The next morning, Shepard woke up with a jolt, shuddering.

She groaned.

"Ugh... Garrus?" She patted around the bed, searching for him.

Garrus felt a tight knot in his stomach when his name was the first thing to come out of her mouth in the morning, before she was even fully conscious. It was just so genuine.

Shepard opened her eyes, her eyelids fluttering with the last of the sleep still trying to keep them closed.

"Hi." He smiled down at her.

He'd woken up hours earlier, himself. He didn't know enough about the human sleep cycle to guess if Jane being out of it for nearly seven hours was abnormal or not, but she'd looked so peaceful that he wouldn't dare wake her.

"Hey." She winced. "Oh, god..." She slowly sat up. "I feel like hell."

Garrus brushed her hair off her face. "What's wrong?" His stance immediately changed, his concern radiating through his subharmonics.

"Dunno." She hissed in pain. "...Fuck."

Garrus wrinkled his nose.

"Let me see," he said softly.

Shepard hesitantly moved the covers off herself. Her entire abdominal area was reddened, with several chafes running down her thighs and along her chest as well.

"Does it hurt?"

"Yeah, no, I'm just sitting here mumbling swearwords because I feel amazing," she snapped. She winced. "...Sorry. I just... Clearly, we hadn't prepared for this enough."

"I feel fine," Garrus noticed. "I don't think it's an issue with chemistry."

"No, it's physics... Ah! What the fuck are you made of?" She winced again. "Holy crap, that stings like hell. Hey, um... Could you run to the store for me?"

"Uh... Yes! Of course, whatever you need...!"

"If you can find a human-owned drugstore that sells stuff from Earth..."

"Of course." Garrus nodded quickly. Damn. He couldn't get rid of this guilt now. He'd done this to her. Not consciously, but he had.

He quickly pulled on a pair of pants and fumbled nervously with the clasps around his spurs.

"Oh! Um... Do you have a bathtub or a shower in your apartment?"

"Washroom's middle door down the hall," Garrus pointed vaguely, already on his way out. "I'll be right back."

"Hey." She ran up to him as quickly as her chafes allowed. "Last night was amazing. I have no regrets." She kissed him on the cheek.

"I love you." Garrus grabbed her face and placed a long kiss on her lips.

Shepard smiled, blushing to herself as he left.

"I love you too," she whispered.

She didn't care that he couldn't hear it. She'd said it to him numerous times before. This time, she was saying it in front of herself. She'd really fallen in love with this alien, this man who'd saved her life over and over again in so many ways and who had for some reason stood by her even though he didn't know who she really was or why she was important... How could she not fall in love with that?

His loyalty was more genuine than anything she'd ever seen in this world. His love was incredibly honest in its straightforwardness. He'd stood by her side no matter what, had helped her ease into this new reality and not once had asked for anything, not once had expected to be in charge... He'd always let her take the lead. He'd always supported her.

How could she not love him?

"Shepard?" Garrus called out, closing the door behind himself. He can't have been gone for longer than half an hour, but that didn't mean he wasn't still afraid. She might have left. He didn't have enough relationship experience to tell.

"In the shower!" The answer came from the bathroom.

He knocked on the door. He'd seen her naked, but he didn't want to presume anything. Or come off as rude.

"It's fine. Come on in," Shepard said from inside.

"Feeling better?"

"Cold water is... soothing.

Garrus experimentally put his hand under the stream. He shuddered.

"That's way too cold," he scoffed. "You'll freeze to death."

"Homeothermic." She sent him a charming smile.

Garrus looked through the bag. "I have some anti-burn ointments, some anti-chafing ointments, something called..." he squinted his eyes, trying to read the foreign words correctly, "...alloy vera? The pharmacist said it helps with burns and chafes on human skin. Apparently, you people are very fragile."

"We get by." Shepard stepped out of the shower. She squeezed some water out of her wet hair. "You're staring..." She knit her brows. "Is it the hair again?"

"I've never seen it like this..." Garrus was even more fascinated now than he'd been before. Now that it was wet, her hair looked nothing like its usual state. Even its colour was darker and resembled brown more than red. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

She rolled her eyes as she reached for a towel to dry herself.

"You can touch it, you big weirdo."

"Really?" Garrus was trying his best to hide his excitement. He strongly suspected it didn't work.

"Yeah, really. You've got a weird obsession; I might as well enable you."

He carefully reached out to touch her wet hair. He almost took back his hand, surprised.

"It's nothing like before," he whispered, amazed. "It's not even soft anymore."

Shepard rummaged through the bag he'd brought. "You bought out half of the pharmacy," she laughed. "No one needs this much stuff."

"What if someone has a medical emergency?" Garrus asked, repeating the question she'd asked him yesterday.

"Touché."

She looked up from the medical supplies. Garrus was staring at her, his mandibles lax and his eyes slightly widened.

"I think my translator just glitched..."

"Oh." Shepard laughed. "That. It's from another language but doesn't translate, there's a whole story, I'm not going to explain etymology now... But you'd like it, it includes a sport form of swordplay."

"You have swordplay on Earth, too?"

"Not anymore," she replied, confused. "Not for a long time... What, do turians still use swords in the 23rd century?"

"It does happen. It's still a popular form of dueling, especially in higher circles. Guns are often seen as unsportsmanlike in this type of thing... What?"

By now he knew that expression well enough to know she was processing a new cultural difference.

