He reeled back mentally at the sound of her voice, it rushed through his senses like a river, washing away the last of his doubts of her very actual, very real presence. His arms pulled her closer and he rested his chin on top of her head, rumbling at himself. How had he forgotten this? How perfectly his body aligned with hers. He said in a voice low and full of awe, "You're like a god now."

She chuffed at his neck and pulled back to look at him in consternation, her mouth shaping words with difficulty, "There...are no...gods, Garrus."

He stared in wonder, feeling that there was some things that were just too big to understand and this, this fundamental rearranging of how he viewed the universe was a difficult one to follow. "What happened to you?"

Shepard shook her head and shaped words that weren't audible and she grimaced in frustration, making fists of her hands. He could see that she struggled with this inability to communicate exactly what she meant, she'd never had this difficulty before. She spoke with rueful disdain for her inadequacy, "Not...death. Changed."

He took her hand in his, drawing his talons lightly over her palm, feeling how solid it was and yet, there was also a sense that it was immaterial somehow. "I don't understand, but I see you here, impossible as it is. What were those serpents?"

"They want...mind. I can't...give." Her brows drew down, "Made...promise."

It reminded him painfully of the thing that had so destroyed him in London, her falseness concerning him and he stepped away with a wince. Her hand glided up to reach for him, but dropped in helplessness. He met her eyes with all the anguish that was the only thing she'd left him with, "Why did you leave me behind? The truth, Jane."

Her mouth worked, but no sound came out and she clenched her teeth in a rictus of self loathing, fists coming up to beat herself in the temples. Alarmed, he took her wrists in his hands to make her stop and she whimpered, her voice hoarse with emotion, "No..words yet. Learning...again."

Garrus let it go for now and turned his mind to something that she might be able to tell him, he watched her carefully as he asked, "What happened to the Reapers?"

She smiled softly and gestured vaguely in an expanding arc above her head, "They went...out."

Out, a word that seemed to carry significance in the way she said it that was lost on him and he shook his head at her, feeling small and ignorant. And being unable to help himself, he drawled, "What, like, for drinks? Afterlife must be crowded."

She tugged at his mandible with a laugh and he smiled, just glad to feel her warmth again. Hear her laugh again. Then she was gone again, in her inexplicable fashion and he heard something tickling the periphery of his awareness. Something almost musical.


The sound of children laughing was pleasantly adding a sense of peace to the day as he and his nephew lined up shots behind the house. Marcus was getting pretty good, Garrus was pretty sure that he hadn't been able to shoot as accurately at nine years of age, but then he'd had no tutor. He heard distant splashing and hoped that his sister was watching her kids out there in that lagoon that might or might not have big swimming snakes in it. He'd seen them once or twice since that episode with Shepard, they hovered at the edges almost nervously, for want of her presence.

Thankfully, there was no sign of them this week, the week his family had decided to come visit. It had become a tradition for them to arrive on the spring solstice, nevermind that this planet had a perennial summer, at least in the location he'd put his house, near the equator. His sister and brother in law took over the house as they usually did, cleaning and cooking for him despite his protests that he could take care of himself and that he didn't want to be a poor host by making his guests do all the work. They ignored him and he mused to himself that one was never an authority not to be questioned in one's own family.

Marcus waited patiently for his uncle to comment on the latest series of shots, aware that Garrus had drifted off in thought. Garrus shook himself and said with a warm smile, "Nine out of ten, not bad, not bad. You've been doing those exercises I taught you, right?"

His nephew frowned, "Of course, uncle. Though, I don't know why I have to do them. I don't need them to shoot well."

"Which tells me that you've neglected doing them once or twice." Garrus chuckled at the look of chagrin on Marcus' face, "It's okay. Break the rules sometimes, it's good to remember that you can. The exercises are for when your enemy gets too close for the sniper rifle, which, I'll tell you, will happen from time to time."

"But if I plan it right, that'll never happen." Marcus said, reproachfully.

