.

Let me enter
Cause I'm feeling all your scars
Take me hold me and I'll feel deeply your heart
Let me see your eyes with the love I'd like from you
Let me feel your hands with the lust I'm claiming

Tystnaden – Lust

Chapter 24 ~ A Halo of Light

"Reaper. There's a Reaper coming for the temple."

With her own words the human vanguard snapped out of her momentary daze; the choking feel of panic that had rolled off the alien awareness just seconds ago yanked back inside to leave merely a vague sensation of focus and an almost physical itch to be on the move.

The squad exploded into motion. None bothered to ask the obvious.

I ignored the pain still hammering behind my eyes and grabbed first the Phaeston then Liara's outstretched hand. I swayed to my feet, the Commander and Vega already running past us. Adrenaline, one hell of an anesthetic. I turned towards the exit. The chamber crawled sideways. I locked my knees and stayed upright. Barely.

"Are you alright?"

Slim blue fingers had wrapped stabilizingly around my arm. Blinking away the black blotches, I looked at their owner, her face pinched with alarm. My tongue, still coated in the metallic tang of my own blood. The heavy scent of copper dominated my sense of smell. Head swimming, I stared past and in the distance. The drums of battle rose anew, their terrible staccato swelling until it trapped me in its mesmerizing rhythm. Letting me know I had no right to be alive so unapologetic... The first time Shepard had touched a beacon, a functional beacon, she had been knocked out for hours. By all means I should be lying face down in the chamber, just another corpse left behind in a bloody tribute to the Goddess. Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe I could still…

"Garrus!"

I shook myself and shoved the Phaeston at Liara. Fingers clumsy from exhaustion fished for my medpack. Closed around the already prepared injector.

C'mon Archangel. You survived worse…

Alright then. 5, 4, 3, 2… a new wakefulness washed over me in a hot prickling wave. I inhaled with a hiss. Senses sharpened. Thoughts focused. My heart skipped once then beat faster as the mix of epinephrine, analeptics and half a dozen semi-legal substances rapidly ate its way through my system. I trembled, inside out. Then got swept away by a familiar and oh-so deceiving rush of energy that finally overrode the terrible exhaustion death's brief touch had left me with. It still lingered, there beneath the surface; prowling on the edges of my awareness, just waiting for my body to slow down once more. Yeah, I was definitely going to regret this. If I survived.

I spat out a mouthful of blood and wiped my mouth with the back of my gloved hand.

"I'm good. Let's go."

I retrieved my assault rifle from a frowning asari, checked the heatsink and hastened after Vega and Shepard who'd already cleared the huge temple doors. For another moment I marveled on the fact that I still bloody felt the Commander inside my head, then emptied my Phaeston into an approaching Banshee and stopped thinking at all.

The asari husk had merely been the vanguard. There were dozens and they all scrambled along the path to the temple. Probably led straight up here by Kai Leng.

We would never make it back the way we came. As if to drive home the point, I glanced at the sky only to see specks of black closing in on us. Lots of specks. Maybe if the Kodiak had materialized in front of us this instant we might have gotten away unscathed but with Cortez forced to keep a safe distance…

There. A narrow trail, hardly more than dirt, rocks and gravel, snaked its way downwards. Towards Armali and her maze of broken streets. It was the only chance we had left. As one we dashed off.

Seconds transformed into minutes and we were still alive.

Half sliding, half running, we stumbled down the trail single-file, eyes fixed on the rocky ground at our feet and the jagged silhouette of the ruined city that sprawled before us so tantalizingly close.

No one dared to look back.

I more sensed than actually saw the hot ire rise inside Shepard. I absolutely understood. There were many things the Illusive Man's assassin would have to answer for and in front of my mind's eye I saw myself making him answer real good; first by jamming my knife deeply into his kneecap, then by popping the joint. Very very slowly. And then…

I threw a dark glance at the human Spectre's back before me and suppressed the low animalistic growl that wanted to climb up my throat. This was getting better and better.

Breath.

Focus.

Attention forced back on the steep trail, my mind cleared enough to let me disengage from the unexpected intense, foreign emotions and keep a firm lid on my own. As if on cue the ire suddenly dampened and I nodded in silent thanks. Next time wouldn't catch me by surprise again, yet who could tell what other strange side effects the encounter with the beacon had on us? Better to stay on guard.

In any way, it was apparent that we wouldn't chase after the assassin and the stolen data any time soon. With at least one Reaper capital ship virtually breathing down our neck anything aside strict radio-silence was suicide. Cortez would know his orders if we failed to check in. My gaze ran over the smoke-hazed skyline. One of our predetermined exfil spots was somewhere in there and I caught myself mumbling a prayer to whatever Spirits were listening.

