Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect or its characters, just the much-loved copies of the games that inspired this.

The door chimes, an unfamiliar chirrup quite unlike her cabin on the Normandy. It unsettles Garrus a little at first - he has the right place, right? - but then her voice calls from inside, telling him to wait just a moment, and he relaxes.

The door slides open and she stands there, grinning at him in a way he doesn't get to see often: soft, affectionate, happy. His mandibles flare as he returns the smile.

"Come on in, Garrus." Her tone is light, tinged with nervous anticipation. What does she have to be nervous abou-?

Oh.

The thought dies away as she pulls him inside. The place is absolutely cavernous.

"Well?"

"Damn, Shepard." It's all he can get out.

"Yeah." She looks small standing in the middle of that huge living room, with its wall-sized fireplace and giant windows.

"I mean... damn." Really, he'd been thinking of more intelligent things to say on the way to Shepard's apartment to avoid the awkwardness that was sure to come out of his mouth if he relied on his powers of spontaneous romance, but now they've all disappeared behind a fog of unintelligible profanity. At least he isn't babbling again. Not out loud, anyway.

Shepard seems unperturbed by his current lack of vocabulary. From what he knows of human body language (from what he knows of her), she's just as awed as he is.

"Yeah," she says again. "It's..." She gestures broadly, ending with a small lift of her shoulders.

"This is Anderson's?" he asks, even though he knows the answer. He just can't believe it.

"It was going to be his and Kahlee's after the war, but..." She trails off, expression somber. "He doesn't want to leave Earth anymore. Not after all this. I don't blame him."

Garrus kicks himself mentally - this is supposed to be her shore leave, her time to relax and forget about the war, and here he is bringing it back to the forefront of her mind again. He tries for something lighter. "Bet this place has got an impressive bar."

Her eyes twinkle. "You have no idea. I cracked open some of the stronger stuff a few minutes after I got in. He's even got dextro. Guess he had guests here at some point."

Garrus walks forward, craning to look at the kitchen. He nearly laughs when he sees it- it's bigger than his whole apartment was when he was working for C-Sec, and he tells her so.

"Want a tour?" Shepard asks, that hint of apprehension in her voice again beside the excitement.

"Absolutely," he replies, and she takes his hand and leads him all around the first floor. He tries not to gape at all the different rooms, but when she takes him upstairs and shows him the master bathroom, he can't help breaking into a fit of laughter.

"A tiny pool with bubbles?"

"It's called a jacuzzi," she answers with definite embarrassment. "It's supposed to be relaxing."

"I wouldn't have pegged Anderson for the bubble bath type," he manages to wheeze, attempting to get himself under control again.

"Me either. I'm pretty sure Kahlee and the Alliance had more to do with picking out this place than he did. I wouldn't be surprised if they just bought it for him and ordered him to move in."

"That would explain the, ah, sparseness."

"He's definitely not the homemaking type," she agrees.

Her posture tenses again, and Garrus feels a stab of guilt. She stares at the kakkuzi or whatever it's called for a few moments, lost in thought, and she jumps when he touches her arm.

"Want to have a drink?"

"Yeah. Good idea."

They wind up leaning on the bar together a few minutes later, laughing.

"You're kidding," Shepard snickers incredulously.

"I'm really not."

"But there's no way-"

"I swear, the guy was convinced you were a krogan warlord, Wrex's sister, and that you had stolen the Normandy from the Alliance with the help of an alien crew, and the Alliance invented your human persona as a cover-up."

Shepard blinks, looking absolutely astonished, before her face splits in a grin that makes her look so young and happy it makes his breath hitch. And then she throws back her head and laughs, long and hard and honest, and the tension inside Garrus eases a little more. When she catches her breath, she manages to wheeze, "And did you set him straight?"

Garrus chuckles. "Are you kidding? I just had to see his reaction when I told him we slept together."

"Garrus!"

He flashes her his cheekiest smirk and winks - a human expression he's learned from Shepard. "Just kidding. You know I don't have to brag about being with you because no one would ever believe it anyway. But the guy might've gotten the impression that I bested krogan-you in hand to hand combat and then won a kiss from you in a round of Skyllian Five."

Shepard snorts and dissolves into helpless laughter, clutching her side with one hand and her brightly colored drink with the other. Garrus watches her fondly, taking a sip of his turian brandy and feigning smug nonchalance when she gets herself under control again and looks back at him. He realizes she's watching him closely, so (wisely, he thinks) he goes for another swig of his drink instead of ruining the moment with some sort of awkward babble. The turian brandy burns as it goes down, but he doesn't mind. Anderson or whoever stocks the apartment's bar knows what he's doing - it's good brandy. Garrus opts to stare at it for a bit instead of looking back at Shepard's piercing gaze.

