Shepard has never hesitated to touch Garrus, even before they were together. In the old days, it had been a little forced, as much about the idea of camaraderie as the reality of it. Maybe there was a little challenge in it, too; I'm not afraid of you, see? The bravado of a child daring to touch something they know they're not supposed to.

These days, it's a lot simpler, more casual and more intimate; she doesn't even usually feel the need to make sure he knows it's coming, a thoughtless hand on his shoulder, the bump of hips, easy closeness. Or, like just now, reaching to touch his face, in a quiet moment.

But the minute her fingers hit plates, it's like the lights go out and she is plunged, disoriented and whirling into a vision of death. Her death, a spinning, gasping, flailing death by slow asphyxiation out in the black. It's more than a vision, now; it's a memory. She can feel the cold biting in, the hollow blowing sound of a pierced airline, the weightlessness. Far away, Garrus is shouting, asking what was happening.

But Shepard's gone stiff in his arms, eyes wide, caught in the afflicted flashback, unable to pull herself out of it in her usual bullheaded way. If he doesn't catch her, she'll go down, arching her back to kick against a sense of momentum that belongs to another life, another lifetime, gasping for a breath that won't come, in the stars beyond Alchera's blue ice.