The Show Must Go On (Casting Call)

She had told him to show up like he would if he was at work so there he was. Dressed in heavy combat armor sitting on a small chair in a row with other people who were also sitting on those metal folding chairs. Above him on a piece of paper taped to the wall was scrawled "C-Sec Auditions". Surprisingly there were people of every species in this line. Well at least this TV show was trying to be liberal. Maybe he'd have to mention it to his father. See if the real C-Sec wouldn't want to try to do something for more proper publicity or something.

Garrus looked around at the people waiting in line with him. They were pretty. That's the only way he could describe them. They were pretty people. You could tell they were used to being on TV or in movies or whatever. They somehow didn't seem quite normal because of that.

Maybe it was his own uneasiness coming through. He was out of place here and he knew it. Not for the first time he thought about just getting up and going home but she had gushed about this opportunity she had set up for him. She'd given him a name and address and told him to be there. It really must have taken some doing because the name he had belonged to a producer. He wasn't exactly sure what the pecking order was in the TV world but he knew producers were up there.

Eventually he was passed off to some assistant who dropped him off in the line he was in now. Where he stuck out like crazy. Aside for the fact he had a face that would never pass the TV beauty standards, he was in a suit of heavy armor sporting C-Sec colors. Whereas the other people were in regular clothing.

A few people had quietly laughed at him. One had asked if this was his first audition. This garnered more polite laughs when he said yes. Apparently, he looked like he was trying too hard for a role coming all dressed up. They had complimented him on his scar make up though. Said it looked very convincing. Of course there was deathly silence after he calmly explained that his scared face was the result of a bomb blast and subsequent inferno. Since then, no one had said anything to him which suited him just fine.

After an hour of waiting it was finally his turn. He was lead around some corners and onto a stage. There he saw a gagged Adrian being held in a headlock by human who had a gun to Adrian's head.

In a flash his pistol was out and trained on Adrian's captor.

"Officer Zorah, you okay?" Garrus called out to Adrian who just nodded. In the background Garrus could see people peeking over desks. In the seats people were hunkered down as well. Off to his side he could see the human who had led him here also cowering down by the stairs of the stage. At least the civilians were out of the way and in cover. That was good in case things got ugly.

"That's far enough C-Sec." The human said.

Garrus stopped advancing only to shift to the side. Maybe he could force the guy off the stage. The fall would suck but it might buy him enough time to jump on the gunman and disarm him.

"So why are you doing this?" Garrus asked keeping his voice even. Had to keep the guy engaged and distracted.

"Why am I doing this?" came the confused reply.

"Yeah, what at your demands? There's got to be a reason." Garrus said calmly. In his field of vision he saw Adrian's eyes roll up. "Hey, hey, easy up on your grip. He's no good to you dead."

"Of course he's no good to me dead."

Behind him there were pounding of boots and what sounded like high heels on the tile floors. He heard a breathless "Garrus" gasped and instantly knew that Tali was somewhere behind him.

"I hope you brought security with you." He said over his shoulder.

"Okay, I'm really confused now." The gunman said. He moved to scratch the side of his head with his pistol and that is when Garrus sprang. He was upon him in two strides, knocking his pistol away and wrenching his arm behind his back causing him to instantly give out a cry of pain. A quick strike to the back of the knees put the gunman on the ground and not long after Garrus was slamming his torso flat to the ground and slapping on hand cuffs.

There was a smattering of weak applause from the audience area and a bewildered "What's going on?" from the gunman. Garrus finally spared a moment to glace at Tali who didn't look happy as she stomped up to him. Beyond her he could see two security guards. Both were snickering. He glanced over his other shoulder to check on Adrian who had ungagged himself and was now howling in laughter. At least by the time Tali made it up to him he had the decency to start uncuffing the guy.

"You were supposed to read the lines that Terry was supposed to have given you and you were supposed to use a prop gun, not your real one." Tali said in a clipped tone. This was very embarrassing clearly but it was overly so for her. She may have let it slip he was coming to the quarian crew who spread the message through the rest of the organization. That is why when he drew his weapon the casting people had instantly sent her a message. She was mad at him and mad at her staff and mad at herself that this had come to pass.

