AN: So this is the main event! This is the story that Odds and Ends stems from... Huge thanks to the author Kittenseye who helped me greatly with all her stellar plot ideas. I am shoving multitudes of cookies your way. You people should go read her fanfic 'As the Hearse Goes Driving By' for it is epic...

"A Lotus grows in the mud"-Old tibetan saying

Shepard never knew how to react to Omega. She hated its filthiness, but a small part of her loved it. Made her feel like she was back in Earth's underground helping the Reds gain more territory in the slums, inch by bloody inch. It was the closest feeling to homesickness Shepard ever got, which probably made her a freak. As she browsed the seedy market she examined the poverty. Batarians and Vorcha scattered about, some lying in their own filth. She recalled Jacob making a remark of how he hated Omega leaving the bodies in the streets...but Shepard actually admired the place for it. Where other cities tried to cover up the darker sides of city life Omega was brutally honest…which was probably one of the reasons why it was so disliked, you could comfortably walk the streets of Illium safe in your illusion that nothing was wrong in the world, but on Omega you had to face the fact that folks were starving and dying and there wasn't much you could do for them. She found herself pausing a little too long at the sight of a Vorcha who was most likely feeding off a severed arm, probably snagged from a corpse thrown in the gutter…

"Come on Shepard let's get in, get out, and as far away from this piss hole as possible." A small smile graced her lips as she imagined Garrus's face behind her.

"You don't have to stay Garrus, if you hate Omega so much go wait on the ship. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself." Her smile widened as she heard him growl.

"Shepard you haven't lived here…do you have any idea the things that could happen to you in an instant?" She turned towards the turian. Yup…there's the look! Her lips pushed out in an exaggerated pout,

"Come on Garrus, that's half the fun of shopping here! That added touch of danger…the thrill of the adrenaline…" She was teasing, but he took her seriously.

"Do you have any idea what Thane would do to me if you got hurt on my watch? I don't know about you…but I like my plates and I would very much like them to stay attached to my skin." Shepard sighed, suddenly frustrated. This was a sore spot with her, the one thing she and her drell lover ever fought on. In fact the only reason she was being escorted by the turian instead of the drell was because said drell's moody adolescent son had showed up unannounced and even more moody for reasons unknown. Shepard found herself wondering when she was going to get her explanation for the younger Krios's more recent 'pleasure cruise'. Coming out of her thoughts she looked up into Garrus's face, remembering why she was mad,

"I am a grown woman, I can take care of myself I don't need a fucking babysitter!" Her hands bunched into fists, "Damn it I killed a reaper!" she whined. Garrus nodded solemnly,

"I know, and I understand your frustration with him. But try to look at it his way…" Garrus's voice trailed off as he watched her face,

"You are taking his side?" The turian, if he hadn't been afraid it would get him shot, would have laughed at the tiny human woman. She had her hands planted firmly on her round hips, tiny body shaking in rage making her almost crimson red hair fly about her small oval face which was tight in fury, dark eyes gleaming murderously. Garrus threw his talons up defensively,

"Now Shepard hold on! The man lost his wife because he wasn't there to protect her…can you not see why he is so overprotective of you?" Shepard's face softened, and he was glad to see the anger begin to dull in her eyes. She slumped against him and he put his arm around her, tickling her back with his talons in an attempt to soothe her.

"God damn I've been a heartless shrew haven't I?" She felt more than heard Garrus chuckle and it loosened the knots in her shoulders. Garrus is the best… she thought.

"You definitely have your moments, but who am I to judge?" They straightened and continued through the markets.

Shepard couldn't stop laughing as they neared the docking bay. "I cannot believe you bought that!" Garrus began to laugh too as he slid the copy of Fornax into their bags.

"What? Everything is so tense on the Normandy…I thought we could all use a laugh!" Shepard snorted,

"More like a nightmare…did you have to get the volus issue?" Garrus's bark of laughter caused several passersby to turn in alarm.

"It was the only one on the rack!" Shepard rolled her eyes as she turned into the corridor leading back to the ship. Suddenly the hallway they were in began to fill with the piercing shrieks of Vorcha in combat. Shepard slid her carnifex from its holster realizing that manic paranoia had only ever helped her in life.

Rounding the corner the duo came face to face with vorcha entrails. "Oh that feels nice…" Shepard hissed sarcastically as she wiped the gore from her face. Garrus brought his attention from his ruined armor to the battle ensuing in front of them.

A slim figure stood calmly in the center of a stasis field as it flung dark matter through a group of vorcha, slicing them in two. More blood spattered the walls and as Garrus examined the nearest stains he noted there was as much human as there was vorcha. The figure had obviously been wounded and he wondered how he could have missed that when the figure limped forward. "Evlin!" Shepard cried as she rushed into the fray. Garrus leaned against the wall, knowing the fight would be over in a matter of moments as he heard the sharp cracks of Shepard's carnifex join the shrieks of her prey.

Once the last vorcha fell Shepard turned towards her new companion. The girl was covered head to toe in oil and street sludge causing her to appear as black as any shadow, though solid. Still glowing blue her small body trembled as she sunk to the floor. "Evlin…" Shepard sighed as she pulled the girl into a tight embrace, not caring at all that she was filthy and stank of rotting flesh and refuse. She hadn't seen this child in years, and had thought she never would again…

"Uh Shepard… You mind telling me who this is?" Garrus came forward, holding their recent purchases. She gazed down at the muddied face of one of the most precious beings in her world.

