Work Text:
Garrus looked down at the plate in hands: Commander Shepard. It seemed so final, her name etched in the steel like that—all the many things she was, the memories and feelings and ideas that had made her up, were gone. She was gone.
But Garrus was nothing if not a soldier. So he steeled himself and carefully, reverently, hung her name up amongst the dead. Beside him, Liara let out a choked sound, an aborted sob, and Ashley laid a hand on his shoulder. Everyone, then, was touching him, whispering their apologies and their grief. It was strange, he thought, that they were treating him like Shepard’s widow, like he was the one who should mourn her most. It felt as though that responsibility should have fallen to someone else, but who? Kaidan, maybe, if he hadn’t died on Virmire all those years ago. But he was dead, and so was Shepard, and Garrus was still alive. Who else could mourn her better?
He retreated to his quarters as soon as he possibly could, desperate to get out from under all their sorrow. He sat on the edge of his bed, not moving, not doing anything, feeling like he was hanging onto himself for dear life. He would not break down. He wouldn’t.
“Garrus?” Tali was standing in his doorway, lingering like she wasn’t sure if she should come in. He felt even worse when he saw her there—another person he’d failed, another person he couldn’t do right by.
“Hey, Tali.” His voice sounded strange to his own ears.
She walked in, carefully, and as though she was afraid of making any sudden movements, sat down beside him on his bed. “You can’t go through this alone,” She said.
He didn’t say anything.
“You have to talk about it.” She put her hand on his arm, a gentle gesture of hers that he’d always been fond of, even when they had been nothing more than tentative allies. “I know it’s hard, and it isn’t in your nature, but you can’t keep all of this inside. I’m here for you.”
“You won’t understand,” He said quietly. He knew he sounded like a petulant child but couldn’t stop himself.
“I lost her too, Garrus.” Tali’s voice was raw—she’d been crying—but strong. “I loved her just as much as you did.”
Garrus looked at her. How could he explain that yes, they had all lost Shepard, and yes, they all had loved her, but that it was different for him? How could he explain that he and Shepard had a bond deeper than just friends or squadmates? That it was something unspoken and unconsummated, but profound, that it wasn’t love or lust but more, but better , but stronger , and that with her gone, he didn’t know how the hell he was supposed to move forward?
He settled on saying, “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Her voice broke. “Just talk to me.”
Garrus wondered, then, what would have happened if he’d ever allowed Tali’s flirting to go anywhere. Maybe he wouldn’t feel like this now, like he’d lost some critical piece of himself that could never be repaired or replaced. Maybe they would’ve fallen in love. Maybe they would be building a home together on Rannoch, a home where he would finally let himself feel some peace.
He looked away from her. “It’s complicated, Tali.”
“I know.” She squeezed his arm, and something in her tearful voice finally got through to him. “But I’m here. I’m listening.”
---
“You settling in alright?”
Garrus glanced up from this omni-tool. Commander Shepard was standing there in front of him, arms crossed with an unreadable expression. She seemed like a good soldier and a strong leader, but he still wasn’t sure if he trusted her yet. “Yes. Thank you, again.”
“No problem.” She looked back at the others milling around the cargo bay and then walked closer to him. She lowered her voice a little as she said, “Listen, I wanted to talk to you.”
He respected that she was willing to get right down to business. “Okay. What about?”
Shepard sighed. “I’m not going to beat around the bush. I have crew onboard that would rather you weren’t here.”
“Can’t say I find that surprising,” He said with measured control. It hit him that she really might kick him off the ship, and then where would his investigation be? That couldn’t happen. “Are you one of them?”
“Absolutely not,” Shepard said adamantly, and he was a little taken aback by the intensity. “I’m telling you because I want you to know I’m not putting up with any of that shit on my ship.”
“Oh.” Garrus isn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that. “Okay.”
