Garrus followed a few metres behind her, his mouth shut and jaw clenched, because he truly possessed no idea what he intended to say once he opened them. Of course, he didn't need to, Joker kept the conversation going. Quips flew at the speed of light, no doubt intended to cover up the same 'weevils wriggling up the spine' feeling that had tormented Garrus for the past two days. What in the name of buratrum had any of them done to earn the sheer amount of strange, truly fucked up tarc that plagued them on a daily basis.
A clone? Seriously? No, not just a clone, an evil clone. Worse … he could tell it was worse by the bow in Shepard's shoulders … a dead evil clone. Where Shepard reached out, the fury and fire of his rage would have tossed the damned clone into the void … well except perhaps to spare the poor bastard she landed on. As much as he tried to live Shepard's example, she possessed reserves of compassion that never stopped amazing him. And terrifying him.
"So, you know what you need to do after a long, hard day of fighting your evil clone?" Joker asked.
Shepard walked over to the kitchen counter and turned, leaning back against it, lines and dark shadows of exhaustion haunting her face. "A nap?"
The ghosts moving over her face grabbed hold of Garrus's gut and twisted. They remained so very far from the end of the damned war, and … .
Well, once seen, some things couldn't be unseen, and he'd grown tired of watching the woman he loved die.
"No! You party!" Joker said, his exclamation layered with mock despair, teasing, and pleading. "Come on, tell me you don't want to break out some booze, crank the tunes, and just cut loose?"
Shepard chuckled, soft and kind. "I want to break out a bag of chips and an orange soda, grab hold of my boyfriend, crawl into bed, and watch a vid until I pass out." Her eyes slipped past the pilot to meet Garrus's. A nod and flutter of mandibles agreed with her plan, although he intended to slip a shower in there somewhere.
Garrus's talons grasped Joker's shoulders, none too gentle for the long day and the constant nattering of the pilot's voice, and propelled him to the door and through. Ignoring the indignant protests, Garrus closed and locked the door without speaking a word of explanation or apology. When he turned back, he didn't see Shepard. Upstairs, maybe? The sound of water, drops pounding an uninterrupted rhythm on the ceiling, confirmed his hypothesis.
He turned toward the back bedroom, their impromptu armoury over the past two days, already stripping off his gauntlets as he walked. The pounding water grew erratic as Shepard stepped beneath it. Closing his eyes, stripping off his armour by touch, he allowed the picture of her to form in his mind. Rivulets of water ran down her back, the reflection of the lights betraying just how thin she'd become, shining off the bony projections of spine, ribs, and hips. When he entered, she'd turn to face him, a wan smile greeting him, arms reaching out to pull him in. She'd press herself along his length, feeling so very chill against his hide as she tried to draw in his heat and strength. So cold. She remained so very cold since Tuchanka, since Thane and Legion.
He stripped off his underlayer and hung it from the punching bag, then pivoted on his talons. If he spent any more time standing around imagining her in the shower, he'd miss the actual shower. Quick, light steps carried him to the stairs and up to the front bedroom. Stopping in the bathroom door, he saw her leaning with her hands braced against the wall, her head hanging limp and low.
She'd been born a preacher's daughter in a community of farmers, and thrown into the life of a soldier by the whims of fate and the cruelty of the universe. A rigid sense of honour, and the strongest protective instinct he'd ever seen, turned her into Commander Shepard, hero of Elysium, Eden Prime, the Citadel … of humanity … of an entire galaxy. But she'd been born to be something so much kinder, so much freer, and it gutted him to see just how much Commander Shepard cost her.
That and the knowledge that one day, Commander Shepard would kill her.
She turned to face him, no smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, but she held out her arms. Sucking in a ragged, blade-edged breath, he hesitated, seeing in her eyes the end of their road ... just as he'd seen it frozen onto the resigned, empty face of the clone falling away from the Normandy's ramp.
He unlocked his jaw and opened his mouth, still not knowing what he intended to say, just that he needed to say something. "I've always loved you."
She smiled then, and nodded. "Yeah, me too, big guy." She beckoned him into her arms, and he obeyed, wrapping himself around her as if somehow he could shelter her from the entire universe.
And he'd try. Spirits, he'd never stop trying. That he'd fail … .
"I love you," he repeated, because, in the end, they amounted to the only words worth saying.
A-N: Anyone who reads my stuff may recognize the Garrus and Jane from Machinations. This drabble broke me a little. *sigh*