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Art by bioticbooty

Shepard was back in her cabin after the verbal lashing she gave The Illusive Man. She paced back and forth between her bed and the door. She fucking knew it that he would find some way to screw her over. He always had the perfect excuses as for the need for his deception.
She stopped pacing at her desk and angrily yanked open the drawer. She fished out the pack of cigarettes that she gotten back on Omega. If she couldn't have Red Sand, she would just have to go a lighter alternative. She was falling back into old vices, the one's she had promised herself that she'd kick before joining the Alliance. Did it matter now anyway? She wasn't a part of the Alliance anymore; she lost that so why should it matter? She set the cigarette aflame, focusing on the red glow.
EDI's orb appeared near her desk before she could inhale.
"Shepard, smoking is discouraged while on the ship. I would recommend that you prohibit from smoking any further."
"With Zaeed on board I'm pretty sure one more cigarette wouldn't hurt." Shepard paused and took a long drag.
"I've had advised Mr. Massani similarly as I have for you Shepard."
She blew smoke towards the blue orb as she spoke. "I'm sure he loved that. Thanks for the suggestion EDI but I'm just going to continue from here. Logging you out." The blue orb disintegrated around the smoke that still hung in the air.
Annoyingly, Shepard scanned her cabin; it was the only place she felt comfortable on the Normandy after Mordin had searched for bugs. Even with the comfort she barely in there other than to sleep and shower.
She focused on the model ship case; only the SR-2 model had been built and stood proudly gleaming in the case. She liked to think of it as a little joke to herself with the other unopened boxes skewed all over her desk and coffee table that she hardly used.
Her eyes glazed past the empty hamster cage; the little guy had escaped, and hopefully he was doing well by living off the food and water bowls she had scattered around the cabin.
Fuck.
Shepard whipped around from the desk to the tank of dead fish floating on the top of the murky water. She was too pissed to notice it when she first came in.
Shepard finished her cigarette and began a new one as she climbed up on the tank. She was annoyed with herself at the fact that she couldn't even keep damn fish alive.
All her energy was put into cleaning out that fish tank to ignore the thoughts of her screw-ups, the cravings, to hopefully not spiral out of control. She must have been scrubbing that dirty, empty tank out for a while; she didn't take notice to the chime at her door until EDI told her of the guest.
"It's open!" She yelled as she snuffed out her cigarette and waved the smoke from her face. Fuck, she must've smelled awful.
Garrus walked in as she climbed down from the stepping stool. Her face twitched into a smile, trying to remain levelheaded.
"Garrus! You just missed the burial." She yelled out, trying to sound chipper. She wiped the tank scum off on her pants and walked over to the couch and sat. She threw a few of the clothes she had around that she never gotten around to cleaning up and motioned for him to join her.
He crossed the room quickly. Her eyes darted over to her desk and she silently sighed with relief. Good thing she remembered to hide the Fornax: Turian Edition datapad in the drawer.
"Burial?" He asked as he sat down.
"Yeah, I flushed all my poor fish down the toilet, gave them an honorable send-off." She gave a little salute to the fallen little guys.
"You humans have a fascinating way of treating your pets."
"Hey, at least I'm not like the weird ones who stuff their animals and just keep their bodies hanging around in the living room," Shepard said with a shrug.
"Right…" his voice trailed off as he spoke.
"Anyway, I'm going to guess you didn't come up here to talk about human pet burial rituals did you?" She knew what he was going to ask if she was fine. Maybe about how she's been acting on the field? How she can't seem to handle herself? She should have just told him to go. That she could talk about later when she had calmed down.
"Uh yeah, after the collector ship you kind of stormed out once we got back. I just wanted to make sure if you were doing okay." He looked down at her with the same look of concern he gave he back on Illium.
She wanted to wave it off like she normally did. Maybe it was the anger she still had for herself or the whole situation but this time she didn't.
