Survivor

Chapter 41

Shepard
I came home feeling worn out, sweaty from the mandatory retraining I and many other recovering soldiers had to go through.
I was so tired I almost didn't process the smell of cooking food as I came out of the entryway from the front door.
"Garrus?" My eyes roamed to the kitchen, where I saw him standing at the stove cooking what looked like spaghetti and meatballs.
He looked up at me with a smile on his face.
"There you are. How did training go?"
I walked up to him and pressed a kiss to his lips as I snuck a glance at the food.
"It was good. They kicked our asses like usual but it's getting easier. Somewhat."
Garrus chuckled. "If it's getting easier they're not doing their jobs right."
I stuck my tongue out at him before I blatantly made a move to see what he was doing.
"It's safe," Garrus joked.
He held out the spoon he was cooking with full of sauce for me and I took a taste, my eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
"Wow, that's pretty amazing." It was like spaghetti sauce, but with a certain tang that certainly wasn't from Earth.
"I've been watching vids," Garrus admitted. "That and what Mordin had taught me about living with a human safely... He took the time to write up ways for us to eat the same foods... Not all of each other's foods are safe of course, but some are similar enough that if I add-"
"I don't need to know the details," I laughed. "I can't even cook human food without burning it, I highly doubt Dextro-Levo food would be any different."
Garrus chuckled. "Fair enough. This was one of the recipes he left behind, though. Figured it might be good for you to come home to something to look forward to."
"It's only been a week since I signed the contract and you're already trying to get me to settle back down," I sighed dramatically.
"That's not what I'm doing," Garrus said with a laugh. "I just thought my girl deserves some time to relax and not worry about something as simple as what to eat."
I smiled fondly at him and kissed him one more time, a long, slow kiss.
"Maybe I should cook more often," Garrus hummed, pressing his forehead to mine for a moment.
I flashed my brows at him with a grin as I walked away. "I'm going for a quick shower while I drop this stuff off in our room. I'll be right back down."
"Okay," Garrus said, shaking something else into the sauce.
I smiled and shook my head at him as I made my way up the stairs and down the hallway to our room.
It seemed to get easier to pass through each time I did it. Each pass seemed to make the memories of the attack in our apartment less and less of a reality.
Now I dropped my gym bag on my side of the closet neatly with my workout sweater folded on top.
When I turned, I noticed Garrus' bag lying haphazardly on his side from when he unpacked it still.
I rolled my eyes and grabbed it, rolling it up, but as I did I heard the crinkling of paper.
Curious as to why he would have paper in his bag, I unrolled it enough to see human traditions guides in his bag. Religious traditions, including baptisms of different religions, preachings, and then there were wedding traditions and funerals. My brows furrowed in confusion despite the skip my heart did when I saw the wedding traditions.
I shook my head and left them in the bag, deciding he probably just wanted to learn more about our race while he had time on his hands.
I finished rolling the bag and put it on the top shelf neatly with his two military issue bags before I turned and walked to the bathroom.
I placed out my clean clothes which consisted of grey fitted sweats and a white tank top before I undressed and hopped in the shower.
By now, the smell of the food Garrus was cooking was wafting up into the bathroom, encouraging me to rush through my shower and be out faster than I usually would after a workout.
My stomach seemed to agree with this, giving an insistent growl occasionally.
"It's done!" Garrus called up the stairs.
"Okay!" I called back, shimmying into my sweats and pulling the tank over my head quickly as I moved down the hall, abandoning my socks on the bathroom counter in choice of food instead.
I came into the kitchen to see the island set for dinner, two stools placed across from each other, the lights turned down to a milder setting, a candle aglow on the countertop, with dishes set for the two of us complete with the food.
I smiled and took a seat. "You sure have a way of making a woman fall for you over and over again..."
Garrus chuckled. "Glad to know I haven't gotten boring yet."
I gave him a reproving look. "Garrus, after all this time I would have thought that you would know by now I could never be sick of you."
"I know... But it's entertaining to watch you get worked up over my jokes."
I shook my head with an exasperated sigh. "I don't know what to do with you sometimes."
"How about you eat with me for now?" A light smile touched his face and he gestured to the food.
I couldn't turn him down. I smiled and picked up my fork, working into the pasta and a meatball and took my first bite.
I let out a small groan of bliss as flavor exploded in my mouth.
"I suppose I don't need to ask if you like it then," Garrus chuckled.
I shook my head. "I love it. I could live off of this for the rest of my life."
"Hopefully you won't have to. With you insisting on me keeping my job at C-Sec, I should be able to have enough time to learn a few more recipes that'll allow us to share the same dinner."
I smiled. "This really is nice. You wouldn't think it would make a difference, having two different meals on a table, but it does. And now we get to have the same meal at the same time, and not worry about killing each other."
"It's not like either of us have bad allergies, anyways, but it's better to be safe than sorry," Garrus agreed.
"Archangel: Vigilante, master sniper, weapons expert, and professional chef." I teased, taking another bite.
"Careful, I'll end up purposefully leaving something in there that'll make you get food poisoning next time," Garrus warned jokingly.
I rolled my eyes. "It wouldn't be my first time being poisoned. It doesn't make it any less displeasurable but at least it's not surprising at that point."
Garrus chuckled. "I'm sure you've had plenty of people teach you different things about food poisoning, so I won't flatter myself thinking that it would be your first time with Dextro food poisoning."
I laughed. "Wise assumption. I've made a Quarian chef angry before with a comment of I thought they only worked with mechanics and not food. It was an honest observation but he took it otherwise. Ended up with food I didn't know was raw because it was food that I wasn't familiar with. He told me it was a special platter on the house for my service to the Galaxy. I ended up on the bathroom floor puking and sick for three days. Chakwas had me on IV fluids within two hours of my sickness starting and had to put nutrients in through the IV also because I couldn't even think of food. It was an... Interesting time."
Garrus shook his head while he gave me an amused smile the whole time. "Your mouth seems to get you into a lot of trouble at times..."
I raised an eyebrow. "Says the Turian whose mouth is starting to get him in enough trouble to stay on the couch tonight."
Garrus shrugged. "I slept in the main battery, remember? Anywhere is more comfortable than there."
  I sighed. "That's unfortunate. Now the couch threats don't work as well as they would have with a human man..."
  Garrus smirked. "We Turians tend to be tougher than you soft humans more often than not."
  I flipped Garrus off while I continued to eat, not even having to give pause.
After that, it didn't take long to finish dinner with some spattering of conversation thrown in.
  When I finished, I stood and took my plate, clearing Garrus' plate as well.
  I gave them a quick rinse out of habit before I threw them in the dishwasher.
  When I turned back around, Garrus was in the living room by the window and he crooked a finger at me.
  I smiled and walked to him, drying my hands off with a kitchen towel.
  He stepped back as I reached the window, and immediately my eyes were drawn to four C-Sec Skycars on top of the Presidium, almost exactly where we had been. Before I could ask Garrus about it, each of them lit up a hologram big enough to see from where I was standing and the words made my heart stop.
Will you marry me?
  I turned to face Garrus, my face slack and drained of blood despite my heart racing in my chest.
  He was on one knee already behind me, face turned up to me with the most sincere and hopeful look I had ever seen on his face.
  "I know that this is sudden, and I don't want you to feel pressured... But I know you're the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. While we may be split up while you're away, it's not going to change anything for me. I still love you the same. So, if you feel the same way and if you're ready... Samantha Shepard, will you marry me?"

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