AUTHOR'S NOTE:Ahaha, I knew that cliffhanger on the last chapter would get some of you! Sorry. Anyway, here you go. THE MOMENT WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR. Or at least I know I've been waiting for it.

"You punched him?" The doctor asked incredulously. "What were you doing out of the facility in the first place? It's your first day back, you need to rest."

Shepard didn't take her eyes off the turian. She managed to drag him to the council building's medical wing after he lost consciousness. The staff was horrified. "I couldn't sleep."

The doctor sighed. She glanced at the beeping monitors that were keeping the turian's vital signs, then back to Shepard. "So you went and knocked out a guard?"

"I was just going for a walk." Shepard explained. Her hand ached from delivering the blow and a sharp pain had blossomed in the back of her head. A side effect of the biotics. After having been dormant for so long, using them so suddenly was a bad idea. "And I saw a group of people over by that camp across the field. They were obviously up to no good and I wasn't about to let them do…whatever it was that they were going to do. So I took care of them."

"That's what he was for." The doctor gestured to the turian. "You simply can't get up and do the things you used to anymore. Not now. You've got to give your body time to heal. You were trapped in wreckage, stuck in a coma for—"

"Three months. I know. I was there." Shepard was getting agitated. She raked a hand through her tangled hair. "I'm not a kid, doctor. I'm not your science experiment. I know what I'm doing. I know what I can and can't handle."

Okay, that last part was a complete lie. She had no idea what her broken body could handle. Biotics were definitely off the table for now, if the headache was any indication. She was going to make it a point not to punch anymore turians for a while, too.

The doctor shook her head. She typed something on her datapad and shot Shepard a hard, stern glare. "You aren't my science experiment, Commander, but you are my patient and it is my responsibility to see you back to full health. No more late night walks. No more foolish antics. No more punching. You have got to rest."

"I will," Shepard replied. Whether or not she actually would remained to be seen.

Exasperated, the doctor left the Commander and the turian to their own devices, the door swishing shut behind her. When she was gone, Shepard focused her full attention on the unconscious alien in the bed. She panicked in the field. She didn't know who he was. All she knew was that he was attacking her and that she needed to defend herself.

She regretted her rashness now that she realized. Garrus. This was Garrus. Her Garrus, the one who kept her from drifting out to sea. The one who knew her name. The one who made her laugh, the one who made her smile. He was the one. And yet…Shepard couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. She should have been overjoyed to see him again, and she was….Sort of. She should have been overwhelmed by emotion, and she was…Sort of. The part of her that felt so strongly toward this turian was lost somewhere in the rubble of her fractured psyche. Flashes of him came to her occasionally. Little sound bites of a conversation they'd once had. The way he'd always stand near her on missions, the glint in his eyes when her name was brought up. She remembered those things, tiny slivers of information. The holograms helped, too, but even with all these little visions, the bigger picture still hadn't formed.

It was enormously frustrating, seeing this man and knowing she was supposed to feel something toward him, but forgetting what that something was. He was a stranger and a friend all in one. Shepard didn't want the stranger. She wanted the friend. She needed the friend. Loneliness wasn't something she felt often. It had been a constant companion as far back as she'd been able to remember. But she was lonely now. She was lonely and she couldn't do anything about it.

No one ever claimed recovery was easy. If they did, they were lying.

Shepard fidgeted in her seat. She didn't want to leave him alone, not when she was the one responsible for putting him in the position he was in. She was tired, sure, but not tired enough to abandon him. He needed the company, she needed the company…

Shepard reached back in the farthest recesses of her mind, searching for something, anything to remember him by. What she found was an image of the two of them on the Normandy…They'd just gotten back from somewhere…She didn't know where, but….They were alone…Standing close…

The turian gasped, scaring Shepard from her retrieval attempt. Her hands curled in her lap and her heart beat fast against her ribcage. He was waking up. Shit. He was waking up and she had nothing to say to him. He'd be expecting something from her, something she wasn't sure she'd been able to give…Unless, he forgot her, too.

Shepard flinched at the thought. She didn't want that, she realized. She wanted him to remember her, even if she didn't remember him yet. That was a good sign, right? It meant that she recognized he was something special, someone worth fighting for.

Garrus groaned. Shepard watched, frozen, as he lifted a hand to his face.

