Inspired by Sara Bareilles's "City"

I highly reccomend looking this song up on Youtube. Type in "Sara Bareilles City" and click the third link. It's a live version and is very pretty, although the CD version is as well.


City

From the outside, the Citadel vaguely reminded Garrus of some sort of flower. It almost made him forget about the glittering lights of the various wards that adorned the stations' wide arms. They shone brightly in hues of amber and plum and pale gold.

In a way, he reasoned, it would be easy to just disappear into the sea of lights and steel and never be seen again. He could have let that happen when he first arrived on the station, bright eyed and eager to prove himself, but his nature hadn't let him. Now that same nature had led him to working with Shepard and helped take down Seren, a rouge spectre.

He couldn't disappear into that world if he wanted to. Garrus was too proud of who he was working with or what he'd done to allow that now.

The Normandy's dock was still empty, but Garrus wasn't that concerned yet. Shepard had told him she would be here, and so she would be. If she ran a little late because of some Geth, so be it. And so the Turian waited patiently, settled in on top of a few crates of supplies the Normandy would have to take aboard anyways.

It was all he could do to keep still though. At this point, the ship was almost two hours late and Garrus just wanted to see Shepard again. He'd spent most of the day scouring the Citadel for something to give her, finally settling on a model of the Normandy. It would be something nice to spruce up her quarters. He'd gotten access to Shepard's small apartment on the Citadel – not that she ever really used it that much anyways – and left it on her desk topped with a bow.

Checking his OminTool for what felt like the thousandth time, Garrus began to feel the first tinges of worry. They were nearing the three hour mark for tardiness. Shepard had always relaxed things on the Normandy, but she was almost always within a two hour window of when she said she would arrive. The circumstances had to be pretty dire for her to be this late…

"Officer Vakarian?"

Garrus turned, slipping off the box and onto the floor to face the two C-Sec officers that now approached him, one human, one Turian. He didn't recognize them, but then again it had been some time since he had been around the academy. Firing off a quick salute, he twitched his mandibles. "Officers. What can I do for you?"

Momentarily, Garrus couldn't help but wonder if he'd managed to break the law just by waiting for a ship in its appointed dock. So lost was Garrus in his own thoughts he missed the nervous glance that shot between the uniformed officers. The human stepped forward, fidgeting with his hands. "Sir, we've been asked to escort you to the next dock over."

At this, the blue eyed Turian clenched his mandibles close in a frown. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that. I'm waiting for the SSV Normandy to come in."

"That's just it," Stated the other Turian calmly, "We were given orders by the SSV Normandy's ex-Captain, Councilor Anderson."

If this was a shock to Garrus, he kept up a good poker face, his eyes darting between the pair as he tried to assess the situation. "Did he say why?"

The Turian scoffed. "Sir, we're just here to follow orders, not question them. We'd best be going though. The Councilor said he would meet us at the docking bay and it wouldn't be a good idea to keep him waiting around for us."

For a heartbeat, Garrus stared at the space where the Normandy should be, torn between what he was asked to do and what he wanted to do. Finally he relented, turning and following the officers as they led him back to the elevator. The order was innocent enough, but for some reason Garrus found himself becoming increasingly nervous. While he was friendly with the now Councilor Anderson, he had never really had much of a conversation with the man that didn't directly deal with a mission or taking orders. That he had left to Shepard, since she saw him as almost a father figure.

What awaited Garrus on the other side of the elevator doors was nothing he expected. Emergency medical staff hurried between hastily set up stations, calling orders as they went. The entire length of the dock was bustling with people and as Garrus hesitantly followed the C-Sec officers, he began to realize that some of the faces and uniforms looked awfully familiar.

Towards the end of the dock it was quieter, a smaller group huddled together. As they approached, Councilor Anderson strode forward to meet them. He quickly waved away the officers, nodding his thanks before turning to Garrus. "Officer Vakarian, thank you for coming so quickly."

Now the Turian was bordering on alarm. "Of course Councilor. But might I ask why I'm here? Shepard should be returning today and I wanted to be there to meet her."

For an instant, something akin to pain flickered across the human's deep amber eyes before he turned away. "I'm afraid that won't be happening today."

"I'm sorry?"

"I don't think Shepard is returning to the Citadel."

"I don't understand sir."

