Sometimes, in a flash of blue and the blaze of fury, Shepard lights up the world like no sun or star can. Garrus thinks that they could be standing in the middle of a white giant and she would still be the brightest light. She isn't what this galaxy wants because she is too harsh and prone to violence and not diplomatic enough but she is exactly what it needs when she wields biotics and guns and words with absolute conviction and authority.

She is the commander of a ship full of misfit warriors, all of them broken but none of them willing to admit it. Her gaze can be as sharp as Zaeed's battle knives when they disappoint her just as her hands can be as gentle as a warm breeze when they touch someone in need of compassion.

She is a woman who is soft beneath the plating of her armour, soft in ways no one would expect if they'd spent even five minutes with her.

But Garrus knows, knows that she burns with passion as much as she burns with anger, and when she defiantly tells a Reaper she will destroy it or when she presses her lips against his scarred cheek he knows that while the galaxy doesn't want her, it doesn't deserve her either.