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Shepard likes her routines.
Garrus, and probably everyone else on the SR-1, had her rounds memorized. He was her third stop in the shuttle bay, right after Williams and right before Tali. She always took the left-hand corridor on her way into the engine room and the right-hand corridor on the way out, and whether she had time for a lengthy chat or just a short hello, she always stopped by. Exceptions were made only in galaxy-shaking circumstances
He doesn't know her route on the SR-2. They're always picking up new people, and he's isolated in the battery; he doesn't know where she's coming from or where she goes when she leaves. She still stops by daily, but it's irregular—sometimes late, sometimes early, often when he's in the middle of something. Sometimes she comes back later. Sometimes he's still in the middle of something. She laughs over her shoulder at him as she leaves, no hard feelings.
At least, she did, until they went after Sidonis. Now it's like she's forgotten he's in here, trying to maximize the new cannon's capabilities. Came by once, cleared the air, took off again. It's been more than a week, and the change in her routine has finally become unnerving.
Maybe she thinks he still needs time to cool off. Hell, maybe he does. Looking at those names isn't getting any easier. It's not getting any harder, either, but this stagnation doesn't feel like improvement to him.
But he didn't tell her that. She should think everything's fine. Maybe not fine—she's perceptive—but fine enough. Getting there. So why is she still scarce?
Maybe he shouldn't have been so grim about their chances. She's under enough stress already, between being dead two years and chafing under The Illusive Man's watchful eye. But she's always appreciated honesty, regardless of the situation; that can't be it.
Maybe it was that story about the recon scout. Too inappropriate? But she's told a conquest story of her own once or twice, and she doesn't do double standards. Besides, she'd laughed. Quietly, and with a sudden flush appearing on her cheeks, but he doesn't believe she would have let it lie if he'd made her uncomfortable.
No, this started before their last conversation. Before the Citadel, before Sidonis. She'd step into the battery, he'd be busy, and she'd take a seat anyway, pull up something to do on her omni-tool and finish out the hour like that without a word. Not like her. She can't bear sitting still, not even with a rifle in hand; she gets behind cover just long enough to line up and take the shot. Usually makes her best effort to blow out his eardrum over the comm after every headshot, too, and even that's dropped off. She was near silent while they were planetside yesterday.
Maybe that rocket to his face did more damage than he thought, if he's just putting all this together right now.
He lets the cannon rest for the night and opens his omni-tool, hesitating only a second before punching in the message: You awake? I hear the bar's always open.
He leaves the battery without waiting for a reply. Company or not, he hasn't tried any of the dextro liquor Cerberus stocked the bar with yet. He fully expects it to taste awful, but it does need testing.
When he steps out of the hallway and into the mess, though, she's already standing there, stock-still, mug in hand, staring blankly across at the med bay's windows. It must be late, because Chakwas isn't at her desk, and Shepard is looking at nothing, her eyes vaguely unfocused.
There's a chill creeping into his carapace, and he doesn't like it. If there's one word that does not describe Shepard, it's vacant. She hasn't even noticed him standing there; he's within a few feet of her before she registers movement, finally blinks, and looks around at him. Her mouth twitches toward a smile, but feebly.
"Hey, Garrus," she says. It's a pale imitation of her usual cheerfulness. "Nice to see you out of the battery."
His visor tells him that her coffee's gone cold. A glance behind her reveals a fresh pot, fully brewed, that she hasn't touched yet.
"Everything okay, Shepard?" he asks, though he has fully convinced himself by now that nothing is okay.
She takes a sip from the mug, makes a face, and drops it in the sink with a too-loud clatter. "Fine. Just woolgathering. Reminded of why I don't do that, now. Obviously it makes me…" She waves a hand through the air, scrunching up her nose.
"Woolgathering," he repeats. "I'm not familiar with that one."
Briefly, she warms; the smile she attempted before finally unfolds, fleeting but genuine. "Thinking aimlessly, basically."
He leans back against the counter beside her. Subtle digging is not one of his talents; she's going to see him coming a mile away.
"Never known you to be aimless," he tries.
"Me, neither," she says. She means it as a joke—he can tell by the way her mouth moves, by the way her eyes start to roll—but her voice falls flat. "Maybe Cerberus forgot to stick the compass in my brain when they put Humpty Dumpty back together again."
Okay, there's—there's one of those quaint humanisms in there that he can't parse, but he gets the gist, and besides, his visor picks up enough to see the real punch hiding behind her words: the spike in her heartbeat, the sudden increase in her breathing.
He's working out how to pry the rest of it out of her when she makes another face, eyes narrowing this time. "Don't do that. I can hear the wheels turning in your head. Don't go extrapolating nonsense based on whatever data that damn thing's feeding you."
Fair enough. He pops the visor off and drops it to the counter, and for a moment, her eyes finally drift up and fix on his face without skittering away. The furrow between her brows deepens.
"I don't really need extra data to figure out something's going on with you," he points out. "You've been up in headshots since yesterday and you haven't even gloated. What, exactly, have you done with Shepard?"
There's a split second before she looks away when her eyes widen, just a fraction, and the mouth so often set in an implacable line parts as if to bring in a gasp of air. She deflects, "Thought I'd spare your pride, big guy," and she looks away, but he's beginning to see where this is going.
"I'm going to get it out of you eventually," he tells her, a little sternly for emphasis. "Might as well get it over with so we can have a good time at the bar after without this hanging over us, smelling like husk guts."
