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Chapter Text

Shepard hangs up the call and stares at the wall for a long, tense moment before she picks up her pillow, shoves her face into it, and screams. She doesn't bother to keep quiet. The pillow doesn't muffle anything, but god it's so satisfying to squeeze it and imagine it's his fucking neck. Maybe she'll throw it next. That sounds satisfying, too. It also sounds incredibly juvenile, but she might as well act like a child if he's going to treat her like one.

Goddammit.

"Everything okay, Shepard?"

Shepard tries to smother herself with her own pillow, but after a few seconds she admits defeat. "You can come in if you want to," she calls.

Her door slides open and Garrus looks in, narrowing his eyes at her disheveled hair and ratty tank top. Shepard squints back at him. Did she put on pants this morning?

"You look like something crawled into your face and died there," he says instead of a greeting.

Shepard snorts. "At least on me it's not permanent. I don't know what your excuse is."

"Hilarious," he says dryly, exactly as if he hadn't started it in the first place. "Seriously, Shepard, are you all right? I heard you all the way out in the living room."

Shepard looks longingly at her pillow, but in the end, she reminds herself that screaming about it has never solved anything in the past. "My father called. I'm expected home for Christmas." At Garrus's blank stare, she shrugs. "It's a human holiday – it's supposed to be about, I don't know, family togetherness and shit, but somehow it never feels like that when I'm getting reamed out for working with aliens."

Garrus leans against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chestplate. "Do you have to go?"

"I don't want to, but my grandmother's getting older every year," Shepard admits. "And I shouldn't punish my mother for the shit that comes out of his mouth. But god, if I could slip him a tranq for the entire month of December, I would be the happiest inmate in the asylum."

Her restless thoughts run over Christmases past, and she's forced to remember each and every argument, every time her father just wouldn't let the subject go; Shepard's never been the kind to take shit lying down, and she comes by it honestly.

Only once can she remember a Christmas that wasn't completely shitty, when her college roommate had nowhere else to go and crashed on the couch over winter break. Her father watches his tongue around other people.

Wait –

Shepard looks up at Garrus, her best friend – her turian best friend.

"Do you maybe wanna come with me?" Shepard asks, hiding her hands under her pillow so she can fidget without being obvious. "It's going to suck beyond the telling of it, but I could really use a friend, and your very existence would piss him off, so..."

"Oh, this is malicious?" Garrus grins. "Shepard, why didn't you just say so?"

Chapter Text

Shepard books them both tickets on the first transport the next morning while Garrus is off arranging to take a fraction of his banked leave. They're not too expensive, thankfully, because there still aren't many humans on the Citadel, and most of them are either overworked C-Sec agents or diplomatic attachés who think the universe is going to explode if they get up from their desk for more than thirty seconds.

Shepard's attached to the embassy, but she's in Military Affairs, an office that's slightly more sane than the rest. Her boss approves her leave request without question, something she both appreciates and regrets, and now she's left with nothing to do but throw random items of clothing into a duffel and wondering if it would be a terrible idea to bring her own booze.

God, she owes Garrus the best birthday present ever for this. Maybe she'll splurge on the really fancy turian whiskey, the shit they keep high on the shelves where she can't reach in sinuous bottles made from real glass. It's always funny watching Garrus hold those so carefully in his talons, like a tiny kitten he's afraid to squeeze too hard.

Fuck it, why not? This is the Citadel. She can get anything delivered in less than an hour. But first, presents; she attacks her shopping list with ruthless efficiency, finding everything she needs with one unexpected bonus that makes her cackle.

She's scrolling through the alcohol listings when Garrus gets back. "Hey, did you know there's volus beer?"

"Of course I did," Garrus says, tossing his case on the couch, but he leans over her shoulder anyway, bracing himself with a hand on the back of the couch so he's looming over her head. "Do they have that hanar gas stuff? What is it called?"

"Why do you think I know?" Shepard says, but she's already searching. They stay up way too late looking through the many and varied Citadel delivery stores, pointing out weird shit, debating imaginary uses of anything they don't recognize. Somehow Shepard never does end up ordering that alcohol, but that's probably for the best.

Their transport leaves bright and early the next morning. Shepard white-knuckles her way through the relay transit – she's never gotten used to the weird feeling of being flung through countless miles of nothingness – and only opens her eyes again when it's over. Garrus pats her head and she snaps her teeth at his hand.

She hasn't been home since last year, and she made sure she had a window seat so she could plaster her face to it as they enter Earth approach. She always forgets how pretty it is. Some of that's homesickness, of course, but Shepard thinks she's only a little biased in thinking her home's the most beautiful planet in Citadel space.

"Is that water?" Garrus says, resting his chin on her head so he can see. He sounds vaguely disgusted.

Shepard laughs. "Don't worry, big guy. I won't let you drown."

Chapter Text

They take a short in-atmo cruiser from Sea Island Station to Wrigley. Shepard starts shivering as soon as they leave the terminal. Fuck, it is cold. And windy. And cold. She'd forgotten the way that the wind off the lake seems to carry the ice with it. Her jacket is fine, but her trousers are too thin and she's got goosebumps in places she'd rather not. She hugs herself, looking around for the maglev train station – her mother lives on the reclamation islands in Lake Michigan, which is the only way she can afford a real house within sight of downtown Chicago.

The crowds are so loud that when she finds it, it's easier to take Garrus's elbow and point than to shout. She keeps hold of him afterward, just so she won't lose him in the sea of humanity.

Shepard tips her face back to the cool, pale winter sun. She'd forgotten the smell of the air at this time of year, the almost electric zing of it against her skin, and the smoky, woody warmth of a bonfire beneath – she's never known if that was just something sparking associations in her memories or if people really are burning old-fashioned wood fires in the city.

God, home feels so good. Even the ever-present Chicago smog and the pressing crowds waiting for the maglev can't ruin this.

When the train comes, Shepard pushes onto the car – assisted by a seven-foot alien at her back – and claims a corner as their own.

Garrus leans down to speak into her ear. "Is this really where you grew up? Shepard, this is hell."

Shepard twists to glare at him. "Excuse you – "

He leans closer. They're almost nose to nose now; anyone else would be trying to intimidate her, but not Garrus. He's playing with her. She doesn't need to see the poorly restrained tremble of laughter in his mandible to know that. "Shepard. Any planet in the Hierarchy that gets this cold is ejected from turian space."

"God, you poor baby," she says, rolling her eyes. She brings up her omnitool to check the weather. "It can't even be below zero – "

Chicago temperature: -2°C, her omnitool reads. Damn.

Without a word, Garrus searches Cipritine temperature on his own omnitool and shows it to her. 28°C.

Shepard winces. Now that she's looking, the leathery skin of his neck and the back of his head have gone very pale and he's huddling closer than usual. "Shit, Garrus," she says, knowing he'll hear the apology that she leaves unspoken. "Why didn't you say something?" She's unwinding her scarf as she speaks, and she throws it around his neck immediately, ignoring his startled jerk. She folds it double and tucks it down into his cowl. "We can turn the heat up in Mom's car, okay?"

