InsaneJournal

It was cold outside, but the snow was apparently holding off until the right moment. And for two aliens that didn’t often get to see weather like snow, Tali was impatient about waiting. Which meant that poor Garrus was getting sucked into watching Christmas movies, and ever since she’d discovered ABC Family... Well, almost every night in the week had been dinner and a Christmas movie, coupled with a cozy blanket, hot cocoa and cuddling on the couch in her apartment.

It was a tradition she could get used to.

Her empty hot cocoa mug was set aside and Tali leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Garrus’s middle section and cuddling a little deeper under the covers with him. Her head rested on his shoulder, eyes settled on the TV in front of them. “That looks nice,” she nodded slightly to the image ahead, of two parents playing with their small children out in the snow. “The kids. Snow. It looks fun.”

Maybe there wasn’t snow, but the bite of cold was there entirely. It just was one more reason to not get up off the sofa if he could help it, although Tali did her level job of keeping him staying put. The gravi-tree had a few lights added to it now, which kept the room in a mellow glow, although the sun had long since gone down. And Garrus had his arm hooked around Tali, turning to look over at her as she sidled in just a little more.

“Because they’re behaving?” he asked, one brow inching upward at her. “Or because they’re so short, the snow comes up to their waist?” he furthered. “Or because it’s a nice idea when you’re indoors and warm?”

She laughed, shaking her head against his shoulder. Tali knew he was joking - that was his default, and she liked it that way - and she was used to responding in kind. Even if the thought of having kids down the road was enough to make her feel a little warmer and cozy, pushing Garrus into that kind of talk sometimes had the opposite effect.

“Or because they’re not ours? So we can just sit here and appreciate them from afar?” She wiggled her toes against his feet and made a point of snuggling a little closer. “I am nice and warm. Even if I do want to see what all the fuss is about - the snow, not the kids. If you were wondering. Not that they aren’t fuss worthy, since babies are adorable, but snow is pretty likely to come quicker than babies for us.”

“Well, sure,” Garrus replied, strategically nudging his cold foot into ankle; the downside of long legs was that you never could get them fully situated under the blankets. “Nine months against maybe next week? It’s not really much of a contest.” Just to offset her wriggling more into his space, he leaned against her.

“Is this really about the snow?” He had an infamous way of Missing the Point, especially when it came to matters of love, but the improvements in that category were marked ever since having the time to think about things other than the entirety of organic life becoming extinct. And, well, because of Tali’s influence. Right now, this felt as if something significant was on the table, and he was smarter than to pretend it wasn’t there at all because snow looked like fun. Which, it did. In its own way.

“Mmmmm,” Tali shrugged slightly and settled into a lull of quiet, acting like she was focused on the movie for a few minutes and not making this a Big Thing. It was a difficult subject to broach, not wanting to make it more serious than originally intended, and turn the subject into a disagreement. But then it was also good to know these things, even if they didn’t change anything.

She glanced up at him, pulling herself out of the moment of quiet (they never lasted long with Tali), “Maybe I was talking about kids? And snow. It’s not something we’ve ever really talked about, though, so um. We don’t have to.”

He’d turned his eyes back to the TV, as well. It would be a lie to say he’d never hoped for something like what was playing out on the screen. Maybe with a little less human to it. A little less snow, too. But the idea of a family? It seemed more like one of those warm thoughts that kept a soldier fighting when things kept getting bleaker. On the other side of everything, there was a chance to move on and enjoy life. It just hadn’t clicked until now that this was the other side.

Garrus hummed slightly. “Well, we don’t have to talk about snow, then.” He shifted around half a turn to face her a bit better. There was a second’s pause as he studied her face. “I always did like the idea of a family. It was just that the suicide missions kept getting in the way.”

The movie was half forgotten as she turned away from the TV and met his gaze, smiling fondly. “No suicide missions here,” she pointed out. “But.. It’s not something to rush into. If we get the chance to go home, things would change a lot. We have worlds to rebuild and both our people will need us...” Not to mention the fact that their species couldn’t successfully produce a child together, and the fact that Garrus’s homeworld constantly gave off faint radiation and Rannoch was no better at this point. It was new again to her people, and it would be years before they were firmly established on the planet.

But that was no reason to put life on hold, she knew that. It was still a decision that was made a hundred times more complicated due to their location and situation. “Quarians are only allowed one child, and most families are expected to have that. I figured one day I would, too, but it wasn’t something I thought about until... um. Later.” When she actually entered a serious relationship.

