I am SO sorry this took so long! Hopefully, the fact that it's a bit longer than I meant for it to be can make up for that. Don't worry, I'm trying to catch up and we're nearing the homestretch. In the meantime, please enjoy.

Chapter 80: Back to Basics

The fiercest storm can be weathered
The tallest mountain climbed
The wildest battle can be won
With those we love by our side

Terra returned to the apartment immediately to change out of her armor back into civvies, something she was remarkably relieved by, and collapse on the bed for a few minutes to revel in the fact that she finally had a moment's peace. The Normandy was safely back in its dock to return to repairs. However, given the delay in starting those repairs and the added damage caused by the firefights in the CIC and the shuttle bay that the poor techs were now going to have to fix, shore leave had been extended by a couple days.

For once, Terra didn't mind.

She had actually dozed off for a grand total of two hours before she heard a knock on the door. She smirked as she got up and made her way to the stairs. She didn't bother going down, though, merely sitting down on the top step and calling down to the door with a smirk. "You don't have to knock, Garrus."

The door opened to let her turian in. "It's just polite," he commented with a shrug.

She shook her head. "We passed that 15 years ago, hon."

He smiled as he came over to lean on the railing and look up at her. "So what do you propose we do with this newfound free time?"

She smiled back, leaning casually on the railing herself. "Joker said something about using the apartment for a party—which would certainly be a nice change of pace—and everyone really wanted to just hang out while we have the chance and aren't being shot at. …but since we've just gained another day or two to do that, maybe we should…take advantage of it."

Garrus started coming upstairs to sit on the stair in front of hers. "Just the two of us?"

"Just you and me for one day."

"No Sol, no Vi, no crew interrupting?"

"No Reapers, no Cerberus, no galaxy in peril."

He drew closer to her, taking her hands in his. "A taster of what's to come?"

She laid her head on his. "Of how it always should have been."

So they kissed for a moment before moving from the stairs to her room. They took a few more moments to kiss as they sat down on her bed. Then they simply sat there, leaning on each other, his talons sifting through the hair draped over her left shoulder as her fingers traced the plates on his other hand. Much as she normally hated silence, she could live with it if it meant just being in her mate's arms in peace.

The day passed all too quickly with embraces such as this one, conversations about nothing, merely being lost in each other's eyes again, or kissing each other senseless. They finally fell asleep together on her bed, both of them blissfully dreamless for once.

Garrus woke up the next morning to find Terra already out of bed. As he came downstairs to look for her, he found her painting away in the living room. He smirked as he leaned on the stairway rail again and watched her.

She smirked when she sensed his eyes on her. "You don't have to stand all the way back there if you just want to watch."

He snickered to himself before coming over to her. "How long have you been up?"

"Two hours, I think? I didn't want to disturb you."

He started inspecting the painting. "That long? It looks like you've barely started."

"Oh, no, I started this one ten minutes ago. That's the one I spent the first hour on." She gestured with her brush towards the holo-table behind the kitchen.

Garrus cast a curious glance that way. He couldn't help smiling to see a full-scale painted version of the drawing he'd been carrying for 16 years, the Palaven landscape they had come to know each other by, mounted on the wall in place of the "abstract" that had been there. "It's almost as good as the original. Kind of makes me homesick."

"You and me both. Don't worry, it's not even done. I put it up anyway because I felt like it belonged there, but I still have to wait for it to dry to add the second coat, a few contrast layers, some detail and shading—"

"Well, I'll give you this much, you never go in halfway."

"Not on something like that, never."

Now that he said the comment, though, it occurred to him to glance up at where her current project would eventually go. He was fairly startled to find the walls on the balcony already bare. "Wait, why did you already clear all the space if you just started?"

Terra shrugged. "Like I said, I only spent the first hour on the painting. After that, I felt like getting as much done as I could while I was waiting for it to settle, so I started taking down the old ones. I still had to wait for it to dry a little bit before I could hang it up properly, so I figured I might as well just go out and find a place to sell the old ones—they went surprisingly fast as some interior decorating place just outside the building—and I spent all the credits from one of them on groceries so I could come back and make us both breakfast because I was starving—"

"Wait, what?" He immediately turned and went into the kitchen, finding that he could, in fact, smell a Palaven meal slowly cooking in the oven. "When did you learn how to fix turian food?"

"I have handled it before when I was growing dextro veggies behind your house…and I had a lot of free time for extranet research when I was in that cell."