"Chances are even if you plan for every foreseeable contingency, there will always be surprises on the battlefield. You have to have a plan B...and a plan C. Hell, plan up to F, if you can. Strategies have to stay fluid or they will shatter like brittle metal and then what do you have?" He prodded the boy, whose face was already losing its childish luster, whose fringe was already growing into glassy spikes. Soon he'd have to pick his markings, father or mother. Garrus hoped for the latter, but no turian would dare take this decision away from a child.

"Fuck all." Garrus laughed to hear the expletive from the somber boy, whose grim countenance broke into a wide grin at the sight of his dour old uncle laughing.

"That's right, fuck all. A whole lot of fuck all." He clapped the young man on the back, as he was now, only six years from joining the military and already so formidable. "Let's go see what your siblings are up to."

They stood as one and put away the rifles for now, there would be time later for practice. He watched the boy out of the corner of his eye as they walked around the house, feeling pride and joy at how straight those diminutive shoulders were and he bumped his nephew with an elbow, "Probably best not to use that word around your mom."

Marcus shot him a look that said, Do you think I'm stupid? Of course not.

Sol stood at the water's edge and watched her children play in the shallows, admonishing them when they ventured out too far. Garrus stood beside her as Marcus ran into the waves with a shout, splashing his siblings, his visor a blinding circle in the sun. Sol laughed and turned to him, "You know, he doesn't even take it off to go to bed any more. Sound familiar?"

Garrus ducked his head and said with a sheepish grin, "Yeah, that visor was almost a part of me."

"Whatever happened to it?" She said curiously.

"It got...destroyed, after the war. While we were shipwrecked on that dirtball I told you about."

"Shame. You could always get another one."

"No, it was one of a kind. Had sentimental value." In his mind, he felt it under his hand, his fingers traced the names and with a cold shock of realization, he looked at his nephew. Would he be faced with such horrifying tribulations? He hoped not, he hoped for gentler times ahead and quailed at the thought of all the bad things that could happen. He noticed Sol glancing back at the house and said, "If you've got something to do, I can watch them."

She shot him a look of gratitude before scooting off. He smiled and turned to watch the kids play in the water, they were so brave. They challenged each other to go further, or faster and it was like he was watching a microcosm that was an analog to the greater scheme of the galaxy. They strove and it gladdened him to no small degree to see it.

After some time, they finally tired of the ocean and came to sit with him on the beach and he showed them how to shape the sand into castles and fortifications and they played war in the twilight of the evening, using rocks for units. His niece, Damalia tugged at his shirt, it was the gaudy one from Hawaii, and said, "Who's the lady?"

He shot a look around and didn't see Shepard, but one of his other nephews, Paulus pointed up past him. Garrus turned and saw a white dot in the far distance, looking down from the south promontory and smiled. Marcus looked and blinked, Garrus knew he was tightening the magnification on his visor, and the young turian said in surprise, "She's a human."

Garrus rubbed the back of his neck as he looked into five pairs of curious eyes, saying with a reluctance born of uncertainty, "She's the spirit of this place."

"A spirit?" The youngest, Lucia, asked, eyes huge metallic grey mirrors in her face and he saw himself in them, an old soldier with too many stories. He saw how they hung on his every word. How to decide what to say and what not to say?

He sighed, "Can you keep a secret, kids?"

They all nodded vigorously and he smiled at their earnest expressions, "Good, because you wouldn't want to worry your mom and dad, would you? They worry enough, don't they."

This was met with more nods and a touch of expectant impatience. He looked into their eyes as he spoke, "Her name is Jane and she's the spirit of war."

They gasped, shooting looks at that far figure and Marcus said thoughtfully, "Jane...Like the Shepard."

Garrus frowned, 'the' Shepard, it boded ill to start putting 'the' in front of things, it sounded cult-ish. "Shepard was a woman, mortal, like you and me."

Suitably reprimanded, Marcus ducked his head, but Damalia said, her eyes keenly insightful, pointing toward that jutting promontory, "Is that the Shepard, though?"

"You know how there's that part of you that watches? A part that's bigger somehow?" Garrus saw them think it through. Marcus nodded almost immediately and he closed his eyes as he said, "Well, I think that that is the part of her that watched, protected."

