Life has been rather hectic lately, so many apologies for the rather huge gap between chapters. Bioware owns nearly everything. As always, reviews are always welcome. And a big thank-you to everyone who is following and supporting this story.

Chapter Twenty-Five – Wayfarers

In the warm half-darkness, Garrus lay beneath Shepard, her legs parted over his waist, and his hands flattened over the backs of her thighs. Soft skin and the shift of muscle beneath when she moved, and then she lifted her head, her breath coming warm against the side of his neck.

"Mmm," she mumbled. "Is it morning yet?"

"Almost."

"I really don't mean this in a bad way," she said, blinking slowly. "But how the hell did I fall asleep right on top of you?"

"You were tired," he said, dead-pan.

"Right. Thanks."

"Very tired. It may have been my fault."

She laughed, the sound of it low and blurred with sleep. "Nice to see your confidence isn't easily knocked."

"Some things I'm very happy to take the blame for."

She sank down against him again, her head nestling beneath his chin. The thought burst unbidden through his mind, that she fit well against him, that they fit well against each other.

The days were running away from them, he thought, awkwardly and too fast. Easier, Shepard had said, the day they'd seen Liara back to the ship that she'd claimed as her own, easier to fill the hours doing something. He'd agreed, but he still wondered if she was counting down the days as much as he was.

There had been the day Legion had asked for a meeting, its voice all full of deference and what sounded like uncertainty. Not all geth were geth – or something like that, Garrus thought, the heretics who had allied themselves with the Reapers, with the Old Machines who had reached into their heads and gave them purpose – and that these geth were different.

And standing the airless silence of a geth station, he'd wondered briefly if he was going slightly crazy. Standing up for a geth, a geth that called them all by name, and even feeling the smallest brush of worry when he'd realised the damn geth – their damn geth – had gone up against a stampeding brute of a prime on its own.

Shepard stirred again, the whole warm length of her body sliding delightfully against his. Garrus let his hands stray up to the swell of her hips, and to the arch of her back above. Not hurrying, he repeated the movement, and again, until she sighed.

"Feels good," she murmured.

"Good. You're so," he said, and hunted for the right word. "Soft."

"Mostly I'm just taking advantage of the fact that you're obsessed with my back."

Garrus chuckled. "Something like that." He slid his hands over her shoulders, his fingers digging in a little harder. "Isn't there," he said, and hesitated. "You know. Stuff that you miss. With humans."

"Yeah. Totally. I completely miss having to order you to wax your chest."

"What?"

"Garrus," she said, and leaned into the crook of his shoulder. "I know you're not human. It's kind of hard not to notice."

"That wasn't what I said."

"I know. I think it's more," she said, and he heard her pause as she weighed her words. "I think it's more that I'm thinking about what's new. What's different, rather than what's missing. And besides, it goes both ways, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," he said. "I guess it does. I'm not even sure why I asked that."

"Because it's the middle of the night, and because you're thinking the same thing that I am."

"Yeah? You can read my mind now, can you?" Teasingly, he moved until he found the back of her neck with his tongue. Warm and slightly salty and he felt her shiver in response.

"I'm thinking that we've got a ship that's looking a bit emptier right now, what with so many of our Cerberus colleagues handing in their paperwork."

"Colleagues," Garrus echoed, and laughed. "That what we're calling them now?"

"I was trying not to say enforced partnership. And anyway," she said, and straightened up enough that she was looking down into his face. "You didn't let me finish. You're thinking it because we both know damn well that either the Reapers or the Alliance are going to come knocking and we're going to have to do a lot of explaining. You're thinking that this might change."

"Yeah, I am," he admitted, quietly.

She didn't push him, didn't try to pull the words from his mouth, and he should have known she wouldn't.

"Me too," Shepard said, into the stretching silence. She braced her hands on his chest, her thin human fingers distractingly silken. "But then I figured that I'm going nowhere. Even if I have to chase Reapers all over the galaxy, you'd better be damn well waiting for me when I get back."

Garrus laughed, and painfully, it caught in his throat. "How about I just come with you?"

"Sounds perfect. Except for that part about the Reapers."

"Well, yeah. Got to have something to keep us occupied though."

"Guess you like to aim high, huh?" She was smiling, unguarded and easily. She leaned back, and the light swam in her hair.

"Always," he responded, and shifted so that he could wrap his arms around her waist.

