Garrus pushes her out of the way, and when the rocket hits his face she could only gaze at those colors again; a spray of blue blood arcing through the air and silver plates disappearing behind a blaze of fire, and he falls into the hard floor, his figure so very still.
She drops her weapons and drops herself next to him, her voice only screaming his name before her throat starts to close. Her thigh brushes his through the armor and she slips her fingers to his jaw, making her best to contain all the blue that's slipping away from him, as if with her hands she can contain, somehow, what was left of his life… of her life.
"Garrus!" she shouts with the remaining of her voice, and when he jolts his eyes open and starts to gulp and choke next to her, she feels how her lungs are filling with oxygen again, and the air tastes like life. "Don't you dare… stay with me, don't you dare leaving me, you made a promise."
And she just said it. What she really wanted. And she knows that, somehow, he understands, judging by the small gleaming in his eyes that lasts barely a moment before his other set of vocals wince and cry in pain.
But when one of his hands weakly grasps his rifle and the other rests in one of her shoulders, pulling her close, she knows that he really understands her meaning.
And when she presses her trembling lips to his mouth plates and he makes his best to press back, Shepard knows that he definitely does, and he knows all the meanings behind her gaze. And there are words still left unsaid, but there are delayed for other moment.
And they didn't hurt so much right now, because he's going to make it.
It's after they found themselves sitting at the end of her new bed, with their shoulders brushing each other and beers in their hands, that she smiles again and cracks a hearty laugh that reverberates through her room. The noise seems a little foreign to her ears, but the warmth of it it's not, and much less the figure sitting next to her, repeating a moment they share more than two years ago.
"So, this is the tomorrow you talked about," she states, this time without hiding her smile, and his eyes gleam with that warmth she missed so much. "A little unexpected, though…"
"Unexpected, indeed," he says, not caring about the bottle in his hands and holding his gaze on her, "But surprisingly good… At least, much better than I'd have predicted."
"Yeah, surely a little disappointing," she says with honesty in her voice, but her smile turns tender in her lips. He chuckles a bit, taking his time into finishing his beer and placing the bottle under her bed.
"If I were looking for disappointment, I would have found it in any corner." And Garrus closes his mouth, letting his words sink into the air and into her. And she starts to wonder about the time when words weren't necessary for them anymore.
And she realizes that maybe that entire thing about love was never something that could be really said. Because both of them don't know how to say the words, but still, they are very aware of it. They know, somehow, by the way it hangs in the air, and in the gleaming of their eyes, reflecting only each other.
Words are still unnecessary when she rests in his lap again, only the warm feeling of his hand in her hair and the peaceful sound of his breathing mixed with the nice rumble of his vocals. And she stops wondering about things.
There is no Mako to hide now and she suddenly misses the vehicle. So, after Horizon and after Ashley's burning stare, Shepard goes to the only place where she can shake away her frustration and rage.
She locks the door of the battery, kicking a crate that gets in her way, and a fist punches the wall, leaving an ugly dent and blood in her knuckles, but it's not enough. She howls in frustration, emptying the air in her lungs, and she's a little thankful about the battery being the only place—with the exception of her quarters—free from Cerberus' bugs.
And Garrus just stares at her, relaxed, with his arms hanging on his knees while she vents her anger in the room. But this time she doesn't like his posture, because it's not enough for her to relax, or to forget Ashley's words.
She glares at him, "So, now's the time when you say some witty retort about how she finally spoke her mind?" And her tone is harsh, but thankfully he doesn't seem affected. Probably because he knows that she's not angry with him.
A full minute passes and his face is hard as stone, and the silence is so heavy without his soothing tones that she thinks it's going to crush her. So she opens her mouth to say something, but he speaks first, "Are you done?"
She blinks, his neutral tone feeling like a slap in the face, but manages to give a nod in his direction. It's only after the small movement of her head that one of his arms outstretches to her and his hand opens for her to hold.
She wonders one more time about love being that thing about acting when he pulls her into his waiting arms, cradling her in his lap, placing her head in one of his shoulders and her thighs on top of his.
"She still doesn't know how to speak her mind. And, again, it's not your fault."
