Well, here goes.
My name is Garrus Vakarian. You probably already knew that, but reminders never hurt. What I'm about to tell you, what is enclosed in these pages, is the story of my life.
Well… that's not exactly true. I am going to tell you the important stories of my life, the best ones of the bunch. A certain Asari began questioning me, in my old age, on whether my life had any kind of documentation to it, any kind of legitimate legacy. When the answer to that question turned out to be no, she demanded that I dictate this… whatever you want to call it, out to the computer. You know, for posterity.
How this all appears to whoever is reading, what kind of moral standing you get out of this, I don't intend to make that my focus. I'm not here to write a bestselling novel. I'm here to tell a true story, one that is unique, tragic, terrifying… yet hopeful, inspiring, and as close to reality as I can get it. I am here not to tell my own story, even, just my part in it. This story is as much hers as it is mine. This story belongs just as much to Anna Shepard as it does to me.
If you're sitting there, asking if I mean "the Shepard", the one who saved all galactic civilization as we know it, then yes, that is exactly who I mean. We were both soldiers, we both fought in the Reaper war, side by side. We were together more than any two people in the galaxy ever could hope to be. I loved her.
We first met on the Citadel in 2183 when she was looking for evidence that a Spectre had gone rogue. I was the head of the C-Sec investigation responsible for finding proof, but I never did find it, not on my own. It took a bit of Shepard's miracle work to make that happen. By the end of the day we were leading the mission to bring Saren down, and in doing so we were well on our way to saving the galaxy. I won't go into detail, because you likely already have a pretty keen idea of how that story goes. Besides, that isn't the story I want to tell.
No, the story I want to tell is the one of Shepard and I's life together, the one that we shared until the day she died .
I'll go ahead and spoil something for you right now… Shepard has been dead for about five years. I've outlived her by a good deal, and I don't regret anything more than that, but I know that she is waiting for me, somewhere. I'm an old thing, going on more than eighty years old now, I can't imagine going on much longer without her. For the lives that she and I had, we lived longer than many expected. I chalk it up to the miracles of modern medicine, but she would always tell me it was Fate giving us our dues for all the bullshit thrown our way. In either reality we've lived a good life and I wanted to be the one to tell the universe about it. We've deserved that much.
I won't lie, I'm not the best at storytelling. I was a vigilante for a living, not a historian, and I was never the best at explaining things in retrospect. However, my old age has given me plenty of time to smooth things out in my memory and gather my words, so it is my hope that this will be at least somewhat coherent. When you don't have a giant gun to calibrate thirty five times a day, the time seems to run together like it's nothing. Hell, even when you do it does the same thing, just minus the boredom and anxiousness.
Heh, I'm not even more than a page into this damn story yet, and I'm already babbling about like it's my first date. When you have nearly a lifetime of experiences to share, and only so many words to spell them out with, it's easy to get lost in the dialogue, I guess. But, enough rambling about nothing, I think it is time to begin in earnest.
In the short months before the Reapers first arrived, I realized that we didn't have much time. The galaxy was woefully unprepared to fight something like that, and the Council was as uncooperative as ever. The combination of their denial and inaction had me on edge, especially after what I saw in the Collector base through the Omega-4 relay. That place was living proof of what the Reapers did to life when they found it, and I didn't much like the thought of seeing the galaxy turned into their playthings. I had thought to try and convince Shepard to aid me in giving the Council a thorough ass-kicking when we returned from the suicide mission, but before I could ask her she went and made an enemy of the Illusive man. Mind you, Cerberus was bad news to begin with, and the thought of being in their employ longer than I needed to was sickening, but she definitely caught me off guard when she told me that we were going rogue with their ship. Making sure Cerberus didn't have any secret eyes in the Normandy took priority after that.
She had an innate capacity to piss people off when they didn't agree with her, and it never ceased to amaze me when she returned from a mission with a whole new list of people that wanted to kill her. Adding Cerberus to the database was definitely a change, but wasn't anything we hadn't handled before. She had taken on everything from Reapers to rogue spectres to Thresher Maws, and I was fairly certain that the Illusive man didn't have any Thresher Maws. I trusted Shepard's judgement on the decision, and stayed by her as long as I could before things got dicey.
When we returned to Alliance space the Normandy was instantly flagged and brought in by a patrol. We didn't argue, on Shepard's orders, but flying with an armed escort while in a stealth cruiser… you knew you were in trouble. Trouble, as it turned out, was an understatement. Alliance brass wanted to court martial Shepard on the spot when we docked at Arcturus station, and convincing the security council that she didn't actually work for Cerberus was a chore in itself. Finding an excuse for the rest of us was damn near impossible, in the moment. Shepard didn't have a Spectre badge to wave in front of anyone anymore, half of the crew was considered AWOL from the Alliance, and the other half had warrants for arrest in every system beyond the Traverse.
