Garrus methodically clenched and unclenched his fists as he quickly walked through the mostly empty Presidium.

He was nervous.

Even if it weren't clear from his body language of twitching nose and eyes darting around everything, his nervousness radiated off of him in an aura that was almost visible.

Maybe this is a bad idea after all.

Garrus clenched his mandibles. He was used to second-guessing himself by now, so while he made his way to the C-Sec Academy, he did his best to drown out the voice in his head telling him to turn back - the voice that was probably his conscience. He didn't need his conscience right now.

He tried to focus on the image of what had happened a week earlier instead; on how he'd felt when he held Shepard's lifeless body in his arms, how incredibly close he'd been to losing her forever. His conscience shut up when faced with those images.

"Garrus."

He'd barely managed to walk into the precinct and already he'd been recognized.

"Chellick." He nodded his head as a means of greetings.

"Not gonna lie to you, Garrus, I know why you're here." Chellick motioned for his friend to follow him. "I figured you'd come by sooner or later, especially since the vic's your, uh…" He drifted off, searching for an appropriate word.

"Girlfriend," Garrus proposed generously.

"...Girlfriend. Right. Well, whatever you call it, she's important to you."

"That's putting it lightly," Garrus muttered. He cleared his throat. "Is he here?"

"Yes. Haven't had much luck with the interrogation, but he didn't ask to be let out. He just sort of sits there and refuses to even acknowledge any of the human officers."

"I want to talk to him." Garrus couldn't help instinctively clenching his fists.

"I know," Chellick replied curtly. "But I don't think this is allowed."

"I just want to talk," Garrus growled. He didn't know how convincing that sounded, or even how true it was.

"I find that hard to believe." Chellick sighed. "Fine. You can go in for a few minutes, but that's it. Understand?"

"Thanks."

"Look, I'm doing you a favour. I have a lot of respect for your father, and you and I go way back. But don't treat this too freely, alright? You're neither C-Sec nor even military anymore. You're a civilian, and you should really start getting used to it."

"I know." Garrus absently looked around. "This means a lot. It really does."

C-Sec interrogation rooms varied a lot from what Garrus gathered. Most were the standard table-behind-one-sided-mirror rooms, but there were more than a few less pleasant ones, too. From what Garrus remembered from his teenage years, his father had always disapproved of the officers who used the more violent methods of interrogation. He said it was uncivilised, and always made a point of following every rule to the point of obsession.

Garrus didn't know why he was thinking of his father now. Maybe it was because after nearly losing Shepard, he'd started to think of his family more often, maybe it was because C-Sec still felt like his father's place, even after so many years… He could speculate, but he didn't fully understand his feelings.

Chellick stopped by the dead last interrogation room.

Garrus looked inside through the glass. A navy blue-plated turian with no colony markings was sitting behind the empty table, idly scratching at its surface with a talon.

"Is this the assassin?" Garrus dropped his voice to an almost dangerously low level.

"Yes. I'm not on this case, so that's about all I can tell you… But I did take his file." He clicked through the datapad he'd taken from the briefing room. "Let's see. The man's name is... Spirits, this is rich," Chellick stifled a laugh. "His name is Garrus Antares. Arrived at the Citadel about a week ago, with all proper documentation. No previous criminal record, of course. He wasn't very secretive about his connection to Ordo Veris, but that's only to be expected. You know they're fanatical like that."

"Mhm," Garrus nodded absently.

"Oh, come on. You've got to at least admit it's funny how the assassin sent to kill your mate has the same first name as you."

"Yeah. Fucking hilarious." Garrus wrinkled his nose. "Look, if this is another attack by Ordo Veris, this is big. I'm not sure C-Sec can handle this. Don't most of their operations fall outside of your jurisdiction?"

"I let you come down here, Garrus, but don't tell me how to do my job. Trust me, I know it better than you."

"Sure." Garrus shook his head, trying to get rid of the uneasiness he was feeling. "Yeah. Sorry. I… Sorry about that."

"I can give you a few minutes in there." Chellick looked around. "I turned off the surveillance cameras inside. Do what you feel you have to, but don't kill him. Though I doubt you'll be able to make him talk. We've been trying for days."

"I really appreciate this," Garrus said, patting his friend on the shoulder.

"You'd better. I have to go, but I'll be back soon. You're not the only one who wanted to talk to him today."

