'Movie Night' has two meanings in the Vakarian household. The first typically involves the twins, a kid friendly vid with the majority of the script sung by the vividly colored characters, and lots of popcorn, sugary snacks, and anything else parenting books - which they threw out after the first few chapters - say not to feed their children. Sometimes, others join with their own families - even over comms in attempt to make it a group viewing, as Tali often did with the little terrors that seemed to flock around her on Rannoch.

The second version of movie night, and the one Jane and Garrus have been preparing for all night, involves just the two of the two of them. There were occasions where other adults would join in on watching the more interesting - and violent or raunchy - movies, but not tonight. Tonight, they gather up a bottle of sweet wine - her favorite because, dammit, the other shit is just too bitter - and leave the snacks in lieu of cuddling up together without worry of crumbs or incessant shifting to reach for more. They even remove clothes to nothing but a robe on her and loose pants for himself, enjoying the chance to relax with a freedom they can't when the twins are awake.

With the twins already asleep up in their rooms, Garrus claims the remote and corner of the two couch sections so that he can lay his legs across the leather surface of one section while she takes the other. Lounging across the free space, Jane's head fits perfectly at the crook of his shoulder and keel as she curls under a plush blanket against the chill that's never quite left since Alchera. Like this, she can trap his heat and enjoy the way his thumb absently draws circles on her own shoulder as he wraps his arm around her to hold her close.

"What's on the docket tonight?" She swirls her wine gently before smelling its sweet, slightly spicy fragrance. They usually switch up decision making for the movies, at least on their private showings, but, by that playful hum in his chest, she is starting to regret it being his night. "Oh god, what did you pick?"

He chuckles when she shifts to look up at him, smiling warmly. "Come on, now. It can't possibly be that bad."

"Please tell me you haven't found some crazy elcor rendition of a classic movie again." She still remembers the time he found a version of an elcor Titanic where the main human actors were replaced by monotone, droning mammoths that made absolutely no sense to be floating on the ship's debris. She's pretty sure he did it in jest, but it was literal torture for the both of them, so she hoped he had learned his lesson.

No such luck, apparently.

When he shakes his head, she's forced to hold back her sigh of relief at his smile never falling. "Jesus… what could be worse than that?"

"Oh, I don't know." He clicks the remote and a giant title screen of a slightly familiar shaped ship flying from the foreground and out towards a Citadel nestled in the interstellar cloud of the Widow System.

Before she can question just what kind of movie starts with a ship that looks like - God, no - the Normandy SR1 if she squinted hard enough, the movie's title of 'Fleet and Navy' fills the screen. She groans, knowing full well what the hell this movie is about, and he chuckles, kissing the top of her head.

"Thought you might like it."

"I hate you," she says flatly as a narration detailing some bullshit history for her of inhuman feats of daring and prowess.

He purrs and slide his hand up to cup her cheek and lift her head into a soft kiss. "No. You love me."

She snorts at his smirk and kisses his chin before turning back to listen. "Wow, never knew I killed those Threshers on Akuze." She'd be horrified to be reminded of that horrible tragedy in her life if not for the outrageous acts they claimed she and her team, who apparently sacrificed their lives for her because 'they knew she was meant for greatness' - gag… - performed to take down the Maws. "I mean, seriously? You can't take down a Maw by crashing a small agriculture shuttle into it! Do they even research these things?"

"I think I remember you almost ramming one with a Mako."

"That was on accident-" She stops to hear the introduction of the Normandy, groaning at the introduction to the woman that's supposed to be her as she walks into the cockpit just as, apparently, the overly handsome Kaidan mentions her name. "Jesus. She could never hold a gun. I have a better chance singing the Illuminated Anthem! And that's just lighting up!"

He hums and she feels him shrug against her back. "Looks can be deceiving. After all, wasn't it you who thought you wouldn't be efficient on the battlefield with the changes Miranda did to your body. Changes I like, by the way." Growling, he shifts he hand around her to glide talon tips over the side of her robed breast.

Jane chuckles and sips her drink. "Alright, fine. I was able to do it but-" She stops when there's a blatant flirting between her character and Kaidan's, smirking in her own amusement at Garrus' growl. "What? Jealous?"

