Shepard's confrontation with Morinth had left her both heartsick and physically aching. Blinking blearily at her still deserted quarters, Shepard dug her fingers into her temples in the vague hope of easing the burning ache in her head, a potent aftereffect of Morinth's forced mind link. Well aware of the fact that she reeked of the VIP section of Afterlife, a charming mixture of stale air, booze and sweat, Shepard wished she had the energy for a shower.

"EDI?" Shepard cringed at the slightly plaintive quaver to her voice, she was a goddamn marine~not some shrinking lily! "Is Garrus still in the forward battery?"

"Yes commander, do you wish to send a message?"

"No," Shepard replied softly after a moments hesitation, "but...how long has he been down there?"

"Eighteen hours, twenty-seven minutes and counting" EDI supplied smoothly.

Heaving a sigh, Shepard shook her head and instantly regretted it as lights danced in her eyes sending a fresh stab of pain through her skull. Sinking down with her back to the glass of the fish tanks she relished the cool glass against her overheated skin. Wresting one boot off she wiggled her toes against the carpet, but couldn't summon the strength to pull the other boot off.

The message unit on the desk bleeked insistently, until Shepard scrabbled for a nearby datapad and fumbled with the now blurry controls until the messages transferred to the portable device. Scrolling fitfully past some typically diverse spam, and a brief, and utterly bizarre, message from Han Olar on Noveria, Shepard settled on a series of photos from Liara's Omega security network: the results of her search for the new vigilante stalking the station. The long range, slightly grainy stills were all of one armored figure: obviously turian, wearing full heavy armour patterned in urban camouflage and carrying a heavily modded anti-material rifle slung over one shoulder. With the polarized helmet on, it was impossible for Shepard to identify any defining features beyond the fact that the turian was typically tall, broad shouldered and most likely male.

Setting the pad to standby, Shepard carefully set it aside to show to Garrus later. The brightness of the lights was making her head swim, and she halfheartedly lobbed her boot at the dimmer switch and missed. Peeling off her sweaty, alcohol spattered shirt she flung it after the boot, sighing in relief when her second try resulted in soothing darkness. Turning sideways so she could rest her cheek against the cool glass, Shepard wistfully thought of the possible remedies Chakwas could dispense that would ease the awful throbbing in her head, and somewhere during that thought she drifted into a fitful half sleep.

Shepard wasn't sure how long she had dozed, when the hiss of her door and the sharp click of taloned feet on the floor tiles brought her back awake.

'Unngh G'rss?' Shepard managed eloquently, mortified to realize she had drooled against the glass of the aquarium.

"Shepard?" Garrus' voice was discordantly shrill with fear, and Shepard could feel his talons skittering over the overheated skin of her face, almost not touching her~as if he was afraid he was going to injure her somehow. "Shepard, s..say something! Are you alright? Are you hurt? Should I call Chakwas? EDI said you weren't feeling well..."

Cracking one eye open, Shepard reached up to still Garrus' terrified babble with a hand on his jaw. "I'm fine, really its just a headache...an asari tried to eat my brain with her brain...And then apparently EDI tattled on me." Shepard started to lever herself upright, when to her surprise Garrus looped an arm under her knees and hefted her in his arms with a grunt of effort. "Garrus! Put me down you stupid ass, you're going to hurt yourself. I can walk dammit!"

Garrus seemed to be ignoring her completely, so Shepard simply gave up and let herself be lugged unceremoniously over to her bed. Despite the fact that she could feel the muscles in his reconstructed shoulder spasming against her back, Garrus set her down with the utmost care, and when she went to sit up he pressed her gently back.

"Just...just stay there for a minute would you."

Shepard felt a small flash of guilt at Garrus' obvious concern, his mandibles were pressed flat to his jaw~an obvious sign of agitation, and his pale eyes were fixed on her with an unreadable expression. "I'm alright, really," Shepard could feel the crinkling of the sheen of dried sweat on her skin as she tried for a reassuring smile. "I'm just tired and sore...and I really, really need a shower."

Garrus snorted, "I won't disagree with you on that, what did you do? Bathe in stale ryncol?" His actions belied the mock-offended tone in his voice as he knelt to carefully lever off Shepard's remaining boot.

"Ok...what are you doing," Shepard blinked down at Garrus in confusion as he removed her socks with the care he usually reserved for gun mods and the more delicate components of the mako.

"You want a shower?" Tilting his head Garrus eyed Shepard with one bright avian eye, "I assume humans don't tend to shower in their clothing."

