The second of the two summer ficlets I wrote. This one's renegade FemShep, if you couldn't tell by the first line. A little different flavor than the first one, but I wanted to exhibit the two completely different vibes the Shepards give off.

Set right after recruiting Garrus in ME2 and him subsequently getting half his face blown off and reconstructed.

Changes

She was a bitch before and she was a bitch now.

Garrus grins. Some things never change.

Shepard smirks as she turns to see him as he walks into the communications room, the Cerberus officer at her shoulder. "Well well. Looks like sleeping beauty's awake. Nice of you to join us. Welcome back to the land of the living."

Hearing her dry tone and knowing he hadn't hallucinated Shepard's return cheers him enough to return her verbal jabs. To anyone else, her insults were just that—insults. But to Garrus, it was a taste from the life he had given up any hope of returning to.

Of course, his problems were still there, irrefutable and obstinate, but they, like so many other things, seemed to quail before the force that was Shepard's personality.

"At least it didn't take me two years to wake up," he snipes, knowing his accusation wouldn't actually hurt her.

True to his gut, Shepard merely laughs. "My face is prettier than yours."

The Cerberus officer—Jacob?—takes that as his cue to leave but Garrus doesn't notice over the rush of nostalgic pleasure from the verbal sparring. Such pleasure, that he almost doesn't hear his next words as they leave his mouth.

"You always had the prettier face, Shepard." Realization hits him like an electric shock and makes him panic. He is not ready to deal with latent romantic feelings right now and he knows how Shepard deals with unwanted flirting. With a fist. And he has no desire to mess his face up more than it already is. "Turians scar worse than humans," he appends quickly.

Shepard either decides that the slip is not worth her time (or that he isn't, he honestly can't tell what she's thinking) or she misses it entirely. With a mental cringe, Garrus is willing to bet the other half of his face that it's the former.

Reason or no, Shepard takes it all in stride. It takes a lot to throw the woman for a loop, apparently something that even dying and coming back to life couldn't do. "Oh, these?" She touches the scarring on her cheek. "I nearly forgot about them. You know, I've spent so long wearing a helmet and protecting my skin from ending up like most soldiers, but it turns out that I really don't care." She offers a cheeky grin. "If anything, I like them. They add to the intimidation factor."

Garrus clicked his mandibles dryly. "Like you need any help in that area."

Suddenly her face turns into a storm cloud and lightning-like tension swirls around her. Her eyes narrow and Garrus feels like he's physically pinned to the door frame under one of Shepard's famous glares. He swallows, trying to relieve the abrupt presence of tension in his throat. It's reaction at this point. Back on the Normandy SR-1, whenever Shepard wore that look, the crew knew somebody was going to feel the crack of her verbal whip or her fist in their face. She's right—the scars do help. While before it was easy—well, not easy but not difficult either—to brush her off as a woman playing soldier before she spoke and unleashed a glare, the scars add a new layer to the intimidation factor. They're on display for everyone to see, now. She can't hide—not that she ever wanted to.

Garrus breaks first, shifting uncomfortably under her stare. He hates how trained he is to know her every movement and tick, but at the same time, it's what kept him sane after seeing Shepard alive for the first time in two years though his rifle scope.

Seeing his submission, Shepard backs off. Ever the confident one, she grins unabashedly. Immediately, the storm clouds surrounding them clear and Garrus can breathe again. She walks over and pats him on the arm. "You don't know how long I've been waiting to do that. The new kids don't know what proper fear is." Her brow creases slightly as if what she was saying was a culmination of numerous whimsical thoughts that had little grounding in reality but was now sounding more real with every word. "They're all Cerberus—private sector. Not all of them have military background and even fewer have any idea of what we're getting into here."

Her voice hushes on the last few sentences and Garrus lowers his voice to match. "You think they'd run?"

She frowns at him and he immediately knows it's a stupid question. "Of course they'd run. Like I said, they're not military. All it takes is one impossibility to become a reality and those without guts or training flee to the hills."

Shepard sighs, running a hand through her bright red hair. He's never seen her dye it, but then again, that color can't be natural for a human...can it? "I don't have the time or resources to whip this crew into shape. I don't like it, but I'm going to have to deal with it."

Wait. Wait a moment. Shepard was going to deal? As in compromise? Garrus feels his mouth drop open at the admission and he struggles to understand. Shepard was an immovable force, stubborn as all hell, not afraid to yell and scheme to get her way and she was willing to deal with it? What had happened to her? Did Cerberus screw up a crucial connection in her brain?

