General AN: This is just a little PSA/note to anyone who follows my writing in general on ff dot net. My frustrations with some aspects of the site are causing me to switch permanently to ao3 as a means of publishing fics. I won't be publishing any new works on this site, so if you're interested in continuing to read my stuff, you'll have to switch over to my tumblr (jhoomwrites) or ao3 (jhoom) accounts. HOWEVER, because I have a number of unfinished WIPs and series on this site, I will continue to update those until they're complete. That means that the following stories/series WILL continue to be updated on ff dot net: The Mark; Academy Blues; love to hate; What's in a Name?; any fics related to Welcome to SKU. Anything new that I post that is NOT related to those stories will NOT be published here.

AN: Not much to say for this one. Just these two idiots working their shit out some more. I still wouldn't say it's fixed, but they're almost there. (Now I just have to shatter that with the end of ME3...)

Thanks to mordinette as always for being an awesome beta reader :)

They get EDI to tell them where the doctor is - apparently she's in a vid chat demanding more medical supplies from the Alliance, giving them the perfect window to escape - and split up. Shepard, who insists that she's the less injured one, sends him up to her quarters. (She says it so forcefully that there's no room to argue, no opportunity to suggest that maybe he'd be better off in the battery.) She raids the Mess Hall for some decent rations.

Alone, Garrus exits the elevator and hesitates at the door. He's a little more present at the moment, and it only now hits him what's happening.

This, whatever it is that he and Shepard are dancing around, is a big deal. Yes, they were in a relationship before. (One that may have never technically ended.) But it was established as a means for stress relief. Two friends getting together because of mutual respect and interest. Now, if they start something (or re-start or continue, he's not even sure anymore), it's with the mutual understanding of just where their compatibility stems from.

They still need to talk about expectations. Goals. All the relationship crap that he knows he doesn't have any experience with. Sounds like Shepard doesn't either.

Basically, they're screwed.

But there's no reason to stand in the doorway moping about it. Ignoring his apprehension, he makes his way to the bed. Before he can decide if it'd be intrusive to use it, the door whooshes open.

"Slim pickings from the Mess. Hope you like dextro-paste because that's all we got." She tosses it over to him and then starts tearing into her own food. Although not in paste form, it doesn't look any more appealing. Since the war started in earnest, most of what they've been able to get a hold of are military rations. Dehydrated food and powdered nutrients or calorie rich paste.

All god awful.

Shepard hasn't indicated that she finds his presence by her bed unusual, so he takes that as permission.

He groans as he more or less collapses into Shepard's bed, jostling the pillows around to support his back. "I really shouldn't have gone on that mission," he grumps as he tries to avoid putting pressure on the more tender spots. Finally settled, Garrus starts eating his lackluster meal of 'meat-flavored gelatinous high density dextro paste.' Ugh.

"You're right." Shepard's staring at him intently, her own meal forgotten.

"Huh?"

"You shouldn't have been on that mission. I shouldn't have let you. I knew you were in bad shape but I let you come." She runs her hands through her hair and glares at him when he clears his throat to reply. "I tried to justify it by bringing Vega, but you still got hurt. I shouldn't have let my personal feelings get in the way." Now she buries her face in her hands, muffling her next words so he can barely hear them. "God, I am such a fucking mess."

"Shepard." He waits until she's looking at him, eyes big and watery. "I genuinely thought I could handle it. It's not your fault-"

"I'm commander of this ship. I need to do a better job at distancing myself from mission critical decisions. We both talked ourselves into thinking you'd be fine, and that's a mistake I can't afford to make. Not with you, not with any member of my crew. I'm responsible for you. And yeah, I can't exactly keep you guys out of harm's way. That's impossible and I get that. But I can minimize risks when possible. I should've just put my foot down and told you to stay here, instead of dragging you along because I... because..." Her mouth snaps shut and she turns away, a scowl overtaking her features.

Garrus isn't sure if he should press the matter, but the two of them have danced around how they need to be more honest with each other. So he pushes, gently of course, and asks, "Because...?"

At first he thinks she'll ignore him and he won't get an answer. Which is fine, in all honesty, because he's not going to force her into opening up more than she's ready to. But Shepard chews her lips for a moment before the dam bursts and she's nearly yelling, "Because I didn't want you out of my sight! You were gone, you almost died and I... I needed you nearby. And it's completely childish! Because me keeping you by my side put you in even more danger. I..." She swallows thickly and looks just left of him with unfocused eyes. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." He feels the need to comfort her like a physical weight. To deflect some of the blame, because yes, she's the commander and could've ordered him to stay, but he wanted and needed to go just as badly as she apparently wanted him there. "I really did think I could handle it." He sees her glower at him, no doubt questioning what the hell he was doing with the medi-gel, so he cuts her off, "That was just to take the edge off."

Maybe she doesn't quite believe him - he's not completely sure it's true, the moment when he made the decision too blurred around the edges to really know - but she smiles wryly. "We might need to reevaluate what you think 'handling it' looks like."

