The next day came with a new problem for Shepard: boredom. Neither she nor Garrus was allowed to leave the house until their supervisors were satisfied with their relationship progress. She had tried to read books about turians, but dozed off every five minutes. Later she felt a sudden craving for a certain asari stew she had eaten during peacemaking, Shepard had even sneaked in the kitchens to see how it was made.
Unfortunately, cooking anything that took more than push of a button or stirring was beyond her. It didn't help that more than few ingredients weren't in her house and Shepard tried to substitute with whatever looked like them. It ended with blast when she put the pot on the heat. After taking a shower she decided that the kitchen was too dirty to clean it right away and instead sat on the couch, playing her favorite game, waiting for the motivation to do something useful appear.
She saw Garrus for the first time since yesterday's talk a few hours later. He walked past her, threw her a greeting, and headed for the kitchen. For a moment Shepard considered warning him, but he would see everything himself soon enough. As expected, he reappeared next to her seconds later.
"I'm not sure about humans, but turians use the kitchen for cooking, not testing explosives," he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Don't worry, humans do too," she said, typing furiously on her omnitool. She had almost won, only the last enemy wave left…
"Then what the hell happened in there?" she heard him ask.
"Tried a new recipe, didn't work out," she answered, looking at the large screen on the wall as the last enemy base was destroyed.
"Then go and clean up. I want to eat, but there isn't a single…" he was interrupted by an extra loud and flashy victory animation. "Is that Emperor of the Galaxy?"
"Emperor of the Galaxy and Beyond Twenty-Two collector's edition with three extra difficulty settings," she answered with big grin. "I'm the best player out there."
Garrus snorted. "You think that only because you've never played with a real master. I've never lost a game," he said with that cocky turian grin she hated so much.
"You're on, Vakarian," she said in annoyed tone, setting game to two player mode. He sat down on the other end of the couch, watching the opening credits.
"The screen is nice," he commented.
"Yeah, good to know our governments spend whatever money is left after the war on the important stuff," she answered.
Three hours and five beers later they were still playing. This was the most intense game she ever played. She was making slow progress, taken three star clusters and was fighting for the fourth, sending her fleets against his solid defenses. Usually by now she would have destroyed at least third of enemy's forces. The turian was definitely planning on something. He hadn't made any serious attack on her own bases yet.
"So, what do you do all day?" she asked, trying to distract him from decimating her fourth and fifth fleets. His long legs were on the coffee table and he held some kind of turian drink in his left hand. She was stretched over the couch, one leg over its back, looking at the screen from an angle that would make her neck hurt soon.
"My weapons and armor arrived yesterday and I've been calibrating today," he answered. Her own things were still coming. Last she heard they were on hold in Customs because some of the weapons mods were apparently illegal in the Council space. She pretended she knew nothing.
"Lucky, I don't know when I'll seem my babies again," she sighed. Talking didn't seem to distract him at all. Not that she was really expecting it to.
"I'm still hungry," he said a moment later.
"Then go get something, Va… Garrus," she answered. Saying his name felt very strange.
"I can't. The kitchen still looks worse than some battlefields I've seen and I'm not cleaning up your mess," he finished off the last of her attacking forces and went for a counter-attack. She had a witty remark ready for an answer, but a knock on the door disturbed her.
"Pause it," she said, pushing the button on her omnitool and rising up to open the door. He was still typing when she was at the door. "Stop cheating!"
Their guest was the same asari who brought them here. She still looked nervous, maybe a little scared, but Shepard knew what reputation they both had and she couldn't really blame her.
"Hi, I came to see how you two are doing," she said, carefully looking over the living room. "Is everyone ok? Alive?"
"Relax, everything's fine," Shepard answered, but then a loud boom caught her attention and she turned to the screen just in time to see she had lost one of the conquered star clusters. "Get your ugly, little hands off that omnitool before I remove them with my shotgun."
Liara jumped at her shout. For a second she had let herself relax under the illusion that things were going well – they were in the same room, playing a game (a war game, but still better than being dead or ignoring each other). Now it seemed completely opposite and she could not shake the image of her own hands blown off by a shotgun.
"I have very nice hands by turian standards," Garrus sounded offended, but paused the game. "Besides, your weapons are not here yet."
"I always have at least one gun with me," she snapped back.
"Is it getting hotter here?" Liara stepped in nervously. "I'll just go get a glass of water."
"I think you scared her," Garrus said, watching the asari go to kitchen. Then he remembered about the state of that place and gave Shepard a worried look, which she returned. A small scream came from the room and Liara hurried out.
"What happened there?" she looked paler, but it was hard to tell with asari. "Is the red stuff blood?"
"Shepard's cooking," Garrus answered before Liara could panic. "I know we don't look like the friendliest people in the Galaxy, but we haven't tried to kill each other."
"Yeah, relax," Shepard said, leading her to the couch and passing her a beer. "I was just joking about shooting off Garrus' hands."
When she had calmed down Liara offered to clean up the kitchen in the hope that it would keep them from fighting later. They gladly accepted and returned to the game. She slipped out from the kitchen once in a while to check on them and was surprised at how comfortable they were with each other. She expected to find them at opposite ends of the house or waiting for an attack when in the same room. They weren't exactly friendly, careful of each other's personal space, rarely talking, but there wasn't any real tension either. She wondered if there really was a hatred hidden deep in their hearts or it was just circumstances that had made them enemies.
When Liara learned that she made a mistake and there was no way to stop this, she promised herself to make their marriage work even if that would be the last thing she did. It was the only way to save what was left of their lives, but she didn't have much time. Politicians would soon be all over them, trying to use them for their games and they would need each other.
...
A week later Shepard realized she was feeling rather comfortable in the house. She had everything she needed and more. Liara brought products regularly and she gradually found new things to do. There was workout equipment and a shooting range in the basement, and a vid collection big enough to play one hundred years nonstop. However, the house didn't have an extranet connection so she couldn't bother her friends and family or even watch the news. She still had those turian books to read, but she had almost given up on them. She spent time with Garrus rarely, not really avoiding him, but trying not to get in his way. They sometimes met at meals or joined each other for an Emperor of the Galaxy game, but never sought the other out specifically.
She wasn't sure how she felt about it. On one hand, she was glad they could live together peacefully and didn't want that to change, but on the other it felt like she should try to get to know him. They lived together and he was technically her husband, but she never could brace herself to ask him something personal. It felt like intruding, stepping over a line. Like admitting, that we really are married and there is no way out, she thought. Shepard accepted her destiny when the Alliance finally convinced her to agree to this, but she didn't have any plans on how to live with the turian past the ceremonies.
Shepard never really thought about marrying before. No one planned their life much in a war. She never dreamed about settling down or having children. She had found her happiness in a good fight and a job well done. She was afraid that they both would be stuck on this little green planet populated by asari for the rest of their lives while trying to be an example of human-turian mutual… what? What did they expect to see? Respect? Friendship? Love? How they even came up with the crazy idea was beyond her. Maybe the one who suggested the marriage had a personal grudge against one or both of them; she never did find the one responsible for this. Maybe it was some strange alien-hippy love and peace thing, though she didn't know much about the other species or if they even had hippies.
Things would probably be easier if she knew what Garrus thought. He was friendly most of the time, made some jokes occasionally, but kept his distance just like her. She couldn't ask anyone else what he thought, since the only other person they met was the poor, scared asari and she doubted they talked much. But turning to him directly would probably be stepping over that line.