Erin Shepard woke up fifteen minutes early. Like everything else, her sleep cycles had fallen into perfect rhythm over time, honed by years of rigid schedules and the tuning of internal biological clocks. No matter what time she ended up falling asleep, she always woke up at exactly Oh Six Hundred. That day she'd overslept had been a rare exception. This morning was another.
She was instantly made aware of Garrus's soft breathing beside her, of the warmth of his naked body against hers, the covers on the floor, the strong yet tender grasp of his arm around her. And she couldn't help feeling like there was something so abnormally… right with the universe. It was like all the planets had aligned, like Planck's Law and the Gravitational Constant had shifted just for her, gravity had lightened and the air had been imbued with just a bit of extra oxygen. She could hear the soft rumbling of the mass effect core below her, and she could have sworn that it was rumbling a little harder than normal. Just for her. With each warm turian breath that hit the back of her neck, the electricity buzzing around her was amplified, like she was walking deeper into a metaphorical field of lightning rods.
For so long, she'd been sure that acting on her feelings for Garrus would be stupid and impossible, not to mention disastrous. But it turned out it was the easiest thing in the world. Neither of them had had any idea what to do last night, but their bodies had come together just as naturally and implicitly as their emotions. It didn't matter that it was so new to them. Both were nervous -- hell, going stealth and then disrobing in front of anyone, even Garrus, took as much insane courage as charging a krogan mercenary head-on. But all that fear, all those nerves… it had all slipped away with his first tender touch. Instinct and trust guided the rest of the way. Of course. She never should have doubted it. Like everything else when it came to Garrus Vakarian, this too had just slid into place.
She sighed a full and peaceful sigh. It was fifteen minutes to Oh Six Hundred, and she didn't want to get up.
So instead, she hung her good hand over the edge of the bed, thoughtlessly activating her omni-tool. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and the device's sudden orange glow made her shut them reflexively. They took a few seconds to recover. Then she started going through the same procedure she went through every morning.
Messages… empty. Automated ship scan… all systems check. Crew reports… solid. Position… 392 LY from Rosetta. After his twisted attempt to justify sending them into a trap, the Illusive Man had given Shepard the coordinates to a recently-discovered derelict Reaper, with the idea being to find and steal its IFF. She wanted to get the IFF and go through the Omega 4 Relay as soon as possible. But there were still loose strings to tie. And with the Gernsback's SOS signal suddenly appearing in the middle of the Rosetta Nebula, she knew that Jacob Taylor would be highly distracted unless they took time to investigate it.
As she scanned through all the reports in her omni-tool, she felt Garrus begin to stir. Damn it! She quickly deactivated the omni-tool. She hadn't meant to wake him.
"Don't bother, Shepard. I saw it."
With the lightest of chuckles, she turned herself around, coming face-to-face with her now fully awake turian lover. "Sorry if I woke you."
"Shh!"He placed a single talon on her lips, soft yet commanding. "You need to stop apologizing so much. You don't owe me an apology for anything." He reached over and took her good hand in both of his, running the tip of his talon down her forearm, scratching her skin ever-so-softly. A bit of heat from the omni-tool remained. "You workaholic."
"There are things that need to get done," she said lightly. "But they can wait another fifteen minutes."
After a short while, she saw his eyes drift shut again. She took the opportunity to reactivate her omni-tool -- behind her this time, so Garrus wouldn't catch it. With deft fingers, she accessed her room's climate control system and dropped the temperature six, seven, eight degrees. The air around her immediately cooled.
"A little cold, isn't it?" She chuckled softly, pressing her body even harder against his, burying her head underneath his chin and softly nuzzling the skin of his neck. His heat warmed her cold body like a wonderfully burning fireplace, sending soft chills crawling up and down her spine.
Slowly, she traced the lines of his face with her fingers, delighting in the look of pleasure in his eyes as she touched him. Her hand wandered to the back of his neck, and he started to emit a low and constant hum from deep inside his throat. The corners of his mouth bent in another thrilled turian smile as she reached his silver fringe. She ran her nails down its surface, stunned at how cool and metallic and smooth it was.
"You like that, don't you?" He gave her a longing look. "My fringe."
"I… it's beautiful," she said, finding herself a bit lost for words. "I mean, it's always been something that intrigued me about turians, but yours is the most beautiful one I've ever seen. Silver against the light." She smiled. "Now that I'm actually feeling it… I didn't know it was so smooth."
He chuckled softly. "That's because it's not living tissue. It's completely made up of dead skin cells."
"Just like human hair," she remarked. "Funny how something long dead can be so beautiful, huh?" She ran her finger down the tip of his fringe, stunned at how razor-sharp it was. "Wow, I bet you could cut someone with that."