His subvocals trill and then he snorts to give her an audible human equivalent. "You might be right."

They both relax after that, eating their meals (Spirits, he misses food he can actually chew) as Shepard recounts what happened under the waves. And honestly, it's terrifying to learn what Leviathan is and how the Reapers first came to be. It's good to know - he would've always wondered - but the gravity of the Leviathan arrogance and the enormity of its effects are staggering.

He sits in silence for a moment as he digests what Shepard's told him. "I mean," he starts, "Technically, the Reapers are preserving life, in their own sick way. Killing the species that are too intelligent, that might create synthetic life that'll wipe them all out..."

Shepard grimaces and spits out, "Fuck them for deciding this is the only way, though."

"Well, yes, obviously fuck them." Like he was really siding with the Reapers, but he understands her anger. "I'm just saying, from an outside viewpoint, you can see the way their logic lead them to the conclusion it did." He squirts the last of his dextro paste into his mouth and then tosses the container on the night stand, jaw flexing as he tries to swallow without tasting the damn thing. "Doesn't mean I don't wish the Leviathan had had the foresight to foresee this possibility and not fucked up so massively."

She grunts assent and finishes telling him what happened. His blood runs cold when he hears how the Leviathan tried to enslave Shepard just like it had the people on that asteroid.

"So what you're saying is... assuming we deal with this whole Reaper situation, we'll have to deal with these Leviathan trying to reclaim their position as 'top apex predator.'"

"Dude," she gripes and makes a face, "one problem at a time." She moves from her position at the edge of the couch to the edge of the bed. He wonders why she's forcing so much space between them, but then she pulls off her boots and puts her feet onto the bed and angles them towards him. The tips of her toes could brush against his leg if she wanted to.

Completely oblivious to the proximity, she turns serious and asks, "What the fuck happened topside while I was under? I knew you were a bit off, but I get back up there and James tells me you've fucking passed out? It was a goddamned mess. I was fucking kidding when I said James would have to carry you, and then I get back and EDI has to carry me to the shuttle because I can barely stand. And then James has you, completely out of it, over his back. Gotta say, Vakarian, not a pleasant sight to come back to."

"Well, that's moderately embarrassing," he mutters under his breath. Looks like he owes Vega a drink or two as thanks. "I don't really know what- Wait, why did EDI have to carry you?"

She shrugs, toes tickling his leg through the light material of his civvies. "Whatever Vulcan mind meld the Leviathan was doing kinda drained me. I could barely walk or stand, so she helped since you and Vega were otherwise indisposed. Plus I had a massive headache." She gives him a look. "Why do you think I was in the medbay? Chakwas was keeping me for observation. Though the headache I'm pretty sure was from you, since that's gone now..."

"Oh, uh, sorry-"

But she just shrugs dismissively so he lets it drop. "So, what happened back there?"

If he thinks back to it, it's all murky. The medi-gel hadn't just dulled his own pain but also his sense of what was going on around him. He remembers Shepard disappearing into the sea. Shooting, lots of shooting. Vega shouting at him, but the words (if he ever heard them) are lost. The only thing left that's in any way distinct is the blinding pain that had radiated out from his right hand.

"My mark hurt."

Shepard's eyebrows go up and she tilts her head slightly in question. "Your mark hurt? I thought that only happened if I got hurt... And that it was on scale with how badly I was hurt. Because yeah, I was knocked around a bit, but I wasn't passed out in the middle of a fire fight bad."

"Yes," he agrees. "It wasn't like when you're injured. It was more like..." Garrus grasps for the right words, the right comparison. And then he stops dead, because he realizes what it reminded him of. It felt similar to the dull red itch that he's come to associate with indoctrination. It wasn't the same, not by a long shot. Where that feeling always burned along his veins, this froze them. And it was leaps and bounds more intense. The pain was on par with getting hit in the face with that rocket back on Omega, overwhelming and everywhere. And that final thought he'd grasped at before going under. That confidence that it was but wasn't indoctrination.

And, most relevant to his current situation, he's never mentioned indoctrination to Shepard before.

"Garrus," she warns, voice dipping into that Commander tone she saves for right before she needs to bust heads. "What are you not telling me?"

"Uhm..." The syllable buys him no time, but he drags it out anyway. "A lot?"

She exhales and seems to deflate. More secrets, more things he's kept hidden. Off to a great start, Vakarian. "You've obviously figured something out, so spill."

"You're not going to like this."

"Well, my home planet is currently being burned to the ground as we speak. I don't like a whole lot of things right now."

"Yeah, I know the feeling." He avoids looking at her as he continues. "I felt... something. When you were down there. Something I've sort of felt before, though different." He only chances a couple glances at her, but he can tell she's listening. That she's giving him a chance to explain himself.

