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There was a moment. A moment where he turned his head over his shoulder, mandibles flared in the turian version of a smile. He called her name. Shepard. His eyes had always been blue, but they hadn't been her favorite shade of anything, everything, until he looked over his shoulder and called her name in that single, fleeting moment.
Shepard thought about how quickly life changed. How its sharp turns took her places she never dreamt, and made her do things she never thought she would. Life was a labyrinth that shifted constantly, its aim seemingly to confuse. She walked those fluid corridors by herself and that was how she liked it.
No. She didn't like it, but she thought it was for the best. Maybe it had been. That moment, only a second long, was another blind turn.
She was changed, irrevocably. By him.
She had all the power in their relationship. She was the commander, the Spectre, and he was Garrus Vakarian, dead-beat cop. Rank had little to do with it though, because he was her equal in every way as far as she was concerned.
The power she had over him was a gift he gave her, hands outstretched, offering. He never doubted her, only asked if she was sure. And if she was sure, then he did anything asked of him.
Before that fleeting moment, she wondered if she would ever trust someone like that. The faith he had in her was unshakable. Someone with more hubris might get drunk off of that devotion. Shepard only ever sought to be worthy of it.
He would tell her, years later, that her strive to be worthy of the people under her command was the reason he trusted her as well as he did, despite knowing her for only a short time. He knew she would do right by them. Or, at the very least, she would try.
After that moment, when the ocean became Garrus-blue instead of the other way around, something in her settled. It almost felt like she was giving in, and in a way she was.
Years upon years, a lifetime even, of holding people at arm's length. So many kind souls she couldn't bring herself to feel comfortable around. A rueful list of things she never did or said because it risked too much. She was so sure nothing could hold her steady in the labyrinth but her own two hands.
All those things, done or undone, he would know them.
His voice was a catch-all cure. Nerves, anger, fear. He didn't always know what to say, but his heart was always with her, jumping out of his throat, sewn on his sleeve. She had forgotten after she was resurrected how reassured he made her feel. Once she had him back, a mission without Garrus was unthinkable. She needed him there, with her.
She trusted him to complete the mission, to do the right thing in her absence. Every commander needed a number two, but Shepard needed Vakarian.
There was a moment. He looked over his shoulder, his voice called her name as he smiled.
No one had it right. It wasn't like lightening, because she had known in the back of her mind for quite some time. It wasn't slow and easy either, they never had it easy. It was an acceptance. It was permission she gave herself because he showed her he could take it, all of it. Her.
Years later, he would prove to her that she didn't have to think of herself as a punch to the stomach, tolerated but never worshipped. She would know then she had been afraid of nothing but her own shadow, but she couldn't bring herself to regret the results. She got to see her favorite color every day.
"Shepard."
The part of her that gave in whispered to her, this is it.
The part of her that never let anyone close agreed, and dwindled away without another word.
"Garrus."
Her lips quirked with a smile to match his, open and free.
Her feet felt stable on the ground.