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Chapter Thirty-Seven – Belonging

Shepard loosened her grip on her rifle and breathed in slowly, the air dragging across her tongue, dry and too warm. She leaned back against the rough lines of the rock and almost managed to hide her smile when Garrus did the same, the side of his arm brushing hers.

Forty minutes over uneven terrain – sometimes running, sometimes pushing through onrushing groups of husks – had taken them through the jagged valleys and into the vicious chaos of another surface base, thronged with Reaper ground troops and the sky above split with gunfire. They'd found the Primarch – the new Primarch, Shepard thought, and wondered how much else she'd missed – and beneath the awful weight of necessity, he'd given in and agreed.

"Hey," Shepard said, and nudged Garrus gently. "You said you know him?"

"Victus? Yeah. Not very well, but yeah. If he's agreed, he's agreed."

"Good."

"It'll be tough," Garrus said thoughtfully. "Dragging him away from this."

"Yeah," Shepard said, and she understood. The frenetic, day-by-day motions of combat were easier to track, in numbers and ground gained and ground lost and in the sped beat of your heart every morning. Easier to count the enemies when they toppled underneath the barrel of your own gun. "I get it."

"You reckon this summit will work?"

"I have no idea," she answered immediately. When she felt him laugh, she added, "I'm thinking I'll be locking a bunch of government leaders in a room on the Normandy together and then wiping the blood off the walls afterwards."

"Ouch," Garrus remarked mildly.

She shifted slightly, too aware of him, of the teasing glide of his hand over the back of hers. Too aware of how they were waiting, waiting for Primarch Victus to gather his gear and farewell his men and give them the go-ahead to march back to the airfield. "So," she said. "Tell me about your Reaper taskforce."

"I'm advising," he said drily.

Shepard grinned. "Advising."

"Yeah. When a Reaper comes plummeting down, I tell people to run the other way."

She snorted. "Very funny."

"It was something we got Fedorian to do," Garrus said, his voice roughening slightly. "He gave me handful of operatives to shut me up."

"What did you do with them?"

"As much as I could get away with." His mouth parted in a grin that vanished too soon. "Supply lines, early warning protocols. Fleet reports. I like to think it helped. I, ah. You won't believe this. It all got started because I went to talk to my father."

"Your father," she echoed.

"Long story."

"You'll tell me about it?"

"Of course I will." He turned slightly, his shoulder curving against hers. "Will you tell me about Earth?"

"It's not that exciting. I spent most of it staring at the wall. I suspect your time was spent much more productively."

Garrus' blue eyes glittered. "Perhaps."

"Of course I'll tell you," she said, quietly. "I, yeah. I'll do that. Yeah."

"You know, that actually made sense," Garrus responded, and dodged the idle swipe she aimed at his arm.

"Commander?" Footsteps, and then Vega ducked between the high slopes of two boulders, his rifle loose in his hands.

"What's up, Vega?"

"The Primarch says he's ready to go."

"Okay." Shepard shoved upright and away from the rocks. "Let's try to get ourselves there quickly and quietly and without introducing ourselves to too many Reapers."

Garrus crossed the last stretch of ground, stepped around a pair of hurrying soldiers, and strode up into the communications bunker. Corinthus turned before he could speak, and asked, "You all make it back?"

"Yeah," Garrus answered. For a wavering moment, he wondered at the knot of strange trepidation that had lodged itself inside his chest. "Shepard's getting Victus onto the shuttle."

"Okay." Corinthus' head tilted. "You think this is going to work?"

"I don't know. I think it's about all we have to work with right now."

"Yes," Corinthus said heavily. "Of course."

"General," Garrus said. "I'd like to request a transfer. To the Normandy."

Corinthus' gaze sharpened, raking over him. "Request."

"Actually, no," Garrus amended. "Not really."

"You're volunteering to coordinate with the Primarch, are you?"

Garrus bit back the sudden urge to smile. "Yes, sir."

"And you'll keep Menae Command fully updated with your progress of however this summit goes?"

"Yes, sir."

Something in the hard angles of Corinthus' face softened. "Then go and be useful."

"Thank you, sir." He hesitated before adding, "I really thought I'd have to fight for it."

"It was tempting. You can leave me your operatives and I'll give them plenty to keep themselves occupied."