"Ancient turian societies used to cut the fringes off of dead individuals and use them as weapons," he said quietly. "Took us a while to realize how much easier it was to make our weapons out of metal."
She laughed softly, curling up even tighter beside him. "Well, yours is beautiful. Almost as much as your voice."
"Shepard, you really know how to seduce a turian," he said. He was probably smiling again, but she didn't see it. She had let her eyes drift back to shut.
It was easy to drift off in his arms. Everything felt right, all the gears kept clicking and all the systems were running like never before. It was like nothing could go wrong. They still had insurmountable challenges to face, and once they went through the Omega 4 Relay, there was a good chance none of them would come back. But all that was out of mind right now. Because here and now, she couldn't have felt scared if she tried. Fear and worry were not words that existed in the common lexicon.
She was a shielded woman, and she didn't like expressing such emotional thoughts out loud. But somehow it felt right to do it now. "Thank you, Garrus," she said softly, delighting in watching him slowly open a single onyx eye. "I had long given up thinking that something like this was… even possible, really. For broken people like me, nothing ever comes easy. Especially if it involves trusting someone else." She chuckled, though it wasn't laughter but tears that were threatening to break through the surface. "But this… it's the easiest thing in the world."
His eyes were open now, and he was running hands through her golden hair, delightfully scratching her scalp with the tips of his talons. "It's still incredible, and a little scary, just how similar we are, Shepard," he said, as his scratching made her close her eyes and let out a low and constant sigh of pleasure. "I was the same way for a long time. My father, the military, C-Sec -- all I've ever known is rigidity. I've had people at my side that I could rely on, but never anyone I could trust so implicitly." His hands stopped moving, and she opened her eyes just in time to see him bring his head together with hers, resting softly against her forehead.
"Until now," he whispered. Those last two words sent electric shockwaves across her body.
The rest of those fifteen minutes passed exceptionally slow. But it still wasn't enough. If she could, she would have frozen time. Eventually, however, she brought up her omni-tool and scanned the time. "Alright, it's Oh Six Hundred, Garrus." She started to pull away, reluctantly moving her body out of bed. "I have to go."
"Don't."
His words were sudden and shocking. He grabbed her wrist with his hand, holding her tightly, not letting her move. He stared at her with wanting and desperate eyes. "Don't. Stay here. We're in the middle of deep space and I guarantee you that everything is fine on the Normandy." His eyes fell away, and she saw traces of… was it sadness in his face? "Stay here, Erin. Just for a little while. We only get a few perfect moments in life, and we can't afford to waste them."
Deep down, she knew he was right. She didn't want to leave. And she knew the Normandy would be fine without her for another few hours. "Alright, turian, you win." She curled up against him once again. "You got me to stay. Now what?"
She saw a devious look come over his eyes, and his mandibles tightened. His face was threatening to break out into laughter.
"You're a creep!" she exclaimed playfully.
He threw an arm around her body. "And you love it."
That was when the darkened room filled with soft blue light. Shepard and Garrus both squinted their eyes. EDI's spherical form had appeared on the console pad in front of them, and Shepard couldn't help feeling like the AI was staring, incredulous, at the naked human and turian bodies in bed together in front of her.
But when she spoke, EDI sounded as vaguely robotic as ever. "Commander Shepard, you are receiving a message from Miss Daniels and Mr. Donnelly in engineering. They do not wish to disturb you, so if you'd prefer, they can speak with you through the comm system."
Next to her, Garrus was sitting up, mandibles flaring in a mixture of surprise and anger. "Wait, this thing has access to the captain's quarters?"
Erin shrugged. "Of course. The Illusive Man wants to keep an eye on every part of the ship.
He seemed to reel at those words. "…Illusive Man."
"Yeah. That's one of the reasons EDI is here, so that the Illusive Man can keep track of what we're doing."
Garrus looked absolutely shell-shocked at the news, his claws digging into the soft mattress. He glared at EDI with cold and furious eyes. "You mean to tell me that you and the Illusive Man have been watching us since--"
"I assure you that the Illusive Man is not aware of your activities last night, Officer Vakarian," EDI said. "Nor was I, until a few moments ago. I do not make a habit of spying on the commanding officer. The private matters of the crew are nobody's business but their own." EDI seemed to rotate just a bit, angling herself toward Shepard. "Now, Commander, would you like me to connect you with engineering?"
Erin turned to Garrus with apology written all over her face. "I need to hear what they have to say, Garrus…"
"I know, I know." He brushed her hair lightly, once. Then he glared at EDI. "Connect us. And get the hell out."
Without a word, EDI disappeared.
