A/N: So I've seen a ton, a TON of fan commentary on the lack of love interest conflict / confrontation in Mass Effect 3, and this is my pseudo-response to Bioware on behalf of those responses, addressing specifically the lack of Kaidan/Garrus battling-it-out I WANTED FOR SO LONG, SO GODDAMN LONG! *cry* If you couldn't tell, my Shepard, Iona, fell in love with Kaidan first, but when he broke her heart, Garrus was there to ease the blow...
This is a oneshot fic that I've taken from a much larger, more in-depth character-driven interpretation of Mass Effect. It takes place in an AU that isn't ACTUALLY AU until ME3... because I disagreed with a lot of the liberties taken with the story arc and plot progression in the franchise's finale. Don't get me wrong, it got SO MUCH right, which is why it hurt so much when it got things so terribly, terribly wrong :'(
Anyway, this is rated T for language and some violence. Enjoy!
Now Is Not the Time!
"Cortez, I don't want any heroics out of you today, understand?"
"Aye aye, ma'am."
Standing, Shepard gripped the supportive handle that hung overhead, preparing for drop-off. Infiltrating a Cerberus base usually required little more than quick reflex and innate skill from the commander, but the Reaper razing the skies of any and every vehicle that came close to the facility's exterior had her more than a little on edge, especially when so many lives were at stake.
"Orders?" EDI's mobile platform inquired from her seat aboard the shuttle, eyes following Shepard's gaze at what seemed to be nothing in particular.
"I want you and Liara to head for the comm tower to see if you can get communications back online," She chewed her lip – this was one of their greatest opportunities to uncover Cerberus's plans and sabotage the opposition from within, and of course a fucking Reaper just had to get in the way. "I'll need them back up to mobilize the fleet and keep in contact with the Elcor ground team."
"Understood, Shepard," Liara nodded in acknowledgement.
"James, you'll stay aboard the shuttle until Cortez has docked with the fleets," She grimaced. "I'll need you to cooperate with the Turian commander. No funny business."
"Sure thing, Lola," He shrugged, readjusting the armor rested upon his unendingly broad shoulders.
"I mean it, Vega," She warned with a sly smile. "Take orders like the man you're not. And no comments about the women being indistinguishable from the men."
"Aw, come on!" He groaned. "It was an honest mistake!"
"Garrus, Kaidan," She pressed on, ignoring James. It seemed to be the only successful course of action for getting him to obey orders. "You're with me."
"Yes, ma'am," Kaidan kept his voice steady, but she caught the glare he snuck at the Turian sitting silently against the shuttle's side door, preparing for descent.
"You know our initiative," She mused. "We get to HQ, upload that virus, and return to the field if that Reaper's not dropped by the time we're back out in broad daylight." She turned to Liara.
"Once the comm tower's back up, make it clear to the fleet that this offensive only goes so far as taking down that Reaper. This is not about Cerberus. Not yet."
"Of course, commander."
"Commander, we're preparing for descent, ETA 27 seconds."
"Good work, Cortez," She shouldered her shotgun, feeling the biotic energy flow from the tips of her fingers to the reaches of her toes. It was comforting, in its own way.
The shuttle seemed to slow, gravity slipping from beneath them as it lowered toward the ground, and when the door slid open and a brilliant light spilled into the darkened interior, for the briefest of moments time seemed to stop and Iona was entranced by the beauty of daybreak.
She leapt from the shuttle first, the others following; all but James. Looking back to her crew, those still aboard the hovering vehicle and EDI and Liara who were preparing to head in the opposite direction, she felt a swell of pride inflate her chest.
"Make me proud."
And with that they were off, Liara and EDI in the direction of the comm tower, Shepard, Garrus, and Alenko headed for the facility's center, and the shuttle lifting back into the sky as it prepared to double back around the building's posterior to rejoin the Turian fleet and Elcor militia.
It was eerily quiet once inside the Cerberus base, little to no signs of opposition except for the occasional trooper rounding the corner to no surprise of Shepard and co. Something wasn't right here; she could feel it in her bone marrow.
