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Chapter Ten – Ghosts

Shepard gazed down at the report. She was aware of the Illusive Man's unwavering gaze on her, and the soft orange lights above. "Another derelict ship. Just floating around waiting for us. Right."

"Shepard," he said, and raised one languid hand. "We need its IFF device."

"I need, you mean. And yeah, I heard that part. I got it. Galactic core, Omega-4 relay. Some big fat black hole that just happens to be the Collectors' playground." Deliberately bland, she added, "Nice to know where they're hiding out, I guess. The part I'm confused about is why the hell you thought it was a good idea to send a science team into an empty Reaper."

"The gathering of information is imperative at this point."

"Yeah, and so is the survival of my squad. We're going nowhere near this thing until I'm damn sure they're ready."

"That's your prerogative, of course." The corners of his mouth tightened.

"Yeah, it is," she said in the same venomously banal tone. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm busy."

She spun away towards the stairs, and tried to quell her sudden, absurd rush of amusement. She discovered the mess hall thronged, and darted her way between two of the CIC crewmen. She eeled her way towards the smaller table near the far wall, pausing only to pour coffee. Almost indolently, she ensconced herself in an empty chair opposite Garrus.

"You look far too awake," Tali remarked, from where she sat beside Shepard.

"I've been on this ship so long I think all my shifts are just blurring into each other," Shepard said. "That and my early morning get-together with the boss was suitably invigorating."

She nodded to Taylor, where he sat further down, halfway through breakfast, and to Donnelly and Daniels. Briefly she wondered if they were going to salute her again – and God, they looked so young this morning, every morning if she let herself think about it – but they only nodded back to her.

"Anything important for today?" Garrus asked.

"Get eaten by Reapers," she shot back at him. "EDI's been pulling in a few transmissions. Drop and scout missions, mostly. It'll give us something to do for a while."

"Running errands."

"That's what being a soldier is, Vakarian," she said, and grinned. "Glorified errand boys with guns."

His eyes sparkled, and he responded, "Can't possibly be worse than the amount of time we spent running around just because Admiral Hackett decided to get in touch."

Shepard groaned. "My God, yes. That was a long, long few weeks. 'Hey, Shepard, you're in the area. Go slog through five geth bases and I might sound slightly grateful when you report back.' That or the space monkeys."

"Sorry, Commander?" Donnelly grinned and leaned forward.

"Long story," Shepard said. "Involving a downed recon probe, a stunningly beautiful planet, and small, fluffy, frolicking little creatures. And a missing data core. Fourteen hours of my life that I'll never get back."

"And you know that's the kind of shit they never talk about at bootcamp," Garrus said, his mandibles flaring into a smile.

Shepard snorted. "Maybe they should start. Make yourself useful and be ready in two hours, errand boy."

"Nice. Anyone else?"

She drained the cooling dregs of the coffee. "Yeah, talk to Krios. And see if Jack wants to slink back up to the land of the living for this one."

She hit the ground hard, and heard the roar as Saren gunned the glider. Her hand ached where she had clouted him, and her mouth felt dry and full of sand. She forced herself to move, trying to ignore the thumping in her head and that terrible, twisting agony somewhere behind her ribs. She made it through the smoking wreckage, and when she dropped heavily to her knees beside Kaidan, she swallowed.

His face was grey, eyes wide and black with pain. "Shepard? You alright?"

"Don't talk." She leaned over him. Blood shone on the stone beneath him, and she saw the ragged hole in his armour, two inches or so above his hip and still welling. "Kaidan, we have to get you up."

He shook his head, teeth gritted. "Hurts."

"I know." He's gut-shot, she thought frantically. Course it fucking hurts. "Come on. Please." She slipped an arm behind his shoulders, propped him up. The motion wrenched a gasp from him, and he stiffened. "Lean against me."