“I already dealt with a few of them, and I’ve made it clear all of that non-human bullshit isn’t gonna fly with me, but there’s only so much my words can do.” She leaned back against the crate behind her. “I don’t think you’ll have any problems, but if you do, I want you to come straight to me.”
Garrus chuckled. “Shepard, I can handle myself.”
She grinned, and he realized it might have been the first time he’d ever seen her do that. “I don’t doubt that, Vakarian—in fact, I encourage it. I only wanna know so I can discipline them if necessary.”
Garrus looked at her, and she held his gaze for a long moment. He couldn’t help but grin back at her. “Alright. I’ll let you know.”
“Good.” Her smile softened into something else, and he was struck suddenly by the fact that she was really very beautiful. “Y’know, I’m glad you’re here. You’re a good guy.”
“Thank you.” Garrus cleared his throat, not quite sure what to say to that. He didn’t know the last time he’d been given a compliment like that. “I’m, uh, happy to help.”
She nodded, and the brief moment of whatever had just happened between them passed. She tapped her knuckles twice against the crate and said, “Well, we’ll be landing in the next few minutes, so I’ll see you out there, Vakarian.”
He nodded back at her, and allowed himself a small smile. “See you out there, Shepard.”
---
“Commander?”
Shepard stood up quickly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. She must have just showered; her hair was wet, and her N7 jumpsuit was unzipped to her waist, revealing a thin tank top underneath. They’d only spent a little time together outside of work, and even in those rare moments of casualness, she was always so put-together, so controlled. Now though, with cheeks puffy from crying and her collarbone exposed, he thought he might be glimpsing another side to Shepard. She felt far less intimidating. Almost normal.
“Garrus.” She took a deep breath, as if to steady herself. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He leaned against the doorframe of her quarters. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be alright.”
“Are you thinking about him?”
“How could I not be?” Shepard’s voice was very carefully controlled. He had to admire her strength, especially after what had happened today. She crossed to her desk, shuffling through papers without really looking at any of them. “I know Kaidan knew what he was risking. I know he was prepared to die. But he was a good man, a good soldier, and—” She stopped short, working her jaw in what he assumed was an effort not to start crying anew.
Garrus cocked his head. “May I come in?”
Shepard nodded. He stepped inside but left the door open, feeling strangely like he was crossing some invisible line as he did so; Garrus was a man of boundaries, of discipline, of protocol, and here he was in his commanding officer’s bedroom, her most intimate space.
“I guess you couldn’t sleep either?” She said, putting the papers down and leaning against the desk to look at him.
“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep well for awhile.”
“I understand.”
They looked at one another for a long moment. Garrus figured that if he was going to break his own rules, he might as well go all the way with it. “Could I ask you something personal?”
“What?”
“Kaidan… did you love him?”
He’d been prepared for a swift rebuke, but Shepard only sighed; she looked so exhausted. “I… don’t know. But there was something there, between us. I guess I thought we’d have more time to figure it out.”
“I’m sorry.” Garrus had noticed the looks between them on missions. Frankly, he’d found it misguided to attempt a relationship with anyone you worked with, but they seemed to really care for one another. “I wish things had turned out differently.”
“Thanks. Me too.” She ran a hand through her hair to pull it into a ponytail. He watched her with interest; human hair was always strange to him. She glanced over at a cabinet beside her desk. “I think I have some dextro booze in there. Want a drink?”
“You sure?” Garrus was actually enjoying this conversation, but recognized that he may be imposing.
Shepard was already pouring herself a drink, and she smiled briefly at him. “Misery loves company.”
It turned out that she had a bottle of Turian brandy in there. It wasn’t a particularly expensive brand, but it was still good stuff. “Why do you have this?” He asked as he took the first sip.
Shepard shrugged. She kept swirling her drink around in its glass, but she wasn’t sipping from it. “I always want to be able to offer someone a drink. I’ve got stuff for everybody in there.”
“That’s… strange.”
“Is it? I feel like it’s just good manners,” She said. “I’m Commander of this ship; I need to be able to include everybody in my drunkenness, not just the humans.”
