"What do you mean, this is all that's left of your team, Kirrahe? Why the fuck are they in the med bay?!" I snarled, eyeing the battered and beaten Salarians. He just shrugged, and I stormed away, slamming through the door before it was fully open. "What in the ever-loving fuck!" I started, even as Chakwas and Jenkins tried to hold me back. "Let go of me before I put the both of you on those remaining tables." I growled, and they both backed away.

"Can someone PLEASE tell me how a walk in the fucking park mission that should have been a piece of cake went so horribly fucking WRONG?!" I practically screamed, before I was able to catch myself and bring my volume down. "Was it me? Did I fuck this up? Did I get my intel horribly, irreparably screwed?" I asked, voice incredulous.

"No, Commander. From what I read of the mission brief, your intel matched perfectly." Kirrahe said from behind me, his voice neutral. I turned and eyed him, taking a deep breath.

"We're not children, Shepard." Ash snapped from behind me, and I whipped my head around.

"Excuse me?" I asked, voice going soft.

"I said, we're not children, Shepard. We don't need you to lay out every single step of the mission for us like we don't even know how to tie our shoes. We're capable of ascertaining what's important and what's not." She snapped, and my hands fell to my side in disbelief. Wordlessly, strangely numb, I turned back to Kirrahe.

"I am eternally grateful for your help, and forever in your debt. I grieve for the loss of your men." I said, tone wooden. I took a couple steps towards the door, before Ash spoke again.

"That's it? Your own crew is in the med bay, and the only person you have any good words for is an alien?" She spat out, and I had to close my eyes for a deep breath, before I whirled on her.

"Kirrahe followed my fucking orders, and he's the only reason you two maggots are in one fucking piece to be in the med bay to begin with. Every. Step. You. Deviated. From. My. Mission. Plan. You. Got. Someone. KILLED." I ground out, inches from her face. "One more step, and it would have been YOU. Two more steps, and it would have been both of YOU. You're lucky I was on the Citadel cleaning up Saren's mess, and Anderson was the one who let you back on the ship after hearing the mission report. If I had found out how badly you'd deviated from your orders with no sound reason, I'd have fucking left you there." I snapped, before I turned on my heel and left the room.

I made my way to the bridge to give Joker his marching orders, then I used the vent shafts to make my way down to the cargo hold, so I wouldn't be seen or bothered as I made my way to the Mako. Once I was inside, I shut everything behind me, turned off all the interior lights and my omnitool, and just closed my eyes. Nearly killed myself mentally and physically trying to ensure that both of those stubborn fucknuggets made it off Virmire alive and without a scratch, and they both nearly died instead. If this didn't scare them into doing what the fuck they were told, then I didn't know what the hell I was going to do with them.

My solitude didn't last very long, however, and the observation port to my left cracked just a bit, just a sliver after about half an hour. Then, the sounds of someone doing menial work to the hull started up. I closed my eyes and took a shuddering breath, ready to rip Garrus a new one, when Anderson's voice sounded through the crack. "Ah, working on the Mako in your spare time again?" He asked, and I heard a soft noise.

"It keeps my hands busy and helps to clear my head. I like calibrating things." He said, and despite the rage and grief roiling in me, I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing like a teenager at the potential innuendo in that comment. Surprisingly, that helped calm the storm, just a little bit.

"Good hobby, then. Could be a lot worse. Have you seen Shepard?" Anderson asked, and I tried to sink further down into the seat, like he could see me somehow.

"Not since she reamed the Gunnery Chief a new one, and stormed out of the med bay. To be fair, I didn't exactly want to get caught in her line of sight while she was on the warpath, so to speak." Garrus responded, tone apologetic.

"Hunh. No one else has seen her either." Anderson commented, and I could hear the frown in Garrus's voice when he responded.

"Maybe she's in the jakes?" He supplied helpfully, but Anderson sighed.

"No, we already looked there too." He replied, and silence fell for a few heartbeats.

"You know, maybe she's in the vents." Garrus said, and my eyebrows knit together.

"What?" Anderson asked, tone snappy.

"She's an engineer. I mean, calibrating things and doing work with my hands helps calm me down, and you said no one's seen her. Perhaps she's in the maintenance vents, doing some calibrations of her own before she rips someone apart with her bare hands. I'm sure she'll pop up when she's had time to collect herself – it's not exactly like she can just walk off the ship all way the hell out here, Captain." Garrus elaborated, and I heard some metallic scraping. More silence for a moment, then Anderson grunted.

"That's actually a good point, Vakarian, thank you. I just worry about her – We still have a long way to go, and I need her in top shape if we're going to make it to the end." Anderson said softly, and I knew from his tone that he added the last so that Garrus wouldn't think we were more friendly with each other than I was with the rest of the crew. "I'll leave you to it." He said, then I heard his footsteps walk away. Silence reigned for a long time, before the port slid all the way open.

