~Jane~
Almost an entire month has passed since Jane arrived on the Citadel to spend her leave between training for the next step of N training. The nights have been hell to deal with, but her days exploring the Citadel and spending time with Garrus when he arrives home from C-Sec are helping to keep her spirits up.
She has been known to be able to bare through a tough situation when she puts her mind to it, and the nightmares are no different. If she looks at getting over them like a mission given to her by Alliance brass, she can distance herself and charge straight through. If only that thinking would work, she'd be able to enjoy herself more. Sighing, she looks down to the guitar she's been mindlessly plucking in her lap as she relaxes on the bed.
Garrus had already gotten clean, dressed, and left for work hours ago. He had told her that he only had a short day of patrol and that he would be home in the early afternoon and wanted to take her out to clear her head and offer a change of scenery.
She was exciting to get to go out, not that she was just sitting around all day, every day, while he was gone, but she wouldn't deny that she would enjoy the company. She just hoped that her head wasn't wrapped up in the shit with Akuze.
Trying to clear her head, Jane starts to softly play a song she remembers from her childhood friend. It's a sad and slow song that speaks of pain and regret and she softly sings the words, remembering a happier time in her life. The memories are bitter sweet, but they help to bring her out of the now and clear her head from the turmoil of her indecision.
As she's coming upon the last chord of notes, she hears the door to the apartment open and Garrus call out. He must have heard the soft notes because he knocks shortly after against the frame and stands in the open doorway in silent question.
She smiles lightly up at him, trying to make fake the mirth in hopes that it would help to feel more genuine. She motions for him to enter with her head and returns to plucking the strings aimlessly.
"You still up to going out?" He asks and she responds by shrugging gloomily. She really does want to spend the time with him and she curses herself for not putting more effort into convincing him, and herself, of that. He studies her from his position with a look of concern she can easily decipher, and only feels ashamed of. After a short moment of silence, he begins again. "I was thinking we could go grab a quick lunch and then be able to catch that movie you've been excited about."
His words jump her out of her dark thoughts and she looks up to him in surprise. "You mean that Karate Kid remake?" He shrugs with one mandible flicking out in a smile and she's astonished to feel her own face forming a smile in response. At the sight, his second mandible flicks out and a soft thrum falls from his chest.
He holds out his hand and she hands him the guitar, which he places on the desk. "I'm just going to get changed into something more comfortable than armor and then we can go." She nods, feeling a light feeling blooming in her chest to help dissipate the depression she was drowning in.
After waiting on the couch while he changes for a few moments, he enters the living room in a pair of dark blue casuals. She figures that it's an equivalent to the blue jeans and t-shirt she is wearing. She can't really consult a manual on Turian casual wear or anything, but she does admit that he looks good, or maybe it's just the design of clothes.
They eat a small lunch at a café near the theater so that they have room for the typical theater fare, of which she is definitely getting buttery popcorn and nachos drowning in cheese and jalapenos with a large soda. It is as she goes to pay for her own food that he leans back into his seat with a smirk on his face.
Finding that credit chit reads no funds she widened her eyes is shock, then glares up at him at his chuckle. "Guess you're going to have to let me pay for today, seeing as how we want to be able to make it to the movie on time."
"How the hell?" Jane stutters, she knows she has funds because she just checked before they left the apartment but now everything is telling her to the contrary.
He holds up his left arm where his Omni-Tool is glowing. "C-Sec has me practicing account locks for Investigations training. It doesn't work unless I have open access and then only for a short time." He smirks, "Good thing you had me take a look at your Tool to see if I could make it run faster."
That smart bastard, she shakes her head with a glare. He did a damn good job of making it run smoother than when she had even bought it, but from now one she would definitely be more aware of him trying to pull something. "Now I know not to trust you whenever you talk of calibrating something for me." His only response is a soft laugh as he pays and they make their way to the theater.
~
"That was amazing," Jane says as they exit the theater into the seemingly too-bright ward. "I would have never pegged a Karate Kid with Turians would be so awesome."
He shakes his head confused, "I don't understand. Sparring is something a Turian learns when they are preparing for boot camp. He should've at least known the basics enough to defend himself."
Obviously not understanding that the movie was made by a human director in attempts to appeal to a Turian audience with an Earth classic, she decides not to get into the specifics and instead waits for Garrus to finish his rant.
"And the Turian general who teaches him to spar?" He continues, flabbergasted, which is quite a funny state to see him in because he's normally so collected. "No self-respecting general would find himself caring for the school as a…a janitor."
It's the distaste that laces through his vocals that makes Jane bust out in laughter. Calming enough to speak at his glare, she concedes to try and appease him. "It's obviously made by some idiot who doesn't know anything Turian culture or military structure," she jokes.
"You got that right," he huffs, but relaxes slightly at her mirth.
