Everything It's Cracked Up To Be

"Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."

~ Erica Jong

"Garrus."

"Mrgph." Someone was poking incessantly at his carapace. His first thought was Solana before the muzziness of sleep began to clear.

"Garrus."

He opened his eyes a crack, the blurred outline coalescing into a familiar shape. "Shepard?" He sat up with a start, scrambling backward and nearly managing to fall out of his narrow cot in the process. "What are you doing here?" Even though nudity was viewed much more casually among turians, he'd spent enough time around other races to now feel distinctly uncomfortable in nothing but his undersuit.

Shepard was kneeling next to his bed, her elbows dimpling into the padded surface with her face propped between her hands. "Garrus! I didn't wake you, did I?" Her eyes were wide with what even he knew to be mock innocence.

"No, not at all. I was only pretending to sleep." He scratched the back of his neck with his talons and fought the urge to yawn. "What's up?"

"Garrus," she said in a sing-song voice, "guess what day it is!"

It was far too early for this. "Friday?"

"Nope."

"Um, some sort of human holiday?"

"Nope! Guess again."

"You finally gave Miranda that myocardial infarction?"

"Nope! Guess again."

He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I give up."

Shepard leaned in and glared at him. "I said guess, soldier."

"Uh, your birthday?"

Shepard beamed. "Close enough! It's your birthday!"

"Well, turians don't really do—"

"I know, I know. You don't celebrate birthdays the way humans do." She smoothed back the strands of her hair that had fallen into her face in her excitement and stood up. "So, fine. Happy fifteenth anniversary of your induction in turian manhood, or whatever it is they call it when you're all grown up and start your compulsory military service. It still makes you thirty," she hummed as she searched for the right word, "Palavinian years old today. Which is a birthday. Which means drinking. And shore leave. And more drinking."

Garrus looked at her curiously. "Have you started already?" He couldn't smell any alcohol on her breath, but she was oddly… giddy.

"Of course not! Now, come on." She sat back on her haunches in a most unnatural way and eyed him critically. "You need to get dressed. Something nice. It doesn't have to be fancy though. We should be on Illium by nineteen hundred, so plenty of time for dinner before we hit the nightclubs."

Garrus glanced at the time scrolling by along the edge of his visor. "Shepard, that's fourteen hours from now. I think we have time."

"I know. I'm just excited. After everything that we've been through lately, I think we all deserve a little down time. Plus, it's a good excuse for me to buy you drinks." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "I don't think I've ever seen you drunk, now that I think about it."

Garrus pulled the blankets further up around his legs. "And there's a good reason for that."

"Oh?" Shepard grinned evilly. "If you're trying to convince me this isn't a good idea, you're doing a really bad job at it."

Garrus sighed, letting his mandibles flare in a small grin of his own. "I should just give up now, shouldn't I?"

"Probably. Now… getting dressed..." She braced her hands on his mattress and propelled herself into a standing position. She took a step towards the lockers that ran along the far side of the room before looking back at him. "Where do you keep your clothes?"

"I think I'm capable of dressing myself, Shepard."

"All right, all right. I'll leave you to it… If you're sure." She fiddled with the end of her ponytail, wrapping the strands around her fingers; toying with her hair just as she was toying with him. Spirits, how he'd missed her, missed this.

"I'm sure."

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen a naked turian…"

"Good-bye, Shepard."

"Okay, I mean I've seen the ones in Fornax, but all those images are digitally enhanced… at least I think they are. Seriously, if you're packing something," she held her two hands apart, "as big as this, then I think I need to reconsider my—"

"Good-bye, Shepard." He hiked the blankets up a little higher.

"All right, fine. I'm going." She turned back at the doorway, giving him a small smile. "Have I told you again how glad I am to have you here? Because… I really am."

He smiled, too, shaking his head as she vanished through the doors.

oOoOo

The day went by quickly and, between mapping out schematics for interfacing the Thanix Cannon with the new Normandy and testing out some updated optimizations for the firing algorithms, Garrus scarcely noticed the passage of time until his omni-tool beeped.

Cmdr J. Shepard:

Go get your scaly ass to the showers. Meeting in the Illium docking area in less than an hour.

.

Chief Gunnery Officer G. "Sweet Cheeks" Vakarian:

Who says I'm not ready now?

.

He groaned as his user name flicked across the screen as he typed. Her reply came before he could call her on it.

.

Cmdr J. Shepard:

I have spies everywhere. Taking a page out of Miranda's book. Go get ready or I'll drag you in there myself.

.

Chief Gunnery Officer G. "Sweet Cheeks" Vakarian:

Thanks, but no. Heading to the showers as soon as this search is finished running. Will meet you at 1900 in the docking bay.

.

Cmdr J. Shepard:

Sounds good.

.

'Sweet Cheeks?' He was never going to manage to live this one down. How many other messages had he sent today without noticing?

.

Chief Gunnery Officer G. "Sweet Cheeks" Vakarian:

Also, quit hacking my omni-tool.

