Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Author's Note: This piece is a gift fic for the awesome uglychui, who requested Shakarian, and I am more than happy to oblige.

Bet of Hearts

"'I win though,' she teases, her fingers curling at the base of his fringe. He holds her tighter. 'You always win,' he answers into her skin." - From the very beginning, it was always a competition between Shepard and Garrus. The contest for each other's hearts was no exception.

"I hear you're pretty good with that thing," Shepard says, nodding to the sniper rifle in Garrus' hands, hefting her own over her shoulder and into its holster along her back.

The turian cocks his head at her and flicks his mandibles once, lightly, a gleam in his eye. "You could say that," he responds coolly. Behind them, Ashley is readying her own weapons as the Mako is being prepped for departure by the Normandy engineers.

Shepard smirks at Garrus, leaning a hip on the weapons bench and crossing her arms over her armor's chestplate. "You up for a little competition?"

He raises one brow plate her way, locking his rifle into his holster. "Depends. What do you have in mind, Commander?"

Her smirk turns devilish. "Oh, just a little bet, from one marksman to another."

Garrus chuckles. "I think you underestimate turian weapons training."

She levels a challenging look his way. "And I think you underestimate the first human Spectre." She wears the title proudly, if not a little cockily.

He snorts in response, but it isn't out of derision. "Don't crow too loud, Shepard. You haven't seen me in action yet."

Her eyes gleam at his bravado and she pushes off the weapons bench, arms uncrossing as she steps past him and to the waiting Mako. "Alright, Vakarian, you're on. Get ready for a beat down."

Ashley waves at them from the entrance of the Mako and Garrus watches Shepard walk away. He shakes his head, a hard smile pulling at his mouth.

Something tells him the Normandy might just be the best thing to happen to him.

Shepard and Garrus find themselves trading stories late one night in the mess hall, with the dim light from the kitchen trailing a thin ray over their forms, and the stillness of the Normandy eerily calm in the midst of their hushed and excited whispers.

"No. You didn't!" Garrus' shocked whisper curls into a laugh, his hand coming up to cover his mouth and clamp down on the sound.

Shepard grins smugly and leans her elbows back on the edge of the table behind her, crossing her legs casually. "Sure did. And Udina never forgave me for it."

"I can imagine. I don't think I'd ever forgive you if you shoved me into the Presidium's lake."

"Wanna test it?" she asks impishly.

He waves her off. "No thanks, Shepard. Besides, I think I have you beat."

"Oh really?"

"Mhmm." He releases a soft clicking noise, something she has come to associate with cockiness on his part. "I once walked in on my Sergeant and an asari ambassador having…well…relations in his office. I didn't have time to stop his wife, who was with me at the time, from walking in and…" He chuckles, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Needless to say it wasn't pretty."

"God, you're a menace, Garrus," she laughs.

"It wasn't on purpose, I swear!" he defends. He flashes her a quick grin, teeth glinting in the bare light. "I think it's fair to say I take the cake on pissing off the brass though."

"Oh dear, sweet, Garrus," she chides, one hand coming to rest on his shoulder. "I haven't even hit the good stuff yet."

His brow plates rise in interest and he doesn't comment on the warmth her touch brings.

"Fuck!" Shepard roars, stumbling behind the rock cover and planting her back to it before sliding gracelessly to the hard floor. She hisses at the pain in her shoulder where a concussive round nearly knocked her shields clean off in one blow. The rage of gunfire echoes around the cavern as she pants in her breather helmet, hands securing around her pistol.

"Shepard, you good?" she hears coming in over her radio. She glances left and notices Garrus dropping down behind a turned over crate, his Mattock spitting bullets at the Blue Suns mercenaries pushing back into the base.

She grits her teeth and rolls her shoulder, ignoring the pain. Her fingers flex against the grip of her pistol. "I'll have a nasty bruise, but I'm good." She releases a tight scoff of air. "Goddamn mercs."

