Another kink meme fill :) Rated K+ for minor swearing.

"Why?"

"Because Mommy has to go talk to some very important people."

"Why?"

"Because it's part of Mommy's job, sweetheart."

"Why can't I go? I can talk, too."

Hannah Shepard smiled despite herself as she and her daughter exited the elevator on the Presidium level of the Citadel. Too young to fully understand the details of her mother's work, her little girl was ever persistent to become involved. She didn't know why her mother insisted on talking about such boring things with the other adults, but she did know that she didn't like being dropped off with a babysitter, or at a daycare center. She was not a baby, she insisted, and she belonged with her mother and not with a pack of drooling, crying children.

It was probably all those bedtime stories, Hannah thought, the ones she loved about the soldiers and the heroes. 'I'm gonna join the Alliance like you, Momma,' she had said time and again, and her mother couldn't help but feel a sense of pride at her daughter's youthful conviction. But that was for another time, and for now it was best that she focus on things a young girl aught to – like studying, playing, and making friends. Unfortunately, the latter seemed to come less easily than the prior. The feisty little redhead was just too stubborn for her own good.

Her attentions were torn from her mother by the majesty of the Presidium, all the lights and fountains distracting. She followed her mother's lead up to the reception desk without much thought. As the elder Shepard spoke with the Asari there, the little one wandered to the railing nearby that overlooked a lake. Her large, curious eyes gazed up, and then up some more, at the statue of a impressive beast that stood in the middle.

"Whoa," she whispered.

"Like it, do you?" A booming voice came from her right. It startled her so much that she almost lost her grip on the railing, but managed to hang on. The red-crested krogan laughed deeply as she began to double-take between him and the statue.

"Is... Is that you, sir?" she asked.

"Sir?" he laughed again and shook his head. "No. The day I let them make a monument out of me will be the day Salarians fly." The little girl paused, regarding him questioningly, before opening her mouth. He stopped her. "No, they don't fly." Her mouth clamped shut. "Yet."

"You're a...Krogan, right?"

"Last I checked." The little one stepped away from the railing and regarded him with the direct openness only a child would dare. "What do you know of Krogans, welp?"

"My mom told me they're big, strong, and thick-headed," she replied, candidly. He laughed louder this time.

"Your mother is a smart woman."

"I'm going to be just like her some day. I'm going to join the Alliance and have my own ship an' everythin',"

"That so?" She nodded quite vigorously. "Hmph. That takes a lot of work to get that far."

"I can do it. I will do it," she insisted, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly. The krogan approached her with a few heavy steps. He saw her swallow, but her posture remained unyielding.

"What's your name?" he rumbled, towering over her.

"Shepard," she replied, opting to give her surname, just like her mother always went by as an Alliance soldier. "What's your name?" He didn't respond right away, crimson eyes regarding her beneath his crested brow.

"Battlemaster Wrex." The tiny soldier's stance relaxed as it gave way to excitement.

"A real battlemaster? Like in the stories?" He watched her fumble, her tiny human brain likely filling with a million questions she just couldn't quite fathom. What stories she had heard, he didn't know, but he could appreciate her awe all the same.

"Sweetie, there you are." Shepard scowled and turned pink as her mother approached. How embarrassing to be called 'sweetie' in front of a real krogan battlemaster! "You're all checked in and I need to get to my meeting. Let's hurry along."

"But, Mom! I just met-!"

"Shhshh, none of that. Hurry along now. Scoot!" Wrex stood idly by and watched as momma Shepard ushered her offspring towards the childcare center, much to her obvious dismay. She finally submitted, but glanced over her shoulder in one last attempt to glimpse him.

"Wrex!" she waved.

"Shepard," he nodded.

Shepard allowed the Asari who's name she couldn't remember much less pronounce to lead her to the play room where the other children lay in wait. Why did they have such strange names, she thought. All the ones she had heard thus far sounded like little more than a sneeze followed by snort and a cough. When she had asked, her mother had shushed her and told her not to be rude. She wasn't being rude, she just wanted to know.

