For the first bleary moments Garrus wasn't sure what had woken him up, then the incessant - and rather annoying - chime of his onmi-tool sounded again. He wasn't entirely ready to admit defeat on the idea of a full nights sleep so, refusing to open his eyes, he swatted blindly at his wrist. Twice. Somehow he managed to miss both times.

And you call yourself a sniper? He grumbled sleepily at himself, embarrassing.

He couldn't quite muster the energy for a third attempt and settled on just hoping it would go away.

After working on The Normandy's weapons for fourteen hours straight, he'd finally fallen into his bunk, exhausted, and was asleep almost immediately. He'd been in a deep sleep too, complete with dreams he couldn't really remember.

Real sleep had become somewhat of a luxury lately. The uncomfortable Cerberus issue bunk didn't really lend itself to a good nights rest. It squeaked horribly when he rolled onto his back, it even drowned out the sound of his groan and the crack of his neck. It was enough to make him think almost longingly of the sleep pods on the SR-1, complete with snoring Krogan. Garrus groaned again, if he was thinking favourably of trading this bunk with Wrex's snoring then things must be bad. Unlike the sleep pods, these bunks had been designed solely with humans in mind.

Only an evil organisations would have beds this crappy. He remembered thinking to himself the night before, as he'd contorted himself into all sorts of strange positions to get even remotely comfortable. The thin, unyielding mattress hadn't been designed to accommodate his crest or carapace. The beds in the crew quarters looked marginally better, but Garrus was pretty sure he'd find himself just as sleepless there, albeit for different reasons. Dropping his guard around the Cerberus crew enough to sleep simply wasn't something that was going to happen. At least not yet.

His omni-tool chimed again, this time he actually managed to open his eyes, only to slam them closed again; the bright orange light was extremely jarring in the dimness of the forward battery. The ceiling lights were on a timer, synced to that of the Citadel, and were only dark during the night cycle,

Who the hell is calling me at this hour? He wondered, but he already knew the answer to that question.

It could really only be one person.

How she functioned on the small amount of sleep she managed to get was beyond him. He didn't bother to check the I.D, just flung one arm over his eyes and opened the comm,

"This had better be good, Shepard." He said in lieu of greeting, not bothering to hide the sleepy rough edge to his sub-vocals,

"Sorry big guy, I know you get cranky if you don't get your beauty sleep." She replied, her chirpy voice in sharp context to his own, he imagined he could hear the smile in her voice.

Garrus could hear wind buffeting her headset, she was having to raise her voice to heard over it, he'd been expecting her to be calling him from upstairs. Had a mission been scheduled for today? His brain hadn't fully kicked in yet, but he didn't think so,

"Where are you?" He asked with a slight frown,

"I'm planet-side, trying to fix a colony's solar panel: some batarian pirates sabotaged it. I heard their SOS while I was looking for new mining locations."

"You were looking for new mining locations? In the middle of the night?"

"Day and night are subjective. It's a bright, sunny afternoon down here."

"And?" He drew the word out, waiting for the real reason she was fixing solar panels instead of getting some much needed rest.

"And I couldn't sleep." She admitted, her voice hadn't lost any of it's chirpiness but there was defiantly an edge of don't push this, Garrus in there that he knew only he'd pick up on.

"Again?"

To hell with the warning tone, he thought, I'll blame it on sleep deprivation if she asks.

Shepard hadn't slept well in the entire time Garrus had known her, since Cerberus had brought her back it only seemed to have gotten worse.

"Just feeling a little wired, big guy. Don't worry about it."

Garrus knew that if she were stood in front of him then she'd be waving a flippant hand, one side of her mouth pulled up in a smile.

He hadn't really been expecting a serious answer, especially since they both suspected their comms were being monitored, but he made a mental note to bring it up again the next time she came down to his quarters. Clear heads and sleep deprivation didn't generally go hand-in-hand.

"You need to find some other way to work off your nocturnal energy, Shepard."

"Is that a proposition?" She laughed,

"Not at this hour it isn't." He said around a yawn, "You'll need to give me a couple of minutes."

"A whole two minutes?" She whistled, "Way to represent turian stamina, big guy."

