Even among the galaxy's richest and most gorgeous members of society, she was still the most beautiful thing in the room, and Garrus could barely believe his luck. Shepard was dressed in a simple black gown accented only by thin silver circlets that hung on her wrists and around her neck. Her arm was looped through his and her expression looked about as smug as he felt. They watched the party from a quiet corner of the room and hoped that, for the moment, no one would recognize them.

"You tired of these things yet, Garrus? You never seemed one for "dressing up"." Shepard gave him a quick once over and grinned. "Though you certainly pull it off well enough."

"I try," he grimaced, though his tone was playful. "And what, tired of this? Oh no. I'm happy enough to let people see that I've got the Commander Shepard on my arm. It's worth it, believe me."

The party was one among many that had been held after the war against the Reapers had ended. It had been months now, almost a year, and people were still celebrating. For good reason, too, Garrus thought. They had almost lost everything. People were always happy to rejoice in the fact that the entire galaxy had not been annihilated, and even happier to see that their savior still lived.

But even with all the time that had passed, Shepard was still healing. For weeks afterwards she hadn't walked, and her hair was still in the process of growing back. He knew every inch of her skin, and had noted all the new scars and skin grafts that had been added in order to bring her back to health. She had made so much progress since then. Tonight, at least, she was glowing. The romantic lighting of the Citadel shown off of her cheeks, shoulders, and the glossiness of her pinned-up hair. She bobbed her head lightly to the beat of the music and watched as people danced languidly on the floor before them. When the song changed she caught his eye and smirked. A tango. "You ready?"

"Always."

Garrus could admit that neither he nor Shepard really enjoyed such fancy events. Politicians and invasive journalists made for poor company, and so they didn't make it a point of attending such parties often. But when they did, they certainly made a show of it.

Garrus' face plates shifted outwards in his own sort of expression of a grin as he tugged Shepard out onto the dance floor. "You get a kick out of this, don't you?" he muttered into her ear as he wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her close. She curled one hand on his shoulder and set the other in his outstretched left hand. She was beaming. "You have no idea."

It seemed that ever since Garrus had shown her how to tango on their date on the Citadel long ago, she had immediately latched onto the only form of dancing that she could actually pull off. He wasn't so bad at the dance, either. She took every opportunity to try and learn more and to show others what they could do, especially after she was healthy enough to try again. He remembered when she had had to learn to walk again, and noted that half of what made up her legs wasn't what she had been born with; so much had been replaced with tech. Regardless, she still managed to get back her skills, grace and the flexibility that he loved her so much for. He also suspected that she enjoyed the surprised look on guests' faces when they saw how beautifully the pair of them moved when they danced, or noticed the wedding ring so prominently displayed when her hand was placed on his shoulder. He was only happy to oblige.

When the dance was finished, she leaned in and kissed at the scarred right side of his face, as she was often in the habit of doing. She was grinning. "Put the rest of them to shame, I think. Gimme a sec, I need a drink." Garrus only laughed and watched her walk away.

He rested for a few moments of to the side of the dance floor, propping himself up by his elbow on one of the higher tables. He made a game of scanning the crowd for people he knew, wondering if any of the Normandy crew had been interested enough to attend. He was surprised when Admiral Hackett approached him instead.

"Vakarian!" The older man said congenially as he stuck out his hand from the starched cuff of his military jacket for a handshake. Garrus met him halfway and gave him a firm shake. "To what do I owe the honor, sir? I wasn't expecting to see you here tonight," Garrus said. He wasn't awfully familiar with Steven Hackett, but he had worked with Shepard long enough to know who he was.

"I suppose we all have to get out every now and then. Besides, I would have missed the show." The admiral grinned and jerked his head towards the dance floor.

Garrus laughed. "Well, we try. She certainly enjoys it, and I think everyone's happy enough just to see her back on her feet."

Hackett shrugged and looked off into the crowd, saying nothing for the moment. The music now was darker, and the dancers were beginning to move in motions that weren't quite "formal", and perhaps more suited to a club setting. Hackett frowned. A few seconds later, the lights dimmed considerably. Hackett leaned in close to Garrus, muttering quietly.

"You know you could have saved her, right?"

"Excuse me?"

"On the Citadel. You fucking left her there."

Garrus flinched. "I don't understand what you're trying to say. She's right over there." Garrus turned to point towards the bar, but there were too many people blocking his view. When he looked back to Hackett, the man was gone.

"Great party. Good food, too. Must try the drinks. Very classy, very nice."

Garrus swerved to the left and his mind went blank. "Doctor?"

"Garrus! Wasn't expected to see you here. Didn't seem the type. Never one for fancy things. Hm. Seen Shepard? Can't find her. Must tell her something." Mordin smiled his thin-lipped smile, his big black eyes questioning. Garrus' jaw worked as he fought for words.

"Mordin. I thought you were…"

"Dead. Like Shepard is, I presume. No thanks to you, surely. Hm. Well. Pleasure seeing you. Another time, perhaps." He disappeared into the crowd before Garrus could say more.