"...You still do duels?" Shepard narrowed her brows. "That's... surprising. I certainly hadn't expected that."

Garrus hummed a silent agreement. So far most of the cultural differences they'd encountered had been things that completely didn't exist in either one of their cultures. Finding something that was common for one of them but considered obsolete for the other was a new experience.

He watched in silence as Shepard rubbed the alien lotion on the reddened parts of her body. The relief in her expression was almost instant and Garrus felt another pang of guilt. They really had to find some workaround for this, because he wasn't very keen on putting her through this every time they got intimate.

"Want to help me out?"

Garrus reached out to touch her, but he stopped himself before he could make contact, his hand lingering a few centimetres away from Shepard's skin.

"Is it okay...?" He didn't want to hurt her any more than he already had.

"Damn it, Garrus, you've been touching me for months." She rolled her eyes. "You're not poison. We just gotta be careful with the friction."

"Oh. Uh... Right." He nodded. "Right."

He carefully massaged the lotion into her back, consciously applying a thicker layer than she would have.

"Thanks." Shepard rewarded him with a smile, the one that always made his heart flutter.

She pulled on her pants and tank top.

"Does it still hurt when you walk?"

Shepard shrugged. She purposefully strode to the living room before eventually falling onto the sofa.

"Kind of," she said. "Not a lot, but... yeah."

"I'm sorry." Garrus sat down next to her.

"Like I said, worth it. No regrets."

A moment of silence.

"People are going to be talking if neither of us shows up to work today," Garrus noticed semi-nervously. He didn't care about workplace gossip much, but he didn't really want to be its subject. That and the political repercussions of humans and interspecies relationships still being an uncharted territory added up to a very concerning situation.

"Either I stay here or show up to work with what I can only describe as sex rash all over my body," Shepard said as she raised an eyebrow at him. "You take your pick."

The second one was worse. Just speculation was one thing, but the very suggestive chafing on Shepard's body would put them both at the center of all gossip on the Citadel for the next few weeks.

"You're right," Garrus gave in. He slumped down onto the sofa next to her. "You're always right."

"Let me just call in sick for work."

"Sure. Why don't you just go ahead and tell them you got a sex rash?" Garrus teased her and immediately dodged the pillow she threw at him. "See, I knew you'd do tha—" He yelped in pain and surprise when a datapad hit him straight in the face.

"New rule: you're never allowed to use the term sex rash."

"Why not?" He feigned innocence. "It's not like it's embarrassing for you in any way... Oh! Hey, I figure you're the first person to ever get that. Maybe we can go to a doctor and officially register the name..." He swallowed, seeing the murderous intent in her eyes. All of a sudden he didn't feel like teasing her anymore. "...I'll stop."

Shepard rolled her eyes at him as she walked off to the bedroom. Garrus grinned as soon as she did. The way it was going so far, he would probably be able to get a lot more teasing out of this sex rash thing.

"You don't mind if I stay over, right?"

Garrus looked up at Shepard, not sure if she was joking. Her expression was completely serious.

"I don't have any levo food, but we can always go out for dinner. Or stay in," he reflected quickly when he remembered she was supposed to be sick at home.

"We probably should stay in if we're skipping work. Do you have any ideas on what to do?"

"I've actually never seen those Fleet and Flotilla movies, if you can believe that."

Sne crossed her arms.

"Never heard of them."

"Oh. Well, um, it's uh... It's just a sappy romance, honestly... It's not very ambitious cinema, but, uh..." Garrus scratched his neck. "I've heard they're pretty good, and um... Well, they are about... I mean, it's the first mainstream media representation of interspecies romance."

Shepard looked down.

"...It's really not that common, huh?" She sighed. A moment of silence followed. "Garrus, what are we doing?"

"We're... I don't know. There's still a lot of stigma around what we've..." He cleared his throat. "It's not illegal, but it is frowned upon in some circles. And... You're human. Your people are new. That's even more messy. I know you said you don't care and— and if you don't then neither do I! But... I don't think everyone is going to like the fact that we're together. Hopefully, most backlash will be directed at me... You're in a position where that shouldn't be a problem, at least."

"I don't want you to face any sort of mistreatment because of me." Shepard narrowed her brows. "Is this really how you think it'll go for us?"

"It won't." Garrus flared his mandibles. "It can't... We won't let it. We can make a change—I mean, you can. I can stand by your side and look pretty," he grinned. "I really think that could help your case, you know."

"A handsome man does always improve the odds," she laughed. "Helps get more attention."

"Well then. I shall be glad to be of service." He bobbed his head at her, showing off his crest. The conversation may have just been joking, but that didn't mean he couldn't flirt a little.

She had no idea what he was doing.

It took him a little bit longer than a second to realize it, but he was still shocked by it. He knew Shepard wasn't a turian, but for a second he'd completely forgotten she was an alien. Not that she was human; he was still aware of that. He'd simply forgotten she was alien.

For that one second, he'd lived in a world where all their differences didn't matter. Where they were just Jane Shepard and Garrus Vakarian, not the human ambassador and a turian attaché. A world where, while she was still definitely human and he was still definitely turian, it didn't change anything. It didn't mean they had to hide inside his apartment because Shepard got sex rash or that people looked at them strange when they held hands in public. A world where they could be with each other openly and freely, not because they didn't care what other people thought but because there was nothing for them to think.

He wanted to live in that world.