After Priority: Palaven, En-Route to Diplomat-meeting

Garrus Vakarian exits the forward battery with a bit of a groan, rolling his neck to work out some of the kinks he had developed since. Almost immediately after he had dropped the new Primarch off in the new war room of The Normandy – Man, Shepard's Alliance doesn't mess around, do they? That place has got everything a commander could need and more. Next you're going to tell me it's got an automated drink machine underneath that holo-display. – he retreated to his old hiding place. It wasn't that he was intending to retreat here the way he had when Cerberus had run the Normandy, trying to shield himself from their vitriolic rhetoric by parking himself next to the biggest gun in miles and locking the door; but rather that it was one of the few places on the ship he was utterly familiar with, felt at home. And when Palaven was burning and The Hierarchy was in this much turmoil, familiar was a commodity.

True to his predictions, the Alliance Techs had indeed messed with his guns, throwing his perfect firing and targeting algorithms off by at least 37%. But they did also remove those stupid railings and exposed the technical panels along the sides of his canons, so perhaps he didn't have to kill them all. Now he could access some of his Thanix's inner workings, correct some of the heat-dispersion problems that were caused by Normandy's smaller battery compartment or reduce the expansion time by eliminating the interrupting mechanism that prevented them from expanding until fully extended. Of course, that would take the full force of his clearly, highly experienced and brilliant expertise with gunnery, but it could also be the difference between life and death in this war. And need a lot more calibrations. But then again, when the entire galaxy is going the way of the ancestors, calibrating a large piece of highly lethal machinery could be a good chore. Hmm, that's almost there. I need to rephrase it though… should give Shepard a laugh.

The forward battery, though, was now his own personal command station. The past couple of hours had been spent wiring a terminal to the War Room which would give him access to all of the info he now constantly needed: strategic planning programs, encrypted communications channels, a fully operational combat tactical simulator (even sprung for the human-created "Western" sound-effects package, so that he could watch his civilization be hypothetically crushed to the sounds of "Cowboys" and "Buckaroos", which he found unusually amusing. The Reaper forces would even say "There's only room for the two of us in this galaxy" while the simulation was loading. Whoever had created the mod had a twisted sense of humor, but so did Garrus to an extent).He even had access to a portion of The Shadow Broker's new codex, filled with all kinds of interesting data and illicit information, but he was still too scared to use it. Since when did our sweet little Prothean archeologist become one of the most feared and ruthless information brokers the galaxy has ever known? They grow up so fast.

He walked past the cryo-pods in the crew-deck level of the Normandy's main corridor, still wondering not only why they were there when the crew now had its own berthing, but also why they were put there, of all places. On the original Normandy, he knew that the pods had been the crew's sleeping quarters – crewmen sharing one pod and alternating who slept in it as watches rotated; but now that they had their own, albeit slightly crowded room in which to share beds, he couldn't figure why they'd still need these. What was Cerberus thinking? Tali had told him that maybe they were emergency medical stasis pods, since they were equipped with cryogenic technology, but if that were the case, Garrus figured they'd be in the actual Med-bay where the medical emergencies were more likely to be. He had suggested stasis pods for captured prisoners, a place to put them on ice before an interrogation – but not only was that more Archangel talking than Garrus Vakarian, but it also raised the question of why there were so many. The only conclusion he could see that made any sense, that was again a little too much from Archangel's dark mind for his preference, was that they were stasis pods for assassinations where no corpse could be left. But in that case, why so far from the cargo bay?

As Garrus walked into the elevator he pushed the icon for Deck 1, where he presumed Shepard would be. He had caught some Lieutenant named Dyphe on his way to the Main Battery and asked him about The Commander, at which point he had been told Shepard had taken to his loft for almost any time he wasn't directly needed on the bridge, in the war room, or on the ground. Some members of the crew apparently hadn't even seen him which, even with the new 68 crew they had picked up at The Citadel to make a full complement seemed unreasonable to him on such a small vessel. Something was up with Shepard, and his illustrious, exceptionally handsome, and clearly the better marksman friend (who also talked to way more girls) was going to find out what.

