A/N: This is an off-shoot to Taking Back Omega, taking place prior to the events of that story, when Shepard comes back to the surface after meeting the Leviathan and the aftermath. I had been on the fence with doing a Leviathan one-shot (I thought it was one of their best DLCs and I'm pretty content with how it turned out), but one of my reviewers for the Omega fic (credit to reviewer Danie-Dono) asked whether I would have a separate Leviathan fic since I hint at it in Omega. I ultimately decided to go ahead and try my hand at a separate one and this is what I came up with. I might be taking artistic license with Shepard's side-effects from being "enslaved" by the Leviathan (since I don't think anyone in the DLC said they still felt cold after they were no longer one of the Leviathan's thralls), but it made for a fun piece to write on this Christmas Eve (so many Shakarian feels!).
To those waiting on chapters for my other two stories, I'm working on them and they will be coming soon.
Happy Holidays!
-1-
It had now been an hour. An hour since Jane had lunged into the deep inside that mech.
No contact since.
Garrus dove behind cover, bullets soaring like birds overhead. The icy spray from the rain struck his face, blinding him for a second before blinking the droplets away. He chanced another quick glance over at the edge of the ship, on the off chance the Atlas would emerge from the water. He imagined the hatch to it would open and she would hop out, victory in her step at having found the mystical Leviathan and convincing it to help the war effort. She would flash him a smile that would light up her eyes and tell him he worried too much.
"Garrus! Banshee incoming!" Tali's cry brought him back to reality. He popped back out from cover, lining his scope up, the banshee's head right on target. As the bullets struck it, it unleashed a shrill shriek that curled Garrus's blood and rang in his ears, but he kept firing until the banshee's glowing form collapsed onto the ship's hull.
A startled cry caught his attention. A husk had Tali cornered and was clawing at her. Her drone had disappeared and Cortez had gone back inside the shuttle, waiting for the exact moment when the Leviathan's pulse would go offline.
Garrus sprinted as fast as his bulky armor would allow him to. He grasped the shoulders of the husk, pulling it off Tali. It screamed at Garrus as it fell, its synthetic eyes pulsing with hunger. Tali grabbed her shotgun, firing a point-blank shot at its head.
"Bosh'tet! Keelah, I hate these things," Tali cried in between gasps of breath.
"You okay?" Garrus asked, seeing no tears in Tali's suit.
"Yeah. It got the jump on me just as Chiktikka powered down. Thanks, Garrus."
Another wave dropped from the sky, this time with two Brutes in the bunch.
"Never a dull moment, is it?" Garrus prepared to fire at the incoming husks.
"A given anymore with Jane." She shot her own glance at the side of the ship. "You heard anything?"
Garrus shook his head. "Not a damn thing."
He had thought her crazy with readily agreeing to Cortez's plan. But he knew her. She wouldn't shy away from something if it needed to be done, even if it was crazy. Even if the personal risk was high.
"Garrus." Tali's voice was soft. Had she noticed the concern brewing within him, despite his attempts to quash it? "I'm sure she's ok."
"Of course she is," Garrus tried to make himself sound more confident than he felt, blasting a husk with a concussive shot. "Least she's down there in a mech and not the Mako. Then I would start worrying."
"Especially if there were any steep slopes," she said, humoring him. Tali fired two resounding shots at a Marauder. "Remember when she insisted on driving up that mountain on Ontarom instead of going around it, then she launched the Mako off it? For a woman with the patience of a saint, get her behind the wheel of any moving vehicle and she'll go up any mountain just to shorten the time."
Garrus could not help shaking his head as he remembered clutching the seat so hard it left talon marks on the leather seat.
"We screamed ourselves hoarse at her to use the thrusters, but she never did. Personally think she got a kick out of scaring the crap out of us." He paused to fire at the Marauder Tali had just taken a shot at. "At least you weren't with her in a sky car. I thought we were going to crash into trucks head on."
"On Illium? Liara told me about that. My heart probably would've given out before we would have landed."
"Mine almost did."
"And here I thought you liked danger," Tali teased.
"Not when I'm going to careen into a skycar going seventy. Got to have some boundaries."
"Be sure to tell Jane that."
