Chapter 48: Regrets

We cannot change the past
We cannot change our regrets
But we can change the future
And change ourselves for the best

Their day out on the Citadel had been wonderful, sure, but when Terra woke up the next morning and the first words she heard from Garrus were, to paraphrase, "Sorry I missed your last two birthdays, I got you a Thanix cannon to make up for it," it was pretty much official.

Best boyfriend ever.

Knowing what they were up against, it was a huge reassurance to have some real firepower of their own. And with Garrus keeping the software at full optimization like he had for the Mako, it was guaranteed to be effective, even against the Collectors' ship when next they came across it. She was going to have to thank Mordin for helping him obtain it and get it installed.

She wound up having EDI check on the other upgrades for her so she could sit in the battery with her sketchbook and watch Garrus scroll through the algorithms. There was something about being close to your mate that stoked the fires of inspiration.

Unfortunately for Garrus, that went both ways, and inspiration was not the same as concentration. "Terra, as much as I like having you in here with me, I am still trying to work here."

She smirked as she put the sketchbook down. "Oh, I'm sorry, honey, am I distracting you?"

He shook his head, keeping his eyes on the console. "A little."

She stepped lithely over to him, her fingers drifting alluringly along his arm as she leaned closer until her nose rubbed against his ear. "What about now?"

He had to take his hands off the console before he hit something he wasn't supposed to. Just her scent filling the air was enough to undo him without her voice and her touch compounding the effects. Suddenly, the numbers were the last thing on his mind and all he wanted was to touch her in return. So before he even consciously decided to move, his talons were in her hair again. "You're insufferable."

She smiled as she turned to press herself against him. "You're hard to stay away from."

He smiled back as he found himself once again lost in her eyes. "Can't say I mind that part."

She laughed briefly before leaning in to kiss him. She'd never been happier than when she was in his arms, falling into him, certain of how much he loved her—

"Shepard," EDI suddenly came over the PA, "Thane is asking to speak with you."

Terra reluctantly pulled away from her mate with a sigh. "Right. Tell him I'm on my way." She gave Garrus an apologetic look.

He simply nuzzled softly against her. "Go on. I'm not going anywhere."

She smiled gratefully, kissing his scars as gently as she could before turning to leave the room.

He took a moment to himself before getting back to work, still too caught up in the way she made him feel.

Terra was also still thinking of him as she made her way across the deck, but she managed to push it to the back of her mind to give her attention to being Commander Shepard for a moment. Thane was one of her squad-mates who was easiest to talk to, but it was likely he needed the commander right now if he was requesting EDI ask for her. As she stepped into the life support deck and accommodated to the drier air (it was sort of like the Palaven atmosphere, so it did give an echo of the feeling of going home), though, the assassin stayed silent, even though he obviously heard her come in. "Thane? EDI said you needed to talk."

Thane sighed. "Yes. But now that you're here, it seems…difficult to talk about."

Terra knew enough to be concerned. He had explained about the disease that was killing him—Kepral's Syndrome. "Are you feeling sick? I could get the doctor?"

"No. Though I suppose that is part of it. My mortality has me…dwelling on things." He stood up, walking over to where his weapons were arranged. "I had a family once. I still have a son. His name is Kolyat. I checked to see where he is and…he has discovered where I've been and what I've done. He became disconnected and took a job as a hit-man."

She could understand the assassin's distress, but… "'Disconnected'?"

"Yes. Body and soul exist in unity in a whole being. When the body is ill or injured or the soul is weak or troubled, the being is disconnected, no longer whole."

Oh. She could understand that, too. "And your son?"

"He's on the Citadel."

It was a good thing they hadn't actually left the Citadel yet, then. "Get ready then. We can catch him if we move now."

Thane seemed more relieved already, as if he had full confidence she could and would handle this. "Thank you, Shepard."

In ten minutes, Terra, Garrus, and Thane were on their way to the C-Sec outpost by the docks. The man in charge there, Captain Bailey, was happy to help track his men's reports for signs of a drell, finding that one had been seen talking to a former duct rat, Mouse. It didn't take much to track down Mouse and get him to tell them who had hired Kolyat for the contract. Where it did take some effort was in convincing the crook in question to tell them who the target was—Terra finally had to pull her Spectre status to get him to cooperate. The target was Joram Tallid, a turian in the 800 blocks. Now they just had to shadow him and they'd find Kolyat.

"What's the plan?" Garrus asked as they prepared to get in a transport.

"Perhaps it would be best if the commander and I go alone," Thane suggested, "The less of there are, the less likely it will be for Kolyat or Tallid to spot us."

"That's if things go according to plan," Terra retorted, "We need backup. He doesn't have to move in with us, but I feel a lot better knowing he's there."

