Yes, I dropped off the Earth. Which is impossible because of mass and gravity but it's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'm back now.
I hope this chapter works, it was difficult to write non-boring about something that Garrus is not participating in. But there'll be smut at the end, just for you, dear reader!
Garrus' recovery took a lot longer than he had expected. Doctor Chakwas' estimate of him being able to leave the med-bay the next day had been correct so far in that he made it all the way to the mess hall and had to sit there for half an hour to gain the strength to even make it back.
As he lay back down on the med-bay bed, tucked in and scanned by a non-commenting Doctor Chakwas he decided to, for once, use the privilege his rank gave him and ordered one of the crew to get him some food from the mess. He also asked the engineers to set him up a terminal so that he could at least get some work done while he was under observation by the doctor.
The knowing smile Doctor Chakwas told him that she had wanted him to experience this weakness. He would have argued with her to release him before but now he was quite aware of how frail his body was. She connected an IV to his arm again and after about half an hour the trembling in his muscles stopped.
When he finally felt strong again, he scheduled a call to ANIS and waited for them to acknowledge it. He scanned the news for a while until his call was returned. The omni-screen expanded and showed the faces of Keggs and Nihlus, both trilling with worry.
Garrus answered with a calming tone before they even exchanged a greeting.
Nihlus leaned forward. "How are you feeling, Palaven boy?"
Garrus gave a hum to that little jab but before he could say anything, Keggs spoke up, his arms crossed in front of his cowl. "Didn't your mother tell you not to play in the snow?" Nihlus broke out in laughter at that and Keggs was chuckling quietly.
He decided to not bother with an answer and waited for the two older turians to stop giggling. Keggs was the first to get himself under control again and he sang a sharp tone at Nihlus to get him to quiet down. Nihlus shook himself and focused on Garrus again. "We were actually quite worried about you. Freezing to death was not supposed to be part of the job."
Keggs gave Nihlus a slap on his fringe, which made Nihlus laugh again. Nihlus got up and disappeared, in his place Terlin Mirhale sat down. After a nod from Keggs and a slightly bewildered look over his shoulder to Nihlus, the salarian turned to a datapad in his hand.
"We have tried to find a lead as to where our rogue Spectre is now," Terlin said. "Saren Arterius has completely disappeared from the grid, he has not contacted anybody. We then turned to the next obvious thing to follow his movements - credits."
"And?" Garrus asked when Terlin didn't continue.
"Nothing. He's not touched any of his funds." Terlin shook his head. "I don't understand this, a ship that huge needs a crew to run, we should see a trail of money for that."
"Unless he runs the whole ship with geth," Garrus said.
Terlin stared at him for a second. "Is that possible?"
"Why not? The geth have spaceships of their own, we have seen them. Although, there have been asari troops too..."
"Ah yes," Terlin interrupted, "we can actually trace credits for those from Matriarch Benezia, but that trail has dried up now."
"Saren could be working exclusively with geth now, it seems." Garrus flipped through the information on geth that Tali had put together. "The geth run on a versatile fusion core that can convert energy virtually out of anything. They could run on the exhaust of that strange spaceship Saren is using or on scrap material they pick up planetside."
Keggs nodded at that. "His own nourishment could easily be provided by the things he finds along the way. I'm sure there was a fridge to raid on Noveria."
The thought of the frightening turian Spectre, rummaging through a fridge in one of the laboratories on Noveria, gave Garrus an unexpected chuckle. "He could also have funds available that we are not aware of."
"Possible, but not likely," Terlin said, "we've been very thorough. As it is, we are monitoring for geth activity now and we have found a few things. There is a human colony on Feros, run by the ExoGeni Cooperation, that has reported attacks by geth."
"I heard about Feros before, an information broker on the Citadel told us that some colonists are leaving."
Terlin nodded. "Yes, some of the colonists don't like how ExoGeni runs the colony, they felt mistreated."
Garrus thought about Noveria and how such a corporate run colony worked. He couldn't blame anybody who would want to leave such a place. "Why is ExoGeni colonizing the planet?"
"Feros is covered with prothean ruins. They want to establish a settlement to explore the ruins from there."
Garrus made a note of that. "Prothean ruins would certainly interest Saren. Has he been seen there?"
Nihlus leaned over Terlin's shoulder. "Not officially but the colony is not very large, most of the planet is undeveloped and covered with ancient debris. He could have dropped anywhere without getting noticed."
