He shifted in his chair, his hands clasped tight before him. Prayer did little to calm him, nor did the vents, or the pulse of the drive core through the window. She is alone for a few moments, and it's nothing that should worry your heart. But how could he fulfill his pledge to watch over her when he wasn't by her side? The more he thought, the more unbearable the waiting became, until he swore that legions of assassins lurked in the ship's wreckage just waiting for the right moment to set targeting lasers to her forehead. He stared at the pulse until a clenching in his gut drove him to his feet, and to the empty Main Battery. The turian must be in Engineering, courting, as Ellen says.

"We both served on that ship. Don't we have a right to go down there?" The footfalls that thudded up and down the hall sped up.

"Keelah, did Shepard ever say we couldn't go when she returns? I'm sure she'll let us take a shuttle down later if you must go."

"You don't want to say goodbye to the real Normandy? You practically lived in its engines."

"Will you be quiet? We have company."

He stepped forward only to see Tali'Zorah back away from the pacing turian almost as if she were embarrassed. The quarian seemed to live her life as if she were a half-intruder, and he could only imagine that Cerberus' crew made her feel all the more out of place. He bowed to them and waited for either of them to speak.

"You look worried," Tali'Zorah said. "Why? Shepard is perfectly safe."

"Lethal ambushes have been sprung from 'safer' places than this. She has no one to protect her if Cerberus decides…"

"Hmph. Cerberus ambushing Shepard? What would they have to gain from doing that?" He wished he could have read the quarian's face through her helmet, but her tone dripped enough acid to melt the bulkheads. "Not that I like defending Cerberus or anything."

"Why would they spring a trap now?" Garrus asked.

"I don't know. I don't like this. And I dislike being unable to uphold my oath to protect her."

"Give the woman her time to grieve!" Tali'Zorah said. "I wish I'd had… Never mind. This isn't the place."

"My apologies, Tali'Zorah." He bowed and turned away, though he didn't think the elevator would take him any place more comfortable than this. A slumped, suited body no different than the other corpses littering the Alarei's deck. A shriek. Words twisting tight in a whirlpool. A blaze of blue wrapped about purple as his Siha took her in her arms. Low words of comfort before Geth rockets burned.

"That isn't what I meant." Exasperated, somehow. "Look, Shepard lost more than her life the day the Normandy was shot down. She needs time to forget."

"What else did she lose?" She'd never spoken much about it.

"What, you don't know? She and Alenko were pretty hot at it, until he blew her off on Horizon." Garrus leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms.

"Who is Alenko?"

"Rumor was they were going to get married after the last mission was over. Shepard asked him to help us fight the Collectors and he went ballistic, ranting about Cerberus' evils. And this was even after he mutinied with the rest of us to go to Ilos. Alenko always had more emotion than sense." Garrus snorted, his mandible flaps twitching. "I got to witness the 'reunion' in person."

"Ah, I see." His chest closed on him, and his next breaths felt like pure ocean.

What he didn't expect to see was Tali'Zorah rising to her full height, a nightmare of swirling purple and shadow. She stood almost as tall as the turian, and when she shoved her mask into his face, Garrus shook. She crooked a finger and as she spoke, she nearly jabbed it into the man's unshielded right eye. "You bosh'tet! It was Shepard's right to tell him, but you took that away from her."

"I… um… sorry." Garrus shrank away from the long, crooked, accusing finger.

The quarian's mask snout shook back and forth for a moment before she aimed it his way. He didn't know whether to retreat, or apologize, or stay drowning, knowing that she still needed room to grieve over a man she likely still loved.

"Shepard loves you." She put her hand on his shoulder. This time, the three clawlike fingers seemed comforting, rather than potentially lethal. "Someone says your name, and she smiles for hours. Any time someone says, 'see…' or any other sound in that little name you call her, she looks like she's come down with a fever."

"Siha?"

"Oh, my…" She stepped back. "Keelah, did someone just raise the temperature in here? Yes… that word."

He'd never thought a single tiny blue turian eye could pierce through him. "Greaat, I talk to her for hours and hours, and get nothing. You say one word intended for another woman, and turn her to mush."

"I never have my shotgun when I need it." A low sigh through the mask's speaker.

"My thanks, Tali'Zorah. I won't waste any more of your time." He bowed to her.

"What? You're just leaving? Just like that?"

"But, truly, neither of you fear for her?"

"Report coming in from the surface." Ah, the pilot. "Just to untwist all your little knickers." Did the pilot really spy on all of them?

He finally breathed a little deeper when her voice came through, a little hazed with interference, but none the worse for the time away. "Joker, I'm sending coordinates for a team to place the monument." Firing... bullets… her assault rifle. He couldn't keep the twitch from traveling down his spine.

"Commander, what was that?"

"Calm down, Joker. It's just a crate."

"See? She's fine." Garrus snickered at him.

Perhaps Ellen would have been at least a little pleased with him when he trailed both aliens to the mess at Tali'Zorah's insistence. You don't want to leave me at Garrus' mercy. Please tell me that you don't. Despite her bluntness, he couldn't help but respond to the woman's almost pushy and insistent friendliness, even after he'd shamed himself running two months before. He'd grown to appreciate the turian after several missions with him, despite the man's almost bitter impulsiveness. Killing Sidonis hadn't changed Garrus much, from his observations. He marveled at the way these aliens seemed to slip into memory, though for them it was an exchange of differing memories, and a dueling over the correct version of shared events.

"Shepard's old motto used to be, 'shoot first, talk later.' Sometimes I miss that Shepard. It would have been a lot easier to talk her into helping me with Sidonis."

"Stupid, stupid," Tali'Zorah muttered. "There is far more to life than shooting and killing."

"Says the woman whose people want to launch a genocidal war on the geth."

"Perhaps that Shepard might have been a little easier to convince…"

"Told you so."

"Excuse me, Mr. Krios." EDI… "Commander Shepard is on board."

"My thanks, EDI. And my thanks to you also, Tali'Zorah and Garrus." He stood and bowed to both.

"Sit! Give her a few minutes."

He sat, but, despite all his training, his gut twisted and the air turned into soup in his lungs. He sat until he could bear it no longer. Had he been stupid to think the first thing she'd do once she returned was to head to the crew deck?

"So, are you going to ask her about Alenko?" He could have sworn the turian was smirking at him.

"Bosh'tet," Tali'Zorah muttered under her breath, and smacked Garrus on one blue-clad arm.