"I'm fine," Garrus says, scowling, but he's still right there, still nearly cuddling.

"Sure, Garrus," Shepard agrees easily, but she lays her head on his shoulder anyway. Just in case.

Chapter Text

Once in a great while, when it's killing cold for days, Lake Michigan goes through a freeze-shatter-freeze cycle that leaves the lake surface a jagged nightmare of ice shards; then the wind and the currents whip the crystals into spirals before the lake freezes again. Shepard stares out the window, watching the light refract and shimmer through a pale rainbow of colors as the train speeds over the ice field.

This is weird.

Well –

Shepard shifts in her seat just to see what might happen, stretching her arms and her back. Garrus waits for her, frozen in place, until she puts her head back on his shoulder. Only then does he start to breathe again.

Her head rests so naturally on a flat place in his armor that it feels like that place was made specifically to hold her.

Maybe the weird part is how not weird this actually is.

If she thinks about it too much, she's going to make it weird, even if it isn't now. So Shepard decides not to think. Instead she watches the window, letting her eyes unfocus until the glittering light melts into flashes of brightness against a choppy gray sea...

———

Her mother is waiting for them at the station. She's got the car running and she waves at them to get in. "We'll do hugs at the house," she says, her eyes crinkling with the width of her smile. "It's too cold out!"

The only way that Garrus fits into the car is if he pushes the front seat all the way back and even then, his spurs are crushed against his thighs and his shoulder pressed against the door.

Shepard slides into the back. "Mom, can you turn the heat up? He's freezing and he won't admit it."

Garrus groans. "Shepard – "

"Nope," she says, poking his shoulder. "You are not allowed to get frostbite until we're back in a city with a turian embassy and turian medics, got it?"

Her mother laughs, turning the car on and blasting the heat. "It's no trouble, Garrus. It's just nice to finally meet you. I swear, my daughter talks about you all the time. When she actually remembers to call home, that is – "

"Mom," Shepard sighs.

God, please, let it not be one of those Christmases.

Thankfully, her mother leaves it there. "Is this your first trip to Earth?"

"Yeah," Garrus says, bracing himself on the dash as her mother pulls out into traffic. "First time on Earth, first winter, first Christmas... "

"And you're meeting your girlfriend's family, too!" Her mother casts him a quick smile.

Shepard's head snaps up to stare at her mother in the rearview mirror. Garrus is silent for a long, aching moment, but then he laughs, tight and nervous. "Yeah, I thought I'd dive right in to hard mode, I guess."

Shepard slowly turns her head to stare at the back of his, but he won't turn around, no matter how she glares.

What the fuck is happening right now?

Chapter Text

Somehow Garrus manages to keep a conversation going with her mother all the way back to the house. Shepard has no idea how, because Shepard has been unable to think about literally anything except the exact pitch and intonation of Garrus's voice when he'd just fucking agreed with her mother that they were dating.

Less important – but still on the list to worry about later – is why her mother'd thought that in the first place. Other people have made that mistake, but not someone so close, not someone who's supposed to know her. Not her mother.

Shepard's train of thought is wrenched from her grasp when the car stops in front of the house. It's a tall, narrow two-story building that only escapes being a townhouse by virtue of the twelve inch gap between it and its neighbors. On the right, the Kohns have decorated for the holiday season with blue and white lights and a huge, inflatable dreidel that bends double every time the wind blows. The left side hasn't decorated, which is a change from the thicket of bright, blinking lights they'd done last year. Her mother only has a line of white lights over the porch and a holly wreath on the door.

Home. Or at least, it was. She can't put her finger on when it happened, but the house she grew up in seems so much smaller than it used to.

Garrus unfolds himself from the car with difficulty, allowing Shepard plenty of time to grab their things and still give him a hand out. "We need to talk," she murmurs in his ear after she yanks him upright. "Don't we. Boyfriend."

Her smile has teeth in it. She knows that. The way in which Garrus winces is very satisfying.

But it's so cold that she doesn't have the heart to keep him out in it – not when he's shivering again already – and so Shepard lets her mother usher them into the house. "Mom!" Hannah calls, hanging up her coat, turning to take Shepard's. "We're back! Come meet Janey's boyfriend."

Shepard winces. She'd hoped to nip this whole thing in the bud before it reached her grandmother, and she'd also hoped Garrus would never hear that goddamn nickname. Garrus mouths Janey? at her, with a smug look that she really doesn't appreciate, and she narrows her eyes at him in a promise she means to keep. In revenge, she drags him into the living room to meet Abigail Hennessy.

Her grandmother is a tiny, weathered, muscular woman who's more comfortable with the horses than with crowds. Her hugs are the warmth of Shepard's childhood. Shepard loves her beyond reason.

Thankfully, the smile Abigail turns on Garrus is welcoming. "Lord, they grow them big where you're from," she says, laughing. She tugs him down to kiss him on the cheek, but she frowns at the touch of his skin. "Darling, you're freezing," she says, concerned. "Hannah – "

"I'm already on it, Mom!" Hannah calls from the kitchen.

Chapter Text

Shepard drops onto the couch and watches with silent, malicious pleasure as Abigail attempts to set Garrus at ease. She chivvies Garrus into a shabby, oversized recliner that Shepard last remembers seeing in the basement; someone's brought it up into the living room and squashed together the rest of the furniture to make room.

This awkwardness won't last, because they're going to get along like a house on fire once they grow more comfortable with each other and Garrus remembers he's got a sense of humor, but Shepard's going to enjoy his squirming while she can.

Boyfriend. She rubs a hand over her face and sighs.

Hannah comes back, carrying a tray with four mugs. She sets them down on the coffee table, picks out the one with a green ribbon attached to the handle, and offers it to Garrus.

Oh, shit. Did she remember to warn them? "Mom, he can't – "

Hannah silences her with one stern look. "Jane Andromeda Shepard, do you really think I wouldn't look it up for myself?" She turns back to Garrus. "It's safe, I promise. That's dextro hot chocolate. I called your embassy, and someone there said this is a good brand? I bought a lot from them. I hope it's edible."

Surprised, Garrus looks down at the mug in his hands. He brings it up to his face to smell it; it must be good, because the flare of his smile then is the widest she's ever seen it. He ducks his head to hide his pleasure. Too bad he can't hide it from her.

"Thanks, Mrs. Shepard," he says. "I wasn't looking forward to living on rations."

Hannah gives him the same look that Shepard just got. "It's Hannah, until you feel comfortable calling me Mom."

Shepard leans in to pick up her own mug – only the four, Lexi must be coming tomorrow, on Christmas Eve – and hides her own grin behind it. She loves her mother.

———

They're sharing her childhood bedroom. Of course they are. Shepard takes one look at the bed, very firmly puts that on the list labeled later and spins on Garrus. "What the hell was that?" she hisses, careful to keep her voice low.