Once left to her own devices, she surveyed the room before her, taking note of all the alien inhabitants. At least it wasn't so boring as to be filled with nothing but human children like usual. Still, she suspected none of them would be as interesting as Battlemaster Wrex may have been had her mother not shown up. Heaving a sigh, she squared her shoulders and marched out amongst the others before dramatically diving behind a toy chest.

Pressing her hands together in a mock pistol, she slowly peered out from the corner of the box, spying a Salarian child on the other side. He was busy talking to himself in a rapid manner, placing geometric blocks together one way and then another, thoroughly engrossed. Gnawing her lip, she bent up over the box and took 'aim' at him.

"Hold it right there!" she declared. The small, speckled Salarian startled and glanced over his shoulder, blocks scattering before him. "You're under arrest in the name of the Alliance!"

"Do you mind human child?" he rambled. "Take your make believe elsewhere! I have equations to solve!"

"Equations?" Shepard said, dropping her hands just a bit. "Like math?"

"Yes. Must complete one hundred thirty equations before my tutor returns."

"That's stupid. Wouldn't you rather play?"

"Play?" he tittered amused to himself. "I AM playing!"

Shepard groaned and glanced over to a fellow human hopefully. "You're under arrest!" The smaller boy began to bawl quite loudly. Shepard's eyes darted to each side nervously and she made a hasty departure, not wanting to be blamed for causing his tantrum.

Disgruntled, she settled down against one of the walls in the far side of the room and leaned her cheek against a fist.

"Hi." Glancing up she saw a boy about her age, blonde, standing in front of her. "That was awesome. Are you an Alliance soldier, for real?" Shepard straightened up a bit and placed her hands on her knees.

"Yes," she replied, as stoic as she could manage.

"Wow. That's amazing. What's your name?"

"Shepard," she replied proudly.

"I'm Conrad... Conrad Verner," he grinned, and she noticed he was missing a couple front teeth.

"Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too!" He settled against the wall in a rather close proximity to her. "I want to be an Alliance soldier, too!"

"Well," Shepard said, scooting to put some distance back between them. "That takes a lot of work."

"I can do it!" he replied, clenching his hand in a fist. "We can do it together!"

"Yeah, sure." Shepard decided it would be best not to make eye contact now.

"Shepard...?"

"Yes, Conrad?"

"Do you have a boyfriend? Shepard? Where did you go? Oh, I get it! We're on a stealth mission!" He jumped to his feet in search of the awesome girl. Shepard, in the meantime, had taken up residence in the nearest closet, holding her breath as Conrad sauntered by.

She had just allowed herself to exhale when the door opened and she froze like an animal caught by a dangerous predator...or her parents.

"What are you doing in there?" asked a strange, harmonic voice. Without a second thought, Shepard reached out and seized the creature into the closet with her and closed the door, hand clamped over its...um, mouth? It struggled and kicked in the dim light of the closet, biting down on her hand when it slipped in range.

"Ow! What did you do that for?" Shepard cried out, shaking her hand and hoping Conrad hadn't heard.

"You've initiated combat! I accept!" he said huffily, a small growl arising in his throat.

"No, I didn't! Ow," she replied. "Would you keep it down? You're going to give away my position!" The lanky bird creature appeared to calm down.

"Your position?" he asked, sounding puzzled. Suddenly Shepard felt two scaly, sharp hands running over her face and squishing up her cheeks as he leaned in to look at her more closely. "Who are you? What are you?"

She smacked his hands away and rubbed the feeling of his small talons off her cheeks.

"What do you mean 'what'?' I'm a human," she replied as if it should be the most obvious thing in the world. "Are you stupid?"

"No, I'm a Turian," he replied, crouching beside her indignantly.

"Just because you're a Turian doesn't mean you aren't stupid."