Garrus silently acknowledged that he appreciated that. He didn't like the thought of letting her go in without him.

Thane either agreed with Terra's reasoning or understood the reasons behind it. "Very well. But we must be swift."

They headed in as swiftly as they could, finding the targeted turian campaigning in the blocks. They still, unfortunately, needed to split up from there—Garrus scouting ahead, Terra following on the keeper walkways, and Thane creeping through the shadows he thrived in. The irony was not lost on Terra that this was the second day in a row she'd had to sneak onto a keeper walk, though the motivation in this instance was more serious and less enjoyable than yesterday's. Lucky for her, Tallid had a krogan bodyguard that impossible to miss, so he wasn't exactly hard to keep up with. Thane kept in contact over the COMMs, Garrus keeping track of their progress from the area outside Tallid's apartment. While Garrus was keeping an eye out for Kolyat, Thane and Terra were both noticing Tallid slowly growing more agitated, like he knew someone was after him. Terra figured she had to move faster, letting Thane finish trailing the target so she could move ahead to—

"Hey!" Naturally, the door she opened had a maintenance worker behind it. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

There were a number of ways she could handle this. Yet somehow she settled on "What am I doing here? What are you doing here?"

The confused worker blinked at her. "What?"

"Do you have any idea how dangerous it is here?"

"Dangerous?"

"Get out of here now! Before it blows!"

"'Blows'?! What—?!"

"RUN!"

"OK!" The poor guy promptly raced out.

Leaving Terra standing there, laughing. "Oh, I can't believe that worked." With that obstacle taken care of, she headed through to the area Garrus was waiting in.

Just in time to see Kolyat make his move. The young drell had a gun up and aimed at Tallid before Terra or Garrus could step in. Garrus caught sight of him first and, since the kid was by no means a target to them, did the logical thing and sabotaged his gun. When Terra then ran in and called out in warning, Kolyat's shots not only missed but didn't even go off, giving Tallid time to retreat into his apartment. The downside was that this also gave the krogan time to arm his weapon, but by then, Kolyat had reloaded. The krogan recoiled from one shot just long enough for Kolyat to chase after his target. So Terra and Thane regrouped with Garrus at the entrance and followed. Kolyat wasn't exactly happy to see his father. C-Sec showed up about the same time they did, but Kolyat was determined, holding Tallid at gunpoint the entire time.

So Terra fired her own gun, hitting a lamp behind them. No damage done and Kolyat flinched long enough for her to rush in and pull Tallid out. Kolyat wasn't exactly happy about that either. She wasn't letting that stand. She knew from experience that nothing was worth losing family. "Your father doesn't have much time left, Kolyat. He's trying to make things right."

Kolyat scoffed. "So what? You just came so you could die in peace?"

Thane carefully drew closer. "I came to grant you peace." He hesitated to say the rest, but he knew it needed to be said. So he did. "You're angry I wasn't there when your mother died."

"You weren't there when she was alive! Why should you be there when she died?!"

Thane turned away, regretting the words that came next. "…your mother…they killed her to get to me. It was my fault."

Kolyat clearly hadn't been expecting that. "…what?"

"When her body was given to the deep, I went to find them. The triggermen, the ringleaders. I hurt them, eventually killed them. When I went back to see you, you were…older."

Kolyat shook his head. "And I guess it's just too bad for me you waited so long."

Thane didn't bother hiding the sorrow within anymore. "…Kolyat, I've taken many bad things out of the world…but you are the only good thing I've added to it."

Watching the scene got to Terra, so she was quite thankful to Captain Bailey for offering Thane and Kolyat a room to themselves to work this out. From the way Garrus was looking at her as they left the building, he knew how much seeing a family torn like this would affect her. When no one was looking, he took her hand and clung closer to her, more certain than ever that they had to make sure his mother survived.

Thane and Kolyat were talking for nearly an hour. Terra would have been happy to spend that time with Garrus, but they were still at a C-Sec outpost and there would be time for the two of them to be alone later, so she instead spent that time persuading Captain Bailey to keep Kolyat's punishment simple and let Thane go unquestioned. When Thane finally came out, Terra briefly checked in on him, receiving a vague answer about how they would have to keep talking to see how it went. After that, she figured it was best they leave the Citadel. But while she was talking to Thane, Garrus disappeared around the corner.

"Garrus?" She followed him, wondering what the problem could be. She found him disquietedly watching a news report.

"…named Lantar Sidonis turned himself in to C-Sec for the murders of 10 people on Omega. C-Sec is unsure how to handle the case as Omega is outside their jurisdiction and has no law system of its own to extradite him to…"

…oh. Terra took Garrus' hand, moving closer to him. She didn't know how to comfort him over this or even if he needed comforting, but she was there. Sometimes that was enough.