No sooner were the words out of Tali's mouth, Garrus spotted something jettison onto the side of the ship, rising from the ocean. Relief spread from him at the sight of the Atlas before them. It took a few cautious steps forward, water dripping off it. Its door opened, revealing an alive Jane Shepard, who tumbled out of the mech on her hands and knees.
He couldn't allow himself to feel ease for long, as two Cannibals fired their arm cannons at Garrus and Tali. By the time his attention went back to Jane, he spotted the Brutes again, advancing upon her, their massive mechanical claws raised to strike her crumbled form.
Something was wrong. She would be firing back. She would be shooting an incineration blast their way or activating her tactical cloak to evade them. She wouldn't be crawling along the metal hull, unable to rise. His cry for her caught in his throat. Where relief had been only moments before, crippling fear now coursed through his veins. He wouldn't reach her in time. Even if he did, he couldn't hold off two Brutes at once.
Then, without warning, the Brute closest to Jane whipped away from her, striking its fellow Brute across the head.
Garrus's feet pounded against the metal plating of the ship to reach Jane, who was still rolling around, unable to get herself back up. With the two Brutes ramming their heads into each other like animals fighting for dominance, Garrus wrapped his right arm around Jane, pulling her up, one of her arms across the back of his neck.
"Cortez, talk to me!" Garrus cried through the comm. He was fighting to keep her steady as she stumbled over her own feet. He kept his other hand firmly latched onto the forearm hanging over his body. She still hadn't said a word and that scared him more than anything.
"We're good to go! I don't know what the Commander did, but the pulse is offline."
When one of the Brutes fell in front of them, he steered Jane away, the Brute missing her by a few inches. Tali provided cover as Garrus guided Jane into the hovering Kodiak. She lifted her head, the first sign of coherence since she came back up to the surface.
His eyes caught hers. Her dark-sapphire eyes which shone whenever they exchanged quips, glowed when she smiled, and glittered with an intense fervor as he brought her to climax with his name on her lips. Eyes so expressive were now hazy. Dull. Now rolled into the back of her head as her head tumbled onto the chrome floor a second later.
Tali fired two more shots at incoming husks as she hopped onto the Kodiak. When the door snapped shut, she got down on her knees beside Jane and across from Garrus, who was wiping away the blood dripping down from her nose.
"Jane, can you hear me? Jane!"
She didn't respond to Garrus's call or nuzzle into his hand palming her cheek. Even through his glove, he felt how ice-cold her soft skin was to the touch.
"She's freezing!"
Tali draped her own gloved hand on Jane's forehead. "Keelah!"
"We got a Reaper inbound!" Cortez yelled from the front of the shuttle.
Garrus watched the external camera on the wall, the Reaper in clear view as it prepared to fire at the unprotected shuttle. With how powerful those Reaper lasers were, if it struck the Kodiak, the shuttle would tear apart as easily as tissue paper.
The beam was priming, ready to fire. Garrus reached for Jane, curling one hand around one of her small ones. Garrus's eyes met Tali's and all he saw through her helmet was resignation.
The beam never cut through the shuttle. The Reaper never fired. As they passed under the Reaper, it was as if it had frozen in place, no longer able to attack its target, just like the Brutes. Garrus couldn't be sure, but he suspected it had something to do with the Leviathan. They could know for certain once Jane woke up.
"Come on, Jane. Wake up!" His voice now tinged with a note of hysteria.
He had to stop himself from shaking her, stop himself from letting the fear fester within him like a cancer. Jane wouldn't want him to carry on like that, but the urge to do so had never been so strong before.
Please, Jane, don't do this to me. You promised me you'd be fine.
He scanned her body with his omnitool, eyes widening when he saw what her body temperature had dropped to.
"Step on it, Cortez! We've got to get her back to the Normandy!"
"Going as fast as I can," Cortez called back.
"What did the Leviathan do to her?" Tali wondered, voice trembling.
Could it possibly have some hold on her? Was that why she wasn't waking up?
In that moment, Garrus didn't care if the Leviathan was a Reaper-killer, didn't care it was probably millions of years or older than him, didn't care it could have been the same size as a Reaper and could crush him like a bug. All that mattered was the sight of his mate, lying supine on the floor of the Kodiak, clearly hurt. And if he could, he would have dived into the abyss and torn the Leviathan apart for what it did to her.
