As soon as the meeting fell apart, James Vega casually head to the kitchen, casually grabbed two protein bars, one levo and one dextro, and casually sat at a stool that had a view of the elevator so he could casually run into Vakarian. Vega opened the levo protein bar and took a bite. He chewed slowly, waiting for his mark. After a few minutes, Vega caught sight of the turian exiting the elevator. Just as Vakarian passed the counter, Vega waved the dextro protein bar in the air.

"Vakarian! I accidentally grabbed a dextro protein bar. You want it?"

Vakarian hesitated. He clearly wanted to just keep it moving and get back to his post. But social etiquette won out, and he accepted the snack. "Uh, thanks." He sat down opposite Vega and opened the wrapper. They ate in awkward silence until Vega decided to get to the point.

"You're not doing too good, huh?"

"Is it that obvious?" Vakarian's eyes darted around the room before settling back on him. Vega made a point to stare at the scabs along the side of Vakarian's head before resuming eye contact. He noted the slight contraction in the turian's pupils.

"The eyes, chico. They never lie." Vega took another bite of his protein bar. Between chews he continued, "But seriously man, you're hurting yourself. I know we're not like, close, or anything, but I know the signs of someone starting to lose it and you don't have your battle buddy to look out for you."

"My battle buddy?"

"You know, Shepard." Vega popped the last bit of his protein bar in his mouth before explaining. "I don't know how the turian military does things, but in the Alliance, every soldier is supposed to have a partner. You keep an eye on each other."

Vakarian squirmed in his seat. "Who's your battle buddy?"

"Cortez." Vega responded without hesitation.

"So…what are you suggesting?"

Vega grinned. "Instead of you hurting yourself, let's hurt each other. Come by my post and we'll box a few rounds."

Vakarian looked skeptical. "Is that really any better?"

"I know it sounds dumb, but I swear I'm not bullshitting you. It's a way more constructive outlet."

Vakarian was noncommittal. "Thanks, but I don't know if I'm up for it. Maybe. I'll think about it."

Vega stood up and threw his wrapper in the trash. "Alright. But when you're ready, I'll be in the shuttle bay."

Vega spent the afternoon cleaning every gun in the armory. He quickly fell into a flow state, disassembling, wiping, oiling, and reassembling. He thought to himself, the civilian crew could learn a thing or two from us grunts. Can't get antsy about what awaits you on Earth when there's always a gun to clean, boots to shine, and a uniform to press. And in the unlikely event everything is clean, there's always PT.

He was about to start working on the M-98 Widow when he heard Steve Cortez yell from his desk, "Vega! Your date's here."

Vega wiped his hands on a rag as he walked towards the front of the bay to greet Vakarian. "'Bout time!" He tossed the rag on a desk and slapped the turian's shoulder. "You got your mouth guard and gloves?" Vakarian raised a drawstring bag in his other hand. "Perfect, let's do this."

Both men set to work wrapping their hands. Vega was starting to wrap hand number two when Vakarian walked past him into the open area of the shuttle bay. "Hurry up, Vega. I'm waiting."

"You have fewer fingers than me, chill out."

"I think I'm going to ask Cortez to start the clock now and get the first hit in."

Vega just finished wrapping his hands and shoved them into his gloves. He sauntered over to Vakarian. "You wanna play games? Okay, I play with you. You wanna play rough?"

Cortez cut him off with exasperated groan. "Oh my God for the last time Vega, you are not Scarface! You will never be Scarface!"

Vakarian looked vaguely confused. "Is that some human thing I should know about?"

Vega smiled. After the hell that was the past week, he was finally starting to have some fun again. "Don't worry about it, baby. Time to dance." He turned to Cortez. "Seis minutos, por favor."

"Estoy en eso." Cortez didn't even look up as he set an interval timer on his computer.

Vega and Vakarian squared up and popped in their mouth guards. The timer buzzed and they tapped gloves. The two circled each other, getting a feel for each other's movements.

Vakarian threw out a few jabs, keeping Vega at arm's length. On the last jab, Vega stepped in with his own jab to Vakarian's face then reverse punch to the stomach. "Look man, you can use that reach all you want, just know I'm not that flexible." Vakarian looked mortified. "Yeah, that one made it around the ship." Vega stayed close to Vakarian and threw a couple more punches to his abdomen. "Don't get mad at Shep though. EDI had questions about some stuff she overheard before she got free reign."

"Spirits, just kill me," Vakarian muttered before uppercutting Vega in the chin. He used the opportunity to create just enough distance between himself and Vega that he could punch Vega, but Vega couldn't quite land a hard hit.

Vega was about to pay for being a smart ass. He proceeded to get pummeled by a series of punches to the head, punctuated with a sucker punch to the stomach.

Oh, come on. I can't get past his long-ass arms.

Running out of ideas, Vega threw a roundhouse kick into the side of Vakarian's thigh. The leg buckled, and for a fleeting moment, Vega thought he gained the upper hand. But then Vakarian straightened up and with the most condescending smile said, "Vega, you didn't tell me we were allowing kicks."

Fuck.

Vakarian promptly teep kicked Vega square in the chest, causing him to lose balance and fall on his back. As soon as Vakarian stepped in, Vega grabbed Vakarian's right ankle with his left glove and hooked Vakarian's left knee with his right leg. He threw up his left foot up into Vakarian's hip and pushed into it while pulling the turian's legs in. Vakarian fell.

