Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We're tonight's entertainment.

My name is Mengde, and I've mostly written for FFVII in the past, but I'm a big fan of the Mass Effect series. I recently participated in a Secret Santa and was asked to write something for my friend Sylla. She's a big Mass Effect fan too, and what's more, she's a big fan of Shepard/Garrus.

I'm a FemShep/Liara kind of guy myself (shocking, I know), but I sat down to write Sylla the best damn Shepard/Garrus I could, and by the end of it I found that I had discovered an appreciation for the pairing. It's fun, it's unique, and it's cerebral on many, many levels. So here is the first chapter of a four-chapter piece I call "Just the Two of Us." I'll put up the next chapter on Thursday the 29th, the third one on Monday the 2nd, and the last one on Thursday the 5th.

The usual disclaimer about me not owning any of these characters applies. Shepard is a biotic in this piece because Sylla plays a biotic. That's about all I have to say there. I'm rating this T for some graphic violence and a bit of swearing.

Enjoy!

Just the Two of Us

A Mass Effect Fan Fic

Written for Sylla by Mengde

I

Garrus Vakarian looked down at the control panel, frustration making his mandibles twitch.

He wasn't normally paranoid – well, not very paranoid, he amended – but this was more than a little uncanny. He knew for a fact that Engineers Donnelly and Daniels were quite competent, so he doubted it was their fault. A team of turian engineers couldn't have done a better job installing the Thanix cannon.

No. It had to be EDI.

The AI was sending him a message, he was sure of it. Garrus insisted on making daily personal checks of all essential systems, a habit he'd picked up from his service in the turian military. Turians knew better than to blindly entrust their lives to a computer, no matter how advanced. More than once, EDI had told him that it could manage such checks itself.

Garrus had had more than one run-in with a rogue AI, and his experiences with the Geth had not endeared artificial intelligence as a whole to him. So he continued to make his checks, and he continued to find the same thing.

Every few days, when he checked the calibration of the Thanix cannon, he found it off by a hair. He would spend several hours trying to correct the problem, using a variety of targeting algorithms and some hacks he'd picked up in the military. Shepard often made her rounds of the ship at that time, so she would drop by to see how he was, at which point he would tell her he had no time to talk. He would finish the calibrations, consider it an afternoon or evening well-spent, and get on with the rest of his duties.

But within a few days it would be off again. And the previous method he'd used for adjusting its calibration would be less effective.

What Garrus wasn't sure of was exactly what kind of message EDI was trying to send. Was it toying with him by making the recalibration harder and harder each time, seeing what it would take to make him give up? Was it trying to be understanding of his feelings by making his checks actually serve a purpose?

The whirr of the weapons bay doors was the only answer he received, and that could mean anything. As usual, Garrus turned around to see who it was, and as usual, Shepard stood there. This time, however, there was a smile on her face.

Most turians found human smiles a little unsettling; the way the eyes narrowed and crinkled around their edges was off-putting, even threatening. Garrus had come to appreciate Shepard's smiles, though. When she smiled, it generally meant things were going well – maybe someone was being helpful, maybe things were going according to plan. Sometimes it was just because she had an enemy in her sights.

So he took the smile as a good sign. "Shepard. How can I help?" he asked.

"We're ahead of schedule on the installation of the new probe bay, but Ken and Gabby need some supplies for maintenance," Shepard replied, leaning easily against the doorframe. Garrus had also come to appreciate the way she moved. Most humans had an awkward, shuffling gait, and if they tried to stride anywhere they took long, loping steps that seemed too much for their legs. But Shepard moved like a predator. She moved like a turian. "I figured we'd swing by Omega and pick up the stuff they need. Everyone else is busy, so I thought I'd see if you wanted to come with."

"Just the two of us?" Garrus asked. Normally he wouldn't dream of budging until he recalibrated the cannon, but he had to admit to himself that he was tiring of the game, problem, whatever it was. And it would be nice to get some alone time with Shepard. It felt like they barely talked, these days.

Still. "Omega's dangerous, Shepard. Sure you can't convince Tali, or…" He hesitated, trying to think of someone else on this ship he trusted. "Well. You can't convince Tali to come too?"

"She's up to her elbows in the tertiary power coupling or something like that," Shepard said with a shrug. "Besides, it feels like you're always busy when I drop by for a chat. Be nice to get out and have a little time, you know?"

Garrus spread his mandibles and let his jaw open a little in an expression that most humans had learned to recognize as the turian version of a smile. "Sounds good to me. When's our ETA?"

"Sixteen hundred hours. Meet you at the airlock?"

"Sure."

Shepard tossed him an informal salute. "See you there." She stepped back out of the doorframe. The door closed behind her, leaving Garrus alone with his thoughts and the console.

Their ETA gave him another hour and a half to finish this before he had to grab his gear. Garrus tackled the algorithms with renewed vigor, deciding to take an entirely new approach to the four-dimensional quantum manifold calculation. It would give the damn AI a run for its money.

And it would also keep him from thinking too much. That was good.

Garrus started inputting new data.

