The Show Must Go On (Thanked)
Garrus was very glad that Tali had been in his arms when she fainted. He caught her no problem and wondered only briefly where Jane and Liara had come from so quickly. They took the quarian from his arms but didn't go far. They were shooting dirty looks at the two turians. The nervous one only seemed to get more nervous and the one who had spoken looked rather alarmed.
"Son. You got promoted." Garrus said in way of greeting.
"Yeah. Passed the Navigator's Exam last week. Was going to write but I found out my ship was coming to the Citadel. Thought it would be a nice surprise. Um. Sorry about that." The younger Vakarian gestured towards the three ladies nearby earning himself scornful looks from the two conscious ones. He had the good grace to shrink back a little.
"I take it this isn't a social call." Garrus said nodding to the nervous lieutenant.
"No. Officially he's the delivery boy but my captain thought it might be better if I came along too."
"Why does that not instill me with confidence? Lieutenant. Report!" The barked order seemed to snap the quaking lieutenant out of his nerves because he snapped to attention and spoke with a clear and steady voice.
"Lieutenant Stratos reporting, sir! The Office has requested that you be collected so that you may perform a hunt, sir! Lieutenant Vakarian and I are to escort you to the ship immediately, sir!"
"Orders." Garrus said before being handed a black envelope. He opened it and scowled. It was genuine. He had hoped that maybe one of his buddies were playing a really sick and cruel joke on him. His birthday was coming up after all. This sort of thing would be right up their twisted alley.
"I'm retired." Garrus said flatly causing both the younger turians to shift uneasily. "Let me guess, you were sent to help convince me go along and in case that didn't work, help drag me in, kicking and screaming?" Garrus leveled a gaze at his son.
"Those were our orders." The younger Vakarian said with a shrug. The older lieutenant paled a little and went back to his quiet shaking. Garrus wondered if Stratos had any idea of his resume or was just terrified of him because he was a Thanked.
"Spirits Leto." Garrus cursed. He read the orders again and cursed again. In theory he could turn down the assignment. But the bounty was triple the usual meaning the Office really wanted this guy. And Garrus had heard of him through the grapevine. Real piece of work. Galaxy be a better place without him in it.
"Alright alright. Give me a minute to say goodbye. We also have to swing by my place to pick up some things."
Garrus walked over to where Jane, Liara and Tali were. They had laid Tali out on the floor, and Liara had offered up her lap as a pillow while Jane had hovered protectively.
"Look, tell her I'm sorry I'm leaving on such short notice. Tell her... Tell her I'm going fishing. Exclusive offer. Limited time sort of thing. Tell her it's that noodling thing we read about."
Liara just stared at Garrus with wide eyes. Jane mirrored her only she managed to blink. The pair watched Garrus go marching off with the two other turians in tow. Off the edge of the stage they both heard something that chilled their bones and completely shifted how they viewed the big softy of a homicide detective.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Garrus lead the two lieutenants off the sound stage. He had just gotten done telling Stratos why they had been sent to get him and Garrus was sure that the poor man was shaking even more. For all the stories about turian nerves of steel under pressure Stratos was a fine reminder that the overwhelming vast majority of turians weren't in combat arms. And thus expected to have those fabled nerves of steals.
Garrus turned his thoughts to the other turian walking with him. Leto. Or more accurately Garrus Leto Vakarian XXXI. But given the long life span of a turian, the family had long ago decided to alternate names as it were. It lessened confusion at larger family functions. So there was his grandfather Garrus, his father Leto, him Garrus, and his son Leto.
"So. Was that her?" Leto asked.
"Yeah."
"I take it she didn't know about me?"
"Yeah" Came the uneasy reply. Tali turning 22 didn't magically mean everything was alright in his crazy life. Garrus still had a huge load of baggage he had to slowly work through with her. Plus whatever she brought to the table as well. Part of that being that he had a son. Who was older than she was.
"She looked a bit on the young side. Tall though."
"You're a year older." Garrus said answering his son's indirect question.
That caused the younger Vakarian to actually stop walking for a moment before he lengthened his stride to catch up.
"Wow, okay then."
Garrus only grunted in reply. There was a heavy silence that settle amongst the group. They made it to the Vakarian residence where he went to his room and put a few things into a duffle bag. And grabbed his rifle case he kept in the back corner of his closet. He paused a moment and wondered if he should clear part of his closet out. Give her some room to put some things so she didn't run off in the mornings so early. But that unbidden thought was quickly banished. He would have so much damage control to do once he got back, he'd be lucky if she was there at all.
