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Shepard leans against a railing in the main battery. Back from Rannoch and while the celebrations planetside and on the Normandy are in full swing, Shepard’s escaped here as a brief reprieve, but it hasn’t brought her the peace she was after.
Her mind is spinning, considering all that’s happened. Considering ruthless calculus, considering a dying reaper and talk of cycles and extinction, considering how far one person can go on anger alone. She’s still in her armour, the sweat and dirt of Rannoch clinging to her like a film. Once they get word, they’ll pick up Tali and head on their way, but for now, the thought of doing anything more is overwhelming - even though there’s always more - there’s the new war treaty to draw up, the dextro rations to negotiate and authorise from the flotilla to the turian platoons, the incoming mission from Aria and the personal requests from her team, they need to hunt down Garneau and his intel on leviathan, there’s geth units to mobilise and reports to Hackett that needed to be signed off on two days ago, and the asari are finally coming around but of course it’s Shepard they need, in person, the tip of the spear for the Alliance, the loose end of the council, the first resistance to the reapers.
Shepard slowly slides down the bracket, resting her forearms on her knees, tipping her head up at the mass of the battery.
The doors slide open, and Garrus steps through, distracted until he notices her. He stops when he notices Shepard, stationary against the left side of the battery, and for a quiet moment they regard each other.
“Should I stay, or…”
She smiles slightly. “Wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“Ah.”
He comes up to her, staring down at her, and she up at him.
“No offense Shepard, but there are cozier places to take a nap.”
“Just needed somewhere to clear my head.”
“What, your room isn’t big enough so now you’re stealing mine?”
“Nah, but less likely chance of running into you there.”
Slight flutter of mandibles at that. There’s another moment between them, and Garrus then slowly slides down as well, seating himself opposite her, his legs outstretched. They’re almost touching.
“Thought you of all people would be wanting to celebrate, Shepard. What you did today…”
Shepard huffs out a breath. “Would you think I’m crazy if I said it wasn’t enough?”
“I already think you’re crazy, Shepard. A few years ago? Maybe I would’ve thought twice about solving a three hundred year war and killing a giant extinction machine, but now? All in a days’ work.”
“Can’t say I don’t keep things interesting.”
He does laugh at that. “Why do you think I stick around? It’s certainly not for your good looks.”
She grins back. “I can think of a few who’d disagree.”
Silence settles between them, and Shepard is hesitant to admit it but…it’s nice. Taking in the blue of his eyes, familiar and sharp, a constant in a universe that she’s always had to fight for the smallest of comforts. Garrus studies her back.
He’s the one to break the silence. “When you said it isn’t enough, I’m guessing you didn’t mean the alcohol or party food.”
Shepard doesn’t know if she wants to take a nap or find more husks to kill. Anything apart from celebrating. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I - I can’t stop now. We’re so close. We won that battle, sure, but -”
“We’re not winning the war?”
“Exactly.”
Garrus hums. “From where I’m sitting, not sure I’d agree.” He waves a hand in the space between them.
“That so?”
He tilts his head in a very human manner. “Matter of perspective.”
“Maybe your view is better than mine. Less scars over here.”
“Less style, I think you mean. But I do have to admit, a hell of a lot more fight.”
Shepard looks down at her hands. They’re small but tough, callouses and scars having pockmarked the lines running along them. She leans towards Garrus slightly, just enough so that she can reach his hand from where he’s rested it loosely against his knee (or whatever the turian equivalent is - something she notes to ask EDI about later).
“Shepard?” His subharmonics thrum with something strange, but he lets her do it, lets her turn over his hand in her own, studying the difference between them. The size alone is a big one - he dwarfs her own, but also in the texture and colour - blue and grey plating that feels almost scaly but soft, not at all the sharp brittle sensation Shepard would’ve assumed. Turning his hand over, she studies his talons - they’re long and precise but also blunted, as if he’d filed them down a bit. She strokes a finger over one of them, and he makes a noise in the back of his throat.
Shepard looks up, realising he was watching her just as intently.
“That’s ah - touching someone’s talons is very -”
Shepard waits. “Very?”
Garrus is uncharacteristically quiet. “Intimate,” he finishes.
“Ah.” She holds up his hand against her own.
“What about this?”
He makes another unidentifiable noise.
“Humans,” he huffs, as she flexes her palm against his, hesitating, then sliding her fingers between his talons. It’s not comfortable at all, but she rests her fingers there all the same.
She looks across at him over their joined hands. “You didn’t say. Why you left the party?”
His eyes are fixed on their hands, at all the points they meet. She can feel each small flex of the webbing between them, the strange metallic warmth of them.
He clears his throat slightly.
“Come on Shepard,” Garrus drawls, but it sounds shaky, “everyone knows the party is where you are. If a reaper doesn’t show up in the next ten minutes, that’s when I’ll start to worry.”
If a reaper showed up in the next ten minutes - but Shepard doesn’t want to talk about that, so she jumps topics again. As always, he follows her. “Matter of perspective huh?”
“Is that really what’s bothering you?”
“Hackett told me at the start of all this that everything they’re doing out there - the frontline - is just a delaying tactic for the Normandy. For me.”
Garrus watches her carefully. “Shepard,” he says, his voice dropping low in a way she’s never heard, “I get it. Believe me, I do. But I don’t want you to only sleep when you’re dead. And the war isn’t the only reason I - ah - we need you.”
Shepard doesn’t tend to let down her guard. Being a leader means being one step ahead but also one step removed, and it’s a lesson she only had to be taught only once for it to stick. But the red glow of the battery is softening her usual anger, the hum of the Normandy through the metal grate is familiar and warm, and she can admit, at least to herself, that for the moment there’s nowhere else she’d rather be.
Shepard doesn’t mean to, but she lets out a long shuddering sigh. Almost unthinking, she says out loud, "What would I do without you, Vakarian?"
He's being uncharacteristically quiet, and Shepard sighs again. She goes to slowly withdraw her hand from his but as she does, Garrus instead carefully but securely tightens his grip on it, curls his three long talons around her hand, a mimicry of human hand-holding.
His hand covers hers completely, and Shepard finally feels her mind grind to a halt, stops considering the war, only considers this.
“Holding hands with a turian. Is that the kind of perspective I need?”
His eyes meet hers, burning and blue. “Maybe it is.”
“I’ll take it under consideration.”
He doesn’t say anything back, but it’s enough.