Arrived

"That's really all the information I can provide you at this time," Miranda said for the tenth time. She had briefed him on the mission. Twice. He'd viewed the vid log himself. She couldn't be sure, but he'd probably hacked into the security feeds that showed her actually boarding the shuttle and leaving the Normandy.

He gave her what she assumed was the Turian equivalent of a frown. Miranda leaned back in her chair, appraising him. He was taking it better than she thought. Although he was persistent about getting details, he was not overtly angry. Well, at least not at her.

She really didn't have to provide Garrus with any information. As XO she outranked him, even if he was Shepard's unofficial right-hand man. But she felt bad for him. The poor guy was just worried about his… whatever Shepard was. Somewhere in between girlfriend and CO, she suspected. And the Commander hadn't even talked to him before she left. But Miranda withheld judgment. She respected Shepard enough to stay out of her private business, so long as it didn't affect the mission.

The Turian's mandibles twitched. He undoubtedly had a lot he wanted to say but couldn't find the words. Or was saving them for later. Finally, he managed to find some words he could choke out. "When is she expected back?"

Miranda frowned. It had been four hours already. The mission had seemed relatively straight-forward. Go in, break Kenson out of prison, look into her claims. When was she expected back? Two hours ago. Or at least Miranda had expected to hear word on Shepard's progress. If Miranda listened to her gut, she knew there was something wrong.

"Garrus," she did her best at a soothing tone. Unfortunately she just didn't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing. "You know how missions like this can be. Shepard's been on longer missions than this. I'm sure we'll be receiving her transmission with pick-up coordinates any moment now."

She really was no good at reading Turians. But in this case, she didn't need to be. Distraught. Helpless.

Leaning forward, she said, "You know I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything."

He tried to nod, but it was barely perceptible as he abruptly turned and left.

Garrus had already patched into the Normandy's comm. relay with his omni-tool. If anyone contacted the ship, he'd know before Miranda did. Not that that made him feel any better.

He retreated back to the main battery and locked the door behind him to discourage Tali or any of the others from trying to console him. He felt sick enough with his own thoughts. Talking to someone else about them would probably make him loose his dinner.

He gripped the sides of his terminal until his talons hurt. He breathed in and out slowly, desperately trying to focus on that action instead of the worry clogging every thought in his head.

They'd never talked about what they were to each other, possibly because they weren't sure. Comrades at arms had long since faded into friends. That had eventually become good friends, and since joining the Normandy SR2 they had become best friends. And then they become lovers. That's where they'd stopped. Had it progressed beyond that? Neither knew what the other felt. Hell, until approximately four hours ago he didn't know what he had felt.

Now all he could feel was a choking worry laced with an uncontrollable anger. He was worried. His… Commander? His Commander was missing. In Batarian space. In a prison. Alone. Fuck. Garrus was honestly a little scared about how worried he was. If she was gone too long, he knew it would consume him. If she died… his mind couldn't even process the idea. His life had slowly fallen apart the last time, and he doubted Cerberus would be so kind as to bring her back again.

But indulging in his worries would cause him to spiral out of control. That's why he forced it into the back of his mind and locked it away. Instead, he embraced the rage that was slowly building beneath the surface, underneath his futile attempts at remaining calm.

How dare she? How DARE she leave him like this without doing him the courtesy of at least letting him KNOW? How DARE she put her life at risk unnecessarily? How DARE she leave him in this agony?

Garrus' legs collapsed out from under him.

How dare she make him realize he loved her at the same moment she threatened never to come back?

It was supposed to be easy. In. Out. An hour. Two tops. Even alone. But it always started out easy, and with her luck, it always got worse. And this time she couldn't even blame the Batarians – that'd been the easy part.

Now here she was, ducking for cover and she was attacked by these crazy indoctrinated bastards. Fuck. Without backup. Fuck. Without telling the crew she'd come here. Fuck.

But she could ignore all that for now, just concentrate on the task at hand. She was good at that. Aim, fire, duck, reload, repeat. She'd done it a million times before and until she died doing it, she'd probably do it a million more.

A part of her had thought it might be exciting to go into the field without a team. Exhilarating or something. But she forgot how routine it all was. The added danger didn't really do anything for her. It was all just point and click.

But even in the heat of battle, even in the mind-numbing familiarity of it all, she felt something was off. She was more hard-pressed than usual, enemies getting a little closer than she liked. Took her a minute to realize why. She'd been ignoring the targets she'd normally expect Garrus to take out for her. He was part of the routine.

Shepard cursed herself for letting her think about him. This. Was. Not. A. Good. Time. But she couldn't help it, once it started. She felt like shit for not letting him know what she was doing. She felt like an ass for leaving it on Miranda to have to tell him. But she could still salvage this mission. Get back in time to stop him from freaking out.

She remembered how helpless she'd felt when the gunship had hit him. As he lay there dying on Omega. As she waited for Chakwas to save him. It'd felt terrible, and hell, they were just friends then.

Her heart skipped a beat. What the fuck were they now? She popped the heat sink and then changed cover. BFFs? Lovers? Fuck-buddies? She had no idea. She had always been too scared to bring it up because she didn't want to ruin a perfectly good thing. Best relationship she'd been in and she didn't want to mess it up by calling it a relationship. Something terribly ironic about that.

She shot another guard in the head. Ducked to reload. But she didn't want to pressure Garrus into anything more… substantial. She enjoyed his company too much to risk scaring him away. It'd been easy enough on her end to avoid bringing "them" up. She was understandably busy with the whole save-the-galaxy-thing she had going on. She figured he'd say something first. Make it less awkward for her if he did.

As she took a few more shots, she groaned when the mech came into view. Fucking great. Time for the big guns…

She had the last missile ready to fire when the mech dropped. Good. Might need it later. She slowly got out of cover, not seeing any more enemies. Time to crash this asteroid into a Relay.

But then she felt an odd pulse shoot through her. She took a step forward but stumbled and fell to her knees. She could feel unconsciousness threatening to drag her down. Hell no. She was goddamned Command Shepard, first human Spectre. She was not going down like this. Through willpower alone, she managed to get back on one foot. It took all of her concentration – she was sweating from the effort – but then the pulse repeated, and she fell completely to the ground. Her mind was spinning, she could barely make out the scene around her.

Shepard saw Kenson, heard her, understood vaguely what was happening. But her head was pounding and she was frozen, her body a pile of lead and her mind refusing to let her focus on any particular detail. It was just blurred images and ideas not willing to solidify.

As her eyes rolled back and her body gave in, one image did manage to come through.

Garrus.

Oh god.