Author's Note: This story is my entry for Lady Krios' October Contest over at Aria's Afterlife. Go check the place out if you haven't already. This story has four chapters in total, and will be updated daily until it's complete. It will not be replacing the bi-weekly updates of my other stories; service as normal for my regular readers. Hope you enjoy...


Fear Itself

1. Second Chance

A beam of harsh white light shines into my left eye, and I fight the instinct to turn my head. I can feel my pupils contract to protect my vision; a reflex I cannot stop even though I know the light can't harm me. The soft floral scent of Dr. Chakwas' perfume tickles my nose, and I hold my breath, trying not to sneeze. The Doc's face is mere inches from mine, and I doubt she'd appreciate being sneezed on by a turian.

"Well?" I ask, making sure none of my impatience is conveyed in my voice. Dr. Chakwas does not take kindly to impatient patients. Heh, impatient patients. I'll have to try and work that into a joke.

"As far as I can tell, you're a perfectly healthy individual," she replies. She switches off the medical flashlight, and I give her my blankest stare. She quickly amends her statement. "Other than the fact that you recently tried to take down a gunship with your face. But I'm confident the scarring will fade, with time."

"There has to be something else," I say. I feel my mandibles flare in frustration, but I can't help it. It's been over a month since I 'tried to take down a gunship with my face,' and though the wounds still hurt a bit, they're not my main problem.

"It would help if you told me what I'm supposed to be looking for. If you told me what symptoms you're suffering, Garrus—"

I shake my head as she speaks. I don't want to talk about this. Not with her, not with Shepard, not with anyone. It's stupid. Embarrassing. I feel like a child just for being here. But I can't tell her what's wrong. Shepard needs me to be strong, now more than ever. I'm the only one she has left. The only one on this Cerberus-built ship that she trusts.

Well, apart from Joker and Chakwas. But they don't count.

"There must be some sort of erroneous neural activity. Some damage to my brain or something."

Chakwas has the patience of a saint, or so I've heard Shepard say. The Doc takes out her medical scanner and runs it over my head once more. Third time she's done that today. I know she's not just humouring me; she takes her time over the scan, scrutinises the results, and finally switches off her omni-tool.

"I'm sorry, Garrus," she sighs. "But without more to go on…"

She trails off, leaving an opening I'm meant to fill. But I don't fill it. I push myself off the edge of the sterile bed.

"You won't tell Shepard about this, will you?" I ask.

Chakwas' eyes meet mine. "It is my duty to report all medical conditions to the Captain of the ship, at least when there's a chance it may affect your duties. But for now, I can find no additional medical condition. So until I know more… no. I won't mention this to Shepard."

"That goes for you too, AI," I growl to the holo-terminal where EDI is watching with what I suppose is synthetic interest.

"I am not programmed to relay medical reports," the AI purrs to me. I don't like 'her' tone. I think she's mocking me. Joker says she mocks him all the time.

"Good." I nod to Chakwas. "Thanks, Doc."

She mutters something about 'damn stubborn turians' that I'm not supposed to hear, but the door closes behind me before I can respond. Out in the mess, I glance around, checking who's off-duty. Three of the Cerberus crewmembers are sitting at one table, their food trays full of what I can only describe as 'gloop.' Honestly, if Shepard doesn't find a better supplier soon, the humans are going to be thinner than me.

The only other person in the mess is Thane. He's sitting alone at a table, half-empty tray of gloop in front of him. I decide to avoid him for the moment. Not that I don't like the guy, but what do you say to someone who's dying? Someone who's dying, and not even pissed about it. He's just so… calm. Serene. It's a bit creepy. I don't think I could ever be like Thane. I don't think I could ever stop fighting.

I return to the main battery. It's late, but I need to be there. I'm doing a complete retrofit of the Normandy's main weapon. It gives me something to do. Keeps me busy. Helps stop my mind from dwelling on my… issues. Besides, in the battery, I'm useful. I'm contributing. Proving my worth to the Cerberus crew. To the Illusive Man. I'm doing my bit for humanity. For the galaxy. For Shepard.


