Chapter 2 – Garrus

When I wake up, I instantly act on what's become a reflex over the past two months and reach out to my side. This morning, I find it impossible. I open my eyes and see why.

She's right there beside me, like always, this time clutching one of my hands and leaning on the other.

I smile to myself at the sight, moving closer to her. For several minutes, I'm content to just lie here with her, one hand tight against hers as the other feels her steady heartbeat and softly strokes her light red hair with one talon. I close my eyes again, listening to her quiet, gentle breathing. I've never felt so strongly that I belong somewhere until now.

Everything has been…perfect since she came back. Every stolen moment, every night holding to each other like this, the day we spent on Palaven—for all the dreams I had of the life we could have together, both during the war and after, living it is proving to be even better than I hoped. Even breaking the news to my dad and sister about my human girlfriend went better than I expected. Maybe our luck will hold. Maybe someday we'll get a chance at the plans we made on Earth.

Suddenly, Shepard shifts positions, curling up beside me as her heartbeat just barely rises. Right. Things haven't been all that perfect. The main reason we spend every night like this is because it eases what won't go away: her nightmares. It seems like they're getting worse. Every other night now, she physically reacts to whatever terrors are plaguing her sleeping mind and wakes up at least once in some sort of panic. I was hoping, with the Reapers out of the picture, I wouldn't have to worry about her as much anymore. But with all we've been through to get here and all it's done to her, worrying about her has taken up most of my time lately. She hasn't even attempted to dissuade me—she's made it seem like the worrying is doing her some good sometimes—and there are days when that only makes it worse.

Like the night she broke the bathroom mirror.

Or the night I woke up to find her turning an arrow in her hands—the first arrow she fired at me under the Shadows' command.

Or the morning she woke up in tears and clung to me, begging not the usual "Never let me go again" but a desperate "Never let me hurt you again."

I push those thoughts away and hold her tighter. I'm not making things any better by weighing myself down like that when she's depending on me. She's alive, she's with me, and she knows I love her as much as she loves me. That should be enough.

It should be. It's not.

She moves again, this time bringing the hand not clutching mine around to keep me close.

I have to smile as I feel her touch against me. Maybe it is enough.

"How long have you been awake?"

The question surprises me enough to open my eyes. I lean back to look at her and find my gaze meeting sparkling emerald eyes. The sight alone brings the smile back. "I don't know. I didn't care."

She smiles back, her eyes shining as she does, confirmation she is truly happy.

"Why? Did you want me to go?"

"No." She answers about as soon as I've asked the question, her voice almost commanding. Almost desperate. Then she sighs. "…no." She closes her eyes again and leans up against me. "Let's just stay like this for a while."

I gladly follow her lead, returning to the position I'd adopted only a moment ago as the hand she has wrapped around me finds its way to my scars. I cherish every second here. We both fought so hard for so long for this chance and believed for over a year that we'd lost it forever. We need to take as much of it as we can before life gets in the way again.

"I wish we could stay here forever," her voice penetrates my senses again, softer now.

"I know. I want that, too." I smile to myself at the thought of it. "Guess that'd qualify as the 'happy ending' you were looking for, huh?"

She freezes for a moment before sadly turning over. She doesn't let go of my hand and the other is still pressed to my scars though turned so that the backs of her fingers are against them instead. I'd be worried that she changed her mind about staying here if not for the way she keeps close to me, nudging me with her leg to signal to tighten my hold on her.

"What's wrong?" I quickly ask, the worry seeping back into my mind.

"…I've been wondering a lot lately if that was ever an option for us. If we can ever find any peace together. You know what we've been through together—we're practically cursed."

I look at her in shock. "…Sara…"

She sighs at the use of her first name, burying the side of her face against the pillow. "You heard the myths from me. You know that romances historically end in tragedy. Romeo and Juliet, Pyramus and Thisbe, Tristan and Isolde, Orpheus, Oedipus—"

"We're not them," I cut in forcefully, "We've made it this far."