"Ohhhh, that hurts." He muttered. He pushed himself up in the bed. "Damn it."

Shepard considered making a break for it, running away before he noticed she was there. They could do the whole reunion thing later, when he hurt less and when she remembered more. Yes, that sounded like a good idea. Maybe she could just—

"Shepard…Is that—Oh, I'm definitely dead."

Shepard stiffened underneath the scrutiny of his gaze. What was she supposed to say? What was she supposed to do? Well, first things first…She looked up.

"You're not dead." She told him.

Garrus stared at her as though he'd seen a ghost. "No, but—You are. You—You went up to that beam and—And the Citadel, it—You didn't come back."

"I'm back now?" She offered, smiling sheepishly. It was a stupid thing to say. He was obviously just as confused as she was.

Silence. Deafening, deafening silence.

Finally, after the longest pause of Shepard's life, Garrus moved. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his knees bumping into hers. Now that they were facing each other, really facing each other, there was no going back. No running away. This was it. She had a lot of explaining to do.

"I don't remember a lot of things, Garrus." She whispered. She couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye. "I just—I remember the Citadel, I remember explosions and falling and crashing and I—"

"You're supposed to be dead." Garrus's hushed voice twisted in her like a knife. The way he emphasized it—dead—made her really want to be. "I know I told you to come back alive, but you and I both knew that wasn't going to happen. You were supposed to go off and save the entire damn galaxy and you were supposed to die."

Shepard pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes to keep the tears at bay. She wasn't going to cry. She never cried. She wouldn't, not in front of him…

"You were supposed to die, damn it!" He choked. "I was prepared to lose you again! I knew what the stakes were and I knew one of us wasn't going to come out of it alive. I knew that and I wanted it to be me. But it wasn't me, it was always going to be you and now you're not—"

"What do you want me to do, Garrus?" Shepard blurted angrily. A searing flash of rage forked through her like a lightning storm. Tears dribbled pathetically down her cheeks. She made no move to wipe them away. What was the point? "What do you want me to do? Die? Do you really want me to die? Do you want me to bring the damn Reapers back? Do you want them to kill me again? Do you want that?"

"No!" He shouted back, jumping to his feet. "That's the last thing I want! What I want is for this to be real. I want you to be real! And, right now, none of this can be real. You're dead, damn it! You're dead and I'm going to miss you every day and I'm never going to—"

Something inside her snapped. No, "snapped" was too kind a word. Something inside her exploded. It blew up. It forced her out of her chair and into his arms. She seized his hands and pressed them to her tear stained cheeks.

"I'm real, Garrus." She whispered fiercely. "I'm not dead. I'm alive. I don't know how and I don't know why. I'm just as confused as you are, but there is one thing in this world that I am completely sure of, and it's this: I'm alive. I'm breathing. I'm here. And I'm with you. Damn it, Garrus, you have to—You have to believe me, I—"

The explosion fizzled. The more she spoke, the weaker the flame of anger became. All she wanted was for him to know…That's all…

"Shepard…" Garrus said. He was so close, so close…He wasn't that distant figure on edges of her consciousness anymore. He was here. And he was real. And he was alive.

And she was real. And she was here. And she was alive.

Trembling, Shepard took his hands in hers and moved them to her waist. She stood on the tips of her toes, her forehead brushing his. His skin felt the same. After all this time and all these months, he still felt the same…He was here, he was real, he was alive….

He drew her to him, then, closing what little distance that remained between them. Shepard relished in this intimacy, this total lack of space. She loved the feeling of his touch, his skin. She loved his voice, the way he said her name…She loved…

"I love you." Garrus confessed. He tilted his head down, his mouth brushing her neck. He nipped the skin there, gently, so gently—Oh, she loved that too. "I love you, Shepard and I—You'd better not be lying to me, because if this is all a dream and you really are dead, I swear to every spirit in the Galaxy I'll storm whatever heaven you're in, whatever bar you picked, and I am going to—"

For the first time since she'd seen him, Shepard laughed. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed a kiss to his scars. "I'm real, Garrus. I promise."

When they awoke the next morning, tangled in each other's arms, Shepard remembered something. It rushed toward her like an overwhelming wave, crashed into her and took her breath away. He loved her. He loved her and she…

She loved him, too.