"Oh, sure I'm completely fine you know with the whole being fucked over by The Illusive Man and the fun times of being a complete mess in the med-bay." She paused and considered talking about the Minagen and the constant urges to use, but stopped; she didn't want to get into that.
Instead, she continued to unload on him. "And once I finally get back out there I almost couldn't fucking handle it? So of course I'm not fine and asking about it isn't going to help," she threw up her arms in frustration as she directed her anger at him.
His mandibles tightened against his jaw and looked away from her. She may not have been so great at reading turians, but that was definitely a look of hurt. He was just trying to make sure she was okay, and she had to go and snap at him. She was an asshole and a shitty friend. She was going to end up screwing up this relationship before it barely even started.
"Shit, sorry. I'm being a asshole," she blurted out as she buried her face in her hands, trying to hide the embarrassment; she should have waved it off.
His hand fell onto the small of her back, almost like a comforting pat. But it still surprised her. Other then helping each other up from falling on their asses there hadn't been much touching between them. The warmth of his hand on her back sent a course of shivers down her spine.
Garrus leaned in and whispered. "When aren't you?"
She laughed hard, snorted even. She didn't know what to expect for him to say. But somehow that was just right. Not letting her get away with her bullshit apology.
He continued and spoke in a low voice. "You need someone to yell at or yell with? I'm here for you just as you have been for me, walking into hell with you and all, remember? So yeah, I'm going to continue to make sure you're fine even if you don't like it."
Fuck, now she was a self-absorbed asshole too. He let Sidonis go because of her, got in his way even so he couldn't take the shot. He never acted like that towards her. Well, he may have been pissed, but he never directed his anger at her after that night on the Citadel.
Shepard contorted her face into a smile and then a grimace. "Yeah, okay let me start over," Shepard sighed as she nervously twisted her hands together.
"You're right, I'm not fine, this past week has been hell for me." Shepard paused as she began to chew on the sides of her cheek. "I don't really want to get into it as to why, but thank you. For everything, not just for checking up on me, but for keeping me sane through all this. And again I am really sorry for yelling at you."
"Don't worry about it," Shepard smiled widely at him as the anger and frustration began to disappear. "But that does bring up the question, I was right then? Well, I knew that but I just need to make sure you're aware of it," he said facetiously.
She groaned as she buried her face in her hands again, this time trying to hide the smile to keep from encouraging him. The smoke had seeped into her hands and had left a stench there that felt permanent. His own hand began to run small circles into her back, her breath caught in her throat. Her hands fell from her face as she turned to him. Only for her heart to begin to race at the way he looked at her.
Why wasn't he acting like the adorable dork like he did in the main battery? That at least would have made it easier for her. He was being understanding and she ended up using him as a punching bag. Shit, she really was horrible at relationships.
Her heart continued to flutter as she panicked and didn't know what to say. She just knew if he kept looking at her like that she was going to end up jumping him.
"God, I smell like smoke and dead fish, attractive right?" Shepard said in a frantic tone trying to keep herself from doing something impulsive.
Smooth Shepard.
"Very," he said dryly.
"Just give me a minute, let me try to wash this smell out." His hand fell from her back as she got up and rushed to the bathroom.
She began to scrub quickly at her hands and face, trying to get the smell out. But the smoke clung to her hair. She threw her hair back in a messy bun. She had no clue what she was doing; she wasn't use to the long hair.
She stared up into the mirror; she wasn't use to a lot of things about herself since Cerberus brought her back. Her skin was a lot paler as she lost her freckles and suntan skin to the rebuild. Her scars were running deeper than before she had woken up. Her eyes glowed lightly red, almost looking like they did when she was on Red Sand as a kid.
But they weren't her eyes. They were artificial, fake. Her real eyes must have burned out her skull when she fell towards Alchera. She winced; she didn't want to think about that. Fuck, she really did look creepy.
But Garrus didn't seem to care; well he didn't have standards when it came to human looks just as she didn't for turians. Still, it felt nice knowing that she didn't have to worry about that though, about the scars. She guessed he didn't have to either.
