Seven

Garrus perched on the couch in Shepard's quarters. Only she could make him gamble so on his uncertain ability to read human expressions. But she'd seemed upset when she strode out the comm room, not that XO Lawson ever left anyone cheerful. The woman had a shredder where her personality ought to be.

"Everything all right?" she asked.

And it broke something in him, that despite the purple shadows beneath her eyes that he knew indicated she wasn't sleeping well, she'd still ask after his mental health. He didn't think she remembered how to do anything except solve other people's problems and look to the mission. He wanted…he didn't know exactly what, but he wished she could lean on him in the way of turian bond-mates. Fruitless and futile, that wish. He might as well cast diamonds into the volcano at Ithiss, a ruin on Palaven.

"I'm fine," he answered. "But you're not."

To his surprise, she didn't deny it. In the half-light, her face was pale and soft, faintly shadowed so that he could only see the sparkle of her eyes, but not the color. Her hair fell in a dark swath against her cheek, moon and night. The poetry of that contrast compelled him, forcing him to see beauty where he'd once seen only a naked face dominated by a hump with holes, defenseless and ugly.

"Is it so obvious?"

"I don't think the crew's noticed. But you can't fool me. I know you too well."

That was true. He didn't think she'd let anyone so close since her lover died on Akuze. She had told him about it over drinks one night on the first Normandy, and he'd shared one of his darker stories, too, about a lover killed in combat. It had been, in fact, a recon scout with whom he'd tested reach and flexibility. He'd left the military after that, left the stars behind for a cushy posting on the Citadel that dulled his spirit and thrilled his father. Even there, he couldn't quell his urge to keep fighting, however. Not entirely. Not forever. She'd liberated him from a life that was bleeding him dry. Garrus knew that if he'd stayed, he would've wound up a bloodless husk who couldn't summon an iota of passion if someone sliced off his fringe. He owed her big for that, comfort if nothing else. No matter what else he wanted.

"I'm going through the motions," she said at length. "Saying the right words. Making the moves that will get this mission on track, but I don't feel it. I should be outraged about these colonists. And I am, I guess, but… it's distant, like something I saw on a news vid once, a long time ago. I remember giving a speech on the first Normandy. Telling you all that the fate of the universe rested squarely in our hands—that people were counting on us, and that we must not fail." She mocked herself gently, her mouth twisting in a wry moue. "I don't have that kind of fire to give this time, maybe because I already died once, and I shouldn't be asked to make that sacrifice twice. And yet here we are."

Her words struck him like a barrage of rifle shots, burning through his emotional shields. Garrus felt her confusion and alienation as if they radiated from his own body. That was how deep she'd burrowed inside him. The emotion resonated, kindling an ache as though she tapped a thousand crystals, all singing the same mournful time. Distance showed in the slope of her cheek, the delicate shadow of her lashes. Such fine details to notice, and he treasured them, because later, in his bunk, he would recreate her face from memory, adding in such small wonders.

What do you say to a woman who has already given everything? And then is asked to give it once again, this time, more and better and faster? He ached with the impossibility of it, and for all that she had lost.

"It's not fair," he said, with more gravel in his voice than he would've liked. The growl became more pronounced when he wrestled with strong emotion. "But then, nobody ever claimed the universe is."

She lifted her face to meet his gaze, and her unique, human loveliness took his breath away. Funny how he'd never seen it until recently. Other humans remained the same to his eyes: soft, naked, wretched. But Shepard… Shepard now looked better to him than the fiercest, deadliest turian female. Subjective thing, aesthetic sensibility, he thought, and so readily influenced by strong emotion.

"True enough. And I'll do what I must. Having you here helps more than you know." Shepard paused, her hands restless like two hopping birds in her lap. "I…couldn't talk like this with anyone else."

"I'd want to kill him if you did." The words slipped out before he'd even formed them.

Terrible impulse control. Garrus tensed, waiting for the adverse reaction, but she didn't appear to register the comment. She was too deep in the morass of self-examination. And so he listened with the same stillness and complete attention she'd given him down in the cargo hold. He could offer no less when he wanted to offer so much more. He would stand witness to her pain, and admire her all the more for showing it to nobody else.

"I was divorced from myself as a woman, even before I…died." She hesitated over the last word like it hurt her.

Fucking awful truth. Even now, he almost couldn't believe those dark, terrible years had ended. That she'd come back. People didn't, and yet Shepard had made a career out of the impossible. But even if it were some insane delusion or a merciful afterlife, he wouldn't question it. Not when he'd sampled a taste of the bitter reality without her. He couldn't go back to that. Better to prowl the perimeter of her life than to be alone.

"You mean you didn't have much of a personal life," he prompted.

"None, really. Not since Rai died. After that…" She shrugged. "I wasn't inclined to meddle with soldiers under me in the chain of command."

"Which is why you turned down Lieutenant Alenko." He'd always wondered.

"It was part of it. Not the whole reason."

Garrus tried to decide if he should pursue this and decided not. He didn't need to hear that she preferred blond humans to dark-haired ones. It would only hurt to hear that turians didn't register anywhere on her list of desirable bed partners. He didn't want to play the neutered, asexual male.