Abruptly the trail ended, buried beneath the collapsed top of a fanciful tower that used to dominate Armali's skyline. Hasty we climbed over the chunks of concrete, the relief at the sight of the damaged, yet mostly still five-floor-high buildings almost palpable.

Then we entered the city.

.~'*'~.

One of the first lessons turian military teaches you is that when life punches you in the teeth, you straighten up, spit out the blood and keep on marching.

In fact, they will drill this lesson in so thoroughly, you're going to soldier on regardless of broken bones, leaking from half a dozen bullet wounds and being surrounded by a hostile paramilitary force that already killed eighty percent of your unit. It lets you survive renegade Spectres, toxic bugs, ice storms, uncharted Mass Relays, raging Geth Colossus and maniacs insisting on driving the Mako down every vertical cliff – and still had you volunteer for an encore.

So once more I straightened, spat out the blood and kept marching; just like the good obedient turian soldier I was supposed to be.

Bringing up the rear guard, I climbed over the collapsed pieces of a white stone wall that blocked the narrow street canyon between two halfway intact blocks; Phaeston on my back, silenced Mantis in my hands. From above the destruction had already looked bad, down here though…

In reflex my fingers curled just a little tighter around the rifle I had come to know so intimately. Every angle and scratch as familiar as the marks and scars carved into my own body's hardened skin. Again I let myself sense the carbon and steel through the fabric of my gloves. There was something deeply comforting in the touch. Something solid. Reassuring. Just like shaking hands with an old companion before climbing back into the trenches once more.

I was thankful for it; just as I was for the ungodly mixture of stims, adrenaline and sheer willpower that kept my body running. So I soldiered on; face stoic, dutiful mind blank. Much easier to stomach the dark pulp which had at one point been the head of an asari huntress, who got herself trapped below a big chuck of concrete.

It was a lot harder to ignore stench.

The mask that covered the lower half of my face did not much for the warm air, thick with biting, arid smoke - or the rotten miasma of death that assaulted my nostrils with about every breath I took. Funny, how military always found creative ways to remind us that our gear was made by the lowest bidder.

I lifted my head. Adamant to smother us underneath a gray blanket of dust and ash, the fires blocked out the azure sky and plunged the city into a hazy gloom, even the Reaper's advanced scanners would have found difficult to pierce.

I could still hear them though, somewhere above; the foreboding drone of their main cannon soul-chilling on such a primeval level, my imagination could picture all too easy that the machines had specifically designed the sound for maximum impact. It certainly wasn't the first of our organic instincts they'd exploited well enough.

This was a war where numbers no longer provided safety. They were a death sentence. Armali had seen its first attack in the night, swift and hard; a quarter of the dense populated downtown leveled before the asari even knew what had hit them. And then, in the middle of mayhem and disorder, the machines had come for the survivors.

My eyes scanned the row of dark windows of the damaged apartment building to my right, an irrational yet grim spark still stubbornly refusing to accept that we were too late again. But of course the windows were all empty. Whoever survived the initial attack must have already fled south days ago; to the rural area where the pitiful remains of Armali's force had carved out a small territory and was holding ground since.

I passed another dead asari. Fled, or died trying.

The creeping feel of being watched returned. It had come and gone since entering the core city, but never this strong. It was so close to physical, my skin crawled. Something was just not right. I could feel it in my guts.

I had to agree with Vega: bad didn't even begin to cover this.

Even though our progress was reduced to a painstaking crawl to avoid hostile contact, for all the husks we had cut through to reach the temple, there just weren't nearly enough troops in here.

This simply was too easy.

Painfully aware of my exposed position to anyone looking down from the ruins, I halted and turned, my gaze running over the rubble behind. The Mantis rode up almost on her own. I thought to have caught some movement from the corner of my eyes but when I looked at the ruins, now adorned by the crosshair's familiar blue lines… Nothing.

Well, maybe except for the realization that the reassurance radiating from a battle-worn M92 was a bit more welcome than any sniper worth his tungsten rounds would have liked to admit. I lowered the rifle with a vexed click of my tongue. Jumping at shadows. Terrific. Somewhere back on Palaven my old drill sergeant was probably having a cardiac arrest.

A last scrutinizing look and I resumed to pick my way through the rubble-choked street, side-skirting the dangerously bloated corpse of that huge type of husk, soldiers simply had come to call Brute.

