Shepard has the same dream every night. She is running through the field, the long stalks whipping against her face and arms. Her family's home is burning behind her, the dry heat pushing against the backs of her knees, her neck. She bursts from the corn and trips over something immediately, falling into the dirt. Her teeth sink into her lip and she tastes blood, slippery and thick on her tongue. It smells like burning metal. She rolls over, the dirt settling into dust on her skin, smearing gritty into the blood on her face, and looks at the stars, slowly becoming obscured by a rolling plume of smoke.
She wakes with the sound of incoming Turian shuttles still roaring in her ears, and pads across the small length of her room, her feet sticky on the textured tile floor. She opens the window and leans out to feel the cold sweat dry under the sticky heat of Palaven. She counts on her fingers:
It has been six weeks and three Palaven days since slavers razed Mindoir to the ground, and Shepard Vakarian will never know the name her mother gave her.
/
She'd been onboard the dreadnaught for two months before the diplomats had everything settled, and almost completely silent for all of it. A nurse is in charge of fitting her with a translator and an omni-tool, and after Shepard went at her with a knife she stole from the kitchen their relationship was frosty at best. The nurse rumbles continuously while caring for her, a sharp jagged growl that sets her teeth on edge while turian talons trail around the edge of her ear. There's a high pitched humming sound when they turn on the translator, then a snap of clarity.
"Well," the turian nurse says, the first words Shepard's been able to understand since they took her aboard, "at least that's something."
/
Relat Vakarian frowns, watching the last distorted buzz of the holographic desk sergeant blink out. He hears the door to his home office swish open and close, the lock engaging.
"When I agreed to take the administrative position I didn't expect so many officers who clearly cheated their way through the academy ethics requirements." His wife clicks at him.
"When you agreed to take the administrative position I expected you would have more time for your children."
Relat straightens. "My position on my work has always been clear. You have known this since you have known me."
Amariti crosses his view, walking to the shelf against the wall that holds Relat's C-Sec merits, awards, his military medals. She touches the tip of her talon to a lifetime achievement for his commitment to law enforcement. "You have brought a human child into our home. The least you can do is pay her some attention." She leaves the rest of her words hanging in the air between them, and Relat's shoulders stiffen.
"Say what you mean, wife."
Amariti crosses the distance between them in two quick steps, a flash of smooth plates moving under loose fabrics. "You ignore your children, husband," she says, her pale yellow eyes flashing gold. "You took on a damaged orphan and never once introduced her to your son, who thinks she is here temporarily, nor your daughter, who fears she is to be replaced." She goes to step back and he catches her about the wrist.
"I," he says, and falters. "Primarch Romult asked me directly," he says, more surely, "as did Councilor Johnstone of Earth. The fostering of a human child-especially one from a former colony-with a turian clan of our rank and reputation can do unspeakable good to repair relations damaged by the First Contact-"
"The girl has not come out of her room in two standard days," Amariti interrupts calmly, "Solana has been sent from home from school and subsequently asked not to return pending a parent meeting-for which we are both expected to attend."
Relat leans forward, his hands cradling her jaw, and waits for the half crook of her mouth, the permission in the tilt of her neck, before leaning down and pressing their foreheads together. He sighs out his own oxygen and inhales her breath, warm into his lungs. "I do not have answers for my children," he says, "and words cannot express what the human girl needs to hear."
Amariti smoothes his fringe, scratching with her talons. "Sometimes children need is for you to try. All children."
/
"Can you tell me your name?" The Asari mindhealer asks her, two days from docking at Palaven. "We ran your DNA through an Alliance database and got a hit for your parents-Jaleed and Jieling Shepard, Earthborn." There is a long, protracted, silence. "We can't keep calling you Shepard… it's not right." She touches something on a datapad. "Sources indicate humans value given names, and your clan name will change when we reach Palaven." She sighs and types on the pad. "I suppose we can let the Vakarians rename you, it is an adoption tradition."
"Shepard," the girl repeats, and the Asari jerks. It is the first word the child has spoken since they pulled her from beneath the bodies. She waits, but the child says nothing else, her dark eyes hard and flinty.
"Shepard," the Asari agrees, and enters it on the datapad. "It's better than nothing." She presses send and stands. "May peace meet you, Shepard Vakarian."
/
Garrus has his second ever new omni-tool and is itching to try it out. He ripped his first one apart to look at the insides and couldn't quite fit it back together, not even with his mother's guidance, and was suitably grateful when she picked him up a new one with no further consequences.
