A/N: We are back baby! This long and uneasy road towards Mass Effect 3 is definitely going to give me wrinkles I swear. I seem to find spoilers everywhere I go. If you are reading this because you just happened to stumble across it you might want to read Kill Garrus Volume 1 first. Just a friendly bit of advice. If you are one of those readers that have put up with me and have stuck with this then welcome back! You have been missed and I love you guys. Let us hug our screens as a virtual gesture of trust and a silent thank you...or not. Without further yazoo let us begin the second volume of Shepard's tale of revenge xD
"If you wanna meet me at electric chapel, if you wanna steal my heart away, meet me meet me baby in a safe place. Come and meet me in electric chapel." - Lady Gaga (Calibrators gonna calibrate.)
I do not own Mass Effect or Kill Bill. Come on if I did I wouldn't be typing this out with a laptop that is falling apart with crappy internet connection.
A sharp pain ignited inside Shepard's abdomen causing her to cry out in pain.
She kept on telling herself that she only had one more day to get through before she could go and see Mordin. How she managed to take the feeling of sharp spikes stabbing her insides for months she had no idea.
Mordin had explained how hard the pregnancy would be to get through. He even tried to talk her out of it when Shepard had met up with him privately.
The salarian had warned her that she would need to eat dextro-amino foods until she neared her third trimester, and managed to give her some medicine that would stop her from going into anaphylactic shock every-time she ate. The only problem was that she would feel extremely nauseous and dizzy from the new diet that wasn't meant for humans.
"Hey, honey are you feeling okay?"
A warm hand gripped Shepard's shoulder gently. He wore a black tuxedo that did not have a single crease in sight.
"I'm fine Kaidan," Shepard soothed in the most reassuring voice she could manage in her state.
The biotic was not convinced. His brow furrowed in a concerned gesture. He was not unaware of how difficult Shepard was finding her pregnancy. The most he could do was comfort his fiance, nothing more.
"You don't have to do this you know. If you don't feel up to it we can go back to the apartment?"
Shepard smiled up at Kaidan as he sat down beside her on the cushioned seats and wrapped his arm around her.
He traced small circles on her shoulder in an attempt to sooth her. The gesture was nice but it done nothing to relieve the pain of a hybrid child moving around inside her womb.
The great thing about Kaidan was that he never asked too many questions, he was content just to have Shepard by his side once again.
Shepard had been dreading this wedding rehearsal the day Kaidan had brought up the idea.
When the biotic had asked for her hand in marriage a huge part of her bloated body wanted to say no and yet for some reason the word yes had passed her lips.
She was alone and on the run from everything she had been fighting for, she wanted someone to be by her side for a change.
When she had first bumped into Kaidan he hardly recognized her. She had dyed her mousy brown hair a jet black and took skin pigment pills daily that made her skin slightly paler. She had even changed her name.
Shepard had gave him as much information as he needed to know. She was pregnant and had left the Normandy under her XO's command.
The former commander missed out the bits of information that mentioned the father of her child was Garrus and that he happened to be the XO of the Normandy.
After the torturous wedding rehearsal had come to an end Shepard was to visit Mordin, so that he could perform a procedure on the 8 month child that would have him physically born a human.
The salarian doctor had warned her about the risks. However Shepard had made him promise that if anything were to go wrong then he was to put the child's life before hers, no exceptions. If she were to just let her baby be born naturally, regardless of whether of not Shepard survived the birthing process the child would not live to see his second birthday.
The concept of turian and human physiology combined meant that he would have a weak immune system much like a quarian. He would also suffer from abnormal bone structure, physically torn between two completely different sets of DNA. After a while his body would not know how to continuing developing causing the child to go into state of paralysis to the point where his heart would just stop.
Shepard's mind began to wonder how her child must look inside her womb. She had x-rays on the sly with Mordin that had confirmed that the child did not have a fully formed set of five fingers and his head was shaped in such a way that it looked like a fringe but with slight traces of hair.
