Chapter Text
After the Normandy's destruction, the crew was debriefed by the Alliance. Garrus was given a reminder about confidentiality, the full impact of which he only realized later on, and discharged. The Normandy’s crew would not serve together, and he was not under Alliance authority to reassign, but they would be happy to have him serve as a liaison with the turian Hierarchy, if he wished. He answered something vague about being honored but not having decided what he would do yet.
Which was far from untrue.
He had been Shepard’s sniper and tech expert for months, now, and even after Sovereign’s defeat, the looming threat of the Reapers had given him continued purpose. And, to be completely honest, he would have continued to follow Shepard even after they had killed the last Reaper, because she would find another worthy mission, she didn’t get red-taped, she stood for what was right, and she was an amazing commander.
Without her, he felt somewhat lost.
But the Reapers were still out there, as were the geth, and he had learned a lot in that year he spent serving under her. So he steeled his resolve against the gaping hole in his spirit, and kept the resolution she had inspired: to rejoin C-Sec and to reapply for the Spectres.
But in the few months it took the different administrations to consider both applications — reconstruction was still underway — rumors started circulating. About Shepard’s mental stability, about her delusions of Protheans and Reapers and galactic extinctions. The Council manipulated information such that even the word ‘Reaper’ itself was censured from all respectable news sources, and relegated to paranormal networks.
Commander Rynn Shepard — who had saved the Citadel from destruction, who had sacrificed numerous human lives to rescue the Council, who had single-handedly defeated Saren and Sovereign — Rynn Shepard, slandered.
It culminated in the course of a conversation with Kaidan. The lieutenant had been reassigned to Alliance Citadel HQ, and he and Garrus sometimes had lunch together.
Garrus hadn’t even known how angry he was until he suddenly exploded in the middle of Kaidan’s blabber about the new line of Logic Arrest omni-tools and humanity’s diplomatic efforts.
“Damnit, Kaidan, don’t you have more important concerns!?”
The human stared at him, surprised and shocked. “Garrus, wait, calm down. Sit down. What’s the matter?”
“The very fact you have to ask is an insult to Shepard’s memory!” he snarled. “Have you forgotten about the Reapers? You sit here talking about omni-tools like it’s going to stop them from invading! And diplomacy — diplomacy’s making Sovereign out to be a geth dreadnought right now! And you — you’re supposed to have loved her, and you sit at the Council’s feet and don’t utter one word of protest while they drag her name through the dirt and destroy everything she tried to accomplish!”
Kaidan sprung to his feet. “Don’t question my feelings for Shepard. The galaxy needs to rebuild, catch its breath before they’re ready to take on a new threat. The Council and Alliance brass might be wrong about the rest, but they’re right on that.”
“Can’t you see what they’re doing? When you demean a threat like that, it’s not to take a temporary breather — it’s to mislead your population! They’re never going to believe they exist!”
“And what do you suggest I do about it?”
That stopped Garrus dead in his tracks. Because the return of the question was right there in Kaidan’s eyes, except he was too polite to accuse him back in the heat of anger.
“Yeah, you’re right. Goodbye, Kaidan.”
Garrus left.
He boarded the first shuttle headed for the Terminus Systems with nothing but his armor, an assault and a sniper rifle, and a few hundred credits, without even looking at the destination. When the shuttle docked at Omega, he knew he would fit right in. He wondered how he had ever thought his job at C-Sec suited him at all.
Things were not going so bad, then, for a while. Finding evil to fight was not hard, on Omega. You simply had to point your gun and shoot. He proceeded to make a nuisance of himself to the illegal activities of the mercenary groups operating out of Omega. One day, he ran into a kid — very young, even by salarian standards — who’d gotten himself captured and tortured while trying to attack a Blue Suns base, trying to get revenge for his abducted brother. And that is how he started building his team.
In Shepard’s shadow, he had forgotten that he could lead men; he’d been officer in the turian hierarchy, and as a detective in C-Sec, he had agents working under him. But he reacquainted himself with that aspect of his personality in her absence and life was almost good, there, for a while. He did something important, something that really made a difference.
