The Show Must Go On (Cast Shake Up)

The show was a smash hit. Starting the next day Tali was suddenly beyond busy. She hired a second assistant just to handle the increased volume of everything that went with the show. She had to negotiate a long term deal with the network. Then there was advertizing deals, both for the shows own awareness and for companies that wanted to be associated with what was going to be that season's must see TV. And there was renewing just about everyone's contracts because she had only hired them on for 3 months. Which meant arguing with agents who wanted more money for their clients. It was an absolute nightmare and she was just swamped with work for the next several weeks. Tali even had to miss out on her weekly dinner with Garrus because she was just too exhausted at the end of the day.

He took it in stride and was supportive throughout. He kept busy with work but found the time to see her each day, even if it was just for a few moments. Not counting the time they spent on set together of course. But they were playing support roles so most of their interaction was with Jane, rather than each other.

The show had a philosophy of rotation for the cast. Each episode a different pair would be sent off with Jane on whatever adventure the writers had come up with. And afterwards the episode would close out with Jane going around the ship and asking each character to weigh in on the recent events.

And they only managed to produce an episode every two weeks down from the episode a month they had started out with. Apparently that was slow for the TV world but they did have some serious back end production that had to be done and 2 weeks was the absolute fastest things would go.

Still Garrus for one was glad that it was 2 weeks between episodes. It meant he had to spend less time at that job and could actually do his real job. And it gave Tali more time to concentrate on the business end of her venture without having to worry about her acting role.

And so things settled into a pattern. People settled into their characters more, the cast gelled, the crew got comfortable with their duties on the show. Eventually Tali got things under control and their dinners were once more a weekly thing. And she spent more and more nights at his place following those dinners to the point it was given that she'd sleep with him at least one a week.

Tali enjoyed those nights. Dinner with him was always comfortable and they had made a game of alternating bringing interesting topics of discussion. And she looked forward to the later portion of those evenings as well. He let her take the lead on the activities that followed. There was never a caress unwanted nor a touch that was uncomfortable. While it made her feel safe, and cherished and loved, he was just so damned passive. She knew that he had had sex before. She knew that lots of people had sex and that she was the anomaly at just past 22. Hell, if Solana was anything to go by Garrus was getting laid for a few years before she was even born.

And she had made peace with that eons ago. Part of her was almost glad. It meant that he had worked out the kinks in his repertoire and she would be reaping the benefits. Granted she was glad that he wasn't pushing her for sex or crossing any boundaries, she wanted him to at least touch a boundary once in a while. His hands had a habit of just being in rather "safe" portions of her anatomy. Though even doing that he still managed to warm her up rather nicely. It made it so that when she finally escaped to her own home the next morning she had the best showers.

Of course his shower would have been closer and more convenient or even Solana's down the hall. Except that Tali knew that Solana's wasn't exactly sound proof just from her years of coming and going of the Vakarian residence. Hells, she had even held conversations with Solana while one of them was in the shower. And she wasn't going to test just how sound proof his shower was. Oh she knew that one day he'd be an active participant in making her forget her own name and thus be quite able to hear her. However, she'd very much like the first time he heard her in such a state his was doing more than being a figment of her imagination.

It didn't unnoticed by people though. Garrus and Tali's "date night" that is. Tali was usually rather chipper the morning after. Of course everyone attributed the fact that Tali was practically glowing with sated happiness to Garrus. Not that anyone said anything but they didn't not saying anything either. Jane usually had a sly grin and knowing nod for Tali on those mornings. Liara usually commented on what she wore that day. Somewhere in there the asari maiden would mention something about how happy Tali looked. Her assistants always had a smile for her too. She knew they liked the day after date night as well. Tali could be a real task master but she knew she let up a lot on those mornings.

And she had a lot to deal with of course. Alenko had a drinking problem it turned out and twice now she had managed to quietly cover things up. Or at least minimize the damage. She could do nothing about the fact he had made the entertainment news but she did manage to keep him out of jail. Instead he was doing community service visiting places in character. So it wasn't all bad.