"How much farther can it go before something happens? I've already died twice and my most recent resurrection has been severely downplayed; if I hit my third life, it's gonna be pretty definite this time. And if something happens to you…" She doesn't have the will to finish. Sadly, she slowly pulls her hand away from my scars. "Besides…you deserve better than I can give you."

For a few seconds, I stare at her in shock, wondering how she could possibly think that's true. Yes, she's been through a lot, but we both have scars. And if this is about the interspecies problems, we've already covered any concerns I can imagine she'd have. What did she dream last night that made her think…?

"Never let me hurt you again."

The memory of her plea draws me to act, pulling my hands away from her so I can bring her to face me again. "You're wrong. And even if it was true, I'd never be able to settle for anyone else but you."

She keeps her eyes locked on mine for a moment, each of us trapped in the other's gaze and unable to look away. After I-don't-care-how-long, she finds the will to close her eyes. "But I don't deserve you."

"I've known you too long to think that's true either. You deserve to be happy and I've been fighting for you for too long—"

"Fighting against me in some cases."

…oh, spirits. "It wasn't your fault."

She just looks at me. Clearly, she doesn't see it that way.

I press myself against her, all but forcing her to stay close to me. "Please don't leave me now, Shepard. You know I can't let you go."

For a moment too long, she doesn't move. Then she reaches up to take my hand again. "I know. 13 months and you never did." With a sigh, she pulls back from my grasp enough to meet my eyes. "I'm sorry. I just…I don't understand why anyone would stand by me like you have." How can she not understand? How could she not see in herself what I see every time I look at her? As if in answer, she turns away from my gaze, her own eyes nowhere near as alight as I've known them to be. "I told you that I never really cared about anyone before Eden Prime. …no one's ever cared about me either."

I keep my eyes on her, every emotion I have storming inside me—sympathy for her, rage at whoever made her believe that, confusion at how anyone could not care about her. Finally, that storm takes over and my hand finds its way into her hair, pulling her up to me. We both lose ourselves in the kiss that follows. The way she wraps herself around me proves it. I'd stay like this for the rest of my life if it were an option, but that's out of the question the second I remember I have to breathe. But even when I pull back, she stays where she is, close enough to dive back in within a second. "I care about you," I say softly, "More than you could ever know."

She smiles lightly. "I do know. It can't possibly be more than I love you."

I can't deny the surges of emotion inside me those words bring out, feelings so strong that no one else in the galaxy could possibly invoke in a lifetime what she shows me in five seconds. Before I met her, I had no idea a love could be so powerful. Of course, my time with her has shown me a lot of things I thought were impossible. That I could fall so hard for a human is by far not the most surprising of them all.

She lets her eyes close almost peacefully as she returns us to the position we woke up to. "Alright. Let's try this again. No talking this time."

I smirk to myself for a moment. "Deal." Then I close my eyes as well and get lost in the embrace. As we stay close together, time stops. I take in every aspect of this moment with her, carving it into my memory. This is the moment I want to fall into completely next time something happens to one of us—

Don't think like that! Nothing's happening this time. No matter what I have to do, I'm going to make sure of that. The thought makes me hold her just a little tighter. She doesn't seem to mind. If anything, she gladly reciprocates. Nothing else changes for the next…hour? I don't know or care how long we stay like this. I just know EDI eventually comes on the line to say someone needs Shepard on the engineering deck.

Shepard sighs as she pulls away from me. "Someday, I'm gonna turn off the intercom." She pulls herself to her feet, but I don't let go of her hand. She looks between our locked hands and me for a second. "Garrus, we've been over this."

Yeah, we have. But she knows she can't blame me for wanting to have as much time with her as I possibly can. "EDI, is this actually an emergency?"

"The level of urgency is arbitrary," the AI answers, "It is not a matter of life or death, but it does require immediate attention."

I sigh. "I'm with you. Turn off the intercom."

Shepard just smirks at me. "Next time." With that, she starts to pry herself from my grasp.

Before she can, I give her hand a brief tug, bringing her over so I can kiss her. When she does manage to pull her hand free and wraps it around me, mine finds its way to her hair and draws her even closer to me. After we pull apart, I keep my eyes on hers for a moment, watching the emerald gleam that comes as she smiles affectionately to me. "I love you, Shepard."

