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In the six months she’d been under house arrest, Shepard hadn’t doubted for a second the arrangement would be temporary. Sometimes she thought it might last for ages, that she’d waste years of her life pacing around her home, waiting, dreading, staring at a white wall and wondering if she’d lose her mind before the end of the world arrived. And then, sometimes the imminence of invasion felt like hot breath at the nape of her neck, close enough that if she only turned it would be upon them, and she would grow very still, so she didn’t doom them all.
She’d always known the Reapers were coming, that every victory only served to stall. Still, she’d never expected it to happen like this. Never expected to be mid-breath, shouting the truth people didn’t want to hear - that they needed to act now, that hesitation would mean lives lost - and for the enemy to descend in an explosion of shredded metal and smoke, tearing the room apart in a scene more convincing than all of her words, if only it didn’t kill most of the people she’d been begging to listen.
And now she’s hurtling towards an alien moon, biting her cheek to distract from the bad taste in her mouth. Leaving Earth hurt like hell, leaving Anderson twice as much. But she’s always been a tactician, and the fact of the matter is that they can’t win this alone. She’ll do more good making alliances than she ever would with a gun on the ground, regardless of how she feels about it.
“Goddess,” she hears Liara's breathing flutter, her gaze fixed out of the window. Against the dark sky, Palaven burns bright orange, alit with destruction so massive it’s visible from space. “Is this what it was like on Earth?”
Her teeth pinch harder into flesh. She tries not to think of how many people on this alien planet are dead, if she knows any among the numbers. Tries not to hope that he’s safe, because hoping for safety implies the existence of an alternative, a possibility she can’t consider if she is to keep moving forward.
“Yes,” she says shortly, her voice flat. Liara places a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
Shepard doesn’t respond. Even if she appreciates the sentiment, words pale in the face of such destruction. Anything eloquent tangles in her throat.
“Gear up,” she says instead, catching Vega’s eye as she turns, and he nods. “We’ve got a primarch to save.”
The mood in the shuttle is somber as she slots a heat sink into her pistol, slides an assault rifle over her back. She feels Liara move next to her, brushing elbows as she bends down to pick up her weapon.
“I’m sure Garrus is alright,” she murmurs, softly enough that James won’t hear it. “He’ll have prepared, he’d know this was coming. Hopefully someone will have information once we get down there.”
There’s a tremble in her voice, like she’s trying to convince herself ever bit as much as reassure Shepard.
“You’re probably right,” she replies, because anything else feels unkind.
They drop into familiar hell on foreign soil, husks sprinting at them with their gaping, dark maws, and Shepard slips into combat like a threadbare jacket - it’s all too easy to fall into action, to point a gun and fire a trigger, every pang of recoil that jolts up her arm another second she wrests from death. She sprints towards their goal with dogged focus, points, fires, points again, hits a wave of synthetic bodies with a pulse of biotic energy, until they’re in the middle of a camp, and for a brief moment are halfway safe.
General Corinthus tells her the primarch is dead. She curses softly, then reassesses on the spot, determined to find a new one. They rush off to repair the comms tower - because, of course, who else would be capable - Liara scrambles to get it back online while she and James keep the mass of husks off her back. At times, she thinks the horde will be endless, that she’ll run out of bullets before they will things to shoot. But eventually the fighting quiets, and the general orders her to circle back.
And then - she sees him.
For a second, Shepard is sure she’s hallucinating, imagining familiar markings on a stranger because this is just too easy. It doesn’t feel quite fair, in the vast expanse of unfolding horrors, that she’d simply wish Garrus was safe and he’d appear before her, whole and smirking and sidling towards her with his usual swagger. But then - his talons brush her palm and she is struck by lightning, certain once again, somehow, this strange galaxy had brought him back to her. She has to bite back a rabid giggle when they shake hands, her relief is so strong.
“Shepard,” he says, and something in her chest sparks warm at the sound of his voice. God, she has missed him so. “Good to see you’re alive.”
“Likewise,” she exhales, the understatement of the century. For a moment, the sound of gunfire seems to dim, she is so caught in his gaze. She wonders if she’s imagining the swirl of emotion in his steel blue eyes.
“I take it you two know each other?” Vega breaks her out of a trance, his eyes flickering between them as he shifts, rolling his shoulders. She realizes a moment too late that she’s still grasping his hand, and quickly drops it.
“James, this is Garrus Vakarian,” she introduces with a tilt of her head. “He’s an old friend.”
She knows it isn’t her imagination when his mandibles flick at the word friend, a joke that, right now, only they know the scope of. They’d left things undefined of course, and it’s possible things have changed in the six months they’ve been apart. Still, even if his feelings for her have faded, shallowed in the wake of a war - still, old friends will always be too soft a term for all that has passed.