"Her name is Evlin…we need to get her to Chakwas."

. . .

"Shepard…what on earth?" Chakwas leapt up from her office chair as Shepard placed Evlin on one of the many tables in the med bay.

"Vorcha attack…she's bleeding but I can't tell where…" Chakwas slapped her hands away and pushed the two out of the small room.

"Shepard you still haven't told me who that is." Garrus had never seen his commanding officer in such a state. Said officer had her face firmly planted against the glass window into the medical room, watching intently as the doctor began to scrub vigorously at the tiny being. Some of the sludge was beginning to fade, the skin showing a tinge of pink.

"That's Evlin...Garrus, the closest thing to a daughter I have ever had. I don't know what she is doing out here…I had thought I'd set her up with a nice family on earth…" Garrus's mandibles had widened significantly at the mention of Shepard having children. Even if she hadn't given birth to the young girl herself…he had never really taken Shepard for the mothering type.

"I'm not the most motherly person," She stated softly, as if she had read his mind "but it scares me what I would do to keep that girl alive and well…" Garrus nodded. It sometimes frightened him what he was willing to do for Shepard.

"Where did you two meet?" He asked. Shepard's chocolate eyes seemed to darken and when she responded her voice was almost a growl "Torfan" she turned to lock eyes with him, a grim expression on her face.

"We had begun our raid and all was going well…until we heard her screaming. As we continued further into the base we saw Evlin…naked and chained to the ceiling, suspended by her wrists we watched in horror as her body swung from side to side. The cold metal had bit into her wrists and every time her body swung they sliced deeper hence the screaming. As we got her down the room flooded with batarians and my squad of five was forced to fight in close combat." Shepard turned back to the girl, now significantly cleaner. "It was kind of like a slow moving meat grinder… I shielded her with my body as my team took the brunt of the force. It was over in mere moments and I shot the last two and walked out with her trembling in my arms." She shivered and Garrus found himself wanting to hug her, but knowing she would just shrug him away. She was his only friend in the galaxy; he hated to see her in pain.

"If that's what happened why do they call you a monster…why are you the butcher of Torfan?" Shepard pressed her forehead against the glass window, sighing heavily.

"If the alliance ever got wind of her existence she would be instantly abducted for interrogations and experiments." She turned to look him in the eye "She was holed up in that base for god knows how long getting raped and beaten over and over again… to go from that to alliance labs where strange doctors would jam needles into her skin all day long… no, fuck no…if I have to be seen as a monster so be it, but I would know myself as a monster if I had handed her over. I kept silent, letting them believe I just threw my men's lives away to 'get the job done'." Garrus was floored at her confession. He had seen the pain in her eyes as the news feeds tormented her, calling her a heartless murderer among other things, but he had always assumed it was regret that pained her, not this…

"Shepard…" He didn't know how to respond. She smiled sadly,

"its okay Garrus…Evie is worth it." He looked back to find Dr. Chakwas had finished bathing the girl and was now running a scanner over the small body.

The girl was beautiful by human standards, not that he had a thing for humans… Her long coffee colored hair hung in thick wet tendrils around her body, framing a heart shaped face. She had a small nose and little perfectly shaped pink lips. Her body was now shrouded in a thick blanket and Garrus soon realized she was shivering.

"What are you going to do with her?" Shepard stepped back from the glass, standing straighter as she clasped her hands behind her back. It was a pose she had soon adopted to tease Thane…but had slowly (and unconsciously) started falling into when thinking deeply.

"I'm going to find out what brought her to Omega when she wakes up and then I'm going to raise hell on the guardians I entrusted her too for letting her leave." Garrus was surprised at her words. "She is unstable Garrus...she can't control her biotics...I found out from one of the surviving batarians I had interrogated before killing him that she was used as a pet. They had scored her as a small child from a colony and would pit her against anything from Varren to other slaves. She knows nothing of etiquette with others besides in a fight." She sighed as she looked to the floor. "I left her in the care of strong individuals who I thought could handle her. She has to learn how to be human…right now she is little more than an animal." Garrus nodded slowly, not sure how to react to that.

On the one hand he was happy that she was off the dive that was Omega, but this was still the Normandy and not an orphanage…especially one that catered to dangerous individuals who seemed like ticking time bombs. He was about to voice his opinion when the girl opened her eyes and Garrus Vakarian lost all conscious thought.

They're golden… he registered vaguely, bright pools of liquid sunlight, shining like beacons against the darkness of the med bay. He felt himself grow dizzy as their eyes locked and it was almost impossible for him to look away. He managed though, and was shocked upon finding Shepard's expression. The tenderness that swept over her face took his breath away and every feature of the hard, badass, stoic commander softened instantly. A new smile, one he had never seen spread across her lips and she moved to go into the room.

Now alone in the mess hall Garrus realized that the girl had every right to be housed on this ship. The commander had done everything she possibly could to make sure her crew were ready for the Omega 4 Relay… had taken many side trips and risked her life to help piece the entire squad's lives together before bringing them to what at that time had been assumed as certain death. Never once among those dangerous missions did she ask for anything in return except their loyalty to the cause. Garrus knew well how shattered his commander's life was, but he hadn't been able to think of anything he and the crew could have done to help piece it together… until now.

Evlin would be protected and well taken care of on the Normandy. It was a vow as soon as the thought passed through his head. If it helped his commander, then whatever havoc this girl wreaked would be dealt with silently and with no complaints on his part. This was Shepard's loyalty mission.