Thank you for reading! No update next week (holidays), but I'll be back the week after. Have a very safe and happy New Year!

Garrus's back slammed up against the wall. Next to him, Shepard took up the same stance. Closer to the corner, she peered around it.

"Still there?" Garrus whispered.

"Yes."

"Five more coming this way," Tali called from farther down the mineshaft.

"Only five? Piece of cake." Garrus slammed another heat sink home, readying his weapon.

"So, no tension, then, Garrus?" Shepard asked. She sighted around the corner and fired.

"We're in a mine infested with husks, Shepard, for, what, the tenth time?"

"At least," Tali agreed.

"What's to be stressed about?"

Shepard grinned up at him, ejecting the used heat sink from her gun. "I just thought you might need some of that tension eased later, that's all."

Garrus nearly choked, the breath leaving his body all in a rush, as he followed her meaning. She hadn't pursued her offer to "ease tension" together in the last couple of days, and he had been worried that his unprepared, startled response to it had offended her. Apparently not.

"Shepard, maybe this isn't exactly the time …"

She blinked at him, all wide-eyed innocence. "I thought you said this was a piece of cake. At least ten times before, right? Doesn't that make this the perfect time?"

"Time for what?" Tali asked. She turned the pointed cone of her visor in their direction, staring so pointedly Garrus thought he could almost see her eyes through the purple-tinted plastic that covered her face. "Oh!" she gasped suddenly, looking at them if possible more intently. "No! No, it is definitely not time for that. Not in my hearing, at least." She looked back down the hallway and squeezed off two rapid shots.

"There's no 'that'," Garrus protested.

"Isn't there?" Shepard asked mildly.

"On the ship, Zia. Please."

Whatever there was in his desperate growl seemed to be what she had been looking for, because she winked at him before disappearing around the corner.

Tali fired again, cooing at her defense drone as it distracted the husks, before moving next to Garrus, who had been as effectively removed from combat as if Shepard had taken his gun away, his head spinning. Who knew that all it took to keep a turian off his game was one small human commander?

"So how long has this been going on, then?" Tali asked.

"It really isn't."

"Good luck telling Shepard that." She tipped the cone of her visor up toward his face curiously. "And why would you want to, anyway? If you have a chance to be with Shepard, why wouldn't you take it?"

That certainly was the million-credit question, Garrus reflected. For all that he had dreamed of her showing an interest in him, he had never expected it to actually happen … and now that it had, the very idea filled him with a terror that he wasn't sure he wanted to look at too closely. As clear a case of "be careful what you wish for" as he'd ever seen, he thought, following Tali around the corner, where he spent a satisfying half an hour working out his frustrations on the husks.

In respect to Tali's wishes, it seemed, Shepard didn't say anything further as they detonated the alien machine deep in the mine and took the shuttle back up to the Normandy. But as soon as Tali was gone, Shepard stepped in front of him, effectively trapping him there in the shuttle bay. "There's no 'that', Garrus?"

"Shepard, I …"

"What is it? Because I know it's not that you aren't interested."

He couldn't deny that, although he was a little embarrassed that it had been obvious to her. "It's …" He seized on the most obvious issue at hand. "I've never really considered cross-species intercourse." He winced at the term. "And damn, saying it that way doesn't help. Now I feel dirty and clinical. I just—wonder if we would even be compatible. You're so soft, and I'm so—" He caught himself, clearing his throat nervously. "Not soft. I just … wonder if you wouldn't be better off looking somewhere closer to home. This—wouldn't be what you're used to."

She caught her breath sharply. "Kaidan. You think this is about Kaidan."

Garrus didn't argue. Because as much as he was legitimately worried that he could easily hurt her if they pursued a physical relationship … yeah, this was a little bit about Kaidan.

"Come on." Shepard didn't look back over her shoulder as she led him to the elevator.

In her quarters, Garrus noticed that EDI's avatar had been dismantled. Shepard followed his gaze and nodded. "Perks of command. EDI agreed there should be one place on the ship where I can have a private conversation." She sighed, looking around the room. "I suspect it's bugged anyway, but this is at least a little better." Sitting down on the edge of her bed, she gestured him to the couch.

"What's on your mind, Zia?"

"Do you know how I came back to life?" Since he obviously didn't, because she had never told him, she kept going without waiting for an answer. "I woke up when the station was attacked."

"Naturally." He shook his head. Could she never catch a break?

"I had my armor on and a gun in my hand before I was even sure I remembered my name. Once we had fought our way through the station, Jacob and Miranda and the Illusive Man told me some things … but not enough. I didn't know where any of you were, if you had survived the Normandy, nothing. It nearly drove me crazy. And I know what you're thinking—but the first person on my mind wasn't Kaidan, Garrus. It was you. I needed you—your calm strength, your wise counsel, your support. When you took off that helmet on Omega and I saw it was you, it felt like … like I could fly. And when you took that rocket to the face and I thought I'd lost you, I felt lost, too."

"You were dead for two years, Zia. Do you know what that did to me? To us?" he hastily corrected himself.

Her brown eyes softened, indicating she had heard the crack in his voice that had betrayed his true emotions. "I can only imagine." She reached for his hand, and his fingers closed around hers. He looked at their joined hands, hers so small, so soft, so alien, and let go, thinking how easy it would be for him to hurt her.

"So there you are, you have me back on your ship, and you want me to believe you never thought about Kaidan again? I was there on Horizon, remember." He wanted to believe she had never thought about Kaidan again, but he knew better. He had seen how the scene on Horizon affected her.

"No, of course not. I thought about Kaidan, I wondered where he was. When I saw him on Horizon, everything we had been to one another came flooding back. But then—well, you saw how he was. He couldn't stop to think, couldn't give me the benefit of the doubt. And when we got back to the ship, I thought about him, and realized he had always been that way. Alliance above everything. So much insistence on the regs, so bound to the rules."

Garrus chuckled. "So were you."

"Until you came along," she agreed. "I'm still a rule follower, but I'm learning how to be a maverick from you, Garrus. And that's the difference, in the end. Kaidan was never going to see me as a person first—I was always going to be Commander Shepard, a fellow soldier, first. You saw through that from the beginning. You saw me for who I am. And that's why … why I don't want someone 'closer to home'. I want you, Garrus, my best friend, the person I trust most in this galaxy." She got off the bed and moved to the couch, sitting next to him. "Is that so hard to believe?"

"I …" He swallowed, wanting to reach for her, wanting to accept what she was offering, but so afraid. What if he wasn't what she wanted when it came down to it? What if he wasn't good enough for her? What if he hurt her?

Zia put her hand over his again. "If you can manage the delicate calibrations you're always making, I have to believe you won't hurt me."

He glanced at her sideways. "Zia. While I enjoy calibrating, I'm not exactly … passionate about it."

"Could've fooled me." She grinned at him.

He held her hand, carefully, a fraction more tightly. "I want this, too. I do. I'm just—"

"Afraid."

"Yes. I'll … do some research to figure out how this should work. Maybe find some music." He cleared his throat. "It'll either be a night to treasure … or some horrible interspecies awkwardness thing."

"You sure do know how to woo a girl, Vakarian."

"What can I say? It's a gift."