~Author's Note~ I believe I have everything figured out, so here we go.

Please remember to drop me a review if you read; and enjoy the chapter.


Omega, November 18th, 2185 C.E.

"What do you mean you're going for the vigilante first? We need the doctor as soon as possible so that he can start working on a defense against the seeker swarms!" Miranda stood at the entrance to the Normandy, hands splayed on her hips. She reminded Shepard of her old teacher back at the Alliance academy for biotics. Not a good reminder.

"Am I in charge of this mission or not, Ms. Lawson?"

"Your decision makes no logical sense. Dr. Solus is needed to complete this mission. This... Archangel, as he calls himself, is simply another gun. Useful, certainly, but not necessary."

"And we will be picking up Dr. Solus as well, just after we retrieve Archangel."

Miranda opened her mouth to object again, but Shepard was fed up.

"Enough." Her voice cracked like a whip. "Either I am in charge of this mission, in which case we are going after Archangel, or I am not and you're actually the one the Illusive Man put in command and I'm just a puppet. In which case, you can have fun going after the Collectors yourselves. Which is it?"

She stared down Lawson, meeting her eyes fearlessly.

Miranda lowered her gaze. "You are in charge, Commander."

"Good. Then, I believe we need to go see the recruiter on the first level."


It was when the second concussive round slammed into her shields that she knew Archangel understood they were fighting on his side. He was simply trying to keep up the show.

She ran up behind the four mercs that had managed to make it across the bridge.

They were planting a bomb on the door that led inside Archangel's hideout.

The engineer was leaning down, programming something into the bomb, probably a timer. Shepard spoke up. "Are you sure that thing is safe?"

He didn't even glance at her. "It's perfectly safe, I know exactly what I'm doing."

"Really? It looks like it's about to blow to me."

"Absolutely ridiculous, this thing is no more about-" He cut off as he looked up at Shepard and the pistol she was pointing at him. Or rather, at the bomb.

The explosion took her shields, but it also took out all four of the mercs. She was laughing, tasting her own blood inside of her mouth. Combat came easy to her. It made her feel alive. Jacob glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. His expression was a little fearful.

She ignored it and climbed up the stair, reaching the top and her goal.

"Archangel?"

He held up a finger, signalling her to wait.

A single shot rang out from his rifle, and a startled cry came up from below. Apparently she had missed one.

She forgot all about that when he removed his helmet.

"Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"Garrus!"

Now she understood. If she had gone after Dr. Solus first, "Archangel" would have been overwhelmed by the mercs before she could arrive. She sent up a silent thank you to Kalahira.

Garrus was explaining that despite Shepard's reinforcements, they were still in a bad spot.

All three merc groups had ganged up on him, and so far, while he had taken out many of the freelancers, the mercs themselves had sent very few against him. He had taken down a gunship once, but he hadn't destroyed it.

Shepard smirked at that. "It might take awhile longer for them to repair it."

Garrus gave her a quizzical look, but Shepard waved him off. "I'll explain later. What's the plan?"

"Sit tight, wait for them to come to us, take out enough of them, and then make a break for it. Sound good to you, Shepard?"

"Just like old times."


Taking down Jaroth and his Ecplise was actually rather easy, considering.

The Heavy Mech that Jacob had reprogrammed turned on the Ecplise and tore them to shreds. When Jaroth came over the barricade, expecting to see that his men had opened a breach into Archangels hideout behind the mech, he was completely alone. Shepard's biotics tore him apart in a matter of seconds. Jacob swore quietly from behind the pillar he was using for cover.

"Miranda, you ever think that maybe we don't quite know what we've woken up?"

She looked at him, puzzled. "You mean who?"

The squelch of Jaroth's head imploding from a bioticly-enhanced punch reached them. He shuddered. "No. I don't."

She stood at the end of the bridge, covered in the salarian's blood, roaring her defiance at the enemy on the other side of the defenses. "Is that it? Where are you Garm? I know you'd be a better fight than this!"

Garrus appeared at the top of their hideout. "Shepard! Get back here! We've got trouble!"

She snarled, and turning, stormed back towards him, brushing past Jacob and Miranda without a word.

"What is it now?"

"There was an explosion from below. I think they finally thought to use their brains, for once. Go close the shutters down there, would you?"

"All right. Jacob, with me. Miranda." She drilled the woman with her gaze. "Keep him alive or you'll answer for it."

It took Jacob and Shepard all of five minutes to clear the area under Archangel's lair. The only tricky part came when Shepard blindly charged around a corner and a vorcha turned his flamethrower on her. Jacob thought she was in serious trouble, but she stepped forward through the flames, grabbed the vorcha with one hand, and put three rounds through his head with the pistol in her other hand.

He stood there, gaping.

"What are you waiting for, Taylor? We got one more to close!"


Shepard had been right. Garm was far more of a challenge. The Krogan seemed to just shrug off hits, and Shepard could see his skin closing around the numerous bullet holes they had inflicted on him.

No matter what they did, he simply healed too fast for it to be more than an inconvenience. And now he had Garrus cornered.

Jacob fired his shotgun into the Krogan's side, finally making enough of a dent that Garm retreated a bit. It was past time to end this.

Shepard pulled her grenade launcher off her back, and fired three rounds at Garm just as he stood up from his cover. The first blew the armor off his chest, the second made a dent in it, and the third blew a hole through him and knocked him off his feet.

"Heal from that, you bastard!"

