Chapter Text
“Do Turians believe in ghosts?”
“What?”, Garrus turns to look at her. Shepard has known him long enough now to read his face as slightly confused. She distracted him from something on his pad. Probably calibrations.
“Ghosts. It’s a human belief, I guess. We have this idea of someone’s soul existing on, separately from their body, after they die.”
He is fully focused on her now. “No, not really.”
“So, when you say spirits…cause the word my translator uses is a synonym for ghost…”
“Oh yeah!”, Garrus nods. “That’s not individual souls. More like the collective soul of a place or a group of people.”
“Hmmm”
“Why do you ask?”
“I was thinking about death…”
“Shepard.”
She waves her hand dismissively. “Let me continue. I was thinking about death and how if I became a ghost, I would haunt you.”
“Haunt?”
“Follow you around. Annoy you.”
“How about you stay alive and don’t haunt me.”
“Maybe.”
-
The AI that was once Commander Shepard remembers this conversation. It remembers everything. Every memory of every living thing that ever went into the creation of a reaper is stored within it. Countless souls.
The one that used to be Commander Shepard remains dominant. It is no longer human, but it still has values. It still feels in some way. The woman it once was might have called it a ghost. Though that word is woefully inadequate.
The crucible only meant to take over Shepard’s values and memory, but it doesn’t work like that. Values and memories are tied to emotion and so, depending on the definition of the word, the AI that was once Commander Shepard still loves Garrus Vakarian.
It still watches over him. The AI always knows where he is. It’s in the Normandy when he hangs up the plaque with Shepard’s name on it and if EDI detects it, she doesn’t do anything to purge it.
It doesn’t just watch over Garrus, it watches over all of them. Tali, as she builds a house on Rannoch. Kaidan as he continues her work, the only human spectre. Wrex as he raises an army of little Krogan. Liara as she helps them, from the shadows. They were Shepard’s crew. So many of her memories are tied to protecting them, it’s only natural for the AI to continue doing it.
Some part of Shepard is still fighting, always will be. One year after London she briefly takes over control. Neither the AI nor her know if it was because she fought hard enough or a brief act of mercy by the crucible. The AI, calling itself she again for a brief second, hacks into all the lights on Omega and makes them flicker blue. It only lasts a second, but Garrus hears of it and he knows. He gets together enough reports of the incident to figure out that the flickering spelled out something. A short message encoded trough a human system of communication called morse code.
“Garrus.”
-
“What would haunting me entail?”
“Flickering lights. Weird voices from nowhere”, Shepard grins. “I looooove you Gaaaaaaruuuuussss.”
Garrus laughs. “That sounds terrible”
“No! It’s romantic.”
“It would be way more romantic if you stayed alive.”
“That might not be an option”, she cuddles up closer to him. “But I love you. I always will. You’ll never be alone.”