The Normandy. Four Years Earlier.
"Mother of God!" Shepard moaned, her voice shattering in between heavy pants, lungs desperate for oxygen. Finger tips flexed and dug into the mixture of hide and plates of his chest, arms locking at the elbow as she used him for more than just physical support, but also some lifeline to the here and now. In the wake of her orgasm—the last vestiges of which were still coursing through her as each and every muscle in her body slowly began to relax—Shepard's jaw hung slack and open while her eyes were clenched tightly together, her eyebrows furrowed in the only kind of expression that came close to defining her release.
Ten seconds before and she'd been rising on her knees, working the muscles of her thighs until they burned with lactic acid as her pelvis pressed down into that of her lover's. She was frozen in time for the moment, however, body going still outwardly even as her inner muscles clenched and surrounded him, trying to force his body, too, to give in. She felt the warmth of his open palms sliding up the skin of her outer thighs as she first came back to herself.
"Still with me?" Garrus said, a rumble of a smug laugh in his throat.
A delayed, breathy moan was exhaled from deep in her chest. Shepard rolled her head back simultaneously with the flexing of the muscles in her shoulders, as if that orgasm had somehow changed her physiology completely in the most satisfying of ways. "Sorry," she said, and if her face wasn't already red from exertion and arousal, they would have pinked up at that moment. With great reluctance, she finally opened her eyes, immediately finding his below her.
"Don't think you have to be sorry for enjoying yourself." And there it was again, smug self-satisfaction.
Shepard nearly smacked it off his face, but instead opted to once again rock her hips against his, much more timid and slow than she had been prior to her orgasm. "You've no idea how this feels."
Though the feeling in his groin was begging him to close his eyes tight and give in to the oncoming release, Garrus kept them forcibly open, watching the woman above him. He slid a hand from her thigh up to her breast, wary and careful as he gently cupped the heavy weight.
"It's okay," she reassured him with a whisper, and let her hand join his, palming over his three-fingers. Her digits applied pressure, and only when she felt his own muscles flex and squeeze at her breast, did she let go. He had the idea. "It's not—" She moaned again, lacking the strength and willpower to restrain herself otherwise. "So bad." The pleasure, for the time being, outweighed the pain, the insatiable sensation between her thighs returning already.
The seconds passed, and with a guttural moan of her given name, Garrus grew closer to finding his own climax.
"No," she insisted, knowing each of the sounds he made by now. She pleaded. "Not yet."
"Spirits," and this time it was more of a groan, challenging his body to resist the pull to just let go. They'd been at it for awhile now and she was impossibly tight, and wet. Even if he wasn't in love with Shepard, a fact which was unquestioningly true, she'd ruined him for Turian females. Nothing compared to the slick easiness of sliding in and out of the woman above him, the ease at which their bodies fit together after years of life beside one another. "I can't—"
She moaned her words. "Just need—" But it was too late, and Shepard felt the familiar sensation of his orgasm running to completion, the movements of his hips up into hers ceasing all together. "God damn it, Garrus," she whined, and cut her body's thrusts off entirely as well. She'd been so close, could feel that climax approaching, but in seconds that build up was gone. It left her with an aching emptiness, body unsatisfied despite the number of times it had already hit its peak that night. Climbing off and immediately losing that pleasant fullness—that was even worse.
"Shit," he said, chest heaving as she laid down beside him. His body felt unusable, like some kind of, what was it humans loved so much? Jelly?
"You're telling me." She shook her head against the pillow it rested upon, looking across the few inches to where his was, watching her. "I feel… out of control. Like if I don't get off again…" There was no finishing the sentence, just a frustrated sigh from the back of her throat. "What happened to that Turian stamina?" She teased.
"You used that up ten minutes ago, but hey," he rolled onto his side, his body—rough and hard in contrast to hers—against the length of her own. Just as it had done before, his hand slid down to her thigh, this time not content to rest at the flesh there, but instead continuing on up to the junction of heat and slickness. There was no preamble to it, just the pad of his one of his fingers slipping between her already superheated flesh, stroking against the bundle of nerves that always left her trembling.
