Chapter 62: Awakenings

Long may we rest in dreamless sleep
To escape a fate far darker
But when we wake from a slumber so deep
An escape may prove much farther

Terra was in the process of coming out of the COMM room and grumbling that the asari, who she had been counting on to help mediate this summit with her, were not coming to the negotiations at all after hearing of their new addition to the talks. She had just finished setting Primarch Victus up in the war room (and she may have been smiling, touched that even Victus had apparently heard Garrus "speak highly" of her) when things went wrong. The technical difficulties the ship had been dealing with while they were on Menae suddenly resulted in EDI going completely offline. Terra immediately raced down to the AI core to see what was happening. "EDI, talk to me!"

The last thing she would've expected happened. "Is there a particular topic you wish to discuss, Shepard?" The answer didn't come from the PA's or even the console by the door. It came from a synthetic body striding lithely up to her.

Terra blinked in shock. "EDI?!"

"Yes."

"You're…inside the Cerberus bot?"

"Not all of me, but I have control of it. It was not a seamless transition."

"Clearly! You blacked out on us!"

"I was attempting to extract information on the Prothean device, but a backup power source and CPU activated. I was finally able to erase the previous intelligence and transfer my own systems into its place. During this process, this unit…struggled. Hence the fire."

Terra groaned. "EDI, you need to warn us about situations like this."

The body EDI was newly occupying gave a gesture similar to a shrug. "Any attempts to help would have been limited by reaction time."

Terra figured there wasn't much point in arguing the matter and instead turned to looking over the body. "So…if you're…in there…are you still in the ship?"

"My primary functions are reserved inside this core," EDI answered, gesturing to the processors around them, "For optimal control, this unit should remain within the Normandy's broadcast or tight beam range."

Terra gave EDI a confused look. "Are you planning to take that body somewhere?"

"This unit possesses enhanced combat capabilities and resistance to small firearms, as well as a mobility that would allow it to accompany you to places the Normandy cannot reach."

Terra's confusion turned to astonishment as she saw what the AI meant. "You mean you can come with us on missions?!"

"Yes."

"That…well, that would be amazing, but you should probably check this thing doesn't have any more surprises for us."

"Agreed. I will run diagnostics." She cocked her head for a moment. "Complete. If you like, I could send you a full report. In the meantime, I should take this body up to the bridge. Jeff will want to see it."

Terra couldn't help smirking after EDI had left the room. "On that, we can agree." But thinking of Joker's inevitable flirting with the AI made her think of someone else. With a smile, she made her way out of the med bay and around to the battery. She smiled even brighter to see her turian off to the side, tinkering with the wiring in the Thanix cannon. "Wasted no time getting back to work, I see."

Garrus smiled just at the sound of her voice before stepping back to look at her. "After what I've been through lately, calibrating a giant gun is a vacation."

They had both been through a lot. But she hadn't come to be reminded of that. She'd come to see him. Her mate back with her, for good this time if she had anything to say about it. "As long as you don't work yourself too hard," she commented slyly, absentmindedly fingering her necklace.

He watched every move she made raptly. She had been a key feature of his life for 16 years. He didn't know how he went one day without seeing her. "I've missed you."

He'd said it already, but that didn't make hearing it any less meaningful. Now that she was free to respond to it on her own terms, she smiled almost tearfully. "I've needed you."

He moved closer, taking her hand. "There wasn't a minute that went by where you weren't somehow on my mind."

She leaned closer, taking his other hand. "I've been going crazy not seeing you."

He laid his head on hers, drawing her closer. "When I heard the Reapers were taking Earth—"

"I'm here. We're together again. That's all that matters."

It wasn't, but it was all that mattered right now. So he set aside what was happening outside and kissed her for the first time in months.

It was worth the wait.

They became each other's escape, silently clinging to each other so closely that, after they separated from the initial kiss, they wound up sitting beside each other against the wall. His talons drifted tenderly through her hair as her fingers gently traced his scars and discovered they had recently begun to fade. It was exactly what they both needed to be back in each other's arms again, simply enjoying each other's presence when solace was slowly becoming a thing of the past. This was where they belonged. Always.