Garrus' omni-tool buzzed with the receipt of data files. Terlin had forwarded all the information they had on Feros and the prothean ruins on the planet. "I'll inform Shepard that we should head to Feros next to investigate there. Saren might not be there anymore by the time we get there but we need to know what he knows. If he found anything about the threat that Shepard sees in her vision."
"Where is Shepard now?" Nihlus asked, sounding genuinely curious.
"The Alliance asked her for a few investigations." Garrus looked through the mission log of the ship with his omni-tool access. "She is planetside right now, a former Alliance laboratory that has gone dark."
"Tell her my greetings," Nihlus said, "and tell her that she should take better care of you."
Garrus sang a note of amusement before ending the call. He read through the information Terlin had send him until his eyes fell closed.
"Stand by, Normandy."
Garrus had the shore party communication running on his console and listened to it while he cleaned his armor and guns. He wanted to go with them but Doctor Chakwas had not given clearance for him. He had been annoyed but if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he really was not fit for duty yet. The physical therapy this morning had left him wheezing for breath and almost collapsing on the floor.
But Shepard had given him access to the comm channels and the external recordings that she took with her omni-tool to add to her mission reports. That way, he could at least hear what went on down in the human colony of Zhu's Hope on Feros.
The shore party got attacked by geth as soon as they had stepped off the walkway. Shepard was now talking to the leader of the colony, a strange man called Fai Dan. He was way too calm about the geth attacks.
"Shepard to Normandy."
"Normandy here," Joker answered.
"Something is not right here, the people of this colony act like they are drugged. There's only a handful of people here and this colony used to have over a thousand people. Nothing works, they have no water, no power, no food."
"Want me to send the engineers out?" Joker asked.
"Yes, but I want them in full protective gear, including breathing masks, and I want three marines protecting them, also in full gear. They are to take samples of the air, the water, everything and I want Doctor Chakwas to analyze it for sedatives, drugs or anything similar. We are heading out into the ruins to sweep out the geth."
"Understood, Normandy standing by."
For the next half hour, Garrus listened to the sounds of heavy boots on hard floor, shootings, and the characteristic screeching of dying geth. Shepard gave short and calm commands to Kaidan, Ashley, Wrex and Tali, showing no sign of distress in her voice. Garrus heard the remarks of the squadmates too and only Tali sometimes seemed to be overwhelmed. But after a while, she also found her rhythm in fighting. Her and Wrex exchanged jokes after a while, the krogan apparently having a lot of fun in winding up the young quarian but she got wise to his antics and snapped back just the same.
Garrus relaxed a little, so far the mission seemed to go smoothly. It was quite embarrassing how much he worried about Shepard when he could not be with her. Probably the deadliest woman alive and he wondered if she could manage without him.
A terrifying scream pulled him out of his thoughts. He realized after a second that it had not been one of the squad but one of the colonists who had screamed. The man sounded strange, as if he was not fully in control of his own mind. He tried to tell Shepard something about who controlled him and the other colonists, but he broke down in an agonizing scream before he could finish his sentence.
"Shepard to Normandy."
"Go ahead, Commander."
"Call back our teams and have the samples analyzed. I want guards at the airlock and constant surveillance for any sign of external influence on the crew." Shepard sighed. "Something is very, very wrong here. We found the reason for the water problems, the valves were closed, and had been for a while apparently. We spoke to a colonist who was in pain from fighting some kind of influence. This has been going on for a while it seems," anger was making her voice sound hard, "I really want to hear what ExoGeni have to say about that."
"Commander," Joker said, "according to the maps, you are not far away from the ExoGeni headquarters. They haven't evacuated, not officially at least so you should find someone there who can answer you. But," a negative beep came from one of the consoles next to him, "something is blocking our scans of the area."
"We deactivated a geth transmitter outside of Zhu's Hope, that should have improved scanning."
"It has, but only for the area around Zhu's Hope and," Joker took a deep breath, "we still get very strange readings, we can't even clearly differentiate the colonists from the base. It's all one big blob."
"Have one of the engineers check the scanners. First the guns don't work, now the scanners. Maybe we should send the ship back," Shepard hissed out between her teeth.
Joker said something about not giving up his baby but Shepard cut him off and announced that they were going to drive over a prothean skyway to a building that ExoGeni had repurposed as their headquarters.
"It's a Mako!" Shepard announced with a happy laugh. Garrus was sure that he heard a groan coming from the rest of the squad.
"Commander!" Joker called out, "incoming geth ship!"
"Acknowledged. They're dropping armatures."
