The day had started out quietly enough. The Normandy had been docked at the Nos Astra ports for a full day, disgorging its crew to enjoy the sights and sounds of the Illium capital. Shepard had sought out Liara as soon as her boots hit the dock, and spent the better part of an hour coming apart on the poor asari's shoulder. Pacing as she pored out her frustration and heartbreak in a much needed catharsis. Much later, on her way back through the bright throng of the marketplace, Shepard's step was as light as it had been since she had first set foot on purgatory. Five minutes from the Normandy, Jokers voice had crackled tentatively over her headset, but his warning had made her blood run cold; and without even realizing she had moved, Shepard was sprinting for the docks.

The rampant destruction in the med bay was a little shocking. A somewhat hysterical Kelly Chambers was sat on a counter with Dr. Chakwas tersely telling her to tilt her head back as she pressed a compress over the bridge of her nose. The yeoman's tears had smeared nasal blood across a fairly impressive bruising welt on her jaw. Equipment was overturned, far too much complicated, and hence probably expensive machinery was scattered in disarray across the floor. Casting her eyes around the room, Shepard felt the bottom drop out of her stomach when she couldn't see Garrus. Instead her roving eyes settled on a smear of blue blood across the back wall.

Chakwas calmly stalled her frantic demands with a raised hand, " he's fine commander! Shaken and scared, but fine. I took him up to your quarters, I hope that's alright, it seemed like the best option." Noticing Shepard looking at the blood on the wall, she added, "Garrus caught himself on one of the thermal imaging monitors, nothing serious, but he tore a few stitches in his shoulder."

Preempted by on all counts, Shepard folded her arms, "then what exactly happened in here?"

Chakwas looked patiently at Kelly, obviously waiting for the young yeoman to begin the explanation, when it became apparent that tactic wasn't going to work the doctor thinned her lips in annoyance. "Best I saw, Kelly here decided that she wanted to come introduce herself to Garrus," at Shepard's furious glance, Kelly hunched down, looking miserable. "The second he backed away, Kelly decided to just keep pushing. Apparently body language was not covered in her supposedly extensive alien race studies."

"Stupid! Thoughtless, ignorant, insubordinate!" Shepard vented her fury with a savage kick at a medical waste receptacle, ignoring Dr. Chakwas' tut of disapproval as the steel bin smashed into the far wall. "What were you thinking, or did you just get up this morning determined to be as goddamn stupid as possible?"

Yeoman Kelly Chambers stared at the floor, eyes bright with tears as she blotted at her bloody nose with a handful of gauze, "I didn't mean to cause trouble Commander, I thought maybe I could help." Her face white as she looked up at Shepard, "I read everything I could find about your squad from the original Normandy...I knew Mr. Vakarian had served with you, and I thought I could..."

Shepard pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose, trying to stave off the headache that had been building like a thunderstorm in her cranium for the last several minutes. "You thought you could help?" she snarled in disbelief, "I gave the order to stay out of the med bay a week ago, and last I noticed the only person capable of countermanding my orders is me! The very last thing Garrus needs is to be poked at by Cerberus employees, no matter how curious they might be!"

"I really did think I could help," the yeoman is just so fucking earnest it makes Shepard want to kick her. "I thought if I could just talk to him...but...but he hit me," she touches a hand to the welts on her face, eyes wide with surprise and pain.

"Yes, he did," Chakwas interjects, "and you're lucky someone cut his talons, otherwise he would have most likely have taken most of that side of your face off." With a sigh, the doctor shakes her head, "honestly Kelly, how could you not have noticed he didn't want you near him?"

The yeoman simply stares miserably at the floor, bloody gauze still pressed to her nose with shaking fingers, until Shepard swallows down her simmering fury and curtly dismisses her. As the door shuts behind her, Shepard runs a hand through her hair, "so how bad was this?"

"Not as bad as you'd think," Chakwas bends down to retrieve a cracked datapad, slight smile on her stern face. "Garrus was more scared than hurt, go check in on him before you decide to resurrect the old naval tradition of keelhauling for the yeoman."

"Commander, a minute?" Rupert Gardner, the Normandy's mess sergeant, hailed Shepard with a waved spoon as she crossed to the elevator. "About that turian, the one you and the doc have been cosseting all week..." he began, stirring at something simmering on the stove. Shepard gritted her teeth, her headache spiking sharply; the tension must have shown on her face, because as he turned around, Gardner raised his hands in mock surrender. "Whoa, commander, nothing bad, ease up."

"Sorry Sergeant, its been a long day," Shepard rubbed tiredly at the back of her neck, "what can I do for you?"