Garrus' chortle is comforting over the line. "Getting a little sloppy there, Commander?"

"Screw you, Vakarian," she laughs into the line, her voice edged only slightly in exhaustion. "I was busting up the front line." She peeks out of cover and lands four bullets in the torso of an advancing vanguard, watching as he drops to the floor in a flare of blue biotics and a splash of blood. "They scattered like roaches," she barks out with a menacing laugh.

"I wouldn't exactly call that a successful maneuver," he chuckles into the radio, "Judging by how you got knocked on your ass for it." Tight, controlled bursts of his rifle echo in the cavern.

A sudden, mischievous grin breaks across her face. "Fifty credits says I can drive them back again."

"Shepard." Liara's voice comes in over the line, strained and concerned. There's a slightly audible gulp at the end of the line. "Please don't be reckless."

Shepard peeks back over her cover and sends out an Incinerate toward the closest oncoming merc. She watches as he bursts into flames, popping two rounds into his skull to silence his pained screams. "Don't worry so much, Liara, I've got this."

"I swear," the asari sighs, "You're going to get me killed one of these days."

"I second that," Garrus chirps into the radio.

Shepard rolls her eyes and pushes from her cover, darting behind the next rock outcropping while she fires into the crowd. "What, you scared, Vakarian?"

"Hardly," he scoffs, advancing as well.

Shepard sees him in her peripheral and flashes him a brilliant grin. "Think I might beat you to their commander?"

"Rather, I think you might hurt yourself trying to keep up with me," he quips back. The orange gleam of their omni-tools activating in tandem lights the cavern. Screams follow. They continue moving up.

"Oh ho ho," Shepard mockingly laughs, breaking from cover once more and pushing forward. "Careful there, I might just have to dock you for insubordination."

"It's not insubordination if it's the truth," he retorts, tumbling behind a rock ledge and lobbing a grenade into the horde of mercenaries.

Shepard growls playfully. "We'll see about that," she taunts, taking out another merc. "First one to the ringleader gets three extra meal rations and is exempt from weapons maintenance for a week."

"You're on," he shouts into the comm., his laugh reverberating around the rock walls.

Through the hail of gunfire, the pitch of screams, and the maniacal crackle of Shepard's laughter, Liara's voice can be heard faintly through the comm. line. "Goddess, I'm going to be dragging you both back to the Mako half-dead, aren't I?"

"Shepard, this isn't helping." His voice is tight, clipped, taut with a tension that pierces the air.

She swirls the glass of amber liquor before her, her elbows resting on the bar top, her gaze looking out over Flux' patrons. Lights stream overhead, quick and dull.

The Normandy is locked down in the docking bay, Saren is halfway to Ilos at this point, and she is here, dry-docked and stranded. Helpless.

She takes a harsh sip of the liquor and hisses as it passes along her tongue. "Join me?" she offers.

The steady bass of the music thuds around them and he is silent for many moments, before he slides onto the stool beside her. "Shepard…"

"I know, I know," she dismisses, taking another sip and grimacing, before smacking her lips in satisfaction. "Not helping. Yeah, I got that bit."

Garrus taps his talons along the bar. "We're not out for the count yet."

"Aren't we?"she snaps a little too brusquely. She glares at him out of the corner of her eye and sets her drink on the table, fingers flexing around the glass.

He grumbles, leaning one elbow along the bar. "The Council might…we can't just…" Even as he says it there is a lingering doubt in his mind. He watches Shepard slide her glass of whiskey back and forth on the bartop, her eyes glazed over in something harder than defeat and softer than defiance.

He decides to motion for the bartender.

Shepard shoots a piqued look his way.

When the turian brandy is set down in front of him he takes the glass in his hand and raises it to her. "One should never drink alone."

She scoffs. "Think you can keep up?" There is something sad in her voice then, and she clamps her throat tight around the sound to strangle the air. She swallows thickly and watches him.

But Garrus catches it. He takes a swig and hums his approval, eyes never leaving hers. "That a challenge, Shepard?"