He gave her a knowing look. "Specifically khavr roast and lrothin fruit?"

She smirked at him briefly before turning her attention back to her painting. "I know what you like."

He smirked back as he came back towards her. "Well, then why don't I just make you some of your dad's old recipes?"

"Because, much like me dancing, you can't cook to save your life." She accented that "scathing" comment by leaning over to kiss his scars affectionately. "But it's the thought that counts."

He shook his head. "Fair enough. But why fully stock up when we're only going to be here a few days?"

"Contingency for that party Joker recommended."

"Ah. In that case, you probably didn't get enough for Grunt, let alone everyone."

She laughed. "You've got a point, but trust me, there's not enough food on the Citadel."

He smiled as he drew closer, wrapping his arms around her.

She leaned into him, pausing momentarily from her work. "I hope you know how much you mean to me."

He nuzzled softly against her. "Same here."

She smiled contentedly, taking a moment to again silently appreciate their embrace.

"Am I distracting you?"

She turned to give him a sly look and snarky comment only to be cut off by the sound of her terminal beeping in the other room, announcing incoming messages. She sighed. "No, but that is." She finally set down her paints and turned to check it.

"If it's from Joker, don't answer it!" he called after her.

She smirked over her shoulder at him before going off to see for herself. She wasn't even surprised to see that basically all of her squad-mates were behind the sudden influx of messages, all of them asking to spend some time with her while they could. She was a bit surprised none of the requests had come in yesterday, but they all presumably either decided to let her rest and recuperate from the mission or caught on to the fact that Garrus was with her. Beaming at the prospect of just hanging out with her friends without shooting anything, she went back over to tell Garrus that their friends were asking after her.

Garrus sighed. "Right. Guess I don't have you all to myself quite yet."

She smiled conspiratorially. "You can still stay here with me every night. No sense changing our sleeping arrangements."

He smiled back. "Fair enough." He took her hand for a moment. "Go ahead, have some fun with the others. I have a few things of my own to do."

She gave him a curious look before agreeing, kissing him one last time, and then going back to quickly finish what she could with her paintings while he finished eating and left the apartment. After she was satisfied with her progress, she headed off to start meeting the others.

Terra had known her friends were amazing, of course, but she hadn't had the chance to really just have fun with them before. Even better, all of her squad-mates, present and former, were on leave to do so. Within an hour, she'd helped Traynor win a Kepesh-Yakshi tournament, beaten Jacob at three different arcade games (and definitely not gloated about it, promise), and decimated a round of holograms in the combat simulator with Jack. She even had a few laughs meeting Zaeed at a claw machine and finding Javik had been roped into acting in a Blasto vid (after the fact, at least, since she was pretty annoyed at the time). And that was before a C-Sec officer called her on Grunt's behalf.

"What happened?" Terra sighed as she checked on him.

Grunt shrugged. "A couple squad-mates broke me out of the hospital for my birthday. Tried to lower me out of the side of the building on a rope. …it didn't work out."

Terra struggled not to laugh at the mental image that struck her of Grunt falling out a window and no one inside noticing the screaming krogan in the process. Though something else he said struck her. "It's your birthday?"

"No! I'm tank-bred, remember?"

Terra didn't contemplate the conflicting information. She just contemplate making the day she opened that tank his birthday and marking it somehow. It wasn't far off, the war was almost over, and he deserved that much. "Right. And what happened next?"

"We took a few pictures on the krogan memorial. When C-Sec got there, they were mad. …or maybe they were mad about their car being on fire. Can't remember."

Terra blinked at him. "Why was it on fire?"

"I threw my bottle of ryncol at it. Went up like a bonfire. The C-Sec guys jumped out. Then I figured they didn't want it, so I took it. They sprayed us down with riot foam. Didn't work so well on me."

Terra sighed. "And why is that?"

"'Cause I was on fire. From the car. Come on, Shepard, keep up."

"Right. Sorry. So how did they catch you?"

"Got hungry. Bought some noodles."

She also struggled not to start laughing at that. Instead, she stood firm and gave him a sharp look. "Grunt, you apologize to the nice man for setting his car on fire."

He sighed. "Fine. I'm sorry."

She kept looking at him.

"…and I won't do it again."

"Good." She then turned to finish with the officer in question. When he was gone, she turned to smile at her krogan friend. "So. How were those noodles?"

He shrugged again. "A little spicy."

She laughed now. "I love you, Grunt."

He laughed with her.