He sagged back against her arm, and she winced. "Come on. I need you on your feet. The ship's nearly here. I don't have the medi-gel to patch you up, not here." She locked her arm behind his shoulders, tried to haul him to his feet. He made it halfway, swaying, teeth clenching. "Come on, Kaidan!"

She steadied him as his weight came down on her shoulder again. She heard the familiar, low-toned thrum as the Normandy settled, light and poised. She peered through the smoke, saw figures bolting down the landing ramp, their faces blurred by the haze and the savage sting of her own sweat. She heard voices, calling for Doctor Chakwas to hurry outside, for medi-gel to be brought, for soldiers to sweep the area, to check for any geth still hiding.

Hands grasped her arms, holding her up, prying her away from Kaidan.

"We've got him, Commander." She did not recognize the voice, or the fingers wrapped around her wrists. "Let go. We've got him."

Somehow she loosened her death-grip on Kaidan's shoulder. More voices, drifting through the smoke, not quite biting into the whirl of her thoughts. The sound of footsteps against stone, ushering her back up towards the ship, towards safety, and somehow she made her feet obey. The weapon harness felt abruptly too heavy against her aching shoulders, and the whiteness streaming up from the Normandy's landing lights was searing.

"Commander?"

That voice she knew. Garrus, his normally measured tones sounding frayed. She made herself turn her head, blinking sticky eyelashes, trying to see him. "Garrus..?"

He tipped his head on one side, that much she was certain. "Commander, you look terrible. You need to go to the medbay."

She shook her head. "Can't."

She took another step, and the floor lurched alarmingly. One armoured, three-fingered turian hand caught her elbow, and she staggered, bumping against him.

"Commander." Quietly censuring, Garrus steadied her again. "You have to go and get some rest. Get cleaned up. Get some sleep. The doctor knows what she's doing."

But she hadn't, she remembered. She had shaken him off and stalked down to the medbay regardless. Stupid, she thought, and stared down at the broken-up pieces of her rifle. The scent of weapon oil filled her mouth and nose. Stupid, she thought again, stupid to have her mind all upended because of some inconsequential bullshit storytelling in the mess hall.

But still she lingered on it, the sharp brand in her memory that was Virmire, that was the day she'd killed Ash, that was the day she'd come back on board the Normandy from another of Hackett's assignments to a message from the Council.

A salarian infiltration team, they had told her, and perhaps the chance to get herself closer to Saren.

And she'd come away from it with nothing to show for it except badly bruised fingers, a full medbay and a KIA status to log.

Sleep eluded her until Chakwas' message came through, rough with exhaustion. "Come down, Commander. He's awake."

He was awake and breathing steadily and she thought he looked fucking dreadful. He was propped up, the skin around his mouth chalky, and the broad planes of his chest and stomach still swathed in bandages.

"God, Kaidan," she said, quietly. "Nobody ever tell you to dodge incoming fire?"

Painfully, he smiled. "Yeah, I know."

"You okay?"

"Yeah. We get away okay?"

"Yeah." She remembered the wrenching white blast that had flooded the sky behind the ship. "Ash is dead."

She saw him flinch, half-buried, even though he must've known.

"Yeah," Kaidan breathed. "I thought…God, Shepard. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"So am I."

The anger kept her awake through most of the night cycle. She sat cross-legged on the end of her bed, her eyes burning. When she eventually slept, she saw Saren and Sovereign and jolted awake to sweat-dampened sheets.

Her fingers slipped against the side of the rifle and she swore. Treat every mission like it might be Virmire – or Elysium, or the first time she'd taken a bullet to the ribs, or the first time she'd fucked up enough to lose a soldier – and all she'd achieve would be running herself in desperate circles, trying to second-guess everything down to her own heartbeat.

Distance and detachment and she knew there came a point where you threw it all up for fate to catch and hoped like hell it worked.

Briskly, she slotted the rifle together. She ran her hands over the cool, gleaming metal pieces, her fingertips brushing the tiny scuff marks beneath the barrel and along the stock. "EDI?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"How's the shuttle bay looking?"