Her smile brightens. "I know." She presses her hand to my face without taking her eyes away from mine. "I always did." Then she kisses me one more time and rushes off.

Once she's out of the room, there's no reason for me to stay. About 15 minutes later, I've headed back to the main battery to check over the systems. Thanks to EDI making sure my original changes hold, though, there's not much for me to check over. Usually, I just come by here to kill time anymore. As such, I'm reduced to looking over the calibrations five times with no alterations before I give up and turn to the door. My intention is to check on some of the other crewmen. When the door opens, I immediately dismiss it.

Shepard is coming into the mess area at almost the exact same time I start to step out of the battery. She's looking over a datapad and Daniels and Donnelly are right behind her. Whatever was going on in engineering must have been serious. She finally turns to the two engineers and hands back the datapad. I can't tell what she's saying from here, but it's pretty clear she's taken care of it. As the two of them step aside, she heads over to the pantries and locates her personal stockpile.

I smile just at the sight of her, leaning contentedly against the side of the open battery door. Four months ago, I would've killed for the chance to live this moment—to see her the way I always remembered her and know that she was alive and with me. Now I have the chance to do just that knowing it never has to end. But I still take it in as if it's the last I'll ever see of her.

Her light red hair falls over her shoulders in soft waves. Her emerald eyes casually glance over the entire deck like she's watching for danger. Even so, she lets herself relax for once and leans back against the counter as she starts going through the snacks she procured for herself the day after she came back. She's dressed in a black button-up, long-sleeved top; dark blue pants; and black and white boots—the same thing she was wearing the night before Omega-4. I thought that the moment I saw her smile at me outside the casino was the moment she was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. I was wrong. She's always just as beautiful as she was that night.

She finally turns in just the right way to see me standing here watching her. I don't make any attempt to cover my actions or even take my eyes off her. She gives me an amused smirk before taking a small handful of her snacks from the box and putting the box itself back. Then she makes her way over to me. "Aren't you supposed to be working, Vakarian?"

I shake my head at her as she steps into the battery with me, letting the door close behind her. "EDI started storing my calibrations in her databanks. Saves me a lot of trouble. …leaves me not much else to do in here."

She scoffs, holding back a laugh. "Want me to tell her to call it off? I know how much you enjoy calibrating this thing."

"And I know how much you love watching me go at it."

"Shut up."

"I'm sorry, I thought you said my voice was attractive to you."

"Knock it off! I'm the one who's supposed to be messing with you!"

"Really? Because I think it's more fun when we do it together."

She rolls her eyes at me before turning to the food in her hand.

I can't suppress my curiosity any longer. "Alright, what are you eating?"

She looks at me curiously. "You mean turians have chocolate but they don't have pretzels?" She looks at the last one she pulled out and shrugs. "Maybe we should be making a list."

I finally turn back to the console. "Shepard, we need to face facts: even I can't be the one turian who fully understands humans."

"Well, to be fair, most humans never fully understand each other."

"…I see your point."

She smiles as she takes a step closer to me. "And I'd like to think we're at the point in our relationship where species doesn't matter."

I smirk as I turn my full attention to her. "Don't you think we crossed that line before Omega-4?"

"I see your point."

I take a moment to take in the sight of her again. This is exactly how I saw her that night. The thought of it brings the memory of that night back to the front of my mind. That night, I was nervous and unsure how we'd ever make this work. Now, I'm certain we'll always have each other and that certainty has given me no reason to let the nerves come back. Even if I did, she'd be right there to talk me out of it in a second. But, no. No, I let the nerves get in the way of too much back then and I'm not the kind of person to make the same mistake twice—especially not when it comes to someone I love.

"…so…" she breaks the silence I didn't realize we had fallen into, "…are we going to do something or just stand here?"