Of course Tali would rather deal with Alenko's drunken antics any day when compared to what Jane did in her free time. Wild only began to describe the redhead. The older woman was almost always broke having partied her paycheck away. Usually that very weekend. It was almost impressive, in a twisted sort of way. She did make the sleaze reports regularly, often with a different girl on each arm. Jane's fast line life combined with the fact she was a biotic made her rather popular with the ladies. Apparently one could do very interesting things with biotic fields in the bedroom. Or so Tali had been told by one of her assistants.

That was maybe the worst part of it. Jane didn't restrict her conquests as it were to just floozies she picked up at the bars. If half of what Tali heard was true, Jane had worked her way through a considerable portion of the single ladies in the company. And all Tali could think about was Solana. Her turian sister and Jane were sort of still seeing each other. At least Tali thought so. It was hard keeping track since she didn't pry into either of their private lives. Jane was a friend, if a new one, but also an employee and did wouldn't do for the boss to poke around someone's personal life.

With Solana, Tali just worried in private. When Solana had come back from basic and started dating, Tali had voiced her own concerns and worries. This lead to one of the few falling outs the girls have ever had and since then Tali had stayed out of Solana's love life. They had of course, made peace with each other and moved on but that didn't stop Tali from feeling a little sad at the time. It was a sign of them drifting apart for Solana was forging a path Tali wasn't ready to follow.

But she did understand the need for privacy. Especially in regards to physical relations. On occasion Tali was rather happy that Solana didn't share many details about her lovers. She tended to go through them fairly quickly. And she never met any of them. At least not to her knowledge.

That did change though. And it was purely by accident. Tali was leaving Garrus' room one morning to go home to start her day. In the foyer of the front door she ran into a certain redheaded human. It was clear that Jane's clothes had been in a pile for the night and had only recently been haphazardly thrown back on. Tali's clothes were in a little better shape. She at least folded her clothes before crawling into bed with her turian.

The two redheads stared at each other uncomfortably for a moment before the sound of movement caught their attention. The Vakarian household was waking up. That was all the incentive the pair needed to put on their shoes and head out the door. At least on that day Jane didn't rib Tali quite so much. It didn't spare the quarian on subsequent mornings after but at least Jane toned it down a very little.

Unlike Jane who went all out, Tali did her best to straddle the line between being seen and getting publicity for the show and keeping her privacy. She was used to a certain lack of privacy from her younger dancing days. Being a popular dancer had earned her a fair number of admirers. Most were innocent enough. Sometimes they were parents who used her as a role model for their own kids. When she was older it was younger dancers wanting to be like her.

Of course there were the creeps as well. And the extranet was full of equally terrible people who hid behind the facelessness of the net. Of the creeps the least dangerous were the ones that just hated everything and were mad at everything. Tali always just figured they were jealous that she had a talent and the drive to develop that talent. Something she suspected those nameless masses of haters probably didn't have. The really creepy ones though were the ones that put her up on a pedestal and worshipped her. On super rare occasion it was a younger dancer who Tali could talk to and explain that she wasn't some perfect being to be idolized. But mostly it was men with way too much free time on their hands and no control over their sex drives. At least it seemed that way judging from the amount of porn that had come up when Tali had searched her own name. Granted it took her until the second page of search results to find the porn, the first page being taken up by legitimate sites that she was affiliated with. Her family dancing school, a few small business ventures, and of course the show.

At least for Tali the cameras were just a part of life. For the most part the paparazzi had figured out just how much she was willing to put up with at a given event or location. Most of the cast were still rather new to the constant barrage of flashing light and were muddling their way to finding their balance. Jane of course, made it easy to be seen and heard. As the main star of the show she drew a lot of attention when she went out. And she did a decent enough job at promoting the show that Tali didn't do that much damage control with the redheaded human. Ashley and Alenko were a lot more reclusive compared to Jane. They often were only in the entertainment magazines and papers if it was a really slow day. For them, they usually were part of some promotional event they had to be at and were going to be photographed anyway.

