Chapter 4 ~ The Edge of the World

"Knock, knock. May I come in?"

She looked up from her desk facing the wall next to the door; her stern expression melting to make way for a hesitant smile, the light color of her skin in stark contrast to the dark Alliance sweats she was wearing. Then she narrowed her eyes.

"You're not going to argue with me, are you? There's only so much bullshit I'm willing to take this night."

Still standing in the doorframe, Garrus hived a sigh. He had passed Alenko on his way through the Mess Hall and the human Sentinel had looked even grimmer than usual.

"That bad, huh?" He asked, and the golden-haired Spectre motioned him to come in.

"Yep. And then some," Shepard replied as he sat down on one of the crates containing the quarian's loot that had been pushed against the wall of the already cramped cabin. She turned in her chair frowning at something unseen, then shook her head. "Never mind. If we're lucky all our petty issues will be gone by tomorrow anyway. So… what can I do for you?"

He hesitated. Tali had actually wanted to come with him and invite Shepard over for a game of cards with Liara, but then the quarian hadn't been in the Engineering.

That ship's a shoebox.

Maybe he hadn't been looking too hard for the quarian.

"Yeah, well … since we likely just have one last evening to enjoy all our petty issues… I thought you might want some company while dwelling on the precious memory of life's most magnificent moments."

She chuckled. "Oh boy. You'd think that air shaft damaged me one some fundamental level."

"Okay, here's the deal: Let's never do that again."

"Deal."

They sat in silence for another moment watching each other. Then he said, "Ah, if you're interested, there's also a game of Skyllian Five up ahead. Maybe…"

She blinked and for the fraction of a moment, a hopeful light flashed and died in her eyes, leaving her utterly lost. As abrupt as they had come, the Commander shook off the deep thoughts that had occupied her mind and the corners of her lips twitched into a smile. All of a sudden there seemed to be not enough air in there for him.

"Well, Vakarian… I don't know about you but I can think of something better to spend my last night..."

She still wore this beautiful smile when his claw-tipped fingers gently followed an invisible trail from her cheek down to her collarbone and it only deepened when he curled his arms around her exhausted and naked body, listening to the soft beat of her heart, vowing without any words that he would never let her down…

"Garrus? Garrus, are you still there?"

The slightly panicked pitch in Liara's voice was audible even through the faint static noise of the radio and he jerked his focus back.

"Yeah. Sorry. There's not much sleep to be caught of lately," Garrus said, dragging his fingers across his face. He was tired. So damn tired.

Around him the crumbling ruins of what had once been the central communication room of Menae' main post lay as shattered as their hope. There had no one been left alive when he arrived with the sorry rest of his platoon. Those that hadn't been killed by the Reapers had raised their weapons against themselves. It was that or being caught alive and Turned to be sent against your own kind. Such was the reality of this war. Only it wasn't really a war.

We are like weeds, mowed down by the scythe.

Did the scythe feel sorry for the weeds? Hardly.

"I… understand," the asari said, sounding no less exhausted.

"Liara… Please tell me you have something… Anything."

"I don't know… I thought I had it all figured out but something… something is missing, Garrus. The crucible won't work as it is, I know it! I feel like I'm this close to the solution but I just can't see it!"

Her voice broke. He felt like sobbing as well. The silence stretched. It was alright, though. They could sit and share their misery as long as they needed. Wasn't as if any military brass would come along and claim the bandwidth. In utter certainty of their victory, the Reapers hadn't even bothered with attacking the comm buoys and there simply weren't enough people, let alone first priority clients, left to choke the bandwidth even if they hooked up each and every radio they could salvage.

"Tuchanka?" He finally asked.

"Gone…" Her voice was no more than a faint whisper and he felt a cold shiver.

He wanted to howl. He wanted to rage. But he simply couldn't summon the energy for those things any more. "I went to the Primarch. I went to his officers. I begged them, Liara, to get carriers to Tuchanka. They wouldn't listen…"

But then no one had, or things wouldn't have keeled over that badly. They all had failed. The Citadel Council, the Citadel races, together with any idiot who had a say in those matters.

"Goddess… This is a nightmare."

"No," he said bitterly. "It's worse. From a nightmare you can wake…"

"I wished Shepard was here…"

He closed his eyes, struggling away from the painful memories before they could overwhelm him once more. "Yeah. Me too."

Silence. Then, "Do you remember Alliance Fleet Admiral Hackett?"

"Yes."

"He ordered the resources the humans have left to the Project. All of it. Maybe… Maybe there is still a chance…" she stopped. She wasn't believing any longer. These were their final days and she knew it from the bottom of her heart. He didn't resent it her. He had stopped believing a long time ago. There would never be a machine that magically made things right again. Such simply wasn't the design of this world.

For a few more minutes they dwelled on the rather joyful moments of the journey they had started out together with the Normandy crew and then they bid their farewells, perfectly knowing that they would not see or hear each other again. Not in this life.

Garrus picked his way through the rubble of concrete and pieces of broken down ceiling out of the carcass of the building.

Outside Talid waited with what was left of his platoon. They had believed they could withdraw to Menae's main post. Another battle lost. Another piece of hope crushed. But they would endure. Because that was what it meant to be turian. They won't turn back. Their lines won't break.

Talid nodded to him and pointed at a short range transistor radio, salvaged from a damaged truck.

"Sir, I received a transmission. It's outpost Rakasha. They're holding so far but…" he lowered his voice. "They've seen the last supply ship weeks ago."

Supplies. They were harder and harder to come by these days.