"Turians aren't stupid. My father says humansare stupid." Shepard rolled her eyes and cracked the door open to take a peek and see if the coast was clear.

"Well, your father's stupid," she replied and the small Turian ruffled.

"You take that back, human," he said, trying to make the word sound as insulting as possible. He even tried to put a threatening growl behind it, like he'd seen his father do when interrogating a suspect, but a small, embarrassing squeak was all that came.

"Oh my god, what was that?" The human was laughing at him now, grinning at his expense. Her and her stupid...weird...squish face!

"Take it back!" he repeated, leaping at her and knocking them both out of the closet.

"No!" Shepard argued. "Ow! Let go!" He had managed to get a fistful of her hair and was yanking on it relentlessly until she flipping him over and knocked her head against his still developing forehead crest. "Say it! Say Turians are stupid!"

"Never!" he growled out, using the strength behind his legs to buck her weight off him. "Ha!" Shepard made and oofing noise as she landed on her side and quickly pressed up to her feet again.

"Shepard! Shepard I found you!"

"Not now, Conrad!" she warned, keeping her eyes locked with the vibrant blue ones before her as the Turian stalked around her.

"What's going on? Is he bothering you? I'll help!" She breathed a hefty sigh at this irritating insistence, but was surprised when the young boy actually ran out in front of her and held his arms wide to block her from harm. "Stand back, Turian! You will not harm my sister in arms!"

For a second, Shepard was actually impressed. Perhaps there was more to this Conrad than she had initially suspected. Maybe he wasn't just some lanky, slightly creepy -

"Get out of my way," the Turian said.

"Yessir!" Conrad scrambled away without blinking an eye, and took off somewhere Shepard didn't see. So much for that.

"Just like a human. Coward."

"I'm not a coward."

"Yes, you are. All humans are." Shepard had had about enough and gave a battle cry before barreling into the Turian again. The two clawed and scraped, growled and screamed. It was inevitable that they would draw attention, and suddenly they found themselves being extracted from each other by a biotic force. As they floated in the air, they both caught sight of a rather disgruntled Asari.

"What's going on here?" she asked, arms crossed and and eyes narrowed.

There was a pause. Then the explanations came out rambling all at once.

"He started it!"

"She attacked me!

"He bit me!"

"She said Turians were stupid! Which everyone knows is NOT true!"

"Yeah, cause his daddy says so!" she spat back.

"Enough! Shepard! This is your first visit to our facility. This is no way to make a good impression." She turned her gaze. "And Garrus. You should be ashamed. What would your father say?" Her words were enough to put the disgruntled sense of defeat into them.

As they were both placed in a time-out, Shepard took her punishment in silence. She couldn't speak for Garrus, but this wasn't the first time she'd come face to face with the stark corner of a room. Every now and again she would steal a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye. Turians really were strange looking. She couldn't decide whether he looked more like a bird or a lizard. All she knew, as she touched the bandaid on her cheek where he'd scraped her, was that whatever he was, he was sharp.

Garrus muttered and shuffled his feet. What would his father think, she'd asked. He knew exactly what his father would think and it wasn't going to be anything good. What if he decided to stop bringing Garrus along to work? What if he changed his mind about training him for C-Sec? Garrus glanced at the fleshy being in the other corner. It was all her fault. His father hadn't said it exactly as such, but he was right all the same. Humans were stupid.

The rest of the afternoon Shepard made a point to stay as far away from the Turian as possible and busied herself with the art supplies. First, she drew pictures of Alliance ships and then others of what she thought her own ship should look like (there were lots of guns and thrusters). She drew pictures of herself tall and proud, waging battles with various aliens, sometimes with a certain Krogan battlemaster as her partner. At one point she started an attempt at drawing a Turian, but decided against it when they always came out looking wrong.

