Mass Effect 1. Chapter 1

An ME3 AU in which, for various and sundry (and, to be honest, stupid) reasons, Shepard and Garrus never got together in ME2. I've also played around with who's on the Normandy when, mainly so Victus, Kaidan, and Kal can form a "GET ON WITH IT ALREADY, THERE'S A WAR ON" support group.

Originally written as a fill on the kmeme.

* * *

_**Garrus**_

I've done a lot of research on humans.

At first, it was just to figure out what the hell I'd gotten myself into. I'd been arguing with Pallin - again, still- and this human female arrived in time to watch him hand my ass to me - again, still, _whatever. _

Not the most auspicious of introductions, but she let me join her team. Even if she hadn't, I would have found a way to go with her, because no one was taking Saren down without me there.

So I started researching humans. Being on a ship full of them meant I had ample opportunity to observe them - and to observe _her._

Commander Shepard.

You have to understand. She was already a legend when she came up those stairs, even if she wasn't a Spectre yet. She'd survived horrors that made even krogan pause, and her head was filled with ancient blood and destruction.

I knew her name, and her history - what was public, that is. She wasn't much older than me, just a year or two, but I remember how forceful I tried to sound, how authoritative and proud. I tried to sound like a good turian.

Which, of course, I'm not. I didn't know that then. Turns out I had almost as much to learn about myself as I did about humans.

Nothing about the mission was easy. Sometimes, I still dream of Ilos. But we won, and brought home a warning.

And then Shepard died.

I didn't hear about it until much later. Liara sent me a message, Tali sent me a message, even Wrex sent me a message (even though that one consisted mainly of variations on the phrase "Alliance bullshit"), but she was gone, and words were dust.

They said she suffocated when her suit ruptured. They said she burned up in the atmosphere.

They said a lot of things, but all I heard was _Shepard is dead._

The plan was always to join up with her again, after I became a Spectre and wrapped a few things back home. Back then, I still thought it was just about finding the right leader, and being willing to follow her anywhere, to whatever end. It was a good plan.

The _plan_. I always had a plan. Even after she was gone, even though it was a hasty one, I still had a plan. _Destroy evil. Save people. Leave the galaxy brighter and cleaner than how you found it, because there's already enough darkness and filth out there. It's your job to clean it up. _

After Sidonis, the plan shortened drastically. _Build a pyre with your guilt and your failure, Garrus, and ignite it. _

Bit poetic for a turian, but like I said, I'm not a good one.

Turns out, not even death can hold onto Shepard long.

This time, I understood things a bit better.

No matter what Kaidan said on Horizon, it was still _her_. And when we got to the Omega-4 relay, I went to her cabin. I had a plan then too - offer comfort, silence, wine, myself - but the sight of that closed door scared me away. I was still too much like that turian she'd met on the steps in the Citadel, too brash and too young, for all that I was older than her now. She'd never fraternized before; why should it be with me?

Then we lived, and we won, and she was gone for six months.

I got promoted, and when I yelled, people listened to me. Heady stuff, especially for a failed C-Sec officer whose sister wasn't really speaking to him. I got a task force, and we _worked. _

The humans have a saying, something about being forged in the fires of battle. The thing is, the forging changes you - your shape, your strength. I was no exception. The raw potential Shepard saw in me was honed into a weapon. I can say, with no small amount of pride, that when the Reapers came, burning my home, _my world_, I held the line against the fire.

And when I saw her on Menae, I had a plan.

* * *

It goes without saying my plan did not include being waylaid by Primarch Victus on my way to the main battery.

"You look terribly pleased for a turian who just left Menae in flames." There was no reproach in his voice, only a simple statement of fact. I had to fight not to duck my head all the same. Only one rank and a few names separated us now, as easy as it was to forget that fact.

"I'm glad to be going where I'll be of use," I retorted. "If anyone can bring the fight to the Reapers and free Palaven, it's Shepard."

"Your faith in her is touching." The Primarch folded his arms and gave me a long, measured look. It was a trick of his to unnerve people into telling the truth, and just because I was familiar with it didn't mean I was completely immune.

"I've been through hell and back with her, twice. If she hasn't earned my faith by now, there's no way she'll ever get it." The Primarch's mandibles flared in a question no human would recognize. I stared back without blinking, and that was answer enough for him.

"She's earned more than your faith, Vakarian." I shrugged carefully, and the Primarch huffed out a laugh.

"I see," he said, but before he could clarify what, exactly, it was that he saw, Kaidan rounded the corner and stopped short when he saw us.

"Vakar - Garrus - oh, God, Primarch Victus, I didn't mean - " I'd never seen Kaidan so badly wrong-footed before. In all the time I knew him, he was nothing but capable and controlled, and it was a bit satisfying to see him fumbling. I wasn't just a bad turian. Sometimes, I could be a bad _person_.

"Major Alenko. Kaidan," I said. Kaidan gave me a grateful look, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the Primarch melting back into the War Room. There was a flicker of movement from the vid room, and Liara stepped out, talking over her shoulder at Shepard.

Shepard.

It was my first time seeing her without armor in more than six months. She was paler and thinner, her scars just suggestions, but her hair was still the same, and so was the brisk way she handed the datapad back to Liara.

"Primarch Victus," I heard her say. "We need to talk."

Kaidan was talking at my elbow, something about my old spot in the main battery still being open, and I had to shove down a flash of annoyance. He hadn't been there. He'd cut off all of us on Horizon, and now he wanted in on those memories?

_Not a chance_, said the loud, eager young turian in my head, the one I could never shut up. _He abandoned all of us, not just Shepard._

I was older now, and kinder, if not more patient.

"Thanks, Kaidan," I said. I hadn't looked at him. I was still watching Shepard. "I think I'll go get settled in."

She turned her head, the fine bones moving high under her skin, and I understood why humans licked their lips.

* * *

_**Shepard**_

Nothing like a war to distract you from the might-have-beens. Unless that war brought you face-to-face with the biggest _if only_ of your entire life.

Garrus Vakarian. Who apparently now had generals saluting him. Wonders never ceased.

There weren't words in any language I've encountered that could describe how goddamn _happy_ I was to see him. Palaven burned above us, Earth burned beyond us, and still, his hand when he gripped mine was steady as always. I could hear every time he'd ever said _right behind you_, clear as if he was whispering it in my ear, and I couldn't say a word. Every once in a while I get lucky and the right words come, but that wasn't one of those times. Time, like words, was in short supply. And we had work to do.

The work never ended. Datapads were slowly boxing me in from every angle, which was Traynor's subtle way of making sure I answered all my messages before I hid in my cabin. Every one of them asking for my help, cries in the dark that I couldn't ignore.

Kaidan walked toward us, another clutch of datapads slung in the crook of one arm, his shoulders hunched. I knew that posture all too well; it was how Kaidan looked when he tried to apologize and didn't think it was working. I'd seen a lot of those shoulders lately. I nodded at him and risked a glance - just one - past him. Nothing obvious.

Of course, Liara followed my gaze, which was following Garrus' retreating back as he wound his way out toward the elevator - and, presumably, the main battery. She waited until Kaidan had walked to the other side of the room, then turned to face me, arms folded.

"Garrus has become quite -" She paused, considering, and then gave me an obscure little smile. She tended to do that a lot whenever Garrus was mentioned.

If she wasn't my best friend, I would have thrown Liara out the airlock years ago. There were days I thought I might do it anyways.

"Yes, he has," I replied, and smiled when she sighed.

"You didn't let me finish."

"It's fairly obvious. He was always meant for something big." I held out a hand and even though she was pouting, Liara handed me her datapad.

"Bigger than calibrating your cannons?"

"You do realize someday that joke's going to get old, right?" Liara gave me her mock-innocent look. "It's not all he did around here."

"Of course not," said Liara, in her best matriarch voice. She patted me on the arm and I had to clench my teeth. _Damn asari, can't they ever just come out and say what they mean?_ She gave me that little smile again. "I'm sure he'll be even more useful this time around."

I could feel the headache building behind my eyes. Teasing was the last thing I wanted. I could count the hours I'd slept since we'd left Earth on my fingers and toes, and it was getting harder to get Chakwas to hand over the stims. _One more day_, I'd plead, and she'd give in. For now.

I rubbed my eyes. "I'm just glad he's here," I said, and regretted it immediately. It was the truth, and as a rule I told the truth whenever I could, but I wasn't ready for just how much I felt. Liara's face went soft in a way I couldn't watch.

I waited for her to make some smart-ass comment, but then her hand brushed mine, lingering long enough to squeeze. "Me too," she said gently.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! I'm slowly adding my other ME fics here, and decided to start with this one. I would love to hear what you think.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Garrus**_

I'm not a romantic.

I'm a turian, a soldier, and pragmatic, any one of which is usually enough to disqualify someone from being a romantic. Being all three at once means the odds go from _improbable_, straight through _impossible_, and all the way out to _I can't stop laughing, but as soon as I do, I'm going to shoot you in the face._

I'm a lot of things, some of them very good. I'm an excellent shot, I'm loyal, I'm honest, I'm a good leader. I am (and both my friends and enemies say this, with varying levels of respect) an honorable person, in a galaxy that seems to pride itself on being the opposite.

I'm also awkward, prone to obsessing over calibrations, and more than a few people have commented that there is not enough alcohol in the galaxy to make me capable of public speaking.

And oh, the guilt. After Sidonis, I carried it like a stone around my neck, and it got heavier every day. I thought no one noticed I was breaking - not like a fault line, but a million tiny cracks. I'd been breaking for so long I barely let myself notice. The first crack came when I read the words_missing in action, presumed dead_ in a carefully written message from Liara, and every day afterward, there were more.

I wasn't there. Not at Alchera, not on Omega.

Now I know that Kasumi noticed, but she knew from bitter, bitter experience that some wounds can't be healed. The graybox made things easier, I think. She smiled at me, as much as she could, even when I didn't know how to respond.

Mordin noticed fluctuations in my chemistry, then prescribed workouts and changes to my diet.

Thane noticed, which was no surprise. All assassins are born romantics.

Shepard didn't notice. I didn't let her, the same way I didn't let her see the way I watched her, still stunned that she was in the same room, or that she was laughing at my jokes, or that sometimes the air I breathed had already been inside her lungs.

