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Their first kiss is what Shepard comes to understand as a Turian kiss, a gentle touching of their foreheads. It’s quickly followed by a human style one and more and beyond as they spend the night before they go through the Omega 4 Relay together.
She never would have thought this possible, but now it makes perfect sense. Garrus is her best friend and he feels safe, the closest to a feeling of home she still has. And so this is how Shepard falls in love with him. Right here, staring into certain death.
He doesn’t tell her now, it takes him some time, but this is where Garrus falls in love too. They decide to keep it to themselves, for now. Even after they survive the suicide mission. An interspecies relationship while working for Cerberus is too much of a wildcard. So when they say goodbye to each other before she drops him off on Palaven, surrounded by the rest of the crew, they can’t really do anything. Shepard gives Garrus a hug and he leans into it, whispering “I’ll miss you” in her ear.
No one seems to have noticed but Joker still gives Shepard a funny look when she sits next to him in the copilot’s chair afterwards. “You look sad.”
“I have a lot to be sad about”
He let’s out a snorting laugh. “I guess you do. Just...don’t let it get to your head.”
Shepard replies with a weak smile “I won’t”
-
After she has picked him up on Menae and made all the arrangements with Hacket and Victus, Shepard almost sprints to the main battery. She barely waits for the door to hiss shut before she pulls Garrus down into a kiss. He hooks his arms around her waist, nearly lifting her off the ground.
Shepard smiles into the kiss “Hello”
“Hey”, she can feel his teeth as he smiles back “Good to see you”
“Good to see you”, Shepard rests her forehead against his and takes a deep breath. Just having him around already makes her feel so much better. “I missed you”
Garrus doesn’t reply, he just hugs her a little tighter. After a few minutes Shepard breaks away to look him in the eye. “Listen I thought about it and while we should still be professional about it…”, she takes a second to gauge his reaction, he is silent, listening to her “I don’t think we need to keep this a complete secret. Alliance is pretty much letting me do what I want these days and I don’t know about the Hierarchy but…”
“Pretty much the same”, Garrus interrupts. “I can more or less do whatever I want and you”, his voice drops low “Are definitely something I want.”
Shepard laughs and shuts him up with another kiss.
-
The three worst things in Shepard’s life are Cerberus, The Reapers and War Reporters. Keeping Allers on board has kept a lot of them off her back, but there are still more of them after her than she’d like, especially the sort that specialise in gossip.
She just wants to take one calm walk, go to a café with Garrus ONCE, but they wont leave her alone.
“Commander Shepard, why do you have so many aliens on board?”
“Commander Shepard, where are you buying your supplies?”
“Do you think Citadel security is handling the wave of refugees correctly?”
“Are you dating anyone?”
She turns around to look the reporter square in the eye. “There is a war on and THAT is what you’re asking me?”
Cameras flash and she can already see the headline in her head. “Commander Shepard yells at reporter – Is the stress getting too much for her?”
The guy just shrugs. “It’s what people are interested in.”
Shepard has a few words about what the people could be interested in instead but she has another way to end this chain of questioning right now. She gives Garrus a look and he replies with a subtle nod. Shepard hooks her arm around his neck and kisses him.
The noise of the cameras and yelled questions is deafening.
Tali and Liara show her some of the headlines later and Shepard laughs with them. It feels good to have it out there, because she loves Garrus. And she wont hide that.