Normandy Deck 1 – 0200 Hours
"Well, I didn't expect you to still be up."
Garrus sauntered across the top deck of the stateroom to stand behind the Commander, who was sitting cross-legged in what appeared to be nothing but her N7 hoodie, swiping furtively at the terminal. Garrus threw his datapad down on the desk in front of them and stood directly behind her, his appreciable height advantage letting him see directly over her, the terminal screen revealing what appeared to be camera footage from multiple missions in the war, from her arrival on Menae to their most recent furtive mission to Grissom Academy. Elizabeth failed to turn around, still intently typing on the Terminal.
"Liz? What are you working on?"
Elizabeth kept working, perplexing Garrus, who quickly began to review any and every mistake he had made in the past 48 hours in his mind, eventually turning her head to reveal an ear-bud lodged in each one. Garrus chuckled to himself, leaning forwards until his mouth was directly next to her ear, his eyes lighting with the mirth of a rarely-given opportunity to sneak up on the fabled Commander Shepard. His voice was kept just above a conversational level, loud enough to ensure that he would be heard at the minimal distance, but no louder than he was speaking earlier.
"Morning, Liz."
Elizabeth gasped at the sound next to her, combat-honed instincts kicking in as the butt of her right palm came quickly across her body, making contact with Garrus' nose with an alarming "crack". She stood up quickly, her foot hooking under the chair and throwing it back, catching Garrus' left leg such that the Turian fell quickly to the deck, his face still frozen in utter surprise and his arms coming up to his now broken nose. Elizabeth's instincts maintained control of her for another instant as her left foot came heavily down on the middle of Garrus' cowl and her right knee began to drive into his sensitive mid-section, a text-book execution that any N-instructor would be proud of.
Right before her knee made contact, Elizabeth's brain caught up with the rest of her and her knee jerked to the right, making hard contact with the deck and throwing her off balance, Shepard herself collapsing forwards onto Garrus, who was now gripping his nose and moaning softly.
She pushed herself up, her face now far enough away from Garrus' for her to see the inkling of blue blood which had begun to trickle down the side of his face, Shepard moving herself to sit next to Garrus, her legs extending parallel to his Torso as he brought is arms behind him to sit himself up.
"Oh my god, Garrus, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to… are you…"
Garrus laughed slightly, bringing his left hand up to wave away Elizabeth's extended hands, shooting her a wry, if not slightly pained, grin to confirm his well-being.
"Relax, Liz. If I can take a rocket to the face, I'm sure I can take your hand. That's certainly a reaction time you've got there, though."
Elizabeth laughed, standing herself up and massaging her knee, a bruise from the metal deck-plating already beginning to form. She smiled at Garrrus before she offered him a hand, their height difference making it fairly useless in assisting him up, but the gesture appreciated nonetheless.
"I told you before, don't sneak up on a N7."
Garrus shook his head as he stood up, his nose no longer bleeding but no less sore for that fact.
"Apparently I should have taken that to heart. Damn."
Elizabeth reached up, taking Garrus' face by the bottom of his chin and turning it left and right as she looked over the impact spot, the plates broken and shattered where the majority of her force had ended up, the tissue underneath an angry shade of cerulean.
"Do you need to go see Chakwas?"
He shook his head as he bent down and picked up the chair, pushing it slightly towards Shepard, who quickly resumed her seat in it.
"And sacrifice my pride like that? No, I'm alright. It's just going to flake a little bit as the plate grows back, should probably keep it away from the main cannon."
Elizabeth laughed at the small joke, crossing her legs in her seat. She flashed Garrus a grin that was dripping with sarcasm, her green eyes flashing mischievously as her voice took a similar tone.
"Well, I certainly don't know of anybody else on this ship who would welcome having you in her stateroom more."
The Turian laughed, bringing his hand away from his face as he wiggled his nose slightly, a similar grin being given back to Elizabeth.
"Well, I could go back and talk to the Primarch more… I've heard they put him up in Life Support, plenty of room for me to join him."
