Chapter Three: Shepard Family Motto

The soft beep of an omni-tool woke Garrus just enough to cautiously crack open an eye and examine his surroundings. In a rush, it came back to him that Jane had been assigned the space across from his own, and he closed his eyes once again as the soft orange glow was shut off. He heard her groan softly, followed by the sound of her pulling the covers back over her shoulders as she rolled over to go back to sleep. Garrus resisted the urge to chuckle as he realized she had forgotten to turn off her alarm while on leave.

He hadn't shared bunk space with anyone since his service in the turian military, and having Jane in such close proximity was proving to be a bigger distraction than he had expected it to be. Her stunt in the mess hall the afternoon before had thrown everyone for a loop, until Adams and Chokwas explained that she had an extremely high tolerance for dextro-based foods. That was the last he had seen of her all day, but when he crawled into bed that night, Jane was already passed out in the top bunk across from his own.

She had wasted no time in making herself at home on the Normandy. Her clothes had been meticulously put away in the wardrobe locker and a holo of two happy parents and their rambunctious young children hung on the wall next to her bed. She had even brought her own blanket, with a picture of the Whedon and the oddest-looking crew he'd ever seen. Well, Garrus had thought, the second oddest-looking crew.

As he lay there, silently musing over the Normandy's guest, Garrus heard her shuffling around uncomfortably in her bunk. "Oh, fuck it," she whispered, and he opened his eyes to slits just in time to see Jane slide off the edge of the bed and land softly in the space between the bunks. She had slept in nothing but a t-shirt and panties, and Garrus got an unexpected view of…

Legs. Spirits, that girl's got some nice legs. Garrus watched as she made her way to the dressing area and strip her top off to hunt for a set of fatigues to change into. Even in the dark, he could see the slight movement of her muscles, more toned than he would give an engineer credit for. He didn't even realize that he had been admiring the backside of his commanding officer's little sister until a quiet hiss escaped his lips and she spun around to face him with a shirt held up to conceal the front view.

Garrus was just as stunned as she was. The attraction had been immediate and unconscious, but he was at a complete loss at what to say. Jane didn't seem to know how to react, either, standing there with wide eyes and clothes pressed against her mostly-nude body. Finally, he looked away, burying his face in a hand out of embarrassment. When he bothered to look up again, she had pulled the curtain closed and he could hear her dressing hastily.

What the hell just happened, he asked himself, rolling over to look at the bunk divider behind him. She's a human for crying out loud! They're soft. Fragile. And she's the commander's sister of all things! Garrus managed to keep himself occupied with his thoughts while Jane quietly snuck out of the crew quarters. Finally, once the door had hissed close on her departure, he let out a sigh of relief and rolled back over to check the time on his own omni-tool.

05:13. In less than an hour, the rest of the crew would be crawling out of bed. Resigning himself to the fact that he wouldn't be getting any more sleep, Garrus silently prayed that Jane hadn't taken herself to the weight room. He had some unexpected frustration to work off.

X

Hours later, Jane found herself belly-up, covered in dirt and grease underneath the Mako. Nobody seemed to have bothered with it after departing from Luna, so she took the task upon herself. Shore leave or not, Jane hated sitting idle. She loved the feel of a wrench in her hand, and it had been keeping her busy while she contemplated what had happened earlier that morning.

She had known Garrus was awake. There was absolutely no way he could have slept through her alarm, which had been quiet enough for the human crew members to ignore, but a turian's ears would have picked up on it immediately. Not turning it off had been her first mistake. Padding around the bunk half naked had been the other.

There had been no indication, absolutely none, that Vakarian would find her attractive. It was an oversight on her part to assume that just because ninety percent of turians stuck to their own race that he fell into that particular demographic. But surely if Garrus had a thing for humans, there would have been at least a little bit of buzz about it on the ship that Jane would have overheard. As it was, she seemed to be the only one on board with a preference for anyone outside her own species.

"John," she said, pushing a button on the comm speaker and breaking from her thoughts to focus on a trouble spot on the Mako.

"Yeah?" came his reply.

"I'm revoking your driving privileges. The Mako's suspension is a mess."

"There was a mountain in the way."

