Garrus slept.

He woke up feeling like his bones had been replaced with crushed glass, with gritty eyes and stiff hands.

"Water bottle's on the table," said Shepard from the doorway, "along with painkillers and some dextro-friendly ration packs."

He kept his back to her. "How long was I out?"

"Almost fifteen hours. I was going to wake you after ten, but I decided to let sleeping turians lie."

Garrus rolled over and sat up with a grunt.

"Is there anything else you need? I can go get - I don't know, stuff. Things. It might take me a while. Hard to carry a lot of stuff at once. Took me almost two hours just to get all of that." She ran a hand through her hair. Garrus could feel her gaze on the side of his face. "Help me out here, Garrus. What do you need?"

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, grateful that he'd kept his pants on when the old sheet fell away. "I'm fine, Shepard. Well, not really," he amended. She always knew when he was lying. "I feel like crap, but that's a month and a half of not sleeping catching up to me. I'll be fine."

Shepard hovered in the doorway.

"Did you sleep at all?"

She folded her arms. "I can't sleep." Before he could do more than feel stupid for asking the question, she gave him a hard little smile. "I'm going to have a very productive afterlife."

"So what did you do all night? Sit here and watch me?"

Shepard's lack of response was all the answer he needed. "Spirits, Shepard, didn't you have anything better to do?"

"Like what?" Her voice was neutral. "Until I'm sure this location is secure, I'm not leaving you alone longer than I have to. Besides, I wasn't watching you." She pointed down the hall. "I spent most of the night on the balcony. It's an excellent sniper position. Like I said."

Garrus shoved off the bed with a hiss. His tunic and armor were still where he had dropped them the night before. He dressed and tried to ignore how he smelled like old sweat and dirt. Nothing stayed clean on Omega.

"We have limited resources," she said. "I'm using what we've got."

"Great."

He heard her teeth close over her reply. Dirt gritted under her feet as she turned and left.

A handful of seconds later, Garrus followed her. Shepard had only made it as far as the main living area. One couch had survived his purge, and she sat on the edge of the seat, elbows balanced on knees and her face buried in her hands.

"If you want me to leave, fine," she said through her fingers. "I'll leave. I have no interest in sticking around someone who hates me for dying."

"Shepard, I don't..."

"But you should know, I went to see everyone else. Kaidan, Tali, Wrex -" Shepard's voice trembled, but she forced herself on. "Liara. None of them could see me. I shouted in their faces and they didn't hear a word I said. I tried throwing things but I just got so tired -" She winced. "No one can see me. No one except you. What makes you so special?"

The last sentence wasn't meant for him, but it hurt to hear her say it. She realized it a moment later.

"Oh god, I'm sorry, Garrus. That was an awful thing to say."

"I've heard worse," He sat down across from her. "I've been wondering that too. Why me? Why not Liara?" He couldn't help the way his voice lifted in a question.

Shepard peered at him through her fingertips. "What are you implying?"

"You and - well, you and Liara, weren't you, ah?"

"Were we what?" Shepard asked. Garrus squirmed.

"You melded, or whatever the asari do. That - thing."

Shepard made what might have been a laugh. "Seriously? That's what you're concerned about?"

"It was just a question!" He threw up his hands, and realized with resignation that it was a gesture he'd picked up from the human crew. "I thought you two were, I don't know, connected. Together." In love, his brain helpfully supplied, but he cut himself off before he could say it.

"Me and -" Shepard let her hands fall and leaned back against the couch. "No. I can see why you'd think that, though. Kaidan did too."

"Oh," said Garrus, feeling strangely reassured. "Wait. Kaidan? So it was you and -"

"Why are you so interested in my sex life, Garrus?" Shepard half-grinned at him. "For the record, and because this conversation is already awkward enough, I did not sleep with Liara. Or Kaidan. Or Tali. Or anyone else on the Normandy." She squinted at him. "Did you sleep with anyone on the Normandy? You and Ashley would have made a cute couple."

"What?" he sputtered, his neck going hot until he saw Shepard turn away to hide her grin. "Oh. Oh. Right."

"Don't ever play poker, Garrus."

"I'll take it under advisement." The silence stretched out between them, not as frosty as before, but nowhere near friendly.

"Did you see Ash?"

Shepard waited before answering. "No." Her mouth constricted. "I kind of hoped she'd be hanging around too, even if she just wanted to yell at me for getting myself blown up."

Garrus laughed. It hurt, but everything hurt when he thought about Ash, left behind to die. They hadn't exactly been friends, but he had trusted her. However badly he wanted to punch her when she started running off at the mouth, she'd always had his back. "I would have liked to see that. The ghost of Commander Shepard, getting - what's the phrase? - getting her ass handed to her by the ghost of Gunnery Chief Williams."

"Cute, Garrus." Shepard picked at a hole in her pants. "A regular ghost party." She didn't seem inclined to say anything else, but he felt like he had to keep the conversation moving.

"We - turians - believe in spirits. I never really paid attention to them." Shepard's hand went still on her leg. "They represent the honor of a squad, or, I don't know, the beauty of a field."