"Maybe," she'd said dryly, handing him a small bundle wrapped in soft cloth and smelling of oil, "with the proper tools you will have more success."
He wants to see if his mods will work, and he knows the perfect test: the door on the second floor of their home, the one with the big windows in the ceiling. He and Sol used to play there, under sunrays tempered by the treated glass, and now the lock is always red and not even Sol can get in. If he can hack the lock with something he built himself, Sol will go blue with rage for days.
His omni-tool beeps, the holographic display whirring as it attempts and discards possible combinations, and he frowns as the minutes tick by. He settles on the floor, feet propped up against the wall, and waits.
/
The turian with the blue marks takes her by the shoulder, his talons resting on her collarbone, and steers her through the docking bay. Her arm hurts where they gave her a series of shots before disembarking, and the sun glare makes her eyes squint up, half blind. She has to scramble to get up high enough to reach the inside of the hovercar, but kicks out when the driver tries to boost her.
The blue turian chuffs at her, and she shrinks back. "You have snitsc," he says, the translator shorting out on the last word. She gives him her best glare, up from underneath her hair grown out too long, and he makes that chuffing sound again. "I am responsible for you," he says. "My name is Relat Vakarian, and you will be staying with me until you reach the human age of adulthood. Tell me you understand."
When Shepard speaks her voice is rough, and it rasps against the inside of her own throat. "I understand."
Relat nods once, sharp. Shepard goes back to watching the buildings flash by, one after another. They stop outside a house, big, two stories with a front and back garden. There is another turian leaning against a small wall running along the front yard, wearing a soft garment that flutters in the breeze. The car door opens and the full heat of Palaven hits Shepard in the face. Her hairline prickles with sweat.
"Do not make me regret this," Relat says, and Shepard follows him out into the sun.
/
Shepard is lying on the floor, looking up at the clouds move across the dark sky, when her door beeps open and a turian falls through, asleep. The glow of his omni-tool fades and Shepard sits up, looking at him. He has the same marks as the others in the house, and she vaguely recognizes him from around the estate. He's shorter than her, by the span of maybe four fingers, and slimmer than her by just a shade.
Falling to the floor wakes him and he jolts to his feet, eyes wide. Shepard rises, her own omni-tool flaring, and when he takes a step towards her she hits him with a wave of burnt orange tech, snarling.
He twists to the side, his omni-tool throwing up a barrier, and she hits him again, closing the distance between them for maximum effect. His omni-tool explodes into a shower of sparks and he topples, yelping.
Footsteps thunder down the hall and the female turian-Amariti, Shepard recognizes-bursts in. Shepard throws her last overload, her omni-tool sparking once and going dark, and it fizzes out before it reaches her. But the light flare surprises her, and she brings up her hands to shield her face.
Shepard vaults over the little turian crumpled on the floor, and dodges when Amariti reaches for her, a talon drawing blood along the outside of her forearm. She hits the floor scrambling, and grabs the doorframe with both hands, catapulting her around into the hall.
"Garrus!" Amariti cries, and Shepard runs.
/
"This is my wife," Relat tells her, and the other turian tilts her head at Shepard. She is just as tall as Relat, but the arch behind her shoulders is more shallow, and the curves on the crown of her head are softer, curled over.
"My name is Amariti," the turian says, and her voice is sweeter than Relat's, like a song. Shepard stares at her, almost shy, and Amariti makes a soft clicking noise, one that makes the tension in Shepard's spine ease a little. "Relat tells me you are six years of age. My Solana is nearly the same, and she says often she wishes my son were a girl."
Shepard meets her eyes hesitantly. "My brother used to pulled my hair," she says in a rasp, and Relat shifts on his feet.
"Used to pull," he correct absently, and Shepard stares at the tattered laces of her shoes.
Amariti sighs. "How you ever gained a reputation for tact I will never know."
Shepard sees Relat make a shrugging motion out of the corner of her eye. "I don't believe I ever have. In any case, that's more than the mindhealer could get out of her in two months," he says. "You continuously astound me, wife."
Amariti reaches out a hand to Shepard, where it hovers in the air for a long moment before she drops it. Shepard sets her jaw and pulls back into herself, her fists clenched. "We are fostering the child," Relat says, walking past them both into the house, "not coddling her. I will clear the room." Amariti makes a sound deep in her throat, like a rolling thrum, looking after her husband. Her mandibles are pulled tight against her face, and Shepard shrinks back against the wall, tucking her knees under her chin as the turian turns to face her. Amariti's look softens.
