This has been a while in coming.

I had trouble writing this, as Femshep x Garrus is one of my favorite ships in fiction. Rosalind Shepard is based upon how I played the game, with her build, behavior, and abilities being lifted from it. I actually don't mind the fact that Garrus wasn't a romance option in the first Mass Effect, as it seems more organic - he is sorting out his emotions, just as Shepard herself is doing. Shepard was played as a Paragrade, with a colonist/war hero background.

"Well, I'm not sure if we could piss off anyone else today," Ashley grumbled as she went over the weapons stock.

Garrus shrugged from where he tapped on the console beside the MAKO. "Have you tried talking to Wrex?"

Ashley made no return comment, and Garrus glanced up to see her extending her middle finger at him. He smirked, and looked back down at his work, though he himself was trying to keep his own hands from shaking. They were going to Ilos, against all conventions and orders, and right into the fold. He dared not think further on it, as he knew that it would make him wonder as to whether he was following Shepard off a cliff.

It was almost innocent, in retrospect, how he had felt about her in that Council chamber, standing beside her with Kaidan Alenko flanking her on the opposite side. Alenko, Garrus had mixed feelings on. He supposed he had felt the first stirrings of jealousy, in how Kaidan was so friendly in speaking with Shepard, and joking with her, but he'd chided himself on it. Kaidan had known her for longer, and regardless, Virmire had ended everything.

Garrus hadn't known him very well, though he had been wary of the man's biotics. Shepard at least half relied on them, given her firearms training, but Kaidan was a different story. At least he had been polite and friendly. Regardless, losing Alenko left a palpable hole on their team, and on the ship.

Standing between them, Shepard could have glowed, and reveled in this crowning achievement, but she did not. She was humble, and quiet. Garrus wondered how he would personally react, if given such an opportunity, and wasn't altogether satisfied with the results. Of course, he'd be giddy, and not entirely composed, with a sense of jubilant pride. He felt embarrassed about that and kept his thoughts to himself.

But when Shepard turned to look at the two of them after being dismissed by the Council, she had that same curious, and playful expression on her face that he saw upon first meeting her. "Well, shall we, then?"

"Right behind you, Shepard." He'd been attracted then to this interesting woman, the first human Spectre.

He had his suspicions of her, at times, as to whether she was truly a benevolent person. She was presentable and professional to other officers, the Council, and the media, but there were less savory traits about her.

She did let him shoot Dr. Saleon, for one.

He'd encountered her on her own after closing Saleon's old case file. She was sipping the human beverage called coffee after the incident in the Normandy's mess hall, the low lights of the room glancing off her long black hair. Though she greeted him in a friendly manner, it didn't reach her blue eyes. No happiness ever really seemed to do so, with her gaze appearing to be haunted. When he asked her why she let him do it, she answered, "I was a colony kid. No one came for my family when they were murdered by Batarian slavers. I wanted justice for them, but not in the manner of the courts. It—" she paused and narrowed her eyes at the table beneath her, "It wasn't satisfying enough. They deserved better, just as Saleon's patients did."

"You think this, despite everything you've said to the contrary to me?" Garrus asked, leaning slightly forward on the table, his hands spread before him. It was similar to an interrogation session, though Shepard wasn't biting, her expression remaining set and calculating. He wondered if she was trying to subvert his opinion. Nevertheless, her words were genuine, that was obvious. He held himself against expressing pity for her, as she would not have wanted it from him, though he did feel it. He wondered how utterly alone she had felt, and for how long.

"I don't claim to be a perfect person, Garrus," she explained after thinking her answer over, "but what I want you to take from this is that you need to think for yourself. While I advocate diplomacy over everything else, some crimes are simply unforgivable." She took a sip of her coffee, and continued, "If you want to sit with me, you can. I'm not forcing you to stand."

Garrus relaxed his pose at that, standing fully. "Another time, maybe. I need to think on this."

Shepard nodded. "Door's always open."

It was understandable, then, that she was completely on edge when Batarian terrorists tried to crash an asteroid into Terra Nova. Shepard was rougher on that mission, and more violent, launching Batarians with her biotic powers into the nearest rock formations and blasting their limbs off with her shotgun.

"We may have a problem," Tali commented beside him as they darted after Shepard.

Garrus, however, replied, "If it actually presents itself."

Tali scoffed. "Suit yourself. I'd just prefer not for the three of us to be killed."

Despite his blasé tone, however, Garrus was carefully watching Shepard. She was slipping, it was plain to see, and he could tell why those of his race found biotics to be concerning – they made her a living weapon.

But then Shepard threw it all away, the fight, her rage, and the desire for justice when Balak held several hostages at gunpoint. They were cowering in fear, and Garrus was disgusted at the terrorist's using them as leverage. While it was a relief to recover the captured researchers safely, it was bittersweet, with Balak walking loose to do whatever else he pleased.

"What will happen if he takes more hostages in the future? He knows that that tactic already works on me," Shepard commented quietly on the shuttle ride back to the Normandy, her hands folded in her lap. Her shotgun leaned upright against her knee.

Tali, grasping onto the safety bar overhead with one hand, asked, "And what would have better, letting Balak kill them?"

"Of course not, but he's still out there."

Tali turned to look at Garrus, her head tilted in exasperation. Turning to look at Shepard, he replied, "I'm different from you, given that I'm in civil service, but the protection of sentient life is paramount in my line of work. The moment you forget that importance is the moment that I'll question my faith in you."

Shepard looked mystified at that, and Tali commented, "Perhaps you are better than you think you are, Shepard. It would do well for you to remember that."

Shepard chuckled at that. "I think you're saying that because I got you that special armor from Simon Atwell."

Tali's tone brightened. "Well, I can't say no to a nice gift, can I?"

The conversation, however, made Garrus wonder as to how much Shepard trusted herself when it came to her decisions. She seemed to be taking both his and Tali's opinions then as heavily important. A leader did that, but still, Shepard was warm, even considering her position. There were more examples than only that: she helped Tali find a gift for her people and helped Wrex find his family armor.

And he found himself considering what it would be like to call her by her first name, Rosalind, as opposed to her surname, Shepard, or did she prefer Roz? Servicing the MAKO helped to distract him from that thought, as it usually led to him wondering what it was like to touch that hair of hers. It was so different from a turian fringe, and it would fall so softly in his fingers. He immediately shook off that thought. Humans were weird.

Then came Virmire, with Saren holding Shepard in the air by the neck as if she was a ragdoll. The powerful commander had been left utterly helpless, tired and beaten as she was.

Crawling on the metal platform before Saren, Garrus felt like he hadn't been able to move quickly enough. His wounds burned in protest. If something happened to her…It was purely instinctual, that fear of losing Shepard, and he realized that was driving him was beyond the respect that he felt for her.

So that left him with emotions that he didn't have the time to sort out properly, and that was for the better, all things considering. There wasn't time to have that intimate a conversation with her, and it would only complicate matters. After all was settled, he supposed he could return to C-Sec, and she would move on to continue her work as a Spectre. But that felt scripted, falling into step with what his father wanted. Perhaps there was another direction – no, there wasn't a "perhaps" in that, rather there simply was. Shepard herself had demonstrated that to him more than once in their travels, in saving the colonists of Feros rather than killing them and freeing the Rachni queen. If she would have him, he would follow her. But if this went wrong, they would all be implicated, and Garrus found he didn't much care anymore.

Whatever the ending was to this, Garrus knew that he couldn't abandon Shepard.