My breath sounds loud and pained inside the confines of my helmet. My visor fogs briefly with each heavy exhale, but the anti-fog coating kicks in and removes it, leaving me with clear vision. I wish it didn't do that. I wish I could see through a grey mist. I wish I didn't have to look at the expression of open-mouthed horror frozen on Pressly's face. His eyes have rolled back into his head and there's a gash down one cheek, but that's not what killed him. Almost a dozen human bodies are floating around the CIC. A large hole has been torn in the hull, the breach sucking all the air from the room, exposing the men and women who'd been caught unaware to the vacuum of space.

Pressly's lucky, in a way. It looks like he died from exposure to vacuum. If it happens to humans like it does to turians, he would have quickly passed out as his heart rate plummeted. It would have been mostly painless. Some of the others in the CIC are… messier. Explosive decompression is what happens when a person exposed to a vacuum tries to hold their breath. The lungs rupture and blood vessels tear. I can tell by the amount of blood floating in the CIC that most of the crew died this way.

The ship shakes again, twisted metal structures screaming in agony as the force of some weapons blow I cannot see tries to tear it apart. It's a sickening sound, the death throes of an injured vessel lost before its time, but it tears my attention away from the blood and the bodies, and reminds me of what I'm doing here.

Looking ahead, I see Shepard in the cockpit. I can't hear her words but I can tell she's arguing with Joker. A thought crosses my mind. I'm not too late! I can still save her!

Movement from the corner of my eye catches my attention. Through the gaping hole in the hull, I see a behemoth of a ship turning, a bright light forming as its main gun prepares to open fire on us again. My eyes return to the cockpit; Shepard pushes Joker into an escape pod. The enemy ship opens fire. I launch myself forward, floating through the zero-g of the CIC. Blood suspended within the vacuum splatters against my armour, but I ignore it. I scream inside my head, willing myself to float faster, to reach the shielded cockpit before the gunfire can destroy it.

I land as Shepard ejects the pod, and roll inelegantly across the floor before hitting the pilot's chair and coming to a stop.

"Garrus!" Shepard gasps, and that's all I need to hear. That one word from her lips makes it all worth it.

At that moment, a beam of light tears through what's left of the Normandy's carcass. The ship gives one final agonised scream, and then tears itself in two. I make a grab for Shepard as the force of the blow sends us spilling out into space. I catch her hand and pull myself towards her. She's not going to die. Not this time. I'm going to save her.

"Garrus…" she gasps.

I cut her off. "It's okay, Shepard," I say, wishing we weren't separated by these bulky suits, wishing I could hold her in my arms, feel the warmth of her body against mine, feel her breath against my skin and her arms around my neck. I should have told her how I felt weeks ago, but I was a coward. "I'm here, Shepard," I say. "We're going to be fine. We just need to keep still. That ship will think we're just two more bodies floating in space."

"Garrus… I can't breath," she manages to say.

Terror thrusts its fingers into my heart and tries to pluck it from my chest. I look around to Shepard's air tank and see a piece of shrapnel lodged there. No! It isn't supposed to end like this! I already lost her once. I left the ship thinking that the woman I loved was right behind me. I left her to die. I couldn't watch her die again. Not after coming so close to saving her.

"Shepard, take very slow, deep breaths," I tell her, even though I know it's futile. I can feel tears stinging my eyes. They roll down my cheeks as I watch Shepard slowly slip away. Her eyes close, and inside my suit I rage against the unfairness of it all. "Shepard?" The fingers of terror in my heart start to twist. I put my hands on her shoulders, shaking her desperately. "Shepard! Shepard! Talk to me! Shepard! Please don't leave me!"

o-o-o-o-o

I sit up gasping for air, as if I'm the one who ran out of oxygen in the cold depths of space.

"Lights," I croak, as I wipe the tears from the hardened skin of my cheeks. The computer complies, providing subtle illumination, and I realise I'm in one of the Normandy's bunk rooms. I hear snoring from the bunk below me, and briefly lean down over the side of the bed. Jacob doesn't seem to have been disturbed by my fitful sleep, or by my call for the lights. I leave him to his rest.