Garrus felt his lips quirk into a smile. “How enlightened.”
“What can I say?” She finally took a long sip of her drink and shot him a grin that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m a trailblazer.”
“First human Spectre.”
She laughed darkly. “And depending on how things turn out, maybe the last.”
“You won’t be.”
“You sound pretty sure.”
And Spirits help him, he was.
---
Garrus’s head was pounding. Where was he? Not where he’d woken up this morning, that’s for sure.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, blinking away the exhaustion. Oh. He was on the Normandy, in the med-bay. But it was different. Everything looked different, shinier and newer, none of the ground-in wear and tear he was familiar with.
Slowly, he became aware of a figure sitting in a chair beside his bed. He looked over and saw Shepard. She was looking intently at something on her omni-tool with bloodshot eyes; she looked like she hadn’t slept in days, and judging by the fact she was still in her armor, he thought that might be the case.
“Hey,” He whispered.
Shepard’s head snapped up, and immediately, her face broke into a smile. He’d never admit it, but he’d missed that smile. “You took your time waking up.”
“You…” It was so strange to see her after all this time. He half-smiled. “You look terrible.”
“So do you.” She took his hand. They’d never done that before, but he supposed it made sense. Who else was left in their lives but each other? Why not reach for each other’s hands? “You had us all worried.”
“Sorry about that.” Garrus shifted in the bed, trying to sit up more, and felt white-hot pain radiate out from his face. He winced. “Spirits, that hurts.”
“I know,” She said regretfully. “It was pretty bad, by the time we got you here. Chakwas did what she could, but it’s gonna bother you for a while. And you’re gonna scar.”
“Ah, well. Women like scars, don’t they?”
Shepard laughed a little. “Depends on the scar. Depends on the woman.”
“What about you?” He asked. They were slipping back into their regular flirting routine so easily; he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.
“I like it.” She squeezed his hand, and her smile softened. “I’m glad you’re alive, Garrus.”
“And I’m glad you’re alive, Shepard.”
---
He found Shepard in the cargo hold. At this point, it was second nature to seek her out in the evenings, after the crew had quieted down and any pressing work was done. Garrus never purposely set out to find her, not really, but somehow always ended up drifting to wherever she was that night. He chalked it up to the fact that they knew each other better than just about anybody.
She was sitting up against a wall, staring oddly into space. Usually, she was working—Garrus had never met anybody who could match his work ethic quite like Shepard could—but tonight, she didn’t even have her omni-tool on. Immediately, he was concerned.
“Hey,” He said as he sat down beside her. He couldn’t quite gauge what she was thinking, which was unusual and a little unnerving.
“Hey, Garrus.” Shepard’s voice was worn so thin, and there were deep circles under her eyes; the last few weeks hadn’t been relaxing, exactly.
“You alright?” Garrus bumped her shoulder with his. Absently, he recognized how casual it was and thought it was sort of funny, how much he’d changed in the past few years. A gesture like that would have felt so strange back in his C-Sec days.
“I’m okay.” Shepard sighed, a tired sound. “I’m just… thinking about Thane, and Jack.” She looked down at her hands in her lap, like there was something to be seen there, some secret piece of information. “I should’ve saved them.”
Garrus felt his chest twist at those words—Spirits, he’d said them to himself enough. “You couldn’t have done anything, Shepard.”
When she looked at him, her normally bright blue eyes were wholly drained of light, dull and wearied. “We both know I could’ve done something.”
“You can’t save everyone,” He said, wishing that somehow he could convince her, that she’d listen. He wondered if they’d ever stop having this conversation; it felt like their relationship was a constant cycle of them both reassuring the other that they weren’t responsible for the lives of everyone else.
