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Chapter Eight – Tempest
"You know," Garrus said, and reached for the small flashlight on the bench. "I do have my own work to be doing."
"Yes," Tali answered, half-muffled, from where she was crouched beneath the Hammerhead's battered flank. "But when this poor lump of metal left the hangar yesterday, it was fine. Now look at it."
"How is it my fault? I was shooting, not flying."
"Yes, but you're here."
"Slave-driver," Garrus muttered, and passed her the flashlight.
"I know. Here, come and hold this."
Obediently, he knelt and braced one of the panels up. He could see the black scorched rings that crossed the side and disappeared beneath the flat hull. "There was lava," he told her. "You should probably be thankful it didn't melt."
"Very funny."
Lava and steep, jagged terrain and fifteen hours spent darting between grey-walled complexes. The request had dropped in from the Illusive Man two days prior and Garrus hadn't quite been able to suppress the thought that the timing was too damn good. Another Cerberus errand run to keep them busy, and he almost wished their employer would stop calling them requests. Still, at least they'd barreled through the last complex in time to unhook the poor bastard who'd had his brain pried apart and turned into something that was half tech interface.
When Tali nodded, he lowered the panel again, propping it in place so that she could fasten it. He helped her with the other side of the transport next, plying apart a wiring cluster with both hands.
"How's Shepard?"
"Better," he answered without thinking. "Yeah. Better."
"Good." Deftly, Tali twisted the ends of the cluster apart. "Did you talk about Freedom's Progress?"
"A little."
"It was terrible. My squad," Tali said, and sighed. "I suppose I didn't think they'd be that stupid. They bolted on ahead and wouldn't listen."
"You can't always fix stupid," Garrus replied. "Sometimes things go wrong."
Tali laughed, slightly bleakly. "That's your considered opinion?"
"Sometimes it's the only way of thinking through it."
"Yes," Tali said, softer. "I know what you mean."
Absently, he watched the nimble motion of her fingers as she patched the wiring cluster into place. "All done?"
"Yes, thank you."
He straightened up. "You're welcome."
Three hours later, Garrus meandered towards his quarters. He'd go over some gear, he figured, before taking himself down to the mess hall for dinner. He keyed the door open and methodically, he worked his way across his armour, checking each gleaming piece out of habit. As briskly, he went over the weapon rack. When his stomach informed him he should probably be making tracks for the mess hall, he gave in and turned away from the silvery lines of the sniper rifle.
His omni-tool flared, and carelessly, he pulled the message screen up.
He looked at it, scowled, and read it again.
The Citadel, he thought, and his mind went flat with anger.
Sidonis was on the Citadel.
Slow down, he thought. He needed to be sure, he needed to read the damn message again. He needed to ask for clarification, maybe a security cam shot, evidence. This was a rumour from an old contact and it probably couldn't be verified and he needed to calm his racing pulse and think.
He needed to be practical, needed to think his way through this, and he here was, standing stock-still with a stone in his gut and his thoughts swimming madly.
If Sidonis was on the Citadel then he could be found. He could be found and he could be hunted down because Garrus knew every damn corridor and ward and small cramped space on the entire fucking station.
Fingers shaking, he tapped out a brusque reply. Afterwards, he sat, his knees almost giving way beneath him. Shepard, he thought. He needed to tell her. Tell her what? Tell her he'd gotten a scrap of a message that might lead to nothing?
Besides, she was off ship, he knew, chasing some Cerberus beacon or transport or whatever it was. She'd told him, along with something flippant about being their whipping boy again, and he'd said something back.
He was damned if he could remember what it was.
"Vakarian? Got some time?"
"Sidonis." He nodded, did not look up from the ammunition boxes, two of them upended and the contents strewn across the bench. "What is it?"
"I've got some good news."
This time, he did look up, into Sidonis' hesitant yellow eyes. "What kind of good news?"
"I've found you your contact."
Except he had not, and all that waited for him after Sidonis' deal was a false lead and five heavily armed mercenaries, and the terrible awareness that something had gone wrong.
He rammed his shoulder against the door again, and again until it grated inward slightly. He wrestled himself through the gap and into the metallic stink of spilled blood and smoke. The floor was glossy beneath his feet and the smell hit him like a punch to the throat.
He had to check through them all and he didn't know who to start with so he knelt by the nearest – Mierin, it was Mierin, a fist-sized hole still welling at the back of his head – and fumbled at his collar. He called the others' names, but he couldn't hear any of them breathing. Breathing, or trying to move, or trying to claw their way upright like he knew injured men did.
His throat felt filled with sand. Somehow he moved onto the next one – Erash, another ugly gunshot kill – and the next and the next. Their names fell from his mouth, hollow syllables. His hands scrambled along Sensat's collar, and when he found no pulse there either, he realised he was numb. Shaking slightly, and barely aware that he was pushing his tongue against the back of his teeth, his mouth all full of the scent of their deaths.