“Vakarian? No kidding,” her former jailor grins, before casting her look that would make a softer woman turn scarlet. As it is, Shepard feels her cheeks heat just a bit, traces her hand across her face - not trying to hide it, of course, the unfamiliar flush simply draws her hand -
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
She does not appreciate the way his voice dips into suggestion, the way it causes Garrus to tilt his head towards her. She can read the, “Really, Shepard?” in the amused glint in his eyes and isn’t even given the dignity of response - because really, she hadn’t said anything so incriminating in the past six months, can hardly be blamed if there was something in her tone that Vega picked up on when she’d mentioned Garrus Vakarian. Luckily, there’s enough to do that the moment passes fast. A primarch to inform he is, in fact, the primarch, then rescue, and all.
“I know where Victus last was,” Garrus says, already pulling his sniper rifle out, and she can’t help but smile at the familiar action. “Hopefully he hasn’t gone too far.”
“Lead the way.”
The mission goes as smoothly as it can, when you’re fighting for your life, but of course it does. Garrus slips into place at her six like no time has passed at all, and they’re immediately back to operating like a well oiled machine. They find Victus, who has no ambition to be primarch, and Shepard thinks that’s the best case scenario. Garrus offers to join her on the Normandy without her ever having to ask, and she’s hit by a sharp pang of relief before realizing there’d been a pit in her stomach, that she’d been dreading the possibility of having to leave him behind.
They’re in the war room now, and she leans on the wall, watching him exchange short, soft words with Victus. She’s smiling without realizing it, as she looks at him now- how Garrus commands respect, apparently, with the most esteemed members of turian society, how far they have come together. He turns, catches her eye, and gives her a nod before exiting the room. Shepard tries to be patient, she really does, but lasts all of five minutes before she’s following him into the battery. When she walks in he’s already bent over the weaponry, and she has to bite back a laugh.
“Couldn’t wait to get started on calibrations?”
“Shepard,” he jerks upright, turning towards her, his mandibles flutter into a smile and something in her chest softens at the sight. “After everything I went through on Palaven, calibrating a giant gun is a vacation. Speaking of which, how was yours?”
She barks out a laugh, leaning against the railing. “That’s one way to describe a stint of Alliance ordered house arrest.”
“Oh, c’mon. Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy getting enough sleep for once.”
“Yeah, I slept like a baby. Didn’t have anything at all to keep me up at night.”
The statement sucks the humor out of the room. Garrus exhales, looking down.
“Kidding, of course. I know you must’ve been going crazy, locked up like that.”
“It was miserable,” she concedes with a nod, folding her arms over her chest. Shepard pauses, her throat tight, before she murmurs, “Missed you, while I was stuck there.”
Garrus trills quietly, a sound she can’t read.
“Just to be clear - missed me, as in your friend and favorite Reaper hunting buddy? Or as in -” He cuts off, clears his throat. “Well, all the other stuff.”
They’re both people of action, Shepard thinks, watching him shuffle. Put her on a battlefield and she’s confident, barking orders, running into danger headfirst. Put her in front of her best friend who she has unspoken, underexamined feelings for, and she’s scrambling for words.
“Nothing has changed for me. About how I feel about you, that is,” she exhales, watching his face, desperately hoping to find relief there. “If it has for you, I completely understand -”
“Nothing’s changed for me either,” he cuts her off, taking a step closer, so she can feel the heat radiating off his chest, wonders if he can hear her racing heart in the quiet of the battery.
“Oh,” she says, tilts her head to look up at him. “Good.”
For a moment, silence lingers, half-uttered feelings swirling between them.
“I’m not sure what the protocol is on reunions, in situations like this,” Garrus is the one to break it, shifting side to side. “Not that I’ve ever been in a situation like this. Should we shake hands? Or - “
Unable to bear anymore rambling - from either of them - Shepard reverts to what she knows best and acts, pulling herself up on his shoulder to press her mouth just beside his. She hears his sharp intake of breath at the contact, feels him go still under her palm.
“That’s the protocol on reunions,” she says, breathless as she falls back on her heels. Slowly, he lowers his hand to wrap around her waist, and when Garrus meets her gaze again the tension that has been crackling, dormant, since the battery door slid shut snaps.
She’s not sure who moves first, but suddenly she is crashing against him, and she is tumbling, falling further into this. It seems like she can’t get her hands on him fast enough, she feels that fervor in return as his talons dig into the small of her back, his breath hitting hot along the line of her jaw. Both of their worlds are burning, it’s nothing more than pure, stupid luck that either of them are alive. But they are, and she can feel him beneath her palms, warm and solid and breathing, the whine he makes when she licks into his mouth proof that for now, he is with her, that this war hasn’t taken them yet.
“Does that door lock?” she gasps out.
“Yeah, but wait - Shepard, here?”
She hears the trill of surprise in his tone and nods sharply, doesn’t want to leave room for doubt.