"Good." Her hands found his chin, and then the angles of his face, and the softer place just beneath his fringe. "Because you're stuck with me."

He tried to think of something to say, something irreverent and pointless and his voice wouldn't obey. Instead, he dropped his head against the line of her shoulder. He could feel her pulse and he knew that there was a small scar there, ribboning down and across her collarbone and absurdly he wondered how it was that he knew the contours of her so well.

Wordlessly, she guided his hands to her hips. Together they fumbled the sheets aside until she was straddling his lap. He rocked himself into her, slowly, her hands still knotted at the back of his neck. He breathed her name into her ear and she shuddered and tightened around him. As tenderly, he let the points of his teeth brush the slope of her neck. His hands slipped up to cradle her shoulders, and she murmured, "Yes."

She fell off the brink before him – only just – with her own fingers between her legs and her gaze locked on his.

Garrus touched her cheeks and the underside of her chin and felt the flushed heat in her. "You know what?" he asked.

"What?"

"It really is morning now."

Shepard laughed. "You always know the right thing to say."

"I try."

Her hands were on his face, brushing the spread of his scars and the sharper angles above. She was looking at him, searchingly, as if she could keep the clock and the rest of the world banished by not moving, by staying where she was, curled around him.

"Shepard," Garrus said, and startled himself when he realised he'd spoken aloud.

"I know, I know," she answered mildly. "I need to get off you."

"Well, yeah. Though actually I was going to say something about how good you feel. Sitting there. On me, I mean."

He'd almost expected her to laugh – and he'd almost hoped that she would – but instead, she pressed her mouth against his markings. Shakily, he cupped the back of her neck, his thumb rolling over the hurried warmth of her pulse.

"Of course," he said, and when she straightened up, he saw that she was smiling. "You probably do need to get off me as well."

The Normandy drifted into dock at the Citadel, and ten minutes later, Shepard was down the walkway and into the crowded maze of the ward. Farewells were a strange beast to wrestle with, she thought. Half goodbye and half tidying-up of a contract and yet she knew the acknowledgement was needed, the shared awareness of it.

Four days ago, she'd farewelled Grunt amid the dusty stone of Tuchanka, and lingered long enough to trade stories with Wrex before heading shipboard again. She'd watched the high spars of rock swallow him – both of them, she thought, Grunt and Wrex and all her hectic memories of the place – and she'd realised that this must be it, the beginning of it.

And today, she'd already seen Samara in the briefing room, the Justicar's face filled with something partway between sadness and peace. She'd touched Shepard's arm, and smiled, and then she'd been gone, her graceful, predatory steps taking her out of the ship.

"Shepard," Massani said, from somewhere behind her. "You working on blending in, or is this how you usually look?"

Shepard smiled and turned. "Just admiring the scenery."

"Sure you are."

"You all sorted?" she asked genially.

"Yeah, got everything together." Massani hesitated, his gaze narrowed and thoughtful. "Had a bit more fun than I thought."

"Says the man who headbutted more than a few Collectors, as I recall."

"They had it coming," Massani protested.

"Glad I could keep you entertained."

"Hah." Massani smiled lopsidedly. "Look, Shepard. You need someone to help you kick the Reapers in the balls when they get here, look me up."

"Noted," she answered. "Thanks, Zaeed. Stay safe."

"Never learned how."

She grinned. After he strode away, she turned and meandered her way to a low bench, beneath another wall of garish, shifting screens. She sat and absently eyed the thronged plaza, people moving and sliding past each other, wonderfully disordered and uncaring.

A shadow slanted across her, and she remarked, "You're walking rather loudly there."

"Perhaps," Krios responded. "Thank you for waiting for me, Commander."

"It's no trouble, you know that." She waited until he sat beside her, his shoulders trim beneath the glossy fall of his coat. "Few plans for today anyway."

"That makes me a little envious, I admit," Krios said.

"Can I ask what you'll be doing?"

"I will be speaking with Captain Bailey," Krios answered. "And I will be speaking to my son."

Shepard nodded. "I hope it goes easily."

"Such things rarely do," he said, and smiled. "But I find that I have the patience now, and very much the inclination to do so."

"Look," she said, a little awkwardly, and the words ran away from her. She wanted to say something about how much time he didn't have, and suddenly, painfully, she was not sure how. "In the future. If there's anything I can do."