Garrus clears his throat. "No. Just… It's weird."

"Uh huh…"

"I can't believe how by the book they made me." He huffs and offers to pour her another glass.

She looks away from the ridiculous story playing out on the screen to give a nod and hold her glass out to him. "And joining me because the Executor wanted you to keep an eye on me because I'm human? Nothing about hunting Saren." Chuckling at his frustrated look, she sips her drink. "And to think that that's all it would have taken for you to join me."

"You play loose, Commander Shepard." Garrus' actor who, according to Garrus, is known for being an all around lady killer in his off-screen life, growls down at Jane's actress. "I'm here to make sure you don't put the Spectre name to shame."

"And why's that, turian? Because you can't live with the fact that a human could make it into the Spectres? I've proven myself."

"Wow, this me is a bitch." Jane chuckles as Garrus hums in agreement.

"Mark my words, Shepard. You will not ruin my chance to finally make Saren pay for his crimes. He will be coming with me into C-Sec to answer for his crimes, the proper way." The actor puffs up his chest and lifts his chin in defiance. "You will follow proper protocol or you will be no different than him."

Both Vakarians laugh, thankful the rooms upstairs are insulated against noise. "Oh, fuck. They got you so wrong."

"I don't… Since when did I become my father?"

The Fleet and Navy crew move on to Noveria, which isn't too surprising given that the filmmakers could probably get anything out of that planet's Executive Board for the right price. Thankfully, though, whoever manages the intelligence over there decided not to sell the fact that there were fucking rachni out at Peak 15.

That'd have been the shits.

Instead, the plot here involves Matriarch Benezia using her geth minions to make massive colossi and other geth hybrids that, normally, were made by the heretics themselves long before the need for organics. Naturally, and quite annoyingly, this movie developed a misbelief that the geth are completely unable to advance without Benezia's interference. It doesn't bode well for actual, out of the land of vids, interactions with geth among the denizens of the galaxy, but hopefully everyone will see this ridiculousness as just that.

"My daugh-ter, sweet daught-er," Matriarch Benezia begins to sing and both Jane and Garrus groan loudly before taking a drink, making a game out of drinking every time the cast bursts into melody. "For I, must go…"

The Liara actress - way too… endowed to be anything like the original - cries as she sings as she cradles her 'mother'. "My mo-ther, sweet mo-ther… P-lease…" She lifts her face to the sky. "Do not go, into that peace, peaceful light…"

"God… this is horr-i-ble," Jane sings on her own, staring down at her empty glass. "We need more wi-ine."

Garrus chuckles and shifts to pause the movie. "I'll be right back. Don't start it without me."

As the movie reaches its very climax in the guise of a scene on a river and woodland covered planet, clearly thrown in to close the gaps where files became classified, it becomes very obvious how the director wanted to 'solve' the apparent sexual tension between the straight arrowed cop and Spectre bad girl already with a pretty boy lieutenant. Said climax involved Saren, who had been on this planet doing… god knows what because Jane is a bit too tipsy to be paying attention, before setting a bomb to blow up the Normandy crew.

Attempting to disarm the bomb to buy the crew more time, the Garrus valiantly runs back into the underground facility, but the Shepard stops him. "No! I can't let you go! It's too dangerous"

The Garrus returns to her and smiles, cupping her cheek as his vocals shift.

"Here it comes!" The real Garrus cheers in his vocals with slurred chirps and Jane lifts her glass for him to clink his own against it before they each take a drink at the building song.

"I do this for you… For you, I will be true..." The actress begins to sob and Jane snorts, sipping from her drink.

"I wonder what you'd sound like singing," she wonders aloud, the drink making her talk aloud way too much.

"Horrible," her husband deadpans before lifting her head up with a nudge on her chin and clumsily kissing her. "But I'd do it if you asked."

Chuckling, she gently taps his nose. "Sweet talker. Keep that up and I just might."

"Come with me, live with me… I can make you happy…"

"I can dry your tears…"

Singing together, the couple on screen lean close and kiss. Time seems to slow as the camera spins on the heroes and Jane hears her mate hum.

