Garrus walked through the Presidium slowly. Coming away from a visit with his father with his head buzzing from a lecture feeling frustrated, sad and stubborn was becoming more and more frequent. The chasm between his own views and his father's had widened as the years went on and he'd climbed up the ranks in C-sec but they'd always managed to keep things balanced out when they were in each other's presence. But now...

Now it seemed impossible to find any common ground at all. Today when he'd offered to pull strings to get Garrus back into C-sec like he'd never left, it had just brought things home for both of them. He had, perhaps, underestimated how worried his father was about his current path. His father was a big believer in earning things by your own merits; it had to have cost him dearly to even make the offer. His refusal had made his father understand he wasn't going to come back and made Garrus understand his father would never understand why he'd needed to get out.

There had also been an angry gleam in his father's eyes when Shepard's name came up that hadn't been there before. He'd known his father didn't approve of Spectres but he hadn't realized how much he disapproved of Shepard in particular. He probably should have.

As if the thought had conjured the woman, Shepard came out the door of the Elcor/Volus embassy with an easy, swinging walk that made the chains in her ears jangle. Garrus paused at the bottom of the steps, blinking in surprise and wondering what she was doing here. She beamed as she sauntered down the steps. "The Elcor ambassador is so nice!"

Garrus glanced past her toward the embassy. "I've always thought he had to overcompensate for his Volus counterpart," he said dryly.

"Yeah, he's kind of a prick. I think if his mask had teeth he would have chewed my head off."

That image had him biting back a chuckle. She looked, he noted, much better than she had the past few weeks. Whatever Liara had done, it had obviously helped her. "What did you need to see the Elcor ambassador about, Commander?"

"Well, I didn't need to talk to him, exactly. I needed to talk to another elcor and Septimus said he would be there."

"Septi..." Garrus turned his head very slowly to look at her, eyes wide, an odd mental stutter he really should have been used to by now fluttering through his head. "General Septimus?"

"Yep. He doesn't strike me as all that bad a guy, actually. Anyway, after I talked to him, he asked me to find this elcor he'd kind of leaked some information about and said he was probably talking to his ambassador..."

"Uh, Shepard, wait a minute, why were you talking to General Septimus?" Garrus figured the only way he was going to sort through this without a headache was one step at a time. On the other hand, he didn't feel depressed anymore.

"Sha'ira asked me to."

"The Consort?"

"Apparently they had a bit of a falling out and she asked me to talk to him, military to military. I found him all drunk and depressed over her, isn't that sad? It sounds like something out of a story. But I think it'll be okay now."

Garrus took a few moments to absorb all that. She had to have some kind of...invisible mark on her or something, she couldn't end up in these kinds of situations just out of sheer chance. There was no way. He shook his head. "Why would such a powerful man let himself get into that state over a woman?"

She eyed him. "Not much of a romantic, are you, Garrus?"

He eyed her right back. "I'm a turian, Commander."

"Oh, I've seen turians do stupid things for someone they were trying to impress, male and female both. What, you've never done anything stupid for someone you had a thing for?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Kind of personal, Commander."

"Okay, sorry."

She didn't sound sorry at all. In fact, he noted with annoyance, she sounded rather smug, as if his answer proved her right.

Of course he had done a couple stupid things to impress a woman...when he was much younger, of course, who hadn't?...but he wasn't going to admit that to her.

Shepard wasn't done. She gave him a wicked smile that would have sent a weaker willed man running. "So, Garrus, have you ever met the Consort?"

He'd gone with her because he was curious and the odds he would ever see the Consort's Chambers otherwise were slim to none. The lady was as breathtakingly beautiful in person as she was on the vids and Garrus had to admit, if there was a woman worth drinking yourself into oblivion over, Sha'ira was probably it.

He'd been with asari, of course, there weren't many he knew of any species who hadn't, but the Consort was in a class all her own. There were leaders on the Citadel who literally hung on her every word. Garrus easily admitted that Sha'ira was way out of his league, especially when Shepard cheerfully said the same thing. She laughed as she told him how reluctant her handmaiden had been to even offer to set up an appointment.

"I don't see the point, personally. I guess it's less complicated to hire someone but with the right bar and a couple of drinks you can have just as interesting an evening without paying nearly as much," she remarked easily.

He was inclined to agree. "That's assuming you could pay, at least with her. No one I know could afford the Consort's services without saving up for a long, long time, and I hear it can take months because she's so booked up."

