Summary: The galaxy has been saved. Relief and joy suffuse all, save for one turian keeping watch over the woman responsible for their victory. "She will wake up. She has to."

Disclaimer: I don't own shit.

Queen's Quornor: You would think, after fighting to update all of my various in-progress stories in the Dragon Age, Final Fantasy VII, Dynasty Warriors, and Devil May Cry fandoms with limited success due to a creativity-sapping job, I wouldn't have the heart to put myself through the wringer and pump out yet another fic, even a oneshot, at the moment. Apparently, my muses beg to differ. I don't know how to explain this, exactly. Pretty much from the moment I paid any attention to the Mass Effect games, Garrus has had practically all of it. He's such a freakin' cool character, and I can't think of many conversations with him that don't make me laugh at some point. Plus, that romance with him is so sweet and steamy it should be illegal, even without any of the rolling-around-in-the-sheets action you get with Kaiden and Liara. The farewell scene with him in ME3 really got me, especially considering the odds of survival (and I know they can't have kids together, but what would a turian-human baby look like? Probably a little something like a turian-quarian baby, seeing as how Tali appears pretty human without her suit). So, I started thinking. On the off-chance that Shepard survived that final battle, and was somehow retrieved from the ruins of the Citadel, how would such an event affect her deeply emotional boyfriend? My guess is that he would not leave her side until she either woke up or flat-lined. After that... I don't know. Garrus doesn't really seem the type to off himself in despair, but then again, we haven't exactly seen him in utter despair. He gets mad in his grief for his squad because somebody was responsible for their deaths; what if the responsible party was already dead, and his emotional attachment was soul-deep? I'm not exploring that scenerio here, but I bet he wouldn't put the gun to his own head. He'd probably throw himself back at Omega, and try to go down in as big a blaze of glory as he could, hoping to meet his Shepard at that heavenly bar.

Turian Dreams

He hated heart-rate monitors.

The steady beep-beep-beep of the infernal machine was a crucible in its own right, capable of breaking a man in despair and worry or empowering him with hope and anticipation. It meant that the person attached to it was still alive, could awaken at any time. But it also meant that if something happened, any observers would know the person whose heartbeat was being recorded was in the direst of straits, and more often than not they were totally helpless to retrive them from the brink.

That was the worst feeling of all, knowing that he was incapable of doing anything to help her come back. All the times he had saved her life with a well-placed shot or a desperate shove into cover, and all he could do now was sit and watch her fight for every breath. It was horribly ironic to think that she had just saved the entire galaxy from annihilation, and not one of the doctors in this damned hospital could do a thing to return the favor for her.

Garrus had not been the one to find her. Wrex and Liara had led a team of volunteers to the ruins of the Citadel, in an attempt to recover any survivors. They had found a few, aside from the eternal prescence of the Keepers. But ultimately, the expedition had been an effort to figure out what had happened. What had caused the Reapers to break off the attack? What had made them flee, when they had the best opportunity to obliviate the galaxy's defenders? Everyone had known the answer was with the woman who had brought them all together; thus, the goal had been to locate her and get some answers. Of course, everyone on that team would have gone just for the chance to bring her home, to silence the multitude of unknowns gnawing at their minds concerning her well-being. Garrus had jumped at the chance to go up there, almost out of his mind with worry, but he had not found her. Urz, the varren she had adopted as a sort of scaly watchdog, had found the forsaken shells of both Anderson and the Illusive Man. From there, Liara had spotted the secret chamber high above their bodies.

Samara had found Shepard.

Garrus had been with Kaiden and Kasumi in the ruins of the Zakera Ward when the call went out that she had been found. He had nearly killed himself trying to get to the airlock connected to their ship, and been greeted with the sight of Wrex emerging from the ruins, with Shepard held securely in his arms. His obvious strength had been a heartbreaking contrast to her unexpected frailty, so much so that Garrus had been partially blind to exactly how bad her wounds were. It had not been until she was in the hospital, being borne away on a gurney, that the full impact of her injuries had hit him.

