31. Sitting next to each other at a very boring meeting and bonding over your shared lack of attention.

(Reaper-free and no-Shanxi but Eliza Shepard is still an asshole AU, anyone? :D)

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Garrus made it two hours through the first day of negotiations before deciding death was preferable to listening any longer to the asari ambassador’s speech. Or to being in the same room as the human delegation, most of whom hadn’t gotten the hang of the translator suite on their omni-tools – or the omni-tools in general –which meant the atrocious speech kept being interrupted by a series of long, arrhythmic beeps. 

He’d have gone to sleep standing up if ExecutorPallin wasn’t glaring at him from the other side of the room. Honestly, he’d have left when the speeches started – with the human ambassador’s notable phrase To our new non-human bosom friends as the opening gambit – if Pallin had so much as blinked. Sure, he’d sworn an oath to C-Sec, to the Citadel, to the Council, but as far as he was concerned, that oath did not cover enduring a war crime. Which was exactly what this speech was starting to sound like. 

Chellick nudged him. “Executor’s looking right at you,” he subvocalized. “Gonna get your ass kicked when this is all over.” 

“Can’t he just kill me now and be done with it? Or at least fire me?” Garrus replied, but Chellick’s attention was back on the stage, and the ambassador rambling from behind the podium. 

Garrus occupied himself for the next ten minutes by trying to pinpoint where each series of beeps was coming from, but boredom kept tugging at his attention span, and his energy levels, and no amount of glares from Pallin could keep him from dozing. 

His own omni-tool vibrated against his wrist, and he nearly knocked an expensive salarian glass sculpture off the table to his left. Pallin’s mandibles went tight against his face, but he finally looked away, which meant Garrus could read the incoming message in peace. 

Poor sleepy C-Sec officer. Not a fan of your fancy alliance with the new kids on the block? 

He nearly spluttered out loud. The message had come to his personal account, rather than the general C-Sec channel, but it wasn’t signed, and had no extranet address attached. Solona might have sent it, if she’d seen him dozing on the newsfeed of this disaster, but this wasn’t being broadcast via QEC, so the time delay – Another vibration. He looked down at the mini-display, and almost choked. 

Bet you two hundred credits you can’t figure out who’s messaging you by the time this speech ends. If it ever does. 

Garrus stared out at the rustling, and occasionally beeping, crowd. No one was looking in his direction, except Pallin, but that wasn’t anything new. And of course whoever was messaging him on his personal extranet account wouldn’t be so obvious as to be looking at him, so – 

I’m bored as hell, so you get a clue. Two clues. I’m human, and female. Have at it, Officer Vakarian. 

Garrus breathed out slowly through his teeth, and scanned the front of the crowd. 

Cold. 

Then the exits. 

Colder. Try harder, big guy. 

Five minutes passed, and then ten. At least now he looked like he was doing his job, and Pallin’s fury faded to his general baseline of irritation. But hard as he tried, Garrus couldn’t find a single human woman who wasn’t at least pretending to be fascinated by the diplomatic idiocy unfolding before them. 

Fifteen minutes. No new messages, and no success, but at least the ambassador was wrapping down. After another five minutes, she stepped away from the podium, beaming, to a light smattering of applause. The crowd immediately broke apart, in case anyone else decided to make a speech, and Garrus had resigned himself to getting chewed out by Pallin before he could make it to the booze table when someone’s hand rapped on the back of his armor. 

“Really, no situational awareness,” said a cool, flat voice. “I was six feet behind you the whole time.” 

Garrus whipped around, and found himself face to face with a smirking human woman in an Alliance uniform. She took a long sip from a narrow glass, holding eye contact the entire time. 

“How’d you get my address?” he asked, which was only the fifth-most-predictable thing he could think of. But – he was too busy being startled by her pale eyes, by how tall she was, and by the challenge gleaming deep in her gaze, to be charming or sly. Human women weren’t usually so tall, or so his briefings had said. 

What else had they been wrong about? 

“Oh? That?” The woman snorted. “A simple hack, when you were checking the biotiball scores an hour ago. You didn’t encrypt the connection. Well, not enough. I didn’t read anything, if you’re worried.” 

Garrus made a mental note to kick his own ass for that later. “Should I be impressed at the breach of protocol?” he asked. “Not a great first contact, Commander.” 

She raised both dark brows. How did humans hide anything, with faces like that? “So you read the briefing,” she said. “Ten points to you. So – are all diplomatic functions here like this? Just so I know to get my ass discharged before the next one, if necessary.” 

He burst out laughing, on reflex. “No,” he said, as she smiled. “Call it hazing the new kids on the block.” 