If they got the chance to go home. Garrus mentally latched onto that for a moment. It wasn’t a new consideration, and he had mulled it over before now. His turian raising made the knee-jerk response to it that he would go back. Of course he would. His people needed leadership, and he wasn’t selfish enough to leverage what he’d done prior as a means of justifying staying here. Maybe he did deserve the chance to live on his own terms, but he wouldn’t be able to do that. Omega had happened for a similar reason.

But then there was the thought that maybe it wouldn’t be choice for either of them. Maybe the Tesseract would stop one day. Maybe this was the rest of their lives, even if there wasn’t that clear confirmation.

Garrus looked down at the wisps of steam coming off their drinks. His eyes narrowed. “No, it’s nothing to rush into. I wouldn’t count it out, but we have time.” He focused back on her, the corner of his mouth tugging upward. “And you’d have to agree to being with me for good first.”

Both of her eyebrows rose at him, and she leaned back just a little bit to give them both a little space, without pulling away entirely. She’d thought about the situation a lot as well, since they’d arrived, and like Garrus she had always known she would go home. Even if it meant not having Shepard around, or a dissolution of the relationship she had with Garrus due to time and distance. Neither of them had made secrets of putting their own people first, and putting the safety of the galaxy ahead of their own lives.

But not knowing what life could be like for them later was pretty high on the possible regrets list, if things swung in an opposite direction.

Serious thoughts still didn’t stop her from teasing him, though. “I don’t know, Vakarian. I really only need you for the one thing, not for good.” She managed an impish grin even when her stomach was fluttering with excitement.

“Mmmhmm,” Garrus started, easing back against the sofa’s cushions after snagging his hot chocolate, “making scrambled eggs.” He raised his mug, letting Tali stew for just a moment before shifting back onto what had apparently become a talk of serious matters.

The mug was settled back on a coaster on the coffee table. “Let’s make this hypothetical for a few minutes. If we never go back... if this--” He gestured around them. “-- is the rest of our days, would you tell me that I should never ask you to marry me? Is that where we’re heading?”

She was about to poke him in the ribs and make a joke about no more scrambled eggs when his hypothetical question made her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. It was one of the few times she really wished she was wearing her mask, because she was rarely at the point where her face said more than her words did, but this was one of those moments. She went from surprise, to blushing, to genuine flustered pleasure.

“Um,” Tali’s head shook quickly, her cheeks still flushed pink. “No, I wouldn’t say that. I mean, I’ve thought about the future a lot, and-” She cut off with an embarrassed laugh. “You’re it for me, Garrus. With or without that.” Her fingers rubbed across her forehead, as they usually did when she was flustered. “What about the other way around, Vakarian? Think you could handle me asking you?”

The movie was background light and noise by now for Garrus, who tilted his head at Tali, regarding her with a mild grin. Leave it to them to broach the subject of settling down by teasing each other relentlessly about it. At least they were doing it privately, not that some member of the crew was left to groan offsides about what passed for romantic talk for a turian and quarian.

Tali’s expression gave her away, but he waited for her response before nudging things a little more. Then again, her response made him turn a slightly bemused expression, his brows lifting. “Well...” He shifted his legs and propped them up on the table beside his hot chocolate. “If you asked nicely, I think I’d be okay with that,” he answered, sounding genuine more than anything about it.

Tali pulled the blanket up over her shoulder and dropped her head down to grin. Her cheeks were still flushed, but she was clearly pleased with the conversation, even if her sense of humor was showing through. It really was their strange way of flirting, joking around like this while still managing a decent conversation.

“I have to ask nicely? Well, that seals it.” Tali lifted her head to grin directly at him, and she shifted around to sit up on her knees, facing him on the sofa. The movie was long forgotten by her, and the blanket was having a hard time sticking to both of them. “You may just have to catch me on a day that I’ve had a smoothie and chocolate.”

Garrus stretched his arm along the back of the sofa, leaning in towards Tali although her knees kept them at a distance. “Is that really a rare day?” He gave a nod towards her mug, pointing out that half of those conditions were already filled.

“Have you really thought about this?” Kidding aside for the moment, Garrus leveled her with an open sort of look. “Since we’re on the subject, I mean. It’s been a few years since we first met, and I know we never talked about next steps, but...”

… He had a point. Tali glanced down at their hot cocoa mugs and she winced a little, but didn’t bring up the fact that she had a smoothie earlier in the day. Well, it wasn’t exactly a secret that she was easy to please, even if she liked to joke about it. “Hmmmm. Maybe we’ll add something else in there too, to give you a challenge.”