He sent off a quick message to his father explaining that duty called and that is why he wasn't at work at C-Sec. His dad would let his captain know and everything would be taken care off. Though unusual, it wasn't unheard of for turians to be called back into service for a mission now and again. Especially if someone was a career man who had done 20+ years. That sort of service record meant they had a lot of experience to handle tricky situations.
Which is why Garrus was being called into the Office as it were. The Office was the branch of the Hierarchy that handled everything Thanked related. If it sounded unturian, then it fell under the Office's jurisdiction. Like assassinating a pirate king who could no longer be controlled through bribes and threats.
Turns out some pirate had managed to actually organize a sizable fleet and was using said fleet to raid shipping lanes. Normally this sort of thing was handled by local Navy elements but the self proclaimed 'pirate king' had taken over Alpha, a hollowed out asteroid base. And on that base were some pretty heavy shielding and big guns. Big enough to keep most ships away. So if the pressure got a little too hot, the pirates just holed up for a bit to let the heat die down. The Office was tired of the cycle and wanted Garrus to make it stop.
The plan was simple enough. Infiltrate the most retched hive of scum and villainy this side of the Horse Head Nebula, shoot the bastard and get out. Ideally the king's death would cause a power vacuum and the infighting would lessen the piracy on the shipping lanes.
Of course, even with his scars he was recognized almost immediately. Turns out Mass Effect was a big hit out here. Even better, the pirate king was a huge fan. That made it easy get close to him. Made it easy to gain his confidence. Turned the simple 3 day operation into a month long one. That's how long Garrus worked the guy until he felt there were no more secrets to glean. Only then did Garrus finally shoot the bastard. After having gotten all the information he needed to completely dismantle the entire pirate network and passed it along.
But nothing ever goes according to plan. Garrus spent a week running around Alpha. The last 3 days were spent holed up in a small compound fending off wave after wave of mercs. Turns out the pirate king was sort of a popular guy with his lieutenants. And said lieutenants were hell bent on exacting revenge on Garrus for taking out their boss.
And it wasn't just wave after wave of savage snarling salarians. There were some vocha, the odd krogan who took forever to go done, a few lost and angst filled asari with their biotics, a couple of big nasty mechs, and even a military gunship complete with Gatling gun and missiles. It had not been fun taking that down.
But the extraction team finally showed up and whisked him away. Counting travel time to and from Alpha, Garrus was gone 7 weeks.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Liara and Jane managed to move their friend off the floor and to her office. Both of them being biotics made the task much easier than it would have otherwise been. Tali was no small thing after all. Both were still rattled by what they had heard and were arguing over whether or not Tali had the right to know when the quarian in question woke up.
"... right to know. She's sleeping with him for Goddess' sake."
"Who's sleeping with who know?" Tali asked groggily.
"You're sleeping with Garrus." was the terse reply from Jane before the redhead realized that the unconscious redhead was now awake. "That's not a valid reason. Everyone has their secrets."
Tali flushed purple. No matter how many times Jane teased her about that Tali couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed. She wasn't embarrassed about sleeping with Garrus. She was rather fond of it actually, even if all they did was make out a little and then actually sleep. Tali just felt that was a private matter. Quarians didn't talk about such things in public and neither did turians. Humans and asari had a much more drell aligned view on sex and anything related to it. Everything was game and thus open to discussion.
"Erm, well. Yes I am. How, how is that relevant? And how did I end up in my office?"
"After you fainted we brought you here. Nearest couch big enough to hold you." Liara answered waving her hand at Tali who was laid out on said couch. "And yes everyone has their secrets but this is too big to be kept secret. Besides a healthy relationship shouldn't have secrets. Not like that."
"He can lie. You have any idea what that means? He lied straight to our faces and told us to do the same to her! Clearly whatever he does is meant to be kept secret."
"Who lied?" Tali asked, a little annoyed that one of her previous questions had been ignored. But Liara and Jane were arguing and Tali could tell it there had to be something else at work here. Whatever they were worked up about was just the surface of it. Something else was fueling the argument and this was just the most convenient outlet.
"Doesn't matter. I still say we tell her what we heard. And I'm telling Brown. She's his sister, she definitely has the right to know."
Jane bristled at that and glared at Liara. "You don't even tell your sister everything." Jane gave a hard short laugh. "You haven't even told her we're not just fucking. Or that you're also fucking Solana. Why should Solana know about this?"
Tali watched as it was Liara's turn to become a lovely shade of dark blue. "Who I see is not my sister's concern. And it's Solana's concern when her brother does something dangerous for a living."
"We don't even know what his job entails!"