"This reunion is going a lot smoother than the last one," Terra smirked before kissing his mandible.

Garrus smirked back, nuzzling against her. "I'm learning."

Terra smiled. He was. He knew her better than anyone and now he knew how to show her he loved her. Maybe—

"Commander," EDI came over the PA, "Admiral Hackett has sent a message asking us to intercept a Cerberus incursion on Eden Prime."

Of course. Their time was very limited now. Even while they were waiting for other people to mobilize and choose neutral meeting grounds and everything, they were being asked to redirect to this problem or that one. She was exhausted just thinking about how far they would be stretched before this was over. "Tell Joker to head in, I'm on my way."

Garrus sighed as she stood up.

"Don't worry, we'll sneak some time to ourselves later."

"I know. …it just feels like we're abandoning Palaven."

She couldn't deny that some part of her felt the same, but as long as they had Victus aboard and they were organizing the war summit, she refused to give up hope. "We're doing everything we can. The day I'm not fighting for Palaven won't be 'til the day I die."

He shrugged. "You kind of already did that."

"Case in point, then. If it'll make you feel better, you can save the calibrations for later and come up to the CIC with me."

"I don't know. I'm pretty sure someone screwed up something down here when they were scrubbing the Cerberus out. I'd like to get the old girl back in fighting shape."

"And miss Joker fawning over EDI's new body?"

"Yeah, well, I—wait, what?!"

Terra simply smirked.

"Oh, this I gotta see!"

"You really do."

Joker's reaction was worth witnessing. Terra couldn't help but think that it was reminiscent of those old Earth cartoons, just barely stifling the urge to start snickering and tell the flustered, giddy pilot to put his eyeballs back in his head. Somehow, though, he managed to keep his eyes on the road (so to speak) while EDI took up position as his new co-pilot and Garrus and Terra both internally laughed. Garrus wound up striking up a conversation with EDI about how her new body was working out while Terra went down to the armory to prepare for the mission.

"So," James spoke up while she was gathering her armor, not even breaking his stride on a series of pull-ups, "what's the deal with you and the turian?"

Terra rolled her eyes at first, thinking it was Kasumi all over again. This time, though, she figured she might as well just be open about it from the beginning and let the crew gossip all they wanted (better her personal life than their people's darkening fate, at least in this instance). "Who, Garrus? He happens to be my boyfriend."

James reacted so sharply that he nearly lost his grip on the bar. "He…what?!"

"Got a problem, lieutenant?" she smirked, purposely doing so as she drew her pistol.

"Uh…no, no problem at all. Just…not what I was expecting." He finally dropped from the bar, stretching out as he faced her. "So we going groundside again?"

"Actually," EDI intercepted, "the mission briefing suggests Cerberus is attempting to uncover Prothean technology. I would recommend taking Dr. T'Soni."

Terra nodded. "And Garrus goes with me by default. So maybe next time, Vega."

James shrugged it off, instead gathering her weapons for her while she suited up. When Garrus and Liara came down to hop in the shuttle and move out, James waved them off with a casual "Good luck down there, Lola."

Terra waved back idly. "Yeah, yeah, we'll come back in one p—" She stopped when she realized what he just said, turning to give him an incredulous look. "Lola?"

He shrugged. "Nicknames are kind of my thing. My best friend growing up had an older sister named Lola…hot, tough."

She just kept eying him. "…right." She finally turned to get on the shuttle, peripherally taking note of the territorially inquisitive glance Garrus tossed James' way before following her on.

Eden Prime wasn't quite occupied, but it might as well have been, Cerberus was there in such force. Terra was more furious with every turn. Eden Prime's colonists had been through enough three years ago without Cerberus taking away what they had left right as the Reapers were moving in. This planet was supposed to be beautiful, but all she could see was bloodshed and loss.

"They'll rebuild," Garrus tried to tell her, "If there's one thing I know about humans, it's how resilient they are."

For once, his perfectly legitimate statement did nothing to console her. "They rebuilt Mindoir. It wasn't the same."

Having seen how hard that loss had hit her, he elected not to respond.

