AN: This update took longer for me to get around to than usual so I'm sorry about that :/ I had it in my head that I needed to watch the whole Leviathan dlc to jog my memory of what happens to be able to incorporate it into the story. But then most of the videos were bro!shep and that's just weird, so that was a huge dip in my motivation. Then I compromised by watching just cut scenes that involved femshep/garrus and that definitely helped :) But really, I don't know why I thought I needed to do that - I haven't for anything else so far and I don't do any of the missions in that much detail that it's necessary. So really, I siked myself out of wanting to write this chapter.
But I'm back! I've sorta kinda maybe got a handle of what I want to do, and I'm going to really try and get this story wrapped up ASAP. It's been fun exploring this concept with these characters, but I need some time and brain space for other projects.
Also, I don't think this is prominent enough in the story as a whole to warrant a new tag, but I am warning you here and now that there is some mild substance abuse.
Thank you to mordinette for beta-reading and helping me get my butt in gear and write this :)
They suit up and head to the hangar. Garrus tinkers with his scope settings and hovers around Vega. Vega seems just about as antsy but not as good at hiding it, so he does the last thing Garrus would've expected him to do. He opens up the full report of Shepard's encounter with Dr. Bryson (only done by grace of Shepard delegating the task to EDI) and reads it to Garrus.
Every. Goddamned. Word.
And the poor marine is nervous enough he doesn't even add too much commentary.
"James?" he asks as he holsters his rifle. "You okay?"
"Yeah yeah yeah, I'm good."
Getting James to talk isn't exactly a difficult task. Just apply the initial pressure, and he'll eventually start babbling. The effect is compounded when he's drinking or nervous. (The only time he ever really shuts up is when the situation is, as he puts it, "extremely fucking serious, man." As far as Garrus can tell, this is limited to poker and combat.) So he accepts Vegas' answer and starts checking his pistol.
In a record ten seconds, James cracks.
"Look, dude, you sure you're okay for this mission? I mean, I don't know how bad it was when you were in the hospital or whatever, but it makes me nervous going out there with someone who's not full strength."
He of course neglects to mention that none of them have been at full strength since Earth was attacked.
"What? Afraid you can't carry me?"
James bulks at that. "Dude, I can deadlift twice your weight."
"You don't even know how much I weigh."
"Yeah, but I know I can lift twice that much."
Garrus teases him a bit more, mostly criticism about his training if he feels he's not prepared for additional help on a mission. He's not so much trying to rile James up as he is trying to get him to shake his nerves, which can sometimes be a hard balance to strike. By the time Shepard arrives and ushers them onto the shuttle, he thinks he's managed it.
Shepard eyes him suspiciously as they take off, motioning to some seats in the back. She keeps her voice low so that Vega and Cortez can't overhear (there's no point in trying to keep it from EDI, but Shepard trusts her discretion). "This should go without saying, but if you can't handle this, you need to tell me and stay back."
"You don't even know if we'll see any combat."
She gives him a look. "Seriously, when have we ever had a mission where we didn't end up shooting at people or getting shot at?"
He opens his mouth to counter her, but nothing really comes to mind. "I'll be fine."
"You've said that before."
"And I was."
"You lied," she says simply. And yeah, in the past he has probably not been forthcoming about every detail of his injuries and ongoing ailments, because they have a job to do and he can grit and bear it. But Shepard's never called him on it before, so it's strange that she would bother now.
"I got a headache every friggin time you got hurt and then brushed it off," she says simply, needing to answer the confusion sitting silently between them. The shuttle lands with only a slight lurch, and she gets up. "I didn't put two and two together, but no escaping it this time Vakarian." Pointing at him meaningfully, she adds, "You get hurt, I'm going to know it."
He lingers before exiting the shuttle, because fuck is that inconvenient and maybe he's rethinking joining this mission. Too late, of course, but oh well.