She offers a half-smile, something between gratitude and resignation. "I've got all night," she whispers lowly, eyes drifting back to her glass.

He shuffles closer, so that their shoulders are nearly pressed together, and he knocks her elbow with his, head leaned toward her. His voice is gentle and teasing, and somehow, in the span of this one breath, this exhale of words, this simple offering of comfort between them, they both know how utterly pointless it all is. "My money's on you not lasting the night." He tries to laugh. Really he does. It comes out a bit choked.

Shepard sighs. "You might be right this time." She follows her muttering with a long, slow swig, draining her glass.

She can already taste the defeat on her tongue.

"Ha! Thirty-one! How you like them apples, eh, Vakarian?" Shepard's boisterous shout is partially drowned out by the deafening boom of the geth canon along the Citadel's exterior. From this angle, boots planted along the outside of the Citadel Tower, Sovereign looming dark and imposing over the edge, the glittering lights of the surrounding ward arms are suddenly beautiful, suddenly alive.

"What?" Garrus shouts back. She hears his sniper crack through the air farther back from her position.

She's about to peek out from cover when a Destroyer starts to charge down the length of the corridor. Another loud crack through the air and it crumbles alongside her at the edge of her cover. She releases several bursts from her pistol's chamber into its chest cavity just in case, activating her omni-tool's sabotage to overload and spark its weapons. The geth twitches and flares at her feet, before stilling.

"That one counts as mine," Garrus claims over the comm. line.

Shepard looks up to see him leaning over the outside edge of one of the elevators, leveled flat along the side in the tilted gravity. And then she smirks, knowing he heard her earlier question. "That still leaves me up by three," she taunts.

"Can you two compare kill counts after we take out the giant death machine?" Tali calls out frantically, a round from her shotgun following her question. Shepard sees a geth being blasted back on her left, and then watches the quarian push out of cover and flank around her position. She shakes her head and latches her pistol to her hip, before reaching for her own sniper rifle.

"Time for the home stretch, Vakarian," she says into the comm., loading a heat sink into her Widow with a snap. "See you on the other side?"

"I'll beat you there," he promises.

She smiles behind her breather helmet and angles out to take aim at the geth canon. She fires.

Another explosion rocks her quarters and Shepard barely manages to get the chestplate of her armor snapped on when she slams a palm to her cabin's controls and bolts out the door. There are screams everywhere, Joker's voice over the intercom urging marines into the escape pods. Shepard glances out a port window and sees the dark silhouette of a ship in the distance, its golden beam of destruction grazing over the starboard plating. The ship rocks with the blast, setting off an explosion in the mess hall as she stumbles through it, helmet in her grip.

"Shepard!"

She turns at Garrus' frantic shout and finds him running up to her, suited up as well, his helmet already secured. She reaches for him instinctively and they clasp arms. "The crew quarters?" she pants instantly.

He nods, tight and quick. "Cleared out. Tali and Wrex are getting the last of the engineers off the sub-deck now."

Something sheers clean through one of the Normandy's engines because the sudden blast knocks them both into the wall, bulkheads busting loose from the ceiling, wires tearing under the pressure and lighting the mess hall in brilliant flames.

Shepard braces a hand against the wall, releasing Garrus and steadying herself. "Get to the escape pods. I'll set the beacon."

"Race you to the surface?" His voice is quaking even beneath the bravado, and she suddenly wants to look him in the eye, without the glass of his helmet between them, without the cool, hardness of their armor.

She is suddenly terrified beyond all reason.

She just wants to look at him.

Please just his face. If this is the end, if this is it…

She gulps down a single breath of air and settles her helmet over her head, locking it into place along her armor's collar. "Loser has to set up the portable generators?" She manages a quivering laugh.

He reaches for her shoulder and pulls her in. It is an awkward bump of their forms together, with her bracing her hands along his chest and the wall, and him knocking his helmet against hers, his arm winding stiffly around her shoulders. The ship jostles them again and then they are breaking apart.

