His omni-tool had been beeping at him since before he woke in medbay, but only now did he have the time to really pay it any attention. The escape from the explosion caused by the Crucible, the crash on some distant planet, actually pausing enough to have his wounds checked… well, he could be excused for only remembering now. He wished he hadn't.
Garrus had been sitting in the main battery staring at the glowing display since he had seen the name of the sender. His mind felt disjoined from his body; he mind was running so fast that his body could do nothing but cease all movement. Then the pacing had began. Back and forth he walked in the confines of the battery, trying desperately to wrap his mind around what it all meant. Garrus turned once more, headed for the opposite wall, but instead of turning again and continuing the pattern, he felt his arm raising, the orange glow smashing into the wall in front of him. The flashing did not slow or stop. The pain of his likely broken fingers did not dull the ache in his chest.
The message had been there since just before they had pushed out for the beam. She had sent it then, back at the FOB, and he did not know why that made him so angry. His mandibles shook slightly as he attempted to calm his breathing. The main battery was empty but he was still a Vakarian. Vakarians did not crumble under pressure or grief. Garrus let the purr of the engine lull him as he stared down at the flickering light, resting his head forward on his arm so all he could see was that orange glow.
He would have to open it eventually.
The fight to the beam, the Normandy evac-ing him and EDI, leaving her behind: it was the worst kind of torture. He wanted to follow her like he had since the start, but that wasn't what she ordered. He had never been a good turian, never wanted to be really, but he had always been whatever she needed him to be. Still, leaving her behind had been the hardest thing he had ever had to do.
But this was theirs to finish. How could she not understand that? How could she order him to go, when she knew how much it killed him to not be covering her six? They were a team. She had said it herself. Shepard and Vakarian. Her, the first human Spectre assigned to track a rogue agent down, and him, the C-Sec officer blocked at every frustrating turn in his investigation into that same Spectre; it had always been theirs to finish. He had never matched up to her, in the beginning.
She was too brilliant, too much to take in all at once, like when you cannot tear your gaze from the glare of the sun because you know it is something you'd like to be able to really see. She was like that, like a star: too bright to look at, yet pulling everything into its gravity. Inevitable and all-consuming. But she wasn't like a star, really; a pure force of nature, that suited her well, but there was no warmth there, no comfort. Stars were too far away to be truly comforting, too distant, too much space between. No, she was more like the gentle glow a warm fire, soft and inviting, but when you drew nearer you realized she wasn't a warm hearth at all. She was a bonfire, wild and untameable, but content to glow in her own circle without harm. She was her own entity, her own energy, so powerful that nothing could compare, nothing could take her away but the steady flow of time.
God, he had been so naive, thinking her indestructible, something more than flesh and blood. He had seen that she was a woman. Had seen her hand, strange with its too many fingers, wrapped in his own. Had felt the alien nature of her hair on his skin. Garrus had known her as someone who needed comfort after a nightmare, who slept better with him close, and who had always, always seemed to have something against fish. He had known she was not some unattainable thing because she had let him. She had let him be her equal in her private life. Yet, he could not let go of that thought that she was indestructible, even knowing those things. Could not think her anything less in battle, as if the moment he did she would become something less, something that could be taken from him like so many other thing had been taken.
As if he had ever been capable of saving anyone.
Garrus clenched the hand at his side before releasing it, repeating the motion until the grief that threatened to overwhelm him abated. It was like a tide coming in; eventually, he would be weathered by it. He wasn't sure yet if her message would bolster him against it or wash him away completely. If it was what he thought it was then she had sent it before the final push, before she had reached the beam. There was no way for her to know how it all would end.
Yet, she had sent him a goodbye.
The weight of it all suddenly crashes on him, and he slides to his knees against the his workbench. He lets the weight of it all carry him down, down, until he is as low as the ship will let him fall. He wishes it would let him keep going, forever, like the pain of this moment. She was always the one to bear the weight of everything; he has never been as strong as her, no matter what she told him before. He was no leader, no great strength hidden in an organic body. He was a coward without her. Too afraid to quit C-Sec, too afraid to see betrayal at his back on Omega, too afraid to do what must be done later. He could pretend he didn't see it, pretend it didn't exist for a little while longer. He could, but she would never let him be a coward, even in her absence.
He brings the tool up and transfers the display onto the tactical screen he no longer needs. The vid waits and so does he. Just one more moment to breathe. One final lungful while he can still take in the air.