"You don't have to." Though the words were out, there wasn't much faith behind them. And as if he wouldn't have known that already, the unrestrained moan she let out immediately afterward did little to help her words' cause. She gripped her pillow, the rest of her body squirming against sheets and blankets. "Ah, right—yes—God, right there."
Garrus nuzzled into her shoulder and neck, only too happy to bring her relief where he'd previously failed her. "I don't mind." He glanced down to her body, the way her thighs were spread unabashedly open and her hips pressed slightly into his touch.
"Please," she called out quietly, and turned her head back towards his, one hand to his jaw to direct his mouth to hers. Her lips met his harder plates roughly, but she paid it no mind, even letting her teeth nip at his flesh there. And then, in seconds, Shepard was coming again, bucking into his hand, body shaking as she called his name.
He pulled back just far enough to be able to look—really look—at her face. Her eyes were sleepy and sated when she opened them. That smile she wore, it made everything worth it. "Better?"
Shepard nodded and rolled herself onto her side, facing him. She pulled herself in close, felt the swell of her stomach press into his flat abdomen. "Christ," she mumbled.
He laughed, relaxing as he tucked her head against his neck, beneath his chin. "I meant to ask you—but it didn't really seem like a good time—I don't really understand how a God can have a mother. Isn't he a God?"
"It's just an expression mostly," she said a little breathily, still regaining steady lung function. "But one of Earth's religions talks about how God impregnated some poor virgin with his son."
"You mean she didn't even get to—?"
Her head shook just barely against him. "Nope."
"That's… some fucked up God."
"Mm." Shepard's hand slipped around him, palming his backside. "You're telling me." Her lips touched to his throat, creating a line up to his mandible as she lifted her head to get access. "Remind me to thank your Spirits," she laid another kiss to his skin, "for giving me a Turian so fucking good with his hands."
"You can't possibly want more, already."
There was quiet laughter from her, and something like an exasperated sigh as she rolled over onto her back once again. "If this is how teenage boys feel, then thank God I wasn't one, I would've gotten half the galaxy pregnant." She paused, considered her words. "…You got any Vakarian bastards I should know about?"
Propping his head up on his arm, he was content to lay naked, eyes on her. "I think we're safe."
"That's right," she ran a tired hand along the curve of her stomach, "just the one."
"I asked you if we should get married first," he contested.
"And entitle you to half my fortune?" She objected, smiling as humor laced her words. "I think not." Idly, she stroked a sweat sticky palm along the center of her stomach, from between her breasts down past its height at her navel, then back again. An endless, repeated loop as they enjoyed the mutual silence.
Garrus' eyes shifted, pupils following the motion.
"Sometimes, I can feel her," Shepard said as she watched his face for a reaction.
His gaze jumped back to her face. "Really?"
"It's almost nothing, a little flutter. It's strange, like it's familiar, but just a little different." Her hand went still, instead seeking out his, pulling his hand and talons to the bare skin of her stomach. "You're allowed to touch her, you know that, right? Sometimes I can seem like that's the last thing I want, especially from other people. But you, you're her Dad. You get a free pass."
He swallowed hard, hesitant as his three fingers spread wide against the swell of her abdomen. "It's not that—"
"I know." Both her hands folded over the back of his, keeping his touch locked there as long as he'd physically allow it. "I know how eager you were when all of this started and things just… didn't work."
Beside her, Garrus tensed.
"And I didn't handle it well."
When his vision drifted from her stomach to her eyes, he found them watered.
"I didn't really know how, I still don't. I treated it like everything else that's happened, all the other people we've lost. Just boxed it up and told myself to move on, but I should've been able to talk about it to you, because I know it hurt you too." One hand slipped from his to cup at his cheek and mandible.
"I felt like I pushed you into doing this, again and again," he confessed, his voice a shadow of it's normal tone and volume. For a second, he shut his eyes, could recall every detail about the painful days that had passed. The way she'd tried to not let her emotions show, but how he could read the loss and disappointment just the same. How he hadn't a clue how to help, if he even could. What business did he have trying to comfort her for something he couldn't really understand? Unlike most other things, it was their gender that isolated them in that regard, rather than their species.