So he does. He takes the plunge and details everything he and Liara have discussed. About the marks and indoctrination, about looking over her missions and decisions and behavior and trying to see if there's anything behind it. That they never came to a definite conclusion either way, but in light of what Javik told him about the purpose of the marks as a warning system against indoctrination, it seems like more and more of a possibility.

When he stops, Shepard's eyes are empty and her face expressionless. "You think I might be indoctrinated?" she says with nothing behind it to help him gauge how she feels about that.

"We weren't sure, but I, uh... I don't think you are. Not after what happened with the Leviathan. It was similar to what I sometimes feel, but different. And not just in how but in how much. I blacked out because the pain, even with all the medi-gel in my system, was too intense."

Shepard grits her teeth at that but says nothing.

"I think," he continues, "that the difference in how was a Leviathan versus Reaper thing. But I think the how much was because you were actively under its control for a moment there. You said it had pulled you under, that it was trying to brainwash you like those others at the mine." He waits for her to nod. "So I think if you were really under Reaper control, I'd feel it all the time and it wouldn't be something I could ignore."

"So I'm what, not indoctrinated but... a candidate? What does that even mean?" she snaps.

"I'm not exactly an expert here, Shepard. But, I think maybe it means you're not fully indoctrinated, but that it's starting. That it's slowly trying to get a foothold so it-"

"Why didn't you bring this up before? I could've been compromised this whole time and you didn't think it was worth telling me?"

Garrus knows damn well this is a decision he'll have to defend. "I couldn't explain to you without revealing the marks, so I kept it quiet. I talked to Liara because it was dangerous, something someone other than me needed to know about. And if together we thought it was necessary, we would've told more. But everything we looked at, all the evidence we had, was inconclusive at best."

She jumps off the bed and starts pacing, anger and frustration making it impossible for her to sit still. He waits, lets her digest that and everything else. It's a lot. Abruptly, she stops and rounds on him.

"Okay, I get why you didn't say anything. You didn't know what it was, you didn't want to bring it up if it was nothing, and you didn't want to talk about the marks. Fine. I can understand that. And we haven't really gotten a chance to talk about where things stand since we got interrupted by this mission, so I'm going to let it slide that you didn't bring up this indoctrination stuff before now. I'm even going to give you a free pass and assume you would've told me. But seriously, Garrus, we gotta stop fucking things up like this. Relationships are built on trust-"

"I've never lied to you, Shepard-"

"Lying by omission is still kinda lying, Garrus. I have to be able to trust you." Her eyes plead with him to understand. "And I know that it goes both ways. That you gotta be able to trust me and I haven't handled things all that well. You're trying to trust me to be open and emotionally stable and rational about all this. And yeah, up to now I maybe haven't lived up to that. I get it. I'm working on it, I swear I am, and I'm trying to do better.

"But you gotta give me something here, Garrus. You gotta not hold back big things like this. I need... I need you to be honest with me. Everything's gotta be out on the table. I know about the mark. I know about the indoctrination stuff now. Is there... Is there anything else you're holding back?"

She swallows hard and looks at him. She's begging him with her eyes to tell her no or yes but whatever it is, she just needs it to be the truth.

The answer is of course yes. Yes, he's still holding something back. This one thing that he's kept to himself (hell, he's spent a damn good amount of time keeping it from himself too), and now he considers if he wants to give up this last part. This one last thing he's buried and hidden deep. Not because he's scared of how she's going to react (okay, that's a lie, he's a little scared of that), but mostly just to shield himself. This is a new discovery, one he's guarded closely, and putting it out there is terrifying. Because this would be him giving her everything. This is him giving her the power to destroy him, utterly and completely.

But... but hiding it in the face of what she's asking... He can't do that.

Consequences be damned, he answers her truthfully.

"There's... something else."

Shepard's expression hardens like she's bracing for bad news. Probably because she can sense his unease, see the stiffness that's snuck into his posture and hear the tremor in his voice. She grits out a harsh, "What?" like the answer to this question is going to make her hate him.

And it might, he realizes.

"I uh... I kinda... I never told you but I uh..." He stutters until there's nothing left but to say it, no more words to delay the inevitable. "I love you."

Of all the ways he imagined confessing that to someone, this was not it. It should've been something whispered to his soulmate as they drifted off to sleep. It should've been said with a smile and a laugh, both of them acknowledging something they already knew but hadn't said out loud yet. It should've been a million things but a forced confession that could potentially make him lose her.

Fucked up galaxy, isn't it?

She'll be terrified it's for the wrong reasons. Obligation to what some tattoo told him to think since he was a child. Not because it's true. Because she's beautiful and strong and fierce and flawed but better because of those flaws and the only one who's ever made him feel like he's maybe not the screw up he always thought he was and that he'll never be able to do anything to deserve her because no one out there deserves her and he probably should've told her that back when this started, should've done a lot of things, really, but-

Shepard rushes over and practically throws herself on him, arms around his neck and pulling him into a kiss. With her lips on him, it effectively stops the babbling he didn't even realize he was doing. Panic rises until it's replaced with relief and then bliss.