her, yet she still came along. I was still free because of her, Oriana was still free. Even Cerberus only helped Oriana because of my service to them.

The question begs though, do I tell Fury about this?

She deserves to know, but I'm not sure I should be the one to do it. For most of the time we've been on the ship together we haven't really gotten along, but Shepard and Fury have. Tali sent the file to Shepard, so Shepard will know what happened. Surely she will sort this out, she's always had a knack for making conflicting personalities work together, something I haven't. Not quite sure how she will resolve this one peacefully though.

[POV: Jack]

It's been about a week since we left Thessia, and some things have been going better than others. Samara has been hovering around me, watching me whenever she can. It was pissing me off something fierce, but I couldn't do anything about it as she was obeying the word of what Shepard ordered, thankfully the Quarian was leaving me alone, I'm not sure I could handle the both of them at once.

It's not even the whole demanding I tell them my story bit that was annoying me. I'd managed to move past that after the first day, deeming it unimportant after my talk with Rielle. This secrecy isn't really healthy for me, as I'm not doing it for any particular reason other than trying to keep my two lives separate, but should I even bother? Anyone I talk to already knows I'm Fury at this point back on Omega, so why do I … probably for that sense of normalcy I'd craved. If I had been rested at the time I probably would have just ignored their words, what I still would have done was threaten the Quarian. Demanding I tell them about myself was one thing, … but trying to take it from me? To take away my choice? That was an entirely other game. She's just lucky I stopped her before she got anything, because then I would start things as well. I keep my memories on this thing, my photos. I like to look over them regularly and just remember the good times I've had. And the good times, why could I not have my own room?

The constant suspicion is still getting on my nerves though, being constantly watched reminded me of my past. Things might have been helped if there was any missions for me to go on, to let off some steam, but nothing. We'd been running around doing some missions for the alliance, and Shepard had just been using humans for those missions, at the alliance's request. I get why she followed their request, but it left me with nothing to do.

"Begin!" I ordered Grunt, who paced forward with his eyes locked on mine and his fists raised. I did so as well but kept my hands loose. This was to be a biology only fight, and I wouldn't be able to keep up with him directly, so I would have to get a little tricky. Grunt, having gotten close enough launched the first blow with his right fist. I slapped it to the side and jabbed him in the gut with my other hand, not that it did much. It was a helpful little reminder to him though, as those blows would be serious if I could reinforce my limbs. It was a good teaching method.

This back and forth repeated a few times, as I ducked and diverted his heavy blows and took more small jabs at him. Rather than get frustrated as he once did, Grunt kept his cool and glued his beady eyes on my form looking for gaps. It was getting harder and harder to do this, he learned quickly, and Grunt started to block some of my own blows, anticipating where they would land. He grinned the first time it happened, and a gleam appeared in his eyes after the next few. I could have changed up my approach, but he wouldn't learn from that so I decided to see what he had planned. Grunt caught my next punch, and instead of trying to strike me with his other fist he latched onto the hand with a tight grip.

"Heh, let's see you avoid this one!" He reared back his other hand for a much heavier blow, like he used to before he learned some restraint. That would undoubtedly hurt, so I'm just not going to do that. Timing it precisely, I bent my legs slightly and launched myself up and over the blow, using his other hand as a leverage point. This left me with my legs raised in front of me and travelling further forward in mid-air, so I used it to strike grunt in the face with one of my knees as I finished the jump.

"Aughh!"

He reared back from the blow, letting go of me as well. I landed in a crouch watching as he shook his head in disgruntlement and growled.

"That was good, but I'm more of a grappler than a traditional boxer like we've been doing. Can't really do most of that with just my normal strength considering how much you weigh."

"I thought I had you this time." He grumbled, seeing we were pausing for now.

"You did, under the constraints I was fighting under. You're getting better, and fast." I praised him. He perked up at that admission suddenly looking livelier.

