Garrus lifted Shelby's chin with a finger, guiding her eyes to look up at him.
"I love you, Mrs. Vakarian." He smiled out.
Shelby smiled from ear to ear as she looked into Garrus' beautiful ice blue eyes.
"I love you too Garrus."
Garrus gave her his equivalent of a smile and kissed her forehead. "Where do you want to go for our honeymoon Shel?" Shelby smiled at that. She's married the one person she felt like she couldn't live without. It had only been few weeks since the wedding, but Shelby was still as happy as the day Garrus had proposed to her. They had gone to Mindor so that Shelby could show him where she grew up, places she loved, things she did in her spare time. They stayed for a week with some old family friends that Shelby had known for years, going in with her boyfriend, but came out with her finance.
"So long as I'm with you, anywhere will be perfect." She smiled out.
Garrus smiled and pulled her close to him. "What about Scotland? You've always said you loved your trip when you were younger, and would love to go back sometime."
Shelby smiled. She'd mentioned her trip with her mom to Scotland all those years ago only a few times. She loved that Garrus paid such close attention. "Scotland would be wonderful. So long as you don't mind all the down pours and consequential cold that this time of year would bring." She pointed out.
"Turians don't always like wet and cold, but I'll go anywhere with you." He said with a smile.
"Garrus, you need to enjoy this too." She chastised him. "What about Cost Rica?"
Garrus' mandibles twitched a bit through a smile.
"It doesn't matter to me. Wherever we go will be perfect."
"That's a yes." She said with a smile. " Costa Rica it is then."
"I can book the flight for us to leave tomorrow, if that's alright with you, that is." He offered.
Shelby smiled to him and gave him a quick kiss. "That sounds perfect."
"Alright. I'll be back." He said and left the room.
Shelby smiled and headed for her "artsy room" downstairs after Garrus was out of sight. Shelby walked through the door, leaving it open and walked over to the Acoustic guitar that had a black base color with silver trim and a silver rearing horse outline decal on the front that sat in it's stand by her night stand. She took it from it's stand and went over to the futon couch and laid against the pillows as she started strumming "I Was Lost Without You." Few people knew she had the guitar, let alone played it. It was just something that she never seemed to get around to telling people about.
Garrus came back out i to the living room upstairs and saw that Shelby was gone. "Shel?" He heard the music coming from downstairs, so he followed the sound. He got downstairs and rounded the corner, standing in the doorway of Shelby's artsy room and watched her play with a little smile.
Shelby was focused on her fingers pressing and strumming the right notes. She wasn't aware of Garrus in the doorway.
Garrus leaned against the door frame and listened to her play all the way through the song.
"That's beautiful Shel."
Shelby jumped a bit and looked over to Garrus as he cheeks turned pink.
"I'm self taught." She said with a smile and started to set her guitar against the night stand beside her.
Garrus walked over to her and gently grabbed her wrist before she could let go of her guitar's neck. "Don't stop just because I'm here." He said with a smile.
Shelby blushed a bit with a smile. "Alright." She put her guitar back in her lap and adjusted her position as needed. "I have to warn you, all I know are old Earth songs." She said with a chuckle and started strumming and singing "All Of Me" by John Legend. Garrus sat towards the end of the bed and smiled as he listened to Shelby. "I like it." He smiled out as she finished the song and she straightened her leg, laying her guitar in her lap.
"That was one of my grandmother's favorite songs. Or so my mom always told me. Grandma lived on Earth with most of the rest of my family."
Garrus moved so that he was sitting next to her and looked to her with genuine curiosity. "You never knew your grandmother?"
"Not really. She died when my mom was only 18 from a big heart attack. All I know about her are the things that mom's told me about her." Her smile faded a bit. "Come to think about it, I didn't know most of family. We couldn't go see them on Earth because of all of our animals. Someone has to take care of them, and seemed like no one wanted to come to Mindor. Hell, I hardly knew Dan or my parents." She said and sat the guitar on the bed and walked around the room, over towards a wall, her eyes starting to water. She stopped and stared at a blank wall for a moment as she started faintly glowing blue. A moment later, she threw a biotic powered punch at the wall.
"Those damned raiding Batarian bastards." her voice rattled out as she started collapsing toward the wall. Shelby was usually good about keeping herself calm when she talked about home, but she had a few moments where it seemed to bother her more than others. Garrus darted off the bed and rushed over to Shelby, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to him. She let a few silent tears fall as images from the raid filled her head.