She was nervous about how their relationship was going to move forward. He was up here, in her cabin, alone. She didn't want to fuck this up. Shepard sighed and scrubbed the remaining smoke that she could from her hands and walked out into the cabin.
"You still haven't done any of these?" He said as he motioned his hand to the pile of model ship boxes.
"When have I ever had time to do them?" She thanked him silently for changing the subject.
"I'm just saying I had to lug all these from the Citadel back to the Normandy, I would think you would actually use them."
"Whiny baby," she said as she picked up the SR-1 Normandy box from the top of the pile.
"Better then 'bellyaching' though?" He looked back up at her and kept talking. "And what do you mean you don't have time? You're always walking around the Normandy and bothering others when they're actually trying to get work done. So maybe you should do something, you know productive."
"Shut up," she quipped as she examined the model's box in hand and smirked down at him. "Alright fine, you don't need to go run off and calibrate or whatever it is you do?"
"I wouldn't say what I do is 'or whatever' as you put it." The jackass only used one finger on each hand to quote back at her. Shepard let out a small laugh. She wanted to hit and hug him for that.
"Fine, I'll dismiss that claim. You, Garrus Vakarian, do more than 'whatever' around the Normandy," she said quoting right back at him. She sat down next to him, finally feeling both comfortable and relaxed in her room. She raised the box up to face him and spoke with a smile. "Well, are you going to help me with this or what?"
His good mandible flared out into the smile that she had always enjoyed seeing. "Of course."
They cleared the coffee table and laid out the datapad with instructions to the model. Building the model was a lot harder then Shepard would have thought. The SR-2 wasn't nearly this difficult. She expected Garrus to struggle more than her, with well the amount of fingers she had over him. But he took to it like a natural; He already had his pieces assemble for the dry run. It was just one more thing that he could boast about.
"You know Chakwas has been bothering me about getting that dermal regenerator equipment," Shepard said as she struggled to assemble her pieces for before adding glue.
"So why haven't you gotten it yet?" he asked as he looked over the instructions.
"Because it's expensive as hell!" She threw her arms as she spoke, letting the pieces fall on the table. "I could get you like 3.3 thanix cannons with the price of that thing!"
"What am I going to do with a third of a gun?"
Shepard shrugged, "I don't know, work that calibrating magic."
"I'm starting to think you don't know what that means," he said sarcastically.
"Okay fine whatever, but really what do you think? Chakwas said it could work with you too."
Shepard wasn't expected the pause. She looked back up at him. He had a look of somber, of possible consideration.
She couldn't even think to guess what he was thinking. Her scars were just a constant reminder of how she was feeling, angry. She wouldn't have thought twice about getting rid of them if the procedure weren't so expensive. For Garrus, she guessed that was not the case. He couldn't just get rid of the scars; they were a part of him, of what he had left of Omega and of his men.
He shook his head and tried to joke. "We'll have to wait until after we get to Tuchanka."
Shepard went along with the joking, it easier easy that way. "Yeah you're right, got to give Wrex some competition." His mandibles flared into a slight grin.
"What about yourself?" he asked.
She could feel the slight tremor in her wrist and hands again. Her hands clenched at her side to avoid gesturing, hoping he wouldn't take notice.
"I'll keep them for now. I'm thinking if these scars keep growing I could just replace him." He gave her an odd amused look. "What? You don't think I can?" She asked boastfully.
"The exact opposite, which is what worries me," he said with a laugh.
"Hey, after all this Collector and Reaper nonsense, trying to stronghold the Krogan and taking over Tuchanka might be fun." Shepard turned her attention back to the model, trying to keep her fingers in line.
"I don't know what your definition of 'fun' is but I think I'll go for something more tropical," Garrus said as got back to his own pieces of the model. Damn, he was almost done with his side.
"Sounds like a nice retirement plan." She mused as she struggled to hold her pieces together. She stared back at the instruction to figure out what the hell she was doing wrong.
