A Disappearance

Garrus stood rigidly in front of the food counter, fingers drumming impatiently against the surface as he glowered at what Gardner had served up. There was a tray of red sludge and a tray of white sludge. They smelled equally disgusting. Which would Shepard prefer?

He glanced surreptitiously around the room for hints. No help there: the humans were eagerly shovelling forkfuls of both types of the stuff into their mouths. He couldn't even ask anyone for advice. Although Shepard always sat with the crew at meal times she was normally too busy checking in with everyone to eat anything, and tended to take food back to her room after everyone had dispersed. He supposed he could always sample the food himself, if he didn't mind running the risk of an allergic reaction, but he doubted it would taste any better than it smelled.

"Finally decided to brave our food?" asked Joker, arriving with plate in hand for a second helping.

"No," said Garrus shortly.

Joker shrugged. "Don't blame you. Even if you're not allergic Gardner's cooking might still kill you." Gardner swore good naturedly, apparently not offended as despite his comment Joker was piling food high onto his plate.

Deciding that if he was going to ask anyone for advice it might as well be Joker, Garrus began, "I'm trying to pick something for Shepard, but-"

"Go with the lasagne," Joker interrupted, pointing at the appropriate tray of food when it became clear that Garrus had no idea what lasagne was.

"You're sure?"

"Positive. Shepard is a fellow insomniac. We've had more late night snack sessions than I can count."

Mumbling his thanks, Garrus began to spoon lasagne onto a plate, trying to inhale as little of the smell as possible.

By the time Garrus had finished plating up Shepard's food the mess hall was almost empty. Only half of the crew had been there to begin with and the others were keen to eat and leave as quickly as possible. Shepard had declared twenty four hours of shore leave for the exhausted and still shaken crew. When they had docked at the Citadel earlier in the day there were still some repairs that needed completing, but they were only minor. When the engineers who sold them the final parts they needed offered to install them, Shepard accepted and gave everyone the day off.

Everyone was taking advantage of the free time. Even Joker, who almost never left the ship during shore leave, had caved into Kelly and agreed to go out. Everyone, of course, but Shepard. She desperately needed some downtime. The last time she had slept properly was when they docked at Omega, and that only came about through the combined nagging of Chakwas, Mordin and EDI. She seemed to be everywhere at once while the repairs were being carried out, determined to make sure everyone had what they needed to restore the ship to its former condition. He had no real hope of tempting her away from work tonight. The Council had agreed to meet with her in the morning and she was determined to get their evidence in order to send to Anderson in advance.

When Garrus returned to the loft he found it much as he had left it. The overhead lights were turned off in favour of a bright lamp on the desk. The desk itself was a mess of papers and datapads that eerily resembled his old desk at C-Sec. Whereas he had never been able to find one specific half written report among the others, Shepard knew exactly where everything was. The chaos, she had told him smirking, was actually a finely tuned filing system too complex for anyone but her to grasp. He was almost certain that she hadn't budged an inch from her hunched over position, her hands the only part of her that moved as they flew across the keyboard.

She insisted on working with pen and paper rather than using her terminal. Writing by hand gave her time to think things over, she had explained. It was a practice she had picked up from years of watching her mother handwrite all of her reports despite how much time it consumed. Judging by the pages and pages of scrawled writing, crossed out and corrected many times, Shepard had finished her report and was now undertaking the mind numbing task of typing it all up.

Her head jerked up as he slid the food onto the desk's only clear space, careful not to disturb anything. She fell on it ravenously. "Good?" asked Garrus. In between bites she grunted in what he was fairly certain was a positive manner. Realising that he wasn't going to get anything intelligible out of her until after she had eaten, he retreated to the sofa.

There was a small pile of well thumbed books at one end. He had never visited Shepard's quarters on the SR1, but she informed him that she'd had a very small library there. Those books, along with her other few possessions, had been destroyed in the attack on the ship. She hadn't had the time to replace them in the last few months but Kasumi let her borrow whatever she wanted from her collection. Garrus picked one up and flicked through the pages idly. Not for the first time he wished he could speak Shepard's language. Both of them resented their reliance on translators to understand each other, but when life was at its most chaotic they barely had time to sleep let alone learn another language. Perhaps if they came through the coming war with the Reapers, when things were less hectic, they could find some time to try.

"Thank you," said Shepard, pulling Garrus from his thoughts. "I needed that."

"I thought you might. When did you last have a break?"

She flicked her hand, brushing away the comment. "I'll rest when it's done. But while we're on the topic, what are you doing here?"

"I thought I was welcome?" said Garrus in a mock offended tone

"You are – but not tonight. I told the crew to go and have some fun and that includes you, Officer Vakarian."

"I don't see you taking time off," he pointed out. "Not unless your definition of 'fun' involves paperwork."

She smirked. "You're forgetting that I'm not crew. I'm the boss."

Rising, he came to stand behind her, resting a hand on her shoulder. "How am I supposed to have fun knowing you're stuck here with all this?" He gestured at the mounds of work.

"I'm sure you can cope," she said drily, but briefly covered his hand with hers. "If it makes you feel any better, I promise I'll get some rest as soon as I'm done. It should take another two hours, three at most."

"Right," he said sceptically. "I know you too well to believe that. By the time I get back you'll be recalibrating the guns."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "I'd never dream of taking over your precious calibrations." She grinned at him but, seeing that he remained unmoved, she sighed and said seriously, "Look, I'll send you a message when everything is finished. If you're not having too much fun you can come back and supervise my rest time."

"I suppose that will have to do," he muttered grudgingly. In a last attempt he pressed his forehead against the top of her head, nuzzling her hair affectionately. "You're sure I can't stay?" he murmured.

"Positive," she said firmly.

