Sorry for the slight delay! Real life and all (trying to find a house to rent when you own three dogs is a pain in the rear!). I hope you enjoy and I'll warn you now that chapters might be sporadic this week; I'm working overnights so my sleep time will be when I'm normally writing. I'll try to keep the chapters coming out regularly but I make no promises!
As always a big thank you to icyfreezerpop for editing this for me!
He had been trying to contact her for a few days and she was pointedly ignoring him.
He didn't blame her.
Garrus had, against John and Tali's protests, gone to Afterlife to drink his issues away.
He had no one but himself to blame for this entire debacle. He had handled it completely wrong and he was the reason both Aeryn and Tali were hurt.
Having already downed a few shots of fine Palaven brandy, he moved on to the cheaper and more readily available liquors.
He was well on his way towards blackout when gentle hands pulled away his glass.
He growled at the offending person, not bothering to look up and investigate who was trying to save him from himself.
The hands moved to his forehead and the back of his cowl. These roving hands proved too familiar for his liking and he decided to put an end to it before this person got too comfortable touching him.
He grabbed the person's wrist and twisted, bringing them fully in to his view.
The person was a human, and they were awkwardly bent over the table in front of him. He poured all of his anger in to his eyes as he growled.
His vision was blurry but eventually cleared enough to see who exactly was intruding in on his self-loathing.
He loosened his grip but didn't let go.
"Aeryn…"
He wasn't sure if he was hallucinating due to the alcohol or depression, but he didn't really care.
He pulled her in to his lap as he sat back down and just held her.
He wasn't sure when he started sobbing, or when she started to comfort him, but he was beyond caring.
She was holding his head against her neck as she just held him.
She was muttering something comforting while all he could do was blubber his apologies for everything.
He apologized for hurting Tali, for hurting Aeryn, for not searching for her when he knew he should have.
All she did was soothe him with words he was beyond understanding.
Eventually she coaxed him to move, to get up. He was a willing follower of wherever she wanted to lead.
She led him back to an apartment. He noticed it was small and sparsely furnished. A bed, a couch and a kitchenette. There were flowers placed on small tables and on the counters and it smelled like her.
Jasmine and vanilla he recalled distantly. From her home world.
She brought him to the bed and laid him down. She went to move away but he clung to her. He was too intoxicated to communicate what he wanted, but he could communicate silently enough by not letting her go.
She smiled softly and reached across the bed to the nightstand. She was holding something to his mouth… A glass of water? It felt strangely reminiscent of when she had taken care of him after he had drunk himself stupid after being forced to order troops to evacuate Palaven. He had been trying to save what he could, but it had never sat right with him. He had allowed the Reapers to overrun his home.
She had put the pieces back together then and she was going to do it now.
He wasn't intoxicated enough to assume that this was a gesture of future commitments. This was a peace offering.
He sipped the water and held her hand to his chest. Within seconds he was blissfully asleep, surrounded by the scent of the one woman who could set his world right again.
Aeryn had just finished another concert for Aria. She had to admit that it was getting easier to sing in front of the crowds and the added bonus of having a limitless tab at the bar was definitely helping.
Darius was off chasing skirt elsewhere. They had candidly discussed their relationship after they had finished relieving one another's stress.
He wanted more; she didn't. It was simple and he accepted it with humor. Though she doubted that would be the end of his attempts, at least now they knew where the other stood.
She had refused a few more offers for stress relief and had tried to keep things platonic.
She had been fantasizing about relaxing in her new apartment all evening. It was small, blissfully small.
She hated to inhabit large spaces by herself and the layout of the apartment allowed her to see the entire room no matter where she was.
She was about to head home for the night when word of a turian cleaning out the bar had caught her attention. A tall turian in full armor with blue colony markings.
Blue markings were rare outside of the Hierarchy and Palaven.
She had sighed inwardly and made her way to where the turian was purportedly camped out.
As she had suspected, it was Garrus.
She debated for a bit on whether she should intervene when she noticed that some of the other Mercs were eyeing him with a little too much interest.
She didn't even wait a heartbeat before heading over to him.
He was well and truly trashed. She had tried to get his attention by calling his name and talking to him, but he was beyond hearing anything but his own inner monologue.
And what a monologue it must have been.
She was trying to distract him with small touches and gentle caresses, but he wasn't having any of it.
She was semi prepared for his aggressive stance and staunch refusal for the removal of his liquor. She was not prepared to be leaned sideways over the table.
It took him longer than it should have for him to recognize her; he was drunker than she thought.
When he did finally recognize her he hauled her in to his lap and buried his face in her neck.
She struggled with simultaneously wanting to push him away and leave and with wanting to give him the comfort he so desperately needed.
Comfort won out.
She found her arms circling his neck and running her fingers over his scalp.
His tearful apologies broke her heart all over again. This wasn't the cocky, confident Garrus that she was used to. This was a different animal all together.
He was as bruised and broken as she was.
His tears were starting to dry up and his sobs were becoming more labored. She knew from personal experience that he was probably exhausted after such a venting of emotion and decided to take him to her house.
It was closer than the Normandy docking bay after all, and she didn't want the crew to see him like this.
Sure, and pyjacks flew.
