The comets
Have such a space to cross,
Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off -
The Night Dances - Sylvia Plath
Thane
Honey colored eyes, defiant in the scope.
Do you dare?
Thane's breath caught in his throat- not from Kepral's this time, and not lost in his eidetic memory but rather from seeing one of those memories played out before him right here on the Citadel. This wasn't a memory now, but the present, and it wasn't the first time Commander Shepard took his breath away. It wouldn't be the last.
Garrus had Sidonis in his scope, his lust for vengeance blinding him to a Siha's desires. She was afraid. She was right to be afraid for Garrus- his body was awake but his mind was in battle sleep, dreaming of vengeance that the body was forced to act out.
The staging of paradox made for high drama: She would lose him if he pulled the trigger. He would pull the trigger. She could not lose him.
They were at an impas. Stalemate, as the humans called it. But Siha would not be bested, nor stalled, nor ignored.
Thane had never seen a bond between a turian and a human before, not like this. They read each other's minds on the field, and Garrus always had a moment to make her smile, remind her that she was strong and good, even when she wasn't. Because she was afraid she wasn't. Thane knew that feeling all to well. And Shepard always believed in Garrus- knew that he was pure and whole, even when the scars reminded him that he wasn't. Because he wasn't. She reminded him that of the two of them, he was the unbroken one. He'd never died.
Thane silently watched her struggle and question Garrus relentlessly throughout the mission, trying to reason and bargain her way to some sort of resolution that would satisfy them both.
Memory flared as Thane took his place behind Garrus on the catwalk.
"I didn't shoot him." Garrus walks away, predator-stalking and demanding that his vengeance-lust be sated. Siha is trying not to sadness-laugh at his frustration as she lengthens her stride to keep up. It is funny because Garrus is funny and not because killing is funny- he always makes her laugh and the alternative to laughter in this case is unfathomable. Behind the laugh she is afraid. He cannot be stopped by any conventional means. Harkin stirs on the floor in their burning wake, rubbing his head.
She wasn't laughing now, in the way of Garrus's shot. She put her body between Garrus and the traitor, asking with her back, the slight twist of her head, her eyes, her being: Does he dare? Thane wonders. If Garrus changed position he could get a shot, right through the side of Sidonis's head. Siha would be in the way, but his vengeance screamed that it was an acceptable risk, and with Garrus at the trigger she was not in any danger because he had really good aim. Unless she took the bullet.
He remembers.
Lazer-dot trembles on her chest. I smell her, spice on a spring wind. She stares at me through the scope, how dare you! A question: Why would someone die for a stranger?
Shepard wouldn't. She wouldn't. Would she? Thane would stop any of that from happening, of course. He sat close by Garrus, cloaked and ready.
Side approach, low kick to knee, grab arm and pull into leg lock to trigger pain response, finger-stab under eye plates and...
No. No broken neck for Vakarian, but if Garrus wanted his vengeance badly enough to go through a Siha, he could try.
Sidonis's voice crackled over the comm, punitive and hollow. She amplified the signal so Garrus could get every word.
"I didn't want to do it! I didn't have a choice. They got to me, said they'd kill me if I didn't help. What was I supposed to do?"
Die.
A low rumble in Garrus's sub-harmonics echoed in Thane.
"I wake up every night, sick. Sweating. Each of their faces, staring at me. Accusing me. I'm already a dead man… some days, I just want it to be over."
"We can arrange that," Garrus was talking, but more importantly, he was listening.
Thane felt Shepard smile and heard her sigh into the comm with resignation. "If that's what you want."
The words weren't for Sidonis: they belonged to Garrus.
Do you dare want this? She seemed to ask.
The moment teetered on the brink, one reality or another about to be born. Which would it be? Thane wondered.
Sidonis was already a dead man walking. Siha had just revealed that for Garrus's sake, twisting reality to suit her desires as she always did. Thane recalled the story of Commander Shepard talking the Spectre, Saren into suicide on the Citadel, not far from this very ward. She could make anything happen to suit her will, just so. Keeping Sidonis talking was a brilliant tactic- more manipulative than Thane had thought her capable of. In his experience, direct, willful people were not often the most ready to grasp nuance. Shepard's will was different, though. She had an indelible sense of rightness, but she did not conduct futile and full frontal assaults on reality. Rather, she followed threads of meaning, gathering them until she had enough to twist circumstances into a tapestry of her desired outcomes.
Rightness as felt sense, transmuted into reality by her will, like some blood-soaked alchemist. It was the very definition of a Siha. She did not merely hold opinions and act upon them, she created truth.
It was a good thing that her desires so often lined up with the needs of those who served her. Indeed, her desires often stemmed from the needs of others. Empathy was this Siha's defining trait.
Siha stepped aside, and Sedonis whispered thank you, and Vakarian… took a breath and squeezed the trigger. Thane didn't think he was going to, but he pulled the trigger. This story was different, after all. The high velocity shot did not make much noise, no more than the soft, sharp whump of air being displaced at near the speed of sound. Someone out on the ward screamed. Sidonis lay boneless dead in a pool of turian-blue blood.
She transmuted her turian's bullet from one of vengeance into one of mercy, and Vakarian was helpless before her.
Shepard looked up at Garrus, who had not moved since taking the shot. He was studying her intently through the scope, sniper's pose held. Thane held his own position behind Garrus on the catwalk- he would not move until he was sure the main actors had left the stage. The only one breathing in that moment was Shepard, chest heaving. Thane wondered what those honey colored eyes were saying to Garrus through his view down the rifle's sights.
He imagined he could hear her thinking, almost as if it were a memory.
I need you whole. I need you…
Ah. This was more than a twisting of reality to suit her will, to make her team strong, to make Garrus complete. This was more than doing a favor for a friend. This was a bond of love, forged in blood. She had compromised herself for him, and now they would never be apart. Drell could not see the future, but Thane could see what was written between two people plainly enough.
Did Vakarian know? Thane doubted it. Lucky, clueless man with a hot and literal mind. Vakarian couldn't fathom that someone like Shepard was in love with him, probably couldn't imagine Shepard in love with anyone. But, she would not be idle- she would be the one to make it known. And he would know soon- maybe not right away because Shepard would give him time to adjust to the new reality of being an arch-angel of mercy and not of vengeance, but there was no way he could not reciprocate. Garrus would wake from his battle sleep and find that a Siha had chosen him. Thane only hoped Garrus would prove more worthy of a Siha's blessings, and more resilient to her curses than Thane himself had ever been.
He felt a twinge of jealousy. Thane desired Shepard, spiritually, physically, mentally, sexually, this Siha who was his second chance. But men like Thane didn't get second chances, and Shepard was a footnote on a life unlived, right towards the end, at the dying part. He would not intrude any more deeply into her life when she had so much more of it to live, but he could at least watch the story unfold.
Yes, he would watch this story happen again, without him, and take vicarious pleasure in it.
Honey colored eyes, defiant in the scope.
It was the thing Thane liked about stories, about archetypes. They helped him make sense of horrible things, in the same way Shepard made sense of conflict with her will, made her own stories that somehow rhymed with his. With enough will, believing made it so.