And then Sidonis betrayed him — betrayed them all.
When he ended up stuck in what was left of his base, he wondered if maybe it was a result of a subconscious decision that he wasn’t worthy to live if he couldn’t save his squad. Briefly, he thought of Shepard and the faraway look on her face when someone mentioned batarians or Torfan.
She had lived through it and found another purpose. Could he do the same? For now it didn’t look as though he would get the chance to find out.
Regardless, he wasn’t going down without a fight.
So he set himself up on a perch over a bridge, collapsed the underground accesses, sealed the doors shut, and shot the gunship straight in its eezo core, one sniper bullet between the starboard stern thrusters and the rail gun. The slug had broken the eezo containment, and in the release of dark energy, most of the electronics of the gunship had been fried, guaranteeing many hours free from bombardment.
He then sniped away dozen after dozen of mercs trying to dislodge him. He hadn’t slept in so long he didn’t remember when, and the stims burned in every inch of his muscles. But the mercs were dying.
For Erash. For Monteague. For Mierin. For Krul. For Melenis. For Ripper. For Sensat. For Vortash. For Weaver. For —
His heart hammering, he stared through the scope, both mandibles flared in shock.
Shepard.
For a second, he thought he was hallucinating — too much stims, he confounded one more merc with her — but no, he wasn’t. That battle stance, those tech tricks, this precise awareness and use of the battlefield, the green eyes through the visor — it was different armor, and two years after she died, but this could be no one in the galaxy but Commander Rynn Shepard.
One second of startled shock was more than the mercs had had in hours; they pressed on ferociously and two of them managed to get too near the base of his building, effectively passing out of his line of sight. He swore quietly under his breath, and returning his scope to the bridge, he saw Shepard thrusting a fist forward, omni-tool alight on her forearm, shocking one of the mercs unconscious to topple off the side of the bridge to his death, while her two companions cross-fired on the other, and the two mercs blinked out of his suit’s HUD.
She slithered forward, graceful, light and silent, slaughtering any mercs in her way with a few precise bursts from her pistol or combat drone. When finally she reached his building, and climbed the stairs to his level, he turned. She was removing her helmet. Her hair was longer than it used to be, but still the same dark brown.
“Archangel?” she asked in a business-like tone, her pistol lowered but ready. Her two companions shimmered with biotic coronas, ready to react to any aggression on his part. Not that he could have killed her even if he wanted to.
He lifted a finger to ask her to wait, and when the merc in his sight made the mistake of inclining his head out of cover, he shot him. The high-powered rifle sent the slug right through his shields and into his skull.
Raw with exhaustion, he slowly turned around, and removed his helmet as he made his way to sit on a crate, his sniper rifle protectively cradled against his knee. Shock rippled across her face.
“Shepard. I thought you were dead.”
And if there was a little blame there, so be it. But either he didn’t put it in, or she didn’t hear it. She smiled from ear to ear, a sight that would have delighted him if he hadn’t been so tired. “Garrus! What are you doing here!”
“Keeping my skills sharp, just a little target practice,” he drawled. Spirits, but was it supposed to come back so easily and so quickly? He could feel himself slip back into the mindset of being her team-mate. Joking, watching each other’s back. Admiring her from afar.
Too much stims, definitely.
When battle encroached upon them again, it was almost welcome. At least he had something simple and straightforward to concentrate on.
The fight dragged on for another hour or so, and after the infiltration teams failed, the merc leaders themselves came after them. Shepard kicked ass as usual, and barely a bullet grazed his shields.
Until the gunship.
He heard the whir of the eezo engines, turned around and aimed – and got shot.
The high-velocity slug went right through his shield and the concussive force knocked him to the ground. It didn’t even hurt, but he couldn’t control his body either. Usually meant bad. Hastily and awkwardly, he crawled under cover, bullets hissing and rockets exploding all around.
His face felt stiff and warm, and a piece of his armor’s collar was missing. He had time to register no more than Shepard’s anguished cry of his name before he passed out.