All the while Kaiden was oblivious to the amount of turmoil Shepard had been going through emotionally the past few months. Realistically Shepard could never see herself telling Kaidan the truth behind everything once the child was born.
"I know I have already told you this but you really do look beautiful," Kaiden whispered into her ear causing her to shiver.
It was true. He had commented on how incredible she looked in her white dress whenever the opportunity presented itself regardless of the massive bump that stood out on her body.
Shepard's dress had to be custom fitted for her, something she wasn't entirely happy with but went along with it anyway.
All she wanted was a plain white dress and what did she get? A pearly silk dress that was made of thin lace along her arms. The hem of the dress just about managed to lay delicately on her bump and meet her feet which refused to wear heels in her condition.
The dressed up pair sat on the cushioned seats in silence as they observed the priest and the guests quarrel about flowers and decorations.
The chapel was indeed lovely but Shepard wanted nothing more than to just get the rehearsal all over and done with. Everyone inside the chapel was a stranger to her. They were all friends of Kaidan who seemed overjoyed that the biotic was getting married.
Of course they only knew Shepard as 'Delilah', a name she had chosen on the spot in order to avoid press and to stop any of her crew or the council locating her.
She had found herself watching news-vids often to find out about her team but they were only mentioned briefly.
Shepard remembered laying on the sofa in Kaidan's apartment in another wave of pain as the screen read,
'The rumors of Shepard's death are again in question as people are starting to ask if she really had come back two years after the destruction of the SR1 Normandy.'
The information stung a bit, but she realized that it was for the best. Shepard would rather have everyone assume that she did indeed die in the wreckage and never returned.
A clean slate was going to presented to her son when he was born. Not a life of danger and press. He didn't deserve that kind of life.
"Kaidsn I think I'm going to go out and get some fresh air, it's really stuffy in here," Shepard stated struggling to pull herself up onto the balls of her feet.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Kaidan asked letting her use his arm for support.
"No, you stay here and talk about flowers." Shepard grinned as the biotic frowned at the thought. "I'll only be five minutes."
Kaidan nodded reluctantly and headed towards his group of friends who were knee deep in a conversation about tulips with the priest. He casted a few more glances back at Shepard as she wobbled down the aisle and exited the chapel.
The fresh air felt good as it came in contact with Shepard's flushed skin. Words could not explain how uneasy she felt inside that chapel but the thought of how she was doing all this for her son made her dismiss her feelings.
The child had finally stopped squirming around inside her womb long enough for Shepard to relax. It was these kind of moments that she cherished the most.
Her hand rubbed the bump affectionately as a silent thank you as she awkwardly sat herself down on the benches outside the serene chapel.
The weight of her bump made it almost impossible to stand for long, even short intervals anymore.
"I heard rumors that you were pregnant. Kaidan sure doesn't waste any time does he?"
Shepard's head snapped to the source of the voice. Her emotions became a tangled mess as she saw the man who had spoken standing outside with her at the far end of the chapel.
Truth be told she had recognised the voice as soon as she heard it, but a part of her prayed that her mind was just playing tricks on her. It wasn't.
"Garrus?" she muttered incoherently with shock.
The turian slowly walked over to Shepard keeping his crystal blue eyes trained on her at all times.
A bandage no longer clung to his face revealing a healed yet brutal scar across his right mandible.
He carried himself with confidence. He was after all the commander of the Normandy now.
Garrus stopped dead in his tracks as he met the bench that Shepard was sat on. She dared not breath as her mind processed that the man she loved was standing before her after all these months.
"How did you find me?" Shepard whispered still in complete shock from the turian's sudden presence.
"My father once said that 'If you want something bad enough, you will get it' Delilah," Garrus purred switching to a mocking tone when he pronounced her new name.
Shepard smiled weakly as she looked up at him. "Not a fan of the name?"
"It's not the choice I would have made," he replied with a turian grin.
The unexpected small talk put Shepard at ease but only slightly. There were a lot of things that were being unsaid and neither of them were sure if they wanted to disturb their time together with the cruel reality.
Garrus sat down beside Shepard on the bench and looked her up and down.