The elevator moved with unnerving slowness, seeming to labor under a weight that was not even a percent of what it could handle, as it took Garrus up to Shepard's Stateroom. If he was honest with himself, Garrus wasn't entirely sure what to expect. Sure he knew the man well and treated him like the brother he never had, but it had been eight months since he had even last heard from him. For somebody that went stir crazy just sitting in a shuttle for fifteen minutes while it descends onto a battle on a dead world with a deadly sun, that couldn't have been easy. He knew Shepard enough to know that the same pure-intention and caring heart would remain under whatever had happened to his less essential traits, not even dying and being brought back to life by a crazy human-supremist morally deprived terrorist organization had managed to injure those traits. But he also knew how jaded and cynical things like that can make you. C-Sec had turned him a cynic just by asking him to follow what he now realized was some fairly sound legal procedure and fill out some papers, he couldn't imagine what being punished for a decision you could never get right would do to a man.

The elevator stopped and Garrus walked into what was a fairly familiar ante-room, one meant to give the Captain at least some attempt at privacy on a small stealth cruiser like The Normandy. It looked the same except for some evidence of the apparently extensive overhauls The Alliance had undertaken to make The Normandy an admiral-worthy flagship and not a self-sufficient special missions unit. What alarmed Garrus, though, was the glowing red of the door panel that barred his entry when he tried. He entered the authorization code Shepard had given him earlier again, but again he was met with the same coldly mechanic beep. Panic rose in Garrus' throat as Archangel imagined every way his friend could die in that room, slipping on spilt coffee to break his head on the desk, strangling himself in his sleep with his sheets during a vicious nightmare, a crack in the dorsal heat-sinks which sat over the ceiling which would leak coolant into the room and asphyxiate the commander as he struggled to open the door while clawing at his throat…

He shook his head, trying to dispel the increasingly vivid, and perhaps slightly ridiculous, thoughts.

"EDI, why is Shepard's door denying me access? I can't even chime him."

The cool, synthesized voice rang out in the small compartment. Garrus had forgotten how disconcerting it was to hear such a clearly robotic voice and remember that it was an unshackled AI which ran the ship.

"The Commander was modifying the door panel's authorization protocols when he ceased all input 10.568 minutes ago. In the absence of operating algorithms, the door's lock has defaulted to it's lockdown setting."

"Can you get me inside?"

"Why do you wish to enter, Garrus?"

"Because helping him and working to destroy the reapers has been a secret plan and I have actually always intended to murder him for stealing my wife and unborn child." He responded, cutting sarcasm combining with increasing annoyance.

Silence rang through the room.

Garrus sighed.

"That was a joke, EDI"

"I know, Garrus. I was working on unlocking the door. You should be able to access it now. I would recommend pouring tea at the commander's feet and breaking his neck as he descends the stairs – it would contain all the hallmarks of an accidental death."

Garrus paused for a bit as his mind tried to make sense of what he had just heard, eventually opening the door. Sarcasm? From EDI? Either that or she is actually intending to become The Overlord. Things around here really have changed.

"Thanks, EDI, I'll keep that in mind."

Garrus scanned the room quickly, his visor giving nominal readings for the slightly-chilled stateroom, hand reaching for the pistol that was no longer on his hip, more out of instinct than concern. While Shepard had allowed, if not encouraged his trusted ground-team to keep sidearms with them on missions, and even on the ship (though they needed to be concealed, Garrus' a small two-shot pistol imbedded in his thigh armor). Now that he was back with the Alliance, though, and had a crew he trusted implicitly, Shepard had made it very clear: No weapons on The Normandy. From what he had said in the short shuttle ride up, The Normandy would be housing individuals with enough bad blood as it was, weapons did not need to be added to the mix.