Shepard shook her head then shot him a wry glance. "Still...it's nice to know I have scales tough as any turian's."

"All that talk about the coming battle and who you are being the basis for your future greatness, and that's what you focus on?"

Shepard chuckled, but for all her amusement, the Consort's words about who she was and who she would become had obviously struck a chord in her. "I think greatness is stretching it a bit," she murmured, almost to herself.

She held the trinket Sha'ira had given to her up between two fingers, both of them studying it curiously as they headed back toward the Normandy's dock. Shepard glanced and him and shrugged. She unclasped her necklace and strung the trinket onto the chain so it came to rest beside the medal already there. Shepard caught his gaze and smiled, tapping it. "Saint Jude."

Garrus had learned about human culture as part of his training but they had so many different beliefs and religions he couldn't keep up with them. "That's a part of the...Christian religion? Saints?"

She nodded and took the necklace off, handing it to him so he could see. "In my case, it's Roman Catholic because they were the ones that ran the school on Mindoir." Garrus studied the figure in the middle of the pendant. On the other side was a small inscription: To our wild child. He gave her a questioning look as he handed it back and she actually looked a bit embarrassed. "It was a gift from my mother and Pere Mulligan, who ran the school." Her lips quirked. "St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes. Fitting, yes?"

Why would they have a patron for that? "That's...encouraging..."

"I was a shiftless brat with no goals...still am, really...and Pere had a sense of humor."

"Commander, I refuse to believe you got to your rank with no goals."

"Point taken. A life goal, then."

Garrus just shook his head. The idea of just meandering though your entire life was utterly foreign to him. "How about helping people? That's why I originally joined C-sec. Well, and because my father wanted me to follow in his footsteps."

"Ah, yes, your father is a very famous C-sec officer, isn't he?" She smiled a bit at his look of surprise. "I looked your record up, the same way I'm sure you did with mine." There was something entirely too knowing in her eyes.

He nodded. "I grew up hearing his name on the vids all the time. He's not taking my leaving C-sec well. He, ah," he cleared his throat, "he doesn't much like you. Well, he doesn't like Spectres in general. I was chosen for Spectre training, you know." She looked at him with surprise and he nodded. "One of many, but my father put a stop to it. He's like Pallin; he'll admit people like Spectres have their purpose, that doesn't mean he has to like it. At all."

They'd reached the Alliance's docking area by that time. A turian and a human walking side by side around that area still garnered strange looks but neither of them noticed anymore.

Shepard was frowning "Well, that can't be easy for you. You're not regretting joining up with me, are you?"

"No, Commander." It was good to feel absolutely certain about something.

"Because you are helping people, you know that, yes? A whole bunch of people owe their lives to you directly, and even more would be dead without all of us." She tapped her medal again. "Lost cause, fighting a man with a geth army and backed by some kind of powerful race, but every blow against him saves lives."

He looked away, slightly embarrassed but appreciating the words.

She let her hand drop. "We make a good team."

They did, he realized. Outside of a fight they might be as chaotic a group as ever had been formed but when it came down to a battle with lives at stake, they worked as well as any turian squad. "I don't regret it. I wish my father wasn't unhappy about it, but..." He shrugged, glancing down.

She studied him thoughtfully and spoke with an edge of hesitation: "Is that why..."

She stopped, drawing up short, her gaze fixed on something ahead of them.

Garrus turned to follow her gaze. Williams was sitting on the upper deck of some kind of bar with an older man who seemed vaguely familiar. He was pretty sure he'd seen him on the vids at one point. He was some kind of Alliance hero.

He looked back and Shepard and froze. Her face was expressionless but her eyes were glittering in a way that had him glad he was carrying a pistol as he always did. He wished, however, that he'd brought his rifle too. When he turned his head to regard the human again, it wasn't out of curiosity, it was the calm assessment of an enemy.

Baker.

Shepard stood very still on the sidewalk, her gaze fixed on a man she would have been very happy to never lay eyes on again. She should have known he might try and move in on one of her Alliance based crew. He'd done it before.

It hadn't been so bad when she had first joined up, probably because he hadn't expected her to last as long as she did. In fact, Shepard had almost forgotten about Baker as the years went on, especially when she had entered the academy. He had been furious when they had accepted her into the N7 program, she'd learned later.

