Garrus stormed into the gun battery in a whirlwind of fury, anger seething through him, piercing his normally calm exterior, and he ripped the visor off his head, throwing it against the wall with such ferocity it would have shocked him was he not so upset. Later he'd check it for damage, but for now he couldn't give a shit less about the damned thing.

"Fuck!"

He swiped his arm across his workbench, sending the pieces flying and slammed his fists down on top of it, the hard steel buckling from the force of the raging Turian.

"She fucking did it anyway!"

He couldn't breathe, he was too constricted. He started ripping his armor off his body, hurling the pieces through the battery, ignoring the loud clanging the metal made against each other.

"She fucking lied to me, to my fucking face!"

He dropped onto a nearby crate, his elbows on his knees and hung his head, his body rocking back and forth, his head shaking. Slowly his anger dissipated only to be turned into a tumbled mixture of worry, anxiety and pain.

He ground the heels of his hand into his eyes, his breathing too fast, and his heart was threatening to jump out of his chest and flop around on the floor like a dying fish.

This feeling of absolute helplessness wasn't something that he dealt with very well and he resented her, albeit guiltily, for putting him in this position.

What pissed him off was that they had discussed this and agreed upon a decision. They had spent most of an evening, a couple of night cycles ago, in her cabin hashing it out and she finally agreed that she wouldn't do it, wouldn't go without him or go at all for that matter. There were too many unknown variables in the equation she presented him and he expressly told her that he felt uncomfortable with the situation.

Then when he had gone to her cabin to look for her and she wasn't there he had a feeling, a hunch as she would call it but decided that maybe she was just spending time with Grunt. Instead of impeding on their time, he headed up to the CIC to bullshit with Joker, since he was bored and needed a good laugh, but when he saw the look on the pilots face he knew, without a doubt, that something was wrong.

Joker tried to cover it up with a bad joke, but EDI (Spirits bless that AI) had corrected him saying, "Jeff, you know that the Commander hasn't been heard from in forty-eight hours. Why lie?" Joker had sent the blue holograph a scathing look followed by, "EDI, you need to learn to keep your fucking trap shut."

After that he had torn through the CIC into the elevator and tornadoed his way through the mess hall, giving withering looks to anyone who paid him attention, to where he was now, shoulders slumped in defeat, back rigid in pure terror at her situation.

"Dammit, Athena. You can't do this to me again."

Forty-eight hours.

Two days. Two whole fuckingdays.

She'd been silent for two days. Spirits.

Two days too long, in his professional opinion. Two days meant… he didn't want to think about it, couldn't think about it. When he thought about her dying, again, he felt a blackness take over his mind, wiping out all color and thought to just replace them with emptiness, like the black they lived in.

It was unbearable.

"Get us out of here, Joker!" Athena cried, running through the CIC, yanking off her helmet, her ponytail coming undone with bright red tendrils framing her sweat covered face, towards the galaxy map, as she felt the ship lurch, jostling the crew with Kelly trying to keep her balance against the console, and the familiar thrumming as they accelerated through the Mass Relay. "Jesus H Christ," she whispered. The sight of the system slowly being engulfed in the blood red light then disappearing and blinking out caused a seize in her heart, her breath stopped and tears freely fell from her eyes, cascading down her cheeks.

She couldn't move. She felt frozen to the spot, her armored hands gripping the railing, cutting off her circulation. Vaguely she heard Kelly's voice speaking to her, as if she were across a Biotiball field and speaking in no more than a whisper, and felt hands on her waist, turning her to look at the Turian behind her, her eyes wide, her pupils dilated.

"I killed them. I fucking killed an entire species with no goddamned thought," she whispered, her voice breaking, tears streaking down her stark face, paler than it should have been. "and all in the name of stopping the Reapers. Jesus, Garrus, I murdered them!" Her fingers curled into his jacket and she collapsed against him, her sobbing was heart wrenching, releasing a deep, from the darkest depths of her body, lamenting wail that escaped her parted lips, stilling the movements of the entire CIC and even Joker bowed his head in mournful response at her unguarded misery.

His hands were in her hair, caressing her face, tracing the invisible markings. He was unclasping her armor, letting it fall to the ground and giving Kelly a cursory look that she understood and she scrambled to grab the armor. He hauled her up, cradling her as if he would a baby and headed for the elevator.

She needed to get to Chakwas.

Immediately.

"Athena."

His voice rumbled through the room, bouncing off the fish tank, her end tables, her models and finally breaking in warm waves over her ears.

"Garrus," she replied, curled into a position that he had no name for. Her legs were pulled up against her chest, her chin tucked over her knees on her side. "I know you want to bitch at me for leaving, but I don't. Not right now."

He stepped down the stairs, past her "living room" and went to stand at the foot of the bed, looking down at her. She looked so frail, so fragile, as if she were a delicate porcelain doll, with dark bags under her eyes, lines of exhaustion at her eyes and mouth.

"I'm not here as your soldier. I'm here as your boyfriend and I'll be damned if I am going to let you slip into Commander mode on me." The only outward sign that she understood what he said or was even listening was the quirk in her mouth. He prided himself on the fact that he could read her expressions so well.

After a few moments of silence with just the quiet hum of the Normandy traveling at subluminal speed, the almost silent buzz of the fish tank, she opened her emerald eyes and peered at him. The emotion in them caused him to pause. He'd never seen her so raw before. The absolute look of pure despair that was held in them was too much to handle.

He bent forward and climbed on top of the bed to lie in front of her, facing her, and his hands sought the soft tresses that spilled across her pillow like an endless red sea, waving in and out of each other. His fingers delved into them and stroked outward, occasionally bringing one to his nose to inhale its fragrance, committing the scent to memory.

He ran his finger down her milky cheek, dotted with light freckles caused by being in the sun, over her jaw and under her chin to tilt her face towards his and bent his head to capture her mouth with his, pouring all of the love he felt for her into it. Her mouth met his, warm and moist, parting, her eyes fluttering shut with tears silently escaping from her lashes.

Her fingers danced across his mandible, slid across his plated cheeks towards the back of his head, caressing his neck and tightening against his plates. She uncurled her body and slid closer to him, needing to feel his body heat against her, needed him to make her feel alive.

He obliged, sliding a knee between her legs and pushing her over onto her back, trailing kisses against her throat, his hand cradling her head in the palm of his large hand. Her back arched, a sigh escaping her rosy lips.

Tonight she needed him.

Everything else could wait until tomorrow.