Incredibly, the krogan still was not dead. He struggled back upright, and to her utter astonishment, Shepard saw even the hole through his chest begin to close.

Garm grinned at her, showing his teeth. "Redundant nervous system."

Shepard grinned back at him. "Singularity."

The miniature black hole sprang to life inside of Garm's wound, just before it finished closing around it. The krogan gave her a strange look, and then the worst-sounding wail she had ever heard in her life came roaring out of his mouth as the singularity's gravity grabbed most of his organs and much of his skeletal structure and smashed them together in the middle of his body. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Shepard didn't want to go look at what was left of Garm. Doubtless it would not be a pretty sight.

Garrus was staring at her. The look was not one she was used to from him. It was almost... afraid?

"Archangel! You think you can screw with the Blue Suns?"

Tarak's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "Garrus! Get down!"

The turian turned, intending to leap for cover, but Tarak's machine gun opened up on him while he was still out in the open.

Garrus grunted as many of the bullets found their mark, managing to make it behind a couch. Shepard screamed at him to move, that wouldn't stop anything. He was either too badly hurt to hear her, or he heard her, but was too badly hurt to move.

Desperately, she opened up on the gunship with her heavy pistol, trying to get Tarak's attention, but the Blue Suns' leader had revenge on his mind. He didn't care if he went down at this point, he was taking Garrus with him.

She wished with her all heart that she had taken the rocket launcher with the heat-seeking missiles instead of a grenade launcher. What use was a grenade launcher against a gunship?

All they could do was whittle the thing down with their pistols, but as focused on Garrus as he was, Tarak would undoubtedly kill the turian before his gunship was destroyed.

It was Jacob who saw a way out of their situation, noticing from his vantage point what Shepard could not possibly see from hers. The side of the gunship was wide open.

He took a risk, standing up and racing over to where Shepard was sitting. Tarak continued to pour fire into Archangel's cover, the bullets chewing through the upholstery and reducing it to nothing more than a pile of fluff in short order.

Jacob grabbed the grenade launcher off of Shepard's back. She jerked at the contact, turning, thinking they had been ambushed by an enemy.

"Taylor! What do you think you're doing?"

"Saving our ass, Commander!"

He headed straight for the window. Tarak saw him coming, of course, but he was too focused on Archangel and the knowledge that his hated enemy was laying there, completely vulnerable to him.

Jacob fired the grenade launcher twice, launching both into the side of the ship.

Tarak grinned as he fired the rocket stored in the gunship's underbelly.

The grenades exploded, destroying everything in the cockpit and leaving Tarak nothing more than a pile of ash, but the rocket had already left the gunship.

"GARRUS!"

The turian looked up just as the rocket made contact with his body. No cover, nothing between him and it but his armor and his shields.

Shepard knew that he was dead. There was no way he could have survived such a thing.

She had to see for herself, sprinting over and dropping down beside him. Miranda scanned him. Her voice was not something Shepard wanted to hear. "I'm sorry, Shepard. Somehow he's still alive, but there's no way he'll make it to the Normandy in time to stay that way." Shepard thought her voice was more heartless than it needed to be.

She could hear Jacob in the background, yelling at Joker to send down a shuttle.

No matter how much she hated it, she knew that Miranda was right. She could see his life-force leaving his body. Garrus wouldn't live long enough to see the Normandy. She sat back, covering her face, the tears staining her cheeks.

Wait a minute.

She could see his life-force leaving his body.

What in the name of the galaxy? She sat there, staring at him now. A mist hovered over Garrus, slowly leaving his prone form. Was she really seeing this, or was she just hallucinating?

"Are you just going to let him die?"

Her head jerked up, complete shock written on her features.

Kalahira stood behind Garrus, wearing the same clothes as when Shepard saw her last.

"Shepard?" Miranda looked at where she was staring, then back at her. "What is it?"

Kalahira spoke again, her voice calm. "I would not speak to me. Your companions cannot see me, and doubtless that one would love to have a reason to doubt your mental state. You have the power to save this man."

Shepard spoke anyway, against Kalahira's warning. "How? Tell me how!"

Miranda looked at her, askance, then shook her head in pity. Doubtless she thought Shepard, confronted by the death of an old friend, had snapped.

Shepard didn't care. If she could save Garrus, then she could care less whether Miranda thought she had lost it.

The goddess of oceans simply reached her hand down and touched Garrus. Shepard looked at her. Kalahira motioned with her other hand for Shepard to do the same.

She reached out and grabbed Garrus by his left shoulder.

Kalahira spoke again, her voice different, more of a ritual feeling to it. "Do you permit this one to depart, given that it is not yet his time?"

Shepard replied, her voice sharp and unwavering. "Fuck no."

Kalahira smiled, and then her form broke apart into a million shining pieces. Her voice hovered on the air around them. "Not exactly the proper answer, my siha, but it will do."

A sudden rush of electricity shot down Shepard's arm and into Garrus' body. She held on, determined that even though she had no idea what was going on, she was not going to let Garrus leave. She needed his help.

The mist ceased its ascent, and with a sudden rush of wind, returned to the turian. He gasped, his eyes opening.

"Garrus!" Shepard's joyful shout echoed around the room.

Miranda whirled back around, her eyes wide in amazement.

Shepard kept up a constant stream of words, talking to Garrus, telling him to hang on, that Joker was sending a shuttle to pick them up.

Miranda stared down at her, remembering Jacob's words from earlier.

What had they woken up?