Chapter Text
“Garrus, oh-, wake up,” a gentle hand shakes his shoulder and he jerks his head up in surprise, blinking blearily in front of himself as the shadow figure steps around him and into the dim light of the lamp. “At least sleep in a bed and not in that wretched chair.”
He forces a quirk of his mandible at Chakwas, eyes drifting to her scrubs that are of a different color than the ones he remembers seeing earlier.
“How long was I asleep?”
“Half the day at most,” she tuts. She watches as his eyes fall back to the figure laying in front of him and the roll of his shoulders. “It must’ve been exhausting, huh? You searching and praying that she was somewhere alive and waiting for us.”
She doesn’t let out the true thought they both know he’s thinking, doesn’t say, “Waiting for you.”
The humorless chuckle he lets is far sadder than he lets most hear of him.
“I-,” he swallows and tightens his grip on the much smaller hand in his, his thumb stroking over the wrist and feeling the soft skin. “The link-,”
“The bondmate link?”
“Yeah, that. It was such agony and despair I felt before the crucible was destroyed. Emotions for it- as you already know, it’s one of great feeling most often when you’re further away from your bondmate. I think it’s why bondmates are such an outdated and archaic form of uniting in a relationship for turians. Those separated can only feel and not do anything to help their mate.”
She leans back against a counter close to the bed. “So, why do it? Because of the marriage arrangement by the Union committee?” He glances up at her with a head tilt and she laughs gently. “Forgive me, but I have accumulated a number of questions for you guys since I found out.”
Garrus shrugs his shoulders minutely, his free hand drifting to play with purple locks and noting the dark brown roots that were growing in.
“Originally we thought, ‘Hey, it’s not like anyone would know right?’ when we considered our arranged marriage to be released to the public in the beginning- back during our time on the SR-1. Only the turians would really care about the title of us being bondmates because it’s rare for a couple to actually do it now. I think it was to give this air of seriousness to our ‘relationship’ they wanted to fool the public with. Something like, ‘Wow, a turian and a human together? And the turian loves her enough to make her his bondmate instead of just a mate? A human loves him enough to embrace something of dated turian culture?’”
“How old were you two when you were promised to one another?”
“I was 20, I think she just turned 22.” He smiles lightly, “I don’t know, it always felt like there was no age gap between us, even as small as ours was, and I kinda liked that humans have the same life expectancy range as a turian does.”
“But you were too young.”
“But we were too young, yeah.” He growls, “We’re still too young for all this bullshit… the collectors, the reapers, Cerberus. It’s been only three years since we’ve met but it feels like we’ve aged significantly.”
Chakwas frowns as she regards him, her heart tugging in pain similar to a mother seeing her children hurting. “How old do you feel?”
“Don’t know,” he murmurs, “too old. Like, I should be in my late forties or fifties now. Not younger than 25. I, ha, I saw my paperwork when we were pulling the important shit off the Normandy- accidentally dumped a box of her stuff and it had all our files, the crew mates- and I saw my date of birth… I had to sit down for a minute and I… I just kept doing the math to make sure I wasn’t making a mistake. It didn’t feel real. It felt like I was older than I was.”
“You two didn’t deserve this,” Garrus shifts in his seat uncomfortably as he looks down again, to the soft glint of the thin black metal ring on her finger and a blue Palaven crystal humans mistake as a gem called ‘sapphire’. “You were the only two who endured this circus longer than most.”
“Yeah,” he shrugs once more, a habit he picked up from her. “Sometimes I’m afraid to think it may be over; I’ve never been particularly lucky.”
“Don’t want to jinx it, do you?”
“Jinx?” He repeats with confusion.
“Ah, it’s like, to bring about bad luck. Can be a person or thing, but we mostly associate it with someone saying something that can be contradicted by the universe shortly after.”
“Oh, then that. I don’t want to jinx myself.”
She watches him trace the girl’s features with such carefulness. Then she remembers that he’s always been like that with her. That he was the only one to not consider her unbreakable and made of stone. He was the only one to see her as this porcelain doll with cracks glued back together and labeled ‘shatterproof’ to the rest of the world.