"Just got to survive this suicide mission you've got us crusading on. Then deal with the Reapers, and then probably whatever comes next. Not that I'm complaining."
"Of course you're not," she said as she slightly rolled her eyes. "What we're going do is get Tali, save some lives, and kick some ass. You know just like old times."
"Yeah, well first we're going to have to complete this." His hands motioned at her part of the model while speaking. "If you could even finish your side."
"You know, I could just have you haul all these back to the Citadel from the farthest docking bay I can find," Shepard said while trying to hide her smirk. "And I'll make sure you get me some new fish too."
"You're still not funny," he said as narrowed his eyes are her.
"Amusing at least?" She asked as she looked back up at him with her smirk. He smiled back that sent a bit jolt into her.
"Definitely."
As they kept working Shepard's hands continued shake. She didn't want to deal with this now when things were going nicely. She stiffened her hands causing her to drop one of the pieces of the model. With a curse and sigh, she slumped back into the couch to steady herself. Why did she have to keep fucking everything up?
Garrus picked up the piece on the floor and tossed back on the table as he slouched back with her. He looked at her with that same look of concern he'd been giving her since the beginning of this whole ordeal. She expected the same questions, are you okay? The kind of question she just wanted to avoid. She didn't want to have to explain.
Instead, he took her hand nearest to him. He had taken his gloves off to work with the model. His hands were rough against hers. Comparing the two, they looked so odd and out of place, but she didn't care. The heat that radiated off him and on to her brought comfort to her.
They laughed as they awkwardly maneuvered the two alien hands together. It took them a bit to find a comfortable place as their fingers interlaced. After a few moments, the shaking eased off. Her hand tightened around his. With a smile, she whispered "thank you" and continued on assembling their old ship.
Shepard wasn't going to lie to herself thinking that it was all going to be fine now, that the urges for Red Sand or Minagen would be gone. The craving for the drugs was still present. But the joking and reassurance dulled the need for it. With Garrus by her side, whether it was walking through hell or up in her cabin, Shepard was exactly where she wanted to be.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

Art by bioticbooty

Shepard was back in her cabin after the verbal lashing she gave The Illusive Man. She paced back and forth between her bed and the door. She fucking knew it that he would find some way to screw her over. He always had the perfect excuses as for the need for his deception.
She stopped pacing at her desk and angrily yanked open the drawer. She fished out the pack of cigarettes that she gotten back on Omega. If she couldn't have Red Sand, she would just have to go a lighter alternative. She was falling back into old vices, the one's she had promised herself that she'd kick before joining the Alliance. Did it matter now anyway? She wasn't a part of the Alliance anymore; she lost that so why should it matter? She set the cigarette aflame, focusing on the red glow.
EDI's orb appeared near her desk before she could inhale.
"Shepard, smoking is discouraged while on the ship. I would recommend that you prohibit from smoking any further."
"With Zaeed on board I'm pretty sure one more cigarette wouldn't hurt." Shepard paused and took a long drag.
"I've had advised Mr. Massani similarly as I have for you Shepard."
She blew smoke towards the blue orb as she spoke. "I'm sure he loved that. Thanks for the suggestion EDI but I'm just going to continue from here. Logging you out." The blue orb disintegrated around the smoke that still hung in the air.
Annoyingly, Shepard scanned her cabin; it was the only place she felt comfortable on the Normandy after Mordin had searched for bugs. Even with the comfort she barely in there other than to sleep and shower.
She focused on the model ship case; only the SR-2 model had been built and stood proudly gleaming in the case. She liked to think of it as a little joke to herself with the other unopened boxes skewed all over her desk and coffee table that she hardly used.
Her eyes glazed past the empty hamster cage; the little guy had escaped, and hopefully he was doing well by living off the food and water bowls she had scattered around the cabin.
Fuck.
Shepard whipped around from the desk to the tank of dead fish floating on the top of the murky water. She was too pissed to notice it when she first came in.
Shepard finished her cigarette and began a new one as she climbed up on the tank. She was annoyed with herself at the fact that she couldn't even keep damn fish alive.