She doesn't laugh. He expects her to fight him a little longer—Shepard has never, ever admitted that anything's wrong without denying it aggressively first—but instead she looks at her feet, takes a deep breath, and says, "Have you ever thought...do you ever wonder...if it's really me?" She doesn't give him time to react—what the hell, Shepard, of course not—just barrels on: "I just...after we saw Ash, on Horizon. She was so shocked by what I'm doing, you know? She couldn't believe I'd ever work for Cerberus. I mean, I'd argue that I'm not really working for Cerberus, that this is all a temporary mutually beneficial arrangement to kill some Collectors, but I am. Working for Cerberus. On a Cerberus ship, in a body Cerberus built for me. And it seemed so logical to me, after seeing Freedom's Progress, after getting the runaround from the Alliance, just—getting the job done. At whatever cost." She pushes a hand through her hair, more roughly than Garrus thinks is strictly necessary. It's the most he's ever heard her say at once, excepting speeches in galaxy-shaking circumstances. "But is this...am I...would I have done this, two years ago? Now I don't know." She exhales, a shaky laugh coming with it. "Forget it. There's no point in worrying, right, it's not like anyone's going to be able to give me an answer I can live with—"
He puts a hand on her shoulder, and she jolts and stops talking immediately.
"It's you." He believes it; he's believed it since she first emerged tousle-haired from her helmet, sticky with sweat, ribbing him about the shots he'd pitted against her shield. He believed it then because he wanted to believe, because it seemed so stupid, so pointless, the day that he heard she'd been spaced. But he knew, really knew, when—
"You don't know that." She twitches, as if she's going to pull away from him, but in the end she doesn't move; the line of her shoulder is stiff with tension beneath his hand. "Hell, Cerberus probably doesn't even know what they woke up. If they do, they wouldn't tell me."
"It's you," he says, firmer this time. "You know how I know?" She doesn't respond, and he doesn't wait. "Because you wouldn't let me take the shot."
The breath she pulls in is soundless, but sharp; her shoulder rises with it. "I wanted to let you," she says, so quietly that he has to lean a little closer to hear. "Didn't even know the guy, but I hated him. Hated getting in your way again." She chuckles, the sound thicker than usual. "You were pissed about Saleon, and I thought—protecting someone who'd done something to you, not just something terrible, but something so personal...I thought you'd eviscerate me. Or leave." Her voice twists around the word, straining.
Funny, how that never even crossed his mind, and she still thinks it's a possibility.
Not funny at all, actually. Illogical. Impossible. They haven't always seen eye-to-eye, but that's never been a reason to leave. More a reason to stay, to try to understand. Two years ago, he was baffled by her seemingly extreme investment in mercy for people who didn't deserve it; he sees now that it's a battle hard-fought, not as easy to accept as she's always made it appear, but she keeps insisting on it even when she thinks it could cost her. Sticking to a hard line like that, that's...something. Maybe admirable, maybe crazy, maybe both.
"And let you go unchallenged on the field?" he says, and she manages a laugh. "Maybe I was angry about Sidonis, but you're the only person who could've stood between me and him and made me change my mind. You, Shepard. Not some clone or VI."
She reaches up, touches his hand. "'Was?'"
Reassuring her is easy. Maybe the galaxy's full of gray, but this much is black and white. "We're good, Shepard," he confirms.
Her fingers tighten on his at the same moment that the muscle in her shoulder eases, fear dropping palpably away. "Good."
She doesn't move her hand; he doesn't move his. It's nice, actually—outside the realm of their usual shoulder-claps, the occasional knocking on his armor as she walks by, but still good. Her fingers, despite being too many, are soft, new callouses forming in between valleys of smooth skin.
"I wouldn't go unchallenged," she says, reproach creeping into her voice. "Zaaed's a good shot."
He scoffs. "He might be a good shot, but I'm the best."
She tips her chin up to smirk at him. "Tell that to the numbers."
He hadn't even realized how much he missed their fluent back-and-forth until now, with her eyes glinting in the dim light and the slash of her mouth reckless across her face. Too bad she's human. He wouldn't mind a partner like that, always shooting at his feet to make sure he stays sharp, wouldn't let things get boring—
He doesn't realize he's lapsed into silence until she says, "Gotcha there, don't I," smug as ever, like the last few minutes of anxiety never happened at all. "Oh, I've got a message."
She squeezes his hand before she lets go, which, again, is...nice, too many fingers aside. He doesn't get very far beyond that, his brain echoing nice back to him like something's gotten jammed in there.
She laughs, jolting him out of the increasingly alarmed repetition in his head. "Aren't you worried Cerberus has shit taste in dextro liquor?" she asks, and it takes him a distressing amount of time to realize she's referring to his message.
"Well, uh, might as well try it," he says, casting around for something suitable to say, which takes more effort than it should. "There will be some enjoyment in knowing that they spent money on it, maybe even hired specialists to try and work out the quality…"
"Don't bother. Already picked up the good stuff, last time we were on the Citadel." Her smirk broadens. "You're welcome."
She's getting too self-congratulatory; he needs to rib her a little, as long as his brain hasn't completely left him. "You sure? Humans have a hard time telling the good stuff from the—"
"Good thing I'm not just any human, then," she interrupts, tapping her temple for emphasis. "Got a mind like a—"
"Concussed krogan? I've been trying to tell you, Chakwas should—"
"Cipritine Fire Brandy," she says, raising an eyebrow. "Expensive shit. Bet The Illusive Man loved that invoice. I've got your six, Vakarian. Are you done stalling? Or are you afraid I'm going to drink you under the table again?"
"There was no under," he protests, but weakly; he's still half-caught in the surprise that she remembered exactly what he drank in the celebratory aftermath of the Battle of the Citadel.
"Fine, then. Across."
It goes on that way, bickering all the way to the bar, and he finds a way to compartmentalize nice and put it away for later examination. Maybe never, actually. It was probably just a misfire of emotions running high, vulnerabilities being exposed; it probably won't come up again.