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The Relay 314 College of War, Integrated Division
T-10 weeks until graduation
For the last two weeks, there's been a quiet air of panic on the grounds of the college. Everyone feels it. Something is missing. Something that everyone has come to expect, to treat as background noise, something so pervasive that everyone has experienced it nearly every day –
It's gone.
Some people, the unobservant or truly apathetic to their fellow students, haven't yet realized what that thing is. But even they notice the general atmosphere around the college, the tension, the air of waiting that hangs over the quad like the proverbial storm.
They just don't know what it means.
Others, more perceptive or perhaps closer to the centers of the disturbance, already know exactly what's missing. Those who still need to study in hopes of pulling up their grades just before finals welcome the quiet, even though it marches hand-in-hand with the kind of foreboding that makes people scuttle between buildings, or pull the blankets over their head while they're trying to sleep.
And in the middle of it all, Vakarian and Shepard orbit each other like trapped binary stars: too brilliant to look away, too close to see anyone else, and too dense to break free from their gravitational attraction.
They haven't fought in public once since that disastrous meeting with Commandant Riley. Not once. Not even one of their cutting exchanges in the halls, with the kinds of words that have sharp edges and teeth. They've been almost... polite.
Too polite.
A few of the human students, the ones who know how to read faces or particular friends of Shepard, know what that too-wide grin means, the one that shows several extra teeth. The turians dismiss those teeth, since they're blunt and nearly useless. Most turians haven't yet realized that a human showing off their teeth is thinking of using them. And as for Vakarian, well, that gleam in his eye promises nothing but spite and wickedness, or at least, that's what the humans think. The turians? They know better. To them, that's a sign – Vakarian is enjoying himself.
And so the standoff continues through the week, through two classes that the pair share and a certain amount of contrived encounters in the hallways and the mixed dining hall, which both continue to use even though the species have separate cafeterias for those members of their kind who struggle the most with the chirality allergies. If someone were truly trying to avoid one of their fellow cadets, surely using a different cafeteria would be first on their list.
Surely.
———
T-9 weeks until graduation
It's possible that Professor Corthirn wasn't warned about his class roster for this year – though, naturally, Commandant Riley made sure to inform all of the upper class teachers of exactly who they were getting in their classes, so they would be able to lay in the right amount of discreet pick-me-ups for their breaks.
Unfortunately, Professor Corthirn didn't have an opportunity to smuggle in his favorite.
He regrets it.
As the professor for Ethics and Values, he's had one of the most difficult times with the combined curriculum. Humans and turians are very different in their thinking and their approaches to the practice of war, and one of the reasons that the college took so long to get off the ground is that reconciling those approaches and the thinking was very nearly an insurmountable task.
On the other hand, Varis Corthirn has never met an obstacle he wasn't able to surmount.
So it may be taken as read that Professor Corthirn is one of the more formidable members of staff. And yet, even he's been pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.
Last month, Shepard and Vakarian would have disagreed on the topic of the day, then they'd immediately move into the shouting, insulting each others species and their mothers, and then the argument would have blown up, allowing Corthirn to send them out into the hall to bicker and leave the rest of them in peace and quiet.
How they'd achieved their excellent grades he has no idea. It certainly wasn't any doing of his.
But now...
Parts of it are still the same. Vakarian says something, Shepard disagrees. But the shouting never comes. They're debating each other, yes, but they haven't blown up at each other in over a week, and frankly, Corthirn is lost as to what to do about it.
Yes, it's excellent that they're not fighting as destructively as they once did, but this is his fucking class and they won't let him teach it. Their debates are spirited and intense and take over the rest of the lecture, until they're more animated than he's ever seen his students.
Sighing, Corthirn sinks lower in his chair and reminds himself that he needs to slip off campus and procure a little bit of... something.
Anything.
Anything at all.
———
T-8 weeks until graduation
The freshman who caught Shepard and Vakarian trying to solve their problems with their mouths was never the shy and retiring type. In fact, her family would not-so-kindly call her a loudmouth. Brash, even. They'd be the first to be surprised at the timid, wary, skittish way she's been creeping around the college in the last few weeks.
She's not ashamed. She's terrified. Shepard and Vakarian are legends, both larger than her and larger than life, and if Shepard looked at her the way she looks at Vakarian, with a silent snarl in her eyes and a smile that promises murder, she thinks she might die.