"I will not tell you it will get better," Amariti says, crouching to catch Shepard's eyes, her own a soft yellow, the same as the shade Shepard's mother had painted the kitchen, "but I can say this: that all things pass." She stands, and Shepard follows her into the house.
/
Shepard vaults out the window to the back garden, bare feet slapping against the stones. She stumbles through the sand patch, ripping across the delicately woven flowers and vines, and scrambles up a tree, climbing until she's hidden among the leafy branches. She pulls herself into the leaves and peers out, her heart pounding.
The wind ruffles through the garden, and the whistling stones laid across the surface of the small lake hum their tones. Fine colored sand drifts across the petals she'd disturbed in her dash across the yard, the intricate patterns smudged and scuffed out. Distantly she can hear the steady boom from the shooting range down the road.
Amariti steps out into the garden and surveys the damage. She clicks, disapproving. Behind her, the little turian comes out, hunched in on himself. There's a little trickle of blood from the flat slits of his nose, and he rubs at it, sheepish. Amariti pushes him forward, prompting, and he stands up straight.
"I'm sorry," he announces to the garden at large, "for breaking into your room. I shouldn't have done that." He kicks at the ground. "You shouldn't have hurt me, either." Amariti sighs heavily, and he shoots her a sideways look. "But I'm older," he says with the air of repeating something he'd heard many times before, "and I should know better." Shepard holds her breath, her muscles trembling with the effort of holding completely still. Her arm itches where Amariti scratched it, and she keeps it pressed against her back, hidden.
"Thank you, Garrus," Amariti says dryly. "truly a speech deserving of the Primarch."
The little turian scowled. "I'm only one year older mom." He turns and looks directly at Shepard, his arms crossed across his chest. "Are you going to come down or what?" Amariti cuffs him about the head, light but chastising.
"Come down, child," she says, "you will not be punished." She pauses. "I promise." Shepard unfolds herself from the branches, slipping down the trunk until her toes reach the ground. She hesitates by the tree before sliding forward, eyes on the ground.
"Sorry," she mumbles.
"I have some fault here, I'm afraid," Amariti says, "I've been… putting off formal introductions." She reaches behind her and pushes Garrus out closer to Shepard. "This is my son, Garrus. You're of comparable age."
"I'm older," Garrus reminds her, his chest puffed up. She runs her fingers through his fringe, indulgent.
"Yes, son, and you should act it."
Garrus scowls at Shepard, and Shepard returns it, automatic. They glare at each other for a short moment, broken by Amariti's soft chuckle.
"I think Garrus needs to atone for trespassing into your space, Shepard," Amariti says, "and I think you've done quite enough damage to our estate. Perhaps you two can work together and…. put things to rights."
"You said I wouldn't be punished," Shepard yelps, startled out of silence by her indignance.
"It's not punishment," Amariti says, and to the side and out of her sight Garrus mouths the words along with her, rolling his eyes, "it's reparations." Shepard smiles, and Garrus' mandibles flare out, his lips parting in a turian grin. Amariti swats at him again, but he dodges successfully, darting out to catch Shepard's hand.
"Come on," he says impatiently, "when we're done I want to see how you made your tool do that thing it did."
Shepard breaks into a jog, being dragged along by Garrus' thick fingers wrapped around her slender ones. "Okay," she agrees.
/
"Enough is enough, husband," Amariti says, and Relat sighs. He pushes back from his desk and stands.
"I remember when I used to get work done at home," he says, biting. Amariti stares at him, her vocals rumbling. When she speaks it's pitched in a low range he hasn't heard since he missed Solana's Marking Ceremony in favor of tracking down a mid level arms dealer.
"I remember marrying a turian who took his responsibilities seriously."
Relat turns sharply away from his wife, facing the window and tamping down his anger. He opens his mouth to speak and stops. "It seems, despite my failings, that the girl has found a friend in our son."
Amariti makes a surprised noise, stepping up beside him. "Oh really." They watch Garrus throw down the bucket of sand, gesticulating angrily. Less than ten feet away, Shepard shouts back at him, waving a handful of shredded stems angrily, and they both stomp their way to the small rock garden, straightening the stones with furious glances.