"I know you're scared," she whispered, only because she knew how thin of a line she walked. A fraction of a decibel louder and there'd be tears spilling down her cheeks. "But she's with us this time, seventeen weeks. We lost the others at the start. Garrus—Garrus, look at me." He reluctantly opened his eyes to her. "I need you to enjoy this while we have it, okay? Don't spend the next couple of months waiting for something to go wrong. If we lived that way, you and I wouldn't have ever been together in the first place."
Garrus sighed, and hid his face away in her neck this time. He breathed in the smell of her, the soap and shampoo, sweat and sex. She was right, of course, just like she always was. "I'm sorry."
"No," she kissed against the side of his head, anywhere she could reach. "There's nothing to be sorry about. And I know I say that sometimes when I'm actually pissed, but I really mean it this time. I just don't want you to wake up and realize you missed out on everything you were excited about."
There was hesitation, but he gave in. "All ri—"
"Commander," interrupted EDI, "Admiral Hackett is on vid-comm. The message is marked high priority."
"Fucking—" She censored herself, at least partially, and sat up. "Don't go anywhere," came the order as she gathered nearby pieces of abandoned clothing before finally heading towards the bathroom, "or you're sleeping in the wet spot."
Down a deck level and wearing barely the full components of her uniform—some of which had been upgraded a size or two not only to accommodate, but to conceal her stomach—Shepard connected to Hackett's open and waiting line.
"Commander Shepard," he said with a tip of his head through the hologram.
Far less formal than in years earlier, Shepard yawned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Admiral, what can I do for you? We're not due—"
"No, Shepard, it's not about that. I know the Normandy hasn't truly been an active ship in some time, but we received a distress signal from a vessel nearby to your location. We have a cruiser en route, but it'll be an hour or two before they make it out there. I was hoping you and some of your crew could take point on this in the interim."
Shepard's tongue ran over her upper lip in contemplation. There was a tone to Hackett's voice, one of urgency and that she hadn't heard for years now. Not since… not since before the Reapers had finally met their end. Now, more so than any time before, Shepard didn't want to get involved. "I don't see what the priority is, Sir. We're operating with a skeleton crew as it is, half our equipment has been repurposed for other ships in the fleet—we flat out don't even have the personnel or equipment to offer aid of any kind."
Hackett's face was tense, and if it was any other officer in the fleet, she knew he would have been halfway to issuing a court-martial for insubordination, failure to follow orders, and some other trumped up charge to make sure the point was gotten across. Shepard, though, she knew she had leeway.
"I'm just saying, Admiral, unless it's truly an emergency, I'm not sure there's any benefit to us going out there." And with that, she stood her ground.
"Commander," his voice was tight, and if his posture was any indication, his body was wound just as much. "The last transmission read that their life support was functioning at seven percent. That was four hours ago. If we wait any longer, the crew's likely to be dead."
Though he didn't say it, Shepard knew what would have been coming next. And if you don't do something about it, their deaths will be on your hands. That was what had always motivated her in the past, hadn't it? Saren, the Collectors, the Reapers. Hundreds, thousands, millions, billions will die if you don't do something about it, Shepard. No one else is going to do it, no one else will be able to.
She took a deep breath, head hanging. "I'll get on it."
"Good to hear, Commander. Keep us informed. Hackett out."
The vid-comm connection went dead.
"EDI? Wake everyone up."
"I don't like this," Garrus said to her from the back cabin of Normandy's shuttle. It wasn't as nice as the Kodiak, but the remnants of that ship were somewhere buried in London even all these years later. "You should've told Hackett."
Shepard fidgeted with the chest plate of her hard suit. Adjusted for the maximum size that particular model would allow, it still barely fit. "What did you want me to say? By the way, I'm pregnant, please don't put me on leave and take away my ship?" An aggravated huff of air left her lips as she struggled with the seals. "Get that for me?"
He reluctantly obliged, and though it took some work, the seal's final clasp came to a close.
