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Garrus was headed to Normandy’s kitchen, only about three hours late for dinner, when his omni-tool pinged. He paused to read Tali’s message:
Shepard is in the cargo hold. Something is wrong with her. Come quickly.
He immediately changed direction and headed for Alenko’s station. Shepard and Alenko had grown close over the last few months. He’d even seen Kaidan touching her absently outside of missions, and Shepard responding in kind. Garrus wasn’t surprised. A mission like this was bound to bring people together. He’d come to treasure his time with Shepard, but didn’t blame her for preferring the company of another human. Alenko seemed like a good man. If anyone could figure out what was wrong with her, it was him.
Garrus stopped abruptly.
Alenko wasn’t on the Normandy. He’d died in the explosion on Virmire.
Damn war. Well, now he had a much better idea of what might be wrong with Shepard. He turned and headed for the elevator to the cargo hold.
Shepard had been so cool when she’d made the call to rescue Williams. He’d been at her side and she’d only hesitated a moment. Barely even a flicker in the heat of battle. Later, she’d calmly reassured Ashley that Alenko’s death wasn’t the gunnery chief’s fault, that it wasn’t anyone’s fault except Saren’s. Shepard had been the perfect battlefield leader: decisive, logical, tough but compassionate. She’d fooled them all. That was part of her job too, he supposed, and she excelled at it.
The elevator door slid open on a darkened cargo hold. Wrex and Williams were off duty, and Kirrahe and his team had already bunked down. Garrus scanned the room and saw the orange glow of an omni-tool over by the requisitions area.
He paused and typed a message: How is she?
Tali’s answer came immediately. The same. Where are you?
Garrus shut off his tool and strode towards Tali, trying to make his approach seem natural.
“Tali! Just the quarian I was looking for,” he said. He’d done enough undercover missions at C-Sec to be decent at this sort of thing.
“Garrus! Uh…hello,” Tali said nervously. She motioned to a shadowy space behind her.
His visor registered Shepard before his eyes found her, but there she was, back pressed up against the bulkhead, knees drawn to her chest. Most humans looked small to him but he’d never once thought that about Shepard, until now.
“What did you… uh… want to see me about, Garrus?” Tali continued. “Did you have trouble installing the omni-tool upgrades I recommended?”
“The upgrades went fine,” he said. “Although I could probably make due without the one that updates me on the Flotilla’s movie night schedule.”
“Oops,” Tali said, wringing her hands. “I forgot I included that one.”
“Sing-along night, Tali? Really?” he teased. “Actually, I was just wondering if you could tell me about your pilgrimage. We didn’t have a chance to really discuss it before. Those Citadel elevators are too damn fast.”
Tali seemed relieved at the suggestion and launched into the history of pilgrimages, the same lecture she’d patiently given almost everyone on the ship already. He himself had heard it three times. But while Tali talked, Garrus had a chance to study Shepard, and Shepard had a friendly, familiar voice to hang on to. He could already see her heart rate slowing to more normal human levels.
He’d seen episodes like this during his military service and even at C-Sec after particularly brutal operations. But the fact that Shepard — a woman who seemed to be made of iron wrapped in fire — could be curled up in the dark like a child… It was a helluva thing. Far more disturbing than the fact that an indoctrinated ex-Spectre had tried to kill them all just a few hours ago.
Now that his eyes were adjusting to the darkness, he could see one of Shepard’s hands wrapped tightly around the neck of a bottle. He couldn’t tell how much was in it. She could easily have gotten drunk in her cabin. The fact that she hadn’t meant something… he just wasn’t sure exactly what.
Then again, there was a reason most C-Sec agents hit the bar after their shifts. Drinking in public was an acceptable way to celebrate a shitty day; drinking alone in your quarters could border on dangerous. You were practically inviting the nightmares in when you did that. Taking the first step down an incredibly slippery, dark path.
The Normandy didn’t have a bar. Maybe Shepard was reaching out in the only way she could think of.
“Oh, really? Your immune system?” Garrus said absently, prompting Tali to keep talking.
In her shadow, Shepard’s hand twitched on the bottle. Why had she chosen the cargo hold, and specifically the area between his station at the Mako and Tali’s station in engineering? He understood why she’d want to avoid Williams, but there were other humans on the Normandy. Surely she’d feel more comfortable around them.
Unless… she didn’t want to be near humans. Maybe they were too needy, or too easy to read. Maybe they reminded her of Alenko. But a turian and a quarian were different. Similar enough in the ways that mattered, but without those watery human eyes. Without those strange lips that could so easily twinge with disappointment or pity. Maybe tonight, aliens were easier.
Tali was struggling to find something else to say about her suit’s filtration system when Garrus interrupted her.
“It’s been a long day. Do you want to sit?” He nodded his head towards Shepard, hoping she’d take the hint.
Tali nodded. “Keelah, yes. My feet are killing me.” She walked slowly over to the wall and sat down next to Shepard, her side pressed against Shepard’s side. Shepard stiffened, her hand clutching the bottle. But Tali made no other move. She didn’t even look the commander in the eye.
Smart.
“You look tired, too,” Tali said.
“Maybe a little,” he agreed. Garrus knew what Tali wanted him to do, but he hesitated. Shepard seemed to enjoy touching Alenko, but he and Shepard had never had that sort of relationship. Passing heat sinks, shoulders knocking together in the Mako or on the battlefield, yes. This felt dangerously close to inappropriate.
Then again, he’d never been particularly good at playing by the rules. And besides, this was about Shepard and what she needed, not about him.
Garrus took a few steps and slid down the wall on the other side of Shepard, careful not to crush her with his armor. Soon, he and Tali were pressed gently against her sides like barriers shielding her from the galaxy.