There was also the… little issue with the Alpha Relay. Shepard never told anyone besides Admiral Hackett what happened on that asteroid, but the result was a grim one. 300,000 Batarians dead, an entire system wiped, and a mass relay taken off the map. Of course, we all knew that was the only reason any of us survived as long as we did, since she bought us the time we needed, but someone had to take the heat for that and she was the only one they could pin it on.
The only thing that saved us from being arrested by the Alliance and tried as terrorists was Councilor Udina, if you could believe it. Shepard was cleared on necessity, since she was one of the only cooperative humans that had fought the Reapers before. Udina saw the rest of us, those that hadn't bailed before we reached Arcturus, as accessory consultants and experts for the fight. His sudden about face on the Reaper issue had us all a bit ready to gut him outright, but didn't stop the council from denying that anything had to be done. To them, it was just humanity crying wolf again.
We all paid for their ignorance with blood. Over a trillion lives were lost in the war... how many of them would be alive if they had started preparing weeks, months, years before they did? We'll never know. People would die, there was no doubting that, but even if just a fraction of those people had gotten to live, it would have been easier to swallow.
Since I wasn't on active service with the Hierarchy, the Alliance didn't have much to go off of when trying to convict me. Sure, Udina had gotten me cleared of any affiliation with Cerberus, but the Alliance couldn't actually get me tried for anything. The Hierarchy had bigger problems than a vigilante going to work for humans with the war on Taetrus going on in the forefront, and I wasn't about to complain… Except, I did complain, a lot actually.
I knew what would happen when the Reapers smashed their way into our territory… I had seen the results of the Prothean extinction myself. Those of us that knew what to expect were scared shitless at every moment, and those of us that didn't were probably worse off. With every military in the galaxy seemingly occupied with some threat or another, I didn't have anywhere to go, but then I had a thought. A crazy one, but it was still a thought. It led me to go and find me father, an old C-sec officer and a good friend of Primarch Fedorian. I figured that he was my best shot and knocking some sense into someone, anyone with enough power to do something meaningful. I went back to Palaven after the Alliance let me go, but it wasn't easy. If I didn't think that we were all going to die if I didn't do something urgently, then I would have stayed with Shepard for as long she wanted. It was my worst fear that I'd never see her again, but I knew I had to go. That didn't make it any easier to see the fear in her eyes as I left her cell.
I drowned our fears in purpose, and made for Palaven with as much speed as I could afford to carry me.
Back home life seemed to be going just as smoothly as anything had ever been. My father had just entered retirement, and my sister wasn't very receptive to my attempts at socializing in past times. She was more worried about mom than anything, and I didn't blame her. Corpalis syndrome, the rapid and aggressive degeneration of the neural pathway, is rare for Turians, but that didn't stop her from being diagnosed with it. Her treatments had been going poorly and Solana, my sister, was always closer to her than anyone else. I had seen death, but Solana was living with it, day in and day out. My inability to help her with the payments didn't exactly serve as a bridge to our relationship, either. Despite all this, home was still home, and given the circumstances it felt good to come back. We lived in a small city on the planet's surface, the southwestern hemisphere. Turians were never fond of flashy architecture so the place was pretty cut and dry, a few decorations and add ons but not much else.
I remember walking into the place for the first time in years, and feeling like I was sixteen again coming home from boot camp. It was refreshing, in way, to experience that kind of reconnect with myself. For so long my home had been wherever I decided to lay my head down, or in the shuttle bay of the Normandy. Having something to come back to that didn't contain a drive core was...different.
I was alone at first, no one home but the cleaning mech. But, that didn't last for long. I wasn't in the main foyer for longer than ten minutes when the door opened behind me. Turning around, I saw Solana staring at me with her mouth wide open.
"Garrus…"
That was all she could say, she was just that stunned to see me. I hadn't been home since I left for the Citadel, and it had been longer still since I had seen her in person, so she had every right to react the way she did. I wasn't expecting a grand welcome, and I wasn't expecting a hug and kiss return home. Still, she humored me in her own way.
"Yeah… Hi, Sol. I'm home."
"Garrus… Why are you here?" she asked me, as she inched closer to me, maybe worried I carried some kind of odd off-world pathogen, or that I was some kind of VI that looked like her estranged brother.
"I came to talk to dad, it's important."