She was just scribbling in frustration over her final drawing when she heard something strange. A voice, multi-tonal like Garrus' but much lower in pitch, caught her attention. It didn't sound happy, though she wasn't sure what it should sound like if it was. Hopping up from her cross-legged position on the floor, she crept to the doorway and peeked into the reception lobby where she spotted an adult Turian, dressed in C-Sec blues. He was speaking with the supervising Asari and Garrus, looking like he was trying to disappear, sat hunched in a chair nearby.

Shepard, for the most part, ignored him out of spite. Her eyes glued to the adult Turian, who she assumed was Garrus' father. It was like Garrus couldn't shut up about this Turian, but since it was only in her own head, Shepard admitted he was impressive looking. She had seen Turians only once or twice before, but never up close. He had a lot more plates than his son did, and the spikey things on his head were much longer and sharper. What caught her attention most were the blue markings on his face. They looked like war paint. Reluctantly, Shepard decided they were cool. Garrus' father turned his attention to his son and she ducked back a bit to avoid being noticed.

For the briefest moment she smirked at the idea that the trouble-making Turian had gotten in trouble. Served him right. She knew she would likely get reprimanded by her own mother, but at least she wasn't taking all the blame. Garrus snapped up almost instantly as his father's gaze fell on him. He was out of the chair, up tall and straight, arms folded behind himself in a pure military fashion. Shepard couldn't hear much as the elder Turian spoke in a very low tone. He didn't seem very upset, she thought, his demeanor calm and quiet. The only movement Garrus made came from his mouth, responding to whatever it was his father was asking. Otherwise, he may as well have been a tiny statue at his father's feet.

Their chat wasn't very long. With a word or two to the Asari, the elder Turian turned to go. Once there was some distance between them, Garrus seemed to deflate and began to follow.

"Hmph," Shepard said to herself. "Wish my mom's lectures were that easy." Oh, well. Maybe his father was waiting until they got home to issue a proper punishment. Without giving it another thought she plopped down and began drawing again to pass the time until her mother returned for her.

Garrus flipped forward a few pages in the holo-book he was reading. It was no better. What was with all these childish books in the poor excuse for a library? There was nothing like he had at home. No books on battle strategy. No books on weaponry. Nothing but drivel about Dick and Jane and how they liked to run. Who cared how a couple of stupid humans liked to run? It might have been a little more interesting if they had been running from something like, oh say, a pack of Tuchankan varren.

Garrus couldn't help but chuckle at the idea, though he quickly quelled it before anyone noticed. He got up to put the book back in hopes of finding something a little more to his liking. He ran the tip of his talon over the spines of the books as he skimmed them, mock-gagging a couple of times at the more ridiculous or blase` sounding ones. He had just gotten to the end of the bookshelf when something caught his eye. There was a smaller book on the floor, whose cover looked decidedly more exciting than all the others. There was a battle being waged between a large synthetic and a mighty looking Turian on it. Above them in large, scrawling letters, it read "Adventures of Rihkus: Turian Spectre."

Eagerly, he bent down to retrieve it.

"Eccheem." Oh, blast.

Not two feet away from the wayward book sat the human. She was leaned against the wall with one of the books in her hand, a small stack of them to her left. If that wasn't bad enough, what was on her face completely threw him for a loop. She had red finger paint markings on her skin, under her eyes, on her forehead and jaw. They looked perfectly deliberate, and not unlike the sort of thing he saw amongst his own people. She tilted her chin up, unapologetic as he gawked at her.

"I'm reading that." That seemed to shake the shock out of him. Defiantly, Garrus bent down and picked up the book anyway.

"No, you're not. You're reading that one."

"For now. But I was going to read that one next."

"Then I'm reading it right now," he replied. He watched as Shepard delicately placed the book in her hand to the side opposite the stack.

"I'm done. Give me that one."

"How about 'no'?" he challenged. She didn't seem to like that much, her face contorting into an angry frown.

"Do you want to get in trouble again?" she warned. He snorted and huffed a breath.

"What? The human is going to tell on me? Is that it?"

"No, but I'm gonna kick your ass if you don't hand it over!"

