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It’s instinct, somehow, to just hold her when he finds her sitting on the bathroom floor. Garrus has seen humans cry before, but he’s never seen Shepard cry. And she’s not crying, she’s sobbing. Uncontrollable, full-body sobs that seem to ache.
Her fingers scrabble at his shoulders as she tries to pull herself even closer to him. Garrus tightens his arms around her. His armor is clunky and bulky and in the way, but just like when she hugged him in the battery - she molds herself to fit against him.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers. “You’re safe.” He rubs a hand across her back, over her sweatshirt.
She nods, barely. Her tiny frame shakes with each sob, and she clutches at the cowl of his armor.
Hesitantly, he brushes his mouthplates against her temple. He’d seen her do that for Liara once, after the Noveria debriefing; he’d turned back to ask her something, and saw her wrap her arms around Liara’s drooped shoulders and press a kiss to her friend’s forehead. It seemed to settle Liara, and though Shepard’s far gone into her tears, it seems to settle something deep inside of her, too.
He lets his subvocals rumble low and even, and hopes the frequency calms humans as well as it calms turians. After a few minutes, her sobs start to sound a little less desperate. “Good air in, bad air out,” Garrus whispers, quoting back to her what he’s heard her tell others - and herself - countless times. The words sound weird coming from his mouth, but she nods, acknowledging that she heard him. “Good air in,” he takes his own breath, “bad air out,” he exhales, trying to help her match her breath to his.
Slowly, Shepard cries herself out. He’s not sure that she’s calmed down - her breathing is still far too ragged - but she isn’t crying anymore. They sit together on her bathroom floor for a long while, her head on his shoulder as she sits on his lap with his arms around her.
“How did you get in here?” Shepard asks finally, voice thick and hoarse. She wipes at her cheeks and then sits up straight, still in the circle of his arms; she looks away, clearing her throat.
Her eyes are swollen and red, and Garrus thinks she could use another five hours of hugs, followed by a good night’s sleep. He gently brushes a stray tear from her cheek. “EDI let me in.”
She nods. “Thank you.”
Garrus smiles at her; he’s glad he could help, even if it was just as a pair of arms. “You’re welcome.” He pauses and tilts his head. “This floor is not comfortable.” An understatement. “Do you want to try standing?”
Nodding, Shepard slides off of him. “Yeah.”
He stands first and then offers her his hand. She takes it; her hand is so small in his, it always astonishes him that they’re both snipers. With one hand on the wall and one hand in his, she shakily climbs to her feet.
And promptly loses her balance. If Garrus hadn’t caught her around her waist, she’d be back on the floor.
Shepard leans against him, and she hardly feels like anything at all. She tries standing on her own, and nearly collapses again. She blinks, seemingly unable to even react; she’s completely wiped, scooped out, with nothing left in her energy reserves. He can’t imagine what it was like for her, standing alone amidst the dead and the ice on Alchera, and he’s honestly amazed that she’s even upright at all.
Then again, Shepard always has had an unusual capacity for pushing forward under any circumstances.
But right now, they need to move somewhere other than this tiny bathroom, and he doubts her ability to walk, even leaning on him. Garrus hooks one arm underneath her legs, braces the other against her back, and effortlessly lifts her into his arms and carries her out of the bathroom.
It’s a short walk to her bed, but she loops her arms around his neck, and he feels her start to slip into tears again. She holds them back this time, and he gently sets her in the middle of the bed. Shepard tucks her knees to her chest. She looks so small and alone.
“Can you stay?” she asks in such a hushed voice he nearly doesn’t hear her desperate plea at all. She bites her quivering lower lip and looks up at him. “I don’t,” she takes a deep breath, “I really don’t want to be alone for a while.”
“Sure,” Garrus says. Remembering earlier, and how much his armor really is in the way, he gestures to it. “Do you mind if I take this off?” His undersuit’s comfortable, he won’t mind sitting in it for a while.
She shakes her head and tucks her arms tighter around her knees.
Garrus makes quick work of it, and stacks his armor neatly on the edge of the couch. Hesitantly, he sits on the bed beside her. He’s here for what she needs, but he doesn’t know what that is.
Shepard leans into him, and he slips an arm around her shoulders. She scoots closer, and shivers.
It’s not cold in here, and turians run much hotter than humans, but Shepard herself is a little cool to the touch. And Alchera is ice.
