Chapter 56: Disavowed

Hatred is cold
Love is a flame
Duty is a pedestal
Guilt is a chain

Garrus didn't handle it well sitting in the battery alone and waiting for Terra to come back. After only a few hours with no word from her, he started to worry. Half the crew picked up on it and told him she'd be fine because it was Terra and she could handle anything, even coming back to life. It wasn't that he disagreed so much as that it was taking so long. It was because it was Terra that the wait concerned him. Even alone, she should've been able to handle whatever was going on inside of a few hours. She hadn't kept him waiting for contact like this since Elysium. Compounded with that was Terra's order to wait in the neighboring cluster, out of view of the batarians, so that they weren't mistaken for an Alliance ship and fired on. So when he stayed up an hour past lights out with no word from her and the ship still an entire relay jump away (however short a wait that would prove to be when it came down to it), he knew something was wrong. For two days, he knew something was wrong.

It was only when Terra actually called them back that he realized how wrong.

The entire crew was wondering why they'd had to flee the system so quickly and why Terra was still alone without the scientist she'd been sent to rescue and why she had gone straight to the med bay without a word to anyone—even Garrus. He knew to give her some space, at least while she was being checked over by Chakwas, but he started worrying again when Admiral Hackett himself turned up to talk to her. The admiral left the med bay in less than ten minutes, but Terra stayed there for nearly an hour before she headed up to deck 1. Still alone. Still not talking to anyone. Not even looking at her turian.

That was the last straw where Garrus was concerned. The crew would undoubtedly piece the whole story together by tomorrow, but he wanted to hear it from her. She didn't let him shut her out and he wasn't willing to let her do it to him now. So after giving her five minutes to herself, he took the elevator up to deck 1 and stepped into the short hall between the elevator and her cabin to…to…

He heard it before he even opened the door. The same crying that had drawn him to her 15 years ago. He hadn't heard that in over a decade. Terra never let herself fall apart, not over a mission, no matter how badly it went. It was worse than he thought. He was hesitant to intrude now, but he was committed now and it was likely she needed him. So without even knocking, he stepped in.

Terra was curled up on her bed, crying into her pillow. Terra Shepard wasn't the type to be labeled as delicate or fragile, yet here she was. It wasn't right.

So Garrus moved in to comfort her. "Terra—"

She hadn't known he was there until he said her name. She quickly pulled herself up to a sitting position and attempted to shake the tears, still not looking at him.

That wasn't the reaction he'd been anticipating. Still, he stood firm where he was certain she needed him to, stepping over to sit down beside her. "Terra, what's wrong?"

She flinched when he tried to touch her. Not a word. Not a glance.

"Terra, you have to talk to me."

She shook her head, eyes locked on the floor. "You should stay away from me."

Of all the things she could have said, that hurt the most. "You know I can't do that. Terra—"

"Stop it!" she finally snapped, snatching her pillow and folding it over her ears before curling back up on the bed.

He'd never seen her this way. If she couldn't even talk to him or even let him touch her, what was he supposed to do? Let her self-destruct in slow, solitary silence as if it wasn't entirely against her nature? No, if she wouldn't tell him what happened, he would figure it out another way. "EDI, you heard her in the med bay." He cast a wary glance Terra's way to make sure that pillow was actually blocking out the conversation. Or at least that she didn't care anymore. "What happened?"

"The commander discovered evidence that the Reapers were encroaching on the Viper Nebula's mass relay," EDI answered.

That was enough to run Garrus' blood cold. The Reapers. That close already? That was far beyond "bad news."

"Dr. Kenson was indoctrinated by the time Shepard arrived but had already made arrangements for an asteroid to be used as a destruction device. Shepard was able to activate it and cut off the Reapers' entry…by destroying the mass relay."

If Garrus had a constitution any weaker and possibly if he wasn't sitting down, he would've collapsed. Terra had destroyed a mass relay?! They had always believed it wasn't even possible. How…how… Oh. Oh no. "EDI…what happens when you destroy a mass relay?"

"The energy within is released in a cascade comparable to a supernova. …the shockwave destroyed the entire solar system."

