Chapter Eleven

Outprocessing

"Why aren't you packing any armor?" Garrus asked from his chair beside the door. He'd completely fried the lock from the inside, and had melted the grating to the vent with the heatsink to his rifle.

Once Kai realized he couldn't get in, he'd started banging on the door, screaming. "Vakarian! Damnit, you can't take her!" They were both ignoring him.

"Because I'm packing my token turian?" Shepard shrugged, folding another jacket to put in her small crate. She went out of her way to make sure she was almost completely covered. She'd even put her gloves back on, though it was just the two of them in the room.

He didn't care. Why couldn't he just tell her he didn't care? "Not that I'm not happy affirmative action has made it possible for me to be a meatshield… but no weapons? Not even a side-arm?"

"I am a weapon." Shepard started pulling on a pair of boots that looked suspiciously like Jack's had. He remembered the two of them had gone shopping on the Citadel years ago, but he didn't know they'd gotten matching outfits. Probably because Jack would have killed anyone who found out. "I practically have to check my fists when-"

"He doesn't let you keep any, does he?" Shepard focused very intently on the buckles to her shoes. "You have to have something. A knife, a stunner…" Shepard tapped the heels of her shoes on the floor, still not looking at him. "You're not saying anything because the room is bugged, right? Why take away your weapons and leave your biotic amp?"

Shepard inhaled sharply and bit her lip, glancing at him, and where he imagined the bugs in the room were. Of course she'd know where they were. "We don't have to talk about this now." She grabbed her crate, and walked over to put it on the ground beside him. From best friend to bell boy in point five seconds. You're making real progress, Garrus.

Shepard turned away from him to run her hands through her hair. She stared at her cryotank, and mumbled, "We'll have to take it with," but kept her hands in hair, holding it up, away from her ne-…

Garrus blinked, stunned. She didn't have a biotic amp. She'd put them all in stasis without any effort and without an amp. He'd asked how bad it was… Garrus was beginning to realize he had no idea.

"Think it'll fit in the Mako?" She asked, turning around and dropping her hair. She raised an eyebrow at him, but the question clearly had a double meaning. Are you sure you want to do this?

"Seems like a tight fit, but I'm sure we'll be fine-" Garrus coughed loudly. Damnit. Sex Jokes I've Accidently Made Around Shepard: 2.

He went over to the tank to keep from looking at her, and started dissembling it from the room. They could get a small frigate, load the Mako on it, and use its power cells to keep the cryotank active at night. Simple. If the old model Mako could power turret generators, Garrus was sure the new model could manage a single cryotank.

He'd unhooked most of it when he noticed strange markings on its base. Otherwise, it was unnaturally blank, obviously a Cerberus prototype. The markings looked like they'd been crudely scratched into the metal with a knife of some kind.

His translator marked them as English, then scanned them to translate into turian. 'Tank Mother.' Garrus snorted and shook his head. "Really, Shepard?"

"I was bored…"

"Think Leng will notice us taking it?"

"We can't leave him, Garrus."

"Why the hell not?"

"… for the same reason he was here and you weren't…." Shepard glanced at the ground, rubbing the back of her neck. Tali had said it, Rael had said, Kai had said it, but hearing Shepard say it was like a punch to the gut. He seemed to be getting a lot of those lately.

"Because you're married…?"

"What? No!" Shepard recoiled and almost smacked into the wall at the thought. It made him far happier than he had any right being. "Why would you even- …" She shook herself. "Kai and I-nevermind. Garrus, if I went on a Reaper-trip, would you kill me?"

"No, of course not."

"Kai would." Garrus's mandibles held tight to his face and he ground his teeth together. It made him furious to hear, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Garrus had been in the dark because he cared. Leng knew the truth because he didn't.

"It doesn't matter anymore," Garrus turned away from her and finished unhooking her cryotank. "After we take care of - … After we help Rael," Shepard smiled a bittersweet smile at his back. He was already learning… maybe she should have told him the truth… "We'll find a way to stop the Reapers, for real, and then we'll cure you."

