The colonists who met their shuttle all seemed so, so tired.
"We don't know what went wrong. There was an explosion—sort of—and then the relay just went dark. We've had a couple teams up there, but we've really just been trying to survive."
It was the same refrain with anyone they talked to. Exhaustion, confusion, survival. This was always followed soon after by something along the lines of:
"You're Shepard's crew, right? Do you know where she is? Is she with you?"
Garrus had been managing to hold it together so far.
But now, he'd found an abandoned prefab house (there were far too many of them), hacked the door to lock behind him, and then he'd sat down on the cold, dusty bed, and put his head in his hands.
Yes, he was Shepard's crew. No, he didn't know where she was. No, she wasn't with him.
Spirits take it all.
For four months he'd been driving himself forward, to Shepard, always to Shepard. To his girlfriend, his mate, his love. He'd kept himself going with the promise that as soon as they returned to civilization, she'd be there. He'd given her an order.
She wasn't gone. She couldn't be gone. Not again.
He couldn't keep himself from thinking about it.
It was like Omega.
No, it was worse than Omega.
He still had hope this time.
It hurt.
No one here knew what had happened, either. There had been no communication from Earth. It seemed like all long-range comms were down. They had tried to repair what they could, and they'd recently managed to get planet-wide communication working again, but they had had to focus on food, water, shelter, and medical aid.
Which was all well and good, but it left him no closer to Shepard than he was before.
He knew his duty. It was his place to help, to fix, to build. He was a turian, and beyond that, he was part of Shepard's crew – and beyond that, he was part of this galaxy, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to patch it up after it had fallen apart. What kind of a turian would he be if he didn't? Spirits, he wasn't that bad of a turian.
He fell back onto the bed, then turned onto his side and grabbed the thin pillow, holding it tight against his cowl. He wanted Shepard. He'd been keeping himself from falling apart by way of his promise to himself that he'd see her again soon … hold her again soon … touch her … run his talons through her hair … hear the soft voice that she only used with him …
He buried his face in the pillow, which still smelled faintly of a human woman – but not Shepard – and he keened softly.
He was very bad at compartmentalizing when it came to Shepard.
Tali was suggesting the Normandy go to the mass relay as soon as possible. EDI concurred. The colonists on Eden Prime had luckily had a small, but not insignificant, amount of dextro-friendly rations; he and Tali wouldn't starve for another month or two, but they were already in semi-precarious health. Both the turian and the quarian had lost weight: the rest of the crew had, too, but it was most noticeable in them – especially Tali, whose enviro-suit hung loosely on her frame. Garrus considered it a miracle that she hadn't come down with anything yet.
Garrus was caught between wanting to simply lie there, close his eyes, fall asleep, and hope to meet Shepard for a drink… and getting up, walking back to the Normandy's landing site, and helping to organize the tech team that would be going to the relay in the next day or two.
He groaned, forced himself up from the bed, and set the pillow back in place.
There's no Shepard without Vakarian.
And if Shepard could still be there, Vakarian sure as hell wasn't going to chance letting her down.
His left mandible flicked out in a tiny smile. If he did let her down, he was sure he'd be buying the first round of drinks.