"What's on your mind, Vakarian?"

His mandibles twitch into a wry grin. "You."

"Real me or krogan me?"

Garrus chuckles. "What do you think?"

Shepard's face softens into an affectionate smile, and she reaches for his free hand. She slips her five fingers around his three, and they stand there that way, leaning against the too-large bar in Anderson's (Shepard's) too-large apartment. After a long while, she sighs, so quietly Garrus almost thinks he's hearing things.

"He doesn't think he's going to survive this war."

Garrus doesn't have to ask who she means. "Well, he's wrong. And so are you."

Shepard looks sharply at him, eyebrows furrowed in a look he knows well.

"I know you think you aren't going to survive either, and I'm telling you you're dead wrong."

A wry smile quirks at her lips. "No pun intended?"

"I'm serious, Shepard."

The smile fades, and Garrus is sorry to see it go, wry or not.

Shepard sighs again. "I know, but you have to be prepared. I'm not exactly short on enemies these days, and the odds of this all turning out well are astronomically-"

"Oh, forget about the odds. What do you think the odds were that we would win the fight against Saren?"

"That's not the same thing."

"Or that Cerberus would resurrect you exactly the way you were?"

"But they didn't!"

"Minus a few scars and plus a few cybernetics, yes, but you're you."

"I suppose, but-"

"Listen, Shepard, if the universe has any good in it, if the galaxy is at all grateful for what you've done for trillions of people, if there's any such thing as justice, you're going to survive. You have to."

Garrus doesn't even realize how desperate he sounds until Shepard's soft hand cups the side of his face. "Garrus."

"You died once and it nearly killed me. Literally."

The words are out before he knows what he's saying, before he can stop them. He has never admitted that out loud before, even though they both know it's the truth. If she hadn't appeared in his scope out of nowhere on that spirits-forsaken bridge full of mercs, he would be a rotting corpse on Omega.

And judging by the stricken look on her face, he's accidentally just said that last part out loud.

Damn it, Vakarian, you never learn to keep your mouth shut.

"Garrus," Shepard says again, and the pain in her voice makes him ashamed to look at her. But he does anyway. He owes her that. Her expression is, for once, difficult for him to read. "I want you to promise me something."

A perfect boyfriend should say anything for you, dear. But Garrus is far from perfect, and he knows Shepard well enough to guess that whatever she's going to ask is going to be selfless and heroic and completely impossible for him to do. And he's pretty damn sure what it is anyway, so he gives her his answer up front.

"I can't."

"You don't even know what I was going going to say."

"I do. And I won't promise that. I can't. I can't just forget about you and move on with my life. I'd thought that would be pretty clear after Omega."

"I want you to have this apartment."

Garrus blinks. "What?"

"Give it to Solana, if you want. Or someone else. Hell, sell it and spend the money on gun mods. Just promise you'll take it?"

The unspoken "if something happens to me" hangs in the air for a sickening moment, making his jaw clench.

Garrus takes her hand and looks her in the eye. "The only way I'll accept this - the only way - is if you'll promise you'll come back here with me after all this is over."

Her mouth opens in a half-formed protest, but it dies when he leans over and rests his forehead on hers.

"Promise." His subharmonics quaver in a way he knows she doesn't miss, and he can't decide whether to be embarrassed or grateful for that. Ultimately, as she sighs and wraps her warm, soft arms around him, he settles on grateful. At least it means she knows how serious he is, and perhaps that will keep her from being unnecessarily reckless.

"I promise," she murmurs into his shoulder.

Although, he thinks, coming from the woman who led a supposed suicide mission with little hesitation, killed a Reaper on foot, and died for two years, that isn't saying much.

Still, it's a promise. And if Garrus can trust anyone to keep their word, it's her.

Later, when Shepard's email pings with a note from Joker, sending her into a trap that rapidly spirals out of control, Garrus will remind himself with every panicked breath that it's all going to be all right, because she promised.

And even later, much later, after the end of the war, the same thought stays his hand when he is about to put that damnable nameplate on Normandy's wall of honored dead. The Reapers are gone, and she is missing, but he grips the metal firmly and walks back through the stunned group of Shepard's crew, silent, almost prayerful.

You're alive, Shepard. You have to be. You promised.

And somewhere in the rubble, against all odds, a battered set of N7 dog tags clinks on a rising chest.