"I'm sure they'll appreciate that." He reached out and clasped Corinthus' hand. "Take care."

Corinthus barked out a laugh. "Around here?"

"Then the next time a Reaper tries to walk all over the camp, remember to run and hide."

"Good advice for anyone. Look after yourself, Vakarian."

"You too, sir."

Brisk minutes later, he was at the airfield, loose gravel crunching under his boots. He looked up in time to see Shepard swinging herself out of the shuttle door, and as he had so often today – when they'd trekked through broken valleys, when she'd come marching into the camp – he found himself looking at her. Looking at the shadows under her eyes and the strain in the set of her shoulders and the way she had one hand clamped against the side of the shuttle.

Looking at her as if he might be able to see whatever had happened on Earth in her.

"Hey," she said. "You okay?"

"Feels weird," he admitted. "First day I got up here, I wanted to be anywhere else."

"Yeah," she said, very gently. "I get that. You need more time?"

"No. No, it's okay. I've talked to a few people and I even cleared out my gear locker."

"Dutiful," Shepard said teasingly.

"You know it."

He followed her up and into the shuttle and half-listened to the low murmur of conversation, Liara responding to something Vega said about rough terrain and numbers, the pilot affirming take-off. The engines surged into life, and he felt the familiar lift and sway as the shuttle rose. Shepard sat beside him, her thigh brushing his when she shifted slightly. She stayed wordless while the shuttle curved out and into the mute blackness of space.

"Closing on the Normandy, Commander."

"Thanks, Cortez. How's it looking out there?"

"Just about the way it did on our way in," the pilot answered, his voice rough.

"Yeah," Shepard said, and Garrus wondered if he'd sounded the same on Menae, shaping words to fill aching silences because there was no other choice.

The shuttle slewed sideways, settling lightly on the hangar deck. The slow thunk of the ramp closing behind them followed.

"Liara," Shepard said genially. "Could you take Primarch Victus up to the CIC? Give him as much of a look around as he wants, and I'll be up in five minutes."

Liara smiled. "Of course."

Shepard heaved the shuttle door open and vaulted down onto the floor. Garrus trailed her, noting the wide, clean space of the armoury and the ranks of gleaming workbenches.

"Been tidied up a bit," he remarked drily.

"Just a little," she replied. She waited until the others were out of the shuttle and halfway across to the door. "I guess duty calls."

"It usually does," Garrus said, and saw her expression soften. "It's okay."

"You want to meet me in my quarters?" She swallowed, and added, "I mean, if you want to."

"I want to," he said. "Twenty minutes?"

"Twenty minutes," she echoed. She reached for him then, her fingers twining around his. "Besides, you're distracting me."

Garrus laughed. "I'm distracting you?"

She tugged him closer and he responded, hauling her against his chest, ignoring the encasing press of her armour. Her hands clawed up to his shoulders, desperate and clutching hard. "Yeah," she said, her voice half-muffled against him. "You really are."

Fifteen minutes later, Garrus stood poised on the loft deck, his mind an unhelpful whirl. He'd seen Joker, and checked in with Liara, and now he was too aware of the acrid stink of Menae, clinging to his armour and his rifle and the inside of his mouth.

The elevator swished open, and Shepard said mildly, "You're still here."

"I considered raiding the mess hall, but then I remembered what the food's like."

Shepard laughed, a little unevenly. She slipped past him, keying the door open with one hand. "You okay?"

He nodded, and stepped across the threshold and into the flooding white light of her quarters. The silence stretched between them, and when he searched for the right words, he failed.

So many days, he thought. So many days and he hoped – desperately, painfully, he hoped – that she was still herself.

The door clicked shut, and he was aware of her still moving, her hands flitting to her weapon harness, heaving it off and onto its rack. He did the same – anything, movement and motion and stalling because he didn't know what else to do – until he'd shrugged his armour off and so had she and hell she looked worn, stripped down to her fatigues.

"Shepard," he said, her name catching on his tongue.

"You want to sit down?"

"Yeah."

He let her move first, gesturing him to the couch. He sat beside her, and she shifted closer, her dark eyes fixed on him.

"Hey," Garrus said, and scooped her hands between both of his. "Can I touch you?"

He'd never seen her like this, he was sure. He'd never seen her so still.

"Yeah," she answered, and a smile lightened her face. "Sorry. It's been a tough few days."

