It was Liara that told him, in the end.
He'd heard the rumours, of course, flying around, that the Normandy was downed, that not everyone had made it out of there.
The rumours regarding exactly who had died.
He'd tried seek confirmation, to learn what had happened and had dialled up every number possible to learn the fates of who had been on the ship.
He would not accept this, could not accept this, until he had absolute proof.
But no-one was answering, contacting him, talking to him or anything!
No-one, not even Shepard.
No-one...until Liara did.
Sent him a file, Shepard's last few moments all recorded on comm, saying how he of all people had a right to know, a right to get to hear it.
He wished with almost every fibre of his being that he hadn't opened that file, hand had to listen to the Commander's last frantic breathes and...then nothing. Nothing at all.
...He hadn't mourned by that point. He'd refused to allow himself too, clinging onto hope.
But then suddenly that wasn't possible anymore, and it all hit him at once.
Shepard hadn't contacted him because they were dead.
They would never contact him, or anyone, again.
And there wasn't even a body here to bury, or burn, or whatever it was that humans did with their dead.
Shepard, the brave commander that he'd respected more than anything else...his...his friend, who had stood by him and inspired him to go back to C-Sec, to even reapply for Spectre status himself...was now gone.
And it hurt, it hurt and it gnawed and it carved away at him along with the knowledge that he hadn't been there. He'd abandoned them, left them all behind! What if he hadn't? What if he'd stayed on like he should have? Perhaps that's all it would have taken for Shepard, just him being there for his ally, his commander, his friend to still be alive.
They were supposed to meet up again some point at the Citadel, catch up on what they'd missed, get to know each other just that bit better, which time had before not allowed.
If they'd just had more time...if he'd just stayed on the ship...if...
So many what ifs and maybe's were buzzing around in his mind, of how things could have been, what he should have done, scenarios that only increased and increased in frequency.
But he couldn't know the answers to any of them.
All he knew was one thing.
He'd failed them. He'd failed Commander Shepard.
Well, that and one other thing: he couldn't stay at the Citadel.
The once already aggravating denial of the Citadel that the threat had not now ended along with their refusal to listen to Shepard on the matter had now become unbearable.
He knew he wouldn't make any difference here. Not one of note. Not with all the official cover up stories and red-tape still ever strangling C-Sec and preventing them from getting much good done.
And so, he quit, and when one thing lead to another wound up on Omega, where he could make that difference, where he could do good.
He couldn't save Shepard. He wasn't there when he'd needed them most, but he would honour them, their memory and what they stood for in the only ways he could: fighting injustice, with his own assembled team, making the place safer one mission at a time.
He couldn't ever ask them, but he thinks that they'd approve of this, him and his team protecting innocents however they could, even if they might not have liked all of his precise methods of choice. He could almost see them smiling out of the corner of his mind's eye.
He also saw something else, out of the corner of his actual eye, carved onto his visor.
JS
He'd once been asked by one of his men, Erash, what it stood for. The visor having been knocked off his face during the fight, and Erash having noticed when they fetched it for him.
They're the initials of the bravest person I ever knew.
Glaring white initials, a reminder of a person that he'd crucially failed, that he saw every time he looked down at his scope at one of the scum mercenaries that crawled around Omega.
That he saw, as he swore to never fail anyone like he did JS ever again, how those initials would be the last that he'd have to carve on his visor.
That he saw, as he made a silent oath to spend every waking moment fighting for those who couldn't and...and to prove it.
He would prove that he could be a hero, that Shepard was not wrong in having faith in him.
For he, Garrus Vakarian, would see their legacy through, even as those on the Citadel did their best to drown it.