Disclaimer: I am not in any way related to Bioware or the Mass Effect series. I am making no profit from writing this and am doing so purely for pleasure.
Pairings: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Summary: [What would it have been like if Shepard and Garrus had met as equals?] Spectre Vakarian decides to tag along on Shepard's mission to take down Saren. Their partnership develops in ways neither of them expected, with lots of banter and fluff. This story arc follows ME1 canon, with some liberties taken.
Air and Lightning
11. In which Garrus engineers a storm
When Kaidan stood abruptly with a look of determination on his face, Garrus was ready. He stood as well, and caught the man right outside of Shepard's door.
"Let me go, Garrus." There was a bite of anger in his voice.
"You'll only make it worse," Garrus said as calmly as he could, though what he wanted to do was take the man by the shoulders and shake him hard. "She needs time alone, at least at first. She'll only feel smothered by your concern."
Kaidan yanked his arm free, expression ugly with anger. "You think you know her best, Vakarian? You're a turian – you can't understand her as well as another human can."
Garrus felt a flare of anger of his own, but kept his voice low. "Some things are not about species. Some things are simply about getting to know someone as a person."
"You just want to go in there yourself."
"Which would explain why I've been sitting here in the mess with everyone else?" Garrus could see the rest of the team out of the corner of his eye, a tableau of indecision and worry. Liara had half-risen from her chair, while Tali was gripping the edges of hers. Ashley sat stiffly, her knuckles white, a contrast to Wrex's slumped form against the wall – though the krogan's apparent unconcern was belied by the fact of his very presence, when he usually kept more to himself. Even Joker had abandoned his pilot's seat and was sitting with his arms crossed, next to Tali.
"Look, Alenko, we're all worried. That's why we're all here." Garrus took a step back, and turned his palms up in a placating gesture. "But trust me when I say that the best thing for Shepard right now is some personal space."
Kaidan looked torn. He hesitated, and then with a growl, turned towards Shepard's door.
"El-tee, you might want to listen to him." To Garrus' surprise, it was Ashley who spoke. Her fingers curled and uncurled as she added, "I may disagree with him sometimes, but he knows Skipper better than any of us."
Garrus could see the bitter betrayal flash across Kaidan's face, could see the vindictive decision made in his eyes. That Ashley had sided with the turian, and not her fellow man, was the last straw. Without another word, Kaidan turned his back fully on the team and knocked loudly on the door. Everyone winced.
"Go away, Kaidan." Garrus' heart ached at the exhaustion and grief in Shepard's voice, palpable even through the door. "I'm not in the mood to talk right now."
"Shepard…" Kaidan tried the lock. It flashed red. "Shepard, please talk to me. You've always been there for me, let me be there for you."
"Kaidan, please. Not now."
"Shepard –"
Garrus had heard enough. Forcibly dragging Kaidan away would only make things worse, and he trusted Shepard to handle herself, so he turned from the foolish man and stalked down the corridor to the elevator. He would do what he could for Shepard in the meantime.
Ten minutes later, he looked up as the elevator opened, and Shepard blew out of it, looking ready to rip someone's head off. She blinked when she saw him, and opened her mouth –
"Catch," Garrus said, and threw her a set of boxing gloves.
Shepard caught it easily, and something dark in her eased as she looked around the empty room before her gaze stopped on him. He moved to the centre of the bay, his own gloves already on, his armour exchanged more flexible workout clothes. "Sent the requisitions guy upstairs for the night," he said conversationally. "And the engineering staff won't be coming out for a while."
"Garrus…"
"You don't have to put the gloves on," he said. "I keep telling you, your punches are much softer than mine. I'm sure I can take it."
Shepard finally smiled, though it was a tiny one, barely a quirk of her lips. She was too wound up, too hurt, to do anything else. She started pulling on the gloves. "I'm not holding back. Be ready."
"I should be the one warning you," he returned.
She came at him impossibly fast, throwing a feint, trying to catch him on the side with her other fist. He was faster – snapping his torso out of the way, he used his longer reach to come up inside of her defences. He barely clipped her chin, though, as she slipped away, a graceful half-turn.
Tali had once said that it was like watching art being made, when the two of them fought on the field. Shepard was like air, her every move flowing, naturally artful. She danced her way through her enemies to the beat of her own song. Garrus, on the other hand, was lightning – equally artful, equally natural, but a shock to the senses, never being where he was expected to be. He was a contrast of stillness and movement, one second all coiled sniper tension, the next second a jagged blur of speed.
When the two came together, it was a storm.
Shepard twisted around his attacks, fluid and elegant, ducking and turning and sweeping in one single series of actions. She was flexible in a way that turians could never be, and it was exhilarating trying to catch her – it was like fighting the mist. She peppered him with hits in critical spots, each hit not serious in itself, but the build-up was taking its toll on him. It was like slowly suffocating, slowly dying, the air getting harder to breathe with each gasp.
