2. Stress Reaction

Sleep doesn't come, and he's not so drunk he can pass out. He's just inebriated enough to be bothered by having refused Shepard's invitation, without a good reason why he shouldn't have given it a go. Abstracted, he switches on his terminal—switches it off at finding no extranet connection.

"My apologies, Garrus." EDI's inflection conveys the right amount of polite contriteness. "The communication channels will be up and running in approximately three hours, eight minutes and thirty-one seconds. Shepard requested a sweep of all networks before the Normandy goes online again."

"That's fine. It's not urgent."

"Very well, Garrus. Shepard also requested a full disable on all Cerberus monitoring devices. You may experience glitches at the battery console until the operation is complete."

"Yes, thank you, EDI."

The AI signs off with a faint, electronic crackle. He should rest, but he goes over his last exchange with Shepard instead. She wanted an encore, so it must have gone right, their—what should he call it? Exercise in human-turian relations? Interspecies congress? A good, if frenzied, fuck?

It bothers him that he only has euphemisms for their encounter, and it bothers him further that he can't just leave it at that. Knowing he's undergoing a standard acute stress response only aggravates matters. He gives up the idea of sleep, marches himself up to her quarters. She can soldier through—so can he.

Her cabin is empty, and all that keeps him from turning around and heading back down to look for her is the faint susurrus of the shower. The image of her rounding the corner to face him, her hand shaking out her still damp hair, is so persistent, he has trouble separating this moment, where he's standing in her empty cabin, from the one sixty-three hours ago. He thinks he can time it to the minute, if he tries.

"Shepard?" He taps on the bathroom door, knowing she can't hear him through the shower. Might as well have a practice run, so he slides along the wall until he's sitting on the floor. "Just wanted to let you know I'm sorry. About earlier. I'll be here unless you tell me to go.

He closes his eyes, focuses on the sound within, and waits. One minute, five, he's run through the opening theme of Vaenia, and the water's still running. Something is off. He kills the audio link, and listens to the too regular murmur of water. There's no variation, only white noise. If ryncol poisoning kicked in, EDI would have issued medical alerts, even with the the privacy directives she's likely been given.

Not physical, then. He goes over the events of the last seventy-two hours again. It doesn't take long to form a hypothesis, although the resulting conclusion seems to him like a strange object, whose function is familiar but unknown. As he stands, he notes his resistance to reconciling expectations with facts.

His hand hovers above the door before knocking. Walking away isn't a viable option; he takes a steadying breath, then: "Hey, Shepard, it's Garrus. Talk to me."

The only reply is the running of water.

"Okay, I'm going to assume you enjoy long showers. To that, I'll add long walks on the beach, interior decorating, stylish turian vigilantes, and finding new and exotic fish. You'll notice I didn't say anything about feeding them."

The shower's still going, but he thinks he can detect a shift in the sound pattern of falling water. He leans on his elbow, facing the door. "Feel free to correct anything I get wrong, by the way. So, your galactic dating profile. Definitely mention galaxy saving, crank-calling the Council and headbutting krogan. If they don't find that, respectively, impressive, hilarious, and endearing, they're not worth your time. Say nothing about dancing. You want to keep it smooth at this stage. Oh, and—"

The door slides open with a soft pneumatic hiss. She stands in the doorway, fully clothed and soaking wet, her jaw clenched against involuntary shivers. Behind her, the water keeps running without a single trace of steam.

"So, my dancing is the reason I needed a cold shower. Noted."

"Shepard, I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay." She waves off his apology, and moves past him into the cabin. "Stress reaction. It's nothing."

It's a relief to turn off that shower. He grabs a towel, puts it around her. "Hey, you should change."

"This is nothing," she says with a convulsive laugh, and begins pacing. Her breathing is ragged, almost gasping. "You should have seen me after Mindoir. That— that was bad. This is nothing. This is—nothing. Garrus—"

Their glances meet, and her voice breaks. Nothing has ever felt so urgent as closing the distance between them and putting his arms around her. She bucks against him for an instant, before relaxing into the embrace with, what seems to him, agonizing reluctance. They say nothing. There's nothing to say.

.


A huge thanks to clafount, without whose input (and Traynor jokes) I'd still be wrestling with this chapter.