"A popular guy, huh?" Garrus wrinkled his nose. "Well then. I'd better make my time count. Thanks for this."

He pushed the door open and walked into the room.

As soon as he did, the assassin's eyes had locked onto him. There was a strange passion in them, one that seemed uncharacteristic for a man who'd been locked up for days.

"Oh. A real person." The turian slightly raised his brow plates. "And here I thought they'd only keep sending humans in here."

Garrus sat down on the empty chair.

"The human you tried to kill," he said in a low voice. "Was she your only target or were there more?"

"You're a turian. Why are you helping them?" The assassin looked around. "You know that humans are overacting their welcome as well as anyone else does. It's only a matter of time before they get too bold."

"Was she your only target?" Garrus repeated.

"Whatever they're offering you, it's not worth it. Look... If someone doesn't halt the spread of the human plague across the galaxy, it will soon be real people's lives affected. Turian lives. Yours. Mine. Do you really want to help advance that?"

"Not the answer," Garrus growled, just barely controlling his anger. This wasn't worth it. Not worth it.

"You seem like a reasonable man. That human didn't die. Just... I know it survived, okay? If I didn't kill it, there's no reason to keep me here. Let me go."

Garrus grabbed the assassin's cowl.

"Listen..." His nose was twitching with anger and his teeth were completely bared when he pulled the turian so close their noses were almost touching. "The woman you tried to murder is my mate. So choose your words more carefully."

"You're mated with a human?" The assassin bared his teeth, nostrils flaring with unbridled contempt. "That's disgusting."

Garrus's mandible twitched.

He slammed the turian's face into the table, not hard enough to crack his exoskeleton but enough to cause pain.

"Fuck!" The assassin grabbed his nose. "Agh! Who the fuck—"

Garrus grabbed him and pulled away from the table.

"Ask yourself. Do you really want to test me?!" The turian gasped in shock and pain when Garrus punched him in the gut, landing a hit exactly in that spot without the protection of his exoskeleton. When he doubled over in pain, Garrus kicked him down into the ground. "I don't work for C-Sec. Their rules don't bind me."

"Mated with a human. You've fallen too low." He bared his teeth despite the clear pain he was in. "You wouldn't have the guts."

Before he could think about it, Garrus had already pulled out his gun and shot the turian.

"Love is love. Whatever gender, sex, or race," he growled. "You tried to kill the woman I love." He stepped on the turian's chest, pressing onto the wound and making him moan in pain. "You deserve to suffer."

"You're mad! Fuck!" The turian scratched his talons on the floor, his face twisted in pain. "Stop!"

"Why should I?" Garrus wrinkled his forehead, pressing down a bit harder. "You wouldn't have."

"Garrus! That's enough! Let him go."

He froze, stopping completely.

"...Shepard," he whispered. But it couldn't be.

Not possible.

He turned back.

She was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest and the most disappointed expression he'd ever seen on her. She wasn't wearing her usual uniform. Instead of that, she was dressed in an oversized white shirt, which exposed some of the fresh bandages underneath and made his heart just ache.

She stepped forward.

"Garrus, let him go and that's an order!"

Garrus took his foot off the turian.

"Shepard, what are you doing here?"

"I called her in." Chellick didn't seem very comfortable being caught up in this argument. "I thought you would have told her you'd come here. Look, I…" He looked between the two of them. "I don't want to be a part of… whatever this is. Just don't kill him."

Shepard took long, purposeful strides until she could grab Garrus's forearm

"What the hell's gotten into you?!" She wasn't raising her voice, but it was abundantly clear that she wanted to shout. "You can't torture the suspect during an interrogation! Not to mention you don't even have the right to interrogate him!"

"He's not a suspect, he's guilty! He said it himself, he was trying to kill you!"

"And that means what?! That you get to execute punishment?! It's not your place, Garrus!"

"Well, maybe it should be."

"But it's not!" She let go of him. "We do things right or not at all. That's what we do. That's who we are." She exhaled. "Think for a moment. You didn't shoot a human soldier on the field of battle. Do you really want to kill one of your own?"

Garrus lowered his gun.

"He's not one of my own," he said quietly. "I'm not..." He found himself unable to look straight at the turian he'd shot. "I'm nothing like you." He threw the gun onto the table. "Hope you got what you wanted, Shepard."