Jane shot up off the floor, her body convulsing with deep coughs as if trying to cough up water in the lungs, but nothing came up except dry heaves and gasping breaths. And they were the most beautiful sounds in the world to Garrus.
"You okay?" He tried not to sound too panicked as he and Tali inched away to give Jane space.
Jane coughed in response, pulling herself off the floor into the seat behind her. Garrus noticed how shaky her movements were, how feeble she seemed.
"Yeah," Jane finally croaked, not sounding completely like her confident self. "Yeah, I'm fine. Hell of a headache." She shook her head, as if trying to shake off what she had seen and experienced in the last hour.
There was so much he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, how he didn't want to think about living his life without her in it. He wanted to clutch her tightly to him and never let her go, relishing the feel of her differently shaped body against his, her every touch, her every breath. Signs she was still alive for another day.
But these weren't things he felt comfortable saying or doing unless in the utmost privacy, even if only Tali and Cortez witnessed it. This side of him, a side he had never even known existed within him until recently, was reserved for Jane alone.
He got up off his knees and rose above her, almost towering over her, looking the part of the commander instead of her. Fixing her with a stern glare, he told her in an authoritative voice from his C-Sec days, masking his fear, "Never do that again."
"Almost done, Vega?"
It had been close to an hour and fifteen minutes since James had volunteered to make something for Jane and an hour and a half since Garrus had left her in her cabin. He didn't want to keep her waiting.
"Can't rush perfection, Scars. It's close this time, I swear. Just needs another few minutes," James replied, continuing to stir the mixture he called soup.
"So the Leviathan were an actual race and were the ones responsible for creating the Reapers?"
Garrus shook his head at Liara's question, straightening from the railing he had been leaning against in the Mess.
"Not exactly. It created some AI that was programmed to preserve life at any cost, which in its mind meant creating the Reapers. Don't fully understand how, but that's what the Leviathan told Jane."
"Goddess," Liara whispered from her place at the counter, voice a mix of awe and disbelief. "I could only imagine talking to something so huge, so…alien."
"And they were the first to be harvested, no? If that isn't the definition of something coming back to bite you in the ass…"
"They deserved their fate," Javik interjected from his spot against the refrigerator, a harsh light sparkling in his four eyes. "Same as the Devil and His fall from human religion. The Leviathan once unleashed a plague that has hunted all of our history to this day. Their own hell is the abyss the Commander found them in. One I hope they never escape from."
James stopped stirring, letting the soup simmer. "Kinda hard to argue with that."
Javik tilted his head, acknowledging James's agreement. "Perhaps you're not as mindless as I thought, human."
"I guess all this really puts things in perspective, doesn't it?" Liara commented.
"Feels like we've been after the Reapers forever. From Sovereign to Leviathan, they've been a pain in the ass the whole time. But at least we're starting to see the big picture," Garrus agreed.
"It doesn't matter now. Our purpose is to destroy them, not to understand them," Javik replied, reminding Garrus of something similar the VI on Ilos, Vigil, told them back when hunting Saren.
Liara frowned at Javik's dismissiveness, but chose to stay silent. Garrus wondered if Liara had ever gotten over her disappointment about the Protheans being the less than utopian figures she had imagined.
"Tali told me how cold Jane was when she came back," Liara said to Garrus. "Sounds similar to what those miners and Ann Bryson described. Though I don't remember them saying they stayed cold after the Leviathan released them."
Jane hadn't been under its hold for long, but it apparently done enough that it left her with a lingering weakness and coldness that had burrowed deep within her. More than anything, she seemed exhausted, as if the Leviathan had syphoned all energy from her.
Though Garrus wondered how much of that was from the Leviathan. She was running herself thin, without so much as a complaint. Then again, she really didn't have a choice.
While they had been talking, James had poured a ladleful of soup into a nearby bowl, seemingly satisfied with the quality.
"There you go, Scars. Fresh chicken tortilla soup. Should warm Lola right up. If she wants more, it'll be in the fridge, just needs to reheat." James practically shoved the bowl of soup into Garrus's hands when he strode over, almost beaming with pride. "Not as good as my huevos rancheros, but it'll do."
"Appreciate it, Vega." Garrus placed the bowl onto a tray to make it easier to transport.
