Ahem. This is my first fanfic to be published here. I think it's not such a shoddy piece, but we shall see won't we?

Anyway, this is in-progress. While there is some *cough* slight GarrusxFemShep overtones in this, I think you will be suprised where this may be going. Because I can guarantee you, a woman with this much angst will take you to places you never thought you saw coming...(I think.) Uhm, so my thought is that this might be a series of oneshot-ish type things. This is the first out of a few...

So, yeah. Usual disclaimer time: I am not owner of any character in this story. Bioware is, but they're kind enough to let my enraptured self use their creation for my own enjoyment.

(By the way, I apologize if the titles are cheesy. I'm not so good with titling. All that other stuff...yeah. But names and titles...well, I do my best.)

EDIT: Wow. So this being my first foray into , I didn't realize just how shoddy the site is about keeping your punctuation intact when uploading a story. I've finally had a chance to review the story in its entirety via the site, and I'm ashamed. Seriously. My punctuation is awesome but this site hates it! Therefore, the story has been edited for punctuation.

Also, I edited the ending slightly. Garrus' hug seemed a little OOC, so I did something different. It seems a little more appropriate to a turian, especially when we consider the ending of Garrus' beautiful romance scene in ME2.

Choices of a Tortured Soul

I: Facing Demons

The smell of burning flesh is quite powerful down here.

Commander Elana Shepard had braced herself when she had first caught the scent at the district entrance, but she is ill-prepared all the same. When they see the first pyre at the end of the corridor, Garrus remarks flippantly about how he is so accustomed to the smell. How callous of him. The remark makes her want to hit him in the face, and she thinks she should not have brought him along and not because of the danger he might become infected with the plague too.

She immediately regrets these thoughts and hopes Miranda does not notice her tense reaction. Miranda, it would seem in the short period she has known her, is very perceptive.

They move slowly through the district, wary of vorcha and mercs. They threaten to be around every corner.

They hit a dead-end; a door must be bypassed, and she hopes that what she seeks a - a certain salarian doctor - is beyond it somewhere. It opens to reveal two dead turians, lying with their backs to one another, one clutching a pistol in his talons, blue blood a congealed puddle beneath his head, the other clearly dead from the plague. The reek here is different than the smell of burnt flesh. It is rotten and fetid, and it makes her gag and step back. She bends over, trying to subdue the urge to vomit. Pull it together, she demands of herself, very aware that her two squadmates - Garrus in particular - is extremely alarmed at her reaction. She waves at them, trying vainly to stave their worries, and straightens to march resolutely into the room. Maybe there is evidence in here...evidence that points to the culprits who initially spread this plague.

She tries not to look at the bodies on the floor as she rifles through their belongings.

"Commander." His old address for her. Habits die hard even for turians. She looks over her shoulder at Garrus. He is halfheartedly searching through a box of what looks to be rags; Miranda is across the room studying a datapad. He says in a low growl, meant only for Shepard's ears, "Shepard, I apologize for my earlier comment."

"Wha- I...oh." Elana is lost for words. Her earlier anger is completely vanquished now. Now she feels guilty. It would seem two years dead and only a few days' reunion is enough time to forget the intricacies of their once strong friendship. And things...had been so...hectic since her revival. She wants to tell him this - how high her emotions have been running, the behind-the-scenes craziness of trying to balance her morals with the Illusive Man's demands. "It's all right, Garrus," she ends up saying, not wanting to upset the delicate balance of their revived friendship. Also, he doesn't know that she had been thinking of physically harming him only minutes earlier.

He becomes visibly upset by this. His cheekflaps flicker against the sides of his jaw. "No, Shepard, it isn't all right. I know about your childhood. I should have...remembered."

"I've been dead and gone for two years, Garrus. I don't expect you to-"

"No," he says flatly. The cheekflaps are now clenched to his jaw. "Don't excuse me, Shepard. Don't do it. It's not right. I should have remembered. It's as simple as that." He turns away, abruptly ending the conversation.