"Shepard said 'ass!'" Conrad peeked out from behind a bookshelf. "That is so renegade!" Shepard chucked one of the books at him, narrowly missing his head.

"What is your problem with me?" Garrus asked.

"I don't have a problem with you," she lied, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Uh, yeah, you do. You obviously don't have a problem with Turians anymore." He waggled the book at her. "Not to mention all this." He gestured to the entirety of his own, still bare face.

"Shut up," she replied for lack of anything better. "It's war paint."

"No, it's not," he replied. "Those markings look just like Turian tattoos."

"So what if they are?" She hastily grabbed up another book from her collection and pretended to be instantly engrossed in it. He set his jaw hard, running his tongue over his teeth inside his mouth. This just wasn't worth all the trouble. It wasn't worth another lecture. It wasn't worth the disapproving looks from his father.

"I'm taking this," he stated, and marched away from her. Shepard watched him go and shrugged with a sigh.

When lunch time rolled around, Shepard noticed that Garrus was still reading the comic book he had snabbed earlier. She tapped the sides of her tray with her fingertips thoughtfully and sat down on the bench at the far end of where he was. Attendance at the care center was sparse today, so the table was pretty empty aside from the two of them. He hadn't seemed to notice when she sat down, eyes firm on the book as he occasionally shoved something that looked like gravy and noodles into his mouth.

Shepard tapped her fork on the table a few times, then proceeded to take large crunching bites of her carrot sticks. He didn't look up. Discreetly, she scooted herself down the bench further, sliding her tray along. She inched a little more every time until she was no more than a foot away, and took another cracking bite of her vegetables.

"Ugh. Yes, I know you're there," Garrus sighed, resting his hand on the table now and tilting his head back before looking at her.

"Are you still reading that?"

"Yes, why?" He leaned over the book again.

"Because I read it in like five minutes and you're taking forever." He growled softly.

"I finished it already. I'm just re-reading it."

"Why?"

"Is there something you wanted?" He asked, reluctantly turning his eyes to her again. Shepard looked back silently for a moment, chewing.

"Nah," she finally said. Garrus let his hands fall heavily on the table as his eyes rolled up in his head.

"Spirits. You're weird."

"Uh, no. You're weird," she corrected.

"I'm not the one walking around with a dead animal on my head." Shepard stopped chewing a moment and frowned.

"Dead ani- what?" She reached up as if to check for something she was pretty sure wasn't there a second ago. "That's not a dead animal! That's my hair!"

"Why do you have hair on your head and not anywhere else? It doesn't make any sense."

"I don't know it's just..." She stumbled over her words then decided to fight fire with fire. "Why don't you have markings like all the other Turians?"

"I will," he said, sitting up straight and adjusting the collar of his tunic. "As soon as I finish my military training."

"Wait...what? Finish your...?" Shepard blinked a few times. Somehow, despite his strange features, Garrus started to look smug. "You're not even an adult yet!"

"So?"

"My mom says I can't even join the Alliance until I'm eighteen!"

He gave her a quick once over.

"Maybe that's because you're not ready for it yet."

"I could be if she'd let me!" Shepard insisted, clenching her fists on the table now. "I mean, what have you got that I don't?"

"Plates for one...," he pointed out, tapping his talon against a broad one on his forehead. "How do you humans survive at all? You don't have any natural protection." He pushed a talon against the flesh of her arm, testing the pliability and she jerked away.

"Stoppit."

"I'm just saying." He had already been quick to notice the healing scratch on her cheek that he'd caused yesterday. Humans seemed incredibly fragile. It was no wonder their soldiers completely covered themselves in thick, heavy armor. The few humans Garrus had seen had been fully armored, and like the Quarians he assumed it was because of some biological weakness. His father had told them they were soft, and it would have made sense if they wore it all the time. Shepard had proven that was not the case, but despite her physical inferiority, she apparently still had no problem instigating fights with others.

There was a pause as they regarded each other silently.

