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Garrus pushed himself off Shepard and collapsed on the bed beside her, breathing hard. She rolled into him, pressing light kisses on whatever parts of him she could reach. A kiss for the cracks on his carapace, a kiss for his scarred mandible, a dozen kisses over his throat. He hummed contentedly as he wrapped his arm around her. With one more kiss to the corner of his mouth, she tucked herself into his side, and they were still.
The only sound in the room was their breathing, slowly evening out, and the low murmur of the ward outside.
This was his favorite part of being with her. When it was just the two of them, when they didn’t have any responsibilities, when the galaxy wasn’t on the verge of destruction—those were the times Garrus looked forward to most. He liked fighting at her side, and he liked watching as she commanded a room, and he liked the sex, but mostly, he just liked Shepard. They’d lost so much time already. He was going to spend the rest of his life making up for it.
“Has it been long enough that I can joke about you going to prison?” he asked abruptly, and she let out a surprised huff of laughter, warm breath tickling his neck.
“Why not? We could die tomorrow. Might as well laugh at all the bad stuff while we can.”
“We won’t die tomorrow. I give us another week, at least.”
“Optimism? From Garrus Vakarian? I never thought I’d see it.”
“Eh.” He shrugged. “I’m in a good mood tonight.”
“Yes, you certainly are,” Shepard agreed, pressing a kiss to his mandible. Garrus preened as she snuggled further into him. “Remember when I had to stop every merc on Omega from killing you?”
“Remember when that gunship took me down and you thought I died?”
“Remember when I did die?”
“Remember when Cerberus rebuilt you using harvested parts from your clone—”
“The clone isn’t funny yet,” she interrupted. There was no bite to her tone, just a reminder that she was still adjusting. They’d spend most of the day running around the Presidium, correcting her clone’s falsified records, giving statements to C-Sec, and dealing with the fallout of a high-speed chase amidst skyscrapers—and they weren’t nearly done. Tomorrow would bring more of the same. More insecurities, more doubts, and more questions no one could answer.
Once, Shepard asked how he knew she was the same woman he’d followed into hell to stop Saren, how he knew she wasn’t a clone or a machine or something Cerberus could control. His answer was simple: he’d always know Shepard. There wasn’t a thing in the galaxy—human, alien, or clone—quite like her.
He chuckled and smoothed a hand down her arm. “Alright. No clone yet,” he conceded. “If we survive until next week, then she’ll be funny.”
“Hm. Sounds fair.” Shepard wriggled an arm out from between them to wave grandly. “As you were.”
“Remember when you went to prison for intergalactic terrorism?” he asked.
“Remember when you tried to convince me to steal the Normandy and turn pirate in the Terminus Systems so I wouldn’t go to prison?” she shot back.
“Remember when you almost agreed?”
“I did not.”
“You did. I did that thing you like with my tongue, and—”
“Garrus!” Shepard began to laugh—a real laugh, like one he hadn’t heard in some time. He grinned, mandibles spread wide.
“You did,” he insisted. “You would’ve agreed to anything in that moment. I don’t know why I didn’t press harder. Damn it, I’ve got to work on my negotiating skills.”
“There’s an innuendo in there somewhere.”
He pulled her closer, guiding her leg over his hip so her chest was flush against his carapace. “’Pressed harder?’” he offered innocently.
Shepard smiled at him, a curving thing. “I will never understand turian stamina.”
“Need a minute?”
“Or twenty. But I’m game, when my legs stop feeling like jelly.”
“You don’t need those for what I have in mind.”
“Greedy,” she chided.
“Guilty as charged.” Garrus squeezed her thigh one more time and let go. She stayed where she was, perfectly content despite the roughness of his keel and the sharp angles of his hips. If they’d learned anything over the years, they’d learned how to fit together.
Shepard’s breath was even, and even without his visor to check her vitals, he could tell that her heart rate was calm and steady. Shore leave hadn’t been quite as relaxing as she’d hoped, what with the clone and almost losing the Normandy and reporting her stolen identity to every Citadel agency, but they were taking time for themselves tonight. When the war was over, they’d have all the time in the galaxy, and every day would look like this—just the two of them, happy and alive and inseparable. He could hardly wait.
Garrus unhooked her leg from his hip and rolled on top of her, caging her in. She smiled, and he couldn’t quite resist the urge to kiss her. When they broke apart, he kissed her cheek as she draped her arms over his shoulders. “I remember you used to have a scar here, below your lip,” he murmured, tracing the spot with the tip of a blunted talon. “I always found it fascinating. Used to wonder how you got it every time you stopped by the Mako.”