"Right. Shepard family motto…." Jane started. "'There has to be a harder way,'" they said together. A few nearby crewmembers chuckled at their exchange, including one that was becoming disturbingly familiar. With her concentration broken, she dropped the wrench and cursed.

"Everything ok?" John asked.

"I'm good. I'll catch ya later for lunch."

She cut the comm link as she rolled out from under the vehicle, careful not to collide with the pair of legs that had materialized nearby. Without thinking, Jane took the hand that was offered to help her stand, but it took every ounce of willpower she had not to snap it away once she was up. She eased her fingers out of Garrus' grip and leaned against the vehicle in effort to look relaxed, but she knew he wasn't fooled.

"You're a lot better at hiding your anxiety than most humans," he mentioned quietly. "I'm not sure if I should be flattered or offended."

"It took practice," she confessed. "Turians pick up on a lot of subtleties that humans aren't usually aware of."

"And you pick up on a lot of subtleties that most turians aren't aware of." It was a small consolation that Garrus was showing signs of nervousness, too. His hands clasped behind his back. The mandibles on his cheeks twitching. Jane had noticed them, and nodded an affirmation. "I want to apologize. For this morning. It was completely inappropriate for me to…"

"Don't beat yourself up over it, Garrus," she interrupted, trying to reassure him that he had done nothing wrong. "Ship life is like that. Close quarters, half-naked people running around. I just didn't think that you'd…" Jane trailed off, searching for words that would prevent her from putting a foot in her mouth.

"Watch?" he finished for her, and she nodded with relief. "Well, that makes two of us." Jane raised an eyebrow, prompting Garrus to elaborate, which he did after clearing his throat. "Humans never interested me as anything more than colleagues, first with C-Sec and now here on the Normandy," he explained. "But, I guess having a set of bare legs land less than a meter away from my face gave me a different perspective. There's one thing I'm curious about, though," he said, moving in scant inches towards her, testing the boundaries without showing obvious signs to anyone watching. "If you're used to half-naked people running around on a ship, why were you so nervous when you caught me watching?"

"Because I'm beneath your interest, Vakarian," she admitted softly, as much to herself as to him. "Yours is one of the oldest lineages on Palaven. It's one thing to be on this ship, helping a Council Spectre chase down a galactic fugitive. It's something else entirely to fool around with an Alliance mechanic just because you think she has a nice ass."

Garrus visibly paled, as if his family's rank hadn't ever crossed his mind as a possible roadblock. But just as swiftly as the shock set in, it faded away and he took a step back. "That's worth some consideration. But how do you know all that? About turians and clan politics?"

Jane closed her eyes, both cherishing and loathing the memories that his question raised. The heat of anger in one turian engineer's eyes whenever he disagreed with her. The icy glare of the lone female who always thought Jane wasn't worthy of the honor of her position. The warmth of Quin's touch, both as a lover and as the only friend she had managed to keep after the Normandy project.

"You don't spend two years of your life in the company of an alien species without learning something about what makes them tick," she replied, opening her eyes and smiling sadly at Garrus. His expression warmed, and he knew that she wasn't going to elaborate. Jane liked him, not just because she was attracted to him, but because he was a good man. She would be more than happy adding him to the small circle of friends she had acquired over the term of her service in the Alliance. If she could manage to keep her hormones in check.

"Maybe someday you could tell me what it was like," he said. "I'm sure by then I'll have plenty of my own Normandy stories to swap."

"Now that I can do," replied Jane, her spirits lifted by his friendly undertones. Sensing that their conversation had come to an end, Garrus nodded in farewell and took off towards the elevator. She watched for a moment as she gathered her tools. The Mako would have to wait until later. The Shepard kids had a lunch date before John's next mission, and Jane found herself in bad need of a cold shower.

Thanks for the faves/follows/comments everyone. I'm still in the early stages of this story, and every new reader is appreciated. One thing from the comments that I want to clear up: there is more than one school of specialization in the Alliance military. N7 is a combat class, and the only one mentioned by name in any of the games or wikis. Jane is a mechanical engineer, not a combat engineer, and I took creative liberty by creating the I7 rank for her field.