A/N: I love ideas that come to me spontaneously, and demand to be written. This is about my current Shepard, Sarah, and how the relationship between her and Garrus began to form in ME2. Any and all feedback is appreciated. :)
When she dreamed, she dreamed of fire and blood.
She dreamed of the Normandy splintering around her, while she watched with frozen eyes, as the air leaked out of her suit and the blackness spiraled around her.
She dreamed of monsters, of Jacob, Miranda, and the Illusive Man, all of them talking at once in a jangling cacophony of voices, discordant and shrill. As she watched, the three of them converged into one creature with six arms and six legs, and then turned into the Collectors, who turned into Harbinger, whose glowing eyes bored into her soul and set it aflame.
Most nights, she woke screaming.
She hid it from her crew, her team, even from perceptive-as-always Kelly Chambers. She couldn't hide it from EDI, who asked her every night when she woke if she'd like the AI to wake Dr. Chakwas, to see what the doctor could prescribe. Every night Sarah told her to leave the doctor alone, it was just a bad dream. And every night after that, it happened again.
The dreams changed, sometimes. Sometimes she saw Virmire, saw the bomb explode, and Ashley came towards her with her hair ablaze, shouting words Sarah couldn't hear. Other times it was Jenkins, bleeding from a dozen wounds and asking her if this time they'd see some real action.
She dreamed of Horizon once. That eerie quiet, the frozen colonists. She found Kaidan behind an abandoned building, frozen, humming in that strange field the seekers trapped their victims within. When she touched him, he shattered.
Her screaming was so terrible that EDI had Dr. Chakwas come and sedate her. Just before she fell under the sway of the drugs, she started sobbing and couldn't breathe.
She dreamed of dying again, suffocating in the black, but the drugs kept her under so she couldn't wake.
She kept going. Helped her team with their problems. Ignored her own. She started losing weight, her face becoming more gaunt, her cheekbones more pronounced. The only one who noticed was Jack, who said Sarah was starting to look scarier than Zaeed. Sarah laughed with all the rest, but the remark stung. She saw the stares, saw the concern on (almost) everyone's face. She ignored it. She was getting better at shutting things out.
She stopped sleeping, instead spending the evenings wandering the ship after everyone else was asleep. The empty corridors were soothing, with only the hum of the engine to let her know they were even moving. She replayed memories in her head while she walked, to fill the void the emptiness left. Her parents. Mindoir. Akuze. Ashley. Jenkins. Always the dead, never the living. The living held nothing for her anymore.
Not since Horizon.
She went to Illium, and reunited with Liara, who seemed to be the only former crew member who accepted what she was told without question. About Cerberus, about the Collectors, about everything, really. She didn't ask why Shepard moved slowly, or why her eyes were so red. The asari's eyes spoke volumes that never reached her mouth. Sarah pretended not to notice.
She slept that night, because her body simply couldn't stand it any longer. She dreamed of thresher maws, only this time the unit they tore apart included Kaidan, Liara, and Ashley. She watched them ripped apart, dragged down to gruesome deaths, and when she tried to help them, she discovered there was a hole in her chest and her hands were dripping blood.
She woke silent that night, and left her cabin as quickly as she could. She wandered the corridors of the ship like one blind, feeling along the walls as she tried to keep her feet. When she found herself at the main battery she was confused, until the door opened and she found herself staring at a familiar face.
Her knees gave way beneath her, and she felt herself caught in a strong pair of arms, arms that lifted her and carried her to the table in the mess hall, where they sat her in a chair and asked her again and again, Shepard, are you all right?
She tried to answer, tried to speak, but all that emerged was air, and she gripped her head in both hands, teeth locked around a scream, a keening, a purely animal sound that wanted to escape from her throat. Distantly, she heard Garrus mutter something about Dr. Chakwas, and she lashed out with a hand, snagging his wrist in a grip hard enough to bruise, and uttering a strangled no.
He didn't fight her, didn't break her grip as easily as he could have, instead choosing to extricate himself with care and move to sit in the chair next to her. He said nothing, and he didn't pull away when she grabbed for his hand again, squeezing it with her own, which was suddenly shaking. Slowly, haltingly, as if he were afraid of the answer but needed to ask the question anyway, she heard him murmur softly, Shepard, are you all right?
A dam burst inside her, and before she knew what she was saying, words started pouring forth. Words about Mindoir and Akuze, words about Virmire and the Citadel, words about Horizon, words, words, words. Some distant part of her realized she was crying while she spoke, tears streaming down her face as she poured out everything, everything. The tears were hot on her cheeks, her eyes felt like they were burning, but with every word something inside her loosened, and her chest didn't feel quite so tight. She became aware again, aware that Garrus was sitting next to her, aware that the grip that she held Garrus's hand in was likely causing him pain, aware that he hadn't spoken a word but had listened, as she so desperately needed someone to.
Her words faltered and ran dry, even as tears continued to streak down her cheeks. She felt ... lighter, for lack of a better explanation. Calm. Not peaceful, but not as if she wanted to scream and beat her head against the wall until it bled, until the nightmares went away. She closed her eyes, opening her mouth to thank Garrus for listening, and promptly closed it when he began to speak instead.
He spoke of his father and his father's dreams. Of C-Sec, and how it never measured up to what he wanted it to be. He spoke of his Spectre candidacy, and his father's anger. He spoke of dreams denied and dashed. He spoke of Saren. He spoke of thinking she was dead, and not knowing how to cope. He spoke of Omega, and his team. He spoke of Sidonis. He spoke of the revenge he'd thought he wanted, until confronted with his betrayer, and what had made him stay his hand.
And Sarah Shepard listened. She spoke no words, only listened, with his hand held in hers. Her tears had stopped, the tracks still wet on her cheeks, but she made no move to dry them. She'd never heard Garrus speak so much at once, and certainly never about himself. She listened. And she understood.
When at last he stopped, they sat there, silent, each drained of words, leeched of ghosts. Without thinking, Sarah lifted a hand and touched the bandaged side of Garrus's face, surprised when his hand came up to cover her own. Without thinking, without even realizing what she was doing, Sarah gently pulled her hand away and moved in her chair until she was as close to him as she could get, gently resting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes.
"Thank you," she murmured softly.
"For what?" he asked just as quietly, as she pulled back and pushed her hair out of her eyes.
She gave a sad, half-smile. "Asking."