Two weeks.

It had taken the Systems Alliance almost two weeks of denial and brainstorming different possibilities to come to the obvious conclusion that Garrus Vakarian had already come to two weeks earlier.

It has to be Shepard.

That simple, yet so very reaffirming sentence, was what had kept him going those last few days when he hadn't been sure he'd ever see her again. It had to be Shepard, and Garrus knew it, and the Alliance brass knew it too - even if they had taken their sweet time to realize they knew it.

If there was any one person who could act as humanity's ambassador to the Citadel races, it was Jane Shepard.

The higher-ups from the Alliance gave some weak official reasons about her service record and the likes, but everyone who was anyone knew all those things were inconsequential in comparison to one very crucial fact—the fact that back on Shanxi, she'd been the one to make first contact. (The first one that wasn't lethal to either party, at least.) That alone put her at the very top of the list of possible diplomat candidates.

When Garrus had first met Shepard, she had been unconscious and badly wounded, but that hadn't stopped him from being mortally scared of her. Back then—what was it now? Nearly two months?—he never could have guessed how things would go. He'd been just a soldier fighting in some war he didn't believe in, and Shepard had been just some alien fighting on the other side.

And yet here he was, almost two months later: with the war over and himself—impossibly, against all reason and logic—in love with a human.

If it were up to him, all this protocol and circumstance could go to hell because all he wanted to do was for everyone to just move on, forget the whole thing had ever happened, and let him be with the woman he loved.

Of course even Garrus wasn't that much of an idiot as not to see how naïve that idea was. People couldn't just move on and even if he hated it with a burning passion, there was still protocol to be followed in situations like this—all in all, none of the things he wanted to do were possible right now.

As it were, Garrus had spent most of the last two weeks helping clean up the mess left by the war. He'd actually volunteered to help out with the wounded, from both sides—though he quickly picked up on the clear antipathy the human soldiers were treating him with. He decided to stick with just helping the turians from then on.

There was a lot of looking for MIA soldiers included in this new rota, and this part at least—as depressing as it sometimes got—wasn't entirely unfamiliar. Searching among the rubble of those few downed cities was actually taxing enough that he could only focus on doing that instead of thinking about things that were beyond his control.

He would spend entire days with a few other soldiers, mostly volunteers like himself, on just searching for the people who hadn't yet been accounted for.

They even found one of them still alive; a human soldier who'd hidden in the attic of an abandoned farmhouse. It had taken a lot to convince him Garrus wasn't a threat, especially without any means of translation present for him to use. Eventually the man calmed down and let himself be taken to the camp. He'd probably be facing desertion charges if human military was anything like the Hierarchy.

That one soldier had been a singled out incident. For the most part, Garrus's days consisted mostly of looking for—and quite often finding them—dead bodies. It was routine enough for him to fall into a daily rhythm, though, so he kept volunteering.

And every free moment he got, he spent sulking around the makeshift human encampment, trying to avoid the few Council delegates who were giving him sour looks anytime he strayed nearby and the Alliance officers who would have probably told him to leave. He'd learned to maneuver between members of either of those two groups in such a way that most people didn't give him a second look, convinced he belonged. Of course, he didn't, but that was of little significance.

Most days he would just wander around aimlessly for a few hours until he'd eventually give up and head back to his own camp, but every now and then, he'd manage to catch a glimpse of flaming red among the officers, and then his day would suddenly become worthwhile. And then he'd thank the spirits that red hair really wasn't common in humans (just as he'd suspected from the very beginning).

Shepard was surrounded by people every damn time he ever saw her. She was the center of attention now, which he found both relieving and irritating. Relieving because thankfully, with all those people clamoring around her, anyone hardly paid any attention to Garrus himself. Irritating because the one person he did want to pay attention to him was never available. In those two weeks, they'd managed to get maybe a total of twenty minutes alone uninterrupted—a lot of which had just been rushed makeout sessions behind some tent or another.

Now that both Shepard and himself had been assigned to this asari frigate meant to take them to the Citadel, he was hoping maybe things would finally turn around. At the very least they would spend more time together... even if it was for work.

Garrus leaned back in the incredibly uncomfortable chair. That prospect is actually kind of nice. He smiled.

"Vakarian."

He stood to attention even before he could recognize whose voice it was.

"...Shepard," he choked out.

It had been a few days since he'd last seen her and he hadn't been ready to see that she'd cut her hair.

She'd told him that humans did it every now and then, but it had done nothing to prepare him for the real thing. She looked different. (How did humans even tell one another apart if it was this easy to alter such a key part of one's appearance?)

"...Oh." She self-consciously ran a hand through her now-shoulder-length hair. "I'm sorry. Is this... too much of a shock for you? It's still me."

"No, I—" Garrus didn't know how to answer because he had no idea how to explain his feelings on the matter. "It took me by surprise is all. You look nice."

Shepard smiled weakly. "Thanks."

