Author's note: Make sure you check it out on Ao3 so you can see Picchar's gorgeous artwork. It truly is a shame FF doesn't support image embedding. I have a link to my Ao3 directly in my profile.
Help us.
She doesn't look back.
"Shepard!" Garrus calls out into the darkness. He runs and the strange landscape blocks him. Tall trees, different from the ones on Palaven, move in closer, hiding her, dead grass and leaves littering the ground.
You know it's the right choice.
He changes direction. Alien trees pass by him at a rapid pace. She shines; he sees her back in the distance. He sprints faster, reaching out an ungloved hand towards her retreating form.
Someone else would have gotten it wrong.
Her voice reaches him, a whisper, "Not even the stars can last forever, Garrus." And she burns brighter than all the stars as she catches fire, the flames going from green to red to vibrant blue.
Some things are beyond even you.
Then, bright light and pain and darkness and hurtling through space.
I ask forgiveness.
Then, nothing.
0.
Garrus turns from talking with the Executor and his first impression is sun. She holds everyone around her in orbit, the two humans following her caught in her blinding gravity. The people in Citadel Tower part for her, some with glances—some that don't even realize what they're doing as they step aside. Her presence sings to him, curls inside his mind.
Garrus knows exactly who she is. Commander Shepard, the human Spectre candidate. Tall, especially so for a human female. Definite military bearing. Scar on left side of face and right lip. Dark coloring. Curly textured hair pulled up in a tight bun. Arms tucked to the side. No wasted movement. She blazes through, and he steps in her path and talks about his investigation and the lack of evidence on Saren. Her intense dark eyes meet his, weighing him, judging him.
He watches her go, not able to shake off the feeling he'd barely avoided getting burned.
He leaves the tower, frustrated. Soon, one of his contacts sends him a tip on a quarian that may have information, and he goes to track her down.
Someone's beaten him there. He hears the sound of thugs and a scream, he lifts his pistol and fires on instinct netting the man in the center of the forehead, and he takes a moment to draw a rattling breath as the thrill of combat runs through him.
He sees piercing brown eyes, eyebrows raised almost to the hairline, N7 prominent on the chest. He falters, and his mandibles slacken, and his brow plates lift, and he lowers his pistol as the familiar sounds of chastisement hit him.
For a moment, he's back with his father on the shooting range, and then his head clears. The thought that Saren could get away with what he's done burns him more than anything. Then what she's saying hits him. I don't trust you, but come anyway. You'll be in my squad, and I'll be watching your six so you don't shoot me in mine.
He smiles; she shrinks back and her hands twitch towards the pistol at her hip. His face falls, and something screams wrong at him, but he shakes it off.
She practically sings, "Let's pay Fist a visit." She cracks her neck and rolls her shoulders.
Wrex just grunts.
A buzzing in his ear, blue light playing across his eyes. Garrus blinks. Maybe he's drunk or maybe he's dead, but Chora's Den is a bar, so he laughs as they dive behind a collapsed table. A firefight. They never go anywhere nice. Figures this would be Shepard's heaven. He switches to his sniper rifle, his aiming quick and precise. Wrex charges forward, massacring the hapless thugs with his shotgun. "You owe me a drink," he says to Shepard, unthinking.
"What?" she asks. He knows confusion is not a state she enjoys, but he feels the comforting blanket of one-upmanship. It's how their relationship has always worked, and he's thrilled it's survived into this fever dream.
"Well, by my visor, I'm two headshots ahead of you." He points a talon to her Reaper sniper rifle. "You do know how to use that thing, right?"
Shepard grins, a little forced. Playacting, he thinks. "Betting on drinks, now? You're on, Officer Vakarian." And she leaps out of cover, barely waiting for the rifle to cool before three more thugs drop to the ground.
She's as good as he remembers Shepard being, but something's not right. It feels too real. "Impressive," he allows, but he barely aims and two more fall. "But you still owe me that drink." He's always been the better shot. She switches guns and counters with a pull and then a shotgun blast that kills four more.
"Not bad for someone born on Earth," Wrex says. "Thought all you humans were weak."
Wait, what? "Earth?" Garrus repeats dumbly as a bullet grazes his arm in the split-second pause he takes before he ducks behind cover. The Shepard he knows is a lifelong spacer, born on Arcturus Station.
"Hey!" Shepard says before tossing a grenade. "Nothing wrong with being earthborn, is there?"
The world tilts.
He slips, scrabbling for purchase in his mind.
::It will come when it will come::
He comes to himself as she's scolding Wrex for shooting Fist, and he can't recall a single thing since the clinic.
Author's note: I had so much fun working with Picchar who was so sweet and kind and patient with me as I sent my drafts over that way. This is my first big bang, my first work in the Mass Effect fandom longer than a one-shot, and it's been such a pleasure as I've met so many creative and engaging people through the course of this. Huge thanks to Picchar for the gorgeous artwork that depicts the heart of what I was trying to convey so perfectly! Thanks also to my betas R and J for sticking with me and working on it even though you're not in fandom, and to AzzyDarling and BioticBooty for taking time to do this.
Artist's note: I'm not very good with words, which is why I stick to drawing for big bangs, but I will say that I had a lot of fun reading—as well as illustrating for—this fic. I love how Angelic Sentinel evoked the feeling of vagueness, of haziness, that you would feel if you were in Garrus' place, and enjoyed reading every iteration and draft of the fic. I hope you'll like it as much as I do!