Eventually, though, Garrus came to regard a figure slumped over Shepard's desk, head planted firmly on a pile of datapads and turned away from him. Had it not been for his visor, he probably would have panicked and ordered an immediate lockdown of the ship, chain of command be damned; Shepard looked just about dead. But a little display was telling him that his heartbeat was a low 49 bpm and his respiration rate was slowed too. Upon stepping towards the desk and seeing the trail of drool which ran over the top-most datapad, Garrus chuckled as he realized Shepard was asleep. That was why his door modifications had ended ten minutes ago: he had practically passed out from exhaustion.

Garrus stepped back towards the fishtank (which, uncharacteristically, lacked fish. Even dead ones.) and crossed his arms as he leaned against the bulkhead. He had come up here to discuss Shepard's practically reclusive behavior, but he now seemed to have his answer. It had seemed strange when he had first gotten a crew manifest that Shepard had no executive officer listed, Staff Lieutenant Tranning the closest thing as Engineering Department Head. But it was now clear, if the exhaustion-induced practical coma and mountain of datapads was any evidence to go off of that, true to form, Shepard had rather decided he didn't need one, taking all the responsibilities inherent to running a starship upon himself. Sometimes, that man is more stubborn than a hungry Krogan. I swear he just told Death he didn't want to go and Death just gave up after two years of arguing.

Garrus walked over and nudged Shepard in the shoulder, causing his tenuously folded hands to fall down. The man grumbled incoherently, but beyond that he resumed his apparently very deep sleep. After a slight chuckle to himself, the action was repeated until one moved Shepard's head off of the pile of data pads and desk, causing it to slam into his right knee.

"No that seems fine…" Shepard yelled, blinking as he adjusted to the new light and sat immediately straight. He turned around and looked at Garrus, whose mandibles were flared in a Turian grin while he laughed at shepard's reaction.

"Garrus? What are… I fell asleep, didn't I?"

"You sure did Shepard, deeply too. I had to punch you a couple of times and destroy the galaxy to wake you up."

Shepard rubbed his eyes with his right hand as he blearily regarded his desk, back hunched with poorly concealed tiredness, the bags under his eyes slightly brighter than the space outside his sky-light.

"Sadly, though, somebody had already started the task for me." The Turian joked as Shepard stood up to stretch, making a sound that was distinctly unlike anything Garrus had heard from him, or any human for that matter, before.

His demeanor suddenly became much more serious. "Shepard, how long has it been since you had any sleep? EDI tells me you fell asleep while trying to modify your door lock. I had to ask her to even chime you not to mention get in."

"Did I? Well I'll have to finish that." Shepard walked down to the auxiliary desk with his constantly-present coffee cup in hand. "It's been a while since I've slept, Vakarian, I guess I just needed a nap. I feel fine now." His last few words were hastily used to stifle a yawn.

"I've heard some of the humans use a little phrase around here, thought you might be familiar with: Bull Shit. We both know that last part was a lie. Now, honestly, how long has it been since you slept."

Shepard could feel his irritability rising, the pervading sleepiness not helping at all.

"Vakarian, I said I'm fine. You don't need to know how long it's been since I've slept. I've got my coffee, maybe a few stims somewhere, I'll make it through this. I've been through worse."

He tried to walk past Garrus back to his desk, a few of the Datapads on top resonating with his still groggy brain as marked "urgent", but Garrus caught his left arm above the Elbow and stopped him in his tracks, fixing him with piercing blue and semi-visored eyes. His tone was unusually stern, but not containing any particular anger malice, that of a Turian who was trying to help his overly-stubborn friend.

"I'd be willing to guess 'worse' didn't include a Reaper invasion. Shepard, your crew says you've practically locked yourself up here, and even The Primarch remarked to me about how tired you looked. I may not be a member of your chain of command, but I am your friend, and as such I'm asking you: How long has it been since you've slept?"