"Yeah." He touched her hair first, running his fingers through the thick dark strands. He worked his way down to the column of her throat, and the delicate bones of her face, and down again to where he could feel her heartbeat thundering. "You okay?"

"I don't know," she said. "I don't…I'll be okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, and turned her face into his palm. "You're here."

Her words hit him like a punch to the gut and he swallowed. "I wondered. I mean, I didn't know, if. You know."

"Garrus Vakarian," she said. "You are an idiot."

"Hey," he protested mildly. "I've had a lot going on lately."

She reached up and caught his collar and dragged his head down. "I missed you," she told him firmly. "So much."

"Yeah," he said, the word rushing out against the side of her face. "I missed you. I thought I'd never, well. I'm not making much sense."

"I don't know," Shepard said, her voice softening. She pressed her mouth against his chin, against the angles of his face above, across his markings. "I think I understood that."

He laughed, and when he folded his arms around her, she sank against him. She pushed until he was on his back and she was stretched across him and his breathing was coming ragged into her hair. "Shepard," he managed. He ran his hands down the slope of her back. "Okay?"

"Okay," she said. "Garrus?"

"Yes," he said, fiercely.

She moved, her hands smoothing across his chest, her weight settling over his hips. Her fingers were fitful at his shoulder, at the side of his face, tracing the lines of his mouth.

"Hey," Garrus said, very gently. "I'm not going anywhere."

She laughed, and he felt it as the locked tension in her seeped away. "Sorry," she said. She grinned, and added, "I think I'm trying to do everything at once."

He cupped the back of her thighs and squeezed. "Yeah," he said. "But generally it's easier if you start by getting rid of your clothes."

"You first," she retorted.

He had time to laugh before she reached for him again, finding cloth and tugging. She yanked his tunic off over his head and swore when it snagged against the back of his fringe. He wrestled free of it, and his thoughts scattered wildly when he felt the searching movement of her fingers, thin and strong and skimming down to the softer skin just above his hips.

She explored him, slowly and tenderly, as if she'd never had her hands on him before. Her touch dipped below his waist and he arched in blind, frantic response. He was aware of her fumbling with buckles and the clasps beneath, and then the aching relief when her fingers circled him, finally and desperately.

"Shepard," he said, and the roughness in his own voice blurred her name. "That's…"

"Unfair?"

"Entirely," he answered.

He levered upright and shakily he pulled her fatigues off, shirt and vest and the faded underwear beneath. Her belt thwarted him until she helped, her fingers wreathing over his. He traced the contours of her, mapping the wiry shift of the muscles beneath her skin, until he found new scars. Almost tremulously, he touched one of them, and the spread of bruises above.

"Hey," Shepard said, and he felt the damp pressure of her lips at the corner of his mouth. "It's okay."

"I know."

He brushed the sharp line of her collarbone, and lower, until her breathing hitched. She sighed out his name, and when he slid one hand up the inside of her thigh, he heard her laugh, half-strangled.

"You're teasing," she said.

"Revenge," he told her mildly.

"Yeah?" She shook, her whole body curving beneath him. "That's what you're calling it?"

"Yeah," he managed. "Something like that."

He stroked, opening her, his fingers gliding against the yielding wetness between her thighs. Her hips rocked, matching the insistent motion of his hand. Too fast – too fast and it was wonderful and shuddering all at once – she bucked up against him, her hand over the back of his, her fingers vising around his wrist. Wordlessly, she coaxed him above her. They fumbled through a clumsy, breathless moment while she curled her legs around him, while he reached between them. Gently, he eased into her, and the wrenching pleasure of it stole breath and thought. He was aware of her hands on his waist, sliding and gripping, and sliding again.

"I really," he said unevenly. "Don't think I'm going to last."

She gasped out a laugh and locked her legs behind the back of his. "It's okay," she said. "Garrus. It's okay."

He nodded, and his head dropped against her shoulder, and heartbeats later, he lost himself.

"Hey," she said. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he mumbled. He licked the side of her neck and tasted salt and heat and her. He felt the hurried thud of her pulse and asked, "Is this uncomfortable?"

"You know," Shepard said. "I think I can handle you on top of me right now. I may not even let you move."

He laughed. "I'll live."

"You'd better." She traced his chin, and the lines of his mouth. "Can I tell you something?"

