Um, so, hey! I wanted to thank everyone for the fave's and the subscribing... It made me write this next bit. This is ending up being a way longer story than I thought... What can I say? I'm a fan of relationship build up. I wrote this on a whim and the story hasn't got a beta... soooo I'd appreciate reviews for some motivation, and it'd also be helpful if you could point out any spelling error's I made. (Only if they annoy you like they annoy me, though!) So yeah, thanks again!
Disclaimer(s): This is a FANfiction. This means I don't own the universe I write about.
The poem mentioned in this chapter Love After Love by Derek Walcott. I certainly don't own that, either!
"I know you want to talk about this..." Garrus made sure to confront the Commander before she started getting all sentimental and happy about what had happened. "but I don't." He said firmly, the Commander raised her eyebrows a little. "Not yet."
"I know it didn't go the way you planned, but I think it's for the best." For Garrus. The Commander knew in herself that letting Garrus tale that shot would have been the push down a very slippery slope.
"I'm not so sure..." Garrus replied, completely talking about Sidonis – he have never thought that was for his benefit. He wanted to kill the bastard.
"Give it time." She reassured, smiling comfortingly.
"Yeah. Maybe that'll be enough." He didn't sound convinced. "I want to know I did the right thing. Not just for me – for my men. They deserved to be avenged. But when Sidonis was in my sights... I just couldn't do it." Not with her talking at him like she'd been...
"The lines between good and evil blur when we're looking at people we know." The Commander always sounded far wiser than she looked.
"...Yeah." Garrus admitted, thinking back to what Sidonis had said to the Commander, and him, after her words had opened his eyes and ears – when he started listening to reason. "There was still good in him... I could see it."
"It's so much easier to see the world in black and white. Gray... I don't know what to do with gray." When the Commander had been god, everything was black and white. The bad guys - you shot them, no matter the excuse. Yet Shepard comes back and everything starts getting grey tints. Killings harder, making the decision to kill even tougher... 'This damned human woman...' Garrus thought with affection.
"You gotta go with your instincts." Her wisdom this time was somewhat wrong.
"My instincts are what got me into this mess." The turian sounded so bitter and regretful.
"Don't be too hard on yourself." Shepard chirped in a lighter tone, touching his shoulder and then nudging the other. The unexpected contact made his mind go a bit... gray.
"Thanks, Shepard... For everything." For coming back, for taking him on this hopeless cause, for finding Sidonis, for talking him out of shooting him and for making life grey scale again. She smiled, and the feeling he got when she touched him flooded back. "Let's get going." He said suddenly. "I need some distance from this place."
"I'm with you."
Tali'Zorah sat quietly with Garrus, Miranda, Donnelly and Daniels. The quarian and the turian waited patiently for food they could consume, as the others enjoyed theirs.
"The Commander is something else." Donnelly said, happily poking his almost finished plate of food. "Goin' all the way to the Citadel with a shopping list just for our benefit; lucky blighters aren't we?"
"Geez, Kenneth!" Daniels exclaimed, staring at Donnelly's plate. "What happened? Did you inhale it?" A ripple of laughter passed through the mess hall, and Tali couldn't help but let out a little giggle. She didn't trust Cerberus, but her two down in engineering were such characters...
"I would have liked to have seen the Commander grocery shopping though; I just can't imagine her doing something so trivial." Donnelly said thoughtfully, and then attacked the remainder of his meal.
"I was there; she checked the list about 20 times to make sure she'd selected everything on the kiosk." Garrus said fondly, "It was a little funny to see the armed Commander Shepard deciding what spices the crew might like..."
The image of it was amusing to Tali, who laughed just as the elevator door opened and the Commander herself approached Gardner. "What's that human saying...?" Tali pondered, still quite amused. "'Speak of the devil'?"
"Hey Commander!" Gardner said cheerfully, holding out a plate for Shepard. "Made your favourite!"
"Thank you."
The whole mess froze up. It hadn't been the longest of times but the Normandy wasn't a very big ship and almost everyone on board was familiar with the Commander – she liked to get friendly. It was no surprise that they could now tell their Commander's moods. The Commander wasn't a hard woman to figure out. Her normal attitude was so warming that it became easy to tell if something was wrong.
"You're, err, welcome." Gardner said awkwardly. Shepard took her plate, and then went to sit with the others like she usually did. Nobody made a move. The Commander may be easy to read in terms of when things weren't right. It was a little harder, however, telling how close she was to blowing something or someone up.