So she's trying not to be seen. By anyone.
It's her bad luck that she's heading to the end of a T-intersection when Shepard and Vakarian turn into the hallway in front of her.
She freezes, her eyes widening, her heart beating quick and quicker like a rabbit's, rising up her throat until she thinks she might choke on it –
As Shepard passes, she bestows a small, empathetic, and amused smile on our terrified freshman, one that she'll remember for the rest of her life. Vakarian claps her on the shoulder. "Breathe," he advises her, and then they're both moving on, walking away, gone.
The girl sucks in a huge, hacking breath.
What just happened?
———
T-7 weeks until graduation
During the morning break, nearly three-quarters of the college's teachers gather in the teacher's lounge, where the humans caffeinate and the turians crush something similar to cactus juice. As usual, there's quite a lot of chatting and laughter, and some groaning from those teachers who have grading to do; during a lull in the conversation, someone brings up the overwhelming tension that's hanging over the entire school.
"I wish they'd get it over with," one of the younger teachers mutters.
"We shouldn't be encouraging this," someone else says, though she's privately amused at the death's grip that their problem children have on the entire college. "It's our job to produce officers, not troublemakers."
"The problem," says one of the oldest turians on staff, a woman of great age and creaking bones and a way of getting to the point of a problem that's the envy of her colleagues, "Is that they're both born leaders. Neither of them will give even a millimeter they don't have to. They'll be a credit to whatever unit claims them – as long as they're not in the same one."
"Amen, sister," one of the humans says, saluting her with his coffee, and drinks.
There's a silence, then, as the gathered teachers mull this over.
"Seven weeks until graduation," someone says. A loud chorus of groans erupts, as if they'd planned it that way, prompting general laughter, and the conversation turns to other subjects.
———
T-6 weeks until graduation
There's a new betting pool going around. It has to do with how this tension is going to resolve itself: whether Shepard and Vakarian are going to lose their iron self-control and devolve into the kind of arguing that's made them so famous, or whether they're going to work out their issues in some other, very private fashion.
With six weeks to go until graduation, everyone's on the edge of their seats.
———
T-5 weeks until graduation
Being that the founders of the college are trying to force two of the brashest and most military-minded species in Citadel space to coexist and work together, a certain amount of conflict is to be expected, you might say. And it has been, and is. What isn't allowed – what is punished so harshly that offenders are often never seen on the campus again – is racism.
If nothing else, putting aside all moral arguments, it's terrible for unit cohesion.
So when Vakarian passes one of the study tables in the library at which several of the human upperclassmen are gathered, and one of them makes a nasty comment under his breath about the birds, glancing at Shepard as if he expects her to agree –
Vakarian slows, his back stiff and his chin raised, and he takes one a deep breath before he turns.
He already knows Shepard is there. He can feel her on the air, like a live wire. Vakarian always knows where Shepard is if they're in the same room.
What he didn't expect was to find her smiling.
"Hey, Garrus," she says, her voice bright and cheerful. "You have class, don't you? Don't let us keep you."
At the same time, she drops a hand on the other cadet's shoulder, her fingers almost immediately turning white with the pressure with which she's digging them into his skin.
"I've gotta have a word with Munro here," Shepard adds, her grin widening. "You know, that sinking feeling when you step in dog shit, just human things, it's not a big deal. Right, Munro?"
Munro is currently rethinking all of his life choices. Weakly, he mumbles something.
"That's the spirit," Shepard says. Somehow, her smile widens again. "See you later, Vakarian."
Vakarian gives her a tight nod and aims a slightly murderous glare at Munro, turns on the spot, and leaves.
Behind him, the sound of Munro's forehead hitting the table cracks through the library. Vakarian smiles.
———
T-4 weeks until graduation
There are times when it seems as though that stubborn human chin, those broad turian shoulders, must collapse under the weight of so many people watching the both of them wherever they go, waiting, wondering when they're going to snap. It must be coming. It's been six weeks of this wholly bizarre detente, and everyone's nerves are stretched so thin that they might snap if Shepard and Vakarian don't.
But that's not going to happen, of course, because surely, surely they can't keep this up much longer. They've been rampaging through the college for more than two and a half years. This is just... an aberration. A momentary blip. A temporary truce, upheld at great personal cost to their power of will and their sanity, solely in order to get through finals.