"Anything."

"I was terrified I wouldn't find you."

"Yeah," he said, the word heavy on his tongue. "I get it. I kept thinking I'd be stuck there. I kept thinking I didn't know what had happened to you and that there was no way I'd be learning anything fast. You know the weird part, though?"

"There's only one weird part?"

Garrus laughed. He skimmed one hand over the curve of her shoulder and answered, "Sometimes it is worse, not knowing. You can chase yourself in insane circles thinking the very worst, but when you're not doing that, you can hope."

"Yeah," she said, softly. "You can."

He shifted to one side slightly, so that he could look into her face. "It happened so fast."

"Yeah. Yeah, it did. Even though we knew it was going to." Shepard sucked in a slow breath and added, "When I saw them coming out of the clouds, I just…I don't know."

"The one time you really don't want to be right?"

"Hah. Yes."

For long, lazy moments, he lay beside her, aware of little but the bare warmth of her skin and the way she was looking at him.

Her eyes on him as if she didn't want to look away, her face all delightfully flushed.

"I hated leaving you there," Garrus blurted, almost without thinking about it. "On Earth."

She found his hand, wreathed her fingers through his. "I know. But, you know, you'd've really not liked it on Earth."

"Before or after the Reapers?" he asked, deadpan.

She laughed, unfettered and spluttering. "Oh, very funny, Vakarian."

He gathered her against him. "Forgive me?"

"I think I can manage that."

"I'm flattered."

"You should be." She leaned her forehead against his, close enough that he could smell her, could smell them both on her skin. "You know what we should do next?"

"More sex?" He coughed and added, "Well. Longer sex."

"Shower first." She grinned and rolled out from under his arm.

He heard the soft sounds of her feet hitting the floor before she hauled him upright. He swayed, and she steadied him, her arms sliding around his waist and holding him there.

"I missed you," she said, her mouth moving against his shoulder. "I'm still not quite believing that I ran into you this morning."

"I'm sure I can think of a few more ways to prove it to you."

She laughed, and disentangled herself from him long enough to lead him across the cool white floor and into the small bathroom. The bright flood of the lights fell across her shoulders and her scars, and after she'd flicked the water on, he asked, "How'd you get them?"

"That one?" She turned and added, "I took a running jump that turned into a running fall. There wasn't much time to grab armour."

"What happened?"

"Vega came to cart me in front of the defense committee." She stepped under the spray, and he followed her, tipping his face up against the welcome heat of it. "The meeting got about three minutes in before a rather large and rather angry Reaper landed over the river and blew the building up."

Garrus bit back a laugh. "Only you could make that sound so uneventful."

"It was terrible," she said, quieter. "The worst part was not being able to do anything. I mean, I got Anderson out and we ran like hell. I know we shot a fair few of the bastards on the way, but they just kept coming and coming."

"Yeah." He watched the fall of the water, travelling in gleaming lines across her shoulders. "We got the Primarch into a shuttle and onto to Menae, and it felt like running away."

"You did what you had to." Lopsidedly, she smiled. "And sometimes, when there's a Reaper glaring at you, running away's about the only sensible option."

"Yeah, I know."

"Doesn't mean you can't be pissed off about it, though." She reached for the soap and pressed it into his hands.

"Do Reapers glare?" He started with her hands, rubbing soap over bruises and the small creases between her fingers. "Actively, I mean."

Shepard laughed. "We can ask the next one we blow up. Well, before we blow it up."

"Sounds like a plan."

He turned his attention to her hair, dark and wet and dragging against his palms. She sighed, her eyes sliding closed. He took his time, deliberately and tenderly, working shampoo through the short strands. Afterwards, she did the same, scrubbing the grime and the grit and the ash off him, lingering over the inside of his wrists and the angles of his face. Together they stumbled out of the steam and she toppled them both onto the bed, still dripping.

She rolled into his arms, all slick skin and warmth, cleaving against him from hip to shoulder. "You going to be offended if I fall asleep?"

He laughed. "Not at all."

"Mmm," she said, and the sound was swallowed by a yawn. "Good. Haven't slept well since Earth. Well, since before Earth."

"No," Garrus agreed. He found the nape of her neck and stroked, pushing his fingers into the damp ends of her hair. "Me neither."

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't go anywhere."

