As Shepard approached the gunnery bay, she listened for raised voices or the sound of chairs smashing against the walls in a biotic maelstrom. She didn't hear a peep, not a shout, a whispered threat, a gun firing or a grenade rolling across the floor. That was either a good sign or a very, very bad one. Of course, the gunnery bay door was the thickest and most sound-resistant on the ship. She'd had a few occasions to test this.

Taking a deep breath, she pressed the door mechanism and the steel barriers parted before her with a soft wheeze of air pressure.

Kaidan was the one standing closest to her, although his back was turned, his body tense. He was unaware of her entrance or perhaps he was so angry that her presence didn't faze him. "I always knew you had a temper. If you're going to hit someone, hit me. You'll see how far it gets you."

Garrus leaned back against the console, seething with anger. His arms were folded across his chest and Shepard could tell he was making a furious effort not to grant Kaidan's request or, worse yet, put his fist through something expensive and high-tech that would take weeks to repair. His gaze locked on her but she found it impossible to discern if he was relieved to see her or if she was just compounding his discomfort.

She eyed the two of them, hands on hips, feeling uncomfortably like a schoolteacher disciplining unruly students on the playground. "What's going on here? Explanations, now!"

Kaidan spun around, staring at her. Meanwhile, Garrus didn't budge an inch, a slight flare of his mandibles the only indication that he had heard her demand. No explanation was forthcoming from either of them.

She picked on Kaidan because she knew he was the culprit who was most likely to cave under intense scrutiny. Garrus could withstand interrogations for weeks on end before he'd cop to leaving the toilet seat up. "Staff-Commander Alenko, a superior officer is asking you a question. Account for yourself."

"Damn it, Jill, don't give me that," Kaidan said. "I know what's going on and I'm not going to stand for it."

"What's going on? What aren't you going to stand for?"

Kaidan pointed at Garrus. "I'm not to stand by and watch while he hurts you. I'm not made like that."

She gave an incredulous laugh. "That's ridiculous."

When Garrus spoke, it sounded as if there was a rock lodged in his throat. "He asked me if I was the one who hurt your arm. I told him that I did."

"He had the nerve to look me in the face and tell me that," Kaiden said. "As if I was going to just shrug and walk away, like it was no big deal."

"You walked away the last time she needed you," Garrus replied. "Didn't seem too farfetched to me."

"It was an accident, Alenko," Shepard said. "Look, we've all known each other for a while. We're all...old friends. Can't we just be civil about this?"

"An accident, huh? I'm not buying it. Is it going to be an accident the next time, when he breaks your arm or when he -"

"Breaks my arm? Kaiden, we're not back in BAaT! I'm not Rahna. He isn't Vyrnnus."

She finally saw Kaidan get flustered, get more than flustered – he was blinking tears out of his eyes - but it wasn't as gratifying as she thought it would be. In fact, it made her feel really low, like mud scraped off the treads of Jack's combat boots.

Garrus rubbed the back of his neck, looking thoroughly embarrassed. He was better with human displays of emotion than most turians, but Shepard could still see that he really wanted to grab cover on this one.

Kaiden's voice quavered and then levelled out into a pained monotone. "I told you that in confidence. Telling you that...it meant a lot to me. I trusted you. Maybe I shouldn't have."

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I wasn't thinking."

Garrus stalked past Kaidan, heading towards the door. Shepard had been expecting him just to storm out, but his shoulder brushed against hers and he paused, panting for breath, trying to compose himself. She could see the tension balling itself up in his armoured body. It was easy to imagine the blades of his upright shoulders jutting against the hard metal, the muscles at the back of his neck knotting together under the strain.

"If you need me, Shepard, I'll be...somewhere else."

He slunk out the door before she could offer a response.

Her stomach lurched inside her, a queasy remorsefulness that made her want to bolt from the room, but her feet were heavy and wouldn't obey.

When she looked back at Kaidan, his face was like something carved from wood, but his eyes were red and raw, his eyelids swollen.

"I don't need rescuing," she told him. "It's a nice idea and I'm sure a lot of women would find it appealing, but it's not me. I can promise you this: if Garrus ever raised a hand to me, I'd knock him on his ass, same as anyone else."

"You sure about that? He's twice your size with claws and fangs, for Christ sakes!"

She couldn't help but smile at this. Men would be men, whether they were huddled around a campfire in fur pelts or hurtling across the galaxy in a state-of-the-art spaceship.

"While you were gone, Alenko, I headbutted a krogan. Don't tell me what I can and can't do."