"Again!" He shouted, running at me with his hands raised again. Once he was close enough he launched an all-out assault, his hands whistling when they passed by my head. I had to twist and turn around the blows to prevent him from hitting me with his much faster assault, having thrown away the restraint he had been showing earlier out of his excitement. I grinned myself as well, the sudden speed actually a little tricky to keep ahead of. It meant I was backing up with each second he continued, using every bit of the enhanced musculature he held.

Well, if he wants to disregard the rules … I let a little biotic energy seep out and around my form, reinforcing my body before I began to meet him blow for blow. Instead of ducking I would hit his arms to stop them early, blocking some of the lighter ones with my forearms. The smacks of our limbs meeting echoing in our room as I began to push him back. I was slowly ramping up my strength, each time I hit him just a little bit harder and Grunt's grin would grow wider. Soon enough I was nearing my fully enhanced strength and it was all Grunt could do to hold off my assault as I eschewed speed for power and hammered blows into his sides and towards his head.

He was much more careful to block the blows at his head as his body was much more heavily armoured, but it was taking its toll on him. I could see him wincing from every blow and decided to finish it. I pushed all the strength I could into one final punch aimed at his head, making no effort to hide it. Grunt saw it coming and used both hands to block it, anticipating the force correctly as he bent his arms to absorb some of the impact. What he didn't anticipate was that I suddenly raised my right leg and kicked forward, sending all the energy currently reinforcing me into the blow as I kicked him straight in his gut. I could hear the air rushing out of him as he folded over the kick, before being knocked backwards and onto his back, skidding a little bit along the smooth floor. Grunt settled down there, wheezing from the final blow as I lowered my leg, panting from the fight we just had.

"You alright there grunt?"

"That was great!" he huffed, groaning from his position on the floor. Just because I could, I decided to sit down on top of him as I regained my breath. I didn't exactly soften the impact, so Grunt wheezed a little more from the impact, but didn't otherwise protest.

"I'm not saying that wasn't fun, but what was with the sudden aggression? You left yourself open quite a bit."

"I don't know. Something came over me … made me want to just hit you as hard as I could … instincts maybe?" He mumbled, then shook his head. "I don't know, but the urge to do so has been growing. It's getting harder to make myself think, to not just give into the urges when fighting."

That's doesn't sound great, especially if the urges are still growing. If grunt attacked someone not ready for it, he could do some serious damage, and on board the only one I would trust could actually put him down was that bitch Samara, Shepard could probably do alright for a while but I'm not sure she could actually keep him down.

I questioned Grunt a bit more about it before deciding I should probably ask Shepard about it, she should know about what's happening. It's a little weird I haven't seen her much over the last week, we use to talk fairly often as she would just show up randomly to chat.

"You should be alright for now after our fight, but I think I have something else that might help." I stood up from my seat and moved over to my bunk, picking up a box and placing it on top of the bed. Out of it, I pulled out two clear bottles of liquid.

"What's this?" Grunt narrowed his eyes at the bottle, unfamiliar with it.

"Ryncol." Grunt looked up at me eyes widened for a second before he grinned.

"Maybe this will help." He chuckled, nodding faux-seriously. I shook my head at that and handed him one of the bottles, keeping the second for myself. I watched as he opened it with care before taking a sniff. He reared back from the smell, it was strong enough that I swear I could smell it through the air filters in my helmet, before taking a big swig.

"Oh, that's got a strong burn!"

"Welcome to the world of alcohol."

Picking my bottle up, I gestured over to a set of crates that could act as chair and tables, the three leaning against the wall with two smaller crated on the sides and a bigger one in the middle. It was also conveniently out of view of the door. Before taking my seat, I activated the program on my Omni-tool one more time, no new monitoring devices since the last time I'd taken them out. I guess it's clear then …

Placing my bottle on the crate next to me, I reached up to my helmet and jerked it to the side, the helmet unsealing with a hiss that caught Grunt's attention, finally breaking it away from the bottle he'd already drunk a quarter of. I pulled off the helmet and set it beside me, taking off my gauntlets as well. That done, I brushed a hand through my hair and enjoyed the feeling of nothing covering my head.

"Leader?" Grunt sounded confused and I turned towards him, opening my previously closed eyes. He was staring at me with widened eyes, bottle temporarily forgotten.