Garrus knew he was giving her an equally difficult time, though; his punches were harder, and every time he hit her she felt it dearly. Like lightning, unpredictable, ripping holes in the earth, never the same place twice. Like a sniper, biding his time, waiting for that one perfect head-shot, unexpected and deadly.
She wasn't holding back today. Normally when they sparred, it was a lighthearted back-and-forth, just a way of making their usual workouts less tedious, or to release some light tension. Today Shepard wasn't sparring; she was fighting. There was something dark in her eyes, a viciousness to her blows, that usually wasn't there. There was none of their normal sparring banter; she fought in grim silence, jaw clenched.
After half an hour, he could tell she was nearing exhaustion, since she wasn't pacing herself as per normal and was going all-out, which clearly tired her much more quickly. He decided that it was time. "It was a clean death," he said finally, softly, breathlessly.
She faltered, and he scored a hard hit to her upper arm. She hissed, dancing away from him, circling carefully. "We don't know what drug was used," she said finally.
"You saw the body." He lashed out, but she executed a wince-inducing twist and crouch movement that brought her suddenly within his reach, and she landed a good couple of blows on his chest before he threw himself backwards again. "His expression, the lack of fluids, the muscles – they all point to a clean death. You know the medical report on his body will confirm it."
She was silent as she darted in – another feint – and moved away again. He took a long step towards her, sweeping a leg under, but she managed to turn the fall into a roll, and leapt to her feet again, lunging in at him. It was a careless move, and he landed a pulled punch to her middle, pushing most of the air from her lungs. She stumbled back, desperately trying to suck in air, and he took the opportunity to leap forward, unexpectedly turning the jump into a slide.
He knocked her legs out from under her, caught her halfway to the ground to break her fall, and then as gently as he could he dropped her the rest of the way – all in under a split second. Her head hit the floor with a dull thud, and in the blink of an eye he had her pinned, his superior weight and strength holding her down. Her struggles were half-hearted and weak as she tried to breathe properly again.
"It was a clean death," he said again, pinning her gaze as surely as he pinned her body.
She finally looked at him directly, and those tortured green eyes were like a physical blow. "It was still a death," she said, and the first tears spilled out. "If I'd been just that bit quicker, gotten there just that bit earlier –"
"You know we got there as fast as we could."
"His message – I didn't see it right away –"
"You saw it barely fifteen minutes after it was sent. It was his final message and he knew it, Shepard. He was out of time long ago."
"I could have helped him, helped him hide, or –"
"He didn't ask for any of that. He made his own choices."
"I should have offered help."
"You did all you could. He did all he could as well. In the end, he trusted you to finish things, and you did. Don't you have enough problems of your own without shouldering his? You did all you could, and that's all that anyone could ask for."
"I did, didn't I?" she whispered. "I did all I could… and it wasn't enough."
"Shepard…"
"It wasn't enough."
Garrus let go, then, and tugged her upright. She finished the movement by curling up in the hollow of his arms and legs, tucked into herself as she gave into her silent sobs. If Kaidan hadn't interfered, Shepard would have sorted out all her thoughts in private, and gotten a better grip on her emotions. This time, though, she'd had to bottle up her own emotions without dealing with them properly, because she'd had to play the role of Commander Shepard for Kaidan. She was too good a leader and person to take her own issues out on the other man, knowing that he only wanted to help her, so she'd put aside her own needs in order to deal with his neediness.
Why couldn't Kaidan see that his insistence on being 'helpful', on 'talking about it', on 'being there' for her, was just added pressure on Shepard? Why couldn't he see that his brand of concern was for his own self-gratification, for feeling like he was doing something for her, instead of being truly in her best interests? Surely by now he should have figured out that Shepard instinctively retreated from overt shows of concern, especially ones made in public before other people.
Garrus had known that she would be feeling trapped: more frustrated and angry and agonised than ever, but unable to show it because of her professionalism. So he'd cleared the bay to give her the privacy she desperately needed, sparred with her to give her a way and an excuse to release her pent-up emotions, and then he'd brought her to the point of exhaustion at which she couldn't maintain the Commander mask any longer, so that she'd break down and finally face up fully to Admiral Kahoku's death.
Now, in the echoing, empty hanger bay, he held her, not making any sound or movement, but just being there for her as she cried. It was all he could do for her… and it wasn't enough. But it was all that he had.
So he held her.
They were there for a long time.
End Chapter 11
Author's Note: As you can see, this is where the inspiration for the name of the story came from. A short chapter, but I didn't want to drag out the angst too long. I had to write a bit about Kahoku, though, because his death made me feel incredibly sad. He was a good leader doing his best for his men, damn it.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone!
Ashen Skies
"When the two came together, it was a storm."