Chapter 9: Paper Walls (Come Crashing Down)

Shepard POV

"You don't have to do that, you know."

Shepard cast a sidelong glance at Miranda, who was watching her aimlessly stabbing her sandwich with a fork, an incredulous look on her face. The sandwich had been reduced to something akin to Thanksgiving stuffing, and she pushed it away with a resigned sigh.

The XO was unusually quiet today. She was gazing at the remains of what used to be a delicious ham-and-cheese sandwich with mustard, as if she was communicating with it in some telepathic way. Her blue eyes, usually cold and guarded, were quiet and thoughtful.

"Something on your mind, Miranda?"

She arched an eyebrow at Shepard. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

"Everything's peachy over here," Emily said. It was a lie. Nothing was peachy at the moment. There was too much on her mind.

Seeing Jacob's father, seeing the immoral monster he'd become, had dredged up unwelcome memories of Shepard's own father. Though the media liked to portray her as part of a loving family that the batarians had torn apart, this couldn't have been further from the truth.

Thinking of her family pushed Emily's train of thought to Garrus and idle musings on why he never spoke of his family. She vaguely remembered him saying something about his father being a strictly by-the-book, model turian. He wouldn't have approved of Garrus training to be a Spectre, she figured. Privately, Shepard wondered if everybody on the ship had daddy issues—Jacob, Garrus, Miranda, Grunt (if he counted), herself...hell, Tali probably fit in that category too.

She sighed and jerked herself out of her reverie, reaching for the plate to dump it in the sink. Her eyes were on the squishy, breaded mush—she wasn't quite paying attention to where she was going—which was why she walked headlong into Garrus and was rewarded with a bruising pain on her forehead as her head collided with his armor.

"Ow—ah, sorry," she managed, blushing furiously. Garrus had a bemused expression on his face, something that she found maddeningly adorable and made her blush even harder. She stepped back on an instinct, looking down to check that her corpse of a sandwich was still on the plate. The last thing she wanted to do was bend over.

Thankfully, the ground was clean, and Shepard weaved around Garrus to dump the plate in the sink. Still blushing, she cast one last glance at Garrus, who was staring after her with a rather confused expression on his face, and disappeared into the elevator.

Once there, Shepard let out a loud exhale and took a moment to collect her thoughts.

What the hell was that?

She couldn't possibly have been blushing because of him…could she?

Madness. Madness along the lines of "THIS IS SPARTA," that's what it was. Emily refused to believe that, of all the races of the galaxy, she'd started blushing for a turian. For Christ's sake, it was like—like—hell, she didn't know—Pygmalion and Galatea*?

What? Seriously? What the fuck, Shepard.

That was seriously the best she could come up with? She dragged a hand over her face with a resigned sigh and wondered if she should be asking Miranda if she'd fiddled around with her brain.

Shepard was not a racist—in no way, shape, or form was she a racist. Most of her best friends were aliens—yet she couldn't quite fathom the thought of an interspecies relationship. Maybe it worked for others, but she knew it wouldn't work for her. Hell, same-species relationships were hard enough for her. Kaidan had been a sheer miracle in her love life.

The elevator opened, abruptly jolting Shepard from her thoughts. She looked up and realized she was in the CIC, so she shrugged and headed to the tech lab.

Mordin was busy at work, as usual. It seemed that the old salarian geezer never slept, and Shepard kind of felt bad for thinking of him like that, but goddamn was it true. To his credit, the man was a genius.

"Shepard. What can I do to help?" he asked, not looking up from his work. He never formed complete sentences, and Shepard knew from experience that it wasn't part of his many oddities as a salarian. She always wondered why he never bothered to speak in complete sentences, but she usually dismissed it. Not like it mattered, anyway.

She shrugged. Might as well pass the time with some conversation. "Have time to talk?"