Garrus almost did collapse when he heard that. It was no wonder Terra was so broken. She couldn't live with herself if she let one civilian die, let alone… "…how many…?"

Terra spoke up now, lowering the pillow from her ears. Apparently, she had been listening. "304,942."

Spirits… How could anyone come back from that? Terra, especially, would be devastated at the loss of worlds she never got to see, lives cut short because of her… It wasn't fair that she had been forced to make the choice, but he knew why she did. "Terra, listen to me. You did what you had to do."

"Don't!" she sat up, only now looking at him and only to glare at him, "Don't try to save me!"

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't. It's why I'm here." Before she could fight him off, he took hold of her. "You did the right thing…and it's exactly what I would've done."

The very concept hurt her. She couldn't bear to think of Garrus having to make that choice for her, of him carrying this weight after he had to carry Omega. "…that's not true."

"Sure, it is. Any turian would've. Wasn't it you who told me about that human phrase about the 'needs of the many'?"

Those weren't her words, though. She stood by them, but in this instance… "Maybe I'm not as turian as I thought."

"You are. Because even if you can't see it now, you knew when you did it that it was the only way. That they would've died anyway when the Reapers came through but taking action now gives the rest of us time."

"What good is time if no one's taking it?!"

She had a point there, one he couldn't very well argue with after seeing how slow to act even the hierarchy was on this front. "We're going to end this. We're going to make all this worth something. But you can't break before we get there. We need you."

She shook her head, her eyes falling back to the floor. "You don't need me."

He wasn't going to sit back and let her think that. He stood firm to make sure she knew that. "I do."

Those were the words she needed to hear. Even after what she'd done, she still had someone who loved and supported her, who needed and relied on her. She couldn't shut him out and she couldn't let him down. She had to be strong for him. But that didn't make the pain go away, not yet. It didn't change what she had done. It just changed how she had to come to terms with it. So she didn't even try to stop herself from falling into his arms completely as the tears came over her again.

He held her close, doing everything he could to chase her sorrow away no matter how futile it might be. "I'm here. It's over."

The words had comforted her once. Now they only proved why she could feel dread and fear boiling beneath her guilt. "It's not over. …it's starting."

This was one time he hated that she was right. "…I know."

They closed off the deck for the rest of the day so Terra could vent her feelings in isolation and lean on her turian for strength like she hadn't had to in nearly 15 years. In an hour, she felt like she had shed a tear for every innocent life she'd taken and she was about to collapse from dehydration, but Garrus stayed with her, giving her everything she needed without another word of consolation. She could process any more words of comfort right now, she just needed him there. At the end of it, they were simply sitting there, her lying back in his arms as her remorse faded to weariness. He was still there. He would stay there all night if he had to.

After a more-than-suitable length of silence had passed, he turned to ask what he hadn't dared to since they started. "Any better yet?"

She shrugged. "It's gonna take some time. But you were right. I tried to warn them, it's not my fault I couldn't get through in time…and if I had to go back, I'd do the same thing."

He stayed close, his arms still around her. There was nothing he could do to make this any easier, but she was coming around and that was enough. To begin with, at least.

She knew in that moment what she had to do. It pained her to think of it, but she knew one thing she could do to handle that. "…I wanna go home."

Such a simple statement that dug into his core. This wasn't how he had wanted to take her back, but if she needed it, he wasn't going to deny her, no matter how painful it would be to go there now. "EDI, tell Joker to take us to Palaven."

There was only time to establish a course plotting before lights out, leaving EDI to do some steering, but knowing they were on their way was enough to calm Terra. She still had Garrus stay close through the night, sleeping still wrapped up in his embrace. She didn't really want to leave the deck in the morning either. Still, she did it, because it was only fair to the crew to explain what was going on. She asked Garrus to stay back for this one while everyone else gathered on the crew deck and listened to her retell the story of the Alpha Relay and what their next course of action was going to be. While they were all offering their individual forms of support or concerns for what was coming, Garrus was flipping through her sketchbook again. She hadn't written or drawn anything in the past three days except one line that could be considered poetry.

"Even a champion must draw blood."

