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“Thanks again, Doc.” She said with a smile, like all that happened was a quick patch up after a firefight.
“Commander...” Chakwas started heartlessly, knowing there was nothing she could say to keep Shepard within the confines of the medical bay.
The Spectre walked with discourteously light footfalls. Rather than the sound of her boots stomping across the metal with the weight of battle, her bared feet glided to the elevator with such silence, half her crew wondered if their combined mourning had conjured her phantom.
Half an hour later, the elevator opened to reveal her returned in full Alliance uniform, black hair rebound and hands behind her back like she hadn’t just been nearly crushed by rubble and debris. Like three of her ribs hadn’t been broken. Like she hadn’t just left the Council, and every life on the Ascension, to their deaths. Like she hadn’t just coordinated and executed the destruction of a Reaper.
As the doors opened, a mere flicker of surprise jumped across her face before settling back into her militaristic resignation. Garrus had spent almost the entirety of his time in the battery core. It was unexpected, to say the least, to see him lingering by the staircase to the CIC.
“Shepard!” He started, pushing up from the wall he’d been leaning on and moving towards her. “Chakwas said you wouldn’t stay down. How are -”
“Oh, it’s ‘Shepard’ again, is it?” She said coldly, brushing past the turian so briskly a gust of wind rolled over his plates.
“What?”
At the foot of the stairs, she pivoted to face him sideways. “I was ‘human’ just a short time ago. Am I only ‘Shepard’ when you agree with me?”
Garrus remembered, with a drop in his gut, his words of uncertainty at the peak of the Citadel Tower. "I hope you know what you’re doing, human.” In fact, if not for this moment, he might have never remembered them again. It had seemed an inconsequential thing to say until just now.
“Shepard...I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to - I shouldn’t have second guessed you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.” She barked, baring every bit of Soldier that she was. It was so...unfamiliar. The rigidity in her shoulders. The stiffness in her body, the narrow focus of her eyes, the way she positioned her torso away from him. All things, he thought, suitable to a turian. Maybe even to the Commander. But not to her, not to Shepard, the person she was on the Normandy and out of the armor.
He couldn’t quite place why, but the contrast made his stomach twist.
“Sorry, Commander. Won’t happen again.” He had intended to withhold some bitterness from his voice, but even he was bound to slip up twice in a day.
“Good. Carry on, Vakarian.” There it was again, that twist in his gut like a blade buried deep. Surely, she had specifically called him that as a little vindictive payback. He knew that. It was obvious in the way she said it. What he didn’t know was why it got to him so much.
When he only stood there silently, she gave a curt nod and proceeded up the stairway, her back so straight it might have been in a brace.
He could think of little else for the rest of the afternoon. The look in her eyes like he was a stranger, the absence of playful pitch in her voice. The way she called him Vakarian. It bothered him ceaselessly, batting at the back of his mind throughout the rest of the day and even into the night, so that it woke him from sleep. He’d risen from his cot, set up in the battery core where he could have a little privacy from the rest of the humans, and stumbled through the door. A walk to the bathroom, maybe a quick rinse over his fringe would be enough to calm his wired brain enough to stay asleep the rest of the night.
But at the end of the strip of sleeper pods, he stumbled again, this time to a halt. The mess hall was still, quiet and empty, save for one person. Shepard, sitting alone at the table, hands wrapped around a steaming mug and staring straight ahead at nothing.
He watched her for two solid minutes. There were no clocks in view, but the silence that rang throughout the rest of the ship told him as much as he needed to know. In those two minutes, all she did was stare and blink. Finally, she took a short breath, and sighed.
“Shep-- Commander?” He corrected, uncertain of where they stood after their earlier confrontation.
She looked at him, not startled or alarmed, but more like her attention had been pulled away from a captivating vid. “Garrus.” She blinked, realizing she’d forgotten her vindictive campaign, but did not correct it. Just the sound of his name sent a wave of relief that washed over him, more refreshing than the clearest waters from Palaven. But of course, he was tired. It was going to feel more intense with lack of sleep. “I..didn’t wake you, did I?”
He wasn’t certain, at first, if she was serious. Of course she hadn’t woken him, she’d barely made a single noise the entire time she’d been sitting there. If not for the steam rising from her mug, he wouldn’t be able to begin to guess how long she’d been there at all. He was about to say so when something else made him falter. The softness in her eyes, the slack in her shoulders, the looseness in her fingers. All as it should be. Only the sadness that creased her lips was out of place.
“No, no, I just...couldn’t sleep.” A beat of silence passed, and when her gaze fell, he felt compelled to speak again. “Mind if I join you?”
She didn’t meet his gaze, but gestured open-handedly in welcoming. She might have intended for him to take the bench across from her, but his sleep-deprived brain piloted him to the seat next to her. To better communicate, of course, in hushed tones so as not to wake the rest of the crew. That was all.
They sat in silence, the barely audible hum of the drive core the only noise between them. “Commander...”
“Mm?”
“Are you alright?”
The air around them became suddenly heavy. He wasn’t used to these kinds of reactions from other turians. Their range of emotion was carefully and directly displayed. The subtle changes in human body language and atmosphere was as foreign to him as any Elcor’s, but something about hers made them easy to pick up on. Or perhaps it was spending so much time on a human ship - learning a language by immersion, and the like.
“I’m sorry. Earlier, when I...” She paused, searching for the right words. But she didn’t need them.
“Don’t apologize, please. You were right. I shouldn’t have -”
“No, it’s not...” She sighed. “You were right to question me. This, Saren, Sovereign, it was just the beginning. If I can’t make the right decisions now, then what...” she trailed off, dropping her head a little.
“Shepard...” He turned to her, and for the second time today, she looked at him in a way he hadn’t yet seen. Not with coldness or mistrust, but in a rare moment of pleading uncertainty. “I’m only here because I trust you to make those decisions. Udina can handle the politics, that’s his job. Hell, it’s why I left C-sec. You’ve got a bigger fight coming, and no one in the galaxy is in a better place to make those calls than you.”
She studied his face for a moment before turning away again, perhaps searching for signs of sincerity, or perhaps for another reason. Did humans always change color like that?
“I guess I don’t have much choice, in any case.”
“No, I suppose not...but if I did, I’d say the same.”
She let out a single huff of a listless chuckle. A moment later, her body shifted as she rested her head against his shoulder. His mandibles twitched and his heart skipped a few beats with a sudden flutter he couldn’t explain. “Thanks, Garrus.” She said softly.
“Any time, Shepard.”