She took a few moments to spend some time with him before heading off to meet some of the others. She was on the way to meet Ashley in the casino when she was halted in her tracks by a strange noise. No one else nearby seemed to notice it, so it was likely her cybernetics catching it, but she was certain she could hear a buzzing coming from beneath one of the quasar machines. Confused, she leaned over and found a device tucked underneath it. She removed the device and held it up to her ear. She wasn't sure what it was supposed to be doing, but she could hear it was faintly connected to a COMM frequency.

"…Sennek, hit the COMMs…Tianna, distract the bouncer…"

Wait. Terra knew that voice. What's more, she was hearing it more clearly now, as if it was getting closer. She finally lowered the device from her ear and glanced over her shoulder at the entrance.

A certain Japanese rogue was standing there, halting in her tracks and her scheming alike when she realized she was spotted. "Oops! I seem to have the wrong casino!" She quickly whirled around to jog out of the building.

Too late. Terra jumped to catch her. "Kasumi?"

Kasumi stopped trying to leave and sighed. "Take a walk, guys." Once her companions had left them alone, she turned to give Terra a sheepish look. "I can explain?"

Terra shook her head. "Don't tell me you think I'm gonna report you. We're friends, remember?"

Kasumi smirked. "Can't be sure with you. Always such a goody two-shoes."

"Have a little faith, my kleptomaniac cohort."

Kasumi laughed as she started following her around the floor. "I am doing this for a reason, you know. There are people who can't make it to the Citadel who are having a hard time out there. This place has more money than it knows what to do with, money that could help those refugees survive." It went unnoticed by everyone but Terra that she was passively hacking every machine they walked by without even looking. "And it's not like the owner can spend it if the Reapers win."

Terra scoffed. "Especially not now he's dead."

"What?"

"Nothing. Just good to see you playing Robin Hood for once. It kind of suits you."

Kasumi smiled. "Does that mean you trust me enough to show me that fancy new ring?"

Terra nodded, holding up her hand to show off the ring in question.

"Wow. Garrus doesn't give you second-best."

"Never. Only one of a kind."

"Makes it even more valuable."

"Kasumi…"

"I meant that in more ways than one, Shep."

Terra smiled. "I'm glad I caught you, Kasumi. Now go have fun before the guards catch you, too."

"Hey. I never get caught." With that, Kasumi gave one last friendly salute before cloaking away.

Terra walked away before anyone could notice, heading up to the bar area to wait for Ashley. She found Joker there when she arrived, trying to talk his way out of a tab with a story about how he was the real hero of the Citadel, which Terra definitely didn't start snickering at behind his back, promise. When he got to the end and made a point of saying what Shepard would say if she were here right before noticing that she was, in fact, there, she decided to step up and, withholding her previous laughter, back Joker up. It wasn't unfair to say he was a hero, seeing as how she couldn't have done half of what she had with anyone else flying her ship, so she didn't mind.

"Wow," Joker commented when the bartender had walked off to pay for his drinks, "Thanks, commander."

She smirked. "Consider it repaying you for the 'bait' thing."

He laughed. "Alright, fair enough."

She spent a few minutes with Joker before Ashley caught up with her. Though her time with Ashley inevitably ended in a brawl that all too quickly concluded in their favor, Terra definitely appreciated the chance to hang out with her fellow Spectre and have a few friendly challenges without the need for their rifles. And it was certainly a pleasant surprise when Wrex came up after Ashley had left so he could slump against the bar (though the krogan equivalent of slumping involved plopping his head on the counter so heavily that the glasses on the other side of the room rattled) and complain about the…pressures being heaped upon him since he took the lead for his entire people in the aftermath of the genophage cure. Terra gave him a few reassuring pats on his hump before simply having a few drinks with him.

"Korbal!" he cried after they did. He quickly noticed Terra's curious glance. "It means 'victory or death,' roughly."

"Ah," she smirked, "but you can't die, Wrex. You've got a family now. …a really big family."

He groaned, pounding his head on the counter again. "MORE ICE!"

Terra was halfway through ushering him out of bar and struggling not to laugh at his "misfortune" when she got a message from Garrus asking to meet her there ("Hopefully no dead arms dealers this time."). She messaged back that he was in luck and she was already there, taking a seat nearby and waiting for him. She smiled when she finally saw him coming up, back in the civvies she literally never saw him in. "Hey, there, handsome. Have we met?"

He smirked at her. "Funny." He sat down beside her, his talons habitually coming to rest on the hand carrying her ring. "I figured we deserved a night out."