"I'm pretty sure the Collectors don't have to put up with crap like this."

"You thinking of switching sides?"

"If they can get me a turian mattress, then I'll seriously consider it." He grumbled, making her laugh again. He stretched his neck until it gave a satisfying crack, human pillows really did leave much to be desired, "Why didn't you come get me? I'd've gone to the colony with you."

"It was early, or late depending on your perspective, I didn't want to wake you up."

"And yet here you are, waking me up anyway."

"I get the irony. But it's the thought that counts."

"Yeah? Can you tell what I'm thinking right now?"

"That is no way to think about your commanding officer, Vakarian." The mock stern tone vanished as she added, "Kinky though."

Garrus chuckled,

"Did you wake me up just to see if I'm still charming when I'm half asleep, or...?"

"So you might recall that tech doesn't really play to my strengths."

That's putting it mildly, he thought and scoffed down the comm, he could have sworn he actually heard Shepard roll her eyes.

"I have a vague recollection, yes." He said, remembering the many, many, attempts he and Tali had made to educate Shepard on tech. She may know thirty different ways to kill a person of any species with nothing but her bare hands. She may be able to charm everyone she came across, be they krogan or asari. She may even be able to deconstruct a threat or battlefield better and faster than anyone else Garrus had ever met, but put anything more complicated than a disassembled omni-tool in front of her and she was at a loss. She was far from unintelligent, in fact she had a brilliant mind, it just didn't work in that way.

She doesn't need it to work in that way, she has me. The thought made him feel oddly warm.

"Well I may, or may not, have bitten off more than I can chew here." She continued, "It seemed simple enough when I pulled up the diagnostic on my omni-tool, the reality doesn't quite meet my expectations."

"You're calling me for tech help?! The great Commander Shepard, hero of the battle of the Citadel, scourge of the Reapers, has been defeated by a solar panel?" He teased,

"Hey, it's hard."

"Well, I did just wake up."

There was a beat of silence before Shepard picked up on his innuendo and snorted laughter down the comm. Garrus grinned up at the ceiling; if TIM wanted to listen in on their conversation, then Garrus would do his best to make him regret it. Besides, it made Shepard laugh, and that was always good,

"Oh, my god." She groaned,

"That's usually the response I get," He said, completely unable to help himself, "But it's normally louder, with -"

"I'm gonna call someone else," She interrupted, "I'm hanging up."

"Oh please, you love it."

"I know you can't see me right now, but you should know I'm giving you the finger."

"Now who's kinky?"

"Are you going to help me or continue to be a smart ass?"

"I can't do both?"

"Garrus!"

"Alright, alright." Garrus rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and propped himself up into a semi-sitting position, "Can you patch me into your helmet cam so I can see what you see?"

"Ah, I was kinda hoping you wouldn't ask me that. I didn't bring one."

"You don't have your helmet with you?" He asked, more than a little surprised. Shepard was meticulous about her kit, especially her armour. It was one of the few rules on the Normandy; weapons and armour were expected to be 100% at all times. She never, never, scrimped on equipment. She bought them the best, always had. She was fond of telling them that maintenance could be the difference between coming home and not. So she never left the ship without her full kit. Though now that he thought about it, he didn't think he'd seen her wear a helmet since... "Shit." He muttered aloud. He hadn't seen her wear a helmet, or anything over her face, since Alchera.

She, of course, knew exactly where his mind had gone.

"Yeah, I know."

"Why the hell haven't you said anything?"

"It's not a big deal, really. It's stupid. I know it's stupid." She laughed a small self-deprecating chuckle, "I just – it's not that I can't. I can wear it – just if I can avoid it, you know? It's nothing. I'll get over it."

"We need to talk, Shepard." He said gently.

"I'm fine."

"Shepard -"

"Look – yeah, OK, we will. Just – just not now. Alright?" She was brushing him off, and they both knew it. Garrus hovered on the brink of trying to pull the truth from her, but managed to stop himself. He didn't think her lack of explanation was purely down their potentially unsecure comm.

Maybe she isn't ready to talk about it yet? He thought with a sigh, that he could understand; there were a few things he hadn't spoken about lately too.