They grew silent and still at this, every eye half closed in thought. He continued in hushed tones, "Every one of us is more than the sum of our parts. That out there that you see, she is one of us, just the same as all of us. And she wouldn't want to be worshiped. Don't let her be."

Marcus hummed in assent, "Because it would be a...uh..."

He knew the word the boy was searching for and Garrus nodded, "An injustice. That's right."

They smiled in understanding and he looked into every brilliant face, faces filled with dreams and knew that they were all greater for having been delivered this truth and it humbled him that he was the one to do so. Who was lucky enough to do so.

Marcus grunted in surprise, "She's gone."

Garrus laughed to see the astonishment on his nephews' and nieces' faces, "Yeah, she does that. And now, kiddies, to dinner and then bed and remember about your promise."

They all groaned and muttered assent, clambering over each other to get inside the house and with one last longing look at the promontory, he followed.


He slept in the quiet house, empty of loving relatives and good friends, his heart feeling a peace it hadn't known for many a year when a sound intruded upon his pleasant reverie. It caught at his mind seductively and he woke with a start, curious as to what uncanny event he was to witness now. He dressed quickly, almost eagerly and left the house by the front door. There was quiet, not the crushing silence that had heralded Shepard's arrival, but a hush as though the world was holding its breath in anticipation.

Shepard stood thigh deep in the surf, her hair catching the light of the moons in a fiery glitter and he saw before her kneeling on the sand, the bowed shoulders of a familiar red leather clad asari. He strode toward them, tilting his head to listen as some sort of music filled the air, just out of conscious hearing. The two women were talking in low tones, he saw that Shepard was weeping gentle tears that were in contrast to her sweet smile as she looked down upon her friend.

"Please, an end. I can't bear it any more." Samara's smooth tones had a weary, broken edge to them, she lifted her palms in entreaty. "My daughters, my beautiful daughters..."

"For you, anything." Shepard's soft voice had the undertones of monumental power in them that almost made his knees buckle and he watched her slim hands touch Samara's shoulders and some indescribable thing happened in a flash of emerald light and the suddenly empty body of the justicar slumped to the ground. Garrus was buffeted by the sensation of something unfurling, something like that globe that delivered Shepard to him. An invisible sense of vastness reaching out and out in newfound wonder.

He was then overcome by a sharp sense of reluctance as the presence turned its attention back to them, like it wanted to leave, but felt that it shouldn't and Shepard, face to the moons said in soft, but ringing tones, "No. Go find it."

With a soundless shout of exultation, the sensation of its presence abrupty disappeared, as swift as a thunderclap, the supernaturalness of it drained from the world, until all that was left on that beach was Shepard and Garrus, and the rapidly cooling body that used to house Samara. He approached hesitantly as Shepard turned to face the horizon past all the moonlit water, saw her shoulders quake and wrapped her in an embrace. He rumbled against her ear, "Samara's gone."

"Yes. She's gone." Shepard put her warm hands, the hands that had just killed her friend, upon his arms and he shuddered at the feeling of something unknowable writhing just under the skin of her palms.

"Is she a spirit like you now?" He nuzzled her hair, trying to comfort her.

"No, Garrus." She sighed, with a touch of grief and some other emotion he wasn't able to discern, "Spirits are the ones who stay."

"I thought you said there are no gods." He squeezed her tighter for a moment, her solidity comforting.

"There are none. There are beings..." Shepard gestured to try to illustrate what she meant, but words failed her again and she sighed, "...but they are not infallible. Far from it."

"Are there many?" He asked, wondering if they had a surplus of gods on hand he hadn't been aware of, if so where were they when they were needed most?

She smiled sadly, he could see it in the curve of her cheek, her words came as a whisper, "No. Once, but now there's just me. Just one to carry the spark."

He huffed in mock exasperation, ruffling that gloriously soft hair that drifted down to tickle his mandible, "I see that death made you cryptic."

She laughed, "There is no death, Garrus. Only change, only magnitudes of existence, greater and lesser spheres and each one as true and valid as anything could be."