"They couldn't get her to talk aboard the ship at all," Relat says calmly, "this is a marked improvement."
"You agreed to take her," Amariti says sharply, "you can't just expect our son to pick up the slack because you're not sure what to do with a human child."
"I have scheduled Solana's school conference," Relat says, before Amariti can build up steam. "The day after tomorrow." Outside, Shepard throws a palm sized flowering cactus at Garrus, bouncing off the plates of his arm, and flees up a tree as he chases her, chattering a wordless noise of rage.
"She's smart," Amariti says after a few seconds. "as is our newest daughter. We can enroll her when we go to speak with Solana's instructors." Garrus scrambles halfway up the trunk before sliding down, his talons making grooves in the bark of a tree Relat's mother planted. Amariti winces.
"Is that wise?" Relat asks. "I had though perhaps to employ a tutor, one who can balance turian curriculum with human history and culture." Shepard hangs upside down from a branch, her shirt riding up to reveal bandages, and makes gestures that are universally constant. Garrus roars, his full vocal range opened up, and launches himself at the tree.
"And keep her locked up? No." Amariti turns and walks across the room, pausing at the door. "She is a Vakarian now, and she will be treated just the same. Fairness in all stages," she says, echoing one of his oft-repeated phrases, and he sighs.
"I bow to your wisdom," he says dryly, and joins her at the doorway. He offers her his arm. "as I should, always." Outside, Shepard shimmies down and shows Garrus the knots in the trunk he can plant his feet on. She links her fingers together and impatiently gives him a boost.
Amariti takes Relat's arm, and he dips his head to nuzzle along her temple. "Let's go to dinner, husband."
/
Shepard hates school. She hates the teachers, the students, the classes. She thinks she might hate Solana the most. Solana, who sits three seats back from her and one row over. Solana, who personally downloaded the official report on Mindoir and showed it to their classmates. Solana, who sits across from her every morning while Amariti heats food that smells like the harvest feast chicken from Mindoir, cooked over the fire while the church women sang. Amariti unwraps Shepard's ration bar every morning, frowning and muttering about needing to put in a requisition order for something substantial, and serves it to her on a plate made of fine clay. Shepard thinks briefly of a warm bowl smelling of cinnamon, served by a woman with a blurred out face. She blinks water out of her eyes and looks up to see Solana, staring at her all through breakfast, and she excuses herself early to go outside and tinker with Garrus, poking through the personal-log recorder Garrus had dragged home from a junkyard the day before.
"The only thing wrong with it is the audio input is blown out," she argues, and Garrus blows air out of his mouth hard enough to ruffle his mandibles.
"It's almost eight generations behind," he retorts, "the problem is that it's a single use track disc. Once the etchings have been carved in, you have to buy a new disc and throw it away. It's obsolete, it can't be upgraded."
Shepard catches the opening to the circuit board with the edge of one of Garrus' small tools. "Not with that attitude." Garrus lips part, his soundless laugh, and Shepard grins back.
Solana stalks out the house and flounces past, her head tilted high. "Edu-trans is here." Shepard helps Garrus shove their project back under a tarp, and she picks up her small pack, swinging it up over a shoulder.
"Good luck," Garrus says cheerfully, and goes to sit with a few older turians, already towering after their growth spurt. Solana is already huddled with two turian girls about her size, murmuring to each other and darting little glances up at her, frozen awkwardly at the front of the transport car. Shepard looks down, shuffling along the aisle and avoiding the curious stares until she finds an empty seat.
The school is non-descript, built for function and durability, and the desks are structured for turian bodies. Even in a classroom designed for younger turians, Shepard's feet barely touch the ground. The turian instructor makes her stand and say her name to the whole class, her face red.
"Mm Shepard," she mumbles, and tries to sit down. A three fingered hand catches her arm and makes her stand upright. "Shepard Vakarian," she says, more clearly.
"Is it true that you can't remember your real name?" Solana calls out, and Shepard flushes.
"Shepard is my name," she says, cold. Her fingernails bite into her palm.
"Enough," Teacher says. "thank you, Elder Vakarian. You may be seated. Junior Vakarian, since you live with our newest student, perhaps you can save such personal inquiries for another time."
/
Amariti waits for the transport to bring her children home, lounging in a chair and enjoying the early evening breezes. There's a piece of old junk lying under a tarp, and she likes to imagine she can see turian and human fingerprints on the matte black surface of it, mingling together.