“EDI, raise the room temperature by three degrees,” he says as Shepard shivers again and leans closer.
“I’m freezing,” she whispers, and her teeth start to chatter. She rubs her hands over her upper arms, trying to warm up.
“Come on,” he says, lifting the comforter up as best he can with them both sitting on it.
Shepard nods, the shivering and chattering constant now, and wiggles her way underneath the pile of blankets she keeps on her bed. He slides in with her, though he’s probably going to be hot in a few minutes. She curls up into a tiny ball on her side, and Garrus follows, tucking himself around her.
He knew she was short, but it’s only now - curled protectively around her as she cries - that he realizes just how small she is. Armor and guns and attitude make her seem bigger than she really is, and he’s hardly ever seen her without at least two of the three. And now he’s seeing her without any of them. He holds her a little tighter.
“I was dead, Garrus,” she whispers. She clutches his arm over her chest, holding on tight. Her breath hitches. “I was dead.” She goes completely still. “I couldn’t have - no one could have survived that. My helmet was ripped to to pieces. My body, my brain, I - I don’t even know if any of this is…”
She trails off, clearly terrified of the last word in that sentence. But Garrus hears the word though she didn’t say it out loud.
Real.
Garrus tightens his embrace and touches his mouthplates to the top of her head. He links his fingers with hers. “I’m real,” he whispers. “You’re real. This is real.”
“Promise?” her tiny hopeful voice is hardly more than a breath.
Garrus bows his head and presses his mouth to the top of her head again, letting his lips linger this time. He strokes his fingers down her arm. “I promise.”
***
Garrus startles awake. Eyes wide and unfocused, he frantically scans the room for the danger that’s sending his heart pounding. Shapes and shadows lurk in every corner, turning into hulking brutes and shuffling husks. He struggles to force the brutes and husks back into a dresser, a desk, the faint shadows cast by a case full of model ships. “‘Livia,” he whispers tightly, desperately, managing to get her name out before his throat gets too tight with panic.
“I’m right here,” a sleepy voice says next to him. She shifts, warm and soft in his arms, and turns over, facing him. She kisses his chest.
He clutches at her, nearly crushing her to him. She was dead.
No.
She was a husk.
“I’m here, Garrus,” Olivia whispers, fully awake with him now. She sneaks an arm out and loops it around his neck, splaying her fingers across the smooth hide just below his crest. “I’m here, it’s okay.”
He whimpers. A low keening sound rises up in his throat. Hearing the distress is almost as upsetting as the distress itself; he tries to tamp down on his subvocals to stop himself from sounding so broken. He can’t. She was a husk.
Olivia - his Olivia, his partner, best friend, love of his life and other half - was a husk.
“You’re okay,” she murmurs, gently stroking his neck. She hooks one leg over his hips, drawing him closer. “You’re safe.”
If only it was him the dream was about. He could handle it if the dream was about him - those have become so frequent they’re routine now. “Not me,” he ekes out, “you.”
“I’m okay,” she promises, “I’m okay, Garrus.”
He holds her tighter, reassuring himself that she really is here. He buries his face in her soft hair, breathing in the faint floral scent of her shampoo. Drawing a talon down her spine, Garrus lets himself relax, just a little. Olivia’s here; she’s solid, real.
With a shaky breath, he rests his head on her shoulder, finding comfort in the soft, bare skin of her neck. He feels her lips brush across his brow as she whispers another reassurance that she’s okay. Nodding, he closes his eyes as her touch and her words work in tandem to settle him, to anchor him back to their quarters.
Olivia hums quietly and traces her fingertips across his crest. Her other hand gently travels over his carapace, soothing and soft. Slowly, his subvocals become steadier, less frantic, and he finds himself calming down.
“What happened?” she gently asks after a while.
Garrus lifts his head and rests his brow against hers. It takes him a few moments to be able to answer. “You were a husk,” he rasps.
Olivia tightens her embrace. “I’m okay,” she says once more. “I’m real. You’re real. This is real.” She kisses his forehead.
He clutches at her shoulders and draws her tight, now needing to hold her instead of being held. Usually he’s the one to say the words to her, but there are days they both need the reminder. Amidst war and death and destruction, as the galaxy falls apart around them, when nightmare and reality are becoming very hard to differentiate, the words are important.
He’s awake, and she’s alive: this is real.