"He's been out for most of the day, he won't be back until later."
She narrowed her eyes at me when she reached point blank range. Before I could react, she balled a fist and gave me a good punch in the face. She nearly broke my visor, in fact.
"Argh, damnit Solana, what the hell?!"
"Hi!? That's all you can say after being gone for all this time? You think you just get to walk back in that door and pick up where things left off? Spirits, have you even seen Mom since you've been back?"
I did my best to ignore the blatant judgement in her eyes and violent subharmonics she displayed, taking the beating with some semblance of composure.
"No… I haven't. I need to talk with Dad first, this is impo-"
Another swift blow to my head silenced me, and the now perfectly audible growl she harbored presented her opinion more than simple words could.
"I was hoping… to avoid the violence, for once. I think I've had enough to last me a lifetime, and no I wasn't planning on just 'walking back in that door' without a good reason to."
"Well unless you've got a damn good reason for being here that doesn't involve your family, I think we can both tell what will come next." she threatened, brandishing her talons in a menacing fashion as I recovered from her assaults.
"I… I'm trying to make sure that we all don't die in a galactic holocaust, for starters, and I also wanted to get the chance to make sure that I saw my family. Y'know, for the laughs."
She stared at me with that stunned look continuously, like she could barely grasp the reality that I was in front of her for the first time in years, not even contemplating what I was saying to her. I wasn't expecting her to explode the way she did, since she never expressed this kind of disdain when we talked over comm buoys. Shepard always did say that I had a knack for missing signals, so maybe I was really as dense as Solana made me out to be.
"Sol… I don't expect to just come back and act like nothing happened. I wasn't there for a long time, and I wasn't there when you all needed me… when Mom needed me. I'm sorry, for everything, but I'm trying to make things right now. I'm not sure how much time of this peace we have left."
"We're not exactly at peace, Garrus. In case you haven't been paying attention, we're at war."
"I know, but compared to what's coming this will seem like child's play."
"You keep speaking so cryptically, what the hell are you even talking about?"
I was leaving out the important parts until I was ready for a prolonged conversation, but since dad wouldn't be back for some time, according to her, then it seemed now was as good a time as any to get this over with.
"Come on", I told her, as I motioned to the other room. "This is something that needs a bit of context to understand."
In the hours that followed, I recounted every classified detail that I had to leave out of our conversations for the last three years. The Reapers, Saren, Cerberus, the Collectors, I spared her nothing. It would all be a reality sooner or later for her, so I figured it better for her to be prepared. The longer anyone had to digest it, the better. She interrupted frequently, often to ask something about another species, or about Shepard. She asked about Shepard a lot, and was quite enthralled when I told her that we were… romantically involved. I left a lot out about that, but she kept on trying to reel me back into a conversation about her. I wasn't sure if she was trying to deflect from the fact that the galaxy was about to be subject to mass extinction, or was just fixated on the fact that I was dating a human.
Regardless of her intent to fixate on Shepard, she was rather accepting of the reality I laid on her. She was always the logical type, more so than most Turians, and was a sucker for her family. Even if I had been deadbeat to her, I was still her family, and that made her inclined to believe me. Family or no, however, the proof was undeniable . When I finished my talking, I simply sat there in my chair across from her, letting the words sink in. It had been nearly three hours since I had started, and no doubt it was a lot to take in at once. The silence across the room was heavy, and filled with a sort of nervous tension that more words would only amplify. At times like that, the best remedy is simply to let it soak in, and not try to advance. It's like trying to mix things together that aren't' fully dissolved first; the more you try, the more pieces get left behind.
Eventually, she looked up from her stupor. Her body was gentle, her movements slow and steady, but her eyes… they said everything that she couldn't find words for. She was the first of many that would give me that look, but it never got any easier to answer. There aren't any words to answer a plea like that, only action. Action, I believed, was the only thing that mattered when it came to the Reapers. Maybe that was why I found myself at odds with so many in that time, simply because of the lack of action. What so many saw as an empty threat, I saw as a harrowing reality.
"Garrus… what do we do?"
"We fight, Solana. That's all we can do. I came here to convince the Hierarchy to do just that."
"What makes you think they will listen, when the Council has been denying this for all these years?"
"Because I plan on making them listen, Sol. Dad is still on good terms with the Primarch, and if anyone can get me near his influence, it's him."
"It's one hell of a gamble, Garrus. If you thought I was pissed before…"
"It's all we can do. We've been shut out of every major military in the galaxy, and the only person who could actually make a difference in all of this is being locked away on Earth. It's just me now, and I'll be damned if I go down without a fight."