Before he knows for sure that the air he is breathing will never be shared with her again.
Garrus squares his shoulders then hits play. He is not ready for the sight of her, hair ruffled by the breeze in waves of shaded amber, and armored in hues of red. She is like phoenix from her mythology, fiery, beautiful, and about to burn out. She had risen from the ashes once; he does not dare to hope that she can do it again. Her eyes tell him that she does not either.
The FOB is quiet behind her. The calm before the storm, if he recalls her human idioms, correctly.
"Garrus…" God her voice. How did he ever stand to listen to her when it feels like razor blades cutting through his very spirit?
"I've never been very good at goodbyes, so let's pretend that this isn't one. You've said your peace to me and I wasn't strong enough to tell you mine. Not now. Not like this." Her eyes glance down and away and he feels their absence like a part of him was stolen. An explosion to her left jerks her gaze back up and she is stiff, tired in a way he rarely sees, rarely saw. She does not look like the strong and commanding spirit he knew, moments before for her, was talking of retirement with him. Her one last gift to him before the battle had been her strength, and it had probably been the last bit of steel left in her.
Whatever had been happening has settled now and her eyes come back up. She smiles wanly at him through time and space and he can almost pretend he is there. Almost, but his hand comes up on empty air, and the illusion is shattered. He pauses the video and stands. He will not sit here, broken on the floor and listen to this. It is not how he will honor her last message to him.
Garrus walks shakily to the station on the opposite side of the battery, and now her image is so vast it takes up his entire vision. As it should. He hits play.
"I wanted you to know so many things, Garrus. I wanted to show you so many things. Have you ever seen the sunrise from a boat in the middle of the ocean? Or felt the waves just washing over your feet in the sand?" Her head tilts forward just enough that her fringe falls onto her face. He can still see the small smile that appears there. "I know turians aren't fond of water, but I would have liked to see those things with you. Retire somewhere tropical, was how you put it, right?"
Her head is still tilted down and he cannot see her eyes, the expression her eyebrows give to her face. It is so much harder to read human emotions without seeing their faces, but he can hear the pain in her next exhale and it cuts him like a knife. He does not want to know what comes next. He does not want to hear her shatter his last bit of hope.
Garrus remembers suddenly the moment after their shore leave when she had made that comment, such a little thing, but it had sounded like hope dying. The spirit cannot survive without hope, and the body will soon follow. Had she lost all hope? He had told he that didn't sound like his girl then, and yet as he was staring at her image, body battered and beaten, it was her spirit that was hurting the most.
"Oh Spirits," his voice escaped him. "Shepard, don't you -"
"I told you once that I didn't know what I'd do without you. I've never meant something more in my entire life." Her eyes are lifted again, the green piercing him and pinning him into place. "I know you think that I am the one who gave your life purpose, that I showed you that things aren't always black and white."
Yes, he thinks, you did. Don't take that away.
"Gray, you said. You don't know what to do with gray. I'm sure when you're seeing this there will be nothing but gray. No boundaries anymore, not after all this. At times, you may not know what to do with it." His hands are clenching the edge of the console so hard that he can hear it creak. The pain in his hand, definitely broken, is excruciating, but it keeps him standing tall, keeps him grounded.
"Garrus, don't you ever stop trying to find the meaning in that gray. It's what makes us all different, what keeps the universe spinning. Gray is the area where true leaders evolve because gray is where the hard decisions need to be made. And I-" Shepard's face crumbles for a second, just one, but it is enough that his hands snap up to the screen to rest beside her image. He needs to hold her, to let her know it's alright. She can't tell him to keep going without her. She can't be that cruel.
"I don't think I'll be around to make those calls for much longer, Garrus." Spirits, no. "I want you to be my voice, Garrus. I need you to do that for me, when I'm gone. Remember the gray isn't black and it isn't white, but it adds its shade to make all the colors that make life beautiful."
There is a wetness on his face, puddling in the gaps between his face plates. It quivers in time with the minute shaking of his body. Garrus can feel all this but it is separate from him now. His body is not important; it's just a vessel. The pain in his soul is consuming all other feeling. Her eyes are moist as well, and her hands are clenched on the tables edge in front of her. They are perfectly mirrored in that moment and he wants nothing more than to break free of it and reach across the distance to her.
