Shepard's died twice now. This is still the worst she's ever hurt.

Alchera had been quick. The blast that had knocked her back from the escape pod had concussed her anyway, and then by the time she'd realized she was out of air there'd been almost nothing left. Two minutes, maybe, her lungs burning like fire, her mind white with panic, and then—silence. The longest sleep of her life.

The Crucible had been different. The memories after squeezing the trigger are muddy, indistinct—sharp contrast to the crystal-clear image of the glowing child reaching out to her just before—and all she can really recall is the smell of burning meat and an endless fall. Stars, sometimes; sometimes Earth's blue curve; sometimes the red-hot wall of atmospheric entry, held back only by the paper-thin shimmer of a mass effect field stretched between spars of twisted metal. Some last gasp of the Citadel's self-defense protocols, maybe, maintained by a keeper trying to finish its work even in those final minutes. She gets that.

But she hadn't died then, anyway. This time death had been kind enough to wait for her to be opened up on some operating table, well into the welcome blackness, before her Cerberus-issue heart had decided to finally give up the ghost. But Miranda had refused to let her go, and Dr. Naidu and the rest of the doctors in the bowels of this Tottenham hospital, and it turned out her heart had only needed a jump-start after all, and—anyway. Here she is, alive, heartbeat and all, and she'd happily rip off the entire left half of her body if that would make it stop hurting.

"Stop being stubborn and hit the button."

Garrus. Gravelly and half-asleep, not even turned over to look at her from his makeshift cot across the room. The entire hospital is silent and dark this late at night, but her dozen monitors throw off just enough light to see the curve of his shoulder, his fringe. She lets out a breath. "How'd you know I was awake?"

"Grinding your teeth. Human mouths are something else, that's for sure."

"I hate how it feels. I can't think straight. Can't even see straight. If someone came through that door I'd be just as likely to shoot you instead."

"Shepard." Now he turns over, stifling a yawn, and looks at her in the darkness. No visor, no blue glow; just the faint glint of her holographic interfaces reflecting in his eyes. "The war's over. It's okay if you're not at the top of your game for a few weeks. Did you know most people don't take even one gun to the hospital?"

"Ha, ha."

"Right now the recoil would break your wrist anyway." He yawns again. "I'll be here to keep you in one piece."

He's joking, and she knows it, but her chest gets hot all the same. "Big promises, Vakarian."

"Hit the button, Shepard."

She does. They'd finally removed the daily cap on her pain relief yesterday after a week of white-faced muscle spasms, of fiery tingling through every inch of new-grown skin, of the streaky agony of cybernetics trying desperately to mend her broken bones. After the third time she'd woken in the middle of the night, panting from the pain and soaked in sweat, Garrus had all but horse-collared one of her doctors and demanded the numbers be reassessed. As it turned out, between Cerberus, her biotic metabolism, and her weave upgrades, she now falls solidly outside every dosing recommendation chart in existence. Another valuable leap forward for scientific discovery.

Finally, after about fifteen interminable seconds, she feels the edge begin to ease. Her fingers are only a little clumsy as she lets the button go. Good enough. "Sorry I woke you up. Go back to sleep."

"Nah. I got my hours in."

"Turians." She watches him pillow his head on his elbow. The cot's about six inches too short, though he hasn't complained once, and even with three blankets she knows it's too cold for his preference. "You know, the Alliance is probably still holding that suite for you downtown."

"Help kill a few million Reapers and suddenly everyone wants to give you an apartment. What, you want me out of here?"

"You know I don't." She purses her lips. "You eating okay?"

"Yeah. There's a dextro cafeteria on the first floor. Tali helped get the local hydroponics lab back up and running last week, and they got the transport lines open a few days ago. It's not exactly home cooking, but I'm not starving. Don't worry about it."

"Sure," she says. "You let me know if you want to try any of my nutrient pastes. I know you'll appreciate such fine cuisine, even if it's levo."

"Now who's making big promises? You just want to ruin my figure."

She smiles, and they lapse into a little silence. The monitors shine a dim, steady orange above her like little candles standing resolutely against the dark. Even if this hospital sits in the center of a city, not enough traffic has resumed for them to hear the hum of skycars this late, and if she's very still, she thinks she can even hear the sound of Garrus's breathing.

They watch each other for a long time. No need to talk, no need to touch. Just the quiet reassurance of seeing him look back, alive, scarred, whole, is enough.

A few soft steps sound outside her hospital door; a few murmured words follow, then another set of steps fades away. Garrus sees her eyes flick to the door and answers before she can get out the question. "Alliance guards. Hackett insisted. One at your door, one at the end of the hall, two at each main hospital entrance."

"They don't have better things to do?"

"I don't know. Somehow excitement seems to follow you around."

She smiles again, but this one slips away from her faster. "Hey, Garrus."