Garrus observed her carefully, looking for changes in her physiognomy. At this point he'd gotten more or less confident in his assessment of human emotions, but most of the facial cues eluded him, even on Shepard.

Right now, he was looking for anything that might indicate how she was feeling towards him. That part was kind of messy. Garrus had kind of assumed that once he got Shepard on the Citadel, back to normal life and out of the battlefield, maybe they could start a normal relationship. Go on a date or whatnot. Except the taking Shepard on the Citadel part had proven to be more difficult than he'd expected, and with her new duties, the part that came afterward was starting to look different too.

For now, he was waiting. Waiting for her to make any sort of move that would tell him what they were or how he should act. Because damn it all to hell, he had no clue whatsoever as to how to act around her, and if she would just say anything—

"Garrus?"

His stomach did a backflip when she not only spoke to him but even addressed him by his first name. He hadn't heard her say it for a long time.

"I, uh— Yeah?" Very eloquent, Vakarian.

"Are you okay? You looked like you were trying to move this ship with your mind." She paused. "Which you can't do, right? You're not psychic." Her tone of voice, even if lacking subvocals, was clearly joking.

"No. We're not psychic," he replied with a small flare of his mandibles, grateful she was trying to lighten up the mood. "I was just thinking of the situation."

Shepard sighed. She sat down on the chair opposite to him.

"Can't blame you on this one," she said flatly. If Garrus didn't know any better, he would have said she was tired. "It's really gotten kind of messy, huh?" She ran a hand through her hair. "Not sure what I was expecting, to be honest... But I'm really glad of all people, you were chosen as the turian attaché."

"I didn't have much choice," he said hesitantly. Making small talk had never been one of his strong suits, especially when he got distracted. And with Shepard, almost everything was distracting.

The way her words were overlaying was very different from the other humans Garrus had spoken to in the last two weeks, and it took him some time to realize why that was. She must have been offered a professional translator when the other officers had been, but now all of a sudden Garrus became very certain that she had never discarded the one they'd made together on Shanxi. The one she was using now was definitely rough-and-ready, unlike the smooth natural-sounding translators used by the Alliance brass. She had to know it wasn't nearly as useful, and that it covered only a small part of her language, and yet she hadn't changed it.

...Then again, he was still using it too.

And then, maybe spurred by that realization, the question left his mouth before he had a chance to even think if it was an appropriate thing to say.

"Shepard, are we dating?"

There was a second of silence that in his mind dragged on for eternity and he decided he was ready to just shoot himself to avoid any further embarrassment.

"Wow," Shepard laughed. "That's a forward question."

"Just..." He drifted off, not sure how to end the sentence. "...Okay? Just. Okay?"

"Well, let me see." She crossed her arms. "Last I remember, you asked me out for drinks, I said yes, aaaand we haven't been to a place that serves drinks since."

Garrus exhaled, amused.

"That offer still stands," he said.

"Oh, I never doubted that." Her smile could melt icebergs, Garrus thought as she smiled. "Why are you asking about this now?"

"Well... We are going to a place that has bars and restaurants, and those usually serve drinks. I know we haven't had an official first date yet, but... I wouldn't mind if we started now."

Shepard turned her attention away from the asari terminal she'd been trying to get to work.

"Why not? I'm free right now. Just... struggling with this super advanced alien tech, and that can wait." She looked up at him in that way that always made his breath go all funny. "Romance me up."

"Oh." Garrus blinked. "I, uh... I hadn't really planned quite this far. I'm..."

She put her hand on his.

"Look, I... I love you. I'm not taking it back. Even if we don't make sense just yet, or... Seem awkward a bit." She took his hand into two of her much smaller ones and only focused on that, as if avoiding looking him in the eyes. "That doesn't mean we won't eventually make sense. And I'm willing to work for that. Because, Garrus, I really like you... But, at the same time, I don't even know much of the basic things about you. Like... How old are you?"

"Twenty-six. You?"

"Twenty-nine. Is that a big difference for you people?"

"Not so much," Garrus replied slowly. Human and turian age span - compatible, apparently. Good to know. Also, Shepard was older than him. Not much older, but still older. Why did that surprise him again? Oh, right, because she was so small. Then again she was an entirely different species... An entirely new species. A species that would soon have to be introduced into the already delicate politics of the Milky Way - apparently, by Garrus himself. How had he gotten himself into this?

Of course, he knew how he'd gotten himself into this because he knew perfectly well when it'd all started—he would be able to pinpoint the exact second his life had taken this turn. It was by now the defining moment of his life.

Still not really sure why I didn't just shoot back then. So many, many things would be easier. Definitely wouldn't be in this mess. It would all be so much easier if I'd just taken that shot.

He glanced at Shepard, who was busy scrolling on the terminal nearby. Her face was set in an expression of total focus as she tried to work with the alien technology without asking for help, and he doubted she even noticed he was looking at her.

Garrus flared his mandibles almost unwittingly.

Then again... I'm glad I didn't.