A/N: Part Two is here. Thank you all in advance for reading and reviewing, glad you've been enjoying the trouble I put Kaliya and Garrus through, and props to anyone who can catch the Buffy reference :)

Fever Dream, Part Two

One breath.

A whisper, a hiss, grew to a dulling roar that triggered all the instincts her violent life had forged. Survive. Fight. Not this not now not while she could do something about it goddammit. Flashes of terror and clarity, heat and chill.

Two breaths.

Six to nine seconds. Ellison's voice screaming about "time of useful consciousness" on Arcturus. Training kicked in, breach seal, torso area. Somewhere something she could do before --fingers fumbling at dials, tumbling helplessly. Swirls of light and sound, pounding against her temples. Swelling, compressing, twisting inside her suit.

Three breaths.

Panic with growing roar and escape of precious oxygen no no no no no no no--two seconds of useful consciousness left--the planetary atmosphere burning no not possible death by hypoxia first--one--couldn't help think of something useless--phasing now, shrinking swelling falling--

Kaliya Shepard's bright blue eyes flew open with a start. All was silent in the captain's quarters. No roaring, no falling, the mattress supporting her as she gasped for air like a drowning person.

Or someone who'd been spaced. She cursed under her breath. Of all the goddamn things for Cerberus to leave for her, they left the nightmares.

The Prothean nightmares were still there, burned indelibly into her mind. They came and went without warning. And now with them came dreams of falling. Dreams of dying. Probably the price for the Illusive Man bringing her back intact with no mind control chip. Her clock read 0343 hours as she lay there, drenched in chill sweat and shaking uncontrollably.

She took a few deep breaths and sat up, trying to calm herself. That was the worst nightmare she'd had by far since her revival, possibly due to Morinth messing with her mind just a few hours prior, though there was no need to tell Samara that. The justicar already felt guilty enough over using her for live bait...and how poorly that had gone. Her nightmares would probably fade with time again, but for now, she was getting no more sleep. She couldn't close her eyes without falling.

She got to her feet and pulled on a bathrobe over her clothes, grabbed a mug, and wandered on down to the kitchen. Normandy was silent, everyone asleep with just the barest hum of electronics to indicate that the ship still flew. She hit the kitchen lights and made some tea.

Thankfully, EDI didn't disturb her though she knew the AI never slept. Just her and her thoughts in the wee hours of the morning. She stared down into the mug and sighed.

She'd been honest when she told Morinth that safety was an illusion. She had never been safe in her twenty nine short, violent years of life, and she never would be. She was a Spectre, a symbol, too powerful and too high-profile to ever be safe. And now, she was in the unique position of knowing what it was to die. The terror, the desperate and instinctive grasping for something disappearing forever. Though all things considered, at least hypoxia was a relatively painless way to go. Three breaths of panic, then slowly swirling darkness.

She'd never been a religious person, and she wasn't starting now. All she could remember after the suit breach was the primal terror, followed by nothing. No blinding light, no gates of white pearl, no flames. Just oblivion. Silence.

Broken now by footsteps. She could recognize that tread anywhere--swift, steady, with a curious rhythm to it that distinguished it from a human gait. Garrus didn't look at all surprised to see her there when he rounded the corner into the kitchen, wearing nothing but a pair of loose charcoal grey pants. She watched him curiously as he approached, the dim light playing off his scales. She'd never seen him without a shirt before, and the sight was--intriguing.

There was a predatory confidence and grace to him, something that the bulky armor and restrictive clothes that usually encased turians covered up. He was muscle and bone and vertical scales, lean and ferociously strong. The animal part of her, the base natural selection instincts of predator and prey, reacted with something akin to--not fear, but apprehension. Apex predator indeed. She felt her cheeks grow warm and dropped her gaze before he caught her gawking, determinedly staring into her mug.

Garrus helped himself to some of the hot water, then went rooting around in the cabinets for something dextro-based. "Couldn't sleep again, huh?"

It wasn't really a question, and Kaliya didn't bother giving him the runaround. He knew her too well. Instead, she just nodded and refilled her own cup.