She had sustained second and third degree burns across most of her exposed flesh, and some of her armor had been melted into her skin. Most of her hair, that gleaming silver fall that he had loved to run his talons through, had been scorched away in the blast that had killed the rest of her squad in the final rush to the Conduit. Her left femur had sustained a compound fracture, and two of the fingers on her right hand had been blown off. Those were only the visible components of the damage she had taken, and Garrus knew that there was more. He had read the datapad cataloguing her injuries; he preferred not to think about the hits her internal workings had taken. All he let himself acknowledge was that a great deal of surgery had taken place immediately after her admission to the hospital, and she was currently plugged into that damned heart-rate monitor. The infernal machine, and the slight rise and fall of her chest with every successful breath, were the only signs that she still clung to life.

The doctors had not been sure what to do with him. Most of them had dealt exclusively with humans, being planet-based personnel rather than Alliance physicians. Having a turian pacing the length of the waiting room, in full combat gear, was not a scenerio any of them had likely considered during their stint in medical school. They had all been too nervous to ask why he was there, until Kaiden had thought to take one of the nurses aside and explain his prescence. From then on, Garrus had been allowed to stay in Shepard's room, most likely because it kept him relatively calm and out of sight. Being near her helped ease his worries, although it did not alieviate all of them. He would not be able to stop fretting until she opened those bright green eyes of hers, met his gaze, and gave him that sly grin that always had his gut twisting with anticipation.

It was already the third day, and she had yet to come out of her coma.

Garrus sat by her bedside, a datapad laying forgotten on the floor next to his chair. He was supposed to be reading over the figures, estimates of the surviving turians from the initial attack to take back Earth, and attempting to come up with a way to provide for them all until the Primarch, Hackett, and various other leaders could come up with a way to get everyone home, now that the mass relays were destroyed. His attention was not on his people, not at the moment. All he could concentrate on was his lover.

Everybody knew her as Commander Shepard, the Hero of the Citadel, Humanity's first Spectre, Conqueror of the Collectors, the Great Diplomat, etc, etc. But to him, she was only Julia. His best friend, leader, and the woman he loved. His eyes roamed across her inert body, cataloguing all the bandages and casts, the pads of white gauze soaked with medi-gel. So much damage, and she had still kept going. That was just like her - Julia had always been the most stubborn human he had ever known, when she had cause to be. Her survival story far outclassed his, as far as he was concerned. He had taken a rocket to the face, but she had survived a near-direct hit from Harbinger's beam due to sheer willpower. By all rights, she should have died mere feet from the Conduit. But she hadn't. If that did not speak volumes about how extraordinary a person she was, Garrus had no idea what would.

His gaze fell upon her face, to the faint traces of blue clinging tenaciously to her nose and cheekbones, and something in his chest tightened. Julia had shocked him when she had gone out to the shuttle, during the inital push to meet the Resistance; she had been wearing the Vakarian clan markings, or rather as close to them as she could get without suddenly turning into a turian. In response to his stunned inquiry about why she would wear his markings to retake her homeworld, she had told him that he was as much her world as Earth was. That aside, she had been trying to get everyone to work together ever since this whole mess with the Reapers began. What better way to show her attitude towards unity, she had explained, than wearing the clan markings of the turian she loved?

He had not had a chance to explain to her what the taking of his markings would mean among turians, whether she had done them herself or allowed him to apply them, as tradition dictated. In hindsight, he knew it was most likely a pointless explanation. Julia had been very thorough in her studies of his people, particularly of their customs and social traditions. Likely, she knew full well that donning his markings would be a symbolic binding of herself to him. All they needed was a ceremony, and they would be...

Garrus closed his eyes, exhaling deeply. She had known. That was precisely why she had done it. There had not been time for anything more formal, so she had improvised. Julia had probably enjoyed every stunned look she had gotten from every turian she had passed on her way to see him. She had never been ashamed of their relationship. Neither had he, of course, but he had not expected her to be so obvious about it. There was nothing he could have done to express the sentiment himself, since the human method of expressing a lifetime commitment involved the exchanging of rings in a ceremony that could range from quick and simple to tediously long and extravegant. Turians had no use for rings. Even if they did, the jewelry would have interfered with his sniping, since he would not have had time to get used to the weight, miniscule though it would be. That aside, going out and getting a ring for himself was the epitome of ridiculousness; according to the vids and articles, the piece had to be half of a matched set, with its partner resting on the hand of his chosen mate. Julia didn't wear rings, either. Necklaces and earrings, but not rings.

