Eve of Battle

Garrus Vakarian found himself restless on the eve of battle. He'd calibrated, and re-calibrated everything that could be calibrated. He'd cleaned his weapons, checked his armor, and had lain on his cot for about an hour, Normandy-time, before giving up and rolling out of bed.

Tomorrow they would be hitting the Illusive Man's base, striking at the very heart of Cerberus. He already knew he would be in the strike team, Shepard had told him as much, though he got the feeling she hadn't decided on the third team-member yet.

Garrus scratched at his mandible in thought. He could spend all night speculating on whom she would choose, but that would be pointless. It was never easy to predict what the Commander would do or say. And this had become more and more pronounced as this war reached its climax. One would almost call her 'erratic', though never to her face.

But she had grown thinner, he could tell. The dark circles under her eyes seemed hollow against the glow of her cybernetic implants. She wasn't sleeping and she, of all people, knew how important sleep was to a soldier. But when he tried to talk to her about it she just shrugged him off with an 'I'm fine'.

But she obviously wasn't fine.

He stood and stretched then pulled his shirt on over his head. Maybe he would see if Tali was still awake. She had become a little different since she'd been made an Admiral, strong, confident, and strangely intriguing. Perhaps she would be up to some company, maybe they could swap some stories. 'Shepard Drives the Mako off a Cliff' tales were always entertaining. Though it sometimes occurred to him how easily she could have killed them all with her game of 'Shepard vs. Mountain'.

Shepard had usually won that one, he thought with a smile as he settled the collar over his cowl.

Garrus ran a hand over his fringe and stepped out of the main battery.

It was late into the sleep cycle and the ship was quiet and dim. He saw sleeping faces in the pods as he passed. Those things made him shudder. There was no way he could fit his frame into one and just looking at them always made him feel a little claustrophobic.

He firmly turned his eyes away and felt his brow plates furrow as he drew closer to the mess.

There was someone sitting at the table, a bottle and a glass was before the figure and as he got closer he saw the full glass become empty. A slender, strong hand reached out and refilled it. A moment later the glass was empty again.

He would have thought that Shepard was going to be mightily angry that a crew-member was getting herself drunk right before a battle, but before that thought crossed his mind he realized that the person at the table was Shepard. No one else had those scars that glowed like fire against her cheeks.

Now this was…rather unexpected.

He stepped closer, his soft casual boots making little noise as he approached. But her head turned regardless. She gave him one short, expressionless look, then turned back to her glass.

"You're up late, Garrus." She said, her voice a little slurred.

"I…could say the same to you, Shepard." He replied cautiously. "We have a lot to do tomorrow."

"I am well aware." She took another drink as he gingerly sat down across from her. Now that he had a different vantage he could see that this was not her first bottle. The Commander may be able to handle liquor like a Krogan, but this was…a lot of liquor. He poked an empty bottle with one long finger and it jingled and fell over, taking its companions with it. Shepard watched with a distant expression as they rattled their way to the floor.

"Sorry." He said.

She just shrugged and took another drink. They sat in silence for a minute, Garrus contemplating whether or not commenting that she may have had enough would have him groaning on the floor with a cracked plate.

She picked up the bottle, not looking at it, not looking at him, not looking at anything at all really. "Almost there, Garrus." She said.

"Almost…"

"Almost to the point where I can forget for a while." She finished. "Forget the war, forget everything." She raised the glass. "To those who should be here." She took a drink. "But aren't." Her voice had become harsh.

"Oh." He glanced at the bottle. He had never had an allergy to levo, but he still didn't think it would be a good idea to join her in her toast.

"Any regrets, Garrus?" She continued without waiting for him to respond. "I have a lot. A lot of regrets, reams and loads and shit."

Garrus was starting to get a little worried. He had never heard the Commander speak like this before. She had always been so take charge, never one to let anyone get in her way. She had been like that since the very beginning.

But…now that he thought about it, there had been some times. Times when she would be kind, and then seem to try and convince herself that it wasn't kindness.

An incident in particular came to mind.

