Reunited: Garrus
By basteffect
A/N: This is my take on my femshep and garrus v. as they meet again in ME2. This first part is the prologue for those who haven't followed the story or are just introduced to this magnificent series of games and books. It follows the gameline pretty closely. Any reviews/betas would be extremely helpful. I love Garrus and had so much fun with the game romance with him, that I will be playing again with him soon ;). Thank you to EA and Bioware for the wonderful game that has sparked so many cool stories and ideas!
Prologue
Life was a bitch, and then you die. If you are very lucky, you get restored back to life. If you are very unlucky, you get restored back to life to fight the biggest badass threat to the entire galaxy with a group of fanatical terrorists. Commander Shepherd was definitely not lucky.
In 2183, Commander Sabria Shepard was inducted into a prestigious select group called the Spectres. They were the elite of the elite. Assassins, hardasses, killers, bodyguards, vanguards, investigators; you name it. They did it. They were the front line defense against major threats. They went out to find the threats and eliminate them before they became a bigger problem. No human had ever made it into their ranks until the rogue spectre, Saren, went AWOL after being mind-fucked by the intergalactic baddie Sovereign. Then the council decided this would be a great induction mission for Shepherd. She was told to find and apprehend Saren and discover why he has betrayed them. Sure. No problemo.
Turns out, Saren was manipulated or indoctrinated by Sovereign, an unknown species of super advanced synthetic organism that had been acting as a sleeper agent and decided it was time for his kind to return and wipe clean the galaxy in what they called a "harvest". After attacking and taking over the capital of the galaxy, the Citadel, Saren, Sovereign and his army of AI machines called the Geth, were minutes away from opening the portal that would allow Sovereign's fleet, the Reapers, to be unleashed upon all organics when Commander Shepherd and two of her crew, Lt. Kaiden Alenko and C-Sec Officer Garrus Vakarian put the kibosh on their plan. Shepherd and her crew managed to take down the indoctrinated spectre Saren who was hell bent on saving the galaxy by helping its' enemies destroy it. Then she had to make the tough call of either saving the council by giving the order for the human Alliance fleet to attack Sovereign with the primary focus of ensuring the safety of the council's flag ship the Destiny, or ordering the Alliance to focus only on Sovereign.
Shepherd knew that for humanity to find a place in this new era, they would need a grateful council on their side so she issued the command to save the Destiny. Doing so, cost humanity the lives of thousands of soldiers and personnel and although Sovereign was defeated and humanity earned a seat on the galactic council, privately Shepherd wondered if the sacrifice of so many was worth one politicians seat. She hoped so because she knew the Reapers weren't done. They were still coming. It might take a little longer for them to find a way through but these were machines that had conducted at least one harvest that they knew of 50,000 years ago during the Prothean era where the most advanced organic species of that time disappeared almost without a trace. To prevent that from happening again, Shepherd was willing to do much, sacrifice much to prevent the complete annihilation of her species and all the other new species that her own people had just begun to learn about.
Meanwhile the council was doing their normal political bullshit and sticking their heads in the sand and denying the existence of the Reapers. Shepherd understood they didn't want to panic people in thinking the end of their worlds were approaching but outright denying it and making no preparations for what was coming was asking for an outright ass whooping which Shepherd would be happy to deliver. Her mentor Captain David Anderson convinced the council that Commander Shepherd was best needed out searching for any Geth resistance. Captain Anderson had given Shepard her first solo command of her career when he placed the Normandy, a human-turian collaboration in advanced spaceflight, in her hands to chase after Saren. Shepard was hell of a commander and a diplomat but when billions of lives were at stake her back of diplomacy was getting pretty light. He told her to go out looking for the Geth because they both knew that if she runs into Geth, the probability of finding information on the Reapers was high. He would remain behind on the Citadel and Earth and keep working on the Council and the Alliance and trying to convince them that the Reapers were a valid threat and that preparations needed to be made. He would also be watching for any signs of indoctrination in the population. Shepherd knew she was doing no good where she was. She gathered her crew to return to the Normandy and according to a popular old earth tv series, headed out into the last frontier! And after months of futile searching, the Normandy found more than it had bargained for.
Attacked by an unidentified ship, the Normandy SR-1 was destroyed. The majority of the crew escaped in the lifepods but some were killed in the preceding blasts. The ship's pilot, Jeff Moreau aka Joker, refused to leave his baby. Shepherd ordered Garrus to get everybody in the life pods while she went to Joker. Garrus at first refused but Turians are taught from the womb to never disobey a direct order from their superior so he left her to begin the evacuation protocol. Shepherd moved up the bridge to the deck and managed to talk some sanity into Joker. As they moved to the foreward lifepod, a laser blast from attacking ship threw Shepherd back into the rapidly deteriorating navigational room. She hit the emergency release button for the lifepod as she felt the Normandy give a giant shutter and then she was suddenly ripped away and thrown out into the emptiness of space. As she dropped towards the outer atmosphere of a nearby planetoid, she could feel the air inside her helmet begin to heat up. She felt back and realized her helmet's pressure and oxygen tubing had been damaged thanks to thrown shrapnel from the Normandy. As her lungs turned to fire and she struggled with her helmet she began to fall closer to the planetoid and then everything faded to darkness.