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Telling Udina to fuck off felt great, but she probably should have accepted the Council’s offer to reinstate her SPECTRE status. Instead she’s nothing more than “the disgraced Commander Shepard.” Despite having lost her temper, what she was most put off by was Anderson’s evasion of her questions about Kaidan. She knew that her association with Cerberus would cost her a lot of things, though she hadn’t imagined Anderson’s trust was among them.
As she stormed out of the Councilor’s office, she bumped right into a passing turian near the embassy receptionist’s desk. “Excuse me,” she mumbled as she gathered her bearings and tried to go around him.
“Shepard?” he asked.
It took a moment to place the markings, but she smiled once she recognized him.
“Lorik Qui’in,” she said as he extended a hand and she shook it in kind. “I can’t believe the board let you leave Noveria,” she added.
“Thanks to your game of cat and rat, as you humans say, the board finally had some breathing room after it removed Anoleis from power.”
Ignoring the botched idiom with a smirk, she said, “well, I hope you’re causing less trouble.”
“Indeed,” Qui’in mused. “Say, I was just on my way to send you an email. But since we’re here, let me buy you a drink at the Embassy Bar.”
She was already supposed to be meeting Garrus at Flux. He’d originally suggested Chora’s Den, for old time’s sake, but she wasn’t really in the mood for the inevitable bar fight that would ensue. They were supposed to meet up after their respective meetings. He went to speak to Executor Pallin while she was speaking with Udina and Anderson. Sure, the Embassy Bar was closer, but it was too stuffy. The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows at Flux was much better. “Oh, I better not,” Shepard began.
“You turned me down on Noveria, Shepard, don’t make a habit of hanging me out.”
“The phrase is ‘leave you hanging,’” she corrected him this time, “And I really should get out of here before someone else pisses in my coffee.”
Qui’in stiffened. “Why in the spirits would anyone want to urinate into your coffee?” he asked, both confused and indignant.
She smiled at the turian and shook her head. “You know what, I will have that drink.” She’d just have to remember to send Garrus a message telling him she’d be running a little behind in getting to the bar.
“Excellent!” he replied as he began leading them up the stairs toward the bar. “I’m actually quite relieved to have run into you, Shepard. I’m not always up to date on galactic news when at Port Hanshan, and since arriving on the Citadel, I’d heard rumors that you were dead.”
Shepard thought about coming clean, but figured it would be better to keep her cards close to her chest until she got a better handle on the whole Cerberus situation. “Stay out of the spotlight for a couple of years, and everyone is quick to write you off,” she said as they passed the Executor’s office. “But I’m still alive and kicking!” she added with a laugh.
Once they’d finally made it into their destination, all of the tables were taken, but there were a few seats at the bar. After sitting down and getting the bartender's attention, the man greets Shepard warmly. “Glad to see you back on the Citadel, Commander Shepard. What can I get started for you and the gentleman?”
“I’ll have an Asari honey mead with an Akantha chaser,” she said before looking to Qui’in.
“Drossix Blue,” was his simple reply. The bartender nodded and turned away to make their drinks.
“So, what brings you to the Citadel, Qui’in?” Shepard asked as she tried to politely angle her torso toward him. “Wait, let me guess. You’re on some secret mission to obtain mining rights on a contested planet so that some R&D lab can bring another extinct species back to life?”
He laughed, “nothing quite so fantastical, I’m afraid. While I am not at liberty to discuss official business, but I can tell you it involves lots of meetings and negotiations with both the Batarians and the Volus.”
“I don’t envy you that,” she said, turning her attention to the drinks that were just placed in front of them. She nodded her thanks to the bartender and reached for her drink.
“A toast,” Qui’in began, holding his glass out in her direction. “To the woman who elevated my station before I could see the bigger picture.”
“Wow, cheers,” Shepard said before tapping her glass against his, then taking a sip. “You are definitely giving me too much credit. Noveria Internal Affairs made the offer, I was just the messenger.”
“Nonsense,” Qui’in said sternly. “You put yourself and your squad in danger to retrieve the information from my office. Without that data, I’d never have been able to testify.”
“Everyone was able to get what they wanted. Well, everyone except Anoleis, that is,” she added with a smirk before taking another long drag of her drink.
“By the way, I’m going to be here for a bit longer and the board has put me up in a very nice apartment here on the Presidium. Why don’t you come by for dinner tonight?”
Shepard nearly choked before looking up from her drink at Qui’in. “Are you hitting on me, Qui’in?”
“I would never hit a woman. What are you implying?”
“No, not actually hit me,” she stammered. “It’s another human idiom. When you hit on someone it means you’re flirting with them.”
