in which things are priceless

3 Granny Smith Apples: 34 credits

Garrus trudged in to the third market that sold levo amino based foods. Going right up to the register, he noticed that girl behind it was reading an old fashion book. Garrus cleared his through, a trick he had picked up from Shepard. The girl looked up from her book; "Yes?" she said in a bored, I was doing something much more important, tone.

"I am looking for Granny Smith apples, do you have any?" Garrus said in the polite tone he had cultivated in C-sec.

"OK, let me look in the back." She hoped off her stool and left thru the store room door, taking her book with her. Garrus snorted, knowing it would be a while till she came back. Glancing down at his Omni tool, he had been at this for 2 hours already, and had not picked up anything on his list yet. Luckily Shepard was at meetings till sixteen hundred, and Tali had agreed to take Shepard out for girl shopping afterwards. Garrus was not sure what girl shopping was but knew that Tali would keep Shepard busy till nineteen hundred. Since it was only eleven, he had plenty of time to pick up stuff for Shepard's birthday. Just then the door to the back room opened and the girl came back thru.

"We have three Granny Smith apples sir." she said as held up three apples. "Should I gift wrap them sir?" sarcasm dripping from her voice. Garrus suspect that she got caught reading in the back. He felt his mandible twitch in suppressed laughter. Once again pulling on years of C-sec training he replied with, "No thank you, my girlfriend is going to eat them tonight."

"Fine that will be thirty four credits with tax." she rang it up and slid them in to a bag. Garrus paid and head for the door, debating which item he wanted to track down next. He heard her mutter, "hope you both choke on them."

Garrus hesitated at the door. Finally he turned his scared side of his face to the girl. "You know any place where I can buy a Kovalyov assault rifle? She really wanted that for her birthday. Said that was best for taking out mercenary and the occasional rouge Specter we are tasked with hunting down." The girl paled and stuttered a no. Garrus shrugged and head out the door, smiling.

***

2 bottles of wine, and lunch: 265 credits

Garrus did not quite collapse in to the booth seat. But he was tired of trudging from one shop to another to find a simple assault rifle. He deiced that getting a bit to eat, and picking up the wine would perk his spirits up so to speak. The waitress came up to take his order.

"Name's Jess, What can I get you honey?" she asked, stylest posed of the pad. Garrus place the bag of apples on the table; he glanced at the dextro amino-based meals. "Do you have namat?" he asked noticing the in season star next to it.

"Yep, just got a shipment in from the Acusax...Assulix..." Jess laughed at her inability to pronounce the colony name. "Yeah, just got a shipment in from a turian colony."

"Good, I'll have braised namat, rare please, not picky on the side, so what every also just came in on the Acusxilie colony shipment."

"You got it, anything to drink?" she asked noting down his ordered.

"Glass of water, shot of turian whiskey, and can I also get a bottle of Mindor rose chardonnay, and a bottle of Palaven whiskey to go?"

"Sure honey, you having a party tonight?" She winked at him as she left.

"It's amazing to me, how that little planet, came back after the attack and started producing some of the most well respect wine around." Jess said conversationally setting a box down with the bottles inside and his two drinks. "Your dinner will be done in a moment." She then went to serve another table that had just come in. Garrus leaned back in the booth looking at the two bottles, remembering the first night with Shepard right before the omega 4 jump.

Garrus ran his talons along his fringe, waiting for the elevator to get to the top floor. Looking down at the wine he picked up. Then realizing he had only picked up something that Shepard could drink...well he could drink it too but it would do nothing to get him drunk. And getting slightly blurred would be a good thing. What if she does not like it? What if she does not drink?

Stop it. Garrus told his brain. You know she drinks, you watch from the mess hall as her and Dr. Chakwas got drunk, Chakwas more than Shepard...

"Here you go honey, just this side of still moving." She sat the plate down in front of Garrus bring him out of his memories. Garrus nodded his thanks and dug in the hunk of meat. Happy to get some real food that was not surplus turian ship rations.

"Nobody move. Give me your cred cards and items, and no one gets hurt." Garrus looked up at the human male, decide that it was a non threat even with the pistol he was waving around, and went back to his food.

"Hey did you hear me. Put your items in my bag." he now pointed the gun at Garrus.

"Do you know how long it took me to find Granny smith apples?" Garrus growled.

"Do I look like I care I'm the one with the gun not you." he stated poking the barrel against Garrus' armored chest. Garrus turned his head and let his scars show.

