A/N: Yet another fluffy Garrus/Femshep one-shot, this time to bring Sidonis out of the huge plot hole he seemingly fell in in Mass Effect 3.

Let me know what you guys think of it!

-1-

He finally received the message.

It wasn't at all what he had expected.

When he had left Palaven, the endless waiting began. Constant thoughts and nightmares had plagued him about his family, of a husk leeching onto Solana and tearing her apart, a Cannibal or Banshee blasting his father to the ground.

Or worse. Both his father and sister transformed into mindless Marauders, whose lifeless glowing eyes would rest on Garrus, perhaps on the battlefield, with no recognition sparking within them.

He would kill them. He wouldn't know any differently. They would have been nothing more than cannon fodder for the Reapers.

He had tried to keep hoping, even when he saw no sign of them at the Citadel. Perhaps it had been foolish, staying down there as long as he did. Searching the crowd of scared and homeless turians for familiar blue colonial markings, but the hope had to sustain him.

Besides, he had every reason to hope. His father had been a decorated C-Sec officer, one of the best in the field. His sister had become quite resourceful and a strong woman in her own right. If anyone could make it, it would be the Vakarian family.

Then he had finally heard from his father. Instead of feeling any type of jubilation, instead of feeling any weight lifted off of him, all it had left him was a sinking feeling in his heart. His sister had been injured. His father's audio feed had instantly gone to static, as if viciously cut off. For the first time in his life, he had prayed to the Spirits he was never sure were listening to watch over his family. To let them see their faces one last time.

Shepard had walked in on the conversation, heard the whole thing, but he hadn't noticed until he felt her hand squeeze his forearm. He had wanted to tell her he was fine, that he needed to be alone, that focusing on calibrating the guns would take his mind off it all, but the words wouldn't come.

It was all a lie. He needed her, her comforting touch, her understanding. Shepard, who carried the fate of the galaxy on her frail human shoulders. Shepard, the woman who was unlike anyone Garrus had ever met. Shepard, who had become everything and more to Garrus.

Her hand had drifted down to his wrist, eventually landing on his three-taloned hand and curling her hand over his. He had finally dared to glance into her beautiful dark blue eyes. Her concerned eyes, on a face which held nothing but strong empathy. An expression he had seen many times before, when Shepard helped those in need and listened to their plights with sympathetic ears.

He allowed himself to be taken into her arms, nuzzling his head against her soft auburn strands near the crown of her head, inhaling the smell of her cherry blossom shampoo. They didn't say anything in that moment. They didn't need to. It was enough for Garrus to know Shepard would always be there for him.

As he would always be there for her. At her six. Just like old times.

Jane Shepard. His own Spirit.

Three months passed, leading to this moment. He finally heard from his father, after sending yet another message to him, on the off chance this one would not bounce back, on the off chance it would be read.

As Garrus traveled up to Shepard's cabin, his mind was still reeling from this revelation. His father and sister had made it off Palaven. They were safe. By the Spirits, they were safe! Only because someone had escorted them to the shuttles, given them cover and a chance to run while he fought off Reaper hordes…

The elevator doors opened, dropping him off in front of Shepard's door. It was locked, but that was unsurprising. After failing to retrieve the Prothean data on Thessia and losing the planet to the Reapers, Garrus forced Shepard to go and rest. She resisted, but once she saw he was willing to tie her to the bed, she reluctantly relented. Though she made him promise he would come back up after he finished his work for the day.

Her dark eyes pleaded with him to not leave her alone that night, even if she didn't vocalize it. He left her with that promise.

He had been just about to head up. Then his omnitool had pinged, and there was the message, clear as day.

Garrus typed in the passcode to her quarters via his omnitool, with a quickness that could only be possible through sheer muscle memory. He stepped inside to the darkly lit room, his steps light in case she truly was asleep. He found her sitting at her desk, rubbing her right temple as if suffering a major migraine, her eyes closed and her data pad teetering on her leg. She wore her N7 hoodie and dark sweat pants, items of clothing she only seemed to wear when in the comfort of her quarters.

Her eyes immediately snapped open when she saw Garrus's approach and she offered him a smile that lit up her face, despite the tension that still remained.

"Hey, there, big guy," she greeted as she stood up, putting her datapad back on the desk and rolling her neck around to work out the knots of tension. "What took you so…"

He didn't let her get another word out before he scooped her into his arms, crushing her body to his. He never thought of himself as the overly-romantic type. He remembered how he had once criticized the turian general, Oraka, for being so love-sick and miserable over the rejections of a woman, drowning his sorrows in drink just to forget the smell and feel of her. Now, he could never get enough of her touch, her kisses. Now, he needed Shepard to understand how much he owed her, how thankful he was to have her in his life.

