Chapter Text
June 30, 2188
He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her softness in tight against him. Nuzzling her brow, his eyes slipped closed, and he used his mouth to see her. He caressed her skin, smiling at every subtle flaw, every scar. Her scent filled him as if, for those precious few moments, they became one person, the sweet spicy floral magic of her filling him. Now, after making love, the intoxicating animal scents of sweat and desire crawled through him, teasing every nerve ending with the memory of her touch.
She moved against him, stirring sleepily. He nipped her earlobe. “You can’t sleep yet.” If she fell asleep, it would break apart.
She smiled and reached up to caress his face, her fingertips trickling over him like warm, late summer rain. "Garrus?"
"Mmmm?" He slid his mouth across her shoulder, his tongue savouring the brine of her exertion even as her body still rippled like waves under his hand. His thumb drew slow arcs under her navel, making her skin lift into gooseflesh. Spirits, he loved when it did that.
"My people have a saying that when we die, our life flashes before our eyes." She leaned up on her elbow, looking into his eyes, the emerald depths flashing with hope. She was always most like a girl just after making love -- most alive. "Do you think, maybe, in that moment, we have a chance to see ahead as well as behind? Do you think it lets us see what might have been?"
He shook his head, sighing. His long talons brushed through her hair, playing with the short, silken curls. "I don't know. Maybe." He gave her a turian frown. "Might be sad ... to see all the 'what could have beens'. Let’s just forget dying, Shepard, and stay in this moment as long as we can." He closed his eyes again and brushed his lips along her cheekbone to the cool, soft tip of her nose.
"Mmm, I love it when you touch me like that," she sighed.
"Like what?" Subtle, Vakarian, but he needed Earth and all its terrible consequences to stay outside the door, far away from the warmth and comfort of the woman wrapped around him, legs and arms entwined with his.
She smiled and kissed him, dragging her bottom lip from his mouth to his nose and then his brow. "Like someone putting a piece of chocolate in their mouth and just letting it melt." She laced her fingers with his and pulled his arm around her.
His mandibles spread and fluttered hard at that. "I like that," he whispered. "An apt analogy."
"Mmmm..." She stretched long and slow, running the pad of her foot up his leg to his spur, teasing the nerve endings there. "I think it would be nice." She whispered, kissing his neck, starting near his cowl, following the hollow of his throat. She nipped him, grinning when he rumbled deep in his throat. Her tongue flicked out under his jaw, kissing and teasing.
"What would be nice, my love?" He froze, the words slipping out through the wall so carefully constructed. Damn, he always made sure not to say those things first.
Instead of pulling away, instead of giving him that look, she smiled and curled in tight against him. "A chance to see that life, even if just for a second in that moment where everything is poised to be lost …." She paused, and he could feel her breath on his mandible as she caressed it with her lips, making her way to his mouth. She kissed him, her mouth soft, moist and warm as she whispered. "... my love."
He growled low in his throat as her tongue teased his. He pulled back a little. “Let’s just forget about that for a while. Deal?”
She leaned up, crawling up his body, low enough that her breasts pressed against him. He slid his hands up her sides, following the map of scars and freckles by memory to all the places that made her sigh and smile, that slightly wanton, hungry smile reserved only for him. Talon tips snagged on new, catastrophic scars, his eyes pressing closed tighter as he turned his head away.
She dragged her leg over him, slow and lazy, straddling his thighs. Leaning down to kiss his chin. “What’s wrong? Why won’t you look at me, Garrus?” She moved over him, teasing, then laughing bright and loud when he couldn't stand it any longer and grabbed her in his arms.
Her fingers spread then clutched his in rhythm with his hips, her head thrown back, mouth open, back arched.
He saw her so clearly projected against his closed eyelids, struck anew, in awe of her beauty, of the passion that radiated from every cell when she finally dropped her shields, letting him in. She was a goddess, and he couldn’t let her go.
She leaned down, pressing her mouth to his cheek, panting hard and lusty. She tilted her head, opening her neck to him. “Garrus? Aren’t you here with me?”
He chuckled and ran his teeth over the skin, nipping lightly, then harder as she pressed into him, moaning low and heavy, deep in her throat. Each panting breath came faster, more shallow, then she arched hard into him, turning to kiss his face. Lips like dew covered leaves teased and sucked, tongue dancing across his skin.
A jolt of electricity ripped through him, the sweet, tangy scent of Shepard’s soap, the intoxicating animal scent of her lust turning to ash.