"And that scare me how? Hell I've taking down a gunship, geth, and two thresher maws, one on foot. What have you taking down?" Garrus let his face twist in to a predatory smile, the one that showed the rows of very pointy teeth. The guy stood there for a moment when Garrus decide he had given the guy enough time he reached out wrapped his taloned hand around the gun and hand then twisted it up. A single shot was fired but landed harmlessly in the ceiling. Then there was a wet pop, and the guy started screaming. Garrus reached over and pulled the gun out of the guy hand and set it on the table. Letting go of the man, he watch dispassionately as the man crumpled to the floor holding his wirst. Garrus caught the waitress eye as he put a foot on the man's leg so he couldn't crawl away.

"Another whisky and call C-sec if you haven't already." she nodded and fled behind the bar.

"I guess this is what Shepard refers to as Murphy's Law." Garrus sighed as he finished off his dinner.

***

Kovalyov level VII assault rifle: 18,025 credits

Garrus glanced at the time, fifteen thirty three. Growling at how long he had been down at C-Sec headquarters answering question. The only good thing was that Garrus recognized a few of the officers, and before leaving managed to get one of them to tell him where to find the assault rifle. So now Garrus made his way there. And hope that nothing else would go wrong. So he can get back before Shepard and Tali. He finally found the place, a little hole in the wall that he might have missed had he not been looking for it. Garrus took note of the turian behind the counter, dark grey coloring and had pale purple markings from one of the smaller colonies, who also wore armor. The turian sized Garrus up just as surely as Garrus was sizing him up.

"I need a Kovalyov assault rifle. I heard you had them in." Garrus said.

"I do, I'll need to run your id thru first." Garrus handed it over and waited impatiently for the turian to come back.

***

The perfect birthday: Priceless

Garrus sat the box with the assault rifle on the low table. He then pulled a bowl and two glasses out from the storage under the table. Placing the three apples in the bowl and set the glasses next to the wine.

"Twenty minute to spare." Garrus said happily to himself as he turned on some music. Garrus sat down as the classical turian music soothed him; he had been surprised when he found out that Shepard music taste could be called eclectic at best. Leaned back he waited for Shepard to return.

"Tali, thanks so much for going out with me I really enjoyed today." Sheaprd stood in front of the door to her room, Tali was still in the elevator. "Well once the meeting where over anyway." Shepard smiled, as Tali laughed.

"Any time, happy birthday commander." Tali replied, Shepard darted forward and gave the quarian a quick hug. Then went back to her door. Tali waved and hit the button for the fourth floor. Shepard turned and went in to her room, taking note of the dim lights and the light strains of a harp. She sat her bag down and walked down the step from her office to her 'living' room. Then just stood there let her smile slowly fill her face. She was not sure how long she stood there watching Garrus with his head on his chest sleeping. She finally reached over grabbed an apple and settled on the couch and just to watch him for a while. Biting in to the apple with a crunch Garrus head snapped up.

"Shep...Jane how was your day?" Garrus asked trying hard to wake up. Shepard crawled next to him and tucked herself against his chest.

"It was...." she paused letting her lips twist up slightly, chuckling, "ok, better

once I saw you. Yours?"

"Long." He sighed, "I got you a present happy birthday, Jane." He then tucked his face in the crown of her head, and promptly fell back asleep. Shepard giggled, and closing her eyes, allowed herself to be lured to sleep with music and a heartbeat.

Now the parts of this story come about from going to a training class, a long boring training class where I was forbidden to speak... :) and one of the work sheets had the word Priceless next to some that was a no cost item...and the muse spent the rest of the class writing parts of this story.

the other parts came when i got a response from another author that i had reviewed one of her stories. It in part is what aimed the direction of parts of this story. i wanted to address point that she made that i had notice but did not think about.

Per Lady Marionette (and I did paraphrase just a bit.) :

'I am operating under the assumption that turians (and humans, conversely) will display this spectrum of "not allergic" to "fatally allergic," and then the range between with some individuals slightly allergic.

I think there is precedence of this view due to the in-game romance scene where Garrus brings only a single bottle of wine to share between him and Shepard. He would know for himself whether he was allergic or not to levo amino-based foods and drink, but he would not assume that for Shepard in the reverse case.

I do wonder if, and personally believe, turian society tests their citizens for sensitivities to levo amino-based foods due to their "galactic minority" status regarding amino chirality. Most species they've been dealing with for millenia aren't dextro amino-based, and I'm sure turians have adopted the practice of testing individuals for this…I imagine accidental crossing of different chirality foods isn't uncommon, and so it would be important for a turian to know if he should carry a "futuristic Epi-Pen" when going out to eat.'

this made so much scents to me that I decide that this will be the case in my Shepard's universe as well. also go read her stories, there're great.