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Shepard corners Miranda at the first opportunity she gets. She gets it fairly soon, too. Turns out it’s easy to find someone and get them alone if they have an office on your ship. Shepard sits down in front of Miranda’s desk arms crossed. “Tell me all the changes you made to my body. No lies or leaving anything out.”
Miranda sighs “I knew you’d do this.”
“Of course I’m doing this. It’s my fucking body.”
“Yes yes of course let’s see…”,Miranda’s fingers are drumming onto her desk, if in nervousness or annoyance Shepard can’t tell. “We grew you all new skin so you might have already noticed all your scars are gone.”
“I did”, Shepard confirms. It made her incredibly uncomfortable.
“We made you able to take more physical harm in general, upgraded your biotics, took out some factors for stuff that would have affected you as you got older and…”, she hesitates and Shepard can see Miranda doesn’t like what she is about to do next. “We were ordered to sever your soulmate bond.”
“You WHAT?”
“Your soulmate can still feel your pain but you can’t feel theirs the Illusive Man thought it would be a...distraction.”
Shepard can do nothing but stare at Miranda in disbelief.
“Do you know who...Did you find them before you died?”, Miranda asks, carefully.
Shepard shakes her head. “And now I never will.”
“I’m sorry, Shepard.”
“Shut up”, she stands up and leaves.
-
Truth is, Shepard didn’t care much for soulmate bonds. At least not as teenager or young adult. She knew she had one, ever since she was four years old she would feel pain that wasn’t hers at random times. On one very memorable occasion she felt like her face was being burned off. But since she was planning on joining the Alliance already at that point she figured a soulmate would be distraction and tried to ignore the random flashes of pain, telling her to find and protect them. She even thought about having her bond severed, but something always held her back.
Her ideas on the subject changed when she felt some very specific pains on the SR-1 and realized her soulmate must be one of her crewmembers. She suspected Liara or Kaidan and she was going to investigate but then...she died.
As she was suffocating, her lungs on fire, she mentally apologized to her soulmate for the pain she was causing them. And she regretted never making more of an effort to find out.
-
Garrus looks at her like he’s seeing a ghost. Shepard gives him a big smile. “Vakarian”
“Shepard”, he replies, hesitantly as if he still can’t believe what he’s seeing. “You’re alive.”
“Only a few days”, she lets her eyes wander around, surveying the apartment “Now let’s get you out of here.”
The rescue doesn’t go nearly as smoothly as planned and she ends up dragging Garrus out while he is bleeding all over her, all the while speaking to him. Begging him not to leave her. It’s only hours later when she is standing in her shower, washing his blood off her, that Shepard realizes she can’t have Garrus die. That she needs him by her side.
He is there for her in the next few months. Shepard can’t remember if he’s always been like this or if she simply didn’t pay enough attention to him on the SR-1. Now however, he is one of the few pieces of her old life she still has so she holds on to him as much as she can.
They end up dating unsurprisingly. Shepard feels good around Garrus, safe, more like herself. She has a feeling something is bugging him, but she doesn’t find out what until the middle of the Reaper War.
-
Shepard wakes up with a yawn, sitting up and stretching her arms in one swift motion. She can hear Garrus chuckle and blinks confusedly, looking around until she sees him standing on the other side of the bed. “Oh hey”
“Hey”, he smiles “I was just about to leave.”
“Yeah, I’m following soon.”, she shuffles over to him “Just gotta get dressed and check the emails”
“Fair enough” Garrus leans down to kiss her on the nose, but ends up miscalculating the distance and more or less headbutting her. Shepard flinches back holding her nose. Garrus flinches too, one of his talons raising up but quickly going back down.
“Ouch”, Shepard laughs, her voice sounds weird because she is holding her nose which makes her grin even more. But she also noticed something “Did you just flinch too? Is your forehead that soft?”
“No it’s not...it”, Garrus hesitates “It was my nose.”
“Your nose? How…”, Shepard pauses, a realization dawning. She slaps herself in the face, hard. Garrus flinches again. “Holy shit”
“I…”
“You’re my soulmate.”
Garrus sighs in defeat “Yeah”
“And you KNEW. You felt it when I died.”
“Yeah”
“Why…”, she takes one of his talons in her hands. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Garrus wraps his talons around her fingers, squeezing softly. “It was pretty clear you didn’t feel the rocket on Omega. I mean that hurt FOR DAYS and you never showed any sign you were feeling it. So I figured you had the bond severed and I didn’t...I didn’t want you to know you’d accidentally ended up in a relationship with me anyway. I thought if you didn’t want to know it wasn’t my place to tell you”
“Oh god no, no I…”, Shepard places her hand on the scarred side of Garrus’ face. “Cerberus severed it...I...didn’t want them…” She running out of words she decides to kiss him instead, taking his face in both her hands.
Garrus wraps his arms around her pulling her in. Shepard smiles into the kiss. She’s done it. Against all odds she has still found him and she’s never going to let go ever again.