“I should have gotten everyone out, Garrus.” She spoke like she hadn’t heard him. “But I didn’t. I never do. Thane is dead, and Jack is dead, and Kaidan is dead. My family, they’re all dead. And I’m still here. After everything that’s happened, after I actually fucking died, I’m still here.” For a brief moment in her vulnerability, Garrus could almost see the young girl she must have been back on Mindoir, scared and sad and fighting like hell; it broke his heart. “And I don’t understand why. Why do I get to live when good people don’t?”
Unsure of what to say but unable to just watch her sit there like that, he slipped his arm around her and pulled her close. She leaned into his touch instinctively, and he could smell her, the scent of sweat from a long day’s work and military issue shampoo.
“You’re a good person, too, Shepard,” He said finally. “You are. Without you, we’d all be long dead.” He tilted his head to meet her eyes, so he could impress upon her his sincerity. “You save people every day, and you give everything you can do it. The world needs you, and the crew needs you.” He cleared his throat. “ I need you.”
She half-smiled up at him. Ah, there it was. “You know, Garrus, you’re a sweet guy.”
“Don’t push it,” He grumbled, looking away.
“Hey,” Shepard waited until he met her eyes again. “Thank you.”
He smiled back down at her. “Don’t mention it.”
---
“Is there any chance we come out of this one alive?”
Shepard laughed a little, and took a swig of her drink. The lounge was deserted at this time of night; it felt like they were in their own little world. “And here I thought you were going to try to give me a pep talk.”
“Ah, that’s your job.” Garrus smiled wryly.
“Isn’t it all?” She said sardonically. “And to answer your question… I hope like hell there’s a chance.”
“But you don’t think there is.”
Shepard shook her head and looked down at her drink, swirling the brown liquid. “I think the Crucible will work. I think the Reapers are going to lose. But you and I making it out of it all with our lives… seems like a tall order.”
“We’ve beaten worse odds.”
“We have.” She looked at him with that piercing gaze of hers, the gaze that always seemed to see right through to the core of him. “But this is different.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I suppose it is.” Garrus took a long sip of his drink and realized he was almost drunk. That was rare enough on its own, and combined with the strangeness of these circumstances, of the fact that his life had led him here, to the bar in a human military ship beside this woman—it made him feel uncharacteristically reckless. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“How come you and I never…” His courage began to dissipate. “You know.”
Shepard stared at him. “What?”
“Nevermind.”
Slowly, realization dawned on her, and she laughed, a pink tinge to her cheeks. “Oh. That .”
He cleared his throat awkwardly—this is exactly why he never drank to excess. “Yeah. I, uh, probably shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Probably not.” Shepard gave him a playful grin. “Garrus, this is awfully forward of you.”
“Spirits, Shepard, it’s not a proposition, ” He said, trying not to show her how deeply embarrassed he felt. “It was just a question. It’s not like we haven’t had the opportunity. Or the… inclination.”
As usual, she saw right through him. “You wanna talk about what happened the night before the Collector Base.”
“Yes,” Garrus said hesitantly. “If you want to talk about it.”
It had been a night like this one, where everyone else was long since asleep, and the two of them had stayed up late drinking. They had reminisced about the SR-1, about Kaidan and Pressley and everyone they’d lost, about how much things had changed. And their giddy anxiety about the attack had led them to sit far too close together. It had led Garrus’s arm to wrap about Shepard’s waist, had led to them looking at one another with some strange electricity in the air, until—well, until what? It was strange. There had been a moment where he was sure he was going to kiss her, and then there was a moment when they were both looking away. It was over that quickly.
Shepard sighed. “I don’t know, Garrus. It’s… I guess I didn’t want to risk messing up a good thing. Because what we have, you and me, it’s one of the few good things that’s stuck around in my life.” She smiled softly. “I couldn’t lose that.”
“Yeah. You’re right.” Yet she hadn’t said it was because she didn’t look at him that way. That she didn’t want to. Garrus pushed that thought out of his mind and aimed for deflection. He smirked. “We should have tested it, though. Just to be sure.”
Shepard rolled her eyes, and refilled his drink. “Too late now.”
