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Prompt: what you don't want to remember; anyone other than Shepard
No one met the turian’s gaze as he walked through the Kima district toward Archangel’s old fortress. He wore a small pack over his shoulders and carried a battle-worn M6 on one hip and a blade on the other. Between the Talons, the mercenaries, and random criminals that came out after nightfall, the only one safe to walk in Kima District at this hour was another killer. No one met the turian’s gaze.
Not that most of them had anything to fear from him. Garrus had protected most of these people for over a year as Archangel.
As he crossed the bridge to the old apartment, he smiled as he walked past the spot where he pinged Shepard in the helmet. He recognized half of the blast holes, burned in when the mercenaries had nearly killed him. Cerberus and the Talons must have caused the rest, collateral damage from when Shepard helped Aria take back Omega.
Just like old times.
Garrus crossed a blasted, burned floor, the rickety remnants of the stairs, and nearly twisted an ankle when the floor gave way as he approached to the balcony where he’d held off the mercenaries.
He unslung his pack. Garrus unzipped it and pulled out a bouquet of white turian roses that he’d brought from the Citadel. You couldn’t get them on Palaven. Too much of the planet was still covered in ashes. He laid them out one at a time on floor.
“Viris.” Their radio man, with bad taste in cigarettes and good taste in music. He still listened to blues today because of Viris.
“Camlin.” Demolitions. Viris’ sister. She never made a boobytrap she didn’t like. Garrus smiled, thinking of a charge she set with a package of fireworks along with it.
“Malia.” Garrus held his breath. He remembered Malia’s body when he found the massacre at their hideout. She died with a pistol in her hands, blocking the back door. Malia was their hacker. She couldn’t shoot like the others, but she always did her part.
Shit. He knew this would tear him up, but he didn’t know how much.
“Tancus.” Sniper—a woman after his own heart. Thinking of the grin under T’s red face paint after a difficult shot helped Garrus feel better. He liked to brag about how well he could shoot, but even he picked up one or two things from Tancus.
“Oroso.” You couldn’t see the tremble in his hand, but you saw it in the tips of the rose as he put it down. He met Oroso in Spectre training, and he was the first to join him when he left. Oroso worked as a bartender at Afterlife for a year. Aria had no idea that he ID’d everyone who came to see her.
Garrus sighed. He felt like he stood in the room in Garen district again. This time it felt less like murder, and more like a funeral.
“Silea.” Medic, and a good chemist, too. She could make medigel and painkillers out of household chemicals, even the crap you found on Omega. She told him it was better he didn’t know where their supplies it came from.
“Rutina.” Assassin. When they realized that Aria had discovered their operation, she had the idea of taking out the highest-ranking members of rival gangs to show her whose side they were on. Aria let them work as they pleased after that, as long as they didn’t get in her way. Rutina was tough to get to know. She liked it that way.
“Veter.” Intelligence. Garrus laughed, and almost started crying. Veter could disguise himself as your shadow, and you would tell your friends no one stood there. At one point, Veter had infiltrated two gangs and the Blue Suns all at the same time. One of the gangs tagged him to kill the “turian badass” in the other gang. He faked his own death, took the money, and moved higher up in the gang.
“Amulin.” Assassin, and a hell of a card player. They’d played cards to wind down after every mission. Garrus could still remember that grin that never meant what you thought it did, behind that hand of cards. Garrus had anonymously sent the money he owed Amulin to his niece on Palaven.
“Canso.” Supply and contraband. She’d moved to Omega after coming out on the bad end of a career of a power struggle in a mercenary unit. Garrus didn’t remember the unit’s name. Canso kept them up to their elbows in food, munitions, you name it, she could get it.
Garrus clenched his fist. Two were left. One had just been a kid, for spirits’ sake.
“Falin.” She knew Omega like the back of her hand. She said she was born there. No one believed her—she seemed far too decent—but at least a dozen times she helped them escape a blown mission through alleys and tunnels that weren’t on any of their maps.
“Sidonis.” Enough said.
He closed his eyes. Like every other time he’d closed his eyes since that night, he saw their bodies where they lay in the shredded hideout. This time, it felt like they stood there with him.
Garrus said, “We said we were going to make a difference. I got all of you killed. I’m sorry.” He touched the petals with his fingertips. “Believe me when I tell you, we did make a difference. Just not in the way we thought.”
Garrus said their names again. He closed his eyes, and held a moment of silence with his ghosts.