He touched Monteague's shoulder, and when he slipped his arm beneath Monteague's neck, he was rewarded with a faint, shuddering sigh. He grabbed at the medi-gel packets at his waist and used his teeth to wrench one open, and when he looked back down, Monteague's eyes were half-closed. Awkwardly, Garrus pulled his arm free and made himself check Monteague's throat and wrist, just to make sure.
He crouched beside Butler last, his shoulders trembling and his breathing coming in fast, uneven jerks. Gently, he cupped a hand beneath Butler's head and turned him.
"Garrus?"
"Yeah," he said, and swallowed. "I'm here."
Butler's chest was a blood-soaked ruin, and Garrus knew he wouldn't last. Not with the way he could see the white curves of bone showing through. Not with the way Butler's fingers were wrapping around his wrist, hard and punishing. He shifted, kneeling properly so that he could lift Butler's head against the side of his leg. He stayed like that, his hands holding Butler's head in place so that the man could look at him.
He wanted to say that he was sorry, that he should've been more careful, should've been sharper, smarter. He wanted to say that Sidonis was going to pay for every single death in this room.
Butler's mouth moved again, and Garrus held on until his body stopped shuddering. For too long, he knelt there with his hands tightening and loosening, his gaze on Butler's slack face.
When he stood – eventually, painfully – he was breathing too fast.
He needed to think. He needed to be out of this room and taking what was useful and getting himself away.
Somehow he stepped between the crumpled shapes that had been his squad and made it across to the gear lockers. He nearly dropped the first ammo pack, and the others he had to fight onto the slots along the sides of his weapon harness. He grabbed rations next, and more medi-gel packets, and the long-bladed combat knife Weaver had preferred.
He turned away from them, and somewhere between the door and the grey space of the corridor outside, he remembered that he had to explain it all.
But he wasn't sitting behind his desk at C-Sec and he didn't have the time to put together any of those dreadful condolences letters. Most of them had family off-station, and some of them had never mentioned any connections at all – hell, he'd been taciturn about his own – but he was the only one still breathing and it was his damn job.
Butler, he thought, and settled his rifle firmly against his shoulder. His hands were still trembling, but his heartrate had settled a little.
Butler was married, he was sure. Butler'd had a wife, and they'd put up with life in some grubby tenement on the station, neck-deep in the crap that was Omega because they were waiting to go home.
"EDI?"
The response was almost instant, her blue sphere flicking on beside the door. "Yes, Garrus?"
"Shepard back yet?"
"No."
"Could you let me know when she gets in?"
"Of course, Garrus."
"Thanks."
The sphere winked out again, and he wondered if he'd imagined the slight softness in her voice.
Waiting, he thought. That was all he had left to do, and already he hated it. He'd been trained – well, he'd had it drummed into his skull – that discipline was the trick, calming jangled nerves with steady breathing and forcing out every prickling uncomfortable thought.
Stupid, he thought. He'd waited days on that fucking bridge. He'd fled up to the boxed-in eyrie and when he'd been damn certain the bridge behind him was clear, he'd settled himself in and yanked up his omni-tool and set about the grim business of sending messages.
He'd started with Butler's wife.
Garrus sat on the edge of the bed with his fingers wreathed together. He'd stopped counting minutes and ended up counting the unsteady thump of his own heartbeat instead. When EDI glowed into life again, he was on his feet before she could speak.
"Commander Shepard is in her cabin," EDI said. "Shall I ask her to meet you?"
"No, thanks, EDI. I'll do it."
"Very well."
He paused, his hand hovering over his comm console. "Hey, Shepard?"
"Yeah?" she responded, almost immediately.
"I, ah," he said, and the words dried up in his throat. "Can you come down here?"
"On my way."
Garrus paced until she knocked at the door. "Shepard?"
"Yeah, it's me." She stepped over the threshold, pushing one hand through disheveled dark hair. Her head lifted, and her eyes found his, and she said, "What's wrong?"
"Wrong?" he echoed, stupidly.
"You look terrible."
"I thought you could never tell."
"You're stalling," she told him.
"I, ah," he said again. When she simply waited for him to speak, he muttered, "It's Sidonis."
Shepard's face hardened. "Go on."
"He's on the Citadel," he said, and somehow his voice stayed even. "An old acquaintance threw me a message. I wasn't expecting it."
"And you're sure it's him?"
"That's the first thing I thought. Well, almost the first thing. Yeah. Come here, I'll show you."
She curled herself beside him, cross-legged and with one elbow braced against her knee.
"First message," he said, and paused while her gaze jumped to his omni-tool screen. "After I worked myself into a foul mood, I messaged back for clarification."
He flicked the screen over to the next message, the rushed set of pictures. Shepard's eyes narrowed, and she said, "This is him?"
"Yeah."
"You're sure?" She shot him a sidelong grin, lopsided. "I mean, I can pick you out of a crowd, but that's only because I know you."
He barked out a laugh. "Funny. Yeah. This is him."
"And Fade?" She gestured at the screen again. "What's that about?"