"What?" He gaped at her for a second, trying to picture it, then shook his head as if to clear the image. "Look, I've heard of a lot of capable women who just blind themselves to the truth. They just go on making excuses, having 'accidents'..."

"Garrus would never intentionally hurt me. It honestly was an accident. I mean, like you said, he has talons and sometimes..."

He waved her off. "I don't want to hear about it. I don't even know how you can bring yourself to do that. It's..." he rummaged through his vocabulary, trying to find a word to express his outrage. "It's wrong."

"I thought you believed that aliens were just like us. Jerks and saints, remember? What's so wrong about that?"

"I was commenting on aliens' personalities. Saying they're okay to talk to is a heck of a lot different than what – what you're doing."

"Where's the big boundary line, Kaidan?"

He didn't answer.

She persisted. "Where's the rule that says I can be friends with an alien, somebody who feels and thinks and bleeds just like we do, but I can't do anything goddamn else?"

"It's a taboo. There's a reason for stuff like that, in terms of morals. In terms of science. I mean, you can't have kids with aliens. Even with asari, you aren't going to get a human, just another asari."

"I don't want kids. Never have."

"There are other reasons too. Seriously, Jill, how do you -? I mean, you can't kiss a turian. They don't even have lips."

She shrugged. "There are other things to do."

He cringed, making a face. "Not what I wanted to know."

"You're the one who asked," she retorted. "I'm not saying it's easy. But maybe I think it's worth it."

He pondered that for a minute, looking disturbed at first and then increasingly, distressed. "Why? I thought that you and I had something. But then we have one disagreement, just one time when I tell you I can't go along with your plans and you throw everything away."

She contemplated a few choice words, mostly ones with four letters. How dare he play the victim, the bloodied martyr of love bravely soldiering on despite her so-called infidelity! If Kaidan planned on throwing himself a pity party, she sure as hell wasn't going to be attending.

"It wasn't just a 'disagreement'! You walked out on me, Kaidan. And then you sent me one measly e-mail telling me how 'maybe' we can work things out 'someday' – when I'm flying into a suicide mission! Those could've been the last words I ever heard from you. I didn't throw anything away, Kaidan. There was nothing left to hang on to."

"Then Ilos meant nothing to you?"

"Don't talk to me about Ilos. Ilos is a good memory. But it's in the past."

He stared at her, his eyes round and sorrowful. "The woman I knew wouldn't say that."

She scoffed at him. If he thought that, then he'd never known her, not even for a minute. What he'd lost was his Alliance recruitment poster ideal, pure and valiant, surrounded by a halo of bright white light, the kind that blurs features and washes out blemishes. That woman on the poster, she would've adored his noble self-denial and the kicked puppy expression that went with it. She would have swooned for his sculpted face, melted-chocolate eyes, that squeaky-clean, aw-shucks demeanour. Shepard - well, she'd found it charming, if a bit syrupy, way back when - but now, it just felt like a product she'd sent away for in the mail, something that'd lived up to all its promises but none of her expectations. She just wanted to wrap his 'love' up in the package again and ship it back to whatever warehouse it came from.

"The woman you knew died two years ago," she said. "Say goodbye and bury her."

She turned away, feeling weary. There was a stale taste in her mouth and she wanted to wash it out with good red wine. If they weren't about to head out on a fact-finding mission, she probably would've treated herself to a drink or two. Or six.

Her retreat seemed to embolden Kaidan or at least, to make him desperate. "Jill, why him? Of everybody, why'd you have to choose somebody I trusted?"

She turned her head, just enough to watch him from the corner of her eye. "Because I trust him. Because he's always had my back. And maybe that means a hell of a lot more to me than having babies or kissing or living up to other people's expectations."

He sighed. "Alright. I hear you."

"Good. Don't go bothering him again. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me. He has nothing to do with it."

Kaidan nodded, casting his gaze down to the floor.

She turned away, unable to watch him suffer but unwilling to console him. He only had himself to blame, she thought, but even as she absolved herself with that convenient mantra, one she'd repeated a hundred times since he'd boarded the ship, she knew that part of it was her fault too. She'd respected him, liked him and had once felt a strong attraction to him, but she'd never really loved him, not enough to fight for him, not enough to risk being alone because she'd rather have no one than be with someone who wasn't him. She'd never felt as if he owned her heart and inhabited it. When they'd been together, she hadn't realized the lack, the hollowness she felt when she said the word 'love' to him. It was only now that she knew, having felt the contrast. It really was damn frightening what a stubborn woman could do when she loved somebody who was wrong in most ways, but right in all the ones that mattered.