Garrus releasead Shepard's arm, the man slouching in defeat as he looked at his omni-tool for the time.

"About 42 hours."

"Shepard, that's extreme, even for you. From the datapads on your desk and the amount of sludge that's collected in your disgusting coffee cup, not to mention the lack of an XO on the Ship's Manifest, I'd say you're trying to run this ship by yourself. Why haven't you let anybody help you?"

Shepard retreated to the couch, setting his hot cup down on the table. He rubbed his eyes, but this time continuing down to his face, as if trying to get some liquid form of exhaustion off. By the time he opened his eyes, he looked directly at Garrus, equal parts determination and frustration apparent.

"Garrus, I'm their captain, their safety is my job. I'm supposed to know everything that goes on, do everything in my power to lead them to victory. There's nothing about it that guarantees sleep or rest, I've already sort of given up hope that this war won't be won almost exclusively caffeine and stim packs. Frankly, Garrus, I'm not certain I've got a choice."

"Shepard, you're not only being expected to captain a warship, but go on to broker alliances which will unite the galaxy. You may be good, but even you're not be that good. Tell me, how hard would this be without having to deal with The Primarch and Admiral Hackett and The Council all asking for you to fix their problems for them or give them their solutions?"

Shepard sighed as he picked up his coffee, bringing it to under his nose as his elbows came to rest on his knees.

"Challenging, but probably not this bad. I'd say about half of those datapads are messages, demands, anything and everything from various levels of just about every government that has any contact with The Council. Apparently I'm supposed to be the man who can unite the galaxy, who knew? Problem is, I can't neglect my crew as well. They're the people I've been placed directly responsible for. Neglecting them would be… well, wrong."

Shepard had been glancing down at his coffee while talking, but as he looked up he saw Garrus looking him dead in the eye, leaning forwards and clasping his hands in front of him.

"Then why don't you have an XO to take care of it?"

"Alliance hasn't given me one. Plain and simple. I wouldn't be too opposed to the idea, I know how an Alliance ship is supposed to work, with a team at the top. Problem is that The Alliance has been working to commandeer as many vessels as they can for this fight. If it can have a Gun on it, it will within a couple of months. Enlisted personnel aren't terribly hard to get, but The Alliance has always been picky about who their officers are, and we're spread a little thin now. The Normandy is supposed to have a Ward Room of 15. Currently we've got 10, including me, none of whom are qualified to command a starship, all of whom are needed elsewhere. We just don't have the people for it. And even if I wanted to fix it, I don't have the time to come up with a plan. I'm too busy keeping our heads above water to figure out how to build a raft."

Garrus looked away to think, staring through the sky-light to see the stars and faint blue hue above it, Shepard following the gaze. He had initially hated the feature of his stateroom, considering it a cruel Cerberus joke to give him a view of the same vacuum about which he still had nightmares. He couldn't stand to see the cold expanse which had robbed him of his life before, extinguished his body and robbed him of breath. Slowly he had come to terms with his death and remarkable technological resurrection, still not entirely comfortable with the idea but not as almost-terrified as he had been of it before. Through plenty of nights of soul-searching and self-contemplation, plenty of holes stared through bulkheads and confused entries to his seldom-read but often used personal journal, had come to accept it, take it as more a break in his story than an abomination. As he did so he started to see another image beyond the window, started to focus more on the stars that punctuated the oppressive blackness. In them he saw life and warmth, evolution of societies which had endlessly rich histories and unthinkably bright futures. He had been handed back his life from the Void through technology, but life itself had demanded existence through what seemed to some as will and others luck, but him will alone. It had prevailed in environments where few thought it could even exist much less thrive, and developed intelligence and technology that were wondrous to consider. He still felt a panic when he couldn't see the stars, still had nightmares about drifting into oblivion as the void and soon after the fiery hell of re-entry claimed his body, but when he could see the galaxy through that window, remember the hope and opportunity that existed beyond it, then he could bring himself to look.