After the conversation with the crew was over and the ship was drawing close to the Apien Crest, Garrus took Terra's side and clung to it, handing her back her sketchbook with a barely concealed look of concern. She responded with a look of barely held reassurance and kept hold of his hand for the entire trip. When they finally found a place to dock, Terra gave the briefest of considerations for introducing at least some of her squad-mates to her adopted family, but she figured now wasn't the best time for that (and also, apparently, Tali had already met them at Terra's funeral, so there might be some bad memories to worry about). So Terra and Garrus stepped off hand in hand and let the squad decide whether to disembark or not.

Terra hadn't come back to Palaven in years. Ever since she originally left, she'd only had short visits between deployments. It was strange how, even though nothing had really changed, it all looked different. Perhaps that was because she had changed. Because of her feelings for Garrus or the things she had seen and done…she had definitely changed. She didn't like to think of it that way, though. The horizon was much the same, so she clung to that, the sight she had loved enough to capture and give to Garrus. It was comfort after so much madness, one he took the time to let her enjoy even as they made their way to the outskirts of Cipritine.

It seemed odd that he was still guiding her and she was still letting him even though she knew her way there. Maybe they were both merely looking back at a simpler time.

Terra smiled to see the house again after everything that happened. It hadn't been in use since she enlisted, but she could even still see the patch set aside for her farming efforts. It felt like coming home, a feeling she would never get from seeing Mindoir. It felt even better when Solana opened the door. Terra didn't give her a chance to even react to them being there before she had jumped to hug her adopted sister.

Solana was overjoyed to return it. "Terra! Garrus! What are you doing here?"

"Let's just say we needed a break," Garrus smirked as Terra reluctantly pulled away.

Solana smirked as she ushered them inside to close the door behind them. "So long as you realize you now owe me the whole story."

Garrus shook his head. "I don't think we have enough time for that long a conversation."

"Actually," Terra corrected, "I thought we might stay the night."

Garrus looked at her in amazement. "What? Really?"

"It's not like we have any leads to follow right now. I'm sure the crew will be fine without us for one night."

It still seemed like a huge change of pace that had come out of nowhere, but he couldn't blame her for wanting to stay after everything that had happened. "OK."

So Terra briefly messaged EDI to explain their prolonged absence while Solana was letting her parents know they had "guests."

"When you said 'soon,'" Castis remarked as he came to greet them, "we weren't expecting you meant this soon."

Garrus smirked. "We keep our promises."

His mother entered the room behind her husband and smiled at the sight of her son. "Garrus!" She rushed over to lay her head on his. "It's good to see you again. I worry."

"Oh, come on, Mom, when have I ever given you cause to worry."

She gave him a sharp look.

He then remembered this was the first time she was seeing him in person since he acquired his scars. "Oh. Right."

"And I here I thought I worried plenty," Terra smirked.

His mother lurched back when she heard that voice, turning to Terra in shock. "Terra? That's…how…?"

Castis took her side, carefully calming her down and reminding her of the video call earlier that week. He had clearly had to take action like this several times before. Terra admired how he loved and stood by his wife in even these darkest of times but regretted that it was necessary.

She finally faced Terra directly, inching closer. "You…it's really you?"

Terra nodded. She smiled, but it was dimmed to see the light in her adopted mother's eyes so weak, to see her mind slowly failing and taking her body with it. "It's me."

Terra and Garrus spent the next two or three hours explaining everything that had gone down since Garrus left the Citadel. Throughout the whole conversation, Terra was watching his mother, finding that she was holding up but still fighting a losing battle. It wasn't fair. It wasn't.

Garrus stopped explaining when they came to what had happened yesterday. He gave Terra a glance to ask if she was OK with sharing it, but she waved it off, saying something about how that was enough of the story and the mission she'd attempted solo had ended badly and made her want to see her adopted family again. That seemed a satisfactory enough answer for them to forego their questions and move along to making arrangements for Terra and Garrus to stay the night.

After the sun had gone down, Terra had returned to her old room. It was the same now as it had been when she first arrived, as if she had never even been there, but she knew. It felt like her space as much as the captain's cabin on the Normandy ever did. She had memories here, countless nights up talking with Solana or Garrus, just as many admiring the sky or the city through the window. This was where she had moved on from her abruptly fractured childhood and become who she was meant to be. In a way, it felt strange to come back here. But in another way, it felt right.

