Chapter 40: Thievery

Of all things that can be stolen
The heart is the only one that cannot be returned

Kasumi remarkably managed to go through the entirety of the mission briefing in the skycar before outright asking "So what's the deal with you and the turian?" with a very suggestive smirk.

Terra groaned and rolled her eyes. If this was the real reason Kasumi had been so insistent on going on this mission with just the two of them, she was going to be really upset. Not least because it had taken nearly an hour to convince Garrus to stay back, especially after their heart-to-heart, their reinstatement as a couple, and him seeing the getup Kasumi had forced her into (she really didn't want to know how Kasumi got a dress in her size that quickly, and she would want to make the thief pay dearly for it if not for the way Garrus had looked at her while she had it on making her want to keep it on hand for him).

Kasumi wasn't one to give up easy. She was practically nudging Terra when she asked again. "Come on. We can talk."

Terra scoffed. "I've known you less than one day and I've already heard you gathering gossip on half the crew. I'm not gonna be your next 'topic of conversation.'"

Kasumi smirked. "I'm gonna find out either way. I just wanted to be polite."

Terra sighed. "If you must know, I used to live on Palaven with Garrus' family. We've been practically joined at the hip ever since."

"Really? You're the most interesting person I've met so far, Shep."

"'Shep'? I'm not a dog."

"Don't tell me no one else has ever given you a nickname."

"Yeah, yeah, just watch where you're parking."

Almost immediately, they met with difficulties, Hock himself coming out to insist Kasumi stay outside. Kasumi addressed this by simply remaining cloaked and following Terra from the shadows, guiding her through disabling the security on the elevator down to the vault. Terra was willing to admit the whole "Saren statue" thing made her uneasy, but there was a kind of poetic irony to the statue carrying her weapons and armor into the place. After that, it was all downhill. The second they actually found the greybox, they were under fire. Kasumi did an amazing job in the fights that followed, putting her cloak to use to arrange an elaborate series of sneak attacks while Terra was simply shooting everyone down. Terra found herself catching onto Kasumi's enthusiasm and finesse, showing off some trick shots and CQC maneuvers that seemed to impress the thief. Suddenly, they were basically one-upping each other, a competition Kasumi undoubtedly won by clambering up some pipes to jump with acrobatic grace onto Hock's gunship to disable its shields before leaping back onto the battlefield with prowess and flair. Terra would've called her out for showing off if she hadn't been so impressed and if Kasumi didn't then proceed to let her have the kill-shot on the gunship. On the way back to the ship, it was a matter of decrypting the greybox. Kasumi quickly found a message from Keiji himself asking her to destroy it, a demand she quickly refused because she couldn't lose the last of her love.

Seeing Kasumi's struggle over erasing the greybox stuck with Terra. Even after she agreed that erasing it wasn't necessary, it hurt her to think of her own love being lost, of a few captured memories being all she had left of Garrus. It already seemed like that was all she had left of her birth family, and she couldn't bear to think of it happening to her adopted one. So when she finally got back on the ship, she headed straight up to her cabin to change back from her armor to the dress Kasumi had forced her into just long enough to call up Garrus. They didn't talk this time so much as kiss each other senseless (with a few intervals for Garrus to appreciate how she looked in formal wear), and they did it for as long as they could before Terra eventually had to swap back into more casual civvies (yes, she was on duty, but there was no way she was wearing a uniform with a Cerberus emblem on it) and set the course for their next destination: Korlus.

The planet was full of mercenaries and krogan. There was one krogan they were interested in—a warlord by the name of Okeer. It wasn't easy fighting their way through krogan after krogan, but if it meant getting a krogan of their own again, even one that wasn't Wrex, it would be worth the trouble. Okeer himself insisted on bringing along his latest "baby," a krogan still in its birth tank. That presented a problem when the merc leader started flushing the tanks, forcing Terra to head down and kill her. When they came back, they discovered Okeer had sacrificed himself to keep the tank unaffected. Terra figured that meant all they could do was bring the tank itself aboard. Miranda wasn't happy, but that basically convinced Terra that she had to, even though she understood the apprehension.

Now it was down to opening the tank.

EDI was quick to warn her there would be consequences, but she knew how to handle krogan. So she opened the tank. The krogan tumbled out in a wash of fluids before collecting himself. He took one look at her…

…and charged right at her, pinning her to the wall. "Human. Female. Before you die, I need a name."

Terra quickly made use of her newly-cybernetic strength to push him off enough for her to breathe. "Commander Terra Shepard, and I don't take threats lightly! I suggest you back off while you still can!"

