01

Garrus had never been a fan of Khalisah al-Jilani's work. He hated the press as a rule. And he was sure it had nothing to do with him having his fair share of trying to get reporter's noses out of a number of C-Sec operations in his time on the Citadel. al-Jilani was a special breed, of course -never the woman to miss an opportunity to drag someone's name through the dirt. Garrus probably wouldn't have taken her reporting so personally had that name she'd been dragging not been Shepard's, but slandering the Commander's reputation seemed like sport to her.

That being said, remembered their first run in with her years ago. Back in the good old days when they were chasing down rogue Spectres and before any of the crew really knew each other or knew what they were in for. He'd stood composed and quiet beside Wrex as Shepard blinked into the blinding light from al-Jilani's camera. The reporter threw her a multitude of questions in the form of bombs, all of which Shepard dodged as easily as she did shrapnel on the battlefield. But towards the end of the interview al-Jilani she said something that stuck with him. Perhaps the only thing she had ever been spot on about in her entire career.

"You're an idealist, Commander. But a sincere one."

A sincere idealist. The term struck a chord inside him because it so cleanly summed Shepard up. It had always amazed him how she could fit such a description after all she'd been through. Most knew her pre-service history from news reports and what was available on the extranet. Earthborn, grew up on the streets as an orphan. Sole survivor of the attack on Akuze. But those things didn't really hold much weight until you heard the stories behind them. How the great Commander Shepard had been involved with a gang back on Earth. How she had to fend for herself and survive in a place that treated her no better than the paint on the old decrepit buildings there.

And Akuze. Sole survivor is a term that doesn't mean a damn thing to anyone who hasn't had to hold the title. He'd learn later that she'd watched fifty marines die that day. That she had to lie there and wait in a silent battlefield until the Alliance came for her. That those were her friends, her comrades, her brothers and sisters. And she'd watched them all die.

Her life in summation would have broken a lesser person. But she defied all odds and came out the other end a visionary. A leader. A woman whose heroic sense of purpose had clashed violently with his less-than-heroic one in the first few months of their acquaintance. He'd had many a chat with her by the Mako in the cargo bay having her counteract his radical ideas and vigilante sentiments. At first he'd been miffed by her cleanliness. How did she stand being so noble all the damn time? She just hadn't had to wade through all the bureaucratic bull he had working with C-Sec. She didn't know how limiting it could be. How frustrating.

But as he came to know her, he understood she knew all too well the limitations. She had just been better equipped to handle them. She took her defeats in stride. She was merciful in the places he had allowed himself to harden. She thought of civilians where he was out for blood. And she sure as hell wasn't shy about putting him in his place whenever he slipped up and expressed his hatred for the system. Overtime, he grew to enjoy that about her. She kept his moral compass aimed in a direction he could live with. Helped him sleep at night, if he was being honest. And she got results on top of it all.

Shepard had managed to turn his cynical, system-loathing outlook an entire 180 degrees by the time they found Dr. Saleon on the MSV Fedele. He'd taken her words to heart that day. Engrained them in his memory so they pulsated white hot and present. You can't control how people will act, Garrus. But you can control how you'll respond. In the end that's what really matters. And boy had he reacted viciously at first to Dr. Saleon and his entire, gruesome operation. He remembered the interrogations with his employees. Bloody interrogations. He was so angry then, not at them of course but at the man in charge. The man sitting atop his macabre throne while people suffered underneath him. Garrus had always hated the type. And he'd sworn revenge. He told himself he wouldn't be happy until he put a bullet between that salarian's eyes.

But Shepard forced him to withdraw his vengeance. Of course, Saleon died anyway but that wasn't the point. The point was she gave him the tools to react differently, and in the end that was what really mattered. Just as she said it would. And he promised himself he would approach life with her infectious, sincere idealism. He planned on going back to C-Sec. Making a difference the right way. Gritting his teeth through the unsavory parts. And he'd been convinced he could do it, too.