It's like this every time I sleep, which is why I try not to sleep anymore. I don't even remember coming to the bunk room. When I was six years old, I used to have bad dreams, nightmares of the krogans rebelling once more, taking Palaven as their own, killing my parents, forcing me and my sister, Solana, to work as their slaves. I blame too many war vids and an overly graphic history teacher for that one, but something my father told me back then has stuck with me.

"A real man confronts his fears and overcomes them. He doesn't hide from them. He doesn't let them control him."

I'm still a coward. I've been on this ship for over a month, and I still haven't had the guts to tell Shepard how I feel about her. I'm terrified that I'll lose her again. So afraid that my affections will only push her away. The nightmares started only a few days after I came aboard the Normandy. In the first one, I had to watch Shepard impaled on one of those damned dragons-teeth, turned into a lifeless husk. That had been hard. Then, the second one was just after Horizon. I watched Shepard welcome Kaidan back to the Normandy. Saw them kissing in the mess when they thought no-one else was around. That had been harder. After that, the nightmares started to blur into one another.

I know what needs to be done. I need to come clean to Shepard. Even if she rejects me, at least it'll get the 'what-if' varren off my back. And I have to do it now, whilst I have the memory of her death to spur me on. Because if I leave it another day, I know that I'll lose my impetus, that my courage will fail me, and I'll go back to watching her from a distance, like some half-crazed stalker.

As quietly as possibly I slip down from the bed and leave the room, turning off the lights again as I go. It must be late, because the ship's running in low-power mode, the lights dimmed, and the offices and medbay dark. I encounter no-one as I make my way towards the elevator, and not even EDI questions my movements as I hit the button for the top deck. As the elevator slowly ascends, I tap one of my claws against the wall, focusing on the noise. I don't think about what I'm going to say. I suck at speeches. I'll only sabotage my own words by thinking about them.

The lift stops. I step out. The door to Shepard's quarters looms. I press the call button. I wait.

When the door eventually slides open, it's a very groggy-looking Shepard who greets me. She's dressed in a pair of shorts and a sleeveless shirt; human bed-wear, I assume, since I've never seen her wearing it around the ship. Her flame-red shoulder length hair is messy and tangled, and she looks blearily out at me as I stand in her doorway.

"Garrus," she said. "Is something wrong?" She immediately becomes more alert, her posture stiffening, eyes becoming clearer. I can't blame her; I've never shown up here unannounced before. It's only natural she jump to the worst conclusion, that some tragedy has befallen the ship.

"No. I just wanted to talk," I say.

She steps aside, inviting me in, and I feel my pulse begin to race.

"Sure. I always have time for you," she replies. "But if you don't mind me asking, where are your clothes?"

I stop and look down. I've been so distracted by my nightmare that I failed to notice I'm wearing nothing but my flesh-tight underpants. I shake my head. What. An. Idiot. But in for a penny, in for a pound, right? At least, I think that's the saying I'd heard Captain Anderson use once.

"Long story," I tell her, as the door to her quarters slides shut. She gestures to the sofa, but I decline, preferring to stand and pace as I talk.

"What's on your mind?"

"Funny you should ask," I say, as she takes a seat in one of the armchairs. She tucks a lock of hair behind one ear, and I try not to think about running my hands through that river of dark red softness. Spirits, I've wanted to touch her hair ever since I first saw her! "There's actually something I wanted to get off my mind. Or off my chest. Whatever the stupid human phrase is."

A smile tugs at the corners of her lips. She knows how hard I try to fit in with the humans on the ship by using their silly expressions. But she's never made me feel pressured into doing it around her. I think she likes it when I don't try so hard to be like one of them; something that works in my favour… I hope.

"It's about you," I say. "And me."

"Ahh. The galaxy's finest crime-fighting duo," she quips. Her joke helps, makes me feel a little more at ease. Doesn't stop my pulse from racing, but that's just the effect she has on me. "What about us?"