"Commander Shepard," he said. "I appreciate what you are saying. Thank you."

"You know, I'm pretty sure I should be thanking you. You know, for coming through the relay and all."

"The relay was rather expected, don't you think? At least," he said, and his smile turned slightly wicked. "Compared to other things. The rather large human-shaped Reaper springs to mind."

"Yeah, that part was particularly energetic as I recall. You going to be okay?"

"I think so," he answered. The wry amusement in his face faded. "And you, Commander?"

"We'll get there," she said.

"Of that I have little doubt. May I offer a suggestion?"

"Go ahead."

"Do not," Krios said, and his voice roughened. "Do not let it drown you. This thing that you have to do. Do not let it turn you from everything else."

"You know," Shepard said honestly. "I really want to say that I won't. But then I'd be going and thinking that things might be simple."

"And they never are." He tilted his head to one side. "I should leave you to your thoughts."

"Say hi to your son for me," she said, deadpan.

Krios smiled. He uncoiled upright in one fluid motion. "Perhaps, Commander. You will take care of yourselves, I hope?"

"Ourselves?" Shepard peered up at him suspiciously. "So much for secrets, huh? Or is it some weird assassin thing?"

"It is, I believe, merely a weird observation thing," he responded, and she was almost certain he was laughing at her.

"I believe you. Watch out for yourself, Thane."

"And you, Shepard."

She watched as he vanished silently into the crowd, a slim-hipped shadow. She tapped her comm unit on and asked, "Hey, Vakarian? You lurking anywhere nearby?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Garrus answered. "Actually, I'm gazing longingly at a very attractive set of armour right now."

Shepard laughed, and it eased the strange, tight knot in her chest. "Enjoying the pretty things, are we?"

"Very much. You okay?"

"I guess," she said, and it was almost true. "You want to give me some directions so we can go get you that drink I promised?"

Garrus found her holed up at a small table at the far end of the restaurant, slumped back in the chair and two drinks already arranged in front of her. Her head lifted and she smiled, her eyes meeting his as he crossed the floor.

"Took your sweet time," Shepard said mildly.

"Yeah, yeah." He pulled out the chair opposite and sat. "What did you get?"

"Something obnoxiously expensive." She grinned and added, "I don't think that Cerberus funding will last all that much longer. Got to throw it at something useful."

Garrus laughed. He curled his hands around the glass and eyed the contents, pale and shimmering. "Smells good."

"That's your technical critique?"

"Of course it is. And don't try to tell me that human soldiers are able to get their hands on the good stuff while they're working their way through bootcamp."

Shepard laughed. "As I remember it, we once lowered ourselves to some really nasty shit that one of the guys made himself. You could've cleaned weapons with the stuff."

"That sounds like a story."

"A few stories," she said, and her smile turned rueful. "All of them ending with the kind of hangover that could kill."

"We've all been there. It always seems like a good idea at the time."

"And here I thought turians would be flogged so hard they'd have no time for such things."

"Depends how inventive we are," he retorted.

"So," Shepard said. "What was the first mission you got handed?"

"After basic?" When she nodded, he explained, "It was pretty standard, as I recall. We were after a bunch of mercs, dug in deep and most of them with ties to the Blue Suns."

"And you dealt with them all in a satisfactory and heroic manner?"

Garrus laughed. "Yeah. Sure I did. I think I dropped my weapon at least twice. Got a few dents in my armour and more than a few in my confidence."

"Could be worse. I remember an early planetside mission. It was hot and humid and the whole damn place was full of fog. We scoped out a perimeter," she said, and raised her drink again. "And since our first comb-through caught nothing, well, hey, that meant we were free and clear."

"What happened?"

"I had the dumb luck to be facing the right way when I thought it'd be a brilliant idea to take my helmet off and check the back of it. I got halfway through before we got rushed, and I'd swear to this day, it was only because I was facing the damn treeline that I had enough time to get my helmet back on properly before the bastard took a shot at me."

She was still smiling, crookedly and almost without humour, and he understood. It was the stupid, pulse-pounding realization that you'd come an inch from something awful, something that would've been at least half your own damn fault.

"Never underestimate dumb luck," Garrus said. "It's gotten me a fair way in life."

"Sure it has."

He drank, and the wine flooded his throat, cool and crisp and sharp. "Shepard," he said, after the silence pooled between them. "Talk to me."