The markets of Omega were a busy place, with dozens of different species moving back and forth in the tightly cramped wards. The air was pungent with the smells of engine lubricant, fuel, and something rotting. A constant susurrus of conversation underscored every other sound – the growls of vorcha, the station news booming over the comm system, the raised voices of haggling merchants.

Garrus paid it no mind. All his attention was focused on the situation in front of him.

The tension in the air was almost palpable. Garrus stood slightly behind Shepard as she stared, hard, at the implacable and unreadable face of the elcor trader. The elcor stood behind his counter, upon which he'd placed the energy modulator Shepard wanted for the Normandy.

His asking price was sixteen thousand credits. Shepard didn't want to spend more than twelve.

"I don't think he's going to accept an endorsement from you," Garrus murmured.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Garrus," Shepard muttered at him. Looking back at the elcor, she said, "Twelve thousand. Not a credit over."

The elcor blinked, slowly. "Annoyed: human, I am in business to make a profit, not to provide charity. Condescending: perhaps if you cannot afford my prices, you should try elsewhere."

Garrus watched Shepard grit her teeth. "Fourteen thousand, and I'll pick up a couple of those stabilizers at their regular price."

"Jovial: that sounds more than acceptable, human. Please make your transfer whenever you are ready." The elcor lumbered off to the other side of his stall to assist a salarian standing there, fidgeting.

"Ass," Garrus quietly observed as the elcor moved off.

"That's still a good price," Shepard said, keying her information into the kiosk. "Don't worry so much, Garrus. Cerberus gave us a nice budget for these supplies."

"Sorry," Garrus replied. "Worrying's my job."

The kiosk informed them that Shepard's transfer had been approved and that the supplies would be delivered to the Normandy within the hour.

"Well, that's everything on the list," Shepard said. "Want to grab a bite?"

Garrus let his mandibles quiver a bit in surprise. "I wouldn't mind it, but we'll need to find a place that serves dextro and levo food. No sense in one of us having an allergic reaction."

"That shouldn't be a problem, right?"

"You'd be surprised. There aren't a lot of turians on Omega. During my… stay, I had to make most of my own food. Not a lot of restaurants cater to clientele whose amino acids are in a galactic minority."

"But you do know a place, right?" Shepard asked.

Holding up one of his hands in a gesture of concession, Garrus said, "Yeah, but it's in kind of a bad part of town."

That got a laugh out of Shepard. "A bad part of town? On Omega? The entire station's a bad part of town."

"So you realize just how bad it is."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at him, a very human expression that Garrus still wasn't quite used to after all this time. Human faces were not only remarkably variegated, but they were also so flexible. "We took on the Geth, Sovereign, and we've been fighting the Collectors for months. And you're afraid of a rough part of Omega?"

Not thinking, Garrus said, "No. It's just not the kind of place I'd normally take a woman."

It took him a second to realize precisely what that statement might imply. Yes, Shepard was a woman, a female, but if she took this the wrong way, she –

"I'm a big girl," Shepard said, amused, before Garrus could worry much more. "Let's go. It'll be fun."

In lieu of possibly putting his foot in his mouth again, Garrus nodded and began to lead the way. He headed out of the Omega markets, down several dimly-lit streets which saw little traffic. There was a pack of vorcha loitering in the shadows on one of them, but they eyed Shepard's and Garrus's heavy armor, as well as their armaments, and gave them a wide berth.

A few more minutes of this brought them to Zeta Section.

The neighborhood had once been a large cargo bay, big enough to hold a frigate, but someone had welded the doors shut however many hundreds of years ago, then reinforced them with makeshift plating. Now the bay was cluttered with one- and two-story buildings, most of them pieced haphazardly together from scrap metal, separated by narrow, claustrophobic streets. Only the poorest of the poor lived in Zeta Section, but it was always busy, full of people coming and going in the process of conducting business. It was one of the few places not under constant surveillance by Aria, attracting many people who would rather not give her a cut of their profits.

"So why does Aria not bother monitoring this place?" Shepard asked.

Garrus gestured at the buildings. "Look around. Aria could put a camera on every street and in every building and there'd still be a hundred blind spots she couldn't keep under surveillance. She can't bug the place, either, because the tightly-packed metal architecture scatters comm signals. And she can't just clear the place out, because the people who live here might be poor, but they're armed like everyone else and they'll defend themselves."

"She must have some connections here."

"The businesses pay her protection money, just like everyone else, but that's about it." Garrus gestured at one such business. "Speaking of, here we are."

The restaurant – a generous label for the place, certainly, but Garrus was fond of it – was named The Hole. Garrus had never asked the owner why he chose that particular name. Some mysteries, he thought, were better left unsolved.

The interior of The Hole was cramped, with three tables complete with chairs set up to the left of the door. It was roughly three meters from the door to the counter with the kiosk; behind that was the kitchen, such as it was. One side was dedicated to dextro-amino acid foods, for turians and the occasional quarian. The other side was for levo-amino acids, for pretty much everyone else.

Vernus, the owner, was a turian with dark grey skin and white facial markings that indicated he was from the Draxa colony. He wore a dirty apron, a pair of cargo trousers, and nothing else; the dim overhead lighting glinted off his metallic carapace as he tossed something in a deep fryer. As Shepard and Garrus stepped inside, Vernus looked at them with his one good eye. He'd lost the other one and wore a leather patch.