And still she preferred the deafening silence that set her nerves on edge to the inevitable conversation that began between her squad mates not five minutes into the facility.
"So, Garrus, it's good to be back on the Normandy with you this time around," Kaidan's voice was nothing short of pleasant, but she knew the moment the words escaped his lips what was about to occur.
"Just like old times, Alenko," Garrus concurred, flanging a little more gruff than necessary. If she knew Garrus, she knew he'd want to avoid this conversation at all costs. She inhaled deeply, scanning the floor over the barrel of her Claymore, searching for evidence of any conflict they'd missed just before their arrival. The place was too empty to be a functional Cerberus base, and there had been no reports or out coming comm traffic to indicate anything at this facility had gone wrong…
"Yeah, that it is," Kaidan paused. "Almost."
"Wonderful." She hadn't realized she'd said it out loud until Garrus responded dutifully, a little too quickly to be convincing.
"What is it, Commander?" He heaved his rifle up into position. "Got anything?"
"Uh, no, just waiting for that comm tower…" She fumbled. This was going to be a fucktacular day.
"I'm sure EDI and Liara will be fine," Garrus reassured her. "Maybe they were met with some heavy resistance once inside. Although there doesn't seem to be any here…I don't like this, Shepard."
"Me either." She agreed. "Keep your guard up."
"Aye, aye," Kaidan concurred. Twenty seconds and a headshot later, he raised his voice once more. "So Garrus, where are you spending your time on the Normandy these days?"
"What?" Garrus didn't sound surprised so much as he sounded tired, which made Iona struggle to stifle a laugh.
"Well, I mean, I heard you were the master calibrator before the Reaper invasion," Kaidan meandered along. Boy this was getting painful…EDI, Liara, anybody, please come in… "But I hardly see you in the main battery when we're on board."
"What can I say?" Garrus smiled to himself – she didn't so much as see it as she did hear it. "There's only so much calibrating you can do until you reach perfection."
Something moved above her, catching her eye – a balcony overhead offered little more than a few feet of perspective into the upper level's confines and layout, the overhang basking it in shadow. But she could've sworn she'd seen something darker than shadow, something solid, scurry across from left to right…
"With a thanix cannon on board I'd think there'd be a need for a lot more calibrating than just once a day," Kaidan mused.
Iona could barely hear her companions anymore; she was too enrapt in the sounds coming from all around her. Ever since she'd been grafted with these cybernetic implants, her senses were heightened to an alarming degree, and it felt as though the entire main room of the facility was abuzz with movement just beneath the surface, settling an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her left eye began to twitch – always a telltale sign of trouble.
"If you've got something to say, Alenko, now would be the time to say it," Garrus challenged just as the familiar blue eyes of a husk peered out at Shepard from the shadows above the glass of the balcony.
"WRONG!" She shouted, lifting her shotgun. "MOVE, MOVE!"
They seemed to come from everywhere, then, spilling over the railing and emerging from the shadows as though crawling out from the depths of hell itself. But it wasn't just husks, no, there were husks swarming them from all sides, and Cerberus troopers repelling down from the ceilings, smoke grenades hitting the floor in synchronized waves, centurions surrounding the small team, guardians making their slow approach from afar.
And without her helmet, she was an easy target not only for blindness, but inhalation that sent her into coughing fits, ensuring the husks would be able to find her quite easily through the encroaching smog.
This was certainly less than ideal.
"On our right!" Garrus hollered, rolling away from an array of shots arced to follow his path, taking cover behind one of the cubicles, searching for a suitable position to begin sniping, she was sure.
It all happened so fast – the husks were around her in seconds, collapsing on her like moths on a flame, and had she not been coughing from the thickening smoke, she wouldn't have been off by the millisecond needed to begin her nova that proved critical to her well being.
She took a shot in her side as she leapt up from the floor, erupting with biotic energy as she crashed to the ground, sending the influx of husks flying in all directions as though a tremor had shaken the earth beneath them. She fell to the ground in pain, trying in vain to ignore it until every last enemy had been dropped, and could only pray to whatever higher being was out there that she wouldn't lose too much blood along the way.