"Garrus," she said, her voice low, ringing with worry, yet muffled due to her face being pressed into his neck. "What is it? What's wrong? Is it your family?"

He didn't allow her to pull away so he could answer her face to face. His hand found itself tangled within her unruly hair while his other hand pressed against the small of her back.

"They made it off Palaven," he breathed. Spirits did it feel good to say those words. "It was tight, but they're ok."

Garrus loosened his grip just enough so Shepard could lift her face from his neck, while wrapping her arms around his neck, her fingers splayed just at the edge of his fringe.

"That's fantastic," she said, sounding just as relieved as he did, even with the devastating loss dealt to them earlier that day that had left Shepard emotionally drained. "That must be a weight off your shoulders."

His gaze broke away from hers, landing on a spot on her wall. "It is…"

"But?" Shepard finished for him.

Still refusing to make eye contact with her, shaking his head as he did so, he uttered, "I was a fool."

It didn't long for his head to be tilted back to her with a guiding hand. "I don't follow, Garrus," she admitted, her voice a mix between quizzical and concerned.

"If you hadn't stepped in front of him that day, I would have killed him. Everything would have been even. The betrayal would have been repaid," he said, his voice trembling "…but it would have cost me so much more."

Shepard's eyes widened, understanding flooding them. "He saved them?"

Garrus nodded. "He was on Palaven when the Reapers hit. My father said he tracked them down, told them he knew me. He helped them get to the shuttles. He held off reinforcements long enough for them to make it…" He didn't need to say what happened to Sidonis.

Lantar Sidonis. Once one of his brothers-in-arms, soon turned traitor. Who Garrus had let live only because Shepard had forced him to listen to the guilt Sidonis dealt with day in and day out. Though Garrus saw the good in Sidonis, the uncertainty remained with Garrus long after that day, wherever he had done the right thing by letting him go.

That doubt could certainly be laid to rest.

"He kept his promise, afterall," she murmured thoughtfully.

"Yes," Garrus said, swallowing the growing lump in his throat. "He did."

"Garrus." Her voice was tender, a deep sadness in her eyes at seeing Garrus torn up. "You had no way of knowing that would have happened, or what would have happened even if Sidonis hadn't been there."

The rational part of his mind knew that. He had learned long ago that life was too unpredictable. Shepard's appearance at his base in Omega was clear proof of that, but that still didn't stop his mind from thinking about the what-ifs. If he had given into his anger, hadn't curbed his impulses.

Though Shepard had understood his anger, Shepard had seen something in Sidonis at first glance. Throughout the whole mission, she had been the reasonable one, trying to get him to talk to Sidonis before taking such drastic measures. He had refused. He hadn't wanted to hear anything Sidonis had to say. He had been so focused, so determined to carry out this personal vendetta. This was the only way to even the score, Garrus had told himself up to the end. An eye for an eye, a life for a life.

Then she had forced him to listen, pleaded with him to see that Sidonis was a shell of his former self, his entire body consumed by guilt for what he had done to his squad. Shame at giving into cowardice, not behaving like a brave and honorable turian.

Garrus couldn't take the shot. Sidonis walked away to live another day. All due to Shepard.

"And before you go off thinking I'm some kind of psychic, I had no way to know this would happen either," she continued.

She tilted Garrus's browplate towards her forehead in a turian kiss before pulling away ever so slightly. "I told you before. It was less about him than about you. I hated seeing what it was doing to you, knowing you were in this dark place I couldn't help you escape from. I wanted you to hear his side, without your anger controlling you. I…didn't want to lose you," she whispered, her own voice wavering now.

It was then he fully took in her frail form. She looked as if the weight of the war was fully pressing down on her now, her strength ebbing away. Dead on her feet, yet had no choice but to continue fighting.

He grasped her chin in between his three talons. "I'm not going anywhere, Jane. I wasn't then…" His talons inched up her cheek, tracing the curvature of it. "I won't now. Ever."

She pressed into his hand, eyes closing at his soothing touch. "I couldn't do this without you, Garrus," she said, the weariness entering her voice for the first time.

"Sure you could." Garrus could not stop the small grin that curled on his face, mandibles flaring and brow plate lifting as he remembered the last time he had said those words to her. "Not as stylishly, of course."

A smirk crossed her face to mirror his. "Couldn't resist, could you?"

"You know you love it."

"I do." She cupped her scarred plates in her left hand, rubbing his mandible with her thumb. "In fact, I love a lot of things about you."

Her hand trailed under his fringe, scratching gently at those sensitive places on his neck and placing kisses on his scarred mandible. Garrus could barely contain the pleasurable groan from her actions, but he had to hold onto his self-control. He had to make Shepard sleep, even if she tried to play off how much she didn't need it. The dark circles under her eyes and the weariness that radiated from her body were kind of a giveaway to the contrary.