It isn't enough, she thinks.

"I'll hold you to that," he answers. One last look, a sharp nod, and then he is gone, braving the fiery corridor to the escape pods.

Minutes later, when she is drifting, panicked and desperate, through debris-strewn space, she wishes she had been brave enough to hold him back.

She sees the rocket as it skims his face, knocking him back with such force that he twists around at a painful angle – a wide spray of blue blood arcing through the air – before he slams into the tiled floor, the rocket blasting through the shelving units behind him.

"Garrus!" she screams. Distantly, she is aware of Grunt and Zaeed taking out the remaining airship's shields, the brilliant, deafening explosion lighting the room momentarily before it plummets to the ground outside Archangel's base, rocking the building with the resulting blast.

Shepard drops her rifle and bolts over to Garrus, sliding along her knees to his prone form. She reaches for him, one hand pressing against his raw and burned jaw, trying to steady the gush of blood, her other hand gripping the front of his armor. "Garrus!" she shouts again, this time sharper, voice broken, ending on a sob. "Garrus, stay with me, buddy."

Behind her, Zaeed and Grunt signal for the Normandy. Her fingers slip, slick and warm, against his jaw. She feels his gasp against her fingers before his eyes snap open.

Her breath quakes in her chest as her eyes flick over him frantically. "That's it, Garrus. That's it, come on. You can't go out like this. Come on. Come on."

He gurgles, coughs a splattering of blood into her palm. "You're not…" He stops, choking on the words.

"Stop talking."

His hand twitches, as though trying to rise up and reach for her but there is no strength in him. "You're not…the only one who can…die dramatically…you know." He winces at the words, a shrill cry of pain tearing from him.

"Shut up," she whispers, voice suddenly low and tear-laced. "You don't get to win this one. You don't."

She holds his face in her hands and feels the first tears dotting her eyes since she awoke in a Cerberus lab.

The salt sting is familiar.

The pain is not.

"I bet you can't get it within .04 microdes," she taunts him, leaning up against the railing of the main battery.

Garrus stops in his tapping along the console to glance up at her, brow plate raised. "Did you just question my calibrations?"

She looks at her fingernails, humming indifferently.

He narrows his eyes at her and scoffs – a single, short exhale of air that flares his mandibles in wounded pride. "The Thannix canon is my baby, Shepard. I can make this girl sing."

She purses her lips in feigned disinterest, sidling up to him. "I still don't think you've got the skill for it, bud."

He releases a tight chuff of air and returns to the terminal. "Just you watch, Shepard."

She chuckles beside him, leaning an elbow along the console. "You know, I could show you th-"

"No way," he interrupts, swiping a hand through the air with the sentiment. "You are not touching this gun, Shepard."

She pouts mischievously. "It is my ship, you know." She trails a finger tauntingly along the edge of the console.

He narrows his eyes at the motion but doesn't respond.

She smirks up at him, edging closer until her shoulder is pressed up against his. She taps her wondering finger along the console once, twice, a third time, very slowly.

His hand shoots out and grabs hers.

She blinks up at him and the breath stalls in her throat when he turns his gaze to her and she realizes just how close she's brought them.

He doesn't back away, his talons curled securely around her own soft hand. He watches her for a moment, something passing through his eyes that she doesn't recognize, and then his mouth is opening.

She watches the motion as he speaks.

"I think it's safe to say, Shepard," he begins, voice just this side of gruff, sub-vocals thrumming with his words, "That anything that is yours tends to meet a brutal end." A low chuckle follows his words.

She glares at him, her smirk staying put, her eyes glinting roguishly. "I take care of my toys," she whispers back, hand sliding cautiously from his.

He lets her pull her hand away, settling his talons back along the console. "That's…debatable. Have you seen the shuttle?" His mandibles flick in a playful manner, the ends of his mouth turning up slightly.