Tali spoke up, "Shepard, I'm getting comm chatter but I can't fix the location."
Shots from the Mako's cannon boomed between the rattling and screeching of geth. "Keep scanning, Tali, I would like to find some survivors," Shepard said between shots. The rumbling of the Mako told Garrus that she was most likely driving over geth and armatures, just how she liked it.
Finally the noises died down and the squad found an outpost with some employees of the ExoGeni laboratories. One very cynical supervisor was trying to tell Shepard that the ExoGeni headquarters were private property and housed company secrets. Garrus could easily imagine the angry tension in her jaw when she told him that she wasn't interested in company secrets. That supervisor was lucky not to receive a punch in the gut.
The team took off over another skyway and Garrus listened to the conversation over the comm. In the middle of a conversation about the ExoGeni cooperation and what they wanted with this colony, the connection dropped. Garrus sat stunned, listening to the silence.
Now he began to worry. It was one thing to sit by and just listen, it was quite another to wait and not know at all what was going on. He tried to distract himself with some complicated programming, installing a code subset that would make a normal combat scanner effective against geth shields. But after a few minutes he had to admit that he wasn't concentrating and that his hands were shaking.
He finally got up and went up to the cockpit, unable to sit still in his cabin any longer. As he approached the cockpit, he could already hear Joker trying to raise the shore party.
"Normandy to Commander Shepard, please respond, Normandy to Commander Shepard."
He looked over his shoulder as he heard Garrus approaching, his footsteps loud on the metal walkway. Unlike a turian ship, the Normandy was not equipped with much soundproofing and to Garrus she actually was much louder than a turian ship. A big turian in bulky, heavy armor could not get around quietly on this ship.
Joker pointed to the co-pilot seat with his head, offering it to Garrus. He kept scanning and calling for the shore party without receiving an answer.
One of the marines guarding the airlock looked up from his omni-tool scanner. "XO Pressly, we are getting movement outside, the people in the colony are coming to the Normandy."
Pressly stepped into the cockpit and Joker switched one display to an outside view. They watched a group of humans slowly walking towards them.
"Is it just me, or do those people look like a bunch of zombies?" Joker wondered.
"I was thinking the same thing, Lieutenant," Pressly said. Joker turned around and raised his eyebrows in surprise. Pressly had a faint smile playing on his lips, a rare sight.
"Keep the doors closed, watch for weapons," the XO ordered and turned back. He nodded shortly towards Garrus as he left. Not the warmest greeting but better than before. Pressly clearly had already received his talk from Shepard about welcoming the aliens on board.
Joker looked at the screen, his nose wrinkled. "Someone should tell them that we're all out of zombie food."
They flinched when the colonists started to bang on the hull and called to them, their voices eerily calm. Joker looked at Garrus wide eyed and shook his head. "Never a boring moment on this ship," the pilot said and turned back to his controls.
Excruciatingly long minutes passed until Shepard finally answered Joker's hails. Garrus felt the tension drop from his shoulders like a coat.
"Commander," Joker said, his voice pitched high in relief. He had been just as worried, apparently. "Good to hear from you. The colonists have gone crazy, they're banging on the door and throwing things at the hull."
"Don't let them in, don't interact. We have some new information about this place," Shepard said over the comm. "There's a plant under the substructure of Zhu's Hope, called the Thorian. It has some kind of influence on the colonists, controlling them. And get this, ExoGeni knew about this and willingly used the colonists as test subjects!"
Shepard let out a growl, sounding like an angry turian. Garrus had to grin, it seemed she had taken on some vocal habits from him.
"Corporate run colonies are looking better and better," she said with a sharp edge in her voice. "Forward this information to ANIS, this might be grounds for investigations. We are making our way back to Zhu's Hope now but we're going to stop at the ExoGeni outpost and drop someone off. And I'm itching to talk to that supervisor," she snarled. "Shepard out."
They kept the connection open, listening to more fights with geth, a conversation about geth that seemed to have built a temple, and Kaidan and Wrex holding a contest who could throw geth further with his biotics.
The meeting with the ExoGeni employees at the outpost turned into a standoff, as the supervisor wanted the whole colony purged and was waving a gun around. The sound of a hit, someone falling and Wrex's chuckle told them that Shepard had just run all out of patience.
By now, the colonists were out of control, swarming the Normandy and even the people at the outpost seemed to be affected. Shepard needed a solution to get through the colonists without having to kill them and someone handed her some grenades with a sedating nerve gas.
"Shepard to Normandy."
"Go ahead, Commander."