"I could be your XO."

Shepard was awoken from his contemplation that had soon turned into the thousand yard stare of the woefully tired as Garrus interrupted the near silence of the room. He turned to regard his friend, who was still staring out the window.

"What do you mean, Vakarian?"

"Like I said, Shepard, I could be your XO. I may not have experience commanding a warship, but I've been around you long enough to pick-up some tricks and like to think you trust me. On top of that, I've been leading my Reaper Task Force for a while now. Not saying it's the same, mine is clearly better, but there are probably at least some transferrable skills."

Shepard stopped to think. Beyond the return of his slightly-arrogant sense of humor indicating a good shift in the conversation, Garrus wasn't wrong. Shepard had taken a look at what that task force had been doing, and what Garrus may have been trying to down-play on the shuttle ride up seemed a far cry from small. Not only that, Garrus had demonstrated clear leadership skill from the Hunt for Saren clear through being the auxiliary team-leader during The Collector Base mission. But beyond all that, Shepard had come to trust Garrus almost implicitly, and knew he would do everything he could to learn the role even beyond what he already knew. There was but one problem.

"What about your responsibilities to The Hierarchy?"

"First of all I'm here, not on Palaven. I'm as much a part of this crew as you are, and I want to see it succeed as much as you do. On top of that, I can still handle most of my responsibilities. Most of them are just messages and requests for advice and, while you may be too stupid to know to find yourself an XO, I have one who I know is not only still in contact with The Hierarchy, but I also trust to handle most of what we're being asked."

Shepard cocked his eyebrow at that, Garrus laughing at both the unspoken inquiry as well as the funny human expression.

"Don't worry, Shepard, you're not being replaced. He wouldn't even know the barrel from the stock of a sniper rifle and I'm fairly certain he actually knows how to dance. I'll tell you about him later, but he's one of my few old friends from C-Sec. Helped in defending The Citadel from Saren and was one of the few people who fought against The Council's denial of everything you'd done."

Shepard glared slightly at the quip about his dancing, but nodded as he considered Garrus' proposal, finding himself increasingly sold on the idea.

"In that case, the only problem I see is that we're both ground team. What happens when we're both needed for a mission?"

Garrus had clearly considered this earlier, since his answer was all but immediate, as he sat back to assume the pose Shepard had since associated with "Sarcastic mocking": one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, arms spread around the back of the couch, mandibles flared in a mild grin.

"Your Alliance may think it's a great idea to put their captains in charge of the majority of ship's operations, but Turians tend to lean more on their Temporary Command Officers, what you'd call Officer of the Deck. I'll get you a plan to get around that, and to give you some breathing room with all your new diplomatic responsibilities."

"One last question, though: We're an Alliance Vessel. Last time I checked, we can't just re-arrange our command structure."

Garrus leaned forwards again, this time not so mocking as excited at his answer to this.

"But you're a Spectre, Shepard. You have the authority to change the chain of command of any vessel you've been placed in charge of to better suit your mission. It might take some work from Hackett to get him to sign the necessary papers, but you actually can legally do that. Trust me, I poured over those regs as a kid. All the council races sign documents saying you can do it. Besides, we're in the middle of deep space, running around, saving everybody's asses. Do you think anybody's really going to care so long as they don't end up a husk the next day?"

Shepard went to stand up, finally sold on the idea. He wasn't sure what Garrus had in mind, unsure as to what master plan had been cooking behind that visor, but was still willing to try it. Heaven help me, I'm letting a Turian tell me how to run my ship. If only Admiral Mikhailovich could see me now. He'd have an aneurysm. He started to walk back to his desk, coffee cup in hand.