"Sure you don't want me to make anything for you, Doc?" James turned to Liara.
"I'm fine, James, but thank you."
"What about you, Buggy?"
Garrus was already on his way to the elevator before Javik replied, though he was pretty sure he heard something about wanting to chop James up and eat him with a side of salarian liver if James called him Buggy one more time. At least it was a refreshing departure from Javik wanting to throw everything and everyone in sight out an airlock.
The elevator only had to travel up two decks, but it seemed to crawl the whole way. Same as when he had escorted Jane up to her cabin. Stubborn woman she was, she had insisted on filing her report with Hackett before going to rest in her cabin. Stubborn turian he was, he had stayed by her side to make sure she didn't keel over and hurt herself, until she was in her cabin with her vow not to leave until he had returned with her food.
Garrus half-expected to find Jane at her desk, wrapped in a number of blankets like she said she would, sifting away through the mountain of reports that never seemed to lessen no matter how long she spent at them. Jane had never been one to let an injury hold her back from doing any work. That's why it surprised him to find her in bed, not making any attempts to escape, basking in the warmth of her nightstand light, one of the few sources of light in the otherwise dark cabin.
Despite how miserable she looked, she still gave him a small smile as he approached the bed.
"What happened to all the blankets?" He asked, head jerking to the pile of discarded blankets on one of the couch seats.
"That many blankets around me really restricted my movements. Made me feel like a mummy." When she saw the confused expression on Garrus's face, she explained, "Ancient civilizations on Earth used to embalm their corpses and tightly wrap their bodies in cloth to better preserve them. They're called mummies."
"Seems like a lot of work for someone who's already dead."
"One civilization, the ancient Egyptians, believed if they preserved the body, it could reunite with the soul in the afterlife. Least that's what my father told me years ago. He loved learning and talking about history. But you didn't come up for a history lesson. I was starting to wonder where you ran off to, you know. Calibrations distract you?" She was teasing him. Definitely a good sign.
"Blame Vega. After he saw my failed attempt at making soup, he took pity on me and volunteered to make it himself."
"All you have to do is basically chop the ingredients and throw them in a pot," she said, shaking her head, laughter in her words.
"Never really had the opportunity to learn how to cook. Or any other artistic skills for that matter. Guess you'll just have to teach me," he replied, watching her lift herself up from the bed, keeping her head rested against the headboard.
"I hardly think I'm the appropriate person. You planning on making more human food in the future?" A brief flicker of something sparked in her eyes, an emotion he could not place (and he had gotten pretty good at reading her face).
He rested the tray on her lap. "I'm certain I will."
She blessed him with another one of her gorgeous smiles. "I appreciate this, big guy. While you're here, could you feed the fish and Boo?"
"I knew that was coming. Sometimes I think the only reason you let me stay here is so you have free manual labor," Garrus sighed dramatically, even as he walked to the aquarium's feeder.
"It's not the only reason. This is just a perk," she said, picking up the spoon.
"Think you can eat it without spilling it all over yourself?" Garrus asked, having pressed the button for the feeder. He had told Jane she needed to buy an auto feeder, but she kept on insisting the credits would be of more use towards mods, new weapons, or new armor. She needed to tell that to all the fish who had been sacrificed for new models of her Widow.
"You don't give me enough credit, Vakarian." She hummed in contentment when her free hand grabbed the steaming-hot bowl. She kept her hands on it for a good minute before lowering it back down on the tray and tucking in.
"Feeling any better?" He couldn't help spotting the strain stubbornly etched on her face, the dark circles under her eyes.
"Still feel like I was submerged in ice and a pair of raging klixen are stampeding through my head, but Chakwas says I should feel better in less than a day. Though she didn't say why I was having these side-effects. Not even sure she knows why." A violent shiver coursed through her, then, her hand shaking as the spoon smacked her lower lip. "Haven't felt this bad in the long time. Probably since Mindoir. With my covers up to my chin, my mother spoon-feeding me because I was too weak to do it myself and my father telling me story after story to keep my mind off it."
He had moved on to pouring more pellets into the space hamster's container. Though he had picked up on the slightest ache in her tone both times when talking about her family, he chose not to say anything. He knew she had grown up on Mindoir, lost her parents in the raid, but she had never made any indication it was something she still carried around with her.