"I don't buy it, you know." Garrus's voice floated through the opening, though I couldn't see his face from my position.

"Excuse me?" I asked, flatly.

"The whole 'you don't care if we hate you' schtick. The rest of them might buy it, but I don't. For one thing, they can't smell the weight of the grief that you carry like I can." He responded, his voice very soft.

"Emotions have their own pheromones, right?" I asked, voice wooden. I heard a grunt of assent, and I sighed. "One wrong step, Garrus, and I lose half the galaxy. Two wrong steps, and we all end up just like the cycles before us, and everything that's been given up and sacrificed up to this point has been for nothing. Wasted. I grieve the past, because it reminds me of what our future could end up being if I fail. The weight of that grief is the only thing heavy enough to withstand the crushing weight of the knowledge I carry. It's like walking a narrow, rocky ledge, after seeing the broken bodies of the ones who failed before crumpled at the bottom of the crevasse you're trying to navigate." I trailed off, voice dead. He was silent for a long time, as that information sank in.

"Well, after that bombshell, the rest of what I was going to say seems downright asinine." He quipped, voice trying to be light and teasing, but failing.

"When has that ever stopped you before?" I snapped, and hated every second of forcing myself to say it.

"Rude." He grumped, and this time his tone actually made it up to teasing, even if it was very brief.

"Yeah, but say it anyway. It's just going to annoy both of us until you do. At least once it's out we can address and get over it." I responded. He started to speak, then hesitated for a moment. It took three tries before he got it out.

"I was just going to mention some of the missions you've sent us on." He started, but didn't continue.

"Like what." I finally said, knowing that's what he wanted.

"Like the warlord that supposedly had ties to Saren, where Wrex just happened to find his family's old armor, which was a loose end that had been bugging him. Or Tali leading the ops against the Geth incursion in the Armstrong cluster, allowing her to collect data she can use on her pilgrimage. Or that Salarian doctor's ship mission you sent me on, the one where you insisted there would be vital data and information you needed for the Feros op, only to not be upset at all when I came back empty-handed." He trailed off, and I closed my eyes as I leaned my head back against the seat.

"There's no 'supposedly' to the warlord, Vakarian. He helped Saren, he died. I can't risk that these people might or might not be indoctrinated, plain and simple. As for Tali, her people built the Geth, she was made for those missions. Letting her have that data can help her people differentiate between the Heretics and the True Geth – which might help them avoid an all-out war of attrition trying to take back the Quarian homeworld later on. I need both of them at full strength, and they'd make good allies for us and each other if they'd only take five seconds to pull their heads out of their asses." I said, sighing as I trailed off.

Annoyed, knowing I wasn't going to be able to just shut the port after I finished my answer and go back to trying to find a peaceful state, I climbed out of the Mako, practically right next to him, shutting the hatch behind me. "As for your mission – I'm only human, Vakarian. Sometimes I do fuck up, and sometimes intel changes after I get it. Not often, thank the gods, but still. I couldn't be mad at you when you proved to me that you followed the mission to the letter – you did everything I asked of you. You couldn't help that what I sent you for wasn't there, in this case." I said, shrugging.

"Besides, we can't call the mission a complete loss with what you found and put an end to while you were there. Someone who could do that to other living beings? Imagine what damage they could do if they were indoctrinated. And if they were doing it just on their own, then they more than deserved to be ended." I stated, staring off into the cargo bay.

"You can't tell me you didn't know that I investigated his actions for this kind of shit when I was in C-Sec, but the higher-ups let him get away and I couldn't put a stop to it then." His tone was still soft, but what I heard there – this was getting too dangerous. That was exactly the only reason I had sent him on that mission – the Feros data had been completely fabricated. Well, that and the fact that Saleon couldn't be allowed to continue, regardless.

"Vakarian, you spent a lot of time in C-Sec, from what I gather. The galaxy might be a huge place, but the Citadel is the hub of a lot of activity. As long as we're operating in Council space, statistically speaking I'd be more worried if you never ran across any brick walls you'd butted your head against before. To me, these missions are like putting on a coat when you're cold. It serves a purpose – it helps warm you up, that's it. Anything else, like Wrex's armor or your runaway Salarian, are like finding an old credit chit in one of the pockets – an unexpected bonus. But that's all it is." I finished, shaking my head.

"Because you don't have time for nice?" He asked, and I finally looked at him, expression as dead as I felt inside.

"Nice only gets people killed." I said finally, before I pushed away from the Mako. He made a noise, and his arm actually reached towards me for a second, before he thought better of it and dropped it. "You're going to tell me that I can't save everyone, I can feel it radiating off of you. Believe me when I say that no one on this ship knows that better than I do, so you can spare me the bullshit 'ruthless calculus of war' lecture. Loss is inevitable, but I can bust my ass to minimize it. Kirrahe's men died senselessly." I looked down at the ground as I finished, the silence stretching painfully between us before I finally just walked away.