Shepard surfaced from the strange blur of her dreams and slowly she became aware that she was tangled around Garrus. She had one leg trapped between both of his, and somehow she'd managed to fold herself against the side of his chest.

She shifted, and felt it as he stirred. "Hey," she murmured.

"Hey," Garrus mumbled.

"Did you sleep at all?"

"Yeah," he answered. "I think so."

"You know," she said, and distracted herself by tracing between the solid plates of his chest. "There were a few moments when I really thought I'd never see you again."

"I'm hard to kill. You know that."

She laughed. "Yeah. It almost wasn't – well, it was that – but it was also that I didn't know where you were. You could've been alive and fine and I still could've missed walking into you."

"Yeah," he said, and his arms tightened around her. "I thought of you. Every night. Well, most nights. Some nights I was just too damn tired from fighting Reapers."

"You're so romantic."

"You know it."

"How did it go with your father?"

Garrus laughed, his angular frame shaking against her. "I, ah. I think I learned that he's about as stubborn as I am. Or I remembered it."

"And you didn't kill each other?" she asked, teasingly.

"It was strange. I thought it was going to be so, I don't know. Difficult. And it was, but…some of it wasn't."

"How do you mean?"

"He listened," Garrus said. "He listened to me while we put the pieces of it together. All the way from me running into you on the Citadel, all that bullshit with Saren and C-Sec. All the way from the beginning."

"He believed you?"

"He did," Garrus admitted. "And hearing it all strung together at the same time – I don't know, Shepard. Hell of a story."

"Yeah." She grinned and idly, she trailed one hand along the jut of his hip. "When you put it together, it gets crazy quickly."

"He got me into see the Primarch, and then we spent far too long talking about things before actually getting anything done." He shrugged and added, "Got there in the end. I don't know if it really made any difference. I'd like to think it did."

"If you got even a few people clear in time, then it worked."

"Yeah." He exhaled sharply. "I guess. It's just tough to think of it like that when I know what Palaven looks like right now."

"Yes," she said. She found his hand and locked her fingers through his. "I know what you mean. Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"What about the other stuff? You know, not the paperwork."

"Oh." He hesitated before he said, "You know how weird it is to have your dad making you dinner when it's the first damn time you've been inside his apartment in years?"

Almost unbidden, she found herself smiling slightly. "I can imagine."

"We talked," Garrus said. "We talked about Omega. He looked so old."

"Garrus."

"No, it's okay. It was just," he said, and paused, as if he was hunting for the right words. "He was so damn stubborn, and so was I, but he listened. He's still on Palaven."

Shepard swallowed against the sudden thickness in her throat. "When did you last talk?"

"A few days ago. Apparently he's forgotten that he's retired. We ordered a general evacuation, but," he said, and she heard the clipped sound of his teeth clicking shut.

Uselessly, she said, "I'm sorry."

"You hear from your mom?"

"Through Hackett," Shepard said. "She's serving with the fleet."

"Good." Garrus lifted her hand between both of his, clutching hard. "I, ah. Ran into my sister. Well, I said something about her, and Dad bullied her into spending some of her leave with us. Her ship's somewhere between Menae and Palaven."

"She okay?"

"She was, the last time we talked."

She heard the exhausted emptiness in his voice and ached. Sometimes, she thought, words were pointless, platitudes shaped in air. Silently, she lifted his hands to her mouth and kissed his fingers in turn.

"You know," Garrus said roughly. "You still haven't told me much about Earth."

"Yeah." She wavered for a terrible, wondering instant, before she told him about the cell and the window and the rec room. The grinding slow drip of the days and how she'd thought of him and woken to empty sheets. How she'd paced every inch of the cell until the day the Reapers had come plummeting out of the clouds.

How the Normandy had come sweeping round, the landing ramp dropping dangerously fast, while the river was whipped white under the ponderous bulk of another Reaper.

"Sorry," Garrus said, halfway to startled laughter. "Joker bullshitted them?"

"The whole retrofit team," Shepard said.

"I'm impressed."

"So was I." She grinned and added, "That and EDI apparently does a damn good impression of a VI."

"What about the crew?"

"They didn't ask for any of it," Shepard confessed heavily. "We were pretty empty until we got ourselves resupplied at the Citadel, and then everything went to shit on Mars."