"Well…" I'm lost, but determined to proceed despite the fact that I don't have a map. I don't think a map exists for this sort of situation. "I just wanted to tell you how much I respect and admire you. You're pretty much the only friend I have left, and you're very important to me."

She smiles. "You're important to me too, Garrus. I'm so glad I found you again."

I feel my heart start to fall inside my chest. I don't think she understands what I'm trying to say. I wish I'd paid more attentions to those vids I watched with Joker last week. I feel like I'm missing important information regarding human customs. I realise I'm going to have to be blunt. Krogan-blunt. And you don't get much blunter than a krogan.

"The thing is," I elaborate, trying not to let my mandibles flare in discomfort as I continue to make a fool of myself, "when you were… gone… I started to realise just how much you mean to me. And when I saw you standing on Omega, it was the happiest moment of my life. Happier than being put forward as a SPECTRE candidate. Happier than getting into C-Sec. Happier than kicking Saren's ass. I don't know exactly when it happened—" That's a lie. I can remember the very moment it happened. Saleon's ship. I'd been about to empty a round of bullets into the salarian's head, when she'd stepped in front of my gun, anger flashing in those beautiful green eyes, and told me if I didn't stand down she'd kick my ass all the way back to the Citadel and leave me in a C-Sec cell. But that's not important right now. "—but recently I've started to think of you as more than a friend. More than a commanding officer. I can understand if my feelings are entirely unrequited. After all, you're a human, I'm a turian. Our species hardly have the best of relationships. We can't even eat the same food. Plus, you know, I don't have the right number of fingers. But I wanted to tell you about this… about my feelings for you… because keeping it to myself is driving me nuts. And I think you deserve to know the truth. And, maybe, one day, you might—"

She leaves the chair and glides towards me, silencing me by placing a finger across my lips.

"I've known how you feel about me since I saw you on Omega," she tells me.

I frown. "How?"

"The look in your eyes when they met mine. The relief on your face. The tenderness in your voice. Plus… you know… I'm a SPECTRE. We tend to be good at noticing things."

"Then why didn't you say something?" I ask, feeling like the galaxy's biggest idiot. And coming from a guy making a fool of himself via krogan-bluntness in front of the woman he loves, whilst dressed only in his underpants, that's saying a lot.

She shrugs. "I was afraid of losing your friendship. Of pushing matters before you were ready to address them yourself."

"Huh." Guess humans and turians aren't all that different after all. I look down at her, trying to keep the hope from my eyes and my voice. "So… how do you feel about what I told you?" My heart hammers in my chest. I've dreamt of this moment—minus the underpants and the idiocy—for almost three years.

"You mean, how do I feel about you?" she asks. I nod. "Well, I already told Joker he can be my BFF. He felt so guilty about my death. Blamed himself for it, y'know?" I nod again. I don't know what a BFF is, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve intimacy. Otherwise I might have to flush our pilot out an airlock. Shepard sighs, looking up at me through her long dark lashes. Maybe I should tell her how beautiful her eyes are. Damn, I probably should have done that earlier. Stupid brain.

"I meant what I said, Garrus," she continues. "I don't want to lose your friendship. And the differences between us… not just culturally, but physically… are pretty huge."

I nod and feel my heart descend once more, but before I can launch into the 'let's just be friends' speech, she reaches up and runs the back of her fingers across my cheek, the one not scarred by my brush with a Blue Suns gunship. I close my eyes, relishing the feeling of her warm hand, the slightly perfumed soapy scent of her skin. Her touch is gentle, almost ticklish, like a butterfly landing on my skin.

"So maybe we should just take things slow," she says. "One step at a time."

I open my eyes, see a hopeful smile on her face, and I feel both elated and relaxed at the same time.

"One step at a time," I agree.

She stands on her tiptoes, resting her forehead against mine. Clearly she's done her homework; not many non-turians know this is our equivalent of a kiss. I take a deep breath, inhaling her scent, and sigh contentedly. I don't mind taking things slow. Now that she knows, we have all the time in the world.