He didn't say anything. He just held onto her hand like an anchor.

Terra and Garrus stayed together in silence for several minutes before she finally drew him away to head back to the ship and get the space they needed. Thane was waiting for them at the transport to the docks, somehow inferring that no words were necessary and remaining silent for the entire ride back to the ship. It was only as they entered the airlock that conversation continued.

"Are you boys feeling better now so we can get off this station?" Terra prodded.

Garrus couldn't help but smirk. "I'll be fine, Tera."

"Yes, I am ready for whatever comes next," Thane said, "And I appreciate your assistance…siha."

Terra looked at him. "Uh, I think my translator just glitched. What did you call me?"

"Siha. I will tell you later."

Terra answered with a curious glance before turning to open the doors. She stepped back onto the ship first. Thane was behind her.

Until Garrus held his arm out to block the assassin's path. He didn't know what Thane's word meant any more than Terra did, but he knew enough to know what it was supposed to imply. So when Terra was out of earshot, Garrus sealed the airlock and turned to confront Thane directly. "What was that?"

Thane cocked his head at the turian. "I'm sorry?"

"Most people don't suddenly give their commander a pet-name just for doing them a favor. Are you moving in on my girl?"

Thane merely glanced at the door she had just walked through. "…I will admit I have a great admiration for her. But no. I know her heart already belongs to someone else."

Garrus was amazed he took that answer so well. He couldn't exactly blame the drell for "admiring" Terra since she was the type of person most people couldn't help but love (which he clearly knew better than anyone). He still felt like he should've been upset that Thane might have acted on those feelings if Kasumi hadn't announced to the whole squad that she was taken, but he knew better. Thane could read people, and the wording he'd chosen was very specific.

Thane had only needed to watch them interact for five seconds to know that they were mates.

While part of him was wondering if Samara also picked up on it or if anyone else on the ship knew enough about turians to know what that meant, Garrus kept his eyes on the assassin (or was that former assassin now?). "I hope that means we can count on you."

Thane nodded. "Of course."

Once he had that affirmation, Garrus opened the airlock and reentered the ship. Terra was at the galaxy map by the time she noticed they hadn't followed her on, tossing inquisitive looks their way as they both made their way to elevator before giving Joker the go-ahead to leave the nebula. She didn't know what had just gone on and wasn't sure she wanted to know, she just felt a lot better once they had put some distance between them and the station. She did love the Citadel, but they'd dealt with enough there in the past two days to last them a while.

As she headed back up to her cabin, though, she remembered her outing with Garrus to the Presidium and corrected that thought. They'd been through a lot, but they'd also made some good memories to balance it out.

Terra spent about two hours in her cabin, bouncing between going over data on the Collectors to start strategizing and working in her sketchbook, before she finally went down to the tech lab to see how the rest of the upgrades were going. Mordin had just finished assuring her that the armor upgrades were nearly finished and that word from the salarians researching the Corpalis cure was promising so far when EDI informed her that Jack was asking to speak with her. That was the last thing she was expecting to hear, so she acted on it quickly. She came out of the cargo hold below engineering five minutes later with a new course to plot.

Jack had been going through Cerberus' files on her and had managed to find the location of the facility that had kidnapped and experimented on her. She, quite rightly and quite badly, wanted it destroyed. Terra thought there was a certain kind of irony to demolishing a Cerberus facility so soon after turning her back on the Illusive Man, so she prioritized it and took them straight to the Petra Nebula. It was unfortunately on the other side of the galaxy from the Citadel, leading to a journey that took the better part of a day, but Jack didn't seem to mind the wait. When the time finally came that they were approaching Pragia, she was already in the armory, strapping on her shotgun and warming up her biotics. Terra was right behind her, gearing up and heading down to the shuttle bay to head out. But she stopped just as quickly when she noticed something wrong.

Garrus wasn't there. He was always the first one at the ready the moment they found out they had a mission. He never let her go anywhere without him. It'd become an unspoken law on the ship that when Shepard went somewhere, Garrus was always the first one to follow. Several crewmen (including Terra herself) had made jokes about him sleeping with his rifle just in case something came up in the middle of the night, and a few, Joker especially, went so far as to equate them (behind their backs, obviously) to Mary and her little lamb. Why wouldn't he be here now?

Terra finally told Jack to give her a minute and headed up to the battery to check for herself.

She found him sitting on a crate by the console, the most appropriate word for his current position being "sulking." He barely acknowledged her entry.

She quickly sat down next to him. "What's wrong?"

He was reluctant to answer, but he didn't see the point in not telling her. "I called Sol again. …things aren't going well."

She was already worried. Now she felt like the room was colder. "What happened? Is your mom OK?"