“Fascinating, huh?” she asked drily.
“You were. Are.”
“Nice save.”
“I do my best.”
“That, you do. Too bad Cerberus disagreed about the scar, though. I didn’t wake up with any of mine. Not worth rebuilding, I guess.”
“They knew you’d just go out and get new ones.”
“Hm. Probably.” Her gaze slid to his scarred mandible, flickered over it as she thought about something. “It was the first scar of my military career,” she said.
“Yeah?” he asked, leaning in and pressing his mouth against her jaw.
She held onto his shoulders as she nodded. “I got it on Akuze.”
Garrus stilled. He waited for her to push him away, but her hands stayed right where they were, holding him close so she didn’t have to look him in the eye. Shepard had always been reluctant to discuss Akuze, and he’d been reluctant to press. Something in her had changed forever that day, something that couldn’t ever go back to the way it was, and if she ever wanted to open up, she’d let him know. Until then, he wouldn’t push it. Every soldier had a story they didn’t tell. Him included.
He trailed down her throat, and Shepard went on. “It all happened so fast. One second, we were setting up camp outside the abandoned settlement, and the next…it was like the ground disappeared. The maws sent one of our vehicles flying into the other. Guess it hit just right, because they both exploded. I didn’t hit the dirt fast enough to avoid shrapnel. Learned an important lesson that day: no matter how safe you think you are, you never take off your helmet.”
“Looks like we both had to find that out the hard way,” he rumbled against her sternum.
“And we’re both lucky it didn’t end up worse for us.”
Slowly, he pulled back from her enough to meet her gaze, and when she didn’t stop him, pressed their foreheads together. “Not just lucky,” he said lightly.
“I don’t know. When I think about everything that’s happened to us, that we’re here at all…we either got lucky or really lucky.”
“I nearly died on Omega. You did die. You call that luck?”
“But you didn’t die, and I got better. Maybe we’re unlucky in lucky ways.”
“Hm. Maybe.” He wasn’t sure luck had much to do with it. They’d ended up where they were through hard work, skill, and a few contrivances that seemed like divine intervention. In his opinion, lucky people didn’t end up on Akuze, or Omega, or anywhere near a Collector base. Lucky people didn’t have evil clones or Reapers to worry about.
“And anyway,” she continued, “would it really be so bad if luck was on our side for once? The bad guys always get lucky. It’s our turn.”
“Stop saying luck. It doesn’t sound like a real word anymore,” he said, poking at the ticklish spot just below her ribs.
Shepard grabbed at his wrists. “Garrus Vakarian, don’t you dare.”
“Don’t do what?” he asked innocently, pinning her between his knees. “Don’t do…this?”
She shrieked with laughter as he began to tickle her, trying in vain to slap his hands away. He kept it up until he was sure she’d abandoned the subject of luck or how they’d beaten the odds of the galaxy conspiring to keep them apart, and only then did he show mercy. He released her sides, and Shepard held her ribs as she gasped with laughter. “You’re terrible,” she accused breathlessly. “Absolutely terrible.”
“Oh? I can leave, if I’m bothering you.” He began to climb off her, to which she responded by attempting to wrestle him back into bed. Garrus was yet to lose a single spar to Shepard, but he was amenable to cuddling, so he allowed himself to be grappled and fell back into bed beside her.
Shepard climbed onto him and straddled his waist, grinning victoriously. “I win.”
He bucked his hips, and she reached for his shoulders with a gasp. “Actually,” he drawled, hands sliding up her legs, “I think I win.”
“We’ll see, Vakarian. Up for round two?”
He squeezed her thighs. “Just been waiting on you.”
They took their time with it. They had time now, at least for the next few days. When they reboarded the Normandy, it would be back to the hunt, back to running and gunning and saving the galaxy. And Garrus was glad to save the galaxy, and glad to do it at her side, but there was a part of him that already missed shore leave and the reprieve it offered. In their off-duty hours on the Normandy, which were already few and far between, they stumbled into the captain’s cabin and crashed as soon as they hit their pillows.
Shepard came with a breath of his name, and he didn’t take much longer. She collapsed against his carapace, and he ran his talons through her short hair as he kissed all over her face. She smiled, tired but happy, and pressed forward to kiss him. Garrus held her there, drawing it out, taking his time.
Time was the galaxy’s most precious, non-renewable resource. There just wasn’t enough of it to go around.