"I figured it was time we finally met." I shrugged, trying to ignore the obvious.

"You're human? … I thought you were one of the blue ones." He scratched his head, accepting it otherwise.

"My name's technically Jakiros, but I go by Jack with those close to me."

"I'm honoured then." Grunt nodded, seeing what I implied. He may have been relatively naive, but he was far from stupid.

"Just don't go spreading it about, no-one else aboard knows." I waved my hand at him, picking up my bottle and twisting off the tip. I raised it over to grunt, who tapped his own with mine once he realised what the gesture meant. I then took a sip of the stuff, the liquid burning down my entire oesophagus. I tried to stop it, but I couldn't help but cough a little.

"It's been a while since I've had this … it's potent."

"The best kind!" Grunt cheered, taking anther swig. Pretty sure he hasn't had any other alcohol, but I wasn't going to mention that. We had spent quite a few hours going over Krogans as species, I explained as much as I could to him and I had mentioned that Ryncol was a popular drink for them, it's why he was so interested in the stuff.

We sat there in peaceful silence for almost an hour, Grunt polishing off his entire bottle in that time and me about a third of mine, that was already more than I probably should have had, but I was enjoying it.

"Damn, 'm out" Grunt mumbled, tipping his bottle upside down and finding nothing coming out.

"Trust me, you do not want to drink anymore. Try walking around for a bit." My words were a little slurred, but nothing crazy. I'd done this enough to know what my limits were, and Aria's poison trick may have been used, just a little. It meant that, while I was a little buzzed and my tastebuds were completely wrecked, I wasn't plastered.

"I'll be fine leader." He grunted, standing up. He then immediately began wobbling from side to side and had to catch himself on the wall. "woah – why's the ship shaking?"

"It's not, that's the alcohol. Ryncol is strong enough that your system can't just burn through it."

"Cool." He stepped forward and away from the wall, taking each step forward carefully with his arm outstretched. Even still, he was swaying from side to side and the inevitable eventually happened. He took one step a little too big and began leaning too far to one side. It happened almost in slow motion as he leaned further and further over before eventually just giving it and letting himself hit the floor on his side in a giant crash. He might have even dented the floor, considering how much he weighted. Come to think of it wouldn't he have dented it earlier as well? I glance over to where we had been fighting and sure enough, there was a hump shaped dent. I immediately burst into laughter at this and Grunt's current position, the sound echoing around the room.

Grunt stopped struggling to get up at the sound and instead turned over to watch me, I laughed so hard I could barely see him from the water now covering my eyes. Grunt joined in shortly as well, his much deeper laugh practically a rumble when compared to mine.

"Aren't you going to help me up?"

"I'm not standing up right now, as I think we both know what would happen."

"Couldn't have warned me?" he grumbled and I snickered.

"It's a rite of passage." I waved my hand at him.

I raised my bottle and took one last sip before closing it up and setting it aside, enjoying the heat I could feel rushing through me. I'd stopped coughing about halfway through the session, having grown used to the Ryncol. It still packed a kick though.

"Hey Leader?" Grunt called out from his position on the floor.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for doing this for me, I know you didn't have to, … I appreciate it." Grunt spoke sincerely, his eyes closed. I smiled at him, but said nothing else as he drifted off into sleep. He began snoring shortly after.

He's going to be feeling that in the morning, but I can't really move him. To be fair, I'm probably going to be feeling it in the morning as well. I finally stood up from my seat, a little unsteady on my feet but not enough to knock me over. Walking over, I patted Grunt on the head a few times before walking over to my bunk and dropping down onto it, placing my helmet back on with a hiss. I felt the blood rush through my head as I laid my head down, deciding now wasn't a bad time to go to sleep, even if it was a little early.

Hopefully there's nothing wrong with grunt, but I just couldn't know. He was in every way an experiment, nothing natural about his birth at all. He could be developing a deadly illness and we wouldn't know.

I'll talk to Shepard first thing tomorrow, hopefully before she sends us off on another errand.