"About what?"

"Whatever's bothering you," he told her, pointedly. "You keep staring over my shoulder."

"Sorry." Her fingers shifted uneasily against the table. "It's ridiculous. We're letting people go and I'm feeling like I just kicked them out."

"It's not ridiculous," Garrus chided, gently. "Stepping clear is rarely easy. From either side. I know it bothered me."

"Yeah," she said, and nodded. "I get that. I do. It was probably the right choice, though. You said yourself C-Sec needed the help."

"Yeah, and we all know how well that turned out," he said viciously. He remembered how he'd tried to juggle the paperwork and the endless orders from higher up and lower down and how he'd wondered if some of the worst-hit wards were ever going to get themselves back into shape. How he'd come home to a message and gone to see Anderson and heard the words that had turned his heart upside down. "Sorry. I didn't mean to…yeah."

"Hey," she said, and touched his wrist. "It's okay."

"Yeah, but I was meant to be listening to you."

She grinned. "It's okay if it goes both ways, you know. I promise."

Garrus gulped at the wine, and it seared too quickly down the back of his throat. Before his nerves could abandon him, he said, very quietly, "Won't catch me doing that again."

"What? Working for C-Sec?"

"Walking away from you."

"Garrus," she said, her voice hitching slightly.

"Of course," he added. "That was a little different, I guess. I mean, back then, I didn't know about the wonderful things you can do with your mouth."

She spluttered into a laugh. "Your honesty," she said. "It shames me."

"Yeah, yeah. Of course it does."

"And, you know," Shepard said. "You don't need to do that all the time."

"What?"

"Try and make me laugh every time you say something serious."

"And here I thought it was working." Haltingly, he folded his hands over the back of hers.

"It is working." She rolled her hands palm-up beneath his, so that he could wreath his fingers between hers. "But I'm okay with the serious parts as well."

"Okay," he said, breathing the word out slowly. Through her gloves, he could feel the wiry strength in her hands. "Okay. That's, ah. Good to know."

He let her go, eventually, slowly, and her fingertips dragged against his when she leaned back. The silence welled up again, and this time, it was easier – wonderfully, companionably easy, he thought – to simply sit and notice nothing more important than the way her fingers curled around the glass, or the way she was working through the wine inch by absurdly methodical inch.

"What?" Shepard asked mildly. "What's so funny?"

"Am I laughing?"

"You're about to."

"You're so determined," he said, and flared his mandibles into a smile. "All the time."

"I'm flattered," she retorted. Her omni-tool flickered, and she scowled down at it. "Shepard here. The ship better be on fire."

"Sorry, Commander," Joker said, and Garrus heard a strange, resigned note in his voice. "No fire. Nothing nasty eating the hull, either."

"What is it?"

"I've just had Admiral Hackett saying hello. He'd really like to talk to you."

Shepard stilled, her fingers tightening against the glass. "Not a social call, then?"

"No. He didn't elaborate, and I figured you'd want to know."

"Thanks, Joker." She paused, her forehead furrowing slightly. "Get back to Hackett, tell him I'll be there and ready to talk in twenty-five minutes. Put him through to my quarters."

"Got it, Commander."

"And tell Lawson and Taylor to meet me in the briefing room first."

"Sure."

"Shepard," Garrus said, and noticed the thoughtful way her eyes had narrowed. "You're thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Probably," she answered, and shot him an unrepentant smile. "And this way, at least they can't say that I haven't warned them."

Shepard strode into the briefing room and the terse, impatient silence hit her like a punch to the gut.

"I know this is short notice," she said, and kept her tone brisk and clear. She looked across to Lawson, all cat-still poise. "And I won't know exactly what Hackett wants until I've talked to him."

"My guess is the good admiral wants to acknowledge your existence now that we've taken out the Collectors," Taylor said. "You know, now the messy work's done."

She wanted to snarl back at him that Hackett had always been there, quietly and carefully and delicately. He'd sent her down to the empty white wastes of Alchera to pick her way through the torn-apart bones of her ship. He'd never once requested detailed explanations as to why and how she'd been able to forward painfully recent reports of colonies as they'd been plucked clean. And she was damn sure he'd had something to do with how her mother had surfaced from the Orizaba, and how the message had only come through after the Normandy had cleared the Omega-4 relay both ways.