Shelby ran through the streets of her home, welding her pistol that her dad had given her strictly for a self defense emergency, she was terrified and unsure of what to do next as she passed people she knew either being stuffed into crates to be taken away or laying in the blood soaked streets, limp and lifeless. Children, teens, adults. Kids and teens were being taken away while intervening adults were shot where they stood. She had been looking for her best friend Ellie, along with her mom, dad, and 4 year old brother, Dan. She was on her second sweep of Ellie's block when Shelby had finally found Ellie. But she didn't find her in any happy state. It seemed that Ellie had been almost kidnapped, escaped but then purposely clotheslined herself to break her own neck and escape capture. It broke Shelby's heart Ellie had been her friend ever since grade school. She slowly bent down by Ellie and ran her hand over Ellie's eyelids, closing Ellie's eyes with tears running down Shelby's face. Shelby could hear raiders behind her so she got up and ran. She never got the chance to say goodbye to her best friend. Shelby sprinted the hole way back to her house and never once stopped moving. She got to her front porch and she swore her heart actually broke as she stared at her mom, dad, and little brother dead on the porch. She went up to them, kneeling by her mom and dad, who were in pile in front of Dan, and started bawling as she laid her head in her arms on top of them. Not long after, she was hauled off of her porch by an Alliance soldier. Shelby had killed raiders in defense three times by the time she had been picked up by that passing Alliance patrol.
Garrus kissed the top of Shelby's head as he made lazy circles on her back, trying to calm her down. He knew that thinking about the raid was a bit bipolar for her. Some days she could talk about it like she was never there, other days it seemed like it was still a fresh wound.
"It's alright Shel, I'm here."
"I hate those raiders. They took my world away. "
Garrus continued to rub her back and listen to her for a few moments before Shelby wiped off her cheeks and smiled up at Garrus.
"Thank you." She said and kissed his "cheek".
Garrus turned her a bit to face him and he kissed her. "I'm always here for you Shel." He said with a smile.
"I know you are." She smiled out. "You really are a magician. You always know how to make me feel better."
Garrus smiled and brushed some stray hair behind her ear. "What exactly is a magician Shel?" He asked through a chuckle.
Shelby smiled and explained magicians and some of their infamous tricks. "I know a few card tricks that I learned years ago."
"Oh really? You'll have to show me sometime." Garrus said with a bit of curiosity in his tone.
"Gladly." Shelby smiled out and walked over to the dresser beside the bed and dug around in one of the drawers. She pulled out a deck of cards with various horse breeds on them and patted a spot on the futon next to her. "Come on."
Garrus smiled a bit and went over to her and sat on the bed beside her. "What are we doing?"
Shelby took the rubber band off of the cards and handed him the deck. "Shuffle these, anyway you like." Garrus shuffled the deck and gave it back to Shelby. She took the deck back and fanned it out in front of him. "Pick any card, without letting me see it, and look at it."
Garrus picked a card and looked at it. "Ok. Now what?"
"Put it back anywhere in the deck."
Garrus put his card back in the deck with a curious smile.
"Okay. Now I'll put the deck behind my back and find your card." Shelby put the deck behind her back for a few seconds and brought it back in front of her and searched the cards. She pulled one out. "Is this your card?"
"No." Garrus said with a smirk.
"Hmm." Shelby searched some more and picked another card. "Is THIS your card?"
"Still no." Garrus said with an amused smirk.
"Hmmm. That's odd." She thought for a couple seconds before snapping her fingers in a "A-ha!" manner. "I know where it went." She had Garrus move his thigh and sure enough, he was sitting on a card. Shelby grabbed it and held up the 4 of clubs. "THIS is your card isn't it?" She asked with a smirk.
Garrus' face of shock and confusion was priceless. "Ho...how did you?"
"Ta-da!" Shelby smiled out.
"That was awesome. Just like you." He said with a smile.
Shelby smiled. "Thank you. I know a couple more card tricks, and I can make coins and salt shakers disappear. It's pretty basic stuff."
"That's amazing."
"If you think that's cool, you should see what I can do with people." She teased with a smirk although her magic tricks were mostly card tricks.
Garrus chuckled. "I've been around you long enough now to know what you can do with people." He pointed out.
"That's true." She agreed with an amused smile.
Shelby got off the bed and grabbed her guitar. She went over to the guitar stand, and latched the neck strap on the stand to secure the guitar in place. Garrus had followed her and waited for Shelby to get her guitar settled in before he went up beside her and wrapped an arm around her waist.
"We should get to bed. We have to be at the airport at 6:00 in the morning."
Shelby smiled and looked to him. "Alright."
Garrus returned the smile and took Shelby by surprise as he scooped her up into his arms bridal style, causing Shelby to squeal a bit.
"Charmer." She teased through a smile.
Garrus just smiled with a little chuckle as he headed upstairs with her.