Hello my loyal readers... and you must be loyal if you are still here, and I love you for it. I know it has been so long since I last posted a chapter but summer has been full of vacation, death in family and other oddities besides the wonderful writers block that seemed to punch me in the face every free second I seem to get. But it is here now and I truly hope that you will enjoy it as much (if not more) than I had writing it. As always your wonderful comments fuel my fire and make me feel like an amazing princess.
Disclaimer: The wonderful world of Mass Effect is not mine and belongs to Bioware...
He had to rule out dreaming. He had dreamed of her before. The Spirits knew he had. In the past six years, he had seen her each time he closed his eyes. And even when he went without sleep to spare himself her smiling face, she would come to him in his exhausted state. But all those dreams were different from this moment.
When she came towards him, her hair was just how he remembered, long and perfectly straight. Like a crimson waterfall. Her build was strong but not much like having spent a few years on a lab slab, her strength coming mostly from the upgrades Cerberus had implanted in her. The way he remembered her, she was confident but it truly didn't show in the way she carried herself.
No, this woman in front of him was Luna. Or a damn good copy. But if it was a copy would they not keep her the same? Why would anyone think to change someone who by all rights didn't exist anymore? Her hair was cut far shorter but it gave her a more serious, almost older look. The glasses did nothing to hide those silver orbs that were imprinted in the back of his mind. And although she was still the same height and seemed to be the same size, he could see muscles, very toned and if he could say so (and he just might), seductive muscles that at the moment seemed very tense. Which caused him to quickly move his gaze back to her face.
The whole time he was standing there, he had been looking her over, trying to find a flaw in it really being her. The whole time it never occurred to him to study her reaction. Her eyes were wide and unsure behind her glasses. They shone in the light in what could be unshed tears. Her expression made it seem like she had seen a ghost. Her name was forming on his lips when a voice sounded beside him.
"Captain?" Oh right. The human that had shown him in. He had lost all memory of the human the moment his eyes had landed on Luna. He didn't let the human phase him but it seemed the words had brought Luna out of her startled state. Her eyes blinked rapidly, as if she tried to clear her eyes, before she moved to pick up the dropped datapad.
"You are free to leave, Johnson." As she spoke, she rose from crouching down to lift the pad and turned to place it on the table. Garrus could almost feel the hesitance from the human behind him. He lingered, watching his captain, just as Garrus watched her. "Captain? Are you sure..."
Garrus could tell it was a foolish notion and Luna only proved his point as she turned quickly, eyes narrowed at the human male. He had seen Luna angry before, on a few occasions. But never before had he seen her filled with such a fiery rage. And even over something that to him seemed so trivial. He hated to admit it, or maybe he liked the idea, but her rage really seemed to turn him on further. Sure, in their past relationship she had not be all gentle, but he never saw a glimpse of the dominance she showed at this moment, and it was quite a fascinating thing to see.
Even without his wonderful hearing, Garrus was sure that he would have been able to hear the hard swallow by the male before he quickly turned away and practically ran out of the room as the door shut behind him. Garrus had watched this with some amusement. Turning back to the human woman he let him take her in once more as she relaxed to lean against her desk with her arms crossed.
There was a silence in the air, hanging over them once more before Luna spoke. "I heard that you were dead. Just laying low in some back part of the galaxy, then?" He could hear the hurt in her voice but for the life of him could not understand it. He gave a gentle nod as he watched her fish in her pants pocket for something.
"Yeah, pretty much laying low. Hiding out and doing odd jobs here and there to get by. You know how it is, living on the run." She gave a small chuckle as she looked up to him. Her eyes bore into his for what seemed like an eternity in a second before looking down to the pack in her hands.
"I just don't understand, Garrus. One day you love being a Spectre in training. Next, from what I hear, you have up and vanished, ignoring everyone's pings, even mine. Were you really that..." She seemed to have trouble finding the correct word to fit how she was feeling, "...disgusted by our relationship that you had to completely cut ties with me after breaking it off?"
Realization hit him quickly and it hit him hard. No one else knew where he went or why. No one knew he never opened any of the messages he received before scrapping his omni tool. And Luna, she never knew that he had been the one that fell in love with her and was only trying to protect her by splitting up. He thought that she had died, and left her thinking that he was breaking off their arrangement because she had been the one to fall in love.