Did they really need a ceremony to express what they already knew? He pondered the question, gazing at the intact fingers of her left hand resting atop the sheet. Specifically, the fourth finger from the right, where the ring was supposed to go. It was not uncommon among humans to live together as mates without actually undergoing the marriage ritual, although such partnerships were often temporary arrangements, a sort of testing of the waters until one or both of the cohabitants decided this was not working out, and they needed to see other people. Turians did not have anything quite like it, aside from the relieving of stress or mutually beneficial arrangements. His people had two catagories for a male and a female who cared for each other and enjoyed expressing it physically: casual, and mated. There was no catagory for all-but-mated-serious-but-technically-casual. The partners either were mated, or merely satisfying their needs with a comfortable friend without expectations. According to the turian mindset, he and Julia fell into the latter. In Garrus' mind, however, they were as good as mated already. They had even discussed children a few times, before his half-joking comment about seeing what a turian/human baby would look like. Casual partners did not discuss offspring.

His gaze slid to the lower half of her abdomen, concealed by the sheet and, beneath that, layers of gelled bandages. Julia had taken a serious hit to her gut, saved only by some timely application of medigel that sealed the flesh around the shrapnel, but the datapad had said her reproductive capabilities were undamaged. Whatever else she could or could not do now, she could still bear children. Perhaps it was a stretch to think that it might be his children, with their differing amino bases, but the idea was a much-cherished one he had entertained for several weeks now. He had started thinking about children when the genophage had been cured, and Wrex had been practically dancing with thoughts of all the little krogan he would be siring in the very near future. Garrus had seen the look in Julia's eyes when she caught one of the golden snowflakes raining from Tuchanka's sky, the hope so long denied the krogan. He had seen the joy for her friends, both old and new, as well as the satisfaction of righting a wrong committed long before her people had ever left Earth. But there was also a new emotion, one that had swiftly flitted across her face and been gone in the blink of an eye. It had been a touch of melancholy, mixed with wistful jealousy. At the time, Garrus had not known what to think about it. But he had seen the same look on the Citadel a few weeks later, when they had been on their way back to the Normandy and passed by a turian saying good-bye to his asari mate. The departing soldier had told his tearful mate to take care of their daughters, and Garrus had spotted the same expression on Julia's face. It was then that he realized, she wanted children. However much of herself she had given to the military and the galaxy at large, she still carried the wish to contribute to its genetic future.

They had spoken at length about children several days after their shooting match atop the Presidium, during the quiet periods between making love and sleeping. Julia had confirmed what he already knew, and he had confessed his desire to raise a family with her. Like all female Alliance members, Julia was taking contraceptive pills to prevent any unexpected pregnancies during her time of service; trying for a baby while working to save the galaxy was absolute foolishness, both of them knew that. But it hadn't stopped them from dreaming of future sons and daughters, both human and turian. She had been the one to bring up the idea of using a surrogate to bear his children, and a sperm donor for hers. Garrus knew the odds of ever getting her pregnant himself, but something in him rebelled violently at the idea of another man's seed quickening life inside her. More than likely, she would ask Kaiden to be the donor, if the possibility arose. It would all be done clinically, of course. Kaiden would never be with her the way Garrus had. The turian in him could appreciate the potential results of such a pairing, the strength of one of the galaxy's greatest leaders and soldiers combined with the power of a biotic. But his heart raged all the same, just as it had when they discussed the need for a turian surrogate mother for his children.

If only they could have their own children, together, he thought. They would be the strongest, smartest, most loved children in the whole damned universe.

"She's still not up?"

The familiar voice brought Garrus' head up so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. As it was, he rubbed at the back of his neck and shook his head before looking at the speaker again, wondering if his exhaustion was finally getting to him. He had to be hallucinating.

But when he looked again, his father was still standing in the doorway, regarding him with unreadable crimson eyes.