"Well I'm not apologizing. My actions were in line with C-Sec regulations in regards to hostile actions against C-Sec officers. Besides, a little heads up would have been in order." Garrus replied in an equally terse tone.

"It was all on your call sheet that, like I said Terry was supposed to give you. Normally people wait for instructions before flying off the handle."

Terry at this point meekly came forward and gave Garrus a very crumpled piece of paper. It was evident that the paper had been scrunched up in Terry's fright from earlier.

Garrus took it and hauled the gunman up to his feet. "Really thought I was convincing?" the guy asked. Garrus shot him a quick look. The man was smiling and seemed to be taking things stride. Garrus just found it odd that being a convincing gunman seemed to override the fact that he could have been shot.

Garrus read over the script. Simple scene where the potential actor was supposed to talk to the gunman and intimidate him into letting the hostage go immediately following a bloody shootout. Later he would find out that the prop guns were to add to the scene. Something about realism. Which he found ironic because when he had pulled his very real weapon almost everyone hit the deck. The only reason gunman didn't was because he hadn't seen that Terry hadn't given Garrus the prop gun.

" 'Now I know what you're thinking. Did he fire 8 shots or 9? Truth be told that in excitement I lost track. Being that this is a Carnifex X, one of the most powerful handguns in the galaxy, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?'" Garrus read out loud dead pan. "Isn't that from Blasto 1?"

And that was the end of his audition. He'd done as she asked and it had ended in spectacular disaster. He spent the rest of his day off plotting misery for Adrian. The punk had to have known since was part of the proceedings and he hadn't tipped him off.

A few weeks went by and Garrus put the incident behind him. He kept busy with work. He had a few dinners with Tali. He apologized. He didn't want to and felt he really shouldn't have to but he had learned something over his years in the verse. It was always better to just apologize when it came to the trivial things.

So imagine his surprise when Tali told him he had a call back. And that he wouldn't have to use up a personal day because she had convinced Executor Vakarian that it would be good exposure for C-Sec if someone actually from C-Sec got a TV part for once. Garrus just nodded and continued to eat his dinner.

The call back wasn't anywhere near as dramatic as his first audition had been. He read his lines, did the scene, told the people evaluating him that the lines were terrible and left.

It wasn't that he was disinterested in Tali's project. She'd tell him her ideas for the show and asked for some input here and there. It was all very fun and exciting, building up a world from scratch. Well not completely scratch, more like a twisted reality.

Krogan were going to mean and aggressive in the ME verse, who bred like bunnies but were made sterile by salarians. Salarians were being portrayed as super scientists and asari were the diplomats, a switch of reality. Turians were being played straight if a bit more militantly. Quarians were being portrayed as a tragic species, having lost their homeworld to a robot rebellion. Humans were going to be "new comers" to space and have rocky relations with just about everyone. In reality it was hard to hate humans, they just got along well with everyone.

The main cast was to be an ensemble on a ship that went around the galaxy having adventures. The main lead was still up in the air but Tali was leaning towards a human. They were the most neutral politically and more audiences would accept a human lead. There was a part for a quarian, a turian, a krogan, an asari and two more humans in the main cast. Things were still a little too sour with salarians to have one on the main cast in light of the upheaval a few years ago.

The plot was that the human lead would be made part of a super elite group of agents that answered directly to the all powerful Citadel Council. Garrus had laughed at this. The idea of the Citadel Council wielding galactic wide power was downright funny. All they did now was govern the Citadel itself and decided what color of tinsel to hang on holidays. But it fit the story well. It gave the lead character the established means to do just about anything they wanted to. This of course made it easier for the writers to do whatever they wanted to. One of these super agents would go rogue and there would be wacky adventures climaxing with a battle at and on the Citadel.

Of course things looking good on paper doesn't mean it's good in reality. No big names wanted to be associated with something as bold as what Tali was trying to put together. So it was cast of no name acting hopefuls. Few had any previous acting experience. Those few were the amongst the ones that made it to call backs. A few others were there because of deals Tali had made or because they knew someone or because they were at least the most enthusiastic.