"Thank you," she whispered.

"Yeah, whatever."

On his way out, he nearly bumped into Chellick. The turian clicked his mandibles, somewhat apprehensive.

"You know, your woman really is something else." He looked back at Shepard, who was helping up the turian who'd tried to kill her not even a week earlier. "You've got a good one there, Vakarian."

"Yeah." Garrus clenched his fists. "So fucking perfect. Doesn't even realize what she's doing to me."

"You okay?"

"No." Garrus laughed mirthlessly. "No, I'm not. Fuck. I'm really not."

Chellick nervously tapped his foot on the floor.

"I have to report this, you know."

"Yeah. You do what you gotta do… I'm not holding it against you." Spirits, I hate that I have morals now. He sighed. "I got carried away there. I probably deserve it."

"Maybe I didn't see your face…" Chellick clicked his mandibles. "What bad luck the cameras were off, too."

Garrus grabbed his forearm. "You're a damn good friend, you know that?"

"Yeah, I do. Now get out of here."

Garrus nodded. Without another word, he left the precinct, trying to avoid security cameras where they were present.

He walked without looking back until he found himself near the embassies and realized that Shepard would probably go there. He didn't want to see her, so he changed direction.

Great job. He hadn't meant to lose his cool so much back there—much less had he wanted Shepard to ever see him like that.

I'm such an idiot. He didn't know what she thought of him now, but he did know their relationship had been a landslide lately. All in all, they were going in the right direction, but he could have done without all the obstacles on the way.

He really hadn't been planning to hit that assassin, much less shoot him. He doubted anyone would believe him if he said it, but it was the truth. There was just something so fundamentally dehumanising in the way that asshole had kept on referring to the woman he loved as an "it" that Garrus hadn't managed to keep a level head.

He looked up. The artificial sunlight of the Presidium was eternal, so he couldn't tell what time it was by looking at the sky.

His mandibles twitched involuntarily when his ears caught a sound that definitely didn't belong here on the Presidium's financial district. Crying. No, not open crying. Sobbing.

A child sobbing.

Garrus felt his plates tingle with concern as he moved in the general direction of the crying. When he did find its source, he felt even more uneasy.

There was a young human child standing completely alone by the wall of one of the warehouses here. He couldn't tell the age too well, but he was judging somewhere between two and eight years old. Any younger than that or older than that he would have been able to tell.

He looked around, but it seemed the little girl was completely alone. Everyone around pointedly ignored her, which pissed him off even more than he already was. If this kid was an asari, they'd all be cooing around her now.

Garrus took a second of hesitation, but nobody else was doing anything.

"Hey there." He knelt down in front of the girl.

She covered her face as soon as she saw him, abandoning her sobbing for a scared gasp.

Garrus wrinkled his nose. Crap.

"Hey... Hey. It's okay. I'm not scary. See?" He gently grabbed the girl's hand and guided it to his face. "I'm just a person, like you."

She slowly stopped crying, instead focused on feeling around his face with obvious fascination. Garrus had to bite back a yelp when she grabbed his nose.

The girl laughed, delighted.

"You look weird," she decided.

"...Sure." He didn't want to get into it right now. "Where are your parents?"

"Mommy went to the toilet."

"Uh-huh. And was that around here?" Garrus gently pried the human's small fingers off his nose. It had been starting to get hard to breathe.

"No. Mommy told me to wait, but I saw a fishie. I wanted to follow it but it ran away."

"A fishie?" Garrus repeated. On the plus side, the girl wasn't crying anymore. She seemed completely comfortable around him now. Children really are wonders.

"Yeah! A pink fishie! It was flying!"

A hanar. This kid was obviously new here and hadn't had much experience with aliens. New immigrants, probably? Either way, she wasn't an orphan - she was just lost. Maybe he could help.

"What's your name?"

"Mommy said not to tell to strangers."

"Uh-huh… Your mommy's smart. Well, uh, I'm Garrus." He held out his hand so she could shake it, even though her tiny fingers only managed to close around one of his. (Damn, and he'd thought Shepard was small.) "See? Now we're not strangers."

The girl wiped the last of her tears away.

"I'm Alena."

"That's a pretty name." He tried to fight his reflex to smile in fear of scaring her. "Say what, Alena, I'll help you find your mom. How's that sound?"

