They make a little ceremony when the Normandy is stationed on Illium, but not really for them, because they don't really need more words or promises than what they've already make to each other.

It's more for their friends, their family, and it's a little more because everyone needs that small bonding moment before spreading and embarking on what is, surely, the hardest war they're going to fight.

But Liara and even Wrex managed to assist, and Shepard—actually, Jane Vakarian, but both of them know that nobody's going to call her like that, and they don't care—starts to wonder again, and she realizes that maybe, just maybe, that little ceremony is a nice way for her crew to show her how much they care, and she's okay with it.

But then it's Garrus who is not okay, a week later, when she makes the heaviest decision of her life and explains to him that she's going to send the Normandy to Earth with the Alliance.

She manages to keep a hard face while he enrages in her room, bottles exploding in the floor, parts of his armor crushing on the metal wall. "They don't give a shit about you!" He shouts, vocals going wild with a variety of angry tones in his voice, "What about us? Why do you care about them?"

Those questions are what makes her rise from her seat and take the necessary steps to him, gripping his shoulders and forcing him to stop in his tracks, "Look at me." She demands and he's hesitant, but after taking a deep breath, he obliges. "All I care about is you, and that's the truth."

"Then, why are you leaving me?" He asks, his words shifting into a whisper at the end of the sentence, as if he's afraid of hearing the answer.

And she pulls his forehead to meet hers not so gently, but her words are, "Because you once said that you wanted to fight beside me, and what's next for us is a war." She let the words sink in his head for a moment before continuing. "And if we want to win that war, I need to rally the Alliance and you need to rally the Hierarchy into our cause, you understand that?"

A low keen answers her question. Of course he understands, he always did, but that it's not making the situation less painful.

And that night, she wonders about if they will ever survive the struggle of the galaxy, but her thoughts drift apart when the room fills with their desperate moans and whispers of love, of care, of adoration, and mine.

And they meet again in the airlock, the last ones to abandon the ship before delivering it to the Alliance, but he doesn't lean on the wall this time. This time he's holding her like if she could slip away if he didn't. And he's brushing his forehead with hers when he repeats the same words she once said to him, a lifetime ago. "Do what you have to do… but come back to me."

This time there are no tears in her eyes and no scary feeling clenching in her gut, because this time she's really sure that she can hold to that. And her voice never falters when she answers and repeats the same words he once said to her, "I will. I promise."

A hum in his vocals makes her notice that he's satisfied with her confident tone, but he selfishly kisses her before she turns away. The cool metal of her ring brushes with one of his mandibles, making it flutter slightly, but when she opens her eyes and gazes at the mix of emerald green in cobalt blue, she knows that it's a good thing.

The bad things are those months they spent apart from each other. And she wonders if her sacrifice, their sacrifice is going to be enough for the galaxy.

It is six months later, standing in a Citadel elevator and heading to the docks, when she stares at the screen and the images of Palaven in a blazing fire and smoke makes her heart sink into the floor and her gut clench in fear.

And it's only Liara and her grip in her arm that manages to hold her in her place when the only thing she wants to do is to run into her ship and fly straight away to that planet, to hell with everybody else.

But when the door opens, she's suddenly surrounded with dozens of reporters and refugees and officers and so many people that demand her attention. So many questions are yelled around her while she tries to walk through the crowd, and there are so many faces around her, calling for her, that she starts to feel a little dizzy.

Struggling through the docks, she sees her face in every news screen that points in her direction, and her hands turns into fists, trying her best to adopt her diplomatic stance, but her gaze betraying her posture and gleaming in pleads for them to just leave her alone, that she has a job to do, a galaxy to save, a bond mate to find…

Liara is still there, gripping her arm and not letting go, serving as the little anchor she finds through the sea of people, and even Bailey appeared a few meters ahead with his squad from C-Sec, trying to get some control of the crowd.

She shuts her ears close to the cries of "Commander", and "Spectre", and "Shepard", because that's not her name anymore, and those are not the voices she really wants to hear. And in her struggle, the only thing she manages to do is to look at the faces that surround her, gazing upon pale salarians, and red krogans, and dark humans, and barefaced turians, but her mind is already looking for that glimpse of the familiar blue and silver she desperately needs right now.

And when she finds it, her gasp is ridiculously loud and her heart starts pounding on her chest like trying to hammer its way out through her ribs. And she couldn't manage to take her eyes away from her bond mate, standing on a reception table to make himself visible from the sea of people that are now filling the docks, a hand gripping the wall to get some balance and his chest rising up and down in a panted breathing.

To hell with everybody else, it's the last thought that came into her mind before she starts pushing everyone that gets in her way to get to him, to Garrus, to home. He jumps out of the table and starts to push his way to her as well, and some of the crowd already manages to move out of her way, helping her to speed up and bursting in a run to his direction.

He has to take a short cut into the lower levels of the docks and she grabs the closest railing, jumping down in a practiced ease, almost like the familiar obstacles in the battleground and barely avoiding kicking the head of a very scared turian that gets in her way, but she keeps running and he does the same, oblivious of the thick crowd, of everything except the distance they desperately need to close.

And they don't even care for words when they meet, and the only thing she manages to do is to jump into his waiting arms, not even flinching when her chest crushes in his armor and going straight for his mouth and brow, making them spin in their spot with the force of her jump.

It's then when, with his familiar tones of love and care and adoration and mine, and with his mouth claiming hers that she starts to wonder about how she had been loved before and she never knew how to feel about it.

And it's only when his hand drifts into her hair and the cool metal of his ring brushing her scalp that she wonders about how she had been adored but she didn't know if she ever believed it.

And it's when the cobalt blue of his eyes mixes and reflects the emerald green of hers that she realizes that she had been loved her whole life but she never knew how to take it.

Until he came into her life.

And both of them are aware now that their loving faces are now on every screen in the Citadel—and, probably, the galaxy—but they didn't care at all. To hell with everybody else, she repeats in her head.

Here, in each other's arms, Jane and Garrus Vakarian are in their own heaven.

And that's it, with a small melodramatic space opera in the end (?). Anyway, I hope you liked this little piece :D

And yeah, I know that there are probably *a lot* of grammar errors, but I'm having a huge cold right now and I'm barely up to post this before heading to bed and die for a little while.
Cheers!