And there were other issues. Like how to hide any quarians face from the cameras in a natural and organic way. Masks were cliché and more a theatre thing away. Really thick veils might work but then how would the actor be able to see anything? Eventually Tali's writing staff settled on stealing from the volus. Weak immune systems and environmental suits. They spun up some pressure related thing for the volus instead. That way they kept the possibility of the quarian being a romantic interest open but kept their face properly hidden.

On top of being multi species Tali was making her show have audience interaction. Episodes were supposed to end on cliffhangers and the audience would have two choices on which way things could go. It wasn't a new idea in TV. Garrus could remember shows doing that when he was a child. However the practice had fallen out of favor because it took some creative control away from writers and creators.

Still, that's what she wanted to do and no one could tell her no. She was after all the big boss. As creator, executive producer and more importantly main financer of this little project. When Garrus found that out he was reminded of just how fabulously wealthy the Zorahs were. Most people just wrote fan fiction. Tali did live action screen plays with the budget of a small planet. Oh course he never said anything of that effect to her. He merely mentioned that a show with audience input hadn't been on the air in over 30 years.

He did, however, have a few words to say when she informed him that he had been chosen as the main turian actor for the cast. He had a job after all. One he wasn't due to retire from for at least another 13 years at the earliest. Now was not the time for a career change. He'd done her little fun and games by showing up and embarrassing himself but he wasn't changing careers for her. She insisted he didn't have to give up his C-Sec job. That he could do this on the side. He pointed out that he only got a few days off for every 30 days of work. He'd blow through all of his personal days real fast. Plus, he did need time off to decompress so he wasn't going to give up all of his weekends for the foreseeable to do this little show of hers.

Tali, being Tali, merely took what he had to say and then found a way around all of his objections. Now she had approached C-Sec early on for her project. She wanted to use a few actual C-Sec locations for shooting. It would be cheaper than building those sets and C-Sec people could be in the background thus saving her on background actors for those scenes. In return she was willing to shine a good light on C-Sec.

She went back to the C-Sec PR department and suggested that perhaps a few C-Sec people might be given actual speaking roles. Nothing too large or fancy but still spoken lines on TV. All she needed was a little leeway with a certain detective who was up for a major supporting role.

Oh she knew he wasn't going to be happy with her. In fact after that he didn't speak to her for two weeks unless it was absolutely necessary. He even skipped out on their usual weekly dinner. But he showed up when he was supposed to. He was after all turian and did what he was ordered to do. Even if he fought those orders all the way up to the Executor himself. He had even stormed into his father's office with his orders clutched in his talons and slammed them on his desk. His father didn't even look up. He just told his son that it would be good PR for C-Sec and that he should work on his relationship problems at home.

And so that's how things were between them during the first few weeks of production. It got him a few odd looks and questions when he met the other members of the cast. A few of them had the good sense to not pursue that line of questioning or even not ask about it all together.

Like Reginald "Wrex" Urdnot. A huge old scarred up krogan with a very strange name. The exotic pet rehabilitator by trade, Wrex went by Reginald because it sounded much more high class which were his main clientele . Garrus had actually met him a few times before. Sometimes cases of murder as just as simple as an exotic pet killing their owner. And sometimes eating them. And Wrex's Animal Rehabilitation was the place to go. Wrex was to play the part of a tough krogan mercenary. He certainly looked the part once make up got done with him. It was nice though, knowing someone on the cast. They were by far the old men of the cast. The "kids" were all in their 20's.

Well at least comparatively. There was an asari Maiden that had made the cast. Her older half sister had made her come to the audition with her and slipped away at the last moment. Of course the casting agents didn't care. Liara played the part of a young and innocent girl way out of her depth perfectly. Maybe because she was one. At just 106 Liara was wandering rather aimlessly through life. She'd just finished off her second PhD and was between projects to give her direction. Still she was a cheerful if shy girl from what Garrus could tell.

