She hadn't been on Omega long when she met him. She was celebrating her first real paycheck, out at the club. The place was hopping, and she was waiting in a long line at the bar.

"Word of advice," said a pleasant, deep voice behind her. "Don't buy from the batarian."

She turned and raised an eyebrow at the speaker. Turian male, a little short for a turian, which meant he wasn't that much taller than she was. Dark brown coloring (almost the same as the shade of her skin), with sweeping white marks on his face, trying not to show her his teeth. "Why not?" she asked.

"He doesn't like humans."

"Hm. Thanks for the tip," she said, smiling.

"No problem."

She let him buy her a drink that night. They talked a lot longer than she'd expected. A week later, she managed to coax him out onto the dance floor. They laughed their way through a fast dance. When the music turned slow, she didn't hesitate to drape her arms around his cowl and lean into him, and decided she didn't mind at all how his breath hitched or how he looked at her as though she was the only person in the room.

They didn't have sex that night, but it wasn't too long after. As she lay in bed, warm and breathing hard, she marveled at just how good everything had been. Much easier than her asari roommates had made it sound, and yeah, she was a little scraped up, but not nearly as bad as the vids she'd seen on the extranet.

He stroked her breast, and she hummed in pleasure. He'd rapidly figured out how she liked them touched. "Okay?" he murmured, muffled against her shoulder.

She turned and pressed a kiss to his brow. "Much better than. Up for another round?"

His answer was silent but eager.

They moved in together as soon as they could find the right place. His apartment was too small for two; she had two roommates and wanted to move out anyway. They found a little place in a decent enough neighborhood; not perfect, but the Blue Suns kept the place safe as long as you paid, and they could fit that into their budget. Between his job as a mechanic and hers as a communications tech, they made enough to afford the place and even save a little.

He woke up one morning with a cough.

"Huh," she said. "The batarian guy next door was sick yesterday, too."

He shrugged. "Must be something different. Turians and batarians don't get the same diseases."

She put a hand to his forehead and frowned. "You've got a fever, hon. I don't think you should go to work today."

He sighed. "Yeah, okay. I'll call in. Can you go down to the store and pick up some stuff for me?"

"Sure, just write down what you need."

He made her a list, called work, and flopped back into bed, still coughing.

She frowned more as she looked at the list. She didn't recognize the names of most of the stuff on it, but that wasn't the problem; his writing looked shakier than usual.

Their store wasn't that far away, and usually it was a pleasant enough walk. Today things didn't feel right. She passed a salarian slumped over coughing on the street, and a batarian lying huddled and still. There weren't a lot of people out and about. A group of vorcha snarled at her from a block away, but kept their distance. It wasn't until she was close to the store that she realized she hadn't seen anyone with a Blue Suns insignia. Usually there were patrols.

The volus who ran the store was perched on a lift behind the counter. "I'm sorry," he said loudly and slowly to the batarian standing in front of him, "but I don't have what you're looking for."

"You're supposed to have medicine! Just give it to me."

"Look around, Khar'shan-clan. We're out."

The shelves had indeed been ransacked, she noticed.

"You have to give me something!" the batarian shouted.

She reached for the pistol she always carried. Going unarmed on Omega, even a safe neighborhood like this one, was just stupid. She thought the volus caught her eye as he spread his hands. "I have nothing to give."

The batarian snarled and lunged over the counter, but suddenly the volus had a pistol, too. "Back off, Khar'shan-clan."

The batarian took a step back, then turned and noticed her, with her gun out as well. "Fine," he said sullenly. "I'm going."

"Well," said the volus, neatly tucking his gun under the counter. "What brings you here, Earth-clan? I hear humans are staying healthy."

She frowned. "Is everyone getting sick?"

"Seems like. And the Suns are cutting patrols." The volus sighed. "What do we pay them for, anyway?"

"I'm not here for me, I'm here for my partner," she said. "He wanted... well, this stuff."

The volus took the list. "Hm. You're in luck, Earth-clan. I still have turian goods."

He pointed out the items on the shelves for her. She collected a good amount of basic dextro and levo foodstuffs, too. The volus nodded approvingly. "Wise choice. Good luck, Earth-clan."

She paid and hurried back to the apartment. The streets already seemed less safe. She saw more roving groups of vorcha, heard the tinkle of breaking glass and shots fired in the distance.

When she got back, locking the door behind her, he was sitting up in bed, overheated and breathing hard. "I've been listening to the radio," he said. "They're saying it's an epidemic, but humans aren't getting sick. You should get out before this section gets locked down."

"Like hell I'm leaving you alone," she said.

"I'll be fine."

She put her bags of supplies aside and took his face in both hands. His mandibles flexed under her touch. He was always warm, but he was much too hot right now. "Listen. I love you and I'm not leaving you."

She'd never told him she loved him before.

He stared up at her, eyes clear and fever-bright. "They're saying there isn't a cure."

"I don't want to hear it," she said forcefully. "Tell me what to do with that stuff I bought."

Following his instructions, she brewed soothing tea that smelled vile to her, but that he drank gratefully. She made soups and forced him to eat. She pressed cold packs to his head and neck, trying to get his temperature down. She gave him a noxiously blue syrup that seemed to ease his cough for a while.

She kept her pistol and their shotgun loaded and ready to hand, and the door locked.