All her energy was put into cleaning out that fish tank to ignore the thoughts of her screw-ups, the cravings, to hopefully not spiral out of control. She must have been scrubbing that dirty, empty tank out for a while; she didn't take notice to the chime at her door until EDI told her of the guest.
"It's open!" She yelled as she snuffed out her cigarette and waved the smoke from her face. Fuck, she must've smelled awful.
Garrus walked in as she climbed down from the stepping stool. Her face twitched into a smile, trying to remain levelheaded.
"Garrus! You just missed the burial." She yelled out, trying to sound chipper. She wiped the tank scum off on her pants and walked over to the couch and sat. She threw a few of the clothes she had around that she never gotten around to cleaning up and motioned for him to join her.
He crossed the room quickly. Her eyes darted over to her desk and she silently sighed with relief. Good thing she remembered to hide the Fornax: Turian Edition datapad in the drawer.
"Burial?" He asked as he sat down.
"Yeah, I flushed all my poor fish down the toilet, gave them an honorable send-off." She gave a little salute to the fallen little guys.
"You humans have a fascinating way of treating your pets."
"Hey, at least I'm not like the weird ones who stuff their animals and just keep their bodies hanging around in the living room," Shepard said with a shrug.
"Right…" his voice trailed off as he spoke.
"Anyway, I'm going to guess you didn't come up here to talk about human pet burial rituals did you?" She knew what he was going to ask if she was fine. Maybe about how she's been acting on the field? How she can't seem to handle herself? She should have just told him to go. That she could talk about later when she had calmed down.
"Uh yeah, after the collector ship you kind of stormed out once we got back. I just wanted to make sure if you were doing okay." He looked down at her with the same look of concern he gave he back on Illium.
She wanted to wave it off like she normally did. Maybe it was the anger she still had for herself or the whole situation but this time she didn't.
"Oh, sure I'm completely fine you know with the whole being fucked over by The Illusive Man and the fun times of being a complete mess in the med-bay." She paused and considered talking about the Minagen and the constant urges to use, but stopped; she didn't want to get into that.
Instead, she continued to unload on him. "And once I finally get back out there I almost couldn't fucking handle it? So of course I'm not fine and asking about it isn't going to help," she threw up her arms in frustration as she directed her anger at him.
His mandibles tightened against his jaw and looked away from her. She may not have been so great at reading turians, but that was definitely a look of hurt. He was just trying to make sure she was okay, and she had to go and snap at him. She was an asshole and a shitty friend. She was going to end up screwing up this relationship before it barely even started.
"Shit, sorry. I'm being a asshole," she blurted out as she buried her face in her hands, trying to hide the embarrassment; she should have waved it off.
His hand fell onto the small of her back, almost like a comforting pat. But it still surprised her. Other then helping each other up from falling on their asses there hadn't been much touching between them. The warmth of his hand on her back sent a course of shivers down her spine.
Garrus leaned in and whispered. "When aren't you?"
She laughed hard, snorted even. She didn't know what to expect for him to say. But somehow that was just right. Not letting her get away with her bullshit apology.
He continued and spoke in a low voice. "You need someone to yell at or yell with? I'm here for you just as you have been for me, walking into hell with you and all, remember? So yeah, I'm going to continue to make sure you're fine even if you don't like it."
Fuck, now she was a self-absorbed asshole too. He let Sidonis go because of her, got in his way even so he couldn't take the shot. He never acted like that towards her. Well, he may have been pissed, but he never directed his anger at her after that night on the Citadel.
Shepard contorted her face into a smile and then a grimace. "Yeah, okay let me start over," Shepard sighed as she nervously twisted her hands together.
"You're right, I'm not fine, this past week has been hell for me." Shepard paused as she began to chew on the sides of her cheek. "I don't really want to get into it as to why, but thank you. For everything, not just for checking up on me, but for keeping me sane through all this. And again I am really sorry for yelling at you."
