Author's Note: Once again, please review. Or favorite me. Or whatever. Just think of it as supplying an addict. I need it!


Chapter Two: Commitment

"Mutantur omnia nos et mutamur in illis..."

(All things change, and we change with them.)

~Nicholas Borbonius

Buildings passed at disturbing speed, the Kodiak shuttle swerving quickly to avoid several apartment buildings on the point of collapse. Omega was dangerous to travel through, he knew that. But his mind was not on the shuttle. It was on Shepard. With hands flying quickly across the holographic controls, Garrus had little time to examine him. But something was wrong. He could feel it.

"Well, looks like I signed on just in time to save her again, right Commander?" No response. Garrus sighed. The distress message from Tali had came in nearly fifteen minutes ago, just as he had been waking up from surgery. That gunship had almost killed him. He shrugged a bit at that thought. Women loved scars. He hoped.

The onboard computer soon chimed, telling him they would reach Tali's location soon. A small alley by the looks of it, which brought a smirk to his face. Hadn't he and Shepard found her in just such an alley on the Citadel, looking down the barrel of some Turian merc's pistol? Glancing at Shepard's apparent anxiousness, Garrus felt no need to worry. Sure, the message she had sent was weak, garbled. Only her transmission location had come through fine. But how many times had they received that same sort of message from Wrex, needing to be bailed out of prison after another barfight?

Shepard, however, seemed to think different. Since boarding the shuttle along with Mordin and Grunt, he hadn't said a thing. Garrus tried again: "Come on Shepard, I'm sure Tali's fine. She helped stop Saren. Helped kill Sovereign. She is fine." The resolution in his voice did little to shake Shepard out of his daze. He did, however, respond.

"What's our ETA?"

Garrus slid back on the throttle, bringing the shuttle into a hover. "We..." he started descending slowly, "are..." then turned the Kodiak, sliding it between two buildings, "here." The thump of the hull hitting pavement backed up his statement. Shepard was the first out the door, assault rifle in hand. Garrus was right behind him, followed by Grunt. Mordin stayed on board, relaying information back to the Normandy.

Moving to the entrance of the alley, Shepard gestured silently, giving them a command to wait here while he scouted ahead. Garrus started to argue, it was a tactically poor move, but Shepard had already moved into the shadows of the backstreet, which lay uncovered by the lights of the road it branched off of.

Glancing around, Garrus used the lull in action to take in his surroundings. By the looks of it, this was one of the oldest portions of station. Chasing down the various gang-lords of Omega as "Archangel" had led him to some of the worst parts of the station, but he had never been here. Thinking of his alias brought his thoughts back to the ridiculous nature of his current predicament. He could not believe it had been mere hours ago that he had been stuck on that roof, corpses littering the bridge to his compound. And now he was here, fresh from a rushed surgery, working with a man the galaxy thought dead. Bringing a hand up to touch the jagged scars that marred the right side of his face, Garrus winced. Rushed, yes, but Chakwas and Mordin had done well enough. He was considering looking for a mirror to examine their work thoroughly when a yell forced him out of his musings.

"Mordin!" Shepard's call erupted suddenly from the alley, his voice sounding strange. As Mordin sped past himself and Grunt, Garrus followed quickly. As he neared the Commander, his location marked by a circular orb of light, Garrus abruptly recognized the change in Shepard's voice. He had never heard fear in the Commander. The scene he arrived on proceeded to justify the presence of that emotion.

Shepard had detached his light, mounting it on the crumbling wall above a body. Tali's body. Coated in a layer of blood, her suit showed two large ruptures in the right shoulder. His C-Sec training taking over, Garrus figured those wounds must have made the macabre red mark on the nearby wall, as if she had fallen in some way. Mordin engaged his Omnitool, linking it with hers, while Garrus leaned in closer. Her eyes were not open, but it was hard to tell a quarian's health from behind that mask. Her posture, however, was not a good omen. She was simply leaning against the wall, sitting in a drying pool of her own blood, head slumped.

"Is she... unconscious?" Garrus was no fool. Losing that amount of blood was bad. But those suits were all equipped to handle anything, and he didn't want to... no. She was alive.

"Trying. Trying. It is hard, Quarians lock their biometrics. Reading biometric reports... Like rape in her culture." Mordin replied, his right hand moving at a feverish pace. "There. In. Now, let's see..." His mouth dropped slightly, a dark look furrowing his brow, before he suddenly broke off contact with Tali's omnitool, shaking his head. "Shepard. She, she, has..." He seemed unable to continue.

Hearing Mordin speechless was a first for Garrus, but processing what he was implying shoved that aside. It was painful. Too painful. He wasn't, couldn't, be saying that Tali was gone! Shoving Garrus aside, Grunt grabbed the salarian by the arm, and gestured to Tali. "Dammit Mordin. Get it out. Is she dead?"

The question hung in the air, poignant in it's implication. Mordin stared, unblinking, into Grunt's eyes. After nearly three seconds, he finally answered.

"Yes."

