Garrus sat beside Shepard, one hand over hers. He kept falling asleep, waking with a jerk when his head moved far enough from its proper waking alignment.

"You should hit the rack," Alenko suggested for the third or fourth time.

Not that he hadn't given Alenko the same advice and been met with the same answer he gave: "I'm good."

He knew, deep down, that he really should be down on Earth helping to do…something. And yet he couldn't make himself get up and do it. What if Shepard gave up the ghost while his back was turned? He couldn't just leave her here, even if Alenko was going to wait it out.

The infamous Murphy of Murphy's Law might take the inattention as a sign to swing on in and do his thing.

Garrus wouldn't have it. He would stay here until she woke up. He'd bunk on one of the med-tables if he had to. She had never left any of her crew behind, never just left them. How could he do that to her, now that she was the one who needed to not be left?

The doors hissed open revealing a weary-looking Tali. "Anything?" she asked, her bright eyes narrowed with tiredness behind the smoky glass of her visor.

"Nothing," he and Alenko both answered.

She padded over to him and leaned against him. He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. She was warm and real within the confines of his arm. She couldn't hear the warble of gratitude for physical reassurance, but she could probably feel the vibrations.

Delicate fingers rubbed along the back of his neck, prodding gently where the muscles were tight. "You need to get some sleep," she said, slipping free of his arm but not catching his hand as she did so. "Come with me."

When he didn't follow her pull, she came closer and whispered, "Let Alenko have her to himself for a little while. Besides," she ran her fingers along his jaw and throat, "I want to make sure you're alright."

He followed her as he would have followed no one else. He was exhausted beyond all reason—who wasn't?—and didn't have the strength to deny her what she asked for. And it was comforting, to settle into his mobile bunk with the little quarian pressed snugly against him, her fingers tracing no sense against his skin as she felt the vibrations of his cooing warbles of affection.

They were alive.

It killed him to think that Shepard and Alenko might not have the opportunity to have all the moments like this one that their lifespan should have allowed them. The idea that she, especially, might not have decades and decades of time to do all those little things that lovers did, to have all those little moments that bondmates had, made him want to cry the way humans did.

"It's alright," Tali whispered. "If they haven't killed her by now they're not going to." She shifted side to side to set the hammock rocking, and Garrus wondered when she'd grown so strong and so wise.

-J-

Wrex snorted, having finished his rant.

Alenko pinched the bridge of his nose. It had been too much to ask for a little quiet time. Once Garrus and Tali left—bless Tali's heart for getting the stubborn turian to worry about himself a little—his mother had come in to sit with him and Shepard. Many of the crew had recovered family members aboard—or, rather, aboard when not out helping sift the rubble. The Normandy had become a kind of flophouse for her crew. He knew from the way they'd hovered until Dr. Chakwas chivvied people away that they would have preferred to wait, just as he and the rest of the ground team were doing.

He had the benefit of medical advice keeping him exactly where he was, otherwise he would have been crushed between staying with the woman he loved and being out doing things.

"And you!" Wrex growled.

Alenko rolled his eyes. He had never been Wrex's favorite person, and right now he did not care. What he did care about was that the angry krogan smelled weird and the noise was giving him a headache which he did not need right now. Wrex was also upsetting his mother.

"And me what?" Alenko asked flatly, getting stiffly to his feet and glaring at the krogan.

"And you! Why can't you control your bondmate better?" Wrex growled, biotics glimmering.

Wow. Wrex must be having a real conniption if he was asking why he, Alenko, couldn't 'control' Shepard. No one really controlled Shepard. For a moment he hesitated, caught between saying what was on his mind—that if Shepard's welfare was so important to him, why hadn't Wrex been part of Hammer One?—and just giving in to bad temper.

"What's the point of being bonded if you let her walk into trouble without a fuss?"

…this was just Wrex being Wrex…though he'd never seen Wrex so worried about someone else.

"I just don't get it!"

There had been a war on and Alenko knew Wrex was just fuming. But he'd had enough. Suddenly, he'd had enough. This was not something he wanted Shepard to wake up to. "EDI, can you open the medbay door please?" he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

The door hissed open without a word.

"I know you mean well, Wrex," Alenko declared before executing a powerful push which sent the eight hundred pound krogan shooting through the doors. Alenko hoped he kept going until he slammed the wall with the memorial on it.

EDI snapped the doors shut, the red lock light coming on in case Wrex took it as an invitation rather than an eviction.

Just as things grew quiet, EDI chuckled. "You should know that Wrex approves. He believes it was—"

She cut to an audio clip of Wrex, "Good practice for when she wakes up."