"I think I can handle a shower on my own." Shepard grabbed the waistband of her pants as Garrus gave the legs a slightly insistent tug, "and get undressed on my own, thank you."

"Who takes care of you?"

"Huh?" Shepard wrinkled her forehead at the unexpected question, "nobody needs to take care of me Garrus..."

"You helped me, and Tali, and Liara," Garrus tapped his talons lightly against Shepard's knees with each name. "The feros colonists, all the crew..."

"Ok, that would be my job..."

"And its my job to have your back, remember?" Garrus reached up to hesitantly touch her cheek, mimicking her own actions with him. "So just trust me to take care of you for once."

It was, Shepard decided, the complete vulnerability of the situation that made her uncomfortable. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had taken the time to really care for her, not in any way that surpassed basic cursory professionalism. Garrus had continued to disrobe her with gentle insistence, silently ignoring her protests until she sullenly acquiesced and allowed herself to be carefully manhandled into the shower.

It was strange that standing naked with Garrus was completely devoid of the sexuality or at the very least, sexual tension that Shepard would have expected. The situation would have been a lot easier to deal with if there had been a sexual edge, a thought that Shepard had tried her hardest to exploit. Garrus had been smoothing soap along the plane of her shoulder when Shepard started to let her hands roam along the line of his hip and was surprised when he simply stepped back out of her reach, his long arms allowing the maneuver without a second of interruption. A second attempt to guide the encounter onto more familiar ground earned Shepard a sharp nip on the wrist, and she subsided into somewhat sullen capitulation.

Although she didn't want to admit it, the rhythmic scrape of talons through her hair had seeped some of the exhausted tension from her muscles, and they eased further when Garrus moved his hands forward to rub just below her temples where the hot ache of Morinth's attack still lingered.

"Ok, ok, that...you can do that forever," Shepard sighed in relief as Garrus dug his knuckles into the knotted muscle along her neck, smoothing the tension away with a warm, slightly rough palm.

Garrus voiced a low hum of encouragement as Shepard started to relax, letting her lean back into him, arms limp at her sides as her body took respite in his support. The heat of the water and Garrus' gentle ministrations lulled Shepard into a soporific daze, she hardly even noticed when the limited water began to cool and Garrus bundled her up in a towel and tumbled her carefully into her bed.

It was impossible to judge the time in the static ambiance of her quarters, so Shepard wasn't sure how long she had slept. Long enough for her cropped hair to have dried into a peaky mess, and for the aches to have faded from overstressed muscles. Poking experimentally at her forehead Shepard was glad to feel the headache had all but disappeared. The dull hot ache of Morinth's fury little more than a dying echo.

Garrus was a reassuring presence on the bed next to her, though Shepard frowned slightly to see he had chosen to sit with his back against the backboard and his head rested on his tucked up knees...it was uncomfortably close to how he had always positioned himself after Purgatory. Reaching out a hand, Shepard shook him lightly, unsurprised by the sharp jolt that wracked his body, and the slight flash of panic in his pale eyes until they brightened as they fixed on her face.

"You're awake!" Garrus' mandibles twitched into the sharp toothed grin that Shepard loved to see, "how do you feel?"

"Better, much better," as she stood to retrieve the casuals folded at the foot of the bed, Shepard steeled herself to ask the question she knew damn well was going to banish the quiet peace. Smirking slightly as she caught Garrus' wide-eyed stare of interest as she stretched her arms above her head to tug the snug top into place, Shepard muttered: "are we going to talk about the elephant in the room or what?" into the fabric.

Garrus did a quick scan of the room, then looked over at Shepard with a questioning quirk of one steel-gray brow-plate, "the ...the what in the room?"

"Sorry." Shepard swung herself cross-legged onto the bed, "stupid human saying." Picking absently at a stray thread on the leg of her pants, Shepard waited until she had Garrus' full attention. "Omega, what's your call?"

Shepard didn't even need a reply , it was all in the body language. The way Garrus tensed up, the way he wouldn't meet her eyes told her everything she needed to know and she had to struggle to not let the cold dread building in her gut show on her face.

"I don't need you for this, " Garrus' voice was low and rough, Shepard could see his hands clench down on his knees hard enough to make her wince. "I know you don't agree and I don't expect you to..."

"What did I tell you yesterday?"