"All right that's enough!" Tali said cutting off whatever Liara's reply was going to be. Tali had grown tired of listening to the lover's quarrel and she wanted to know what had set them off. "If it involves Garrus I demand to know about it. Just tell me word for word what he said and what happened and I will draw my own conclusions. Then you two can go back to fighting with each other." Tali didn't like putting on her 'boss voice' with people she considered friends but they had gotten so into their argument they weren't answering her questions.
"So what happened after I fainted." Tali turned to Liara since Liara seemed to be the one that wanted to tell her things.
Jane glared at Liara for a moment before throwing up her hands in the air and sitting down on the couch next to Tali. Liara moved to the couch as well, sitting on the other side of Tali.
"He asked us to tell you that he was going on an exclusive time limited fishing trip. Noodling he said, though I'm not sure what that means. But he was clearly lying, Tali. What military in any species offers fishing trips to retired members?"
"At least start at the beginning." Jane muttered from behind Tali. The quarian watched as Liara's normally pleasant features contorted themselves into a scowl that was directed at the human behind her.
"Fine. After you passed out, Garrus spoke with his son. Or at least he called him 'son' and they had some idle small talk. Something about a promotion. Then the other turian gave Garrus this black envelope and said something about 'the office wanting him to perform a hunt.' Then he told us to lie to you. And when they were leaving the sound stage he told the other two turians 'hunting implies a chance at failure. I don't hunt, I kill.'"
Tali nodded and leaned back against the couch to absorb it all. It also meant she was no longer blocking Jane and Liara's views of each other and they went straight back to glaring at each other.
It was a lot to take in but Tali thought she had a basic grasp of what had happened. She'd go home and be stressed out about it later but right now she had to iron out a few things with Jane and Liara.
"Okay here is what is going to happen. You can tell Solana if you want to. If you don't I will. She deserves to know that her brother has been taken away on some clandestine mission for the Hierarchy. Now I'm not sure exactly what his job is but I do know two things. First off, he is good at it and secondly you are not to talk to anyone about it. I'm dead serious." Tali leveled an even look at either woman beside her.
"He is something that the turians call 'the Thanked.' Apparently his job was so shitty that no one in turian society is suppose to ask him about it ever. If anyone does figure out what his job was, you are just supposed to say thank you and then never ever bring it up again. Those are the rules and that is how we are going to handle it. All right?" Tali only got curt nods in reply.
"Good now go home and cool off. I will see you both after the weekend." Tali waited until they were on their feet and headed towards the door. "And guys, whatever it is you are really fighting about, you should talk it out. Trust me when I say it's a lot less painful that way. Feelings won't be hurt as much. If you want I could mediate or you can just talk to me in private too. And thanks for taking care of me."
Tali only got a pair of nods again and she watched as the human and asari left her office. Once their footsteps faded Tali got out her omnitool and dialed up her turian sister.
"Hey Brown." Tali said by way of greeting.
"Brown?" Solana asked, her tone clearly curious.
"Yeah, Liara called you that. She and Jane were having a big spat over something. Just so you know."
"Oh Spirits. It's because of my fringe color." Solana explained. "I'm Brown, Jane is Red, and Liara is Blue."
"Ah."
"So what's up? You usually don't call unless something unpleasant happened."
"Your nephew came by and his dad off on a 'fishing trip.'" Tali tried her best to keep her tone from being angry. Detached and aloof was the best she could do.
There was a pause on the other end of the line followed by a string of turian and quarian swearing. "Oh Tali I'm so sorry you found out this way. You know I would have told you but it wasn't my place. And I honestly haven't thought about him in years until recently. Garrus told me he was going to tell you soon. Like this month soon."
A tight tension that Tali didn't even realize had been there eased a little in her chest. Solana had never lied to her and Tali had no reason to believe that she ever would. Granted Garrus had never lied to her either. Technically he hadn't lied to her, he merely asked Liara and Jane to lie to her for him but the point remained. Right now though she was taking that new lying Garrus and putting him in a little box in the corner of her mind to be dealt with later.
"Where are you? Do you want me to come over?" Solana asked.
"No. I'm at the studio office anyway. I just wanted you to know that Garrus is gone. You should let your folks know. And Jane and Liara were sort of there for that and they got into a huge fight over something. You should probably help sort that out as I think you are involved. Oh and I told them about Garrus being a Thanked but you might want to remind them to shut up about it."
"Okay, I'll let Mom and Dad know about Garrus. And thanks for the heads up."
"And sis?"
"Yeah."
"Listen, I know we don't really talk about relationships much but just promise me you know what you're doing with those two."
"Tali..."
"I just don't want you to get hurt."
"I'm a big girl. And I've been doing this for far longer than you I'll have you know."
"I worry because I care."
"I know. I have to go but sis?"
"Mmm?"
"Love you."
"Love you, bye."