There wasn't much soup in the bowl, having only asked for a little bit. She finished it with more gusto than he had thought and without spilling any remnants on her cloud-white duvet.
He took the tray away from her and placed it on her desk, finding a free space among the datapads. Once done, he plopped down on the edge of the bed closest to her, taking note of her chattering teeth and her rubbing her arms up and down in a desperate attempt to keep them warm. The effects of the soup must have begun wearing off.
"Do you want the bowl back?"
"It was already starting to cool down when I finished."
"I could always warm it up again," Garrus pointed out.
She lowered herself back down onto the bed, pulling at the duvet to the point she was almost burrowing under it. "You'd need to warm it up multiple times. Need a more permanent solution."
Her eyes themselves were still a little dull, but not as powerfully as before when she lost consciousness, when it seemed like…
Suppressed fear resurfaced at the thought, remembering that dark uncertainty suffocating him.
He combed his talons through her shoulder-length auburn hair, scratching at her scalp the way she said soothed her, her slightly hooded eyes evidence of his effectiveness.
"Don't stop doing that, feels good."
He recalled the first time he had touched her hair. He had never really paid much attention to human hair before, though he knew enough that humans had diverse colors and styled them differently from one to the next. For as long as he had known her, Jane kept her hair at shoulder-length and loose. She had told him once how she had had to cut short for basic and hated every single moment of it.
He hadn't been prepared for how soft, how silky it was. He loved to spend time weaving his talons through it whenever he could. Jane never seemed to mind.
"Your hand's warm too," she mumbled.
"When am I not warm to you?"
Whenever he slept in her bed, they usually had to sleep without the duvet as they always ended up with their bodies intertwined and she always complained about how warm he felt.
She pulled her right arm out from the confines of her cocoon, reaching for his other hand. He eagerly took it, his talons lacing through her fingers, his thumb resting on the pulse at her wrist.
"Do you think it was worth all this? To find the Leviathan?"
Jane's brow furrowed. "I've been asking myself that. As far as the Reapers go, I still think so. Afterwards?" She bit her lip, something she did when she was deep in thought. "I just hope I didn't open a Pandora's Box."
Garrus didn't know what that was, but from her disconcerted tone, it didn't sound good. "You did what you had to. Maybe it may come back and bite us in the ass later on, but let's just worry about putting out one fire at a time."
"Or multiple small ones all at once." She sighed deeply. "They were right. The miners, Ann, when the Leviathan enslaved me, a darkness overcame me that I felt I couldn't escape from. Now it's disappeared, but it isn't gone. It's another reminder of how easily I could fall." She rolled onto her back, chewing on her lip again and covering her tired face with a shaky hand, kneading her pounding forehead. "I don't know how much longer I can do this, Garrus."
This was the one of the few times she had actually admitted weakness like this, so openly, so easily. She wasn't crying, bursting into tears or giving into heavy sobs, screaming about the terrible hand fate had dealt her. But her confidence itself seemed zapped away. She carried an uncertainty with her, as if she wondered whether she had the strength to carry on.
He broke away from stroking her hair and removed her hand from her face, squeezing it tightly, and pressed his browplate between her forehead and temple, a deep purring noise in the back of his throat in an attempt to soothe her. So much had been asked of her without expecting much in return. Little wonder the stress was starting to get to her. This wasn't much, but it was the best he could offer.
"Get in." It was said so matter-of-factly it caught Garrus off guard.
He pulled away slightly to look down at her. "Jane?"
"You're warm. I'm cold. And since Dr. Chakwas has demanded I stay in my cabin, I could use the company. Doubt I'll sleep much anyways. So get in."
"So demanding. Anyone ever tell you you're a taskmaster?" Garrus asked, hoping to lighten the mood, unhooking his visor from his head and laying it on her nightstand.
"Only when it counts. Besides, how do you know this is the commander talking? Maybe it's the needy mate ordering you around again," she smiled, able to wrench herself away from that dark place she had been in only a moment before.
Garrus peeled his tunic off and threw it unceremoniously over to the couch. Only part of his sleeve made it onto the couch seat. "Another perk?"
"No." Her voice was tender. "This is much more than a perk."