"You are the last person I ever expected to walk through that door," he finally replied, regarding his father coolly.

"Well, I never expected you to be keeping a vigil over a human." Cato Vakarian stepped into the room, allowing the door to hiss shut behind him. Garrus watched his father assess everything, from the placement of Julia's bed against the wall to the small distance between her and his rebellious son. The elder turian gave no outward sign of his thoughts on Garrus' obvious attachment to the human in question. He merely leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, gazing upon them. "She is special to you, is she not?"

"What was your first clue?" Adult as he was, a few minute vestiges of his contrary adolescent years still managed to find purchase whenever his father was around. He respected him, but a tiny part of him still enjoyed needling the greatest authority figure he had ever known.

True to form, Cato did not rise to the bait. He merely regarded his firstborn patiently, with his perfected "cop face." That blank, slightly bored stare that meant he was listening, but withholding judgement until the subject of his scrutiny was good and finished. Garrus did not like that expression, having been on the receiving end more than a few times as a boy, but he had to admit that it was highly effective. He had gotten more willing admissions and information during monitored interrogations after adopting his father's cop face than he ever had with veiled threats of bodily harm.

Even wise to the trick, he was unable to stop himself from telling his father the real reason he was here.

"Commander Shepard and I are more than an officer and her soldier," he admitted. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, calming himself. "We are...involved." He snuck a peek at his father, wondering if his father, the epitome of a proper turian, would react to the news.

He should have known there would be no discernable reaction. Cato was far too controlled for that. "How deeply?" he rumbled.

"Intimately."

There was silence from the other side of the room. Garrus had the sudden urge to scoot his chair closer to Julia's side and take her undamaged hand, to draw his father's attention to the faint remnants of her self-applied clan markings. He stifled it, but only just. At last, Cato spoke.

"I suppose this means your sister's latest scheme to get you mated will come to naught."

Surprised by the statement, Garrus lifted his head in time to see a little smirk grace his father's motionless countenance. "Come again?"

Cato settled himself against the wall a little more comfortably, his crimson eyes dancing with mirth. "Solanna seems to think that one of her fellow scouts, Renita Orvellius, would be the perfect match for her single older brother. Renita is from a respectable family, fairly attractive, and very skilled at close-quarters takedowns rather than long-range sharpshooting. Your sister was certain that sparks would fly if the two of you met. She demanded that I bring her to your attention when I visited, and show you her picture."

The younger Vakarian sighed and shook his head. Solanna had been trying to set him up with various individuals in her social circle for years, even before he had left to join C-Sec. Each time, she had been convinced that she had found his perfect mate. Each time, he had, metaphorically speaking, shot her down. "I supposed you can tell her that it's pointless to try, now that I'm taken."

"I doubt that will do any good. She will never believe that you have bound yourself to a human, let alone your commanding officer." Cato's mask finally slipped, and a quiet burst of laughter made its way into the room. "If anything, she will likely try harder to find your perfect turian mate. Try and make you a productive member of the gene pool and all that."

That was a distinct possibility, one that made Garrus' gut knot. Solanna had never been as accepting of humans as he was, although for the life of him he could not figure out why. The only contact she had with the Alliance had been during her enlistment period, and it had been cordial. She had never fought a human, and had been born long after Shanxi. Whatever she had against Julia's species, it meant that contact between the two females would be forever strained. Pushing his little sister's racism into the mental box marked "Much Later," Garrus looked back to his father.

"Would it help if I said she was not welcome to try, and her efforts are greatly unappreciated?"

"She would just interpret it as a challenge."

Silence fell, a more comfortable one than usual. Garrus found himself slightly grateful towards the beeping monitor; he could pretend that Julia was listening, and lending him her support. Normally any time spent with his father was strangled with tension, as both parent and son tried to ignore the fact that he was not the proper turian Cato wished him to be. This was different, more like Cato understood what he was going through and wanted him to know that he did.

Of course, he did understand. Garrus knew that since his mother had gotten sick, a great deal of his father's time had been spent sitting in hospital rooms by her side, unsure of what would happen to her next or whether she would even remember her husband and children. If ever he had doubted his father's love and devotion to his mate, the certainty had been restored the very first time he had walked in on one of Cato's bedside vigils.