"I'm fine. Really." She repeated when he continued to hesitate. Garrus knew all too well that how fine Shepard was and how fine Shepard thought she was, were two very different things.

She'll talk to you when she's ready, Vakarian. He told himself sternly, And that certainly isn't going to be when she's trying to fix a colony's damn solar panel.

"Alright, but I'm not going to let this go forever." He warned her, "If there's no cam you'll have to describe it to me. What are we looking at?"

"This thing is huge, a few dozen feet off the ground on a metal platform. There's a central computer with three others branching off. The cooling system is on my left, shields to my right and generator in front."

Garrus was familiar with the set up, it had been a few years since he'd seen one, it was a little out of date, but he knew enough to at least give them a place to start.

"The easiest way for them to sabotage it would to take the cooling system offline, if the panels overheat then they'll just automatically shut down."

"Alright, cooling system it is." He could hear the sound of her boots on the metal structure, he waited for her to stop.

"Take the front panel off and tell me what's underneath." He instructed. The sound of the wind dropped considerably once she was sheltered behind the cooling system.

"There's a metal grate, a bunch of wires, a small panel with buttons and a retractable steel shaft."

"How big is the shaft?" He asked, Shepard snickered and he rolled his eyes, "Not helping, Shepard."

"It has a handle on top, looks like it's recently been pulled from it's housing."

That's the reset switch then, Garrus decided. If the reset switch was out of it's housing then there was no doubt it was the cooling system they'd sabotaged, it was a simple enough fix.

"I'm sending you a bypass." He told her, bracing himself for the harsh orange light of his omni-tool, at least he was awake enough now not to have to squint at the light, "Scan the interface – the panel with the buttons - then upload the bypass and let it do it's thing. It'll identify the problem, I can remote in from here and correct it for you."

"See? That doesn't seem all that complicated."

"That's because I already wrote, complied and edited the code, Shepard." He said dryly, "You're just getting the finished product."

"Ah." He could almost hear her shrug, "I prefer problems I can just shoot with my shotgun."

"Please don't shoot the solar panels."

"I wasn't planning on it. OK, the bypass is running." His bypass would only take a few seconds, but this reminded him of something,

"I've been meaning to ask, how did you really get that mech on Omega to attack the mercs?" He'd been impressed at the time, thinking maybe she really had picked up one or two of the tech tips he'd taught her, this little experience was proving that theory wrong,

"What do you mean?" She asked, feigned innocence lacing her voice, "I hacked it of course, you have so little faith."

"Shepard? Remember who you're talking to."

"Alright, if you must know, they were working on it so I could see all the inner-workings. I just spotted the mech's friend or foe identifier and...adjusted it."

"Adjusted?"

"Fine. I hit it with a hammer. Happy now?"

"Very." He chuckled.

"Subtlety also isn't one of my strengths."

"I'd noticed."

"But on the plus side your bypass is done, and I didn't even shoot anything."

"Your restraint is admirable." He said, watching the lines of code start to filter onto the small screen of his omni-tool. Whatever hack the pirates had used on the cooler to the solar panel was a simple one, once he knew what he was looking for it only took Garrus a few moments to fix it, "Alright, that should be it." He told Shepard, "Now just push that steel shaft back into it's housing."

"OK, one second." He heard movement again on her end then by a small bang, "It's stuck."

"This isn't even tech, Shepard." He exaggerated an exasperated sigh so she could hear it, "Is it in yet?"

"Not what a girl wants to hear, Vakarian." She muttered, followed by a few curses in a rather impressive mixture of turian, krogan and quarian, then a louder bang,

"Tell me you didn't shoot it." Garrus groaned,

"I didn't shoot it," She said defensively. Garrus cleared his throat and waited her out, "I punched it." She finished, rather sheepishly,

"Oh, that's much better."

"Very funny. But it's in now."

"Good. If you're done manhandling the shaft, you can reboot back at the main console."

He heard her boots on the metal floor as she made her way back to the centre of the platform. He gave her a few minutes of quiet to work, occupying himself by scrolling though the list of things he'd need to make the adjustments he wanted to the Normandy's cannon.