He was that glue that held her together and the one who picked up her shards that trailed behind her.
“You know,” she starts, watching his pained eyes. “She was at her happiest when you were onboard and beside her.”
He snuffs at that, something she remembers Shepard telling her about: “He like, snuffs? He snuffs more than he can snort when you amuse him. It’s weird but… ”
Unlike her who Garrus always egged on with bad and awkward jokes until she was snorting more than breathing.
“We were just friends then, that’s all.”
“Friends who were engaged and promised bondmates and, as I recall, considered actual mates.” His chin drops to his carapace and he looks a little dejected that they were planned to be together to begin with and not by choice at first. For once, a part of her is glad Shepard can’t see him right now- it’d probably kill her to take one look at the turian and see him so heartbroken without being able to fix him. “Garrus, your relationship was genuine because you sought to make her happy and be heard, just like she did for you. She was at her happiest with you because you made her happy.”
A grunt echoes in the med bay room of the large warehouse like building- once meant to be a gift Garrus bought for Shepard in the case that they both made it back from Earth alive. A place that was rooted down and solid, a place an allianced military spacer kid like her could finally call home.
“This ship and the stars,” she looked past his shoulder where he braced himself above her on the bed, staring up at the awaiting galaxy they drifted through, “they’re close to being called a home, I guess.”
“If it takes more than a ship and the stars, what do you call home then?”
“You.”
Chakwas clicked her tongue, standing straight. “Come on, why don’t you go wash up and go to your room instead of sleeping in this chair.”
Garrus looked back to the comatose vanguard laid before him. So so much smaller than him, than any average human, and yet still gave a glimmer of hope that she was alive and would wake soon.
“Can’t I just stay here?” He pleaded.
“At least wash up, be fair to the poor girl, Vakarian.”
He nodded, assessing that much as he stood up while still holding her hand that was barely bigger than a child’s, and bent to press his crest to her forehead. A small purring emitting from him before he parted from her.
“Tell you what, since this is your place-,” she gestured broadly to the warehouse as a whole, “you can sleep on the bed with her. No compromising and whatnot.”
He blinked in surprise at her, mandibles fluttering in emotion, “You’d let me do that?”
“You two slept together every night in her cabin after reuniting, didn’t you?”
He has the decency to look sheepish as he holds under his fringe and tucks his face to his carapace once more, “Yeah, but-,”
“And I’m running low on medication for your insomnia.” She smiled gently at him, “Go take your shower then come back to her, rest up and alleviate the strain of your bond mate link.”
“Thanks.”
She nodded before pausing, “The monitors she’s attached to, won’t they bother you? I know that your hearing is stronger than a human’s.”
He glances back at them, his thumb stroking over the arm in his grasp, his brow plates shift and he looks back to the doctor. “No, they won’t.”
“You’re sure?”
“That consistent beeping and the sound of the oxygen, it means she’s alive and she’s being kept alive just in case she’s too weak and needs help. It’s another way of reassuring me than me clinging to her wrist to make sure her pulse is steady.” He forces a smile, “I’ll be fine.”
When Chakwas had made her rounds around the warehouse, stopping to chat with Grunt and Kyolat in the kitchen, finding Liara and Javik arguing about the next chapter in her book, and Feron waiting up for Liara, she came back to find the turian -looking far cleaner than he had been in the past month since the crucible was destroyed- curled close and tucked around the petite commander. Finally and properly resting at peace with a content, continuous rumble pouring from his chest.
“Idiot,” she muttered softly under her breath. She grabbed Joker’s medication and turned off the lights, “Arranged or not, you two would’ve happened anyways.”
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Three and a half years ago:
“This is taking too long,” eyes flicked to the human who was shuffling in his seat, rubbing his temple in annoyance as he pushed a stack of files away from himself. “We haven’t decided the set up, we haven’t landed on our primary aspects to seek. You all believe we’ll pull this off? End the animosity between our people?”