"I'm surprised that she even has time to consider another potential match for me. I wasn't sure if she'd be traumatized by the Reaper invasion or not." At least Solanna had finally seen the reason behind his leaving C-Sec behind to go zooming around the galaxy aboard a semi-rogue human vessel. All those messages scolding him for his actions had been worth it to receive his little sister's heartfelt apology, after she and their father had finally made it off Palaven.

"Your sister is made of stronger stuff than that. She's a Vakarian, after all." Cato nodded towards Julia. "Seems you found a worthwhile candidate to join the family, unless humans habitually don war paint in this day and age."

"I didn't do that for her. She did it herself before we threw ourselves at the Reapers in London. It she had asked, though, I would have mixed the paint myself."

"I thought as much."

Garrus looked at his father, a little stunned but thoroughly pleased that Cato had yet to say anything negative concerning his choice of mate. By now, there would normally be a first class row going between them. There certainly had been the first and only time he had brought a girl home to meet his parents. Cato had disapproved of the girl's familial ties. Garrus had been young, dumb, and absolutely convinced that dating her was the one thing he wanted from life. He would never admit it now, of course, but he was secretly grateful that his father had bodily thrown that girl out the front door. He had seen what happened to the poor sap who had mated her. "I hate to spoil the moment, but... You are aware that your son, who has been a constant source of disappointment and exasperation for you, has pretty much bound himself to his commanding officer, who happens to be not only a human, but also a Spectre who keeps falling in and out of grace with the Council?"

The elder Vakarian snorted. "Give me a few hours. I don't think the idea has sunk in yet." His scarlet eyes met his son's brilliant azure gaze, and he nodded slightly. "The truth is, I did some thinking while I was trapped on that shuttle with your sister, fleeing those damned Reapers. I always thought there was only one way to accomplish something, that going by the book was always the correct solution. But when you came to me, and started telling me all these insane, unbelievable things you had seen and experienced during your time on the Normandy, it shook me."

"What do you mean?" Garrus prompted when his father paused.

"I didn't want to believe you." Cato scratched at the back of his neck, then met his son's curious stare again. "I wanted to think that you had gone crazy, that none of what had happened could possibly be real, since no credible sources could verify them. It was much easier to accept that than the truth. But you laid out one hell of a convincing argument. From Saren to Sovereign, the Beacon to the Collectors, it all made sense. Too much sense for me to simply pass it off as hallucinations brought on by spending too much time around humans or something like that. But I didn't want to think that some ancient threat from beyond the galaxy was lurking out there, just waiting to wipe us all out.

"Still, I decided to go along with it. Partially because I understood the danger," he clarified, raising one talon to cut off Garrus' protest, "but also because I wanted to see how you would handle it. It was the perfect test to see exactly how much of you came from your mother, and how much you got from me. You have always done your own thing, no matter what you had to do for it. That came from your mother."

"You always did say that Mom was a total spitfire when you two were dating," Garrus interrupted with a grin.

Cato chuckled, returning the smile. "When I saw you with your task group, I realized that I had misjudged you. You got things done that really shouldn't have been possible, given the miniscule amount of resources allocated to you. But you managed to win and keep the respect of your men, like a true leader. Even got the admiration of several individuals higher up the chain, if what I've heard is true. That's when I realized that you aren't a bad turian. You are unorthodox, that's undeniable. but at your core you are still a good turian. You just have a better head on your shoulders than a lot of us do, myself included. I think you got that from your mother, as well."

Garrus fell silent, trying to wrap his head around what he had just heard. His entire life, the thing he had wanted the most was his father's approval. He had pushed himself to the limit in school and training, just to hear the words "I'm proud of you" rumble from the older male's throat. He had always done his own thing, that was true, but his hope had been to open his father's eyes, to show him that there was more than one way to accomplish a goal. His mother had always praised him for his accomplishments, especially the unorthodox ones; Cato had never truly shown his favor for anything he had done, which has only made him work all the harder for it.

