Normandy Deck 1, 1400 Hours

Garrus walked in through the door, hard and armored boots clanging against the deck plating as he walked into the room, absorbed in the datapad he was holding, lists of figures and reports of movements scrolling past his eyes as his mind tackled the information it had learned to be bombarded with. He walked down the stairs before almost losing his footing, tripping over a chest-piece which he found laying on the floor, along with the rest of a familiar N7 armor set, not scattered but seemingly just left on the floor. He looked up, swivelling his head around until he found the owner, Kathryn sitting cross-legged on her chair in her undersuit as she was tapping away on her terminal, attention entirely directed at the document she was working on and a coffee cup easily within use, seemingly often used.

"Shepard, you want me to put away your armor."

Kathryn didn't look up, instead just responding with a sound that was a cross between a curious hum and a grunt, focus directed so wholly on her terminal that Garrus doubted she had even heard what he had said.

"Kathryn?"

"Hmm?"

The sound seemed to be more coherent this time, slightly more present with an iota of focus broken from the screen enough to turn her head a half a degree towards him, but her fingers failed to pause and he recognized the tongue sticking out from in-between her lips as one of incredible attention, knowing she had again heard almost nothing.

"Do you want me to put your armor through the cleaner? Or is it already clean?"

"Yeah, great. Thanks."

"That was a multiple choice question."

The response was out of what Shepard was expecting, garnering her attention as she finished her sentence and tore herself away from her terminal, looking at Garrus with raised eyebrows and a slightly crooked mouth, her face evolving into one of almost surprised curiosity as she engaged in the conversation. Garrus chuckled as he watched the response he had gotten so many times, mandibles flaring slightly in a mild grin as he responded, bending down to pick her armor up and placing it in the auto-cleaner.

"It's alright, I'll take care of it."

Kathryn stood up, scrubbing her face and reaching as high as she could, relaxing and scrubbing her face as she walked down the stairs, picking up a few of the remaining pieces and helping Garrus finish putting her armor into the cleaner, grinning sheepishly as he levelled her with the "shouldn't you have put this away earlier?" smile which she recognized. While festidious in her appearance and organized in her actions, Kathryn's living habits were typically focused almost exclusively on her goals and tasks, the ship-board responsibilities she carried always trumping less critical concerns like cleanliness, often resulting in a slightly obstacle-ridden room, a paragon of organized chaos.

"Sorry, I got distracted by my mission report, guess I forgot to put away my armor."

Garrus threw the datapad which he was carrying down on the table as he took a seat on the couch in the stateroom, crossing his legs and reaching for the water bottle he had left before leaning back, Kathryn taking the break in her productivity as an opportunity to change into her typical service uniform, a luxury which had, just like the armor, got occluded by the task at hand.

"Anything interesting in there?"

Kathryn laughed, her voice laden with sarcasm as she repsonded as she pulled her under-suit off and began to put on her shirt and combat pants.

"Well, let's see, I told him about the smooth landing we had, Wrex's strict addherence to landing protocols and procedures, the peaceful and smooth extraction of the female Krogan, and… oh yeah, the distinct lack of Cerberus assault teams. So, no, nothing really interesting."

Garrus chuckled, taking another drink from his water bottle before he responded while Kat pulled on her belt and shoulder-pads, buckling the front strap on the shoulder assembly before snapping together the belt buckle, straightening her shirt and flattening the front.

"It was a pretty boring mission, not much I'd imagine that would be good to report."

Kathryn finished securing all parts of her uniform with the exception of her boots, displaying them centered at the foot of the bed which she then sat down on, rolling her neck as she rubbed the back of it, trying to work out the knots that had become too familiar from staring at her terminal.

"Absolutely. What did the Primarch have to say about it?"

"He made some comments about how well-trained our team was, particularly the job your Marines did at holding off some of the other ground forces. Seemed impressed."

"An impressed Primarch? Well there's my best achievement of the day. Any word from your task force?"

Garrus nodded, setting his water bottle down and leaning back into the couch, Shepard standing up and stretching her legs, the tightness of the past two hours in front of the terminal weighing heavily in her muscles.

"Not much, communications are still down for the most part around Palaven. I distributed them to the different armies, giving each General one of my higher operatives as a sort of "advisor". They seem to be working well, giving the Generals confidence if nothing else."

"Sometimes that might be all you need."

"I know a few decimated platoons which might disagree, but it sure can go a long way."

"Hell, Garrus, I think confidence is the only thing that kept us alive on the Collector base, confidence can carry you quite a ways."

Garrus laughed, ducking his head slightly and shaking it as he recalled a few too many close calls than he'd prefer, a history of barely's and almost's which described his and Shepard's service together.

"Might have had a thing or two to do with catching Saren too."

"Maybe."

Shepard stood up, making her way back to her terminal while her thoughts reorganized themselves inside of her head, paragraphs and sentances assembling as she brought to mind the landing and mission on Sur'Kesh, activating the terminal as she sat down and reached for her mug of coffee, taking a drink of the now room-temperature liquid before inhaling and exhaling largely through her mouth. Her eyes darted left and right and her tongue slowly made its way timidly past her lips while she reread her last paragraph before she put her hands back on the terminal and resumed her progress.

