Five times an enforcer had stood by Garrus' booth and said, "You have to order something else." Once they added, "I'm serious," and and another time, "don't think we won't drag your sorry ass out of here if you don't start putting down more credits."

Twice, the bartender had come over himself. His approach was less drink more or I will hurt you, more do it so you can fuck yourself up, which to be fair was why Garrus had dragged himself to Afterlife that morning.

But he hadn't even touched his first, not even to bring it to his lips and change his mind before his tongue hit the lip of the glass. Breathing was a precursor to drowning and his mind had long since suffocated in the vacuum of Shepard's absence. Alcohol wouldn't do anything except make him feel like shit, match his body with his mind.

As much as he doubted that he could feel worse, he wasn't quite up to tempting fate.

So he just sat there, begrudging the way that time had stretched the seconds well beyond their length, ignoring everyone until Aria finally told them to ignore him.

When a new shadow cast another vaguely person-like shape in front of him, he first thought: go away.

Instead of leaving, it slid across the table, angling itself against the column separating the booth from the bar floor. It crossed its arms. It did not go away.

Something tightened in Garrus' throat; something burned the back of his eyes. But he didn't look up; wouldn't, couldn't. In case he was wrong, in case he wasn't ready, in case he was wanted more than he wanted her.

She gave in quicker than he'd expected. Said, simply: "Is this seat taken?" and sat down before he could say yes.

Or no.

But both of them knew he didn't have it in him to refuse.

"It's been open for seven years," he said in a voice that was soft and tired and hurt, yet so full of relief that he didn't care how much of himself he had just given away.

"You're still buying, right?"

"I'm still buying … what?"

"My drink. Don't think I've forgotten the promise you made me in London. Or are you gonna try to tell me it doesn't count because this is the wrong Afterlife?"

Garrus laughed – spirits it felt good to laugh – and said: "How long were you practising that line?"

Those were the wrong words though. They killed the smile teasing at her lips, wilted the surety in her shoulders. "A lady never reveals her secrets," she said. Half-hearted. Quieted.

The light in her eyes flickered and he watched it, hoping that it didn't fade.

It didn't.

She wouldn't be Shepard if her fire could be reduced to embers. How he'd forgotten that, he didn't know.

In the glow of that lingering light, Garrus slipped into her silence, was silent himself in turn. The feeling was warm and familiar, and it wrapped around them like a bandage.

He took her in with his eyes, as much as he could. Attempted to relearn the lines of her bones, the curves of her flesh. Her scars were larger than his, and deeper in places, but he thought she wore them better; there was symmetry in the way they crossed her nose and knotted texture into her cheeks. For the first time he thought he understood why she'd been so infatuated with his own, why her fingers always seemed to graze the parts of his flesh that could barely feel her touch.

Her elbows were on the table, her hands pressed together, steepled fingertip to fingertip. Messy polish in blues and purples and pinks coloured her nails and the skin around them. The work of children, of small hands unsteady with happiness.

"What happened, Shepard?"

There was a moment he thought she'd leave again; her hands dropped to the table, palm down, and she used the force of her arms to lift herself up. But then she tilted her body to the side, brought a knee up to her chest, and wrapped her hands over her shin. She shrugged, though it came across of more of an upward lurch. Like she hadn't really meant it and some synapse had just fired a reflex of casualness in her, a knee-jerk reaction to being at a bar with Garrus across from her and nothing but a drink between them.

"How the hell do you expect me to answer that, Garrus? At least give me somewhere to start."

Like I have any idea where, he thought. Then he sighed and he remembered why he was there, so he said: "Are you all right?"

Which made her look at him with softened eyes, at once relieved, at once saddened, at once guilty. Slightly flustered by being set on the more emotional course of explanation, it took her a little while to patchwork her thoughts together into something cohesive.

What she came up with was this: "I think I've become a schoolmarm."

"A what?"

"A teacher. Ish. There's a lot of kids down there and somebody's gotta teach them their ABCs and 123s."

"And how to shoot a gun?"

"Yeah. And how to shoot a gun."

"I heard about Marshall."

Shepard nodded, kept nodding for a few moments. A pained smile thinned her lips which made the scars across her cheek seem to dimple. "From Hackett?"

Garrus held up his hands, playing at being playful. "I can't reveal my sources," he said. Then he added: "It wasn't a hit, was it?"

"No," she said, softly, the word so much like air that Garrus only caught it because of how intently he was watching her, like she was liable to disappear again if he looked away even if just for a moment. "Bored vorcha."

"Shit. Sorry."