Defeated, Garrus left after issuing one more plea for her to rest soon. Everyone else must have left already because there was no one in sight when he reached the CIC. He had only ever seen it so empty on one other occasion – when the crew had been abducted by Collectors. The memory made the deserted room seem somehow sinister. Cursing himself for his foolishness, he hurried out of the ship.

In the docking bay he paused, considering where to go. It was a full five minutes before he finally resigned himself with a sigh and began to make his way to the Dark Star Lounge.

He had never been fond of clubs, but over the past eighteen months he had come to hate them. Perhaps he had come to associate them too much with Omega, where criminals and merc gangs operated under Aria's watchful gaze in Afterlife. Unfortunately for him, there was nowhere else to go. The few people who weren't going to Dark Star had arranged to meet family or friends and wouldn't want him tagging along. He had no one to visit, having alienated most of his colleagues at C-Sec. Even if he had a closer relationship with his father, the senior Vakarian had returned to Palaven after his retirement.

When he got to the club he found it packed. He could only see a couple of the crew scattered amongst everyone else. He rocked on his heels in the doorway, considering whether to return to the Normandy and throw himself on Shepard's mercy. Just as he was about to leave he caught a glimpse of Tali through a break in the crowd. She happened to glance up and, seeing him standing there, waved him over.

When he managed to make his way through the crowd he saw that Tali shared a table with Ken and Gabby. The former had apparently talked Tali into a game of Skyllian-Five and was already reaching into his pocket for a credit chit. Sliding into the seat next to Tali he caught the end of her sentence, "... But go easy on me, I've only played once before." He suppressed a chuckle, grateful that most humans struggled to read his facial expressions. Onboard the old Normandy he had fallen for Tali's 'Go easy on me' line and lost several hundred credits to her. He had sworn never to be tricked again but hadn't counted on Tali teaching Shepard her tactic, resulting in yet more lost credits.

Two hours later and Ken had lost even more credits than Garrus had, much to Gabby's smirking amusement. As he could no longer afford to buy one, Garrus promised to console him with a free drink. He was just rising to go to the bar when his omni tool beeped in unison with Tali's. Exchanging puzzled looks, they both looked down to read the message that had just arrived. Seeing it was from Shepard Garrus's mandibles widened slightly; she must have changed her mind and wanted to meet up with them rather than stay onboard the ship. When he opened the message, however, he found there was only one word: Alchera.

"Alchera?" said Tali, sounding as confused as he felt. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know. It's the planet where they found the first Normandy, but why-?"

His sentence was interrupted by a frantic Joker calling for them and limping quickly to their table. Chakwas, face drawn in a worried frown, was hot on his heels accompanied by a clearly bemused Gardner. "You need to get back to the ship now," said Joker bluntly.

Garrus was already on his feet reaching for his pistol. He may have left his rifle onboard the Normandy, but even on a night off he was never completely unarmed. "What's going on?" he demanded.

"You got the message from Shepard?" asked Joker.

"We both did but neither of us understand it," said Tali.

"You wouldn't, it's a codeword. Long story short, when we first started working for Cerberus and before you two showed up Shepard decided we needed a codeword for danger."

"We chose Alchera," said Chakwas sombrely.

"Which means Shepard is in trouble. Big trouble that even she can't handle."

Garrus scanned the room in a glance, searching the crowd for signs of the crew. They had to be on the Citadel somewhere and most were probably in the Dark Star, but the club was packed and none were in sight. Cursing quietly, he turned back to Joker and said, "Find the others and tell them to get to the Normandy. If it's too much trouble for Shepard to handle we'll probably have a big fight on our hands."

Before Joker could reply Garrus had flown across the room and exited the club, matched pace for pace by an equally anxious Tali. The run to the elevator passed in silence except for the quiet rustling as she produced and checked her pistol. He could feel her eyes on him, watching him with concern, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything reassuring. The idea of trouble too big for Shepard to handle was something he couldn't comprehend. This was the woman who took down thresher maws and Reapers; until a few minutes ago he hadn't been aware that there was a situation she couldn't handle. There was something even more worrying than that: Shepard had called for help. She never asked for help, would rather risk her own life needlessly than put her crew in danger.

Garrus was reminded strongly of the elevator trip on their way to confront Saren. Shepard had stood perfectly, almost unnaturally, still but hummed with suppressed energy, while Kaidan watched her with anxiety in his eyes. Now he stood unmoving as a rock, growing more agitated with every passing second.

As the elevator neared the docking bay, both he and Tali pressed themselves against opposite walls in the hope that they would avoid enemy fire should an ambush be stationed outside. In the second before the doors opened Garrus silently cursed everything: the rest of the crew for not being there to help, their lack of decent weapons and finally Shepard herself for refusing to leave the Normandy tonight. He levelled his pistol at the door and out of the corner of his eye saw Tali do the same.

The door opened a crack and Garrus could clearly see someone standing outside; his finger tightened on the trigger. When the gap widened, however, he realised it was Kelly Chambers. Although she wore a slightly confused expression, she didn't seemed frightened or alarmed. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed that there were no mercs, no geth, no mechs – the marauding army he had half expected to find was nowhere in sight.

"What's going on?" asked Kelly. Without waiting for a response she rushed on, "I decided I wanted an early night but it's gone. Has something gone wrong?"

"What's gone?" demanded Tali but Garrus, fearing he already knew the answer, didn't hang around to hear Kelly's reply. He pushed past her with a little too much force, eliciting a squawk of protest that he barely heard. Emerging into the docking bay, he looked to where the ship should be and froze, weapon hanging uselessly in his hand. He was dimly aware of Tali talking to him, asking what was wrong, until she stepped around Kelly and saw for herself what had shocked him into silence.

The Normandy was gone.