The sound of the glock hitting the tile floor echoed into the apartment behind her.
Her blood boiled as Garrus Vakarian stepped toward her- his eyes examining her. She had almost attacked him before she had seen his face.
The anger and adrenaline pulsed through her as she grabbed onto the collar of his Turian military uniform. Despite her still recovering, she was strong enough to yank a surprised Garrus into the apartment.
"Shepard, ar-"
Smack.
The sound of her slapping the good side of his face echoed through the apartment.
"How could you do that to me, Vakarian!" "You had a gun pointed at me! You could have shot me!"
"How long?" She interrupted him with a glare- he could see the deep pain in her eyes.
"How long did it take you to find me?" She asked angrily, her teeth were clenched hard.
"Were you even looking?" Her voice low and sharp with venom. She expected him to retort and start spewing an explanation, but he stayed silent. "Because I've been here this entire fucking time- but no one came. Not even one of you came!" She hissed through tears and clenched teeth.
"When I was in the hospital, I sent message after message and apparently not one of them got through. Hackett was the only one to visit me in the hospital and he was only there to throw release papers at me."
Her voice cracked as she tried to maintain her composure.
"Anderson's gone, and-" She reached up to cover her mouth with her hand, stunned that the words had finally slipped from her lips. His response was a low hum and he firmly pulled her into his arms. He rested his chin on the top of her head. She closed her eyes and simply let his presence melt her anger away.
She was still upset with him for not showing up when she had needed him, but he was here now. He pulled away and reached up to place a hand over the left side of her face- brushing a talon against the scar on her cheek. "If I had known you were alive, I would have come sooner."
He was telling the truth. When his voice got low with a rumble, when his eyes met hers with inexplicable gentleness, and when the emotion behind his words was conveyed in his subharmonics- there was no doubt in her mind.
His soft touches combined with his words helped her relax. She could feel the hormones that she had been missing start to rush through her system again. She felt so much better. What a bitch she was being. Only thinking about herself and what she had been through in the last few months. A feeling of shame came over her. She bit her lip as she looked up at him through tears. Her hand took his own while giving him a sheepish grin.
"I- I'm sorry for slapping you."
He chuckled and his mandibles fluttered.
"I've never been slapped by a human before- I had imagined what it would feel like. You know, with as soft as human hands are... but just remind me to not piss you off again."
She leaned up and kissed his mandible, sliding her arms around his neck. Their eyes met and they held each other's gaze for a moment.
"Thalassa, I'm sorry. I've let you down." Her eyes wavered for a moment as she fought the urge to cry again.
"Garrus, I thought about you every day I was in that damned hospital. Hoping that you would come and rescue me."
He smiled and shook his head lightly.
"You could never just sit down and do nothing for a day could you?"
She scrunched her nose in disapproval and kicked at his shins.
"You asshole. It was almost 5 months."
She grinned as he swiftly picked her up- carrying her to the couch. There was a silence that accompanied them for a long while. They just sat on the sofa, and it wasn't long before Shepard had fallen asleep leaning against him. Garrus had lifted her carefully, as not to wake her, and transferred her to the bedroom. To his dismay, the bed looked untouched- as if it hadn't been slept in at all.
The Turian looked down at his sleeping mate and sighed. He knew she hadn't been sleeping. When she did, she probably slept on that piece of crap in the living room. Knowing her, the bed was probably too soft to her liking. Stubborn woman. But he couldn't give her too much of a hard time because he understood her. He got her into the bed and managed to pull the sheets up and over her. He felt he had failed his duty to protect her. Turian males were supposed to protect their partners with vigor, no matter the cost. He didn't know if humans had similar customs, but whatever they were he knew he had probably failed them too. Garrus reached down to brush some hair out of her face before investigating the apartment.
The front door was locked. He turned the lights out and drew the automatic shades on the large window closed. He picked up the gun that had fallen earlier and examined it with interest before making his way back to the bedroom.