Still busy scolding myself for letting a fit of paranoia get the better of me, it took me five steps before a soft, irregular sound drew my attention. I strained my senses and listened up. Fire seemed to sizzle abnormal loud in my ears and there... A faint smacking noise from the left. Quick glance ahead, but the rest of the squad was already a good forty paces down the street. Careful not to set off any loose gravel, I slipped down a pile of broken concrete and edged towards the mouth of a narrow alley. With rows of blue stats my visor came to life. Movement. A crouching abomination, gore-covered and half hidden by rubble twenty point seven paces inside the dim alley. Oblivious to my presence, it hunched with its bulbous back towards me. Claws and grotesque maw dug into something shielded from my view by the creature's unnatural bulk. I grimaced. Batarian. Revolting in life, revolting in undead. Why didn't that surprise me at all?

Worse, experience said where one was feeding there would be others soon.

My gaze flickered to the big dark puddle it sat in. Suddenly the husk dropped his prey and a pale blue arm uncurled into view. It twitched once, then stilled.

With a wordless curse, I stole a glance over my back. The sun already hung discomfortingly low to the west, a blazing disk of deep red that bathed the smoke-filled city in its angry light. Despite the gloom, shadows had begun to stretch out from between the ruins, their tendrils growing and lengthening with every heartbeat that passed. I checked the enviro data my visor was spitting out. Exact one hour GST of daylight left. We were running out of time. None of us wanted to find out what crawled out of these ruins after dusk.

I look back at the husk for a long conflicting moment, then snatched my finger from the Mantis' trigger and retreated as silent as I'd approached. It nearly gave me an aneurysm.

I caught up with the squad, fighting to shake off the agitation at the almost-kill. I felt vibrant, my body virtually humming with the treacherous semblance of having energy in abundance. I closed my eyes for a brief moment and exhaled. Slow and steady.

It wasn't easy.

Every cell in me was just too bloody keyed up and while my conditioned mind held on fair enough, my drugged body itched to move; to run, to fight, to kill, to fuck, anything.

Slow and steady.

In front of me Liara suddenly retched softly and my gaze drifted over a days-old corpse drenched in violet and missing several chunks of flesh from its torso. In fact, the whole body seemed a lot shorter and thinner than your regular asari, unless... I skipped to the face. Rot and flies already battled each other for dominion and once more I was thankful for the slight, stim-induced detachment that kept the image at a safer distance. There was still enough left to recognize the youth in the once delicate features, though.

"You're okay?" I whispered, my voice muffled through the filters.

Under her transparent mask a very pale-faced Shadow Broker pressed her dark lips together. Somehow it had never occurred to me before how… sensual they looked.

Inappropriate, Vakarian, very inappropriate.

She nodded. "It's just... I think I know her..." a deep breath followed. Then another. "It… doesn't matter. Let's go." And then a mere whisper, "May you find peace in the arms of the Goddess, little Mara…"

We kept cleaving our path through the city and I strained to ignore the picture my mind thrust before me; of how Cipritine must have looked like at this point; her rubble-strewn streets drenched in blue blood and littered with the corpses of Palaven's men, women and children, while the unfortunate survivors were dragged to hell.

It was 24 cycles now. 24 days without a word.

I forced in another foul-smelling breath, refusing to stare at the implication. Last time Solana checked in they had been safe. Of course off-world communication had also broken down almost completely, so there was that.

As if in answer to my bleak musings, I got stabbed by an unexpected and quickly suppressed jolt of warmth. Since we entered the city the alien awareness had sat so quietly, reduced to such a tight, impenetrable knot of focus and determination, I needed a moment to identify it as the actual source.

I turned in the direction the human Spectre had ventured to scout ahead in a more traditional way. Navigating the labyrinthine ruins without the Normandy's deep scans or navpoints simply took its time and while the machines might not pick up on our very low ranged squad comm; a constant uplink to the SR-2 virtually begged for detection. Or worse, investigation and I preferred my Reapers as far away from investigating stuff as possible.

Still, the current perimeter sweep was taking her suspiciously long. I caught my fingers crawling towards my omni-tool and snatched them away with a growl. Damn. I actually missed the thought that EDI's eyes and ears were watching over us. Almost as if… the AI was in truth the Crew's guardian Spirit and not just another frighteningly advanced synthetic. I had worked with EDI long enough to be one-hundred-percent convinced that the moment Jeff unshackled the AI from its Cerberus constraints, something fundamentally had been changed within the machine…

I was certain there was an important lesson hidden somewhere in this, yet before I could ponder that line of thought any further, a very familiar agitation spiked in my mind, like a heart skipping a beat right before the rush of adrenaline would kick in. It held for another moment then ebbed into a steady stream of readiness.

Jumping from suspicion to alert, I stared at the broken architecture ahead as if to will any visual of her into existence. Instead I merely received the uncanny notion that the woman was up to something. Something reckless. Or stupid. Or even better, both.