It didn't take her long to track down Garrus. He was using a console in the med bay to check his extranet email account, something he rarely bothered with even when he wasn't under fire from three merc gangs. When it came to filling out paperwork or dealing with mundane communications, Shepard found that Garrus was one of the worst procrastinators she'd ever met, always ready to pursue action elsewhere or stir some up, if necessary.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine. Never been better."

"You're a terrible liar."

"That's why I usually don't even attempt it."

"What happened back there?"

Garrus stared at the console screen. "Oh, he came in all friendly at first and I thought 'Hey, this is good. We're alright. Like old times'. Except then he starts asking me questions about my temper."

"I see."

"He starts implying that maybe I have a hard time controlling myself. I ask him what he's referring to and he tells me he doesn't like bullies, especially ones who -"

"Who do what?"

He glanced at her, looking shy, even a bit ashamed. "I don't even want to repeat it. I'm sure you've already got the gist of it."

"I told him he was wrong," she said. "If I know Kaidan, he'll be coming back around in a couple days to apologize."

"And if he does, I'll nod my head and pretend to accept it."

She smirked at his honesty. 'Pretend' was definitely the key word there. Garrus was capable of holding grudges that spanned decades and star systems. He combined this with a very good but very selective memory, one that could easily reel off the names and offences of every sentient who'd ever slighted him and lived to tell the tale, as well as tracking current status and whereabouts. Shepard wouldn't be surprised to learn that he still had raging vendettas and a nemesis (or two) left over from the turian equivalent of kindergarten.

"That's mighty big of you," she replied.

"Look, I hate what Kaidan said. But if our positions were reversed and I thought that he was hurting you, I wouldn't have even given him a chance to deny it. I'd just drop his ass. So really, I guess I'm lucky that he isn't like me."

She actually felt a bit touched. Threatening speedy retribution against her foes was one of Garrus' favourite ways of expressing affection. It took some getting used to - on occasion, she would've preferred the standard flowers and poetry - but it was reassuring to know that if anybody ever had the good luck to gun her down, he'd be there, ready to go full-out justicar on 'em.

"Well, I'm glad that you are like you," she said. "Now cheer up. We've got an investigation to run."

"Yeah, about that..."

"What about it?"

He gritted his teeth together, logging off his extranet account. "I just received a summons for the intervention hearing. It's happening tomorrow afternoon."

"Then we'll get you there. I don't care if we have to park the Normandy on top of the courthouse."

"You should check your messages, Shepard. I'm pretty sure that you're listed as a witness for the complainant."

She choked out a laugh, not because it was funny, but because it was perfectly absurd. "Your dad is calling me as a witness against you? Screw that. I won't show."

"They can put a warrant on you for that."

"I'm a Spectre. They can't arrest me for not making a court appearance."

"No, but they can hold you up with all the bureaucratic bullshit they can muster. And believe me, that's a whole lot of forms to fill out. At least seven days' worth, if you get my drift."

Shepard contemplated this threat, all the papers she'd have to sort and file, all the times she'd have to justify herself and sign along the dotted line. "Wow. Councillor Velarn would love that, wouldn't he? And I hate to see him all smug and happy. Makes my trigger finger itchy."

"Don't worry about it," Garrus said. "Just come and testify to what you know is true. You can't make things any worse than they already are. Besides, it'll be nice to see a friendly face."

"Garrus, if I go into that witness box, I'm going in prepared. I'm not going to let them railroad you. You deserve better than that."

"Yeah, well, the good people on Omega deserved some peace. My squad deserved better than ten unmarked graves. Guess we don't all get our just deserts, do we? By comparison, I don't have too much to complain about."

The cabins rumbled as the ship slowed, preparing to touch down on Auctoritas. The floor shifted under their feet and Shepard grasped Garrus' shoulders to steady herself, almost knocking her forehead against his jaw. He caught her, giving a raspy chuckle.

"Careful now. You're making me nervous. You humans are...more fragile than I expected."

"C'mon, Garrus, I'm not made of glass."

He held onto her, his grip a bit tighter than the ship's turbulence warranted. "No, but you're not made of plate either. And you don't wear armour everywhere."

She wrinkled her nose. Wearing armour all day long looked uncomfortable. She wasn't sure how he and the other turians could stand it. "And why would I do that?"

"Besides it being stylish? Because you could get hurt."

"I guess I'm willing to risk a few scrapes and bruises once in a while."

