Jane wasn't able to speak to the alien now known as Garrus Vakarian like she would have liked because, just when she learned of its - crap on toast, I don't even know if it's a he or a she… it sounds male, but who knows. Would it be rude to automatically assume? - real name, one of the patrolling officers checked in. She must have looked quite the fool just standing in the middle of the lab with a barely touched sandwich, her odd sense of a nice place to dine a giant, empty lab with only an alien, who as of now hasn't spoken a word, as company.
Which brings up another big question, what is she to do with the knowledge that it can not only speak, but that there's a way to understand it? Certainly, if Garrus wanted the rest of them to know it could talk, it would have done something before, right? Why her? Why a simple lab tech instead of a world leader, or… something?
Unfortunately, these and many other questions have only been running through her head, keeping her up all night in the tiny bunk the soldiers think she's supposed to be comfortable using here on the base. Like heck she would just go home - that would probably lead to her suddenly snapping to reality and finding it's all a dream, a really weird, really too unbelievable it must be true, dream.
However, she couldn't just wave off the soldier as if she were doing nothing but eating in an awkward silence and not starting the very first conversation with the first alien to ever make contact with humanity. So it was off to bed for her to try, unsuccessfully, to get some rest and see if it was all a hallucination from the long hours or not.
Which now leaves her worse off than when she left, not only not able to see but also filled to the brim with so many more things she would like to say to Garrus, as she leans against the wall of the elevator, eyes half lidded and occasionally drifting closed only to snap back open. She doesn't even realize she has stopped on a floor that isn't her own destination until she steps forward and bumps into something.
"Wow, easy." It takes her a second to realize it was Kaidan who she bumped into, his hands dropping on her shoulders to catch her as he chuckles softly. "Hey, Jane," he says with a weird smile on his face. "Why in such a hurry?" He bows down, breath on her face as he stands so close.
"Huh?" She blinks a bit sleepily before she offers a quirk of her lips in apology, stepping back and out of his hold to give him room to step into the lift. "Sorry. Most of me is still asleep, it seems." She chuckles a bit before cutting off into a big yawn.
With a smirk on his face he steps closer to her, a hand on her shoulder again. "No. It's okay. Why don't we get a coffee? My shift is over and I could show you some stuff to have… fun here?"
"No, it's okay. I got some energy drinks in my locker downstairs and I have an analysis running that I can't wait to see the results of." Offering a thankful smile, she hits the close button for the lift, letting him hit his floor as it begins to move to her destination. "Thanks, though."
His upper lip twitches, obviously upset at something, but right as he takes a step closer to her, the door opens to a group of soldiers waiting to get on a lower level. They greet with polite nods and step in, looking to Kaidan. "Which floor, sir?" one of the younger ones asks.
"B-29," Kaidan growls and steps away from Jane, forcing a smile on his face as the lift descends deeper into the ground, the air growing chillier with each meter they dive.
First to step off is the clearly frustrated Kaidan, though Jane doesn't exactly know why he'd be so upset. Probably had a long night like me, she thinks as she's left only with the group of soldiers she's never seen or met before, her clear separation from them clear when they turn from her and have their own, not too private, conversation.
"They will cut this ugly fucker open on Monday!" She hears the one who talked to Kaidan blurt out loudly with a laugh.
"Where did you get that from? All I heard was that they will do it, but not when." Another looks to him with a narrowed eye in sideways suspicion, crossing his arms.
A third chuckles and smacks the one on the chest with the back of his hand, nodding towards the youngest. "He heard that Commander Jenkins overheard a talk this doc had with the Admiral… It's about time, I can't wait-" the 'bing' of the elevator arriving at its destination interrupts and he drops it.
Completely ignoring the fact that Jane was there to hear it all, they step out on the level, heading off to wherever their orders have called them. She is proud to say that she waited until the doors completely closed and the cabin starts to move before she curses wordlessly, starting to pace in worried panic.
"Holy crap… they're going to cut Garrus open?!" She exhales heavily as her hands tighten. "Of course they are… I knew that. But Monday?"
What's worse is that she knows, just knows, that they won't just kill Garrus to cut it open. Oh no, not when there are so many possible losses that could come from killing a specimen. 'You can always kill something, but you can't always bring it back,' Doctor Lawson has always said since the beginning, starting when she once questioned why he would keep lab animals and specimens alive when they could learn just as much, she thought, from those already passed.
