Hey look, another kinkmeme fill! This one's a lot darker though.

Trigger warning: There are discussions of rape, but there are no graphic depictions of the act itself.

The prompt:

During one of their missions, Shepard is captured and held for a few days or so while the rest of the crew comes to find her. Once they do, she seems like a shell of her former self-functional, still a good commander, but the light has gone out of her.

After about a month or so, she goes to Garrus and lays out the whole story-she was raped by her captors, multiple times. This is before their relationship is fully established, but Garrus has been carrying a torch for her for a long time, and vice-versa. Shepard knows that turians have a very cavalier attitude about sex, there's no one she trusts more than him, and she asks if he can do her a favor. She needs to be able to trust her own body again (she's having a somewhat difficult time being naked, even by herself), and believes that being with someone she cares about will start the process of getting over what happened to her.

I just want to see a night of comfort sex between them that ends with a confession of their feelings for each other.

Constructive crit is especially welcomed on this fic, please let me know what you think! :)

Anyway, hope it entertains!

If You Let Me

Chapter 1:

The one time, the one fucking time he didn't go, this happens. Garrus sucks in a breath between his teeth as he moves forward down another staircase, the fourth one so far. Miranda and Thane fall into step quietly behind him, just as he glances at the readout on his visor. There's two timers he's been keeping; the bottom one reads four hours, nineteen minutes, but he avoids looking at the other. He wants to preserve whatever shreds of optimism that still linger in his mind.

He pushes open the broken door at the end, using his shoulder for leverage, and purposely ignores the sharp jab of pain that rides up his arm. There's no sign of movement that he can pick up in the brightly-lit, stark white room, and doesn't waste time before he keeps moving. The other two don't choose to comment on his forcefulness and he's grateful for it, because any sound out of their mouths grate on his nerves if he's honest. It's solely their fault that half of Shepard's crew was trawling through these underground bunkers in search of her. Sure, they've run themselves haggard too, but it's too little too late. For two trained killers, one who was an assassin for god's sake, he finds it unbelievable that they'd been knocked out so quickly in the mission and let Shepard be captured, but he's chosen not to comment on it just yet. They've wasted too much time as it is, and there's a life on the line here, one that he can't afford to lose again.

The next door opens automatically, and he's lucky when the first bullet from the one of the mercs barely nicks his shields. Every fight in this place is surreal, with flashes of blue armour occasionally streaking the otherwise simple, white scenery. The place is like a hospital, with fluorescent lights overhead and the walls are painted that ghastly, milk colour that makes everything hard and easy to see at the same time. He remembers a place like this, a derelict ship they'd boarded once; even Shepard had gotten lost in there. He wonders if he's lost, if he's been going in circles despite the fact that he's been descending further into the underground bunker for hours now. Maybe he's more tired than he'll admit to. Still, he doesn't like the place, it feels off, almost alien, for lack of a better term. He finds it hard to believe that all these troops lived in here, because it feels more like an asylum than a command base.

Garrus takes point as the other two flank him, and not for the first time he feels unsettled, uncomfortable. Taking Shepard's position in a firefight leaves a bad taste in his mouth, like he's not supposed to be doing this, that he should be taking her right side and be able to see the stripe of red on her helmet in his peripherals at all times. But all he catches this time are flashes of Thane's green skin, and the awful taste intensifies. His shields nearly fail while his mind is half-occupied on these pointless musings and he ducks behind the nearest storage crate, waiting for them to charge up again. He takes these few seconds to glance at the top timer, and the pit of his stomach sinks horribly to the point that nausea crawls up his throat. He knows how much time it's been after all, seeing as they had wasted four days trying to avoid the damn AA guns while landing the shuttle, but knowing the truth doesn't make it any easier to swallow when it's written plain as day for him to see. They passed the limit where hope was still an option two days ago. Now even his desperation was waning.

He takes two dozen more lives in the next two hours, some even at point blank range, even though he'd always teased Shepard at her up-close-and-personal style of fighting. Unladylike, he'd called it, and it earned him a playful punch. He hoped to whatever deities existed, if there even were any, that he'd be able to do that all over again soon. That she was okay, so that she could visit him in the battery again and he could try to draw out one of her precious grins with his awful jokes. So that he can never let her convince him to stay behind on a mission again, because although she doesn't need protecting he feels the need to do it anyway, especially after this incident. So that he can finally make good on the feelings that have been creeping up on him ever since she found him half-dead on Omega.

When they reach the seventh floor, he knows that they're reaching the end; EDI's schematics hadn't shown anything deeper than this. He clicks his mandibles against his jaw when he pumps another trooper's stomach full of metal, ignoring the blood that had spattered against his armour. For a moment he stops to watch the life disappear from the man's eyes, and it's both a horrifying and fascinating sight. He never stayed to watch these things, they'd worm their way into your brain and eat your sanity from the inside out if you did, but just this one time, he watched. He snaps out of it when he realizes the same could be happening (not happened, not happened) to Shepard, and avoids the eyes of his companions as they no doubt stare at him. He checks the clock again: six hours, forty-two minutes. He picks up his pace.

He's caught off-guard when the pass into the next hallway, which is so dramatically different than the open cargo hold they just left. The first thing he notices are the dim, flickering lights, and then an intense stench that almost made him turn back. He doesn't know how to explain it, it's rotting flesh, the blood of half a dozen species, and fecal matter all at the same time, with hints of acid and hydrogen sulphide. He has to make a conscious effort to stop himself from vomiting on the floor. Miranda and Thane are just as affected, the former hanging on to the door frame to keep herself steady. The genetic enhancements definitely wouldn't be helpful now.