"One less to worry about!" Garrus called out from somewhere in the enormous hall – she couldn't tell where, not through all this smoke and the chaos all around her. He hadn't seen…he didn't know she'd taken the hit. How could he? They were all blind in this mind-numbing smog to what didn't lay just a few feet ahead of them.
"One down!" Kaidan shouted from somewhere across the way in response to Garrus's own running tally.
"One? Is that all you've got Alenko?" She heard a concussive shot ring out somewhere nearby as she put a round in a husk's skull, effectively blowing the thing to shreds all over the Cerberus centurion standing just behind the creature. Dazed, he wiped at the bloodied gore and gray matter smearing his visor, giving her enough time to charge him into oblivion.
"I'm just getting started, Vakarian!" Kaidan laughed ruefully, the familiar blue explosion of biotic power flickering through the smoke to give her a general idea of where he was.
"Shepard, come in, we've reactivated the comm tower!" Liara's voice chimed in her ear, effectively distracting her from the husk that now clumsily clamped onto her arm.
"That's—" She grunted, hitting the thing in the head with the butt of her Claymore. "Good work, any word from the fleet?"
"Not yet," She answered.
"Scoped and dropped!" Garrus sounded from somewhere far away, giddy as a kid in a candy store.
"Orders, Commander?" Liara demanded of Shepard.
"Tell th-" A Cerberus guardian hit her from behind, sending her forward onto her knees.
"Shepard, are you alright?"
"Liara, tell the Turian fleet not to-" A shot pinged the floor just beside her fingers, one that must have been from a sniper rifle seeing as her ears began to ring and her head swam in confusion.
"First Shepard, now this?" Kaidan complained to the Turian. Great.
"Shepard, what's going on?" Liara's voice ebbed with worry.
"And the truth comes out!" Garrus laughed.
"Do you need reinforcements?" EDI implored.
Another shot just above her left knee as she struggled to her feet.
"Oh, come ON!" She screeched as she dropped her Claymore, hands shaking from the disorientation of the shots being fired all around her. She erupted with biotic energy, sending a shockwave in all directions, effectively stunning anyone around her long enough to grab her shotgun and make a dive for cover.
"Commander, the Reaper has breached the hull of the Turian dreadnought, and the Elcor ground team is pinned down by Cerberus troops outside the hangar."
"Liara, tell the Turian commander not to get too close to that Reaper, we'll find the controls for the AA guns and offer support!" She winced, her side throbbing. "And tell the Elcor ground team to pull back!"
"Shepard, you alright over there?" Garrus hollered at her.
"I'll cover you, Commander!" Kaidan insisted.
"Shepard, the fleet and militia have pulled back and are awaiting your orders. James has taken position with Lieutenant Cortez above the hangar, offering air support while the Elcor pull back."
There was a familiar red light that danced along Iona's shoulder, and, in all her frustration, she sighed and, with the flick of her wrist, pulled the nemesis away from the balcony, leaving her suspended in midair for Garrus to finish off. This was getting ridiculous.
"Commander, what's the order?" James's gruff baritone sounded impatient.
"I'M KIND OF IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING HERE, VEGA!" She snapped, plugging a slug into the belly of another husk.
"I never abandoned her on the original Normandy!" Kaidan yelled. She groaned – how much of this conversation was she missing? What kind of casualties were the Turian and Elcor forces taking? When would the smoke begin to clear?
But most importantly, how much of this conversation was she missing?
"Shepard, do you need aid? How are things going over there?" Cortez inquired.
"They're going fucking swimmingly!" She elbowed a trooper in the face, giving her enough time to shoot him in the foot and charge him to the floor.
"Kaidan, I don't think now is the best time!" Garrus pled from across the room.
"Commander Shepard, this is Commander Lithanus, I think the Reaper's starting to take damage, its main gun is no longer following a straight path."
"Orders?" James repeated, as though wishing hard enough would grant him an answer this time around.
"Now's as good a time as any!" The familiar blue of Kaidan's biotics swept the husk running toward her off its feet. "It's about time we proved who's best for her anyway, man to man!"
"Nobody owns me here but me, Major!"