It only took a few steps to bring her a few feet from his reach. As he moved she pulled a stick out of the pack and placed it between her lips. A lighter was pulled out next and posed ready to light the cigarette, as her eyes watched him. A hard glaze covered those liquid, silver pools, ready to take any harm that she believed he was ready to inflict emotionally. She really had changed since the last time he saw her. Even more so on the inside than the outside. He could only offer her a shake of his head as he tried to find the words.
"It was not you, Luna. It was never you." He fought the urge to say the words that fought too hard to force their way out. It would do no good to be rash at a time like this. One wrong phrasing could crumble what little stability he had with her right now. "You were gone. I saw it with my own eyes. At that moment I gave up, completely. I felt there was nothing left for me here. The whole reason I wanted to become a Spectre was to protect the ones that were important. And if I couldn't do that, then what was the point?"
He heard the soft exhale from her nose as her eyes moved to the cigarette between her lips as the flame sparked to life, burning the paper. Usually the smell of the smoke would bother him, but for some reason it was not as troubling now as it had been in the past. It was either that this brand was less offensive to turian noses or he was simply too preoccupied by their conversation that he just didn't care. Either way, he took another step towards her as she placed the pack and the lighter on the table.
"So you thought I died. Garrus, you are a trained soldier and a former C-Sec officer. People die. People you know and care for. Its part of the job description. You honestly don't think I would believe you cut all ties with your whole world simple because one of your friends died. Sulking I would believe. Even maybe depression. But to completely run away and not give a shit, that's a little hard to swallow."
He sighed as he looked her over. The way her lips wrapped around the thin, paper wrapped filter as she inhaled a deep breath of smoke. The way her eyes slowly blinked as she refused to bring them up to meet him. Afraid of what, he did not know. What he did know was that she needed to understand. Needed to see what she had blind to when they were together. To hell with Nihlus's request of letting her go. He had done that once and look what happened. No, this time he wasn't going to shrink away out of fear.
"No, not my friend..." He could see her flinch away at the comment. Her eyes narrowed in on the glowing tip at the end of her fingers.
Her silver pools reflecting the warm amber glow. "No I guess not... Then your toy. Your fuck buddy. Your... well whatever I was to you..." She was angry. He could see it. A bright burning flame. But he was going to douse that flame. Fix what he should have fixed all those years ago when she laid dieing on his bed. Stepping closer, he reached out to run a hand along her chin, taking it between his middle finger and thumb. With a gentle tug he pulled her face up towards his.
"What you were to me, was the woman that I loved... The woman that I still love." Her shock was evident as her eyes grew wide and moved up towards his, searching for any clue that may show him to be a liar. Any indication that he was just telling her something that she had longed to hear and may have only heard in her dreams.
"But.. That's not - You were the one that called off our relationship, if that's what you could call it. You left and never looked back." His thumb moved back and forth on her chin, feeling just how soft and delicate the skin he had thought about so often really was. He could not fight the smile that flickered across his mandibles. It was slightly humorous to see just how much she could not see.
"I called it off because I thought you would get hurt. I didn't want to pull you into a relationship that would be hard on you, here on the Citadel. I knew that you could not come with us on missions anymore. Your brother would have never allowed it. And you would be left on the Citadel, alone. I could not do that to you. So I was ready to let you go, so I would not see you hurt..." Her face flinched slightly as she pulled back away from his grasp.
"I call bull-shit. You know very well I would have done what I liked. I would have gone with you even if my brother was against it. Hell, even if the Alliance forbid it, I would have. And you still never answered my pings. You still have been ignoring me for all these years." He had to chuckle, mentally of course, at her effort to prove him wrong. But it had been a long time. And she had been left to her imagination as to why he had left her. He moved his fingers to bring her chin into his delicate grasp.
"I believed you dead. And any ping that was sent to my omni-tool I ignored thinking it to be Nihlus trying to find me. In fact I ditched it the first chance that I really could. I didn't want to be found. Didn't want to be reminded of what I had lost..." As he spoke he was bringing his face closer and closer to hers. Doing so, her scent began to become overpowering. Memory began to flare up as he once more drew closer and closer to the form that at one time he had completely memorized.
A glance to her eyes showed him a lustful warmth, melting the icy glare that had been pinned on him just moments before. He felt more than saw her move her hand back to put out the cigarette that had been between her fingers. "So you were not running from me?" She spoke in almost a hushed whisper that his turian hearing picked up on just fine. As she spoke, her hands moved up, one bracing on the forearm on the hand that held her chin, the other moving to run up the side of his mandibles on their way towards his fringe.