I snorted. Typical vanguard. Action first, implications later.

I signaled Vega and Liara to hold position, then jogged the short distance towards a six stories high office building. It cowered on the corner of the rubble-strewn intersection ahead, a cubicle of gleaming steel and glass that almost looked as if a hungry giant had bitten a big chuck off its upper half.

I squeezed through the portal-like entry that had caved half-way in and took the stairs to the third floor as unerring as tugged along by a string, the faint feel of general direction attached to the awareness almost working like a second sense of balance.

Suddenly the aisle ended and spat me out into the open. Shattered glass and pulverized concrete covered the dark floor tiles where they weren't choked with chunks of ceiling and wall. Above, the smoke-hazed sky slowly turned violet, the last rays of daylight filtering through the missing upper floor.

Almost invisible, Shepard stood with her back to me in a dark niche by a wide crack in the wall facing the intersection, and I realized once more in amazement that I had no need to see the baleful gloom furrowing the Commander's forehead to know it was there with perfect certainty. Garrus Vakarian, the pragmatic soldier, marveled at such connection's invaluable tactical advantage. Garrus Vakarian, the man sensing his most private thoughts to be laid bare unasked, cringed. How? How was any sane person supposed to deal with this?

Unsurprisingly, neither the universe nor Shepard graced me with an answer. Instead the Commander waved me over without a look. Right. With a suppressed sigh, I ducked around a mangled steel beam and came to a halt one step behind her. Then bit off a wordless curse.

Below and perhaps fifty paces ahead the street widened and opened up to a small plaza surrounded by a park lined with trees. Just beyond the dense green I could make out the massive glass dome of the Armali Council Theatre that had somehow withstood the destruction almost unscathed. It marked the beginning of the outer city ring and the exfil spot we had agreed on with Cortez in case things went downhill.

The plaza was packed with husks. Hundreds of husks, snarling and hissing at each other, while squatting in place as if bond by invisible chains. My hope to be out of the city by nightfall went up in flames.

One wrong step and they would swarm us in moments. And even if we doubled back and found another traversable way our chances were… slim. It was an all too familiar observation. Also surprisingly comforting. In an utterly insane, suicidal kind-of-way.

I leaned forward and a little closer towards the Commander, her hair caught in a short braided pattern at the nape of her neck. The once pristine dark gray armor adorned by a web of scratches, telling the world a silent history of dodged bullets and close calls. Then the occasional stain, revealed by a thin layer of dust. Blood maybe? On impulse I tugged my mask down, catching a faint metallic scent. Mhh, so I was right about the blood.

Still observing the plaza, my mouth hovered next to the cartilaginous shell of her ear. I inhaled. Mistake, the rational part of my brain hissed and then her breath hitched, sending a faint but oh-so exquisite ripple through the awareness in my head.

"So…" Whatever else I wanted to say vaporized. Blood, sweat, ozone, guns. The intriguing smell of combat swirled around her like an aura. The dangerous aura of a soldier, a fierce fighter; lithe-bodied warrior angel soaking the battlefield with the blood of her enemies, then spinning around and coming for me with blazing eyes and soft, so soft sweat-drenched skin; her blunt human nails digging hard into my –

I forced my thoughts back in line and took a deep, calming breath.

It was like fighting fire with gasoline.

Heat stabbed me in the gut, utterly unfazed by the horde of insentient killing machines waiting just across street. Or maybe the danger was just the last thrill that kicked me over the edge. The human Spectre shifted her stance slightly and I gave myself a mental slap. That was the other problem with stims. As soon as you stopped running or fighting for your life they started hacking at other, much more carnal instincts. Common knowledge. No big deal.

Except this had as much to do with common as an orbital strike with exterior design.

The awareness reacted.

In a profoundly unhelpful way, I daresay.

Arousal hit me like an axe between the eyes and to hell with all the preparation I believed to have had. I hastened to retreat a few steps. Tripping over a lose piece of concrete. Of all things.

Whether it was the noise or my frenzied thoughts that alarmed her, Shepard turned around, versatile human face unreadable below her black breathing mask. Then she stalked after me, slowly but determined; the very image of a hunter on the prowl. A very hungry hunter.

Not helping. Not at all.

Damn. She really shouldn't have hitched her breath like that.

She kept invading my personal space while I withdrew another step and I couldn't help but notice that this whole situation had something comical about it. And disconcertingly voyeuristic. Unfortunately that notion caused my thoughts to reel even deeper into the dirt with me, while my body tried very hard to convince my reason that I had to catch this fierce warrior woman and strip her out of her armor as fucking-fast as possible.

