And now that I'm stronger I've figured out
How this world turns cold and breaks through my soul
And I know, I'll find deep inside me I can be the one
I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever
I'll be there for you through it all
Even if saving you sends me to Heaven…
- "Your Guardian Angel", Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
###
Shepard, you cannot stop us.
She woke with a silent start, hands clutching convulsively at the blankets. For a moment she could swear that she was back at the Cerberus base, her nose filled with the stench of antiseptic and her own raw exposed meat, chained by IVs, with Miranda and Wilson's panicked voices in her ears. I was dead, she thought, suddenly chilled to her core. I was at peace. But they brought me back. They couldn't just let me sleep. That made her remember floating in space with the burning ruins of the Normandy reflected in her visor, her last conscious memory of the saliva on her tongue beginning to boil before she passed out in the frigid black, the hissing of her ruined airline in her ears. She turned to the left, reaching out in a darkness broken only by the glittering, indifferent galaxy overhead, but the other half of the bed was empty, the covers thrown back. She was alone.
There was a rustle of movement from the corner of the room, and that's when she saw him. The boy.
He didn't look like he had in her dream in the burning woods, his skin peeling back in strips of greasy ash, his pale eyes reflecting fire. He was crouched in the shadows with his arms around his knees, swallowed up by the gray hoodie he was wearing the day he died, staring up at her from beneath the dark fringe of his bangs. His gaze was as ancient as the space between stars. Shepard wondered whether that was the look you got from witnessing your own death, and whether her own eyes reflected that same terrible knowing.
She felt the urge to scream for Garrus and bring him running, or cover up her head with the blanket like she did when she was a spooked kid, frightened by shadows and cracked closet doors that swung open of their own accord in the dead of night. Maybe if she hid her face and closed her eyes, counted to ten slowly, she would look again and the boy would be gone. But she was more afraid that if she did and opened her eyes, he wouldn't be in the corner anymore, but at the foot of the bed. Or right beside her, his cold fingers reaching out to touch her face. She would scream then, would not be able to help herself, and once she started screaming she didn't think she would be able to stop. Then they would all know what she had already known for weeks.
Instead of screaming, she spoke, her voice flat and harsh with fear in her own ears. "Go the hell away."
The boy didn't look frightened, not like he had when he was hiding in the ventilation shaft. He smiled at her knowingly, as if the two of them shared a secret.
Shepard grabbed her Carnifex from the nightstand, flicking the safety off as she pointed it at him. Normally the safety wouldn't have even been activated in the first place, but when he slept in the bed with her, Garrus insisted. Wouldn't want you accidentally setting it off in the heat of the moment. When it comes to holes in my face, I don't need a matching set.
The boy laughed at her silently, the expression exaggerated and gruesome, revealing pearly white baby teeth in a savage grin. He didn't speak, but his eyes danced with malicious amusement, and it seemed like she could hear his thoughts. Go ahead, Commander. They won't think you're insane at all if you start shooting at random shadows.
"What do you want? What do you want from me?" Shepard could hear her voice rising, but she didn't care.
The door to her quarters slid open, and on instinct Shepard swung the barrel of the pistol in its direction, her eyes wild. Garrus walked in without turning the lights on. Her sight had adjusted to the darkness, and she could see the small movement of his mandibles flare in surprise as he froze in the doorway.
"Who are you talking to?" he asked, his voice a quiet rumble. Shepard could hear the careful concern in it and lowered her weapon, forcing her arm to come down, the sinews in it trembling. She glanced over in the corner again, but if the boy had ever been there, he was gone now. She brought her free hand across her face and closed her eyes as she heard Garrus move forward again in a whisper of rustled cloth and clicking talons to set the carafe he was carrying on the opposite nightstand. She didn't open her eyes again until she felt him pull the gun gently from her shaking, white-knuckled hand.
"See why we leave the safety on?" he said, trying to make a joke out of the situation as he replaced the safety and reached over her to put the heavy pistol back in its customary place. When she didn't laugh or make a smartass remark in response, he moved closer to her in the dark, sliding under the covers and reaching over to take the hand which had been holding the gun in his. They stayed that way for a few moments.
"Where did you go?" Shepard asked finally, pulling her hand down from her face and looking over at him. The expression on her face was haunted.
"To get some iced water from the galley and bring it back up here. I was thirsty. Got stopped by Vega on the way and had a quick drink with him. He insisted. Looks like a lot of the crew are taking their chance for a last hurrah." His easy voice, trying so hard to be nonchalant, rushed over the silence in a ramble, trying to fill it. He put his free arm around her naked shoulders and Shepard turned to him, wrapping her arms around his chest and burying her face against his neck, stopping his words. He held her and felt her warm tears wet his skin with mounting dread. Shepard never cried. So Garrus shut up for a minute and let her.
After her body relaxed against him and the tension went out of her in a watery exhalation, Garrus repeated his question. "Who were you talking to?"
"You know that boy I told you about, in Vancouver."
"The one at the embassy. I remember."
Shepard leaned back, wiping the tears from her face fiercely, as if punishing herself for shedding them. "I wanted to save him so bad, Garrus. I thought, 'If I can just get this one out, maybe it'll mean something. Maybe it'll make up for a small part of everything else.' But when I spoke to him, Anderson…didn't say anything. He was right there in the room with me and it's like he didn't even notice. I didn't think much of it at the time, everything was chaos, the place was falling down around our fucking heads…but then the soldiers on the transport did the same thing. They looked straight through him. Like he wasn't even there."
Garrus settled back against the headboard, propped up by pillows. "What are you saying?"