The main contingent of Cerberus troopers was easy to remove, clearing the way to a console that could access the dig site. Liara quickly hacked in to raise what had been discovered. She froze the second she hit the button. "Goddess, that doesn't seem possible…"

"What is it?" Terra asked as she came over.

"It's not a Prothean artifact." Liara turned and watched the elevator raise and reveal a cryo-pod. "It's a Prothean. And it's still alive!"

This was definitely the last thing Terra had expected. When Liara confirmed they could wake the Prothean, she thought both of them were about to faint. Even Garrus seemed too stunned to act until she finally heard Cerberus regrouping. Since Liara had told her they needed to search the Cerberus terminals for Prothean data to deactivate the pod without killing its inhabitant, Terra quickly led the assault to drive Cerberus back. The biggest threat they encountered was a turret right in front of the building that was clearly their target, but Garrus was able to overload its shields so Liara could warp its armor, a combo attack that made it explode in its engineer's face and leave him open for a direct attack from Terra. Terra led the way into the miniature Cerberus lab and began poking through the terminal within. She didn't know how Cerberus had managed to recover what they did, but she did know that it was a recording of the Protheans' final stand on Eden Prime, of soldiers falling to Collectors as they attempted to withdraw behind a sealed fortress and go into cryo until the Reapers left. It was up to them to make sure that wasn't for nothing.

"I think I can use that to deactivate the pod," Terra said.

Garrus looked at her in astonishment. "You understood that?"

She looked at him in confusion. "You didn't?"

"No, I just saw static."

Liara quickly put the pieces together. "It must be the Cipher. It allowed you to process the visions from the beacons and comprehend Prothean language. It probably let you see this as well."

Strangely, Terra had forgotten she had the thought patterns of a dead race embedded in her psyche. She only really used it when she was revisiting the visions, which she didn't do voluntarily. Maybe now it would prove helpful again. They fought through the Cerberus defense a bit more hastily now, finding the next terminal and letting Terra view its information. She saw the same Protheans struggling to survive the Reapers' relentless onslaught, more importantly finding the other signal they needed to free the one in the pod. Now it was just a matter of doing that while Cerberus shot at them from every angle. Which they managed. As usual.

When the pod opened, Liara practically stared. Here was the validation of her life's work, the one thing she had never dreamed she would see.

Terra could merely think how this explained why the Collectors looked like bugs. Before Horizon, she would never have pictured the Protheans that way, yet here they were. And here was one of them, alive and kicking.

Kicking hard enough to knock all three of them over when he woke up. Apparently, he was biotic. That would've been nice to know beforehand. Terra, predictably, was back on her feet and chasing after him first. He seemed paralyzed by the sight of Eden Prime as it has changed since he went under, giving Terra a chance to catch him. The second she made contact, though, she again saw that day playing out, this one Prothean surviving where all his kind fell. He seemed to be reliving it at the same time, if the way he fell to his knees as the scene ended was anything to go by.

"How many others?" he asked.

Terra answered with a sympathetic look he didn't even see. "Just you."

He sighed miserably.

She had known she could understand his language, but she hadn't expected he would understand hers. "You can understand me?"

"Yes. Now that I have read your physiology, your nervous system."

She didn't like the idea of him "reading" her, but she shrugged it off. "So you were…doing that while I was seeing…"

"Our destruction," he nodded as he stood up and faced her. He then took notice of Garrus and Liara coming up behind her and scoffed, shaking his head. "Human. Asari. Turian. I am surrounded by primitives."

Terra wasn't sure whether to be amused or insulted. "It's not safe here anymore. You can come with us."

"You fight the Reapers?"

"To the death."

"Then I will follow."

She offered her hand.

He didn't take it. He just walked past her and waited to follow them to the shuttle. Admittedly, not a good start to their relationship.

It wasn't exactly going any better when they got back to the Normandy. By the time she had explained to Hackett what they had found, Liara was calling her down to the engineering deck. Garrus was waiting when she arrived, because obviously he didn't know what to expect any more than she did and wanted to look out for as always, and followed her into the room that used to be Grunt's. They found their asari at odds with a small group of Alliance soldiers surrounding the kneeling Prothean with weapons armed.