Someone that did engage in conversation was the main lead. A redheaded ball of spunk named as Johanna but preferred to go by Jane who never seemed to run out of questions. She had been on the Citadel a few years having come there from some far off human colony to make it big in the entertainment industry. She'd acted in a few other projects before. A few commercials here and there. Mass Effect was to be her big break and she was really enthusiastic about it. And she seemed to think that Garrus was some sort of expert on all this TV magic. Him telling her that he wasn't didn't stem the flow of questions, it mere redirected them towards other areas. Like his part and why there were rumors that he was fighting with the executive producer and was that a smart thing to do and were they a couple cause up until a few weeks ago...

The other two human cast members were mercifully less wordy. Kaiden was a quiet and respectful young man and Ashley was very much the same except a girl. Which had confused Garrus for a bit because the only Ashley's he had ever met were men.

There were others he met. A veteran turian actor was to play the bad guy of the series. Clearly his glory days were over if he was working on such an experimental show. A fading human star had been hired to be Jane's mentor, both on and off screen. There was an up and coming comedian who was to be the ship's pilot. Garrus was sure that the doctor of the crew was an old theatre actress. And the list went on like that. It wasn't the finest cast that money could buy but it would have to do.

Still, if he was honest with himself the show might last a few episodes before it went off the air. The writing staff was supposed to be good. And they were, he recognized a few names from different shows he'd seen. They were just unbelievably lazy when it came to character names.

Just about everyone's character had the same first name as they did in real life with a few exceptions. Johanna was Jane and Natalia was Tali. Yes, Tali had given herself the quarian role. Who was going to stop her? No one and that was part of the issue between them.

In the back of his head he knew that Tali came from money and got whatever she wanted. As far as he knew, she was rarely told "no" and in those rare cases always managed to find a way to get what she wanted anyway. She was just always so level headed and grounded that he never thought she would have gone over his head like she did. And he liked to believe that hadn't done it to maliciously try to ruin his career at C-Sec. She did it because she really wanted him in what was basically gloried fan fiction of Fleet and Flotilla.

As Jane had so kindly informed him, there were rumors circulating in the rumor mill that was the Mass Effect cast and crew. The wiser folks never said anything and the less wise at least had the good grace to say it behind his back. And Jane took it upon herself to tell him every variation of each rumor. One even involved unicorns somehow. He wasn't exactly sure. Sometimes he tuned her out, other times he just turned off his hearing aids all together. Of course he never told anyone about his particular condition but these things have a way of getting out.

He had a bad habit of leaving his hearing aid in at night and thus didn't charge them up as often as he should. About a month into his silent treatment of Tali the batteries went dead in his hearing aids while he was on set. He tried to hide the fact that he couldn't hear anything and did alright for a few scenes. He knew how to keep his voice steady, and more importantly how to read lips. At least on turians and quarians. He was still working on his human.

But she figured him out after he was too slow on a few prompts. There were few that witnessed the actual exchange of signs between them but it didn't take a genius to figure out what was up. She scolded him and sent him home. And that is how word spread that the grizzly turian was deaf.

Tali was pissed. A month of nothing from him and when they finally do talk to each other in something that aren't lines for the show, it's in sign. And he didn't even say much. Just "Yes, my batteries are dead."

So she had scolded him, signing away furiously. He really didn't need the scolding. She knew that he knew he should be charging them every night. But it was an excuse to say something to him and so she took it. Afterwards she just felt terrible. For him and herself. She knew he disliked people knowing that he was "damaged" as he had once described himself. So she made the crew swear they would never ever mention this incident. Ever. She even went as far as to threaten to fire anyone that ever did. That might have been a bit much but it got the point across and she was angry. And that had been a way to vent that anger.

She was angry because she didn't know how to fix it. Part of the problem was she wasn't exactly sure what she was trying to fix. He had seemed okay with the idea working on the show. And when he pointed out the obvious obstacles that were prevent him from doing so she had smoothed out those bumps. It was a perfectly normal quarian reaction to a problem. Circumvent a problem rather than brute force your way through it.