Sighing as the doors slide open, she forces herself not to rush and keep to a fast walk as she heads to the lab, no longer anywhere near tired. She quickly scans her keycard and taps in her code, squeezing into the lab before the doors even open completely.
"575?" she calls out, not knowing if there is anyone inside and just wanting to be extra cautious with her newest discovery from the night before. Not to mention that I still might be wary of my waning sanity.
The tall, grey figure stands in the middle of his cell, his head snapping to Jane with a flick of his mandible. He steps closer to make sure that no one entered the lab without him noticing before he answers. "Hey, Jane… I thought we are over this 575 thing?" He rumbles amused.
"Yeah, sorry," she replies without actually hearing and goes up to the cell, a mere footstep from the chilled glass. "Garrus, they want to cut you open." Her eyes are wide in panic and worry, whole body fidgeting. "Do you have any idea what that even means?"
A few blinks are his only reaction, his mandibles clasped tighter to his face. "That was just a matter of time."
"Are you listening? They don't want to kill you, they want to cut you open," she nearly shouts as her eyes water a bit. "I've seen what Doctor Lawson does… it's not science, it's like… worse!"
He rumbles in a try to calm her and now somehow himself. "Jane, don't worry about me. I will take whatever they have for me."
Sighing heavily, drained from lack of sleep and the truth that, no matter if she can understand the alien or not, she has always known the military wanted to cut into their visitor, to treat Garrus to a fate that might as well be worse than death. She can no longer support her weight, the weight of all this unnecessary evil at the hands of her own people, and she falls with a heavy thump to her butt, pulling her legs up to her face.
"I'm sorry," she says, muffled and into her knees in shame.
"You won't do it yourself, Jane. You don't have to be sorry." He smiles and rumbles as he kneels and finally sits down, tilting his head, not liking seeing the only one he considers a friend like this in such a state. "You're the only one who ever treated me like an equal. That's why I gave you the translator. Don't be sorry. You have done nothing wrong."
She shrugs and wraps her arms around her legs, hugging herself in attempt to try and fight the horrible ache in her chest. "I'm apologizing for my people, to the whole of my people because of the small few too stupid to realize that we don't have to be violent to learn, blind to the possibility that you may not be hostile and out to kill us all." Sighing, she finally lifts her head and lays her chin on her knees. "I barely even got to know who you really even are."
"Then take the time we have to get to know me?" With a smile he presses his three fingered hand against the wall, purring. "What do you want know?"
Blinking a bit to fight the tears in sadness at the friendliest alien she's ever met - well in a sense that it's so different from the stuff of the horror and science fiction movies - not mad or upset with her for being the messenger to its fatal end, she smiles shakily in sadness and lifts her hand up to the glass. Her five fingered hand is dwarfed by the three fingered, clawed one, but she doesn't fear it.
"I guess," she starts with a bit of a sniffle. "I'd like to first ask if you're a boy or girl. Unless you're, like, neither. I mean, that's cool if you are."
He snorts and shakes his head in a soft laughter. "I'm a man, at least the last time I checked, and we do have females. I'm no asari."
"What? What are asseri?"
"A-s-a-r-i. Asari." His mandibles flick and flutter a bit. "They are an all female race."
"Oh… weird." She thinks on that a bit, wondering why there would be a species like that. I guess they asexually reproduce, like other all female species here on Earth? "Okay, so you're a boy… How come you have paint here," she points to her nose and cheeks, then the sides of her jaw.
He closes his eyes and reaches to his face, tracing them with memories of home. "They say which colony I'm from, Cipritine on Palaven."
She frowns, even able to see in the way he touches his face that it must bring some sort of memories. Home, it's from his home. No wonder… Biting her lip at slight shame for making him remember something that he may very likely never see ever again, she looks around the lab awkwardly in search of something else to talk about.
"How old are you, Jane?" He tilts his head, trying to finally get to know her better as well, facing the inevitable with at least one… Friend?
"Oh," snapping out of her stupor, she blinks and looks to him. "I'm twenty five. What about you?"
"Twenty nine… turning thirty in a few months."
"Wow… you're not that old, at all. I mean, if your years are the same as ours." She chuckles and shifts a bit closer to the cell so she doesn't have to hold her hand outstretched so far. "Do you have family?"