In answer, I do the one thing I never would've done two years ago: I grab her by the waist, pull her up to me as close as I can, and kiss her with all the passion that accumulated from the day we met. As she gives in to it, my right hand slowly works its way up her back, feeling the curve of her spine. But instead of letting it slide into her hair, I let it slide over her shoulder and down to the buttons of her top—

Suddenly, the door opens, shocking me into pulling my hand away and breaking off from the kiss as much as I can while still staying close, and Liara steps in. "Shepard. EDI said you were—" She then notices that Shepard and I are still pressed against each other, her arms wrapped around me and my left hand practically clutching her lower back. "…is this a bad time?"

Shepard sighs, stepping away from me and almost mournfully pushing my hand away. "No. It's fine. What's the problem?"

"Tali is on the line. She wants to talk to you."

Shepard quickly abandons her somewhat saddened state and nods in acknowledgement before following her off. "Wait, why didn't EDI just call me?"

"She said you requested not to be disturbed through the intercom."

Shepard groans. "…this is not what I meant."

I watch her go as long as I can before the door closes back. I turn back to the console, my thoughts ringing with Liara's words and wondering why Tali would be calling and what could be so urgent.

For the first five days after Shepard's return, all 11 of our previous squad-mates had stuck around to welcome her back to the life she'd left behind. On the fifth day, most of them headed back to where they were before the Shadows attacked. Liara, Ashley, and James gladly stuck around (and EDI obviously had to since her operations are confined to the Normandy anyway), but Tali went back to Rannoch to help her people and the geth with the re-colonization. She did check in on us every day, something none of the others did with half that frequency, but if she was relaying the signal through EDI and Liara to make sure she got to Shepard instead of just waiting to call us back later, something big must be going on.

Ten minutes later, my suspicions are confirmed. "Joker," Shepard's voice rings through the intercom, "take us to the Citadel."

Something very big.

Two hours later…

"So why did Tali want to talk to us on the Citadel?" I ask as I follow Shepard out of the Citadel's main docking bay and into the Wards, Liara and Ashley and EDI and James just behind us.

"She said she was at the embassies on business when she finished going through some data and she found something that had to be discussed in person," Shepard explains, "She said she'd meet us in the markets but she didn't go into detail."

"Sounds like she's worried someone might be hacking our communications," Ashley observes.

"And with Tali, such worries are usually justified," Liara affirms, "We should be careful."

"I look forward to the day I don't have to hear those words every five minutes…" James groans. As much as I would love to make some snappy retort, I actually agree with him.

I stay close to Shepard as we move, keeping my eyes on her—trusting her to guide my steps in doing so—and watching every move she makes. After so long, I'd like to think I know her better than most people. If that's true, I know the signs I'm seeing are real. There's tension in her very bones, pain buried behind her determined gaze, a subtle tremor to every move she makes. If we were in a combat situation or under the threat of one, it could all easily be attributed to stress, injury, or simple watchfulness. But here, now, it's clearly something more. The instincts I've developed in these past two months scream at my consciousness to take her side, ask her what the problem is, and do everything in my power to help. But that's not something I should be doing with our squad-mates five feet behind us.

Tuning my concerned observation to the back of my mind, I focus on the passing landscape as we move through the station. It doesn't take long for us to reach the markets. But when we do, there's no sign of Tali.

Shepard sighs. "Remember how I said she didn't go into detail? She didn't exactly specify where in the markets to meet." She runs her hand through her hair for a second, thinking this over. "Alright, fan out, see if you can find her. I'll stay here in case she's not here yet."

Liara, Ash, James, and EDI all readily nod and head out in separate directions.

I don't.

Shepard turns her attention to me. "Garrus, do we have to discuss this?"

"Sara." The firm use of her first name brings her to shy away for half a second. That tells me I'm striking a nerve. "Something's bothering you. You know I can tell."

She looks at me for a moment, her eyes slowly softening as she lets her walls down for me. The only person she trusts to let through them.

I take a step closer to her, my hand at the ready to take hers. "What's wrong?"

She shakes it off. "Nothing, it's just…" She looks around at the Ward around us. "…there's a lot of memories in this place…some more pleasant than others."