She settled down a little, leaning back and clearly preparing herself for a conversation, so she wouldn’t get sidetracked by his pretty face. “A little,” Tali nodded, smiling. “It’s not anything I’m in a rush to do, but I figured-” Tali amended her word with a flustered look, “hoped.. it would happen eventually, if things worked out for us in the long run. Not just us, but our people. The war...”

“No, no rush about this, either,” Garrus assured her, although his tone suggested that he wasn’t entirely convinced of that. It was a further look at their situation alongside what Tali was pointing out: that going back might nix it right off the list of possibilities. It wasn’t a reason to bolt out the door towards City Hall, but it did leave a lingering echo in Garrus’s mind.

“There is always the long distance option, if we go back. Or, well, if we got through the next few years, then maybe we’d have a clearer shot.”

“Mmm,” Tali hummed in agreement, inclining her head in his direction. It was here her mind had been near the end, with them. The final push on Earth had left Tali and Garrus expecting they would possibly be saying their last goodbyes, but there had always been some measure of hope between them, that things could have lasted if they’d survived.

“I think if we made it through everything we have, long distance is easy. Again.” They’d lasted through Shepard being held by the Alliance, though things had still be early and unsure those days. “But.. We’d be missing some people, either way.” Back home, so many lost without a chance to return, here they still had friends that hadn’t arrived.

And there was another thought that had briefly surfaced with Garrus. The present parties didn’t include what remained of his family. There wasn’t the full crew accounted for yet, if it would be at all. It wasn’t that he’d ever given much consideration to who would be invited if him and Tali made through the obstacles that would have existed back home, but being limited right out of the gate -- no matter what world they were looking at -- did resonate. There wasn’t a Shepard if they went back. His father would be present and probably judge his choice of a partner on some level.

...and it carried on. Garrus snapped back to the present after a few quiet moments. “I think we would always be missing people.” He reached out, his hand, which was still warm from his mug, resting against Tali’s jaw. “It’s nothing we have to figure out tonight.”

Tali nodded in agreement, but left her own reply a little open to interpretation. “You’re right,” He was. But when it came to a relationship, she had no one left at home that would...well.. care. Her auntie Raan, maybe, but her people in general would have undoubtedly not be pleased with choosing a Turian. Especially not when her people were busy settling on Rannoch and increasing their population would be incredibly important.

But here she had Shepard, and if there was one person she admired more than anyone, it was him. She had held her father on such a high pedestal for so long, and now that he was gone.. it was an empty spot, but Shepard had filled it with ease during their years together. Then he made it so that life could go on, but it wouldn’t be there to see it.

Tali undoubtedly looked pensive in her thoughts, unable to mask the thoughts that flashed in her brain. “We can barely even decide where we’re going to eat most nights, I think that the rest of this conversation can probably sit for a little while. Figure out where we’re at.” She leaned a little into his hand, eyes fluttering closed. “I don’t think it’s going to change anytime soon that I love you, Vakarian.”

A smile narrowed Garrus’s eyes. To the side, the TV changed to a dimmer scene, although the lights on their “tree” kept the room bathed in a soft glow. There wasn’t anything like this on the Normandy. It served its purpose and was home for long enough, but there wasn’t anywhere in that ship that ever seemed cozy. With Tali resting against him, the blanket, the cocoa, and just about everything about the moment, cozy felt like it almost didn’t reach enough. This was comfortable. More comfortable than he thought he would ever feel on a planet that wasn’t his, in a body that still felt unfamiliar at times.

Garrus pressed himself forward, his hand sliding along her cheek, then her neck, until he was able to tug her in towards him again -- a little more like how the conversation had started. “If it does, just tap me on the shoulder. I’d really hate to be the last to know.”

His statement earned a laugh from her, and Tali let herself be pulled in by his gentle tug. “Don’t worry, I know how oblivious you are. But I don’t see anything changing, so you can stick with that for a while.” She knew how oblivious he was from first hand and third hand experience, and each time was both frustrating and amusing. Amusing when Garrus really had no idea how many people seemed to show an interest in him, and frustrating the days she had dropped hints and he completely missed them - but then Tali had waited to beat him over the head with it until she just couldn’t take anymore.

But he caught on soon enough, at least, and they had an unspoken agreement where she would be a little more forthright when she did want to drop a few hints for him. Now, she got the distinct feeling he was hinting to her, with the tug on the back of her neck, and leaned forward to kiss him gently.