From behind Solana, a dark figure moved out from the other room. How long he had been standing there, I had no idea, but the fact that I hadn't noticed him before now had me kicking myself. I jumped from my chair, pulling my sidearm up and activating my combat suite. The last thing I needed that day was an assassin trying to off my family.
"I couldn't agree more… Son."
"Dad?"
When the figure was fully in the light, I clearly recognized him. My father was present now, standing at ease behind Solana, his hand on her shoulder. Easing up, I holstered my pistol, but didn't sit back down right away. He had hid himself for a reason, whatever it was.
"How long… How long have you been here?"
"Long enough to know that you need my help. Your last call had me worried , and your silence led me to believe you to be dead… but I've heard about your little adventures from your sister, and there was quite a good amount of detail that you managed to forgo, Garrus."
"Well, you never know who might be watching an unsecured channel…"
"I don't blame you, Garrus, I would have done the same thing. That, however, isn't what matters right now. You need my help to get the Hierarchy moving to mobilize against the Reapers."
"Y-yes! That's exactly what I need. If we don't do something soon-"
"Then we all burn. I remember the damage Sovereign did to the Citadel, I saw it firsthand after it fell. Trying to imagine that, a billion-fold… It brings me no measure of comfort."
"So… You'll help me?"
"What, are you brain dead? Of course I will. I originally hid my presence, thinking that you were just stopping in on another one of your 'missions', but when I began to listen… This is a side of you that I've never seen, Garrus. Whatever happened out there, it changed you, for better…"
He moved across the room to me, reaching up to my face and running a hand across my scars.
"...And for worse. Sure, you still sound like the impatient, gungho child that I tried to bring up through C-sec, to some degree, but I see a kindred spirit within you, one that guides you. So long as you have that… I don't think I will need to worry, Garrus."
"Dad…"
Hearing him say those things to me, after all of this time of him thinking I was just some runaway thug, I didn't have anything to say to that. In a matter of minutes, I had somehow managed to erase years of tensions between the two of us. I wasn't sure how it was possible, but I didn't argue either.
With one soliloquy, I had managed to simultaneously sway my father to my cause and clear my name with the rest of the family in one fell swoop. I didn't quite know what he meant when he said that my kindred spirit would guide me, not right away. It would be a long time before I understood the meaning of those words, not until long after he was gone. Solana still remembers that day well, and always tells it as the day that our family was made whole again.
I think on that day a bit differently. I think of it as the day that Palaven's hope was ignited.
It took some time, but with enough yelling and enough tenacity the Hierarchy finally caved and awarded me a task force to organize in preparation for the Reapers. It was token, but that was by far more than I could have called inadequate. I was given command over supply lines, currency troves, pretty much anything related to the military that didn't involve manpower and materiel. I did with it what I could, going off of my knowledge of what Shepard had relayed back to me. In the six months that I had, I managed to bring the Turian fleets into a state of alert, and had centralized the majority of supplies on Palaven. If what Shepard told me was correct, then it would be a mad rush by the Reapers for the home systems, and nothing less. With what I was given, I made sure that when the fight came home we would have the will and the way to last just a bit longer. My mother, in her dying breaths, couldn't have been more proud.
I felt like making a difference with what I was doing. For once, I left like I was helping people live instead of die. Of course, when the Reapers started beaming the galaxy images of Vallum burning to the ground at their hand, any conception of preparation that I'd had dissolved into nothing. Before long, I was getting reports that the Reapers were within a system's reach of Palaven, and the Hierarchy mobilized in earnest. Around the same time, the Primarch realized that I had been right all along, and needed me to advise forces on strategy. Instead of standing behind a monitor looking at supply logistic reports, I was standing before the most decorated officers in the Hierarchy, telling them how to keep their men from dying. The shift was drastic and swift, leaving me little time to argue, but it never did feel right that I was a leader. I was a rogue at heart, following my own orders, not giving them. Yet, no matter how I felt about it, there I was, keeping the Hierarchy together, one decision at a time.
By the time they hit Menae, I was a regular five star general. Never looked the part, to be sure, but I played it as well a I could. I went up there thinking that I was going to help us win, but seeing the Reapers in force made me realize victory wasn't the goal to strive for; survival was. In front of me, Turians huddled in foxholes for clicks on end, choking on vaporized blood and ash while above me Palaven burned a sickly yellow. I was sandwiched between two realms of suffering with no way out. All I could do was resign myself to advise the commanding officers on strategy, and hope it would be enough. We were fighting a losing battle, and the time I had worked so hard to buy was running out fast.
Then came Shepard to save the day.