The party now was packed, and the lights so dim that he wouldn't be able to see if it weren't for the help of his visor. Garrus stood straight now, his mind numb and spinning. "Mara?" He called Shepard's name, looking around wildly. He began to make his way through the crowd of pulsing, dancing bodies. Thane Krios brushed up against his arm, smiled, murmured an apology, and left. A voice he could have sworn was Ashley's yelled at him from some corner of the room. Sidonis grabbed for his arm and pushed a drink into his hand. "Hey, Garrus! Even more of a coward than I was, aren't you? Couldn't save your team or your fancy girlfriend, could you? Good to see you, buddy!" And then he too disappeared into the crowd. Abruptly, someone spit at his face. He turned. Aria. She only laughed. "I never realized Archangel was so weak. Just when I thought you could never lose, you lost it all."

Garrus was running now. His mind screamed that this wasn't real, that these people were dead or gone or didn't matter. The number of people in his way seemed to multiply with each step, the light growing dimmer and dimmer. "Mara!" He pushed them all roughly out of the way, glasses crashing to the floor as he knocked drinks out of guests' hands. "Mara!" Everyone stared at him as he fumbled his way through, staring through the glowing blue eyes of husks.

And then he was at the bar, and Shepard was the only one there. The party guests had disappeared and there was no bartender that he could see. It was the dirty bar of a club, not the one he would have expected at a fancy political party. But he knew now that something was wrong, something was way off.

Shepard sat at the bar in her armor, though it was badly damaged. It was charred black and burned, and flakes of ash peeled off and floated away and upwards as if they were in low gravity. Large chunks of it were already gone and drifting away, revealing bloody gashes and burns underneath. But Garrus still stood, and Shepard still sat. She looked up at him with watery eyes, bruises already blooming on her cheeks, neck, and temple.

"You told me to meet you at the bar," she said hoarsely, smiling through pain. She never let anyone see the pain.

The words echoed like they had been said before, months ago.

Garrus went to stroke one hand down her arm, only causing more of the broken armor to break off and float away. "Mara," he said again, his jaw working. "What happened to you?"

Her voice was thick with emotion, just as it had been when they said their goodbyes before the battle for London. She ran her bloodied fingers down the length of his scarred mandible. "You'll never be alone." She then reached for a shot glass that was filled with black liquid. She brought it to her lips, threw it back and down her throat, swallowed, and began to scream.

Everything was on fire. Garrus suddenly felt himself being thrown backwards at hundreds, thousands of miles per second. The heat of the fire was excruciating, but when he tried to scream, fire only flooded into his mouth. His vision widened until he found himself suspended in space, staring at the entirety of the Citadel, even though he had been standing on it moments before. The force of the whole galaxy fought around him. Reapers, humans, turians, asari, all of them. From there, in the center of it all, he watched as the Citadel exploded before his eyes, just as everyone had seen from the thousands of newsfeeds that had recorded the event months before. When Shepard had activated the Crucible.

The Citadel let out a sudden pulse of light, red, that expanded in a bubble that would encompass the whole of the galaxy. Each of its arms exploded and fell apart into millions of pieces, millions of homes scattered and lost forever. The entire structure was on fire, breaking. And Shepard, his Shepard, was in the middle of it.

But the Citadel wasn't gone. The war had paused, the Reapers floating lifelessly, but no one cared to see that the Citadel could still be saved. Couldn't it? His throat still burning with the memory of fire, he willed his body forward and was surprised to find that he shot forward as quickly as he had been thrown back.

He found himself among hundreds of bodies. The scene was achingly familiar. This, this he'd seen too much. He'd seen this part too often. His mind screamed as it finally realized the dream it was trapped in, the one he could never escape once it had started. Even as he willed himself to wake up, his imagined body continued on forward and knelt down next to an all too familiar N7 helmet. He reached for the dog tags looped around the body's neck.

NAME: Shepard

Rank: Commander

Spectre Status

Systems Alliance

His heart clenched and his mind spun. He fought endlessly to make it stop, to make it end, even as his hands reached to remove the helmet's faceplate just as they had in this same vision so many times before. Shepard's unseeing blue eyes starred out from a chalky face. There were lines down her face where tears had washed down among the ash and blood on her cheeks. He reached to take her in his arms and found that her spine bent unnaturally, broken. Her broken armor sighed. Her head rolled onto his shoulder. From somewhere behind him, someone muttered something about it being "too late". Every muscle in his body tensed as he waited.

"You'll never be alone," she breathed. Her body disintegrated to dust and fell through his fingers.

…

Garrus woke up violently, panting. He found his sheets tangled around his legs, thrown off in his sleep. He turned himself over and reached blindly towards the other side of the bed. It was empty. It had been empty for years, and yet he still sought for the warmth and comfort of her body next to his. He felt cold.

He remembered telling her, thousands of years ago it seemed, about how he never dreamt. How he never had bad dreams because he always planned for the worst, regardless. But he had never planned for this. Nothing could have prepared him for this. He had experienced loss before, yes, but.

He sat up and stared at the wall.

"I'm so sorry, Mara," he said to no one. He let his scarred face fall into his scarred hands and wept.