I left our gunsmithing room feeling proud of myself. I pulled the rim of my dress down and smoothed it against my thighs. "He'll be right out," I said feeling more confident than ever. I tipped my chin towards the bottle I was drinking from. "Pour me another, will you?"

Garrus obliged.

"Where's the commander?"

I took a sip. "Trying to grab everything."

"I'll be right out!"

"It's a big gun," I said.

Shepard walked out with the rifle slung over his shoulder carrying a white box of ammunition.

Garrus set his drink down and looked at the rifle. With an excited flare of his mandibles, he let out a gravely hum. I could tell he wanted to hold it.

Shepard gave the rifle to Garrus and said, "Lever action 45-70 finished in stainless steel with a burled walnut stock and some old school optics."

Garrus cranked the lever and he smiled. He shouldered it and aimed out the door with his finger running along the side of the receiver.

"Mechanical safety. Not biometric like my rifles. Glass optics. Not digital," he smirked. "I like the crosshairs. Nice and thin." He worked the lever again, took a breath, and squeezed the trigger. Click. "Light trigger pull. Really light. Not as good as the Widow, but better than my Mantis." Garrus eyed the box of ammunition. "It shoots what?" Shepard pulled a brass cartridge thick a shot glass out of the box. "That's nice," he said pinching it from Shepard. "What is it again?"

"45-70 Government. Don't ask what this box costs. This would drop a krogan in one hit."

"If you shot him in the armpit when his side is facing you so it could burst his two hearts. Might be slow enough to pass through their kinetic barriers as well." Garrus looked at the two of us. "I learned to kill krogan efficiently on Omega. Don't… tell Grunt. So, what are we shooting at?"

I pulled one of Shepard's apples out of the fruit bowl in the center of the island.

"These."

"Get the lemon instead," Shepard said winking at me.

Garrus was impressed. "How far away are we setting them?"

"Do three hundred meters," I said.

Garrus looked at the scope. "On a four power antique?"

I slapped the counter excited and drunk. I know I shouldn't be about a childish competition, but I was! I was about to watch a shooting competition between the two best shots in the galaxy. "This is like the old days!"

Shepard walked off the porch with a lemon and paced out the length.

"You two get much trigger time these days?" Garrus asked me swirling his glass.

"Not too much. Enough to keep us sharp, but not like the old days, which is, I guess, for the better? Very few people know where we live. I know a lot would like to hurt us so we have keep sharp. Our house is also a fortress. Liara designed it to protect us. I mean, no one in their right mind would want to hurt us. Between the three of us here, we have to have the highest body count in the galaxy. We are veterans with a lot of experience. Some mercs with armor taking us by complete surprise while we are grocery shopping would not be an ideal situation, but I always have Chikktika with me."

"Yeah, how's she doing these days?" Garrus joked.

I smirked and huffed. "Fine."

"Ever think about having security around here?" he asked scanning the rocks and mountains. "A sniper up in those hills would be an issue."

I leaned on the railing and followed Garrus' finger into the hills. He's right. If someone wanted to hurt us they could try, but our home's security measures are the best. I didn't feel like explaining to him how sophisticated it was, because I know he'd spend the rest of the night poking holes in its infrastructure. "I don't live in fear anymore."

He nodded and seemed torn about something.

"You should settle down one day. Get a girlfriend."

He laughed. "Maybe. There's still a lot of danger out there. I feel like I have to help. I was there at the very beginning with you guys. I have to see this to the end."

"Garrus. That can be hundreds of years until until everything is cleaned up."

"I suppose I'll consider retirement once I start using my walker as a bipod."

He was quiet for a moment like he had something on his mind.

"I actually have a question for you."

"Shoot," I said.

He paused and I could tell he was thinking about how I'd react if he asked it.

"Garrus, just spit it out."

"Do you ever think about coming back?"

"Coming back?"

Garrus shook his head. "Nevermind."

"No, it's fine." I said. "No question should be taboo between us three."

He laughed and said, "Call me insane, but I miss it. I miss the old days." He looked up to the stars longingly. "They were the best days of my life. And I miss the crew. The Normandy. I work primarily with turian special forces now, but I still do jobs with the others on occasion. Zaeed and I work together on the rare occasion. Liara still proves us intel. It gives my crew a boost when they are working with one of Shepard's own. One of the legends."