But then she was gone.

It was all so damn sudden. The Citadel was still reeling from the attack and he was up to his eyes in paperwork when word came in that she was dead. And it was as though everything he'd built up fell apart around him. His resolve. His patience. His finely turned moral compass. Everything disintegrated. The grief coupled with an emptying of responsibility to her turned him more bitter than he'd ever been before. The culmination of that bitterness was what ultimately landed him on a ledge in Omega, fending off every merc with a gun in that hellhole along with the effects of sleep deprivation.

When Shepard found him that night, he was almost ready to give in. He was so close he could taste the freedom of death. What would it matter if he just stepped out from his cover? Who would miss him? He'd gotten his entire team killed, after all. He had not a friend left in the galaxy.

When Shepard showed up with her red scars and her violet eyes, he wasn't quite sure what it all meant. But when he took a rocket to the face he was pretty sure it was just some sick joke. To have the guiding force of morality and integrity in his life be there to see him die. Like that was his punishment for how hardened he'd let himself become. To have her perched over him as he choked on his own blood, wishing he'd been different, perhaps. Wishing he'd been strong enough to carry on her ideals after she was gone.

He prayed for death. It was what he deserved.

But he popped right back up. The marvels of modern medicine never ceased to amaze him. Or mock him, as it were. Because he expected Shepard to chastise him for his months as Archangel. To give him some speech about working inside boundaries and doing things the right way for a change. But she never did.

And at the time, he was damn grateful for it. Because it gave him an excuse to become obsessed over Sidonis. If he'd thought he'd been out for revenge with Dr. Saleon, oh-ho he was in for the surprise of his life. His hatred for Sidonis ran deeper than anything he'd ever allowed himself to feel. It was all-consuming, sharp and haunted his waking hours as much as it did his nightmares. He allowed it to form and develop inside himself without Shepard's influence. And to be honest, he ignored her for the most part upon returning to the Normandy out of fear that she'd notice it and try and quell it.

He didn't want that. Not then. He wanted to revel in his own self-loathing and misery. He wanted to steep in revenge and the dark pleasure he got from picturing putting a pullet through the man who had betrayed him. Concentrating on the hatred made the grief easier to manage. He told himself he only had the right to be alive if he was concentrating his efforts on killing Sidonis.

He expected to feel free after it was over.

He expected to feel as though all the pain he endured had been worthwhile. The body lay still in the distance, a single bullet lodged in the head. Quick. Easy. Efficient. It was a more merciful death than Sidonis deserved, sure, but he thought he'd made peace with that. He assured himself before he took the shot that he would find solace in the fact that Sidonis would be dead after he pulled the trigger. And that would be enough. That was what he wanted.

And yet –when it was over he couldn't help but feel an itch deep in his heart that began to say that it wasn't. He'd envisioned a wave of pride, elation and sharp poetic justice to wash over him. He'd avenged his squad's death. This was no small feat, nor one without significance. But the longer the body had cooled below him, the darker the feeling in his heart became. He didn't understand it until he walked back to the shuttle and watched Shepard emerge from it's shadows. His heart was pounding. He felt the cool flicker of her violet gaze and the heat of her scars simultaneously and at once found the source of his discomfort.

"Clean and simple," she murmured with no inflection, "Good work."

Good work? The Shepard he knew would have never let him kill Sidonis. Come to think of it, she wouldn't have let him shoot Harkin in the knee either. It hit him all of a sudden –how quiet she'd been the entire time. No questions about his motivations, no morality checks, no nothing. She stood there in front of him completely nonplussed about the entire thing. This wasn't like her. A wave of dread hit him. He'd been so consumed by Sidonis the whole time that he'd ignored how starkly uncharacteristic Shepard was being.

He realized then why his success left such a bitter taste in his mouth.

It was because he'd been waiting for her to stop him.