"Hm?"

"I know you're not okay."

"Wow, Shepard. You bring that line out for all the guys, or am I just special?"

"I'm serious. I mean—" She catches a breath, forces herself on. She's not good at this, has never been, but it's too important to leave unsaid. "You've been here every time I've woken up. You were here while I was out, too, for all of it. I know you were. The last time I saw you you'd just been thrown halfway across London by an exploding tank. No one's okay right now, even if they're still breathing, and you—" and to her horror, her voice gets tight. "Please. Just tell me. How not-okay are you?"

He looks at her quietly, and for a long time she thinks he won't answer. Then he sits up with a sigh, his bare, taloned feet coming to rest on cold linoleum, two of the blankets still pulled around him. The sight triggers a dull, bland anguish; between the blankets, his scarred face, and the weary resolve in his slumped shoulders, he could be any one of a thousand faceless refugees from a thousand overflowing camps.

"Look," he says at last, his gaze dropping somewhere near her collarbone. "I can't say it hasn't been hard. There've been a lot of bad days lately. More bad than good, feels like, even with the Reapers gone. It's been nice not to have millions dying every day—it's been great—but now, all at once, we've all stopped running. Suddenly we're looking around and realizing exactly how much everyone's lost." He scrapes a slow hand over his face, runs it down the length of his fringe. "It's like the entire galaxy's been looking down a scope for months. Single target, max zoom. Nothing in your sights but the guy you're looking at until you squeeze the trigger, and then nothing but the next guy after that. One by one. Except now we're all putting the guns down and realizing that the world's burned down around us while we were taking those shots, and rebuilding's gonna be…" he trails off with a soft, strained chuckle. "Well. Better them than me, I guess. Never did get into construction."

Oh, God. "Garrus—don't tell me your sister—your dad—"

"No, no," he says quickly, and her heart lurches into motion again. "They're both fine. Well. Alive, anyway. They're in turian space near Palaven, on the Resolute. There are only a couple QECs working between here and Palaven, but Liara managed to scrounge up a few minutes of access for me."

"You're one of the greatest war heroes in the galaxy. I bet they were happy to do it."

"Yeah," he says, and the smile is not glad. "One of the lucky ones, I guess."

"Garrus," she says, her voice breaking. If she could stand up, reach out—do anything—she desperately wants to hold him and doesn't know if he'll let her. She sits up—easier than yesterday, though still not easy—and reaches out a hand. "Come over here. Please."

He looks at his feet a long time, long enough she begins seriously considering disconnecting her medical leads, then stands with a creaking sigh. He comes to sit on the side of her bed, still wrapped in his blankets, and rests his elbows on his knees as she wraps both her arms around him.

It's an awkward sideways grip, his shoulders broad enough she has to drop her hold a little lower on his chest, her left shoulder still aching from the newly removed immobilizers, but these small adjustments are second nature now. Garrus's tension in her arms, however, is not, even considering his plates' general rigidity. One hand has wrapped around the back of her wrist; the other clutches the blankets together at his throat. He still hasn't looked at her.

"Hey," she says into the dark. Her voice is very quiet. "I'm here. Talk to me."

"Shepard," Garrus says, and there's a ragged edge to it that tears her heart open. "I thought—" He cuts himself off with a sharp, shattered breath, then abruptly bends forward, his head almost to his knees, his grip on her now-pinned arm turned almost bruising. Her human ears can only pick up so much turian nuance, but even she can tell his subvocalizations have gone haywire. "Shepard—"

"I know," she says, careful as she knows how to be, and she leans forward until she can rest her cheek on the back of his shoulder. "I'm here. I know. I'm sorry." He gasps again, the blankets slipping away; she tightens her hold. "I'm here, Garrus. Right here with you. I'm not going anywhere."

"Damn," he says, shuddering, and then he says nothing for a long time. Shepard holds him through it, the collapse almost worse than the stiffness. She's thought a lot about turian anatomy in the last year, turian facial expressions, turian voices. She's never thought much about how they cry.

Her ribs burn where she's bent over him, the muscles of her left arm protesting the prolonged strain, but Shepard stays where she is. Garrus's hand is so tight around her wrist she couldn't move even if she wanted to, and every now and then as he catches his breath a little shudder runs through him, like a cramped muscle trying to let go. The whole thing's so quiet she can hardly hear him, which is almost worse.

Eventually his breathing steadies; eventually his grip on her arm loosens enough she can adjust her position to relieve her ribs. He straightens, just a little, manages to get his elbows braced on his knees again, and buries his face in his other hand. His fingers are still trembling. "Great," he says bitterly, voice trembling too, though there's enough wryness in it to soften the blow. "I was really hoping that would hit while you were asleep."