“Noted.” She held out a hand, slim and pale, and kept smiling. “Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy.” 

“Garrus Vakarian. But you already knew that, so.” 

“So.” She tossed back the last of her drink, and sighed. “So, let’s go find some more booze, Vakarian. It’s going to be a long night.” 

Was Shepard interested in Garrus/ Garrus interested in Shepard in ME1 or did their feelings only turn into something more than friendship in ME2?

She’s a war hero, but isn’t afraid to show aggression to get her way.

She cares for the crew, but shoots down Kaidan’s and Liara’s interest in her. She’s too focused on stopping Saren and the Reapers to even think about romance.

She’s Earthborn but is tolerant of aliens. She stamps down on xenophobia and strives to build relationships with the non-human crew members.

In ME1, her relationship with Garrus is purely friendship. She listens to him, and despite her Spectre status, advises him not to be too “renegade” in his ways.

Garrus respects her as his commanding officer. He thinks her skills are top-notch, and is grateful that she took a chance at bringing him to the mission to stop Saren. He doesn’t agree with her all the time, but respects her views. I don’t think he ever thought of her in a different way, since he seemed truly aback when Shepard expressed interest in him.

In ME2, Shepard wakes up alone. The world has moved on without her. She is knee-deep in an organisation that she doesn’t trust. Sure, she has the Collectors to keep her busy, but without her old crew and the Alliance to back her, she’s feeling a bit lost.

So when Archangel is revealed to be Garrus, she is overjoyed (Okay, so she’s a bit more subdued in showing her feelings, but she’s still very happy.) She brings Garrus in almost every mission because honestly, he’s the only one she can fully trust.

And what about Garrus? He’s also feeling lost - first, when Shepard died, then when his whole squad gets wiped out. He’s on a dark path. And now that Shepard is back, she’s become the light in his life. She teaches him again not to let darkness rule his heart.

It’s friendship, but with a dash of “you’re the only one who’s got my back.” Especially on Horizon, when Shepard gets an earful from Ashley about joining Cerberus. Even Tali rejected joining Shepard’s team at first, citing her own mission. 

Spoilers, obviously.

Rey got to wear a resistance helmet like the one she had on Jakku. And she did it in Luke’s x-wing, on her way to save the fucking galaxy. Then, she was nothing. Now, she is everything.

“She was in my quarters!”

When Rey fought Ben on the death star’s remains, she was so entranced by the dark side that she had no idea what she was doing for the first 70% of the fight.

Ben didn’t even arm himself until 30-40 seconds into the fight, realizing she wasn’t going to stop so he needed to defend himself.

At the end of the fight, Rey was so disoriented and confused as to what she was doing, so far as after she stabs Ben with his own saber, she has this look of regret pass over her face.

Ben KNOWS she is not herself during the fight. They are supposed to be equal, yet she is losing. He sees a killing blow, and for an instant he thinks about it, she was on the ground and he thought “what the fuck am I doing? I didn’t even start this fight”

As Kylo Ren was healed by Rey, he turned into Ben Solo. If you look closely, there was no scar on Ben’s face, which marks a visual difference between the two.

THE PARALLELS BETWEEN BEN KILLING HAN AND BEN TALKING TO HAN WERE ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. In one, he knows he is pulled towards the dark side, and in the other he is pulled towards the light. I am impatiently waiting for a gif set of this please and thank you.

Ben and Rey are force dyads, literally sOULMATES.

Absolute rogue Ben Solo with a blaster and in his pajamas coming to help his soulmate out.

“Ow”

I need a gif set of Rey throwing her saber to Ben in TLJ, and when she force bonds it over to him to kill the knights of ren. 

THE FUCKING REYLOS KNEW SHE WAS LOOKING AT BEN. WE KNEW. There is only so much pure love and pride that can be put into a look, and that was it.

In order for Rey to destroy all of the Sith (including Palpatine), she had to destroy all of the Jedi (including HERSELF). 

B A L A N C E- one could not be destroyed while the other survives.

Ben is not in either of those categories. He is not sith anymore. And he is not a jedi. He survived their destruction, only to save the love of his life.

Romeo and Juliet would be proud… or disgusted.

WE GOT A BEN GODS DAMNED SOLO SMILE AND I WILL NEVER STOP SEEING IT IN MY BRAIN.

Reylo is cannon and ya’ll antis can suck my ass.

When Rey flies back to the resistance after everything, THAT IS NOT THE FACE OF SOMEONE WHO HAS JUST LOST HER SOULMATE. Nope. She knows something the audience doesn’t.

As Luke even said in one of the trailers: “NO ONE’S EVER REALLY GONE”

💛❤️//💛💚//💛💙