"Isn't there a bomb about to go off?"

As if hearing him through the vidscreen, the two actors run towards the ship, hand in hand. Why the hell they didn't just do that before wasting time - time which the just had enough of to escape the blast - Jane has no idea. Plot, of course. How could she forget that?

"Could you imagine if that's how we did it?" Jane chuckles and leans forward, taking a second to let the room settle before pouring each of them another glass of the - what - third bottle? She can't count at the moment and doesn't quite remember. "Poor Kaidan would be heartbroken." Garrus laughs and shrugs, taking a moment for his own head to stop spinning most like by how he goes still. "Careful… wouldn't want to pick up a mess."

The final battle was… interesting, to say the least.

It first entailed the Normandy flying in to rescue the Destiny Ascension with a blast that supposedly had the power of a Thanix without the actual tech being around at the time. It blows a hole in Sovereign that only seems to 'piss it off', according to Joker's actor. Sovereign then chases the Normandy as it speeds towards the Citadel to drop off Commander Shepard and crew to open the arms because, for some plothole reason, they were on an Ilos that didn't have a Conduit.

Perhaps so they could throw in an unrealistic cross-species love scene where my fake self could orgasm from a simple lick to her collar bone.

Jumping from the Normandy as it took the dangerous second to hover beside the Council Chambers, Shepard and her team break through the large panoramic windows at the ready for Saren. Saren, the poor guy, didn't deserve the portrayal they gave him - withered and hunched over a can as he lets his geth fight for him - but he fell at Shepard's hand all the same when she made a superhuman jump onto his hovering platform.

She throws a punch as he staves her off with a blade in his cane, as if one could defend themselves with fists and feet in a sword fight, and battles with him until she finds a overplayed opening in his defenses. High above the Chamber floors, Shepard charges Saren and sends them both tumbling towards the ground, still fighting in slowed filming, too. Slow enough, in fact, for her crew to yell for her safety and, in the Garrus' case, reach out in attempt to catch her.

The real Jane and Garrus are far beyond picking apart the movie, their remarks too slow to pass from brain to mouth to be relevant to the ever continuing scenes. Instead, they watch as, in a flourish of lights and explosions, Sovereign is destroyed by a fleet that comes from an opening in the Citadel - again, not exactly explained as to who opened the damn arms.

But who cares, right? This is a movie!

They at least get the debris flying all over the Citadel right. Hell, even by a guess, they manage to have the pieces fly into the Chambers and bombard Normandy crew below.

"I remember that," her husband says in the silence, kissing the top of her head as he holds her close. "Little compared to the other messes we've gotten into, but the worst I've felt to that point."

She smiles and shrugs, looking up to him with half lidded eyes. "It was just a scratch."

He chuckles as the screen turns to black just as the rescue team manage to find the trapped survivors. Somehow, on screen Garrus made it to Shepard, as they are found curled together and smiling in victory at each other like idiots.

The movie draws to a close with the lovely interspecies couple standing atop a Presidium balcony, arms wrapped around each other and music building into a tempo.

"Drink," Jane says, draining her glass and just leaning over to set it on the floor, not bothering to put it on the table.

"For-ever, we will be… For-ever-"

"You think we could learn these songs and sing them wherever we go?"

Garrus hums before chuckling, his voice thicker with his vocals when he's got alcohol in his system. "No one would recognize us as the couple this movie is actually about. We'd be fans to them."

She shrugs. "I have no problem with that." Hearing the music building to a big finale, she leans forward, turns to her mate, and holds out a hand to him as she covers her heart. "For-ever we will be." Drawing out the last note, she closes her eyes.

When she opens, she sees him smirking, a plan clearly forming behind those crystal blue eyes. She lifts a brow and questions. "What's that look for?"

Humming, he leans forward. "You know, Commander, I believe I caught you doing some very suspicious behavior that would put the Spectre name in danger."

She chuckles and crosses her arms. "That so-!" She yelps as he grabs her and stands, carrying her to the bedroom just beside the living area. "Oh, you're in for it. Just you wait, C-Sec."

"Promises, promises."