Note: Can you wait for ME3? I can't! I'm going crazy! Needless to say that updates will continue to be slow, but that enthusiasm and inspiration will be high. I hope my readers will stick with me for the ride.
All standard disclaimers still apply. Although I don't own the characters or universe, I do work hard on my little stories. Please don't print or repost without my knowledge. Thanks. And thanks again to all the people who've taken time to encourage me by adding me or my story to favorites or alerts. And, most especially, thanks to those few who've written reviews. I welcome your interest, thoughts, and ideas-even constructive criticism. Your support is always appreciated, and often instrumental to maintaining the inspiration necessary to develop a story.
Chapter-Specific Notes: I currently have this in mind as taking place near the end of LotSB. I don't think there are many specific spoilers, but there might be a few contextual hints. I envision this as taking place after Parts Answering Parts 23: Just What to Say, but needless to say the two are sort of a good pairing in terms of timing and content. I intended to expand on this a bit more, but as always, when I can't pass up a great end line. I think the rest will go better into another chapter anyway, when I get to it.
When Shepard had offered him a tie-breaker, Garrus was startled.
He knew Shepard was female in a sort of theoretical way, the way he understood how to breathe, or what kept his blood pumping. It was a natural, inevitable fact of the world he lived in, something he accepted without conscious thought or consideration, with no reflection about how his life might be if it were otherwise.
It was what it was.
Shepard was what she was, and that was as it should be, without question.
He was what he was, too. He might be male, but he certainly wasn't human.
Oddly enough, it was exactly because her offer was direct that her tone hadn't immediately struck him as odd, cluing him in. Shepard didn't sound like a woman on the prowl to him, she didn't even particularly sound like a woman, she just sounded like herself.
Shepard.
On reflection, though, the tone she had used with him wasn't the one he remembered her using with Kaidan... it was close, but... it had been different when she'd spoken to Kaidan, somehow. More subtle, he thought. Less confident. Less direct. Which was part of what had made it stand out so clearly to him at the time, new to human culture as he was, perhaps. Shepard was, as a general rule, direct. It made her far easier to relate to than some other humans-Kaidan, for one.
Which made him realize that while it was true that the particularly feminine tone he equated with her interest in Kaidan had never been present when she spoke to him-and wasn't in fact entirely present even when she'd attempted to proposition him-maybe interest of a more-than-platonic sort hadn't been quite as entirely absent from their conversations... it had just been different. At once less obvious and less... diffident.
It simply was what it was and there was no need to apologize for it. Like her. Like him. Like the two of them. Together.
On some level he'd been aware of that for quite some time. Not only aware, but appreciative. Flattered. Maybe even...relieved?
He'd never allowed himself to recognize it before, but it was obvious in retrospect. He watched her with an interest that went far beyond that a soldier held for his commanding officer, further than the fascination of a protege for his most admired mentor. She interested him in so many more ways and on so many more levels than just that of a companion in arms.
In fact, as he'd become increasingly aware since her return from death, he was having a harder and harder time regarding her as anything but a companion he'd like to have in his arms...
An impulse that had spoken for itself-and for him-almost as soon as he'd understood Shepard's little proposal...long before he'd processed the fact that it was really happening, let alone the implications.
Garrus still wasn't entirely clear on either of those points, but...
since that proposal and his impulsive response, he'd found himself noticing a thousand small things, little beauties that drew him in and held him captive...
And as confused as he found himself, he was twice as grateful. He could scarcely believe his luck...and, for once, it wasn't because it had just gone bad. Well...
yet, at least.
There was always time.
Time... and that look. That look, there, in Liara's eyes.
That look reminded him of the way he'd felt when Shepard first stepped out onto that bridge and back into his sights. It was like... being reborn. Like coming back from the dead.
And if Liara felt like he did... well... Garrus couldn't help but wonder just how similar their feelings really were.
Now that he'd begun to think that maybe Shepard's tenderness hadn't been as staunchly reserved for Kaidan as he'd believed, Garrus found himself reminded that some people had had their doubts on that score long before he had...
Speculation among the crew had run rampant at the time. So rampant, in fact, that Kaidan had seemed to be more than a little discomfited by the rumors. Which Garrus had thought ridiculous-part and parcel of the man's exasperating ambivalence where his own feelings for Shepard were concerned.
Now, having belatedly fathomed the depths of the attraction Shepard held for him as well as-he hoped- having caught a slight glimpse of her similar interest in him, Garrus was forced to concede that perhaps Alenko had seen a lot more than Garrus had realized at the time.
Unfortunately, he also had to admit that those doubts were not-and never had been-directed toward Shepard's friendship with him.
It was starting to seem as though maybe he'd misunderstood just how similar humans and turians could be, in the end... Being familiar, perhaps the idea of indulging in a bit of the same sort of casual impulse so common among his people ought to have been a relief. Maybe he should even have found it encouraging. It worried him that he didn't. Not in the least. If anything, he found it...disappointing.
That surprised him.
Though perhaps it shouldn't.
If her death and his ill-fated last stand had taught him anything at all about anything, it had certainly taught him that life without Shepard wasn't worth living.
But life with Shepard...
was damned confusing, nothing but varying shades of gray. And, as he'd told her himself, he didn't have the first idea how to handle gray. He didn't have the first idea how to handle her. The longer he was with her, the worse it got.
The look in Liara's eyes, still clinging so desperately to the smooth curves of Shepard's face, the quaver in her voice, broke his heart, because he knew exactly how she felt. He couldn't help suspecting-all evidence to the contrary-that Kaidan Alenko did as well.
And it broke his heart all over again to know that, of them all, he had the least right to lay claim to Shepard's heart.
He might have considered himself well matched against Alenko...It was true that the man already had her love, but it was just as true that he'd relinquished all prior claim to that love as if he'd held its value to be nothing, just as surely as he'd proven the value of his loyalty and his trust to be null and void.
Garrus, on the other hand, would kill or die before he'd walk away from her, and Shepard knew it. There was no one she trusted to be her friend and partner the way she trusted him. She'd told him so herself, multiple times. And he felt the same about her. Wasn't that exactly what he'd incoherently confessed in the split second it had taken him to agree to her suggestion? His heart knew what his head hadn't processed... it knew what mattered most.
But...
Liara had done what Alenko hadn't. What Garrus hadn't. She hadn't abandoned Shepard for a moment, not even when she was dead and gone. Liara, and Liara alone, had put her own life and, what was-for her and for Garrus alike-even more tellingly valuable, Shepard's affection, on the line and she'd done the impossible.
She'd brought Shepard back.
If that wasn't love, Garrus didn't know what would ever deserve the name.