Garrus stepped in behind her. "Missing the good old days?"

She smirked. "Don't you have a room of your own?"

"Yeah, but in case you haven't noticed…" He moved closer, placing his hands on her waist and her shoulder. "…things have changed."

"…yeah. They have." She sighed. "I wish they'd stop doing that."

He laughed. "You're not the first to say so and you won't be the last."

"…things are going to change again soon. For everyone. I don't…I don't want…"

"Hey…" He turned her to face him, his talons reaching up to brush the hair from over her right eye (only for it to slip back in place out of habit, though it still made his point). "…whatever's coming, we'll face it together, we'll stop it together, and we won't let anything get in our way."

Words to live by. She could only hope it would be that simple. She doubted it would—nothing was ever simple for them—but she hoped all the same. "…stay with me."

He smiled and nodded. "Always."

So when they lied down to sleep, they lied down together in her old bed, safely wrapped in each other's arms. Terra took longer to fall asleep than he did, her thoughts a restless tornado within her, praying ceaselessly for time to stop on this moment so she could stay tight in her turian's embrace and not have to face what was coming next. But time ticked by all the same. She couldn't stop it. All she could do was appreciate this moment while it was still here and cling to the memory as she did to him. So she held on tight, finally fading to sleep to the sound of his heartbeat and dreaming of a life where time moved slower and there was nothing out there waiting to get in the way of simply being held by her mate.

The night passed all too quickly. The dawn was unforgiving.

As soon as Garrus woke up, he knew something was wrong. Confused, he opened his eyes to search the room.

Terra. She wasn't there.

He told himself she might just have gotten up first and left him to sleep, but something didn't feel right. Like she wasn't even in the house anymore. "Terra?" He was about to get up and start searching the house when he noticed something on the pillow. A note? Confused, he opened it and began to read.

Garrus,
I'm so sorry. I'm leaving. I'm dissolving the team, taking the Normandy to Earth, and turning myself in for what happened to Aratoht. I would have told you, but you would've come with me, and I don't want you to pay for what I did.
I don't know when I'll see you again, but I promise I will. I'm still yours. …I'll always love you.
- Terra

By the time he'd finished reading, he felt hollowed out. She…she wouldn't. This was wrong. She couldn't have… But she did. In his denial, he looked around the room one more time and saw that she had actually snuck his belongings off the ship and dropped them there, none of hers in sight. He finally turned the note over and found it was written on the back of a drawing torn from her sketchbook. The drawing of their embrace on the Presidium.

Without thinking, he set the page aside and turned on his COMM to call her. "Come on, Terra, pick up…"

She didn't. She was already curled up in a corner of her cabin, fighting tears for leaving him behind. When her COMM beeped, she didn't even check to see who it was. She knew. She couldn't talk to him like this. She disconnected entirely.

When Garrus heard the signal drop, he growled to himself in frustration and tried a different tactic, calling the Normandy itself.

EDI intercepted it almost immediately. "I'm sorry, Officer Vakarian, but Commander Shepard has asked me to block any attempt for you to access ship communications."

Spirits, she was serious. She knew only EDI could keep him from hacking in. "EDI, please, just let me talk to her."

"She has asked me to tell you 'Please don't make this any harder than it already is.' I would advise you to heed this."

…he had to. She was doing what she thought was best for both of them, for their peoples, and she knew she couldn't if he so much as tried to talk her out of it. He had to stay back and let this happen, no matter how much he hated the idea of her being punished for what had happened at Aratoht. No matter how much they had both promised never to separate again. Was the galaxy ever fair?

He sighed, realizing he was going to have to approach this a different way. "Could you at least pass a message on for me?"

"What message?"

"…I don't agree with this, but I understand. And I'm waiting for her."

"I will tell her. …she misses you."

He smiled wryly. "The feeling's mutual. Keep her safe for me, EDI." After he hung up, he sat there on the bed that was once hers, looking down at the drawing in his hands as if it was the last he had of her.

He didn't want to live without her. But since she was alive this time and she needed him to, he would try. For her.