While he talked he shrugged, his face taking an expression of faux-resignation as he turned to walk away. Before he had made it two steps, Garrus felt a strong hand grip his right arm, a pull wheeling him around until he was backed up against the desk and Elizabeth's face was mere centimeters away from his, her legs wrapped around his hips to make up their height difference.
"Like hell you will."
Garrus chuckled lowly.
"Well… Aye aye, ma'am. That is what you make your crew say, isn't it?"
Elizabeth's voice was low, intense, husky almost.
"Only when someone's made me angry."
"I haven't yet, have I?"
"You will if you go sleep with the Primarch."
Garrus chuckled, lowly, bringing his hands which had been resting on the desk up to grip Elizabeth's face, knocking his datapad off of the desk in the process. Shepard jumped off of the Turian's frame and erupted into chortling laughter as Garrus lost his balance trying to catch the datapad, bouncing it off of each of his hands before finally sandwiching it between his right hand and left foot, the awkward position causing Shepard to only laugh harder as she found her seat behind her, sitting down as side began hurting.
"You're the epitome of grace, Vakarian."
Garrus stood up, saving as much dignity as he could by slowly putting the datapad down on the desk and standing up, crossing his arms and looking at Shepard, his mind racing to find something, anything to say in response.
"Well… I… Uh… What are you working on?"
As he finished his attempted save Garrus leaned forwards, squinting slightly as he stared at the data terminal, the sudden non-sequitur giving Elizabeth cause to laugh harder as she turned her chair towards the terminal, fiddling with the program as she spoke over her shoulder to Garrus.
"Well, I suppose it's sort of like scrap-booking. But, for the 22nd century. I was watching some of the helmet and shuttle-cam footage we've got from the past couple of missions, and started to realize it would make a great home-made movie."
Garrus cut her off, his voice bemused sounding.
"So, you decided to get up in the early hours of the morning to make said movie?"
Elizabeth shook her head slightly the screen finally turning black but with a large play-button in the center, her chair turning so that she faced Garrus as she spoke.
"No, I couldn't sleep, and the idea hit me like a charging Krogan, so I decided I would try."
With that she pressed play on the terminal, turning to watch her handiwork with a self-satisfied smile. The screen faded from black, a bass and drum intro playing underneath as the black gave way to the mounted camera in the shuttle on Menae, a guitar entering as the door opened and Shepard got out her rifle. As she began to fire, the lyrics of the song began to ring out across the terminal, Elizabeth bobbing her head as she softly sang along.
"Some folks are born, made to raise the flag. Whoo, they're red white and blue…"
The song kept going, the video switching between helmet footage and mounted cameras, bullets and rifles and victories flitting across the screen like so many notes and drum beats. As the song ended it gave way to another one, the screen likewise fading to what appeared to be footage from Sur'Kesh. Garrus stood and listened, aware that the music was often referred to as "Classic Rock" by humans, and that Shepard listened to it often when maintenancing armor or rifles or PT-ing. But what was by-far the most enduring to him was the home-made quality of the video. The footage was, as combat footage always was, the low-definition work of a minimal camera, intended only for use in after-action reports and courts-martials, but the transition and cuts seemed amateurish to say the least. He stole glares back at Elizabeth's face as she nodded slowly with each camera and song change, gestured excitedly with each "major" moment which she had engineered. As he watched, Garrus couldn't help but marvel at how excited she, the woman who had stopped Saren, eliminated the Collectors, and was now expected to almost single-handedly lead the galaxy to victory against the greatest threat it had ever faced, could get so excited about something so trivial as a poorly-edited home movie.
As the last shot came to an end and the music faded out, Elizabeth turned around to face Garrus, beaming as she looked at him.
"Well, what did you think?!"
Garrus shifted nervously, transferring his weight between each of his feet, his hands fiddling slightly behind his back where they had taken up residence.
"It's… very creative."