Right?
The first creepings of doubt enter into the hearts of a few of the brighter students as they watch Vakarian drop his meal next to Shepard's at lunch. She leans over, steals one of his lakeen fruit, and eats it; Vakarian just narrows his eyes at her and starts to eat, quickly, as if he's anticipating further depredations.
That night, the betting begins to change...
———
T-3 weeks until graduation
"I didn't think they'd actually manage it," Riley admits, looking down at the top of her desk, which is reflecting the profiles of two nearly-graduated students. Vakarian gained a point on an essay about supply lines in the Unification Wars and how the issue might be avoided in the future, and Shepard lost two points for assaulting a fellow cadet in the library, though the purported victim wouldn't admit anything happened at all.
That makes them dead even for the valedictorian spot.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Riley would rather be anywhere else right now. Doing hard labor on Neptune. Taking a tour of the Citadel's sanitary facilities. Sipping margaritas on Olympus Mons, sans helmet.
Unfortunately for Riley, she's in charge of this college, and the superiors to whom she reports are not likely to view her sudden request for leave with joy.
Across the desk, her second-in-command, Captain Marnias, tilts her head. "If you didn't think they were capable of acting their age, then why didn't you just expel them when you had the chance?"
Riley winces. "They both have tremendous potential," she admits. "It seemed like such a waste to let them go."
Marnias leans forward, her eyes intense and hard. With one hand on each profile, she pushes them closer to Riley. "Then it's our job to make sure they've learned the lesson, isn't it?"
———
T-2 weeks until graduation
Macready has his orders, and he's going to follow them, but he's damn sure he doesn't have to like them. And he doesn't. A rowdier pair he's yet to see in all his years of teaching, and if he has to rewire the sim room one more time, he's putting in for hazard pay.
But... Fine. Riley can have her blasted test, as long as she comes through with the bottle of Jameson's she'd promised him.
What Macready doesn't know can't possibly hurt him.
He looks over the crowd of cadets milling around the intake room and whistles his loudest whistle. "Shepard! Vakarian! Versus Austin and Despino! First side to ten kills."
The entire room stares at him, mostly horrified, though a few are excited, in the same way that some people are excited to watch a train crash. Austin and Despino exchange a stunned, disbelieving look.
"Did you mean to pair those two up?" Austin ventures, rather bravely, in his opinion.
Macready glares at him. "Did I stutter?"
"No, sir," Austin mutters.
Shepard gives Vakarian a long, thoughtful glance. He shrugs, and after a second, she copies him, and they turn into the simulator together. She's tall for a human, but Vakarian makes her look short.
"Coming?" Vakarian calls over his shoulder, delicate malice in his voice.
Despino sighs and follows, with a disconsolate Austin bringing up the rear.
No one's more surprised than Macready when Shepard and Vakarian pull off a shutout.
———
T-1 week until graduation
With finals over, the students of the college are at a peculiar kind of liberty. They're not required to go to their classes, but they're not allowed to do whatever they please, either; anything that reflects badly on them or on the college could have their diplomas revoked, after which they'd be sent home to their planet of origin and then have to explain themselves to a level of authority most of them have never dreamed of.
So, liberty. Of a sort.
Of course it's a test. Isn't it always? What cadets do when they're allowed to do nearly anything is as important to their final evaluations as their grades and their disposition.
Many people thought that this was going to be the final blowup – that when finals were in, Shepard and Vakarian would finally let loose and have the blow-up that everyone knows is coming.
(For a given value of everyone.)
But Shepard spends most of that week lifting weights and using the treadmill. And Vakarian does a lot of marksmanship training at the range, finishing up with hand-to-hand with the turian instructor.
And the tension winds ever tighter...
———
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a ceremony in possession of an audience must be in want of speeches.
Theirs is the first class to ever graduate from the integrated College of War, and politicians on both sides want their share of the credit; the best way to snatch it, in their opinion, is to have their face associated with the graduation.
Therefore, speeches.
Not a one of them thinks about the cadets, in their uniforms and caps, sweating under the light of a hot summer's day. Shepard swears that she can feel the sweat trickling down her spine. It itches.
This is hour three, and if she remembers the schedule correctly, there's at least an hour to go. She subtly shifts her weight on the hard, thin chair, sighing when it doesn't relieve the ache of muscles that want to be moving, and focuses her eyes dead forward.