Garrus tracked her as she stood up and walked back over to her desk, standing up to follow her once she began typing again, standing behind her as he read the report over her shoulder, speaking as she began again.

"Kat, how long have you been working on that?"

Kathryn's response was comprehensible this time and seemed to have broken away a moderate amount of concentration from the report, her voice still slightly absent of the typical acuity she spoke with as she focused on the words.

"Just a few hours."

"And by a few, you mean…?"

Kathryn glanced quickly at the chronomoter at the top of her terminal before returning to work, answering Garrus tersely as she began to understood where his line of questioning was headed.

"About three."

Garrus held the back of her chair, spinning her around until she was facing him, looking into her eyes as she let her hands falling into her laps, giving him a disgruntled glare as he noticed the black marks underneath her eyes. If she's been working on this for three hours, and started right after the mission, she's been up for… twenty seven hours at this point.

"Kathryn, you need some sleep."

Kathryn shook her head ardently, maintaining eye contact as she tried to convey with her glare the degree to which she couldn't allow herself rest, the belief which had driven her to her terminal initially and kept her planted there for three hours, had kept her in the war room examining movements and coordinating efforts for five hours before the Sur'Kesh mission, which had deprived her of sleep and pushed her to ignore the fatigue which was trying to drag down her eyelids.

"I can't do that, Gar. I've got to get this report done, and then there are a million other things that need my attention. Sleep doesn't win a galactic war."

When Garus spoke his voice sounded equal parts bemused and concerned, a balance of opposites which had become so typical of the swaggeringly-awkward Turian.

"Neither do exhausted Commanders."

Shepard laughed slightly, a small smile breaking through the imperative glare she was levelling Garrus with.

"Some people have said otherwise."

Garrus raised an eyebrow plate, his deep blue eyes making contact with Shepard's lighter shade. She simply smiled in response, large and disarming, filled with the mild whimsy and sarcasm which she used so often to difuse personal situations, often winning the argument.

"Besides, I just got dressed. You're not going to make a girl get her uniform all fixed and squared away just to tell her to take it off and sleep, are you?"

Garrus rolled his eyes mildly, the Turian equivalent of the motion involving more head motion and mandible flaring than it's human equivalent as he stood back, crossing his arms as his and Kathryn's glares continued to spar.

"I just might, Shepard. You need a break, come up for air."

Kathryn's smile slid from her face as she realized that her humor had failed to work, continuing to stare Garrus down as she talked, beginning to spin her chair back towards her desk and reaching for her terminal as she did so.

"I'll get some air, Garr, I promise. First I just need to finish this report. Afterwards, though, I promise."

As she was nearing an angle at which she could reach her terminal Garrus reached out and stopped her chair, turning it back to face him as he received a look of much consternation from its occupant.

"You've given me that before, and it won't work. If I'm not allowed to tell you I'm 'in the middle of some calibrations' any more, then you're not allowed to do one more thing."

Kathryn threw her hands up in mild surrender as she shook her head, extricating her crossed legs and standing up, walking down the stairs and back to the bed, sitting down heavily on it as Garrus resumed his seat on the couch. Her voice was an even mix of frustrated as it was thankful, the portion of her which was keenly aware of her level of exhaustion thankful for the out which Garrus had provided her, the portion which was determined that fatigue was nothing but a fact of mental-weakness still annoyed that she had been pulled from her work.

"Fine. But I can't sleep for a full eight hours, Alliance Command needs the report in six. Will an hour nap satisfy you?"

Garrus stood up and walked over to the bed, sitting down next to Kathryn as she removed her shoulder pads and belt, looking at her as she was almost done, bringing his forehead to hers in a Turian expression of affection. She smiled as she felt the warm contact on her forehead, bringing her right hand up to softly cup his face as she brought her lips to his mouth plates, the junction of flesh and plate perhaps alien but no less familiar and no less appreciated. When Garrus spoke his voice was low, subharmonics laden with affection.

"Make it two hours and you've got yourself a deal."

"Slave driver."

"I'm not the one who made me pull Geth parts out of the Mako after every ground mission."

"You volunteered for that and you know it."

"Get some sleep Kat."

Kat reached her hand up again as she kissed Garrus one more time on his mouth-plates, scooting up the bed and pulling her pillow down to meet her head. Garrus walked over to the bed-side terminal, dimming the lights in the stateroom before strolling back over to the couch, sitting down and picking his terminal back up, the information beginning to scroll once more over the surface as he heard Kathryn's breathing become deeper, slower, her chest rising and falling softly as she began to drift to sleep. He tipped his head and looked towards her when he heard her speak softly, barely louder than a whisper, his response equally soft, the sounds travelling clearly over the white-noise that so regularly filled the stateroom.

"Garrus?"

"Yes?"

"Thank-you."

"Any time, Kat."

Author's Notes

Well, I don't know why, but I'm having trouble writing Kathryn. Her scenes just require a lot more massaging, a little bit more work to get them even close to decent. Admittedly, I'm still not convinced about this chapter, but I'll put it out there anyways, hopefully you guys like it. Any feedback you have is highly welcomed and appreciated, I love hearing from you guys and concerns, comments, critiques, etc. always, always help. So please, talk to me, tell me what you think!

Above all, though, enjoy!

SotS