"Great!"

Garrus stood up. Even if he wanted to hold hands with the girl, he towered over her so much that he probably wouldn't be able to reach her hand.

"You know what… Come here."

He'd been afraid she might scream when he picked her up, but she just giggled with delight. He blinked, surprised.

"Let's put you here." He placed her inside his cowl, sitting on his shoulders. He hissed when she almost immediately grabbed on to his crest. It hurt a lot more than he'd expected from such a small thing. Humans are weird.

"Do you see your mommy from up here?"

"No," Alena said. She didn't sound sad at all; she was probably enjoying a height perspective she would never get to experience, even once she grew up.

"Okay then." Garrus headed back towards the embassies. He could check at the information counter, maybe someone had reported a missing child. In the worst scenario, he'd bring her back to the embassy. There were more humans there and they'd know what to do.

"Oh!" The girl pulled on his crest and Garrus almost doubled over. "I see Mommy!"

"You do?" Garrus smiled. "That's great! Which one is she?"

"Talking to the blue lady."

"Okay." He headed to the information counter, where indeed a human woman was desperately demanding something from the asari receptionist. People looked strange at the turian carrying a human child in his cowl, but Garrus decided not to care.

"—my daughter! She's lost and alone and she must be so scared! I'm begging you, do something!"

Garrus cleared his throat, waiting for the woman to notice him.

"Uh… Excuse me?"

She turned around. Her eyes betrayed a flicker of fear at his presence, but she didn't move away.

"Mommy!" Alena reached out to the woman, so Garrus picked her up again, mindful not to get her caught on his fringe, and handed to her mother.

"Alena! Honey. Oh my god, I thought I lost you!" She looked up at Garrus. "Thank you! I… I have no idea what to say. Thank you so much."

"I'm… It's nothing." Garrus nervously massaged his neck. He'd mostly helped because he didn't like the way the other people had ignored the human child simply because it was human. "I'm… I have to go now."

The woman kissed her daughter's head. "Thank you. I can't even say… Thank you."

"Bye, Gary!" The girl waved a goodbye.

"It's, uh, it's Garrus." He nodded at her. "But… Yeah. Bye."

He stretched out, looking around. Now it was just a matter of getting home. He wasn't planning on any unnecessary stops on the way.

An asari C-Sec officer was having obvious trouble trying to settle a quarrel between a human couple and a krogan.

Looks serious, Garrus thought absently as he walked by. The krogan was clearly agitated, and that was never a good sign. Oh well. It's none of my business.

He continued on.

It's not my problem.

The humans were growing angry now, too, and though the C-Sec officer was trying her best, it was clear she only made it worse.

Garrus stopped.

"Ah… Crap." His moral compass had lately gotten way too strong for his liking.

Damn it.

He jogged up to the group.

"Maybe I can help."

"And who are you supposed to be?" The asari glared at him, clearly frustrated that another person was adding up to her problems.

"Vakarian, Citadel Council Embassies. I'm a trained negotiator, and I have extensive knowledge of human customs." He quickly brought up his omnitool. "Here's my references."

"You're employed by the Systems Alliance? Isn't that a human government institution?"

"Yeah," Garrus deadpanned. "Like I said, I can help."

"Well…" She bit on her lip. "I guess it can't hurt."

Garrus turned to the humans first.

Though over time his anger had died down, Garrus found that even after returning to their apartment, he still didn't want to face Shepard. At the same time, he hated himself for being angry at her.

He sighed.

"Hi honey, I'm home," he said in the most dry and unemotional way he could.

"...Hey."

Shepard got up off the sofa. She nervously looked at him every now and then, but she didn't say anything beyond that.

A long while passed in silence. Garrus threw his bag onto the sofa, almost pointedly ignoring the way she was looking at him.

"Okay. We have to talk." Shepard reached out to him when she didn't get an answer. "Garrus. We have to talk about this."

He sighed, but he didn't say anything.

"Damn it. You're not even police and you were close to being sued for police brutality!" She pursed her lips. "What happened, Garrus?! I never wanted you to get like this because of me. Never because of me."

Garrus turned around and she took a step back, seeing the pain on his features.

"Why did you have to stop me?"

"I don't... I don't want to see you like that. I saw a person so full of hate and anger... It's not you."

"How do you know?!"