"Um. Dextro-amino grub is up. Here's your food, Garrus and here's your sterilized mulch, Tali!" Gardner kept a brave face in possible danger. The two delivered their food, and then went to sit back down. Everything was so still, even Shepard herself had ceased eating.
"Hey, Commander." Tali tried, sitting next to her. "What's wrong?"
Blinking in surprise, Shepard looked away from her food and at Tali. "Oh." She looked around and grimaced. "Sorry, did I spoil lunch?" Instantly the table erupted in complete denial of any sour mood that had been bestowed on the atmosphere. She smiled, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Miranda shook her head, and placed a hand on her forehead in exasperation of the crew and the Commander.
"What's eating you, Shepard?" Garrus asked, after swallowing his first mouthful. Normality restored, the crew apparently feeling safe enough to continue eating.
"Nothing." She fake smiled, pushing the food on her plate around.
"She got an e-mail from Alenko about half an hour ago." Miranda announced – but she was considerate so that her voice only reached Tali and Garrus.
"Miranda!" Shepard yelped, "I told you to stop hacking my mail! And for god's sake, so did your little sister!" The comment made Miranda smile fondly.
"Perhaps. But I have to check on you - orders. You might be sending vital Cerberus information to the Alliance..." Well that was the cover story.
"Kaidan?" Tali sounded surprised, and her food was being forgotten. "What did he say, Commander?"
"I don't know." She admitted sourly, pushing her plate from her. "I didn't read it. I... was kinda of offended he mailed me after Horizon."
Garrus coughed violently next to Tali, and the quarian thumped his back to stop him choking. "Sorry," He apologised, laughing. "And here I was under the impression you were all forgiving, Commander." Shepard smiled guiltily. "He pissed you off that bad?"
Shepard sat up, and pulled a face Tali assumed was supposed to be Kaidan. "You betrayed me." She mocked, in a very bad impression. Tali giggled. "How? By dying and then being brought back to life without a say in the matter?!"
"You're welcome." Miranda interrupted, but even she laughed a little.
"He wouldn't see reason, would he?" The Commander shook her head at Garrus in reply.
"I'm glad at least you guys at least came along." Her smile was thankful. "It's a bit overwhelming. Liara's gone all Matriarch Benezia, Kaidan more or less dumped me-"
"Crazy human." Garrus muttered into his food. Tali smirked under her helmet.
"- Wrex is leading his clan... I feel like I missed too much. Sort of like when you bunked off quantum physics and went back and had no idea what the teacher was talking about."
"Hold on." Garrus held up his three fingered hands to halt her. "You bunked?"
"Couple of times." Shepard grinned mischievously. "When I was training I often bunked the boring classes. Always too eager for action." She gestured around herself, the moving hand seemingly sarcastic. "'Careful about what you wish for, you might get it'. The saying applies to me so heavily."
"Every time I think I've figured you out..." Miranda said under her breath; then spoke up. "You really should read that mail, though, Commander."
"I don't know... I was thinking of just ignoring it."
"Really?" Garrus's mandibles flared, making him look very surprised. "I thought you'd be missing the old LT."
"Yeah..." The Commander leaned her elbow on the table, her head on her hand. "Maybe not him right now...too angry... M'missing the sex right now."
The whole table erupted in hysteria, even Gardner doubled over in laughter. "Wow, does everyone eves drop on me?" Shepard grinned despite the situation. "Hey!" She defended, "It was very stress relieving." Donnelly opened his mouth to say something. "And in advance." She interjected quickly with a sweet smile. "Any jokes on this will earn instant demotion."
Shepard's eyebrow rose at Donnelly, who rolled his eyes. "Aye aye."
"Seriously though, Commander." The flavour Tali's accent gave to her speech always made Shepard feel happy. "Are you okay with this? Back on the old Normandy you and Kaidan were pretty close. Rumours had been flying around, too..."
"Tali." Garrus warned.
"What? Garrus?" Confused, the Commander looked suspiciously at the turian. "Tali? Tell me." Neither of them budged and the uncomfortable silence was back. Miranda leaned forward, intrigued.
"Well... I'm sure it's just a rumour and I never really heard about it from a good source and well I'm sure it was never true but..."
"Tali!"
"Apparently Kaidan was serious. Before the attack rumour had it he was going to... take things to the next level. I'm not sure what that meant. I always assumed the next step would have been proposal but that would have been preposterous and-" Garrus put a hand on Tali's shoulder, calming the babbling quarian and gestured to where Shepard had been sitting, which was now strangely empty.