Garrus sighed and leaned against the counter across from her. Here they were, at almost four in the morning. Just him and Shepard, two sleepless warriors in their pajamas. They looked almost laughably harmless like this. But appearances were extremely deceiving, especially when it came to Kaliya Shepard.

There were dark circles under her eyes, stark against her pale skin and tendrils of black hair. Nightmares again, just like old times. Why hadn't the Illusive Man had the decency to spare her those?

"Protheans?" he asked softly.

She shook her head. "No," she said in a deceptively calm, almost matter-of-fact tone. "My death." She gave him a wry smile and added, "At least it makes for a change of pace."

He knew he should say something, but all he could do was stare. Her own death. The singular event that sent them all fracturing across the galaxy, and she remembered it. She dreamed about it. God help him, but the surreality of being around this woman was making his head spin.

"How the--Shepard, that can't be healthy," he said at length, voicing half of what he'd been thinking.

She shrugged and took a swig of tea. "No. But consistently running into firefights, baiting Ardat-Yakshi, and recruiting the most dangerous people in the galaxy for a suicide mission aren't good for life expectancy either. I figure the horrific nightmares can only shave off a couple more years."

Garrus shuddered a little. "Shepard, if that was supposed to be funny--"

"Not really," she admitted. "It was a bit half-assed." She fell into a thoughtful silence, looking into her mug and biting her lip. When the hell had her life gotten so utterly insane? Here she was, on the most advanced warship in space, working with a terrorist organization, and talking to her turian best friend at fucking four in the morning about her nightmares of dying at the hands of a bunch of bug aliens. It did make her wonder sometimes if staying in Detroit would have been so bad.

Then again, she'd probably be Reaper-killed slime by now had she stayed on Earth. How horribly ironic. But greatest good always came first, and if at the cost of her normalcy--well, she'd never had it to begin with. Not really.

Garrus took a deep breath. "You know...if you need to talk about it--"

Kaliya shook her head abruptly, still gazing into the mug as though it was a crystal ball. "Six to nine seconds," she said vaguely. "Time of useful consciousness for humans upon being spaced, and that's generous." She finally looked up at him and tried to manage a smile.

"It was over quickly enough," she continued, "And really, I can't imagine the last two years were easy on you either."

Her words hit a little too close to home for comfort, but before he could stop himself, his thoughts came spilling out. Again. Just like they always did around her.

"It felt like being cut adrift, Shepard," he whispered. "And not just me, but everyone else too. I couldn't believe you were really gone. Not until a few months later, when those ungrateful bastards began to hush everything up. I couldn't stay on the Citadel after that."

He laughed bitterly and shook his head. "Here I am complaining about being alive the last two years, and you actually died."

Kaliya felt her stomach twist at the look on his face. She'd had a difficult time grasping how much time had passed until Ashley's reaction on Horizon drove it home. And now the look on Garrus's face, the bitterness in his voice...

"Don't be like that." She scooted a little closer to him, put down her mug, and tentatively placed a hand on his arm. He was warm, almost feverish to the touch, the skin smooth and unyielding.

"Garrus," she said quietly, "the hardest thing in this screwed-up galaxy is to live in it. And as far as I'm concerned, the fact that you went on and tried to make things better makes you a big goddamn hero."

Garrus opened, then closed his mouth, looking for something to say and simply failing. Kaliya Shepard was not one to throw around compliments lightly. Encouragement, maybe, but not compliments. Unable to speak, he instead did the only thing he could think of doing, what he should have done when he saw those brilliant blue eyes looking back at him on Omega for the first time in two years.

He turned toward her and hugged her. He felt her tense instinctively, but she quickly relaxed, her head resting against the lip of his collar ridge, soft human arms wrapping around his neck, her breath light against his skin. Garrus found his face pressed in her black hair and tried his best not to sample the smell of her soap. She was slightly cooler than him in body temperature, and so light and soft in his arms. Her heartbeat, her pulse, so close to the surface.

And now in a heady rush, all those impossible feelings for her came swarming back. But he couldn't do anything to fight them now, not after having lost her once, after living through the last two years of disillusionment and darkness. Just as Samara had said--the woman dearest to him, his only true friend in the galaxy.