Tali just left herself slump again the couch and let her mind go blank for a little bit. Today was really a huge overload of information and she didn't want to really process it all yet. All she wanted was a nice dinner date with Garrus, then to strip down to her nightie and cuddle next to him while she read a good book. And then go to sleep being spooned by him. Was that really too much to ask?
Instead she went home for dinner which surprised her brother Adrian. What with their father gone most of the time and their mother off doing who know what, he was sort of used being alone on that night of the week. Not that he wasn't happy to have his sister's company.
Adrian proved to be a good distraction. Tali told him that Garrus had been taken away for a business trip unrelated to C-Sec. That wasn't a lie but it wasn't the truth though Tali wasn't sure of what the truth was herself.
It felt nice having an evening catching up with her little brother. They played a board game to pass the time and just chatted about whatever came to mind. They talked a little business, discussed how their various capital ventures were doing, the stock market's latest upswing, and wondered if they were see their father before their mother's birthday that year. They wondered just what their mother did with her time as they never saw her. Neither parent had been around much as they grew up and were around even less the older they got. Now that Tali had finished her apprenticeship and Adrian was mostly done with his, they hardly ever saw either one of them. This despite the fact both of them still lived at home.
Eventually though the siblings called it a night and retired to their respective bedrooms. There, without Adrian to distract her, Tali was forced to sit down and sift through the day's events.
Whatever Garrus' job was, it was dangerous and had a high probability of him killing someone. That thought really didn't sit well with Tali. Both because it was dangerous and because she had a hard time thinking of Garrus capable of being someone that could end someone's life. He could be tough yes, intimidating, and scary even. But somehow she never thought him capable of killing. He boasted a perfect record at C-Sec for having been in shoot outs and never having killed anyone in any of those. Wounded yes but it was always a shot to the leg or arm that incapacitated the perp so they could be arrested. His aim was that good. He was also the reigning shooting champ with long guns at C-Sec.
More disturbing was the fact that he asked people to lie for him. Turians just don't do that. They don't lie and they don't ask others to lie for them. Omit the truth, sure. Give half answers and dance around the truth, most definitely. But if asked point blank a turian would not lie. And she was going to ask him point blank where he went. Somehow though, Tali got this sickening feeling Garrus would look her dead in the eyes and lie. If any turian could do it, it would be her Garrus and that frightened her. It frightened her because that meant he might have lied to her in the past and...
Tali stopped that line of thinking. As uneasy as she was feeling right now, she had to trust him and she did. Clearly he had told the girls to lie to her in some ill conceived notion that he could protect her from his former job. As if she didn't know he had had a former job. Then it struck her. He didn't know that she knew he was Thanked. She'd have to tell him when he got back. Oh she'd still make him apologize for lying and asking Liara and Jane to lie for him. And he was going to have to promise to never do that again. The lying part at least. She was fairly sure she couldn't make him promise never to run off because of old work. And she didn't want to have him make her a promise he couldn't keep.
She was going to make him divulge any more shocking information he might be hiding. A son, really? And he looked around her age. One would think, that in the 8 years she had known the family and more importantly him, that would have come up. Except that it never did. Why would it? She never asked if Garrus was ever married, or had kids. Hells, she never asked about his past. He just sort of gave her information about it in these spurts and Tali just had gotten used to them. And according to Solana, the whole having a son was on deck to be talked about soon.
Tali sighed. Solana. She really did love her sister to death but the last year had been sort of a rough one when it came to her. Tali wasn't a prude. She wasn't really. She had just taken a different road than Solana. The whole being a young teen star, at least in dancing circles, is that the public sexualized her. Made her into this object to either be fantasized about or idolized. And she'd done a little fighting back against that image in terms of being idolized. She could talk to or write other dancers who put her up on that pedestal. The creeps that fantasized about her as a sex object though, those she tried not to let get to her.
But try as she might she couldn't get away from it growing up. Sometimes she'd see a piece of mail that accidentally managed to pass through the screening process. Or someone would get her email and send her either a terrifying email about what they wanted to do to her. Or send pictures of their junk. What was up with that? Either way she'd change emails and try to block out all the perversion. And she knows it colored her thinking. How could it not? Part of her wanted it to be romantic like in the books she read or in the movies or on TV. And part of her was afraid. Deeply truly afraid that she wouldn't live up to the hype about her.
She knew that was stupid. Letting what other people thought about her affect her thinking. But years of even indirect exposure to that sort of toxicity had a way of getting to a person. So Tali was afraid that somewhere along the line Garrus might have heard some of the sick things said about her. He must have now that Tali thought about. Why else would he be so passive with her in bed? Either he was being the sweetest guy in the universe and letting her set the pace of things or she had failed already and he was just stringing her along.
