-Garrus-

The piano playing is soothing as he waits, waits for her. With drink in hand and weight of his armor finally free from his shoulders, Garrus keeps his eyes on the entrance, letting the glass grow wet with condensation. He doesn't want to drink until she arrives, promising her that he'd be the first to buy the drinks.

If he had eyes for anything but the entrance in search of her, he'd notice how everything around him is nothing but the small section of bar, a single solitary seat besides his own, and white, flowing mist. It's not a foreboding sense of emptiness, but one of silent comfort, a still air of nothing but himself and the patience of waiting for her. A patience instilled in him that he's really starting to think of testing.

Just as he envisions going out in search of her, of what that might entail, she steps through the white fog, beautiful and grinning in that tiny black dress from a long ago time. Her happiness and warmth flows through him and he sets his glass down to stand, wrapping his arms around her when she runs to him, throwing her arms around his neck.

"About time you decided to show up," he rumbles as he nuzzles her cheek. "I thought I'd have to wait here forever."

She chuckles and kisses him. "Oh, I'm sorry I was doing your job for you mister 'I took the last shot'."

Snorting at her smirk, he pulls her into his lap, forgoing her own seat. "We both know you were just looking for a way to get to press the big red button before me."

"True," she responds with a wry grin and clinks her glass to his. "It was a mighty fine explosion." They both taste their drink with shared hums of delight before she adds, "Sent those fuckers out with a bang while you were sitting on your ass."

"You know me," he says as she nuzzles her nose to his mandible, leaning into his chest. "I love to leave you with all the work."

"Funny. That's the exact opposite of in bed." He snorts and takes another sip as she lays her head on his shoulder, free hand caressing his cheek plate. "It wasn't as fun without you hounding me and constantly yelling 'Jane!' in my comm-"

"Or in your head," he teases and smirks at her eye roll. "And I thought you loved my voice."

"Since we met," she agrees with a smirk and nod. "Pretty much anything you do with your mouth."

At that, she smirks heatedly, just demanding he press his mouth to hers and slide his tongue in her mouth. As if thought automatically merges into action, he feels his own tongue curling around hers to taste the spiced liquor mixing with her tastes as his own alcohol coated taste combines with hers.

As he slides his hand along her thigh, just giving a bare hint of touch beneath the dress' hem, he starts to get the most peculiar feeling. Arm going numb, he loses the feeling of her skin beneath his fingers, a painful sting radiating from his shoulder to his fingertips.

As he trills in confusion, a look in her eyes reveals a very similar expression. At her drawn brows, he rumbles in question and asks, "You feel that too?"

"Yeah," she answers with a slight nod, laying her hands on her knees. "My legs feel numb, like they're asleep."

"My arm." He lifts his hand up and tries rolling his wrist, not feeling the movement though his eyes tell him he's managed it. "What could it be?"

"Last call…"

Smiling softly as if they both aren't feeling the disorienting feeling of suddenly losing sensation in their limbs, she cups his face and kisses him tenderly, tongue caressing and gently dancing. When she pulls away, her hands slide back around to hug him tightly.

"See you on the other side," she whispers and he frowns.

"But… this is the other side."

Chuckling in that warm, soothing tone, she runs a hand over his fringe as her other takes his hand that can still feel sensation. "Theother other side."

Before he can try to argue, to ask her what 'other side' she seems so privy to, the bar begins to fade. Her weight in his lap lifts off him as his mind starts to lose the sight of her, the white slowing engulfing him and shifting as the feeling in his arm becomes the only sensation before it, too, disappears.

Garrus wakes with a groan, knowing immediately that something is off before even opening his eyes. Besides the soreness all over his body, the weak feeling of being immobile for far too long and the itch in his plates from lack of proper hygiene, he feels… different.

Opening his eyes as he tries to sit up, his arm buckles beneath him, sending him back down in the bed. He growls in frustration and looks around, finding himself in some sort of dark tent, the only thing telling him what kind the medical machines currently beeping at a rapid pace, machines attached to him.

"What the…" He tries to sit up, using both hands and trills, eyes widening at the sudden lack of something that should be.

Trying to bring his hands before his eyes only jerks up his right hand, his left as if there but… not. Trills going shrill and keening, he feels his left side to find the horror at his shoulder.

His arm is gone!

Just as he howls in fear and shock, a turian woman, older by himself from the cracks lining her features and aged wisdom of years in her eyes, pushes aside the flap of the tent and rushes to his side. "Please, sir. You have to calm down! You've been through-"

That's when realization hits him like a krogan, everything that has led to this point crashing down. He knows what has happened to him, doesn't really need to hear after what he knows, but there is one thing he doesn't know, yet has to immediately.

"My wife," he growls as his only hand snaps forward quick as a gunshot and wraps around the woman's neck. "Where is she?!"