"Not you, Lovely Luna. Of the ghost I thought you had left behind..." With that he brought his lip plates flushed against her own soft pliable lips. His free hand moved to the small of her back to pull her lithe form flush against his while the hand on her chin moved into her hair. It all felt familiar, like he had hoped it would. But it wasn't until he slid his hand down to grasp her rear fully that she let out a gasping moan that allowed him entrance into her mouth with his tongue, giving him a slam of pleasurable memory.
She was just as sweet as he remembered, almost like candy that now had a smoky aftertaste that, Spirits damn him, was not going to ruin this moment. How many nights had he stayed up late dreaming of her feeling of her taste? How long had he only had memories to go on when he was reduced to pleasuring himself in a grungy corner of whatever hole he found himself sleeping in that night? The answer was more than he was willing to spend ever again.
From the way that she seemed to pull herself into him, and the way her dull, little nails clawed at him, she had been dreaming about this moment for quite some times as well. Her eagerness only fueled his own desire even more. The hand that was still clasped around her ass moved down to her thigh, pulling her leg up to wrap around his own waist, the other leg soon following suit. Pushing her up against her desk, he was at the perfect angle in which he could ground his pelvic plate right against her core. At this moment he damned himself for the turian habit of wearing his armour everywhere. It would have been so much easier, had he been in his civilian clothing.
Soft sweet moans escaped her lips when he would pull back for air before diving in again to taste more of her. It was almost as if all the years wasted had melted away. They were once again back on Nihlus's ship, lock in her control room. And the passion between them burned as bright as it did when they had last been together. Right before they left on the Cerberus mission.
Her legs were secure enough around his small waist that he was able to move his hand away from her tigh and travel up towards her breast. Taking hold of one of the mounds, he let one of his fingers move across her nipple while the other two massaged the flesh there. Breaking away from her lips he moved his head down the side of her neck, letting his tongue leave a moist trail behind it. At the crook of her neck he gave a few small nips that were soon covered by another pass of his tongue. His actions spurred on by her deep throated moans of pleasure.
But all good things were to end. And just when he was ready to rip her clothes away and take her there on her desk, a knock came from her door. "Captain? I have a few reports for you to look over and sign off on.. Captain?"
A string of curses left her mouth as Luna push him back to hop off her desk. Quickly she began to straighten her uniform out. Once she felt she was in a presentable state, she turned back to Garrus to find him grinning as he leaned against the desk with one hand. "Do not think this discussion is over." Her infliction on the word discussion clued to him that she was not necessarily speaking of the talk they had been having before. Her eyes moved towards the door. "One moment..."
Turning, she moved to bend over the desk, jotting something down on a datapad. As she was bent over Garrus could not help but admire the view. A hand rose up to softly caress the tender, juicy flesh that was on display so beautifully in front of him. She gave a small laugh as she rose and handed him the datapad.
"This is my address. I get done here in about three hours. Meet me there in about three and half." She seemed to be debating something in her mind before she moved forward to give his lip plates a deep tender kiss. "I really hope you are not a dream.."
He chuckled as he returned the motion. "I hope so too, Luna. I really hope so..." She turned and led him to the door that opened to reveal a turian officer with a stack of paperwork. He was taken aback at the sight of Garrus as he moved past the shorter turian. His gaze move back to watch Luna as she spoke with the other turian. As he was just about to turn the corner, her moonlight gaze moved up to meet with his. There was a softness there that had not been there when he first arrived, but there was something else as well. Something that told him she was hiding something. Whatever it was, he would find out later tonight. But first he needed to look into getting a new omni-tool. Something told him he was going to be needing one now.
He knew that she had said three hours. But he was already 30 minutes late. He had been full on his way to her place after seeing the new sights of the Citadel as well as picking up a new omni-tool, when he had had an idea. Now that he found Luna he was damn sure he was not ready to give her up so easily. So why stay in a shitty hotel on the other side of the Citadel? Not when there were ones far closer to her, that is if she didn't let him stay with her. He didn't want to assume that she was still available and free. It had been years since they were last together. Surely she had not been single the whole time. Especially if she had believed him dead or ignoring her. But surely she would have somewhere for him to crash that wouldn't cost him a thing.
So he had about faced and moved out towards his hotel, gathered his things and checked out. He was thinking what a fool he would look if he showed up later having to check back in. But if there was a chance that Luna would let him stay, he wasn't going to waste precious time running all the way back to get his stuff.