She can't help but wonder if there are other things he's not telling her. Garrus had always been her most close-mouthed companion concerning himself. She knew far less about him than most of the original Normandy crew combined.

Their search concludes nothing except the most obvious: both turians were Blue Suns mercs infected by the plague and had been locked in this remote closet by their companions to die. A most animalistic death. A most...familiar...death.

They double back through the corridor and take the left turn instead. There at the crossroads, only a few paces from another pyre, is a live plague victim...a batarian.

She can barely control herself. He's certainly not the first batarian she's ever met, but he's the first one to be in a position of potential sympathy from her.

"Should we talk to him, Commander?" Miranda sounds unsure of herself. Perhaps she did notice Elana's slow breakdown after all.

She can't. She can't talk to him. Sympathy, pity...these things are better spent on...beings other than batarians. But...they still need information. She glances at Garrus, hoping he will meet her eye, take the lead. He does meet her eye. And he understands. Perhaps there are some things in a friendship that two years of death can't kill after all.

"We're looking for a salarian doctor - Mordin Solus." Garrus addresses the batarian as though he were barking an order at a platoon of underlings. And she remembers that this is why she is usually the one to do the talking. But at this juncture...

The batarian eyes him for a few moments before twisting his neck and spitting violently at the two human women. "I will tell nothing to...humans," he coughs, still managing to summon enough hate from his dying body to make the word humans hang venom-filled in the air.

"You're telling nothing to humans, you rotting pile of meat," Garrus growls. He bends down swiftly and grabs the batarian by his collar, hauling him to his feet and pushing him violently against the wall. "You're telling me. Do I look like a human?"

Garrus' actions are opposite of beneficial. The batarian, quite startled, begins coughing. When he doesn't cease, and his already sickly skin tone turns paler, and he begins to make choking, gurgling sounds, Elana doesn't even know what she does until it is too late. Her omni-tool comes out and she quickly taps in the code for an extraction of medi-gel.

Seconds later the batarian is breathing easily, and Elana is once again ignoring her companions looks while simultaneously sorting through the various emotions jiving through her.

"Wh-why did you do that, human?" The batarian is incredulous, just as she would have been if one had ever displayed such kindness to her.

Her voice is rough. "We needed information, didn't we? Couldn't just let you die."

"Fine then," he says. "A favor for a favor. I will tell you as much as I know." Which doesn't end up being much. She could have just let him die and saved the medi-gel.

When they move on, Miranda says as much. "I'm surprised, Commander. Given your history, I would have thought you would be quite happy to let him..." She sees the look on Elana's face. She slows her pace until she is taking rear-guard. Now Miranda is quite aware of Elana's slowly eroding exterior.

They come to a door leading to the right. It is locked. Elana hacks the pad quickly. The door protests in opening, inhuman screeches coming from damaged hinges. A long dark corridor stretches before them, stairs leading down into the unknown.

"We need to check it out," Elana says, her voice tight and trembling. "I want to make sure we find any clue that leads us to the bastards responsible for this plague. Or at least help any survivors." She glances at Garrus - he is sullen, quiet, his burst of outrage at the batarian battened down by thoughts unknowable to Elana - and then at Miranda. "Miranda, stay here as lookout. Let us know if anyone comes this way. Garrus and I are going down there to check things out." She unholsters her pistol and starts down the stairs, Garrus following a few paces behind.

The stairs end in a pit of a room. It's not much better than the closet the turians had been locked in. Instead of turians, there's a batarian curled into a fetal position on a dirty cot. The stink is horrible, and she can't bear to look at the batarian; its tongue lolls out of the side of its mouth as though taunting her.

It's here in this dirty cage of a room, dead batarian's four eyes staring vacantly at her, that Elana Shepard breaks down. It happens more quickly than she expects. One second she's staring at the batarian's personal datapad, the next she is facing the corpse firing round after round into its head.

