Chapter Text
Garrus was in the armory, once again pestering Jacob Taylor about some new weapons requisitions, when he heard the sound of shattering glass. He looked around quickly, but Jacob didn't seem to have heard anything. The turian glanced at him nervously, mandibles flaring in a gesture that Jacob wouldn't understand to be an unspoken question.
"Did you hear that?" he said finally, and Jacob turned his attention from the Collector particle rifle he'd been focused on for the past half-hour.
"Did I hear what?"
Garrus shook his head, calling out "Never mind," over his shoulder as he walked briskly out of the armory and into the elevator. The noise had definitely come from upstairs, but the only thing up there was Shepard's cabin. In any case, shattering glass was typically not the sign of anything good going on, so he punched in the button for the loft and tapped his foot impatiently as the elevator crawled upwards.
As soon as he reached the door, the blue AI orb popped up beside him in greeting.
"Crewmember Vakarian. Welcome." Her voice was, as always, eerily calm, but Garrus could hear quiet sobs on the other side of the door.
So this was really bad.
"EDI, do you know what's wrong with Shepard?"
"No information available," the AI replied. "She has cut off my access to her cabin barring extreme circumstances or important notifications."
"And her sobbing in her room isn't important enough to tell anyone else about?" Garrus couldn't help but growl at the synthetic intelligence, glaring at the orb though it would do absolutely nothing to offend the piece of technology.
"I. . . I do not know what is wrong, Crewmember Vakarian."
"EDI, please let me in."
"I do not have the Commander's authorization to allow you into her cabin." Garrus thought he could almost detect a note of worry in the AI's voice, and he made a mental note to speak with Tali as soon as he could about AI speech processes.
He sighed and leaned his forehead against the door, auditory canals straining to catch the choked and shuddering cries he knew were coming from Shepard. "Please, EDI," he said quietly. "Something's very wrong."
There was silence for a moment, and then EDI chimed back up. "I am considering this an extenuating circumstance. Overriding lock in 3. . . 2. . . 1. . ."
As soon as the door swished open, Garrus rushed into the room, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw the little dribbles of blood on the carpet, a beeline trail straight from the bathroom to where Shepard lay face down on her bed, shoulders heaving as she cried into a pillow. Garrus took tentative steps towards her, unable to stop the distressed rumbling in his vocal cords as he knelt down beside the bed to get a good look at her arm, drenched in red. She had mentioned something about keeping a medkit in the bathroom at one point, so he quickly stood back up and jogged over to dig through the cabinets, sighing in relief when he found a few packets of medigel amongst the supplies. He stood up from grabbing the packets, though, he finally took notice of the shattered mirror on the wall, and the little shards of glass that littered many of the surfaces around the vanity area.
He rushed back to the bed, surprised to find Shepard sitting up now and staring right at him, her injured arm slumped at her side in a posture that Garrus could only describe as completely defeated. It was a look that did not at all belong on the face of Commander Posey Shepard, Hero of the Citadel and all-around badass. Without a word, she held her arm up to him, eyes meeting his in something like a silent plea for help. For the first time, he realized how odd of a color her eyes were, a shade of lilac that he'd never seen on another human before. It reminded him of a gemstone that was native to Palaven, though the name of the gem escaped him just then.
He took great care to pick out the few tiny shards of glass that remained in the cuts on the back of her palm, across her wrists, and halfway up her forearm. She winced with every one, but didn't give a single word of complaint. At least her sobbing had quieted, leaving behind only small teary hiccups in its place. Normally, Garrus would have teased her about the bizarre little sound the hiccups made, but even he knew that this was no time for smart remarks. As he slathered the medigel over the wounds, Shepard sucked in a pained breath and squinted her eyes shut for a moment, her tiny hands clenching into fists for a few seconds until the medigel did its work. When she exhaled, her eyes batted open again and she looked back at Garrus, who was about at eye-level with her for once in his life now that he was kneeling in front of her as she sat on her bed. As he rocked backwards on his haunches, he asked gently,
"Do you want to talk about it?"
It was no big surprise to him that she just slowly shook her head, glancing back down at her battered arm. Garrus nodded and pushed himself upwards to stand, but small, cool fingers wrapped around his wrist suddenly. He looked down in surprise to meet her red, watery gaze as she looked up at him.
"Can you just. . . Sit with me, for a while?" Her voice was thin and strained, vocal cords probably raw from the unbridled cries earlier. Even if he had loathed her for some reason, or if she'd been a complete stranger to him, the hurt and helplessness that he saw now in her eyes would have made it impossible for him to leave her right now. He nodded and she patted the bed next to her. As soon as Garrus sat down, surprised at the comfort of human-designed mattresses, he felt Posey's cool forehead against his arm. They stayed like that well into the night, until she finally lost herself to sleep. Garrus pulled back her covers, gently lifted her small frame into his arms, and carried her up to the top of her bed and covered her with the blankets once more. A small smile graced her features as she slept, and Garrus's heart may or may not have skipped a beat. He walked out of her cabin exhausted, turning off her lights before wearily heading back down to the forward battery to catch up on the day's calibrations.