Vega rose and mercilessly drove his knee across the inside of Vakarian's thigh to get into side control. Vakarian grunted in pain. He returned the favor by punching Vega in the ribs. Vega took the hit and continued into side control. But then he ran into a problem. Vakarian's fucking carapace meant that he couldn't be pinned with his back flat to the ground.

Fuck it, I'll just be quick about it. Vega decided to go for an Ezekiel choke.

Vakarian continued to punch Vega in the ribs. Vega put the bulk of his weight into driving his right knee across Vakarian's stomach. At the same time, Vakarian threw his hips up, preventing Vega from getting into mount.

Change of plans.

Vega grabbed Vakarian's right arm with both hands and dropped into a seated position. His right knee slid down so his foot was tucked under Vakarian's armpit. He threw his left leg over Vakarian's head, pulled himself as close to Vakarian he could, and yanked the turian's arm down into an armbar. Vakarian tapped the floor with his free hand.

Vega released him, and the two reset to their original standing position. Both of them bounced in their fighting stances. The moment they tapped gloves, they were back at it. Vega threw a hook at Vakarian's head. Vakarian caught Vega's arms and drove his forehead into Vega's sternum. The impact alone was enough to make Vega wheeze, but Vakarian wasn't done. He grabbed Vega's right arm, turned under it, and threw Vega across the room. Vega scrambled to get up as Vakarian closed in. Vega's eyes widened as Vakarian ran up to him. Vakarian jumped up in the air and sure as shit looked like he was about to give Vega the people's elbow when the timer rang. Instead, Vakarian pulled his arm back in and landed a squat next to him.

Thank fucking God.

Vakarian reached out his hand. Vega grabbed it and pulled himself up into a seated position. The two caught their breath as the rest timer ticked down. "You know, you're not bad for a cop," Vega said, his voice muffled slightly by the mouthguard.

"C-Sec pulls from the military," Vakarian corrected, voice equally garbled by his mouthguard.

"Ehh MP is still a cop."

"What's so bad about cops?"

"On Earth, the police force is generally made up of people who couldn't pass the psych eval to join the military."

"That sounds like an awful way to select law enforcement."

Vega smiled pleasantly. "It is." The timer buzzed again, signaling the start of the next round. "Switch to grappling?"

"Sure," Vakarian nodded. They used their teeth to rip the Velcro off their gloves and dropped them. They squared up again, wrapped hands cupping their faces.

"Absolutely not," Cortez looked up from his desk. "Put mats down if you're going to keep throwing your boytoy around."

"Fine," Vega rolled his eyes.

Cortez gave Vega a shit-eating grin. "I was talking to Vakarian."

"Oh fuck you, man!"

Cortez and Vakarian laughed while Vega rolled out the training mats. He kicked the mats together so there weren't any gaps before stepping onto them and assumed a fighting stance. Vakarian got back onto the mat and mirrored him. The two bumped fists and started their second match.

An hour later, both Vega and Vakarian were lying on the mats wheezing. Vega was drenched in sweat. He turned his head towards the desks. "Cortez, can you hit the timer? I think we're done."

Cortez gave a thumbs up. "Yeah. You're starting to stink the place up anyway."

Still lying down and out of breath, Vakarian pointed at Vega. "Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"Why do you call Terra 'Earth'?"

"Because it's my planet's real name." Vega snorted. "Though at this point, it's more of a way to tell if someone was born on Earth or a colony. Only people from Earth call it Earth now." He sat up and grew more serious as he thought about it.

"Before we ran into you guys, we thought we were alone in the galaxy. Sol System was called The Solar System because our sun was the one and only capital S, Sun. Like who gives a shit about the other stars that have planets orbiting them? Our sun's the one that has life in its system. Like shit, we named every other planet and moon in our system, but Earth's moon is just The Moon. It's a good moon; you should come see the next total eclipse.

"Anyway, I think once we realized there were a bunch of other lifeforms who were more advanced than us, the suits felt we needed to come across as more professional than a bunch of cavemen who call their planet 'the ground' and their moon just 'the moon'. To be fair, the Latin names are just a translation of what we already called everything," Vega grinned, "though I like to blame you guys for it with all your Roman Empire larping."

Vakarian laughed as he sat up. "Oh I want to hear this. The Hierarchy definitely did not care what you freaks called yourselves when you climbed out of your backwater system and got caught doing illegal shit."

"Okay so like, a really really long time ago," Vega rested one arm on his knee, the other arm gestured for emphasis, "there was a human empire called the Roman Empire. They spanned a good chunk of the planet. Important part is that all your naming conventions and military culture resemble this ancient human empire like, a lot. And I think because you guys were the first other species we had contact with, the human government saw that and went 'shit, guess we're doing the Roman Empire again; everyone quick, bring back Sol Invictus'."

"I think I know a Sol Invictus back on Palaven." Vakarian had a mischievous gleam in his eye.

Vega did a double take. "Wait are you seriou-" Vakarian started to snicker. "Bro fuck off! ANYWAY, now I'm gonna make everyone watch Gladiator on the next Normandy movie night. The original one from the 21st century, none of the shitty remakes." By now both men were laughing.

Vega turned to look at Vakarian. "How do you feel?"

"I think I'm too tired to feel. But I'm also sort of relaxed?"

Vega slapped Vakarian on the carapace. "Good, it's working. From now on, every night at 2100 I expect you to come here and spar with me."

The two stood up and Vakarian shook Vega's hand. "I think I can do that."