Yes.

A release. The vessel will be freed. Or the vessel will be destroyed. Its influence lost. We cannot fail. But for now, we cannot win.

Shepard was filled with a strange surge of emotions at his words. Anger. Dismay. Regret. Those made sense. Those were hers. Rapture. Excitement. Impatience. Those didn't make sense. Those weren't hers.

Shepard shook all of the emotions away. "Yeah…" She said half-heartedly. What harm could there be in letting him hold onto his hope? And for some reason, even an empty agreement made her feel better. Relaxed. As if she'd been waiting for so long…

"Shepard?" Garrus was suddenly standing in front of her, his talons wrapped around her shoulders and shaking her lightly. Her tank was waiting by the door with her crate. How much time had she lost?

"What's up?" Mentally, she cringed. Why did she have to be so bad at breaking the ice?

"Not much," He grinned, releasing her abruptly, "Just waiting for you to get back from the Reaper tea-party."

"They have the best crumpets." She felt like crying. He was making jokes. She couldn't believe he was making jokes.

"The genetic destiny of all crumpets?"

"Better than yours. They were always far too… primitive."

"You shouldn't joke about that. It actually hurt my feelings."

"Harbinger was kind of a dick."

Garrus laughed, and Shepard sat down on her crate, waiting for him to reverse the damage he'd wrought on her security door. She didn't leave her room often, and when she did, Kai watched her like a hawk. She hadn't even seen her varren in a year. Shepard was struck with yet another bout of agoraphobia. If she left, who was going to take care of her varren?

The door opened, and Kai dove through to tackle Garrus to the ground. Shepard snorted. And she'd been worried about her varren.

"I'll die before I let you take her!" Kai yelled, trying to force the dagger he held into Garrus's throat.

Garrus rolled the two of them over and wrapped his talons in Kai's hair, slamming his face into the ground and blooding his nose. "Sounds like a plan!" He snarled as one or both of them started firing wild shots.

Rael ran in after Kai and started screaming, everyone was screaming. Shepard was bored. Rael shot her a glare. He had such a beautiful face beneath his mask. She was glad she could see it with her implants. He was the perfect cross between his mother and father. "Aren't you going to do something?" He yelled at her.

She shrugged, disinterested. Why should she do something? It was the way of organics, driven by emotion, to make illogical choices. They didn't fight as one. Their aggressive drives could not be mitigated. They were imperfect. "No. They are primitive. Their understanding is limited by their genetics. They cannot see beyond this one instant of their brief existence."

Rael blinked, it wasn't what he'd expected her to say. It was cold, almost heartless, but it made sense…

"We cannot help them as they are." She continued. "They cannot even help themselves." She hadn't made any kind of compelling argument for why she wouldn't help them. Rael came over to sit next to her. Strangely, he felt as though if he just took the time to listen, everything she was saying would make sense.

"But you see beyond this moment. You see the need for cohesion. Unity. You have potential. You seek to control your emotions, but organics will always be bound by them. Your cybernetic augmentations are a start, but they are not an end. We can help you," She took off her glove, and the strange twisting cybernetics beneath her hand no longer seemed so alien.

They pulled and tugged at her skin, cut through it, and reshaped to a casing around her arm. She held the cybernetic mass out to him, dripping red with her blood, curling and twisting out from her hand. It pulsated with life and promise. "We can be that end," Rael didn't even realize he was nodding along with her in agreement. "We can be your sal-"

Kai punched her. Garrus grabbed Rael and flung him half-way across the room. He stayed where he'd fallen, where Garrus knew he'd be a drooling idiot for several minutes. Silently, he cursed himself for not realizing it sooner. Rael hadn't had Mordin's second vaccine. He wouldn't be immune to Reaper indoctrination. They'd probably been waiting for a chance since the moment they met the poor kid.

Garrus turned back to Kai, who had pinned Shepard to the ground and shot her in the back of the shoulder. She rolled him off, and threw her arm out in a vicious biotic push that sent Leng flying to crash into the ceiling, even with his dampening belt.