And it's the middle of the night when he holds her tight, and it's when she goes limp and falls into slumber when she wonders how she managed to sleep before without that soothing rumble in her ear, or without those strong arms protecting her from the world.
It's the night before the suicide run into the Omega-4 relay that Garrus finds her curled in the couch of her quarters, arms tightly hugging her knees, and it's the first time that he sees her cry, her sobs muffled with her face buried in her legs.
She feels the couch shifting a bit when he sits next to her, but she raises her head to look at him when he remains silent. His eyes bore into her, reflecting her flushed cheeks and reddish eyes, but then something flashes in them.
She realizes that it's not love, but care. And everything falls into place when she also realizes that he never said anything, but expressed everything to her. And when all that was left was to act, a three fingered hand raises and a talon starts to wipe her tears away.
"I need something to come back to." She whispers in what it seems a confession, "Nobody ever gave me a reason to believe that I have something, anything to come back to, anything to fight for…" A glimpse of emerald green mixes with the cobalt blue of his eyes, and she loses herself in the sight for a moment.
"I'm not good with words, but..." He blinks but the mix of colors in his orbs never falters, and he sighs close to her lips before continuing, "I know what you're looking for. For what is worth, I have plenty of that, and I've always had it, lying around here somewhere." He nods to her surroundings, but his gaze never leaves her.
Her smile grows when both of them feel her shudder at his innocent touch and she snugs close to him, a hand behind his neck, her whole body looking and wanting his warmth. "And what am I looking for?" she asks in a murmur, her breath ghosting his mouth.
His arms pull on her thighs and she obliges, straddling him and holding onto his shoulders, "Let's save those words for when we come back, Jane." He answers before trapping her lips in his, holding her legs in place when he carries her to the bed.
And when their bodies hold onto each other in the sheets, she knows that they never needed to say those words to each other, because his adoring gaze talks for him, and her nimble legs embracing his waist states more than what her words could say.
And when he's inside her and holds her tightly, there's something about love and care and adoration and mine in her moans and in his vocals, but those words stay muffled in their throats when they kiss fiercely, desperately, swallowing each other's hearts in the aftermath of their love making.
Then, there are three weeks after the destruction of the Collector Base and another week after Aratoth, and Garrus gasps slightly and wakes up with her muffling sobs on her pillow, her naked body curled to the other side of her bed.
She feels more than hears his shifting in the bed and his solid body cuddling her, his face hiding in her hair and close to the curve of her neck. "Talk to me." He whispers close to her ear, warm, reassuring, the tones of his vocals getting into her skin.
It's only in that moment where she wonders about the words left unsaid, and Shepard knows it´s time. And she turns around, letting those strong arms embrace her, and she clings into his body like an anchor, leg on his hip, hands on his neck, because that's a little part of everything that he means to her.
"The Alliance, the Council, Cerberus, they don't care about me, they don't give a fucking shit about me." his arms hold tighter on her back and waist when the tone of her voice shifts into something close to anger and to rage, and she sighs deeply to shake that mood away, pressing her brow to his and feeling his soothing warmth all around her.
She closes her eyes for a second, and her mouth moves by its own accord, "They don't care about me, and I can tell. But you do, so they can go to hell."
"Always, Jane." His words are not so clear, because after her sentence he's kissing her deeply, gripping her tightly, opening his mouth and taking her in, and she responds with the same eagerness, climbing on top of his naked body, hands bracing on his chest, hanging onto him for dear life.
They make love for an uncountable number of times that night, losing and giving a little part of themselves to each other for each time they kiss or just hold their hands together, riding into the endless ecstasy of being there, just them.
And it's before her voice finally falters after her last orgasm, gazing upon that mix of emerald green and cobalt blue in his eyes, and with the stars behind him as her witness that she says, "I love you."
He goes still for a full minute and it's only when she opens her mouth to say something, anything, that he suddenly grabs her back and pulls her to him, shifting into a sitting position, and starts to pound into her fiercely, and they don't even dare to look elsewhere except into their eyes.
He never manages to reach his own orgasm before pressing their foreheads together and saying in a panted breath, "To hell with everybody else. Marry me."
She only has the strength to nod shakily, brushing their foreheads in the process, and she swallows all his cries of pleasure and relief and love in her mouth.