“Member Hull, please settle yourself-,”
He stood up, chair scraping backwards as he waved a hand away and walked out of the room. “Call me when you get your shit together and stop playing Drunk Cupid.”
“Member Hull!”
“What? What happened?” The remaining humans sighed or had the decency to appear embarrassed on behalf of their species. The turians on the vid call blinked slowly, an effort of patience showing and being tested. “Where did Hull go?”
“Out,” another male snorted, standing up to waltz himself over to a window perch, lighting a cigarette. The Citadel’s artificial sunlight bounced off the foliage surrounding the building. An ethereal green glow shining in the room and bending the light. The man took a long puff as the committee talked amongst themselves in hushed tones on both sides. “Y’know, Hull is right. We are playing something like Drunk Cupid.”
An older turian with white markings blinked in surprise, “I’m not sure we’re familiar with that phrase, Member Abbot.”
“Ah, my mistake.” He grew silent for another drag, a hand dropping to his side to tap the ashes off. A few members rolled their eyes at his mess. “Cupid is this mythical Roman god we’ve come to commercialize around a certain holiday. He’s the god of love in all its forms.”
A female huffed when he stopped talking to smoke once more, the turians still looked confused while some pulled up their omni-tools to search.
“This holiday Cupid is most often associated with and known for is called Valentine’s Day, and he’s playfully rumored to shoot two people with an arrow of love and they’ll fall for one another after.” Some of the members on the comm line seemed almost intrigued and perplexed by the notion, waiting for a continuation. “He plays matchmaker among singles who eventually become couples. But, being a god it’s almost assumed he has this gift or just knows who belongs together. What Hull meant to say was that we’re no closer to considering the makeup of this that we’re taking a risk with our hesitations and broad generalizations.”
“So, he thinks we need to form a plan.”
Another turian leaned forwards, a female and armed with datapads. “I’d have to agree that he’s right. If we build the foundation, we’ll be able to take off from there, won't we?” She spreads the files, less than thirty, as she raises in her seat and speaks almost hurriedly. “I’ve been thinking about it as well and if we’re to pull this off with little to no controversy as possible, we need to cover all bases. Hull beat me to it but, I think we should stick to human females for one half. Go through our candidates and build off the chosen one.”
“Why a female human?”
“Because as I wasted my youth going through so many of these stacks again, I felt myself drawn to these few,” she tapped a small pile of less than a handful set aside. “I found the dynamic of a female human and a male turian more compelling and plausible, more..”
“Romanticized?” A human woman leaned in to be heard better.
“Yes! Romanticized.” She tapped her talons against the datapads. “The pairing is so unheard of to begin with, and human men feel so inferior to us turian females given how much we have over them genetically-,” her sub vocals lowered when Abbot made an offended remark, “the men are often fighting too much against each other as honor for their lineage, and the females would be too private and the relationship could be seen as dull if not stagnant if one is not involved in fighting or military in some form or the other.”
“She’s got a point,” a male turian spoke aloud, shifting to take a few datapads she offered him. “We need a couple to serve as a sort of- what’s that children’s story term that you humans use?”
“Fairy tale,” an older human woman quipped.
“Right, we need a fairy tale like couple to give the people.”
Abbot- now seated back in his chair and smelling of smoke- sat up straighter, “Then we have to handle the matter of pairing up a male turian and a female human who can get alone and have similar ideals or interests.” Everyone looked at the aging man in question.
“No, it makes sense if you think about it,” the female turian with the files said.
“Care to explain to the rest of us, Gyler?”
“You want a fairy tale couple right? In order to get that, we have to have a pair who could have chemistry. I’m not just talking about romantic or sexual-,”
Hull waltzed back in, “Is it even possible for there to be intercourse between a human and a turian?”
“I mean, it’s possible with the asari outside the whole… mind melding thing.”
“Nice to see you return, Hull.” The turian committee leader- the one with white clan markings and dark eyes- member Krik, spoke aloud. “We decided a set up.”