Ugh. Tali wanted to scream in frustration but that would wake up Adrian and have him burst into her room to see what the matter was. Well Adrian and about 5-6 security guards. Part of Garrus' charm was that he made her feel so safe. She could do anything with him even if it was clumsy and she had no idea what she was doing. She still felt like he wasn't going to judge her and he certainly wasn't pressuring him for anything. Maybe her supposed reputation as a sex pot hadn't reached his ears then.
Tali shook her head to clear it. She shouldn't go jumping to conclusions. She should follow the advice she gave Jane and Liara and talk to Garrus about this. Well this and a few other items. They really had to have a sit down and talk about their relationship. Tali wondered if she shouldn't corner her sister and talk to her about her relationship with Liara and Jane.
While Tali had chosen not to engage in living up to being a sex pot idol, Solana sort of embraced it in their teenage years. There were a lot of random guys that Tali knew about. There was some drug use at one point but Tali had stepped in and made Solana cut that out before it got too bad. Same with alcohol. Might be legal under turian law but she wasn't going to watch her sister drown herself in a poor attempt at escaping the world. As it was Solana sort of gained a real reputation of being an easy lay. It didn't seem to bother her any and Tali knew for a fact that Solana had encouraged that reputation in their teenage years. Now though, Tali thought her sister was burning out a little. She most definitely had burned out on the male gender.
Tali wasn't sure exactly when Solana had switched teams as it were but she only found out because she had walked in on Solana and her date one day. Tali just hoped that Solana slowed down and didn't burn out on women as well. Personally she thought that Solana had given up on finding a man that would love her for her, not for being an easy roll in the hay.
So Tali was rather concerned about whatever was going on between Solana and Jane and Liara. She knew that Solana and Jane were fucking. She knew that Solana and Liara were fucking because Jane said so. She strongly suspected that Jane and Liara were also fucking. At the very worst they were a triangle of sex friends. Somehow though, Tali didn't think they were all just friends. Friends don't fight like she saw Liara and Jane fight. Tali just wondered where that left Solana.
Was her sister just a third wheel or was it a true love triangle?
-0-0-0-0-0-
Garrus was glad to spend the time he did with his son. Truth be told he was a terrible dad. Decent father, but terrible dad. He didn't really know his own kid but he tried damn it. He sent letters and talked to him over the extranet once a month. Thankfully Leto was very understanding and accepted how things were and loved his father. That's all Garrus could really hope for and he was happy with that. Given the circumstances, Garrus knew just how lucky he was that his son wanted to interact with him at all.
Garrus had been picked up practically out of Basic and sent straight to the Office. His shooting accuracy is what got him noticed and why he got given that job in the first place. It was there he learned how to be a bad turian. How to cheat, steal, fight dirty, and most importantly lie about it. He learned how to hack into computer systems and how to think on his feet. He learned how to kill people with a myriad of items. He learned how to be an assassin and he was a damned good one. His specialty was long ranged sniping but he could get the job done in almost any imaginable manner.
He didn't keep track of the number of missions he did. Partly to distance himself a little from his work and partly because he had honestly lost track. And partly because number of missions did not equate kills. There could be multiple targets on any given mission and there were always additional bodies that got in the way. Most security guards.
And he did all this being the favorite pet of one of the higher ups. Ceto, had a habit of taking new recruits and making them into pet projects of hers. She really enjoyed breaking them in, in all ways. When an older lady picks you up, you just sort of go with it. Or so Garrus had thought back then.
So Ceto showed Garrus the ropes. How the Office worked, how to be a good assassin/spy, how to be her perfect toy in the bedroom. It did help his advancement. He climbed the ranks fairly quickly. Not too quickly to draw attention but just a little faster than his peers did. Somewhere along the way she got pregnant. Given that turians have a mating season during which is the only time females can get pregnant, one would have thought this sort of thing could have been avoided. But he had been gone a while and they had gotten carried away and forgot the condom.
At first Garrus was sort of happy about it. She could retire, and once he finished up his mandatory 8 years he could get out and they could be a happy little family together. Oh how wrong he had been. She wanted nothing to do with the egg after it was laid. Garrus didn't have the means nor stability in his life to care for it so he did the only thing he could do. He sent it to the Vakarian flock compound on Palaven. His aunts and uncles and other relatives took care of it for him, and the chick that inevitably hatched out from it. That's what family is for after all.
He almost every cent he made back home. His family might be raising his kid but they were doing it on his dime. And he tried to visit when he could but it wasn't easy. Things soured between Ceto and himself and she made his life miserable. And he just sort of took it. He didn't have an out. Not really. He need the money for his son, and she was far too high on the chain of command for him to be able to escape her.