“Did I ever tell you that I knew the Spectre Nihlus Kryik?” Garrus asked Tali, as if Shepard weren’t wedged between them.
“I don’t believe that has come up in conversation, no,” Tali said.
Garrus leaned back, trying to make himself more comfortable. Touching Shepard was distracting him in a way he didn’t fully understand. His visor flashed, reporting an increase in heart rate. He quickly shut off the meter.
“Ran into him once during my military assignment. He was bouncing around squads back then. No one knew how to handle him, but he was far too talented for them to ignore.” Garrus chuckled. “The hierarchy hates it when they can’t put you into the right slot. Nihlus really pissed them off. But then Saren came along.”
“Saren? Really?” Tali asked.
Garrus kept his voice even, his subharmonics low, even though he could hear Shepard’s breathing hitch. “Saren was already a Spectre. He took Nihlus under his wing, and Nihlus made Spectre within a year.”
“That’s fast?”
“Very fast,” Garrus said. “My father was livid. He already disapproved of Saren, and Nihlus seemed to be cast from the same mold. Nihlus blew through his first missions. Got results no matter what the cost. No matter how many civilians were injured or killed.”
Tali snorted. “You sound like you admired him.”
“I did,” Garrus said. “I saw him and pictured the life I could have had if I hadn’t joined C-Sec and tried to follow in my father’s footsteps. While I was stuck doing paperwork and arguing with diplomats, Nihlus was out making a real difference. I wanted to be him. But that was before…”
He let his words trail off, not sure what he wanted to say. But that was before the Normandy. Before Shepard and our talks. Before Dr. Saleon. Before I started to see another way. Before I realized I wanted to make someone besides my father proud.
Tali jumped in to save him. “So what happened when you met Nihlus?”
“What? Oh. Right.” He scratched his mandible and felt Shepard shift against his side. He glanced down and saw her grip on the bottle of whiskey had loosened. “Both our squads were called in for a weapons upgrade at the same time. We were in the mess hall when Nihlus and I got into a debate about the tactics used in the Battle of Phinnae Hill. Things got heated and we drew an audience. Our argument lasted most of the day. Even had a few generals weighing in by the end. When it was time to ship out, Nihlus shook my hand and said he looked forward to our next ‘chat.’”
“Ha! And you made fun of the Flotilla’s sing-a-longs,” Tali said. “Turians are such nerds.”
“It was an important battle!”
Did he see the smallest hint of a smile on Shepard’s face?
“I’m sure it was,” Tali said without a hint of sincerity. “But then listening to you talk, they all were.”
Garrus nodded briskly. “Damn right.”
Tali sighed and leaned her head on Shepard’s shoulder. Maybe Shepard wasn’t the only one in need of a little comfort after what they’d just been through. And maybe that’s why he had no desire to move at all, lest he lose the slight pressure of Shepard’s arm and shoulder against his. Shepard could rest her head on his shoulder, if she wanted. Surprisingly, he wished she did.
Shepard had been there for him since the start — answering his questions, taking the Normandy out of its way so he could settle an old grudge, never once asking for anything but his loyalty to the mission in return. The idea of being able to give her something back… of being the one she could lean on… it put the seed of something intensely warm in his chest.
“Tell us another story,” Tali said, dropping the pretense that Shepard wasn’t there. “Your voice is so soothing.”
His mandibles flared at the compliment. He hadn’t thought much of Tali at first — the old C-Sec prejudices against quarians had been firmly fixed in his mind. But over the months he’d come to respect her, as a technician and a soldier, and as a friend. She reminded him of his sister.
“Let’s see. There was the time my father found vids about Nihlus on my sister Solana’s omni-tool,” he said. “I thought he saved that particular level of disappointment just for me, but apparently not. Years later and I think Sol’s still reeling from the force of it.”
“I wish I had a sister,” Tali said.
Garrus watched Shepard’s hand leave the bottle of whiskey to find Tali’s and squeeze. She made it look easy, five fingers wrapping around three. He couldn’t seem to pull his eyes away.
“Are you and Solana close?” Tali asked. “You don’t mention her very often.”
“We’re not as close as we should be,” he said. “It’s my fault. I’m not a very good brother.”
Tali snorted. “That I find hard to believe.”
“Your confidence in me is appreciated, but misplaced,” Garrus replied. “I haven’t contacted anyone in my family since I left C-Sec. I’m not sure what I would tell them. My father would consider me running off to join a Spectre only slightly preferable to me running off to become a criminal mastermind. And it might be a toss-up.”
“For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing,” Tali said. “Nihlus is gone. Another turian needed to step up to save the galaxy.”
“Regardless of his methods, Nihlus’s death was a terrible loss.” Garrus stole a glance at Shepard’s face but found her expression unreadable. He decided to take a risk. “Saren has taken a lot of good people from us,” he said softly. “We’ll stop him from taking any more.”
His words hung in the air, filling the darkness with a little bit of hope and a tiny jolt of resolve.
Tali’s omni-tool beeped. “The next shift is starting in ten minutes,” she said, sounding every bit as disappointed as Garrus felt. Selfishly, he didn’t want this moment to end.
Guess he’d have to work at making sure he got another one, then.
Reluctantly, he shifted his weight and stood up, hating the way his arm felt without Shepard leaning against it, feeling suddenly bereft of a warmth and a kinship he hadn’t known he’d craved. “I’m starving. Let’s go raid the mess for some rations.”
“I could eat a varren,” Tali said, standing and brushing the dust from her suit. “Assuming they came in dextro, of course.” She headed towards the elevator.
Garrus turned to Shepard and held out his hand. She looked up at him, her eyes red-ringed but with a little bit of her old iron and fire, and let him help her up.