I'm not a romantic, and after Omega I didn't believe in asking for help. Not from Shepard, not when she'd already done so much for me. For the galaxy. I told myself it was enough that she was alive. I knew she didn't come back to life just for me but when I saw her in my scope, when I felt hope kindle in my chest, it felt like she had.

She gave me the chance to take the shot at Sidonis, even after all her big talk about mercy. She stepped away for a second, and I had the clear shot. I could have taken it, and she would have understood. I didn't take it.

The nightmares about my squad still came, just like the ones about Ilos, but now they felt like someone else's memories. I started sleeping again.

I wondered what was harder for her: standing in the path of my shot, or taking the step away.

That's not the sort of question you could just ask, even of someone like Shepard, But after six months and a galaxy's worth of distance, I had a mouthful of questions I _could_ ask, and the plan started with me asking them. This time, when I got to her cabin, I didn't let the closed door turn me away.

All right, maybe just a _little_ bit romantic.

_**Shepard**_

"Commander?"

"Yeah, EDI?" I was never going to get used to EDI's habit of pinging me when I was about to get in the shower, but at least this time she'd decided not to stroll in herself. My open - door policy was great in theory, but not so much in practice.

"You have several new messages at your private terminal. Kasumi Goto sent an update on the Crucible, Jack forwarded her students' deployments, and Feron has tracked the eezo smugglers to Eridani."

"Thanks. Oh, and EDI?"

"Yes, Commander?"

"You do realize that Traynor is going to tell me exactly what you just told me once I get to the bridge, and then I'm going to read all the messages myself?"

"Of course, Commander. I merely wanted to delay your shower until Vega used all the hot water."

"What - _why?_"

"That was a joke, Commander."

"Right." I waited for EDI to make some final remark - getting in the last word had become her new obsession - but she was silent. I counted to thirty, then thirty again, just in case, before I stripped. If EDI hadn't been joking about Vega using all the hot water, we were going to be short one lieutenant.

The water wasn't hot, just warm. It felt good enough on my back that I washed my hair twice, just to let my muscles relax. The water turned icy as I debated working up a third lather, so I slung on a towel and padded out into my cabin.

"Shepard. Sorry to drop in without warning."

_Goddamn open-door policy._ I didn't yell, but I nearly dropped my towel.

"Jesus Christ! Garrus, what the hell -" was as far as I got before I processed who, exactly, was standing in front of me. Garrus Vakarian, in _civvies_, leaning against my fishtank.

"Is this a bad time?" His mandibles fluttered, and no matter how many times I'd seen him make that particular little gesture, I'd never been able to figure out what it meant. Sometimes I wondered if my smiles and blushes looked as strange to him as his expressions looked to me. I had always been a little envious that he had a whole range of body language that I would never understand.

"It's not ideal," I hedged. Years in the military meant I didn't have much left by way of physical modesty, but I'd have to walk around him to get to my closet and somehow, in defiance of physics, he seemed to be taking up more room than normal. "Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine, Shepard. Just wanted to talk. We haven't had much chance to catch up since I came on board." Garrus breathed in deeply. Under the light layers of his clothes, I could see the way his plates were bunched and uneven. I knew enough about turians now that I could read the way stress settled on their bodies, and before I could stop myself, I imagined running a finger over the seams in his carapace. My throat clicked when I swallowed.

"You sure? Cannons aren't giving you a hard time for leaving them in Adams' hands for six months?" He sighed and glanced away.

"I hoped you would rise above the temptation to mock me -"

"You know me and temptation, Garrus." I edged around him and down the stairs. I wasn't going to get dressed with him still in the room; maybe he'd get the hint if I started pulling out clothes.

"Actually, I don't." He came down the stairs, and the odd tension melted out of him with every step. "Care to enlighten me?"

I would have given every cent of backpay the Alliance owed me to know what the rumble of his subvocals meant. He was smirking, I knew that much, and standing too close for this conversation. I took a reflexive step back and tried not to be obvious when I tugged up my towel.

"Come on, Shepard. You can't just leave me hanging. What's this about you and temptation?" Some flanging note in his voice hit me right between my shoulderblades. When I turned around, he was slouched against the wall next to my closet.

It was easy to forget that turians were apex predators. I'd never been afraid of Garrus, and I wasn't now, but a cold finger still traced its way down my spine. I shivered.

The other easy thing to forget about turians is how much body heat they radiate. Warmth seeps out of their plates and into the air around them. If I took a step closer -

"I'm cold," I said. Garrus wrinkled his nose at me.

Then he moved, obscenely fast. I didn't have time to flinch before he was standing in front of me, scant inches away, and ran his fingers through the wet tangles in my hair. His hand was very warm, and he wasn't wearing gloves. I could see his talons in the corner of my eye.

_Jesus._ He'd never been this close, and I could count every time he'd touched me outside of combat in the single digits.

"Sometimes I wonder how you humans survived without producing enough body heat," he murmured, and I caught that flash of the predator again. His talons could rake me open from neck to stomach, and that made me shiver - but not from cold. This close, he smelled like sand and ozone.

A body is a funny thing. It has needs, like food and sleep, and as long as you keep giving it those at semi-regular intervals, it'll run for a while. Then there are the things a body _wants_, and it won't warn you before it reminds you that it's not just transportation. You can ignore the wanting for a long time, but sooner or later, you have to face it. I'd lasted almost two years, if you take out all the time I was dead and couldn't want anything.

Once or twice I'd let myself think about this, about the natural end of all the trust and affection I carried around for Garrus, and what would happen if he felt it too. In my head, he'd watch me without blinking, and make comments about soft skin and too many fingers, before he found a way to settle me against the curve of his carapace.

Teenage fantasies. Nothing more. I was fooling myself if I thought there was more than curiosity in his gaze. _And why_, I thought, _would there be anything else? There's probably someone closer to home for him._ For a moment, I thought I was choking.

"Miracles of evolution," I said, and had a miracle of my own when I didn't cut my eyes away from him.

He rumbled deep in his chest, close enough for me to feel it vibrate the air against my throat. "Don't you want to just be warm?" I clenched my fists, hard enough for my nails to break the skin.

"I would be, if you'd let me get dressed. Can't blame anyone but yourself if I freeze to death because you wanted to chat." My voice sounded muffled, a white-noise roar in my ears drowning it out. Garrus was so close, and if I didn't know better I'd say he knew exactly what he was doing. I dug my nails into my palms, wincing.

Garrus stiffened and twisted his head, scenting the air. I didn't get a chance to ask him what he was doing before he took my fist in his hand. I should have known from the way he handled his rifle that he could be gentle; I barely felt his talons as he uncurled my fingers.

Four bloody crescents dotted my palm. He stared at them, his face even more opaque than usual, then let my hand drop to my side.

"Bad habit," I said, even though he didn't ask.

"And bad timing," he replied. "I'll let you get dressed. But Shepard?"

"Yeah?" My voice was still steady. Small blessings.

"We have a lot of catching up to do. I'll find you later."

He was gone before I started to figure out what the hell had just happened.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Garrus**_

Shepard had reached her limit for the conversation; I had already been planning to leave before I smelled blood in the air, and that was the only thing that kept those red marks from haunting me for the rest of the day. The "yes means yes" concept had served me well my entire life, so even though Shepard never specifically asked me to leave, I could read ambivalence in the movement of her hands and the quirk of her mouth.

She wanted this, wanted _me_. She just wasn't sure of me. Easy enough to resolve, given enough time.

Of course, in war, there was never enough time. We'd already wasted so much.

I took the elevator down to the CIC. As a rule, I'd never spent much time there. I knew where I was useful and the CIC generally wasn't one of those places. It was the best place to find the Primarch, though, and I wanted an update on Palaven.

It was easier to think of the ruin of my entire world than it was to narrow my perspective to just my family. No news meant I could hope a little longer.

Traynor passed me on her way to the elevator, head bent over a pile of datapads, murmuring to herself. Her focus was so singular that she barely noticed when her shoulder collided with mine.

"Excuse me - oh, Officer Vakarian, my apologies!" She seemed to see me for the first time. "Is there anything you need, sir?"

"No. As you were."

Traynor flicked a glance at the ceiling and half-smiled before she could catch herself.

"I, uh, hope you're having a pleasant morning, sir," she said, in a bad attempt to cover herself. "I." She swallowed, throat bobbing, and backed into the elevator. "Thank you, sir." The doors slid shut, though I wouldn't have put it past EDI's new humor subroutines to keep the door open a little longer than necessary.

The Primarch wasn't in the War Room. I hoped he was sleeping, rather than fighting with Wrex, and the lack of shouting from the the makeshift conference room seemed to bear that out. Only a few techs were around, which meant I could check for news on Palaven without anyone hovering.

It also meant that no one noticed the way I doubled over for one brief moment when I read the latest casualty reports. When I was a child, I couldn't fathom a universe with a million people in it. Now I lived in a galaxy where millions died every hour. It was enough to turn your bones to ash, if you let it.

There's an old human vid, from back before First Contact, where one old warrior asks another, _What can men do against such reckless hate?_ It was a question I still struggled with. It was a question I wanted to ask as I watched the flames of Palaven.

The warrior's companion said, _Ride out with me_.

It was still early in the morning shift, so I stayed in the War Room. My old team was still on Menae, gathering intel on the Reapers' movements and funneling it back to me for dissemination to the turian fleets. Paralus Kovalan, my executive officer, was reporting that the Reapers were massing to hit Scoriae - one of the last cities with a working spaceport. Civilian evacs had to be rerouted, and now I had to coordinate with the krogan - exhausting, meticulous work that required more diplomacy in one message than I thought I'd ever use in my entire life. Every message meant lives saved - and if the krogan were willing to lay down as fodder for the Reapers, then I owed them a little politeness.

A few hours passed, and the War Room gradually filled. The Primarch didn't appear, but I heard rumblings that sounded distinctly like Wrex, coming from the conference room. I kept my head down and kept typing.

A little before the mid-morning shift change, Kaidan came in from the bridge, grumbling to himself. He looked rumpled and sleepless, but he straightened when he saw me.

"Garrus. I didn't think I'd see you here."

I waited for the inevitable joke, but Kaidan, mercifully, avoided it.