It's probably a good thing Shepard is spending so much time looking for mining locations instead of sleeping, he thought with a wince, the list of what he needed seemed to grow every time he looked at it. It would be worth it in the end. The Normandy would need top-of-the-line weaponry if they were going to stand a chance against a Collector ship. If we can just get out hands on some – the sound of the solar panels powering up interrupted his thoughts. Shepard gave out a small, satisfied (albeit slightly surprised) sounding whoop.

"It's working! Thanks Garrus." She said, sounding more than a little pleased with herself. Garrus smiled and stopped himself from reminding her that she'd only managed it with him walking her through it. The happiness in her voice made it an easy thing to do, "You can go back to sleep now, and I'll see you in a few –" She went suddenly silent mid-sentence,

"You pressed something you shouldn't have, didn't you?" He asked, letting weariness he didn't really feel slip into his voice,

"No, I don't think so." She muttered, he heard her tapping away on a few keys before her mutter turned into alarm, "Oh crap, that can't be good."

"What? What happened?" He asked sharply, sitting up straight on the bunk,

"I must have triggered something," He could hear frantic movement, the sound of armour and metal, "There's a countdown. Dammit, I think it's a bomb." Garrus' heart skipped a beat. All thoughts of the Normandy's cannons or catching a few more hours sleep vanished in an instant.

"Shepard, you need to get out of there, right now!" He barked,

"I'm not going anywhere; if this rig blows then it's taking half the colony with it. The batarian's must have set it to trigger when the panel came back online."

"Then I'll come to you, just -" Garrus was already on his feet and reaching for his armour,

"No time. I have four minutes. I could reverse my barriers but I don't think they're strong enough to contain a blast like this."

"Contain?" It took a few beats of his heart for him to realise exactly what she meant, then a cold chill ran down his neck, "You mean contain it within your own barriers? Shepard, no, you'd be incinerated!"

"Which is, I'll admit, less than ideal."

"Shepard -"

"So we're going to disarm it."

Disarm it? She couldn't even fix a simple hack!

"You can't disarm a -"

"You had bomb disposal training in C-Sec, right?" She spoke over him sharply, "We both know I'm crap with tech, I need you to talk me through it. We can do this, but not if we keep wasting time. I need you at my six right now, Vakarian. We've got this."

"Dammit." He growled, of all the times for her not to have her damn helmet cam, he cursed to himself. He forced himself to breath. Getting angry was not going to get that bomb disarmed and there was no way a colony could evacuate in under four minutes. "OK, tell me what you've got."

"The central monitor is showing a countdown, but little else."

"The trigger and explosives will be on a -"

"Structural weakness." She finished for him, he could hear her feet pounding on the metal platform before she'd finished speaking, "I'm on it."

Garrus heard the screech of hinges and he imagined the little-used exit hatch in the floor being thrown open. The sound of the wind increased as she stuck her head through to look,

"I see it!" She shouted over the gale, "It's attached to the support column, if the bomb blows then the entire platform's going to come down."

"Can you get to it?"

"With mag boots, yeah." He heard her heave herself through the hatch and the heavy clunk of her mag boots on the metal. It seemed to take forever as he waited for her to cross to the support column and latch herself to the grating. The forward battery was much too small for adequate pacing, but he barely noticed as he blinding passed back and forth in front of his forgotten bunk, "Right, I'm there." She said eventually, "There's, wow, yeah that's a lot of C4. I've got a rectangular steel case, briefcase size, it has a keypad and a countdown on it. Also a glass jar full of ball-bearings, I'm assuming that's on a secondary trigger, a security measure in case someone tries to disarm the bomb." Garrus' stomach did a sickly roll as the image of what that harmless looking jar of ball-bearings could do at such short range; Shepard's armour was the best money could buy, and it would be shredded in less than a second, "You still with me, Vakarian?"

"I've got you." He tried to think but worry and fear were muddling his thoughts, turning normal quick decisions slow and sluggish. He screwed his eyes closed and brought his hand up to pinch his forehead, trying to damnedest to concentrate and not panic about the idea of Shepard being caught in the explosion, "The steel case, it has wires coming out of it that feed up to the explosives?"