"I'm trying to make the room more comfortable for him," Liara explained, "but they won't even let me talk to him!"

"Sorry, commander," the soldier said, "First contact protocols. 'No deadly force unless fired upon, but assume hostility.' We had to dust off the manuals."

Terra could understand the caution, but she had seen this Prothean stand against the Reapers and then not harm her when he could. Trust would have to be earned. Yet he could not do so if he wasn't given the chance. "You can stand down. I don't think our new friend is going to be a problem." She stepped up, facing the Prothean himself. "Will he?"

He stood up, looking at her… "…that depends on you." Before anyone could react, he took hold of her.

Garrus was in position to tackle the ancient alien before any of the Alliance personnel could even raise their guns, but Liara signaled all of them to stand down. Garrus got the message and kept back, but he didn't calm down.

"A warrior's strength swells within you," the Prothean said, "a child of three worlds and proud to be so. Yet there is great turmoil, for all three have fallen. You fear the Reapers will win. You fear—"

"Enough!" Terra finally pushed him back, grabbing her arm where he had touched her. If she had wanted someone to read her mind with that much accuracy, she would've asked. "…how did you do that?"

"Experience is a biological marker. My people can read these. Though, as you saw on Eden Prime, the connection can work both ways."

Terra began to put the pieces together. "Like the beacons."

The word drew his attention. "Yes. Which…" Cautiously, he touched her arm again.

Both of their minds filled at once with the vision that had plagued her nightmares, become background noise to her true night terrors, and then returned with the dread that this would soon be the fate that befell her beloved galaxy. The vision of his people's destruction.

He stepped back, all four eyes widening in shock. "You found one. Two of them! You saw our warnings! Why were they not heeded?! Why didn't you prepare for the Reapers, human?!"

"It's 'commander'!" Terra immediately snapped back, "And no one could understand your warnings! The first beacon was damaged, it nearly killed me! I tried to warn everyone else, but it's hard to make them listen to you when they can't see the same message!"

He went from outraged to simply downtrodden as he realized what this meant. "Then communication is still primitive in this cycle."

Liara finally signaled the soldiers that she, Terra, and Garrus could take it from here, prompting them all to leave, and went over to the console near the back of the room. "We were hoping you could tell us more about the device. We found your plans."

"Device?" he asked with a curious look her way.

She pulled up the blueprint on the screen. "The one your people were building to destroy the Reapers. The plans were incomplete. We were hoping you could tell us why."

He looked at the plans for a moment, that downtrodden look crossing his eyes again. "…we never finished it. It was too late."

Terra hadn't been holding out any hope that the sole survivor would have all the answers, but she still felt a cloud of hope diminish deep inside her. "So you don't anything about this 'Catalyst' either."

He sighed. "No."

And now it dissipated entirely. Still, this was a huge development she couldn't let misfortune spoil. "Well, what can you do for us?"

"I was a soldier. I can aid you in the coming battle." He turned to look at them. "My people had avatars of many traits. There were those who stood for bravery, strength, cunning…"

"And you?"

"The embodiment of vengeance. The Reapers will pay for my people's blood."

Garrus nodded. "That I believe we can do."

Terra's curiosity guided them from there (at least until such time that Liara's enthusiasm resurfaced and took over), asking about Prothean society and how their war had failed. Her curiosity was satisfied, but they were all stunned to hear that Prothean society was nothing like they had believed, nothing like their own. The story reminded Terra of Rome. No, actually, the turians reminded her of Rome. The Protheans were an extreme even further beyond that. Liara seemed especially disturbed to hear it, and Terra couldn't blame her. This new addition was…unfamiliar territory for them all, to say the least.

"This has been…interesting," he finally said, "Seeing the primitives of my cycle now in power. Humans, asari, turians…"

"There's also the salarians," Liara offered.

"The lizard people?"

"I believe they're amphibian."

"…they used to eat flies."

Terra wasn't sure whether to be disgusted or amused to hear that.

The Prothean turned to her before she could bother deciding. "I will fight for you, commander. I am known as Javik."

She nodded. "Then welcome to the Normandy, Javik."