She smiled. "That we do." She was content to simply sit here with him for a few moments before doing anything special. She could feel her instincts going off, though, saying someone was watching them. She glanced curiously that direction, the female turian responsible taking one look at their conjoined hands and turning aside. Terra smirked. "Was that girl just checking you out?"

Garrus turned to give a confused look in that general direction. "What?"

"It's the scars, right? You're telling me you didn't even notice? You really are clueless."

He shook his head, turning back to her. "I thought we established I only have eyes for you." He accented the statement with a smile, his talon reaching up to stroke the hair draped over her right eye.

She smirked as her hair drifted back into place. "That supposed to melt a girl's heart?"

"I thought you said I already stole it."

"You're still gonna have to do better than that, Vakarian."

Even he felt the mischievous gleam in his eyes when she said that. "Challenge accepted." That was when Garrus grabbed her by the wrist and stood up.

She immediately tensed up. "What…what are you doing?"

"It'll be fun!" he assured her as he pulled her to her feet. And then towards the dance floor.

She started panicking when she realized what he was up to. "Oh no! No, no, no, no, no! No!"

Not one to be deterred, he ignored her protests and drew her into position, wrapping his arm around her waist. "Did I mention Violet and I traded like I did with you?"

It took her a few seconds to catch his meaning. He was admitting to showing Violet the self-defense maneuvers that had saved her in the shuttle bay…and in return, she'd shown him how to dance with a human partner. Presumably with this specific outcome in mind. "Oh, you're both gonna pay for this later."

He smirked. "Promises, promises."

Terra answered that by purposely blocking his next step with her foot. It still didn't dissuade him, but at least she'd made her point.

As she had made a point of earlier that day, Terra would be the first to admit she was a terrible dancer. She always had been. Her own family had made fun of her for it, albeit in a family-typical teasing way. To be fair, most of the Shepard clan wasn't exactly better, her father being just as bad as she was and her brother not bothering to try very often. Like with most things, though, Violet stood out. She was by no means quite so much a prodigy at dancing as she was at math and music, but she could've excelled at simple routines even as grand as ballet had she tried. So Terra didn't doubt that her efforts to teach Garrus a ballroom dance were well-meant and possibly even successful. It was the fact that her sister expected a turian to tango and Terra to follow in any capacity that made her think this was going to end in tears for all involved.

Surprisingly, though, Garrus was proving her wrong. Despite their differences, he was leading perfectly, every move practically synchronized with the song that she was definitely going to be adding to her personal collection later. Terra finally gave in and decided to put his newfound skills to the test, raising her leg up to his hip. He answered by smiling at her and taking a step back so they were locked together. Suddenly, she wasn't so opposed to this.

She smiled as they continued, feeling as if they were the only ones there and the song was playing just for them. It was only when they slowed down to add a few steps that she noticed they actually were the only ones there as the rest of the dance floor had been cleared to make way for them and everyone previously on it was now watching them in astonishment. She couldn't help but take no small amount of satisfaction from that, giggling and swinging her leg with the rhythm.

Garrus smiled back when he noticed. "Now you're getting it."

She followed him for a few more moments, slowly losing track of her own movements. When he used a turn to release her from his arms in a spin, she came to a halt more gracefully than she could've anticipated and curled her fingers to call him back over. The look of enticement he gave in response didn't escape her notice, her own eyes reflecting it as they, in one fluid turn, slid back into each other's arms. As the song finally came to an end, he finished with a flourish, drawing her to lean back in his grasp as their makeshift audience cheered.

"So," he smirked, "tell me…think a girl would fall for that?"

She beamed back as she drew herself upright enough to meet his eyes. "In a heartbeat…if she hadn't already fallen for so much else…so long ago."

He simply held onto her, letting this moment last. "Either way, it was worth it for this."

"Remind me to thank Violet."

"Before or after we try it in bed?"

She smirked. "Both." Then she, without breaking their stance, leaned up to kiss him as the scene around them faded back to normal.

When Terra got back to her apartment, an hour later, she was still humming the song they'd danced to, her steps light and giddy and interspersed with spins. This was a special kind of feeling that she had never had in her life before, the kind of happiness that can only be achieved by being in love and not having a care in the world. She went back to her painting teeming with joy and inspiration. Just as she was convinced she was finished with the landscape that now rested proudly on the wall behind the holo-table, her terminal let her know that another influx of messages had come through. Surprise, surprise, everyone she hadn't met out on the strip was asking to come visit the apartment. How could she turn them down?

