She is Looking Down
It was all over. Shepard had done it. The Reapers were gone. The galaxy was saved. But just like he had feared, it was now as empty as it'll ever be. The crowds of people cheering on Earth didn't help, and neither did his return to Palaven and subsequent reunion with his family. In fact, he couldn't recall a time in his life when he was as much in despair as he was now. Never would he get to say "just like old times" to his comrade and friend again. Never would he be able to hold the hand and caress the hair of his beloved woman. Never would he be able to have a family with her. He hadn't even gotten the chance to tell her just how much he loved her. And the fact that he hadn't was slowly killing him from the inside. She was the world to him, and now she was gone.
She wasn't just a hero to humanity, she was a hero to every single living being in the galaxy. Everybody knew who she was and everybody knew what she had done. But nobody knew her as well as he did. Nobody knew her fears, dreams, hopes, aspirations and secret desires as he did. She had shared all of those when she opened up to him during the many times the two of them were together. That's when he had begun to realize his love for her. Like many, he was fascinated by the hero Commander Shepard, but he never did know the person behind the title. Now he was unarguably the only one who did.
He went to her homeworld Mindoir to visit the erected statue in her honor during a heavy downpour. Normally there would always be people around, but most of them had gone home because of the storm. His visit was not going to be delayed by anything as he approached the statue. It was magnificent, but no monument could ever preserve what she was. No book or biography could describe who she was. Only his memories and his heart could. He knew that it wasn't much, but he put the carefully picked flowers he had gotten for her by the statue.
He took a moment to remember the time when he met her on the Citadel during his investigation into Saren and his joy when he became a part of her crew. He remembered how fascinated he was by her leadership and combat skills. It hadn't taken long for that fascination to develop into infatuation during the many conversations he had with her. Her presumed death on the Normandy SR-1 was the most painful thing he had to endure. He hadn't gotten the chance to tell her how he felt at the time. But then he remembered their reunion on Omega and their slowly blossoming relationship aboard the Cerberus vessel. The interspecies awkwardness thing that he had feared would inevitably follow never did happen. It was apparent they were made for each other regardless of their different species. And yet he will always remember the scent of her hair, her smooth skin, and her loving lips. He would have followed her to hell and back, but now she was gone. Or was she?
Standing by her statue, he hadn't even realized that the rain had begun to slowly stop. A single ray of light had penetrated the thick cloud cover and illuminated the flower he had left for her. She was looking down. Garrus would never truly be alone.
The End