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The Casino was packed. People of all creeds and races mingled in the main lobby. Shepard was dressed in a tight black dress with long sleeves and a square neckline. It was not her ideal outfit for a date, but it was certainly a change from her N7 hoodie. She felt a shoulder bump into hers and turned to see a flute of champagne held out to her.
She took it, giving Garrus a soft smile, before turning to survey the Casino. “What do you want to do tonight?”
He clicked his mandibles thoughtfully, taking a sip of his own champagne. “We’re at a fancy party, no clones, no crew. We could do anything we want or be anyone we want to be.”
“Don’t want to be Commander Shepard and Reaper Specialist Vakarian tonight?”
“Sounds like too much work if I’m being honest.”
“I think we need to get paid more.”
Garrus chuckled. “A lot more. I think we deserve some hazard pay.”
Shepard bit the inside of her lip thinking of what to do with their evening. “I always come up with our plans. You can choose who we play tonight. I think you should lead.”
“Me? I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“We’ll work on your improv skills.”
“I heard that Kaidan was thinking of taking some improv classes after all of this.”
“No, you can’t distract me with juicy tidbits of information, even though I am dying for more details. C’mon, let's figure out who we’re going to be tonight.”
Shepard dragged Garrus by the arm across the lobby floor, settling in an open space in a circle of couples. They all spoke with each other, laughing at jokes that definitely went over Shepard’s head. They were so…domestic and rich. Things she had no business being. One couple, an asari and a salarian, noticed their arrival and gave them a small nod.
“Hello, I don’t think I’ve seen you around many of the soirées the Casino puts on. I’m Velusa and this is Arall,” the asari, Velusa, pointed at herself and then her partner in turn. “What brings you here today?”
Shepard elbowed Garrus in the ribs, inclining her head slightly at the other couple. Lead the conversation, set the tone.
“Hello, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Garrus and this is my wife, Serenity. We work in the embassies and we’ve finally had enough time off to really explore the Citadel. The Silversun Strip is incredible.”
Shepard bit back a smile. Of course, Garrus went there. Of course, that was the first thing that came to his mind. She laced her fingers through his talons and gave his hand a light squeeze. He squeezed back, glancing over at her with a wide-eyed expression.
“We love having new faces around here, some of these people know way too much about us,” Arall, the salarian, said, while his partner chuckled. “You at least, don’t know all of our embarrassing stories.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing compared to some of our stories,” Shepard replied, her voice higher and sweeter than it had been in years.
She saw Garrus shake his head at her while the couple said hellos to another group of people passing by. “We’re not soldiers anymore. We can’t tell those stories,” he whispered.
Oh, god. Shepard didn’t have any other stories. Not really. “Well, I guess this will really stretch our improv skills.”
The other couple turned back to them and Shepard gave them another smile, trying her best not to feel anxious about the kinds of stories they could tell. There was nothing riding on this little game, but it was so hard to not put her all into everything.
“I am sure you have some excellent stories with all of the ambassadors and transients moving through the embassies,” Velusa said, waving her hand as she spoke.
Before Shepard could answer, Garrus spoke. She did enjoy when he took charge.
“Actually, most of the embarrassing ones come courtesy of our children.”
Shepard was pretty sure she shut down, her mind going through a restart cycle. She had not expected that the ‘characters’ that they were now portraying would be family people.
Garrus continued, joy laced in his voice. “Little Caelcia is an absolute terror. We adopted her a couple of years ago from Palaven and she does not slow down. I think one of the most memorable moments with her was when we had to call C-Sec to have her rescued from the arm of the krogan statue in the Presidium. Her uncle–we have a very good friend from Tuchunka–encouraged her to understand the statue and why it was there. Caelcia thought that meant to swim to it and climb all over it.”
Shepard could feel her heart growing as the other cross-species couple responded to Garrus’ story. This imaginary life felt like a good one. She could see herself living a life where their family grew beyond just the two of them.
Caelcia. She did like that name.
“…you are absolute saints for adopting a child. We are likely going to have a child soon. It’s lucky that Arall has a few brothers and sisters, otherwise, it would be very difficult for him to negotiate himself out of a breeding contract…”
The asari continued to talk, but Shepard was in her own head. If they did have children, would they stay in one place? Or could they bounce from place to place on their own ship, teaching their kids about the galaxy by experiencing it? She imagined a small little turian girl sitting on her lap while she piloted their ship, Garrus pointing out the trajectory of their FTL jump on the Nav to a boisterous, little human boy.
“…Serenity?” Garrus asked.
Shepard shook her head, looking up at Garrus and then across to the couple looking expectantly at her. “Oh, sorry. I was thinking about…Elio and if I remembered to calibrate his aural implant this afternoon.” She leaned forward to Arall and Velusa to explain. “We adopted Elio from Earth, about a year ago? He had hearing problems that he never could afford to get looked at. So when he came to the Citadel we made sure to get him the right doctors to identify any problems he had. But, he often will play with the implant settings, trying to improve upon it. I think we might have a little tech genius on our hands.”
She looked up at Garrus who was having trouble containing his emotions.
“Do you have any pictures of them handy? We would love to see your little family!”
Garrus froze, any emotions he was working through definitely buried as a problem presented itself. Shepard rose her brows at him, wanting him to take charge again.
“Uh, we’re in the middle of having them catalogued by a third-party, but if you give us your contact info we can set up a time when you can come and meet them,” Garrus replied. He did not sound sure of himself, but the couple was too busy pulling up their contact info for them to notice.
Shepard scanned their omni-tools, storing their information for later. She did not have a clue how they were going to navigate out of this situation, but it protected them from any embarrassing scenarios that would’ve inevitably come up if they had to show pictures of their non-existent family. She needed to extract them from this situation. They were getting close to blowing their cover.
“Oh honey, the Rayyas are here. We should go say hello. It was nice meeting you both. Hopefully, we can stay in touch.” Shepard slathered on the fake niceties, pulling on Garrus’ hand so that they could leave.
They walked away from the lobby and to the staircase at the back of the Casino. They quickly stopped at the bar before collapsing on a couch in a secluded corner of the top floor.
“I think I like it better when it’s just you and I doing that role-playing thing,” Garrus said, sipping his drink.
“Me too. You can come up with the next one. Maybe we should agree on it before coming to the bar.”
Garrus nodded and they both took long drinks from their glasses.
“So, wife, huh?” Shepard asked, smiling into her drink.
“Little, adopted human son from Earth?”
“Tiny turian girl from Palaven?”
Garrus put an arm around her shoulders and Shepard pulled her legs up onto the couch and pressed her body against his side. There was a small, sweet silence between them.
“I think it could be good.” Garrus looked down at her, his talons running through her hair.
“You’d be a good dad.”
“I don’t know about that, but I know I’d work really hard not to let you or any potential kids down.”
Shepard pressed a kiss onto his mandible. “I know you would. And that’s why you’d be good at it. I, on the other hand, might have trouble being a mom.”
“C’mon, Serenity. You treat every single person on your ship as family. You are kind when you need to be, stern when things go wrong, and give everyone the chance to be the best version of themself. I think you will be an amazing mom.”
“Well maybe when we retire from all of this, we can figure out how to do this.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Please do. A little family of our own. That sounds like something worth fighting for.”