He sighed, listening as the roar of the ship's engines eased into a gentle thrum, a faint pulse under their feet. "Just...just be careful, I guess. I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Why would you say that?"

Slowly releasing her from his grasp, he paused, mulling over her question. "I don't know. I realize it's stupid, Shepard. I mean, you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. Hell, you do a better job of it than I do."

"Well, you don't have to worry. After all, this isn't a suicide mission. We're just getting some information. No muss, no fuss."

He gave a sniffly little laugh. "Yeah, sure. I've heard that before. Nothing's ever that simple. Not with you. You watch and see."

"It's true. It's like there's someone out to get me."

"Or multiple someones. Including the Reapers. You just can't help pissing people off," he said.

She pretended to be offended. "Thanks. Thanks a lot."

"Hey, I'm not complaining. I like it. It's one of your best qualities."


Saren's estate on Auctoritas displayed his very turian sense of grandiosity, the same drive to inspire fear and awe that had driven his people to build a fleet of mighty dreadnoughts to scour the stars and spread their empire to far-off worlds. By Shepard's estimate, the landscaping alone must have cost hundreds of thousands of credits. Marble pillars contrasted with dark rows of imported cypresses. A granite walkway sliced across what must once have been a carefully manicured lawn, still lush, but overgrown and untended. There was a sense of exacting symmetry in every part of the garden's layout and Shepard could imagine Saren pacing the property, looking over the vegetation the way a general might survey a battlefield. If he saw a stray blade of grass, he'd have mown it down. If he'd seen a flower out of place, it was easy to picture him crushing it under his heel. As a foe, he'd been that ruthless, that exacting, in the service of a greater goal and it was easy to detect traces of his estimable personality still lingering in the landscape and in the glowering, grey mansion that stood before them.

"Saren's house," Shepard murmured. "Homey, isn't it?"

"A bit like one of my father's houses," Miranda said. "His Tuscan villa. Never liked the looks of it."

Garrus and Tali just looked confused. Their knowledge of Earth was slight at best. Shepard had shown them a few postcards and a couple pics from the extranet, but this had the unintended effect of leading them to believe that all of the human homeworld looked either like New York City, the Left Bank of Paris, Beijing or Las Vegas. She'd tried to explain that her dad's family was from Edinburgh and her mom had grown up in Texas, but they were content in the illusion that all humans had grown up a stone's throw away from the Eiffel Tower and enjoyed taking long walks along the Great Wall.

A pair of soldiers intercepted them as they approached the mansion's broad double doors. One waved them off with his rifle while another cautiously levelled his pistol at Miranda's head.

This almost raised a smile from the Illusive Man's former girl Friday, since she had her submachine gun at the ready. She cast a withering glance at the pistol. "Mine's bigger."

Shepard snickered, lifting her assault rifle. Garrus reinforced her point by extending the rail of his already formidable Vindicator. From behind them came a loud metallic click, the sound of Tali feeding buck into the double barrels of her shotgun.

"Identify yourselves," the shorter guard said, keeping his pistol steady.

"This is the crew of the Normandy and my name's Commander Shepard. I'm an old acquaintance of Saren's."

The tall guard squinted at her, as he was sizing her up for an imposter. "You're the Spectre? Everybody figured you for dead."

She smiled. "A ghost doesn't carry this much ammo."

"People are so misinformed," Garrus said. "Doesn't anybody watch Citadel Newsnet?"

The first guard frowned, not appreciating the joke. "These grounds have restricted access. What's your business here?"

"I want to talk to whoever runs this place," Shepard said. "Just a friendly chat. Gunfire optional."

"You don't have clearance."

Suddenly, the mansion doors swung open. A turian captain strolled out, attired in an elegant set of light armour, complete with gold epaulettes. He sniffed the morning air, as if about to take his daily constitutional, seemingly unaware of the armed intruders in his midst. Behind him, Shepard spotted a female officer taking notes in her omni-tool ledger and three more guards wielding assault rifles.

The captain halted, regarding the scene laid out before him, his grey eyes glinting with amusement. "Vakarian? Is that you? Why, I hardly recognized you! And, my, but you are keeping strange company these days."

Shepard had to fight the urge to swing around and look at Garrus, which wouldn't have been a good idea, especially if any of the guards got it in their heads to start firing. "You know him?"

"I do," he said. "We go a long way back."

He didn't elaborate any more than that, which left her to wonder if this was a good thing or if this was yet another Palaven surprise, just bidding its time 'til it leapt up and bit her in the ass.