Wow, I got a second chapter done pretty fast. But I already had the continuation to the first chapter in my head when I finished it, and right now this is as far as I've come. It's probably going to be a while until I start on a third chapter.

I got a PM from a reader who said they couldn't read the story and asked if I had deleted the story. Obviously I haven't since I've written a second chapter, but I hope no one esle has that problem. It's a shame really. This is a problem I've discovered that has. For about the first 24 hours of a new story being uploaded or a new chapter added, the site sometimes has problems finding it.

I hope the reader who sent the PM has been able to get to this chapter. They said my summary caught their attention and I'm really glad they told me that because I'm always unsure about my summaries. Thanks! And thanks to the people who reviewed. I'm always very happy to hear people like my stories since I usually end up hating them, apparently I'm very hard on myself.

2. Common Ground

Her first day on the Normandy SR2 'Alex' Shepard had been confused, felt lost and found some hope.

Now she was desperately trying to find that microscopic feeling of hope once again as she waited for her meal. The past two weeks she had felt like a roller-coaster of emotions, none of them positive. Her commanding officers had apart from that first day, not even glanced her way and left her to the mercy of the rest of the crew. She hadn't been sent out on any missions, despite her being on Commander Vakarian's squad, she hadn't even left the ship once and Commander Vakarian had left every time they docked somewhere. She'd also been bossed around by the others, sometimes even right in front of the eyes of the Commander and the Spectre, who did nothing.

A tray filled with a grey paste slammed down in front of her, rattling the fork like object and sending the bottle of water rolling across the table. Shepard jumped at the sound and quickly caught the bottle. It had been heading towards a pair of turians, technicians, and Shepard just knew they were going to blame her for something if it reached them. She sat back down and grabbed her fork? Spork, maybe? I have no name for this thing.

"Enjoy." the cook, his name was Lenks, growled and dared her to make a comment about the food. Like she had supposedly done the first time she had eaten aboard; even though she'd just asked what it was.

"Thank you." Shepard knew better then to complain or to make any other comment that wasn't a compliment and dug in to her bowl of glue like grey paste. By the third meal she had figured out how to eat it without choking. She could only eat three mouthfuls before she had to have a drink of water and then wait for the food to travel down to her stomach before she had three more mouthfuls. The paste tasted like wet cardboard, it didn't help that it had been heated up, and since she had started to eat it she hadn't been able to taste anything else. She was starting to miss the bad taste of 'morning breath'. It was nutritious though; containing exactly what she needed for the day, and filling; she was only eating once a day.

Shepard sneaked a peak at the food the two technicians were eating. While it didn't look like anything she'd ever seen it looked a hell lot better than her food. It's... colourful. Red, blue and pink. Judging from the way he's inhaling the food it tastes pretty good too.

While not eating or sleeping, Shepard would spend her time down in engineering. Helping Miss Nema upgrade and maintain the ship by crawling into all the little spaces the turians couldn't fit into. The quarian could do it herself but being a personal friend of Commander Vakarian she was higher ranked than Shepard and so the little human had to do the dirty work. Shepard had told them that her tech skills weren't good but they had argued that she just had to follow Miss Nema's instructions. Shepard hadn't dared ask why they didn't send the maintenance mechs; that's was what they were made for.

But Shepard wasn't going to complain; while she worked no one would bother her with mean comments or push her as they passed her. Unfortunately she couldn't go hide in engineering today since Miss Nema had left with Commander Vakarian and Nihlus to investigate a distress call on the planet they were orbiting around. Not that Miss Nema was thrilled to have her down in engineering. Quarians had a bad reputation in Citadel space and humans were known to pass judgements based upon rumours pretty quickly. Shepard was ashamed to admit that she had been wary of the quarian who'd proven to her that the rumours about the quarians were mostly just that; rumours.

She still had five more hours to kill before it was time to for the night-shift to take over and Shepard wondered if she could go hang out in Professor Solus' lab. Not surprisingly, no one else wanted her help and Shepard being left without anything to do would start to feel anxious.

The salarian scientist, who Shepard was almost sure had been part of the Special Tasks Force, was old but a freaking genius. He had expressed an interest in Shepard since he hadn't had much contact with humans and was taking the opportunity to study her. But he didn't like to be disturbed when he was working, which was all the time except for when he was sleeping. But I wouldn't be surprised if he were dreaming about experiments and all that scientific stuff... Maybe I should try Sergeant Haron first.

Shepard's observation about the former C-Sec officer had been correct. Sergeant Haron, another young turian, had been the only nice turian on the entire ship now that she was being ignored by her commanding officers. Shepard had spent some time in the armoury with him and found out that they shared a passion for short-ranged weapons. Shepard figured that his tolerance and acceptance of her came from his time at C-Sec, which consisted of mostly turians and salarian but now also of a growing number of humans.

Shepard finished her meal as fast as she could, which wasn't very fast and she'd been left alone in the mess hall, and left for the CIC deck. Haron spent most of his time in that armoury rather than in the secondary one. The doors opened to reveal Sergeant Haron cleaning several sniper rifles. He lifted his head and nodded at her. "Shepard, take a seat and grab a rag."

Shepard smiled, took a seat across from Haron and got to work. Haron stared at her.

"For a moment I thought that maybe you wouldn't be able to pick it up."