Solana is the first out of the school transport vehicle, waving to her friends and accepting the press of her mother's temple against her cheek without complaint. "I'm going to eat a palamt," she says, and bounces cheerfully into the house.
Garrus follows, and little more sedately, and somehow already has a palamt between his fingers. He bites into the red fruit cheerfully, and jerks his head at his mother in acknowledgement, juice running down his wrist. "Kilas' father is already teaching him how to shoot a rifle," he informs her, just on the polite side of sullen.
"If only you had been born to clan Legium," she says blandly, and he sighs, following his sister into the house.
Amariti frowns, watching the transpo's engines glow blue as it flies away. She half turns towards the house and its open windows. "Where is Shepard?"
Garrus sticks his head out. "I don't think I saw her board," he says slowly, surprised. He immediately looks sheepish. "I was distracted with my friends."
Amariti frowns harder. "I asked you to look out for her," she says, scolding, and Garrus gets a blue tint to his face.
"Why am I responsible for her," he starts, but falls silent at her quelling look.
"She is on a new world with no humans, no understanding of our planet, and no money," Amariti says disapprovingly. "I would have thought you would have naturally stood to help someone at a disadvantage."
Garrus jerks back, stung, and slams the window shut behind him. Amariti sighs. She settles back, leaning against the front rail of her home, and looks in the direction of the school, calculating in her head. The front door opens and closes. Garrus tosses the palamt pit aside.
"It's fifteen minutes from there to here," he says, "if she left when we did. I'll meet her halfway and walk her the rest of the way."
"You are a good turian," she says, and runs her fingers through his fringe.
He jerks away from her, embarrassed. "Mom."
Amiriti huffs at him. "You are only eleven standard years, Garrus. Allow a mother her trespasses. Now go get Shep-your sister."
Garrus heaves the put upon sigh of the eldest child, and trots down the road. His spurs are starting to come in, Amiriti thinks, and feels a stab of melancholy, sitting on her front porch with her son walking down the road, farther and farther from her.
/
Shepard's eye hurts. When she touches it, it feels puffy and hot under her fingers. She can taste dirt in her mouth, and she spits out a wad of it, mixed with blood. She remembers a burning cornfield and her stomach turns.
A turian hand falls heavy on her shoulder and yanks her around. "Who did this," Garrus demands, furious. He's snarling now, and the rumble of his vocals makes it difficult for her translator to make out what he's saying. He says something, louder, and she can't understand any of it.
She pushes his hands off her and steps back. "I can take care of myself," she snaps.
Garrus snorts, but his subvocals are quiet again, and when he speaks again it comes through nice and clear. "Yeah, I can see that."
Shepard walks past him, knocking her shoulder into his hard enough to rock him back a step. "We're not even friends," she spits.
Garrus shoves her back, a two handed push that sends her stumbling, but doesn't knock her off her feet. "Don't say that," he says angrily, and for the first time she realizes that he is only a year older than her, his hands balled into fists and his face set in an angry turian scowl. It drops from his face as quickly as it came, and he scuffs his boot on the ground. One hand reaches up and rubs at the back of his head. "I mean, uh, we could be. If you… also think so. Maybe. Maybe?" He kneels suddenly and fumbles in her school pack, lying on the side of the road, and comes up with a small white square, made of plastic. He cracks it with his fist and offers it to her, suspended on his palm in the air between them.
Shepard takes it, the cold numbing her fingers as soon as she touches it. She presses it to her eye gingerly and hisses air through her teeth. "Thanks."
Garrus rubs at the back of his head again. "Mom always puts one in my pack. Solana's too. And yours now, I guess." He shifts anxiously, and reaches out for her before dropping his hand to his side. "You okay?"
Shepard presses the icepack to her eye firmly and steps close to Garrus, shoulder to shoulder. Garrus leans on her shoulder and turns them until they face home. "Maybe," Shepard answers, and when they walk their arms brush together.
/
"Tarihup won't even talk to me!" Solana says, her voice rising shrill. Garrus winces, recognizing the tone, and shrinks back from where he's eavesdropping against the second-story window, perched on a branch and watching the argument from outside.
"Calm yourself," Relat snaps, "no one has ever heard words spoken in hysteria, no matter what ring of truth they held about them."
"She's a freak," Solana says, calmer but no less petulant, "an alien. Just because she lost her parents doesn't mean she gets to come here, take mine, and beat up my friends. I-"
"Solana Relati Vakarian," Amariti says in a voice like stone thunder. "You will stop this hateful speech right now." Solana's mouth shuts so fast her teeth click. "I have never been as disappointed in your character," Amariti says, cold.