To hear his father say, in his own long-winded way, that he was proud of what he had done these past few years...

"I didn't do it all for you this time, Dad," he murmured. "At first it was because all the red tape at C-Sec was driving me crazy. But when Julia found me again, and got me to rejoin her crew, I realized I wanted to do it for her." For that gleam in her jade eyes when he opened fire, that sheen of mingled amazement and exhilaration coupled with a sudden competitive flare. For the wide grin that would split her ripe black lips, and her joyful, half-crazed shout before she turned their firefight into a competition. Long before he had fallen in love with her, the best sight he had ever known had been her gracefully swinging out of cover with her assault rifle screaming, mowing down their opposition with nothing short of jubilation while her kill-count soared.

That sight had brought him back from the brink of the abyss on Omega, when he had looked into his scope and seen her dancing in and out of cover, silver hair flying and guns blazing. The old, much-loved grin had convinced him that she was no hallucination brought on by more than two days of running, fighting, and killing. Her excited whoop, sounded when she had split the skull of a merc with a sniper rifle, had sent fresh adrenaline surging through his veins. Her love of a good fight rekindled his own, keeping him alive when by all rights he should have died in that base. His last thought before slipping into unconsciousness, after the right side of his face had been permanently altered by that missile, had been I can't die now. We still haven't figured out who the best shot is.

Then had come the quiet conversations in the main battery, the late nights when neither had been able to find sleep. She would always peek her head through the doors, unsure whether he was in his cot or not, and when he waved her over to sit beside him she would favor him with a smile, almost as wide as the one she wore in battle but without the teeth. Those had been the hours when they talked of small things: the few memories she had of her parents, the years she had spent as a member of the Crimson Renegades, her love and hate for the city of Detroit and the gang she had called a family. He remembered the wistful, gentle envy in her eyes when he would regale her with stories of his life on Palaven, of his training and old missions, and the antics and fights he had shared with his sister. Julia had never had a sister. Her parents had been killed when she was six, caught in the crossfire between the Renegades and a rival gang. She had once confided that her parents were thinking about another child before their deaths, and she had always wondered what it would have been like to be a big sister. Garrus had countered that it was fun, but being the older sibling was usually a total pain. That always made her laugh.

He could not pinpoint the exact moment the dynamic of their relationship had changed, the moment he had realized that his feelings were no longer those of a friend and comrade-in-arms. But he could not think back to those late-night exchanges, to firefights spent calling out numbers of kills and headshots, without feeling the warmth spread throughout his chest. Somewhere in the midst of talking, competing, and saving the galaxy multiple times he had fallen for her, hard.

That realization had not hit until he had woken up beside her, with her smooth curves pressed against his side and the scent of her sweat and shampoo tickling his nose. After their first night together he had just lain there when awareness drifted back, and finally understood that in gaining his friendship, she had also managed to earn his love. Garrus had worried that he was the only one to feel that way, but his fears had been dashed when she raised her head and gave him a soft look, a gentle smile he had never seen her wear before. Her arms had crept around him, a mute question in her eyes, and he had crushed her to him, letting her know that this was far more than stress relief to him. That may have been the original intent, but somewhere along the way it had become much more serious, far deeper than that.

That had been the instant his father's approval ceased to matter, because hers was the only opinion he truly cared to know.

Garrus recalled that he had been a mess when she had been confined to Earth. Outwardly he had been able to control himself, but in private nothing had prevented him from worrying that he would never see her again, that the Alliance would hand her over to the batarians for destroying so many lives. He had been the only one she had told aboard the Normandy. Julia had called him to her cabin, saying that she wanted to speak with him, and then curled her knees against her chest and leaned against him on the couch when he arrived. She had explained, in a rough voice choked with unshed tears, what had happened during those two excruciating days of radio silence. He had listened as she told him about her rescue of Dr. Kenson, the Project, the doctor's indoctrination and betrayal, and of how damn close they had come to having a front-row seat to the Reapers' arrival. She had not asked for pity, nor forgiveness. All she had wanted was to explain, to let him know the calibur of the woman he was dating.

It still had not made him turn away.