As the hours went past, he got less lucid. He tossed and turned and muttered incoherently. She sat next to him, keeping watch. She set her omni-tool to chime alerts, changing the cold compresses every hour, more tea and cough syrup every four hours. Outside, she could sometimes hear screaming, running, gunshots. Occasionally, the smell of smoke wafted through the crack under the door. She caught sleep in snatches between doses.

She jerked awake when she heard scrabbling and rattling at the door. The power must have gone out; she sat in the dark, and couldn't hear the hum of the refrigerator any more. She readied her shotgun and crept forward, silently stretching out the kinks in her legs. She positioned herself in the doorway between their bedroom, where he lay coughing and muttering, and the front room.

The front window broke with a crash. She fired the shotgun, and heard a screech as the round hit something. Vorcha, it sounded like.

"Get out," she snarled.

"Human," a voice hissed. Definitely vorcha. "You give us—"

She fired again, advancing. Something yelped and ran. When she let her eyes adjust to the dim light coming from outside, she found she had one dead vorcha in her living room. Its companions had gone. She heaved the corpse out the window and used omni-gel to seal the metal shutters closed. Not a perfect solution, but it would hold for now. She was right, the power was out; she took the last cold packs out of the freezer and applied them to her lover's overheated skin. She still had some tea and soup made up for him, at least. She tried to feed him a little more soup. When a fit of coughing took him, she found he was now coughing up blood, dark and inky.

"Damn it," she whispered, and cried a little, her hand tightening around his. She remembered the times they'd gone dancing and drinking together, how she'd gotten to love the feel of gentle talons prickling against her skin. They'd been watching this truly ridiculous vid series about star-crossed lovers during the First Contact War, and now they might never finish it.

When she was done crying, she checked her supplies. She had dry rations and bottled water for herself, more soup and tea for him. She could hold out for a while. She wasn't sure how long.

She wasn't sure how long he had.

She dozed again, and woke again to the sound of someone fiddling with the door. As before, she readied herself, grimacing at the stiffness of her muscles.

This time, they succesfully hacked the lock. It whirred and the door slid open. She fired and heard the sizzle of shields.

"Whoa there," somebody said. "Easy, we're not here to hurt you."

Human voice, female. Her heart pounding, she said, "Then what the hell are you here for?"

The lights flickered back on. She winced and squinted in the glare. Three humans, a hatchet-faced old white man, a young black guy, a woman, all heavily armed and armored. Great. Mercs. The woman seemed to be in charge, pulling up her gun. "Just checking things out. You all right?"

"I'm fine," she said, "but my boyfriend's sick."

As if on cue, there was a round of coughing from the bedroom behind her. She turned and ran back to him, reaching for the cough syrup. The merc woman followed her, and sucked in a breath. "Your boyfriend?"

She glared back over her shoulder. "Yeah. I'm dating a turian. What's it to you? Damn it," she grumbled. He was almost totally limp, and it was tricky to keep him propped up and get the cough syrup into his mouth without it running out between his teeth.

"Here." To her surprise, the woman stepped to her side and lent a hand, bracing the sick man upright with one arm and holding his mandibles shut with the other. That made it much easier to get the medicine down his throat.

"Thanks," she said. "I guess you know what you're doing here."

"I, ah, have a turian friend." The woman stepped back. Her eyes fell on the blue bloodstains on the sheets and his clothes, and she flinched. "Seen enough of that color blood lately," she muttered, and held out a medi-gel injector. "This ought to help."

"Thanks," she said again, taking the injector and applying it to the thinner skin of his neck.

"Listen," said the merc, "can you get him to the clinic?"

"What, the one that crazy salarian runs?" She shook her head. "I don't think I can carry him that far."

The woman nodded, her jaw set. "Okay. I'll lock the door behind us, then. This should be cleared up soon. When you hear the ventilators come back on, make sure you expose him to the fresh air."

"Commander," called the younger man from the door.

"Yeah, on my way," said the woman, heading out.

"Hey," she called after the woman. "Thanks a lot. What's your name?"

She glanced back over her shoulder. "Shepard."

It was so incongruous that she laughed out loud. "Are you kidding me? No, really, what's your name?"

The woman gave her a half smile. "Really. It's Shepard." The door whooshed shut behind her and locked.

She couldn't be sure, but it seemed to her as though his breathing was easier. About an hour later, she heard the hum of the section's ventilation starting up again. An hour after that, his fever broke.

She hauled him to the clinic a couple of days later, when the streets were safer and he could walk with some help, in spite of his grumbles that he didn't need to see a doctor. The salarian wasn't there, but the young human doc checked out her boyfriend and assured them that he'd be fine with some rest.

"I heard it was Commander Shepard who cured the plague," she said.

The doctor sighed. "Well, Dr. Solus came up with the cure, but she helped deliver it, yes."

"I thought Shepard was supposed to be dead."

He spread his hands. "I guess not."

She asked if he had a way to get in touch with Shepard. With some hesitation, she sent a note of thanks to the address she got.

She didn't think anything more about it. Her boyfriend got better and things settled down. So she was surprised when she got a reply a few weeks later.

Hey, thanks for your note. I'm glad I could help. I have kind of a weird favor to ask you, though.

Can I ask you some questions about you and your boyfriend?

Shepard