It started when an old photo of Commander Shepard began circulating around the lower decks. Apparently Joker had found it while sifting through ancient military reports out of boredom and stumbled across the reports from Akuze. In the photo, Shepard was young. Nineteen years old tops. She was frail looking as if something inside of her had shattered. Her eyes were dull and her expression vacant. It was as if mentally she was somewhere far away from whoever was taking the picture of her. Her arms were held loosely at her sides in her new shiny red armor. Yellowing scratches marked her left eye which was covered by a milky film that seemed to highlight the blue undertones of her iris and the corner of her lip was quivering with a new scar in the making.
Joker held it out proudly, "Proof that Shepard has always been hot." He declared to the crowd in front of him. It was lunch time and most of the crew had gathered in the kitchen to collect their meal. The unique smell of military grade food wafted around Garrus as he played poker with Kaidan.
"You know, I don't like that picture." Kaidan told Garrus absentmindedly. His voice was low and he tapped his hand of cards against the super alloy table. They had gotten the deck from Shepard herself. They were an old earth relic and they smelled faintly of tobacco and dust. Shepard always carried them with her and most assumed it was because they had some sort of special meaning to her but, she was always willing to lend them out to whoever asked. When she had handed the deck to Kaidan, Garrus saw their hands brush mournfully before Shepard brusquely pulled her hand back. Kaidan's ears turned the color of blood beneath his thick mat of hair. "Just make sure to bring them back." She had told them before returning to her conversation with Pressley.
"I don't like it much either." Garrus admitted to Kaidan. "She seems… off in that picture. Not like Shepard." The picture had firmly planted itself in Garrus' mind and grown roots, crawling around the base of his neck. He couldn't help but sometimes see the broken nineteen year old Shepard surfacing in the current Shepard. She appeared in small actions; In the rare moments when Shepard was caught standing still, in the way her breath would catch when she caught sight of Kaidan and her heart broke a little because they were still fighting and, in the way her voice would go quiet as she talked about Earth.
When Wrex had seen the picture he had simply scoffed and turned away, muttering something under his breath about pyjaks and pilots. Garrus wished he had done the same. Instead he had held the picture gently within his talons and looked at it closely. Her hair hadn't changed at all since then. Truth be told, that night Garrus had downloaded the picture off of the extranet and looked at it quietly in the privacy of his bunk while listening to the odd hum of Turian music. Kaidan had told Joker off for snooping in Alliance files. Garrus looked at his hand of cards and folded. Kaidan slackly collected his forty credits.
Garrus heard the unmistakeable clunk of her boots before he saw her. Some of her hair had fallen into her face and she seemed to be in a hurry. Shepard called out, "Hey, Joker I need you to-" But stopped when she noticed the picture he was holding up. The look on her face was wretched and unbearable; a mixture of pain and embarrassment. Her voice was low but somehow managed to be heard over the congenial chatter that filled the hall, "Where did you get that?" Joker's face flared and he hastily tucked the picture into the front pocket of his cargo pants.
"Nowhere. What did you need?" He got up from where he was sitting at the end of the table and limped over to her posthaste. The room had gone silent and every busy-body on the ship was watching the exchange. Shepard lifted her hand to her face as if to shield herself from the unwelcome looks. She barked a few orders to Joker and watched him leave. Her gaze fell to the ground and she didn't move for a brief period of time. She whirled around with her eyes hardened and level. There was no weakness in her stance as she walked towards the end of the ship as if to examine the pods. The crew lost interest in Shepard and went back to being their usual loudmouth selves.
She knelt next to one of the pods and looked it over closely in the dull orange light. Garrus leaned back, pushing himself away from the table. Her hand clenched and Garrus sensed the tiniest of trembles in her shoulders but she was getting steadier. Kaidan stood up abruptly and walked over to her. Shepard's face lifted at Kaidan's voice and Garrus saw it, he saw Shepard cracking like an eggshell and Kaidan holding her together. Kaidan grabbed her hand and lifted her up. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulled her close against him and, whispered something to her that Garrus was too far away to hear. Shepard stepped away from him and strode towards her cabin. Kaidan didn't follow but, his eyes never left her.
The next day the crew received a briefing on their next Alliance mission from Pressley. Shepard excused herself from the meeting beckoning to Joker. She claimed to have some details that she needed to go over with him in private. Everyone knew the real reason she had called to him. Gossip spread like wildfire. She had called him into her room to talk about the picture. Nobody knew why it had unsettled her so much, though.
The mission was basic. They were headed to some seedy planet in the far reaches of the traverse to pick up a repentant gang member. The ex-gang member had agreed to give up information on the inner workings of his gang, information he swore could bring down some major corporations, in exchange for protection from the Alliance. Strangely enough he had requested that Shepard pick him up specifically.
Shepard didn't seem to know why the gang member would want her to handle to pick-up but she had agreed to take care of it for Hackett. It didn't make sense to Garrus that they would send one of their best soldiers on such a humdrum mission but Alliance business was strictly not his business. He prepared for the mission as best he could knowing that Shepard would probably choose Wrex and himself to go planet-side with her. Out of all the squad members they were the best at figuring out criminal types. C-Sec training gave Garrus an edge in that area and Wrex had been a criminal of sorts for some time. He headed down to the cargo bay to wait until they arrived.