The dust hung thick in the air, a low cloud that stung your eyes and blackened your skin and clothes. He was not unused to nor averse to being covered in grime and debris, but after the days and weeks of fighting, looking down the barrel of countless days to be spent picking through rubble had Garrus' feeling uneasy and exhausted.
The Reapers had been eradicated, and now the allied fleets began the long and arduous task of cleaning-up and rebuilding. The first day was spent, for most, in celebration and toasting the fallen, but Garrus was part of a small faction that had immediately began to search for survivors. If he were honest, he didn't hold out much hope that they'd find any; he was looking for bodies.
One body.
He and a few of the others started their search in the area around where he fought during the final hours of the War, figuring it was as good of a place as any. It was the last place he had laid his eyes on Shepard, watching her run headlong into an obstacle course of exploding vehicles, asphalt and concrete, all fodder for the Reaper's laser. As the hours passed and fighting raged on, he felt the bitter realization seeping into his bones that she had failed, falling victim to their enemy on that stretch of road. Then a handful of reports came in from the wounded. They claimed she lived, one managing to say she had staggered past him, firing on husks and reaching the Conduit beam before his words were lost amid the blood that gurgled up thickly from his lungs.
Then, suddenly, the lasers were silenced. Reaper footsoldiers began to spark and malfunction before finally self-destructing. The ships halted and became lifeless hulks, the Crucible firing on them without discretion. Allied forces, in their haste destroyed several dozen more in great flaming bursts in the night sky above Earth before they realized their foe was incapacitated and a ceasefire was issued.
Shepard had done it again. Some said they would never know who did it. Anderson had been seen going into the same beam. Garrus respected Anderson, and he was sure he played a pivotal role, but no. This had Shepard written all over it, her last hurrah, thumbing her nose at millennia of galactic history.
Garrus had not considered himself an optimist in a very long time. First soured by the reigning bureaucracy and lack of effectiveness in C-Sec and then again when he was betrayed by one of his own men at the cost of eleven innocent lives, he found that the dawn of that first morning, blissfully lacking in the flanging rumble of the invader's weapons, rang hollow in his own heart, aware that the woman he had followed into many battles and slept beside many nights was likely gone forever. His only hope was to see her face one more time and, perhaps to honor her with a proper burial. Her manner of death was fitting, but her body deserved to be respected and not to lay mangled in a heap to be carried away by the birds.
They had no idea where to even begin, but out there looking amongst the Reaper rubble felt more like home than drinking booze with a Turian platoon. The search lasted from first light until dusk by which time he had resigned himself to the futility of his goal.
So many bodies.
Each different but the same, some beyond recognition and only identified by their dog tags, hundreds of others lost to history, civilians.
Shepard was really no different than any of them. He had hoped - believed - that she was superhuman once. The things she had accomplished; the role she seemed destined to play. Surely she was more than just ... human.
The call came to return to camp a little after 6:30, Earth time. Garrus gathered his men and they headed back. There was a short debriefing and he checked the updated lists of survivors and fallen before finding his tent for a little rack time. Looking at the small stretched canvas cot, he realized it had been days since he'd last slept, even a little bit. He disengaged the shielding on his armor and began to remove it piece-by-piece, laying them out on a nearby surface. As he set the chestplate down, his finger traced a deep gouge in the blue metal's surface. He hadn't noticed it before, and briefly wondered when he had acquired it, but shrugged internally and reached to remove his greaves.
Somewhere outside his tent, Garrus heard a distinctly human voice amongst all the turians but tried to tune out the words. Sleep was becoming more and more inviting, the closer he got to laying down.
"What are you doing here?" asked a turian, irritated.
"I'm looking for someone," said the human. He sounded young. "A turian."
"That doesn't help, kid. Do you know the name of this turian?"
"Garrus Vakarian."