When they broke apart, she rolled off of him to lie on her stomach. She watched the ward outside the windows with her head in her arms, and he watched the way the neon signs colored her silhouette. Her hair was in complete disarray. Most of that could be chalked up to him and their activities that night, but her hair was easier to dishevel now. Her last haircut was before the war began.
When she appeared on the bridge to his hideout, hair past her chin, Garrus took her for a ghost in between spells of delirium and stim-induced hallucinations.
“I had a crush on you,” he blurted. “Back on the SR-1.”
“What?” She whipped her head around, brow furrowed. “No way.”
“I did. You were Commander Shepard, first human Spectre. I was ready to worship the ground at your feet.” Heat rose to the back of his neck as he thought of how eager he’d been. Anything seemed better than C-Sec and red tape. “I figured out pretty quickly that you didn’t see me that way. It stung. A little.”
“You won me over in the end,” she teased, soothing the small pinpricks of insecurity within him. “I’ve always thought highly of you. Always knew I could count on you. It’s just…back then, you seemed so…” She trailed off, struggling to find the right word.
“Obnoxious?” Garrus offered.
She smiled at him from the crook of her elbow. “Young.”
He scoffed. “I was only three years younger than you.”
“Twenty-six isn’t that old.”
“How’s twenty-nine?”
Her smile widened. “Still not old.”
“Well,” he sniffed, “I’m catching up to you.”
“With my help. I can spend another year dead, if you need.”
His chest squeezed. “Also not funny, Shepard.”
“No jokes about clones or the two years everyone believed I was dead,” she said impassively. “Guess nothing’s funny anymore.”
“Guess not. Old age.”
“Again: twenty-nine is not old. Most people would probably say it’s too young to be the primarch’s advisor.”
“Reaper advisor,” he corrected.
She rolled her eyes. “Semantics. So when I found you on Omega, was your crush gone?”
“Mostly gone. You wouldn’t know, but it’s hard to see someone return from the dead and not have a tiny crush. But it wasn’t hero worship anymore. I was just glad to see a friendly face—and your face, at that.”
“At the time, my face was mostly scars from cybernetic implants,” she said drily. “Not what I’d want to see coming to my rescue.”
“They healed well.”
“So did yours.” She brushed her knuckles against his scarred mandible, featherlight. The nerves hadn’t healed right, or perhaps hadn’t healed at all; when she touched him, her fingers seemed to dig much deeper, like she reached right into his bones.
If there was one thing Garrus Vakarian was absolutely certain about, it was this: Shepard could rip him apart piece by piece, and he’d love her for every bloody moment.
She wouldn’t. But he’d allow it, if she wanted. Anything she wanted, he’d give without complaint.
He nuzzled into her hand. “It’ll never go back to the way it was.”
“I like the way it is now.”
“Well. I’ve always maintained that you’re part krogan.”
Shepard huffed amusedly and trailed her hand down his neck and over his carapace, until she found where his hands laid between them on the bed. “When I propositioned you,” she asked, intertwining their fingers, “did it come as a surprise, or were you already halfway in love with me?”
He tried to ignore the rising heat on the back of his neck. She was teasing, but the question wasn’t without merit. Most of the crew during the Collector mission had asked him the same thing, one way or another. “A surprise,” he said. “A complete surprise. I’d never allowed myself to imagine it before. But also…not a surprise. I’d seen the way you looked at me.”
She grinned. “Busted.”
Garrus returned her grin, squeezing her hand. “I’ve never accused you of subtlety, sweetheart. At first, I didn’t know what to make of it, but after almost losing half my face to a rocket, it was a nice confidence boost to be ogled by Commander Shepard, hero of the Citadel and second-best marksman on the Normandy.”
“I’m ignoring that last part,” she informed him, and he laughed. “Then what?”
“Then you and Kasumi ran the Hock heist, and she made you wear a dress and heels.”
“Ugh.” Shepard rolled her eyes. “I’d rather crash through a hundred more fish tanks than do that again. I felt ridiculous.”
“Yes, you made your complaints heard. But the thing was…I didn’t think you looked ridiculous. You looked good. Really good. And I’d never thought much of humans before, but the way you moved in that dress, the way your legs looked in those heels…you were suddenly on my mind a lot more. It was distracting. And slightly embarrassing, you being my commanding officer. But it all worked out in the end.”
“You have a fetish for heels,” she accused.
“Maybe,” he said mildly. “Or maybe I just know what I like, and I happen to like anything on you. So to answer your question—yes, I was surprised you asked me, but only because I didn’t know you thought of me the way I thought of you. It wasn’t a crush. It was…respect, trust. And desire. And a little bit of fear.”