James came by first. He was quick to compliment the view from the balcony, but it was hard to miss the hollowness of his words and the homesick longing in his eyes.

"You miss Earth?" Terra surmised.

"Yeah," he nodded, "And the people."

She smirked. "So what's her name?"

That got him to laugh. "No! No, I stopped…fraternizing when I joined the military."

"And yet you're still a shameless flirt."

He shrugged. "Yeah, well, that's just my way. I don't mean anything by it, Lola."

She folded her arms at him. "Uh-huh."

"What? Don't tell me I'm making this hard on you and Garrus."

She scoffed, shaking her head. "Not even remotely."

"Hard to imagine anything like what you two have. A lot of history there."

"To say the least."

"…hey…if you don't mind my asking…how do you two…? I mean, is he…you know…do turians have all the same…?"

She gave him a look almost of warning. "Same…?"

He finally withdrew. "Never mind. I don't wanna know."

After wishing him well as a newly-inducted N7 and seeing him off, Terra messaged EDI to let her know she could come by next. EDI arrived in two minutes as if she had been waiting outside the building and, without a hint of preamble, told Terra she wanted to buy gifts for their crewmates and that Joker had even leant her his credit chit for an extranet shopping spree. Terra couldn't help but question how much money Joker actually had to spare on there (especially considering his earlier bluff with the bartender) and how much he must love EDI to trust her with it. She figured it was the least they could do to give him something in return, so she gently prodded EDI to get something for them to do together…and keep it small, just in case.

"Who's next?" Terra asked.

"You are," EDI answered, "Close your eyes."

Terra reluctantly complied, closing her eyes for a moment and opening them to find EDI was holding out…a ring? "…uh, EDI…we're both taken, remember?"

"This is not a symbol of romantic attachment. It is a symbol of perseverance. These rings are made with metals from each Council home-world, each compounding with the last to make the whole stronger. The maker calls them 'victory rings.' Due to material shortages, only a few exist."

Terra got the message. Something to remind her they could all survive this as long as they worked together. "EDI, that's…wonderful of you." She took the ring carefully. "You sure it will go my set?" She fingered her necklace with the hand carrying her engagement ring.

"You do not have to wear it. You can keep it in your pencil case. Based on my observations, I believe you will see it just as often there."

"Ah. You've really thought this through. Who's next now?"

"I was thinking of something for Liara…"

Twenty minutes later, they'd gotten special surprises for all of their crewmates, including a chess set for Traynor, a collection of poetry books for Ashley, and a programmable music box for Violet.

"I see," EDI remarked when Terra made this suggestion, "A counterpart to your pencil case."

"She made it for me," Terra shrugged, "Figure I can pay her back and she can keep her sheet music in it. In fact, if you send it to me, I can decorate it for her, too."

"Noted."

"Who does that leave?"

"Just Solana and Garrus."

Terra smirked. "I've got something in mind…"

Five minutes later, EDI left, appearing as much as an AI could to be satisfied with their work. Terra spent the next couple hours inviting over Samara, Miranda, and Jack (and, by extension, Jack's new pet varren, which Terra was actually really excited to see). In between each visit, Terra continued working on the paintings. She had just about finished the second and prepared to do detail work on the third and final when she heard the piano playing. She assumed Violet had stopped by early, so she was surprised to see Liara there.

"I didn't know you could play," Terra said as she came over.

"Actually," Liara corrected, "this is the only song I know."

"It's beautiful."

"…thank you."

Liara tried to give some offhand comment about having work to do, but Terra talked her into sticking around for a moment longer and called Violet over. The former prodigy had been in the apartment for all of ten seconds before she was having Liara teach her the song so she could teach Liara a few of her own. Terra smiled at the scene before letting it be the soundtrack to the last of her artwork.

Tali was the last one over. She gave the new decorations a few appreciative glances before coming to see Terra.

Seeing as how they meeting as friends rather than commander and engineer, Terra couldn't resist hugging her. "We finally get a girl's night. Got anything in mind?"

"Not really," Tali shrugged, "I'm as free as the dust in the solar wind. You remember that line. From Fleet and Flotilla."

Terra blinked. "Uh…it's been a few years since I saw it, actually."

Tali smirked behind her helmet. "Well, then I know what we're doing tonight."