"Shepard! Shepard! ELANA!" Garrus is yelling in her ear, and then suddenly his talons are wrapped around her wrist, squeezing her with enough force that she feels pressure...and no small amount of pain...through her gauntlet. She drops her pistol and turns and lunges into Garrus, feeling nothing but animalistic rage and hate.

They crash backward into a shelf, their combined weight snapping it in two, its contents flying into the air. Elana beats at Garrus, hitting him wherever her fists can reach. She doesn't realize that he is not hitting her back, not even defending himself, until somehow she is straddling him on the ground, pinning his arms with her thighs. She hits him once squarely in the jaw, the strength of the blow as hard as she could muster.

Whatever Garrus had not been doing suddenly changes. She had never once been a true witness to the sheer physical power of a turian before, but here she gets firsthand experience. As soon as she draws her fist back to hit him again, he bucks mightily, loosening her own powerful grip. He draws an arm out - wrenches it out - to grab her poised hand. He yanks her forward, again with such force that she becomes unseated, and pulls his other arm out. With this, he wraps it around her waist, trapping her free arm against her and then rolls sideways, weaving his legs through hers to lock them down.

They are cheek to cheek now, both panting heavily, Elana weeping as her surge of rage cools. He holds her there, his weight not unbearable, letting her cry. When she calms a little, he lifts his head, looking her squarely in the eye.

"Is there something you would like to tell me, Shepard?" he asks calmly, his voice a low growl, a vibration that starts somewhere in his chest that she can feel through both of their armors.

And it floods out of her, years of pent up grief and sorrow and anger over memories of a raid on a beautiful little colony brutally ravished by human-hating batarians. She tells him of a young teenage girl chased down, beaten, raped, shot, and left for dead. A girl who until recently bore very physical reminders of the beating she received. A girl who still felt an imaginary twinge of pain in her chest where - as thanks for her forced services - a high velocity slug had ripped through her. A girl who after being rescued would not speak for two years. A girl who woke occasionally with a scream, sweat soaking her clothes, her bed.

Garrus lets her empty herself. She wonders vaguely as she is telling him these things if he can even relate to her story. He had likely heard many like hers, but he had never experienced such tragedy in his life. Even his most recent adventures were nothing in comparison to hers. She can at least expect that he had never been forcefully violated several times over within a short space of time.

When she finishes, she feels like an egg that has been cracked and dumped of its contents a shell full of emptiness. The rage is gone, the grief is gone. Still, Garrus does not move. They look at each other for what seems an eternity, as though one is trying to read the other. She does not even know what he may be thinking. She has difficulty enough sorting and filing her own thoughts than to begin to wonder what may be going on in the mind of another.

Slowly...gently...Garrus disentangles his limbs from hers and sits up, helping her into a sitting position as well. His hand is still on her arm. There they sit, the silence extending itself into eternity. He shifts, she glances up at him. Their eyes lock one final time and then he lifts his...hand, talons, whatever...and brushes it over her face, resting briefly upon her forehead. The gesture is...odd. She wonders briefly if this is some sort of turian sign of affection or comfort; the slight pause of his hand on her forehead seems to suggest this.

But whatever the gesture's meaning, it is at the very least quite calming.

Then, it is back to business, nothing of what transpired passes in conversation between them. They pick themselves up off the floor, search the room briefly, find nothing, and return to the entrance of the corridor. As she brushes off Miranda's inquiries concerning suspicious noises a few minutes back, a thought tickles the edges of Elana's mind, dangling warily on the precipice of her subconscious: had Garrus been Kaidan, she may have found her way into his arms all those years ago.

I SO KNOW WHERE YOUR MIND IS GOING RIGHT NOW! But please trust me. There's a method to my madness. This Shepard is quite the confused lady, but I promise you it will be alright...I know what I'm doing. :)