"Come on. Let's get into bed," he replied, voice rumbling as he guided her towards it, forcing Shepard to pull away.

Her eyebrow rose. "What do you plan on doing once we get in it, Vakarian?" she drawled.

"Getting a good night's sleep. It's been a long day for both of us," he said, unzipping her jacket. He was about to push it off her shoulders, when the first resistance came in the form of her hand clinching around his right wrist.

"I appreciate the thought, Garrus, but I'm alright. I still have a ton to do." Her voice had lost any semblance of a seductive, low tone. Instead replaced by reassurance. The reassurance of Commander Shepard that she was still fit for duty. Not that of the woman behind the persona.

Garrus wasn't buying it. He knew her too well by now. "That's the Commander's answer."

A frown appeared on her face, irritation creeping into her eyes. "First Joker, now you?"

Garrus could sense the walls coming up, but he had to break through to her, force the walls to stop before they completely cut him off. "You're afraid of the nightmares, aren't you?"

It had taken a long time for Shepard to finally come clean about her restless sleep, what she dreamt about in the dark of the night. He had always held her afterwards, allowing her to come back to reality in the safety of his strong embrace, but he had never forced her to tell him. Until one night, after a particularly bad one. Shepard had been crying in her sleep, calling out to Garrus.

She had finally come clean, about all of them. About dreaming of a child she had seen die on Earth and how fire consumed him before she could reach him. How she dreamt about her squadmates who had lost their lives in the war against the Reapers, their calls to her ringing in her ears. How she dreamt about the Reapers or the Illusive Man taking her captive, transforming her into one of them, her very humanity stripped away from her. In this one, all of her crew and squadmates transformed into mindless husks before her eyes, whose only purpose was to obey the siren call of their masters. All she could do was watch, her feet glued to the ground, helpless as her friends and her mate disappeared right in front of her, leaving her alone in the fight.

And he had held her, whispered sweet nothings in her ears, planted kisses on her head, and wiped a cool cloth on her burning cheeks. And later they had made love with a tender urgency, as if to remind the other they would always be there for each other, that they couldn't live without the other, that they would find a way to make it through this damn war. All of this would become nothing more than a terrible memory, a nightmare they had eventually woken from.

Shepard's shoulders sagged at his words. "I don't even want to think about what my imagination has in store after today."

"I know." He ran the backs of his talons against the side of her cheek in a gentle caress. "But I'll be here."

Always.

"I know, big guy." Her voice broke. "I know."

He resumed undressing her, this time without any resistance from her, while she helped unbutton his shirt. The clothes fell carelessly to the floor, their owners unconcerned about picking them up and folding them neatly over the chair or the couch. Once Shepard was in her black tank and underwear, and Garrus changed to the turian equivalency of sweatpants, Garrus pulled back the covers and guided Shepard with a hand to her back onto the bed.

She immediately sought for him once he entered the bed beside her (after unclipping his visor and placing it on the bedside table). He compiled, wrapping his arms firmly around her, one talon splayed across her stomach, the other resting on her hip. She laid her hand on his bare chest, tracing patterns on his hard scales.

"Would they be alright with us? Your family?" Shepard finally broke the silence, continuing to trace random patterns.

"Sol would like you right away. She really respects other strong women and she'll be impressed with all you've accomplished. My father...it would be a shock, but he would come around to it. He'll like the fact you play by the rules and don't compromise your morals under any circumstances, how your sense of honor could match that of a turian's."

Shepard nodded. "I'd like to meet them."

The hand at her hip tightened. "I'd like that too."

Shepard interlaced her fingers between his talons at her stomach, lowering them down between them. "You'll see them again, Garrus." Her other hand stopped tracing patterns so she could grab the hand at her hip and kiss each talon one by one. "I promise."

He leaned forward, their heads inches apart and their breaths wandering into each other's faces. "And I promise you... we'll get through this." He brushed her lips against his own. "We always do."

As a shiver passed through her body, Shepard curled herself closer to Garrus to take in his warm body heat. After a few minutes, Shepard finally drifted off to sleep, her breathing evening out. Garrus noticed the wave of peace cross over her face, the lines of tension relaxing until they disappeared, a rarity to see in her these days. He smiled in relief at the sight.

As his eyes began to shut of their own accord, his thoughts turned to Sidonis. Despite his betrayal, Sidonis had kept his vow to make it up to Garrus, in the end. In Garrus's eyes, Sidonis had found some small redemption by saving Garrus's family. Perhaps as Sidonis went to his death, he himself had finally found absolution. And as sleep began to overtake him, one thought circled in Garrus's mind, over and over again before he accepted sleep's pull with his mate by his side…

Betrayal repaid, Sidonis.