Work Text:
Shepard has always been tough. She has never taken anyone’s shit. She has been called cold and sometimes even cruel, but the way she sees it, she gets the job done. She’s effective.
So when the council tells her to hunt down Saren she gladly accepts and takes the little crew she has gathered onto the Normandy. The council doesn’t know yet how ruthlessly calculating their newest Spectre can be, but they will find out soon enough.
-
Wrex opposes her on Virmire and Shepard shoots him straight in the head. Tali and Liara stare at her in pure shock, but Shepard is convinced she was right. Wrex was a liability, an unknown factor. And she likes to keep things under control.
Only a few hours later she is faced with the death of another crew member and she chooses Ashley over Kaidan without even blinking. She’s just more tactically valuable.
-
Shepard can tell Tali and Liara are scared of her. Only Garrus and Ashley really talk to her any more these days. She feels a little pang of regret over the way things went on Virmire, but she’s still sure she had no other choices. It had to be like that.
-
Miranda seems to appreciate Shepard’s cold calculative nature. Up to a point. As far as Shepard is concerned Miranda knew what she was in for when she resurrected her. If they wanted someone soft and nice they should have dug up Kaidan.
Garrus seems happy to see her when she shows up on Omega and Shepard is glad he doesn’t hate her for sacrificing the council. The orange glowing scars make her face sting when she smiles at him, but she doesn’t mind. Even someone like her can do with some safety and familiarity.
-
The scars don’t fade and Shepard finds herself being being more violent and way less patient. She has a mission to fulfil and everyone’s personal problems are massively getting on her nerves. At least she can get behind Garrus wanting revenge. She would act no different in his situation.
He takes out Sidonis with her help, but afterwards he is silent, contemplative. Shepard doesn’t know what to make out of that.
-
In Shepard’s eyes the suicide mission was a success. Sure, they might have lost Miranda and Tali, but she got the rest of them out alive and she is pretty proud of that. Garrus doesn’t seem quite as happy.
They are sitting in her cabin, he spends more and more time up here, even when they are not having sex and Shepard really doesn’t mind it. She likes having him around.
“You’re stone cold.”
“What do you mean?”, she asks, looking up from her padd.
“You’re cold, nothing seems to bother you.”
“Yeah”, she puts the padd down and leans back in her chair. “Death will do that to you.”
“No, you’ve always been like this. Back on Virmire when you shot Wrex, when you let Kaidan die”, he is studying her, waiting for her to show a reaction. She doesn’t. “I thought you were hiding your emotions, but now I think you just didn’t feel anything about it.”
Shepard sighs. “If this is about Miranda and…”
“No it’s about everything.”, Garrus takes another moment to just look at her “You shouldn’t have let me shoot Sidonis.”
“It was your choice and you made it.”
“I was emotional and you didn’t stop me.”
“Jesus Christ, Garrus.”, Shepard snarls “Take some responsibility will you.”
He lets out a bitter laugh. “Oh I am. And you are too. Only you have decided the best way to deal with responsibility is to make the calculating choice and never look back.”
“Correct.”
Garrus shakes his head. “You can’t operate like that Shepard. You need some nuance.”
“Nuance gets people killed. Nuance leads to failure. Once all this is over I can look back and regret the decisions I made, but until then I have to make those decisions to get us through. It’s calculus.”
“It’s ruthless.”
“Maybe. It gets results.”
He looks her up and down again and Shepard is pretty sure she can read sadness and disappointment in his face. “You really think like that?”
“I do.”
“That’s cruel, Shepard. I don’t understand how you can…”
“Live with myself? It’s very easy. I just do.”
“Right”, Garrus gets up and walk to the door. “I think I have to go.”
“You knew what I was when we started this.”
“No I didn’t. I really didn’t.” And with that, Garrus leaves.