Heaving a heavy sigh, Anderson shook his head. "Perhaps your friends can explain it better than I can."

As he stepped aside, Garrus stared in disbelief at the group at the far end of the dock. They stood or sat on a group of crates, everyone looking as if they were going to be ill. Joker sat on the ground, his back against a crate, his arm in a sling and his hat shoved down far on his face. Slowly, Garrus stepped forward, his curiosity rising. "What's going on? Where's the Normandy? Where's Shepard?"

Silence fell louder than any crashing waterfall. The Turian's ice blue eyes sought someone, anyone really, who would answer him. Finally, Liara spoke in a soft voice. "We were getting ready to finish our patrol over Alchera when a ship showed up on the long range scanners. It did not match any of our known signatures. At first we were not concerned, since our stealth systems were engaged."

"Fat lot of good that did us." Wrex rumbled, his crimson eyes locked on the Turian. "They'd changed course and were on intercept vector within moments of us noticing them. Had this beam that blasted straight through the hull."

The information struck Garrus like a punch. "So the Normandy's…gone? What about Shepard?"

"Yeah…I tried to get her to leave." Kaidan's voice sounded so pained that Garrus couldn't help but feel a little sad for him as he spoke. "She was sending out the distress beacon…Shepard ordered me to the escape pods. Last I saw of her she was headed towards the cockpit, through the CIC, even though it had all been blown straight open by the enemy."

By this point, Garrus could no longer bear the suspense that seemed to wrap itself into a ball around his gut. "But where is she?" He demanded, a tremor of fear finally creeping into his voice.

"Oh Garrus," Tali's voice, even filtered by her helmet, sounded as if she had been sobbing, "Shepard…Shepard didn't make it. She was spaced before the Alliance arrived."

"It's all my fault!" Joker spoke for the first time, slamming his uninjured hand against the ground as hard as he could without actually breaking something. "If I hadn't stayed, if I'd just left when I should have, she never would have come to rescue me and she'd still be alive!"

Reeling back, Garrus felt his mandibles fluttering as he tried to grasp for some sense of reality. Spinning, he sought Anderson praying this was all some bad joke and that the brunette would pop out of one of the crates, grinning like a loon and gloating about how she'd totally fooled him.

One look at Anderson's pained expression dashed any hope that Garrus had managed to hold onto up to that point. Sound seemed to blur and fade away as he moved towards the edge of the dock, half in a trance.

It wasn't possible. Not her. Not Shepard. Not the woman who had destroyed a Reaper and saved the galaxy. In the back of his mind, Garrus registered that he was screaming in anguish, holding onto the railing as if it were the only thing rooting him to the world anymore.

It was impossible. He was going to become a spectre in a few days, and she was supposed to be there. She'd promised.

One.

It wasn't fair! It simply wasn't fair! How could Shepard have been so selfish as to not leave when she had the chance? Rage seemed to flow through Garrus's veins, burning like fire. Why her? Why not anyone in the world but her?

Two.

A hand on his arm made the enraged Turian snarl, but the sound died in his throat. Joker stood on wobbly legs before him, no crutches, just as Shepard had said in her last message, hot tears spilling from his grass green eyes. His mouth moved and yet Garrus couldn't hear a word.

Three.

Finally bringing himself to look at his team, Garrus could already sense their unspoken sorrow. Of all of them, he was the only one who had been safe and sound at the time of the attack, the only one not there with her. Why hadn't he been there? Why couldn't he have just put off the training for another month or two? What difference would it have made anyway if he was a spectre or just an ex-C-Sec officer? What had mattered was being on that team, where he belonged.

Four.

As the numbing reality sunk in, Garrus could feel his world spinning horribly out of his control. It felt as if the world were tumbling down around him and yet he still would be alive to live in the horrible aftermath. An aftermath that didn't include ocean blue eyes, a grin that was both heartbreaking and inspiring, a laugh that sounded like wind chimes in the breeze, a person who had accepted him just as he was, a woman who'd willingly chosen to throw herself in the line of fire not just for him, but for the universe, the friend who'd wormed her way into Garrus's life and refused to leave…a world without Erin Shepard.

That woman was dead. She had been spaced, her body probably burning to ash in the atmosphere of Alchera. Above him, the lights of the Citadel still sparkled off the steel buildings and before his world went completely dark, Garrus wondered if fading away into the lights was still an option.