So she kept on using him as she had before and he hated every moment of it. Every touch, caress, and climax felt dirty and vile to him and he knew that she knew that. He was pretty sure it was part of what got her off. His only saving grace was the fact he was good at his job. The 3 'happy' years he had had with Ceto and the favoritism she had shown him had gotten others to notice him too. This afforded him some measure of protection as others higher up the chain took to using him for their operations.
He earned a reputation for being solid and it got him promotions. By the time he done his 20 years and could retire at half pay he had made Commander. It was strictly for pay reasons only. He never went to any leadership schools that one would have normally gone to in the command ranks. Still he got to wear the uniform and people just assumed he was a Commander. He wasn't going to correct them.
Garrus had only stayed in those 16 grueling years since his son's egg was laid solely for the benefits it afford him. The Office did have an outstanding benefits package for its members and their family as long as the member was still an active one. Once they retired those benefits only applied to the former member. They still got normal military benefits that extended to the family but it was a step back from Office benefits.
Once Leto turned 15 and went off to Basic, Garrus finished out his 20th year and moved as far away as he could from Ceto. Leto, bless his heart, had sort of figured out that his dad loved him but couldn't be around much because of his job. By the time Leto went to Basic, he understood that now his father was changing jobs, only this time Leto was the one that wouldn't be home because of his job. It was unfair but that was how life was and Leto had taken it in stride. Not to say he didn't rebel in his own fashion. Just as his father hadn't gone to the Military Police, he didn't either. That's why he ended up as a Navigator. On top of that he managed to earn a commission. Garrus had been so proud.
The trip going to Alpha had been a good chance for them to spend time together and they had a good time with it. The trip back was hell though. Being chased around an asteroid for a week leaves one with very little time to sleep. Being holed up in a compound for 3 days leaves one with even less time to sleep. So Garrus had been forced to use combat stims, something he swore he was done with when he retired.
Combat stimulations, either in pill or injection form, were wickedly powerful drugs. They numbed pain, dampened appetites, and just straight up made you forget there was a thing called sleep. As long as you stayed hopped up on them, you could go a few weeks, or longer, so long as you remembered to eat and drink once in a while. And they were highly addictive. The crash though was just awful. The uncontrollable rapid breathing, shakes, agitation, short temper, constant thirst, vomiting, nerve pain, and general inability to sleep due to all of the above symptoms.
If one served in combat arms, chances were excellent that they had used combat stims at least once in their life. Chances were also good that if they had used it more than once they had been an addict. While turians generally are okay with people doing their own thing so long as it doesn't affect their work or other people, combat stim abuse is something the Hierarchy clamps down on. It's a dirty little secret not talk about with none turians. It's barely talked about between those in combat arms, let alone the larger population.
Combat stims are tightly controlled and give out on missions only. Even then there is a strict detox program that Garrus had done through when he retired. Mercifully, the captain of the frigate he was on didn't force that on him. They just more or less locked him in a sleeper pod for his safety as much as theirs. Being a raving ranting mess wasn't something he wanted his son to see him as, Garrus couldn't stop him from seeing him.
"Look dad, I know this isn't you, it's the job. So stop trying to hold it together so much. Look at it this way. Let it all out now so that by the time we make it back to the Citadel you've let most of the crazy out already, okay?"
-0-0-0-0-0-
He was gone for 7 weeks. He had missed 3 shows and was going to miss his 4th. Social media was abuzz with his 'disappearance.' Tali wasn't sure if she had made it better or worse when she released a statement saying that while Mass Effect hadn't killed off his character. Judging from the responses on the official forums, few people had bought that.
It was a welcome but torturous distraction, the extranet. It was sort of fun reading up all the crazy fan theories that tried to reconcile his absence from the show with the advancing plot. It was a real shame he missed the big Virmire episode. Partly to deflect attention away from him missing, and because Kaiden had relapsed and was going to have to do some jail time, Tali had given the go ahead to kill off his character. Garrus would have been perfect for giving that speech about holding the line to a squad of turians who were helping Jane that particular episode.
Some of the fan theories were quite good actually. One had him going all rogue and running off to be a vigilante. Another had him killed off by the mob because of a drug deal gone wrong. Another said he had run off to because a circus performer. But most seemed to agree he had simply gone back to the military for some reason.
At least that is what most of the fan fiction written about him said. Yes Garrus had fan fiction. Granted Tali had fan fiction written about her too. Everyone in the show did. It was nice to see actually. Most of it wasn't that great, but then again not everyone was a professional writer. And most of it was about Jane.