He said nothing, only drew her against his shoulder. His fingers feathered through her hair, plying the strands apart.

"Cerberus," she said, and she told him how they'd woven their way through the base while the storm surged up outside. How they'd run into Liara, how the red dust had come screaming over the base and how they'd been too slow, how the Cerberus machine had come clambering out of the smoking wreckage. "It's generally not much fun to fuck up that badly so early on."

"You didn't fuck it up. Sometimes things get away from you."

"Yeah, I know."

"Alenko's okay?"

"Stabilised at the Citadel."

"These Prothean blueprints," Garrus said slowly. "You reckon they'll actually come to anything?"

"I don't know. I want them to. Liara sees something in them. I want them to mean something. I just," she said, and tipped her head against his shoulder. "I don't want to throw everything we have at something that's so unknown."

"So the plan is to keep kicking the crap out of Reapers until we know more?"

Shepard laughed. "Succinct. And, yeah."

"And until then you get to wrestle with politicians."

"Thanks," she said wryly. "What makes you think you get a pass?"

"Shepard, I was hoping for a vacation."

"No rest for the wicked. Don't you know that by now?"

"Very funny." He moved, rolling onto his back and lifting her above him in the same motion. She settled onto him, her legs opening over his hips. "Of course I'll be there."

She crossed her hands over his chest and leaned on them. "What about Menae?"

"You saw it."

"Yeah."

"They took a hell of a pounding from the very first day. It was," he said, and stopped, his blue eyes flickering. "Technically, our command base was holding. I'm not sure it felt like that, though. I remember, we tried tracking the attacks."

His voice was burred rough, with exhaustion or the memories or both, his words jolting, and painfully, she understood.

"I think all we read in their movements was that they'd throw everything at us, wait a few hours, and then do it again." Beneath her, he sighed, and she felt the shuddering motion of it. "I don't know, Shepard. I just keep thinking that if that's how it starts, then…"

"Then how long can we keep it going."

"Yeah."

"For as long as we have to," she said fiercely.

"Yeah, I know." His hands slipped up the arch of her back. "And I know we knew it would happen like this."

"Hell of a difference actually seeing it."

"Yeah. It is. Sorry."

"For what?"

"I feel like I don't know what I'm saying. Got too much that I want to say."

"That's what I'm here for," she said gently. "Listening, wasting time in the shower and pinning you to the bed."

Garrus laughed, his whole frame shaking under her. "Is that a challenge?"

"It could be," she told him archly, and grinned when he moved, tipping her off him and onto her back.

She felt the searching pressure of him, of his face – all hard angles and slightly too sharp in places and god she'd missed this - grazing gently over the flat of her belly and down, until he flicked his tongue over the swell of her hip.

"Garrus," she said, breathing out the shape of his name. She wanted him closer to her, closer and inside her, so that she could abandon thought and do little else but feel. "Faster?"

Gently – delicately and merciless and she damn well knew it was deliberate – his fingers played between her thighs, circling. He lingered a moment longer, tortuously, before he moved, his hands settling against the back of her knees. His first, deep thrust had them both shuddering. She surged up to meet his rhythm, her hands catching at the back of his neck, urgent and unsteady. Afterwards, he rolled onto his side, gathering her against his chest.

"This okay?"

"Garrus, you're not going to be allowed to move." She traced the blue lines of his markings and the blur where they gave way to his scars. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am. This is, I mean, you're," he said, and nuzzled the side of her face. "Wonderful."

"I missed this," she said. "Just…this."

"I know what you mean."

For long, indolent minutes, she stayed tangled around him, her fingers wandering beneath his fringe, down the back of his neck to the wiry span of his shoulders.

"Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"How's Hackett been managing coordination from his end?"

"You're breaking the mood."

"Noted," he said drily.

"My guess? He doesn't sleep much." She smiled crookedly and added, "The policy we're operating under right now is called something rather similar to tell everyone everything just in case it's important. I've got EDI and Traynor flagging a lot of incoming data. It's not all useful."

"But some is," he conceded. "Traynor? The kid in the CIC?"

"Yeah, she was hauled out of a lab somewhere. She's doing alright," Shepard said. "Those first few days were tough, but she's doing alright."

"Only the first few days?"