She didn't hold a grudge against him distrusting her when she had first been recruited. It had galled her at first, but she had reluctantly concluded he had no reason to trust her. What had started to get to her as she advanced in the ranks...and so did he...was when Baker had started nudging from the background, using his influence in an attempt to hold her back. It seemed like every time she came up for promotion or did something that brought her to attention, there was Baker. He opposed anything that gave her power over the lives of soldiers because he didn't think she could be trusted.

Shepard was willing to prove herself, had focused most of her adult life on proving herself, but she resented the fact he didn't and never would, give her that chance. And furthermore that he'd obviously never intended to.

It had been Baker's subtle nudging that had pushed her out to the Traverse in the first place, not that he had needed to nudge much, but that had backfired. He'd been royally pissed when she had been promoted to Lieutenant Commander but out there on the colonies his influence was next to nothing. And Shepard had flourished when she was supposed to have quietly faded away.

She hadn't heard anything from him directly for a long time and Udina had not mentioned his name but she had no doubt he'd had a lot to say about her being put forward as a Spectre candidate. It must have particularly twisted him up that Nihlus, a turian, had been the one the decision had ultimately come down to.

It was more than just bias, she admitted. They both represented exactly what the other thought was wrong with the Alliance. He thought she was a disaster waiting to happen and she thought he was an arrogant prick who expected the galaxy to bend to the whims of the human race. He truly thought humans were the best race in the galaxy, which she rather disagreed with, frankly. They were as good as the other species, maybe, but not better than. He hated working with aliens, she loved it. He considered the colonists outside of the Alliance to be little better than traitors, she could respect their desire to be independent. They were such opposites they could barely be in the same room together.

And now he was chatting up Ashley.

Shepard clenched her hand into a fist, anger warring with professionalism. He'd wooed people away from her before and she hadn't liked it but there wasn't anything she could do about it. But he also wasn't above using threats.

"Shepard?"

She heard the tension in Garrus's voice and made herself look at him. "It's all right..."

Ashley had trouble working with aliens, Shepard knew that, especially Garrus and Wrex. She'd seemed more and more unhappy lately. If he makes her an offer, you don't have a right to demand she refuse it, she reminded herself. She wouldn't force anyone to work with her and as much as she hated to admit it, Baker could probably help Ashley rise in the ranks better than Shepard could.

Even as she was loosening up and ready to make herself move on before Baker noticed her, Ashley suddenly rose to her feet. Shepard couldn't hear what they were saying but Ash's body language spoke more than words ever could. She was pissed. One of Baker's men tried to stop her and Ashley drove a fist into his stomach.

Shepard was moving before she realized it, vaguely aware of Garrus following her. She strode through the doors of the bar and swung up the stairs that would take her to the upper deck.

"You have five seconds to sit and apologize to the Major before I hurt you." The words turned her alarm and anger into ice cold fury that only spiked up further when she came through the doorway and saw the goon holding Ashley's arm in a crushing grip.

"You've got less than that to get your fucking hand off my Gunnery Chief, boyo." She put every ounce of cold command into the sentence and saw everyone freeze, allowing Ash to pull free.

Shepard only had eyes for Baker, their gazes locking across the deck. She gave him a cold, insolent smile, knowing it would piss him off more than anything. "Baker. Long time, no see."

"Commander..." Ash took a step toward her.

The goon moved as if to take a hold of her again and Shepard cut her eyes to him. "Get away from her."

He hesitated, then glanced at Baker, who nodded. He stepped back reluctantly then tensed as he noticed Garrus moving into position behind her.

If Baker was fazed by the sight of the turian, he didn't show it. He kept his gaze on Shepard. "It's Major Baker, Shepard."

"Then it's Agent Shepard to you," she replied without missing a beat, and had the satisfaction of noticing him tense at the reminder he no longer had any authority over her.

Baker glanced at Garrus. "I see you're still drawing the scum of the galaxy to you. Even your turian is one everyone thinks is a disgrace."

Garrus stiffened a bit beside her and Shepard willed him not to rise to the bait, even as she bristled on his behalf. Disgrace, my ass. The turian obviously knew he was being played and relaxed a moment later, saying nothing. "We have very different definitions of what a disgrace is, Baker," Shepard said.

"And top it off with General Williams's granddaughter. This is the group we're supposed to believe will save us all from a turian." His sneer told her quite clearly what he thought of Saren as a threat. No doubt he agreed with Udina about taking an armada out and wiping Saren and his geth out with pure force. He must have been chafing badly from the Council's refusal to allow it.