He approaches her carefully, like he's preparing to jump on a grenade. "Shepard – "

"I am not lying to my mother," Shepard snaps, wishing she could stab him with her eyeballs. "So help me god, you'd better help me fix this – "

"Shepard," Garrus says, hovering like he can soothe her with his very presence. "Breathe." When all she does is glare at him, he sighs. "You wanted to piss your dad off, didn't you? Are you really going to turn down the perfect way to do it?"

Taken aback, Shepard stares up into his face.

For the first time in a very long time, she can't read him at all.

"I can't believe you want to do this," she says uncertainly.

Garrus smiles then. "Shepard, I'd do anything for you. Didn't you know that?"

Chapter Text

Shepard tries to think as they unpack, but every time she starts getting somewhere, something in her brain drags out the memory of the unveiled affection and softness in Garrus's voice –

I'd do anything for you.

And then her brain liquefies and she's back to being utterly and completely fucking lost.

They move around each other in quiet harmony, like they always do, like they've long since choreographed this dance, but she's never been so aware of him before. He fills the room of her childhood to the brim, but somehow his personal space is also her personal space.

Shepard looks at the drawer she's just filled; his undersuits lie folded neatly next to her bras, just like they belong there. She flushes and slams the drawer shut.

"What's this?"

Shepard spins, but Garrus is only holding the bag of presents. Her shoulders relax. "Christmas presents. We exchange them on Christmas day."

He looks at her uncertainly. "Was I supposed to bring presents?"

"We can just add your name to those. It's fine, no one's expecting anything from you."

Garrus looks down at the bag in his hands. "Maybe I am. I shouldn't show up empty-handed."

Shepard checks her omnitool. It's just before noon, local time, on the day before Christmas Eve. "The stores are going to be hell," she warns him. But Garrus is so stubborn and insistent that she suspects she's walked into something inherently turian. Shepard gives in, without any grace whatsoever, and soon they're back on the maglev headed into the city. It's even more crowded than the outbound train was earlier; Shepard tucks herself between Garrus and the wall to stay on her feet.

In front of them are a couple of shy teenagers. The boy looks longingly at the girl and then away just before she glances at him with undisguised, laughing affection. They're cute. Shepard finds herself watching them, cheering for the girl to catch him at it.

Eventually she does, and the shock on her face melts into pure happiness. She says something to him and slides her hand down his arm to intertwine their fingers. The boy grins at her –

Oh. Oh, shit. Shepard looks up at Garrus, who's looking away from her, staring out the window. To sell this, they're going to have to pretend to be a couple. That means she's going to have to look like she's into him, and the same for him. That means holding hands, and cuddling, and – do turians kiss?

And now that she's thinking about it... Garrus doesn't touch her of his own volition. He invades her space on a regular basis, sometimes just to sniff her loudly and ask her when was the last time she showered or flop next to her on the sofa, but it's always up to her to close the gap between them. They don't cuddle. Unless Shepard wants to count the way that she hangs off of him when she's tequila-drunk.

They've got to talk about this.

Chapter Text

They take the skybridge from the station to the beginning of the Magnificent Mile, a swank, historical shopping district with every kind of store Shepard can think of and quite a few more she finds herself unable to explain to Garrus.

For example, Garrus is currently examining an Elf on the Shelf. "Do your children really need to be bribed into good behavior?"

Shepard shrugs. "Yeah, kinda. Kids are little demons from hell, Garrus. Don't let anyone tell you different."

They leave that shop and head down the street, huddled together against the cold; the sky is awash with gray, scudding clouds. Shepard reminds herself to keep an eye on the weather.

As they go deeper into the district there's asari and turians among the crowds, and Shepard finds herself looking at them, wondering what they think of this holiday thing. Some of them are obviously with human partners; there's a few turians, a quarian and his boyfriend, and one asari is alternately holding hands and bickering with a human woman as they herd three tiny asari children around a display of kid-sized musical toys.

Shepard is so aware of the man next to her that she could put her hand on his face without even looking at him. She has to talk to him about this, no matter how awkward it might be. She licks her lips nervously. "If we're going to do this, we need ground rules. Like..." She glances at the couple again. "How do you feel about hand-holding? Or cuddling?"

"I said anything, Shepard," Garrus says, amused. "I meant it."

She sighs. "I'm serious, Vakarian."

"So am I." He edges closer to her, his body a familiar, comforting bulwark. "Trust me?"

When he puts it that way, there's only one answer. She trusts him with everything, without reservation. Always.

Garrus holds his hand out to her, and she lays her hand in his, first flat palm against flat palm, her hand looking almost small against the size of his; then she twines her fingers around his, looking for the comfortable, careless intimacy that she remembers from boyfriends past. No one is more surprised than she when she finds it almost immediately.

One of the asari children snatches up a flute and starts playing something that Shepard nearly recognizes.

"Oh, I know this one," Garrus says, delighted.

Shepard looks up at him. "Yeah? How does it go?"

"You don't want me to sing."

She glares at him. "Don't tell me what I want."

Garrus sighs, audibly reluctant, then leans down to sing quietly in her ear. The translator makes a hash of songs and poetry sometimes, Shepard knows, but this is simple, a child's rhyme: the sun, the sun, the single sun, are you lonely? Do you miss us like we miss you when you've gone away?

Oh, but the duality of his voice in her ear, murmuring a song that's just for her – Shepard inhales shakily. She knows herself. This is the way that she wants.

Chapter Text

The rest of the shopping trip passes in a daze as Shepard struggles with that particular revelation. She doesn't subscribe to her father's brand of shape-based speciesism, but she's never wanted anyone outside of her own species before. She didn't know she was capable of it.

And Garrus is her friend. Her best friend. No. This is – This is just a blip, that's all, something brought on by holiday togetherness and forced proximity. She'll ignore it, and then it'll go away and everything will go back to normal.

It has to.

Shepard loses track of Garrus in the sea of people in a huge, multi-level electronics store, which she honestly should have seen coming. She hunts him all over the building before she finds him salivating over the latest omnitool models with two large bags at his feet.

She has to laugh. The tells are subtle, body language and the tilt of his head, but he's as excited and engrossed as a kid in a candy shop, and seeing that makes her feel warm all over. It's with that fondness that she sneaks up on him and tickles the back of his neck. He startles hard, banging into the display with a loud noise that draws people's attention.

"Shepard!" he hisses at her. She tries to apologize, but she's laughing too hard and it comes out all garbled.

As the hubbub around them picks up again, Shepard overhears someone talking about a blizzard. She winces, pulling up the weather forecast on her omnitool. There's a snowstorm coming in from the west, moving fast, and the projections say it's going to dump a ton of snow over the entire area.

"Hey, Garrus?" Shepard says slowly. "Have you ever seen a blizzard?"

Garrus pauses in picking up his things. "No. Am I going to?"

"If we don't hurry," Shepard says grimly.

They head back to the maglev, which is somehow even more crowded than before; Shepard and Garrus end up sandwiched together in the middle of the car, holding on to a pole for balance. She still manages to sway into him too often for her comfort. In the end she wraps an arm around his waist, and he looks down with a faint smile that does a number on her heart rate.