"Well, you know the doc has me making meals for that turian friend of yours, typical 'rehab ration' stuff...bland, nutritious, easy to digest, blah blah. Unfortunately all I've got to work with is some dextro-based MREs we had in storage...and I'm guessing if they tasted as good as they looked they were probably pretty foul. Then I get this crate delivered," Gardner rattled a boot against an empty transport crate on the floor. "Came from an asari by the name of Liara T'Soni; she sent half a damn turian supermarket! Actual fresh ingredients, spices, she even wrote out a bunch of recipes," he waved a sheaf of printed sheets.

Shepard flushed, torn between gratitude for Liara's foresight, and guilt that she honestly hadn't even considered what Garrus had been eating. "Ah, thank you for telling me... I'll be sure to thank Liara."

"Oh, before you go commander," Gardner pushed a covered tray toward her with gruff embarrassment, "give this to your friend. I have no idea if I got it right...but it might taste a bit more like home, figure he could use that about now."

The lights in Shepard's quarters were mostly dimmed, and she stood in the doorway, tray in hand, blinking in the dimness. "Garrus?" she questioned, pressing a palm to the light sensor, watching as the light brightened, "Garrus, you alright?" Unsurprisingly, she found him with his back pressed to the wall, injured arm pressed against his chest as he looked up at her with dull eyes.

"Not Omega," Garrus said softly, as Shepard blinked at him in bafflement, "anywhere else...but not there, please...it could be here, on... Illium?...just..not Omega."

"Ok, what?" Shepard set the tray down as close as she could to Garrus, without startling him. "Try that again, because my human brain is kinda fried, and that made no sense at all."

"If I cant be here...I know why. Shouldn't have fought, never fight, never ...stand up...woman wasn't a threat...I'm sorry," he sounded devastated, and it took Shepard a few more seconds to connect the rather fragmented dots.

"Is this about Kelly? The woman in the med bay," Shepard clarified. "I'm not going to kick you off the ship for smacking her, if that's what you're worried about; in fact if you hadn't put her on her ass I might have been tempted to." As Garrus blinked at her in surprise, Shepard shoved the tray a bit closer, not giving him the chance to question her decision. "Here, quit worrying and try that, Gardner made it special."

The contents of the tray got a wide eyed stare of interest, and Garrus hooked a slice of some unidentifiable foodstuff up; shearing it in half with sharp teeth and tossing his head back to swallow, reminding Shepard of a Terran bird of prey. Whatever it was, the unidentified food made Garrus blink with surprise, and Shepard smiled to watch his mandibles twitch slightly with pleasure.

After finishing every scrap of food on the tray, Garrus simply curled up against the wall and was almost instantly asleep. His constant exhausted sleeping had initially worried Shepard, until Chakwas had assured her that it was, at this point in the turian's recovery, perfectly normal.

Shepard was working on a inventory list for Miranda when Garrus jerked awake, body tense as he swung his head around until his gaze settled on Shepard. "Can I stay?" he questioned in a slightly hazy voice.

"On the Normandy? Yes...on the floor? No, you're gonna be sore as hell sleeping down there."

"No..." Garrus raised a hand to scratch at the bandage on his jaw, remembered he didn't have any talons to scratch with and settled for rubbing his jaw against the plates on his forearm. Tilting his head to indicate the whole room, "I...I meant...here, can I stay here...please?"

"In my quarters?" Shepard raised her eyebrows in surprise. "I...uh, I'm not sure Chakwas is going to think that's a great idea."

"Oh...ok," Garrus' immediate soft resignation made Shepard wince.

"I mean...I can talk to her, but why would you want to stay here anyway?"

Garrus tilted his head so his undamaged cheek was resting on his knees, "Its...safe here, the med bay is too...bright...I just...like it here."

"Alright," Shepard sighed, headache making a gleeful reappearance. "I'll talk to Chakwas...but if she ok's this, its going to get really boring for you in here at times."

Managing a slight shrug of his thin shoulders, Garrus blinked up at Shepard, "EDI talks to me...sometimes...if I... remember too much."

"EDI?" And the day just keeps on getting weirder, Shepard thought. Why would the ships nosy AI want anything to do with an injured turian? "That's...unexpected; and what does EDI talk to you about?"

"Commander, I have access to a wide range of culturally relevant media, including popular music and vid productions." EDI's pleasant, disembodied voice filled the room, making Shepard jump, "as well as current news updates. I am also able to provide playback of communications when you are deployed.

The ship was playing Garrus turian music? Shepard couldn't help but feel a slight surge of resentment, it seemed everyone around her was able to anticipate what Garrus would need more than she ever could. Watching Garrus give EDI's holographic display an almost-smile as the AI activated with a shimmer of light, Shepard wondered exactly how much she was able to even contribute to her friend's recovery.

On her way back to the medbay, slow grind of the elevator set Shepard's teeth on edge, at the same time she almost wanted to do nothing more than slam her hand down on the emergency stop; to have that few minutes of silence and peace.