"Yes, should I -"

"Not yet." He barked, his hand shooting out of it's own accord as though he could reach through the comm line and catch her wrist. He took another deep breath and forced his voice back into it's usual tone, "Look around the edge of the panel facing you, do you see any scuffs and scrapes? Anything that looks like it might be a sealant?"

"Yes, there's some residue here. It's overflowed the join."

"Damn." Of course it couldn't be as simple as cutting a few wires, "Alright, then the top is a dummy. It needs to come off. Take your combat knife and run it carefully around the edge and break the seal, in theory it should just lift straight off."

"In theory?" Shepard laughed nervously,

"I've only ever done this in theory. You're only going to want to lift it enough to see underneath, if you lift it too high then you're going to trip that security measure you noticed."

"Ah, shrapnel. Perfect."

"All we need to do is separate the trigger from the C4, no trigger no explosion." There was a scratch of metal on metal as he heard her scrape her knife around the edge of the panel.

"Almost got it."

"How we doing for time, Shepard?"

"Two minutes twenty seconds."

"There's still time, be careful and -" Even over the sound of the wind he heard her gasp, "What? Shepard, you OK?!"

"Yeah, butter fingers. Almost dropped the cover, I've got it now, the jar's still intact."

"Don't do that again." He groaned, heart hammering somewhere in the region of his throat,

"You sure?" She asked, oozing sarcasm, "Don't want me to do it again just for kicks?" He heard her jostle the panel around, it hit the mike a few times as she rested it against her chest, "I can see underneath, there's a lot of wires. These guys have never heard the term cable management."

"You can lecture the pirates on the proper way to wire bombs once this is disarmed. Ignore any wires going to the dummy panel, cutting any of those will detonate it. There should be another keypad inside, possibly hidden or tucked into a corner."

"I see it."

"How many wires coming from that one?"

"Five."

"Five?!" He'd been hoping for two, expecting three and dreading four.

"Is that bad?"

"Well, it's not good. Can you follow one to the C4?"

"Three go to the C4, blue, brown and red, they branch off out of my line of sight. A yellow one goes to the death jar."

"Don't call it the death jar, I can only fight off one heart attack at a time. We're going to take out the secondary security device first. Cut that wire and only that wire."

"The one going to the death jar?"

"I swear, if you survive this, I'm going to kill you. The yellow wire, cut the yellow wire."

Garrus stood frozen mid-pace in the middle of the forward battery, his hands curled into tight fists at his sides. If he was wrong -

You're not wrong. He told himself, This is textbook; security devices get disarmed first.

And if you are wrong, if they've anticipated this, then you're about to hear your best friend be shredded by a thousand steel ball-bearings travelling at close to 500 meters per second.

Shit.

He held his breath as he heard the jostle of the panel again and the scrape of her amour as she reached around the case.

But what if – The little voice of doubt in his head started to ask,

I'm right, He told it firmly, I know this.

"Almost got it." He heard Shepard mutter, it sounded like it was more to herself than to him. She, at least, didn't sound like she doubted him.

Those few seconds seemed to drag into hours as he starred unseeingly at the wall, half of him expecting to hear an explosion at any moment.

"Come on, Shepard." He murmured under his breath, it was half to her and half a prayer, "You've got this."

"OK, yellow wire is...cut." He released the breath and was almost sure he heard Shepard do the same. A shrill sound escaped his chest; a odd mixture of left over panic and relief, "We're not done yet." She reminded him, picking up on the relief in his sub-vocals, "Ninety seconds on the clock. Three wires left going to the C4."

So Shepard's death jar - I'm never going to not be able to think of it in any other way, thanks for that Shepard - wasn't going to pose a problem, but she, along with half a colony will be just as dead if we don't disarm that C4.

Panic tried to work it's way back up into his mind and cloud his thoughts. He pushed it right back where it came from as best as he could,

"Right; blue, brown and red." He said, more to himself than to her. If only he could see it then -

Logic, Vakarian. He ordered himself. You can't see it. Let her be your eyes. If she says there's three wires then there's three wires.