The storm seems to chase the train, gaining speed as it goes – or perhaps they're racing it home – and Shepard watches it in concern. She'd made Garrus bundle up before they left, but she doesn't want him stuck outside. Not in Chicago windchills. If the roads are impassible when they get to the station, they might have to spend the night in her mother's car, and then he really will get frostbite.

She might, too, but that matters less to her somehow.

Shepard silently tries to will the train to move faster, but it doesn't seem to do anything – and the storm is still picking up speed and volume, expanding to cover the entire sky in malevolent gray clouds...

Chapter Text

When they get to the station, there's three inches of fresh, powdery snow laying on the ground and more coming down in the kind of silent cloud that looks very pretty but makes for poor visibility on the roads. Garrus is a little unsteady on his feet, unused to the crunch and the slide of fresh snow as he is; Shepard hasn't seen a winter snow like this for years, but she remembers the strange near-waddle that's safest for human legs. Let Garrus laugh. He'd laugh more if she threw her back out walking from the train to the car.

Shepard turns the car's heating as high as it'll go, but it's been sitting in the lot for hours. It's freezing. She looks at Garrus, and he looks back at her, silently daring her to fuss over him again.

She's tempted to do it anyway, but... Abigail will bully Garrus into a hot shower all on her own, if Shepard can get them home before they freeze to death. And there's hot chocolate, and hopefully Hannah bought more dextro food than dessert. Shepard thinks she can leave the coddling to them.

Garrus isn't ready for the Hennessy women, she thinks with a smirk she doesn't bother to hide.

It's safer for her to drive home in manual mode. She peers through the windshield into the gloaming, lit from within by the lights of other cars, by streetlamps and the haze of light pollution that surrounds every city, but Garrus's eyes are better than hers. He spots the turns before she does.

They're fifteen minutes away from home when the car dies.

"Fuck," Shepard says into the silence.

"Let me take a look at it," Garrus says, unlocking his harness. "Maybe I can do something."

There's no talking him out of fiddling, Shepard knows. "Go ahead," she says, unlocking the maintenance hatches. "But I'm calling Mom to pick us up. I think Grandma brought a rental."

They push the car out of traffic – thank god the emergency hover kicked in – and Garrus leans his whole upper body into the engine compartment while Shepard calls Hannah.

She's halfway through explaining their problem when Garrus calls to her. "I think I got it!" On cue the car's lights turn on.

"Never mind," Shepard says, smiling at her mother. "We'll be home soon."

The car runs, and it's drivable, but the air registers are completely cold. The heat isn't working at all now. By the time they make it home, Shepard's just starting to feel the chill, but Garrus is huddled down into his seat and shivering.

"Get inside," she says, twisting around to grab the bags. "You've got first shower."

Hannah takes Shepard's things from her hands just inside the door. "Why don't you get in with him?" she asks.

"Oh god, Mom – " Shepard groans.

"What? The hot water won't last forever, and it's not like your grandmother and I are going to judge you – "

Shepard closes her eyes and prays for patience.

Chapter Text

She does not join Garrus in the shower, but she lays a hand on his armor as she squeezes past him in the hall. It's no colder to the touch than she is. He's warmed up enough, she supposes; time to take care of herself.

When she gets back to their room – the room with only one bed – Garrus is unpacking his shopping, his back to the door, and Shepard stops to stare at him, because –

He's just standing there in his undersuit. The one that clings to every part of his body. The one that's worse than being naked – that's more naked than naked –

Oh, god. This isn't going away, is it.

Naturally, that's when he turns to look at her. "Nice pyjamas," Garrus says, looking her up and down, lingering to take in the tiny cartoon elcors with reindeer antlers and festive lights.

His eyes on her body feel electric, heavy, like a physical weight.

"Hey." Garrus raises his eyebrow at her, all friendly concern. "You okay?"

Shepard gives him a tight smile. "Yep." Desperate to change the subject, she gestures at the pile of stuff on the bed. "Do you want me to get you the wrapping paper?"

Garrus glances at the pile, then turns his head to stare at her, playful horror dancing through his subvocals. "You have to wrap them, too?"

Shepard has to laugh.

She grabs a random handful of shiny, glittering paper and tape, dodging her mother and grandmother's questions, and retreats back to the bedroom, where she attempts to teach Garrus how to wrap presents.

In a turn she should have seen coming, Garrus is absolutely appalled at her slapdash method of estimating how much paper she'll need and the ocean of tape she then relies on to keep everything together.

"You can measure the box," Garrus argues, so incredulous that he's almost talking with his hands. "And then it's a very simple equation – "

"I'm not doing math just to wrap presents!" Shepard protests. "It's just going to get ripped off anyway."

"Sometimes I think you were bitten by a math equation when you were a kid. Look, it's easy, you just – "

Shepard sticks a bow on his nose. It's white.

Garrus stares at her, and then very, very slowly, he tilts his head, his mandibles flaring in what Shepard can only call a predatory smile. "Is that how you want to play it," he purrs. With the bow still on his nose. She cannot possibly be intimidated.

(She's not. It's definitely way too cute for her to handle.)

"Fine," she says, laughing, a sudden ocean of bright, warm affection swamping her. "Show me how it's done, big guy."

She curls up next to him and watches him wrap his presents in blue and white stripes, every box featuring crisp, sharp corners and perfect, matching lines. She can't believe this is working. Fuck. She's gonna have to eat her words, isn't she?

"There," Garrus says. "Perfect."

"Yeah," Shepard has to agree. "Perfect."

Chapter Text

"Hey, kids!" Hannah calls from the hallway. "Come on, it's Christmas. You're going to be social whether you like it or not."

Garrus looks up from where he's carefully affixing a bow to one of his last presents. "Is she talking to us?"

"Who else?" Shepard jams her foot into Garrus's thigh as she's scrambling up, and the silky texture of his undersuit against her foot makes her pause. "Hey, um... I don't wanna be insensitive or anything, but are you gonna be comfortable around people in that? I've never seen you out of your armor before. I kinda thought it was grafted on, honestly."

Garrus glances up at her curiously. "I need to wipe it down. There's some kind of residue gunking up the seals. Why?" He looks down at himself. "Am I supposed to dress formal?"

Shepard stares at him and then gestures to her ratty, faded tank and cut-off pyjama pants. "Do I look like we dress up in this house? The point is to be comfortable, so if you aren't, then you should change. Otherwise you're fine. Okay?"

He laughs, his eyes glinting in the mellow light. "I really appreciate your brand of aggressive comfort, Shepard."

She flicks him in the nose, obscurely pleased by the bow he's moved to his forehead, and leaves him to finish.

That was so normal for the two of them that all she feels is a huge and pervasive relief. She hasn't ruined them by having feelings. Maybe she can walk this line.

Maybe they're gonna be okay.

Hannah and Abigail are laying out sheets of fragrant gingerbread on cooling racks when Shepard walks into the kitchen. She takes one look at the countertops and sighs. "Ma, we talked about this."

"It's tradition," Hannah says without missing a beat. "And besides, I have a new idea this year. I really think it's going to work." She pushes the hair back from her forehead, looking around the kitchen like she's lost something.