"Prepped as per your request," EDI answered. "Officer Vakarian is already there."

"Of course he is." Smiling slightly, Shepard hefted her weapon harness across her shoulders. "Thanks, EDI."

Four hours later, Shepard found herself crouched behind the fallen slant of a transport wing. "Good God almighty, how long can they keep this up?"

Huddled beside her, Garrus shrugged. He glanced up at the new arc of bullet holes above them and waited for the next lull in the clamour of the gunfire. "There's a lot of them. They're stubborn."

"So am I," she replied automatically. "Jack, you hear me?"

"Still alive," Jack responded, her voice distorted by the distance. "We're up at the third archway. Place is crawling."

"Stay there."

"We've been staying here," Jack muttered.

"Stay there," Shepard said, sharper. "We'll cut them back, and you can come join us afterwards."

"Yeah, okay."

"You know," Shepard said, and glanced at her omni-tool again. "I think I could live with never, ever running into anyone wearing Eclipse armour ever again."

Garrus laughed. "Not a chance."

"Spoilsport." She tilted her head. "Hear that?"

"I hear that," he said, and pulled his rifle tighter into his shoulder.

"Okay, I go…"

"…and I got you," he said.

"If I get killed, you're at fault."

"Yeah, yeah." Gracefully, he unhooked a grenade with his free hand. He yanked the pin out with his teeth and glanced back at her. "Ready?"

"Ready," she answered.

She watched the swooping arc as the grenade swept up and plunged down again. She waited out the few seconds she needed before the thump of the explosion shook the ground, and then she was moving, vaulting over the edge of the wing and hurtling full-pelt. Without slowing, she darted between the next set of stone pillars, and into the dust haze. This close, she could hear them, men coughing and swearing and another two crying out. Garrus fired, viper-fast, and two more of them fell, hulking and almost shapeless amid the dust.

Shepard pushed on, pausing only when she had to dive into cover behind the pillars. Behind her, Garrus fired steadily. She waited again, legs braced, and watching as the haze cleared. She lifted her rifle, and a short burst of fire toppled another mercenary. Another swept a second man's feet out from under him, and her follow-up shot split his forehead.

"All clear, Shepard," Garrus said.

"Good." She leaned back against the pillar and waited, half-smiling as she watched him haul himself out into the open. "Nice shooting."

"Target practice."

"Arrogant turian," she said, almost absent-mindedly. "Jack?"

"Still here, Shepard," Jack answered. "Can we move yet?"

"Yeah, slowly. We're coming to you. Don't get excited and shoot us."

"Yeah, you wish."

Patiently, with Garrus shadowing her, she worked her way through the open area, winding between the pillars. The first archway proved to be thronged with mercenaries, and another grenade and a follow-up round of bullets cleared a path through them. The second stood nearly empty, and she looked up in time to see a surge of biotic energy as it spilled between the pillars.

"Rein it in, Jack," she called, lightly. "I like my feet on the ground."

"Yeah, okay," Jack responded. She slipped through the archway, the sharp angles of her face alight as she grinned. "Got through them all?"

"Yeah," Shepard said. "Go through the console yet?"

"Yeah, Krios has the download."

"Good." She nudged the side of Garrus' arm. "Time to go home then."

The evening brought a gentle ease-down of a work-out, reports, and eventually, Garrus, as he paused in the doorway. "Sure you're not busy?"

She glanced down at the daily log, flipped open across her knees. "You can save me from my reports, if you want."

"You're a terrible CO."

"That's insubordinate talk, turian."

"You know it." He hovered, pressing his hands together, until she motioned him closer. "Today. That was…"

"Fun?" she supplied, and grinned. "Yeah. It was. But don't tell our employer that."

"I'll keep it to myself, I promise." Garrus sat, his angular frame filling the other half of the couch beside her. "We're okay?"

He could not mean the junkyard of a planet they'd just left dotted with shrapnel, and she discovered herself smiling. "Yeah," she said, softly. "I think we are."