Now she was laying in a coma, slathered in medigel and covered in bandages, while scientists in the lab on the second floor regrew her missing fingers. Julia had sacrificed everything to save the galaxy, but she had somehow held on long enough for someone to find her and bring her back to a hospital. Garrus could keenly recall the sheer panic that had enveloped him when one of the nurses confided that she had flatlined on the operating table, and the profound weakness in his limbs when that same nurse had hastened to tell him that they had successfully rescusitated her. The soldier in him always knew the chances of seeing her die in front of his eyes, and accepted it as a necessary risk; the part of him that had allowed him to step beyond the conflict and become her boyfriend still clung to the hope that they would somehow manage to grow old and gray together.

"Is it like this with you and Mom?" The words spilled from his mouth unsummoned, so quietly he was almost unaware that he had spoken. He was so intent on the continued rise and fall of Julia's chest that his surprise was total when his father's hand landed on his shoulder, the pressure an unexpected comfort to his tired mind.

"I'm not sure you can compare your situation to ours, son. Your mother is awake, but she has trouble remembering who I am some days. There are times when she can barely recall who she is, let alone that she has a husband and children who love her. But at least I can look at her and know that she's alive, and that there's a chance she will remember in the next hour or so. The new medicines are starting to help with that. But..." Cato's hand squeezed a bit tighter. "This is somehow worse."

"You're damn right it's worse." Garrus felt the rawness in his voice, the sudden vice his vocal cords had become. There was no outlet for his pain other than his words. "The doctors said she took a nasty blow to her head. Even if she does wake up, there's no guarantee she'll remember anything. She might forget all about the Reapers, her position as Commander, every little thing she's done and said these past few years. The memories might have gaps, where she can remember bits and pieces but not how they connect. Or..." He choked, unable to say it.

"Or she might remember everything, save what you mean to her," Cato finished softly.

The younger turian slumped forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. That was his greatest fear. Knowing she had died once was bad enough, especially since he had watched her run past the escape pods on the original Normandy, on her way to drag Joker from the pilot's chair; he had thought she made it to the last pod, and being told otherwise had left him a living version of the walking dead for weeks afterward. This time, if she died, the countdown to his own end would start ticking. But worse was the idea that she could pull through this, beat the odds yet again, only to look at him with a blank expression in her brilliant emerald eyes. He was not sure what he would do if her memories of him, and the love they shared, had been lost.

"You know, if that does occur, it does not mean you have lost her."

Garrus managed to tear his gaze away from his lover, staring askance at his father. "What do you mean?"

The look in Cato's eyes was one of complete understanding, and sympathy. "If she has forgotten why she loves you, you'll just have to make her fall in love with you all over again."

"Dad, I have no idea how it happened in the first place. What am I supposed to do? Find a couple thousand mercs and make her blaze her way through them beside me?"

"I don't think this happened in the middle of a firefight, son."

"Fine. I'll resurrect the Reapers, the Collectors, and Saren and make her save the whole damn galaxy all over again. 'Cause I'm pretty sure that may have had something to do with our relationship."

Cato sighed. "There's no need to be difficult. Besides, I don't believe you fell in love with each other based solely on combat performance. If that had been the case, you would have mated one of your collegues years ago."

"True enough. But watching her six did have something to do with getting her to come talk to me in the first place." That was not entirely true, but his father did not need to know that. Julia had decided to come chat with him after realizing how great a shot he was. Their first friendly conversation had consisted of stories of impossible shots they had both nailed, their favorite guns, and their sniper training. She was not a pure sniper, but of all the guns she had been trained to use, the rifles were her favorites.

"You know, you could talk to her instead of waiting for her to come to you," his father pointed out.

Reasonable enough, but every time he had gone to her instead of the usual, they had wound up in bed. Garrus' mind paused at that realization. When had they decided that Julia in his space meant conversation, but Garrus in Julia's space was only for sex? That would have to be remedied, once she snapped out of this coma.

She would wake up. She had to. She was Commander Julia Fuckin' Shepard, Spectre Extraordinaire, Savior of the Entire Damned Galaxy. Of anybody left standing, she was the one who deserved to enjoy the peace the absolute most.