He finished undressing in no time, pulling back the covers a little bit to get into the bed, but enough Jane was exposed to the cool air circulating the cabin. Not what she needed. He motioned over to the light, silently asking to turn it off. Jane consented with a nod. Their only source of light now would be the blue glow of the fish tank and twinkling of the stars above them through the sky light.
His arms coiled around her shoulders and her waist, effortlessly pulling her towards him. He heard her pleased gasp when his warm scales and hide came into contact with her squishy body.
"Spirits you're still freezing."
"Told you."
Comfortable silence fell on them, Garrus's talons drifting up and down her back underneath her black tank, Jane's nimble fingers dancing a slow waltz on one of his arm scales.
"You were worried about me, weren't you?" Jane finally broke the silence, but asking it so quietly Garrus almost didn't hear. "When I came back up?"
"You know how turians are about water. If you got stuck down there, I would have had to go after you. Lots of flailing and drowning would have been involved. That wouldn't have been fun for anyone."
"That's not what I asked, Garrus," she replied, untangling herself from his embrace and sitting back up. "Were you worried about me?"
He followed her up. She wasn't laughing along with him, teasing him. "Jane, I…"
Her hand cupped his jaw. "Were you afraid?"
She wasn't going to let him joke his way through this as he usually did. As she usually did. She was searching for a specific answer. A serious answer.
"I know you have to take risks. There's no way around that," he began. "But you weren't waking up." His voice wobbled despite itself. "You were so cold. So still." His gaze drifted away from hers. "I couldn't…I can't… be without…"
Say it, Vakarian. You need to say it. She needs to hear you say it.
He swallowed. "I don't want to live without you."
She scooted forward, rising herself slightly off the bed and planting herself down on his lap. His arms immediately went around her as she threw hers around his neck, pressing her body into the jutting angles of his body, kissing along his scarred mandible. "It's alright." Her own voice shook. "I'll be alright."
"No, you won't," Garrus said, getting a grip. "As long as this damn war's going on, you'll still be putting your ass on the line like this."
"What choice do I have? We both know what needs to be done to fight the Reapers." Her eyes shut then, in clear distress, her next words a strangled whisper. "And you know I can't promise to never take risks like that again. To always come back."
Garrus's shoulder sagged, the weight of her words crashing down on him. He knew that. Spirits did he know that. They were both soldiers. In the end, their mission always came first before their personal feelings. Just like in the turian military, within turian society. The good of the many outweighing the good of the few. Community and society first, platoon first. That had been ingrained into him his entire life.
But this once, with Jane. He didn't want to put her second. With so much uncertainty surrounding the whereabouts of his father and sister, Jane may well be the only person he loved left. He couldn't bear the thought of losing her too.
But he had no choice. He would have to, even if he resisted it with every fiber of his being. Either of them might be called upon to give up their lives for the sake of the galaxy before this was all over.
He cradled her head in his hands, pulling her forehead against his brow, cherishing the feel of her skin against his plates.
"Try, Jane. Please," he breathed, putting as much emotion as he could behind those three words.
Her hold around his neck tightened with as much strength as she could muster.
"I will," she replied just as raggedly, kissing him gently on his flat nose. "But it goes both ways, Garrus. If I'm going to try, I need to know you will too."
He saw it, the anxiety swelling in her eyes, mirror reflection of what rested in his own.
"As long as I've got something to lose and the aim to make sure I don't, I will." He heard her breath hitch, her eyes shine brightly in the synthetic light of the aquarium. "Besides, someone's got to stick around and watch out for you. And your fish. And your hamster. And be your personal heater whenever you get cold. Naturally mind you, not from a tentacled, mind-enslaving monster that lives in oceans."
She gave a watery chuckle at that. "Dr. Chakwas put me on bed rest for at least twelve hours, maybe more. Think you can handle lying with me for that long? Taking care of me and obeying my every whim?"
"I think I can manage," he answered with the utmost confidence before capturing her lips with his in a long kiss.
Even if she wasn't at her best, he was still with her. Sharing jokes. Trading stories. Teasing each other of sensual pleasures to come when she was feeling up to it. For these few hours, there would be no husks trying to attack them. No missions against taking out Cerberus or Reaper strongholds. No Leviathan to track down. All that mattered was this. Just the two of them. This time together. In this moment.
And as she kissed him back, he couldn't ask for more than that.