Maybe her marbles, Shepard grumbles in her head. (She's smart enough not to say that out loud.)

Every year since Shepard was a kid, they've been trying to make a gingerbread house that holds together for more than a few hours. It would probably help if her entire family weren't as bad at baking as a mule with anosmia and twice as stubborn. Hannah will not allow anyone to find a recipe online.

"Where's the fun if you just look up the answer?" Hannah likes to demand.

Silently, Abigail slides Shepard a mug full of coffee; the first sip tells her that it's also got their traditional jigger of whiskey in it. Shepard sighs, touches her mug to Abigail's and takes a long, steadying drink. She's gonna need it.

Still, it smells great in here. And these are two of her three favorite women on this planet or any other. Shepard puts down her coffee and wraps an arm around Abigail's shoulder. "Okay, what are we trying this year?"

Chapter Text

When Garrus finally makes it to the kitchen, they're all crowded around a stand mixer, watching it with bated breath. "Stop!" Abigail cries, pointing at Garrus without looking at him. He freezes in place. Shepard holds her breath, but the meringue holds its form and air without collapsing.

"I think it's okay," Shepard whispers.

"How can you tell?" Abigail whispers back. "It looks like a marshmallow threw up in the bowl."

Garrus sidles over to them, keeping his voice low. "What are you doing?"

The back door slams open; Hannah covers the bowl of the stand mixer with her whole body, as if the blast of cold air might make the icing deflate like a balloon. Lexi blows in with the snow, all dark hair and dark eyeliner and red, red lips. Shepard reaches out and hooks an arm around her neck.

Lexi shoves at her. "God, you're gross. Haven't you thrown out those pjs yet?"

Shepard looks down at herself. "How could I possibly throw out the holiday elcor? That's eighteen years bad luck. And anyway, you're one to talk, you look like you're auditioning for Daria." She pulls on a dark curl.

Lexi rolls her eyes. "Look, I can either have a goth girlfriend – and Ian's not into eyeliner – or I can be the goth girlfriend. The math is simple, Janey. It's not my fault you never got past subtraction."

Garrus snorts, drawing Lexi's attention, and then he looks like he instantly regrets it when every eye in the room turns to him.

"That's Garrus," Shepard says, jerking her thumb at him. "He's with me."

She'd rather not lie, but that seems innocuous enough.

"Really?" Lexi's got a sly twist to her mouth that Shepard doesn't appreciate. "About time, Janey."

Now what the hell is that supposed to mean?

"Ignore Lexi," Shepard says, glaring at her. "She was improperly socialized as a child."

Lexi elbows her. "It's Alexa, you – "

"Girls," Hannah says absently; she's so focused she's not really paying attention to them at all. "If you're going to fight, take it outside."

"What, out in the blizzard?" Abigail says, laughing.

"What? Oh – " Hannah starts to laugh, too. "No, no, I don't want daughter-icicles. Maybe the basement? Lexi, hang your things up properly, please. Jane, stop antagonizing your sister. Sit down – you too, Garrus – "

She bustles them into chairs at the kitchen table and drops sections of gingerbread, the bowl of icing, and a pile of candies in front of them. "Your grandmother and I did the baking, so you get to do the assembling. Good luck!" And with that, Hannah whisks herself and Abigail out of the kitchen, cackling far more than the situation warrants.

"Great," Lexi says, staring at the supplies on the table. "So it's our fault when it inevitably shatters."

"Yup," Shepard agrees blankly.

Garrus looks between them. "Can't we just check the extranet while your mom's not looking?"

"Somehow she always knows," Shepard sighs, slumping further into her chair. "Better not risk it."

Chapter Text

After consulting Hannah, the official arbiter of the rules, it's decided that since Garrus is operating with the handicap of never having seen a gingerbread house before, limited extranet searching is allowed.

("Why are they all shaped like this?" Garrus asks, paging through image after image of the same kind of small, square house with a pitched roof. "You don't build your houses this way anymore."

"What about your holiday experience so far has led you to believe that any of this is logical?" Shepard asks him.)

While he's looking it up, and Shepard hangs over his shoulder to point out the really ugly ones, heedless of the fact that she's probably ruining some poor child's life somewhere, Lexi starts to work on an actual house. Shepard sees that out of the corner of her eye. She chooses to pretend that she doesn't in the hopes that Lexi will continue to do all of the hard work so Shepard can sit there and eat candy, like she tries to do every year.

It never works, but she always tries.

Eventually Garrus looks up and notices that Lexi's halfway through the house. For some weird reason he seems to feel bad about that, so he suggests that they all make one, since the bakers made enough gingerbread to wallpaper the kitchen.

Shepard's the one to suggest that whoever's house lasts the longest wins.

"Wins what?" The familiar fires of competition light up in her sister's eyes.

Shepard ticks off possibilities on her fingers. "Extra whiskey, first shower, no nicknames for a week – but Garrus should get whatever he wants if he wins, since he's a guest."

"I can't even eat this stuff," Garrus points out, tapping the gingerbread with a talon.

"That's pretty unfair," Lexi agrees. "All right. You're on."

Lexi goes back to carefully and precisely fitting together her gingerbread, and Garrus starts to actually measure where he wants to cut, which makes Shepard feel the first stirrings of unease. Lexi is in art school. Garrus is a frustrated engineer. Shepard is really, really good at punching things. That's not a skill that's going to help her here.

With grim determination, Shepard spackles together a house with so much meringue that it's oozing out of the corners. It sticks when she tries to wipe away the excess, so she gives up on that and tries to make sure it's structurally sound, instead.

Lexi's is picture-perfect, because of course it is, and Garrus has a small grouping of wide, flat buildings. "The Vakarian compound," he says, when Shepard asks. "Most of the clan lives there."

Home, he doesn't have to say.

Shepard fights Lexi for the best of the candy, but they put that on hold when they realize that Garrus has liberated much of the pile from under their nose and turn as one to fight him instead, which lasts until they realize that Shepard's house is slowly oozing downward.

Lexi cackles. "Looks like it's just you and me, Garrus."

Chapter Text

Lexi and Garrus's houses both last the next hour until dinner, at which point Hannah has them clear the table so they can eat. Shepard's quiet at dinner, quiet enough that Garrus looks at her in concern a couple of times. She shakes her head, smiling. She's just watching: watching him get along with her family like he's been here a hundred times, watches her sister giggle for the first time at some offhand comment Garrus makes, watches her mother beam when Garrus admits that the dextro food is both good and more than he was expecting.

Watches the subtle tremor in her grandmother's hand as she picks up her fork.

Shepard's so glad she came. Why had she let one man ruin all of this for her? No more of that, Shepard decides, fierce in defense of her real family. Her mother's birthday is in May. She'll be back.

———

Garrus elects to head up to bed when she does, which leaves the two of them staring at a bed that might fit them both if they're okay with being very cozy, indeed.

"This is your fault," Shepard says eventually.

"I'd argue that, but I don't even know what 'this' is."