And he wanted to do it by her side. His gaze slid back to her bruised, motionless face as he silently acknowledged how very important it was that she come to, for him. He had never truly wanted the domestic sort of bliss; his goals had consisted of making life better for the less fortunate, and kicking the asses of those who were responsible for making people miserable. Fighting crime, destroying the selfish and the evil, protecting those who could not protect themselves - that had been why he had joined C-Sec, not because of his father. That was what had convinced him that joining the Normandy was the right choice, and what had driven him to Omega, to become the entity that was Archangel. But somewhere, somehow, those noble aspirations had been overtaken by visions of spending the rest of his life beside Julia, his commander, friend, and lover. All he wanted now, if he was completely honest with himself, was to find a comfortable home somewhere and settle down with her, perhaps even raise a family. He really, really was curious about what a turian/human crossbreed child would look like.

"Three fingers, or five?" he wondered aloud.

"Come again?" Garrus jumped slightly; he had forgotten his father was in the room.

Time to lay it all on the table. "Just wondering what our child would look like." He ignored the flabbergasted look on his father's face, the slackened mandibles, and continued with his musings. "I bet it would have my eyes. Julia's are nice, but she's shown me an old picture of her parents. Apparently, blue eyes run on her father's side of the family. It's a recessive trait among humans, only shows up if both parents carry the gene for it. So our kid would probably have blue eyes of some kind. I don't know how many fingers and toes it'll have, though, or what kind of mouth. The best combination would probably be my teeth and her oral structure. Turian mandibles on a human mouth just wouldn't look right, you know? It'll also be interesting to see if it gets hair or a fringe."

"You're really in deep, aren't you?" Cato was looking at him with one of the most intense expressions he had ever seen.

"Yeah, I am." He matched the scarlet gaze, backing it up with the quiet intensity of his emotions for the woman on the bed.

They stared at each other for a time, then Cato smiled. "You never have done quite what I expected you to do, son. It's nice to see that some things have not changed in this crazy new galaxy of ours."

"If you want proof that some things remain the same, you should bring Sol with you next time you visit. I doubt she'll be nearly as happy with this situation as you are."

"I'd rather bring your mother. She'd be thrilled to know that you've found somebody, regardless of whether that female is human or not." The elder Vakarian male sighed. "Her greatest hope was always for you and your sister to find the same happiness and love in a mate that she and I have."

"Even if she doesn't get any grandchildren out of this arrangement?" Garrus could not resist asking.

"She'll just put the screws on Solanna to settle down and fill a house."

"I plan on trying to do just that with Julia."

"I'm certain you are already trying."

The two males gave each other understanding grins, although a part of Garrus wanted to squirm. His father definitely understood; in one of her memory lapses, Vivica had mistaken her son for her husband and remarked on how they should bond soon, lest their families discover that she was carrying. That was not how Garrus had wanted to find out that he had already been on the way before his parents even became mates.

"Well, I should probably let you resume your vigil," Cato finally remarked. "I am certain that the first face she should behold upon awakening is yours, not her future father-in-law."

"Yeah, you don't have enough scars for her liking," Garrus teased.

"Then I suppose she and I will never have more than a cordial relationship. I have better things to do with my face than catch rockets." He made for the door. "I will speak with you later, son." He nodded towards Julia. "Commander Shepard."

Garrus watched his father leave, then dragged his chair even closer to the bed. Carefully he rested his hand atop Julia's, then curled his fingers so they wove between hers to softly grip the flesh of her palm. He thought he felt a flicker of moving muscle beneath the pads of his fingers, but after a moment of breathless anticipation decided he had simply been imagining things. The heart-rate monitor had not registered any changes at all.

"Julia, I have news." The doctors had assured him that she could hear him, in spite of her coma. She was merely unable to reply. "That was my father, in case you haven't guessed. I'd love for you to wake up and let me tell you, so I can see the look on your face, but I suppose I'll just have to spit it out and hear what you think later."

He tightened his grip, feeling a gentle warmth spread throughout his chest. "Your human hell must have frozen over. My father approves of us being together. He approves."