She shifted, lifting her booted feet onto the couch and turning so that she could look at him properly. She wrapped her arms around her shins and said, "You know what's weird? I was thinking about Virmire earlier."

"Yeah?"

"I didn't mean to. Didn't even want to. I don't know. You know when you've tried like hell not to think of something?"

"Yeah," he said. "And it rushes up at you anyway."

"Yeah. I was thinking about how it just got out of control so quickly. Sovereign. Then Saren."

Ash's name floated between them, and mercifully, he did not try to offer platitudes. She'd heard enough of those in the strained, grey days after Virmire, the days when Liara had told her she'd done her best, when the Council said she'd mostly done well, when Pressly and Joker and even Kaidan had said the same thing.

You did what you could. There was nothing you could've done. Sometimes bad choices make themselves. You did what you could.

"I was thinking," Garrus said slowly. "I was thinking about Sidonis. I know it's not the same. I just…I don't know." Helplessly, he shrugged. "Yeah. That made sense."

"It sort of did."

"Which just makes you as crazy as me."

"Have to be, to be here."

"Nah, Shepard. I'm here for the food."

She spluttered into a laugh. "You remember how pretty the beach on Virmire was?"

"Yeah. White sand and turquoise water. Shame about the secret base and the krogan army."

Absurdly, her shoulders were shaking as she laughed again. "And the sneaky-ass Reaper. This really isn't funny."

"Not at all. Though you did get to punch Saren."

"You remember that?"

"I was always slightly jealous."

"You were not," she protested. She was still laughing, quietly now, and it was making her ache. To distract herself, she braced her feet against the side of his leg. He was solid, she noticed, all muscle or plating or whatever it was underneath his faded fatigues and abruptly she found herself hunting for another distraction. "Besides, I think I nearly broke my whole hand."

"Turians are tough."

"Yeah, yeah." She grinned over crossed arms at him. "What do you think of the IFF?"

"Means to an end," Garrus said. "If we need it, we need it."

"Even though it's lurking inside an empty Reaper."

"Yeah, that's a leading statement if ever I heard one. No, I don't like the idea of going after it. I don't like that the Illusive Man has sent some Cerberus contingent in ahead of us."

"Yeah. Fuck knows what might happen."

"Shepard?" Garrus' head turned, his blue eyes level and serious. "You think he actually gets it?"

"About the Reapers? I think he gets that they're a very real threat. Yeah. He gets that. I don't know if he gets the indoctrination crap. Hell, Saren didn't get it. Not really. Or he thought he could think himself out of it or around it or whatever."

"He thought it was the same as surrender," Garrus said, quietly. "Sort of. Or part of a surrender that he thought he was making. That it could end up a negotiation."

"God, Garrus. You actually listened to him?"

"I took notes," he said, deadpan.

"Funny."

"Yeah," Garrus said. He lifted his hand, shrugged, and dropped his hand into his lap again. "The Illusive Man thinks it's a dead ship?"

"Yeah. You want to come with me for that one?"

"Uncharted territory, dead Reapers, and the galactic core. Remind me again why I'm here?"

Shepard snorted. "To save the galaxy, blow shit up and waste time in my inestimable company?"

Garrus laughed. "Something like that."

"Yeah? You got any better offers?"

"Not right now," he answered, wryly.

She swung her feet back onto the floor. "It's a fair way down my to-do list. If it's going to be a colossal fuck-up, I'd rather it be one that we get through still breathing."

"Yeah."

She let the silence pool between them again, somehow tremulous and peaceful at the same time. As wordlessly, she leaned into the press of his shoulder and he met her halfway, turning so that the side of his arm touched hers.

"Hey," he said. "When did we start doing this?"

"I'm not sure," she said, and it was only half true. Unaccountably, something very like nervousness tightened in her belly. "Is it okay?"

"Yeah," he answered, softly. "It's okay."