Humor is her coping mechanism. She understands that about herself. That doesn't mean it doesn't work.

"You're gonna take up the entire fucking bed. I'm gonna balance on the edge all night, like this – " She stands on the toes of one foot and wobbles dramatically.

Instead of laughing, Garrus looks at her with the most challenging grin she's ever seen on him. "You'll just have to cuddle up, then, won't you? Unless you're scared you'll like it."

She glares at him. "I know what you're doing, asshole," she hisses. And yet –

And yet still she climbs into the bed, punches her pillow into shape and throws herself down with the aggrieved energy of someone who's been done wrong. Garrus turns off the lights and settles in next to her, and the room grows quiet, and still, and peaceful...

It comes to her then that he'd done it on purpose. He knows her inside and out – he knows her better than she knows herself, sometimes. He sees her clearly, lumps, warts, bad temper and all. He knew she'd needed a push, and he'd given her one she could swallow.

He gives her so much. Is she selfish for wanting more? For wanting everything?

Anything, he'd said to her.

Shepard swallows down the lump in her throat. She lets her eyes drift to his profile, and even though it's nothing but a dark line against a darker wall, the sight eases her.

He's with her. Nothing can go too badly wrong if he's there. She's always known that to be true. Even if this blows up in their faces, or if she tells him that she wants him and he can't get over her being human, they're gonna get through it.

Shepard sighs, closes her eyes, and sleeps like a baby.

Chapter Text

In the morning, Shepard opens her eyes to find that she's draped herself over Garrus in her sleep. He's awake, reading something dense on his omnitool, but he glances at her when she rubs at her eyes.

"Morning," he says in a low, hoarse rumble.

"Gross," Shepard grumbles back.

It's not awkward. She doesn't know what she would have done if it had been – if something had introduced tension into this relationship that she's coming to realize matters more to her than anything – but it's not. There's only peace, the contentment of being close and comfortable with someone she cares about.

Still, she should probably give Garrus his personal space back.

She sits up, stretching. "Sorry I drooled all over you," she says lightly.

He tilts his head, studying her with slow, careful thoroughness from head to waist and then back up to meet her eyes. "I'm not," he says, winks at her – fucking winks – and gets out of bed, doing some stretching of his own.

What the fuck was that? Shepard opens her mouth to ask, but Garrus drops his arms, sighs, and turns his back on her to fish out a different undersuit. "What's the plan for today?"

"Family, food, more family, more food," she answers, still eyeing his relaxed back. He's acting so normal. Maybe he'd just been teasing her, and anything weird is just the product of a fevered imagination.

Yeah. That's probably it.

When Shepard puts on real clothes instead of just pyjamas, Garrus straps himself into his armor – he'd gotten up early and cleaned it, he tells her, which also means that he'd then gotten back into bed with her which sends her into a tailspin all the way downstairs.

Lexi's sitting at the kitchen table, a call on her omnitool and murder in her eyes. " – make it up to you?"

With a sharp laugh, Lexi says, "Jane's never home, Dad. How exactly are you planning on making this up to us?"

Shepard throws herself into a chair. "Notice that he said he'll make it up to you. Nowhere did he include me."

"Of course I meant you, too, Jane," her father sighs. There it is – that beleaguered, long-suffering attitude, with disappointment underneath. He always sounds like that when he's talking to her. When he's not shouting, that is.

"But I really wanted you to meet my new boyfriend, Dad," Shepard says, soft malice in her voice. Lexi turns her omnitool to include Shepard in the video. "Weren't you saying I wasn't getting any younger last year?"

The projection of her father's face is good enough to watch his jaw tense and his mouth pinch with rage. He knows exactly who she brought home.

"Don't call me, Dad," she says, her voice deathly flat. "I'll call you." She reaches over and hits the disconnect on Lexi's omnitool, and then the kitchen goes so quiet Shepard can hear the wind howling through the alley.

Lexi reaches over and takes her hand, and Shepard holds tight.

Chapter Text

Shepard should take this as a triumph. Driving her father away from Christmas is an accomplishment.

Maybe later she'll see it that way. All she wants right now is to go back to bed – if Garrus is there – or a bit of Irish in her coffee. More than a bit, really.

"Okay, no, " Lexi snaps, pulling Shepard up. "Come on."

She drags Shepard into the bathroom and closes the door. This is as private as it gets in this house at the holidays; they've had more than a few conversations in this very room growing up. Lexi looks in the mirror, makes an irritated noise, and starts touching up her eyeliner.

"You're letting him get to you," she says, glancing at Shepard in the mirror.

"Yeah," Shepard admits.

"That man does not deserve an ounce of your thoughts," Lexi says, drawing a dramatic, slashing flick. "He fucked both of us up in different ways. He loves who he thinks I am, and he hates who he thinks you are, and he doesn't see either of us." She lifts her chin, examining herself in the mirror. "He doesn't deserve us."

Shepard's never been able to put it into words. Not like that. She smiles, and if it's a little wobbly, she knows Lexi won't tell. "Your therapy's showing."

Lexi smirks. "And doesn't it look good on me?"

———

Over the day, the house starts to fill up with extended family. Shepard wanders the crowd, dispensing hugs and agreeing that yes, she certainly has grown since the last time she saw –

She catches sight of Garrus then, which stops her in her tracks. He's sitting on the floor with a pile of kids, telling them stories and it's adorable. She leans against the wall and watches him for a while, her smile growing, until Lexi swears loudly from the kitchen.

Shepard elbows her way there, but she only finds Lexi sulking and staring at the remains of her gingerbread house.

"I guess Garrus wins," Shepard says, laughing.

The meringue hadn't set at all; it's still soft to the touch. Garrus wins because he'd made sure his buildings were structurally sound to begin with.

He only struts a little before he demands his prize.

Garrus leans in to speak in her ear. "What I want is for you to explain that and why your mother looks at me every time you go near it."

Shepard follows his gaze, dread in her heart, and finds a small sprig of mistletoe pinned to the doorway over their heads. Of course. She bets her mother's hand is behind this, too.

"We have to kiss – it's bad luck to say no," she says, worrying her lip – but she can't stop looking at his mouth.

Garrus tilts his head. "It's just me. What are you so scared of?"

Shepard pulls him down to her, takes a quick breath – for courage, for luck – and kisses him, her mouth soft against his plates. "Wanting more," she whispers.

And then she runs.

Chapter Text

She keeps her distance for the rest of Christmas Eve. Garrus lets her. She knows that he's letting her, because she can feel his eyes on her, weighing her mood, before he turns away to talk to someone else.

She isn't running. She's retreating, for now. There's a time and a place for this conversation – and it's not in the middle of aunties she hasn't seen in four years or cousins she's never met.

(Seriously, did her mother invite everyone?)

But he keeps looking at her. She ignores him at first, but there's something about it that feels – She doesn't like ignoring him. It feels juvenile. So the next time Shepard feels his eyes on her, she turns her head and meets them, lifting her chin as if to say what?