"Not your name," he scoffed, "Mine. I am trained, I know things, but the tank…Okeer couldn't impart connection. His words are hollow. 'Warlord.' 'Legacy.' 'Grunt.' …Grunt. 'Grunt' was among the last. It has no meaning it'll do." He stood with new purpose now, his grip on her not tightening or loosening even as he offered his challenge. "I am Grunt. If you are worthy, prove your strength and face me."

She took a moment to size him up (a long moment since there was so much of him to size up). He was tough, young, and strong. And a krogan. Just what they needed. But he wouldn't be so useful if she had to break him in two to subdue him (or vice versa…), so it was time to put her persuasion skills to the test. "You want to fight? Fight for me, not against me. We can prove ourselves to each other far better that way."

He considered her curiously. "If you're weak or choose weak enemies, I'll have to kill you."

She scoffed. "Believe me, on this ship, we don't settle for second best."

"Hmm…hmph. That is acceptable. I will fight for you."

Terra smirked. "Glad you saw reason."

"What?" Grunt then heard the sound of a gun collapsing and turned to see Garrus standing behind him, lowering his weapon. The krogan looked between the human and the turian for a moment before smirking, stepping back from pinning Terra to the wall, and letting off a small laugh. "Offer one hand but arm the other. Wise, Shepard." He then went back over to his tank.

Terra eyed him carefully before stepping over to Garrus. "So you just heard 'Shepard's opening the tank' and raced down here with a gun?"

Garrus smirked. "Couldn't hurt. Don't act like you didn't know I would."

Terra smiled as she walked back towards the elevator with him. "Well, that was the last of the dossiers and I haven't heard from Mr. Illusive in a while, so it looks like we have some time to catch up."

Garrus nodded. "That's a plan I don't mind sticking to."

Terra and Garrus simply sat on the floor of her cabin for about three hours, bouncing between both of them reminiscing the good old days and Garrus relaying the tale of his Archangel days. It was a good thing they were bouncing, or Terra might have been bothered by his tale. She knew he could take care of himself, but she didn't like the idea of him seeking out danger…or to think of how lost he'd been without her. Nevertheless, it was only when he came towards the end of the tale that they both fell silent.

They both knew how it ended. He didn't want to tell her how that ending came about. She didn't know if she wanted to hear. But they both knew she had to hear it anyway. So he took a deep breath and let it out: Sidonis had lured him away from the base so the mercs could bomb it. Garrus hadn't seen him since.

Terra felt heartbroken for him when she heard this. He'd been betrayed. That wasn't something you just shook off. It also wasn't something she'd experienced (well, just yet, but since she was expecting it from Cerberus, that wasn't the same thing), so she had no idea how to console him. "Garrus, I…I'm so sorry. He had no right to do that to you."

He didn't look at her. This wound was still fresh. It hurt just to talk about it. "He didn't just do it to me. He did it to all of us. Because of him, ten good men are dead."

She wasn't sure if she should take his hand and kiss him to remind him she was there or stay back. She settled on the middle ground of drawing one inch closer to him. "And you're sure they didn't just take him out first?"

Garrus shook his head. "No. I did some digging. He cleared his accounts and booked transport off the station just before the attack. He sold me out and ran."

She couldn't imagine anyone doing something like that to her turian. Part of her wanted to hunt down this Sidonis guy and give him a piece of her mind, but it wouldn't change the fact that the damage had already been done. Ten people Garrus had fought beside for three times as long as the SR-1 squad were dead. It was because of that that Archangel had been pinned down and hunted for days before ultimately getting struck by that gunship.

Softly, she reached to gently stroke his scars. They had healed enough in the past few days that touching them didn't send flares of pain through him anymore, so both of them were free to appreciate how calming and enticing the gesture was. "Well…think of it this way: now we're even for Mindoir."

He smirked, thankful the scars had healed enough to allow him to do that pain-free as well. "More or less. I wish I could say joining this crew was the same as you joining my family."

"Oh, I'm working on it," she commented, adopting a more smug position, "Give me a few weeks and I'll have the Cerberus crew turning over and the squad up to SR-1 standards."

"I can't really say I doubt you. …you're the kind of person people can't help but love."

That was the first time in a long time he'd said something that legitimately flattered her beyond the capacity for rebuttal. "…stop."

"I mean it. Tali and Liara would agree. Even Ashley and Solana would. Wrex probably would, too, but he would never say so out loud."

She laughed at that one.

Just hearing her laugh made him smile. "I know there are people out there who don't think of you as all that special…but if they just took the time to know you…" He reached out to her, his talon stroking her hair again. "…if they could see you like I do…"

She smiled playfully. "I wouldn't want anyone else to see me quite the way you do, Garrus."

Suddenly, Sidonis' betrayal was the last thing on his mind. All he could think about was the way he did see Terra Shepard. "No, I guess I wouldn't either."

