No time for fear. No room for error. It took the effort of the entire team to get them this far: brilliant hacks, painstaking searches, brutal assaults. Time to close in for the kill. No derelict carcass this time: the monster looming before them was a fully functional Reaper, hibernating in deep space, infinitely patient as it awaited the signal to unleash its vivicidal apocalypse. Breaking through the ship's mass effect barrier was a rougher ride than usual, the shuttle bucking and lurching wildly before settling into an eerie calm.

Garrus made final adjustments to his equipment, the rifle finely tuned as a virtuoso's instrument. He could feel the cold metal and delicate circuitry as an extension of himself, knowing the infinitesimal difference between a perfectly calibrated weapon and disastrous misfire as intimately as he knew the rhythms of his own body. His heart rate spiked, catching his attention. A sly grin crept across his face: these were no rookie's jitters, but a visceral response to the one aspect of his life he was powerless to control. Already the scent of her adrenaline filled the small cabin, her biochemical signals an intoxicating perfume as she readied herself for combat. Her bloodlust was as palpable as the tension in the air. She lived for this, every bit as much as he did. Garrus leaned back, savoring the last moments before the battle, letting the coolness of the shuttle's metal wall temper the heat rising in his fringe.

The ship's laser swiftly burned an airlock into the Reaper's synthetic skin, opening an umbilical passage to its inner sanctum. Not a word was spoken as they embarked on what might once again be their last mission. Garrus and Shepard exchanged a long knowing glance before hurtling in zero-gee towards their prey, one look that relayed all that needed to be said. I love you. I'm with you. Anything that tries to hurt you won't live to regret it.

The long-dormant creature stirred, electromagnetic pulses rippling through the twisted corridors of its body. They had only minutes to incapacitate it before the Reaper shook off the fog of idle millennia and unleashed its defenses. Tali and Legion had engineered a virus, an elaborate programming glitch that would allow them to fool the ancient machine into dismissing them as harmless. Or fail miserably and sentence them to die encased in a sentient tomb. They raced toward the central chamber that housed its neural network, their heavy breathing the only sound as they ricocheted through pitch-black tunnels, muscles springing out of tight coils to send them soaring weightlessly through the vacuum. The sudden appearance of gravity knocked them brutally against what had become the floor, an icy chill creeping up Shepard's spine as she acknowledged its implication. The Reaper was awake. She raised her barrier, drew her rifle, and put her back against her mate's.

Light blossomed in the darkness: thousands of tiny glowing specks illuminated the walls of the enormous chamber. Eyes, dozens of eyes on each nightmarish creature. Swarms of insectoid husks sprang from unseen crevices, crude mockeries of an annihilated civilization repurposed for mindless slaughter. Bullets tore through endless carapaces, biotics reaming limb from limb, alarms blaring as their shields were pushed to the limit repelling the attack. Only the firm presence of Garrus' back against hers kept her sane, let her stand her ground and ignore the primal ancestor in her brainstem that was screaming at her to flee, as far and as quickly as she could. At last there was a break in the onslaught, and Shepard sprinted after the turian as he made a mad dash for the Reaper's electronic brain. Ignoring her protesting muscles, she rained shockwave after devastating shockwave on her assailants, knowing that for each husk she killed there would be hundreds more to take its place. It didn't matter: she had to protect him until he deployed the virus and extracted vital information from the Reaper's core. Billions of lives depended on this moment.

"Shit!"

"What is it, Garrus?"

"Run. Now!"

Before she could protest, he'd thrown her over his shoulder like a ragdoll, his long legs running faster than a human's ever could. She covered his six, firing without pause as he closed the distance to the surgical airlock, yelling into her faceplate when she had the wind to breathe.

"What the hell happened?"

"The virus triggered some sort of self-destruct sequence, like the damn thing knew it was being tampered with."

"Did we get anything?"

He didn't answer, tossing her unceremoniously through the umbilical back to the safety of the shuttle before launching himself after her. Shepard disengaged the lock and slammed the thrusters past their apparent maximum acceleration, sending the turian sprawling into the hard angles of the passenger compartment. An earthquake hit the small craft, waves of energy and debris from the exploding Reaper threatening to decimate the thin layer of metal insulating them from the cold vacuum of space. She looked up: starlight shone through breaches in the hull, glowing blue from the shuttle's mass effect barrier. She couldn't help but laugh, exhausted and relieved, overwhelmed by the improbability of their escape, and the miracle of the shimmering cerulean energy that was keeping them, and their sweet precious air, inside their ship.