She had maneuvered him in to her bed and was going to fetch him a fresh glass of water when he refused to let her leave.
She was going to try and argue with him, but he seemed resolute.
She had a half full glass on her nightstand from a few nights previous. He'd just have to deal with stale water.
He guzzled the water and eventually drifted off. He was looking at her until his eyes closed, clutching her hand to his chest.
When he was finally asleep she stood and pulled the blanket over him. She quickly typed up an accountability report to John so he wouldn't send out the hounds and made herself a cup of coffee.
She needed something to calm her nerves.
She was shaking with the force of emotions overwhelming her. She wasn't supposed to see him this soon after everything. She was going to give herself time to lick her wounds and build up her barriers.
She wanted to be emotionally detached when she saw him, but instead she was slipping back in to her old role.
She found herself on her couch and staring out her window into the void that was the rest of Omega.
She sat like that for hours. Well, her muscles told her it was hours. She wasn't really aware of anything.
She hadn't been thinking about anything that she could remember and she doubted it was anything of important. Cognitive dissonance at its best.
She hadn't noticed Garrus move from his uninterrupted sleep or his movement from the bed to the ground in front of her.
He was crouched in front of her, staring in to her unseeing eyes.
He pressed his forehead to hers and brought her attention back to the presence.
She closed her eyes and just let the feeling sink in. It was a nice feeling, a familiar feelings.
She sighed and pulled back, leaning in to the sofa.
"What do we do now Garrus, I can't… I can't just go back as if nothing happened."
Garrus had been elated that she hadn't rejected his affection and instead had leaned in to it. It wasn't until she pulled back and looked at him in sadness that he started to inwardly panic.
She said she couldn't go on as if nothing happened. He wracked his brain for a way around such a statement.
"Then let's start as if it has happened, and we're trying again."
He held her hand with one of his own and placed his free hand on her cheek.
"Let me court you, like you deserve. Let me win your trust again. Let me show you how much you mean to me."
She looked like she was going to say something and he placed a finger on her lips to prevent her from speaking.
"I'm not talking anything official or with titles. Just let me date you. Let me show you how dedicated I am to you."
She bit the tip of his finger and smirked at him.
"Ok… But no singing… I still haven't forgiven you for that time at that silly café on the presidium where you broke out in to a shitty rendition of 'One True Love' from Fleet and Flotilla."
Looking aghast he pulled his hand from her mouth and placed it over his heart, "That was my most romantic moment! The crowds and the applause… and the vids on the extranet!"
In truth he regretted doing that for weeks afterwards. He had gotten a call from his sister both scolding him for giving their father a heart attack by publicly showing that he was dating a human and then trying not to hysterically laugh at his serenade skills.
But if it got her back, he'd perform a live vid concert for the entire galaxy.
She had agreed to date him again, casually. He would work at whatever pace she wanted but it was definite progress.
Then a thought came to mind. "You haven't started casually seeing anyone else, have you? I don't want to put you in a weird situation."
She blushed and then cleared her throat and his heart sunk a bit.
"I have… Slept… With someone. I'm telling you because I don't want you to think I'm hiding anything. It was that night. We've agreed to keep it casual and not repeat the performance, but there it is. Other than that, no one. I… I was waiting to see how it would be between us when we saw each other again."
He swallowed his hurt and nodded. He moved to sit next to her on her couch and pulled her against his side. He couldn't blame her after that night and he couldn't say that he wouldn't have done the same damn thing in the same position.
He reasoned his way around his hurt and eventually found solace in the idea that they had both had someone else and that they were working on this together.
His omnitool pinged a short message from John letting him know that they were departing in an hour for a mission. John ended the message with a weird symbol that looked like a sideways heart.
John Shepard was a weird man. He probably got laid. That or he found out where Garrus had spent the night.
"We're leaving in an hour… I will be in contact."
It was an awkward goodbye, but then again how did you say goodbye to someone who you were once engaged to, thought was dead, moved on from, and then found again? He wanted to do more than words but he didn't want to push too far too soon.
She surprised him when she walked him to the door and pulled him down to her level to touch her forehead to his… Before abruptly pushing him out of her door and closing it behind him.
He chuckled all the way back to the Normandy.
Darius sighed when he saw Aeryn and Vakarian leave together. He had been watching the other turian drink himself stupid for a few hours now. Aria was getting quite a kick out of it.
Apparently Vakarian was the infamous Archangel. At least that's what Aria was saying. Darius doubted it was true, but it was amusing none the less to see the other guards start to look uncomfortable.
Darius had his go with the human and she had abruptly shut down any further of his advances the next day when she said she wanted to keep it casual.
He understood her reasoning just as he understood her leaving with Vakarian tonight.
Just because he understood didn't mean he had to go quietly in to the night, nor did it mean that he couldn't make it harder for her to move on from him.
He smirked to himself as he winked at one of the asari dancers.
No, he would not go quietly and thanks to his rediscovered freedom it didn't mean that he had to be a saint either.
Dr. Tolorin's first plan had failed, miserably.
That was fine, he had a plan B.
He hadn't originally wanted to use plan B, but she was tying his hands. Plan B was risky and it could hurt his work.
It was a risk he was willing to take.
In a few weeks she would be coming to him willingly.