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The pain that Jane had experienced a few moments ago as she took the last shot at the destruction tube just seemed to melted away. It was hard to believe that she was awake a few minutes ago but here she was with her eyes closed. How did they get closed in the first place and where was she? It didn’t seem like she was on the Citadel. There was no smell of burning anything around her. Or any scent for that matter.
She opened her eyes to see a vast wall of white surrounding her. Puzzled, she lifted an arm to touch the white wall and found that it was healed as if she hadn’t gotten hurt in the final push to the conduit. She hadn’t felt this good in years actually. It was like she hadn’t joined the military in the first place. Her body started to wear down over the years of combat, especially the past three with the whole Reaper threat and current Reaper war.
She closed her eyes briefly and then opened them to find that the small room that she was in was gone and instead she was standing inside of a larger room that was complete with a bar. Standing on the other side of the large oak counter top was Mordin, who was busy wiping out a highball glass with a thin, white towel.
The battle-scarred Salarian seemed to sense her presence because he looked up at her and smiled. “Shepard, you are just in time,” he said in his fast-paced tone of voice. Jane almost had forgotten what he sounded like. “I have just the drink for you. Sit, sit.” The Salarian gestured at one of the two barstools that was on her side of the counter.
“Are we expecting company?” Jane asked as she sat down on the barstool on the left side.
“Yes, yes, but not right now. Later,” Mordin said as he poured some various liquid ingredients into the Boston shaker. “Right now, we are celebrating the end of the Reaper war.”
“The Reaper war,” she repeated. It seemed like forever and an age ago that it started. It wore on her both physically and mentally. There were times that she thought that they were going to lose but her comrades, and Garrus, helped her find hope that they would find the Catalyst before the war dragged on for too long but that didn’t happen.
In the end it took losing two friends and a former comrade before the war finally ended. She wondered if the Normandy had made it out of the Milky Way before the shock wave of the whatever force to end the Reapers spread out across the galaxy. Who had survived the final push? And where was her ship now?
Her thoughts were distracted when a glass was set down in front of her and her perfect margarita was in front of her in a perfectly frosted martini glass. She looked up at Mordin who merely nodded. “you won’t have to wait long,” he said quickly as he cleaned out the Boston shaker and started to work on another cocktail, this time with different ingredients that she didn’t recognize.
“What do you mean?” she asked. She waited a few moments for his response but it wasn’t Mordin who responded.
“So…. come here often?” said a familiar, two-toned voice from behind her.
Sighing, Jane spun around on the barstool to see Garrus standing in what looked like a doorway, the scars that he had received from the missile a year prior to the end of the war was gone as if that incident on Omega had never happened.
“I don’t know. This place seems familiar but at the same time doesn’t,” she said with a smirk on her lips. “Why don’t you come here and help me familiarize myself with this place.”
She watched as he sauntered over to her, his hips swaying a bit to the rhythm of a song that only he could hear. He sat down on the other barstool and towered over her a bit though she didn’t mind at all. She liked it when she was the little spoon in bed especially when he was being extra cuddly to her.
Mordin placed down the second cocktail that he had made, a dextro alcoholic drink that Jane didn’t know the name of, before he disappeared into a side room to let them have some privacy. As soon as Mordin was gone, Garrus lightly grasped the side of Jane’s face and gave her a tender kiss.
She missed that. She wished that they had more time to have a moment like this before the final push on Earth but the pressure on her was on to end it when she got word that the Reapers had gotten ahold of the Citadel. That was her deepest regret.
“So, I am guessing this is Heaven,” Garrus said in a low voice.
“Yeah,” Jane said with a sigh. “I didn’t want to admit it but…” Her gaze wandered over to the side room that Mordin was in before it went back to Garrus. “Since Mordin is here serving us drinks I guess it is. And I did meet you at the bar like I promised.”
She heard the deep-throated chuckle escape his mandibles before another kiss followed afterward. “Indeed, you did. I am happy you waited for me.”
“I wouldn’t have missed you for the world, Garrus. There is no Shepard without Vakarian after all.”
“This place is getting a little stale now, though. Let’s blow this…ice cream stand? Human phrases will always confound me, Jane.”
“Popsicle stand, Garrus, though I like ice cream stand better,” Jane said. “I agree. Though anyplace is better now that you are here with me.” With a smile on both of their faces, they departed the bar. All that was left were two halos on the oak countertop where they were sitting as a reminder of who was at the bar.