Which was just as well. Alenko was going to court ordered rehab in between his community service and filming. Ashley was just a very private person and kept herself out of the lime light. Much like Liara did. Tali was sure that Liara's parents had a hand in keeping their youngest from too much slander. On occasion though Liara would be one of the ones on Jane's arm so the shy academic did show up in the papers now and again.

Wrex was busy with his shop when he wasn't filming but that didn't stop him from promoting both. The krogan was rather proud to have his shop linked to the show, especially since he had cut a deal with Tali over animal handling on set. If the show needed some animal for the show, Wrex provided. If he couldn't then they had to made due without. Not because they had an exclusive deal but because if Wrex didn't have the creature in stock or couldn't get it to the Citadel than no one could. With over a century of existence on the Citadel, Wrex's Animal Rehabilitation was the best place to go to for all one's animal needs. If he didn't have it, you were just out of luck. But the krogan was a miracle worker. He had even managed to get them a very young thrasher maw for some outdoor shots. Of course there was some TV magic involved to make the tiny 10 ft beast look 10 times that size when it tried to eat Jane, Liara and Tali on that particular day.

The one person that proved as close to immune to the ravenous press was Garrus. At first Tali didn't really notice. She just glanced over the many articles that her assistants collected for her and she just assumed that Garrus got the same short blurbs they all did. But once Tali took a closer look she found that the articles mentioned that he was an actor on the show and that was it. Everyone else got a little something, their age, where they were from maybe, any previous work they might have done. Later articles discussed his role on the show and any appearances he made for publicity but Tali found it very hard to find anything of substance about her turian. So one night she asked him about it and he just laughed.

"Perk of working for C-Sec. Any personal information related to work is scrubbed from everywhere we can find it. Can't have criminals knowing where cops live after all." Garrus had told her with what passed for a turian smirk.

And he was sort of right. It was hard to find information on anyone in C-Sec but no one in C-Sec was harder to find than he was. Even his father had more information available to the public and he was the Executor. Garrus on the other hand pretty much didn't exist. Apart from a few vague notes here and there, Garrus was an nonentity from birth right up to his joining C-Sec. His heroics at the bombing were well documented but before that Garrus Leto Vakarian XXX didn't exist.

'Tradition' and 'Turian' go hand in hand and the Vakarians were pretty normal by turian standards. They had been in law enforcement since there was any law to enforce. Or so the family lore says. At the very least they have been working for the law for untold ages in the Hierarchy and ever since there was a C-Sec. Not all of them dedicate their entire lives to it like the Executor did, but most Vakarians did spend a portion of their working lives in C-Sec. When you live to be 150, a few decades isn't that long to follow tradition.

And with tradition came traditional names. Garrus' line passed down the name to the first born son and had for quite some time as was evident with Garrus. Of course given that Vakarian was also a very common surname the second name also had to be added into any searches that Tali had made. Otherwise she just got bombard with countless pages of all sort of Garrus Vakarians. In C-Sec alone there were 5 Garrus Vakarians who were no close relation to each other apart from the father son pair that she knew of. There were no less than 62 Vakarians all with varying degrees of relations to each other. At the very least they were all of the same flock or what the quarians would have called a clan.

Confused about the stark lack of anything related to her favorite male turian, Tali sought out her favorite female turian.

"Look Tali, I'm only going to tell you this because we're so close and you're dating Garrus. You're practically an honorary turian so I guess it's okay if I let you know something that turians don't tell nonturians. It goes without saying that you don't tell anyone. Not even Adrian.

So you know how every society has jobs that need to be done and that no one wants to do? We call them the Thanked. They are technically levelless citizens of the Hierarchy while they are performing that job. And before you ask I have no idea what those jobs are, Dad wouldn't tell me. I'm not sure even he knows because I tried looking myself and couldn't find anything about them. Dad just told that Garrus was a Thanked while he was in the Army. Which basically means he didn't exist. At least not in public record.

But Thanked don't exactly broadcast that they were one once. And if a turian finds out that another turian was a Thanked, then you're just supposed to say 'thank you' and carry on like you never knew. They've supposedly given up far more than most, so letting them live their lives in peace is the proper social interaction."