He took a long sip. “Too late indeed.”
---
“Come on, Garrus,” Liara said desperately, pulling him up the ramp to the Normandy. In his imagination, he was tearing himself out of her grasp and refusing to leave, but the combination of his injuries and Liara’s grip was keeping him rooted in place—somewhere in his imploding mind, Garrus was impressed by how strong she was. “Come on .”
“Shepard.” He was begging, saying her name like it was an invocation to some absent god. “Don’t—”
She looked at them both painfully. “You gotta get out of here.”
“And you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Shepard strode purposefully up the ramp to look right at him; there was certainty in her expression, a strange sort of peace. “Don’t argue, Garrus.”
“We’re in this til the end.” He knew there was nothing he could say to change her mind, but he wasn’t going to give in like this; he and Shepard could always match each other in stubbornness. “I’m not going to leave you.”
“Yes, you are.” Shepard put her hand on his arm. Her eyes seemed to flash in the light of explosions all around them, and he was overwhelmed by their intensity. “And if things go south here… I’ll see you at the bar.”
His chest constricted. “Shepard, please—”
She moved her hand up to cup his face, something she’d never done before, and he actually let out a sound, some kind of desperate gasp. “Go.” Her voice was soft but left no room for argument. “I need to know you’re getting out of this alive.”
Garrus looked at her there, and a thousand things to say ran through his mind. He wanted to confess everything he’d ever done and ever thought, he wanted to cut open his own chest and hand her his heart, he wanted to impress upon her that they were chained together, that Shepard and Vakarian were inextricably linked, and that if she died, he’d be dragging her along with him for the rest of his own miserable life. But he didn’t do any of that; it wasn’t their way, wasn’t his way. He only placed his hand over hers on his face, and choked out, “Just make damned sure that includes you, too.”
“Always.” Shepard’s hand slipped out of his grasp. The battle raging all around them began to fade away as he tried desperately to focus on her face, on the color of her eyes and the pure courage in her expression. “Take care, Garrus.”
---
Tali looked at him for what felt like years, decades, centuries. And then she said, with the amazement of someone who had just solved some kind of impossible puzzle, “You loved her, didn’t you?”
Garrus sighed; this whole conversation made him feel sick to his stomach. “Tali, please.”
“It’s okay. It’s good to say it out loud.” She tilted her head. “Did she know?”
“It isn’t… it isn’t like that, alright? Our relationship wasn’t like that.” He dropped his head, looking at the grated floor and wishing with everything in him that Shepard was here to crack a joke. “We loved each other, but it was more than that. I don’t know how else to explain it. I’ve never… there’s never been anybody like her. Won’t ever be anybody like her again.”
Tali was quiet. Then she said, “I think I understand.”
Garrus doubted that she did, because he didn’t himself. “Yeah?”
“She was like your soulmate.”
“What?”
“Ashley explained it to me once—it’s a human concept. A soulmate is someone who you love and trust, who loves and trusts you in return, and you’re meant to spend your life together.” Tali’s voice broke a little over the last word, but she forged on. “Usually they’re romantic partners, but not always. It’s a… deeper bond, whatever that looks like.”
Garrus took a steadying breath. “And you think that was Shepard and me?”
“Maybe,” She said. “Do you?”
“I don’t know, Tali. Does it matter?” Garrus stood abruptly, feeling like he would do something stupid like cry or lash out if he kept sitting there like that. “Shepard’s gone. She’s dead. And it’s just me now, so whatever our relationship was doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.”
“That’s not true,” Tali said emotionally.
“Yes, it is.” He turned away from her, training his attention on his desk. It was completely clear of any mess, of course, and with a painful jolt, he thought of Shepard’s constantly cluttered workspace. Spirits, how was he supposed to move on when everything around him reminded him of her? “Shepard died, and she’s not coming back.”
“Garrus—”
“I have to go check on the engines,” He said shortly. “I’ll talk to you later.”
He left the room before she even had a chance to respond.