"What are the tattoos for?" Shepard finally looked away long enough to grab the cookie off her tray.

"They say what colony we're from."

"Oh." She sounded vaguely disappointed, but it was fleeting. "What about the color?"

"Depends on the family. What isthat?"

"It's a cookie." She watched his nose wrinkle up a little.

"Why are there spots on it? Is it an animal?" Shepard choked a little as she tried to swallow and laugh at the same time.

"No," she said. Garrus looked genuinely baffled. "It's a dessert. A sweet thing. The spots are chocolate." He continued to stare at her, eyes darting between her and this 'cookie' thing. "Um... It's just...sweet stuff. Really good. Wanna try it?"

"No, thanks," he said, waving a hand. "Human food will make me sick."

"Oh." She regarded the cookie one more time and the shrugged and shoved the rest of it in her mouth. Garrus looked at her with a bit of amusement in his eyes. "What?" Shepard asked.

"Your...your.. Um," he searched for the proper term, but gestured to where cheeks would be if he had any. "They've swollen."

"Huh?" Shepard asked, cocking a brow and reaching up to her face. Her cheeks were full of cookie, but nothing was swollen. She continued to chew and then gave a hefty swallow before reaching for her milk to wash it all down. Garrus cocked his head and regarded her with curiosity.

"Do you always do that when you eat?"

"Do what?" she asked, wiping a milk mustache away with the back of her hand.

"Expand...?"

"Uh, not that I know of. Sometimes my tummy gets kind of full." She patted her stomach and looked thoughtful. "It doesn't get much bigger than this, though." He nodded and there was another pause.

"Ah... Listen..." He tapped his talons on the table. "I'm...sorry I bit you yesterday...and...it wasn't a proper Turian thing to do...so... I'm sorry." His words sounded as though he was trying to remember something he was supposed to recite. It was likely something his father had told him to say, but Shepard took it for what it was worth. Her eyes wandered to the side briefly as she leaned an elbow on the table, finding her own apology just as difficult as his seemed.

"I'm sorry that I hit you...and that I called you stupid. It's not fitting of an Alliance officer's daughter to act so..." She squinted as she tried to remember the actual word her mother had said. After a second she gave up. "Um...like I did."

"And I want you to know that I meant no disrespect...and that...um... I don't think humans are inferior...," he continued to recall.

"I have the utmost respect for...uh...your father...What's his name?"

"Vakarian."

"For Officer Vakarian." She nodded. They both looked at each other again and gave a collective, defeated sigh.

"You got lectured, too, I imagine."

"For an hour!" she said, exasperated, gesturing dramatically before laying her forehead on the table. "And I'm grounded for a month!"

"I didn't know you could fly."

"No, it means I'm not allowed to do anything fun," she said, lifting her head again. "What did your dad do to you?"

"He told me if anything like that happened again he wouldn't approve my C-Sec training."

"You're joining C-Sec? Doesn't your dad work for them?"

"Eventually, and yes. How did you know?"

"I saw his uniform," she said. He squinted at her, and she knew she had just admitting to spying on them, so she acted quickly. "I thought you were joining the military. Why join C-Sec?"

"Most Turians get military training when they're young. I'm joining C-Sec because it's what my father did."

"Do you want to?" He offered her a glance and then looked down as if he had never really thought about that.

"I do," he finally said. "That way I can stop all the bad people on the Citadel."

"Why don't you become a Spectre, instead? Then you could stop bad guys all over the galaxy and do whatever you wanted," she pointed out. "You know, like Rihkus." Garrus let his gaze fall on the comic book again and shrugged up his shoulders. Shepard noticed the small, boney structures on his jaw moved a little.

"Spectres aren't heroes, Shepard." It was the first time he had actually called her by her name. The way it rumbled in his throat when he said the 'r' gave her a goosebumps. "They play by their own rules, not the rules of the galaxy."

"Well, yeah," Shepard said, lifting a hand emphatically. "That's the point."