Vakarian is on the other side of the podium. They'd ended up dead even, without even a fraction of a point's difference between their rankings, and instead of offering them a tiebreaker, Riley decided that it was good for both the quarreling pair and optics for them to be joint valedictorians.
Shepard knows that she dropped a couple of points for that incident with Munro in the library, but she doesn't regret it. Not for a second.
She lets the speeches and the sunlight and the eyes of the crowd wash over her and through her, paying them very little attention as she keeps her spine straight and her head high. Sweat, she can allow. There can be no other signs that she's human with human frailties.
Vakarian isn't suffering from the heat nearly as much as Shepard is. Palaven is hotter than Earth by far, and this is a pleasant spring's afternoon, shading into early summer; he could bask in the heat, if he wasn't one of the main actors in this bizarre stage play.
He doesn't object to a ceremony, or the idea of diplomas, but he had no idea there were this many politicians on the planet.
So suffice it to say, neither of them are paying very much attention to the speeches. Riley takes the stage last, flawless and perfect in her cool, clean dress whites; luckily for everyone involved, she keeps her speech short, complimenting the raw material she'd been sent and the lecturers in performing their jobs to the best of their abilities.
After that, it's time for Shepard to hand out the diplomas to the human students and for Vakarian to hand out the diplomas to the turian students. It was Marnias's idea, one that Riley seized on immediately – optics again.
Shepard stands and walks to stand in front of the podium, and Vakarian joins her. Their lists are on old-fashioned paper, the easier for someone to lose one, and Shepard looks at the list in her hand before she has an absolutely ludicrous idea.
Vakarian glances down at her – Shepard looks up at him –
They hand each other their lists and switch places, so seamlessly it's like they practiced it, though they'd done nothing of the sort. Shepard clears her throat.
"Luca Aellas," she calls, with a faint, serene smile on her face.
"Mathew Auno," Vakarian says, laughter hidden very poorly in his voice.
They'll get read the riot act later – but it was worth it.
———
Vakarian's family has flown in for the graduation, and Shepard's mother managed to get leave, so at the afterparty, they have to be content with orbiting each other at a distance, instead of up close and personal; but eventually there comes a time when their families have drifted away, and Shepard looks up to find Vakarian not five feet away, chatting with some ancient turian who looks like he might keel over at any moment.
She waits for him to turn around, and his mandibles flare in a faint, rueful smile.
He's thinking that she's always been there, every day, for the last three years. And how important that fact is to him –
And how much he's going to miss her when she's not there for him to rile up.
Shepard jerks her head at the door to the hallway. Vakarian nods.
She's there, leaning against the wall, when he finally manages to get away from every turian in the room who knows his father.
"Hey," he says carefully.
Shepard smiles at him. "I'm surprised we pulled that off," she says.
"I'm not," Vakarian says, leaning on the wall next to her. "We killed it in the simulator. We're a good team."
"Do you think that's what they've been trying to tell us for the last... nearly three years?" Shepard says with a laugh. "Cooperation is its own reward?"
"Maybe," Vakarian allows. "But I don't regret it. You're beautiful when you're furious with me."
Shepard's eyes are hard when she looks at him again, though she's still smiling. "Don't push your luck, mister," she says.
Vakarian considers that for a while, and decides, as usual, to do the exact opposite. "Do you have your assignment yet?"
Shepard lifts the arm with her omni-tool implant. "I got it about ten minutes ago," she says. "I haven't had the courage to look at it yet."
"Want me to do it for you?" Vakarian offers, though he knows exactly what reaction this is likely to produce in her. In fact, he's counting on it.
"No," she says, scowling at him with truly threatening eyebrows. She flips open her omni-tool and pulls up the message. "I'm reporting to the Normandy in a week," she says. "Captain David Anderson. Joint – " She pauses, swallows. "Joint turian-human task force."
Shepard looks up at him, her eyes unguarded, wide with surprise – and hope.
"Me, too," Garrus says, smiling. He shows her the message with his assignment, which reads exactly like hers.
And then Shepard smiles – and drags him down for a long, slow kiss, heavy with all of the words they've never said, with the soft feeling that neither of them allowed themselves to have.
"Cheater," she accuses him, laughing when he squawks in outrage. "Just kidding. You're pretty when you're mad."