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Garrus Vakarian was filled with a sense of impending dread that they were all nowhere near rock bottom.
As the Normandy flew away from the smoking Citadel, the back of his neck stiffened with an unnerving sense of–what was the human phrase? Deja vu. As a young C-Sec officer, he’d naively believed the Citadel to be a fortress. Maybe it wasn’t the most efficient place, maybe most beings in charge of the decisions were more loyal to credits than the people, but it felt impenetrable. He’d have bet all his credits that no one could really mount an attack on the massive space station.
Now as he watched smoke rise in inky, ominous coils from the Presidium for the second time in his life, Garrus couldn’t help but wonder how many more deeply held beliefs of his would be unmoored.
The HUD on his visor pinged with what felt like an endless readout of things to do. He’d downloaded new tracking algorithms to program for the Thanix canon; Cortez had sourced him a new scope for his Mantis that he wanted to mod; Victus had just messaged him new supply updates from the Seventh Turian Fleet that he needed to review. On, and on, and on it went.
War was a relentless, churning, insatiable machine, and it felt like he was doing all he could not to be ground within the gears.
Garrus stepped out of the observation deck and headed back to the Main Battery, chest tight and thoughts in a blur.
-
“Garrus, you have been working over three hours past your shift end,” EDI chimed through the comms. Garrus nearly jumped out of his armor, banging his head on the open panel door.
“Surprised it took you three hours to notice, EDI,” Garrus grumbled, massaging at the top of his fringe.
“I noticed as soon as your shift had ended, Garrus, however, based on prior interactions, my processors calculated that it was unwise to interrupt you unless you were acting at detriment to your health or the safety of the Normandy. You have been working behind the same panel for thirty-six minutes and have made no meaningful progress. I must recommend that you take a break for the night,” EDI continued. Garrus dragged his talons down his face with a deep sigh.
“Fine. You win.”
“It was not a competition, Garrus,” EDI intoned. Garrus resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he shut the control panel.
“Good night, EDI,” he called behind him as he headed out of the Main Battery. The overnight crew of the Normandy was a slim, efficient crew, working mostly in the background to keep the ship as alert as possible. Garrus was almost more familiar with the overnight staff than the main crew; Shepard frequently had him heading out with her on ground missions, and like the vast majority of her people, Garrus was a workaholic and was prone to working well past his designated shift hours.
Garrus was going to head to the crew quarters–there was a roomier, more comfortable bed on deck 5 he knew he’d be welcomed in, but he didn’t want to crowd her, either, not after such a long day–when he noticed the light seeping out of the starboard Observation Deck’s door. Curious to see who else was an insomniac, Garrus swiped his omni-tool across the access panel to head inside.
“Oh–uh, Garrus—” Shepard startled like she’d been caught rummaging through his private data files. Usually when she was on the Normandy, she’d be in her informal Alliance fatigues, or some amount of her N7 armor. Now, she was dressed in an oversized sweatshirt, the trademark red and white stripes of the N7 program running down her arms. Her flame-colored hair was damp, curling at the nape of her neck and along her temples. In one hand, she held a short glass of caramel colored alcohol. In her eyes, all the ghosts of the past three years marched ceaselessly.
“At ease, Shepard,” he teased, hoping to keep it light, but he could hear how tentative he sounded and he fought the urge to flinch. Of all the people in the galaxy, he was closest with this woman. No other life knew him as deeply, had as much belief in him, and here he was, cowering under the weight of her attention. Shepard’s pale, freckled skin blushed and her eyes ducked away from his, turning back out to the observation window.
“Sorry, I just—I didn’t expect anyone else here,” she said and crouched back to the floor. “Weren’t you off shift like three hours ago?” Garrus’s subvocals hummed in affirmation and the warm light of knowing that of all the thousands of things she had to keep track of, she had his shift schedule memorized.
He stepped around the far couch but stayed a few paces away from her; her nervous anxiety gave him the feeling Shepard was likely to bolt at any given moment. It was a farce of a thought; Commander Shepard running from anything seemed antithetical to the laws of the universe. His visor confirmed his suspicions, though; her heartbeat was elevated and a touch erratic. He didn’t need his visor to help read this woman, of course, but the surprise of seeing Shepard so unlike herself had him second-guessing his instincts.
“Is this a conversation where we talk about why we’re both up late, or do we ignore the things on our mind for the sake of our pride?” Garrus asked. Shepard pursed her lips in a tight frown. She glanced up at him, then back at her glass, and exhaled.
“Sit with me?” she asked.
Of course, his instincts replied without hesitation.
“Happy to,” he murmured. Shepard bent her knees to her chest and Garrus stretched his legs out. Both stared out to the inky blackness of space in a silence that felt both familiar and deeply uncomfortable. Had the galaxy changed so much that he couldn’t relax with her?
“You first,” she said eventually.
“That an order?” Garrus teased.
“It can be,” she smiled, the whisper of her familiar smirk appearing for only a few seconds, just short enough to make him wonder if he’d seen it at all.
“Alright,” he sighed, and leaned back on his elbows, adjusting his weight a little against the spurs on his hips and arms until he felt comfortable enough.
For all of his prowess on a battlefield, words were a formidable enemy he felt like he could never overcome, especially in front of her. What words were sufficient enough to describe how his trust in her ran deep through the marrow of his bones? How could he describe the way her faithful leadership and relentless dedication to the sanctity of life gave his cynical mind and buried heart hope?
She’s not asking for a sonnet about how you feel about her; just how you are currently.
As if he was insightful enough to make sense of the swirling vortex of his thoughts.
Well, if anyone could figure out how he was, he supposed it was her.
“One of the first things that's drilled into you when you join the Turian military is the concept of control. More accurately, how to identify what you're in control of and what you're not.” It was one of the things that Garrus had always struggled with, and one reason of many he didn't feel like he was a very good Turian.