She smiles at his lightening mood. "I do have to admit, though. Those scenes at the sparring tournament were impressive. If I'd had known when you told that reach and flexibility story that sparring was anything like the movie I wouldn't have let you skip over the good parts."
He shakes his head in mock annoyance, but before he can respond a voice calls his name and he stops cold. "Dad?" He spins so fast around that Jane can feel the rush of the air shifting and turns to look. Standing in front of them is a Turian in a C-Sec uniform with silver plates and the same blue colony markings as Garrus across his stern face.
When Jane had heard the saying that Turians are immovable like stone and metal, she never really saw what they had meant when the saying was used to describe their looks. Sure, she understood that their faces weren't as emotive as a human's without the plate-less skin that showed the tiniest of muscle movements. Garrus' father however, had an expression on his face that clearly embodied the thought.
She could see the relation of the two in the long fringe and shape of their mandibles, their matching icy eyes, but his father's plates were just a bit sharper angled. As a result, when he frowns slightly at his son, it is harsher than her friend's mirroring expression.
"Garrus," he addresses his son only. "I would have thought you would be spending your day off preparing for your IWP exams tomorrow. Investigations isn't a joke."
Jane can hear Garrus take a deep breath. "I am not treating it as a joke, but I don't see the need to prepare for something I know how to do. I also see no harm in relaxing on my day off."
His father dismisses the explanation, continuing as if Garrus had just as well said nothing. "It is the job of C-Sec to always be prepared and your relation to me will not get you any special treatment, Garrus. There was never any harm in being able to accomplish a task set before you and in order to do such, oftentimes you must go above and beyond what is asked." He pauses and Jane can hear the bass growl rumbling deep from Garrus' chest.
She hopes his dad doesn't hear it as well, but knows better, and internally cringes at the tension. She knows enough about Turian subvocal cues that the noise Garrus is using is not one his dad is going to like, but the older Turian either doesn't hear it, which is unlikely, or just refuses to acknowledge it.
"I certainly wouldn't think you'd find it appropriate to parade yourself around with your new-found friend." At this, he finally acknowledges Jane with a sidelong glance. Garrus' body stiffens, and she can feel that he is trying to maintain his silence. Some deep set conditioning must be to blame, so she decides that so long as the conversation just vaguely touches on her, she will try to stay out of it so as not to make it worse for him.
"Have you forgotten that we were at odds with humans within your lifetime? You were just a child at the time, but you must certainly…"
"Enough," Garrus says, his growl distorting his usually smooth voice, and the only reaction from his father is an uninterested eye blink. "Jane was also just a child and not involved in the Relay Incident. We treat it like the Krogan Rebellions when it was only a misunderstanding on both sides."
He steps closer to his father and Jane can see that the two are very close in height, though Garrus stands slightly above his straight backed father. "What I do with my time off the clock is mine to deal with as I please and no one's business but my own, not C-Sec's and certainly not yours." He steps back to stand next to Jane and the growl stops, "Now Officer, if there isn't anything else I can do for you and you aren't going to charge us with anything, you can no longer keep us here."
He turns away before his father has a chance to respond. "Come on Jane, I think we'll just order delivery from home."
Dinner is awkward between the two as they try to avoid the topic of his father or her possible eminent night terror. Once or twice, Jane tries to lighten the mood with a joke or by recounting something from the movie from earlier, but the conversation falls flat shortly after as they both tend to get trapped in their individual problems.
It isn't until halfway through his meal that he stops and yawns widely, long, blue tongue rolling out and mandibles flaring wide, to come back against his plates with a clack that Jane notices how tired he seems. In his attempts to get her to have a good night's sleep, he has been suffering. Adding that onto the fact that his days are long and exhausting, and she feels horrible and like a nuisance.
As a child she was constantly told she was a pain and a burden by her mother and her mother's clients that she came to know that she never wanted to ever make someone feel that way about her again. Yet here she was, keeping her best friend from getting the little sleep he needs and then getting him into a fight with his father because he was seen hanging out around her.
"Hey," she nudges Garrus. She has made up her mind, and will not take his protests otherwise tonight. "Let's get you to bed. I can take the couch tonight." She stands and takes the plate of food from him and runs it into the kitchen. There isn't enough to really safe so she throws it in the disposal and returns to the living room.
He is moving to lay on the couch, probably figuring that if he lays down she won't want to bother with getting him back up. "No, sir. Up," she orders, to which he smirks and remains in his spot. She glares down at him with her hands on her hips and grabs the hand of his closest to her. She pulls and grunts at the dead weight of his body, which he finds funny by his light chuckle.
"Don't go boneless on me, mister." She pulls him hard and manages to get his body halfway off the couch and sitting up enough to drape his arm over her shoulder. "You are one heavy bastard. If you break me, I will not be responsible for what the Alliance does to you."