"Don't worry about it," Shepard smiled widely at him as the anger and frustration began to disappear. "But that does bring up the question, I was right then? Well, I knew that but I just need to make sure you're aware of it," he said facetiously.
She groaned as she buried her face in her hands again, this time trying to hide the smile to keep from encouraging him. The smoke had seeped into her hands and had left a stench there that felt permanent. His own hand began to run small circles into her back, her breath caught in her throat. Her hands fell from her face as she turned to him. Only for her heart to begin to race at the way he looked at her.
Why wasn't he acting like the adorable dork like he did in the main battery? That at least would have made it easier for her. He was being understanding and she ended up using him as a punching bag. Shit, she really was horrible at relationships.
Her heart continued to flutter as she panicked and didn't know what to say. She just knew if he kept looking at her like that she was going to end up jumping him.
"God, I smell like smoke and dead fish, attractive right?" Shepard said in a frantic tone trying to keep herself from doing something impulsive.
Smooth Shepard.
"Very," he said dryly.
"Just give me a minute, let me try to wash this smell out." His hand fell from her back as she got up and rushed to the bathroom.
She began to scrub quickly at her hands and face, trying to get the smell out. But the smoke clung to her hair. She threw her hair back in a messy bun. She had no clue what she was doing; she wasn't use to the long hair.
She stared up into the mirror; she wasn't use to a lot of things about herself since Cerberus brought her back. Her skin was a lot paler as she lost her freckles and suntan skin to the rebuild. Her scars were running deeper than before she had woken up. Her eyes glowed lightly red, almost looking like they did when she was on Red Sand as a kid.
But they weren't her eyes. They were artificial, fake. Her real eyes must have burned out her skull when she fell towards Alchera. She winced; she didn't want to think about that. Fuck, she really did look creepy.
But Garrus didn't seem to care; well he didn't have standards when it came to human looks just as she didn't for turians. Still, it felt nice knowing that she didn't have to worry about that though, about the scars. She guessed he didn't have to either.
She was nervous about how their relationship was going to move forward. He was up here, in her cabin, alone. She didn't want to fuck this up. Shepard sighed and scrubbed the remaining smoke that she could from her hands and walked out into the cabin.
"You still haven't done any of these?" He said as he motioned his hand to the pile of model ship boxes.
"When have I ever had time to do them?" She thanked him silently for changing the subject.
"I'm just saying I had to lug all these from the Citadel back to the Normandy, I would think you would actually use them."
"Whiny baby," she said as she picked up the SR-1 Normandy box from the top of the pile.
"Better then 'bellyaching' though?" He looked back up at her and kept talking. "And what do you mean you don't have time? You're always walking around the Normandy and bothering others when they're actually trying to get work done. So maybe you should do something, you know productive."
"Shut up," she quipped as she examined the model's box in hand and smirked down at him. "Alright fine, you don't need to go run off and calibrate or whatever it is you do?"
"I wouldn't say what I do is 'or whatever' as you put it." The jackass only used one finger on each hand to quote back at her. Shepard let out a small laugh. She wanted to hit and hug him for that.
"Fine, I'll dismiss that claim. You, Garrus Vakarian, do more than 'whatever' around the Normandy," she said quoting right back at him. She sat down next to him, finally feeling both comfortable and relaxed in her room. She raised the box up to face him and spoke with a smile. "Well, are you going to help me with this or what?"
His good mandible flared out into the smile that she had always enjoyed seeing. "Of course."
They cleared the coffee table and laid out the datapad with instructions to the model. Building the model was a lot harder then Shepard would have thought. The SR-2 wasn't nearly this difficult. She expected Garrus to struggle more than her, with well the amount of fingers she had over him. But he took to it like a natural; He already had his pieces assemble for the dry run. It was just one more thing that he could boast about.
"You know Chakwas has been bothering me about getting that dermal regenerator equipment," Shepard said as she struggled to assemble her pieces for before adding glue.
"So why haven't you gotten it yet?" he asked as he looked over the instructions.