"You said he was in the Army?" Tali asked.

"Yeah, that's what he always says when he talks about his service days. Or Army days as he calls them. All the Vakarians go to the Army. Family tradition to serve in the MPs after all."

"Unless you're dancing."

Solana laughed. "Unless your dancing. But I'm still technically part of the Army. Special Services remember?"

Tali took the information and ran it through her head a few times after she had left the Vakarian residence that evening. For her 22nd birthday Garrus most certainly had worn a Navy Commander's dress uniform. Tali had had to look up the branch and rank afterwards. That night she only knew that he had more medals and stripes than any of the other military suitors that had shown up to the dance floor. He had also been rather distractingly handsome in that uniform.

Something about that didn't sit right with Tali. Between Garrus being in the wrong branch's uniform and the fact that he had been a Thanked, Tali felt like she had missed out on a large part of his life. Well she had, not having been born until he was 20. Maybe it was the fact that finding this sort of thing out about Garrus made her realize she might not know him as well as she thought she did. Yes that was it.

So Tali rededicated herself to learning about her Garrus. It made her feel a little bit giddy, trying to learn new things about him. Not that she didn't already know a lot about him. They had been in a sort of relationship since she was 17 after all. 5 years is a long time to get to know someone. Granted some of the more intimate things were more recent. Like the scarring on his body or the fact that he had lost all feeling in the scarred areas. He hadn't lost any functionality so he considered himself to have no lasting damage.

And he was just as stubborn as she was. That she knew. He refused to take her money on just about everything they did together. He also took his coffee plain and at room temperature. He loved fishing and the outdoors in general. When he was annoyed his right mandible would twitch just a little bit. And he could do a lot of party tricks with his talented tongue.

Now all turians had long forked tongues. All turians were quite adept at using said tongues for things that required fine motor skills. While the turians did have hands, they also have rather sharp talons on their fingertips. It's only with the rise of civilization on Palaven that clipping down talons allowed the hands to be used for what most species would assume them to be used for. But due to their fine motor skills, in combination with length and rough texture, turians were supposedly extremely gifted in pleasuring partners orally.

Not that Tali knew whether or not that was true. But that was one of the things she did get ribbed about from the female staff. Or those that were close enough to rib the boss and get away with it. Jane naturally was at the forefront of the good natured jokes. However that was par for the course. The onetime Liara chipped in though everyone shifted their attention from the young quarian to the young asari.

"Turians are really the best at that."

The giggles and light laughs all stopped as the break room's occupants stared at Liara.

"What? I can show up in the papers on Jane's arm 7 times and no one says anything but having an opinion on a matter pertaining to sex is shocking?"

Tali just sat back and laughed quietly to herself. On the plus side of things, everyone was now needling the suddenly brave Maiden. On the down side, Tali had a pretty good idea who the turian that might have introduced Liara to those wonders could be. At least if the papers could be believed.

Whatever possible complications that might add to her life in the future, Liara and Jane showing up in the papers was a good thing. They were building up towards a romance between the pair on the show and Tali liked to see that her actors got along. It helped with their onscreen chemistry after all. With Tali mentally bracing herself for whatever future catastrophe Liara and Jane might cause her, Tali never even considered that Garrus would be the one to throw a wrench into things.

She was taking a break from her usual mountains of paperwork about almost nothing, choosing to spend her time watching Garrus work on a scene. Of course she had worked with him before, having acted in scenes with him but it was a nice and relaxing change of pace to watch him. And not through a thick pane of glass whilst in a very hot environmental suit that was her "work" outfit. Tali definitely preferred the simple but smart blue business suit she had on. It made her look professional and helped with deflecting away from her young age. Never mind that she was a quarian, only the single best species at anything related to money.

And the two inch heels helped. She was already tall to begin with, at 6'2" she usually could look over just about anyone she did business with. Adding the extra two inches only added to her ability to look down at people and intimidate them. Which was handy in a business meeting. Standing up, hand spread wide as she planted on the table and loomed towards her adversary of the day, was usually enough to get the message across that they weren't going to pull one over her just because she was young. Granted it wasn't a tactic that she always used or worked, but more often than not taking that high power stance did smooth out deals rather nicely.