"Christ," she said, taking a few deep lungfuls of air. "Another day and there'd be no getting me into this." Judging by Garrus' expression, it was the wrong thing to say. She pulled on her helmet, if only to temporarily avert her eyes from the sour expression he wore. "In and out, okay? Get the crew on the shuttle, wait until the Alliance ship arrives, then we'll let them deal with this bullshit." She touched a gloved hand to his armored cowl.
"You don't need to go." Though he'd pulled his helmet on and she wouldn't easily have been able to see his eyes, his voice said enough.
Underneath, anxiety welled in her stomach. It had started off as a tiny ball of dread when she'd heard Hackett was on the line, coiling up and spreading in the conversation. And when she'd made it back to her quarters to gather the hard suit so rarely put to use in the last few months, and had to face Garrus who had—for once—patiently waited for her just as she'd asked… well, that anxiety no longer just pooled in her stomach, but instead spread to her extremities. She had a nervous twitch to her leg even now, pressing the glass of her helmet against his. "Don't worry."
The ship in question, smaller than Shepard had expected, didn't respond to any hails. Probably, she told herself, done in an attempt to reroute what emergency power remained to life support functions. They'd save their enviro suits for last, and with any luck, there'd still be enough oxygen left for them to be breathing by time Shepard and her small squad made up of herself, Garrus, and one lonely marine, made it inside.
As a factor of its limited size, the ship had no true proper place for a shuttle to land, which meant they were doing this a little less comfortably than normal. The shuttle's pilot, a woman with far less experience than Cortez or even Vega—who, inexplicably, was actually a worse driver than Shepard—held the small ship alongside the larger one's outer airlock, the hulls of each ship brushing together silently in the vacuum of space. Shepard made a mental note to make her pilot buff out those dings by hand when they got back.
Shepard, with a steadying hold from Garrus, reached across the small gap of space, drawing her omnitool up to the locked doors. "EDI? Give it a go," she said into her comm, and watched as the ship's AI manually overrode the lock through her omni-tool. The doors popped open in release, and wuth the help of grav-boots, Shepard stepped inside, helping the other two across. They sealed the outer doors behind them and repeated the process on the inner pair of doors, only to be greeted by the depthless blackness of the ship's interior. Shepard held up her gun, nice and steady thanks to muscle memory—even if she had to think that many of these specific muscles had long since been replaced or strengthened through cybernetics after her last foray with near death experiences. The flashlight on her omni-tool lit up the space ahead of them.
"No oxygen," Garrus said with a glance down to the readings on his omni-tool. "Not enough, at least."
"Probably rerouted the venting," she offered as a hypothesis. It was what she would have done.
They worked further into the ship, through a small mess where trays of half eaten food hung in the air. Shepard swatted at a clump of the familiar dehydrated mashed potato paste from Alliance rations, brushing it out of her way.
"Commander," said EDI, "based on the blueprints of this model of ship, I'm receiving life signs coming from Life Support. If my readings are correct, only three crew remain."
Shepard cursed and picked up her pace, navigating the unfamiliar pathways according to EDI's verbal directions. While all had seemed calm—eerily so with how things had been abandoned—on the ship's main floor, Shepard went into the lower compartments expecting a different experience altogether. She was methodical in her approach, repeating the movements of her light from floor on up to the ceiling, searching for some clue or indication of what had happened.
Since the end of the war, her life had been a mixture of things. Time spent healing, recovering. Months of being paraded around to colonies and home worlds by the Alliance, her face an unwilling symbol for the human race and just how much it could achieve—despite how much Shepard consistently argued that it was the fact that they'd all come together that had saved the galaxy. Nowhere in that time, though, had Shepard blindly crawled into a dark and lifeless ship's belly without any true understanding of what had happened. That had been the woman before, the woman that ran straight for that beam down in London, not knowing what to expect but hoping for anything but the sizzling burn of her flesh. This Shepard, the one that had survived all of it but just barely... she'd left that life behind.
Walking through the ship, she was terrified of what she'd find. Blood. Bodies rotting and stacked high like she'd seen inside the Citadel—of all the things she couldn't remember about what had happened up there, she hated that she could recall that. She could still smell it, even nearly taste the metallic sense of blood on her tongue if she thought about it hard enough.