"I don't have enough nerve gas to sedate every colonist. Have Doctor Chakwas prepare tranquilizer darts from my stash and I need someone to shoot those darts into the neck of the crazy people."
"I'll do it," Garrus said, already on his way to the armory, typing a message to Doctor Chakwas as he walked.
Shepard switched to a private channel with him. "Are you well enough? You need to shoot very precise and..."
"I'm fine Shepard, I can do this. I'm a sniper, you want me to do this."
"Of course I do, but I also want you to be healthy. You'll have to climb on top of the Normandy through a roof hatch, are you up for this?"
"Yes," Garrus said, sounding a tad more convinced than he felt. But he needed to feel useful, he was going crazy, sitting around doing nothing. He looked through the rifles on the gun rack, picking a small and light one. Someone handed him a pack of tranq darts, and he began loading them into the magazine.
"Okay," Shepard said and he heard a smile in her voice, "go ahead then. Modify the rifle for low impact, we don't want you shooting the darts through their necks."
"Already at it, Shepard," Garrus said.
"Of course," she said, laughing a little, "happy shooting, going back to open comm."
The comm filled with squad chatter again and a warning from Joker about geth activity. The squad kept coming closer to the base, meeting resistance by geth, colonists and something that Tali called green creepers. Garrus decided to take a second gun with normal ammunition with him, in case those creepers would turn up at the Normandy too.
One of the marines, Omar, wordlessly came up to him, loaded up on ammunition and hefted a grenade launcher on her back. Apparently she had been ordered to be his backup, as it was standard procedure. When he had to climb out of the roof hatch, Garrus was actually glad that he had her with him, so that they could help each other with their guns.
It was even more creepy to hear and see the colonists from the roof. They shouted words in no real language and they cried and whimpered at the same time. When they saw Garrus and Omar, some tried to climb up on the Normandy, almost falling down into the dockingbay. Garrus hurried to stun them before they would fall into the pit.
After he had tranqed the first ten colonists, Garrus had to refill the magazine. Omar had her gaze set to the far side where the shore party had gotten attacked by the geth when they arrived. So far, no geth or green creepers had shown up. Garrus raised his rifle again and aimed at another colonist. He was starting to feel the strain in his arms but he forced himself with calm breathing to keep his aim steady.
Through the comm channel he could hear Shepard's team fighting their way towards the base. He froze for a second when he heard the leader of the camp shooting himself to escape the control. How could a plant have such a terrible influence on a person? No wonder Saren was interested in that thorian, such control would be useful for him. And Saren was the kind of person who had no qualms in using such methods.
"Shepard to Normandy. We found the entrance to the lower levels, going down now."
The colonists at the Normandy suddenly turned as one and ran back towards the base. Omar took the grenade launcher from her back and calmly placed two shots on the ceiling at the end of the walkway. The ceiling collapsed and blocked the escape path for the colonists, trapping them. Garrus nodded appreciatively towards her and she grinned.
"We don't want them guys coming up in the Commanders back," she said.
Garrus nodded in agreement. He sat down, trying to cover up how much the shooting had tired him out. Over the comm, he heard the squad go silent and he wondered why. After a second, Shepard spoke up.
"That does not look like any plant I've ever seen. This may be - problematic."
Garrus wondered what she saw when his omni-tool indicated that he had received files. It was a series of pictures of a massive object the size of a shuttle, with tentacles and something that looked like a mouth. It took him a while to realise that he was looking at the plant, the thorian.
Omar looked over his shoulder and gasped, "That's a plant? Really?"
Another picture appeared, an angry looking asari with green tinted skin on it. Over the comm he could hear the asari speaking for the plant, demanding of them to be in awe. Garrus shook his head, that was definitely the wrong thing to say to a human and especially to Shepard. When Shepard refused to leave the colonists under the plants control, the thorian attacked.
The next few minutes were very confusing to listen to. Tali complained about more of those green creepers, Shepard and Kaidan fought with asari clones that the thorian seemed to give birth to and Wrex and Ashley were cutting and shooting down the tentacles that held the plant in place. Garrus began to worry when Tali fell down and Kaidan let out a scream when he pulled the creepers away from her. Wrex announced the last node as almost cut when Ashley called out "Commander!" with choked fear in her voice.
The rifle began to creak under Garrus's grip until he heard her voice, croaking out a "I'm fine." Then an inhuman scream echoed through the building as the thorian fell down inside the tower.