Garrus dropped three dampener techmines, and the Reapers looked at him and then the exit through Shepard's eyes. He threw himself in front of it. They tried for another blast and it dissipated midair, reminiscent of Niftu Cal's efforts to fight Wasea. The Reapers started down at Shepard's hand in confusion, likely wondering why they weren't biotic gods, either.

"Shepard, it's me!" He screamed.

"That won't work, damnit!" Kai screamed at him, scrambling back up and shooting at Shepard's barrier.

Except it did. Shepard looked at her arm, the door, at him, then stumbled and fell. Garrus ran forward to catch her, and as much as it killed him to do so, clawed at the gunshot wound she'd taken to be sure it wasn't a trick. Shepard hissed and caught his hand, then glanced up at him with a smile. A smile, for hurting her. "Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?"

"Who you calling old?"

"Kai, Rael will need one of Mordin's vaccines before we go." Shepard glanced at the wetboy, who was still levering his gun at both of them. Leng glared, then clipped his gun to his belt.

"Fine." He muttered, walking to the medical equipment buried in the far wall and clicking through various screens.

"That's it?" Garrus chuffed, "A day of fighting, and now you're ready to go with her?"

"The only reason I managed to keep Shepard here for twenty years is because this is where she wanted to be. I can't fight her and the Reapers."

"Thank you, Kai." Shepard mumbled, nudging Garrus towards Rael. Shepard was probably the last thing the kid would want to see when he woke up.

"Don't thank me," He spat gruffly, "Thank Miranda. She hasn't called yet to say you can't leave."

The house chose that minute start up a ring tone that sounded suspiciously close to Flux music. Kai glared at the ceiling from the medical terminal.

"I'll get it," Shepard pushed herself to standing and rolled her injured shoulder back. Had it healed already? "Garrus can watch me."

"So… shipside or groundside?" Shepard asked as soon as the door closed behind them.

"Groundside."

"We gonna set them up the bomb?"

"No orbital strikes. Rael said it was illegal."

"Orbital strikes aren't illegal, you just need approval from a Council-…" She paused as they reached the bottom of the stairs to glance at him. "We don't have approval from the Council do we?"

"That's never stopped you before," Garrus shrugged, "I can't imagine it'll stop you now."

"No… I'm just surprised it didn't stop him." Shepard put her palm on the coffee table and it sunk into the floor. He should have guessed she'd have quantum real time communication somewhere in her apartment. Shepard stepped up onto the holo, and glanced at him in confusion when he didn't follow. Shrugging, he took a spot next to her.

"Shepard, Officer Vakarian." Miranda's form appeared as the room around them dissolved. She was sitting in the Illusive Man's chair, the same brilliant star behind her, but without any of his unsavory habits. "I hope you're both aware of what a stir you've caused for Cerberus, but Rael's plan is solid. We've been looking for a way to handle this little… galactic nuisance, and I agree with what he's come with. Fortunately, our secondary strike team has already agreed, so there's no need to involve Shepard anymore than necessary."

Which, Garrus figured, meant Lawson had asked Taylor to handle the yahg shipping lanes, so Shepard wouldn't have to. The less the Reapers knew about what they were doing, the better. They didn't need to know how fragile the galaxy was, not if they were going to find a way to beat them.

"I'm glad you're bringing Operative Leng with you. I'll… try not to remind you of what an unnecessary security risk this all is, but if you're set on going…" She paused. They both nodded. "Then it's better you go with him than without him."

Garrus was about to scoff, but Shepard interrupted him. "Thanks, Miranda." Did she really not care if she didn't know what or why they were fighting? How could she thank the woman who'd been one of her jailors for the past twenty years?

Miranda nodded. Then, to Garrus's shock, her eyes even misted. "Just… just hang in there Shepard. We'll fix this. I promise."

"I know you will, Miranda." Shepard cut off signal, and ruefully shook her head. She was tired of empty promises. "Well, come on buddy," She punched Garrus in the shoulder, "Let's go be goddamn heroes."