Fluttershy was sitting at a small human-run restaurant in the Citadel's Zakera ward, her body no longer wrapped in the bandages that had covered the burn marks. The wonders of alien medicine were making it so that hair was already starting to grow back on the burnt patches.
"Here you go, ma'am, one dextro hot cocoa," the young human girl said as she put down the steaming hot drink in front of Fluttershy. The pegasus was extremely thankful for the fact turians produced chocolate which allowed for the creation of that drink.
While stirring the chocolate milk, Fluttershy thought back to all the happenings of the past week. After the events in the Council chamber, she had been out for a good sixteen hours, recuperating from the massive amount of energy she'd lost.
Garrus had apparently been loyally by her side the entire time, not even parting to get food for himself. Fluttershy's heart warmed as she thought about the particular turian, though the feeling faded as another member of the species came to mind.
Saren was currently still on board the Normandy as the Citadel's civilian and military hospitals were filled with wounded from the battle against Sovereign. The debris had crashed into various wards and caused considerable amounts of civilian casualties.
But that wasn't what was on the pegasus' mind concerning the turian. Ever since falling unconscious, Saren had yet to wake, having fallen into a deep coma. Fluttershy knew that what she had done had been necessary, the other option would have been to kill him, but that didn't mean she didn't feel guilty for possibly doing terrible damage to Saren's mind.
"You seem deep in thought."
Fluttershy nearly choked on the gulp of chocolate milk she had just taken. The previously empty chair on the other side of the table was now filled by a human woman in a tight black and grey suit which also possessed a black hood that covered her head.
"What do you want?" Fluttershy asked, not amused at seeing the lady who held blackmail on her.
"Well I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd come by and say hello," she said, earning a pointed glare from the pegasus. "Alright, there's something else I wanted to talk about. With the damage done to the Citadel and C-Sec in relative disarray, my adversary is inviting a large number of players in the criminal world to a 'party' where they can discuss the best way to take advantage of the situation."
"And how do I fit into this picture?" Fluttershy asked skeptically. "It's not like I can get you an invite to that party."
The lady waved her hand in dismissal. "I've already procured the one invite. My problem is that Mr. Hock expects a tribute of value from all of his guests, and he won't accept just a large amount of money. That's where you come in."
Fluttershy did not like where this was going but allowed the thief to continue explaining her plan.
"The criminal world has had you on their radar for quite a while now, although they remain woefully unaware of the fact that you're more than capable of defending yourself. We’ll offer you as a ‘gift’, which will get the both of us inside, and once I'm in, I'll break into the vault, retrieve the item I'm after, and we'll quietly find an exit." The lady stayed silent as she allowed Fluttershy some time to let the rough outline of her plan sink in.
"No, we won’t," Fluttershy said, surprising the lady who had obviously thought she'd go along with it. "You led me away from my friends to blackmail me—with information that, the longer I think about it, is probably already out there—and threatened to compromise the mission that saved the Citadel. So no, we are not going to get your item until you start actually telling what we're after. Oh, and your name would be nice as well."
The grimace on the human's obscured face was oddly satisfying to Fluttershy for some reason. She just sat there without saying anything for a while but eventually sighed in resignation.
"Kasumi Goto. I'm the galaxy's best thief. As for the object I'm after, it's a device called a greybox, a computer designed to record memories. It used to belong to my… he…" A tear rolled from Kasumi’s eye as she couldn’t finish her sentence. "There’s a lot of personal memories in there. I want those back."
Fluttershy felt a pang of guilt shoot through her. She hadn’t intended to hurt the woman, even though she did stand by her point. The more she thought about Kasumi’s dilemma the less she wanted to decide right now. "I’m going to go to my coltfriend and talk this over. How do I contact you, and when do you want to leave?"
Kasumi opened her omni-tool and transferred something to Fluttershy’s. "That’s my contact information. I want to leave in about ten hours. The gathering was called on really short notice, so I didn’t have a lot of warning to set this up."
Fluttershy gave a quick nod, gulped down the remaining chocolate milk, paid for it, and left. A glance back revealed that the Japanese speaking lady was no longer sitting at the table either, having disappeared as seamlessly as she had appeared.
After reaching the nearest shuttle station, the pegasus booked a ride back to the housing district of the ward where Garrus had a small apartment. For the time being the two of them were staying there as the Normandy went through some maintenance while it was docked at the Citadel. They would probably leave the moment said maintenance was done, but until then she was staying at Garrus’ place.
A short ride and walk had Fluttershy step into the turian’s home. Garrus himself was sitting at the kitchen table with his sniper rifle entirely disassembled in front of him.
"Maintenance?" Fluttershy asked as she walked past the turian and sat down on a chair on the other side of the table.
“No, recently there’ve been advancements in the cooling hardware of weapons. Instead of using heat-sinks they’re changing them to have portable thermal clips. It’ll give the rifle a much more powerful punch than before but at the cost of limiting your shots…” Garrus explained as he held up the module that was supposed to replace the heat-sink, before he realized something. “…Weren’t you going to wander the Citadel’s markets today?”
Fluttershy nervously clopped her hooves together thinking about how to explain the situation with Kasumi. “Well…”
Garrus listened intently to Fluttershy’s explanation as she told him about the encounter with the thief she had only half an hour prior, the turian having already been informed of the first encounter through the report Fluttershy had written.
“So let me get this clear. You’re considering helping someone who tried to blackmail you because you feel sorry for her?”
“Yes?” Fluttershy said hesitantly at the blunt way Garrus had broken down her position. The turian’s mandibles twitched in frustration while he tried finding a response to that.
“You’re not going alone,” he stated in a way that didn’t allow debate. “Even if this Kasumi can’t get me an invite, my sniping skills might still be invaluable support.”
“I-I…”
Is this really worth it? Can I justify Garrus putting himself on the line for something I’m not even sure about myself?
1. Take Garrus along.
2. Try sneaking out of the house without Garrus.
3. This was a stupid idea, it’s better if we don’t go at all.