The team was patching each other up in silence. Kaidan had been scratched by a creeper and Shepard had hurt her arm. Tali's suit was not punctured, she was just a bit rattled. As they were taking inventory, a wet sound could be heard. Garrus heard guns getting readied and a new voice came over the comm.
"I am free! Please don't kill me!"
"I just fought ten of you," Shepard snarled, "I need some convincing."
"My name is Shiala, I served Matriarch Benezia. She saw the danger and wanted to guide Saren on a gentler path."
"Didn't work out so well, did it?"
"Saren is compelling, Matriarch Benezia lost her way, she, all of us, came to believe in his cause, his goals. The strength of his influence is troubling," the asari sounded close to tears.
Tali gave a snort. "She tried to manipulate Saren but in the end, her plan backfired."
"Indeed," Shepard said. "How does he do it?"
"He has an enormous warship called Sovereign," Shiala answered, "and it can dominate minds, indoctrinate them. The influence is subtle, it can take days or weeks but it will happen. I was a willing slave when Saren brought me here. He needed my biotics to communicate with the thorian, to learn it's secrets."
"Saren is a biotic himself, why did he need you?" Shepard asked.
"I was offered as trade, to secure an alliance. But Saren betrayed the thorian, he ordered the geth to destroy all evidence of it's existence."
"No wonder it was so angry," Ashley said.
Shiala continued, "The thorian was here, long before the protheans built this city. The thorian's knowledge of the protheans is the essence of the protheans, it can not be taught, it has to be transferred. But you need the cipher to understand them. Saren knows that you search for the conduit, he attacked the thorian so that you could not gain the cipher."
Garrus perked up, finally some new information. They had already suspected that there was something going on with Saren's ship. But they had not heard of a cipher so far. Shiala explained that the cipher would make Shepard understand the vision from the beacon on Eden Prime. With the cipher she could think like a prothean, she would understand their culture and history. The asari would have to transfer the cipher into Shepard's head with a mind meld. Garrus just knew that Shepard would not like that at all.
But she sighed and agreed to have Shiala implant the cipher in her head. The asari fell into a long speech, Garrus was pretty sure that Shepard rolled her eyes at that.
"Every action sends ripples across the galaxy, every idea must touch another mind to live, each emotion must mark anothers spirit. We are all connected, every living being united in a single glorious existence. Open yourself to the universe, Commander. Embrace eternity!"
There was no sound until Ashley and Kaidan both called out "Commander!" and there was a commotion that made Garrus almost lose his mind in worry. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he heard Shepard cough and say that she was fine. He was beginning to hate that expression.
"My head hurts," Shepard said, "and I still don't understand what I'm supposed to be seeing."
The asari spoke up. "You have been given a great gift, the experience of an entire people, it will take time to process this information. I'm sorry if you suffered but you needed the cipher, in time it will help you understand the vision from the beacon."
Garrus stopped listening, and climbed down the hatch. He needed to see her, to know that she was okay. He waited next to the air-lock until she finally came back. She was holding her arm in front of her and gave him a tired smile. The mission briefing was cut short because she had to go to the med-bay.
Before she left, she pulled him closer and whispered, "Meet me in the Captain's cabin in forty minutes."
He sighed, he could hardly wait.
As soon as Garrus had entered the cabin, he got pulled on the couch and Shepard snuggled up to his side. She placed a kiss on his mandible and pressed her face against his.
"I missed you so much,' she whispered. "Sorry that I had so little time for you in the last few days. You were stuck in the med-bay and the Alliance was sending me around on stupid errands."
"I could not have helped you anyway," he mumbled, leaning back against the couch and thinking about how tired he had been even after short activity. "Even tranquilizing the colonists today pretty much took all my strength."
She softly punched him on the arm. "Hey! You said you were okay!"
"Well, I couldn't leave such delicate shooting to someone else, could I?"
"Oh, you cocky bastard, we have capable marines on this ship, you know. Somebody else could have done that." She looked at him sternly from under her eyelashes and it filled him with a rush of hot anticipation. Hopefully they would have time for some intimacy later tonight.
"But not as pretty," he said, grinning widely at her.
"Oh, come on!" She gave him another punch in good humour but winced and rubbed her arm.
"How's the arm?' Garrus asked.
"Nothing serious, that Shiala clone slammed a Warp or something like that against me, and that gave me a hair fissure in my arm. Doctor Chakwas had to do some bone mending but it's fine now." She sighed and leaned her face on that arm. "Damn, I'm so tired. All those stupid jobs Alliance command is throwing at me. You'd think we had more important things to do."