“Here,” she exhales, and prays he won’t argue. It feels as though so many things could go wrong in the distance between the battery and her cabin, she knows the galaxy waits outside those doors. She can’t bear to think about anything else while he is here with her, blue eyes raking over her body like he’s just as amazed she’s still breathing.
Her anxiety eases when he backs her into the railing, licking into her mouth with an urgency she’s never felt from him and she grasps his shoulder, runs fingers down his fringe until he whines against her skin. All the other times they’ve done this, he’s treated her like glass - been so careful of their differences, hands shaking, she is sure, with the knowledge of how his talons could slice her wide open. Now, though, that seems to be forgotten - his grip is harsh on her body, Shepard knows she won’t leave this unscathed. She wouldn’t have it any other way. The knowledge that he needs her just as badly as she needs him, that the evidence of his want will remain on her skin, sets every nerve in her body on fire.
“Need you now,” she just manages to break away, breathes the admission against his jaw.
“Shepard - “ his voice is ragged, tense, “I thought - don’t you need foreplay?”
But she’s already tugging her sweatpants down, and in response grabs him by the wrist and drags his hand between her thighs. Heat floods her at the low moan he makes, running a talon over her center, surely feeling how wet she already is.
“I’m good. Just - I’ve waited too fucking long to feel you again.”
A low, rumbling noise leaves his chest, something that borders on a growl. Before anything else can even stumble through her mind, he’s pulling his own armor off, she gets just the briefest sight of his long, alien cock coming out of his plates before it slips between her legs, his head falling on her shoulder and they make a sound in tandem, translators useless as the common, primal sound of satisfaction leaves them, and for the first time in months, Shepard lets herself imagine that maybe, somehow, this will all work out.
She’s tempted to gasp I love you as he sinks into her. In the wake of the end of the world it seems like a trivial admission - the butterfly of nerves that thrums in her throat feels stupid, pointless, when she thinks of all they are losing, all they’ve already lost.
But still. The world might be ending, she might feel the weight of it on her shoulders, and even so in this moment there are only two people in existence. The universe has narrowed so she can only think of them together in the battery, a mouth on her neck, hands grasping her hips and she cannot ruin this moment with words she doesn’t know he’s ready to receive. Instead, she forgets everything except the way he feels buried inside her - slow, at first, a rocking that still makes her gasp as his cock reaches deep.
“Missed this,” he murmurs into her collarbone, subvocals vibrating on her skin, a sensation that makes her heady. He thrusts into her again, a bit harder, and she moans.
“Missed this too,” she says, pressing mindless kisses down his face. “My hand doesn’t really measure up.”
A low, rumbling laugh leaves him at that.
“Careful. If you’re implying I might be better at something than you are, Commander, I might get an ego.”
“An ego’s not so bad. As long as it’s deserved,” she says, and wraps her legs around him to tug him closer, feels no small rush of satisfaction when his breathing hitches.
“So prove you deserve one.”
His talons flex on her hips, she hears the low purr that leaves him before he snaps his hips hard, and she cries out, uncaring if anyone might hear them outside of those battery doors. Nothing matters besides them, anyways.
He seems unable to keep his pace anything but fast, after that, braces an arm around her back for support, and when his sharp teeth graze the the thin skin of her neck she lets out a high, desperate gasp.
“Don’t stop,” she begs, feeling the tension between her thighs coil tight, ready to snap, “Garrus, please, please, don’t - “
But of course he doesn’t - he keeps steady, always knows exactly what she needs. She comes undone with a cry, clenching around him, and feels him follow her over that ledge - his motions stuttering, a ragged, “Spirits, Shepard,” murmured against her ear and then he’s moaning into her neck, talons digging into her hips as he finishes.
For a moment, her mind is aside from simple bliss, soft pants for breath. She presses a kiss to his shoulder and he hums, pleased.
“How’s that for reunions?” she asks, and he huffs out a loud, surprised laugh.
“Depends. Is the rest of the crew getting this treatment?”
She chuckles, swatting his shoulder, before he draws himself upright, and she’s looking in his eyes again. A thought flits through her mind - I can’t lose this - and her breath dies in her throat.
“C’mon Garrus, you know better than that,” she says, but there’s a thread of emotion besides humor in her voice now, some hint of honesty she isn’t ready for yet.
She could be brave, and tell him she loves him. Even if the feeling isn’t quite returned, he would be gentle, kind, never make her feel bad for telling him. Her trust in him has never been a factor in holding things back from him.
But she is brave so often, is so seldom given any other option. For now, she simply gives him a soft smile, sees how carefully he’s watching her and her heart goes hopelessly weak. She knows that they can wait, just a bit longer, for her to muster courage.
For now, she just smiles at him, says, “You know it’s only you.”
He laughs softly, but she catches something else in the sound. Something honest, not yet spoken.
“Well then. I could get used to this.”