"It was a wise choice. Otherwise, it would've been tough to make that call on Virmire."

"I still have trouble with it," she admitted. "But when he went ahead and armed that nuke, he sealed his fate. I had Ashley and all those salarian STG soldiers in the tower versus Alenko on the ground. I saved everyone I could."

"I'm not arguing, Shepard. I would've made the same decision."

"And that's why after Rai, I promised myself I'd never get involved with someone under my command again. It clouds the issue. Raises uncomfortable questions, and eventually, you get to the point where you'd sacrifice anything and anyone to save that one person. It can't work."

Did she know? He had been trying to keep these fucking feelings under wraps, but Shepard was sharp. Maybe she'd caught the hints; a turian female would certainly have caught on by now, being pursuant with the rituals and behaviors. So maybe she was warning him off in her oblique style, trying to save them both embarrassment. Well, he could take a hint. There would be no awful, awkward declarations.

"The turian military would applaud your resolve. They frown on fraternization between superior and subordinate."

But we're not a military ship. And I'm not here because you ordered it or because you're paying me. I'm here because I'd die if I had to leave you.

"Yet," she went on, as if he hadn't spoken. "I have…needs. I suspect I must get back in touch with the woman I used to be in order to return to life all the way. I can't be all soldier, all the time. It's not healthy."

"It's not," he agreed.

Inwardly, he seethed at the turn the conversation had taken. He wanted to be Shepard's confidant—the one person she trusted—but it made him uneasy to hear about her needs when he wanted to assuage them. Uncomfortable arousal spiraled through him. Dammit, I knew that human porn was a mistake. Because now he could more clearly picture what shape her needs might take.

"But when we were on Omega, I couldn't even remember how to approach a man. I went down there looking to be social and wound up poisoned by a batarian. Because I'm such a social fuck-up, I ended up unconscious and defenseless in a back alley. If a good-natured human hadn't found me, I'd be dead again, and Cerberus would be royally pissed at their loss of investment right about now."

The rage that roared through him had no peer. He'd never known anything like it. For long moments, he had no words, only the color red shining in his brain. She could've died while I was with that fucking asari. And he hadn't even gotten any pleasure out of it because she haunted him: the feel of her fingers against his palm, his talons in her hair, her hands on his waist, the tender glide of Shepard tracing his scars. Gods and spirits, when did she imprint on me like this? He couldn't imagine how much more intense it would be if she ever touched him as a lover.

"Garrus?" Worry tinged her voice.

"You should've told me. I'd have killed him."

"That other turian did it for me, actually."

Not. Helping. Now he wanted to go back and shoot the fucker in the head for taking his place with Shepard, even temporarily. Measured breaths helped a little, but he couldn't muster coherent thought. "I see," he growled. It was all he could manage.

"I envy you. It's so much easier for males. You don't think about connections. You want something and you make it happen. Like your need for a random asari." Her chin dropped a little, and her voice gained a forlorn note.

Only the hint that she minded could've penetrated this particular fury. The anger receded. If she didn't want him, why did she care who he slept with? Then he went over her words and remembered his own mental protest. This isn't a military ship. I'm not under her command. Had that been a hint, just not the way I originally took it? Fuck, he hated this mating game, because he didn't know the rules. Someone should write a manual, but unfortunately, there hadn't been a lot of interspecies action between humans and turians. It hadn't been that long since the First Contact war, relatively speaking. Most turians would probably think he was quite a deviant, in fact.

"I didn't," he said softly, watching for her reaction.

Her hands quieted in her lap. "Didn't what?"

"Make it happen."

"But you were gone when I got to Afterlife." Puzzlement now, if he could rely on his knowledge of her face—and he knew it like his own.

So dear, Shepard had become to him, the harmony that completed his own song. She found her temples with her fingertips as if her head hurt, and he itched to run his talons against her skull, stimulating blood flow and easing pain. The tenderness surprised him a little, for it only came when a turian made the final bond, a lasting mate bond beyond the wildness of his youth. For him, she was as inevitable as the tolling of the bell at sunset, a homecoming and a sweetness he could no longer deny.

He sat forward, wanting to reach for her. Not quite daring. "I realized it was a mistake. She was nobody to me, not worth my time."

"So you do think about connections. It's not automatically easier for males."

"It was when I was younger," he admitted. "Now, I want more. It might be age, brain finally overpowering hormones. But I just didn't want her."

Shepard smiled, and his breath caught. Not for the first time, he wondered about the softness of her lips. They served a purpose and let her articulate words, but from the vids, he knew humans used them for kissing. Turians didn't have such a thing, though they did nip in tender areas. Would she like it if he used his teeth on them? Desire became a fire in his blood, madness in his head.

"What do you want, Garrus?" An invitation, perhaps. The curve of her mouth emboldened him.

Moment of truth. He could hedge. But in truth, it would be unworthy of them. They were both warriors who fought for what they wanted. No good telling himself it was impossible, if he never even tried.

"You," he said. "I want you."