.

Cmdr J. Shepard:

I don't know what you're talking about.

.

Chief Gunnery Officer G. "Dino Dynamo" Vakarian:

Yeah, I'm sure you had nothing to do with it.

.

Cmdr J. Shepard:

Sorry, missed the last bit?

.

Chief Gunnery Officer G. "Dino Dynamo" Vakarian:

You're going down, Shepard.

.

Cmdr J. Shepard:

You wish. ;) Bring it on, big boy.

.

Garrus laughed, deciding to leave the search to finish without him, and headed for the showers.

oOoOo

Illium's docking bay was crowded, as always, and he scanned the sea of faces—a habit born during his days at C-Sec, and forged into something even more deeply ingrained during his time on Omega. There were the usual scum lurking around the periphery, and he recognized a few faces in the crowd; at least one runner for the Suns, a pair of red sand dealers that he'd busted years ago… No one who was likely to put any of them in danger, at any rate. Since virtually everything was legal here—drugs, weapon trafficking, even a robust slave trade—the level of security was equally high, making it a luxury playground for the galaxy's wealthy elite. He would be willing to put money on the likelihood that every person here was packing one or more concealed weapons, even though it would be suicide by security squad to even think about pulling it out.

Shepard was surrounded by crew members from the Normandy, although she kept glancing over at the hallway he had yet to fully emerge from. She gave him a fierce grin as soon as she spotted him. As he walked over to her, he was surprised by the number of people from the ship that had decided to come along as well. Shore leave was still a precious thing, even among the more relaxed atmosphere of the Cerberus-run vessel. Joker and Tali were there, along with all the others from the original Normandy—Ken Donnelly, Gabby Daniels, and Dr. Karin Chakwas. He recognized most of the Engineering crew as well, along with Grunt, Jack, and, strangely enough, Miranda Lawson. No doubt, she was only attending to make sure that things didn't get out of hand.

"Hopefully, I'm not too late!" Garrus had to bite back an audible groan at the sound of Kelly Chambers' nauseatingly bubbly voice just behind him. "I wouldn't want to miss the celebration." Coming up beside him, she gave him a beaming smile. It was an effort not to flinch.

Shepard's eyes flicked to Kelly and then back to his, giving him an almost imperceptible shrug of her shoulders in apology.

"The birthday boy is finally here." Shepard clapped her hands together. "Let's get this party started. I messaged ahead and got us reservations at Morbo's. It's a bit of a dive—by Illium standards anyway—but they do levo and dextro cuisine. Supposed to be the best place around for curried clath'as." She winked at him as she said it, no doubt noticing the way his brow plates had risen and his mandibles had fallen slack in surprise. How had she known it was his favourite?

She continued on though, gesturing towards an area at the far end of the docking bay. "Shuttles are this way. I booked four, but we might need one more. I'm sure Cerberus would be more than happy to cover the additional expense, all things considered." She paused. "Should have booked something fancier… Ah, well, too late now."

Miranda glared in Shepard's direction, and Garrus had to laugh at how easily Shepard avoided her gaze, seemingly oblivious.

"All right, let's move out, people! Dinner! Drinking! Embarrassing ourselves horribly on Cerberus' tab! Onward!"

In this moment, she suddenly struck him as unbelievably alive. Sometime between the rocket he'd taken to the face and when he'd woken up to find her contorted and sleeping in one of the med bay's chairs next to his bed, this had become normal again; a welcome return to a state of equilibrium he'd almost forgotten existed.

She sidled up next to him—Tali on her other side—and he belatedly realized that nearly everyone was already more than halfway across the terminal. Shepard was dressed differently than her usual off-duty attire, in form-fitting trousers and a tight shirt that hugged her form in a way that was surprisingly… appealing.

"Come on, 'Sweet Cheeks,' let's go."

"Don't you mean, 'Dino Dynamo?'" He could hear the smirk in Tali's voice as clearly as if he could see her expression through the smoky glass of her helmet. The two of them dissolved into giggles, with Shepard elbowing the quarian playfully as they walked on ahead of him.

"I hate you both," he muttered under his breath as he hurried to join them.

A/N: Thank you so much to Josie Lange for the beta. I appreciate you taking the time to do this for me! :)

This story is the one I wrote last month for NaNoWriMo, so the story itself is complete. I'm planning to post a chapter or two a week, to allow for editing and to not overwhelm my lovely beta with a giant behemoth of a story all at once.

I apologize to everyone who has been following the poor, languishing Fracture Patterns. Between my lengthy bout of pneumonia and NaNoWriMo, it's been forever since I updated it. Now that NaNoWriMo is done, I'm returning to Fracture Patterns until it's finished. Thank you so very much for your patience.

I also apologize to everyone that I normally read/review. I had to put my own reading on hold to get NaNoWriMo done, but I'm slowly catching up. I've got a huge list of stories to catch up on so, if I haven't gotten to you yet, it's coming! I promise!