He forced himself to focus on the sensation of her sweat dripping onto his skin, the pulse of her muscles. If he let her, she could wrap him in a cocoon where nothing existed outside of her. The scent of blood, heavy with copper and decay, wove its way through the rest.
No. No.
He placed her hands against his chest, trying to pretend the hard ridges of knuckle and small bone remained covered with flesh. “Shepard, no, not yet. Please, not yet.” He slid his talons up her arms and across her shoulder blades, flesh and bone sharp, torn and broken under his palms. Eyes squeezed shut so hard his head began to ache, he managed to conjure the magic for another, precious moment.
For that one moment, they poured into one another. One perfect second like light glistening through a raindrop before it falls from the leaf, immortal as it spins, making love to the air before embracing the earth.
“Mmmm.” Shepard sighed, wrapping herself around him, as he turned onto his side. “God, that was... “ She chuckled. “Mmmmm. It was as perfect as I could have wished for, but I’m dead, Garrus. You know this. It’s time to let me go.”
He shook his head, keeping his eyes closed tight as he nuzzled her ear. Rumbles rolled up through his second larynx as her fingertips stroked the hollow of his pelvis and the inside of his thigh. “If we’re going to get any sleep, you need to stop doing that.”
She grinned. “Mmm, no, I'm afraid I can't do that. This is all just a dream, Garrus. Twenty four hours after this moment, I died. You can’t deny it forever, my love.”
No. No, he could deny it forever, if she’d just let him. He shook his head, the rhythm of her hand easing him toward sleep. Just as he began to doze, he heard her question play through his mind. “Why did you ask about seeing your life flash in front of your eyes, Shepard?”
She curled into him, and kissed his chin. “Because it's been beautiful.”
The perfect moment shattered, tearing him from her arms and flinging him onto the filth of that London street. Shepard threw herself to the ground, the tank flipping over her head. All Garrus could do was watch death come for him. Fire burst through the air all around him as time slowed to a perfect, horrific crawl.
Shepard grabbed him, breaking the spell as she dragged him into the shelter of the upended tank. He stared at her, stunned, blinded and deafened by the chaos. Darkness pressed in at the edges of his vision. He felt all the broken pieces, the cooling of his blood, the slowing of his heart.
“Oh god! Garrus!” Shepard reached up to her radio, screaming over the roar of Reapers and thunder of explosions. “Normandy, I need a pick up!” She glanced up at James. “You okay?”
The Marine nodded, crouched by her side, gasping.
Sound, so much noise, pounded at Garrus’s brain, making him want to scream for them all to stop -- to stand still for one moment so he could say goodbye properly.
Peace, please just a little peace. Let me have this one last moment.
Garrus reached up and touched her face. “It's okay Shepard. You've got to keep going. My road has come to its end.”
“Not until I get you to safety.” She held him close, staring into his eyes, where he knew she saw the truth, but remained unwilling to acknowledge it. “We'll get you out of here. Dr. Chakwas will set you straight.”
“No.” He gave her his best smile. “No. But don't worry, it's you and me right to the end. We finish this together.”
She hugged him and bent to kiss him, then pressed her brow to his, her voice thick and harsh with tears. “You’re supposed to lay me down in the grass in that spot on Palaven and make love to me.”
He smiled, the war fading into a fog in the background, nothing mattered, nothing in existence more important than her. He touched her cheek again, his fingers leaving a blue smear through the soot and dirt. “I will. Don't worry, I will.”
“Shepard!” The world exploded in red light.
“Garrus. Easy now, love.”
Hands touched him, but he fought them off. Then he heard a sound; a piercing cry tore at his aural canals and his heart. He knew that sound. It pushed back the curtain of war, darkness, and death, dragging him back from the terror.
“Garrus? Look at me.” A warm hand pressed to his cheek, cutting through the madness and fear. “Garrus. Come on, big guy. It was a dream. It was just a dream.”
Shepard’s face came into focus in front of his eyes.
“Shepard?” He latched onto her face, holding it between his hands, caressing it, stroking his talons through her hair, running gentle talon tips along the blue markings painted onto her pale skin. “Shepard? Dear spirits.” He pulled her into his arms, clutching her tight against his chest. “You’re okay.” He nuzzled under her ear, breathing her in. No trace of death lingered. “Thank the spirits, you’re okay.”
She wrapped her arms around him, one hand stroking his neck. “Yes, I’m fine, my love. We’re both fine. It was just a dream.” She kissed his mandible, her lips soft, moist and so warm. “Shhhh now, it was a dream.”
