"I'm the only thing standing between you and a hole in the head."
Garrus Vakarian could scarcely believe his ears.
After all the trouble he had gone through to find Sidonis, all the sleepless nights he had spent reliving the deaths of his teammates, he was being prevented from taking his shot by his best friend of all people.
His best friend. His superior. Commander Shepard, Savior of the Citadel, Butcher of Torfan, and the one person who he had hoped would understand his desire to avenge his fallen comrades.
Instead, she was standing in his sights, shielding the traitor with her own body, forcing him to confess his reasons for their betrayal.
"I'm already a dead man. I can't get more than an hour's sleep. Food has no taste. Some days…I just want it to be over."
Just give me the chance.
"Let it go, Garrus. Listen to him. He's already paying for his crimes."
He hasn't paid enough, he wanted to scream. He still has his life.
Yet, when Shepard stepped aside and Garrus finally had his clear shot, he found that he couldn't quite pull the trigger.
He saw the haunted look in the eyes of the younger turian, the way his weakened body seemed to shudder with horror, as if his very soul were on fire.
Death would be a mercy.
But he couldn't do it. His men... they deserved better...
"Just...go," Garrus finally ground out. "Tell him to go."
"He's giving you a second chance, Sidonis. Don't waste it."
"I'll...I'll try, Garrus. By the spirits, I'll make it up to you. I swear."
He watched Sidonis turn around to walk away. As he collapsed his rifle, he dimly noted Shepard calling out to him. He saw the younger turian turn around...
Then he heard the loud report of a hand-cannon going off.
Horrified, Garrus quickly unfolded his rifle and scanned the crowd beneath him. Someone had chosen to fire their weapon just as he looked away. If Shepard was hurt...
What he saw left him completely speechless.
Shepard was standing in the middle of the crowd with her smoking pistol in her hand. At her feet lay the dead body of Sidonis, an expression of surprised horror on what was left of his face.
Two hours.
That's how long it had been since they returned to the Normandy.
Shepard had deflected all his enquiries. Every question he asked her had been met with a terse "Later". Given the fact that they were in a hurry to leave the Citadel since Shepard no longer had her Spectre status to protect her from C-Sec, Garrus had agreed to hold his questions until they reached the Normandy.
Now, as he paced in the main battery, Garrus had to fight the urge to go up to her cabin and tear down the place until she gave him his answers.
Just as he was wondering if he could get away with that kind of insubordination, the doors opened and she walked in.
Garrus fought to maintain his composure as she strode into the battery, dressed in her Cerberus suit and her hair still damp from a shower. She leaned over the railing beside the console and crossed her arms, fixing him with that penetrating look that she often gave her crew.
"I imagine there's quite a lot you want to talk about."
You're damn right there is, he wanted to snarl. Instead he drew a deep breath and met her gaze squarely. "There is."
"Well, here I am," she shrugged nonchalantly. "Spill."
Garrus couldn't help himself. Her casual attitude over the whole situation was so infuriating that he nearly exploded.
"What the hell was that all about Shepard? Why the heck did you go to all that trouble to save Sidonis only to kill him yourself? What was the point of it all?"
Shepard merely arched a single eyebrow. "What makes you think I was trying to save Sidonis?"
Garrus stared at her incredulously. "Then why did you go and stand in front of the bastard when I had him in my sights?"
Shepard shook her head, smiling slightly. "Garrus... I wasn't trying to save Sidonis back there. I was trying to save you."
He took a step back in surprise. "Save me? What are you talking about Shepard?"
She sighed. "I know you better than anyone else out there Garrus. This whole business with Sidonis, it was never about justice or vengeance for your men. This was about you."
She fixed him once more with that penetrating gaze, the one which always made him wonder if she was looking into his very soul.
"You've always blamed yourself for what happened to your team. Not Sidonis, not those mercs, it was always you. In your mind, the deaths of your team were always on your head."
"It's why you tried to make your final stand on Omega. It's why you've been full of so much anger and self-loathing. It's partly why you agreed to join me on a goddamn suicide mission, a one-way trip through the Omega-4 relay."
"You want to die. You want to die fighting, because you can never forgive yourself for being alive when ten good men are dead."
"Even though it was never your fault. Even though their deaths were never on your hands. It's why you're willing to follow me into hell itself... you're counting on not coming back."
She sighed once again, looking tired and weary. "I can't watch you live like this, Garrus. I can't sit back and watch you do this to yourself, turn yourself into someone who's constantly looking for some kind of redemption in death. You're my best friend, heck you're probably the only real friend I've got in the whole galaxy. I..."
Garrus had never felt so many emotions fighting for dominance within him. Anger at himself for burdening Shepard with his problems, shame at having put her on the spot like that, pride that she considered him her best friend, happiness that she was willing to so far for him...something no one had ever done.
But he still had to know. "Why did you kill Sidonis yourself? Why not let me take the shot?"
Shepard smiled at him tiredly. "Sidonis deserved to die for what he did, no question about it. It doesn't matter what his reasons were or what excuses he made."
"But not by your hand, Garrus. I know you. You would have beaten yourself up later about it. Someone like you who's spent his entire life fighting for justice would never forgive himself for gunning down an unarmed man in the middle of the street, no matter what he'd done."
"Sidonis deserved to die. But not at the cost of your soul."
The realization hit him like a punch to the gut. She had saved him again, just as she saved him on Omega, just as she saved him during that incident with Saleon, just as she saved him when she let him join his crew on the Normandy SR1. She had saved him from his worst enemy...himself.
Spirits Shepard…..just how many times are you going to pull my ass out of the fire?
He still had to ask. "But what about your soul, Shepard?"
"What about it?" She grinned at him in a self-deprecating manner. "Butcher of Torfan, remember?"
"Don't say that!" he said. How could she think of herself that way?
But she merely shook her head. "It doesn't matter what the cost is. I won't let you make the same mistakes I did, Garrus."
She placed a hand on his shoulder briefly. "I've always got your back, the same way you've always got mine."
She turned and began to walk away without waiting for him to respond.
"Shepard!" he called out, just as the doors swished open.
For a moment they simply looked at each other. Then he bowed his head, in a gesture of respect.
"Thank you...for everything."