"A father" He flicks his mandibles and growls a bit, remembering the last fight they had. "A mother and a little sister." He rumbles in thought, remembering the sad expression she had when talking about her father, so he decides to avoid it. "Uhm… might be a weird question but what is a geek?"
She snorts and chuckles a bit, blushing. "Well… do you have stuff like movies or books or stuff that certain people get way more enjoyment out of than others? Like to the point where they know every little thing about it?"
"Like calibrating guns and stuff?" His eyes light up on that, mandibles flared wide in a huge smile.
"Uh… yeah," she replies with a chuckle and nod. "Usually it means more that the person is nearly obsessive to outsiders, to those that don't share their enthusiasm. Why do you ask?"
He frowns a bit and looks in her eyes. "Well… uhm, I overheard some of the others call you a geek…"
"Ah…" Trailing off, she fidgets with a strand of her hair hanging over her shoulder from her ponytail.
"I'm sorry, I didn't meant to insult you."
Smiling with a shake of her head, Jane gently taps on the glass with her fingers. "You didn't offend me. I know you were just asking a very reasonable question." She looks him over and moves her hand so she can look at his palm. "Are your claws sharp?"
His brows raise with a low hum, looking at his free hand. "Yeah, pretty damn sharp. Though we tend to blunt them. Other species are kinda scared around us if they are sharp."
She frowns at that. "Why didn't you use them? Fight?"
"Standard protocol for Council Spectres is not getting into an intentional open confrontation with new species."
"That's stupid," she says with furrowed brows. "Because of that stupid rule, you're going to die here."
"I'm a Spectre… life expectancy isn't very long anyways." He chuckles weakly.
She sighs and shifts to sit with her back against the wall of the cell, shoulders slouched against the glass before him. "I think that's stupid. To just throw people away and make it so they can't even defend themselves. Why would someone sign up for that?"
"To make the galaxy a better place, I think… and for the adrenaline of course." He rumbles, amused.
Interested at that, she shifts and looks back at him. "You have adrenaline? Your species, I mean." Her eyes widen in excitement and she shifts back to face him, kneeling on her knees as she places both hands on the glass. "What else does your species have?"
He blinks and shakes his head. "Uhm… What? What do you mean?"
Pausing in her rush of thoughts, questions and possible ideas now that she can compare and contrast their two species not by trying, and failing, with her tests that are going nowhere, but by actually asking and receiving answers, she looks to him, up to his confused blue eyes. "Oh…" she chuckles and sits on her heels, "right, sorry. I was being a bit of a nerd. I was trying to ask something like what other kinds of biological hormones and chemical compounds do you have in order to function. I guess I got a bit ahead of myself after so many failed attempts to try and learn anything about you from your armor alone."
His mandibles flick as he chuckles and looks at her. "Well… we have adrenaline, serotonin…" He hums in thought. "I'm no biologist."
Snorting, she then chuckles and shakes her head. "No, I guess you aren't." She smiles and motions to his mouth. "These things that move at certain times, are they for expressions?"
"Not solely. Mostly it's to keep food and water in my mouth" He flicks them and chuckles, enjoying her curiosity. "Your species seems so… soft. Do… do you mind to let me touch your hand?"
Her eyes widen a moment before she looks down at the gap under the wall, not necessarily considering, but trying to determine if she really heard right. After all, who really made the rule of 'no touching'? It certainly wasn't him, it was the military, and she doesn't fear him, so it's not really breaking a rule if she and him didn't even make it, right?
"Yeah, sure." She smiles and leans down. "Only if you let me feel yours?"
His eyes widen in excitement with a low growl, he nods and reaches out, holding his hand under the wall, looking up to her. Smiling wide in joy at getting to feel him, the first ever alien on Earth and someone she feels she can consider a friend on top of that, she slowly reaches down and, timidly at first, runs the tips of her fingers over his brown skinned palm.
Her fingers making him hum, feeling a friendly touch after so long even if it is just out of curiosity. He watches her for a bit before he gently closes his hand, his fingers lightly clasping hers. She gasps a bit, but even he can tell it isn't a bad sound as her hand relaxes a bit in his, shifting to lay more fully in his, even giving a soft squeeze of its own.