"By the way, did you and Tali have a fight or something?" Shepard asked the turian sitting beside him.
Garrus looked stunned, but only for a moment. "Nope. What makes you ask?"
"I don't claim to be an expert in these things or anything like that, but to me it looks like you've been avoiding her for the past week or so."
"Oh yeah?"
"What do you mean 'Oh yeah'? What happened to mister 'I'm going to confess my undying love'?"
Garrus' mandibles fluttered wildly and he raised a talon in retort. "Okay, firstly, I was twelve drinks in by the time we were having that conversation, and secondly, maybe I've changed my mind since then."
"Bullshit you changed your mind. You act like a nervous little school boy when she's around. I know enough about subharmonics by now to be able to notice something so obvious. And it's fair enough. I mean, she's smart, funny, capable and those hips too."
"Extremely supportive," Garrus purred. "Don't let Jack hear you talk like that about another woman though. She'd kill you. Literally."
"Yeah and then the galaxy would go to total shit."
They shared a laugh, dryly.
"I still don't know what you see in that psychopath."
Shepard considered it for a moment. "I mean, yeah, she is a bit of a basket case, you're right. At the end of the day, though, I think we're all a little crazy. The galaxy's an insane place. Not too surprising that some of that insanity manages to seep into its inhabitants."
"Real deep, Shepard. Too bad I know you well enough to recognize when you're talking out of your ass."
"You got me." The commander stuck his hands up into the air. "The real reason I'm with Jack is to satiate my masochistic desires. Too bad for you that I also know you well enough when you're trying to derail the conversation."
Garrus shrugged. "Every shot's worth taking."
"So?"
"So what?"
"Why aren't you 'taking the shot' with Tali anymore?"
Garrus' hand came to his forehead out of instinct, but he straightened up again and looked out the window, facing away from his friend. "Honestly, what I have with her right now is good enough. Everything's falling apart, Shepard. Just about the only good thing I have left in this galaxy, I want to keep."
"And your way of holding on to what you find dearest," Shepard said slowly, as if he were talking to someone slow, "Is to keep your distance and alienate them? Good job, buddy. High distinction for Vakarian."
"Okay, maybe I've been a little too cautious, but you haven't seen what I've seen, down in the Wards."
"Oh, and what exactly did you see down in the depths of hell that is the Citadel Wards?"
"All sorts of crap, but one particular incident comes to mind. Homicide case. Human couple. Husband kills wife in a marriage gone rotten. Stabs her in the back sixteen times with a kitchen knife and leaves our out on the floor to bleed to death. Man turned himself in and gave a full confession, and the reason he gave for the murder? Wife kept buying him the wrong kind of jam."
"Jam?"
"Yep. You'd probably know more about levo jam than I do, but you know how there's the type that has some hardened chunks of it mixed in with the otherwise smooth jam? And then there's the straight, 'smooth all the way' type of jam?" Garrus continued when the commander nodded. "Well, the husband wanted the chunky jam, but the wife, who didn't mind either, kept bringing home the smooth one because, apparently, she'd forget that there was a difference every time she went shopping."
"I think I know where you're going with this," Shepard interjected, "But surely you aren't comparing Tali to some insane guy who stabbed his wife over jam."
"No, but what I'm saying is that an otherwise normal couple was completely torn apart by something so mundane."
"Wrong. It's the exact opposite of mundane. The husband didn't kill the wife because of jam, he killed her because of his own mental problems. Things like this happen all the time with couples and none of them end up like this."
"Well not none, right?"
"Same difference. The husband wouldn't have killed the wife if he was healthy in the head."
"Or, if his wife had catered to his needs, he wouldn't have lost his cool and gone nuts, despite his violent predisposition."
Shepard turned to his friend, less out of disbelief and more out of intrigue. "You know you're playing devil's advocate for a convicted murderer."
"Devil's what? I'm not making a case for him, if that's what you're implying. I was the one that made sure the damn bastard got a death sentence for what he did. I'm just raising the argument that if two people in a partnership don't make a good attempt to cater to each other's needs, then what kind of a couple are they and how long would it take for them to make that realization?"
"So basically, what you're saying in a long-winded way is that you don't think that you're good enough for her."
"That sounds about right."
"That sounds pathetic, Garrus. Listen to yourself. Have some faith in the connection that you two share, take a leap. No one got anywhere in anything without taking some sort of a leap."
"Faith?"
"Yeah, faith. You have faith in your Spirits, right?"
Garrus chuckled. "In a very loose sense, Shepard. It's more of a cultural thing these days, and besides, I don't stand to lose anything with my faith in the Spirits, whereas with Tali I risk compromising our friendship."
"On the other hand, your connection with her is actually real, and you have empirical evidence to show for it. Case in point, you make each other happy. Isn't that enough?"
A lull in conversation as Garrus collected his thoughts. "Maybe."