Her heart rate sped, and she abruptly began to pull back. He let her go hastily, uncertain if he'd stepped over some line. For one awful moment as she stared up at him with those X-raying blue eyes, he feared he had.

Then she smiled, her pale cheeks turning a little pink. "Any time," she said faintly, her heart still pounding.

She turned away from him, the blush getting steadily brighter. She was usually so comfortable around Garrus, but now--she could still feel those arms around her, that heat, and it mingled with her sleep deprivation into a pounding tension. She could still feel Garrus watching her minutely, and suddenly, she had to get out of there.

"We should both get some sleep, Garrus," she said in a calm voice that fooled no one. "I'll...see you tomorrow." And like a shot she was gone.

It wasn't until she'd made it back to the Captain's quarters that she let herself stop and think, sitting at her desk. One of the drawbacks of a relentlessly logical mind was how quickly it forced her to face the music.

"Oh, God damn it."

She dropped her head into her hands, thinking frantically. She...couldn't do this. Not with Garrus. Dear God, she had the worst timing of any individual in the galaxy. Garrus was her best friend, her most trusted comrade. To develop feelings for him now was inconvenient and inappropriate and--

She really should have seen it coming. It was naive to presume that she was immune to the effects of a high-stress scenario. Two high-stress scenarios, if she counted the mission to take down Saren. Kaliya took a few deep breaths, got to her feet, and sat down on the bed, legs crossed and eyes closed.

With painstaking care and methodical precision, she forced herself to just sit and think the whole thing through. And bit by bit, the little pieces started to fall together. The look on Garrus's face at the sight of her, lying on Morinth's floor and covered in her own blood. The catch in his voice just a few minutes ago. Her own chilling terror when he'd been shot, the clawing anxiety waiting for him to recover. The warmth...the easiness of being around him again, and now, the uncomfortable tension.

And it wasn't as though it started now. There were little signs, little hints from their first mission against Saren. She should have known better, realized what was going on. Garrus was the only person for whom she ever broke the rules.

An hour of thinking later, she opened her eyes and sighed. She could come up with only one solution. She needed to get rid of the tension somehow. She needed harmony and stability among her crew, especially on a suicidal mission where everything hinged on trust and confidence. Any distractions could be fatal.

But working up the courage was something else altogether. Kaliya couldn't help but laugh at herself. Here she was, a big goddamn hero by all appearances, the first human Spectre, back from the DEAD, and she couldn't handle talking to Garrus of all people.

As she laid back down in bed, she couldn't help but wonder what he was thinking. He might still be awake. Maybe--

No, she needed at least a little time to get herself back under control. She couldn't just march up to Garrus and tell him she had feelings for him. She just...couldn't. It wasn't what she did. So she resigned herself to another sleepless night of thinking...and pretending.

Garrus finally felt himself drifting off after tossing and turning for nearly an hour after Shepard left. Just a few hours of sleep before another day, and in all likelihood, another mission. Just a little bit of oblivion, hopefully without dreams...

One breath.

He couldn't possibly have heard correctly. Gaping at Anderson, Williams, and Joker. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible. Goddammit you fools a REAPER couldn't kill her, there was no way she'd just let a geth attack get her. They had to be wrong. There had to be--

Two breaths.

Spaced. He stopped yelling when he saw the glassy tears threatening to fall from Joker's eyes. She had stayed behind so they could live. Remained aboard a dying, burning husk of a ship. But when he heard Joker's choked recollection, all he could feel was fury. Why her, why not Joker or Anderson or godammit why not anybody but her?

Three breaths.

He turned away from them, couldn't bear their silent, apologetic grief. The question turned over and over in his mind, and he couldn't get it to go away. Why hadn't he, Garrus, been there? Why was the Spectre application more important than her and why now when she'd just started missions again and why why why--

The air froze in his lungs, and the breathing stopped.

They began to sink in, the implications of a galaxy, of a life, without Kaliya Shepard. Without those bright blue eyes, calm voice, and rare joy of a smile. Without the apex of the singularity that had, slowly but inexorably, pulled him to its core. The seed of a gnawing void had been planted.

He never understood the human metaphor of a heart breaking until now, with his splintering slowly into little glassy pieces.