Shepard looked up with the rifle in her hands. "Sergeant?"

Haron pointed at the weapon. "You're so small and it's heavy."

Shepard looked down at the weapon in her hands. "It's a bit heavier than I'm used to, but turians are stronger than humans so I can see why the heavier ones would be your standard choice." Shepard had always heard comments about her height, being one centimetre taller than the required height she knew she was always going to be called short.

Haron's mandibles flared, and Shepard still wasn't sure if that was a good thing or bad. The only ones who had done that at her had been the Spectre, who now didn't even seem to remember her, and Haron and the Commander, just once though. She'd seen other turians do it as well but never when it involved her. To hell with it, just ask. If he gets angry you have a turian standard rifle in your hands to defend yourself with.

"What does that mean?"

Haron looked back at her. "What?"

"That, that thing you do with your mandibles. When they get really wide. What does that mean?"

Haron flared them again just to make sure he knew what she was talking about. "This? You don't know?"

She shook her head, her short hair following her movements. Haron didn't look like he was angry so she continued. "Nihlus did that before, Commander Vakarian's done it once to me, I've seen others to it as well."

Haron was amused. He'd heard a lot of the others complain about the human they had on their ship and how they couldn't read her, and here she was telling him she had the same problem. Haron, having worked with humans for a couple of years before he was recruited by the Spectre, didn't have much trouble reading their expressions and could clearly see that she was genuinely curious and perhaps a little concerned. Does she think she's offended me?

"It was a smile."

Now she looked surprised, and confused. "So when you do that..." and Haron flared his mandibles "...it means your smiling?"

"Well, it can be a smile, it depends on the combination of how wide you flare them and the sound you make."

"Sound? Wait, does this mean that Nihlus and the Commander smiled at me?" now she just looked confused and Haron suddenly remembered that humans couldn't hear the low growls that turians made to express different emotions.

"Nihlus is a Spectre, he can do pretty much whatever he wants, and he's actually pretty fond of humans. Sees your potential, but don't tell anyone that. The Commander and Nihlus are pretty close, like brothers; from what I've heard they've known each other for years, since before they did their obligatory service."

"That would explain their … thing two weeks ago." Shepard said and gestured across the armoury. The rifle was slipping off her lap and she pulled it back up.

Without a word Haron picked it up from her lap and instead handed her an assault rifle. Shepard glared, Haron could tell, and he flared his mandibles again. "The assault rifles were next anyway."

Shepard looked down at the new weapon in her hands and then looked back up uncertainly at Haron. "That was a smile right? They got really wide." she said and gestured at her own face where she would have had mandibles had she been turian.

"Yeah, it was a smile. When we flare them it's usually a positive emotion we're expressing; amusement, happiness. But surprise, confusion and other such emotions are also expressed like that. That's were the sound comes in, it's more of a growl, the pitch makes the difference just like it matters how wide we flare them." he said and pointed at his face. "Humans can't hear the growl... but I'm sure you can feel it. Here, place you're hand here." Haron said and pointed to his chest next, he was only wearing the lower part of his armour and had on the black body suit.

Shepard hesitated, but placed the assault rifle on the table and moved to Haron's side of the table and did as he said.

"First I'm going to smile, a plain smile that shows I'm amused and happy. Then surprise and confusion."

Shepard looked closely at his mandibles as he made each expression and her eyes widened in surprise when she could feel vibrations under her hand with each expression. Shepard pulled back her hand and went back to her seat.

"We purr when we're really happy or feeling really good, and negative emotions are expressed by our mandibles pulled tight against our face and with a deeper and darker growling."

"The Alliance didn't cover that when we studied alien anatomy and culture." Shepard told him and flexed her fingers.

"What did it cover then?" this was the first time Haron heard they studied alien anatomy and culture. The turian military didn't teach anything except how to best kill your enemies, and human being the soft creatures they were had been given the lesson 'just point and shot'.

They went back to cleaning weapons and Shepard told him they'd learned the weak points in turian bodies for example, so they would know how to kill them if it ever came down to a hand to hand combat. They'd learnt the same about several other species, and things like how to cause pain without causing permanent damage. It also worked the other way and Shepard knew how to give first aid to several alien races. Shepard gave Haron some tips about where to aim on a krogan, which he already knew, but she also told him were to hit a krogan to cause the most damage in case he ever faced a krogan without a weapon. Haron was impressed but told her he'd never heard of anyone, turian or human, defeating a krogan in hand to hand.

"No one's ever survived but I know about two guys who took down a krogan with them. It was a freaking bloodbath. Nightmare stuff."

"And the culture?" Haron changed the topic, he'd noticed the dark look in her eyes as she'd mentioned the incident.

"So we don't offend potential allies or enemies."

"Why would you worry about offending enemies?"

"If you're a prisoner you don't want to piss off the guy holding you hostage. It'll hurt less that way."

Haron chuckled, which for a turian was a growl loud enough for humans to hear, and they went back to him teaching her how to read turians, with him occasionally asking her about different human idioms.

As they talked and cleaned weapons Shepard felt warm inside for the first time in years. She realized that she enjoyed talking with the other turian and hoped that maybe, just maybe, she was getting to know someone who she could hopefully someday call a friend.

I hope he thinks the same.