"You look beautiful," he sighed with a hint of disdain.
Shepard had heard that line one too many times today. But when Garrus said it, the sentence suddenly became shiny and new.
Her expression must have spoke for her because Garrus was back at her twinkling eyes.
They had missed each-other immensely.
Shepard stretched her hand out hesitantly to stroke his face worried that he might pull away. Hell he had every right to.
Instead Garrus reached out for her like a drowning man reaching out for rope.
They both sank into a tight embrace as she hid her face into the crook of his neck while his talons stroked her waist.
Tears departed from her eyelids and Shepard thoroughly damned her hormones to hell. It hurt the former commander's ego everytime she revealed her emotions.
Thankfully Garrus didn't try to make a sly remark and just continued to hold Shepard who's body was now shaking in his grip.
He gently traced his talon down her back making her exhale a contented sigh.
Without warning the child fidgeted inside her womb again causing Shepard to wail out in pain.
A part of her figured that the child knew that Garrus was his father. It was like he was finally able to meet him for the first time hence his excitement.
Garrus suddenly let go of Shepard as he was caught off guard by a sudden scream leaving her lungs.
"What's wrong?" he asked confused.
Shepard's face went red while she tried to breath through the pain.
"It's the baby he's kicking again," Shepard explained through gritted teeth.
Garrus observed Shepard's enormous bump and slowly reached out to the unborn child.
"May I?" he asked respectively, hovering his talons over the bump that was the root of Shepard's turmoil.
Before Shepard could agree in her torturous state Garrus' talons gently caressed her stomach.
Her grip on the bench loosened while the pain gradually began to fade away much to her surprise.
The child seemed to calm down at Garrus' touch as if he was aware of whose hands were trying to comfort him.
With the pain becoming nothing more than a distant memory Shepard was finally able to relax under Garrus' soft caress.
He gently rubbed the bump from side to side as if he was rocking the child to sleep.
For the first time in months Shepard was content. Things felt right.
Garrus let his hand drop but kept his gaze on her swollen stomach.
"Kaidan is very lucky," Garrus stated as a matter of fact.
Shepard felt the cold absence of his touch and had to swallow the bile that had built up in the back of her throat. Her mind was screaming out for her to tell her turian there and then that she was carrying his child, but the words she desperately wanted to say refused to come out.
"Why are you here Garrus?" Shepard questioned.
Garrus didn't respond for second. He rubbed his fringe absentmindedly and took his gaze away from her bump to meet her bloodshot eyes.
"I could ask you the same thing."
Shepard's breath became wedged within her throat. He was right, Spirits was he right.
Before she could speak the chapel's doors opened revealing a dumbfounded Kaidan.
Shepard looked up towards her fiance looking as innocent as she could.
Her exterior resembled the kind of women you would find in tragic art piece. Her pale skin collided with the pearly lace dress she wore that hung from every angle, especially her pregnant stomach. There was no wind on the citadel to try and bring the dress to life with a sweeping flow. Everything about her was still. Her blood-shot eyes matched the puffy read marks around her eyelids, and her jet black hair was loosely hanging from a bun that held her delicate lace veil in place so that it gently rested on the back of her head.
It was hard to maintain a cool and careless posture when she could see Garrus still staring at her within her peripheral vision, ignoring the sound of the chapel doors for as long as he could.
"Garrus?" Kaidan voiced while charging over to the peeved turian.
The biotic held out his hand. "It's been too long."
"Not long enough," Garrus muttered under his breath so that only Shepard could hear him.
The turian turned away from the cautious bride and faced Kaidan with a face that gave none of his anger away. He gripped the human's soft hand tightly with more force than necessary.
"It's good to see you Kaidan," he lied causing Shepard to wince while she sat on the bench.
The child remained settled inside her womb yet she felt sick, like she could projectile all over the floor at that very moment. Instead she forced a weak smile to her lips and watched the scene play out before her.
"How are things going on board the Normandy?"
Garrus chuckled out of politeness and also to make Shepard feel more comfortable about the grueling scene of phatic talk. "Could be better, I'm definitely starting to feel the strain of command."