Keelah, the nostalgia rushed back. I'd been so busy enjoying our alone time together I never really thought about the others as often as I should. I felt an ache in my sternum as I listened to Garrus. I closed my eyes and put myself back in the Normandy. I'd like to stretch my legs when most of the crew was sleeping after I felt like I had put a good day's worth of work in. I'd walk the halls and touch the hulls with my fingertips to feel her vibrations. I'd pass the observation room where Samara would be meditating and look out the window at the passing star systems and the great fat nebulae swirling in red and gold and emerald. I'd be thinking about our missions. About the reapers. About our wins and potential failures and the planets we visited and were to visit and the people we'd meet and help. I'd make sure to pop in on the crew and say hello or talk to them. I liked to bring Joker snacks from Gardner and stare into the galaxy map. Ask Thane how he was feeling. See what Kasumi would tell me about relationships. Talk weaponry with Jacob and he'd go on about how spooky the geth technology was that we had recovered. I remember Vega calling me Sparks and trying to show me how to play basketball in the hangar with the rest of engineering's crew. Mordin helping me with medicine. Chakwas being so open to my questions. Me thinking about Shepard. I miss the us against the galaxy energy. Us overcoming the impossibilities of fighting the reapers.

"It was in the time of our inevitable destruction where we truly appreciated life and those around us. Life was never more vivid and beautiful when you knew it could all end in a flash. We knew our timeline and we knew when the clock would stop ticking for us." I felt a little choked up looking back. "You appreciate every interaction, every conversation, every laugh, every kiss that much more." I looked to Garrus and I could see that it was eating him up. He was now the leader of his own actions and didn't have Shepard to follow or to rely on. Our time fighting the reapers was stressful, but we had Commander Shepard on our side. He would find a way to kick in their teeth and force them to wave a white flag. He assured us of victory. Garrus now didn't have that. Or us fighting with him.

"Garrus," I said. He kept looking up into the stars. "Garrus, I need you to look at me."

He sighed and turned to me. Keelah, I could see the pain in his eyes.

"We all knew what we were up against back then and understood that our time was limited. Not all things last." I put a hand on his arm. He watched it for a moment and I could see the last of his tension he brought here fade away. "Enjoy what we have now and don't think about inevitability or things you cannot change. You're with us right now. Enjoy, please."

Garrus is a brother to me. He's saved my ass more times than I can count. We've spent years on starships together during the most stressful times of our lives. We've gone to battle knowing it would be our last. I wanted him to see my face and to feel my touch. Garrus Vakarian was family. I wanted to eliminate all unknowns between us.

His voice cracked. "I know it's selfish, but I want it all back." Garrus' upper lip trembled and he watched Shepard pacing back with a smile and blue eyes shining bright. "I shouldn't have brought it up. It was a mistake."

"It isn't," I said. "He's changed." I couldn't help but smile as I watched my captain walk back to us. "The war was hard on him. He has nightmares. Every night." I swallowed hard. I thought of what I said about not holding taboo subjects from each other. I had to tell Garrus the reality of it for him to understand. Being drunk was the only way I could say what I was about to say. "He wakes me up screaming and crying."

Garrus went rigid.

"I wake up because the bed is shaking from sobs. Half the time I don't know if he is awake or asleep. I hold his hand or grasp his knee until it's over. I never wake him. I let him know he's not alone in the battle he's fighting in his head. He holds his pillow in his lap… like he's cradling a wounded soldier. He's screams your name, Garrus. He's trying to keep your head from falling apart when he bunches his pillow tenderly. He wakes up all the time trying to save each and every one of us from dying. I've seen him stumble out of bed and walk around like he's trying to pick dirty laundry off the floor. But there's no laundry. That's when I hear him crying under his breath, because he's trying to pick up pieces of his crew that have been blown apart. Each part he 'picks' up he says one of our names. He tries to find dog tags among the meat to bring home to our family instead of just parts. I've seen him crawling on the floor scooping invisible dust off the floor into the palm of his hand. You know what it is he's trying to scoop up? Our ashes. He thinks his crew has been turned into cinders. Just because he's left the war, it doesn't mean the war has left him."

I know Garrus does the same at night alone in his starships - in his single cot with his new crew. Waking up in a cold sweat having torn open the scabs of war to bear fresh bleeding wounds. Garrus would sympathize.