He reaches out and snatches her arm, stopping her from moving around him and she looks back, apparently just recognizing that there was a serious problem. "Garrus?"

If he had done this to her three years ago, he had no doubt that he would be flat on his back right now, nursing a bruised face while Shepard shook the sting out of her fist. But the fact that she doesn't even flinch tells him that she finally trusts him completely, or something is very wrong.

He's not quite sure how to say this without sounding blunt and insensitive, but his consolation is that Shepard is a big girl. She could handle whatever he threw at her...right? So he plunges forward, intent on getting answers. "What happened to you?"

His voice sounds rough and he's not sure whether it's from the sense that she's not telling him everything or the heavy weight of betrayal in his stomach.

Shepard, in true Shepard fashion, takes offense. "Excuse me?"

They're so similar, but now that he's close to her, he can see the differences, plain as day. This isn't his Shepard.

"Cerberus." He practically spits out the name. "What have they done to you? You're not the same. How much of what you know has been twisted by them? How do we know they're not working with the Reapers? What if they are? Are you prepared to dismantle Cerberus? What did they do to Joker to get him to agree to all this? What did they do to you?"

She's silent for a moment. Either weighing his words or making sure he's done. Then, she spins on her heel, aiming to drive the heel of her hand directly into his gut, but he's read her movements and knows her and ducks away. Clearly peeved that he evaded her, Shepard stalks toward him until he puts the communications table in between them. Her face twists and she slams both palms on the surface, the sound of flesh contacting metal cracking through the air. "I don't know what you think you remember about me, but I do not allow insubordination from anyone. Least of all from those who are supposed to be my allies in this mess!"

She stops suddenly, dropping her head and letting it hang, and digs her nails into the nonresistant metal alloy. He can see her knuckles lose blood as she clamps her fingers over the edge of the table. Her shoulders shudder once before stilling and she raises her head with a jerk, her eyes burning with a twisting combination of emotions. "You're right, of course. Parts of my brain were lost to decay by the time Cerberus got to me as I floated in space. They were important so Cerberus made their own. Filled them with things that they'd thought I'd need." She turns her head and huffs irritably to the side, the fire tempering in her eyes. "Compromise was one of them. They'd come face to face with my bullheadedness and tenacity when we first sought to exterminate them, and they didn't want to allow the same type of hands off approach that Anderson took when it came to controlling my actions."

Shaking her head roughly, Shepard presses a palm against her temple in an attempt to ward off a coming headache. "They didn't want to change me too much—they still need my ability to get results for this goddamn suicide mission. But you're right, I'm not the same person I once was." She swallows in the pause, driving down her momentary weakness and hardening her voice. "But the thing is that I doubt I could say the opposite even if all of this hadn't happened." Her head shoots up, her eyes locking with his and challenging him directly. "People change, Garrus. If you don't want to admit that I have—that you have—then I have no use for you. You're welcome to get off at the next port and take a transport to Omega and go back to headshotting mercs until your fingers bleed."

Her dismissal cut deep, like he knew it would. She was always good at that, making her words feel sharper than a knife digging into his ribs. They shield her from an undercurrent of...was that desperation?

Her posture sags ever so slightly as she views his silence as his resignation. Then, steel invades her being and her face closes off like he's seen so many times before. Straightening without a word, she turns and makes to leave the communications room.

"Wait."

He can't just let her walk out of his life. Not when he's been trying so hard to get her back in it. Change or no, he's certain there's enough of his Shepard in there to warrant closer examination. He's still not sold on the whole Cerberus thing, but he's the only one of her former crew to make a reappearance so far. Whether she knows it or not, she needs him. Even if it's just for moral support as she goes on her frequent ass-kicking sprees. He frowns as this brings up another thought. That used to be Kaiden's job. Now the human was conspicuously absent and the job of being Commander Shepard's cheerleader and moral compass fell to him.

He draws himself up from his half crouched position at the opposite end of the table and straightens his spine vigorously before bending his elbow and touching the side of his first digit to his forehead in a salute. Though he knows turian hands aren't meant for this, he figures Shepard will appreciate the familiar gesture if nothing else.

For a single, horrible moment, Shepard doesn't move. Then a rare smile splits her face. A distant cousin to her sardonic grins, her smile is soft and full of hope and for a second—just a second—Garrus allows himself to think that smile was just for him.