YAY! I updated! Sorry this took so long; I had this total creative mindblock BUT...I know where i'm going now.

I'd appreciate a review. Also, I don't know whether to detail Virmire or not. It's my favorite planet and I think looking at some of the stuff: (Kirrahe's speech, Wrex's discontentment, that scary-ass confrontation with Sov, the heartbreaking decision, anything that has to do with Saren) would be awesome, but it might be an unwelcome delay (since Shep and Garrus are going to talk after Virmire). What do you think?


Descent

Garrus worried.

It was not in his face, nor in his shoulders, nor his back. The worry was in his fingertips as he beat the dashboard, as he gunned down the Geth with ambidextrous skill. The tap-tap-tap of the trigger was a repetitive meditation. Virmire's beaches and its infinite sky, potentiality actualized, were spread out like a giant chessboard of aliens versus machines. He looked at the world above and below him, the lightning storm far out at sea but coming in like the waves {beautiful, violent}. He looked at the Commander…and worried.

It was easy to see, in the solitude and darkness of the ship's 'lights-out' hours, that Shepard had her own cracks. She had talked with him briefly of her time on Torfan after they had raided the biotic commune of her former CO. There, first, he had seen them, like flashes of lightning that struck and died.

Before then, he had been obsessed with the mission. With Saren, a Turian (and even that part hurt) who had evaded him when he was in C-Sec, and, he resolved, would cease to evade him soon. Saren had personally offended Garrus—standing for a type of order that Garrus hated {rigid, controlling}. Through the missions, the places that Shepard had taken him, he had come to see Saren as an order-obsessed Turian, dogmatic and unyielding. The type of Turian that his father was. The type he was terrified of becoming. Shepard had held him together then, as he learned to rejoice in his freedom. She had held them all together, her band of oddballs and aliens, as they ravaged planetfuls of Geth and touched thousands of lives. Touched most of them unwitting.

It had never occurred to him that she herself was cracked, not until that night. She had allowed him to see something that not all could see, or wanted to. In that moment, he had understood the meaning of the word 'friend'. But now the events of that night existed as a memory, and it tapped him again and again, forcing him to beat his fingers and turn his eyes away from the enemy. Shepard, for all her heroics, whether they fought in the vehicle or on foot, had disengaged from the battle. The memory of her body was enough to simulate the Commander, but her brain had withdrawn. He wondered if its internal turmoil—clear only because the angle of her head as she gunned down Geth was slightly different—was lightning's mimic.

They had reached the first gate and undergone a draining battle before he spoke. "Commander," he ventured, wondering if he could be bold after being so…{shy, evolving, tentative}...predictable for so long. The patterns of their relationship had been established in that first conversation and had spiraled on from then. "I want to ask you something."

Shepard shifted away from her dependence on the wall, nervously fingering her gun. "What is it, Garrus?"

Hesitating…suddenly, broaching the subject seemed like defacing an ancient artifact. His voice shot up half an octave with the first stroke. "Has…I mean, has something been bothering you?"

"And what evidence would you have of that?" Uncaring as a stone as he chiseled at her façade.

This was new, vague. He disliked it intensely, yet needed the ending. "Evidence?"

"You were a C-Sec inspector," Shepard reminded him. "You tell me."

The words trickled down his mandibles. Damn. As though he could prove a point about interactions, reactions, with something as simple as evidence. He imagined packaging it for her, thrusting it towards the darts of her eyes for her to open with her piercing—{inquisitive, perplexed}—gaze.

Sometimes, the only course of action for a Turian to take was to retreat.

"Nevermind," he said, incredibly thankful for Tali's shout that more Geth were headed their way. He drew his assault rifle and waited for the pounding of the shots against his chest, waited for the kickback of the gun. Down the stairs they went, heading for the Mako, as the wave of enemies overwhelmed them. Worry becoming nothing more than a faint tintinnitus in his ears.

But when it ended, when the shots ran out and his heart limped along without them—there was something there. He watched Shepard again, seeing her echoed in the environment, the sky shot through with cracks of lightning.

But it wasn't until they were on the beach, the salarians waiting, that Garrus finally grabbed Shepard, spinning her around by the arm. "Your aim is off," he stated flatly. "Your reflexes are slow, and your mind is elsewhere." The topic no longer seemed as awkward as it had once been, now that it had been breached, and he refused to let it become a giant mountain imposing itself in the background of their every conversation. If he was to commit to this, he must commit wholeheartedly.

Shepard looked as dark as the horizon: but she was looking everywhere except at Garrus' face. The universal symbol that he had struck a nerve. "I can't help it, okay?" she asked tersely. "You have no idea what…you just don't."

Those flashes of lightning in the sky echoed in her face. Garrus went to lash out with his words, and realized that she was close to tears. Imploring him, she looked at the salarians. She looked at the Mako. She looked at their team (who were all trying not to look at them while still looking).

"We'll talk later," Garrus said, slipping into parade rest. The easement of his stance reflected itself in her face. "But we're going to talk."

A long, slow sigh wound out of her mouth. Expelling all the energy of the last few moments. A slow blink. "If we have to."

Garrus didn't have to say anything to convey that yes, they did.


Whee! Please R&R. Garrus needs more love.