A/N: I've been reading copious amounts of Stephen King lately, so his style inspired me in this chapter. The sections italicized in brackets represent those dark thoughts in the back of our minds that we try to pretend don't exist, but they're there, gnawing away.

Thanks for reading!

Myxomatosis - Radiohead

"I swear, if I have to hear him sneer 'primitives' one more time, I'm throwing him straight out of the airlock."

"Shepard, he's been on the ship for an hour and he just woke up from being in stasis for fifty thousand years. I can hardly blame him for being a bit hostile."

She threw her chest guard on to the floor in her quarters. "I get that, it's just the 'primitives' thing that drives me nuts. Just because our ways are different than yours doesn't mean that they're wrong."

Garrus, who had changed into his civvies, kissed her forehead gently. "Why don't you set the table and pour some drinks and I'll run down to the mess and grab us some dinner."

"That would be lovely." She let out a sigh of relief when she plopped onto her couch to remove her heavy boots and briefly massage her feet.

"Save some for me to massage when I get back," he growled as he exited her quarters, prompting a giggle from Zoey.

When Garrus returned, balancing several plates in his long, steady arms, Shepard had set the table and set ambient music to play. He thought to himself that she looked so lovely with her hair carelessly pulled away from her face, her hoodie loose-fitting but revealing just the right amount of her perfect shape.

He took a seat across from her, passing her a bowl of soup and a plate of lasagna with bread. The dextro rations were limited to what Garrus brought on board with him, so he was prepared a dextro pasta dish and hard cheese.

"What's our plan from here?" he asked, taking his first bite.

"We're picking up Wrex and the salarian dalatrass for the summit tomorrow." She took a slow sip of the hot soup. "But I'm hoping to take a trip to the Citadel to grab more rations for you afterwards. The Alliance hadn't prepared the ship for dextros."

He nodded slowly, and they resumed their meal in comfortable silence.

"So, Garrus, my curiosity is killing me. What happened while I was in jail that ended up with you becoming an Expert Reaper Advisor?"

"Well, nothing as interesting as getting arrested and being let out just before a Reaper invasion."

"As my boyfriend, you have an obligation to tell me your stories, whether you deem them boring or not. Don't leave out any of the dirty details, either."

He rested his fork on his plate and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "Let's get more comfortable, then. It's a long story, and the dirty details we can add later."

"I like the sound of that!" Her plate and bowl completely empty, she jumped onto the couch. He poured them drinks - wine for her, a clear but strong-smelling liquor for himself - and sat next to her, lazily throwing his arm over her shoulder and pulling her in close.

"It all began on the Citadel." He took a long sip of his drink, savouring the warmth that spread to his fingertips in spite of the harsh after taste. "After we parted ways, I took the first shuttle to Palaven. Frankly I had no need to stick around the Citadel after my C-Sec days."

"Easy on the Citadel, if I recall correctly you met a certain human Spectre there who proceeded to change your life."

"I love being there with you, I hate being there alone." He kissed her forehead gently. "So I arrived at Palaven and surprised my mother and sister again at the house. My mother still didn't exactly remember me, but my sister was thrilled. I think she gets a little lonely just having my mother, especially since mom's condition makes her sleep so much."

"Where was your father?"

"I'll get to that, be patient. As you may recall, my mother was diagnosed with Corpalis Syndrome. It's a brain degenerative disease, early onset, which starts affecting your memories, then your motor functions, then your involuntary musculature. It greatly varies in the rapidity of degeneration. My mother was diagnosed about fifteen years ago when my father became concerned when she would consistently leave the stove on, or forget her keys, or forget how to get to a location they had visited on several occasions, the small things. She lived a normal but forgetful life for about twelve years after diagnosis, but things went downhill quickly after that. She forgot what things and places were called, and began to forget who people were. I would write to her daily from C-Sec, and she would never respond because she simply forgot that she had received a message. About four months before I met you, I had to make a trip home because her legs had just... stopped working, and she fell down the stairs. After that, Solana decided to stay home permanently and watch mom, and I ran away with a vagabond human and saved the galaxy."

(More like you left her behind while you pursued bigger dreams. Unlike your selfless sister.)

"I am not a vagabond."

"Spectre. Vagabond. Same thing.

"So when I reached home, my sister answered the door but no sign of my dad. I helped her out as much as I could with mom, and I called up our old friend Mordin to connect me with a couple of salarian scientists who specialized in Corpalis. It took about a month before we were able to get in to see them, and by then the prognosis wasn't good. They said there was nothing they could do because her degeneration was so rapid, and they gave her a month or two."

Shepard saw the shadow of grief cross his eyes. "I'm so sorry, Garrus."