And in return he had become angry with her. It had been a month of solid silence from him. No dinners, no unnecessary conversation on set, not even polite hellos if she was at the Vakarian residence when he was.

Worst of all, Solana was no help at all. Solana had long ago given her blessing as it were, for Tali to go chasing after her older brother. But she had laid down one rule and had refused to bend even a little on it. Solana was resolute to stay out of the relationship when it came to anything serious. The thing with his uniform was a prank. This certainly qualified as serious though. All Solana had done was stare at her with her eyes as wide open as they could go on a turian and told her to talk to Garrus.11

However a mad Garrus is quite an intimidating person to talk to. Tali was never afraid of him because he never gave her reason to be fearful. But she could and was intimidated by angry Garrus. So she fortified her courage with a little help of a bottle of turian brandy that Solana kept in her closet before she marched down the hall and pounded on the door of the one room she had never been in within the Vakarian residence; his.

By this point it was rather late at night. Tali had gone over to seek out Solana for help after that day's shooting was done. And after her paper work was done. And after she had screwed up her courage. So when Garrus answered his door it was well after midnight.

"I don't know how to fix this." Tali said gesturing between them. She signed it a moment later just in case he didn't have his hearing aids in. Which given the hour, he shouldn't and for once he didn't. "I don't know how to fix this because I don't know why you're mad at me."

She watched him clench and unclench his talons several times in clear anger. Vaguely in the back of her mind she registered that he wasn't wearing gloves. Or any other clothing for that matter. But she just stared at his hands. She didn't want to look at his face, to see his anger written across his face. Because she was the source of that anger and she wasn't comfortable with that.

He started to sign but then thought better of it and popped in his hearing aids.

"You don't know why I'm mad at you? Really?" His voice was strained as he tried to keep it even and not shout.

Tali cast her eyes down to her own hands that she started to ring. It was an old childish habit of hers when she was nervous or unsure and normally she would stop immediately once she noticed herself doing it. But she allowed herself that small comfort. It helped her take her mind off the fact she was standing in the doorway of Garrus' room in the middle of the night having what was looking to be a drag out fight.

"No I don't. One moment everything was fine and then the next you stopped talking to be. I don't know what I did to make you mad at me."

She didn't see his face fault but she heard him move and sit on the lip of his bed. Nest shaped, just like all turian beds.

"I'm mad because you went over my head. I'm mad because you nearly torpedoed my career. I'm mad because you wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. Damn it Natalia, you disregarded my feelings on something and violated my trust. Why shouldn't I be mad?"

She wished he had yelled or shouted or even let anger seep into his voice. It might have made her feel better. Instead he got more deadpan with each word, his tone steady and lifeless. It just made the words he spoke deepen the sickening feeling in her gut. Somewhere in his small speech she had started crying. And had slumped against the door frame and down to the floor. She hadn't meant to do any of those things and hadn't thought that her actions at the time would have that effect. But it made sense.

She knew enough about turians to know how it would look on his service record. A successful detective suddenly transferred to Public Relations. Even in the meritocracy people would wonder who he had pissed off enough to warrant was would be viewed as a punishment. But far worse than that was that she had betrayed his personal trust.

When she thought back she had allowed her excitement of the prospect of them working together to cloud her judgment. He'd been supportive but he did have another job already. An important one that he enjoyed. And he had told her no. Worse still, she hadn't respected that no.

To a quarian, accepting 'no' as an answer was seen as a failure. Nothing was impossible or off limits. The right sort of deal just had to be found. That was how the great mercantile game was played. But he wasn't quarian. He was turian.

"I'm so sorry." She sobbed. "I never meant to. I'm so sorry." It became a chant between her sobs and gasps for air. How could she fix this? Could she fix this? She had to be able to because if she couldn't, whatever they were, was over.

Garrus knelt down and wrapped his arms around her. He had been prepared for an argument, a fight even when she showed up at his door but he wasn't prepared for this. Reducing a strong woman like Tali to tears had never been his intention though he had had every right to air his grievousness. Still he was caught off guard. At a loss about what to do he held her and did his best to console her.