She leaned into him, once again tracing his scars with her fingers as if it was already perfectly natural simply because she saw the way he reacted. "You're stuck with me then. And I'm stuck with a thief."

He gave her a more confused look then. "Why are we talking about Kasumi now?"

"No, no, we're still talking about you. You just so happened to have stolen something very precious to me." She laid her head on his with a more contented smile. "My heart."

He smiled back. "I wish I could say I would be willing to give it back."

"I wouldn't want you to anyway. Too busy trying to take yours."

"Believe me, you've had it for a long time."

Hearing that from him sparked such joy inside her that she outright took hold of him and kissed him, reveling in the way he returned it and held her closer. It may have been a strictly human show of affection, but that didn't stop them both from pouring their stolen hearts into the embrace. By the time they separated, Garrus was certain humans were superior to turians in terms of their romantic gestures. But turians were likely superior in terms of how their relationships progressed. Maybe this was the perfect time to tell her that she was his—

"I wonder what your parents and Sol would say if they could see us now," she commented with a snicker.

That's when he realized. …oh, crap. She didn't know. He had to tell her. He had to tell her. "Ah, spirits." He forced himself to do it, though. He turned to face her and came out with it: "Terra, there's something you need to know."

She looked at him uncertainly. Those weren't typically good words to hear. "…what?"

It was too late to duck out now, no matter how much he couldn't bear to say it. Having her back had taken his mind off of it until now, but he had to face it again. She needed to know. She was family, after all. "…Mom is sick."

She wished those words wouldn't sink in, but they did. It felt like Cerberus had pieced her nerves together wrong and they'd suddenly stopped working. "She…she's what?"

"Sol called me before I left the Citadel. It was diagnosed as the early stages of Corpalis."

…no… This couldn't be happening. She'd already lost her own mother, she couldn't lose Garrus' now. And this demise would be so much harder, so much longer… Then she did the math. "Wait, that…that was nearly two years ago now. Are you sure—?"

"It doesn't progress that fast," he assured her, "I haven't called home since that last day at the base, but…it's coming up on the later stages now. She's running out of time if we can't find some treatment."

There had to be a treatment somewhere. There was no such thing as untreatable disease in this day and age. She would turn over every rock in the galaxy just for a chance. "Well, is there anything we can do? I can strong-arm Cerberus to start pushing some of those resurrection-level funds to some galactic CDC projects—"

"Don't bother. The salarians are doing all the research and the treatments. It's still going slow, though. And expensive."

"We can still do something about it. We can talk to Mordin about opening some channels, start funneling credits home from what's left of the mission funds or whatever we find groundside—"

"Terra, I hate to admit it, but this might not be a battle we can win that easily."

"We have to try! I've lost enough family for one lifetime!"

He knew better than to argue with that one. He had been fighting to hold onto his own hope on the subject, but Terra wouldn't give up. He couldn't blame her after what happened to her own parents. She hadn't known she was going to lose them, hadn't had to face this dread, but if there was even the slightest possibility she could avoid facing it again, could spare him and Solana that pain, she would take it. The truth was, so would he. "Alright. We'll talk to Mordin. We'll work something out."

Terra took his hand. "We will, Garrus. …we will."

He had spent no small amount of time pondering the impossibility of somehow averting his mother's fate, but looking in Terra's eyes now…he couldn't deny her. "…we will."

"Commander," EDI finally came over the PA, "the Illusive Man wishes to speak with you in the debriefing room."

Terra sighed. She'd just found out her adopted family had been falling apart while she was gone, she wasn't really in the right emotional state to talk to her least-favorite terrorist. Mission came first, though, and there were colonies in danger. So she braced herself to get back on her feet and head in. "I'm on my way."

Garrus got up with her. "Whatever happens, I'm right here. I'm not leaving you for anything."

That meant a lot. She gave him a grateful smile before leading him to the elevator. "I'm holding you to that. And I'm doing my best to do the same for you."

Five minutes later, they were racing towards Horizon, supposedly the next colony that would be attacked. As usual, Garrus was right behind her, already prepared for a fight. She figured this would be a good use of their new krogan friend and called him up to join them. Mordin was in the process of applying his seeker swarm countermeasure to everyone's armor, so Terra took just enough time to let him know there was a salarian research project they wanted to help however they could, receiving what seemed like a promise to look into it before the scientist turned his attention to Grunt. They couldn't do anything else until Horizon was safe, so now it was just a matter of getting there in time. While they waited, Terra and Garrus were constantly sending supportive looks to each other, even occasionally joining hands to show it. Life kept throwing obstacles their way, but they both knew they could face it all together.

Whatever came next, that wouldn't change.