"I hate telling you this. We are all victims of the war. I try to keep him happy. He deserves that. Go talk to him later. Bring up how you feel and maybe you can come to a resolve. I'll follow him anywhere and if that means going back into the trenches then so be it. I honestly think he just wants peace."

He inhaled and exhaled slowly. "I needed to hear that. Thank you. I'm going to live in the moment and enjoy what we have now." He turned to me. "Tali, I…" his voice was a low and sincere. "I want you to know it is an honor."

I'd be lying to say I needed alcohol to show him my face. I thought I did. Not any more. I was actually ready and I felt like he deserved to see who I was. I squeezed his arm before propping my forearms on the teak railing and we silently enjoyed the long sunset and waited for my captain to return.

Shepard jogged up the few stairs and stood next to Garrus. He turned downrange and fanned his eyes with a hand. "That's going to be a hard shot. Garrus, you go first."

He grabbed the rifle and smirked. "Whoever hits the lemon first wins?"

"That's right."

Garrus propped it on the railing and fit it snug in his shoulder and tried the trigger one more time to feel the breaking point. I grabbed the box of ammunition and gave Garrus four cartridges. He fed them into the rifle and worked the lever and flicked off the tang situated safety. He took one big breath. Exhaled. I plugged my ears with my fingers.

"Wait a second, what's the gravity here?"

"Lighter than Palavan."

Garrus looked it up on his omni-tool and then read the ballistics of the round on the side of the box. He did some mental math and settled in behind the trigger.

"Captain, you're done," I teased.

Shepard looked genuinely concerned.

Garrus exhaled and I covered my ears again. The rifle went off with a bang and a flash. The concussion smacked me in the face and I wrinkled my nose at the smell of the burned cordite.

"That kicks!" he said. "Missed too. Went high."

I squinted downrange and could see a red cloud of dust being swept off to the right by a breeze.

He handed the rifle to Shepard who racked the lever and settled in.

Garrus leaned in and whispered, "Don't tell him, but that's a damn fine rifle."

I elbowed him in agreeance. "Kicks more than my geth shotgun too. It's nothing like the mass accelerated rifles of today."

The rifle screamed against the rock backdrop as I forgot to cover my ears.

"Missed," Garrus said. "Three-o-clock high."

My ears started to ring.

Shepard grimaced and stared downrange. "The crosshair covers the target. I can barely see what I'm shooting at." He glared at Garrus. "I'm pretty sure turians can see better than humans."

Garrus grabbed the rifle. "I'm sure Cerberus upgraded your eyes to be better than mine. No excused, Commander."

Garrus got behind the gun again. "Besides, you gave me first shot on a cold bore. That was a cheap move. I'm going to hit the lemon this time."

Shepard cursed.

"Garrus was your designated marksman, Shepard. Don't feel too bad when he outshoots you."

"She has no faith in me!"

Garrus laughed and concentrated on his breathing. He pulled his face out of the scope and gave me a look then brought his gaze to the ground in thought and came to a conclusion. He nodded and sat behind the rifle and fired.

He made an angry clicking noise. "Nicked it. Spun the lemon like a top." He pointed at Shepard. "But I know where to hold it now. Guess who's in trouble?"

Shepard took the rifle from him and settled in.

"Remember what I said, Captain."

"What did she say?" asked Garrus.

"Watch the dust coming off the rocks for the wind. Wait until you don't see anything,"

Shepard said coyly.

"No I didn't."

Garrus' eyes slimmed and he crossed his arms. Shepard stood like a fallen tree tipped on the railing. Dead still. Timing his heartbeats. Garrus looked to the lemon. I couldn't stop looking at my Captain. The rifle hammered off and I could hear the round smack into the lemon two seconds later.

"Homefield advantage," said Garrus.

"Luck," said Shepard.

Oh Keelah did I want him.

"Rematch in the morning," said Shepard. "I'm pretty sure I got lucky."

Garrus nodded and patted his stomach. "What's for dinner?"

I, however, was thinking of dessert.

Thanks to whoever is still out there reading. It takes me back doing this-puts me in a happy place thinking about these characters BioWare lovingly made for us to enjoy. If feels like spending time with old friends who haven't changed and are just as you remember from the best days of your life.

The climax of It's Hard on the Nerves is next.

-RAGE