"Is that…Major Alenko?" Liara questioned amusedly as Iona yelled back at her once-jaded lover through the haze.
"Commander Lithanus, can you hear me?" Shepard winced, ignoring Liara, grabbing her side as she felt her legs begin to buckle with the familiar weakness that came with blood loss.
"Loud and clear, Shepard," He responded.
"Kaidan, I really don't think now is the best time!" Garrus's voice seemed rough and strangled, as though he were under some great physical exertion. I second that motion, Iona thought to herself.
"You've already got your hands full over there, an asskicking from me would only complicate things." The Turian's voice was smooth like butter. Condescending.
Fuck you, Garrus.
"Coordinate with the Elcor if you can," Iona fought for air, the edges of her vision growing hazy. "I want a full offensive on the destroyer only when I say so, and I want it coming from all fronts." She winced again. "For now, keep at it with bug bites, and don't get too close." She gritted her teeth. "No heroics from any of you!"
"Dutifully: Understood, commander." The familiar drone of the Elcor General swam through her head – what a convenient time to enter the conversation…
"Do you want us to help coordinate the Reaper offensive?" Liara asked.
"Yes!" Shepard shot another husk square between the eyes. "Don't worry about us! The Reaper is your only priority!"
"Understood, commander," EDI said brusquely, the familiar blip of comm cut out following her easy tone.
"Shepard, you alive down there?" Garrus called out.
Blinking, she started to realize that the smoke had cleared, but her vision was clouded with another fog of confusion from the bullet embedded in her gut.
"Barely!" She laughed wryly, sinking to the floor in a muddled heap. "Anybody got some MediGel to spare?"
"On my way!" Garrus's familiar footfalls tapped the floor.
"I've got her!" Kaidan ran forward, falling to the ground beside her. "That's a bad hit, Commander. Why didn't you say something?" She blinked at him in shock – no, awe, pure, unadulterated awe for the thickness of his skull.
"Really." Was all she could manage. "Really?" He cocked his head at her, inquisitive, as the familiar, steady wave of cool relief spread along her stomach, easing the pain that had rendered her nearly incoherent.
"Shepard, I've got something!" Garrus called to her. There was a beat while he waited for her to join him.
"Uh, Vakarian, I'm a little inconvenienced here, can you, perhaps, bring it my way?" He shuffled awkwardly.
"Right, of course, Commander," He handed her a datapad upon stumbling on her splayed form, still regaining the energy to stand as the MediGel replenished her blood to the best of its ability. "Look here – shipments of human colonists from the Kepler Verge."
"The numbers are enormous," Kaidan's eyes widened as he scanned the information.
"And that was just last week," Garrus confirmed.
"Well, that would explain the MULTIPLYING number of HUSKS in the VICINITY!" She shouted toward the balcony where they'd made their first appearance, visually bitter about the onslaught they'd only narrowly managed to put down.
"Do you think they can convert them that fast?" Garrus wondered aloud.
"Yeah, I mean, Reaper tech is good, but…" Kaidan interrupted.
"I was being facetious, you idiots," She gritted her teeth as she stood, favoring her side. "Now, let's do what we came here to do. But first-" She pointed forward with her shotgun. "We've got some AA guns to calibrate." She grinned sourly at Garrus. "Your time to shine, Vakarian."
"Of course," Kaidan rolled his eyes, shouldering his submachine gun.
"What is…'facetious'?" Garrus blinked, confused. Apparently, 'facetious' wasn't in the vocabulary of the Turian's model of the translator. Calibrated to understand and convert every known language in the galaxy, and it doesn't know the word facetious? Go figure. Shepard, exasperated, pushed ahead of the both of them, too disgusted with the outcome of their 'infiltration operation' to look either of them in the eye.
"Oh, and enough with the gossiping while on duty." She spat. "It tends to get a little distracting."
They let their faces fall in shame, and she felt victorious, strutting ahead with a newfound determination until Kaidan's voice quietly murmured from behind her back.
"Facetious is a pretentious human word for 'just kidding,' Garrus."
"I heard that."
"I didn't say it quietly…ma'am."