That was understandable. She was the big star of the show after all. But there was a pretty clear divide that was easy to see in the fan fiction. People either paired Jane Shepard up with Garrus, which was amusing to see, or stuck with the party line and paired her with Liara. They even had collective names; Shakarian vs. Shiara. Tali was considering ordering up shirts with Team Shakarian and Team Shiara written on them. They'd make a killing on those for sure.
The Shakarian stories were the more entertaining ones to read. The show had officially paired up Jane with Liara, so it was fun to see how the writers broke that particular bit of canon. Some did it quick and acted like it never happened, others really drew out the process and dug into the characters souls and made them agonize over it.
Which sadly, was sort or mirroring real life. Tali didn't know for sure if anything had happened between them after that weekend, but Liara and Jane were a little tense around each other. Friendly and polite but there was a hint of tension between them just buzzing under the surface. Oddly, it only seemed to help them given off sexual tension on screen, which was great, because their characters hadn't officially become a thing yet. They were just extremely heavily implied.
It was Liara who came to her first.
"Solana and I want you to talk to Jane for us."
Tali looked up from her paperwork, and just raised an eyebrow at Liara. The asari had become a common sight at the Vakarian household in the last 7 weeks. Tali knew that because she had become a common sight as well. More common that is. She'd taken to practically living in his room in a futile attempt to comfort herself in his absence. But in that time Liara had become a staple of the household as well and openly accepted by Solana's parents.
Tali wasn't exactly sure what sort of reaction she had been expecting when Solana finally told her parents that she was into girls. Executor Vakarian had merely nodded at the announcement and sat back as his wife Camilla did most of the questioning. It was all so benign too. How long those two had been going out, what Liara did for a living, who her parents were, did Garrus know?
With Liara now free to wander in and out of the Vakarian residence, she'd taken to spending a lot of time there. Most days Tali would commute to the studio with her. And Tali wasn't jealous. Out of the closet and practically living together in just 7 weeks? Meanwhile after 7 years all Tali got was one night a week and a chaste make out session.
Still, Tali did get to know the asari pretty well. Solana and Tali still did plenty of things together and Liara was very gracious about letting them have their time. Or she wouldn't have been if Solana hadn't made her join in. It was nice though to have another female friend. Not that they weren't friends before, but there was always this subtle barrier of Tali being the boss that kept Liara at bay. At the Vakarian's, that barrier just sort of disappeared, and Tali found that she liked that a lot.
So Liara was initiated into the ways of the Vakarian household and more importantly into Tali and Solana's sisterhood. And for the most part Liara fit right in. The only thing she found completely ridiculous, and she never wasted an opportunity to remind them of this, was the fact that Tali and Solana didn't talk about relationships with each other.
"I tell my sister everything! And she's half hanar! And 300 years older than me!"
Apparently, "That's just the way we are" doesn't count as a valid defense.
So when Liara came to Tali and said what she said, all Tali could do was raise her eyebrow at her. The asari knew better, and it irked Tali that Liara would lie to her.
"Okay fine but she is worried too. Jane won't return any of our calls at all now. Won't respond to emails, messages, or notes. She's not talking to any of our mutual friends either. We even wrote her a letter on real paper and had it hand delivered by a courier service. And she hasn't been in the paper in weeks, so Goddess only knows what she's been doing with herself." Liara said as she paced back and forth in front of Tali's desk.
"So why would she talk to me? Plus this would be stepping over a line Liara. I'm her boss, and yours, and I can't just go meddling into other people's lives. Even if 2/3rds of the equation are asking me to. Or 1/3rd as the case seems to be." Tali wondered if she needed to talk to Liara about being less, familiar, with her at work. At the Vakarians Tali really did enjoy that the boss-employee dynamic had disappeared but Liara had started to push things a little while at work. Maybe not though, Liara had had the good sense to at least talk to her in private after all.
"Brown is worried just as much as I am. And she would tell you herself if you two weren't so silly. We love her. Both of us, together. And we would have wanted nothing more than to have presented her to both our parents at the same time."
"Then why didn't you wait until this was all sorted out?" Tali asked leaning back in her office chair. Liara didn't look like she was going to leave soon so Tali abandoned her electronic paperwork.
"Because that was one of the things we were fighting about. Apparently you dual gendered species get all bent out of shape if the same genders date each other." Liara's presentation of Solana had gone swimmingly according to what Solana told Tali. Of course it had. She was ASARI!
"Right so what do you want me to do? Tell her that you two came out as a couple?"
"Yes! And we want to come out as a threesome with her."
Tali was still trying to wrap her head around that. They had made it work for some 6 months before this little break, so maybe they could make it work long term. Though Tali thought that maybe it was better this way. Every threesome she had ever heard of always ended in tragedy. Granted every threesome she'd ever heard of were from ancient tales or TV dramas. So morality tales and programs designed around relationship failure probably weren't the best sources of information.