Solana flushes brilliant blue, her subvocals chittering loud and angry even as she keeps her mouth pressed shut. She flees the room, stomping as hard as her little legs will let her.
"You have yet to share your side of the story," Relat says, and Garrus recognizes the cadence to his voice, the same one he uses to interrogate suspects and the same one he uses when he asks who ate the last fortiht in the cold food unit.
Shepard shrugs, mute, and Relat makes a noise of frustration in his throat. "You attacked them unprovoked, then? Struck out at innocent children? A fight between friends?"
"They're not my friends!" Shepard bursts out, and lifts her head to glare at Relat out of her good eye. Garrus sucks in a breath, staring as she refuses to break his gaze.
Amariti turns to hide a smile behind her hand, taking a second to school her expression. "Children are insensitive," she says quietly, breaking the tension. She rests her hand on the small of Relat's back and waits until Shepard darts little looks at her, guilty. "They spoke of your family."
Shepard flinches in place. She nods, jerkily, and goes back to looking at the floor. "They spoke ill of your family," Amariti continues, and Shepard hesitates for a second before nodding again.
"Leading the witness," Relat grumbles, and sighs when Amariti scratches her talons on his back, sharp and chastising. "We do not suffer violence under this roof, not for the excuse of sharp words."
"We're not saying you can't defend yourself if attacked," Amariti says, reassuring, "but to attack a classmate out of anger-you must learn to control your emotions."
"I expect you will be expelled," Relat says, moving forward, and Shepard hunches in on herself. "fairness in all stages, and you struck the first blow."
"Surely a suspension will do just as well," Amariti argues, "to pull her entirely isn't fairness, it's a failure to recognize circumstances beyond her control!"
"The school will want to set an example," Relat says sharply, "and as they are upfront about their zero tolerance policy-"
"What good is this rank if we cannot pull it for our children," Amariti snaps, and Relat steps away from her hand on his spine.
"She is not of our rank," he says, spinning to face his wife, "she is not-" he stops abruptly. "Go to your room."
Shepard flees, her eyes wet and glassy, her socked feet slapping on the stairs. Garrus darts his eyes between his father, who leans heavily against the counter, head bowed, and his mother, standing all upright and stiff by the table.
"That was cruel," Amariti says. Her voice breaks a little and Garrus feels something drop in his belly. "you can be so cruel."
Relat straightens. "The truth is often-"
"Don't you dare," Amariti snaps. "I have been bonded to you for eleven years. Don't you dare be unfair to your own children, to be cruel to your children. All of your children." She sweeps out of the room. Relat presses a fist to his forehead, breathing hard, and Garrus scrambles across the branches, swinging quickly into the neighboring tree and along the big branch that leads to Shepard's room.
He raps his talons against the glass. Tap, tap, tap. Shepard's face appears at the window, dark hair pulled back into a messy tail, dark eyes scrunched up in misery. When she speaks she sounds like she's ill, her nose all stuffed up and blocking off the parts of her vocals that make her voice signature sing. It makes Garrus' ears feel weird.
"G'way."
Garrus taps again, insistently, and she scowls at him. Garrus thinks he likes anger on her face better than sadness, and he raises his hand to knock again before she opens the window and help pull him inside. "Shouldn't have taught you to climb trees," she grumbles.
Garrus lunges at her, his elbows knocking into the soft parts of her, her face smashed up against the pressure points in his collarbone. She makes a muffled sound of resistance and he wraps his arms around her, trying not to catch her with his spurs and the hard edges of his plates. "I saw this in a vid at school," he says into her soft thin fringe. It tickles his nose, and he can see the brown spots dusted across her nose, fading into the dark bronze of her skin. "Humans like it."
Shepard shakes a little in his arms, and she ducks her head into him so he can't see her face. "Everyone hates me," she says, her vocals hitching. Garrus opens his range just enough to generate a rolling rumble in his chest, vibrating all along where they're pressed, torso to torso, just the same his mother did when he was small and fell against the sharp rocks.
"I don't hate you," he whispers, shy, letting the rumble in to color his voice.
Shepard's arms come up to wrap around his back, her fingers resting on the top of his cowl. "I don't hate you either," she whispers, and it sounds like a secret, words just for them.