“Of the Collectors?”
“Fear of ruining things with you. But also fear of the Collectors, yes. Hard not to fear them, after they blew up the Normandy. Remember that?”
“Do I remember when I got spaced and suffocated?” she retorted. “I think it might ring a bell, yes.”
He snorted, then began to run his talons over her arm, making note of each bullet wound and burn and cybernetic scar. “I’ve always regretted not being there,” he murmured. “Not that I could have changed anything, but…I don’t know. It never felt fair that I got to escape it when the others didn’t.”
Her eyes softened. “I’m glad you weren’t,” she said. “I didn’t know if the escape pods made it, but I remember thinking at least you and Wrex were safe.”
“Relatively safe, anyway. Tuchanka doesn’t lack for violence.”
“Neither does the Citadel.”
He shrugged. “Depends on the day.”
Shepard hummed in reply and closed her eyes. Garrus continued tracing his talons up and down her arm, letting her rest. Before she could fall asleep on him, though, he sat up on an elbow. “So you really didn’t find me obnoxious?” he asked, leaning over her.
She smiled. “You were an ass, Garrus Vakarian,” she said fondly, without opening her eyes. “An arrogant, hotshot, smart-mouthed ass. Honestly, you’re still most of those things.”
“I’m not hearing obnoxious.”
She huffed. “Yes, you were obnoxious. But you were also young, and you were willing to change your mind.”
“Hm. Well, whatever the case, I’ve earned my arrogance now.”
She threw an elbow over her face. “Whatever you say, big guy.”
“I have,” he insisted. “Remember our shooting contest on the Presidium?”
“I let you win.”
He scoffed and lightly shoved at her side. “You’re such a sore loser.”
“Pot, meet kettle,” she replied, voice muffled by her arm. He huffed, and she lifted her elbow to peek at him, smiling crookedly. “Oh, don’t pout about it. C’mere.”
She tugged him over, and Garrus intertwined himself with her again. He caught a glimpse of the mark he’d given her, delicately placed in the curve between her neck and shoulder, and his heart stuttered in its rhythm. “You’re lucky you’re cute when you brag, you know that?” she murmured.
“I’m always cute,” he said, pressing his face into her hair, and she laughed.
“Yeah, that’s true.”
Sometime later, when Shepard was tracing the rim of his carapace and Garrus was happily dozing beside her, she asked, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
Garrus took a breath, held it in, let it out slow. He was grateful their position left her unable to see his face. If she could, she’d be able to read every emotion, thought, and regret flitting across it. “I can’t tell you,” he said lightly.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m afraid you’ll see me differently if I do.”
Her legs tangled with his under the sheets. Despite everything he’d done, everything she’d seen and read on the Shadow Broker’s ship, she still chose him. That meant something. “Omega?”
“Yeah. Omega.”
Rather than respond, Shepard just drew him closer and held him tighter. He pressed his mouth plates to her temple and breathed in the smell of her military-issued soap. His family home was rubble in the ruins of Cipritine and he couldn’t remember his mother’s favorite perfume, but Shepard filled in those gaps.
“What about you?” he asked. “What’s your worst thing?”
Her fingers followed the cracks on his carapace, leftover from his time as Archangel. “The Bahak system,” she said quietly. “Virmire. Or Akuze. I’ve got options.”
“You survived Akuze. What else could you have done?”
“I don’t know. And I guess it doesn’t matter, since we’ll never find out.” She gave him a wan smile and dropped her hand, and he took that as a sign to drop it. Every soldier had a story. “Still think of Sidonis?”
Garrus breathed deep again. “Sometimes. I haven’t forgiven him. Maybe I never will.”
She was quiet for a long moment, then said, “There’s something I need to tell you.” He cocked an eyebrow plate as she sat up, the sheets slipping from her shoulders to leave her bare. “When I didn’t let you kill him,” she began, “I thought it was because that was the right thing to do.”
“Now you disagree?”
“Not exactly. I feel the same way, but for different reasons. I had a lot of time to think in Alliance custody, and I realized that the main reason I stopped you was because I didn’t want you to kill him. Not because it was right, but because it was what I wanted.” She gave him a wry smile. “That’s the problem with being told you’re the only one who can solve the galaxy’s problems. After a while, you start to conflate what you want with what’s right. You start to believe they’re one and the same.”
“So why didn’t you want me to kill him?” he asked. “What would have changed?”