"So much for thinking Grandfather got the shaft," Ashley said bitterly.

Several things clicked into place. Shepard looked at Ashley. "Shanxi General Williams?"

Ashley just looked at her with hot anger in her eyes and an expression that came very close to despair.

Baker looked amused. Shepard had never known if he just didn't consider her worthy enough to hide what he was feeling with a professional demeanor or if she simply had a knack for making him forget it. "Scion of one of the biggest stains on the Alliance military and you don't know about her. That's sharp command, there, Shepard."

The taunt didn't bother Shepard since she was among the group of Alliance members that actually believed General Williams had, indeed, gotten the shaft. "Give me a fucking break." She wasn't interested in exchanging potshots with Baker and she always felt uncomfortable lecturing anyone but while she kept her gaze on Baker, it was for Ashley's sake that she continued: "I've always wondered what the hell they expected? What, was Williams supposed to be able to magically know there was a fleet coming to save Shanxi? When a man surrenders for the sake of the people he's sworn to protect...after holding out against the most advanced military race in the galaxy for longer than was thought possible, no less...that's not a disgrace. The Alliance sucking up to the Council and then bitching behind their backs about how Williams was the only commander to surrender to an alien race? That's a disgrace." It was kind of nice to speak her mind to an Alliance member like that, she couldn't remember the last time she had. Very liberating.

Baker was looking flushed and his eyes were glittering with rage but the goon that had grabbed Ashley looked ready to explode. His fists were clenched and he took a step forward. Garrus laid a hand on his pistol in warning. Shepard touched his arm lightly. It was nice to piss Baker off when he couldn't do anything about it, but playtime was over. "I don't give a damn what you think of me, Baker, but don't you ever let me catch you or one of your dogs going after anyone on my crew."

"You might be the Council's pet now, Shepard, but I can still bring Williams up on charges for assaulting one of my men." Baker sounded like he was speaking through gritted teeth.

"Try it." The challenge hung in the air. Their gazes locked again. She hated getting dragged into politics and offices throwing their weight around but if he tried to take Ashley down, Shepard would fight him all the way. She saw him acknowledge that, saw a brief flicker of uncertainty cross his eyes. She wasn't bound by the same rules as she had been when they'd tangled before. Shepard wasn't sure she had enough clout to take him on politically but he didn't know how much clout he had, either.

She motioned to Ashley, and looked at Garrus. The turian kept his eyes on Baker and his men, shifting aside to give Shepard and Ash enough room to go through the door. Only when they were both through did he follow.

"Will you give us a moment, Garrus?" Shepard looked up at him.

"Of course, Commander." The turian nodded and headed back to the Normandy.

Ashley watched him go silently. She was still reeling a bit. Shepard turned to her, her face expressionless. "Williams, I'm only going to ask you one question about whatever conversation you had with Baker."

Ash nodded, bracing herself.

Shepard kept her eyes on hers. "Did he, in any way, shape, or form, threaten you?"

Ashley blinked at her slowly. Shepard's eyes narrowed slightly, going cold again, but that anger wasn't directed at her. She'd take him on, Ashley realized. She would take him on if he had. And with that realizing that, she shook her head quickly. "No, Commander. No, he...he offered to use his influence to clear my grandfather's name."

Shepard's lips tightened into a thin line, but she nodded, looking away. True to her word, she apparently wasn't going to ask her anymore questions about it, already turning back toward the Normandy.

"He wanted me to spy on you. For the Alliance," Ashley blurted out. "He said there's people who are worried you're not safe or willing to stand for humanity..."

"Are there, now?" Shepard's voice was quiet.

"I didn't consider it, Shepard." She needed her to believe that.

"It's all right, Ash."

"Every commander I've ever served under held my grandfather against me. My father too. So, I figured you would too when you figured it out..."

"Which just goes to show you never know what people are thinking. That's why we invented words." Shepard smirked.

Ash looked away. "Thank you... for saying that about him."

"I meant it. It sucks what happened to him, Ash. Unfortunately, that's politics and PR for you."

"I hate politics," Ash muttered.

"Right, so let's get away from them for a bit, eh? Let the politicians play, we have a galaxy to save." Shepard clapped her on the shoulder.

Ashley grinned and walked with her commander back onto the ship.