Shepard left the cockpit to its capable autopilot, swiveling around to survey the damage and debrief her mate. Garrus picked himself gingerly up off the floor and removed his helmet, head cocked in mock offense.

"Were you doubting me, Shepard?"

"You mean…"

"We did it." Deciphering their newfound treasure would be another matter, but they'd managed to hack into the brain of a functional Reaper. Once again, they'd accomplished the impossible. She popped the seal on her helmet to gaze at him unencumbered. Her warrior. Her beloved. Taloned fingers caught her wrist, pulling her off-balance as he drew her into his embrace, a playful payback for the tumble he'd taken as she piloted the shuttle to safety. Bracing her forearm against the wall, she pressed her brow to his, radiating her love and demanding his attention.

Garrus growled: she smelled like sex and carnage, this wicked force of nature who pushed him past his limits as she tore past her own. "You were incredible, Shepard."

"You are incredible, Garrus." He should be succumbing to exhaustion, should be nursing his wounds and resting his aching muscles, but all he could think of was armor. The armor he'd spent so many hours lovingly polishing to a shine. The armor he wanted nothing more than to rip off and toss into the ether: it was all that separated him from the flesh of his beloved mate. Clumsily, he clawed at her fastenings as she reached for his own, plating and gauntlets falling to the floor with satisfying thuds.

Only her underweave remained, and in her frenzy she remembered to dispatch this herself, lest he tear it to shreds. A little voice in the back of her head was telling Shepard this was reckless, even for them, but it was drowned out by a massive rush of endorphins, the pure thrill of being alive when moments ago she was a razor's edge away from her last breath. As was he, fierce and proud and steady by her side, fighting with her, protecting her, ready to die with her. My ronin, home at last. She pinned him back against the shuttle wall, her warm belly providing an inviting contrast to the cold metal at his back. Straddling him on the narrow bench, she bit down hard on the tough skin of his throat, drawing blood and pushing him over the edge. Not that he needed it: he was unplated and ready for her, euphoric from battle. Turian foreplay flirted with combat: Shepard's was the real thing. It was all he could do to stay conscious as she impaled herself on his length, rough and urgent, as though only the delicious force of him inside her could convince her she was still alive.

Every muscle in her body was emitting an acidotic scream, but he felt too good, too right to stop. At first he could only gasp, digging his talons into her hips as she rode him mercilessly, the hard bench forming bruises on her knees but she could care less. And then he was up, arms locked tight around her waist as he rose, taking care to lay her down gently on the shuttle floor before taking his turn to claim her. Sharp teeth pierced her collarbone, hard plates pressing her thighs nearly to the floor as he mounted her. Shepard cried out, terrified and exhilarated as she looked up at what had been the roof: only a thin blue haze separated her from the stars. She felt at once vulnerable and powerful, ecstatic and deeply content, surrendering to the universe and to the man she loved. Heat built between them until it could no longer be contained, waves of pleasure tearing through them as they both found release.

For what felt like an eternity they lay on the floor, unable to find the strength to stand as they looked up at the stars, enraptured. At last a dark shadow obscured their view, a shadow vaguely reminiscent of a very familiar structure. Shepard struggled to remember where she was, what she was supposed to be doing…

"Shit!"

The ship came to a halt with a violent jolt, waking them from their blissful reverie. Shepard scrambled to pull on her underweave: her armor was hopelessly scattered throughout the cabin. The door opened to an expectant crew, hoping to hear news of the crucial mission. They stared agape at the demolished shuttlecraft, its structural integrity hanging by a thread. And they stared at the two occupants, roughed up and grinning like giddy teenagers, their armor discarded, garments torn and wounds freshly bleeding.

"Husks," they said in unison, before collapsing into a fit of laughter.

Tali smiled. "I take it the mission was a success."

"Yeah," said Garrus, handing over his omni-tool. "Definitely."


I'll update when inspiration and time (mostly time) will allow...

Thx for reading!