She sat up, an angry scowl on her forehead. "Honestly, the mission from Alliance command before we went to Feros was really testing my patience. They lost some drone on Eletania and I had to pick up the fucking data-module. A data-module! On a planet that is a health hazard even in full combat gear. I think Tali fared better than me down there."
"Was that the first time you took Tali with you?"
"Yeah, I wanted to see what she had learned in her training with Ash and I didn't expect much fighting. I had Ash with me, she is worth two soldiers if you ask me. Hell of a shot. We actually ran into some geth but we had them down in seconds."
"Why the hurry in picking up that data module?"
"They were afraid the geth would find it out there in the Attican Traverse. But still, the top ship of the Alliance and Hierarchy, also kind of busy with chasing a very dangerous rogue Spectre and they send me down to run after pyjacks to search for a data module? Ridiculous."
"You searched pyjacks?" Garrus asked in disbelief.
"Apparently one had picked up the thing and ran away with it. So I had to chase every single one. There were at least a hundred there and I was really careful but the terrain was not easy and I accidently drove one over. Tali was so upset with me, she gave me such a vicious look."
Garrus chuckled and nuzzled the soft hair at her temple. "How can you tell, you can't see it through her helmet?"
Shepard laughed out. "Oh, but I knew! She has the cold-shoulder-and-scowl body language down to an artform! You should see her when Wrex is teasing her, she shuts him up with that!"
Garrus tried to imagine the huge, battle-scarred krogan to back away from the small quarian and failed. He had to see that to believe it. He pulled Shepard closer to him, enjoying the softness of her body. He had missed this, this closeness, holding each other.
Shepard was not quite ready to settle down though. She straightened and bounced on the couch in excitement. "Guess what else I found down there."
"Oh Spirits, the possibilities..." It could be anything from baby Thresher Maws to dancing geth.
"Come on, guess!"
"You found a long lost colony of botanist krogan."
"No, I - oh wow, that would have been awesome!" Her eyes lit up. "Krogan cultivating poisonous plants, how cool is that! But the place is so toxic, I might even be bad for krogan. No, there was a prothean artifact that looked like a floating silver ball. I touched it..."
"You don't learn, do you?" Garrus sighed.
"I had to! I had to see if it does something to the vision from Eden Prime."
"Is it still so cryptic?"
Shepard made a face. "It's gotten better with the cipher but it's still all chaos and devastation in hectic pictures. Whatever the protheans are trying to tell me, it's not going to be pretty. Anyway, the silver floaty ball gave me a brand new vision," she threw her hands up with a sarcastic grin, "hurray!"
Garrus saw the worry that she tried to overplay with her humour and took her hands to soothe her. "Are you collecting them now?" he said, trying to keep the mood light.
"Yeah, Liara is already looking at me like I'm some kind of prodigy that she wants to put into a museum." Shepard scooted lower and laid her head on his legs. "That vision was actually quite clear for a fucking change. It was from a hunter and it seemed like the protheans were watching him, how he lived, like anthropologists. It ended... " she raked through her hair and Garrus caught her hand and held it. She sighed and continued, "there were objects in the sky, silver and dark and then there were giant red beams and then it ended."
"You think he got killed by the beams?"
"It sure looked like it. I don't think I ever saw something like that before but, somehow, I know..." She began raking through her hair again, a nervous gesture that many humans shared.
Garrus stroked over her cheek with the back of his finger and felt her relax from his touch.
She took a deep breath and some of the tension left her. "Somehow, it felt familiar. I'm convinced that those beams came from a Reaper, although I can't really know that."
Garrus kept on stroking her cheek while he thought about that. "Maybe it's the vision from Eden Prime. You might not understand it all but subconsciously you know now what the Reapers can do."
"Yeah, that could be true." She raised her hand and stroked over his mandible in a mirror of his own movements. "How do you feel, Angel?"
He traced her lovely lips with his talon. "A bit tired. Dr. Chakwas wants me to do some more physio training before letting me go but she said that I could return to duty in about three days."
"Good, I need you by my side again. It's not the same without you." She sat up and climbed on his lap, taking his face in both her hands. "No more playing in the snow for you."
He leaned into her touch. "That would be fine by me."
Shepard hid a yawn behind her hand. "Wanna go to bed? I can't promise much action but I would really love to have you sleep by my side."
"I would love that."
She got up and undressed and disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes. When she got out, she wore a simple shirt and some thin pants. She looked at him sheepishly. "Not exactly sexy this look, I know."
