When the door to the main battery hissed open and shut, Garrus hunched his shoulders, ducking low over his console and trying to focus on the numbers and readouts that wavered in his vision. His pulse was loud in his ears. "Shepard, I said I didn't want to talk about it now. We can-"
"I am not Shepard."
His hand jerked against the console, mashing a series of nonsense commands that would, for all he knew, transform the Normandy's main guns into small furry rodents. Torn between correcting his error and doing something adult and intelligent like greeting his visitor, he fumbled awkwardly for a moment and nearly tripped over his feet in the process of turning around.
Samara watched him coolly, hands clasped behind her back, and the parallel with that one particularly terrifying instructor he'd had at boot camp was made complete by the barely-there smile at the corner of her lips. He realized he was standing at attention and made a conscious effort to relax. Well. Made a valiant attempt. How did one relax, anyway? He was pretty sure it had something to do with bending one's knees and leaning against things casually. Smirking. Drinking lots and lots of alcohol.
The fact was, Samara unnerved the hell out of him. Wise and a thousand years old? No problem. Wise, a thousand years old, and a terrifying warrior-monk with the jurisdiction, conviction, and wherewithal to squash him like a bug if her uncompromising Code compelled her to do it? Little scary, yeah.
"Samara," he said, and was half-surprised when his voice didn't squeak like a teenager's. "Samara. What brings you, er. Here?" Apart from Shepard, the crew had given the battery a wide berth, but he'd managed to strike up conversation with most of them at the mess hall or in the elevator. Most of them. Not Samara. She didn't exactly stay cooped up in her quarters—in fact, she wandered the ship almost nightly—but it was hard to start a gripe-fest about Gardner's cooking when faced with someone so serene, so undeniably ancient and timeless. It'd be a bit like complaining to a boulder.
Her smile widened slightly, secretive and a little strained, like she wasn't used to wearing that particular expression. "Please, Garrus. Relax. This isn't an inspection. I merely wanted to—" She paused. "—to check in on you, I suppose."
It took a long time for his brain to clank back into gear. He'd barely noticed, so consumed with what he was about to do, that Shepard had brought Samara along with them to hunt down Sidonis. Somewhere behind the veil of terror and fury, the humming of raw, exposed nerves, he remembered flares of biotics and a calm voice calling targets and dangers over the comms as they faced off against Harkin.
He exhaled. "Of course. I'm fine, Samara. I appreciate the thought, but you should just go back there and tell Shepard-"
Her voice cut over his, gentle but firm. "I should remind you, Garrus, that my Code does not look lightly on liars." Something of his unease must have shown through on his face, because she relented, settling again for the half-smile, this time tinged with an apologetic edge. "I should also remind you that I was in the back of the skycar when you returned. Your words with Shepard were... harsh."
The weird tightness in his chest coiled, stealing his breath for a moment before he managed to push past it. "That's not really your concern, is it? I'll do my job. You can tell her, you can tell her if she wants me off her ship—" He broke off, breathing hard, and realized he'd been raising his voice almost to a shout.
To his surprise, Samara only sighed, bringing a hand to her forehead. "It's been a very long time since I traveled with companions, Garrus. I apologize if my tone was adversarial. I'd like to help you understand some of what happened today. I promise that I was not sent by Shepard." She held out a hand. "May I?"
He blinked, and, apparently taking that as assent, she sat on the floor, folding her legs under her in a way that defied imagination. Well, mostly defied, and why was some part of him wondering whether Shepard was that flexible? He swallowed. "Uh," he said when she raised an inviting hand, "I don't think I bend that way."
She just cocked her head in response, and after an uncertain and thoroughly awkward moment, he plunked down on the floor beside her, drawing his legs up to his chest. He felt ridiculous. Now would be the perfect moment for Shepard to come storming in, and he cast a nervous glance at the closed doors. She missed her cue. His breathing caught again, just for a moment.
"Does your injury still pain you?" Samara asked.
He blinked at her, raised a hand to the bandage running along his jaw, acutely aware of the strange, muffled echo the cybernetics lent his hearing in that ear. "Not really. Lots of nerve damage. I don't feel a whole lot there, anymore."
"Ah," she said, meaningfully, but spoke again before he could grasp her meaning. "Then I am glad. I understand your injuries were quite severe. As the Commander tells it, you were minutes from death."
"Not really," he said, automatically latching on to the one familiar thread in this baffling conversation; he'd had to correct curious crew members several times on this count. "They actually managed to stabilize me almost immediately. The heavy-duty repairs were mostly cosmetic."
"I don't think that's what she meant," Samara said.
Garrus felt a chill, even through the environmental seals on his armor. She was right, of course. Another few minutes, an hour at most, and it would've been a toss-up to see which would kill him first: the stims or the mercs. He shifted, uncomfortable on the hard deckplates. "I wasn't aware she'd spoken about it to you."
"We speak of many things," Samara said, but didn't elaborate, instead adding, "Are you disappointed?"
"Sorry?"
"You set out to kill Sidonis today, to avenge your dead comrades. Are you disappointed that you failed so completely?"
If he'd been standing, he might have walked out right then and there. As it was, he only drew his legs up tighter to the cold knot in his chest, feeling the torn muscles in his face strain as he clenched his jaw. "I didn't fail," he said, calm, controlled. "Shepard stopped me."