Kaidan frowned and shot a questioning glance towards Shepard on the bench who looked like she was going to pass out at any minute.
Garrus observed the exchange with a smirk. "Didn't Shepard tell you? I'm the commander of the Normandy now. Though it would have been nice to have been given a heads up before she decided to disappear."
An uneasy silence presented itself after Garrus' sly remark decoded through Kaidan's brain.
It was information that Shepard hadn't felt the need to tell the biotic, and Garrus seemed to have picked up on that a few seconds ago.
Kaidan let Garrus' comment go over his head and walked over to Shepard slightly pissed off about being kept in the dark. A lot was going unsaid.
"Honey the priest wants us to recite our vowels again," Kaidan explained as if what had just occurred was now securely locked in the past.
He grabbed a reluctant Shepard's hand as he helped her to her wobbly feet.
The former commander was finding it difficult to form any words that would help her persuade Kaidan into giving her a few more minutes away from her fate.
Chaotic hormones were running rampant throughout her body making it hard to focus and centre herself.
The pair began to walk towards the chapel's entrance while Shepard kept shooting apologetic glances back at her turian.
Garrus clasped both his hands behind his back and stood up straight, he sure did look like a commander.
"Actually I was hoping to talk to Shepard, seeing as I haven't seen her in months," Garrus called out putting emphasis on the time span.
A pang of guilt struck Shepard causing her to falter in her footsteps. Her pounding head kept on turning back and forth between Kaidan and Garrus.
"I'll be inside in two minutes," Shepard promised to Kaidan prompting for the release of her hand.
The way she had said it made her sentence sound like a plea. Commander Shepard never pleaded for anything. But hormonal, soon to be mother, currently unable to grasp a situation Shepard was more than willing to beg if it made her life easier.
Kaidan bowed his head in defeat and nodded.
Before leaving the biotic cupped Shepard's face staring at a pissed off Garrus while he did so and placed a kiss on her forehead.
The former commander was amazed that Garrus had not moved from where he stood and just silently observed the dig.
"I'll be waiting," Kaidan informed her as his way of a goodbye and took his leave into the chapel without giving the turian a second glance.
Shepard stared after her fiance with a mournful expression, unable to face her turian.
"Glad to see he hasn't changed," Garrus commented in a sarcastic tone.
Shepard didn't submit to his insult and turned her swollen frame around.
Garrus looked tense by the way his muscles refused to relax, and she had herself to blame for it.
She wanted to explain everything to him, but she couldn't do it in the time frame she had been given.
The distraught turian paced up and down twice with long strides and halted his steps once he had blown off a bit of his extra energy that seemed to be boiling out of him.
"The crew and I managed to locate a few relay's which to our knowledge are going to be used as gateways for the Reapers."
Shepard smiled. He was making small-talk again, dancing around every other question that wanted to pour out from his lungs.
"I'm glad you guys are doing okay without me," Shepard replied. She meant what she said as well, she truly did believe in what she had fought against all those years. Yet her child had a way of changing her priorities.
"What can I say, I seem to have found my true calling in life; being a commander on a ship that used to belong to a pro-human terrorist organization," he chuckled darkly at the fate assigned to him and managed to get a laugh out of Shepard.
"Omega vigilante to saviour of the galaxy huh?" Shepard joked as she crossed her arms.
"Something tells me that I don't have the best track record of career choices," he scoffed happy to have a bit of light-hearted conversation. But his insides were against him, telling him that he should use the moment he was having with her wisely for he may not get another chance.
As soon as Shepard stopped laughing in agreement he took a few cautious steps towards her.
"Come back with me," he pleaded going against every fibre in his body that told him to stand his ground like a proper turian and demand an explanation for the amount of shit she had put him through.
"Garrus I can't-"
"You can't or you won't?," he growled. His expression was alive with the intense fury roaring inside of him.
Shepard shivered over the wake up call. Garrus looked lost, betrayed even. But she had come too far now, had let too many things slip through her grasp to allow herself to go back and finish her fight. Shepard believed in her crew, she had no choice but to believe that they could do something about the Reaper threat.