Garrus got up and nuzzled her hair. She smelled of soap and the sharp sting of her toothpaste. "You look sexy no matter what you wear."
Her cheeks turned a little pink and she gave him one of her blinding smiles that always hit him like a physical force. She took his hand and led him into the bathroom. With a smile she pointed at the turian teeth cleaner nozzle. "I had one of those installed for you in here too, so that you can sleep here if you want. And..." she pointed to a hook on the wall, "there's a sleeping tunic for you. I hope you like it."
The sleeping tunic was white with blue lines and the fabric looked very soft. Garrus felt his gizzard warm up, she really wanted him here, not just occasionally.
He took her face in his hands and licked over her lips. "Thank you, my Sunshine."
"You're welcome, my Angel." She walked out and slipped into the bed. "You better hurry or I'm fast asleep when you get here." She snuggled up under the blanket and Garrus noticed with a smile that there was a second blanket for him on the bed.
He rushed through cleaning his teeth and put on the sleeping tunic. Shepard looked like she was already asleep when he crawled into the bed but she opened her eyes and turned to him.
They looked at each other, fingers tracing over faces and necks. There was an unusual seriousness on Shepard's face for a second before it was replaced with her smile.
"You know what we missed out on?" she asked. "Because of your hypothermia, we didn't even get to act out the story of 'trapped with an alien in the cold and surviving by sharing body heat'. That always sounds so hot and sexy when you're not actually trapped in the cold for real."
"What are you talking about?" Garrus asked and trilled out his confusion.
"Don't you guys have that trope?" She scooted closer to him and wrapped her arms around him. "We have lots of stories or movies with this. There is a scene where two people, who don't know each other or are even enemies, are forced to share a sleeping bag to survive. Of course, things get hot and sexy then."
"Yes, I think I saw a vid like that. That sounds interesting."
"It does, doesn't it?"
She grinned at him and sat up, the blanket wrapped tightly around herself. She looked at him with her eyes wide, acting as if she was scared of him. But there was grin on her lips that she couldn't quite hide.
"Turian, I know we are enemies but if we don't work together now, we will both die." She pulled the blanket tighter around herself, pretending to be cold. She even made her teeth shatter.
Garrus bared his teeth and flared his mandibles. Together with his subharmonic growl, he acted every bit like a threatening turian towards an enemy. "Human. How can I trust you? How can I be sure that you won't jam a knife into my side as soon as we lie down?"
Shepard's eyes lit up before she fell back into her role. She opened the blanket and lifted her shirt to show that she had no weapons. Garrus swallowed once before he nodded and also opened the blanket and lifted his tunic. She licked her lips as she looked him over.
"Besides," she scooted down on the bed, holding her blanket open to invite him to crawl under it, "a dead turian would not be very warm, right?"
Garrus pretended to hesitate for a short time and then slid under the blanket next to her and wrapped his arms around Shepard. She curled up against his chest, her leg over his hip. Her closeness, the soft coolness of her pliant body and her scent were enough to loosen his plates. He pressed his hips against hers and felt that familiar shiver from her.
Shepard chuckled. "Of course, there are more ways to keep warm on such a cold, cold night."
Garrus acted like he was frozen in shock, holding absolutely still. "But that would be wrong."
She ground her hips against his and whispered, "So very, very wrong."
He let his hand stroke up and down her back. "Sleeping with the enemy..."
She pressed herself closer to him and sucked on the tip of his mandible. "...a capital offense."
"Maybe I can say that you had me under mind control," Garrus growled.
"You think humans have mind control capabilities?" Shepard laughed out and the vibrations travelled most pleasantly through both of them.
"Anything is possible with you humans." He flared his mandibles. "We heard that your kisses are poisonous and that you control us that way."
Shepard grinned before acting serious again. She scooted up until her face was level with his. "How about if we test that theory?" She softly licked along his mouthplates and pressed her lips against them. He let his mouth fall open and she eagerly pressed forward, her tongue stroking over is. She alternated between stroking and sucking on his mouthplates. He let himself fall into the sensations with a sigh. It had been so long that they had time for a slow and sensual kiss.
She pulled back to take a breath and licked her lips. "So, how does that mind work now?"
Garrus grinned and faked a panicky trill. "Oh no, the human has me under control! My mind is convinced that I need to bury myself inside of her. Only then can we keep warm enough to survive this cold, cold night."
"You must be mistaken," Shepard huffed, her hips grinding against him, "because clearly it's you, implanting this desire in my mind. Making me wish to feel you inside of me and fuck me."