He shrugged noncommittally. "I just had to spend what time with her that we had available. She slept mostly and didn't remember a thing when she was awake, but it was calming to sit beside her and hold her hand.

(She woke abruptly and began screaming heinous profanities at me. Her words were distinguishable, but their meaning wasn't. All I knew was that at that moment she hated me, hated me more than anything in the galaxy, and I had no idea why. She screamed herself hoarse for ten minutes before collapsing back onto the bed into a restless sleep.)

"When we received the diagnosis from the doctors, my sister decided to travel to the Citadel to find my father. I offered to go, but she knew he would never come back with me, not after everything that happened the last time we saw each other. I don't know how she did it, but when she came back, there he was.

(You know exactly how she did it. She told him you were there, so he finally had to accept he was being a worse father than you were being a son.)

"We fought almost the second he came in the door." He scoffed and finished his drink, and Shepard rose to pour him a refill. "My father and I have never seen eye to eye, but that day everything came to a head.

(Came to a head in a fist fight that your mother heard where you broke his nose and the only reason you stopped was when she started crying, crying like she was hurt beyond belief, and we came to a temporary truce for her benefit.)

"After that we accepted our fate of living together and worked hard to make my mother happy." He took a swig of the drink that Shepard placed in his hand, and when he continued his words began to slur. "We stayed in the house, one big happy family, until mom started having convulsions. Eyes rolled back into her head, shaking the whole bed, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth. You wouldn't believe it if you saw it. We ran her to the hospital and they put her into an induced coma, but we knew her time had come. She went peacefully in her sleep the next night."

While Garrus spoke, Shepard had remained silent with her mouth agape in disbelief. "Garrus, I'm so sorry. I can't imagine watching someone deteriorate like that."

He offered her a warm smile. "It's alright. We had many good memories together, and her spirit is always with me.

"When she was gone, and after the family grieved together, I knew it was my time to get to work. I began making connections and spreading word about the Reapers. Too many people thought I had taken too much Red Sand. I spoke to a lot of groups and sat in on a lot of meetings; most laughed at me, but when the Reapers hit I'm sure they felt like fools. But a few important people - Generals Corinthus and Victus and my father - listened. With their support, the Primarch gave resources to our cause and we began some basic preparations.

"Then the batarians were hit, and I knew that our time was short so I spoke to Corinthus about setting up a base on Menae. Gratefully he listened, and my father began to coordinate evacuations. I wouldn't say by any stretch that we were prepared when the Reapers hit, but I like to think that we helped save lives."

Shepard grabbed his cowl and pulled him in for a deep kiss. "You did save a lot of lives, Garrus. I always knew that you'd make a great leader, and you didn't let me down."

"Thank you." He finished another drink and stood to refill both of their glasses, swaying on the spot briefly.

"So, what's your story?" He asked when he returned to the couch beside her, pulling her onto his lap.

"Honestly Garrus, prison's not as interesting as the vids make it out to be." They laughed together. "I had my own room - not a cell with bars, but they kept it locked from the outside when I was in there - and I spent the vast majority of my time there. They took away my omni-tool and allowed no outside contact in case I attempted to organize some semblance of a 'resistance movement'." She used air quotes, a la Sparatus, to emphasize the statement. "For the first month or so they only let me out for supervised exercise two hours daily. Vega was always the one to accompany me, but he grew bored of just watching me jog and do push-ups all the time so eventually he put in a good word for me and they let me go to the shooting range. With blanks and virtual enemies set up by Vega, of course, but it still gave me good practicing time with the Mantis. Then Anderson came to get me and... Well, you know the rest."

"You must have gone stir crazy."

She shrugged. "You know me, I can't stay out of combat for that long. The only thing keeping me sane was the combat simulator, and the two dozen books I finished in the time."

"And your thoughts of a certain turian in the long, lonely nights?"

She giggled and rested her forehead against his. "Dreams of a certain very special turian were causing me trouble, because those thoughts are what almost made me break out of there."

He delicately ran a talon along her cheek. "It was a long six months."

"We do have a lot of time to make up for. Why don't we start with a shower and some time without these damn clothes?"

"Mmm, I think I like the sound of that. Why don't you start the shower, I'll be in there with you shortly." She stood and let out a soft 'ooh!' when he lightly smacked her bottom before she ran off into the bathroom.

Garrus let out a long sigh when he heard the shower start. He buried his face in his hands while the burden of reliving his painful memories caused his chest and throat to constrict, leaving him with only gasping breaths and agonized howls as a release.

When the waves of pain abated, he regained his usual demeanor and jumped into the shower with his love.