His heart shattered as he watched Elizabeth's face fall, his statement far from convincing of the affirmation which she had been so desperately looking for. She dropped her head slightly, looking straight forwards, before looking farther down at Garrus' feet, shutting her eyes gently as she exhaled deeply and spun her chair back to her terminal. As she extended her right arm to begin deleting the video, Garrus caught the back of her chair, hiding the distress in his face as he spun her back to face him again.
"Liz, don't delete it."
When Shepard spoke, her voice seemed small, vulnerable, every quality which was never associated with "Commander Shepard." The pain, the hurt which was conveyed by the slight tremor of her lower lip and the insecurity which rang through her now slightly duller green eyes tore into Garrus with the force of a thousand Thresher-Maws.
"But, you don't like it."
Instantly, as Shepard spoke, the image of a small human child, messy blond hair in a hasty pony-tail and eyes red from some unkown injustice flew through his mind, the template so similar to the human children he saw at C-Sec. This was not the typical hardened Elizabeth Shepard he was used to dealing with, this was an infinitely more vulnerable part, even more so than he had ever realized she had.
"I never said that."
"But you meant it."
Garrus crouched down, bringing his right talon underneath Elizabeth's chin, pulling her face to look at him through what appeared to be slightly watery eyes and a slowly failing expression of nonchalance. When he spoke his voice was low, earnest, every word considered and weighed, packed with love and sentiment before being shipped as carefully as possible directly to her heart.
"No, Liz. I said it was creative. You made this, right?"
Elizabeth nodded her head quickly, closing her eyes as she tried to prevent any tears which were quickly forming from leaking out.
"Well, then I already like it."
Shepard was caught so by surprise by Garrus' statement that she practically guffawed in response, three tears streaking quickly down her face only to be caught in the sleeve of her well-worn N7 sweatshirt. She closed her eyes tightly, smiling earnestly at Garrus as she spoke, her voice fragile, caught between grief and pain and incredible love and affection.
"You're just saying that."
Garrus shook his head, reaching out to pull Elizabeth into an awkwardly-positioned, but no less appreciated hug, his voice resonating through his chest and into hers.
"No, I mean it. I'll be honest, it's a little rough, could use some work. But you made it, Liz, that's enough for me to love it."
Shepard sniffed, bringing her sleeve up to wipe her nose before breaking away from the hug, sitting back down in her chair, sniffing again. Slowly, carefully, Garrus began to talk, the carefully considered question quickly decaying.
"Why is this… affecting you, so much? I mean, not to be insensitive. I guess that kind of is, isn't it? Damn. I'm just… well, you're usually… tougher? Stronger? No, that's not right. I'm just going to… stop. Talking. Now."
Shepard giggled slightly, before biting her lower lip, taking three deep breaths through her nose before continuing again.
"It's because… It's 'cause I made it, Garrus."
Garrus cocked his head, his brow coming together as much as his plates would allow.
"What do you mean?"
Elizabeth wiped her eyes and nose one last time before continuing on, her speech pattern slow as she searched for the right words, the territory of the conversation not only intimidating to speak of, but also requiring a great deal of consideration to properly convey.
"Before I joined I used to love to do art. Visual, mostly, though I learned to play a bit of piano. When I finially enlisted, well, you know: It's not very "Alliance Marine" of me to love to make pretty paintings or fun videos. So I stopped, only did it on occasion. And I never showed anyone. You're the first one I've shown anything like this in at least fifteen years. So… I guess that's why I'm so sensitive."
The sound that came from Garrus' chest was the Turian equivalent of a human "Awww", his subvocals dropping an octave and reverberating warmly through his chest and into Elizabeth's as he pulled her into another hug, speaking over her shoulder.
"I didn't know, Liz. I'm sorry. I do like it, even if you hadn't made it. It's just a little, rough. You'll just need a bit of practice before you become the official videographer of the Normandy's adventures after all this is over. But I do like it, definitely."
"You do?"
"Absolutely."