"Vakarian, you've convinced me. Get me a proposal for a new structure by' Shepard glanced at his omni-tool, groaning at both the time and the countdown timer he had until they reached the diplomatic ship – I knew I was going to be tired, but I didn't necessarily think sleep would become an impossibility. "No, Admiral, Shepard can't save the galaxy today, he died of exhaustion yesterday." I wish, maybe then I'd stop feeling like the walking dead… well, walking tired dead. – '1000 hours. That's six hours to work on it, alright?" He sat down and began to organize his datapads before stopping to look at Garrus, noticing his glare.

"No, Vakarian, I'm not going to bed now. You may have sold me on the idea of introducing a new and better command structure, and I may have even agreed to let you be my XO – goodness help me – but that's not going to solve the problems on these datapads. Also, did you insult my coffee cup a couple of minutes ago?"

Garrus relented when he realized the truth to what Shepard was saying, and started to walk to the door, turning to face him. "An insult might imply it was untrue. I'm fairly certain some of the stuff at the bottom of that thing is alive."

Shepard laughed as he took a sip of the now tepid liquid. "I do have access to your precious Thanix cannons, you know. Something might find itself uncalibrated."

"You also have access to a dishwasher. I'd take having to re-write some firing algorithms if it meant we weren't trying to discover a new form of life in your cup. Too bad Mordin never saw it, he'd have the time of his life."

"He did, at one point, I'm fairly certain it was alive at some point."

Garrus laughed as he exited the room, the doors sliding easily closed behind him. Before he was even in the elevator his mind was reeling with ideas for new crew organizations, cooking up schemes and structures faster than he could record them on his now-open omnitool.

Crew Deck, 20 minutes later

The Shadow Broker sat at her port-side terminal, still trying to learn as much about the Prothean Device as possible as she scoured recently translated designs and worked on uncovering more. Since it's discovery The Device had commandeered her every moment, taking her attention from almost everything except her ground missions and the occasional voyage out into the mess hall. She didn't mind particularly, after her mother died on Noveria she had no living family to speak of, not to mention mourn or worry over, and the work kept her busy, a single point to focus on while the rest of the universe fell apart around her.

Sometimes it was a curse, having the vast networks of information and informants at her disposal, reading into the plights of governments and slaughtering of people. Whereas the war was but a tragedy for most, blissfully unthinkable in scale, Liara was given hourly reminders on just how terrible that scale was, how many helpless innocents it included in its fiery holocaust. Some days required all her strength and will to not just give up, just concede defeat and let death find her at the end of a pistol. How can we possibly hope to fight something so powerful, so utterly immense? The Protheans were more unified, more powerful and more advanced, but the Reapers harvested them too. If they fell, then what hope do we have?

A fist came down upon the console with biotic-enhanced despair, eyes dry more with shock than any lack of emotion. So many dead, so many missing, from every species and every government. The enormity of this disaster weighed heavily on her constantly, her networks never letting her forget…

A beep as her terminal finished a translation program startled her from her spiraling thoughts. No, we will fight this. The Protheans never finished this device, seemed to get it in incomplete form. We will finish it. Shepard will lead us to victory, and you will help in every way this network was meant to. Her hands began to type with renewed fervor as thoughts of a harvested apocalypse gave way to the slimmer of hope that this device had borne. Perhaps they could win.

As she worked, though, a light went off on one of her other terminals, a small sound indicating a message. She turned from her console, inputting the last few commands to one of her Illium based agents imbedded in a leading archeological firm, standing to investigate the new message. Her heart stopped for a minute as she read:

TO: ADDRESS BLOCKED

FROM: Governer Vasna Polas

SUBJECT: Previous Inquiry

CONTENT: Broker, I used all my available contacts to find The Migrant Fleet as you asked, but came up with nothing, even the Quarians who were here on Pigramage were recalled quickly. I have sent the message on as many channels as possible, both publically and to some of my own contacts within the fleet. As far as I can tell, the Quarians are completely dark. Attached are the failed messages.