Her voice was barely a whisper in the dark when she answered. "I don't think he was real. But I still dream about him. And now, I see him when I'm awake, too. All the time."
Garrus was silent. Shepard let the quiet spin out for a few moments before she elbowed him gently. When she spoke her voice was not quite steady, and her breath hitched. "Say something, jackass. I think I'm going crazy and the awkward silence is not helping."
"Hmm. You were always crazy, Shepard."
"If you're trying to be comforting, you're doing a bang-up job."
He sighed, taking her hand in his and squeezing it. "Look, I'm not going to say hearing you say that doesn't worry me. It does. But you've been through a lot. People deal with grief in different ways. You know, I wouldn't trust you if you weren't bolted a little loose at this point in the game. The fact that you're questioning yourself at all is the strongest evidence for your sanity I've seen yet. I know you think you're a superhero, and it doesn't help that people go around treating you that way, but you're not. You're a mere mortal like the rest of us."
Shepard shook her head. "No, there's more to it than that. It's like…when you see something out of the corner of your eye, and you turn to look, but it's already gone. It's like the cipher on Eden Prime. A warning, but nothing I can understand."
"Have you mentioned this to Liara? Or Chakwas?" he suggested, his tone strangely delicate.
She let out a bitter laugh that sounded like it wanted to be a sob. "No, and don't you dare breathe a word about it, either. The last thing I need before this shit goes down is the rumor going around that I'm a beer short of a six-pack."
Garrus scowled slightly, then gave her a rough side-hug. "You know they wouldn't tell anyone. Give us all a little credit, Shepard. We've been with you from the beginning, and after everything that's happened, we're still here."
"I know. Still, I don't want them to know. I didn't want you to know either. But it's getting worse. I had to tell someone, in case-"
Garrus turned and took Shepard's face in his hands, bringing his own closer, his blue eyes boring into hers with somber ferocity. "Listen to me very carefully, because I hate to repeat myself. There is nothing you can't tell me. Do you get that? Spirits, Shepard, you've seen me naked and with half of my face blown off. I don't think there are many barriers left in our relationship at this point."
Shepard reached up and put her hand over one of his. "Still doesn't mean I want you to see me shaking apart. So many people depend on us."
"Even more of a reason why you need someone to confide in. No one said you had to be invincible."
She drew back and crossed her arms over her bare chest, leaning back. "Yeah, well, it's implied. If we come so far, only to fail now…right at the end…none of our sacrifices will have mattered."
"Sometimes it's not about the destination, it's about the journey you took to get there." He leaned forward, the flanging tones of his voice soft in the shell of her ear. "For what it's worth, if this was always going to be a one-way trip, there's no one I'd rather take it with than you. And we put up one hell of a fight."
"If we get down there and something happens-"
Garrus put one finger gently to Shepard's lips. "Don't finish that thought. Turians consider these kinds of conversations before battle to be the worst kind of luck. Don't let the hardass exteriors fool you, we're sort of a superstitious lot."
She took his hand from her face and held it. "Let me finish. If we get down there and I start acting…strange…not myself…I expect you to do what needs to be done. If you have to put me down to protect this mission, I want your word – your solemn oath – that you won't hesitate. That you'll see it done."
Garrus lowered his head, his eyes looking away from hers. "I…That's asking a lot."
She squeezed his hand and put her other to his cheek, turning his face to meet her gaze. Her eyes, still bright with tears, were resolute. "That's why I'm asking you, and not someone else."
"Well if you start talking about how you think we can control the Reapers or how we'd all be a lot better off calculating pi for the Overlord, I'll be sure to give your ass a swift kick back to reality. But if you're asking me to kill you, Shepard, I'm not sure that's a promise I can keep."
Shepard gave a wan, crooked grin, the one that made Garrus weak in the knees the first time she had – in typical no-nonsense fashion – revealed her attraction to him. "Because you love me too much?"
"Well that, and on a more practical point, well…let's just say that if you and I were to ever go toe-to-toe, I don't hold many illusions about who would come out on top."
Her smile widened. "I don't know about that. You are the best shot on the Citadel."
Playfully, he pushed her down and leaned over her. "Shepard, there is no wind on the Citadel. I'd never beat you in anything but a danceoff."
"Ouch, that's a low blow."
He leaned closer, his voice a teasing growl. "What can I say? We turians have natural rhythm."
"You can say that again."
He rolled to the side and curled up beside her, embracing her in the strong band of his arms, and she leaned into him with palpable gratitude, her cheek against the plates of his chest . They looked up, watching the vast expanse of wheeling stars.
After a few moments of silence which were not awkward at all, Garrus spoke again, his voice a low rumble. "Are you going to be okay?"
"I hope so. Hope is all we have left. That and a huge superweapon that no one understands how to use. But I'm tired, Garrus. This has to end…one way or the other. We can't fight forever."
"We won't have to," he answered, all warm confidence. "We are going to go down there and do what we do best, and when it's all over we'll sit on our laurels and be damned entitled to it."
"I want to believe you. So much."
He hugged her, pressing his forehead to hers. "Don't want it, just do it. Now that we have that settled, close your eyes. Going to be hard to shoot reapers when you're out on your feet. And no more bad dreams. I'll watch over you until you're asleep. I'm not going anywhere. I promise. If I see any little ghost boys, I will shoot them in the face on your behalf."
She kissed the scarred side of his face, her lips warm against his skin, and then did as he asked, closing her eyes and laying her cheek against his neck, her arms around his chest.
Even after her breathing smoothed into a steady, deep rhythm, her body molded against his like it was made to fit there, Garrus did not sleep. He stared into the shadows for a long time, his gaze troubled in the starlight.