“You can probably guess, but I was never any good at accepting that anything was fundamentally out of my control. If I could figure out the math, if I could find the right angle, spirits, find the right person—I could find a solution.” It's why he'd felt stifled at C-Sec and why he'd been so determined to see change on Omega and one of the thousands of reasons he was called over and over to the Normandy. There had to be a way to solve any problem, and, well, if he couldn't figure it out, that was on him.
These days, it was difficult to find anything at all he could hold onto.
Well, there was one thing.
Garrus glanced sideways at Shepard. She was still staring at the endless void of space, arms crossed over her legs, but he could tell she was keenly listening to him. It was evident in the crease between her eyebrows and the slight purse to her lips that told him she, too, was calculating for a solution to help her crew member.
Well, ‘crew member’ wasn't totally accurate, though, was it? Garrus wasn't ever exactly her subordinate, not in the strictest definition of the word. They were definitely partners and teammates–they'd spent too many hours watching each other’s six to be anything less. Several times, they were lovers, and for years, they were friends. He knew she cared about him, but she cared about every life in the galaxy. Her compassion wasn't uniquely gifted to him.
However, her vulnerability was.
“There's this human myth that I can't get out of my head. It's a few thousand years old, not even one of the more well known ones,” she started, still staring forward. He appreciated that Shepard didn't make him spell out all of his worries and concerns and fears that he wasn't enough, would never be enough, could never be enough. It was another gift of her empathy; she clearly didn't want to talk, but she was sparing him the indignity of being perceived too acutely by talking about herself instead.
“The story varies a little, but the gist of it is that a woman, Cassandra, is gifted with perfect prophecy, but cursed that no one will believe what she says,” she explained. Garrus’s blood ran cold in his veins.
“Her family believed her to be a mad woman. People laughed in her face, accused her of being a liar, and then would turn around and carry out her exact prophecy,” Shepard continued. Garrus wanted to speak, to find the words to comfort her and cut off this dark tale, but like this mythical Cassandra, all he could do was watch.
“As I watched Udina’s body be wheeled away while C-Sec comms were overloaded with emergency calls; when I watched Thane pass at Kolyat’s side; when I was pulled into another vidcomm session with the Council instead of–” There it was. Garrus long suspected its existence, but it only ever flickered in the briefest of moments. As he watched her jaw tighten and his HUD displayed her quickening heartbeat, Garrus couldn’t deny that he was watching her highly secured rage slip its leash.
Of course, he’d seen her angry. He’d seen her incensed and infuriated; indignant and irritated. Through their partnership, he’d seen her heartbroken and disgusted. Her rage, however, was unique, and something for a long time he wasn’t sure the Commander felt, not really. The first time he’d seen it was when the Normandy had been grounded, but it’d been quickly buried underneath grit and sheer tenacity. He expected to see it again when Kaidan had told her off on Horizon, but she hadn’t let him–or anyone–close enough to see what she was feeling. The closest he’d gotten to the white-hot fire of her rage was when the Illusive Man’s ruse of baiting the crew had been found out. She’d focused too sharply to get them off the Collector ship, but when he caught her gaze as she stalked into the vidcomm room, her bright blue eyes sparked with unadulterated fury. By the time she’d stepped back out after talking to the Illusive Man, she’d composed herself.
This late, quiet hour seemed an unworthy stage for her wrath now. Spirits, he wasn’t convinced he was worthy of getting to witness it now, either, but here she was, trusting him with the ugly, raw, unrefined edges of her.
“There’s no one who has done more to save as many lives as possible as you, Shepard,” he said quietly. Shepard sipped her liquor with a grimace.
“How many people are out there that have done everything they could to keep our crew from saving more lives?” Garrus had no response. How many politicians had kept them from doing what they needed to? How many people actively buried the story of Sovereign’s attack on the Citadel? Spirits, he didn’t even have to look outside the ship to see her point! There was a not-insignificant number of people on this ship that were skeptical of the story of the Reapers and the Collectors. Several had been on her side at one point, but abandoned her because their comfort meant more to them than actually doing good. Of course, she welcomed them all back, because it was Shepard. There were even several people who had wanted to help, and maybe they did at one point, but couldn’t join her in the fight now.
Garrus went against his better, more polite instincts, and slipped an arm around her back. They hadn't really talked about them and what they were too each other, but in the absence of words, he only knew of a few other ways to comfort her. Shepard stiffened for a split second, but leaned against his shoulder. Garrus nuzzled against her soft red hair and tucked her a little closer to his body. She exhaled deeply and melted a little farther into his embrace.
The Normandy was never truly silent, not really, but the late-night quiet was close enough to silence to feel peaceful without being as sterile as a total absence of noise. With Shepard in his arms and the steady thrum of the systems running in the background, he felt brave enough to not have the perfect words to alleviate her burden. The galaxy would stay filled with corrupt people that wanted to see others suffer, oblivious people that were apathetic to suffering, and good people that felt helpless against the suffering around them. In that moment, though, a rare thread of optimism could break through Garrus’s cynicism; maybe the galaxy would stay complicated, but he’d stay here, with Shepard, as long as she’d have him.
The ferocity with how much he wanted her threatened to overcome him sometimes. He wanted her happiness and her grief; her triumphs and failures; her rage and her joy. Maybe the galaxy would end. Maybe they would save it, but all he wanted was to see this through with her. He had to tell her, and tell her soon. Now wasn’t the time. Garrus tended to stumble in front of her, but he knew asking her for her commitment right now would only back fire. Soon, though, he’d ask her to be a one-turian woman. It’s all he’d ask. She already had all of him.
Maybe, at the same time, I can give her a chance to breathe. Just for a little while, he thought.