Shepard gave her a moment to establish the connection, and then she said, "Engineering, this is Commander Shepard. What do you need?"
It was clear that Daniels and Donnelly were in mid-bicker when their voices begain to come through. Ken was in the middle of rattling off a laundry list of thinly-veiled flirtatious insults when Shepard's voice cut him off. "Oh, Commander. So sorry…"
"Good work, Ken," said a very acerbic Gabby. "Commander Shepard, I didn't want to disturb you, but Ken insisted. There's a tiny problem with one of the Normandy's docking clamps, and Tali's still asleep, so…"
That was where Ken took over. "Basically, there's a fuel buildup in one of the outer pipes, and it's blocking the electromagnetic transmissions that the computer sends to make the docking clamp activate. Deuterium is a horrible conductor, especially if it's negatively ionized like ours. The excess electrons make the resistance shoot up like a--"
"Ken!" Gabby scowled. "Let's speak English for Commander Shepard, maybe? Commander, all you really need to know is that we'll have to be careful when docking. It may take a few signal shots before the clamps decide to activate." There was a short silence. "See, how hard was that, Ken?"
Shepard couldn't hold back a few soft chuckles. "Thanks for letting me know. I'll go down there in a little while to take a look at it."
"Thank you, Commander," said the voice of Ken. "And Gabriella, next time, remember that Commander Shepard has one of the sharpest minds in the galaxy. Sharper than yours, I bet. She could probably understand me better than you do half the time."
"Ken, that's not a compliment. That's an insult to the Commander."
Shepard gave Garrus a long, somewhat amused look as the two of them rattled on. "Disconnect," she said softly, and silence filled the room once again. She settled herself back against the curve of Garrus's body. "Sometimes I see those two and I feel like I'm looking in a mirror," she said after a bit, giving voice to the musings in her head.
"What do you mean?" he asked, sounding genuinely interested.
She chuckled. "Just look at them. They're just like we used to be -- the perfect platonic best friends. Endless stories, lots of jokes and insults and playful flirting that they both know won't ever lead anywhere. They work perfectly together, perfectly in synch." She sighed softly, letting her breath slide against his skin. "Yet they need each other."
After a short pause during which he mulled over the implications of her words, he asked, "What makes you think that?"
"Well, just look at their history. They went through the Alliance Academy together, served together on the Perugia. When Ken signed on with Cerberus, Gabby had to follow. Just like she said, he'd fall apart without her."
"So they're close--"
"--And do you ever see them apart? Think about it. It's like they're joined at the hip. Every time I go down to engineering, there they are, chatting and bickering like it's the easiest thing in the world."
She breathed in heavily, relishing in the cold air around her. "I think they love each other," she said. "They just haven't realized it yet."
Garrus gave her an absolutely devious look, his mandibles flaring out into the widest grin she'd seen yet. "Did you just say you loved me?"
"That's not what I--" Oh, damn… She really had just walked headfirst into that one.
Without really thinking about it, she brought her hand up to his face and started tracing the lines of blue tribal paint, running her fingers down his mandibles, feeling the muscles tighten reflexively under her soft touch. He seemed to purr. "Well, Garrus, you're the best thing I have in my life," she said. "I dragged you to hell and back, and you didn't even hesitate to follow me. You're the one I trust unconditionally. You've kept me sane, kept me laughing, kept me warm through the darkest of nights. Nobody else could have done that." She smiled and planted a single soft kiss on his mouth. "So yeah… I suppose I do love you."
Holy shit. That had come about more… suddenly than she'd expected.
"He won't realize it," Garrus said quickly, his muscles going tense again as he stared past her, into the distance. "Ken, I mean. He's grown so comfortable with the idea that she's just a friend, just a partner, that once this is all over he'll be fine without her and it's not worth it to gamble on their friendship now." His eyes had darkened again, and he stared at Shepard fiercely. "He's an idiot, and he won't realize how much he needs her until she's gone."
"Is that what it took for you, Garrus?" she asked, smiling wide at his words.
The turian exhaled sharply.
She ran a finger across his lips. "Well, if that's the case, then I guess my death was worth it."
A/N: Well, there you have it. My twisted take on the Shepard/Garrus relationship. I had a great time with this piece, and I hope you all got something out of it as well. Big thanks to BioWare for creating such a rock awesome game universe and giving us characters that we can fall in love with. Big thanks to everyone who read and reviewed, as well. It's your words that keep us writers going when ours aren't flowing like they should be. Protip: If you ever find a story that you love, the best thing you can do to make sure it gets finished is read and review it!
As for Erin Shepard, well... she really stole the show here (at least in my mind). This fic may be over, but Garrus and Shep's story is not. Rest assured, she'll be around. Muahahaha.