But there wasn't any of that. No blood, bodies, or chunks of someone that used to be floating through her field of vision. Just the dark corridor, a few cases of equipment levitating off the floor with the lack of artificial gravity. Serene calmness.
Shepard banged her hand on the door to Life Support, fist rapping in dots and dashes of the ancient, but still used, morse code. H-E-L-P, she tapped. A-L-L-I-A-N-C-E. On the other side, someone beat back an unintelligible response, and Shepard was able to connect to their comm link while in close proximity.
"Commander Shepard, Alliance. You boys got emergency suits on?"
While she was all formality, the person on the other line wasn't. "Y-yes," the unknown on the other side responded, and there was the distinct sound of teeth chattering. Not a good sign.
"I'm overriding the lock. And if anyone in there has any weapons, I strongly advise you to clear out your thermal clips and take your hands off of them. I see anyone even looking suspicious, my team and I shoot first, don't even bother with asking questions later. Got it?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Shepard raised her omni-tool, virtual wheels and gears spinning on the door panel until it finally opened up. From her left and right side, Garrus and the marine raised their flashlights and weapons immediately, illuminating the small room as best they could. EDI had been right, there were three people left breathing. Though, obviously, her sensors hadn't accounted for the people that had been and no longer were. Beyond the three remaining passengers, Shepard could just barely make out the human forms of those that hadn't been so lucky.
"Used up their oxygen too fast," one of the survivors ventured, catching the tilt of Shepard's helmet as she gazed past them. "They were trying to repair—"
"When you don't have minutes left on your breathable air, you can tell someone all about it. Right now, I don't much care to be on here any longer." She nudged her pistol down the direction of the hall before holstering it away. "My marine here, Vasquez, will lead the way out."
Shepard waited with Garrus, picking up the rear. They made it back upstairs and into the airlock before another word was mentioned from any of the Normandy's new wards.
"We can't—" the man spun, eyes wide on the Commander as she closed the inner airlock doors behind them, and reopened the outer ones on the other side. The shuttle was a few feet off, door open and waiting. "—Can't leave their bodies here!"
"Johan," a woman pleaded, "come get in the shuttle."
It was panic, if Shepard ever did hear it, and as her marine helped the other two across, she clasped a hand to 'Johan's' shoulder, her voice a soothing calm. "Alliance will be coming to take care of them and your ship. Right now, though, my job is to get you breathing clean air while you've still got a chance. So how about you keep moving, soldier."
"You're Alliance. Why aren't you helping them!" And just as they were about to cross the gap, grav-boots disengaged, he whirled on her unsuspecting form, shoving hard against her. Lacking gravity and any restraint, it had a dual effect: 1) propelling him into the open waiting doorway of the shuttle where he collided with those already inside, and 2) forcing Shepard backwards. Based on her prior positioning, she didn't just coast back into the open airlock where Garrus remained, but directly into the corner where airlock met outer hull. Her suit and back cracked against the metal edge, an impact that wasn't particularly harsh compared to the things she'd endured, but was jarring nonetheless.
She felt the wind knock out of her at the hit in her already far-too-tight suit, gulping for breath, and for a second she thought she heard the faint hiss of a severed O2 line. One moment she was beside Garrus and that fucking soldier that had snapped after sitting waiting to die for the last few hours, and the next she could see the Normandy SR-1 exploding around her, emergency pods jettisoned away as she was left struggling, knowing full well of the suffocation she'd succumb to in the next minute.
Twisting in her suit, Shepard gasped for air she was certain wasn't there, arm stretched up and backward to reach for the back of her helmet, desperate to plug that hole up. Her heart pounded and she screamed in the weightlessness, not feeling the grasp of a familiar arm around her waist, nor the impact with the shuttle's floor as the artificial gravity kicked in upon sealing of the door behind them.
Shepard woke, hours later, in Normandy's Medical Bay.
"Commander," Chakwas said with her regular gentle bedside manner, even if there was an undertone of something else lingering beneath her words.