Garrus just flicks his mandible at her, a laughing smile, and turns back to listen to her great-uncle. Shepard's left staring at him then, and it takes far longer for her to remember that she was talking to her mother's best friend. He sneaks glances at her more often after that; sometimes he waits for her to look back, sometimes he doesn't, but always she feels his eyes on her.

Every time she meets his eyes, Garrus smiles. Secret, sly, and oddly bashful, that smile means different things to her as the afternoon wears on – first, it's that they're okay, that they're always going to be okay, even if she'd kissed him and as much as told him that she wants to do it again. Then it seems to grow deeper, more appealing, affectionate in a way she can't describe, until every look, every glance is building an anticipation in her stomach.

What she's anticipating, she couldn't say. But it's possible that this conversation isn't going to go as badly as she thought...

———

It's late when she finally escapes to her room to find Garrus lying on the bed, waiting for her; his omnitool casts a faint orange light over his face as he glances up at her. Shepard throws herself on the bed next to him. "Hi."

"Hi," Garrus says, amused. "I didn't know there were that many Shepards in the universe."

"Can't claim all of them," she says, letting herself smile. "Not everyone was related." She lays next to him, his warmth a bright, hot line against her side.

"What's going on up there?" Garrus asks, reaching over to tap her forehead.

"God knows," she says. "Nothing, probably, like usual."

The silence lingers, not uncomfortable but there, like a weighted blanket swathing her anxieties.

"Did you mean it?"

Shepard tips her head over to look at him, warm and faded in the old-fashioned lamplight. He looks like home. He looks like hers. "Yeah. I did. But it's okay if you don't – "

"Shepard," Garrus interrupts, amused. He looks back at her with those blue eyes that have always seen right through her and takes her hand. "Didn't you know? I've just been waiting for you to catch up."

Chapter Text

Shepard wakes, warm and content, to find that she's cuddled up to Garrus in her sleep. It's a lot like yesterday, actually, right down to the naked affection in his eyes as he glances down at her. "Hey."

Had it been there the whole time? Is she really that blind?

She doesn't want to get up just yet, so she rolls atop him instead. He laughs quietly, turning off his omnitool. Hesitantly, like he's not sure he's allowed, he wraps an arm around her shoulders and tugs her closer.

They'd stayed up late, talking, trading stories and kisses in equal measure. It took a while to wrap her head around the idea that he's been in love with her for a long, long time. She can absolutely believe that he'd catch feelings and never mention it – but how is she supposed to be worth that kind of selfless loyalty? She really likes him. Hell, she's probably in love with him, and has been for a while without even noticing, but...

(Shepard's never claimed to be observant.)

She rests her chin on his keelplate and just looks at him. He looks far more awake than she does. "Been up long?" she asks.

"Turians don't need that much sleep," Garrus says with a shrug.

Shepard blinks at him. "So you could have gotten up and done something?"

"I don't know how brave you think I am, but facing your family without you?" He winces dramatically. "Terrifying."

"They're not gonna eat you, you big baby," she says, laughing. Garrus smooths his hand up and down her back, his claws grazing the edge of her tank top; she shivers. His hands feel unexpectedly nice on her skin.

"I don't know what you do for Christmas," he reminds her. "What if it's ritual sacrifice?"

"Only for dinner," she says, smirking at him. "You're safe until then."

"That explains why your mother's trying to fatten me up," he says, leaning in a bit to nose at her hair. "It all makes sense now."

She tries to picture that, but she can't. "I've never seen a fat turian."

"If we're here much longer, you will," Garrus says, amusement rolling rich through his voice. "It's not pretty."

Shepard snickers. "Like you were pretty in the first place?"

His voice drops as he traces careful fingers over her face. "You're definitely the pretty one," he says, nearly purring.

A slow, slow smile spreads over her face. He wants to play, does he? "Why, Detective Vakarian," she breathes. "I didn't know you were such a flirt." She'd flutter her eyelashes if she was confident that she could do it without pulling something. Something to work on later.

"Better get used to it," Garrus says, leaning in close, close enough that she feels his breath on her face. For a moment, she thinks he's going to kiss her again, and her breath comes shallow and slow with excitement –

But instead he licks her nose. "You asshole!" she snaps, but she's laughing.

Chapter Text

Eventually she drags them out of bed and downstairs to find that even though they've laid in bed and talked for two hours, they're still the first ones up.

"Shit," Shepard says, sighing. "Now we have to make breakfast. House rules."

"We do?" Garrus asks dubiously. That causes Shepard to turn slowly and glare at him.

"Yes, Garrus, we do," she says.

Maybe it's the naked threat in her voice, but something makes him laugh and stop arguing. She walks him through cooking the only thing she knows how to cook, a breakfast casserole with eggs and sausage and three kinds of hot sauce, and makes coffee while he thaws and warms his own breakfast. It looks like so much raw meat and – maybe some tubers? Turians are obligate carnivores, she knows, but Shepard's never paid much attention to what Garrus ate except to give him shit for dripping blood in the sink.

"Is that stuff good?" Shepard asks over the rim of her coffee.

"Yeah, actually," Garrus says. "I don't know how your mom got her hands on it – "

"Chicago prides itself on being a foodie town," Hannah says, squinting at them from the doorway. "And aliens live here, too; you'd be surprised at what you can find... Breakfast?" This to Shepard, who passes her a mug.

"It's in the oven," she says, wrapping her arm around her mother's shoulders in a quick hug. "Merry Christmas, Mom."

Hannah hugs back. "Merry Christmas, baby."

Abigail and Lexi come down together – Shepard has always suspected her grandmother of reading quietly in bed until someone else is awake to make breakfast. If Shepard had any patience, she would do the same – and they do presents while the eggs finish cooking. She brought small asari meditation trinkets that double as jewelry for her family, but for Garrus –

She shoves the package at him. "Open it!"

"Someone's excited," he says, eyeing her with a mistrust that would be offensive if she hadn't earned it honestly.

She gives him the sweetest smile she's capable of, and while that doesn't seem to make him feel better, he rips open the wrapping paper anyway.

Garrus stares down at the sweater in his hands. It's hideous. It's got little cartoon varren frolicking around between snowflakes and Christmas trees on a dark blue background. It's even fitted to his shape and size – she'd ordered it while he was off arranging leave, so she'd had every opportunity to sneak into his room and check the label on his undersuits.

"Shepard, this is offensively ugly," he says.

Only iron self-control is keeping her from cackling. "I know," she says, her voice as even as she can make it.

"It's tradition!" Abigail says, laughing.

"You keep saying that," Garrus says suspiciously. "Is this that game where you see how gullible the alien is?"

"Hasn't Janey shown you her collection of Christmas sweaters?" Lexi says innocently.

Fuck.

"No, actually, she hasn't," Garrus says, smirking at her. "I think it's only fair, don't you?"

Chapter Text

Maybe it's a mistake, but Shepard lets Garrus pick out a sweater for her to wear. He takes his damn time about it, but eventually he comes back down with exactly the one she thought he'd pick, a greenish-yellow she affectionately calls baby puke with a picture of a deranged, lopsided kitten wearing a Santa hat and smiling with human teeth.

