The anxiety inducing horror of Garrus's eating habits has passed like a quick storm, but now whenever I see chicken breasts, I'm going to see those sharp teeth tearing it apart in my mind. The girls finished doing the dishes, allowing us to relax for the night. James and Kaiden plot an expedition to the deepest depths of the freezer in search of the legendary abominable coffee almond fudge ice cream.

My favorite krogan is getting best buddies withdrawals, and comes to chat with me. He takes a seat on the chair Tali was sitting in earlier. I am surprised that little thing supports his weight. I'm always paranoid about that happening to me after a few embarrassing experiences.

I ask "Hey Wrex, how's it hanging?"

Wrex answers "between the knees and drying off."

My tongue needs fresh air "yuck!"

Wrex, intending to be a slap, accidentally slams the left side of my back, causing me to wince in pain. My weakspot "Ah shit my bad. Dinner was good. What's going on here?"

Shepard says "Kaiden is hoping for some ice cream. Are you getting another migraine?"

Kaiden continues prospecting for the frozen delicacy "A little bit. I should have a scoop before it gets worse."

James responds "how does something that gives brain freeze help with migraines?"

Kaiden says "I don't know, it just helps."

While the supposed tunnel buddies continue their expedition, I take my chance to turn Wrex to the dark side."Hey Wrex? After you do what you want with your life, would you want to join me on my bizarre adventures throughout the omniverse? We can screw with so many people and there would be no one to stop us. Or we can be superheroes? You will be robin since you're red and I'll be batman because I have the tumbler. Come on, don't you want to become homo luminous or whatever the scientific name for krogan is?"

Mordin says "It doesn't translate into English."

"American. Krogan luminous then."

Wrex passes on my offer "nah. A life of shooting and blowing up shit is good for me."

I ask him "do you think you'll ever get sick of it? Hundreds, maybe potentially thousands of years of doing the same thing over and over."

Wrex says "Sounds like thousands of years of fun for me."

I reply "Huh. I like having variety. Before this I was building waterwheels and panning for gold."

Shepard asks "why would you do that?"

I answer "Well when you topple a tyrannical monarchy like you're supposed to, one gets a case of rebuilding urges and for some odd reason I like things that spin. When I was waiting for materials, I would go to a creek and my goal was to find a heart shaped nugget and an arrowhead one."

Tali asks "Did you find one?"

I respond "Not a heart shaped one, but an arrowhead one. I would argue it looked like an arrowhead. It is identified as one. I spent way too much time looking for one."

"Found it!" Kaiden holds his trophy out. James grabs it out of his hand. A well known plastic door opening sounds coming from above the stove causes Liara to protest. "What do you think you're doing?"

James explains "I like to put it in the microwave to soften it up a bit."

Liara says "It's cheating."

James says "I'm saving us 5 minutes. What's the deal?"

Liara says "It changes the consistency."

James shakes his head "no it doesn't."

Liara says "yes it does."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does."

I ask James to toss it towards me so I can have a look, pretend to read a label, and throw it to Liara.

I whisper to Kaiden "play along." Make another tub of ice cream.

"There's another one here. Probably a buy one get on free thing. Let's microwave one and let the other thaw. Everyone happy?" Sometimes I think people just like arguing and they'll make any molehill a mountain.

"SCORE! YES! YES! YES!" Cortex screams his head off and jumps up and down on the couch.

I yell "Don't do that. You'll break the frame."

Wrex says "Furniture these days is designed with krogan weight in mind. He's not damaging nothing."

Shepard says "as long as his shoes are off. I don't want dirt on my white couches."

We head over to find the hyper fixated pilot smiling purely like a dog and Tali at the edge of the couch, fixated on the game. I know because when she is focused, she rests her chin on her fingers.

I tell my love "I didn't know you liked sports."

Tali replies "Only when I'm betting credits. Otherwise it's no fun for me."

I ask "how much did you bet?"

Tali says "10."

"Hmph." That feels a little low to be this mentally invested in.

Tali says "I know I know I should only be betting one and I shouldn't be betting so high, but it's a special occasion." If 10 credits are high bets for her, she'll be shocked I was betting 20 a play at the casino. But it's Shepard's money really so I can waste it no guilt. Source, I sound like a socialist.

I take a seat next to my dear, patting my knee twice. Tali knows the drill. She scoots back, one by one, removing her thick rubber soles. One foot rests in my lap. My fingers gently apply pressure up and down for a minute before lightly stretching her two toes which she never lets me pop. That's like the best part.

Ashley gasps "He gives you foot rubs?"