"I thought the Commander had taken you with her planetside." My mandibles tightened on reflex, a possessive gesture I tried to control. I didn't like it when Shepard went out without me. No judgment on her abilities - but she took me so often I was used to it. I almost felt entitled - we worked so well together, tech and sniper, strategist and biotic - that even when the situation called for someone else's skills, I didn't feel right if I wasn't there.

No one else was quite so prepared to catch her.

Kaidan was still talking.

"I guess it's just a milk run - some of Tali's buddies in the quarian marines passed on the location of some Prothean tech that might come in useful. And with the our resident Prothean expert being another biotic, there wasn't much chance I'd get to tag along. Tali's the third - I'm surprised she didn't take you along, though."

My brow plates constricted in surprise. Kaidan never struck me as the cagey type, but the sideways grin he threw my way had me rethinking that assumption.

"Hmm, well." I searched for something to say - Kaidan was the last person I wanted to discuss Shepard with - and then something he said came to the surface.

"Wait - you said quarian marines?" Kaidan nodded.

"Why? That important?"

I laughed. "For Tali, very. Did she ever tell you about when we picked her up on Haestrom?"

"Haestrom? Sounds familiar, but -" Kaidan paused, then snickered. "Oh, man. Kal'Reegar wouldn't be one of these marines, would he?"

"I think," I said, as solemnly as I could, "that you could lay money on it, as you humans say."

"No wonder the Commander didn't ask you. Tali would have electrocuted her."

"Or hacked her comms to play nothing but volus mating ballads."

"Oh God." Kaidan shuddered. "Those exist? Remind me to bleach my brain later."

I was already checked out of the conversation. No offense to Kaidan, but as soon as I said the word _comms_, an idea - a wicked, terrible idea, one that would probably have Shepard peeling off my plates one by one - started to form.

"So xenophobic," I sighed at him, already pulling up the ground squad comm channel. Liara and Tali would overhear - but so much the better.

It took a minute to connect, and then Shepard's voice crackled over the comm.

"Garrus. Miss me?" She sounded bored; Spirits only knew how long Liara would spend running her hands over whatever tech the marines had discovered before she started actually assessing what had been found, and I could imagine all too clearly Tali and Kal trying very hard not to flirt with each other. It was a wonder Shepard hadn't started shooting things just for something to do.

"Oh, terribly." I let a purr into my voice, just enough to be heard over the comms. "No one to barge in on half-naked up here." Kaidan made a strangled sound and tried to look very interested in a blank datapad. "Well, except for Kaidan, but I don't think he'll be quite as receptive as you were."

Shepard laughed, a little hesitantly. "Well, we can't all have my poise and adaptability."

"Adaptability I'll agree with, but your _poise_ is arguable."

"Vakarian, do you really want to start this old argument again?"

"You mocked my calibrations, Shepard. Your dancing is fair game."

"If you can call it dancing," chimed in Tali. "Most species call it a seizure."

"This is mutiny. If I spaced all of you," said Shepard, "no court in the galaxy would convict me."

"I'm trembling with terror, Shepard."

She growled at me. "I will make you pay for this, Garrus."

"Promise?" This time, I let the purr drop to a rumble. There was a pause on the other end of the comms, like Liara and Tali were holding their breath. Shepard didn't respond, but with the safety of distance, I knew I could push her farther than I had this morning.

"So, Shepard."

"So, Garrus."

"What are you wearing?"

I heard a gasp, and a startled cough that could only have come from Liara.

"My armor, big guy," crackled Shepard's voice, bright and husky. "Any other smart questions?"

I grinned. "Yeah, a few. What about underneath?"

_**Shepard**_

Garrus may have lost his mind.

_What the hell is he thinking? Does he know people are listening? Did he hit his head recently?_

Wherever Garrus' mind had gotten off to, mine wasn't far behind, because I was staring up at the sky with what felt like an all-galaxy champion stupid grin on my face.

Meanwhile, twelve quarian marines and one quarian tech were trying not to look at me. Liara fussed with her omni-tool and did a bad job of hiding a smile. A very _familiar_ smile.

"You know what's under my armor, Garrus," I said, trying to school my face back into normal lines. Liara went very still, and Tali suddenly had to show the marines something on the other side of the dig site. My friends were all assholes.

"I've made several educated guesses, but I don't want to base my hypothesis on shoddy methodology. Humor me." That flanging note was back, tinny as his voice was over the comms.

Goddamn him. Goddamn him to hell, was this _flirting?_

If it wasn't flirting, I was about to make myself look like an idiot. But after six months of what-if'ing myself to sleep, looking like an idiot wasn't much to risk.

"Well, if it's for science, Garrus, I think I can present you with my findings."

"I'm breathless with anticipation."

Coming from anyone else, that line would have sounded like a hideously overwrought come-on. From Garrus - and God, I hoped this was flirting - it was like honey, warm and sunbrowned and almost too sweet on the tongue.

I waited, long enough to hear his impatient huff. "Don't keep science waiting, Shepard."

Not smiling now was impossible. "Sorry, fact-checking. Sad news: just a plain old black undersuit."

A gusty sigh filtered over the comms. "How old? It might have some archaeological appeal."

"Old enough to have started to wear out in...places." Jesus Christ, I needed to shut my mouth. "I'll switch it out for a new one next mission."

"Don't get rid of it," Garrus rumbled. His voice sounded like it was right in my ear - I half-expected to feel his breath against my skin. "It's an artifact. It's _significant_."

Oh God. Oh _God_. I must have hit my head in the past twenty minutes, because that was the only possible explanation for letting this conversation go on as long as it had. Garrus didn't flirt. Not with me.

"Well, posterity will have to survive without it. It's been cute, Garrus, but don't you have work to do?"

There was a pause on Garrus' end, and another gusty sigh. "Right. Because I'm in a great place to optimize firing algorithms right now."

"Saying goodbye now, Garrus." I closed the channel before I could embarrass myself more, only to look up and see Liara gaping at me, thunderstruck.

"Almost finished?" I asked, in my best _say-anything-and-I-will-drown-you-in-acid_ voice. She shut her mouth and nodded.

"I've been finished for five minutes," she said. "We can head back to the Normandy whenever Tali is ready."

"You've been finished? Why didn't you say so?" Liara gave me a supremely unimpressed look.

"Why do you insist on asking stupid questions?" she asked.

_**Garrus**_

I was still smiling stupidly at the comm, even after Shepard disconnected.

"You know," said the Primarch from behind me, "as amusing as this is to watch, I have to wonder. If she put half as much effort into the war as she is into being willfully ignorant, would we have already won?"

"Primarch," I said, without turning. Kaidan echoed me.

"It's an honest query, Garrus."

"But not a serious one."

"Oh, far be it from me to have a _frivolous_ query. I forgot there was a war on."


	4. Chapter 4

Note: this is an AU, so I'm playing around with events to ensure that all the characters I want are on the Normandy at the same time. Mostly so Kal'Reegar and Victus can form a support group because they're the only two who seem to remember there's a war going on.

Chapter Text

_**Garrus**_

Two days later, Shepard took me with her as part of the ground squad, and I wished she hadn't.

"Shepard, when I said I wanted to go someplace _nice_..." I glared into the distance. "Noveria? Really?"

"What, you afraid of catchin' a cold, Garrus?" Vega bounced on his feet. He hadn't stopped grinning since Shepard pulled him for the ground squad. "I spent my life on the beach, sun and seventy degrees in the winter, and I ain't complainin'."

"That's because it's possible you're brain-damaged."

"All right, cut the chatter," snapped Shepard. She watched the landing zone rise up to greet us as the shuttle dropped. I straightened; by now it was instinct. Vega took a little longer to catch on, but at least he stopped bouncing.

"A Cerberus base on Noveria." Another human might have shuddered, but Shepard just rolled her shoulders, her mouth a thin grim line. "Hope your Overload is ready, Garrus."

I nodded.

"Commander, the LZ is hot - it's a quick drop."

"Copy that, Cortez." She moved to the shuttle door and hit the keypad. The blast of cold air rocked me back and for all his bluster, Vega shivered. Spirits-forsaken Noveria.

"Move out!" shouted Shepard, and jumped down from the shuttle. I could see the bright spray of Cerberus gunfire.

"Right behind you!"

* * *

The mission, while technically a success, didn't go as planned.

"Goddamn asshole bastard _shitheads_." I could hear Vega over the comm and through the wall. The echo gave his voice a turian vocal shift. I wished he would stop talking.

"I can't believe they sabotaged the heating systems. And the doors. Now I'm freakin' stuck over here."

"We heard you the first time, Vega." Shepard sat with her back against the wall, knees drawn up to her chest. "And every time after that. Why don't you try and pull up the heating schematics for the compound?"

"_No problemo_, Commander. Just as soon as I rebuild this console. You know, the one that Garrus _shot_."

"Vega."

"No, really. Maybe I could kick it. It's not like it could do more damage, right?"

Shepard hissed and punched the wall. "Vega, if you're just going to keep complaining, get off the damn comms. We need to conserve power. Once this storm passes we'll need enough juice to radio the Normandy for pickup, and every time you use the comms you're draining your suit. You know, the one that's keeping you warm."

"Yes, ma'am," he mumbled, and mercifully went silent.

I counted in my head, slowly. When I got to seventy-three seconds, Shepard turned her head to look at me.

"How're you holding up?"

I leaned back against the wall. After a moment's thought, I slid closer until my armor clacked against hers. "Next time you want to play with Cerberus on a barren, icy wasteland, leave me at home. Turians deal as well with cold about as well as we do with swimming."

"So I can expect - "

"Flailing and shivering interrupted by occasional bouts of frostbite."

Shepard laughed, her hand covering her mouth. Neither of us spoke for a long time. We were good at that, being quiet together. She had a capacity for stillness that I'd never seen in a human before.

After a while, she turned her head and watched me. I kept my eyes straight ahead and stayed still. Then, I felt the tips of her fingers ghosting over the right side of my face, tracing the ridges of my scars. There wasn't a chance she knew how intimate this was, and I wasn't about to spoil the moment by telling her. I closed my eyes for a moment.

"Garrus?" Her hand stopped moving. "I'm sorry I didn't get there sooner." It sounded like every word was being punched out of her. I kept still.

"You came," I said. You came back, I thought.

"Yeah, but -" I reached up and closed my hand around hers.

"No. No second-guessing. You came. The fact that I took a rocket to the face fades in comparison."