"I... just know." She pouted. "Look... I understand why you're mad. I really do. God knows if someone hurt you, I'd be out for blood. But that's not the way."

"No, you don't understand. Shepard. You don't understand." Garrus scratched his temple. "You died for a while there. You might act like you're okay with that, but not me. Me, I'm... I'm gonna need more time."

"So take that time. I'm right here if you need to talk or if you need a hug or whatever else… I'm here. But you don't need to take out your anger on someone who can't even defend himself at the moment. You can just… let it go."

Garrus gritted his teeth. The thing he loved most about her was also the thing that sometimes annoyed him the most. She was a good person through and through—maybe too good, because he got the feeling that she was seriously expecting him to just let go of his anger.

He looked down.

"I get it that it's easy for you to forgive and be the bigger person and all that… But that's not who I am. I'm not you and I never will be. You can't expect me to change who I am, Shepard, that's not fair."

"You didn't kill him," she said firmly. "You. Didn't. Kill him. I know who you are, Garrus Vakarian. And who you are is not a murderer. Not by a long shot."

"How can you know?" Even he didn't know who he was at heart.

"Because you didn't kill him. Because you didn't kill him today even though you could have and I'd've understood if you did. Because you didn't shoot me when you probably should have—and instead, you chose to save my life. And because you weren't able to come here without trying to solve every single little crisis on the way, almost as if you couldn't walk by without helping. Still think I don't know you? I know you better than you think, Garrus. I've seen your soul. The moment you take your finger off the trigger, someone's life is not only spared but saved."

"You're biased. Just because I showed mercy once—"

"I wasn't talking just about myself. In all the time I've known you, you never intentionally hurt anyone. That's who you are, Garrus. The turian who wouldn't shoot a human soldier. Mercy? No. Kindness."

"Shepard, I…" How did she see that in him? He sure as hell didn't see kindness in himself. He had been becoming a better person, but even that person was far from perfect. Far from the example she'd set. "I'm sorry. I failed you."

"In what way?" She laughed. "God. I love you, but you're an idiot sometimes. I don't expect you to always be the bigger person. We're allowed to make mistakes. Would you stop caring about me if I'd done something you didn't agree with?"

There was a short moment of silence.

"No," Garrus said eventually. He didn't think she could do anything that would make him stop loving her.

"There you have it. What we have goes beyond this stuff." She smiled shyly. "I love you. A little disagreement isn't going to change that."

Little disagreement. She had a funny way of looking at it. Garrus shook his head, smiling to himself.

"I love you too," he whispered. He sat down on the couch next to her. "I… You know I'm sorry? Because I am. I really am."

Shepard looked down.

"It's been kind of rough those last few days, huh?"

"Tell me about it." Garrus leaned back, not caring about the terrified look Shepard sent his way when his joints cracked. "Guess we're finally catching up to the regular couple fights quota, huh?"

"I don't know. If there's anything I took away from these last few weeks, it's that I really, really care about you. Enough to work for our relationship even when it's hard. I've… never felt this way about anyone." She smiled shyly. "I'm glad we had those fights. Because I think they only brought us closer."

Garrus found his voice stuck in his throat and for a second, he couldn't find his words.

"I… Last week, when you were shot… I remember holding you. You had no heartbeat or pulse and I can only remember thinking that it wasn't real. That there was no way it was real. I had your blood all over myself and I still couldn't believe it was happening, I… I was so sure you wouldn't—you just couldn't—leave me." He clicked his mandibles. "And you didn't. I… I still can't believe you came back to me, I…"

He didn't stop purring when Shepard put her hand on his cheek. He nuzzled up to her, bringing his forehead down to rest against hers, letting the vibrations from his subvocals spread onto her body, letting his emotions of appreciation and love and respect make their mark on her. He thought it vital for her to know how much he loved her, how much she meant to him.

"Garrus?"

He pulled away, only to find those huge green eyes of hers staring right into his own, and even after all those months—so many months spent together, looking into those very eyes—having her undivided attention on himself made his heart skip a beat.

"Yeah?" He found that his voice was hoarse and weak, but it soon didn't matter, because Shepard left a slow, gentle kiss on his nose.

"We'll get through this." She smiled and it suddenly hit him that she wasn't just saying it for his sake. She honestly believed that. "We'll be alright."