It starts out easy enough. The mining facility they investigate is creepy as all hell, sure, but it's not strenuous. Which is decidedly good, because he realizes about two minutes in that he probably should've listened to Chakwas. His joints are stiff from disuse - both the bedrest at the hospital and his general lack of combat over the past month or so. And though there's no pain to struggle through, there's the hint of pain. Tingling little fault lines running along his abdomen promising agony if he pushes too hard.
And of course Shepard's right. Even in the good ol' days of chasing Saren around, missions without bullets flying weren't really a thing. No way they'd be that lucky during an all-out war with the Reapers. There's running, there's fighting, and even some explosions thrown in. Great.
Luck is on his side (for once) and he avoids getting hurt or aggravating his current injuries. He's tired for sure, but the only one who doesn't look at least a little put out after all their running around is EDI. They head out to find Ann Bryson, and Shepard grudgingly lets him continue to be part of the field team.
Her hand lands on his shoulder before they exit the shuttle. She squeezes, knowing he can't feel it through his armor, and gives him a soft look before she steels herself behind the visage of Commander Shepard.
That's the last solid memory he has.
His shields go down and he takes a hit to the shoulder. It burns a little but it's honestly not that big of a deal. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Shepard turn towards him, registering the impact. And he makes a decision. One that's probably going to look terrible in hindsight but the only one he sees in the heat of the moment.
He ups his medi-gel intake. Whenever he feels the first tendrils of pain, anywhere, from a wound or aches from his injury, he lets the coolness numb it before he can even feel it. Because if he feels it, she feels it, and then Shepard will send him back. The extra meds make him a little loopy, but it's almost like being buzzed. He can function while buzzed, can still shoot like nobody's business, so it's easy to justify it.
In a daze, Garrus has to focus on his breathing and taking careful stock of his body while the rest of them talk to Bryson. Shepard's distracted and doesn't notice. She'd warned him she'd use their bond to keep watch on him, and since he's basically cut her off from that cheat without her realizing it, she doesn't pay him much mind. Nothing in her head but the mission.
James notices, right before they leave the Normandy to find the source of the Leviathan signal. "Just cuz I can carry you doesn't mean I want to, Scars." He's only half-joking, a hint of warning underneath.
"Duly noted."
And he probably would've been okay. Granted, he has no idea how bad things are with the medi-gel taking the edge off, but he's feeling pretty good about his odds. Then things go to hell pretty quickly. He's thrown against the ground hard when the shuttle's forced down by the pulse. And the pain is distant, drowned out in a mix of chemicals, but he's aware of it.
The Reaper forces follow soon after, and he shoots them more from muscle memory than any concentrated effort on his part. At this point, he's not even sure he's doing a passable job at hiding how fucked up he is. And although Shepard might give him that look, she doesn't comment. EDI and James seem to notice something is off and, in their own subtle way, take on the brunt of the fighting.
Right before they get her to the mech, Shepard takes a bad hit. Garrus doesn't see it, only knows it happened because James is pulling her roughly into cover. He watches, registers the events intellectually, but otherwise doesn't react. His nerve endings are so fried right now they apparently aren't picking up Shepard's injuries either.
That's... probably not good, actually.
"Shepard." He's standing in front of the mech, Shepard about to disappear into the turbulent waves and he can't quite piece together the moments preceding this point. Adrenaline spikes and clears his head for a second, and the tattered remains of what he was about to say disappear. "Just... come back."
Her eyes soften and then she's gone.
If he tries, he can recall bits and pieces of what happens next. Reapers. Lots of them, an endless stream trying to wear the three of them out while they try to buy Shepard time to do... something. The specifics escape him, but it's important. At some point, James manhandles him into cover. Might even set up his sniper rifle for him and tells him to stay put and just "shoot anything that moves, comprehendes?" because if nothing else, at least he can still aim.
(It reminds him of his stimmed out final days on Omega, waiting to die until Shepard showed up and saved his sorry ass.)
The one thing that stands out, crystal clear, is a pain so intense it blots everything else out.