"Ok, I'll talk to her."
Tali didn't do it at work though. If Liara and Solana wanted her to talk to Jane, she'd do it after work. Judging by the sad weary look, the human redhead was expecting her. Whatever Tali was expecting, this wasn't it. And she certainly hadn't been excepting Jane to ask if she would go somewhere with her. But Tali acquiesced. The conversation they were going to have was going to be awkward, so maybe it would be a little less awkward for Jane if she at least got to pick her battleground.
So they went in silence, taking public rapid transport down to the lower wards. From there they walked a few blocks away from the nicer areas near the circular center of the Citadel towards the dingier camped apartment blocks of the outer rings.
"I don't belong with them. They're so far out of my league." With that Jane opened up her apartment and held the door open to let Tali in. It was a shoebox. A very neat and tidy shoebox but it was a shoebox. That's the only way Tali could describe the tiny studio apartment she was looking at. There was a cot in one corner, a single plastic table with two plastic chairs in some semblance of a dining area. The bathing area was curtained off with a heavy show curtain, a single dresser and a few cubby holes with a few knickknacks in them.
"Yeah, this is where I live. Before you ask, all my money from the show went to partying and paying off old debts."
"So this is why you were so mad with Liara when she said you should have no secrets." Tali said as she took a seat in one of the plastic chairs. Tali liked to think she wasn't horribly spoiled but sitting in that little plastic chair was wracking her with guilt because she just felt so uncomfortable in it. Partly from the situation, and partly because it was cheap, stiff plastic. She thought she had a good handle on how the other 99.99% lived. Apparently not. She was so going to donate so much more this coming year to charities.
"This is one of them. So yeah. I'm broke, but what else is new?" Jane gave out a forced, harsh bite of a laugh as she flopped herself in the chair opposite Tali.
"Then why all the parties?"
"Publicity. Get my name out there. I wasn't sure how long your gig was going to last so I sort of wanted to enjoy myself a little bit."
Tali nodded. It made some sense though there would have been better ways to achieve those means. Less drinking and sleazy tabloids and more agents and interviews.
"I used to be a prostitute and dancer. And a drug addict. Liara and Solana don't need someone like that in their life."
"Solana is a dancer. I used to be one." Tali commented.
"Not a dancer like you. A strip bar dancer." Jane said with an exasperated sigh.
"Look Jane why are you telling me all this?"
"So you can tell them and they will realize they are better off without me. Plus Solana hasn't even come out of the closet yet. She shouldn't have to throw a three way relationship on top of that. Oh and look here."
Jane got up and went to the one of the cubbies and came back with a lavishly decorated blue envelope. She pulled out three sheets of creamy white paper, all of which had equally frilly and fancy bordering. One letter was in unified turian script, another in universal asari and the last was in human basic. Tali could only read the turian one but she'd hazard a guess they all said the same thing.
"They sent that to me two weeks ago. I have no idea what any of those say."
"This last one is in human ba"
"I can't read."
"What?" Was all Tali could manage.
"I didn't even finish middle school alright? All my teachers just passed me along until I just dropped out. Got noticed by a pimp and yeah." Jane just let her last sentence sort of fade away.
"You really should be telling this to both of them. They love you and miss you. Their worried about you."
Jane just snorted.
"Solana presented Liara to her parents. They were perfectly fine with it." Tali offered and immediately wished she hadn't. The look that Jane gave her was as if the quarian had just stabbed her in the heart.
"See? I drop out and they move forward." Jane said with a tight, forced smile that didn't even come close to reaching her eyes.
"They did it for you, you idiot." It was Tali's turn to be exasperated. This whole being the go between was turning out to be rather tedious. To stop herself from glaring at Jane, Tali just read the letter that was in turian. Well skimmed it really. It was your basic please stop hiding, come talk to us, we love you sort of letter.
"Just tell them I'm not worth it okay? And if they really loved me they would let me go."
"Alright, I will tell them but I am going to tell you that you are being an idiot. You really should sit down and tell them everything you told me. See how much they won't care about it. They aren't expecting you to be perfect Jane. No one is perfect. Everyone has baggage. You can't run away from your issues. You have to talk about them with your partner. S. Otherwise you just make everyone miserable, yourself included."
"One other thing Tali. I want off the show."
A/N: I always thought it was weird that they killed off Shepard in between ME1 and ME2 just to bring Shepard immediately. So I threw in my own reason as to why they would kill off Shepard. On the bright side of things, I found out I can use my phone as a wifi hot spot so I'm uploading the last two chapters I've written. Yay! So that's about 14k words for you just slogged through.