"Garrus, we need to talk about your priorities." But she squeezed my fingers anyways.

There were any number of things to say to that, but I opted for silence. Like I said, we were good at that.

The silence lasted until both our suits started making ominous beeping noises.

"What the - oh shit, Garrus, get your suit off!"

I didn't have time to wonder out loud what was going on before heat seared across the back of my cowl. I hissed and started fumbling for clasps and catches. The frigid air bit at exposed skin as I dropped piece after piece. Not too soon, either - the heating coil at the back of my suit was a clotted, smoldering mess. Shepard's was the same.

"Goddammit," she gritted through clenched teeth. "Goddammit. Heating coils are shorted out. Must have been when the damn ATLAS blew - James, you okay?"

"Yeah, Commander, guess I was outside the blast radius. I'm good."

"Good." Shepard crossed her arms over her chest and crouched next to me. "Goddammit," she said again, and shivered. Outside, the snow howled on. The cold was the kind that aimed right for your gut and worked its way out from there. I thought of the main battery, warm and dim, and hated Cerberus a little more.

"Commander?"

"Yeah, Vega?" Shepard was pale and shaking.

"I think I saw some thermal sheeting over there - you could, uh, use it for insulation." I'd never known Vega to sound sheepish before, but at the moment I was too grateful for the suggestion to wonder why.

"Where?" Shepard's eyes roamed the room. "Never mind, found it. Thanks, Vega. I owe you a drink."

"Maybe two - just so long as the first one's hot."

"Noted. Garrus, want to give me a hand? We can make a tent, conserve more body heat this way."

My hands were clumsy from the cold, but eventually we squared off a corner of the room and covered it with the thermal sheeting. We laid three sheets on the floor as a cushion, with some of the smaller pieces wadded together for pillows. There was barely enough room for either of us to lay down, but with our combined body heat, it was cozy, once we used a flashlight so we could see each other.

Inside, Shepard pressed close against my side and I considered putting an arm around her waist - for warmth. I decided to wait.

"You know," I said, once we'd stopped shivering, "I think I've seen this vid."

"Me too." Shepard cupped her hands and blew into them. "A few times. Lots of different endings."

I glanced at her, trying to read her meaning in her face, but her expression was as carefully blank as her voice. It was the closest she'd come to responding in kind in two days, and I wanted to push her again. Having her so close was an indulgence I couldn't resist.

"Which one did you like best?"

"Which one what?"

"Which ending?"

"Oh, uh...not sure. Probably the one with the quickest rescue and hottest shower." She was retreating. I growled, not missing the way her hands stuttered, and slid my arm around her waist.

"Garrus, what are you doing - aaah!" I pulled her in between my legs, her back to my carapace, and wrapped my arms around her chest. Loosely, so she could pull away if she wanted to. She didn't.

"God, you're strong." Shepard pulled her knees up to her chest and looped her arms around her legs. Because I'm shameless, and because a chance like this might never happen again, I buried my face in the heavy mass of her hair and inhaled.

"More energy-efficient this way," I said into the shell of her ear. Shepard rewarded me with a shudder that had nothing to do with cold.

"I think I remember this from a few of the vids. Good thinking."

"I occasionally have good ideas."

"Coming along with me today wasn't one of them?"

"No, it was one of my best." I whispered into the curve of her shoulder. "I'll always have your six."

Some well-hidden tension slipped out of her. She let her head rest on my shoulder. "I know," she said, and the bone-deep faith in her voice was so pure I had to close my eyes.

_**Shepard**_

If I was honest with myself, I'd admit that I was in love with Garrus. But I know, better than most, how fickle honesty is, so I avoid with myself.

Saying to myself, _I love Garrus Vakarian_, that doesn't make anything easier. It just creates a whole set of new problems. Once those words are said, they're fact instead of just an abstraction, and then I stop being sure of myself and start worrying about being sure of him.

Or so I thought.

When he dropped his head into my shoulder and murmured _I'll always have your six_, with his whole body a solid frame around mine, something snapped deep in my chest.

"I know," I said, which sounds cold in theory but was the only way to tell him what I felt. _My trust in you is absolute. If I fall and you're not there to throw out an arm to catch me, it's because you're falling too._

What I wanted to say, so badly my throat creaked, was _There's no Shepard without Vakarian._

"I think we should grab some sleep while we can," Garrus rumbled, after I'd tried to scrape the words out. "There's no telling how long this storm will last. Might as well pass the time and catch up on some sleep."

"I like the way you think, Garrus." He huffed a laugh that blew through the loose hairs at the back of my neck and shoved the leftover sheeting into a pile against the wall. I watched, without bothering to disguise my interest, as he arranged himself so his fringe and carapace were supported. When he saw me watching, he raised his brow plates at me in an expression that didn't need a translation.

"Looks complicated," I said. I already missed his warmth along my back.

"Not all of us are lucky enough to carry around our own padding, Shepard. And no, that wasn't racist." I snapped my mouth shut on that exact reply and glared at him. "Don't pout. The great Commander Shepard can't pout."

I chewed my lip. "So what can I do?"

"You can do your part and help us keep warm." He stretched out one impossibly long arm and I curled into his side, sighing when his body heat started doing the work for me.

I was dozing, but my comm crackled.

"Don't worry, I'm still alive, Shepard."

"Duly noted, James." Garrus chuckled and turned off the flashlight. The only light now was his scouter. I'd always wondered if he slept with it on. Guess I was about to find out. "Warm enough?"

"Yeah - suit's not made to sleep in, but I'll make it. Better than the alternative. I'll try the comms at dawn."

"Copy that. Get some rest, James."

"Aye, aye, Commander."

The urge to swing my leg over Garrus' was thankfully brief - I couldn't even lie to myself that it would be for warmth - and the only sound was our breathing. I pushed a little closer, ready to back off if Garrus got sick of my invasion of his personal space, but he didn't say anything. I listened while his breathing got long and shallow, and fell asleep counting each rise and fall of his carapace. What would I call that, if not love?

* * *

Much too soon, cold air gusted over us and I jolted awake, reaching for my gun.

"Wakey, wakey, eggs and b-AH!"

"I see Vega has overriden the lock on his door," said Garrus without opening his eyes. If anything, his voice was closer to a growl than I'd ever heard it. I wanted to curl up inside his voice and go back to sleep. Vega blocked out most of the cold, thanks to his suit and to just being enormous, but he let enough in to start me shivering again. I tried to glare him away - I'm never good at talking before coffee and breakfast - but then I followed his gaze, to where my legs were tangled with Garrus'. Apparently I'd given into temptation during the night.

Vega's expression was slowly morphing from mortified to gleeful. Like I said, all my friends were assholes.

"Hey Garrus, you know you got some, uh, Commander all over you?"

"Your powers of observation," Garrus deadpanned, "fill me with awe. Is there something you wanted to tell us, or are you attempting to freeze us to death?"

"Sorry, sorry, just wanted to say the storm's cleared and the shuttle'll be here in thirty minutes." Vega paused, ready to say something, then thought it over and changed his mind. He just said "sorry" again, in case the third time was the charm. He slid out, closing the tent flap behind him, and the air started to warm immediately.

I sat up. Stretching was impossible in our tight space, but when I rolled my shoulders to get the everlasting kinks out, I felt the broad pad of Garrus' thumb massaging the knotted muscles next to my spine.

"_Oh_." I sighed and let my head loll back. His touch was constant but not insistent, just a gentle pressure in all the right places, and it felt even better when his thumb slid over the threadbare places on my undersuit.

Part of me wanted to get freaked out that we'd spent the night curled up together, and that Vega had found us like that, but it was receding.

_He let me touch his scars._

He didn't even like people _looking_ at them.

Some balance had shifted between us. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that we were coming into focus.

_Sorry_, James had said. Not, _what the hell are you guys doing_ or _uh not what I meant when I told you about the sheeting_. But _sorry_, like he was apologizing for interrupting.

It was an equation, and I was starting to fill in the variables. The biggest variable of all was curled around me like a question mark.

My heart leapt, one quick spike of hope. When I looked at him, Garrus slid his hand down my back before letting it rest at his side.

"Still cold?" he asked. Without waiting for my answer, he rolled on his side and tugged me close.

"Just till the shuttle gets here," he sighed next to my cheek. I nodded, because I didn't trust my voice, and hid my face against the warm hide of his neck. Just till the shuttle got there.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Garrus**_

After Noveria, nothing changed with Shepard. Not outwardly. She still took me on missions, still stopped by the main battery at 0645 every morning. We were still, for the most part, quiet when we were together.

Once, when she was leaving the main battery, I caught her looking back. It was progress.

The rest of the crew wasn't quite so circumspect. I had to deal with more than usual amount of winks and sidelong glances when Shepard wasn't watching, especially from Vega. He kept asking about _logistics, you know, the way things work_ - questions I answered with a blank look. Then, when he persisted, by very deliberating reloading my rifle.

Persistence eventually lost to his survival instinct, and he passed along the word to the rest of the crew. Traynor still blushed when she saw me.

The Primarch - well, Victus never could leave well enough alone. I was relieved that he kept his commentary restricted to me.

"The Commander isn't here."

"Thank you, Primarch. I was actually looking for you." I ignored Kaidan's muffled snort - what he was doing in the War Room, I would never know. "Kovalan's report - the civilian evacs from Scoriae have been rerouted to Blerrin and Dos, but the Reapers are funneling troops away from those cities. We can't expect to hold both cities."

The Primarch took my datapad and stared at it, mandibles drawn tight in disgust. "Suggestions?"

I had been dreading the question, but it didn't mean I wasn't ready with an answer. "Pull out of Blerrin completely - leave three platoons to cover the last of the civilian evacs while the rest fall back to Dos."

He rubbed his neck. "Abandon Blerrin?"

"Dos is more easily defensible. It's an older city, which means we can hide civilians in the tunnels until the fleet clears airspace for evacs. Fewer civilians on the streets means fewer casualties for when the Reapers send scouts."

"It's a stopgap measure at best, Garrus." The Primarch stared at the datapad before letting his hand drop to his side. He looked unspeakably weary. "But every action we take is nothing more than a delay for the Reapers."

"Yes, sir."

"It's a good plan. Best we have. Tell Kovalan to move the civilians." I keyed opened a comm channel. I already knew which platoons would stay behind. They would hold till the end.