“Well I must not be very good at it,” he said. “Let me guess, you’re seeing someone? I’ll bet it’s that handsome fellow with the blue markings.”
Shepard turned back to Qui’in so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash. “Garrus?!” she practically shouted. “He and I are not together. We’ve never… There was never any…” she fumbled before finally settling on, “We’re just friends.”
“Oh?” Qui’in questioned. He leaned forward before continuing in a hushed tone, “I thought for sure there was something between the two of you back on Noveria. You were like carrots in a pod.” He paused for a moment, lost in thought. “Don’t tell me it’s the krogan?” he finally asked with more than a hint of distaste in his subvocals as he leaned over to place his hand on the back of her barstool.
“This conversation took a turn,” she mumbled under her breath. “It’s not the krogan,” she replied, barely able to look at Qui’in. “And it’s either ‘peas and carrots’ or ‘peas in a pod’,” she added, happy to change the subject. “Carrots don’t grow in pods,” she threw in for good measure as she finished her drink in one head tilt.
“Out of curiosity,” she started down a path she knew she should have never set foot on, but it was too late to turn back now. Her face contorted as she forced the words out, “What gave you the impression that Garrus and I were together?”
“I may not be an expert on reading humans, but I know turians. His proximity was the biggest give away. For you to have obviously been the one in command, any good turian subordinate would be further behind you, not at your elbow. Then there was the fact that he spoke out of turn as soon as you turned away from my table. When you returned after the altercation in my office, he touched you when you raised your voice about the garage pass. A gentle tug at your upper arm appeared to be a reminder not to lash out in public.”
Qui’in moved his hand from the back of Shepard’s barstool as if to place it on her shoulder, and she leaned out of the way.
He smiled as he brought his hand to rest in his lap. “Case and point,” he added, smugly.
“The proper phrase is ‘case IN point,’” was all she could muster.
“Excuse me, Commander,” a familiar voice interrupted.
Shepard turned to look over her shoulder to find that Garrus had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. “Garrus?”
“Ah, speak of the devil,” Qui’in whispered to Shepard as he turned around to see who was standing behind him.
He finally got one right she thought to herself as Garrus began talking.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but there must be a problem with your comm link. Joker and EDI have been trying to reach you.”
Shepard got to her feet, thankful for the intrusion. “Garrus, you remember Lorik Qui’in from Noveria?” she asked, gesturing to the seated turian.
“Head of Synthetic Insights, right?” Garrus asked him. “I’m surprised The Board let you leave Port Hanshan.”
Qui’in and Shepard looked at each other, both realizing that she echoed the same sentiment not 10 minutes ago. “The two of you are pigs of a feather,” Qui’in said as he shook his head. “My offer for dinner stands, Commander. And if you ever find yourself back on Noveria, please don’t hesitate to reach out.”
She smiled and shook his hand one more time, “Thanks for the drinks, Qui’in, but I’ve had enough of Noveria to last me two lifetimes,” she said before grabbing her Akantha shot and downing it in one gulp. Walking away, she fell into step with Garrus. “And it’s birds of a feather. Pigs don’t have wings,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried out of the bar.”
“I don’t know how you found me, but I’m glad you did!” Shepard spoke quickly, nothing but relief in her voice. “By the way, how did you know where to find me?” she asked as they walked down the stairs toward the embassy desk.
“I was talking to Pallin and needed to grab a drink that was much closer than Flux. Embassy bar seemed as good a place as any,” he said. “Apparently you had the same idea,” he added.
“Well, you’ve got great timing, Vakarian,” Shepard replied.
“You looked like you could use an exit,” he said with a hint of teasing. “Was Qui’in divulging any dirty little secrets we can use as leverage?”
“No,” she deadpanned, “he was too busy inviting me to his penthouse apartment for dinner,” she’d said the last word using air quotes.
Garrus stopped walking and simply gawked.
“I know,” Shepard said, as she stopped and turned to look at him.
“Did you accept?”
“What? Of course not!” she wrinkled her face in what Garrus had come to recognize as disgust. “I told him I was with someone else,” she paused and smiled up at him. “At which point he assumed that someone was you. Called you ‘that handsome fellow with the blue markings.’”
They both laughed at that. “Well, Qui'in has got good taste,” Garrus said without realizing.
“Yea, you are quite handsome, especially with those new scars,” she teased.
Garrus had never been more grateful that Turians couldn’t blush because that isn’t what he’d meant. To be fair, if Lorik Qui’in was making a pass at Commander Shepard, then he couldn’t blame him. However, he’d have to make a note to keep a watchful eye on the administrator going forward.