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Shepard is known to be tough, ruthless even. Her blunt manner has turned off many people over the years. They approach her all smiles and polite conversation, trying to convince her to do something for them and immediately get shot down. Shepard despise small talk, politicians, people hiding their true intentions.
When she meets Garrus Vakarian she immediately takes a liking to him. He is direct, smart, a good shot…If he hadn’t asked her if he could come onto the Normandy she might have offered it herself.
-
She decides to kill the Rachni Queen and Kaidan is absolutely mortified.
“Why did you do that?!”
“She was a danger”, Shepard furrows her brows. “It was the safer option.”
“But…”, he pauses, still staring at her in disbelief. “She was a living being!”
She almost laughs. “Oh, please Kaidan. We have taken out dozens of living beings already. What do you think happens when you throw a warp at someone? When you shoot them? Don’t tell me this is news to you.”
“Of course it isn’t, but that…that was cold, Shepard.”
Shepard shrugs. “We need to be cold sometimes.”
Kaidan shakes his head and walks away and Shepard feels a little pang of sadness. Another person she has driven away. Someone else who thinks off her as a cruel calculating monster now. Well, at least she still has Wrex and Garrus.
-
Shepard gives Sidonis a little smile before she steps out of the way. He realizes something is wrong, starts running and gets shot in the back. She checks in with Garrus over comm. “You good?”
“I am. See you on the Normandy.”
She goes to look for him in the Main Battery and against her better judgement starts flirting. She...they shouldn’t be doing this and yet...it just feels really good.
-
Garrus is looking at her studying her. She can tell, even in the dark of the bedroom.
“You chose to sabotage the cure, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Mordin….”
“Shot him”
“Wow”, Garrus shifts around “You killed him”
“Yeah”
“And the Genophage…”
“Still in effect.”
He stays quiet for a bit. Then: “You lied to Wrex.”
Shepard sighs. “Tell me please where I asked for your opinion. Or your approval. I did what had to be done, to save both our home worlds.”
“Whoa, yeah, okay okay”, Garrus replies defensively. “I’m just...If you can do that to your friends...to Wrex and Mordin. What about me, Shepard.”
She turns to face him, placing a hand to the scar on his cheek, so eerily similar to her own. “I love you.”
“Knowing you, that doesn’t answer my question.”
She sighs again. “I don’t….I don’t think I could kill you. I really don’t. But we are in a terrible situation Garrus and I can’t ask everyone else to make sacrifices while refusing to do so myself. I have to do what’s best for everyone.”
Garrus nods. “Ruthless calculus.”
“Ruthless calculus.”
-
The world is going to shit around them and Shepard is pushing Garrus into the Normandy.
“Go.”
“Not without you.”
Shepard was always able to do this...thing. Turn off her emotions. Reduce herself to only function. It’s what got her here. “This is not the time. You are injured, I need to go on. Save the sentimentality.”
Garrus stares at her shocked and heartbroken, but Shepard knows if she ever wants see him again she has run now. So she does.
-
She wakes up in a hospital bed. Garrus at her side.
“Hey”
“Hey”, he pauses “You did it.”
“I know.”
“The moment….the Reapers died, but so did the Geth. And EDI.”
“I know.”, she looks at him studying his face for disgust, waiting for him to walk away, but he doesn’t. He understands. Garrus knows who she is and what she has to be like. And together they could walk through hell.