The pale-haired vanguard planted herself before me, close, just too damn close, hard eyes and female scrutiny piercing deep. Then her forehead furrowed. "Wait-a-sec, Vakarian. Are you… thinking about sex? Like now?"

Her voice, though lowered and damped because of the mask, seemed perfectly neutral, even holding a somewhat incredulous edge. The awareness however… Actually not so much indignation here but therefore lots and lots of Yes, Vakarian, are going to fuck me, or what?

I clenched my teeth and busied myself with some highly important looking piece of brick somewhere past her shoulder. "No."

I peered back and caught her arching the scar-bisected hairline above her eye. "No?"

"No." I backed off, slowly and orderly, and this time there definitely was something else going on behind those big human eyes.

The hard light dimmed. And then her expression softened just so. In face of the careful but professional distance Shepard, the Commander, had forced on us almost desperately the past days, the contrast couldn't have been harder.

More, it was as if I could actually sense the shift, the slackening of her guards followed by the delicate shiver within the awareness as this other part of her strove to take over control.

I froze, too shocked by the intensity of my own relief; unable to escape the terrible depth of those sea-green eyes. A hint of the old amusement twinkled in them and there it was again: the inexplicable draw that had tugged at me since that very day I met her at the Council Chambers' atrium.

Curiosity growing into respect. Respect that had turned into an admiration not even her death had been able to diminish. Quite the opposite. No harm in putting a remarkable, yet dead soldier on a pedestal, right? In seeking guidance, and yeah, solace, within the vivid memories of conversations long past?

At least until Omega. From which things went nowhere but downhill.

What started as the simple pleasure to find her alive rapidly became a sheer overpowering need to be near her. To be with her. It was the very draw that had me ride over my principles, question my morale and my sanity over and over again - and Spirits! - even my sexual disposition. That made me happily follow her into the bowels of hell and back, without question, without doubt, without even a moment's hesitation.

Thane had been right. There was indeed something deeply unhealthy about being exposed to the Commander's immediate vicinity for too long.

And like any other addict I couldn't care less.

Inside my mind I yelled at her to stop this; to end the painful silence and her ridiculous half-assed efforts to push me away. Why mess around with the roster to keep me out of her sleep cycle, if one word had the power to order me out of her bed for good? Why insist on sitting at the other end of the table when her eyes were begging me to touch her?

But I already knew the answer. Just this time the beacon ensured she knew I knew.

She ripped off her mask and stepped forward - and both our radios activated with that baleful click.

"Commander," Vega's voice filtered in through the soft static. "Hostile inbound from 400. We need to head for rendezvous ASAP."

No-fucking-dammit. There went the chance to set things straight. I looked first at my clenched fist, then at the nearby wall and thought better of it.

Shepard shook herself; then the Commander turned sideways, first two fingers touching the radio in her ear. "Negative, Vega," she replied while her tone betrayed nothing but the usual stoic command. "The zone's crawling with husks. We'll be dead before we get three steps in." She signaled me to follow and hastened towards the stairs. "Sit tight, we're coming down. I have a plan."

"Understood, Commander. Vega out."

"Care to tell me more about this plan of yours?" I finally asked into the dim staircase, my voice much more strained than I'd have liked. Fighting wasn't an option. Doubling back wasn't an option. Side-skirting more like suicide. It left us with…

"Sewers."

I dragged my hand over my face and used the motion to don my mask once more. Ah yes. Why did I even bother? I glared at the dark figure rushing down the stairs in front of me. "You're doing this on purpose, right?"

"Nope."

"But… you realize you never take me anywhere nice?"

"Hey, that's not true. Remember that time when we had to fix the Mako's engine in the middle of nowhere? That was a really nice garden world."

"Uh-hm. Until those pirate idiots started trying really hard to blow our heads off."

"Alright, point taken. So what about Caleston Rift? The abandoned research station? You said you liked the vista. And no one was shooting at us there. Bonus."

I blinked and almost missed a step. "It might not have occurred to you, but that was because everyone had fled since a volcano was about to erupt below our feet! A volcano!"

She made an odd sound and I swear it sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. And maybe we had reached some kind of truce after all. "Oh, c'mon Garrus. Seriously, how bad can it possibly be?"

"Well, Commander, with all due respect…"

"Yeah?"

"Screw you."

~V~

Teeth clenched to keep the groan inside, I dragged my sorry hide out of the Normandy's lift. Sometime between crushing into the seats of the waiting Kodiak and now my muscles had turned into a knotted mass of burning ache, balking and screaming in protest at every other step.

