Title: Home
Game: Mass Effect 3
Characters: Ashley Williams, Garrus Vakarian
Rating: K
*****SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT 3 ENDINGS*****
"What are you doing?"
"Calibrating. Joker's little stunt screwed with the alignments of the main gun a surprising amount. I suspect he may have done it deliberately."
She snorts. "He can do that?"
"That man knows more about how every system of this ship is integrated than…" the Turian stops and focuses back down on his work and she feels herself wince. They don't like to talk about EDI. The ship feels empty without her.
She leans against the doorframe and studies him, bent forward over a panel, too tall to work at it comfortably, involved, absorbed. She can't read Turian expressions - the Commander always said she couldn't either, but she thinks he looks older.
His father and sister are two years journey away now, without the Mass Relays. She's told him she can get him there, though. The Normandy's still the fastest, and god knows the Alliance owes those of them that are left that much. She can stuff the cargo hold with Krogans and Quarians and Turians and be one of the ships that are taking on that massive burden - taking everyone back to their homes, even if they're not sure their homes are even there any more…
Sure as hell Earth can't keep them all. Not in the state it's in now.
He said no. She wonders if it's because he thinks he's closer to the Commander - on the ship that used to be hers, doing the things he used to do before she died the first time, as though he can turn back time and be what he was before then.
As though any of them can do that.
He's looking at her. The visor that she'd begun to think was glued to his head was gone - blown off by the Reaper beam that marked the beginning of the end for everything they knew and she hasn't realised until now that his eyes, deeply shadowed by the sharp ridges of his brow line - are actually blue and if she lets herself think that way - extremely…
…human.
"Ash, what are you doing here?" he says finally. Exhaustion makes the slight buzz in his Turian voice more pronounced.
"I think I'm asking you that."
He straightens and sighs. "Am I not welcome?"
"Of course you are. Same as the rest of them. Even the damned Prothean. More than them, actually. You were here first, after all. You and Wrex." The first aliens, she means, and she wonders if she offends him with that. The Turians get it more than the other races do, though. They didn't spent years fighting each other for nothing.
She thinks of him as her friend despite it - despite everything. She wonders if her father is turning in his grave.
You and the Commander saved my damned life. More times than just on Virmire, too.
Wrex had been on the first ship back to Tuchanka. At least he'd get to see his kids while they were still kids, which was more than the few Salarians who'd been serving on Alliance ships (not in the fleet, no, the Salarian fleet was all safe and snug at home, thanks very much) who wouldn't get back until their children were grandparents…
"If I'm making you uncomfortable I can always go back with the Primarch," he says.
"No, no… Garrus, no you're not making me…" she rubs at her forehead. "Dammit."
He chuckles. "I wondered how long it'd take me to make you swear. Shepard used to make bets on it."
She laughs, a small sound at first that breaks out of her control and suddenly they're both laughing, leaning against the console, unfettered and desperate and exactly what the Commander would have wanted.
When the spasms reside they're both leaning, backs against the console, and she's wiping tears from her eyes. They stay like that - in contented silence - for a few moments.
She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "You ok?" she says.
His mandibles flare briefly and he looks straight ahead for a long moment and even though the face is alien, unreadable, the lines of grief are etched in the way he stands. But he cocks his head and nods, once, turning to look down at her with those too-human eyes.
"Yeah," he says. "You?"
She smiles.
"I think so. Yeah.