Author's Notes-
Chapter 4
Where do we Stand?
" Laura, I'll be right back," Garrus says as he leaves to get up. He has been doing it multiple times for the past few days.
At some points she was glad as he had actually left when her doctor had come in and had told her over her possible memory loss. She had not told Garrus as he had already worried enough about her. She didn't need him concerned over her memory loss of one day. Especially one day that is shown over and over again in the form of news stories with her as the focal point when she turns on the vid screen.
Shepard smiles at Garrus leaving in silent acknowledgment. If you were Human, We'd all think you have a bladder issue. This wasn't the first time he has done it today, which starts to make Shepard really concerned.
He leaves and instead of going to the bathroom, he sits outside the room leaning on the glass of her room with his omni-tool open. Staring at him may be a little weird and unnerving, but after how close they've become she doesn't care. If only, she ponders as she thinks back on her times with her most loyal teammate. All the way back to the fight with Saren he has been her most trusted partner, even more than anyone who was wearing Alliance colors.
As she stares at him leaning on the glass she has a flashback from before the final push to the beam in London where Garrus was talking with her. It was something from the day of the battle, something that was forgotten.
Garrus leans on the ruble of the building as he says " We're going to retire somewhere warm and tropical, and live off the royalties from the vids. Maybe even find out what a Turian - Human baby looks like." With this, he pushes off the wall and grabs her waist and pushes her closer as she wraps her arms around him and massages under his fringeā¦
She snaps out of the flashback and is kicking herself now over how she had forgotten. When she had waken up, the doctor had told her that there was going to be some memory loss after being knocked comatose. This paired with the stresses of battle had led her to have memory loss that would take time to heal. The doctor had said that she could have lost some of her memory from the battle.
Of course, he's been here the entire time. He wants a future for both of us, together. This puts her at ease knowing that he had felt that way. Maybe she didn't know because she doesn't know Turian bonding. At this she pulls up her omni-tool and does a quick search on Turian male bonding.
Garrus takes a peak to see Laura staring at him with a tilted head, in thought. He feels she's starting to think he has an issue with him going to the bathroom so many times. If only she knew how difficult it was for me to use a Human toilet. I wouldn't want to deal with that every time I "go to the bathroom," Garrus thinks to himself. If only she knew that most times he had left her to use the washroom he was actually hiding out of sight of her, looking up Human customs on his omni-tool. He doesn't want her to see what he is looking up on his omni-tool. Even though she can't read Turian script it's a habit and he would rather be safe than sorry.
He had searched for Human bonding rituals as he thought it may be good to know as after everything they had been through, Garrus had fallen into the Turian bonding phase of Amans, a phase Turian males go through where they are emotionally bonded and ask to eternally bond with their female counterpart. While it isn't unheard of to be rejected, it has no effect on the male's attachment to the one he is in Amans with, and if so, it isn't uncommon to find males in Amans with two females after one has rejected his advances.
He had to search up everything he could on what Humans do as an act of bonding as he sure didn't know how Laura felt on actually bonding with a Turian, not just sleeping with one. One thing was for sure for Garrus, he was going to try everything in his power to get Laura to accept.
As Garrus leans on the glass staring at the screen flowing with picture of what Humans do. One of the man on his knee holding out a weird band to the woman's hand, another of the couple bring mobbed by a large group. Garrus didn't recognize the weird all-white dress the woman was wearing, but recognized the male's outfit as some Human colleagues at C-SEC have worn something similar at formal events. He sighs as he closes the omni-tool to head back into her room. He knows he is going to have to ask her at some point as he was already connected to her.
Shepard takes her eyes off the omni-tool as she hears the swish of the door opening to look at who had walked in. Undoubtedly Garrus, who had left the room for 10 minutes, but stood in front of the glass looking into her room while he was on his omni-tool, undoubtedly doing research like her.
Garrus sees that she has her tool open and is able to see the Human script running across the holographic screen. He doesn't know many words in her written language but can see one that he immediately recognizes.
Amans
Oh no. She knows. His mandibles splay wide in an embarrassed expression as he stands there staring at her in bed. What do I do? He immediately thinks as his plates start shaking, something that his kind only do when they are cold. If he stays here any longer she'll hear his plates clattering together and make it worse.
She doesn't close her tool as he stares at her. What are you staring at me for? She thinks as she looks up seeing his mandibles splayed wide in surprise.
" Ugh, I need to go to the bathroom," he stutters as he walks out again for the third time today.
What the hell is his issue? She thinks as she looks down and sees that her omni-tool is open. It's not like he can read English. At this thought she blushes. Of course he can't read but he can pick out words that mean something to his race. He told her that he had to at least pick up some written words from Human English. As she starts to read on she sees a word, Amans, that sounds vaguely Latin, the language Humanity uses to relate to the Turian language and names.
She had taken linguistics in her N training and had picked up some Portuguese in her time in Rio. It vaguely resembled amar, a variation of the word love used in many Latin based languages.
As she does more research, she thinks this is the word that Garrus recognizes as he is able to pick out words when she writes in Portuguese. The more Shepard reads, the more she understands Garrus' possible embarrassment.
God, I'm so stupid for not realizing his feelings and mating practices. They don't cover this in Xenobiology in N training, is her thought as she closes her tool waiting for him to return.If only I had known Garrus, we could have saved you the embarrassment.
As Garrus walks into the Human washroom he heads immediately to the sinks. After watching Laura and other Human crew members do it he decided to take up washing his face, well his face plates in an attempt to cool down the heat under his plates from the embarrassment of walking in on her searching up his races' mating practices. Something like this shouldn't be embarrassing to him as they both are fucking each other, but just the fact that she may already know what he's going through before he tells her is just embarrassing to him.
He looks up at himself in the mirror, just finally noticing the toll that his adventures with Laura had taken on his body. It had been more than two years since he had taken a good look at himself in a mirror. At this point, Garrus had lost most of his features that had made him attractive as a Turian.
The right side of his face was deeply scarred from taking a rocket to the face when Laura had shown up to save him from the bowels of that shithole Omega. His colony paint was faded and nearly gone where he was scarred. His plates had grown a few shades darker than the silver gray he was when Laura first met him. Usually when you get older, your plates naturally darken, but at the age of 30 there was nothing natural about it. The high stress of his repeated suicide missions with her had truly taken it's toll on him both physically and mentally. The only attractive feature he had left are his blue eyes which Laura has repeatedly says looks like an the oceans of Earth from space.
After all this she's still here for me, he thinks as his plates relax and he starts to cool down from his previous embarrassment. Well, she had to find out someday, is his last thought as he leaves to go back to Laura, his Amor Primus, and explain his absence and what she probably knows by now.