"I want you to enjoy the colors again, Garrus. I want you to look at the vast blue of the sky, the glow of pink in the sunrise, the endless green of a field full of life. We stood against the Reapers so that life could live on to enjoy those colors, to enjoy the freedom of just living." A softness steals over her features, a warmth he knows intimately. Her eyes are still telling the truth; a well of despair looms there and he cannot tear his eyes away.
"So, I want you to keep living. Keep fighting. Live for me." He hates her in this moment. Hates her so much it bubbles inside him and forces everything else away. How dare she tell him to live, to hope, when she had already given up on it. She continues, knowing him too well. "Don't you continue on thinking that the galaxy is not worth fighting for. It is not empty now, Garrus. It's just moving forward despite the pain. Like you will need to."
This is how Garrus imagines death would feel. Like the emptiness of his soul, the breath he cannot take, the pain forcing its way past the anger, past the hate, until there is nothing else but loss.
"I'm not asking you to move on, Vakarian." He hadn't realized that he had dropped his gaze, his entire head pushed down under the weight, until that sharp rebuke. His head whips upwards, blue meeting green again. Her eyes are hard, her face even more so. She is Commander Shepard in that moment, not the love of his life, not his girlfriend. She is the woman everyone else sees and he aches because he can see through it still. Wishes that he didn't know her that well, like she knows him in that moment.
"I'm not asking you to forget." Her eyes, only her eyes fracture just the tiniest bit. "You know I never forget the ones I have lost, either. But you need to continue on for just a little while longer. Just until your time is up there - and dammit Vakarian it better be by natural causes or a bullet not of your making."
A shout sounds from the distance and she turns, holds up a hand. Wait, it says, just a moment longer. All he can think is that she is about to leave him, again, and he cannot let go. His fingers ache to pause the vid, let her image burn into his cornea until it is transposed onto everything he sees for the rest of his life. He lets it play and she turns back with a smile.
"Don't worry, Garrus. You know where I'll be. When you get there, I'll have a stiff one waiting for you so I can drink you under the table like always." A twitch in her brow, a saddened smile.
"I love you, Garrus Vakarian."
Garrus isn't sure how much time had passed when Liara find him. He knows EDI had called to him, distantly it had seemed, though he registers now that it is likely the reason Liara has come to find him. His legs are numb, stiff, from standing in one place for so long. Liara steps over bits of debris scattered around the battery. Only then does he realize that someone has torn the place apart. His eyes travel down to the hands. They are torn apart, too. Well, he thinks, that's one mystery solved, then.
"Garrus," the asari starts before gently touching his shoulder. She glances at the image of Shepard in front of him, the vid paused and still open on the screen.
"Garrus, what happened?"
His throat is too tight for words, but he knows if she could hear the sub-tones emerging from it her heart would be breaking with his. He knows she can see it in the stiff set of his shoulders, the tightness of his mandibles against his face. Liara has always been good at reading others; he wishes she wasn't here now. This pain is his.
"She-" His voice breaks, stutters out on the sob that escapes his throat, underlaid by a keening so high it hurts his ears. His hands clench down harder on the console and it doesn't just creak this time; the surface cracks under his fingers, fine lines racing out from it. Garrus's eyes are drawn there, glued there, until a laugh breaks free from his chest. Liara doesn't move, but her face betrays her worry. She is, by far, the most expressive asari he has ever known, which is ironic considering her choice of occupation. The thought only makes him laugh harder.
"Garrus, you're scaring me."
"She left me a message. Told me to keep living." His face twitches, mandible flaring out in a grim, turian sort of smile. "The thing is, I don't think things that are still alive should feel as little as I do right now."
Her hand clenches on his shoulder so hard it hurts. He welcomes it. Any pain that is not caused by her absence is a welcome one. He thinks that is probably not what she wanted for him. He thinks she doesn't get a say anymore.
"She didn't know how it would end, Garrus. If she were here now she'd have made you delete it, probably wrestled you to prevent you from playing it." Her words are lighter than the weight in her gaze. "She always covered her tracks. We don't know anything for certain yet. Don't give up on her."
He almost tells her he doesn't need to see a body to know she is gone. Doesn't have the will to tell her he felt it even before he watched the vid, even before he saw the absence of hope in her gaze. He can't because there is still a spark in Liara's eyes. He cannot take that away from her. Not when he knows how it feels.
Instead, he forces his hand to reach up for hers, leaving them both resting on his shoulder. She squeezes his hand in return. Two pairs of eyes glance up to stare at the image on the screen.
Only one of their hearts is still working.