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Everything happens so fast.
Garrus is running, Tali next to him, Shepard in front of him. Something explodes, one of the tanks is sent flying, he is on the ground. He’s in pain, he can’t move. Tali drags him up and he can hear Sheapard calling for an evac. He is pushed onto the Normandy and she is in his face. “I love you. I always will.”
Shepard runs off, he can see Harbinger’s beam and he tries to yell a warning out to her but the hatch in front of him is closing and he still can’t move. The Normandy leaves earth. Garrus pleads with Tali and Liara. Go back down. Get Shepard out of there, but Liara shakes her head. “If we go back in there now, we kill everyone on this ship. She wanted us to get to safety. We’re getting out of here.”
“We can’t just leave her behind!”
“Garrus”, Tali places a hand on his arm “She made me promise to get you out of there so that’s what I’m doing. You are in no condition to fight and I honestly have no idea if there is even anything we could do right now.”
Soon after, the transmission comes in, Shepard and Anderson have made it on to the Citadel. The Normandy crew is gathered in Joker’s cockpit, cheering. The crucible is activated. More cheering. It’s not firing. Silence. Garrus looks at Liara and sees the same fear he is feeling reflected in her eyes. Shepard’s voice comes in, the transmission is bad, crackling. She's going up.
The next few minutes feel like hours, time slows down. And then starts again abruptly. Red light flares out from the Crucible. Joker doesn’t waste a second and starts to flee. But the light is faster, it catches up to them. EDI collapses and the Normandy breaks down, crashing into the nearest planet.
It’s only thanks to the upgrades Shepard made in their Cerberus days that the ship and everyone on board survives. Except EDI that is. No matter how much Joker pleads with her and how often Tali checks her over, she doesn’t come back online. She has been removed from all the ship’s systems. Garrus has a suspicion and is soon validated when they establish a connection to Alliance command. All the Reapers have been destroyed and so have the Geth.
Hacket doesn’t know anything about Shepard. They haven’t heard from her since that last transmission from the Crucible. They get picked up a few hours later, Garrus can still barely walk, leaning onto James for support but he immediately organizes a search party to go through what is left of the crucible.
They won’t let him go, but Liara volunteers to lead the mission. “I have been digging up things my entire life. I am more than qualified to dig up my best friend.”
Garrus spends the next few hours by the comm. Waiting. He’s not even considering the possibility that she could be dead. No, this is Commander Shepard, she doesn’t just die like that. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t leave him behind like that.
“I found her! I found her! She…”
“What, Liara?! She’s what?”
“She’s breathing.”
Garrus leans back and sighs out in relief. The room around him, packed with Alliance personnel and Normandy crew, erupts in cheers. They found her. She’ll live. He isn’t alone after all.
When Shepard wakes up in the hospital a few weeks later Garrus is by her side, holding her hand. She smiles weakly. “Hey”
“Hey”
“I made it”
“Took you a few days” he can tell she’s trying to laugh, but she is in too much pain to get the sound out. “Hey, hey”, he cups the side of her face. “You did. You made it. And now we got our whole lives ahead of us.”
Shepard leans into the touch. “We do. I love you.”
Garrus smiles at her. “I love you too.”