"Garrus I don't have to explain myself to you," Shepard stated in a formal manner.
That seemed to get a rise out of him judging from his clenched talons and his much more audible growling.
"I am a commander now, something I didn't exactly have a choice in might I add."
Shepard saw red and was doing her best to remain cool in order to not make the baby restless.
"Are you trying to pull a rank on me?" she asked in a venomous tone that was to be the turian's warning to back down.
Unfortunately for Shepard he wasn't about to do that.
"I think you will find that I did," was his stabbing response.
Shepard sighed out of exhaustion and made her way over to the benches for a second time.
She was seeing a side of Garrus that she never wanted to experience. Mind you no one ever said that leaving everything and everyone you loved behind was going to be easy.
"I'm sorry," Shepard muttered in defeat as she stared at the floor unable to look Garrus in the eye.
"For what? Letting me think you were dead or turning your back on your crew?" Garrus shot back.
The former commander shook her head in disbelief. "So that's what this is about..."
The turian became silent once again and rubbed his fringe in frustration. He could not make this about him. He had a crew now, just like he had a squad back on Omega. Garrus wasn't going to let the past repeat itself. He was their leader now.
"Are you aware that the quarian's could be claiming back their homeworld right now if it wasn't for you?" Garrus spoke up in an accusing tone.
"Yes..." Shepard muttered in defeat.
The council had contacted her seeing as she actually cared about the forgotten quarians within the galaxy. Where the rest of universe marked them as thiefs and a liability Shepard saw a race that was not only intelligent but lived in a communist society that actually worked.
The message Shepard had received was sent to her one month into her pregnancy. It asked if she approved of the quarians gaining their embassy back. To do so without a doubt would have not only stopped them from being outcasts but returning to their home planet would have been the main priority on the council's list.
Council jurisdiction states that every race recognized by the council as a member of council space are to be treated equally. Meaning that they could not let the quarians remain on the Flotilla. They would have to aid them in taking back their homeworld.
Shepard was arguably the best warrior in the galaxy. Her fierce yet caring nature made her stand out from among the wreck. Her recommendation would have literally meant that the quarians were no longer space gypsies. They would have been forgiven, excepted even.
Ignoring the message was not something the former commander had done lightly.
In order to prevent anyone from tracking her down she was unable to answer the council.
Shepard could not work out whether or not she was being selfish. The whole reason she had even come this far as to wearing a pearly white wedding dress ready to marry a man who had once called her a traitor was all for her son.
The Alliance and the council would have made it their mission to care for Shepard and give her regular doses of treatments that were not fit for her child in particular.
It wouldn't be long until they realized that Shepard, humanity's golden girl was indeed carrying possibly the first ever turian/human hybrid child.
They would take her in for tests, take him in for tests. Scientist's curiosity would be peaked from all over the galaxy.
Her child would be an outcast and there was no way she was going to let that happen.
"Are you also aware that because of your actions we are on the run from cerberus?" the turian continued without falter.
"Garrus-"
"And did it ever cross your mind that because you decided to go and run off without a trace the krogan's have missed their only chance at surpassing the genophage?"
"Spirits you said you agreed with the genophage!" Shepard shot back unable to comprehend the words exiting his mouth.
"It had to be done. But right now it needs to be cured," Garrus retorted truthfully. "Shepard we are going to have Reapers swarming the place. Did it ever cross your mind that maybe just maybe, having the quarians no longer reliant on their suits, having cerberus on our side and having a krogan army behind us might actually mean that the galaxy stands a chance?"
He was finally beginning to raise his voice, but judging from the way Shepard had hardly flinched it was all going to waste.
The turian sighed. Shepard had fucked him over big time. She had created this black hole of a mess and left him to pick up the shards.
He walked over to the white benches without caution where Shepard sat limply staring at the floor.
Garrus had a way of making Shepard enter a state of silence. When it came to flirting Garrus was a gibbering fool, yet when in came to heated confrontations he wasn't afraid to say it like it was.