She scoffs lightly, rolling her eyes, her smirk blending into a tender smile. "The things that matter, Garrus. I take care of the things that matter." She braces against the console, eyes drifting over the projected figures, voice lowering at the end of her words.

Just when she thinks the silence stretching between them might start to get…meaningful, she clears her throat and pushes away, walking back over to the far railing. "I'd still bet my new hamster you can't align it any closer."

He snorts his disbelief. "Don't bring that poor creature into our pools. He's hardly an appropriate ante."

She laughs, loud and bright and easy.

She remembers the touch of his talons brushing her knuckles long into the night.

Shepard grunts as she collides with the wall just inside the Normandy's airlock, the velocity of her jump from the low-gravity atmosphere surrounding the derelict Reaper propelling her through the air, Garrus' hands barely managing to steady her as he half-catches her, keeping her from slamming into the bulkhead at full force. She grips at the front of his armor, steadying herself, slumping to her knees and taking him with her. She winces at the pain, falling back along the wall. The airlock slides closed and Samara swings one of Mordin's arms over her shoulder as she begins to steer him through the mess and toward Medbay.

"Get us out of here, Joker, we've got the IFF," Shepard shouts to the cockpit just down the corridor, ripping her helmet off and tossing it aside. His answering 'ma'am' sounds just before the engines kick in and they are shuttling through space. Shepard leans her forehead against Garrus' shoulder and pants heavily, her hot breath breaking across his armor. She doesn't care that she has literally dragged him to the ground. Her hands hold tight to his armor.

"Shepard, you need medical attention," he urges, voice a low rumble between them.

She closes her eyes and leans her head back along the wall. One of her hands moves to the jagged wound along her thigh where a husk had ripped off the leg-guard of her armor and bitten down on her tender flesh just after a Scion's Shockwave knocked her back several feet, almost off the edge of the platform, flattening her shields out instantly. She had tried to scramble to her feet when the husk grabbed her from behind, taking her legs out from underneath her, slamming her face-first into the ground before taking a chunk out of her.

Shepard wipes a hand along her mouth and smears the blood gushing from her nose and over her chin. She winces at the motion. "Yeah," she croaks, "Think I might have broken my nose."

"I'm talking about your leg, Shepard." His voice is tight in his throat, his hands running over her wounds in attentive care. "Why didn't you use medi-gel?" he asks frantically.

She blinks her bleary eyes open, cracking a lop-sided and bloody grin. "Didn't want to lose our bet." She laughs then, pained and stilted.

"Spirits, Shepard, when I set that bet about who can use the least medi-gel I didn't mean for you to almost lose your damn leg for it," he snaps, clipped and brusque. He braces a hand along her shoulder, his other holding tight to her leg, his eyes focused on the wound, narrowed and dark.

Shepard peers at him, the pain distant suddenly, her gaze riveted on his tight jaw, his focused eyes, his bunched shoulders. Her hand travels slowly up the collar of his armor, fingers skimming tentatively along his cowl, until her hand is braced along his neck. "Hey," she says, half a groan, half a whisper.

He doesn't look up. He lets out a deep, long breath, his mandibles held tight to his cheek.

She shifts along the wall to sit up better, her other hand moving to mirror the other along his neck. "Hey," she urges once more, stronger, more certain this time.

He finally looks up at her.

She blinks frantically, watching him, swallowing that knotted bundle of unease back down. "I'm okay," she assures. "I'm okay."

He drops his head down again, his hand along her shoulder tightening. "Shepard, you don't…" He stops, the words catching in his throat.

"Hey. Hey, what is it?" She urges his head up with her hands.

He locks gazes with her once more. His shoulders sag with his sigh. "I heard you scream, and when I looked over and saw you go down I just…for a minute there you…" He can't continue, his words tangling in his throat with the swell of emotion he keeps clamped tightly down.

Shepard licks her lips, tastes the acrid blood there. She takes a steadying breath and then pulls him forward, pressing his head into her shoulder. His hand curls around her back and holds her as he buries his face in the crook of her neck. As her hands wind around his neck from his cheeks she feels so suddenly right in his embrace, so suddenly…home.