Garrus could only answer with a growl, his desire now very real. She struggled against his tight hug and it took him a moment to realize that she wiggled out of her pants. As soon as she had freed one leg she ground back against him, only to stop once more. To Garrus's confusion she turned away from him and searched through the drawer in her nightstand. With a triumphant smile she returned, holding the tube with the plate-softening lotion in her hand. She lathered some on his thighs and around his plates, his emerging penis spreading his groinplates. She grinned and tossed the tube to the side and aligned her hip to his, throwing her leg back over and her soft wet folds rubbed against his penis.
Garrus licked along that wonderful curve where her neck met her shoulder and she gasped. He pressed his teeth against her clavicle, just softly, so that he didn't nick the skin. "So soft," he murmured, "so enticing." He took another lick along that curve up to her earlobe and she moaned. Garrus grinned and whispered into her ear, "So sensual. Are you made for pleasure, human?"
Shepard gave a slight grin and ground her clit harder against him, making herself whimper. "Right now, all I want is to feel you, enemy mine. Our troops may be fighting but here, right now, there is only us. And we are not so different." She arched her back with a moan, thoroughly enjoying grinding against him.
Garrus shifted and aligned the tip of his penis with her soft, warm opening, almost getting overwhelmed by the sensations. He held his position, just touching her opening and he practically trembled in anticipation.
"Human," he said, his voice underlayed with deep hums from his subharmonics, "this is your last chance to say no."
In answer, she ground herself down on him, taking him in as far as she could in this sideways position. "Come here, enemy mine," she purred. "Let's see if you aliens live up to your reputation."
"We have a reputation?"
Her laugh turned into a gasp as she pressed herself against him, her fingernails digging into his carapace. She spoke with little breathless gasps between the words. "Yes, that you are sexual beasts, wild and untamed. Taking your women by force, holding them down with your teeth... big hit in the romance novels scene and.. ohhh" a loud moan made it impossible for her to continue speaking.
Garrus slowly pumped his hips forward, his movements somewhat hindered by lying on their sides but Shepard adjusted to his rhythm and pushed forward when he pushed forward. They both gasped as his penis went deeper into her warm sheath. It wasn't the urgent pumping of their usual sexual encounters, always driven by burning lust and the lack of time. This was slow, just rocking against each other in delicious friction.
"Sorry to disappoint," he said between gasps, "not much of a fan of the sex by force thing." He felt her her tunnel pulsing and getting tighter, telling him that she was close to her orgasm.
"Neither am I... oh gods... oh yes, yes, like this, Garrus!"
She pressed herself against him, her breath coming in hot puffs over his neck, her hips snapping to his. Her movements became faster and more urgent. She was mumbling his name between moans, her eyes pressed closed, her whole body drawn like a tight spring until she went rigid with a pressed scream only to push even more, harder, faster, taking him, holding him, pumping him from inside until he exploded in white bliss, pressing his teeth into her neck, her name all he could mumble like a prayer.
They kept holding each other like they were drowning, slowly coming down from that high. Her leg over his hip held him tight to her, not allowing him to slip out. Her hand moved from the back of his neck to the side of his face, softly stroking over his mandible.
"I'm so glad that you're here with me," she said, "I'm so lucky to have you, my Angel."
Garrus's voice came out hoarse, "I'm the lucky one, Sunshine, I..."
She shut him up by kissing him, the shift in position causing him to slip out. "Let's get cleaned up and then sleep."
He nodded and they both padded to the bathroom to take care of the necessities. A few minutes later they were back in the bed, her wrapped in his arms, her back pressed to his front.
A deep calm fell over him, sleep quickly claiming him.
This was where he belonged. As long as he had her in his arms at the end of the day, his life was right and whole.
All credit for the botanist krogan, cultivating poisonous defense plants goes to Joey, the sexy krogan.
Some lines are taken from the game, credit for them goes to Bioware.
And of course, thanks to Credete for editing this long chapter.
So, what the hell writer? Extended break?
You see, I did write, lots and lots of stuff! I finished my Jack and Joker story (Know Real Fear, please check it out), I began publishing the story about the history of the quarians (The Way Up, also on my profile), I wrote a short story for a contest on deviantart and like every writer with her head in the clouds, I started writing original fiction. And not just one, no, two books!
How to be weird and crazy, writer edition.
But, big fat promise, this story will not be abandoned and neither will the ME2 and ME3 story. I'm trying to stick to the schedule but I can't promise to always keep it.