The crying became a shriek, harsh with shrill peaks that stabbed into his aural canals. “Shepard . . . Mercy. What’s wrong with Mercy?”
“Nothing, she’s just worried about her pari, and ticked off that her mari hasn’t come to pick her up yet.” Shepard eased back and kissed him. She brushed his cheekbones with her thumbs. “Are you back with me, love?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m here.” Too fast and too jerky, he nodded and stood, fleeing. “I’ll get Mercy.” He needed space, just a little space to breathe and shake it off.
“Okay.”
Even as he circled the bed to pick up his daughter, he watched Shepard hungrily out the corner of his vision. She pulled her t-shirt over her head and cast it aside, then piled her pillows behind her with a careless ease that made his entire body hum.
The moment he leaned over her crib, Mercy stopped crying, hiccoughing a little as she recovered from her upset. Garrus smiled down at her, her sweet little stub nose and round cheeks pulling him the rest of the way out of his nightmare. He folded back her blanket then lifted her up, his hands still able to hold all of her.
From the moment he saw her first scan, he’d felt an unbreakable conduit tie his soul to that tiny life. As she grew and then appeared in the world -- so hurt, but so strong and brave -- that bond had grown. Each time it got stronger, he thought it couldn’t possibly, until the moment Karin placed her tiny, three-week-old body in his hands, and Mercy inhabited him completely.
“Hey there, beautiful little Praela. Did Pari wake you up? Aww, I’m sorry, baby. Pari doesn’t mean to ruin your beauty sleep.” He nuzzled her cheek. She giggled so he nuzzled her again. “You are so cute, I could eat you up.” He made tasty child noises, then settled her in his arms. Beautiful, large blue eyes stared up into his. Like turian irises, Mercy’s filled her whole eye, leaving just specks of white at the corners.
He cuddled her in against his chest.
“Dear spirits, you stink, little girl. I can’t give you to your mari smelling like this.” He sighed deeply and shook his head with affected disgust. “What kind of an impression would a lady make with such a smelly butt?” He carried her around the bed to the desk, their makeshift changing table.
“That’s hostile. We need to talk about Praelas, sweet baby girl. They’re warrior spirits, not toxic stench spirits.” He laid her down and unfastened her little jumper to get to her diaper. She just smiled up at him, giggling as his voice oscillated up and down.
“Oh this is gross, baby. If Pari passes out, don’t follow him to the floor.” He glanced behind him as the musical slide of Shepard’s chuckle sent warm shivers down his spine. “Are we entertaining you?” he asked.
“Very much.” Her smiled thawed any ice that remained hidden in his dark corners. “She loves when you talk to her.”
He turned back to clean his daughter up. “Well, that’s good, because I love talking to her.” A couple of moments later, he settled Mercy into Shepard’s arms, then climbed into bed next to them. Nothing gave him more peace than to lie curled in against Shepard’s side, his head resting in the curve of her neck while his daughter nursed.
The first time he’d walked into med bay and saw Shepard feeding their baby, he’d stopped dead and just stared. Shepard flushed a deep red across her chest and up her neck, and asked him what he was looking at.
“The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” had been the only thought that entered his mind.
When the three of them curled up together, he felt as though the disparate and sharp-edged pieces of his life slid together, fitting into a comforting, easy whole. Well, almost whole. He glanced over at the single piece of art left on the wall above the couch.
They’d boxed up everything that belonged to Lenka except for Jane and the portrait he’d drawn of her and Shepard. Neither one of them could bear to have reminders of the empty space stabbed into them every moment. However, neither one of them had been able to bear packing everything away either. All the asses who’d told them that Mercy would replace the loss of Lenka had no idea. As much as he adored his little Praela, he loved and missed Lenka just as much.
He tucked his face in tighter against Shepard’s neck and closed his eyes.
“Tonight’s was a real whopper, wasn’t it?” she asked, her voice low and comforting. She reached up and pressed her hand against his cheek. Without waiting for an answer, Shepard turned to kiss his mandible. “Do you think getting off the Normandy will help or hurt?”
He shook his head a little. “I don’t think it’s going to matter all that much, Shepard, but I hope it gets better once we’re settled in our home, our dream real around us.” Biting hard at the heels of his hope, dread hung thick and cloying, dripping between them.
“But that’s also what has you worried, huh?” She sighed and pressed tighter, sliding a wall, warm and soft and alive, between him and his fears. “You’re afraid that with the dream real around us, you’ll be more convinced that’s just what it is.”