Even better, totally unimpressed by the spinal trauma module and a wagonload of painkillers, my bruised back hurt like fuck. I didn't even want to know how I would have felt without the upgrades. Probably very dead.

Leng so had it coming. In spades. And then some.

I forced myself onwards, my limbs leaden in their sheath of aramid and carbon. Debrief had been thankfully short, but Hackett still needed today's report. Anderson probably needed an update too. I needed a bed. And a shower. A real shower, hot and with lots and lots of soap. And no, being hosed down in the middle of the hangar straight after setting foot back on the ship wasn't even remotely touching the idea. Worse, despite the decontamination, my armor and me still reeked as if a weird snake-like sewer creature had vomited a half-decayed corpse onto us. Oh, wait...

The door to my cabin hovered before me as tantalizing as the finish line at the end of a 20-mile ruck march.

My omni-tool beeped. I felt seriously inclined to ram my combat knife through it.

"Tali?" I asked carefully, trying to sound at least like someone still fit to command.

"It's Liara," the quarian's accented voice burst out. "She's not taking things well. I think she believes it's her fault that Kai Leng got away..."

I blinked. Some idiot must have replaced my brain with a ball of lead. "What... that's bullshit. Two men down. Vega busy in close combat. If she hadn't fried the beacon's electronics with her biotics... I don't think Garrus would have survived. Or me."

"I know, but... Armali was also her home. Shepard, I'm really worried about her. She won't let any of us in. Maybe you could..."

I rubbed my face. Yep, it was one thing to chase monsters through the smoking remains of your home, high-strung on rage and adrenaline. And quite another to have the full impact crush down on you, while you stared at the walls of the lone confines of your quarters. No matter how tough the mission, it was always the time in between, the long hours spend with waiting and dwelling that got you fucked up all six ways to Sunday. Been there. Done that. Many many times.

Screw this. I couldn't afford for the asari to break. We couldn't afford it. For one she was the only fully trained biotic the Normandy had aboard and second... well, those left of the galactic community needed her, needed the Shadow Broker and her network focused, triggered and fully operational.

No.

Briefly I closed my eyes. Trying to thwart the tiny voice, I had ignored so rigorously of late. Still… it was right. I shouldn't do it for the galactic community. Even less for our combat efficiency.

I should do it for one and only one reason: because she was my friend.

"Alright, Tali. I got this."

.~'*'~.

I took a deep, steeling breath.

So I stood, again, before the short aisle to my cabin. The door waved at me from a sheer insurmountable distance.

I wanted to curl up on the floor and die.

The encounter with the dysfunctional beacon had finally caught up with me. My shiny Cerberus body was at its limits, physically and mentally. Had a little kitten nudged me with her tiny kitty nose right now, I certainly would have keeled over fainting.

With each step I expected my omni-tool to announce another emergency call. Sudden core destabilization. Fire in the engine room. Space pirates. Reapers. A meteorite smashing through the hull and hitting me in the head.

Miraculously, none of the above happened and after what seemed like eternity the door slid shut behind me. I let out a long sigh.

Finally.

I made a beeline for the stairs, then turned right the last instant. No illusions, once I got down those dumb stairs I would be unable to drag myself up again. Instead I unclipped my weapons (Carnifex and Stiletto first, tactical blade second, assortment of throwing knives last) and sat them on the upper desk.

Arms stemmed in my side, I gave the console the evil eye. Hackett needed Thessia's status like yesterday. Through the glass vitrine I had a good view at the criminally soft sheets of my bed. If I crawled underneath the blanket they would be waiting for me, soft and warm and cozy…

I looked at the console. I looked at the bed. A yawn cracked my jaws.

Arrg.

I yanked out the folding chair and crushed into the aluminum seat with a clank.

…and if you buried your face in the pillow right now, you'd still catch a hint of the turian's scent…

I squeezed my eyes shut. Yup, the alien presence was still there. I'd expected the beacon's effect to lessen over the day, yet instead the sensations were just becoming more and more distinct. I pressed the heel of my hands against my lids.

Boy, was this a mess.

I flipped on the console and started tipping.

By the time I'd finished my report and composed all necessary messages my eyes needed matchsticks to stay open. Seriously, how the turian managed to be still up and kicking was beyond me.

My gaze wandered to the assortment of dirty weapons. I sighed and reached for the cleaning cloth and oil. No matter how tired, I simply didn't had it in me to leave them like this.

After a few minutes I felt myself becoming calmer, as my mind and body fell into the soothingly familiar routine. Only then did I realize that there was something relaxed about the presence as well and I couldn't help my smile. All too easy to conjure the picture of the sniper sitting in the Armory and fussing over his rifle like a Mommy over her baby.