"I know you disagree with this, Shepard." Garrus continued, unwilling to let Shepard get a word in until she stilled him with a hand over his mouth, tugging gently on his unscarred mandible until he relented and turned to face her.

"When I said this was your choice I meant it, so hush," Shepard cupped her hand against Garrus' jaw, smoothing her fingers over the sensitive underside of his mandible to take the sting from her reprimand. "I told you I would go with whatever your decision was, and I will. No questions asked."

Garrus didn't say anything, but he closed his eyes and tilted his head into her touch and Shepard marveled again that he would ever seek out her touch after all he had endured. "I'm sorry, I know you hoped I would make a different choice."

Shepard wasn't sure what to say to that, every word was true, so she settled for: "come talk to me when Chakwas clears you, we'll figure out the logistics then."

Garrus gave a shy nod of agreement, still obviously unsure about involving Shepard in the whole mess. The movement had jostled the datapad Shepard had tossed on the bed earlier and with the movement it had surged back to life, displaying the first of the security stills Liara had sent. "What is that?" Garrus questioned as Shepard scooped it up and tossed it to him.

"Liara's been looking in to who was hitting the merc leaders on Omega, she found...Garrus? Are you alright?" Shepard stared baffled as Garrus dropped the datapad and lunged away from it like it was on fire.

Garrus backed jerkily away, head swinging from the dropped datapad to Shepard. "I..I changed my mind," Garrus gave a sharp bark of laughter, the undertones in his voice bright and shrill with agitation. "Y...you were right, and...and we should leave. Leave Omega...go...anywhere else, Jack wants to blow something up! Lets go do that!"

The reaction was so unexpected that Shepard could do little else but sit and stare as Garrus plastered an obviously fake grin on his face and tried to look cheerfully unconcerned. Watching him lean against the fish tank in a show of unconvincing nonchalance, Shepard retrieved the dropped datapad and stared at it pensively.

"Do you know who this is?" Shepard watched Garrus' eyes flicker over at the security still, shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other.

"N...no?"

"Can we try that again with a bit more honesty?" Shepard didn't like pushing Garrus, but whatever was going on she needed to know the cause of it.

"I remember the rifle...before I left for boot camp I could hardly hold it steady. The recoil always made my shoulder ache." Garrus turned away from Shepard, resting his head against the blue glow of the glass. "He always told me to keep practicing, one day I would be strong enough...but I don't understand, he wouldn't go to Omega. I don't understand, Shepard!" The last came out in a shrill wail, and Shepard winced, she hadn't seen Garrus this upset since he had returned to the Normandy~and although it made her physically ache, she simply had to know.

"Who wouldn't go to Omega?" When that that didn't get a reaction, Shepard stepped forward and laid a hand on Garrus' shoulder, feeling the tremors shivering through him, "Garrus?"

"My father," Garrus turned wide, haunted eyes to Shepard. "But I don't understand...I don't understand why."

"Did he give any hint he would do something like this when you talked to him?" At Garrus' blank look, Shepard felt the first stirrings of unease~a distant early warning tingling on the edge of her memory. "Garrus...tell me you talked to him, please just tell me that."

"I couldn't," ducking his head, Garrus scratched at the pressure bandage that covered the right side of his face. "He always lectured me on strength...how could I tell him, tell him that half the mercs on Omega passed me around like a weapon's mod they wanted to share? Yes, that would have been a wonderful conversation," he mimed typing in a call code on his omni tool, "hi Dad, just calling to say I got tossed to Garm's pet vorcha today, talk later~bye."

Shepard gritted her teeth, she hated it when Garrus used his own humiliation as a form of self flagellation, and she loathed the derisive edge to his usually calm voice. "I can understand that, but afterward...even when you came back on board?"

"He was furious that I joined up with you in the first place~thought I was deserting my duty to 'fraternize with spectres and mercenaries'.When I left the Citadel after you...a..after the Normandy was destroyed, he said he was done with me, he said to come home when I had grown up. Come home when I had discovered that..."

"Discovered what?" Shepard prompted gently.

"Discovered that my loyalties should lie with my own family, my own people, not with the memory of a dead human." Garrus laughed bitterly, "he worried about me serving under a human spectre, said it would make me more irresponsible...I couldn't face telling him I had bent over for too many humans to count."

He looked for you." Sickly Shepard remembered Decker's leering face, his amusement that their cruelty had resulted in Garrus' father launching a desperate search for his son.

"Why?" Garrus blinked at Shepard in confusion, "how would he know to look for me?"