Once Tali registered his arms around her and heard him shushing her she threw herself into him, seeking the comfort of his embrace. In doing so she bowled him over onto the floor. He didn't make an effort to get up. She cried into his stomach while he very delicately ran his talons through her hair. She kept apologizing and he just replied that they would be okay though he didn't elaborate. They could talk about it in the morning.

Eventually her apologies slowed and the crying stopped and both were replaced with the slow even breathing of sleep. Carefully he maneuvered his way out from under her and scooped her up. It was far too early in the morning for him to take her home. Solana would have gone to bed hours ago. And putting her on the couch was a bit cold. So he placed her on one side of his bed before settling in himself.

Tali awoke the next morning very confused. She had spent countless nights at the Vakarian residence, this was the first time she woke up in a bed that didn't belong to Solana. Nor was the turian in said bed Solana. Instead Tali woke up to the sight of Garrus' back. She watched him for a little while, seeing the rise and fall of his chest with each breathe he took.

This wasn't how she had imagined her first time waking up next to him would be like. Harsh words and crying were never in her day dreams and she had all her clothes on. The only thing right in this scenario was he didn't have any clothing on. It was selfish of her, but she took advantage of the situation and just watched him a while.

He was on laying on his left side, which left her see all of his right. She knew that he had been scarred by the resulting fire from that blast so long ago. She saw the scarring on his right mandible and side of his face. She had known he had some scarring on his arm as well. But she never knew it was all of his right arm and a good portion of his torso as well. Even after all these years the scars were a dull blackish hue to contrast with his natural blue luster.

Before she realized what she was doing Tali reached out and ran her fingers down a patch of his scarred side, right down his ribs. It wasn't until she reached the bottom of the black patch that Garrus stiffened for a moment from her touch.

"Awake I take it?" came his morning greeting with a hint of humor in his voice.

Tali withdrew her hand sheepishly. "Sorry." She murmured. "And sorry again. About last night. I hadn't realized what I'd done until you told me. Still, that doesn't make it alright." Tali apologized again.

"We'll be alright." Garrus' reply eased the ball of tension that had settled into her chest. They were still them. "This doesn't mean everything is alright overnight because I'm still mad at you. Okay?"

"Okay."

"But that doesn't mean I stop caring about you Natalia. Even when I'm mad at you I will always care. Never forget that."

Tali could only nod though he couldn't see her reaction. He took her silence as acceptance though. She was busy trying to corral her emotions and didn't trust her voice to speak that moment. That was the first time either of them had mentioned feelings or attachment of any kind to each other. Odd as it may seem it made perfect sense for them. Up until 2 months ago anything out of line on his part could have gotten him in trouble. And just because they had crossed that magical legal barrier didn't mean everything just flew into top gear. Their relationship was a slow one after all. Glacial would have been described as a speed boost.

"Is your veil in place. I'd really like to turn around and hug you."

Tali quickly checked and straightened her veil. Thankfully her hair style made removing it rather difficult so it stayed in place even during her slumber. She briefly thought of being bold and removing it but thought better of it. Last night her appearing at his door had been a huge breach of their usual protocol with each other. Their spat and the fallout from it didn't need anything else heaped on top of it.

"I'm decent."

"Good." Garrus rolled over and smiled at her before pulling her into a tight hug. "Sorry for making you cry last night."

Tali felt more than heard him speak as she tucked herself into his chest. This was more in line with her daydreams. "It was fair." Was all she offered. He was the wronged party in this after all.

"No, that doesn't mean I get to make you cry. I never want you to have a reason to cry and least of all want to be that reason."

Tali didn't reply and just listened to this breathing. All things considered, it wasn't a terrible way to spend her early morning.

A/N: So I know you guys are going to get these all at once but still, sorry about the long delay. Like I said last chapter, lots of new things in my life. And part of that is being broke having to buy everything for my new place. And being broken enough that I had to choose between the Internet and being able to eat this last month. You can see which one won. But look at the really long chapters you got!