That much I can understand. After all, this station is the place where we first met. The place we killed our first Reaper. The place we both realized what we were feeling for each other. The place we danced together. The place she first told me she loved me in one of the best moments of my entire life.

But it's also the place where the Sidonis incident occurred. The place she died. The place we found each other again only for her wounded mind to lead her to almost kill me and—

I push back the memories. I can't let myself fall into them, not anymore. "You can't change the past." Ignoring the people around us, I press my hand against her and bring her to meet my eyes again. "But it doesn't matter. What matters is what's happening now."

She keeps her eyes on me for only a second before looking down. As she does, she reaches up her hand to where she knows she can feel my heart beating. In response, I place mine against hers. My thoughts get lost in the rhythm of her blood as we both—

"Shepard!"

Shepard visibly jumps back at the sound of her name being called. Then she turns to see who did it. "Tali!"

Our quarian friend walks up to her, gladly taking the following hug as Ashley comes up behind her. "It's good to see you again, Shepard. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Shepard smirks as she steps back, "Garrus won't let me be otherwise."

I have to nudge her for that one, playfully though it may be.

"Garrus," Tali says, "It's good to see you, too."

"Likewise, Tali."

James then comes back, Liara and EDI not far behind. "Sorry, Commander, no sign of—oh. Hey, Sparks. Glad to see you."

After Tali simply nods to him and briefly exchanges greetings with Liara and EDI, Shepard steps up again. "So why'd you call us in?"

Tali calls up her omni-tool. "That data I mentioned when I called you? It's about the Shadows."

The Black Shadows. The syndicate of assassins that brought Shepard back as a tool of galactic conquest and tried to kill everyone she cared about to trap her in that position forever. We all hoped never to hear about them again. Right now, those odds aren't looking so good.

"What about them?" Shepard asks, noticeably tensing at the mention of those she now considers her greatest tormentors.

"Shepard," Tali answers, "were you aware that they had secondary bases on other worlds and stations besides the ones we hit?"

"Yeah, I was. But once we took down Orion, they lost leadership. I figured the bases wouldn't have been a concern."

"Normally, they wouldn't. But the readings this data leads to indicate most of those facilities recently went active."

"What?" Her tension jumps straight to confusion, shock, rage, and minuscule tinges of fear.

"Calm down," I quickly jump in, "We don't know it's the Shadows. Maybe someone else took over their old bases."

"So many at once? I don't think so. But the Shadows coming back into operation doesn't make sense either—we took out too many of their troops and the one commanding them all."

"Wait," Ashley steps up, "Tali, how'd you get that data anyway?"

"It was transmitted straight to my omni-tool a few hours ago," Tali explains, "I assumed it was one of the data-mines EDI was running on the intel we salvaged from the base on Omega."

"I have not recently completed decryption on any previously locked files," EDI counters, "and no data I already have access to would lead to the readings we see here."

"What?! But if you didn't send it to me, who did?"

"The only people who would have access to this information would be active Black Shadow operatives. However, I see no logical reason behind sending you warning that they are active at all."

I start thinking this over, glancing passively at the markets around us as James makes some comment about none of the Shadows ever having brilliant strategy (which is true enough except for Orion himself). I let my eyes wander for a moment as I restrict the urge to pace and consider the options for answering the question before us. I stop when I catch sight of something. I see a familiar glint in the catwalks overhead where the keepers tend to the ducts. Now my mind is racing with two questions:

1) Why does that glint seem familiar?

2) Why would the Shadows send us their own strategic intel?

Both answers come at once, striking me in half a second like an electric shock.

1) I saw it every time Legion pulled his Widow rifle.

2) To get us all in the same place.

Those thoughts send me falling back into soldier's instinct so fast that I don't even realize I'm moving until I've grabbed hold of Shepard and pushed her aside, telling the others to "Get down!"

The exact same second I make the move is the second the gun goes off in the catwalks. Since I pushed Shepard back in that second, the bullet flies past where we were standing and hits a display at one of the stands. Liara, Tali, Ash, James, and EDI all scramble out of the way as Shepard and I move aside and the markets erupt in chaos around us.

That's when the bullets start flying.