Somewhere deep down he'd known killing Sidonis wouldn't help. It wouldn't bring back his team. It wouldn't help him sleep at night. He still had enough of Shepard's influence buried inside him to know these things on the surface. But his heart was so heavy with anger then he couldn't do anything but tell himself and everyone around him who would listen that he'd sworn revenge. He never expected it to come to fruition. Part of him thought that Shepard would force his hand, or warn Sidonis, or at the very least convince him it was a bad idea. He yearned for those heated discussions in the cargo bay of the Normandy. Those arguments that he respectfully ducked his head at and slowly internalized over the months. He missed her sincere idealism. And part of him waited for it to turn him in the right direction.

But it never did. He'd killed Sidonis and she didn't even bat an eye. And suddenly he was more lost than ever.

Upon returning to the Normandy he barricaded himself in the battery to try and sort out his thoughts. The last few weeks played before him like film. All the little things he'd chosen to ignore. Her scars. Her heavy eyes. Her sharp, volatile comments. Even the way she threw herself at her enemies on the battlefield. The Shepard he knew was methodical and precise in combat. Lately, she'd wear her shields down to the last reserves and come back bloody as all hell and with a fire in her eyes he was wholly unfamiliar with.

There were some less subtle signs as too, when he started to think about it. Letting Jack kill Aresh. Letting Miranda kill Niket. How about shoving that Eclipse Trooper off the Dantius Towers –now there's one that should have been a red flag. But Garrus had glossed right over it. Selfishly, irresponsibly.

Although, once it became apparent he started to notice everything. The way she walked. The way she spoke, her voice was harsher and rougher. She intimidated civilians. Bullied her way into discounts at stores on the Citadel. And hell, just yesterday she'd flat out punched al-Jilani. Not that the reporter didn't have it coming, but that really wasn't the point.

The point was -something had happened to the woman he knew and trusted. The one he swore to walk into the fire with. Just like old times, he'd said to her. But it wasn't. Shepard had changed. And Garrus was worried.

Really worried.

That night after the punching fiasco, Garrus fiddled with his omni-tool to try and find Shepard's first run in with al-Jilani from two years earlier. A quick search was all it took and in a few moments he was staring at a holographic image of the woman he remembered so clearly. The difference between her and her current disposition was so immediate. His mandibles flexed and he hardened his gaze.

The Shepard in the hologram was full of youth and vitality. Her cheeks her unmarred, her eyes wide and full, and her voice steady as she artfully maneuvered around al-Jilani's fishing. She spoke about things she used to believe in, and seemed not to any longer. Respect. Cooperation. Optimism. And there was that damn line, just as he remembered it. "…an idealist, Commander. But a sincere one."

A cloud settled over him.

He had to talk to her. He had to say something. He'd been too consumed with Sidonis to realize his last friend in the galaxy was drowning. But now that he knew, he had to reach out to her. He'd been selfish for long enough. He couldn't let her continue down this path. And if he were being true to himself, he knew he needed the old Shepard back. Because he wasn't sure who he was without her.

But the doors to the battery suddenly pinged behind him and derailed his train of thought. He quickly shut down the vid and turned as coolly as he could to meet her cold gaze. The stark contrast between the woman before him and the woman he'd just shut off was sickening. The Shepard in front of him was just a shell. Now that he was looking for it, the pain in her face was all too apparent. Spirits, Shepard. What happened to you?

He cleared his throat.

"Shepard," he nodded in stiff greeting, "Need me for something?"

"Have you got a minute?" she asked.

Toneless. Passionless. Lifeless.

He shifted his weight and steeled himself for what was ahead.

Come on, Vakarian. She needs you.

He brought up his omni-tool and closed the doors behind her. The silence that surrounded them became thick. He drew in a breath.

"Sure, just killing time anyway," he said, trying to sound lackadaisical. He cleared his throat, searching her face. There were no answers. He wondered if there would ever be again.

Spirits, this was going to be harder than he thought.