SSSSSS! The door to the bedroom sliding open very prudently; yellow light blemishing the slowly expanding entrance to Garrus and Rage's bedroom. Size eight and a half shoes crept into the room, walking on tiptoes.

CREEEK!

Rage clapped her hand against her mouth, eyelids widened as she stared hard at the queen-sized bed. She could vaguely make out a lump in the bed, elongated enough to be the shape of her hubby. Relieved that he had not stirred, she moved deeper into the room, making a sharp right, which took her to the walk-in closet. She let out a tired sigh as a backpack fit for a hiker, took a trip off of her shoulders. The weight and her sheer exhaustion caused the bag to fall to the wooden floor, making a loud plop. She gasped again, fearing the worst: If he wakes up, he's going to start interrogating me and I'll be force to tell him. She wasn't ready to tell him just yet. What she had going on was too big to just spit out. It was years of careful consideration, long before they were married.

She slipped into the bathroom moments later taking a quick shower. From there she made her way to the bed. Once she crawled in, her arms immediately snaked across Garrus's side when he suddenly turned on a small light by the bed, rolling over a second later.

"Where were you."

Rage was frozen with shock. She had thought he was out cold. She swallowed hard, trying not to look surprised but it was too late. The gig was up. Her mouth opened but nothing came out as her blank mind raced for some kind of excuse. She couldn't use the late night ice cream fix—she had already used that one.

She could say for a drive, which was partially true but at three o'clock in the morning…?

Garrus sat up even further in the bed, glancing ahead of him, his hand running along his fringe out of frustration.

"I was…" She was sounding so stupid right now, wanting to slap herself later, "driving."

Garrus merely glanced at her, clearly not buying it.

"Around, the neighborhood… because I… couldn't sleep." Rage continued. She was such a bad liar.

There was a silence, a painful silence that loomed over the room, giving Rage that feeling that she was drowning. She felt as if she didn't breathe the entire time.

Garrus reached over, grabbing her hand, finally breaking the suffocation she felt. "If I'm doing something wrong, you can tell me." His icy blue, avian, eyes, slightly masked by darkness met hers.

Her heart fell to the pit of her stomach, now feeling like a piece of shit again. She hated lying to her husband, or not telling him the truth. Rage knew from fellow co-workers that Garrus had never been in a genuine relationship. And from his actions, she figured out that he was not comfortable in his own skin… or scales; due to his scars. But she didn't care about his scars. Rage fell in love with the man behind the scars.

She leaned into him, placing a kiss on his mouth-plates. When Rage pulled away, she said, "You're doing everything right, and I love you so much for it."

Garrus was still looking at her. He had this anxious, yet weary look in his eyes. Her other hand came up to his face, caressing the blemishes on his mandible and some of his mouth.

Fuck it. "I didn't just go driving, Garrus."

The turian had a face that said, "I figured as much."

"I met up with some friends…" She waited for his reaction.

It went from scared to teetering on devastation.

"In a graveyard."

Garrus's face suddenly shifted, his mandibles spacing apart. He leaned back a hair, glancing at her with perplexity. Why would anyone be meeting up with others in a graveyard?

Just fucking say it. "We were… I was ghost hunting." It felt like a boulder just fell off of her shoulders. Her face was dead serious as she studied her love.

Garrus didn't say anything, prompting her to elaborate.

"We've," she couldn't help but include her team, "been compiling ghost footage for quite some time, and I think, with a few more hits, we can't take this thing to the next level." There was so much confidence backing her words, her eyes no longer on Garrus but looking past him, into the future.

Even if Garrus wanted to comment right then and there, he couldn't. Rage began yapping about EVPs, which Garrus had no clue what an EVP was; causing him to scrunch up his plated face as best he could. Rage on the other hand, was now talking more to herself than to Garrus, still going on about the voice's she had recorded on her omni tool. Then she began yacking about orbs and shadows, but not just any kind of shadows: paranormal shadows. Then there was the countless "feelings" she had felt: goose bumps, uneasiness, hair on the back of her neck standing up… that kind of ilk.

Her admittance soon became a full blown, life confession. She had always been interested in the paranormal, and aspired to be an investigator of such things. Garrus's face couldn't morph any more than it already had. He had heard her mention something about ghost hunting when they were dating. He laughed it off, telling her that that was ridiculous. He wasn't overly religious, and turians believed in spirits, but he saw spirituality more as political propaganda.

Rage on the other hand, was a Christian and she believed fully in the supernatural, and she felt that it was her duty to show the galaxy that ghosts do exist.

When she finally took a breath, Garrus was just… there. Throughout the duration of her spiel, Garrus had been watching for some hint that she was lying, but the conviction in her voice, her eyes never looking away—not even blinking—it became painfully obvious that she was neither lying nor joking. He felt like he taken some hard core drugs and was tripping out by the time she had taken a breath.

"So this weekend, James and I are gonna meet with this psychic—"

"I'm sorry, what?" Garrus finally interrupted. His face was anything but understanding, and she had been around him long enough to know when a turian was being perceptive.

"I know you're not a true believer in the supernatural like I am, but try to have an open mind about this, Garrus." She paused, hoping for those sexy mandibles to separate from the sides of his mouth. But they were just as stubborn as Garrus was perplexed. "There's some serious money to be made in doing this." Money was a very strong motivator for anyone. And if he couldn't be swayed by her enthusiasm, then she had to up the ante. "Do you know how many haunted locations there are just within a twenty mile radius of our house…?"

Garrus's mouth was slightly open, eyes staring into to hers blankly, unblinking.

He had heard this spiel before, bits and pieces really, but he wrote it off as a silly dream that would never, and he means never, take wings. Yet, here he was at three: almost four o'clock in the morning; listening to her ghost fantasies. He should've known better. Rage was always watching anything and everything paranormal from: Real Real Ghost Stories, to Spooky-natural, to Oh My God! I Just Saw A Ghost! Then there was A Haunted Haunted Travel, Galaxies Most Haunted Places, 1001 Paranormal Investigations, Confessions of Demonic Possessions, Things That Go Bump in the Night, Visions 'N Apparitions, Mysteriously Paranormal, and Son of a EVP. She also had countless books on spirits, and supernatural occurrences. She had looked at the paranormal with both an open, but also a scientific approach, which she had tried to explain countless times before, but Garrus usually lost focus soon after the words: ghost, paranormal, supernatural, and or spirit.

He was still rooted in silence, staring at his love as if she had grown two heads. She was unsure what he was thinking, the silence becoming too loud, she added, "I've researched countless articles regarding hauntings, and I know it can be dangerous, but… but this is my passion, Garrus."

His hand moved from hers, reaching over to cut off the light with the wave of his hand. Once they were bathed in darkness, he neared her mouth with his, kissing her gently on the lips. "Goodnight."

With that, his head was to the pillow, covers pulled up to his fringe, weary eyelids sliding shut.

Rage was left in the dark, still upright, glancing in his direction. "Garrus?" She suddenly called out with a taxed drawl.

Garrus inhaled deeply, responding with, "Good night. I love you."

And that was that. It wasn't the first time he had ended a conversation with her like that, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. When it came to the afterlife Garrus's tolerance for the subject matter usually flat-lined.