A/N – and more! Lovely people, please let me know if you're enjoying this... Again, I'm taking a little artistic license here... to my Shepard, Tali is a little sister, and I treat her accordingly~
She looked more like Shepard than shit Garrus mused as he studied her face when he entered her room, hesitating at the door for a moment until she turned her head and smiled at him. "Garrus," she greeted him softly. He moved toward the bed, mumbling her name with gratitude in his heart but he didn't sit. He left the chair for the quarian that had accompanied him.
"And Tali," Shepard added in a tone that somehow said so much more than just simply her name.
"Keelah, Shepard," Tali breathed softly through her mask, "you had us all so worried."
Garrus saw the slight tightening of Kaidan's mouth – the only indication of stress that seemed to remain on the man's face. He, too, Garrus thought, looked much less shitty. Then he turned his attention back to the woman on the bed who was smiling gently at Tali.
"I'm sorry," Shepard said simply.
Garrus thought he could see the blush on Tali's face even through the purple of her mask as she rushed to correct herself. "I didn't mean…" Tali broke off as she realized Shepard had been teasing her, ever the big sister. He had long ago decided that their relationship fit the role of siblings more than commander and underling or even shipmates. Another reason he liked Shepard as much as he did. She had a way of giving everyone exactly what they needed from her.
"It's so good to see you awake," he told her now, in complete understatement of the relief and happiness he felt.
Shepard took a moment to smile softly at Kaidan when he raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it, and agreed, "It's good to be awake. How have the two of you been?"
Kaidan gave her a short summary of the projects on which they had been involved for the reconstruction efforts and their progress so far. Garrus reflected that he managed to do so as if he were reporting to his commander instead of the woman he was smiling at with such love and admiration, even while still holding her hand to his face. Impressive compartmentalization there, he had to admit.
At the end of Kaidan's report, Tali rushed in to add, "And of course, I've been working on my off hours with other quarian engineers to try to-" A squeeze of Garrus' talons on her shoulder and the look of alarm on Kaidan's face stopped her from continuing to report that they had been trying to reactivate EDI and instead she substituted, somewhat lamely, "increase the production of dextro-based foods."
Garrus wasn't sure their deception worked. Shepard was one of the more intuitive people in the galaxy and he knew she wouldn't be fooled by Tali's assertion that feeding the dextros was a crisis at this point, but he relaxed visibly when he saw she was going to let it lie for now. At least he wouldn't have an angry Major lecturing him later. As much.
In an effort to distract everyone from the near miss, and, he admitted, to satisfy his own curiosity, he turned to the woman on the bed and asked what everyone in the room was thinking but wouldn't say: "So, Shepard, what the hell actually happened on the Citadel?"
He saw Kaidan wince at his bluntness, and realized that the lecture had just gotten longer, but forged ahead anyway. "Can you tell us?"
He watched her face close down, some of the life leave her gaze and the mask the she usually wore during missions was firmly in place when she replied, "I don't remember" in low tones.
He immediately regretted his impetuous query and switched instead to friend mode. "That's ok, it's the result that counts, right? And it's the Reapers sitting in that bar," although he wasn't sure Reapers drank, but whatever, point stands, "instead of us."
She smiled, features relaxing, and nodded at his peace offering, "That they are."
Garrus breathed a sigh of relief that she was apparently feeling generous today. Then her next statement corrected that assumption. She was an evil woman.
"So, Tali," she inquired of the quarian sitting to her left, "still using him for his body?" She smirked when she heard Tali squeak and he suddenly found the view outside the window behind Kaidan required his attention. Trust Shepard to turn the tables on them so effortlessly. Although he and Tali were indeed still um, getting caught on his mandibles, they hadn't yet decided to define their relationship. Neither of them was really good at those kind of talks anyway, so they had continued on, individually deciding that the other would decide when to stop, without really discussing it.
"Oh come on," Shepard continued, enjoying herself entirely too much as far as Garrus was concerned, "I think it's cute."
"Yeah Garrus," Kaidan piped in, "who has the reach, who has the flexibility?"
Garrus started to hear his words, uttered long ago in a moment of embarrassing misinterpretation of his growing feelings for the woman he had come to see as a comrade, a hero, and most of all, his best friend, and turned his gaze to see the smirk on the major's face. He was consoled by the blush spreading across Shepard's face and the small, conciliatory smile she offered him that she didn't hold any grudges over that incident.
Ok, he thought to himself, the war may be over but this is battle, and turnabout is fair play.
"I don't see you making an honest woman out of her, Major," he snarked back to Kaidan, "when is that going to happen?"
Kaidan nodded, not at all surprised by the remark, and turned to the woman on the bed. "Yeah, Shepard, when is that gonna happen?" he asked her.
Garrus decided it was a good thing that Shepard was already lying down.