Shepard shakes her head. The lump in her throat is so big she doesn't know if she can get past it; she swallows twice, hard as she can. "I'm glad it didn't," she says, still rough with emotion, and tugs until he lets go, until she can get her fingers linked properly with his. "I told you you'd never be alone, Garrus. I meant it. This—here—" She swallows again. "I can't count how many times you've been there for me lately. On ground missions, on the Normandy, just letting me talk things through—a hundred ways I know about and so many more I don't. And the whole time we had the war hanging over us, and the Primarch taking your advice on how many people had to die, and Palaven, and countless other things dragging you down, things you didn't—because you thought I had enough to worry about. Even with all of that, you still always—always—managed to make sure I was okay." The words are all wrong, graceless and disjointed, but her heart is breaking, and she needs him to understand. "Garrus, please. Let me go through this with you."

"Shepard…"

The desperation in his voice is horrible. She pulls him closer, presses her mouth clumsily to his shoulder, then to his scarred temple. His eyes have clenched shut; she can feel his unsteady, gasping breaths. "Garrus Vakarian," she says, wavering only a little, "if you try to do this by yourself even one more day I'm never taking you groundside again."

It startles out a laugh. There's a little silence; then he laughs again, and when she touches his cheek he lets out a long sigh and leans his head against her chest. Such an alien head, long in odd places and flat in others, and the sight of it has been the only thing keeping her going for a long time. To be able to return the favor now, after he's spent so long watching her back—well, she's a little desperate herself.

"Hey," she says after a while. Her hand draws soothingly up along the side of his neck, over his jaw and mandible up to his cheek, then down again, over and over. She doesn't have a lot of personal experience with comfort, not like this, but she can feel the tension ratcheting out of his back in tiny increments, which is good enough for her. "Tell me what you're thinking."

"Thinking of how lucky I am."

"Garrus."

"I'm not kidding." He sighs again, and she lets her chin rest on the top of his head. "My dad's alive. My sister. You. All the people I care about made it through in one piece. A lot of old friends didn't, sure. But everyone I love is—well, we'll call it an embarrassment of riches."

She tweaks his mandible gently. "You say it like you feel guilty about it."

"Maybe I do, a little. Pretty hard to bring up in casual conversation. 'Oh, me? I'm fine, thanks. My girlfriend, the single most likely person in the entire galaxy to die fighting the Reapers—yeah, turns out she made it through okay. Sorry to hear about your whole family.'" His shoulders slump. "I don't even know what to call it, Shepard. Guilt, sure. Relief, happiness, exhaustion—it's a mess, and it all just hurts. Mostly a good hurt for me, I guess, but…there's a lot of other people out there hurting, too. I don't know where to start."

"Mm." She reaches down, tugs the blanket back up over him. "Well, I've only been through one Reaper war so far, so it's a guess at best, but maybe…maybe you need to go back into scope, just a little."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You're always the one with the best view up on your perch. Watching the enemy between shots, looking over the entire battlefield in a way I can't, not down where I'm fighting. You see everything all at once, then make a call for the rest of us." She runs her fingers over his cheek again. "Except now you're seeing all the wreckage left behind, all the burning rubble, and it's too much. No matter how good you are, you can't fix it right away, and you can't fix it by yourself. You're going to have to wait for the rest of the galaxy to catch up."

He gives a pale snort. "Bureaucracy. My favorite."

"Yeah, big guy, bureaucracy. And if it's too hard to watch while you're waiting, come back into scope a little. Pick a target or two, focus on those. Do what you can for them right here, and when that's done we'll move to the next one. One at a time. And then before you know it, we'll realize a lot's been fixed up around us while we weren't looking."

His hand grows tight around hers. He's trimmed his talons for her again, she notices, and oddly enough it's that little thing, that little note of gentleness in the midst of a shellshocked, war-ravaged galaxy, that brings her the closest yet to tears, though she fights them back with general success. At last Garrus smiles against her—she can feel his mandible stretch—and says, "Damn, Shepard. Were you always this persuasive, or does that come with dying twice?"

"Spend your formative years as the shortest girl in a gang and you get good at talking your way out of things real quick."

"You're not that short for a human. I think."

"Not now, sure. Back then I was a shrimp." She kisses the top of his head. "You okay?"

He smiles again. "Yeah. Or better, anyway. Appreciate the pep talk."

"You want another anytime, just say the word. I'll keep a couple chambered."

"Yeah." He sits up at last, blanket still tucked over his far shoulder, and looks over at her. She can see they're both running the same mental calculations, but even with the most optimistic geometry, there's no way to get his seven-foot turian frame in the narrow hospital bed with her, even before considering she's still leashed to a half-dozen machines by tubes and leads. He cups her face and kisses her instead, very gently. "Thanks. I mean it."

"Yeah." She shuts her eyes. "Let me help, okay? Where I can."

"It's a promise, Shepard."