I was ordering them to die. I couldn't pass this up the chain of command; I was the second-to-last link, and the Primarch had given his order.

"Vakarian?" Kovalan sounded very far away. "Orders?"

I took a deep breath. "Pull back." I didn't hear the rest of what I said.

I didn't look up when Shepard came into the main battery, and she was quiet until she stood at the railing with me.

"I just talked to the Primarch," she said. Shepard didn't say _I'm sorry_, but she didn't need to. I nodded.

After a moment, she took a step closer and leaned into me. It couldn't have been comfortable, pressed against my armor, but she didn't complain.

"I'm going to Eden Prime with Tali and Liara. We've found more Prothean tech - some artifact that had Cerberus all heated up before they bugged out. Liara can't contain her enthusiasm."

"Unsurprising," I murmured. Shepard waited a moment, then straightened. I leaned on the railing and let my head slump.

"Garrus?" My neck ached, but I turned to look at her. She was already in her undersuit - the same old one, shiny with wear. "Will you want to talk later?"

"Yeah," I said. _When words stop tasting like dust. When I stop feeling like burrowing into a hole and start wanting to fight again._

"Come up to my cabin tonight. If you're up for company." She didn't sound diffident or unsure; she sounded like she was giving me an out if I wanted it. "I found some levo-dextro neutral beer last time we were on Omega. It probably tastes like ass, but you don't look like you care about taste much right now."

I let my mandibles flicker in a hard-won smile. It was brief, but when it was gone, I could stand up. "I'll be there. Ping me when you're back."

"Got it."

"And I'll be monitoring the comms - for science," I forced myself to say. The humans had a saying, _fake it till you make it_, and they all claimed it was true. Time to find out. Shepard gave me a slow smile.

"You do that."

"Shepard, be careful."

"Best I can." She gave me a look I couldn't read, then reached out and brushed the tips of her fingers over the unscarred side of my face. Her skin was cool. "Gravity," she said.

"What?"

"Tell you tonight," she said. "See you later, Garrus."

I spent the first three hours of Shepard's absence in the War Room, waiting for a report from Palaven. None came, and I'd never admit it to anyone, maybe not even Shepard, but I was so relieved I could barely stand.

After that, I spent forty-seven minutes in the cockpit, trying to make Joker laugh. I failed miserably. Joker chased me away. "Go bother someone else, I'm _working_, man."

With a valiant effort, I stopped myself from telling Joker that I wasn't a man at all, and retreated. I tried to eat, and when that failed to distract me (and even made the knot in my stomach worse), I calibrated. Once every calibration had been checked, rechecked, and was screaming for mercy, I sat on my cot, talons clenched.

I should have listened better. Shepard was on _Eden Prime_, without me, just like the first time. I wasn't superstitious by nature, but something pricked the back of my neck.

Keying into the comms would only feed my paranoia, but sitting still was even worse. I've always preferred to know my enemy.

Seconds passed before the connection went through. When I heard Shepard's voice, I sagged.

"- living Prothean? That seems impossible."

"I'm sure of it! We should check the rest of the dig site. There may be more survivors."

"All right - Kal'Reegar, Tali, you take the eastern section. I'll cover the north. Move out, we're wasting daylight and I don't want to trip over any Cerberus surprises in the dark."

"Right, Shepard." I had forgotten Kal'Reegar was still on the Normandy. Somehow he'd managed to get around Shepard's iron-clad three-person ground squad rule. Tali must have been very convincing.

After that, the comms chatter dropped to Shepard asking for regular status updates, while Liara mumbled to herself in the background. The knot in my gut started to unclench. It was relaxing to just listen as Shepard talked. I could see her, moving efficiently through the dig site, a frown nicking a line between her eyebrows.

"Shepard."

"Go ahead, Kal. What have you found?"

"Cerberus tripwires - they've laced them through the equipment in this part of the dig site."

"Goddess," breathed Liara. "Did I arm them? Did I -"

"Liara, stay where you are - don't touch _anything_. Kal, Tali, did you touch anything before you noticed the wires?"

"No, Shepard, we stuck to passive scans only."

"Good, then your way back should be clear." Shepard's voice took on the bright imperative she always found on the battlefield. She sounded precise, controlled, unafraid. My heart thudded painfully against my ribs, but I was sure her pulse had barely quickened. "Single file, step in each other's footsteps. Head back to Liara. Double-time!"

Tripwires were one of Cerberus' nastier surprises. As hard to spot as microfilament, they were hair-thin barbed strips of explosives. They dug into equipment and skin without prejudice, and you could set a timed charge, so they could snag clothing and not explode until the victim got back to their ship. We'd already lost two turian frigates to them.

All I heard over the comms now was heavy breathing. How long would it take them to get back to Liara? My fists clenched so tight the bones ached.

"Shepard," gasped Liara. "There's one - there's one on my sleeve."

_No._

"Hold on, Liara!"

"I think I can get it off, just let me try -"

"Liara T'Soni, leave it!"

Tali whimpered Liara's name, and Shepard shouted for Kal and Tali to stay back.

"Hold still, Liara, just hold still, you're fine, it's going to be fine." Shepard still sounded calm, only the slightest raw edge of panic in her voice. "Just one minute - fuck!" I heard soil gritting under boots, and then Shepard yelled again.

"Get down!"

The explosion whited out the comms.

Fifteen seconds later, the comms came back, and three voices were yelling one name.

_Shepard._


	6. Chapter 6

_**Garrus**_

The tripwires were just Cerberus' opening act.

A troop transport flew out of the south when the explosion went off, and pinned down the squad. My friends.

Later, I realized I didn't remember leaving the main battery, or catching Vega and dragging him onto the shuttle. I had no memory of the ride down to Eden Prime, or jumping out of the shuttle and into Cerberus gunfire.

What I remember is Liara screaming behind a biotic barrier, shrapnel buried in her shoulder, and Tali slamming her shotgun into a Cerberus engineer's face while Kal'Reegar drew fire away from - from Shepard.

After that, everything went clear and slow, like the world was trapped in glass. I lined up my first shot, breathed in, and squeezed the trigger.

The present tense was the only one that existed. Sight, breathe, squeeze. Battle has its own rhythm, the steady beat of approaching death. The important thing is to hear the rhythm and make sure you stay a measure ahead.

Sight, breathe, squeeze. Run two steps, crouch in cover. Moving closer, always moving closer.

Another blood spray on stone. Vega yelling, drawing fire meant for me. Another shot, a cry, and the heavy drop of a body hitting the ground. Hot metal, cooling blood, too red, wrong colors everywhere. Cerberus white and yellow on burned grass, the smell of melted plastic and medi-gel.

"Vakarian!"

The beat stops.

I tried to sight my next target, but there weren't any. Two Cerberus squads were scattered over the dig site, some missing limbs, some shredded, some with their heads pulped and hollow. There were six of us still alive, but only five of us were moving.

"She grabbed it and broke it up, threw it away, but some of it stuck to her suit. She ran away and threw herself on the ground, it blew anyways and the smell -" Behind her mask, Tali gagged and leaned on Kal'Reegar. "My filters couldn't keep it out."

I moved closer, Vega moving out of my way, his face stony. _It's going to be bad_, I told myself. _Be ready for how bad it's going to be._

There was no way to be ready. I could only see glimpses through Liara's swift movements over Shepard, but what I saw was -

She'd tried to contain the explosion with her body. Her suit was shredded from her neck to her hips, and almost everything was burned black, with fever-red patches of skin between her breasts. There were places on her arms were her suit had melted into her.

And Shepard was still breathing. Worse, she was _awake_.

"Liara..."

"Don't speak, Shepard," Liara murmured. She spread medi-gel as gently as she could over the worst of the burns, but Shepard arched away from her touch, a breathy scream leaking out of her mouth. There were burns on her neck and under her jaw.

I dropped to my knees and walked-crawled to her side. "Just a minute more," I told her. Behind me, Vega swore too softly for the translator to pick up. "It's going to stop hurting soon, just let Liara finish."

Shepard closed her eyes. What kind of _will_ was keeping her from passing out? Liara inched forward and tried to slick another layer of medi-gel over the burns on Shepard's collarbone.

Shepard howled. Liara pulled her hands back and glanced at me. Tripwire burns were a special kind of hell.

"There's nothing more I can do here, Garrus. We have to get her back to the shuttle." She hadn't seemed to notice that there were fist-sized pieces of metal buried in her shoulder and back, just like Tali hadn't noticed that her suit was punctured.

"Cortez?"

"Yes, sir?"

"We need immediate evac at the dig site - ground and air are clear. Tell Chakwas to prep the Medbay for -" my voice only faltered for a moment "- for tripwire wounds."

"Copy that. On my way."

Shepard's breath rattled in her chest. One, two, three. I counted all the way back to the Normandy.

Chakwas took one look at Shepard and slammed the privacy shields down on the windows in the Medbay. Vega dragged me outside when my feet seemed rooted to the floor, and the last thing I saw before the door hissed shut was Liara's face, her eyes already bruised and too-bright.

"The Commander's going to be fine, Scars," Vega said at my elbow. "Doc knows what she's doing."

I pulled my arm out his grip and shoved away. The main battery was too far away, but if I sat in the mess hall and stared at the blank windows I'd end up trying to punch my way through. I sat on my cot, fists clenched, and tried not to think of the jagged edges of Shepard's suit.

_Gravity._

I held that one word in my fists and closed my eyes. As hard as I tried to remember what her hand felt like on my face, I could only see the dark shadows of the burns.

If I could, I would have brought every Cerberus soldier back, so I could kill them again. Archangel wasn't dead, just dormant. I could be very inventive.

Much later, as I was starting to debate the merits of breaking into Medbay, the door of the battery opened, and Liara swayed against the doorframe. I shoved off my cot, just in time to catch her before she stumbled.

"'M fine," she mumbled and tried to bat my hands away, but she let me guide her to the cot and ease her down. From the way her eyes slid over the room, I could tell Chakwas had dosed her to the scalp with painkillers.

"What are you doing, Liara? You need to be resting."

"Shhh, doc'll hear you," she slurred. "I snuck out. Ev'ryone's sleeping. Not me. Came to apologize."

_Oh, Spirits._ "You've got nothing to apologize for, Liara."

"S'all my fault, so stupid."