"Fade's a forger. Slippery bastard. Might even be more than one person." Garrus snapped the omni-tool off. It was easier, now, somehow, to talk about it, to hear the words as they floated between them. "He'll have given Sidonis a nice shiny new identity to walk around with." Easier to say Sidonis' name. "We tracked Fade into a dozen dead-ends," Garrus added. "Whoever he is, he's damn smart. Knows more about C-Sec than C-Sec internal affairs does."
"We'd have any chance at getting to him?"
"I say we try. I'm not at C-Sec anymore. You're still a Spectre. Tricky bastard he might be, but Fade is still Citadel through and through." He nudged her, and added, "You're okay with this?"
"And let you go off on your own if I say no?" She looked at him, her eyes dark and implacable. "Hell, Garrus. You need to do this, then we get it done."
"Thanks," he said, softly. "That means a lot, Shepard."
"Yeah, well. Keep it to yourself. Wouldn't do for people to know I've actually got a soul."
"Very funny."
"Tell me about Sidonis."
"He was a scout and a damn good shot. Calm under fire." Garrus heard the frayed note in his own voice. "Joined us because he said he was tired of seeing Omega sink even deeper into its own shit."
She said nothing, only turned towards him slightly, and the words spilled from his mouth, hurried and tripping over each other and aching.
"I should've noticed. He was damn twitchy that whole day. I should've seen it. Should've said something. Done something." He exhaled, slowly and raggedly. "Got back and he was gone and they were all dead. Dying. Eight of them already dead. I should've seen it. So. There it is. Thanks, Shepard."
"For what?"
"For not saying anything."
Very gently, she leaned her head against the side of his shoulder, and he wondered at the strange, curling warmth that eased through him.
"How do you keep going with it?"
"I don't know," Shepard answered. "Put the armour back on and go back out. And sometimes, we're lucky enough to be able to put an end to some things."
"Yeah," he said, and some of the tension emptied from him. "I guess sometimes we are."
"Do you know how you want to play this yet?"
"One shot, and then we get out of there very quickly," he responded.
"You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure." His voice roughened, and he added, "I know the Citadel. We can be in and out and C-Sec can chase themselves in circles."
"I know that," Shepard said. "I just want you to be sure."
"Yeah. I know."
"Okay," she said, and when she vaulted back onto the floor, she punched his shoulder lightly. "I'll go bully Joker into a course change. You figure out how you want this to go."
"Yeah. Shepard?"
She paused, one hand fanned out beside the door. "Yeah?"
"Thanks."
She smiled over her shoulder. "I heard you the first time."
Shepard sat with her hands wrapped around a mug and an empty breakfast tray beside her elbow. At the far end of the table, Jack growled something at Donnelly, and Shepard was vaguely aware of his laughing, amused response.
Closure, she thought. Damn hard to get a hold of, for anyone, and she wondered why she felt uneasy.
Sure, sometimes fate upped and helped out, and she remembered with cold clarity that day on that dustball of a planet – Agebinium, she thought – when she had found herself lining up a shot on Elanos Haliat.
She had dreamed of Elysium that night, she recalled, that night and too many others afterwards. The sky all full of fire and her throat shredded raw while she screamed orders at shit-scared civilians and tried until she was exhausted to get them to move where she needed them.
And how after the pick-up and the debrief and the congratulations and the medal, Elysium had retreated somewhere in the back of her thoughts.
Until that day, that small inconsequential day on that planet when she had squeezed the trigger until Haliat was nothing more than bleeding meat and Kaidan had grabbed her arm and wrenched her away.
Putting down ghosts, her old platoon sergeant had called it, during a groundside trek through steep-sided jungle hills. They'd all been tipsy and tired and dripping wet with the humidity and exhaustion, and the words had filled the damp evening air.
"Hey," Garrus said, from somewhere behind her.
"Hey yourself," she responded. She twisted around in her chair and saw that he was already in his armour, the soft light of his visor curving across his face. "Definitely dutiful."
"Funny."
Deliberately lazily, she pushed herself away from the table. She could feel the coiled tension in him, in the steely set of his shoulders, in the way his blue gaze was fierce and hawkish and unblinking. They had an hour, just, she guessed, until Joker danced the ship between the huge span of the Citadel's arms. "You want to talk plans?"
"Yeah," Garrus answered, clipped.
"Okay. My quarters?"
"Fine."
In her cabin, she fastened her armour on, piece by piece, reflexively yanking one of the buckles tighter. "Talk to me, Garrus."
"You and me. Just you and me. Is that okay?"
"If that's what you want. If it is, then we take it as fucking slow as we need to. I know the Citadel is your turf, but I don't want to get swamped."
"Yeah," he said. He quartered the floor again and glared at the empty blue glow of the aquarium. "Okay. Then we take Taylor and we have him close behind us."
"Okay," she said, and part of her understood. Sidonis was his, a piece of the past that was only his, and she knew that somewhere along the way, revenge and responsibility mirrored each other.
"We'll check at C-Sec. Ask about Fade. Go from there. If we have to, we can comb through the place ward by ward until we find him or Sidonis or both of them."
"Okay." Fluidly, Shepard swung her weapon harness onto her shoulders. "You ready?"
"Yeah," Garrus said. "I'm ready."