Shepard turned away. Placed her chin on her shoulder, looked out at nothing in particular. Her fingers were tapping something erratic against the back of her hand and Garrus reached out to steady them, only to withdraw within inches of her.

It's not your place, he reminded himself.

But then his mind went here: Who the hell's place is it?

Just as he was about to commit to the touch, to trying to add a little bit of solidity to a shaky set of circumstances, she asked him, "You grew up somewhere nice, right?"

He placed his hands flat on the table, then slid them over to his full glass. Holding onto it, at least, kept them out of trouble. "That depends on what you mean by somewhere nice."

"Did you feel safe?"

"I did."

"Have enough food to eat?"

"Too much, if you ask Solana."

"Did you have everything you needed?"

"Yes."

"And a lot of the things you just wanted?"

"Where are you going with this?"

"I can't go back with you, Garrus."

Truthfully, he hadn't expected that she would. But neither did he anticipate how deep that no would slice him. He tried to find the right words to reassure her but everything seemed to come back to a single, useless, selfish word:

Please.

But she spoke instead, saying: "I don't know how to live like that. Never did."

"How to live like what?"

"Peacefully."

"You get used to it after a while."

"Maybe you can, but I –," she started to say. Then her voice caught in her throat, severed whatever chain of words she'd meant to have follow that maybe. She finished it instead with, "Sorry."

"Shepard..."

"It felt like I was waiting forever for news."

"On the Normandy, you mean?"

"Yeah, on the Normandy. I stuck around long enough to hear they'd picked up on her signal and..."

"And what, Shepard?"

She turned back around, fixed him with a look that would have suggested she didn't expect to see him there, had he not known any better. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this."

"You know I don't mind, Shepard."

"I mind."

"Oh."

"I can't go back," she said again, and the way she bore her eyes into his own, pleadingly, apologetically, yet with so much strength he feel it brew inside of himself, told him it wasn't personal, but there was no solace in that. PTSD hit humans particularly hard, he knew. Drove them places they didn't want to go, drove people away from them, drove them mad.

It hurt him to say nothing.

To do nothing.

But only in silence did he avoid the risk of hurting her, which mattered so much more.

She turned back into the booth but only so she could push herself up without having to rely on her bad leg. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming all this way to see me Garrus, but I should go."

Not yet, he thought. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

He stood up after her.

Be confident.

"Look, at least let me walk you back."

"Garrus..."

Don't lose her without a fight.

"And if I happen to like the place then you might be able to convince me to stay around."

"It's been seven years."

"So what?"

"I'm sorry, Garrus," she said. Then she turned around, took a step, started to move away from him, further and further.

What could he say? What could he do? When would his efforts become intrusive, unwelcome? Maybe they'd already reached that point.

But what if they hadn't.

It had been so hard to let her go the first time; to watch her leave him standing among the dead while the sound of his name on her tongue still echoed throughout him. Now it felt like torture; now it felt like he was losing himself, like the piece of him that had once been sewn so neatly into Shepard's existence was unravelling while the last binds keeping it whole frayed.

With the quickness of fear, he weaved out of the booth, following after her. As soon as he was within reach of her, he placed his hands on her shoulders – first the left, then the right – and he said: "Shepard, please. I can't lose you again."

All around them, the Afterlife pulsed with music and voices, with the quiet sounds of drinks being mixed, with the the noisiness of brawls breaking out over matters of no consequence to them because they were happening outside of the pocket of air in which they existed together.

In his hands, her shoulders hitched. He could feel her swallow. Though he wanted to pull her back towards, him, to wrap his arms around her properly, to hold onto her so tight that it hurt, he didn't move.

Eventually, she softened beneath his hands. Eased her breath. Almost seemed to relax, then she slid unexpectedly from his grip. Before he could think to reach out after her again, she'd turned until they were face-to-face, placed the palms of her hands on the front of his shoulders.

She hesitated.

Garrus didn't.

In an instant he had curled over her enough to press his forehead softly against hers. When she didn't pull away, he brought his hands to the small of her back, rest them there with the barest of touches.

"I don't suppose you need reminding of how stubborn you are," she said.

He didn't answer.

Shepard pulled away from to reach up and place her hands at the squares of his jaw. With a gentleness he'd been craving for years, she shifted his face to meet her own and gave him a warm smile. It wasn't the one he had known, but neither was this Shepard the same woman as the one who had loved him, the one who he had loved in return.

When she ran a finger gently beneath the curve of his eye, he knew that he could love her all the same.

If she would let him.

Though he didn't know how long his welcome would last – whether she would recoil away from him like a stress-taught string within a month, or spend the rest of her days with him knowing truly how it meant to feel content – he was, at the very least, sure he had made the right decision in coming to Omega.