"Let me take you back to Medbay." She hissed at me, slapping my arm without any weight behind it, and I eased her back onto the cot. "At least let me take you to your office. This bed isn't made for asari."

She considered this, her face still hazy, then let me guide her up and onto her feet. "Still sorry, Garrus."

"It's Cerberus' fault, not yours. Now shut up and let me get you to bed."

She dozed off under my arm as we crossed the mess, and I ended up carrying her the rest of the way. Glyph greeted us, too loudly, but settled on hovering in aggrieved silence when I ignored him. Liara curled onto her side as soon as I laid her down, murmuring into her pillow. Glyph promised, without being asked, to watch her, and I locked the door from the outside when I left.

The door to the Medbay was open. Tali and Kal were gone, to suffer together in whatever corner of the ship they'd colonised, and Chakwas was asleep at her desk. I can move almost silently when I want to, and she didn't wake when I slipped through the dim light to the bed closest to the AI core.

Chakwas had either adapted to expect the worst when Shepard went on missions, or more time had gotten past me than I thought. The last time I had seen Shepard, she had more burns than real skin, but now vat-grown skin, pink and vulnerable, covered her chest and neck. Her breathing was easy, but shallow. The skin under her eyes was the color of a new bruise.

The worst part was the smell. Shepard didn't smell like herself, metal, rain, and good clean skin. She smelled like plastic and antiseptic. I tried to tell myself it was just temporary, but it stung.

But she was alive. If - no. No ifs.

I crouched next to the bed and watched her sleep. Everything felt too heavy, and I thought again of gravity.

"You're going to have to tell me when you wake up," I told her, and leaned down to touch my forehead to hers. She would never know.

My touch broke her sleep apart. She shuddered awake, trying to scream and thrashing hard enough in her sheets to tear her new skin open.

"Shepard, Shepard!" I grabbed for her hands, as carefully as I could, grateful I'd kept my gloves on. Even with them, the fabric caught the skin on her palms. Chakwas shouted behind me, but I didn't turn around. I couldn't take my eyes off Shepard.

She lunged away from me, gasping for breath, her hands reaching back to fumble behind her head. Two words poured out of her.

"_Notagainnotagainnotagainnotagain."_

"Shepard!" As gently as I could, I cradled her head between my hands and made her meet my eyes. "Shepard, it's all right. You're in the Medbay. I'm here. It's all right."

For a long, fragile moment, she didn't see me. Then, with the smallest noise I'd ever heard her make, she dropped her head against mine.

"Garrus. I thought I was -"

"Shhh." She didn't need to finish. I knew what she had thought.

_The Normandy breaking up around her. Nothing but wreckage as far as she could see. And she was falling, her air leaking away, and she was on fire._

"You're safe," I told her. "I'm here."

She slumped down. After a few seconds, she covered my hands with hers. I could feel her shaking like her muscles were my own.

* * *

_**Shepard**_

_I'm not on the Normandy. I'm on Mindoir._

_It's night. No moon. I can hear the wind but around me the air is cold and still, and in the distance I see the dark swell of the forest. Nothing moves. Above my head, the stars wheel on in senseless, needle-bright circles._

_When I look down, my armor is blasted open, with jagged edges. Beneath what's left of my undersuit is charred-black flesh._

"_You came."_

_I turn around, and see a ghost._

_Garrus flares his mandibles in a smile and crosses his arms over his chest. His markings are fresh, like they've just been painted on, and he holds himself without any tension. He's loose and happy, and so very young. The right side of his face is shredded, and blood covers his armor._

"_I've been waiting for such a long time, you know," he says. "I've been so bored. It's always night here."_

"_Garrus," I wheeze. My ribs creak. "Why are you here?"_

"_Omega took something out of me. Nothing I'd miss - nothing you'd miss - but a part of me got left behind. Not you, though. You didn't leave anything behind."_

_This is where the dead go._

"_You've been here before, just the once, but I wasn't here. You must have been so alone." Garrus has never sounded gleeful in his life, and I flinch away from it. "Do you remember being here? Was it this quiet after you died?"_

"_Stop it." I stumble back. The young, dead Garrus in front of me shows his teeth._

"_It won't be quiet now. We can run and hunt and play. No more fighting. You're free."_

_Two years. I was here for two years, and I remember every minute of it. Every lonely, tearless moment as I wandered over the hills, trying to get home._

"_You're home," Garrus says to me. His smile is horrible. "I'm here, you're here. Do you understand now? This is how it was always going to end for us."_

"_You're not Garrus!" I shout. "He's alive, he's on the Normandy."_

"_But aren't I better? I'm yours. No war or duty to distract me." He cocks his head at me, honestly confused. "It's quiet here. Why don't you want to stay?"_

"_I'm not dead, not this time."_

_Garrus nods, considering this. "Not dead, but nearly there. That stubborn heart of yours is still beating. Don't you want to rest?"_

_Yes, I do. It's so peaceful here, in the cold darkness. It would be so easy to stay with this Garrus, broken but happier than I've ever seen him. I could let someone else do the work._

_A wind blows out of the hills. It finds the notches in my spine and burrows inward, ignoring my armor and chilling me down to my marrow. I shiver. Garrus blinks._

"_I'm cold," I tell him. _

_He shrugs."It's always cold here, you know that."_

_This is where the dead go._

"_I just want to be warm," I say, and his shoulders curve inward._

"_I can't give you that," he says. "I should have known you'd leave. Now I'll be alone again."_

He's not real, _I tell myself_. The real Garrus is on the Normandy.

"_You'll be back," says Garrus. He sounds quite sure. "You'll run out of miracles sometime. But don't worry, I'll wait for you." He steps forward, into my personal space, and touches his forehead to mine._

_I scream myself awake._


	7. Chapter 7

_**Shepard**_

"I'm surprised at you, Commander," said Chakwas. She leveled her eyes at me. "You've been a model patient."

"Yeah well, having skin as thin as wet tissue paper is a great incentive for not moving," I replied, my voice gritty from not being used for almost a week. I was sick of the Medbay, but every time I had tried to walk, Chakwas materialized and glared me back into bed. I hadn't seen anyone, not since I woke up with Garrus cradling my head in his hands, alive and whole and older than I'd ever seen him look. I couldn't get warm after Chakwas pulled him away. Too much Mindoir in my head.

A week was long enough to be out of the fight. The vat-grown skin had almost blended with what had survived the tripwire, but I had a whole new set of scars that were too deep to be repaired. The worst was between my breasts, a six-inch long gash that glowed fever-red against the rest of my skin. I had some on my forearms and along my collarbone, but my face and neck were pretty much healed. I'm not particularly vain, but I was still glad my features hadn't been rearranged.

Some people on the Normandy would have asked me why I took the blast. The obvious answer is that it was soldier's instinct: get the bomb away from the civilians as fast you can. Not that Liara and Tali had been civilians in a long time, but compared to me, everyone was a civilian. The inner answer was about friends, and not wanting to lose any more than I already had. Liara's panic moved like oil, coating everything inside my head. I didn't have a choice - if it was her or me, it was always going to be me. And I knew, if our situations had been switched, Liara would've done the same.

"Well, I think you're almost ready to go back to active duty," said Chakwas. When I sat up, too fast and reeling, she gave me a smug look. "_Almost_ready, Commander. I know you think you're single-handedly holding back the Reapers, but we've had a few victories while you were out."

"Yeah?" I tried not to get my hopes up. "Like what?"

"The rest of the civilians made it off Palaven and Menae - Garrus' plan worked. He even heard from his father."

"Oh, thank God," I sighed. I felt like all the air had been crushed out of me. Garrus' family had been the one subject I knew not to bring up - he already had enough guilt in his ruck to last two lifetimes when it came to them, but I checked the evac logs from Palaven whenever I had the chance.

"When God decides to step in, I'll join you in thanking him," said Chakwas. "Until then, all my respect goes to Garrus, and the turians who died to make sure the civilians made it off-world."

"Figure of speech, doctor," I said.

"Of course, Commander." She tapped her datapad and gave me a serious look. "If I release you back to your cabin and let you have visitors, do you promise to rest until I've cleared you for active duty?"

"I promise. Nothing more strenuous than answering my messages."

"Chambers told me horror stories about your private terminal. The thought alone is strenuous."

When I was finally allowed to lurch out of Medbay, Liara was waiting for me. I didn't doubt that she'd had every minute of the week I was sealed in Medbay recorded and analyzed, because she wasn't just my creepy genius best friend but the Shadow Broker too (I was repeating myself). I was so happy to see her that I couldn't speak. She just squeezed my hand, then slid a gentle, firm arm under mine and guided me to the elevator.

As soon as the door closed, she leaned in to whisper.

"Garrus has Victus and Wrex terrified into civil discussions. It's truly astonishing. Of course, it's taking longer this way without anyone storming out of the room at regular intervals, but don't worry. I've already set a ping for when he gets out."

I asked her a question with a raised eyebrow.

"It just says you're out of Medbay and resting in your cabin, and he is not to disturb you for any reason."

The laugh that tumbled out of my mouth was more like a rasp. "You're evil."

"Yes, I have been told that before," Liara said, completely serious. "Mostly, though, I'm just impatient."

"Impatient?"

Liara didn't answer. She just gave me her obscure smile and shifted so more of my weight fell against her side.

"How are my fish still alive?" I asked when we got to my cabin. I didn't ask about the hamster.

"Tali tinkered with the feeder, and now it dispenses food automatically. The feeder is even set up to order more food when it gets down to half-full."

"Huh. I never thought of that."

"And there are hundreds of small, aquatic corpses that can attest to that."

"Hundreds, Liara? Maybe twenty." I was too tired to put up a good verbal fight.

"Get into bed, Shepard." She toppled me onto the mattress and started tugging off my pants. When I tried to help, she just huffed at me and waited until I gave up.

"I'm a grown woman, Liara."

"One who just spent most of the last week in a near-coma, after trying to block a tripwire explosion with her body. Let me help." Liara pulled off my shirt and bra, and froze when she saw the scar between my breasts.

"Liara?"

"Don't do that again," she said, her voice flat and cold as shale. "Don't take a bullet for me. Don't shield me from the blasts. I'm not going to sit outside Medbay and wonder if you're going to make it because I was too stupid to get out of the way."

I half-expected her to start crying, but the Liara who let herself cry was gone.

