title: dogs of war
pairing: femshep/garrus
rating: PG-13
9x100. death changes everything.
Item, qe nul soit si hardy de crier havok sur peine davoir la test coupe.
And may her soul find peace, wherever it may be.
.
.
Good Girl.
Lana Shepard is a marvel in human engineering. One of those rare survivor breeds, a true display of mongrel human strength in the face of adversity. She can disarm a Turian soldier barehanded in ten seconds, knows eight different ways to take down a charging Krogan in five. She's saved countless lives across the galaxy, including the council, and avoided certain peril time after time, even before becoming the first (not first, she grimaces, just the first publicized) human Spectre.
Thing is, eventually it all comes back to get you, and even the great Commander Shepard couldn't elude death forever.
.
.
Fetch.
Of course its fucking Cerebrus who finds her a new team.
Loyalists. Theirpeople. People she doesn't trust.
People who didn't see their atrocities on Binthu, Kahoku's blank eyes staring up at her, needle marks still fresh in his arm.
"An underground rebel taking out mercs on Omega," Lana remarks, flipping through the dossier on Archangel, XO Lawson standing across from her impassively. "Sounds like a stand-up guy. I should be giving him a fucking medal. Set a course for Omega, we get him before the Salarian."
Lawson gives her a pained look, but (thankfully) keeps her mouth shut anyway.
.
.
Heel.
It is said that the human body can stay conscious in the vacuum of space without air for roughly fourteen seconds before the lack of oxygen takes effect.
Contrary to popular belief, that is a lot of time.
I shouldn't have let my guard down I couldn't save them all I tried, ohgodohgod, I tried I wish I would have done things differently then maybe- hope all my friends are safe I wish- I hope I'm not- fuck, this is really the end-
And then there is the calmness of knowing it's over.
And Benezia was right, there's no light.
.
.
Come on.
Sometimes she thinks about it, that inky void. What was beyond it, where her soul went, how it got ripped out of the ether, stuffed back into this half-cybernetic upgrade body. She's not the same, and she knows it.
He does too.
"Archangel" keeps a wide berth from her, spending most his time in the forward battery.
Calibrations, he tells with a small nod, hardly a glance before going back to work. And even though he says he'll be there if he needs her, losing her best friend in the galaxy grates on her more than she's willing to admit.
.
.
Bad girl.
They spar. It was her idea.
He holds back. His idea.
Even outside of armor, his body is a weapon, so he allows her to bring hers. They're small, sharp, and gleam in the low light cargo hold light. Her cybernetic eyes are ringed red and glow unnaturally, steady as she watches him. He remembers her telling him she doesn't have to blink anymore, but it's a reflexive, human gesture she isn't willing to give up.
He strikes the first blow, it doesn't connect.
He has reach, she has flexibility. It's a good match.
They hold a tiebreaker upstairs afterwards.
.
.
Lay down.
Flashback:
Liara stood strangely stoic. Tali cried. Wrex laid her beloved pistol at the base of her memorial. Ashley drank afterwards. Each had their own way to cope with the grief.
It was a citadel-wide holiday, strangers came en masse to send her off.
With no body to bury, no coffin, no grave, no family heirloom, Turians adhering to the old belief believe the soul would stay in limbo with no anchored object to put to rest, to go through the funeral rites.
He tries not to think of her trapped, sends up an old Turian prayer to the spirits instead.
.
.
Go.
Only when the thresher maw nearly kills them all does he realize how high-strung she's been since her return.
He pauses firing to watch her in action. A force of nature, she is destruction embodied and given a pistol and power behind it. And it's beautiful, but dangerous. Her mind isn't as focused and her recklessness starting to bleed through, cracking like her brittle smile, cybernetics showing under her skin.
They take a quiet, easy (so he thought) assassination on Omega afterwards for the Asari Justicar onboard.
When they return Samara's eyes rarely leave the commander, their smiles eerily mirrored.
.
.
Drop it.
Garrus has her pinned against the cargo hold wall, arms on both side of her head, looking down at her angrily.
"This needs to stop."
"No." Lana shakes her head, as he tries to wipe the slow trickle of blood from a cut on her cheek. Pressure on the cut stings momentarily, fades away.
"We don't have to do whatever this is this way," he emphasizes, takes a step back, looks at her a little more pleadingly. "I'm afraid of this darkness in you."
She smiles bloody, spits on the ground in front of him.
He looks the other way.
.
.
Stay.
"You think I've come unhinged," she remarks far too casually. "I've made my peace, Garrus. I'm not afraid of dying. Yes, I am still afraid of getting my crew killed."
"Shepard," he says, scuffing a foot against the cabin floor before taking his own plunge off the edge, the image of her trigger-happy grin on Tuchanka still fresh in mind. "I said I'd be here if you need me. That fact hasn't changed. You have my word I will stay by your side."
She clasps his hand, aims for a genuine smile.
"I know. Let's go save us a galaxy."