Way back when they had been on the SR-1, and that survivor from Mindoir had somehow made her way to the dock. He remembered standing back, but not so far back that he couldn't hear, and listening to her talk the girl down gently, and then giving her a hug as the meds took effect. But then she had walked back to the soldiers and called it a waste of time.

He still remembered the look on her face when, after she had turned away, the soldier there had told her not to be too hard on the girl, that she had been through a lot. Maybe the fool didn't realize that Shepard had been there, even though that was the reason they had called her in the first place.

She had never been able to accept her own kindness.

More times came to mind, acts of kindness followed by episodes of pure ruthlessness.

She had always been a little unpredictable.

"Like that rachni queen. I still get sick sometimes, remembering that. Or Wrex." Her voice caught a little. "If I'd just, tried a little harder… I just shot him down, like he was scum." She took another drink.

"You had no choice, Shepard."

"Didn't I?" She stared at her empty glass. "So many choices. So many decisions." And she went on, and on. Ticking them off her mental list.

He just stared at her, silent, letting her get the weight of the last few years off her shoulders. "The council. I never wanted that. I never wanted what happened. You believe me, right, Garrus?" She poured another drink and Garrus eyed the bottle that was beginning to look very tempting. "'I hope you know what you're doing, human.' You said. You called me 'human'. That was like a punch to the gut."

"Shepard..."

"And you were right. You're my best friend, you know that, right, Garrus." She reached out and took his hand in hers. "My best friend, but that's another regret. A few regrets really. I wish I hadn't turned you so hard. That I hadn't let my…self-hatred rub off on you."

"That's not what you did, Shepard!" His fingers tightened on hers.

"Yeah, yeah. Because I'm a damned hero."

"What happened to you, Shepard?" He asked, trying desperately to understand. He didn't want to think it, but she sounded like she was teetering on the brink of sanity, right when it was most important that she was balanced.

He'd always been aware that she was a little unstable. There was a human saying he'd heard 'There's a fine line between genius and insanity.' He always thought that saying had described the commander quite well. All the best battlefield commanders were a little crazy.

She laughed, a little desperately, and released his hand to seize her bottle. "I fell in love." She looked down. "I fell in love and now he'd dead." Her voice was low, and for the first time that he could ever recall he heard uncertainty in her voice. "Because I wasn't fast enough, strong enough."

She looked up at Garrus and her eyes were red. "I let him get stabbed and then just left him there lying on the floor, Garrus! On the floor! Because the fucking mission comes first." She looked down again, took another drink. "The mission comes first."

"There was nothing you could have done."

"I never believed in love at first sight, Garrus." She changed direction, leaving Garrus flailing in her wake. "I thought it was a stupid myth. Something people tell each other happened to someone someone knows." Her hand left the bottle and her fingers twined together over her glass.

"But then I saw him, standing there, the sunset to his back. Beautiful. He was…so beautiful."

Garrus remembered. He remembered wondering at the long pause before the Commander had spoken, wondering what the peculiar expression on her face was. Wondering why her tone was so gentle when she finally spoke to the assassin. The look on her face when she heard his voice for the first time.

So that's what it was.

She had become a little…kinder after that. Had finally spoken to Kelly about something other than the crew. The girl had been in raptures.

Maybe she had become gentler because for the first time since he'd known her she'd been happy. Happy in the arms of a dying assassin.

He shook his head in bewilderment.

They really had kept their relationship quiet.

He wondered what she must have felt when she came back on board and all he could talk about was Ashley. That no one even acknowledged Thane's sacrifice, his bravery, his death, other than putting a plaque on the wall with his name on it.

Now that he thought about it she had been spending more time in front of that wall, and once he had seen her standing in front of the door of Life Support with an odd expression on her face. As though she were afraid of an empty room.

But now, he realized, she must have been afraid of that very emptiness.

"I knew I was going to lose him, eventually." She said so softly that he almost didn't hear her. "But I loved him anyway. He made me feel like I could be a better person, you know." Her fingers tentatively touched the glowing scars on her face, and she shifted direction again. "I could've let Chakwas heal these.. But I kept them. A mark of my guilt."

"We all have scars, Shepard." His own hand came up to touch the side of his face.