Before I could stop myself, I thought of Garrus on Mindoir, bleeding and waiting for me to come back.

"It's not like it was before, with Saren and the Collectors." Liara didn't blink. "You don't get to take risks because your friends make mistakes. You're the only one who knows how everything connects. Without you, we lose."

"We could lose anyways, no matter what I do," I forced myself to say. This pitiless, hard Liara could tear me apart from the inside out.

"But not because of me. Tali agrees." Liara moved to my drawers and, unerringly, opened the right one. She pulled out my softest, oldest shirt, the one that had been washed so many times the hem was tearing, and eased it over my head.

I wanted to tell her I'd always watch out for her, that she was my best friend and nothing she said was going to make me not want to protect her, but the look she gave me erased whatever I was going to say.

"You need to rest, Shepard," she said, all compassion again, but I wasn't going to forget the vein of iron running through her. "Close your eyes."

She dimmed the lights as she left. I stared at the ceiling for a long time, wondering how I was supposed to win a war when I wasn't even allowed to sacrifice for my friends.

I dozed, on the slippery edge of unconsciousness, until my door slid open.

"Shepard."

Garrus came down the stairs and crossed my cabin in the time it took me to struggle up out of bed. For one long, uncertain moment, we faced each other, an arm's length away.

_Do you understand now?_ his expression asked, impatient and terrified, the most unsteady I'd seen him since before the Collector Base.

I understood, and I couldn't speak. The force of him - his will, his concentration, and all his strength - poured down on me and I was drowning.

From a long way away I heard the way I was gasping, great greedy gulps of air that didn't seem to make it into my lungs. Almost dying was an occupational hazard, but seeing the shade of Garrus in those dark, cold hills pushed me right up against the end of what I could take. I remembered blue blood slick on old tiles, and the way a three-fingered hand clutched at a gun.

Someday I would run out of miracles. But not today, not with the last warm place in the galaxy standing in front of me.

Garrus caught me when I swayed, but instead of putting me back on my bed, he dropped to his knees and looped his arms around my waist. I steadied myself with my hands on his shoulders, digging in my nails when he pressed his face into my stomach.

He didn't tell me _never again_. We knew each other too well to make promises like that. The soft fabric of his civvies was skin-warm under my hands, and I couldn't resist sliding my hands up and over his neck. Garrus made a broken sound, deep in his chest, like a snapped twig, and I pulled him closer. He'd never been closer than this. Never close enough.

I licked my lips and wondered if turians ever felt the need to do the same.

"The thing about gravity." I felt him go still and warm against me. "The thing about gravity is that it's not about falling. Falling is just a side effect. Sometimes it hurts, but the important part is that gravity _holds_ - it holds you where you need to be. Without gravity, there would be no solar systems, no stars, no event horizons." It had taken me three years to say all of this and it still wasn't enough. I kept trying. "There'd be no light. And when I tried to figure out how I felt - I mean, how I feel - that's all I could think about. You and gravity." Somewhere under my ribs, I was starting to shiver. Had I been this cold all along?

"I get it now," I said, even though my teeth were chattering. "You're here, you're real. This - _this_ is real. I can stay."

Garrus lifted up his head and stared at me like he had never seen me before in his life. "You can stay and be warm," he murmured. My hands ached.

Maybe I had brought the rest of him back with me. I tried to think about that, but then the shivering took over and I slumped over him, one long line of relief and desire and something so sly and quiet it could only be love.


	8. Chapter 8

_**A/N:**_Welcome to the end of GOTDW! Please note that this section is explicit (romantically so, but still).

Thank you for reading!

* * *

_**Garrus**_

When I'd imagined this moment, it felt much more like a victory and less like a rescue. Shepard clung to me like a weed, and shook, and finally fell, my arms the only things holding her up.

She still didn't smell like herself. She smelled like antiseptic and medi-gel and plastic. I lifted her, a little swell of pride curling through me when she gasped, and carried her to the bathroom.

"Forget how strong I was, Shepard?"

"Like I could," she sighed, and nestled closer. "What are you plotting?"

"You smell like a hospital and you're freezing. We're taking a shower."

She rubbed her cheek against my neck and I sucked in a breath, almost stumbling. That got me a throaty laugh. "Careful. If you drop me, you don't get to be the next Primarch."

"Extenuating circumstances. Illegal tactics were used by my enemy." I set her down under the showerhead and tugged at her shirt. "Arms up."

"I don't think the Hierarchy will accept that." She lifted her arms. When I pulled off her shirt, she covered her breasts on pure reflex. I wanted to tug her hands down, but there would be time for that. Soon.

When I slid a talon under the band of her underwear, I paused and waited. She looked down at me and smiled.

"It's fine, Garrus." She let her hands fall to her sides and ran a fingertip along the mark on my unscarred cheek. There was a looseness in her posture I'd never seen before, something unguarded and new.

Of course it was new. We'd never been here before, in all our dancing around each other. Finally, it was starting.

"It's fine," she said again, and brushed her finger against my mouth. I pulled her underwear away and tried not to stare.

The first thought I had was fascination, not desire. The small indent at her navel, the cleft between her thighs, the hard peaks of her nipples - it was uncharted land where I had expected sure footing. She wore vulnerability like another kind of armor, and that made her powerful.

None of this was what I had expected. Then I looked at the cut of her hip, the way her ribs showed as shadows, and the sharp edge of her wrists, and all I felt was _want._

"You're over-dressed for a shower," she said, with another throaty laugh, and I fumbled for the clasps on my tunic. Shepard tried to reach down to help but winced. "Ugh, sorry, you're on your own. My ribs feel like they're on fire."

"You broke all of them a week ago, Shepard. That's expected." One clasp down, three to go.

"Keep talking, Garrus. It's not like I'm naked and freezing in front of you."

Two more clasps. "I hear hypothermia is excellent as foreplay."

"You're repeating yourself, you already tried that on Noveria."

"Noveria was survival."

"So is this," she said, and cradled my face in her hands.

Once I had her under the warm spray, I didn't want to stop the soft noises she made, content and half-asleep. I ran my talons through her hair, gently as I could, and she pressed her back into my carapace.

The plates at my groin shifted as my cock started to harden and flare, and I shifted away, only to stop when she reached back and slid a wet hand down my leg.

"Don't leave," she said.

"I know what Chakwas told you, Shepard. No strenuous activities." Even to myself, I didn't sound convincing.

"You're already defying her by being here at all," Shepard said, and I heard the smile in her voice, rich and slow. "And you could just do all the work." She arched against me, against my hands, which had somehow found their way to her breasts. I rubbed my palms in a slow circle over her nipples and grinned into her hair when she gasped.

"If you start this and don't finish, I will throw you out an airlock."

"Empty threats, Shepard." I pinched a nipple between two careful fingers and felt her tense under me.

"Jesus - more of that, yes," she sighed. "Where the hell did you learn about breasts?"

"Research," I said, and nipped her neck. "Now be quiet, and let me take care of you."

"Yes, sir," she replied, and my cock pulsed behind its plates. Now _that_ was interesting, and we'd explore it later, but now she was water-slick and cool against my skin. I'd waited three years. All I wanted was as much of her as I could get, until she told me to stop.

Shamelessly, greedily, I bent my head and set my teeth, so gently, to the skin on her throat.

"Garrus, are you - are you _marking_ me?"

I'd have to be rougher for that to happen, even with her skin so soft and thin under my teeth, but I hummed a yes.

"Do you mind?" I said and waited for her answer.

"No," Shepard said immediately. She laughed. "I just thought it was, you know, understood. If we're doing this, we're doing it. Marking is redundant."

"Is this redundant too?" I couldn't help teasing, even as what she said settled one of my last doubts. I dragged my tongue from the ball of her shoulder, up her neck, and around the shell of her ear.

"_Oh._" She was perfectly still in my arms. I made my way back down her neck, nicking her skin with tiny bites that made her gasp and strain. "Garrus, Jesus Christ."

"Answer my question, Shepard." I was counting on her stubbornness holding out a little longer, and I was right; she stayed quiet and slid a hand up my thigh. The movement seemed mindless enough, but I knew Shepard too well. When her fingers ghosted over the plates at my groin, I growled low in her ear and didn't miss the way she shuddered.

I looped my hand around her wrist and pinned her hand to the wall. "Remember the doctor's orders. No exertion on your part. You're supposed to be -" my concentration was frayed - "passive. No, you're supposed to be _receptive._"

She whined low in her throat. I closed my eyes and thought about cleaning my armor and thresher maws to keep my cock from slipping out of my plates completely.

I cupped her breast in my free hand and licked the red spots where I'd bitten her. Her heart beat under my hand. She whined again and ground her hips back, standing on tiptoes to slide her wet skin over the seam of my plates. I growled - stubborn, stubborn to the end - and when she strained again, I let go of her hand.

For all of three seconds, I let her have the advantage. She reached back, scratching lightly at my plates, laughing a little breathlessly when I bucked into her. When I slipped my hand from her breasts and between her legs, she froze, her hands stilling.

I will swear forever that Shepard held her breath the whole time I traced her clitoris with the barely-there pad of my finger. She was slicker than I'd imagined; I wanted to taste her and see if what I'd imagined was true, but more than anything I wanted to push her, just a little farther.

"I won't hurt you," I said into her ear.

"Garrus, I know," she gasped. "But you're driving me crazy, I don't know how much longer I can keep standing and you haven't even started."

"Hold still a minute more." Slowly, with all the control I'd had trained into me, I slipped one finger into her. She was hot and tight, every fantasy ten times over, and I threw back my head, groaning at the ceiling and trying not to give into the urge to push her against the wall and just _take_.

She clenched her cunt around my finger. I lost the last battle with my self-control and my cock slid free of the plates, already wet.

"Shepard, _please_, just a minute more - it's not a damn contest." I curled my finger into her, careful of my talon, and I could tell when her shoulders tightened that she was thinking the same thing. "I won't hurt you," I said again.

"I know, it just - it feels so good." She clenched again and I pressed into her, just enough to send a shock of pleasure from my cock straight into my spine. "Sorry, sorry. I'll stop."

I dropped my forehead to the top of her head. She was warm again, the shower had done its trick, and I didn't want us to still be in here when the water inevitably went cold. But we had a few minutes more - enough for what I had planned.