"You kept it!" Lexi cackles. "God, I didn't think you would – "

Shepard yanks it over her head and glares at her sister. "Why do you hate Basil?" She ignores Garrus dropping back onto the couch next to her, even when he carefully drapes an arm over her shoulder.

She also ignores her mother taking blatantly obvious pictures on her omnitool. That's part of Shepard's present to her.

"Basil is – the cat?" Abigail asks, trying and mostly succeeding at hiding her amusement.

"He needed a name," Shepard shrugs. "Lexi wanted to call him Eustache Le Sueur because SAIC's got her all fancy."

"Because Basil is less fancy," Lexi says, rolling her eyes.

Shepard huffs, sitting back, incidentally further into the curve of Garrus's body. It's a thrill to realize that this is okay, that this is – This is just them, now. They're not lying anymore. Shepard smiles to herself, letting the conversation happen without her, and rejoices in being able to spend Christmas Day with all of her favorite people.

Her mother helps her with breakfast, which has turned into lunch at this point; Shepard finds this suspicious, since she's perfectly capable of taking a dish out of the oven on her own.

"Someone seems happy," Hannah says, with that kind of sly insinuation in her voice that only a mother is capable of.

Shepard, who's taking plates down, pauses while her face is hidden in the cupboard. She is happy, happier than she's been in years, but there's no way she can explain that to her mother. Shepard thought she'd been doing a good job acting like today is the same as yesterday. She should have known better. She's no actress.

"Heh, yeah," she says, coming out with the plates. She grins at her mother, who's just looking at her with a fresh cup of coffee in her hands, her head tilted, studying Shepard like a biologist studies a pinned insect. "It's just nice being home. I missed you guys."

That makes Hannah's eyes narrow. "It was the mistletoe, wasn't it?"

Shepard stops dead, staring at her. "What?"

"Oh please, Jane, I'm your mother," Hannah says impatiently. "You and Garrus, you're together now, aren't you? Last night? Or this morning, maybe," she says, speculation in her eyes.

"Wait," Shepard says, everything that's happened the last two days flashing before her eyes, and all of it acquiring a new meaning, a new flavor. Her mother's the one who made the assumption in the first place – "You did this on purpose, didn't you?"

Hannah shrugs. "You've been in love with him for years. I thought you might need a push."

Chapter Text

Shepard stares at her mother, her mouth open, while Hannah calmly enjoys her coffee.

How did she know that, when Shepard didn't even know that?

"I'm your mother," Hannah says again, softer, patting Shepard's cheek. "I could see it in your face when you called home, sweetheart. You light up when you talk about him, did you know that?"

And then she strolls out of the kitchen with a plate for her and one for Abigail, leaving Shepard to gape at her smug back.

"Unbelievable," Shepard says to the empty kitchen. Does everyone in her life know her better than she does? Is she as transparent as glass?

She doesn't even know why she's mad. In the end, this is something she wants. It's just that – It's a little galling to know that her mother can still manipulate her like she's eight years old, fighting Lexi for the last bite of ice cream, only for her mother to swoop in and declare parent tax on it.

Disgruntled, Shepard takes food for herself and Lexi, grabs Garrus's plate, and heads back out to the living room. She hands off the food, sits down and busies herself with shoveling food in her mouth, letting the conversation move on around her.

Garrus shifts beside her, and then she hears her omnitool go off.

You okay?

She chews on her lip, but after a minute, she answers. My mother said something that surprised me, that's all... That I've been in love with you for years. Shepard watches his face out of the corner of her eye, and the way his eyes widen, the slight quizzical tilt to his head – that is what surprise looks like on him.

Huh.

The thought that he might have known, that he could have been sitting around waiting for her to catch a clue, leaves a bad taste in her mouth; she's glad that's not the case.

She orchestrated all of this, you know.

Garrus laughs quietly. Then I owe her a fruit basket. Nothing I did ever worked.

Shepard rolls her eyes and dismisses her omnitool with a flick of her fingers. She's not interested in talking about how oblivious she was anymore; instead she throws herself into conversation with her sister about her portraiture class.

Afternoon turns to evening as they talk and argue and laugh; when the sun sets, her mother switches on the lights on the Christmas tree, and the small, twinkling lights and the cozy atmosphere make Shepard a little sleepy. She cuddles into Garrus, no longer concerned with what they look like. Her mother turns on some of those old Christmas carols that are inescapable this time of year, and Garrus puts his arm around her, and everything is soft and warm; she is so content, so perfectly warmed inside and out, that it's impossible to keep her eyes open and the time between her blinks stretches longer and longer.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas...

Shepard lets herself sink into the darkness.

Chapter Text

Much later, Shepard wakes to find herself alone in the living room under the weight of a blanket someone has tucked around her while she slept. The living room is only lit by the pinprick lights of the Christmas tree. She could almost believe that she's the only person awake right now, that this night belongs only to her. It's dark out. It feels late; it feels like the whole world is sleeping in that close, velvety darkness that should be isolating but instead feels comforting.

Then the couch under her shifts with a faint groan, and she realizes that not all of that is couch – she's lying partially on top of Garrus.

"Sorry," she whispers. His hand ghosts down her arm in quiet reassurance.

The silent, still night folds down around both of them, accepting Garrus's presence like he belongs there; it swaddles them both in warmth that's not just from the blanket.

Shepard leans her head on Garrus's shoulder, in that place that seems like it was made specially for her, and lets the twinkling lights of the tree fill her vision until she's hazy and content. "Thanks for coming home with me," she says.

"Thanks for asking me," Garrus says, a smile in his voice. "Even if I never did get to horrify your father with my very existence."

"There's always next year," Shepard says, sighing. "I somehow doubt he's going to turn into a better person."

"Next year, huh?" Garrus asks, very softly. Shepard looks up at him to find him watching her.

She knows what he's asking.

"Yeah," she says. "Next year. We'll come earlier so Mom can spoil us rotten – maybe she can get some fresh dextro food if we give her some warning – and we can stay for New Year's, there's this whole kissing tradition that I think you'll be really interested in – "

Garrus laughs. "You know, I never did give you your Christmas present."

It's a non sequitur on the face of it, but Shepard doesn't believe that for a second. Garrus has that look in his eyes; he's got his target in his sights. "You didn't have to get me anything," she tries, but he shakes his head.

"It's nothing like that," Garrus says, opening his omnitool. He brings up an email:

Ticket confirmation, Citadel to Cipritine, Palaven, two passengers. The date is about two months away.

Shepard touches the display, letting her fingers swim through the glowing words. "What's this?" she asks.

"Ferias," he says, his voice carefully even. "It's a holiday about... remembering who we are, where we come from. Remembering our ancestors and their deeds. Celebrating the clan."

"And you want me to come with you."

"Yeah, Shepard, I do."

He's inviting her home, to parts of his life he's never shared with her before – she knows that his relationship with his father is... thorny – and she takes that for the invitation that it is.

Shepard smiles. "Merry Christmas, Garrus," she says, and stretches up to kiss him.