Struggling to push herself into a sitting position, the doctor stepped forward, adjusting the height of the bed as well as helping Shepard inch herself up. She grimaced. "What the fuck happened?"
Chakwas leveled a gaze at her. "What do you remember?"
"Let's not play that game," Shepard said with a groan. "Just give me the sit-rep."
"From what I've heard," the doctor said, picking up the data pad beside the bed to focus her attention on, "you had something of a panic attack out there after that soldier pushed you."
Shepard's face went ashen. "How did I even—how'd I get back on the shuttle?"
"How do you think?" Chakwas said with a telling smile at the corner of her mouth.
Of course. Shepard eased back into the uncomfortable padding of the bed. Garrus. Ever dependable, ever loyal, Garrus. "Where is he?"
"That Alliance ship arrived while you were out, so I would assume he's writing a lengthy report about his suggestions for what to do with that soldier who landed you in here."
"Just a kid," she said with a sigh, attempting to ignore the headache beginning to grow with increasing pressure beneath her eyes. "Am I all right?" A sudden hand went to her stomach in a flash of unease, as if expecting to find the slight fullness absent. "She's okay?"
Chakwas gave a mirthful laugh. "Commander, you didn't hit yourself that hard, from what I heard. But as far as your adventuring days are concerned, you'd be best off considering them over." She grew serious. "I'm sorry if that's not something you want to hear."
"No," Shepard replied, "maybe I needed a wake up call. You're sure though, positive she's all right?"
Chakwas set her hand against one of Shepard's fidgeting wrists. "She's fine."
With a deep swallow, she shut her eyes for a moment, blocking out the inner terror and worry that replaced the anxiety from earlier in the day. Behind her eyelids, all she could see was the burning carcass of the SR-1, even the cold dead eyes of some of her crew that hadn't made it out so safely. Another touch to her arm brought her back, and this time it wasn't Chakwas, it was Garrus. She immediately leaned in to him.
"Had me worried," he said, the strain in his voice betraying how sturdy he felt otherwise. Bending forward, he nuzzled the top of her head with his mandible. "How long do I have to wait before you tell me what really happened out there?"
"Forever," she said jokingly, letting go of him to venture a glance towards where Chakwas was sitting at her desk. Her attention returned to him. "I don't know—I just… I thought I was back on the Normandy." There was confusion on his face, so she restated what she meant. "The old one. The one that's in pieces on Alchera." He took a seat in the chair at her bedside. Taking a deep breath, she met his eyes. "Do you know how I died?"
He was stricken by her words. It wasn't a period of time he ever wanted to look back on, not since she'd come running across that bridge on Omega. "They said you didn't make it to one of the escape pods. Got caught in an explosion, I think."
Her head shook as he gave the excuse that was written across every formal report in the galaxy. Of course that's what they thought, it was the last anyone had seen of her. "No, well, there was an explosion, a few of them, but it wasn't what killed me. I tore a hole in my O2 line, couldn't reach it to try to stop it. Last thing I remember was getting pushed away from the Normandy and feeling weightless and struggling to breathe. Then…" Shoulders shrugged as she laid back against the the partially upright bed. "Cerberus."
The Turian didn't have any words of comfort for her this time, and beyond his pupils, Shepard could very nearly see him trying to imagine the scene before him in parallel to what had happened earlier. The trigger that set her off.
"I don't know, when I hit the ship today, I just thought I was back there. I couldn't breathe no matter how hard I tried."
His hand found hers on the bed and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"Garrus?"
"Yeah?"
"It was too close out there," her voice was quiet, "way too close. I'm fucking done with all of this," she admitted, frustration evident. "The Alliance, being a neutered Spectre, running all over the Galaxy looking for trouble I don't even want anymore. I've just had enough."
"Shepard," his mandibles spread wide and relaxed again, "I'm only here because of you. You could tell me you wanted to move to Tuchanka and raise forty Krogan and I'd go." He squinted slightly, a far off look in his eye as he smiled. "Well… maybe not."
His reassurance was what she needed. Shepard put in for an indefinite leave of absence the next morning. She and the Normandy finally said goodbye once and for all.