Grunting a reply, he just let out a long breath, his arm slipping around her as he listened to the soft sounds of his daughter. A whisper-soft talon traced the deep scar that bisected his baby’s head. After all the surgeries, she still couldn’t move her left side very well, and that side of her face remained slower to react than the other. He smiled as her eyes left Shepard’s face to latch onto his. As insane as it might make him, he truly believed one of the ancient Praela lived inside his child. Sometimes, when she looked into his eyes, he knew that she was telling him everything would be all right.
Mercy finished and Shepard bent down to kiss her forehead. “You go on over there and give your pari a hug.” She passed their child into his arms, then climbed out of bed and headed into the washroom.
Garrus’s gaze flicked from loved feature to loved feature as he watched his wife cross the room, running what he hatefully called his terror inventory -- comparing the real woman to the one who died over and over in his dreams. Some nights, the ones she didn’t wake, he’d lean over her, just watching her breathe, running his upper mouth plate over the too sharp angle of her shoulder, the beautiful curving lines of the muscles in her arms, the soft belly that refused to go away completely after Mercy.
Like damp soil off a preteril’s spines, Garrus tried to shake off the dream. Cradling Mercy between his cowl and shoulder, he rubbed her back with his talons, chuckling as she rewarded his effort with a delicate burp, a milk bubble forming between her sharply carved lips. He smiled, mandibles flicking as, that business complete, Mercy turned to regard him with those ancient, wise eyes, then reached over with her right hand to grasp his mandible.
“Te amaten,” he whispered. He shifted her position so that he could nuzzle the dark red silk that covered most of her head. “You are your mother, precious girl.”
“And she’s you.” Shepard sat next to him, her knee drawn up, her foot tucked under her. “That stubborn streak has to come from somewhere.” Her smile said a great deal as she reached out to caress her daughter’s hair and then his cheek. He’d learned from her that humans spoke with their faces in the same way turians used their second larynx. The slightest muscle movement under Shepard’s creamy skin and smattered freckles could be the difference between, ‘You are such an idiot’ and “I love you, you idiot’.
Soft fingertips kissed his mandible. “Let’s put her back to bed. She’s got a big day tomorrow.”
“Palaven. A new home.” Garrus nodded and nuzzled Mercy’s cheek. “Sleep sweet, Praela.” He passed her into Shepard’s arms, chuckling as his mate held Mercy up, dancing her around a tiny bit as she chattered away about nonsense, mostly encouraging the baby not to spit up on her.
“Your pari’s silly, isn’t he?” Shepard asked, standing. “Laughing to himself over nothing. Yes he is, but we love him anyway, don’t we? Yes, we do.” She smiled down into the crib as she pulled up the blanket. “You’re going to be impossible to get to sleep tomorrow night without the Normandy singing you its lullaby, aren’t you? Oh well, we’ll just have to get your pari to sing to you instead. Good night, precious.” Shepard bent to press her lips to Mercy’s forehead, lingering over the kiss for a long moment before straightening.
Garrus frowned, his brow plates lowering toward one another as Shepard spun to face him, her stare moving over him with a heat that made his mouth dry and his plates loose. “Shepard?”
Moving with coiled tension, Shepard crossed the metre to the bedside. Pointed toes called his attention to the long, lean lines and tight muscles of his mate’s legs. Slowly swaying hips hypnotized with provocative command. Elegant, beckoning arms called him, breathless and yearning, into their embrace.
“Sweet spirits, woman, you’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” he whispered, his heart pounding against his ribs.
She crawled to his side and knelt, loving fingertips teasing the hollow of his throat as she leaned into him, her cheek pressing against his scars. “I have a need,” she whispered, low and sultry, the siren call of a savannah wind.
He buried his face in her neck, his mandibles fluttering just a touch, his heartbeat slowing but pounding strong and sure . . . painfully, gloriously alive. “Anything I can help you with?”
Lowering herself onto the mattress, she traced the contours of his face, her fingers leaving trails of warmth on his hide. “I sure hope so, because I need to feel my husband on top of me, and inside me.” She grinned, her eyes dropping from staring into his to focusing on his mouth, as shy as she’d been wanton the moment before. Running her lower lip between her teeth, she tilted her head a little. “And you’re the only husband I’ve got.”
He rumbled as he leaned over her, sliding his mouth along the smooth sweep of her collarbone. “I think I can accommodate you. Let me get my calendar.”
Shepard laughed, bright and sharp, her arms circling his neck to pull him into a long, deep kiss.
**Te amaten -- [Turian closed dialect] Literal translation: You are loved. Colloquial: I love you.