That affirmation hit Garrus hard, sending his mind back to two years prior. Hearing that the Shepard had failed to make it out of the Normandy as it was ripped apart had been bad. But he had never seen the body, never been witness to a scene that showed the last minutes of his death. Tracing his hand slowly over the blood streak the marked the wall, Garrus could not stop his mandibles from shaking. From angst or anger, he did not know. "Is there anything we can do?" He knew that answer before he asked it.

Grunt released Mordin's arm, allowing the salarian to check his omnitool before replying. "I'm sorry. She has been gone nearly thirty minutes." He leaned against the wall opposite of her body, head slumping in a sign of defeat. "Quarian cellular biology is strong, besides immune system. Suit helps. But blood loss? Substantial. Brain, vital organs, they take a while to start decomposition in that suit. But, she is gone."

"Fuck." The first word from Shepard since discovering Tali was filled with a level of sadness that corrupted the very nature of that particular vulgarity. He had been kneeling next to her, his hand holding hers, since calling for Mordin. Saying that word, though, seemed to shake him from a nearly comatose state. His face, usually covered in a smile or in the midst of a laugh, contorted in such a way that Garrus had never seen. This was not anger. This was not rage. It was something... worse.

"Goddammit. I promised..." His voice broke, eyes starting to water. But then the vehemence returned. He seemed to thrive on it. "I promised her we would make this work! That nothing would happen!" Shepard's hand balled into a fist. The first punch went into the wall, a cracking bone accompanying the sound of armor rending against brick. He struck it again. And again. The third was followed by silence. Shepard closed his eyes, dropping back to his knees in front of Tali's body.

This scene lasted for a while. Grunt, after watching Shepard's outburst, walked back to the shuttle. He was pragmatic. What had killed her could be coming back. Mordin stayed against the wall, running through her biometrics again. He never got to look at quarian information. Only Garrus watched Shepard, as dozens of emotions ran across his face. There were no tears, no more signs of sadness. Just numerous shades of anger.

And Garrus was struck with confusion. Losing a friend was bad, he knew that. But this amount of anger, especially in Shepard seemed out of place. And what was this "promise"? It would have been more expected if... He stopped, overtaken by the simplicity of it. Shepard and Tali must had been in love. It would have been a secret, or something new. Ship gossip had said there may have been a crush between them when they fought Saren, but it had never went further then that. And what of his new crewmates? Despite his swift stay on the new Normandy with most of it being while he was unconscious, Garrus had met Kelly Chambers. Her official position was "Yeoman", but Garrus knew bullshit when he saw it. Chambers was a shrink. She would have known about this, but besides her? No one knew them as he did. Shepard was too private to let that sort of thing slip out. And Tali telling anyone? No way in hell.

Slipping out from under his discovery, Garrus noticed Grunt was returning from the shuttle. His business-like manner seemed inappropriate for such a somber scene. "Miranda has been trying to reach you, Shepard. She wants to know about Tali. I thought you should tell her." Garrus tilted his head a bit in surprise. That was sentimental, for a krogan at least.

Shepard seemed to have missed that though, for he had stood upright immediately upon hearing Miranda's name. As soon as Grunt had finished, he was running towards the shuttle. Garrus followed. "Commander, Shepard! Wait! What are you doing!?"

Shepard spun on his heel, halfway back to the shuttle, and grabbed Garrus by the shoulders. "Don't you see Garrus? Miranda? Cerberus? The Lazarus Project! I can keep that promise!" It took him a moment to catch up, but Garrus finally got it. He had heard that this Cerberus backed Lazarus Project had brought Shepard back from death. Could they do the same for Tali? Shepard seemed to think so. Letting go of his shoulders, Shepard finished his sprint to the Kodiak.

Following Shepard, Garrus reflected on this turn of events. Hope had returned the man he had known for so long, pulled him from the very brink of disaster.

Losing that hope would push him over it.


The doctors had worked for hours, but the damage had been done. The shotgun blast had been directed at the joint where his armor's chest stratum met the torso plate, a death wish for any human. Harlan'Con, however, was not human. A shot like he had endured rarely killed directly, it was the resultant infection that finished the job. Modern medicine had come far, but as intestines burst, riddled with buckshot, their naturally corrosive nature spread any foreign bacteria present throughout the body. This was a mute point for Harlan'Con. His envirosuit had succeeded in containing the infection, keeping the fluids that had filled portions of his chest cavity from spreading any further. Being quarian, however, had given the infections he had sustained priority. It was only after eight hours of work that one of the trio of doctors working on him had discovered the pellet lodged in his spine. Removing it was easy, but scans showed his lower body was not responding to the brain's commands.

After the surgery was complete, one of those doctors shot himself. Upon learning of his condition, Harlan proceeded to shoot the other two.

Summoning his soldiers, he asked a question. No response. He reloaded his pistol and asked again. "Did you find that bitch?"

Their response was apologetic, strategically sound, and so, so wrong. More men died at the end of his pistol.

Continues in Chapter 3: Past the Brink