"I'm guessing you're right," Shepard said, steadily. "The issue remains, however. At some point I will be stepping back into Alliance space, and if you don't want to be here when it happens, you're free to take off whenever you like."

"So," Lawson said. "Is this a warning or a suggestion?"

"It's whichever you'd prefer. I could even throw in some extra shit about how you're walking around in the colours of a known terrorist organization, if you want."

"Alright," Taylor said, slowly. "I'm listening. You got any kind of timeframe yet?"

"No," she admitted. She rested her hands on the table. "But you both need to understand that at some point, I'll need the Alliance, and I'll need them behind me. The Reapers are coming and I'm damned if I'm only having one ship to point at them."

"And you think they'll listen?" Lawson's mouth creased into a sardonic smile. "Like the Council listened?"

"They'll listen. They have to," Shepard said, and the words fell cold and uncertain. It was half a lie and half a clawing, desperate hope, and she wondered if they could see it in her face. "It's your choice. Both of you. Stay or don't stay. Go or don't go. I'm not going to push you either way. You've both put a hell of a lot of hours and sweat into this assignment, and I've been proud to have worked alongside you."

"Commander," Lawson said, almost teasingly. "I never thought I'd hear that kind of admission from you."

"Don't overdo it," Shepard retorted. "I said you, not Cerberus."

"Noted," Lawson said lightly.

"I'll keep you updated." She turned away from the table, and six brusque steps took her out of the briefing room and into the corridor beyond. She ducked through the CIC and into the elevator and realised that her stomach had knotted.

A long time, she thought. A long time since she'd been able to call herself a soldier. She'd kept the Spectre name – useless mercy, she'd thought at the time, an empty handout from the Council – but it wasn't the same, and it could never be, not really. She'd marched herself into recruit training – and God she'd been so young then – because it was easier than not doing it. She'd done it because she'd been shuttled between crowded shipboard chaos and brief planetside downtime until it had seemed the only way a life might be organized.

She keyed the door open and the jumping comm console light assailed her. She ignored it long enough to unfasten her armour and stack the pieces on the rack. Almost guiltily, she chose crisp fatigues that were blandly grey. She shoved her hands through her hair, inwardly cursed herself for being too fucking timid, and hit the comm console.

The vid screen unfolded, crackling and silver. She waited until the image resolved into Admiral Hackett, his face quarried with lines and as stern as she'd expected.

"Afternoon, sir," Shepard said.

"Shepard," he said, and nodded. "You're looking tired."

"It's the lighting in here."

"I received an interesting set of reports from Councilor Anderson," Hackett said.

"It's true," she said. Leaving her hands loose at her sides suddenly seemed to clumsy, too awkward, so she clasped them behind her back. "All of it. The numbers. The Reaper they were building. How they were building it."

"I read it, Shepard. I know."

"Okay," she said. "But I'm guessing you're not about to tell me that the rest of the Alliance believes it."

"Official position is that Reapers don't exist."

"That's bullshit. Sir."

Hackett's implacable expression did not waver. "Be that as it may, it won't change the minds of Alliance Command."

"I'm guessing they forgot that bit where Sovereign shredded the Citadel."

"That was one ship. One ship."

"Yeah, and me and my squad were the only lucky ones to hear the damn thing talk. I know." She reined back the surging, prickling anger. "Sorry, sir."

"Forgiven," he said, drily. "Good to see you're still stubborn as hell, at least. You ready to listen?"

"Yes, sir."

"We've got a deep cover operative in batarian space, and she's found herself on the inside of a batarian prison cell."

"How'd she manage that?" Shepard asked. "And what was she doing out there?"

"She was sent out to investigate something," Hackett said, and the corners of his mouth shifted into the beginnings of a smile. "Something that lead to an artifact that she and her team found. A Reaper artifact of some kind."

"Hah." Shepard grinned. Something very like exhilaration had its hooks in her, and she wondered just what else Hackett's operative might have stumbled onto. "Proof just waiting to be picked up?"

"Maybe," Hackett allowed. "We don't know yet. Our operative certainly believes so."

"And you want me to get her out of there."

"Yes. Get her out of that prison, and find out just what the hell it is she's dug up. This is going to have to be an infiltration," he added. "Quick and quiet and you'd better be certain you know how delicate this whole situation is before you get there."

"Yes, sir." She did not look away. "I'm listening."