Of course that was all just a side effect and bonus to the real reason she wore those heels. He was 6'6" in his bare feet. 6'7" in his boots. It was entirely stupid but that one inch net gain made a world of difference to her. It was one less inch she had to haul him down when she wanted a kiss. That and she was sort of used to being the tall one. Solana was only 5'8", Jane was tall for a human at 5'10", with Liara fitting in the middle at 5'9". Hell, Executor Vakarian was only 5'6" so Tali wasn't exactly sure where Garrus found that extra foot of height.

And the two inch heels had been settled upon because anything more were murder on her back and ankles. And damn near impossible to walk in. But they did make her legs and ass look great. And she knows that he definitely noticed when she started to wear heels. She's been known to slowly walk away whilst adding an extra little swing to her hips. Usually gets half the crew distracted when she does that but that low growl coupled with an even lower subharmonic usually gets everyone right back to work real quick.

So Tali was watching Garrus work as a means of unwinding. He had made it very clear in the past she was never going to get to see him work a murder scene at his "real job". Even Adrian had stone walled her on that, one of the very few things he had successfully denied her. So Tali settled for watching him work where he couldn't tell her no. He was a good actor, for someone without any training. He took direction and criticism well all while maintaining this aura of self assuredness and calm command. The only time he ever argued back was when he would point something out as being wrong or inaccurate and then someone would have to explain why they did things that way. Usually because it looked better on TV. Garrus would then usually shrug and then things would move along.

The one area he would not just shrug at was when it came to C-Sec. It was partly out of pride and partly because it was in his job description. He was there to make sure C-Sec looked accurate and more importantly good. That was how Tali had gotten him there in the first place. And the director and producers hated him, and by proxy her, for it. Even if it was just a background bit of set dressing Garrus made sure it was correct. On the days he wasn't acting Garrus was usually making the lives of some poor assistants to one of the producers miserable.

On that day Garrus had been acting with Jane and Liara and was just wrapping up. Tali was infinitely thankful because that meant her day was over and she could have a nice quiet evening cuddled into Garrus' side. She greeted him with a warm smile as she got her customary peck on the cheek. Then she buried herself in his embrace, nettling her head under his and resting her cheek against the hard shell of his breastplate. It was firm and cool to the touch but she could feel and faintly feel that low soft rumble of his subharmonics. It was that special sound he used to show her just how happy he was. So it was a surprise to Tali when that sound abruptly stopped and changed into a much more loud and surprised noise.

Hearing a turian squawk is quite something. Hearing that squawk come from the most calm and collected turian most people knew was definitely a surprise. Tali pulled back enough to cast a surprised look at Garrus and to see where he was looking. In the back of her mind Tali was keenly aware that the cast and crew, who usually cleared out pretty quick at quitting time, was going about their clean up tasks rather slowly. However was mind was mostly preoccupied with the two turians who had walked down from the audience bleachers.

Both were young. Around her age she would guess. Maybe older. Dressed in Navy dress uniforms and both wore lieutenant ranks. One a full and a junior. The senior of the two looked rather nervous. But it was the junior one that seemed to hold Garrus' attention and to whom Tali focused hers.

And she wished that she hadn't. Oh there were other features mixed in but she knew a Vakarian when she saw one. She was sure her breathing picked up as her mind went spinning at the implications. It only got worse once the younger turian spoke.

"Hi dad."

That would be when Tali fainted in Garrus' arms. When she awoke it was on the couch in her office with a very worried Jane and Liara fussing over her. And she didn't know it at the time but Mass Effect was going to do without their resident turian for a while.

A/N: Yup still no internet as of this writing. Plus, you know, life gets in the way. I didn't quite make the 5k mark I set as a goal for this chapter but it's at a natural stopping point. Next up, we get to find out what Garrus did to be a Thanked. And maybe why he and Tali haven't done it yet.