"Which one is the trigger?" She asked,

The damn trigger. Triggers don't have three wires! That just isn't how it works.

"I don't -" He started before cutting himself off.

I don't know was what he want to say. But he had to know. He had to know or else the bomb would blow. He screwed his eyes closed for a moment and tried to remember. It had been years since he'd left C-Sec, even longer since he'd had any training on bomb disposal, and he'd never had to do it in the field. Usually they could run an omni-tool hack that just killed it, this was -

"Garrus? I didn't catch that. Repeat?" Brown, blue or red? Which one was it? "One minute ten seconds, big guy." She said, her voice turning soft and warm over the comm. Comforting, he realised, she's facing a bomb and she's comforting you?! Get your shit together Vakarian, you know this. "Just one wire and we're done. Just one more, that's it." She finished,

One more wire? But it couldn't be, that doesn't make any-

"Doesn't make any sense!" His voice, in contrast to hers, was almost a shout, it echoed from the metal walls of his quarters, "Of course it doesn't. Get back to the main console, hurry!"

"What? Are you -"

"I'm sure. Move, Shepard!" He heard her slam the cover back in place, the sound of her flinging herself back through the floor hatch then the pounding of boots on the metal grating as she sprinted back to the console, "There should be an access panel at the bottom, unscrew that and -" Unscrew seemed to be an unfamiliar term for Shepard, Garrus winced when he heard her fist slam into the access panel and the high pitched screech of the metal being bent and pulled away by brute force,

"I'm in." She panted,

"Look for the blue, brown and red wires. They must be been fed up through the grating under your feet."

"You're right, they all feed into a small box. A black wire coming out the top."

"Strip the plastic covering from the black wire, there should be one red and one white wire inside. Cut the red one."

"Yeah OK." He could imagine her fingers fumbling a as she worked, if they were anything like Garrus' then they were trembling more than a little. He resisted the urge to ask how much time they had left; however many seconds remained it wouldn't seem like enough.

"Hurry, Shepard, hurry." He urged, grabbing hold of the metal barrier that ran around the edge of the Normandy's guns, his head bent down,

"OK, OK, I've got it. The red wire." He heard her take a breath and hold it, "Can I get a "don't die, Shepard"? It's kinda good luck at this point."

"Don't die, Shepard." Garrus realised he was holding his breath too, he closed his eyes and begged himself to be right.

"And the wire is -" He heard the snap of the wire through the comm and Shepard's held breath leave on an exhale, "Cut. We've got it! I think we did it, the countdown stopped, it's -"

There was a crack of static then nothing. Garrus was left listening to empty air.

"Shepard?" He tried around the sudden lump in his throat, the only response was silence. His hands gripped the steel barrier hard enough to leave a mark, his heart hammering in his chest, "Shepard?!"

There was nothing. No answer. No laugh to indicate it was nothing more than a joke in very bad taste.

With a shaking hand he almost had to pry off the barrier, he quickly scrolled through their various comm lines. Still nothing. Just more silence.

She can't be gone, not again. I can't do it again. Something grabbed his chest and squeezed, I wasn't there again. I wasn't there and -

"Garrus?" Her voice was very loud in the sudden silence, slightly shaky but very much alive, "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, yeah I can hear you." He managed to mutter, the strength ran back out of his legs and he sat heavily back on his bunk, his hand coming up to cover his eyes,

"There was some feedback from the solar panel, I lost comms."

"For a minute there I thought -"

"You worried about me, Vakarian?" She teased,

Always.

He chuckled,

"Not even for a minute." Her laugh was as shaky as his, "You OK?"

"I'm good, and so is the colony. I owe you."

"I think I can come up with a way for you to pay me back." He said, giving her a chance to get back onto their usual footing,

"I think I'd be getting the better end of that deal, big guy." She muttered, almost to herself. Garrus was so surprised by the lack of humour in her voice that he didn't have time to respond, "How about breakfast?"

"Yeah, er, sounds great. I'll have your coffee ready by the time you get back."

"Thanks, Garrus."

"I know how much you love your coffee."

"I didn't mean the coffee."

"I know. I'm holding you to that breakfast."

"I'll see you soon."