Like Shepard he didn't utter a word. Spirits he was even holding his breath, anything to keep him in check.
The stabbing silence was becomming too much.
"What are you thinking?" Shepard asked suddenly.
His thoughts were bound to be something that would make her ears want to bleed from the depression of it all. The turian's mind could only handle so much betrayal and regret in his lifetime.
Garrus faced Shepard with a blank expression. However blank or no Shepard could still make out a hint of suffering in his blue eyes. The trick of reading a turian's expression by examining their eyes usually came in handy.
In this case Shepard would have been more than happy with being kept in the dark.
Garrus' mandibles twitched as if he was struggling with how to form his words or explain what was going on inside his rampaging mind.
"I'm...I am debating whom in my life has wronged me more. You or Sidonis..."
His voice gave away every single emotion that was begging to be released. It was heavy as if weights clung to the noise of his formed words.
"Just because your unexpected betrayal hurts the most doesn't necessarily mean that you are by far crueler or much worse than Sidonis," Garrus continued simply giving into himself and letting his thoughts pour from his mouth.
He wasn't going to brush everything off like he always did and pretend he was okay. He wasn't, spirits he was falling apart. Shepard had come back and shown him what it felt like to have someone actually care for you and be by your side. She had saved him from himself, Shepard was his beacon of hope, the one woman who truly understood him and made him feel worthy of everything he did. She gave him purpose.
Now...
Shepard had become his downfall.
Like a crazed surgeon she brought him back to life and offered him the world, only to cut off his life support machine and watch him enter a dark void.
There was no escaping the cruel abyss from which Garrus had entered. His mind would always be plagued with every single damn thing that had gone wrong in his life.
When Shepard left he lost his reason to breath, to get up in the morning, to eat... it just felt like by doing so he was only prolonging his suffering.
So he found himself a reason to continue, a reason to finish the fight.
He searched endlessly for Shepard. She had always had his back so he had to have hers.
The thoughts of what could of happened to her haunted his every dream and plagued his mind making him act irrational at times.
Shepard. The one good thing in his life that was his. She wasn't dead, she wasn't kidnapped. His commander, the woman he had actually grown to love left at her own will.
She had not only ignored her duties and the fate of the galaxy, Shepard had abandoned and treated him as an expendable piece of her life.
The hollow and numbness that overtook him soon cowered away once he saw Shepard in the flesh.
To have relief, happiness, shock, anger and sadness all colliding together within your body in just under an hour tended to take its toll.
"Care to help me out with this dilemma?" Garrus asked in a distant tone. "Who has fucked me over more, you or Sidonis?"
From the corner of her eye Shepard could see that Garrus was looking straight at her from her right-hand side.
He was sitting down patiently awaiting her answer.
The baby kicked gently for the first time ever as if he was doing his best to support his mother.
She carefully matched his gesture with a slight rub of her jeweled hand.
To not only abandon Garrus but to keep him thinking that he was alone in this universe was the greatest betrayal of all. For once she deserved the title 'Traitor'.
"Me..." Shepard whispered looking up from her bump to meet his tortured expression.
Her left hand reached out to stroke his visibly scarred mandible soothingly, as she leaned forward and gently peppered a trail of three delicate kisses on the left side of his jaw.
Garrus didn't push her away. In fact he had frozen when he realized what she doing.
Shepard was silently saying goodbye, using whatever strength she had left to push the dominant tears back.
Pulling away slowly she met his gaze and slowly lifted her bloated body onto the balls of her feet.
The former commander continued to look into his crystal blue eyes as she watched him battle against every emotion begging to take him over.
Shepard lifted her hands to grip the veil attached to her jet black hair and let it flow over her face.
This wasn't the best decision for Garrus nor her. But it was the best decision for her son.
It was that thought that gave Shepard the courage to turn away from her turian and take her uncertain steps towards the chapel's beckoning entrance.
Garrus watched Shepard painfully. She did not turn back to look at him once and before he knew it the woman he would have followed to hell and back without hesitation had gone.