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Noveria had been a rough ride for them all. Garrus watched both Liara and the Commander tumble out of the now well dented borrowed mako with concern. He was worried for Liara because she lost her mother in a rather unpleasant way. Yet the Commander, he couldn’t put his finger on why he was worried for her. If she had been anyone else he would have said she was afraid of the tiny rachni of all things. He had seen her scope and drop a geth prime with rockets baring down on her. Then there was the time he saw her take a thresher maul on foot just for the heck of it. How could she possibly be afraid of a little bug?
Once they boarded the ship and begin to prep for take off he watched her farther comfort Liara. They made there way to the cargo hold where Ash waited for them. The commander still looked uneasy, even as Ash made jokes about scraping bug guts out of everything. Nothing seemed to shake the disturb look off her face.
He grabbed his toiletry bag, a change of clothes and made his was to the showers. Ever mindful of the realization that the great Commander Shepard was afraid of something. She was mortal just like the rest of them, she had fears just like him. It was that moment that in his mind he took her down off that damn platform and saw her as a person.
In the middle of that thought she walked into the showers looking tired and worn thin. So he said the first thing that came to mind. “Commander?”
She looked over, in the middle of pealing off her bug encrusted under-suit, slightly surprised. “Yes Vakarian?”
Continuing his shower, “What is a gift horse, and why would you look in it’s mouth.”
The Commander blinked at him under the spray of water. “huh?”
He grabbed a brush and worked the last of the grime off. “Captain Ventralis said it when we first met him. I couldn’t make sense of it, did my translator glitch or something?”
She blinked at him a few more times then buckled over laughing. Then just like that all the tension she was carrying lifted and she looked more herself. “No, no it’s an old human saying.” Then she continued with her shower while explaining basics of equine dental health and aging.