His omni-tool was bright as it led him through the streets of the Citadel towards her home. He had already entered the fancier side of the wards and he wondered where Luna was getting the money from. Sure, the captain of C-Sec department would make quite a bit of credits but this seemed a little much. 1009...1008... Here it was, 1007. Stepping up to the nice door, he was about to buzz in when he heard raised voices on the other side of the door. The one that he heard now was Jane's.
"Dead! You told me he was dead! Why would you lie to me like that!"
"Everything I could find told me he was! I double checked everything to see if there was some chance but everything came back as a confirmed kill! Seems that he is harder to kill than you!" Garrus could not be sure of this voice. It was somewhat familiar and had a hint of turian to it. But one thing was sure. It was a male.
"Well he is back now and should be here any minute. You should go..." He heard footsteps moving towards the door. Heavy ones that did not belong to Luna. Stepping back, he moved so that whoever was in the door when it opened, would not see him right away.
"Remember, Jane, you can never trust anyone. There is always someone out there that will enjoy using you. And you will never know until it is too late."
He heard a small scuff of a laugh from Luna as the door opened. "You would be the one that knew the most about that, huh, Saren...?"
Garrus eyes grew wide as he stepped around the corner to watch Saren move down the steps of the front door. Jane stood in the doorway watching the silver turian leave her house. Slowly her eyes moved up to meet Garrus's own. He watched as the silvery orbs grew wide in realization that he was there. His eyes moved quickly towards the large turian who was walking towards him. But the Spectre did not pause as he simply glared at him as he passed.
He stood for a moment, unsure of what to think before his eyes moved back up to Luna. She offered him a soft smile as she held out a hand. "There is quite a bit to talk about..." He gave a hesitant nod as he moved up the stairs to the door. Stepping in, he let the 'woosh' behind him seal the door before setting his things down at the side of the door and taking in his surroundings.
The house was a rather spacious one, with many different rooms it seemed. Ahead of him was a staircase that led to an upper balcony area that held four different doors. To his right was what appeared to be a lounging area, a circular dip in the ground held many pillows for comfort. To the left was what looked like it had been a dining area at one time, but all the chairs save one were stacked against the wall. The table and the far wall were covered in what looked to be case reports and maps of the galaxy. To the back of the house, behind the dining area/office was the kitchen surround by a semi-circle bar.
He watched as Luna moved over towards the lounging area, taking the two steps he could not see that led down into the couch pit. Turning, he moved to follow behind her. Her position had her facing the door as she leaned on one of the pile of pillows. Garrus followed her example as he sat across from her.
They sat in an awkward silence, both simple staring at each other, not sure of what to say before Luna finally spoke up. "I guess the best place to start would be a the beginning, right after you left."
A thought seemed to accrued to her as she rose and pulled herself out of the circle. "You want something to drink?"
He chuckled slightly as he watched her move over towards a cabinet. "If you are offering, I very well can not say no. Besides...," he took a look around their environment, "from the look of things, there is quite a story here and I'm going to need one."
He heard her soft laugh from where he sat. It was such a lovely tune to hear. One he had always thought that he would never hear again. His hand reached out to steady her by the arm as she took the large step into the sitting area. As he touched her, a small spark shot down his arm that caused his heart to flutter slightly. Even with their interrupted adventure in her office, he still felt excitement from even a simple touch. An eagerness of desire to establish that she was in fact the real thing. But for the moment he would listen to what she had to say. He needed to know exactly what happened after he thought she had died.
He took a sip of the rich, warm brandy as she resumed her position across from him. Spirits, this was some good stuff. He gave her a moment to gather her thoughts. She had said start from the beginning but it seemed she didn't know how to start. Maybe even grabbing him a drink was a way for her to gather her thoughts around her. After a moment he gave her a helping hand.
"So how did you live? I saw the flat line and saw them write you off as dead..." She gave a small nod, showing she agreed that that was a good place to start.
"Well, you remember all the upgrades, the ones that made me heal and survive? Well, they were shut down by that device that Kai Leng placed on me. It seems when the doctors gave me that jolt to jumpstart my heart, it shorted out all the electric system in my body. Including that little device. After that, all the non-electrical upgrades came back online. It just took a few minutes for my heart to get going again."
Garrus looked her over, taking in her form. He had learned all about her upgrades during their time on the ship together. Cerberus had really pumped a whole lot of cybernetic upgrades into her. A lot of electronic ones. "So does that mean you lost more than just the device?"