"Ah, but I could've prevented these. Made them go away." She let her hand drop, and took another drink. "I could have, but I didn't. Your scars…" She reached across the table and trailed her finger on his marred mandible, "Are different."

But she didn't tell him how they were different. Perhaps she assumed he knew.

They were silent for a long minute before she dropped her hand and her head.

"Thane said once or twice that he wanted to leave the world better than he found it. I always thought that was a nice sentiment. I know he made me better. A better person. Even if it doesn't show."

Garrus stared at her. "Shepard." He said gently.

"Yes, Garrus?" She asked, and when her head lifted he could see that she was crying. She was either ignoring, or unaware of the tears that ran down on cheeks, pooling in her scars.

He…didn't know what to say.

"You should…get some sleep."

She stared at him, a long, strange stare. "Yeah, I guess you're right." But she didn't stand.

"Are you going to need help?"

"Help? I'm the great Commander Shepard! I don't need anything." Her mouth was twisted in an odd way as she said it. "The room will stop swaying when I leave the mess." She gestured to her scars. "Courtesy of Cerberus, I guess. You'd better get some rest, too."

He nodded and stood, somewhat reluctantly, "Good night, Shepard." He resolved his need to visit Tali. There was no way he could sleep after this and maybe she could help him make sense of it. The parts he would share, anyway. Other things…he would keep to himself. But as he made to walk past, strong, slender fingers caught his wrist.

He looked down to see Shepard looking up at him with an intense, sober expression. "Garrus, that other regret. Maybe in another time, another place, if I were a better person… I would've deserved… Could have…" She paused, then shook her head. "Promise me something, Garrus?"

"Whatever you ask, Shepard."

"Live." Her fingers tightened. "You need to survive this, Garrus Vakarian. The galaxy will need you when this is over. Someone to keep those idiots in line."

He stared at her. "They won't need me. They'll have you."

"Promise." She shook his arm, hard. "Promise me."

"I," He gulped down a horrible burning sensation in his gut. "I promise."

She looked at him as though gauging his sincerity. "Good." She released his arm. "That's good." She looked back at her glass. "You go on ahead, I'm just going to finish this. No use letting it go to waste."

He wanted to protest, but held back. "Good night, Shepard." He turned and walked around, toward the elevator. But just before he turned the corner he heard her voice again.

"Garrus?"

He stopped. "Yes, Shepard?"

"I love you, you know." She wasn't looking at him, but he could see the tense set of her shoulders.

He hesitated for only an instant. "I love you, too." It took all his will to keep walking, to hit the button on the elevator, to leave her sitting there in the dark with her drink and her memory.

…

Garrus Vakarian stood in front of the memorial wall, a plaque in his hands. Hands that were…changed. But they were still his hands, even if they were shaking a little as they smoothed over the name engraved there.

He stepped forward and put the plaque to the wall, smoothing his hands over it again. The faint lines on his fingers glowed slightly, reminding him of her cybernetics, but gentler. They were somehow…comforting.

And as he stood there, he remembered their conversation in the mess, how she had talked about Thane and his desire to leave the world a better place than he had found it.

Perhaps this had been her way of fulfilling that wish.

He stepped back.

'COMMANDER SHEPARD' It read, stark and plain, nothing like the vibrant woman she was.

"I hope you knew what you were doing…Shepard." He murmured, his voice cracking as EDI stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, her face twisted in grief that an AI would never before have been able to feel.

He covered the metallic hand on his shoulder with one of his own and prayed to the Spirits that wherever she had gone, that she was with Thane. And that she was finally happy, with no strings or shadows, just…happy.

"I love you, too, Shepard." And he turned away.

A/N:

I've been doing my Renegade run through and was trying to find a way to make myself love this Shepard despite all the horrible things she does. This story reflects something of the inner turmoil I've given her to explain (sort of) her actions and motivations to myself. And once I'd started telling myself in my head I wanted to write it down.

The 'deserving' part is because I decided early on that I would not allow this Shepard to romance Garrus, who is by far my favorite romance option, because she didn't 'deserve' him. And the only reason I let her romance Thane was because 'he would make her a better person'. I think a lot about my Shepard's motivations. Perhaps a bit too much.

Much love.