Just the question made him feel worse. "…no. She's hitting the final stages, the neurodegeneration started."

Terra suddenly felt like the cold was burrowing deep inside her and wouldn't come back out. Not only had her chances of survival just fallen drastically, but now it would start affecting her mind. Terra had never actually witnessed Corpalis before. Was it like a turian version of Alzheimer's, tearing apart the memory? Would the woman who'd been like a second mother to her even recognize her when she finally went home? What if it was too late for those treatments now? What if everything they'd been trying to help was for nothing?

No. Thoughts like that were clearly what was hurting Garrus so badly. She couldn't succumb to them, too. She had to be there for him, help him see the hope he was losing. Everything they had been doing would only be for nothing if they stopped, because it could always ensure no one else went through this. And Garrus' mother specifically was tough enough to make it through this. "Garrus, listen to me. It's not over until we give up."

He had been trying to tell himself that, but it meant a lot more coming from her. "That's not all of it, though. I warned them about the Reapers and Dad's been trying to convince the Primarch to take precautions. The hierarchy bolstered defenses and communications, but they're not really doing anything about it. They're not even listening to him!"

That she could relate to. She had hoped the turians would understand the gravity of the situation and how badly they needed to prepare, and it was nice to hear that Castis had taken the threat seriously and gone this far, but no one wanted to believe in something as terrible and immense as the Reapers. She would be just as skeptical herself if she hadn't carried the visions and spoken to Sovereign and Vigil. "Well, we're just gonna have to hope they see reason before it's too late. There's not much else we can do."

On this matter, Garrus had been hoping for more from her than blind optimism. He was right back to sulking.

Terra had never known Garrus to sulk, though, and she didn't like it. Her turian was confident, brave, and strong. He couldn't let all this get to him. Fortunately for her, she knew a way to help him with that. "Would going down and shooting something help you feel better?"

He couldn't help but smirk. "Maybe a little."

She held out her hand.

He took it.

So they went down to the shuttle bay together and joined Jack on the way to Pragia. It was simple at first. Mordin had even managed to finish upgrading their armor, shotguns, and pistols before they headed out, promising the rest of their guns and their medi-gel supply would be next; the armor upgrades proved immediately useful in catching some shots that could've done some real damage, and Terra certainly got a kick out of testing her shotgun's newly enhanced stopping power on the varren that came out to tussle with them.

With every step through the facility, though, things got more complicated. First, there were all the things Jack remembered of the experiments here and all the signs remaining of what happened that made Terra's blood boil and solidified her decision to put Cerberus next on her list after the Collectors. Then, there were all the indications that this facility had actually gone rogue from Cerberus and even that some of the experiments had been for the sake of keeping Jack alive; Terra wasn't certain if it would be better were all this true or if she was right to suspect that it had been planted in the time after she told off the Illusive Man since he would obviously know Jack would bring them here eventually. And let's not forget that the facility was full of Blood Pack vorcha and krogan. The mercs couldn't hold up very well against Terra and Garrus working together, never mind Jack's constant shockwaves on top of that, but their very presence was highly suspect. Eventually, they found out the whole thing was masterminded by the only other survivor of the facility's experiments, who was actually trying to restart the place.

Suffice to say, Jack wasn't quite the wordsmith Terra was.

Terra was quick to talk Jack down and chase the guy off. Jack took a few minutes to look around the place and remember the bad old days before decisively planting a bomb in the middle of the room that had been her childhood cell and leading them back to the shuttle. It was a narrower escape from the blast zone than they would've liked, but it was over.

Well, it was over until Jack got into a heated argument with Miranda almost immediately after getting back on the ship. Miranda didn't seem to mind them destroying a Cerberus facility, but she was still clinging to the ideals and the evidence they'd found that the facility was not under the Illusive Man's oversight. Jack didn't appreciate that viewpoint.

Terra knew better than to take sides on this one. "We've got enough to worry about without you two tearing each other apart. Save if for the Collectors."

Jack shrugged. "Sure. I'll do my part. I'd hate to see her die before I get a chance to filet her myself!" With that, she stormed off to presumably brood in the cargo hold.

Miranda simply retook her place in the XO office and began putting the situation behind her with relative ease. "Thanks, Shepard. It's good you came along when you did."

Terra nodded. "I'm here for my crew. You know that."

Miranda smiled. "I do."

When Terra came out of the office and turned the corner, Garrus was waiting for her, clearly having heard the whole thing. "You know, you don't have to solve every problem in the galaxy."

She smirked. "No, but someone has to, so it's worth a try."

He smirked back. "That's what I love about you."

She smiled, leaning into him. "I'd tell what I love about you, but we'd be here all night."

He laid his head on hers, not even caring if the crew might be watching. "I wouldn't mind."

"…I know."