Chapter Text
Garrus Vakarian was not an optimist. He had spent an entire war preparing for the worst, expecting it, practically asking for it. Yet when it came to Shepard, he allowed himself to hope, to wish, to even fantasize that somehow they would beat the odds. She had changed him in so many ways, all of them for the better.
Garrus had built a life on second chances. He was praying to all available spirits for one right now.
After the Crucible fired, everything was in chaos. The Normandy made an emergency landing as EDI went offline and stayed there. It took Samantha several days to find a way to reboot the system without the AI. Once they got in the air, they had to limp their way back to Earth, as most of the mass relays were down and they were short on fuel. When they arrived in London, things just continued to get worse.
Shepard had been missing for a few days, and Hackett was personally leading the team tasked with her rescue. When they found her, she was unconscious, but her vitals good enough to be picked up on the scanners. The Alliance took her to a human hospital while she recovered. Her injuries were serious but survivable. She had some burns on her face and neck that were repaired with skin grafts. She had shattered her left leg, and the doctors in London did their best. They had reconstructed it well, but without cybernetics her recovery would take time. Eventually with physically therapy they predicted she'd be able to walk again, but probably with a limp.
So Garrus watched her sleep, anxiously paced the hospital floor and allowed himself to fantasize and hope for another shot. The war was over, they could just be together for once. He’d bring her to Palaven, maybe introduce her to his father and sister. He’d help her with Spectre missions, they’d rebuild both of their home worlds. Then, as he’d promised, they’d retire somewhere beautiful and tropical, and maybe a adopt a couple baby krogan.
The fantasy was enough to get him through the days she was unconscious, until the day she woke up and sat up in her bed, asked for a status report on the ship like nothing had happened.
He laughed and leaned forward to embrace her, and Shepard’s body language immediately stiffened, like she wasn’t comfortable with the gesture. He tried not to take it personally, reunions would come later. But Shepard kept talking, asking questions, and they all realized something was very wrong.
She lifted her hand to his mandible, pointed at the scarring. “Garrus, what happened to your face?”
He felt his heart sink way down into the pit of his stomach. Liara and Dr. Chakwas exchanged nervous looks. Even the on-call doctor wore a look of quiet consternation. They ordered tests. Brain function was normal, her cognitive abilities were as good as they ever had been, possibly better. But there was still a problem. Something quite big that the doctors had no explanation for.
She had no memory of anything that had happened in the last two years. The last thing she remembered was the day the collectors attacked the SR1. She didn’t have anything past that, nothing about Cerberus bringing her back, nothing about the Omega 4 suicide mission, the Collector base, Horizon, the new members of her crew and nothing from her time in lockup, the battle on Earth or any of the missions on Rannoch, Menae, Sur’Kesh, or the final battle with the Reapers. Nothing. Her memory was wiped clean of it all.
Worst of all for Garrus, she didn’t remember anything about their relationship. To her, Garrus was just the immature ex-cop with an appetite for justice. He was not her partner, best friend and especially not her boyfriend.
It was a strange sort of dance for the two, deciding how to handle things. Garrus took the lead, he felt it was his job to try to acclimate her to the new situation. He tried to give her time to adjust and space to grieve the loss of the time.
Shepard was slowly coming to terms with what had happened. It felt like the victory was stolen from her. She felt like the Reaper threat was just around the corner. Her purpose was gone, just like that.
Life was at a standstill, the aftermath of the Reaper battle had pretty much stranded everyone where they were. Much of the effort that had gone into the building and funding of the Crucible was immediately redirected into repairing the mass relays and finding ways to recover the lost tech.
Shepard was broken. She’d survived against all odds, but now the exit wounds of the battle would prove to be her biggest challenge. Three long years had passed, and the world had changed without her. She was ready for a fight, worked up for a battle that would never come.