The woman, a doctor by her uniform and smell of sanitizing fluids, trills and grips his hand, clearly in disbelieve that he'd be so strong after what feels like, to him, ages of inactivity. He doesn't know how long he's been out, but the lack of pain doesn't bode well for it being only a short time. He'll find out soon enough, he supposes, once his biggest concern is tended to.

"She… She is… here…"

"Where is here? Take me to her!" He doesn't need to hear any more explanation. If she's alive, if she's here, he will be damned if he's away from her a second longer.

Shoving her away from him, he rips the sheets off, scarred more than he remembers, but visually capable to walk. He just needs to make sure his legs can still carry him.

The doctor clambers to her feet and, despite the very real threat of getting in his way, growls as she tries to push him back as he tries to get up. "You cannot leave this bed! You've been unconscious for-"

"It is alright, Aelia," a voice and rumbling he recognizes says as light floods the tent once again. "I can tend to Garrus from here."

"Arcanus," Garrus growls as he pushes the woman off him, ripping off the monitoring equipment and standing on weak legs thanks to using the bed as support. The doctor glares at him with a low, rumbling snarl of reprimand, but she's obviously either too smart to get in his way or is an actual position to have to follow the merc's orders. "Where is Jane?"

"In an adjoining tent-"

"And why am I not with her?"

"Because they are not big enough for two beds. Side by side is the closest we could do." The man crosses his hands behind his back. "I can take you to see her, though I must warn you that her condition is… a delicate one."

His anger drops like a stone and he keens. "What? Is she okay?"

"She will be. For now, she needs rest. As you did and still do."

"Take me to her. Please, Arcanus." Never in his life would he expect to be pleading with a mercenary, no matter the circumstances, but now? Now, with his wife so close yet so far away from him, he isn't above begging to get to his love.

Reguix nods and comes to his side, taking Garrus' good - only, he needs to remember that - arm over his shoulder and wraps his own arm around his waist to help support him. Slowly, so slowly thanks to his weakened state, they traverse the seemingly endless trek between his bed and the tent's opening. Beyond that is an even greater distance between his tent and hers right beside it.

"Why are we in a Blue Suns camp?" he asks as he shades his eyes from the, compared to the dark tent, bright, cloudy day to look around at all the blue armors walking around a camp built from the rubble of an Earthen city. It doesn't look quite like the one they had fought in, so it leaves question as to where they are, but he was never any expert at human cities, so he doesn't really know.

"I will explain when you both are in a better condition," Arcanus says as he opens the tent. "For now, you should tend to yours."

As his eyes adjust, he squints and tries to make out shapes, hearing a soft breathing aside from his and their friend's and the soft beep of machines, but that's it. "Arcanus," he asks softly, fearing the answer. "Where are our children?"

"With your father and sister, upon last communications."

"Last communications?" He rumbles in confused questioning. "Where are they?"

Reguix thinks this over with a hum before looking his way, only his shadow able to be made out, but features slowly growing out of the darkness. "Relay travel has been limited the first months and now less reliable than we are used to. They will arrive shortly to see to you and your wife."

Relay travel limited? Could something have happened to the Relays?

Wait… months?

"How long have I been asl-"

Arcanus stops him with a raised hand. "I believe it better to focus on more important matters."

Nodding in agreement with his eyes fully accustomed to the dark, he looks to the bed and gasps at the sight of his mate laying upon the bed. Asleep in a state similar to his own, her upper right torso from neck to her forearm are covered in bandages, the smell of antiseptic strong in the air. As he stumbles to the bed beside her and his eyes rake over her, stopping at a sight he can't imagine being true.

Raising his hand, he slowly lowers it over her legs, not stopping until it touches the bed. He keens and fists the blankets where her legs should be, leaning over her in her bed as his stomach clenches and chest tightens. "You monsters…"

Arcanus doesn't say anything, doesn't need to in this sort of situation, and Garrus doesn't truly blame him, not realistically, but, right now, he is anything but being realistic. Growling, he spins and tries to swing, slow from drugs and lack of strength. The man easily avoids the move and the effort sends Garrus nearly collapsing on the floor if not for the bed.

He might as well have fallen because, as it is, he is simply a mess of dry sobs and keens as horror of what they did to his mate wash over him. Sliding to the floor, he pulls up his legs and buries his head in his hand, the sensation of the other still there.

It hurts and all he can think of is how she'll take it, how hurt she'll be with such a massive part of her life - her mobility - taken from her. Haven't they given enough for this damn war, but they had to give their bodies as well? Or parts of them?

"Why?" he whispers as he looks up at the older man. "Why take her legs? My arm?"

Reguix offers a hand up, helping him to lean against the bed because he refuses to sit where her legs should be, it feeling like an insult to her. With his only hand, he takes hers and links their fingers, waiting for the answers, or what he can stomach of them.