Shepard knew she should have ignored the message. What had she expected? For him to send some soppy apology message, saying he understood, wanting to join... wanting more? The Commander felt not herself and in that moment a poem Ash had shared with her floated around in her mind. She mumbled the words; they calmed her.
"The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other's welcome."
Shepard smiled to herself, remembering the day her and Ash sat there and she got the Chief to repeat the poem five times until Ash refused to say it again. Each time there was the smallest chance Ash would quietly tease her Commander about her love for the poem. Shepard missed the gunnery Chief... She'd been so busy reminiscing she didn't hear her quarter's doors open.
"Err," Garrus stood awkwardly in the doorway. "Is it a bad time?" The Commander shook her head and gestured the turian in. She stood and led him down the sofa. "I hear the – was it a poem? It was very... I didn't get it. But, it was nice. I didn't expect you to be a poetry person."
"I wasn't. Ash was. You probably don't get it because that's only the first stanza and besides – how did you get in here?" She had a lock and pass code on the door.
"Miranda gave me the code..." Garrus admitted and Shepard chuckled. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to smash your private terminal and regret it later." His mandibles rose in the impression of a grin.
Shepard smiled with him and shook her head, slouching back. "No, it's fine. He apologized but also said he can't put what happened in the last two years aside for me. I don't think he realizes it... I'm guessing he doesn't love me any more and he's just re-experiencing survivor's guilt-"
"Commander!"
"Garrus?" She sounded amused.
He seemed embarrassed at his outburst. "Uh, well. You know... it sounds pretty ludicrous. Well you weren't there-"
"Yeah. I was kinda of dead." He laughed.
"-but Alenko was a total wreck. I think him and Joker felt the most survivors guilt."
"So you felt nothing about me going down with my ship, hey, Garrus?" The Commander joked, titling her head at the turian.
"Of course not. I didn't believe it. Not for a second – I was in total denial. I was convinced you'd somehow have survived. A year on and no sign of you I was too deep in crap to grieve and come to realization. Then you show up again and I remember seeing you down the scope and half thinking I was slowly going insane and the other half of me smug that my denial was right. I don't know Commander. I guess... I had faith."
Shepard only smiled at Garrus, and after a few seconds they looked away from each other and a somewhat comfortable silence before Garrus disrupted it. "So that poem, what's the rest of it?"
The Commander paused to think for a few seconds before she began reciting it.
"The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other's welcome.
And say sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love-letters from the bookshelf
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your own images from the mirror.
Sit. Feat on your life."
The silence resumed, and Shepard felt melancholy after having gone over her favourite poem.
"Honestly I still don't get it." The turian laughed at himself. "Maybe I'm just not a literature kinda guy."
"Maybe you just haven't had the experience to relate." Shepard smiled warmly. "Well my take on it is that it's about the person you become when falling in love, and the person you return to after having loved. I was thinking how much of a sap Alenko made me into and then how I was slowly returning to my earlier ruthlessness without him when the poem occurred to me. I greeted myself arriving... 'with elation'." She quoted smoothly, seeing if he would understand. "Or maybe it only makes sense in English." She said, referring to their translators.
"Perhaps. So you're... happy with the thought of Alenko not loving you any more...?"
"No." Garrus was confused. "But I'm happy with the person I'm returning to."
The turian was quiet for several seconds and nodded. "I think I can relate. But rather, with revenge than love. Sidonis... that whole situation... warped me so much and I'm happy to be myself again."
"Ash once said she loved poetry because of the completely different opinions two people could have on one poem. Now I get what she was saying. Anyway, bottom line, I'm not replying to Kaidan... I'm going to let him move on." The two of them looked at one another silently for a few moments. "Thanks, Garrus. For coming to check up on me... and slightly hacking into my room. I'm going to have to change that code..."
Garrus nodded, standing from his sitting position. "You're welcome... and I'm glad Alenko isn't bringing you down too much."
"Well he did apologise. Whilst mentioning another woman. Whilst refusing to set aside the last two years. And whilst completely ignoring the fact I was dead this past two years – I'm sure he thinks I've been square dancing beyond the veil or something." The two of them shared a laugh. "Anyway, I should go and see what Samara wanted me for... I'll come to the main battery after, okay?"
"Sure. I look forward to it, Shepard."
Haha.. Next Chapter: Shepard's shameless come-on!