He stilled as he mulled this over, he realized that he was probably the only person in existence, well, in this sphere anyway, who was privy to the secrets of the universe, and he caught her eye with a mischievous grin, "So what's the meaning of life?"

She laughed, "You always did want the answer to the tough ones, didn't you?"

He reveled in her laughter and chuckled, "The difficult things are the only ones worth doing. You know that."

They stood in comfortable silence, the waves lapping at their legs gently. He saw serpents dancing on the horizon, they'd made it their nightly ritual to come beg her audience whenever she was there and she made a noise of sympathy for the titans who swam in their blue oceans. He said quietly, "What did you mean by they wanted...mind?"

She stayed silent for a long time, uncertainty in the set of her shoulders, "Consciousness is a gift that all beings of a certain...magnitude want. A gift I can give, if I was free to."

"And why aren't you free?" He goaded her gently and she stiffened in his arms.

"Because...I swore not to. Not until it was time." She reached out to those beasts that aspired to become more than beasts and he felt a pull from her and heard an answering roar from the serpents past the reef. "There is no giving without losing and I can't afford to be too generous or there'll be nothing left. Nothing to hold back-"

She stopped herself and beseeched him with her eyes for respite and he swallowed the lump that was in his throat, he caught her gaze as he spoke the question that was above all others in his mind, "Why did you lie to me? Why did you leave me behind?"

She turned swiftly and cupped his face with her hands, "Your song wasn't finished. Keeping my promise to you had greater consequences to me than even this. And I was too selfish to sacrifice you to my purposes. Purposes that I didn't understand fully then."

"And now? Was it a mistake?" He begged her with his eyes to tell him yes, that she would have wanted him to join her in this new existence.

"No. Even had I known, I would have made the same choice." She watched her words devastate him and tears flowed down from her eyes. "And if things hadn't changed for the worst, I never would have come back."

It was brutal, but true and he shook with suppressed emotion, feeling the ghost of his terrible rage rise within him and he said, voice shaky with bitterness, "Then why did you?"

She wiped her eyes with the palms of both her hands and he stepped away from her, not trusting himself to be calm with her so close. She whispered, "For you, always for you. You were dimming, your light was diminishing and it was all my fault. I am cruel to have used you so. For not being true. Your heart was something I hurt so badly. I was a poor custodian of it."

Her gaze was drawn to his wrist and she winced with pain and anger that was turned inward. He rocked on his feet, swaying from the tides of conflict within him and he said hoarsely, "I burned it."

"I saw." So short a response, but he could see how it tore at her and his heart ached within him at the thought of her witnessing that act of hate so long ago now.

How had they come to this? After all they'd been through together, it had been so treacherously easy for complete and utter devotion and love to turn to bitterness and hate. The realization rocked him, it was furious, the passion they'd shared. And because it had been so passionate a feeling of love, the lack of it had been just as passionate. Love and hate, they were twins with the same temperament. It was hard to tell them apart from a distance. They consumed.

He shuddered in the passing of it over his skin, the hate he used to harbor for her and willed it away, the stubborn devil that had stolen into his flesh. Shepard watched him struggle, almost helplessly, and opened her mouth. He held up his hand, and begged in a small tight voice, "Please, no more...revelations, for now. It's too much."

She nodded understanding, tears falling with each dip of her head and she made to step away. Garrus lunged out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her to him fiercely, and pressed his mouthplates over her lips, felt her gasp in surprise and rumbled at her in tormented love. She melted against him, arms coming around to hold him to her tightly, clinging desperately to him even as she slowly de-materialized, leaving him with an armful of air and the lingering heat of her kiss. The wind played over his face as he slowly opened his eyes and straightened, dropping his arms.

He sighed gustily, not knowing what to make of it all. He ran a shaky hand over his fringe, heart thumping wildly in his chest. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Samara's crumpled corpse and went to it, gathering it to his chest, cold and empty. He whispered in one of her aural canals, "I hope you find peace, Samara."

But a wash of uncertainty brought him painful awareness that Shepard wasn't at peace, maybe there was no peace to be found. Ever.