"But you don't pray to them."

"Not really, not like humans do, or the asari. They just are." Garrus forced himself to meet Shepard's eyes. "I barely had a chance to get used to you being dead. Now I don't know what to think."

She let out a long breath. "I didn't mean to screw up your life, Garrus. Like I said, I can go if you want me to. But I couldn't just leave you for the Blood Pack."

"You didn't screw up my life," he said. "I had already done a pretty good job of it on my own. I decided to come to Omega, remember?" She chuckled.

"True." Her hand tightened on her leg. She pushed herself up, inclining her body toward his. He leaned forward, and the space between them could be measured in inches. "So. What do you want to do?"

He thought about it. What did he want?

He wanted to be brave, to keep fighting.

He didn't want Shepard to leave.

"If we're going to do this," he said slowly. "We're going to need a team. No way I can hold this position, not even with you on my side, Shepard."

"A team, huh?" she said. "Where are we going to find anyone crazy enough to help us?"

"This is Omega. Insanity's at a premium." She snickered.

"Then what? Once we've cleaned out Omega, what's our next move?"

"I thought dying would have made you patient," he said, and regretted it immediately. Shepard just laughed, and his heart squeezed painfully.

"I'm still me," she said. "Being dead is just a technicality."

His new name came out of nowhere.

Garrus never found out who started it, and he felt like it was bad luck to ask if Shepard had heard anything on her solitary rambles through Omega. Somewhere, somehow, someone he helped gave him a name.

The name burned through Omega like the city was kindling.

Archangel.

Shepard never called him Archangel.

Shepard took to disappearing for days.

The first time she left, Garrus didn't leave the apartment until she came back two days later. She appeared behind him as he was methodically shredding his third uneaten ration pack. He felt the change in air pressure seconds before she started talking.

"Eclipse mercs are setting up a new base in the lower levels of the Kartu District. Looks like they're trying to branch out, take over some of Blue Suns' business. Could get ugly, but -"

"Where the hell were you?" Garrus managed to keep from shouting with the last thread of his restraint. Shepard blinked at him.

"Recon," she bit out.

"Recon," said Garrus. "Recon."

"Is there a problem, Garrus?" She clasped her hands behind her back.

"You were gone," he said. "You didn't say anything, you just left."

"Your point?" Shepard tilted her head. "Should I have left a note? Dear Garrus, I'm currently haunting dark corners of Omega, eavesdropping on mercs. Home before dinner."

With a massive effort, Garrus swallowed his anger and unclenched his hand from the edge of the table. Shepard's eyes followed the motion. Her posture relaxed a fraction.

"You want to build a team, that's great. But right now, I'm what you've got, Garrus. And you have to let me use my... unique qualities. I can't hold a gun for more than three minutes without feeling like I'm about to collapse, so I can't fight. But listening? That I can do." Shepard turned away, but he caught her arm and pulled her back. He caught her off-balance and she nearly stumbled into him.

"If you're on my team, Shepard, you can't disappear without telling me."

"That an order, Vakarian?"

"If that makes it easier, yes." He let go of her arm. "Never thought I'd see the day when you'd be taking orders from me, Shepard."

"Impossible things happen all the time." Shepard leaned against the table. "So. You want me to tell you what I heard, or do you have more food to destroy?"

Garrus found his first squad member while he was tracking a mid-level slaver who'd been using Omega as a waystation. In between taking down the slaver's shields with a concussive round and switching back to regular ammo for the kill, Garrus saw a flicker of movement from halfway down the alley.

Ten seconds later, the slaver was dead and the biggest human Garrus had ever seen was standing in front of him, with bloody hands and a wide grin.

"I like usin' me fists," he announced, without preamble. "Sorry for takin' yer kill, but it looked like so much fun I had to give it a go. Archangel, right?"

Butler was the only name the man gave, and Garrus didn't ask for another. His arms were criss-crossed with scars, and a long time ago, someone had sliced his mouth open on either side. Shepard called it a Glasgow smile, and wouldn't elaborate when Garrus asked.

"My god, he's a bruiser," was Shepard's only other comment when Garrus asked her what she thought.

"Come on, Shepard." Nearly a month had passed since she appeared at his bedside, and even though there wasn't anything close to intimacy between them, he felt like he could prod without getting his head bitten off. "You have to have something more to say."

She shrugged with one shoulder. "It's your operation, Garrus. I'm not in command here, you are. Do you trust him?"

"Not yet," Garrus answered. "But he stepped in to fight when he didn't have to. And nothing he's said makes me think he has merc ties. There are a few ways to tell, some obvious signs. I learned them at C-Sec." He adjusted his armor. "But he knows who I am - well, he knows what Archangel looks like. That's dangerous."

"He's the only living person on this rock who does," said Shepard, and Garrus impressed himself by not cringing. "I can watch him," she offered, a little stiffly. "Have to do something with my nights."

For lack of something to say, Garrus nodded.

It wasn't until much later Garrus realized Shepard had sounded jealous.