"Tell the men to gather what they can salvage from here. Then we head for Rakasha."

"There's more. My scouts returned. Something odd's cooking four leagues to the east. Might be a Reaper, and likely a form we haven't encountered so far… I have not much. They didn't want to draw too close."

"Your scouts did well. We will stay low and skirt it. Whatever it is." For now.

Talid saluted and took off to the gathered soldiers to relay the orders.

Feeling utterly empty, Garrus stared, across the barren surface, towards the horizon of Palaven's barren moon. This wasn't a battlefield. It was a tomb. They were already dead and their bodies just refused to accept.

~V~

Gone.

She didn't know how long she had floated in the cocoon, covered in soothing fluids again, but the wound that had ruptured her stomach was gone.

So was Harbinger.

Not the slightest trace of his strangely analytic intelligence was left in the minds of the drones. It was as if he had never been there in the first place. But he had been, hadn't he?

Weeks passed with her roaming restless through the Collector station waiting for Harbinger's presence to return. Weeks in which she desperately tried to understand, tried to rip the secret of what was happening from the mind of those strange insect-like creatures, yet there was just ever the same flood of crude images and primitive thoughts. Feed. Mate. Fight. Sometimes though… sometimes she thought she saw glimpses of strangely familiar images. Flashes of blood. Hatred. War. And that overwhelming sense of dread. Something had happened, something so horrible and cruel that it had became part of some crude collective memory all Collectors shared. And yet she knew. This recognition didn't stem merely from picking up their thoughts. It felt… older. Significant. Before.

And with that the dreams returned. Hazy scenes, mixing with those disturbing Collector images that left her feeling lost and confused. Sometimes the soldier with the sad hazel eyes would invade her dreams. From those she woke crying and didn't know why. After all he had tried to kill her, hadn't he? So why did killing him feel so painfully wrong? And then there would be those that made her wake up screaming, even though she could never remember much. But there was always this voice; whispering to her through the dark of night, whispering words in a language she did not know and yet had once understood. She could almost feel those words, how the low throaty timbre vibrated through her, filling her with warmth. And in this brief moment she knew: it was something from Before, something that was waiting on the other side of the barrier she never tried to pierce, something… No. She shied away. Nothing was waiting there. Nothing but pain and sorrow and darkness. And as if to prove her the warmth fled to be replaced by the cold emptiness of the space station; the voice swallowed by the distorted screams echoing through countless Collector generations brought down to her by their shared memory. She would wake, howling in anguish, the pain of millennia mixing with the own loss she felt so keenly but could neither explain nor understand. Desperately she lashed out for the comforting presence of Harbinger but of course he was not there and might never return. Had he saved her life only to abandon her? Didn't he know that she needed him?

Weeks blurred into Months.

When it wasn't flooded with adrenaline, her body ached, the countless implants stinging like open wounds. When she wasn't killing, she felt like dying herself. So whenever a ship would leave for another raid, she went with them, hunting those humans who would never hesitate for a second to put a bullet between her eyes. Her wrath was endless.

It was the only real emotion she had left.

And then it happened. One day, hovering next to the space station, there suddenly was this huge black ship that didn't look like at ship at all, and a familiar voice was filling her mind, creating a weird jumble of hatred and joy:

IT IS TIME.

~V~

Talid fell. His eyes suddenly so open as the Comm Officer turned to him in shock. And then so empty. So painfully empty.

May the Spirits shelter you, my friend, and guide you home.

There was nothing else he could do for Talid. But ironically there wasn't anything he could do for himself either. Curled on the ground right where he had fallen, Garrus could feel the life slowly but inexorably draining out from him.

Finally he tore his eyes away from the turian. No need for him to die staring at his already dead friend and… there. Garrus concentrated to sharpen his gaze. Perhaps eighty paces away a dark figure came into view and stopped at the edge of the steep surrounding the bowl where his platoon had been ambushed. Was anyone still alive? He doubted it. The bright disc of Trebia hung behind the newcomer, making it unable for him to see more than a silhouette obscured by light. It seemed different from those insect-like aliens, even vaguely female, or maybe it was a slim male. Who could tell with such creatures for sure? The figure lifted its arms and from behind a blackness rose, a dark, swirling cloud. No. No cloud. More of those insect bots. There was a strange serenity to the scene, to all the black specks moving in perfect unison with the figures' gestures. They spun around it, spiraling higher and higher until they were set off to the west. Towards Rakasha.

And so it will end, Garrus thought bitterly, the steady trickle of blood slipping through his fingers. He pressed the Medigel soaked gauze harder against his chest but the bleeding would not stop. Perhaps it was better that way. Perhaps he finally would find peace in oblivion.

He closed his eyes and it was as if he could suddenly hear her voice, shouting a command in a language he did not understand. Such comfort it was, even though he knew it was nothing but a trick of his dying mind. It didn't matter. There he was standing at the edge of the world of the living and imagined tasting her lips, the soft texture of her skin under his hands. He thought of the many times they had fought side by side, of all the enemies and dangers they had bested together. He remembered the day they met and the moment he realized that there was more than companionship between them; and, oh yeah, he recalled making love, and the incredible peacefulness that had overcome him while falling asleep in her arms afterwards. He was in her arms and drifting towards sleep now, wasn't he?

"See you on the other side, Shepard…" he whispered hoarsely and his world tumbled into darkness.

AN: Sorry if it's a bit rushed, but there's just one more chapter to go, yay! And it was never meant for anything but a shorty anyway *wink*