I gave the last throwing knife a quick brush, then struggled to get off the chair. With a snarl for my stiffened limbs, I fumbled for the clasps of my armor. To no avail. I gave up with a curse, entered the bath cabin, kicked off my boots and crawled under the shower, armor, fatigues and all.

For a few moments I just stood under the warm spray, waiting for the day's horrors and exertion to wash away. It was bliss. Bliss in its purest form. Then, slowly and mechanically, my fingers moved. Chest. Shoulder. Arms. Legs. Bit by bit the armor clattered to the shower base. I struggled out of the wet fatigues. Hot water hammered against my naked skin so painfully good. My aching muscles gave in and relaxed. With a groan I leaned forward, my palms pressed against the cool metal of the wall, every bruise suddenly a hundred times more intense. I risked a glance over my shoulder at the mirror over the sink. A purple haematoma the size of my head glared back at me. Oi. Good thing Chakwas had been too busy with everybody else to notice. So far. With my record it was only a matter of time when I'd have to let her stich me up again. Uhg.

Another minute had to pass before I finally could bring myself to move again and reach for the soap. Something wasn't quite right about my shoulder either. Still, no broken limbs, no bullet holes. All systems RFA. Sort of.

I switched off the shower, grabbed a towel and piled the armor to the side. Then I padded out to conquer those stupid stairs.

Towel still wrapped around my shoulders, I dropped face first into the pillow. For a brief moment I cursed myself for my carelessness. What if Harbinger tried to mess with my head again? What if… But the softest cotton greeted my skin. I inhaled, the faint scent of sun-warmed metal embracing me.

Oh gods. It was better than expected. It was heaven.

Hugging the turian's pillow even tighter, I shut out the outside world.

~V~

I sensed her even before I was fully awake.

Curled up in serene tranquility the knot of foreign emotion nestled in the back of my head almost like a peculiar extension of my own mind. Separated, yes, and yet so… close.

Refusing to wake up in earnest just yet, I stretched out my hand against my body's protests. Found soft, pliable skin. Wrapped my arm around a warm midriff. Something stirred within the serenity and then her back shifted against my bare front. There was a tiny, very female sigh and it triggered a profound reaction. Which had nothing to do with her lack of clothes and everything with the powerful sensation of peacefulness that ran through me.

Wasn't it grotesque to find such peace in times of total annihilation? Wasn't it wrong to secretly be grateful for Saren's betrayal and the Reapers' existence, because otherwise I might have never met her? To thank Cerberus for all their experiments that had enabled them to bring her back?

I nudged my face against her neck, her loose hair tickling my nose. Damn me, but despite everything this felt right. More, my life felt right. Like it hadn't in a really long time.

I pushed against the fatigue that wanted to pull me under once more and breathed in deep, trying to commit each nuance of her scent to my memory. Trying to hold on to the moment's deceptive beauty as long as I could. I knew it wouldn't last. Not in this world, not with this war.

But here and now I could keep my eyes shut and pretend, if just for a little while longer. Pretend that this was just another morning and we were just another couple. Pretend while I listened to the soft sound of her breathing and the faint double-beat of her heart – and how they slowly blended with the whispers that drifted up from some other, primal place; a place buried too deeply to ever be reached by logic or reason.

Mine.

My arm tightened and I pulled her a little closer to me, fighting the reflex to dig my fingers into her unprotected belly. Sooner or later the Reapers would come for her again. I would be ready. No machine was going to steal her from me. Not on my bloody watch. Not as long as I had one spark of life left.

The pragmatic tactician in me shuddered at the overly melodramatic promise. That kind of promise… it gained you nothing but misery. Another of life's illustrious lessons – yet again I refused to listen to the voice of reason and turned towards the sleeping awareness instead.

Curious. While awake the alien presence had mostly been a well-differentiated knot, shielded and kept apart by her consciousness' mental guards. Now there was something diffuse to it that blurred the once sharp boundaries to a haze and I couldn't quite shake off the impression I only had to look hard enough to get a glimpse at what was hidden behind. Even though we barely understood more than just a fraction of its nature, the advantage in combat was already undeniable. With practice and familiarization it would be immense. I suppressed a chuckle. I bet Harbinger didn't see that one coming and –

I turned cold.

Underneath the haze a shadow stirred and a disturbing sensation brushed over my mind like a bitter wind. Was this… I focused. No. Not a shadow. Worse. So much worse. A festering, all-consuming dark, pulsing through the awareness in thick tendrils of black. Oppressive. Chocking. Wrong.

Dread crawled down my spine and I struggled, against my instincts to run, against the vortex of hopelessness that wanted so very much to drag me away.