Garrus remarks "That can't be comfortable. It's like wearing a sock. Ruins the experience."

Tali is too relaxed to speak.

I tell them "It's what she is used to. I'm sorry, does this gross anyone out?"

No complaints are given. Tali stretches her back and sinks further down into the couch. I look at the clock on the wall to see what time it is. We'll switch feet when the time comes.

Liara comes walking in, licking her ice cream in a cone. She checks the score then asks me "What is going on here?"

"An exchange. I'll massage her feet for about thirty minutes then the next night she'll do my shoulder for thirty minutes."

Ashley asks "you don't give the other a massage right after?"

"Nope. You'll see why soon enough."

Liara tells Shepard "we should do that."

Shepard tenses his face "I don't like massages."

Ashley asks "how can you not?"

Shepard says "They just don't feel good to me."

Liara shamelessly flutters her eyes "Wouldn't you want to show how much you love me by rubbing my hair tentacles."

Joker asks "That feels good?"

Liara says "we can carry tension in them. It's only far since I play with you hair until you fall asleep."

Shepard says "I never asked for that."

Liara replies "It helped you get to sleep."

Shepard says "We'll talk about this later."

The gang watches the game. I have no clue what the rules are, but I follow along with everyone's reactions. Cortez is the most excited grown man I have ever seen. The shuttle pilots reactions are more entertaining than the actual game. His knees bob up and down when the orange and white player gets close to the net. I think it is his guy. Grunt comes in with a grocery bag of ice on his shoulder. He plops down next to us, wedges it between the couch and his back.

Mordin asks "Krogan possess expedited healing. What happened?"

Grunt says "I fucked up my shoulder during landing trying to escape."

Ashley asks "what were you running from?"

Grunt says "A hot asari nurse with a needle. Some buddies of mine decided to throw me the krogan version of birthday, but the doc didn't want me leaving until I got my vaccines and with the stuff I've been smoking, I decided going out a window was safer."

I ask him "Why didn't you roll like I taught you?"

Grunt replies "Damn I forgot."

Mordin says "Your shoulder should have healed."

Grunt explains "normally it should but then we decided to climb the korgan memorial on the presidium and I think something twisted."

Ashley say to me "********* this is what having teenagers is like."

I reply "Sounds fun."

A little white later, I pat Tali's ankle. That's the other foot signal. Tali slowly retracts her foot, rolls onto her other side, and places the remaining one in my lab. Tali looks so cute resting her head against the couch. The game enters a break, and the groups breaks apart with idle chatting. I eavesdrop on Garrus and Ashely as I can hear them clearly. Garrus asks her "We haven't really had a chance to catch up since the original Normandy. How has life treated you?"

Ashley says "It was chaotic for a while after Shepard's death. I stayed with my parents for a while since I needed the break. Then the Alliance needed me for an important assignment and went solo for a while. It was weird not having a squad backing me up."

Garrus jokingly asks" Were you a spy?"

Ashley says "I did some scouting assignments collecting intel to use against the batarian hegemony. No good now I suppose. What about you? Archangel?"

Garrus says "It's been a rough ride. When Shepard died, I lost my purpose. Went back to C-sec but hated my job, so I went to Omega. Spirits know why. Maybe a part of me was hoping to die honorably there or felt I needed people worse off than me to remind myself how good I have it. Formed a team, lost my team and was down to my final hour when Shepard came running down the bridge."

Ashley asks "was ********* with him?"

Garrus says "No this was months before he came back. Anyways Shepherd and I fought off three gangs to get out of there, took out some high level thugs, and my reward was a missile to the mandible giving me this beauty mark."

Ashley asks "you survived a rocket to the head?"

Garrus says "While I'm sure I would if that did happen, thankfully the blast was far enough to knock me out and shrapnel did this number. Are there any angels with scars in your religion?"

Ashley says "not that I know of. What happened next?"

Garrus says "Woke up to Dr. Chakwas happy face and Shepard told me everything that happened."

Ashley asks "How did you react with Shepard teaming up with Cerberus?"

Garrus says "I heard the name before and the stories. Assuming they were true, I knew Shepard would never be one of them. I stayed because I had nowhere else to go."

Ashley asks "Was it weird working with a crew that hated you?"

Garrus says "It wasn't like that at all. While TIM undoubtedly gave us his best people, I learned long ago they don't actually hate us. They are afraid of us and can't handle it so morphs to hatred. Makes it more manageable I guess. Before Saren I went undercover in the Perin organization. Do you know them?"

Ashley says "The turian anti-human organization?"

Garrus says "That's the one. I saw a lot of similarities between Cerberus and them. Each afraid the other will finish the little relay incident we'll leave in the past for now."