"My father doesn't like them. Besides, you can't just sign up. You have to be picked by the Council." Shepard rested her cheek on a hand and poked at her food with her fork. Garrus took another slurp of his own lunch, a long, narrow tongue poking out and cleaning up the splatter on his cheek.

"I'm gonna be one someday," she said.

"Right," he said dismissively. "There's never been a human Spectre."

"I'll be the first, then. I'm going to be a Spectre...and I'm going to get my own ship with the best damn pilot in the universe." Determined, she began shoveling her food into her mouth wholeheartedly. Garrus watched her a moment and couldn't believe how much she seemed to find truth in her own words. It was as though, in spite of everything, she planned to do the impossible. This fragile, armorless little human with the weird mop of hair on her head was going to change the goddamn universe whether anyone liked it or not.

"Can I move yet?"

"No! Just stand there and be patient, Garrus!" Shepard said, agitated that he wouldn't stop asking every two seconds. She gnawed at her tongue as she erased a line and redrew it again.

"What are you doing?"

"Talking is moving. Stoppit." Garrus huffed a breath and stood still as asked, letting his eyes wander as the strange human named Shepard scribbled furiously on a white piece of what he'd heard was 'paper'. It wasn't used very often these days. Shepard had said they used to make it out of trees in the old times, but had to stop once trees became too scarce. It was now made of various plentiful minerals, but was hardly used in lieu of much less primitive technology.

When Shepard rose to her feet, still scrutinizing whatever was on the paper, he assumed she had finished. Instead, she passed him by and dug in the cabinet until she found the finger paints. Selecting the blue canister, she set the paper down and approached him directly.

"What are you doing?" he asked when she uncapped it and dunked her fingers in and made for him.

"Just hold still. This will only take a second!" Against his better judgment the Turian did as asked. He couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable as the alien began swathing her paint soaked fingers over his face. He refrained from questioning her during this process for fear she might jab him in the eye or something. After a few minutes she stepped back and looked at him, studying her work. An agreeable nod told him she was satisfied, and she went and grabbed her paper, using the remaining paint on her fingers to put the color on it. "That's better."

Her lips spread wide with the subtlest show of her teeth and her eyes grew warm, so Garrus supposed she must have been pleased. She walked over to him and held up the drawing. He looked at the scrawled images, a Turian with blue markings and what he could only assume was a human given the strange splotch of red on its head that must have been hair. Shepard shoved it at him enough that he took hold of it and she rounded him to look on with pride. When he didn't say anything she decided to explain.

"That's me. Commander Shepard," she grinned, making a small amused noise. "And this is you. You're like my second in command or somethin'." She jabbed her finger at the Turian, accidentally smudging some blue on the ramshackle armor she'd drawn on him. Her eyes wandered between him and the paper a few times. "So, do you like it or what?"

"It's... I like it," he nodded simply. This seemed to maker her happy enough, another smile causing the red markings she'd given herself curving upward. She glanced away from him as the Asari called her name and told her her mother had arrived. As she moved to go, she turned and walked backwards to see him.

"You can keep it," she said. "I'll see you around, Garrus!" He nodded as she ran to meet her mother at the reception lobby. Once he heard them leave he looked back to the drawing. Shepard was not the most talented artist in the world, the whole thing a bit messy. She'd drawn his fringe a little long, and she was too tall and had some strange bumps in her armor. All I all, though, the two of them looked decidedly bad-ass. He particularly liked the gun she had given him. It kind of looked like a rifle.

As he headed for the bathroom to wash the paint off his face he caught sight of himself in the mirror and paused. The markings she'd given him were a bit sloppy, but for some reason seeing them made him feel a swell of pride. He stood up tall and straight, trying his best to mimic his father. He wasn't nearly tall enough yet to strike the same image, but it didn't bother him so much as he looked at the picture again. The smudge of blue paint had dried on his gray armor.

He decided he rather liked the blue.