"Nice to see your sense of humour is intact." She flicked his shoulder idly. "Hackett wants us to send anything his way that could be useful for the blueprints. A lot of it's fumbling around in the dark, but I don't see any other way to approach it."

"Yeah. Trying to do four things at once, and none of them easy."

"Only four?"

Garrus laughed, softly. He cupped one side of her face, his thumb rubbing over her cheekbone. "For now."

"Garrus," she said, and hesitated.

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask about numbers?"

He stilled, and she felt the sudden, awful tension in him. "Three million lost the first day," he said, the words clipped and measured. "Five the second."

"Garrus."

"It's okay."

"No, it isn't."

"No," he said unevenly. He brushed his forehead against hers, so that she was breathing against his mouth, breathing him in. "I guess it isn't."

Shepard woke to rumpled sheets and Garrus, half-sprawled across her, and the unfamiliar awareness that one of her legs was almost numb. Carefully, she eased out from under him, and laughed when he sighed something inaudible and dragged her back against his shoulder anyway.

"Hey," she murmured, twisting around in his arms. "You alive?"

"Mmm," he mumbled, and his eyes opened, narrow and glazed. "Yeah. What time is it?"

"About to hit the daytime cycle."

"Plan?"

"Check in with your Primarch." She kissed the slant of his jaw. "And give you the rest of the tour that you skipped yesterday."

"Like that was my fault."

"We can share the blame."

"Magnanimous, Shepard."

"Always. And then once I've talked to the Council, we can go be their errand boys and try and get this summit going."

Garrus chuckled. "Yeah. That's going to be about as tough as wrangling with a Reaper, you know."

"With less laserfire and more talking, I'm hoping." She traced her way down his chest, her gaze on the tremulous movement of her own fingers. "So, I was thinking. You've got no assigned quarters. I was wondering if we might keep it that way."

"You mean," he said.

"Yeah," she answered. "If you want to."

"I want to," he blurted out. "I mean, yeah."

Shepard laughed. "I just figure that the galaxy's going to hell too damn fast. Might as well go do the crazy things you never thought you'd do."

"I'm touched."

"You should be." She lifted one of his hands and pressed the rough pads of his fingers against her lips. "Actually I'm just really glad you said yes."

"You thought I wouldn't want to?"

"I don't know what I thought," she admitted. "So I thought I'd just come right out and ask."

"Being together as much as we can?" Garrus said, and she heard his voice roughen. "That's not something I'm going to say no to."

"Wait til I start hogging the sheets."

"Shepard, I already know you do that."

"I also leave wet towels on the floor."

"You're not making a great case for yourself here," he said drily.

She felt the gentle pressure of his hand under her chin, and then he was urging her head up so that she was looking at him.

"Hey," Garrus said, very softly. "If I didn't know you were you, I'd almost say you look scared."

"Not scared. Nervous." She smiled. "Stupid. We're probably going to get eaten by Reapers tomorrow and here I am, worried that you'd say no."

"Shepard," he said, mildly admonishing. "You know me better than that."

"Well, yeah. Doesn't mean I can't worry about it though."

"I know. I get that. I just, well. You're stuck with me."

"Good."

He reached for her, and she turned into the circling warmth of his arms. She hauled herself halfway on top of him, his laughter joining hers when she bumped one knee against the inside of his. She had both hands on his hips and her mouth against the rough skin there when the comm station buzzed.

Shepard swore. She kicked the sheets away and, after she'd pointedly ignored Garrus' amused gaze, she flattened her hand on the comm button. "Yeah?"

"Commander?"

"This better be good, Joker. Really good."

She heard him cough before he said, "Yeah, ah. EDI's offline."

"She's what?"

"Yeah," Joker said. "I don't know, Commander. I can't raise her. And I've got Traynor down here just tracking systems that keep dipping."

"When did it start?"

"Few minutes ago. Fifteen."

"Okay." She pushed a hand through her hair. "I'll be down as soon as I can."

"Okay. Thanks, Commander."

Shepard turned away, frowning. She found her fatigues on the floor, and Garrus', scattered near the end of the bed.

"Duty calls?" he said, swinging his legs over the edge of the mattress.

"Yeah, and a little earlier than I'd anticipated." She flung his tunic across to him. "Fancy a run down to the AI core?"

"Well." He head tipped, and he grinned, a brief flash of teeth. "Not like I had anything else planned right now."