Sprits. The extent of the Reaper's corruption was shattering. Nobody could fight something like this. Not even her.

The confession felt a damn lot like a serrated blade driven straight into my heart.

So much for promises.

No. On the outside world my body was once again refusing to give in. My embrace tightened. I had lost her once. I wouldn't lose her again. I wouldn't…

Light.

Out of nothing a razor thin halo suddenly rimmed the edges of the corruption just as the Spectre turned in my arms, a pair of human hands moving up my chest. The awareness contracted once, twice; then the haze pulled back and compacted into the familiar impenetrable barrier that once more sealed off this deepest part of her. But in the last moment the halo… flared. Wild and bright and warm; a roaring sun fighting off the night.

What the…

Slowly I opened my eyes to the cabin's day illumination and found the Commander squinting at me through hooded eyes. A tiny smile tugged on her reddish lips.

"Hey…" Shepard mumbled.

"Hey…" I dragged out my reply while feeding all my jumbling thoughts into that imaginary flame, just like my first sniper instructor had taught me to calm my mind. She was already disturbingly good at deciphering my thoughts as it was. No need to hand her any more ammo.

She blinked. One blink the very image of benign sleepiness and the next the full weight of a commanding officer's gaze drilled into me.

"Garrus. You really shouldn't have."

Warning. All of a sudden the sun-colored strand of hair that had fallen down the side of her face wanted me very much to curl my fingers into it.

"Uhm…"

It took me a split second to realize that this was it. My conversation skills would not ride to my rescue in a blaze of intellectual glory. Instead I leaned forward and nuzzled the spot where her shoulder connected with her neck.

"What?" I mumbled against her shoulder while trailing my hand over the gentle curve of her hipbone and up her back. Evasion might not be my strongest forte. But distraction I could manage.

She didn't reply. That is, not verbally. With a private grin I returned to lick the thin, sensitive skin sheathing her small collarbone and got rewarded with another spike of excitement. Yeah. Let's put the beacon's tactical advantage to even better use…

Her fist boxed against the side of my ribcage. Hard. In fact, no-nonsense kind of hard. Sighing, I raised my head and the pale-haired Spectre pushed back and sat up, the edge of the blanket hugged to her chest.

"I mean this," Shepard said and made an encompassing gesture with one hand. "Falling asleep next to the homicidal nutjob. It's not… safe." She wrinkled her peculiar shaped nose, making the tiny spots that peppered her skin stand out even more. It catapulted her expression from dangerous straight into the cute-department. Now if this wasn't a suicidal thought…

I snorted. "You see, I have a feeling there might probably be some forewarning next time. So…"

The woman started drumming her forehead with her fist while growling an elaborate gush of curses at me. I believe I caught the words "insufferable" and "crack-brained".

"That's nice. Very scary, Commander. But you might want to throw in a menacing scowl to round things off. After all, you have a rep to uphold."

The drumming stopped and traded place with an evil glare. "Har-dee-har. You think you're so funny, sniper boy," she told me with a serious voice and a crazy light inside her eyes.

I had a fraction of a moment to react and then she tackled me; an irrationally flexible human body plowing into me in a tangle of arms and legs and blanket. Using the momentum, I caught her in a hug and rolled over, trapping her beneath me.

Sniper boy? Seriously?

"Like you say, little Spectre," I chuckled next to her ear. "I live to amuse."

She shifted; her body warm against mine. I felt her lips brush the corner of my mouth. Suddenly bereft of even the last traces of command her voice turned soft,

"I love you. I love you, Garrus Vakarian."

I was all of a sudden very aware of her naked legs rubbing against my thighs and... Wait what was that?

I opened my mouth. My brain frantically thrust some words before me but somehow I'd forgotten what to do with them. Light's on but nobody's home.

She pressed another kiss on my jaw, whispering conspiratorially, "Hey badass, this is the part where you're supposed to say something, y'know…" her tone was playful enough, but oh how I felt her hesitation.

I love you, Garrus Vakarian –

That's okay; just let me hold on to you while I'm having an apoplexy in response.

I was a hopeless case.

I hugged her closer, my scarred cheek rubbing against hers. "Shepard… I…"

"Commander?" EDI's voice suddenly filtered in.

I lifted my head to exchange a look with the Commander. Shepard nodded and I released her with a groan. Our precious moment of intimacy was gone and we both knew it. She sat up again, dragging her hand over her face.

"What's up, EDI?"

"Specialist Traynor needs to speak with you."

"Okay. Patch her through."

"Shepard?" a very agitated Comm Specialist chirped up through the intercom. "I'm sorry, but it's Kai Leng. I… I think I found him."