READING ATTACHMENTS;

TO: Suri'Talpec vas Rayya

FROM: ADDRESS BLOCKED

SUBJECT: Message to be sent

CONTENT: Suri, attached is a message of a friend. It contains sensitive personal information. If you could, please see to it that it is delivered to its addressed recipient.

ATTACHMENTS NOT DISPLAYED;

ERROR: DENIED ADDRESS: Suri'Talpec vas Rayya, ADDRESS NETWORK NOT FOUND;

MESSAGE FAILED ;

NEXT ATTACHMENT;

Liara closed the terminal as she felt the bitterness of 27 failed messages rise in her throat. The Quarians had gone dark a few days before The Reapers had hit earth, and it was only possible not to assume the worst outcome. Their fleets couldn't withstand any Reaper attack. Last I knew their defensive capabilities, while growing, were nowhere near strong enough to fight off even one Sovereign Class, not to mention an invasion force.

With grim fingers Liara forwarded the message to Shepard's private terminal, adding a short personal condolence, before she returned to her work. At least in this she could make a difference. At least here she could find hope.

Deck 1, Concurrent Time

The beeping and green light of his terminal pulled Shepard from the most recent of The Council's administrative requests. They didn't even seem like Spectre-level requests, rather just questions looking for answers from anybody who would give one, as though The Council itself were hiding and hoping for somebody else to run their galaxy. Wouldn't be unlike them to continue to deny any threat and hide behind their buearocracy. Pretty soon they're going to just have to give up the pretense of worrying and leave the galaxy to its own devices. Shepard laughed bitterly at his own cynical thoughts before he reminded himself that they were the duly selected government, and that others had faith in them.

The Council continued to be a hard issue for him to come to terms with, balancing personal vendettas against duty and responsibilities. On the one hand, The Council was responsible for ensuring that his warnings never quite saw fruition, that defenses were never quite bolstered the way they should have been. Beyond that he couldn't help but fight the feeling that they personally resented him for daring to question their comfortable and assumed correct rhetoric. But they were also the governmental system the galaxy had operated off of since Ancient Greece had experienced it's Golden Age, the one he was beholden too by status and duty.

Shepard turned to his terminal to see what message was sent, smiling to himself when he saw Liara's name under the Sender field. She had practically barricaded herself in what used to be Miranda's Quarters since she first got aboard, leaving only to initially fetch her equipment and later for the occasional meal, but even those were taken in the company of her monitors and terminals. He had been meaning to go talk to her, but had yet to find the time amidst the myriad of requests and demands and maintenance authorizations and administrative duties.

He began to read the message but could not make it past Liara's summary, turning the terminal's screen blank before he could feel his spirit drop any more. His coffee cup was set down on the desk hard as he rested his forehead in his palms, closing his eyes to try and calm himself, an internal war for personal control raging. Goddammit John, even Liara couldn't find her, she's gone. Accept it: The Reapers have killed her.

No, I won't accept that. I have to keep looking, have to find her. I don't think I can make it through this without her.

Yes, you will. You're Commander Shepard, even Anderson has faith in you. You'll find a way.

I don't see any way out. She'd see a way.

Well she isn't here. You have duties, a ship to run, a galaxy to save. You can find your maybe-girlfriend some other time.

He sat like that for longer than he cared to figure, head bowed with his forehead in his palms. His breathing alternating between self-calming breaths and panicked gasps of air, the two sides of his mind warred for control, The Commander intent on saving the galaxy and John wondering where the person in the galaxy he needed most was.

Eventually the terminal screen was brought back to life and the reports he had been reading pulled up again, but this time the eyes that looked at them were not filled with fatigue or mild boredom. Now they were overflowing with bitterness towards the inequities of the universe and anger towards the death The Reapers brought with them. Determination to fix it, put right what he could and defend those who could not do so themselves. Sadness, to the point that threatened to break his spirit if he couldn't control it. But most of all, his eyes were not dry.

Dammit Tali, we need you. I need you.