"Actually, wanted to talk. Medical matters." Mordin peeled himself away from his work. "Aware that mission is dangerous. Different species react differently to stress—sexual activity normal for stress release in humans and turians—still, recommend caution."

There was a beat of silence as Shepard slowly took in just exactly what Mordin was saying to her.

You've got to be shitting me…

There was no stopping the blush from returning to her face. "It—oh…" she stammered, lost for words. "It's not—we're not—"

Mordin held up a hand and continued. "Of course. Hormones. Natural instinct to deny attraction, mask from others—still, advise against ingestion. Turian dextro-DNA toxic to humans. So don't ah…ingest."

"For Christ's sake, we aren't—this conversation is over," she blustered, stumbling backwards.

"Shepard, wait, wait!" Mordin called after her. "Can send you advice booklets, demonstration vids, turian erogenous zone overviews—"

She stumbled directly into something solid that wasn't quite a wall, nor was it a table. She whipped around. Speak of the devil.

Garrus.

Groaning, she buried her face in her hands. This couldn't get any worse, could it?

"Mordin, fuck's sake—shut up!"

Mordin nodded like he understood. "Embarrassment understandable with partner present. Still, would like to continue this discussion at another time, Shepard!"

That was it. She was gone, heading for the elevator, laughing, blushing furiously, and cursing. Garrus followed her out.

"Spirits, Shepard—what the hell was that all about?"

"You don't want to know," she mumbled, avoiding his eyes. She was afraid that she'd either burst out laughing or try to kiss him if she did—one or the other, apparently.

"Shepard, if you want to—you know—talk about that, y'know—I'm around."

"What?" She met his eyes then. "You joking?" Too late, she realized there was no laughter behind them and her heart sank.

Something changed in his eyes. Suddenly crestfallen, he shrugged and forced a laugh. "Yeah, sure," he said. "That was pretty funny, though. Salarians…"

She laughed, too. "Heh. Well…see you later, I guess? I gotta get some shut-eye. I've had enough embarrassment for a day."

"Yeah," he murmured, but he sounded a little distracted. She turned towards the elevator, giving him one last look before the door closed.

As she lay in bed, fruitlessly waiting for sleep to come, Emily tried not to think about how he'd genuinely seemed disappointed when she'd laughed him off, or the gutwrenching guilt, or the fluttering in her chest that accompanied any thought of that turian rebel.

A/N: Here's another song for y'all. This is Paper Walls, by Yellowcard.

Let's take what hurts, and write it all down
On these paper walls, in this empty house
And when our ink runs out, we'll burn it to the ground
Here I am, still holdin' on to this
Dream we had, won't let go of it
Hear me now, you will never be alone
Here I stand, won't turn back again
Won't leave you, know how hard it's been
Here me now, you will never be alone

I'm going to give another shoutout right here. As always, thanks a million to ItestedGarrus'sReach, Ember Filled Mist, Siha Shap, and Saetheri for the wonderful feedback. I love you all with a passion that burns hotter than Afghanistan in July. 8D Congratulations also to WriterRose, who has seen the light and appeal of the Shep/Garrus pairing! Welcome to the circle of love. (At least, that's what I call my caucus group in MUN.)

*By the way, for those of you who have never heard of Pygmalion and Galatea, here's the short version. Pygmalion was a brilliant sculptor but a woman hater; nonetheless he found himself sculpting a woman, obsessing over the sculpture, and falling in love with it. He started getting it on with the statue (I know, CREEPY) and felt horribly depressed that she could not reciprocate his love. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, found this pretty freakin' hilarious until she started to feel kind of bad for him. So, she brought the woman to life—Galatea" warmed to his touch like wax melting in the sun" and they married and lived happily ever after.

Yes, it's a rather unheard of myth, but we're doing this big fat unit on Edith Hamilton's Mythology, so…just HAD to pop this in there. And hey, who doesn't love a few parallels between mythology and sci-fi? Still one big soap opera. Except one has space cannons.

Much love,

BegodlyBeLynn