"Thel!" he exclaimed when he saw Garrus. "It's been a while, my friend."

"Vernus," Garrus said, flaring his mandibles in a grin. "How's the restaurant business?"

Vernus gestured at the three empty tables. "Terrible, as usual. Who's your friend?"

Shepard spoke for herself. "I'm Commander Shepard," she said. "Spectre." Garrus knew Shepard tended to avoid mentioning Cerberus whenever possible. She wasn't any happier about having to cooperate with them than he was. "Thel's giving me a hand with a mission." To her credit, she made Garrus's alias sound natural.

"A Spectre? Thel, you've moved up in the world," Vernus said, moving to the counter. "Traveling in such illustrious company. Nice to see you haven't forgotten about old friends." He began punching buttons on the kiosk. "The usual?"

"Yes, thank you," Garrus replied. "And the fried varren strips for Shepard." He leaned in close to whisper in her ear, "They're the only decent levo food Vernus can cook."

"I heard that," Vernus said with mock indignation. "But he's right. Take a seat, I'll have your food ready in a few minutes."

Shepard and Garrus settled themselves into the chairs at one of the tables. They were metal, reinforced, and capable of seating a krogan, so their armor posed no trouble.

"So tell me something, Thel," Shepard said with a little more amusement than was necessarily warranted.

"What?" Garrus asked.

"Whenever I drop by the weapons bay to see how you're doing, I always find you calibrating the cannon. What the hell's wrong with it that you need to do that every few days?"

Garrus felt his jaw drop a little. So Shepard had noticed. He immediately chastised himself for not thinking that she would – there was nobody in the galaxy he respected more, after all, and after the third or fourth repetition he was fairly sure anyone would discern a pattern.

"I'm sorry," he said with what he hoped came across as a rueful smile. "It's kind of strange to say, but I think it's EDI."

Shepard crossed her arms. "What now?"

"When I first came aboard, I started doing routine checks of the ship's systems. EDI told me it could handle it, but you know I like to make sure of things myself, Shepard. So after I told her I would keep doing them, I noticed that the Thanix cannon was just slightly miscalibrated. I fixed it, but it was miscalibrated again a few days later, and it was harder to recalibrate. It's been like this for a while now."

"You think EDI is toying with you?" Shepard asked. "You'd think there'd be some kind of block in its programming or something."

"It's just a hunch," Garrus replied. "Fortunately, I'm not in C-Sec anymore, so if I follow it up I won't get reprimanded. I just haven't seen the point in confronting EDI. It'd probably just deny it."

Shepard leaned back in her chair. "That's quite a theory, Garrus, I'll give you that. You sure you aren't just making a mistake somewhere in your calibrations?"

Garrus touched his hand to his breastplate. "Shepard. This is me we're talking about, remember?"

She raised an eyebrow again. "I remember. I also remember you getting stuck in an elevator because you couldn't figure out how to open the door."

"The labels were in Asari," Garrus said defensively. "You never seem to bring up that particular detail."

They both laughed. Garrus felt a warm sense of satisfaction pervading him; it had been too long since he'd had a nice talk with Shepard. The last time they'd had a chance to chat, she'd offered to help him blow off some steam with a wrestling match, something he'd hastily declined. That felt like it had happened ages ago. But here they were, Vernus was going to bring them some decent food, and…

Garrus stiffened as his Kuwashii-mod visor flashed an alert. Shepard was sitting with her back to the storefront, so Garrus was the one facing the window. His visor automatically zoomed in on whatever had caused the alert. Four streets over, atop the roof of a two-story shanty, there was a flare of some kind –

He recognized it as light reflecting off of a rifle scope.

"DOWN!" he barked at Shepard, lunging across the table to try to push her out of the way of the shot. Even as he threw himself at her, the visor flashed the image of the rifle firing in his left eye, traced a trajectory, told him where the round was going to strike.

Garrus shoved Shepard out of her chair. The projectile, which had been travelling on an unerring path straight for the back of her head, tore through her shields like they weren't even there. It grazed the side of Shepard's head, ripping through her hair before blowing through the metal table and embedding itself deep in the floor.

He rolled off the table just before another round reduced it to scrap metal. That one would have blown through his armor and neatly severed his spine. The interval between the shots suggested that the attacker was using some kind of high-powered variation on the Mantis. Shepard was prone, blood pooling on the floor next to her head. Her eyelids were fluttering, but Garrus had seen enough grazes to know that she was concussed and probably unresponsive.

Pulling out his Viper sniper rifle, he squeezed off three hasty shots at the figure on the roof, but his visor's zoom showed two of the rounds thudding into the building and the third stopping dead a good ten centimeters from the attacker as it struck a kinetic barrier. A moment later the figure disappeared.

"What the hell is going on, Thel?" Vernus bellowed from the back of the restaurant. He'd wisely taken cover behind the counter. Garrus could see him gripping a heavy pistol.

"Someone just tried to kill Shepard," Garrus growled. "And I don't think they're done."