His vision whites out and he may stop breathing. He was barely vertical before, but he writhes on the ground in agony. It radiates from his right hand outward, overshadowing every other sensation. And as he chokes, as he cries out wordlessly and drowns in this singular pain, two thoughts make it through.
Shepard's in trouble.
It's indoctrination but it's not.
And then he blacks out.
He wakes up and at first the sense of déjà vu overwhelms him. He's worried it's the Citadel hospital again, and it takes an embarrassingly long time for his drug addled brain to realize it's not. No, it's very distinctly the Normandy's medbay, but it takes Chakwas' soothing voice to calm him down.
Words wash over him but he can't pick them out. Instead he lets them lull him back to sleep.
The next time he comes to, his head is significantly clearer. He's not dizzy or groggy, and he can actually think. Which also happens to mean the painkillers have worn off. Every injury he gained on the last mission is making itself known. All vying for his attention, he finds he needs to catalog his body piece by piece to make sense of it all.
He's interrupted halfway through by Shepard's voice.
"You tore the stitching they'd used to patch you up, so I bet that hurts like a bitch."
Garrus' head snaps in the direction of her voice. He winces as the sudden movement aggravates his sore neck. Pushing himself up, he tries for humor. "This is why I hate human ships. Exam tables not designed for those of us with cowls." To her credit, Chakwas tries damn hard to keep him comfortable. But he's been out for hours at an angle that's not ideal and his neck is definitely letting him know it.
"You okay?" Concern darkens Shepard's face for a moment, and yeah, he winces at that too.
He shrugs. "Still alive." Though he sighs and admits, "Barely, but hey, a win's a win."
"Garrus," she snaps. There's not a whole lite of bite to it, though. If anything, it's worry that's motivating her. "Don't lie to me like that again. Chakwas said you had enough meds in you to tranq a rabid varren. I need to know when you're not okay. Fuck, the only reason I even let you on that mission is because I didn't want you out of my sight." Then under her breath, probably not meant for him to hear, she bites out, "Stupid, I know."
It takes him a minute to appraise her, to see the lines under her eyes and the overall disheveled state of her appearance. Honestly, it looks like-
"You've been here the whole time? Since we got back?"
Her eyes flit away for a second before meeting his. "Yeah."
He waits, but there's no more information forthcoming. Subvocals give voice to his rising anger - only kept at bay for the moment because he has yet to confirm his suspicions - and he measures out the words carefully as he asks, "Shepard, are you injured?"
She looks the model of innocence as she echoes his own words back to him. "Still alive, aren't I?"
Garrus shakes his head and grunts in annoyance. "We really need to raise the bar on that."
"Yeah, probably." She hops down from the exam table she's been sitting on and stretches a bit. "You wanna get out of here?"
"Are we allowed?"
"Out of the room? Most likely. Off the ship? Not so much."
"Chakwas pulling rank?" he asks wryly. As much as he hates doctors fussing over him, he knows Shepard hates being grounded about ten times more.
"Yes, the bastard," she pouts. He's seen her face blazing with righteous fury and fiery determination. A pout should not be adorable on her. "Pulled rank on me for the first time ever so I'm gonna have to actually try to get better."
Garrus extends his senses to the mark on his hand. Tries to pick through the pieces of information he's getting about Shepard. Nothing terrible, nothing that even really registers as pain. Maybe she's got some aches and bruises, but it's below the threshold she would care about. So what's he missing?
"You don't seem to be in bad shape."
"That," she says, dragging out the word as she walks her hand along the exam table behind her, "requires a longer conversation." She smiles at him, toothy and completely human. "I was thinking since our last jailbreak was so successful, we should orchestrate another one."
He slides off his own exam bench and crosses his arms. "I don't know, Shepard. One of these days our renegade ways will catch up to us. Wouldn't want to be put in the brig for avoiding doctor's orders."
"Then we'll just have to not get caught on the way out."
AN: No idea how medigel really works, but I'm assuming their's some pain killers in there. And we're gonna pretend they're super strong. Because.