“I didn’t want revenge to consume you. I didn’t want you to do something you’d regret. I didn’t want to see who you might become afterwards. I was scared. Ultimately, I think it was the right thing to do, but it was selfish of me to stop you. I’m sorry.”
Garrus quietly studied her face. Her eyes were sincere but resigned, her mouth stuck in that flat line it always seemed to revert to these days. She meant the apology, and she meant it was the right thing, and she meant she was scared, and she meant it every time she said she loved him. And if Garrus believed in anything, he believed in her. He brushed a curl behind her ear. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” he told her. “I trusted you then and I trust you now. If you think letting him go was right, then I’ll defer to your judgment.”
“Well. I’m glad one of us trusts my judgment,” she replied. Garrus opened his arms, and she curled back into him, her head on his shoulder. She wrapped an arm around his waist. “I love you.”
In response, Garrus pulled her closer and tapped her hip three times. An old field code, repurposed for them. The words got stuck in his throat, but there were other ways he could tell her. “I’ll always trust you, Shepard,” he murmured. “I’m always in your corner.”
“I know. I couldn’t do this without you.”
“And I couldn’t see the point to this without you.”
“Really? No point at all?”
“Eh.” He waved a hand. “A few minor points. Nothing worth mentioning.”
“I see. We’ll continue to not mention them, then.”
“Probably for the best,” he said. He stared up at the ceiling as he held her close to his side. Her fingers trailed over his ribs, following the demarcation between his carapace and hide. She was a comforting warmth against him, a familiar anchor to keep him tied down. Without each other, there was no telling what they’d be. It had been them against the galaxy for what felt like as long as he could remember. Just three short years, but it felt like more.
Sometimes, he could almost forget the two years she’d been dead. Almost. But not quite.
“You know, when I told you I turned down C-Sec’s offer to work there again, I lied,” he admitted to the ceiling.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Shepard’s eyebrows draw together. “Oh?”
“I tried it,” he said. “For a little while. Moved my stuff out of storage, returned to my old apartment, settled back in as a detective. For a time, it was…fine. Not great, not after what we’d done together, but I could deal with it. And after the attack, when the crew was on the Citadel, it was bearable. But then Liara flitted off to Ilium, with constant excuses that she was ‘too busy’ to talk to us. And maybe she was, if she spent that time finding your body and giving you to Cerberus.”
Shepard held his hand and squeezed. He managed to give her a tight smile as he squeezed back.
“Alenko was next to go. Promotion and special assignment. He tried to answer our calls, but…” Garrus shrugged. “Duty calls. Then Joker officially got word that he’d been grounded—and no one told him it was for his defense of you, but he’s not an idiot. Chakwas was given a new assignment, and he disappeared not long after. Tali stretched out her pilgrimage as long as she could, but the Fleet needed her. We kept contact for a little while, until life got in the way.”
“Did you feel abandoned?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. I understood our lives were moving on. You were the glue that held us together. Without you, we sort of…drifted apart.”
“I had a hard time dealing with that, when I woke up. I expected all of you to show up in a new Normandy and take me somewhere far away from Cerberus.” She let out a short exhale of something that wasn’t quite laughter. “I knew it was impossible. But you have to hope for something when you’ve been indentured to an organization like that.”
“We got you away from them eventually,” he said gently. “And stole you a new Normandy, too. You’re welcome.”
“Thanks. So it was just you on the Citadel?”
“Just Wrex and I, yeah. For a few months, we were the only ones who hadn’t moved on.”
She squinted. “Just the two of you? How are you still alive?”
“No clue,” Garrus chuckled. “I never thought he liked me much, but at your funeral…I don’t know. We came to an understanding, I suppose. By that time, I’d reached my breaking point with C-Sec, but he kept trying to talk sense into me. He could tell I was frustrated. While he was there, I held out. A week after he left for Tuchanka, I’d sold everything and was on a ship back home. And about a month after that, I headed to Omega.”
“Bet Wrex didn’t know he was such a good influence.”
“I’ll never tell him, but when I think back to those times…Wrex might’ve been all that kept me going. I don’t know if I would still be here without him.” He glanced down at Shepard. She was watching him with sad, thoughtful eyes, an expression he remembered well from the long months of hunting Sidonis. He squeezed her hand. “We’ll have to send him a card. Anonymous, of course.”
“Of course,” she agreed. She pulled his hand under her chin and snuggled into it. “Good ol’ Wrex. He’s the best of us all."
“Yeah.” Garrus curled his talons along her jawline, taking advantage of every second they had. “He really is.”