Ashley asks "Did that change how you viewed humans?"

Garrus says "not at all. I worked with a few humans before I left. Good people. A bit naive for the time but to be expected. All of them turned out to be fine officers."

Ashley asks "How is your home world doing? The Reapers hit them right after Earth didn't they? What happened to your family?"

Garrus says "I think the Reapers hit us the same time as Earth. My mother died from an illness before we were hit. Guess it was for the best she didn't have to live and see through this or become indoctrinated. What about you?"

Ashley says "Most of my family lived off the grid and are hunkering down somewhere the Reapers won't find them."

Garrus replies "good to hear. Any crazy stories since your time away from as Wrex lovingly puts it 'traveling freakshow?'"

Ashley says "I have a few. There was this one time I was busting up a drug smuggling operation being ran by elcors."

Garrus asks "Elcors?"

Ashley says "Yeah and get this, they were smuggling it in secret compartment of end tables. Really powerful stuff. I had to take them out. While they aren't hard to miss, you need a lot of firepower to knock them down."

Garrus says "with how thick their hides are I can imagine."

Ashley says "and that isn't the crazy part. The ringleader was a biotic and he could float. Imagine him falling down on top of me and pinning me down. Cracked my torso armor. It made his foot slide off thank God but I was stuck."

Garrus mandibles widen "That's practically a death sentence. How did you get out of there?"

Ashley says "It was a miracle. We were in a warehouse and I tried pulling myself away with those huge metal shelves. The support rod broke off. My instincts kicked it and I stabbed his eye. It went into his brain and killed him instantly."

Garrus says "Damn! That is impressive."

I went past my time. My fault so I won't make Tali go for longer on my turn, especially since I don't want to ruin what is about to happen. My sweetheart grabs the couch cushion to pull herself up. Her thin arms wrap behind my shoulder and around my chest. Her visor finding the vacuum of my neck to fit like a jigsaw puzzle. I love it when Tali gets super cuddly. Tali whispers into my ear "Thank the ancestors they've blessed me with the perfect bondmate. A hot human who cooks me delicious food and gives the best massages. I'm never letting you go my cherished. I love you too much."

This is why we separate our massage nights. There is no way I am getting off this couch tonight, We are sleeping out here. Liara kindly moves the ottoman under my feat and covers us with a throw blanket. I feel love and bliss. This is so perfect. I carefully dig into my pocket, trying my best not to move Tali, and toss Shepard my phone. "Can you take a picture please?"

Shepard nods his head. He tries to figure out how to work the antique. He immediately gives up "How do I…"

It's fun watching him try to figure out how it works. Omni tools can last a month on a single charge if you don't abuse the blade feature, most people forget where the omni tool power button is located. I tell Shepard "Tap the screen and slide the camera image at the bottom to open the app and take a picture.

Shepard quickly figures it out and takes a picture. Ashley oodles at us "you can feel the love in the air."

Cortez stands next to Shepard "this is adorable. Can I see that? I can't believe you have a working phone. My grandpa showed me the one he used to have. These are collectible you know." Cortez takes the phone without my permission and starts scrolling throw my pics. I'm a bit mad, but I'm too cozy to fight back and I don't keep anything revealing in there. Besides I rarely take pictures and videos. I get too caught up in the moment and forget.

Cortez asks "Is this a rave?" He shows a picture of me in a club surrounded with people in black suits illuminated by either reddish orange or blue and white lines. The one next to me wears an all-white skintight suit with the letter T made of blocks, having the time of his life. The program's arm goes around my neck. I had to support his weight since he was do inebriated to stand.

"Oh, that we were celebrating his victory. That place is awesome." I'll have to take Tali there one day. She'll love it. Hightech machines and programs everywhere.

Cortez continues scrolling "Are you into dungeons and dragons? There is you and some guy in a red jacket next to a cheesy dragon display." He did not just insult Drago like that.

Shepard can't resist and observes "Hey that guy has one of those weird watches you used to have. That's a sweet car in the background."

"The watch is actually his. He let me copy it in exchange for unlocking master control" Azmuth was so mad I copied his voice.

Shepard scrolls through my phone, realizing all the pictures are my past adventures. It's entertaining watching his face going from awe, to impressed, horrified, and wondering what's that one. I ask for my phone back and he tosses it to me. I gently kiss the top of Tali's visor, not sure she'll be able to feel it. My baby snuggles closer to me. She felt it. I feel so tranquil and happy. It's not long before I fall deeply asleep like I fell deeply in love with the amazing woman in my arms.