The irony was that the vid was technically a romance about a turian and a quarian, one that Terra had seen for the first time with Garrus several years ago when she was visiting him on the Citadel. She watched it with Tali now as a "chick flick" of sorts, trading stories about how Tali used to activate a sing-along mode when she was watching this with her friends during sleepovers and how Terra was pretty sure Garrus had put the score from one of the ending scenes in his combat playlist, but she also noticed (even before Tali outright commented with a wink "Who doesn't love a good cross-species romance?") the parallels she had missed the first time. Mostly, though, she just enjoyed spending some time with her best friend just being friends without a thought towards war. She was going to have to make sure they got more time like this when everything was over.

Right as Tali left and it occurred to Terra that it was getting late, two last messages came to the terminal, one from Miranda and one from Solana, both asking for her to meet them. Mostly since she didn't know when they'd get another chance to do this, she figured "Why not?" and headed out. Miranda just wanted to have some fun and pretend to be normal, which Terra could definitely get behind.

Solana, however, was looking for just the opposite. "She strikes again. I found us another secret hideaway."

"I'm pretty sure the Citadel doesn't have waterfalls, Sol," Terra said.

Solana smirked. "Next best thing. Come on." Carefully avoiding any wandering eyes, she led Terra in a twisting journey around the strip all the way to the roof of a market tower.

One that overlooked the entire neon-lit strip and was high enough to view the rest of the Ward shadowed by Widow's light.

Terra was getting more and more convinced that the best views on the station were restricted to keeper and maintenance walkways. "Good to see your skills are still intact."

Solana smirked. "Maybe I should stick at your navigation station for a while. I could at least find you a few good views." After taking a moment to laugh with her adopted sister, she reached into her pocket. "Speaking of which, EDI caught me earlier and gave me this. I don't suppose you have anything to do with it?" She held up a charm in the shape of a jura flower.

Terra shrugged. "Why would you think that?"

Solana gave her a sharp look.

Terra rolled her eyes. "She wanted to get you something. I figured you could keep it at your station."

"Ah. Reminder of what exactly I'm capable of?"

"Or at least of a good memory to hold onto in all this insanity."

Solana nodded as she tucked the charm back in her pocket. "Fair enough." She turned to lean against the ledge, Terra copying her, to take in the view. "Sure is busy down there."

"People need an escape at times like this."

"War heroes included, I see."

"Yeah, well, even I can't carry everything. At least not on my own."

"Then it's a good thing you never are on your own."

Terra smiled. "I've gotten lucky. Had a couple stand-in families I knew I could lean on."

"Actually, I was talking about the fact Garrus is never more than 20 feet away from you, but that, too."

Terra scoffed, giving her adopted sister a playful shove.

Solana laughed again. "Hey, he likes you. And I'm kind of attached to you myself."

"Well, I'd hope so. After a certain wedding, you'll be stuck with me."

Solana sighed. "Guess I will. …it's been nice having a sister."

Terra sighed with her. "It has."

After Terra's outing with Solana was over, the time started catching up with her. Since, by her count, she'd already met up with everyone now, she figured it was time to call it a night.

Naturally, Garrus was already there when she reached the apartment, smiling at the sight of her. "Enjoying your time off?"

She smiled as she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. "As much as I can. I see you added yourself to the security."

"Well, you said you didn't want to sleep without me, so I figured I was just saving time."

"So you were. Like the new decorations?"

He smirked, glancing at the paintings. He'd already made it clear how he admired the landscape now hanging behind the holo-table, but he couldn't help but smile at the two works arranged on the balcony—a more abstract image reflecting the neon atmosphere of both the strip and the Citadel in general and a perfect capture of the galaxy map that portrayed the stars of the home-worlds as golden sparks in a silver-white spiral. "You always know how to make every place you set foot in better for having known you."

She beamed as she leaned into him. "You're giving me a run for my money with the poetic compliments."

"Maybe a change of pace is in order," he remarked as he kissed her.

When they separated, she took his hand with a smirk. "We do still have to test out your new moves."

"You don't have anywhere to run off to?"

"I'm flexible."

He eyed her longingly. "That you are."

She gave him a look before leading him into her room. When she fell asleep in his arms, a half hour later, she felt like all was right with the world. Though she couldn't escape that nagging feeling rooted deep inside her that the Reapers were still out there, that Cerberus was still active. All the more reason to take them down. She wanted this to be real, to be permanent. One day, when she and Garrus had made good on their engagement, it would be.

For now, she let this moment last while it could, finding the peaceful rest she had so long needed here in the arms of her mate.