"Both of your conditions were very similar. For you, I hear that there was no way the rescue team could remove the wreckage from you in time to save your life." The man looks to him and motions the bandages wrapped around his left side and torso. "You were badly burned on top of your injury and they feared infection was already setting in. I hear that they performed the amputation on the field to save your life."

It must have been after he had lost consciousness, after the blast that came from the Crucible. He couldn't remember much after it and it was hard to even remember much before besides the continued mantra in his head to stay alive for her, until she came for him either in death or to help pull him from the rubble.

"And Jane?" He frowns and leans forward to press his forehead to hers.

"When the Crucible fired, the tower she was in collapsed. My men managed to find her, but it took some time to remove the rubble and, by then, she was in much the same situation as you. We tried to revive the limbs, but the damage was too extensive. The doctors removed them to save her life."

Garrus frowns in pain at that, at ever seeing his mate in pain, and nips gently on her cheek. "And the bandages?"

"Both of you sustained burns. They have healed, by my understanding, but the doctors have been using a cream to limit scarring." He hums at that and gives just the barest hint of a shrug. "It is your choice to continue the treatment or not."

At that, Garrus releases his wife's hand and uses talons too sharp from time to slice off the bandages and finally get a look at his wounds. True to his words, the burns have healed, a huge patch from his cowl, over his bare shoulder and down to lick at his waist and, whether it's a good thing or not, don't look much different from his facial and right shoulder scars.

"Well," he starts as he runs his fingertips over the long scar where his arm used to be, his entire side flush from ribs to shoulder. "She did always say she liked scars."

"I take it that you will not continue the treatment?"

"No. I don't need vanity." He looks to the other man as he retakes his wife's hand. "I just need an arm and learn how to use it."

"One is already on the way as well as prosthetic legs for her."

"One more thing." Garrus' words stop the man in his tracks as he moves to leave. "How long?"

"Four months."

That is like a punch to the gut and Garrus has to release his mate's hand to steady himself as the world spins. "Wh… what? I could have sworn I almost heard you say-"

"It has been three months and twenty days according to Earth standards since the Reapers were defeated," Arcanus confirms.

"We… We've been asleep that long?" His eyes widen as he turns them on. "Our children are seven months old?"

"If the math is correct, yes." Seeming to feel Garrus' need to know anything about their state, he rumbles and comes over to lay a hand on his shoulder. "They are safe. They would have been here if not for the unreliability and overabundance of traffic concerning the Relays. We expect them within the next few days."

"But they are safe? Okay? Do you know anything else?"

"I am sorry, Garrus. Liara has tried to keep the information scarce in efforts to limit possible exposure."

Discretion. That was what Jane and he had always asked for from their friends and shipmates. Above all, they were to keep quiet about their children, no matter what. With hope, that was the only reason why Arcanus knew so little and, if Liara reporting back meant anything, their babies were well looked after for now by those they know and trust.

It still left the giant, glaring four months of their lives they have lost. Four months…

"Four months," he whispers to himself as he looks to his mate. "Will she be okay? Will she wake soon?"

Arcanus nods and releases his shoulder. "You both were removed from the medication keeping you asleep at the same time. However, I suspect she might stay asleep for some time longer due to the amount of sedative they had to use to keep her asleep. She should wake sometime within the next few days."

Garrus nods in understanding and leans down to press his forehead to hers, speaking softly, "Why, Arcanus? Why help us like you have?"

"Because I like to consider you both my friends," he says without hesitation. "Besides that, I owe the two of you more than I should put a quantity to, so doing this is not an actual task, but something I was honored to do." Rumbling, Arcanus heads for the tent flap, turning back to add, "For now, try to rest. I will ensure that there is something comfortable enough for you brought in."

"Arcanus?" He looks to the man with a sincere rumbling in his chest. "Thank you."

The man simply nods in understanding and acknowledgment before the tent is flooded with light on his exit only to be thrown back into darkness. It leaves the two of them alone as Garrus keens softly, not knowing how he will be able to be the man his wife deserves, needs, if he is half a man himself.

He isn't fooled into thinking that they ever truly will gain the rest they deserve, that the universe will no longer need 'the Normandy and its Commander'. All he can do now is to learn to be the man Jane needs, the soldier at her side that can only protect her as he can, with what his has, with what he will be given.

Yet, there is some part of him that knows they will climb up out of this, that their conditions are only a minor setback. Both of them are stubborn to a fault, never giving up when, quite literally, even the galaxy was ending. Nothing has ever been able to determine what they could or could not do, so what makes him think a few lost limbs between them will?

Will it be difficult? Yes, but he knows with certainty that both will carry the other, literally and figuratively. They have fought for their lives after the war and he'll be damned if their injuries make it impossible to actually live what they earned and deserve.

"This isn't the end, Jane," he says to her sleeping form, squeezing her hand. "We'll get through this like always."