Chapter Five: Stolen

He stared down at the datapads on his desk, eyes flickering over the different results. When the screen would darken after idling for too long, his finger would reach out and tap it back awake. He did this for almost half an hour, one hand palming his chin as he thought while the other tapped on datapads.

Nothing was adding up.

He had spent almost a week on this investigation and there were no leads.

"Vakarian, you better take your lunch now. Otherwise you'll miss the chance."

He sighed, mandibles twitching inward at the annoying voice of his office mate, but pushed away from his desk nonetheless. Velio walked over beside him, pulling his drink up to his lip plates and slowly sipped while looking over the information Garrus had laid out.

"Any luck?"

Garrus shook his head, rubbing at his neck to lessen the stitch in it from being bent over for so long.

"I don't even know where to start, Velio. If I can't get my hands on the organs to test them, I can't discover their origin. Without that, I don't even know where to start. This guy is good. He's covered any paper trail there might be with firewalls and multiple credit accounts."

Velio patted Garrus' shoulder and then walked over to his own desk.

"Take your lunch. Come back at it with a fresh mind. It will still be here in an hour."

Begrudged, Garrus stands from his desk and walks into the break room. There he swipes his omni-tool over the employee time chits and takes his lunch break. Walking out of the offices, toward the front entrance to grab a transit cab and head to his apartment for something simple to eat, he paused as the doors opened.

"Shepard?"

She looked up from her hands, her fingers pausing as she froze.

He almost didn't recognize her.

Her long hair was cut short into a close crop, but a single braid hung just behind her ear, laying over her shoulder. It was the dark markings on her bare shoulders that made him recognize her, as well as the familiar scent that wafted through the air when she walked into a room.

They hadn't seen each other in months. Just as her note said.

"Hey, Vakarian," she said sheepishly, reaching a hand up to play with the small braid. "Just got back in from my mission. Thought I'd come say hello. I wanted to, uh…" She paused and coughed into her hand. "To thank you, for last time. That wasn't a good time for me and I…" she paused again, and he watched the knot in her throat bob as she swallowed.

"It's okay, you don't have to explain yourself." He brought up a hand and rested it on her shoulder. It took everything in her not to look up at him. "I, uh, read your file. The Akuze thing."

Her eyes closed. "Yeah. The Akuze thing," she echoed dryly and Garrus stabbed himself for the lack of emotion in mentioning such a horrific moment in the woman's life.

"And that came out horribly unsympathetic," he said, sighing to himself and dropping his hand. She smirked, amused.

"Were you going somewhere? I'm not interrupting you in the middle of a big case, am I?"

Thank the Spirits, she changed the subject.

"Actually, I was going to grab some lunch. Join me?"

Damnit, Vakarian. She can't eat dextro-foods. You're going to kill the girl.

"Yes!" she excitedly answered, before catching herself and toning down her vocal volume. "I mean, yes, I would love to. I'm starving. Literally just docked and I am going to get my fill on food that isn't a MRE."

"Good. That means you can catch me up on what you've been doing for the last few months, Shepard."

"Sorry, Vakarian, that's classified Intel."

"Has that ever stopped you before?"

Her smirk was answer enough.

"So, how long are you on leave?" he asked, opening his take-away box as he sat down on the small bench that they had chosen as their eating spot. Gave them a chance at privacy away from all the others. Turians and Humans weren't supposed to get along, let alone be seen eating together.

"Eight days. Then I'm being transferred to another company. Captain Peavy almost kicked me out of the Waterloo mid-transit earlier." Shepard chuckled to herself in amusement as she opened her own box and picked at a slice of… whatever it was that she was eating.

"This s going to sound very not-human of me but, what are you eating?" His mandible flicked in disgust and he made a small noise under his breath.

She laughed and pointed her fork in his direction, the tip painted dark red.

"I could ask you the same thing, Vakarian!" She held her own disgusted look, but he didn't take it for more than face value. "Seriously? Who eats blue noodles? And… why does it smell like wet cat food?"

"Oh, so now we've reached the point of insulting each other's food? An all-time low, even for you, Commander."

She laughed again. "If you must know, I am eating the Asari version of Kreatopita."

Garrus paused, giving her a look. She stuck her tongue out.

"I'm sorry, I think you'll have to repeat that, I think my translator fried. You're eating what?"

"It's called Kreatopita. My mother were Greek, a specific group of people on Earth, almost like your clans on Palaven. My parents were engineers. A few years before I was born they moved to a colony on Mindoir and…" She paused, throat catching and he heard it.

He knew about Mindoir. That wasn't too long ago, in fact…

He coughed softly, and it pulled her from whatever thoughts she may have tangled herself in; she looked up and smiled. While it didn't reach her eyes, he couldn't blame her.

"So, care to explain what you're eating?"

Garrus thrummed with amusement, and her hearing aids must have picked it up because her brow rose in question at the sound. His mandible twitched outward in a half smile.

"It's called Y-uzdretnfgpv-. It's a delicacy when you haven't had a home cooked meal in a few years."

She stuck a finger in her ear, and pulled her own confused look.

"Okay, my translator did fry that time. Wanna give it another go?"

He rolled his eyes, or at least tried. A few of the humans in C-Sec did the motion often, and it became a habit to do it as well. It started out as mocking them before he realized he did it a little too much on his own.

"It won't translate into anything you'll understand, which is why I was surprised I understood what you said.

"If you say so, Vakarian."

She brought her fork to her mouth and unloaded a fork load of her lunch, to which he did the same with his own meal.

They sat together in a comfortable silence, every now and then daring the other to try their food. He was certain Shepard would try his food, even with the risk of a horrible allergy attack if her body rejected the sustenance. He politely declined her every offer.

"Okay, so you've been really quiet and of all the little bit of time I've spent with you, you usually don't shut up."

He pulled a face. He didn't really talk that much… did he?

"Something's going on in that weirdly pointy head of yours and it's throwing off the fun vibe I'm trying to keep going for my shore leave. So spill."

Garrus sighed and set his box aside, no longer hungry.

"It's just this case I've been working on for over a week. I can't really release any details…" He paused at the look on her face. "I shouldn't release any details since it's still an open case, but I really need a second opinion on it."

"I'm all ears, Vakarian."

Garrus did his best to explain the case to the human. While he knew it went against about fifteen protocols that he could recite from memory, it was easing to know that he was not the only one burdened with the information of trying to crack the case.

"Do you have a way to contact one of the dealers?" she asked, pensively staring out over the Presidium. She had one hand up, fingers twirling her braid back and forth. He nods. Where was she going with this? "Why not go buy one of the organs yourself, undercover, of course, and then have the lab test it? I'm sure C-Sec has an unlimited amount of credits it can use for sting operations like that."

"They're not just going to sell a C-Sec officer a new liver, Shepard."

"Did you not hear me? I said undercover."

"I'll need a story. In case they ask questions."

"I'll go with you. We can pull the ol' 'this is my human lover who is dying please help her' story. Such a tragedy."

He hummed in disapproval. "They're not going to believe that. Turians and Humans hate each other."

"Which is why it'll be so much more believable! Star-crossed lovers who are losing their chance to be happy. Hell, maybe they'll even give us a discount."

Garrus sat and thought, going over every aspect he could, weight the options.

"You sure you want to be spending your shore leave helping me solve a case of black market organs?"

"I wouldn't have offered if I didn't want to. Besides, call this me paying you back for letting me sleep on your couch."

"And for vomiting in my cell."

"I gave you that credit chit!"

"The food wasn't that good when I went."

"Well that's not my fault."