"And so you are disappointed. Had you managed to put a bullet through his brain, would it have granted your friends rest? Would it have calmed their ghosts?"
Garrus's hand jerked spasmodically, as though miming a gunshot. "I have no way of knowing that."
"Well, then," Samara said, and raised her hands, palm-up in a gesture of offering, "securing the uncertain peace of the dead seems a flimsy justification for an execution."
"I'm done with this conversation," Garrus said. He wanted to get up and leave, he did, but his arms were locked around his legs and he couldn't catch his breath, he couldn't breathe. "And... and what exactly makes you qualified to say something like that? Your Code is about justice, isn't it? You kill murderers without compunction."
Her expression was cool, glass. "Yes. I am a Justicar. My Code is absolute."
His voice was rising again. He didn't care. "If you were in my situation—if Sidonis had been responsible for the deaths of your closest friends—would you have taken the shot?"
"Without question."
He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "Are you hearing yourself?"
"I would have been compelled. The Code of a Justicar leaves no room for uncertainty," she said, and he wanted to let her calm be a powder keg for his own fury, but it didn't work that way, it didn't work that way, and all he could do was keep breathing. "Such terrible certainty is not a way anyone should live. You are young, Garrus, and not just by my standards. Absolutes are best left to those who have already lost their last chance at redemption. I follow my Code because otherwise I could not do the things that have to be done, could not correct mistakes made over such a long, long lifetime. You still have the luxury of choice."
He snorted. "Shepard would disagree with you there."
"Had Shepard not been there, would you have shot him?"
Garrus didn't have to think about it. "Yes. Wouldn't have hesitated."
"Then it seems to me that she was the one who provided you with the choice in the first place."
Garrus scrubbed a hand over his eyes. "What choice? She was between me and him! If I'd taken the shot—"
"Then you would have killed her, but he would be dead, and you would have succeeded in your mission. Justice—absolute justice—cannot be half-hearted, Garrus. When you walk that path, you must be prepared to follow it to its source, no matter the cost. Only then can you be convinced that your cause is just."
He could see it, all too clearly: the view through his visor, through the scope, the quiet defiance in her eyes, the recoil of the rifle against his shoulder ringing up and down his arm like a bell, the slow slump of her body, out of scope, out of mind, and beyond her his target, staring wide-eyed and unseeing, a smear of blood on his face—
Now he brought both hands up, fumbling to remove his visor and throw it with a clatter to the corner of the room, finally resting his face in his hands. The tightness in his chest was fading, knots uncoiling. "That's horrifying," he said, lowly. "That's just. I don't know if that kind of thinking is naive or—or completely broken."
"I do not claim to be a bastion of sanity," she said, with a hint of humor that startled him into meeting her eyes. "But, as I said, that certainty allows me to do what I must."
Somewhere, deep inside him, his investigative instincts stirred, overriding his better judgment. "Just who is this criminal you're hunting?"
Her expression closed off slowly, by inches. "I know where my path leads. I will do whatever is necessary to reach that destination."
He almost asked her what would happen if Shepard ever stood between her and that goal, as she'd stood between him and Sidonis. He didn't ask. He already knew the answer.
They were silent a long while, until Garrus caught himself shifting his weight, trying to find a more comfortable position on the floor. Finally, Samara asked, "Do you understand why I sought you out?"
He managed a weak, lopsided grin. "Because Kelly Chambers is still on shore leave?"
Her returning smile very nearly reached her eyes. "Because you needed to be reminded that Commander Shepard always arrives in time to save your life, Garrus. Today was no exception."
With a calm, quiet grace, she rose to her feet, stepped past him, and paused, resting a hand on his shoulder. Then she was gone, and the battery doors closed behind her.
He stayed sitting on the floor a moment longer, then stretched over and reached for his visor, turning it over in his hands, running a talon along the names etched into the side, pausing on the one he'd scratched out. Just one more scar to remind him. The tightness in his chest was gone, replaced with a deep hollow echoing with old laughter, old gunshots. Sometimes both.
He managed to drag himself to his feet with a little less dignity than he would've liked—heavy armor wasn't exactly designed to grant its wearer grace and poise—and opened his omnitool, dialing in a direct channel to Shepard. Hey, he typed. Have you got a minute?
The reply took a few minutes, but he waited it out, and when it came his relief was nearly palpable. Can it wait for a bit? I'm in the middle of some calibrations.
And, okay, his eyes did flicker over to his console to assure himself that his earlier fumbling hadn't activated the self-destruct or something, but he resisted the urge to bury himself in that particular problem. It could wait. Just wondering if you had time for a little fine dining and scintillating conversation. Failing that, there's always Gardner's cooking and talking awkwardly about our feelings.
Another pause, this one still longer. Then: Sounds like a date. See you in five.
He couldn't quite stifle a chuckle, leaning against his console. Something strange and new was bubbling in to fill all the cracks, all the hollow places. He could breathe again. Felt like the first time in years.
He hooked his visor back into place over his eye and stepped out the door, into a new and uncertain future, walking a new path. Somehow he suspected he wouldn't have to walk this one alone.