He stands up with a smirk and walks to the bedroom, having noticed by now that she wasn't going to give up and would probably have drug him to the bed, which she guarantees she would've done. She feels her own darkness lessen a bit at his small amount of mirth as she follows him into the room to make sure he actually goes to sleep. She doesn't want him to just wait until she sleeps, then put her in bed to return to the couch like he did a week ago.
He stands by the bed and looks to her challengingly and she returns her hands to her hips and leans onto one leg with a stern look. He shrugs and moves to lay on the bed and she's a bit worried that he isn't putting up a bigger fight.
Shaking off the thought, she moves to grab her toothbrush from the bathroom so that she can brush in the kitchen and keep from waking him but as she goes to leave she catches his eyes. He waves her over to the bed and scoots over so that she can sit next to him on the bed with her back against the headboard.
"I'm sorry about my dad." Garrus brings up the topic for the first time all night since the incident with a tired sigh. "I know prejudices exist for everyone and I know my dad shares the thinking of a lot of other Turians about human ambitions, but I have a feeling that today wasn't about that."
Garrus shifts to his back and looks up at the ceiling, thinking for a moment before continuing. "I am a machine to my dad, a soldier that must learn to follow orders and not question, not a son. If there was ever a time where he was trying to treat me like a son, I don't remember it. I think I'm come to accept it." She looks down to him with a frown at his admission and he returns it with a sad mandible flicker.
"He wasn't just disproving of my decision to take my day off today to putz around, as you put it earlier, but I think he was condemning my choice of who to spend it with. It was bordering on the racist and I just have never seen that side of my father.
"As a kid, before I felt the way I do now, I would look up to my dad because of what a great detective he was. He was a hero that helped people and brought evil to justice." He pauses and the sound of their breathing echoes through the room. "I guess your opinion of people are clouded when you're a kid."
ane agrees silently with a slight nod, whether he sees it or not she doesn't know, and moves to lay down on her half of the bed. Seeing him so open and lost hurts her with a burning ache in her chest. The whole time she's has known him, he has always seemed like a strong and determined individual, sometimes to the point of being too stubborn for his own good, but to see him questioning what he believes makes her decide on something here and there.
Garrus is at his best and most comfortable when he is helping someone else, but when his own problems are laid bare, he is confused by the thought of someone carrying the weight. They share that belief that problems are best left to be solved by yourself, but if he is willing to try and open up to her then she is going to offer him the same courtesy.
He looks to her with a sidelong glance because of the silence that has passed between the two. She lays on her back, same as him, with about half a meter separating their bodies and hands flat against the pillows, and she takes a deep breath in preparation. "I have to admit something to you." She rolls her head over to look at him, "I haven't been able to see anyone about the nightmares."
He snorts, "that's pretty obvious, Jane." She smiles weakly at his strange ability to know every little thing about her. He looks to her with a turn of his head, hope in his eyes. "Do you want to talk about it now?"
She shakes her head hesitantly and takes a deep breath. Releasing it out in a long exhale as they both return to look back to the ceiling, she begins. "I don't know if you've ever heard or read anything about my service records, but the reason I'm in N-Training is all due to a disaster three years ago."
She goes about telling him of the events of the night, at first trying to depersonalize the deaths and loss. Soon, however, she finds herself rolled to her side and facing Garrus as he lies on his own side, crying as he rubs her back purring comfortingly with one hand and lets her grip the other in a vise grip.
He is quiet the entire time, letting her rage one moment, then bawl the next, and although she wants to scold herself for giving him her problems when he has just laid out his own to her, she can't find the strength to pull away from him.
After the nightmare have fallen from her lips, he wipes the fallen hair from her eyes. "I'm sorry, Garrus. I never get this whiney and over-emotional. I completely dominated our conversation into my own little fucking pity party." She wipes her raw eyes, "What a bitch, right?"
He grabs her hand and pulls it from irritating her eyes further and looks to her eyes, his crystal blue spheres reflexing only care as he holds her hands between them in both of his. "You didn't do anything wrong. I told you my problems, and you told me yours. With the way you've been living lately, I'm grateful you finally let down the walls. Seeing you like that was horrible." He drops his eyes sheepishly, "I do have to admit that I had an idea that your dreams involved Thresher Maws."
"Because you saw my sketchbook." He looks up worried, but she shakes her head with a soft smile. "Nothing in there was a secret, I figured you would probably see it one day or another, but I know you would never have pushed the issue. I guess I just hoped I would be over it by then," she shrugs dismissively.
She looks away sadly, thoughts running through her head of her old friends. Not of their deaths, which has haunted her for three years, but the good memories of times they spent off duty in the mess or barracks. For some reason, those memories seem to hurt more than the nightmares. "I miss them, Garrus."
He releases one hand to pull up her chin to look into her green eyes. "Tell me about them," he says is such a way, with such genuine interest, that she can't help it when they settle back on their backs, one hand holding the other's, and the stories flow from her lips. They spend a large part of the night talking of her first family and when they finally fall asleep, she doesn't dream.