Garrus pulls himself together quickly though, and turns on the flashlight on his assault rifle. The hallway itself is filthy, with streaks of mud and putrid yellow muck lining the walls, along with blood stains that are the colour of a dozen different species. It's almost like a repulsive rainbow. He's able to make out evenly-spaced doors on either wall, stretching on beyond his range of sight, and if C-Sec taught him anything, then this is definitely a prison. There's no doubt in his mind that Shepard's somewhere here.

He taps the inactive hologel on the nearest door and it flashes red; the power's on, but it'll take some hacking.

"Open up each one, search them thoroughly," he orders into his comm, though there's no hostility or real semblance of command in his tone, it's just a badly-worded request.

Miranda, however, turns to look at him, her nose still a little crinkled from the smell. "We shouldn't waste time searching -" she starts, but he spins to face her and fixes her with a neutral look, that betrays neither his anger at being second-guessed or his impatience to keep moving.

"Shepard has to be somewhere here. Just do it."

The woman pauses and stares back at him for a moment, before breathing in sharply and turning on her heel towards the nearest cell. He doesn't know why she doesn't argue further, but he doesn't question it; it's none of his concern.

His omnitool interface illuminates a little more of the area around him as he loads up his hacking software before beginning. They've secured the doors well, which he suspects is to keep those without access, both hostile or friendly, out. He's got better equipment and much more skill on his side though, and it only takes a minute to open up the door. The familiar patterns of keystrokes makes him more aware of the sensory data he's been ignoring for a while, like the chatter of voices in his ear from the other team and the ache in his neck. He continues to ignore the latter and focuses on the former as he types away at the code, the familiar sound of pinging keys on three omnitools echoing in the otherwise-silent hallway. From what he can gather, the other team is on the other side of the bunker but not on the bottom floor, perhaps the fifth or sixth one. The Blue Suns aren't exactly known for their intelligence, but their architect is damn good at their job, seeing as they'd split the whole compound in half with no access to the other side. Reduces security compromises from enemies or employees, though Shepard's team is lucky in that they have numbers and skill on their side this time. His attention focuses back on the door when he hears his omnitool ping, announcing that the door's locks had been hacked through.

It opens with one tap on the circular hologel interface, and the first thing he notices is the darkness. He hears another door open behind him as he clicks on his flashlight again. The room's nearly empty, except for ragged sheets laid out on the floor in one corner; no doubt it had served as blankets for some poor soul once. He catches a glimpse of a pail in the corner too, and he doesn't need to think hard to imagine what it had been used for once. There's bones shoved into the left corner closest to him that are too big to be from animals, but they're broken, shattered, and picked clean. By what, he doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to step in any further either but he does, searching every inch of the room for clues as to what had happened here. There's dried blood on the floor beneath his feet, though it's so old and faded that he has trouble identifying whether it's of asari or turian origin. He sucks in a breath and turns away, trying to ignore the stinging the air leaves in his throat. He doesn't need to see any more.

He can barely hear Thane murmuring prayers for the lost unconsciously, and for the first time Garrus wishes he has his own to say for the victims of these atrocities. To think that Shepard may have been subjected to the same thing... he can't dwell on it right now. He needs to keep his head clear. All three of them are methodical and disconnected in their search as they hack and examine dozens of rooms, but Garrus knows this is the stuff of nightmares that will haunt him for days afterward. He doesn't know if this is worse than the horrors he'd seen on the Collector ship, because at least the Collectors were under Reaper control. This was the deed of fellow turians and humans acting out of their own free will. He glances at his visor readout every so often to keep track of time; the seven hour mark passes, and then the seven-thirty mark. He gets a little more careless with his searches in his rush.

It's right after the seven-forty-five mark passes that they finally find her. Miranda's voice actually stutters when she calls out for them, and Garrus has never moved so fast in his life. There's fresh blood on the floor of this room, still sticky and warm, and his mind shorts for a split second when he sees that it's red. Miranda's kneeling on the ground, her suit's going to be filthy but Garrus doesn't notice that as much as the limp body lying across her lap. There's dirt caked on Shepard's face and her undersuit is ripped in places, but there's no mistaking her red hair. She's nearly unrecognizable otherwise, from the bruises and cuts that cover her face and exposed skin. It physically hurts to see her like this.

For a moment he panics because her body seems unnaturally still, but when he drops to one knee beside Miranda he's able to focus on the readout on his visor, and a sense of relief washes over him when he sees that she's still breathing. Her ECG graph plugs away steadily as he watches the jagged lines of her heartbeat pan out on the screen for a good fifteen seconds; it's faint, but it's there, and suddenly all the exhaustion, anger, and fear he's been feeling for nearly five days now seeps out of him. She's alive, he repeats in his head, she's actually alive.

Thankfully Thane still has his senses about him and acts immediately while Garrus is caught in his brief paralysis. "Is she still bleeding?" comes his raspy voice, and Garrus snaps out of it and jerks his head towards the other two. Urgency sets in within a split second as he realizes that they're not safe, they need to get out of here.

"No, but it's a shoddy job," Miranda says, her voice steadier now. "I've applied medigel but she needs medical care, now. Page the other team."

Thane, Spirits bless him, doesn't hesitate before turning away and doing just that. Miranda focuses on him now. "Pick her up, be careful, she's injured badly."

Garrus grunts in reply and bends to pick up Shepard's limp form, and he's just able to hear the creak of aching joints rubbing against one another in her body; he grits his teeth together until they make a similar sound. She's unnaturally light for someone whose body is filled with cybernetics, and it worries him, incredibly so. He holds on to her body tighter than he should, then meets Miranda's eyes again.

There's no questioning what she's silently saying. They need to go.

The moment Thane's done speaking, Garrus stops thinking. He just runs.

Note: Credit is due where it's due, the last line in particular was heavily inspired by a chapter in Life Signs by Tarysande. If you haven't read it I highly recommend it, it's amazing :)