With my shoulder dropped, I could circle over her clitoris with my thumb while I thrust inside her. An awkward position, and one I couldn't hold for long, but when her breath left her in one shallow rush and she arched into me, moaning, it was worth every discomfort.

"Oh God, Garrus, yes, _there_, oh, oh -"

Then she was silent, her eyes closed, head thrown back, and I felt a shudder start deep inside her body and fly outward. She clenched around me, her hands scraping the walls, and when the shudders stopped and her knees buckled, I held her up with an arm around her waist.

"Research, my ass," she gasped a moment later. "You're a natural genius, Garrus."

I flexed my mandibles at her when she looked back over her shoulder. I slid my finger out of her and guided her back up. She leaned against the shower wall and breathed deeply, a flush spreading down from her cheeks and over her neck.

"Do you need a moment to recover?" She tossed a frown at me, a frown that turned into laughter when I spun her around to face me.

"Even if I did, would you give me one?" Shepard still sounded breathless. "You seem pretty - well, you know." She gestured vaguely at me. I flicked my mandibles at her in a grin.

"I can be patient, Shepard."

She cut me a look under her lashes that spiked something hot in my gut. "Oh, I'm sure - good thing you don't need to be." She reached out, watching my face the whole time, and took my cock in her hand. "Wow, it's - no, don't freak out," she said quickly when I turned my head away. "It's different, that's all. I forgot there'd be ridges." She circled under the flared head with a finger before wrapping her hand around my cock again. "And you're uh, very thick." Her voice was breathy. "That's - god, I can't even get my hand around you." She reached down with her other hand and linked her fingers, pressing both thumbs under the head. I was slick already, but the pressure her fingers and the way her wrists turned sharp as she stroked me made me cry out. The first spasm twitched through my cock, and fluid beaded at the tip.

"_Jesus._"

"Shepard, you keep saying this name -"

"Relax, Garrus, I thought you'd know that's one guy you don't have to worry about. Ever." She stroked lightly, once, and at the head of my cock, she added a wicked little twist that left me gasping. I had to lean forward, my hands braced on the wall over her shoulders. I wanted inside her so badly I felt dizzy. Her hand felt a little strange on me, too many fingers and still too cool, even in the hot shower, but it was _Shepard_.

"If you keep that up, we're going to need a real shower, and I'm not washing in ice water," I groaned. She didn't stop, just kept up the slow, light strokes that were driving me crazy. "I mean it, Shepard."

"Ruining my fun," she said, but the flush had spread over her chest and her breathing was still fast. With an effort I hadn't known I could make, I pulled her hands off my cock and pinned them to the wall over her head. I crouched down as she arched toward me, and swirled my tongue over one nipple, then the other. I was quick, just wanting to tease, but she moaned and squirmed against me, asking for more.

I teased Shepard as long as I could stand, with the flat of my tongue and the barest hint of teeth on the fullest part of her breasts, until she tried to swing a leg over my shoulder. I had to pull away - I'd fantasized about this, about kneeling under her and probing her cunt with my fingers and tongue until she couldn't speak - but there was a fine tremble in the muscles of her thigh that I knew wasn't from desire.

I steadied her with a hand when she started to tumble toward me and shut off the water with my elbow. For a moment, I worried that without the heat and steam, Shepard would be cold, but when she wrapped her arms around me, she was warmer than I'd ever felt her. The flush covered almost all of her back, where her sharp shoulder blades moved just under the skin. I closed my eyes.

"Bed. Now. I need -"

"Yeah, I know," she groaned into the skin of my neck, and followed her words with her teeth. I grabbed the base of my cock and thought of the rachni, of Council meetings, of -

Shepard's hand slipped into mine. "Let's go," she said as she pushed away from the wall. We were both a little unsteady as we went down the stairs, and there was no grace in the way we fell on her bed. She rolled to her side and propped herself on one elbow to look down at me.

"How do you want me?" she asked. "I don't know what your research came up with, but mine seemed to imply a lot of the usual human positions won't be as good for you as they are for me."

I couldn't reply at first, the thought of Shepard researching _this_ taking over my mind and blanking out every other thought. So much wasted time.

I could regret it, or I could focus on Shepard now, warm and pliant and alive. "You're right," I said in a strangled voice. "But there are a few that will work - and let me keep to the letter of the doctor's orders." I sat up against the pillows and raised my knees with my legs spread, ready to pull Shepard to me. She had other ideas.

She crouched between my legs, her fingers dancing over my waist. If she'd touched me there in the shower, we'd never have left. I let my head fall back, a dual-tone noise I'd never made before coming out of my mouth. Somewhere inside was her name.

"Shepard, you don't have to -" Everything broke apart when I felt her tongue, the tip shaped to a point, tracing the vein that ran from root to tip. "Fuck, don't stop."

"Yes, sir," she said, her mouth just above the head of my cock, and licked back down the way she came. When she tried again, I pushed her back by the shoulders and held her there.

"If you do that again," I panted. "I'll make a mess all over you."

She froze, and then a whole-body shudder moved through. Her eyes were wide.

_Interesting._ I filed her reaction away next to the _yes sirs_ with the only rational part of my brain still working. That deserved exploring later.

But now.

"Come here," I said, and held out my arms. She slid up my legs and settled on her knees just over my hips, her fingers not quite touching my waist. When she met my eyes, I didn't wait. I grabbed her hips, as hard as I could without piercing her skin, and pulled her down onto my cock.

"Aah!" She choked out the cry and gripped my shoulders, digging in her nails. I waited for her to adjust, stroking her sides, thumbing her nipples. She was still for a long time before she started to rock back and forth, getting used to my cock inside her.

_My cock inside her_. I twitched, deep in her cunt, and she moaned.

I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to hers. "Are you ready? Can I?" She nodded and opened her eyes. I rolled my hips, slowly.

"Garrus!" She dug her nails in deeper, clenching around me, but she didn't look away. "Oh my God, Garrus."

I thrust into her, still slowly, but this time she ground down against my hips. When she clenched again, I had to stop moving and close my eyes.

"Hey." Shepard touched my unscarred mandible. "Hey, it's okay. You don't have to control yourself for me. Just look at me. I want to see you."

I opened my eyes to her smile. She ducked her head, almost shyly, before darting back in to press her mouth against mine. A kiss. A very human kiss, with a flicker of tongue and teeth. It grounded me, and when I thrust into her warmth again I found our rhythm.

It was hard for Shepard not to be in control; I had to hold her still when she tried to go faster. She whined and shoved down into me, begging for me to give her more. I stopped moving, just to watch as she wriggled.

"Goddammit, Garrus, if you stop now I'll kill you." She curved her spine down to touch her forehead to mine.

"Ask me nicely," I said. In time she'd learn that the reedy hum under my words was a sign that I was just as close as she was, but I'd keep that a secret for now.

"Please," she breathed. Because it was Shepard and she never begged, not truly, she ran her tongue along the tip of one mandible, with a heart-stopping hint of teeth. "Please, Garrus, I need -"

She never finished. I wasn't in the mood to tease, not with her hands playing over my waist and the first tremor starting at the base of my cock. I thrust again, holding her forehead to mine with one hand while I slid the other into the warm cleft between her legs.

"Oh - _oh my god - there -_" Shepard's thighs squeezed tight over mine, slick with water and sweat, and as she clenched inside the rest of her body went limp.

The pressure on my cock was just this side of painful, and when I came I thrust through each spasm, drawing out the pleasure until I was dizzy and my thighs ached. Shepard curved into me with her arms looped around my neck, until she murmured an apology and pulled away. I slid out of her with an obscene little noise that made me shiver.

"We should clean up," she said, her face half-buried in a pillow. "I'm an invalid. You go get a towel."

I rolled onto my side. "It can wait," I told her, and curled my hand around her shoulder. We breathed together, in our familiar silence.

_**Shepard**_

I woke up with a very familiar, very naked turian watching me, and my first thought was _Oh god, what did I fuck up now?_

Then I tried to sit up. The cradle of my hips ached in an unmistakable way, and I remembered everything.

"You looked like you were considering a strategic retreat for a minute there," Garrus said. His voice was light, but I heard the tense subvocals, and I hated that I'd given him a reason to worry.

"For a minute there, I couldn't believe you were here," I said. "Been a long time coming." He watched me, his face not moving, but without clothes or armor in the way I saw how his plates realigned and some last tension left him.

"Too long," he said. I nodded. He ran a talon over my bare thigh, feather-light. I swallowed hard.

"I missed you, on Earth. Six months was a long time to go without seeing you. I think I knew before, but that was when I understood. I didn't think you'd ever feel the same, so I didn't ask. But I hoped." I looked down at my hands. "I wasted a lot of time, Garrus. I've got no idea where we'll end up, but I'm glad we're here now."

"Right where we should be," he said. I watched as he arranged himself on my bed, all sharp lines and graceful muscles, and remembered the first time I saw him. Demanding more time, so terribly earnest and brave, so focused on doing the right thing. Maybe all this had started then, with the seed of what had taken three years to grow planted in that moment.

I laid down next to him. The fit was awkward, and however I turned something sharp jabbed into something soft, but we'd work it out. For now, I was happy to be still, and to be with him. Right where I should be.

**Epilogue**

_**Garrus**_

The pile of rubble below me used to be the lake on the Presidium, I was sure of it. Now it was mud and broken rocks, and the air was barely breathable.

"Garrus." Liara's hand squeezed my shoulder.

"I'm not leaving." I couldn't look at her. "I'm staying until it's certain, one way or another."

"She wouldn't want you to -"

"Don't tell me what she'd want, _I know_. I already know." She would want me to go and start fixing things. Putting the galaxy back to rights, clearing away the dust.

This was what I wanted.

Liara shifted and dropped her hand away. Behind her, Tali cleared her throat.

"Where do you want us to start digging?"

I looked at what was left of our best hope, high above our heads, and pointed.

"There."

We started to climb, calling her name.

_**Shepard**_

I woke up when the rocks shifted. It was cold, and dark, and still. Like Mindoir. But the air smelled like fire and molten slag, and I remembered what I'd done.

The silence stretched on, the only sound me gasping for air, and then I heard _him_.

I pulled in as deep a breath as I could, and screamed.

His voice paused.

_Right behind you._

One breath left.

I put my hand against the rocks above me and pushed. Time enough for one more miracle.


End file.

Mass Effect, Drama, Romance