"I'm okay," she whispers again. Because it is all she can manage. "I'm okay."

When she feels the heat of his breath along her neck, and the sturdiness of his arm locked around her back, and the staggering tremble that rocks through her at his warmth, she realizes that she's not.

She's not okay.

She clears her throat nervously, suddenly all too aware of his proximity. She laughs awkwardly. "I win though," she teases, her fingers curling at the base of his fringe.

He holds her tighter. "You always win," he answers into her skin.

No, Shepard thinks. She doesn't.

She's been losing her heart to him for years now.

The night before the suicide run Garrus finds her in the observation lounge, curled up on the couch, looking out the wide pane of glass along the wall. She smiles at his entrance, and pats the space next to her. He smirks his greeting, and makes his way over to sit beside her.

"I went to your cabin first, but you weren't there," he says softly, watching her face as she stares out the window.

She sighs, curling her legs under her and leaning an arm over the back of the couch. "I think maybe I just…wanted to see it one last time."

His jaw tightens when she says 'one last time' but he makes no other outward show acknowledging her words. "See what?" he asks, almost a rasp.

A tender smile graces her lips then, and she leans her head along her arm, watching space drift past. "The stars," she whispers in answer.

Garrus hums his understanding, hands bracing along his knees as he watches the motion.

"I'm…glad you're with me, Garrus."

He looks up then and finds her watching him. He opens his mouth but nothing comes.

Shepard pulls her lip between her teeth, eyes steady on his. She remembers that day she died over Alchera in vivid clarity. She remembers their farewell, a promise to see each other again. She remembers the clasp of their arms, the clumsy embrace, the bump of their helmets. She remembers the way she had watched his back and tasted a fear unlike any she's ever known.

And she remembers sobbing his name in the end there, as she choked and screamed and gasped her life away.

She remembers the way regret had crushed the air in her lungs with far more intensity than the vacuum of space ever could.

She moves a hand over his along his knee before she even realizes she has moved.

He blinks heatedly at her, chest rising with his deep breaths.

She shuffles forward on her knees, leaning toward him. "Garrus."

He swallows, eyes locked to hers. Steadily, he turns her hand over in his and clutches it tight. "Yes?" His voice is a hoarse whisper.

She finds herself smiling. "I'm going to kiss you now."

He stares at her, mouth slipping open in surprise. He nods, dumbly. It is all he can manage.

Shepard cups his cheek with her other hand and leans in.

They kiss.

Soft at first, hesitant, a bare brush of mouths, their breaths tangled between them. And then something sparks in Garrus and he is pushing toward her, hands winding into her hair, mouth opening for her. They grip each other tightly, mouths eager and greedy and selfish, if only for tonight.

They kiss as though they have lost something in each other.

And yet, they know there is no getting it back.

When they break apart, Garrus holds tight to her, bracing his forehead against hers. Shepard pants against his mouth, breathless, smiling. She laughs, pressing her lips to his once more, just a short burst of warmth and then gone.

She sighs at his low hum, the keening sound in the back of his throat.

She wraps her hands over his in her hair and feels the first tremble light along her skin. And when the tears come, after long moments of their silent hold on each other, Shepard thinks she may just break if she doesn't laugh it off, if she doesn't throw a screen of false bravado over the wreck of her heart. "I bet you're going to fall in love with me," she whispers on a laugh, her voice breaking far more than she wants. She closes her eyes to the sound.

He sighs, thumbs sliding over her skin. "I lost that bet a long time ago, Shepard."

Her chest aches, her heart clenching tightly between her ribs and she sobs against his mouth.

"Tell me you're in this, too," he pleads. "Tell me you're all in."

She nods shakily, breath warm between them, tears lining her lids. "I'm all in, Garrus. I always have been."

He kisses her again. She wraps her arms around him.

And in a bet of hearts, they each lose.