"I've never seen you like this, Garrus."

The turian turned, his muscles as hard as his expression. He couldn't meet Shepard's gaze, so he paced out of the battery, his voice vibrating and hollow off the walls. "I lost the rest of my team on Omega that day. I want to finish the job."

Shepard nodded, arms crossed as she leaned in the door jam. "We'll track him down if you promise me something."

Garrus turned and snarled at her, easily a head taller, "I'm doing this with or without you, Shepard."

Shepard snatched Garrus by the cowl of his armour, keeping him eye to eye with her, "Why don't you listen to what I damned well say first."

Plucking from her grasp, Garrus went back into the forward battery.

"If someone ever did something like that to me, you can be sure as hell it'd be burnt in my mind to hunt them down." Shepard strolled a few paces away, "Because it would have betrayed the most sacred trust."

Garrus listened without looking at her, chin down and brooding.

"Being part of a crew - part of a team - is a promise, and when you kill together, its written in blood. Being leader imparts a responsibility - but each member has his own head on his shoulders." Shepard walked back to Garrus, "I know you. I know he wouldn't have made it on your team if he wasn't damned good."

"What do you want from me, Shepard?"

"To stop blaming yourself for their deaths."

"It isn't that easy. Just promise and it'll make everything better?"

"I don't have to tell you how many people have died under my command -"

"Shep-"

" - because you know. So don't insult me. What it comes down to is their choice." Shepard's hands nestled on her hips, "It's their choice what they do, and how they deal with what comes."

Garrus turned away, and Shepard continued, "Sidonis put himself under your command - and he turned his back, and betrayed you all. He could have died to try and save you. Maybe I'd never have found you - maybe you'd still be running on Omega. Blame him. Blame all the mercs we killed the day I found you. Blame more yet that we'll kill."

Shepard hesitated, watching the malice bubble under Garrus' armour before she said, "We'll hunt him down if you put it on his shoulders and not yours."

Leaning onto his calibrations terminal, Garrus looked down. When he turned around to speak, Shepard was gone.