She raised her own glass to her lips to take a sip before a smile graced her lips. "Almost all of it. I still heal quickly. Still have amazing stamina. But everything else is gone. The uplinks. The data mind. Everything that allowed me to hook into the ship..."
He gave a nod of understanding before posing his next question. "I know you sent me a few pings. But if you were alive, why didn't you come after me? I was still traceable for about four months."
A look of guilt crossed her face as her eyes moved down to the glass in her hands. "They kept me in the hospital for a month and a half. You know, doing all their monitoring and tests to get me back to functioning condition. That's when I was able to send most of the pings. It was all I could really do while I sat in the hospital bed." He flinched at the comment. He had been away, trying to run, ignoring all of her cries for him while she sat bedridden in some unknown hospital. It was really hitting him low. But it was what he deserved for running from her so quickly.
"After I was released from the hospital... Well, that's when the Alliance grabbed me. I was a former Alliance officer that was deemed killed in action, back alive in the company of a Spectre and full of Cerberus tech. Needless to say, they had quite a lot of questions. I spent half a year in their custody, answering questions, doing counseling, all of that song and dance. They brought in Nihlus a few times. I mean, we were a human turian team during the war." A small laugh escaped her lips. "At first they believed I was working for the turians, giving them information. It took the council to assure them that Nihlus had no involvement in the war. After a while they realized that I was too far down on the Alliance chain of command and out of the war for two years to have any information that would effect the war. And I made sure to leave John out of it. I didn't want to see his reputation effected on my behalf. They finally released me to be able to live a life here on the Citadel, of course with a shadow for my first two years."
Her eyes moved up to his with a small light. "By then I was told you were gone. Killed on some backwater planet with a name not worth remembering. I asked Nihlus and Saren to look into it, see if there was anyway you got out alive. But at that time Nihlus was deep in a Cerberus investigation. So I had to rely on Saren." Her face gave a sour twist for a moment. "At the time I was not to thrilled by the idea. But after a while it began to get better. It was then that I started to work a C-Sec. The closest thing I could get to adventure and well..." Her eyes moved over to him, almost boring into his soul. "The closest thing I could get to you..."
Anger flared up inside of his core. He had been running around the galaxy as a discount vigilante while she had been left on the Citadel to live a painfully boring and intrusive life. If that was even a life anymore. More than two years of interviews and interrogation by the people that she was once aligned with.
He turned so that he could place the glass on the floor that, sitting in the pillow pit, was right at his elbow. Moving across the distance to her, he took the glass from her hand and placed it on the ground behind her. As he leaned over to her, he took her face in his hands and pulled her into a kiss. It was soft and tender, trying to mend the damage he had left behind.
"Spirits, Luna. I can't begin to express how sorry I am..." He spoke with his forehead against hers, eyes shut. As they eased open, crystal blue met silvery pools that shone with unshed tears.
"If you had stayed then you would have had to go through everything Nihlus had. It would not had made a difference." A single tear slid down her cheek. He gave a small smile as his finger moved up to brush it away.
"But you would not have been alone. I would have been here for you... The whole time..." He leaned in to kiss her once more. A tender kiss, that grew more passionate as the tears began to fall freely down her face. Her hands moved up to wrap around his neck, her fingers running along the plates at the back of his neck.
One of his hands moved to the small of her back to pull her up against his body. He pulled her into his lap as he sat back against one of the pillows. From her position on his lap she was above him, planting small kisses over his face and lip plates. He returned them as he held on to her, pulling her close, as if he could not come close enough to her. As she rained sweet kisses all over him, words slipped out between breaths.
"I.. thought... you were... dead... Or worse... that I was... just a... forgotten memory... A passing... fling..." Her last words caused him to grasp hold of her thighs and pull her closer with a deep growl. The action caused her lips to part in that gasping moan his delighted in creating. He didn't need words to show how wrong her thought pattern was in light of the truth.
As he tilted her head, he began to work down her neck with nip kisses. It gave her time to speak in a full sentence, not interrupted by kisses or gasps of air. "Garrus, there is something else... Something that you need to know..."
At that moment the front door opened. He could hear footsteps enter the main hall area as his stomach fell. There was someone else. Luna gasped as she sat back, her eyes locked on the figure behind him. "Taluke..."
Garrus's heart joined his stomach in it's free fall. Another man. Luna was with someone else. Of course she would have moved on. And here he was all over his woman, well, at that moment it was her on him. He prepared for the verbal, or maybe even physical, lashing he was about to get from her new partner. But it never came. Instead a single word. A word that shifted his whole world.
"Mother?"