"Because it's expensive as hell!" She threw her arms as she spoke, letting the pieces fall on the table. "I could get you like 3.3 thanix cannons with the price of that thing!"
"What am I going to do with a third of a gun?"
Shepard shrugged, "I don't know, work that calibrating magic."
"I'm starting to think you don't know what that means," he said sarcastically.
"Okay fine whatever, but really what do you think? Chakwas said it could work with you too."
Shepard wasn't expected the pause. She looked back up at him. He had a look of somber, of possible consideration.
She couldn't even think to guess what he was thinking. Her scars were just a constant reminder of how she was feeling, angry. She wouldn't have thought twice about getting rid of them if the procedure weren't so expensive. For Garrus, she guessed that was not the case. He couldn't just get rid of the scars; they were a part of him, of what he had left of Omega and of his men.
He shook his head and tried to joke. "We'll have to wait until after we get to Tuchanka."
Shepard went along with the joking, it easier easy that way. "Yeah you're right, got to give Wrex some competition." His mandibles flared into a slight grin.
"What about yourself?" he asked.
She could feel the slight tremor in her wrist and hands again. Her hands clenched at her side to avoid gesturing, hoping he wouldn't take notice.
"I'll keep them for now. I'm thinking if these scars keep growing I could just replace him." He gave her an odd amused look. "What? You don't think I can?" She asked boastfully.
"The exact opposite, which is what worries me," he said with a laugh.
"Hey, after all this Collector and Reaper nonsense, trying to stronghold the Krogan and taking over Tuchanka might be fun." Shepard turned her attention back to the model, trying to keep her fingers in line.
"I don't know what your definition of 'fun' is but I think I'll go for something more tropical," Garrus said as got back to his own pieces of the model. Damn, he was almost done with his side.
"Sounds like a nice retirement plan." She mused as she struggled to hold her pieces together. She stared back at the instruction to figure out what the hell she was doing wrong.
"Just got to survive this suicide mission you've got us crusading on. Then deal with the Reapers, and then probably whatever comes next. Not that I'm complaining."
"Of course you're not," she said as she slightly rolled her eyes. "What we're going do is get Tali, save some lives, and kick some ass. You know just like old times."
"Yeah, well first we're going to have to complete this." His hands motioned at her part of the model while speaking. "If you could even finish your side."
"You know, I could just have you haul all these back to the Citadel from the farthest docking bay I can find," Shepard said while trying to hide her smirk. "And I'll make sure you get me some new fish too."
"You're still not funny," he said as narrowed his eyes are her.
"Amusing at least?" She asked as she looked back up at him with her smirk. He smiled back that sent a bit jolt into her.
"Definitely."
As they kept working Shepard's hands continued shake. She didn't want to deal with this now when things were going nicely. She stiffened her hands causing her to drop one of the pieces of the model. With a curse and sigh, she slumped back into the couch to steady herself. Why did she have to keep fucking everything up?
Garrus picked up the piece on the floor and tossed back on the table as he slouched back with her. He looked at her with that same look of concern he'd been giving her since the beginning of this whole ordeal. She expected the same questions, are you okay? The kind of question she just wanted to avoid. She didn't want to have to explain.
Instead, he took her hand nearest to him. He had taken his gloves off to work with the model. His hands were rough against hers. Comparing the two, they looked so odd and out of place, but she didn't care. The heat that radiated off him and on to her brought comfort to her.
They laughed as they awkwardly maneuvered the two alien hands together. It took them a bit to find a comfortable place as their fingers interlaced. After a few moments, the shaking eased off. Her hand tightened around his. With a smile, she whispered "thank you" and continued on assembling their old ship.
Shepard wasn't going to lie to herself thinking that it was all going to be fine now, that the urges for Red Sand or Minagen would be gone. The craving for the drugs was still present. But the joking and reassurance dulled the need for it. With Garrus by her side, whether it was walking through hell or up in her cabin, Shepard was exactly where she wanted to be.