“Oh? Enlighten me then. What’s it going to be?”
Glyer excitedly leaned into the frame of the screen, “A female human and male turian.”
He tilted his head while pulling his chair out, his brows pulling together. Krik gave into his pause, “Problem, Hull?”
“No, I’m just thinking about how much sense that makes actually.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. We’re going through military enlisted females right? Someone that we could easily find reason to show to the public for actions alone?”
“Right.”
“Then consider this: it doesn’t matter how strong this female is, because the turian will be taller and physically more capable. Having this set up gives the chance to make him seem like her knight and protective of her. Granted, we’d have to keep with making sure everyone is aware of her achievements separately.”
Glyer nodded looking to Krik, “We’d also have to make sure that the turians accept her and see her contributions.”
“Agreed, but that means having to find someone more accepting of other races.”
“Actually,” Glyer gave a faint smile, “I think your best bet would be the bottom datapad in your possession.” Krik gave a skeptical look as he moved the others aside and Glyer pulled the file up to dominate the screen the committee saw.
“Siren Shepard,” he started. He paused, frowning a little in confusion. “Is that a common human name?”
“It’s… not? It’s not even a name typically. It’s another mythical creature; like mermaids except more cunning and evil. They sing these songs to sailors and lead them to their deaths. They’re the rumored reason for several mysterious shipwrecks centuries ago.”
Krik’s left mandible pulled in a smirk, “I like her already.”
“She’s a spacer kid- so not Earth born and therefore gives the possibility of not having a bias for humans.”
“And we believe that because?”
“She just turned 22, so there’s a good chance she’s never been to Earth and spent a lot of her parents’ shore time in places most welcoming to soldiers, otherwise known as places where a lot of aliens reside. Furthering that, the race most dominant in organized military besides humans is the turians.”
Abbot tilted his head, “Hey, how are we to know you’ll help protect this girl’s image to the public? She’s human and technically expendable to your kind-,”
“Abbot!” Someone admonished to his left.
“How are we supposed to trust they won’t screw us over?” He stared straight in the female member’s eyes, fierce and challenging. “What if this blows up on our race? And then they put the blame on this young girl?”
“Holy shit-,” Hull murmured, “She’s the war hero everyone’s been talking about.”
“You think we’d betray your kind? Isn’t our purpose to end the animosity between our kinds?”
“Hull, what are you muttering about?”
“What kind of bullshit are you insinuating-,”
“Stop,” Krik’s voice spoke loudly but deadly calm and furious. “To first address the concern at hand; we have no intention of disturbing this girl’s life beyond the plan that she’d have to let bleed into her life.”
“Her file says she is a spacer kid born from parents who were highly decorated officers before her father passed and her mother was pulled off the field.”
“Admiral Hackett seems to vouch for her an awful lot besides this Captain Anderson… Admiral Hackett is a well known figure in the branches of the military. And, this young woman appears to be particularly close with him.”
“If we choose her- and believe me, I had narrowed it down to three female candidates, I truly do believe she is our best bet- if we choose her, we could gain an advantage with how often she appears in the news. Right now, she’s still circulating as the war hero of the Skyllian Blitz.”
“Spirits,” Krik breathed out, his facial plates pulling loose in surprise, “that was her? I only heard bits and pieces, but I heard enough to know that she was given the Star of Terra.”
“The Alliance calls her a true hero… I think we found our female.”
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Twelve files of turian males and they had managed to narrow it down to two.
“I’m so fucking exhausted- if anyone hands me another datapad or links me more information to my omnitool, I’m suing.”
“That’s extreme, Abbot.”
He huffed, “Go fuck a volus, Hull.”
“...Extreme.”
Glyer and Krik were trading hushed words back and forth before sitting straighter. “I think the answer is obvious.”
“Why do I get the feeling it’s going to be a choice?”
Two profiles were shared among everyone, files they had all spent hours coming back to and studying over.
“So, this kid, Garrus Vakarian-,”
“And… the great Spectre Nihlus Kryik?”