When Terra and Garrus followed Liara out to give their new friend some time to get settled, they both got the feeling the asari was a bit disillusioned by what they had learned. It was pretty clear to Garrus that Terra was, too, somewhere deep down. As the three of them got on the elevator, he watched her, thinking how the Prothean empire was the opposite of what she wanted for their galaxy. Definitely not about how Javik "reading" her was stepping over a line only he had a right to. Definitely not.

…maybe a little.

He finally decided they both needed to get their mind off things. Instead of stepping off with Liara on deck 3, he hung back and followed his human up to deck 1. She looked at him as if she knew what he had in mind and was wondering if she was truly in the mood for it. When the doors opened to let them into her cabin, he made up her mind for her by wrapping his arms around her and kissing her.

She took a moment to enjoy the embrace before leaning back to look at him. "There's probably a more efficient use of our time, you know."

"Not really. We need to take as much together as possible…while we still can."

She couldn't argue with that. It was one of the few things she could trust wholeheartedly to be true. With an appreciative smile, she drew him to sit down beside her on the bed. Though she hated to use him as an escape from the weight of the galaxy slowly burying itself on top of her.

No one else would've noticed the resulting hesitation behind her wanting gestures. But he did. "Terra…"

She immediately grew defensive. If she let him comfort her preemptively, she'd only break down faster. Especially with what Javik had said still heavy on her mind. "I'm not afraid."

"Yes, you are. In case you hadn't noticed, I am, too. We all are. Just because we still have hope for victory doesn't mean we aren't all afraid of the alternative deep down, knowing what we're up against. You shouldn't have to justify your feelings."

"But I do. I'm in command, people are looking up to me. If I falter, they fall."

"You're not doing this alone. And you're not perfect, the whole crew knows that. We're all behind you." He smiled, taking her hands in his. "And I'm right beside you."

He was. He always was. He had been the constant in her life for 16 years, the one person she had always known without a doubt that she could depend on to the ends of the universe and back. And he had proven it time and again.

She smiled more truly as she realized something. She didn't want to eloquently, poetically frame her feelings for him this time. She wanted to say it openly in a way she rarely had the chance to. Turning her hands around his, she turned on his omni-tool.

He looked down at this in confusion. "What are you doing?"

She ignored the question, shushing him by softly laying her head on his without taking her eyes off of her work. Tech genius she might not be, but she had picked up a few tricks along the way.

Like turning off a translator.

His confusion faded to shock as he saw what was happening. It had never occurred to him that even his relationship with her was reliant on a translator just so they could speak. They had picked up some of each other's language along the way just from being so close, but they had never tried to communicate without something to lean on. Now she had deactivated his means of understanding her and was in the process of deactivating her means of understanding him. He hadn't been nervous around her in over a decade and now…

She wasn't nervous, though. She was determined. She let her sapphire gaze lock onto his, reaching up to lay her hand on his scars. Then she spoke.

The turian language was created by a race with dual-toned voices. The trills and hums involved were extensive and nearly impossible to replicate by an alien. But on Terra's musical, poetic tongue, Garrus felt like he had never heard the words more beautifully articulated. With her limited range, she still perfectly reproduced a phrase only she could string together like a chain of jewels and give to him with an honest and loving gleam in her bright blue eyes.

"I love you eternally to the depths of my soul."

Seeing what she had in mind and ringing with delight at her promise, he reciprocated, whispering in her ear in the language of her people. It felt clumsy to him, but she felt her heart quiver joyfully to hear those earnest words practically sung by the voice she loved, unfiltered and adoring.

"I love you with the fire of the stars."

Having said all they would ever need to, they simply stayed there in each other's arms as the night began to creep in. It was only when EDI asked if they should start heading for the Annos Basin that Terra remembered it was nearly lights out and reactivated the translators to tell Garrus to head back down.

"We'll be needed in the morning," she told him, "Get some rest." She smiled, kissing his scars. "I'm all yours when we're done."

He smiled back until he was on the elevator back down to deck 3. Up until he finally fell asleep in his bunk, her voice trilling in his ear was still bright in his mind, a proclamation he knew he'd never forget. Just as he knew he would never forget the promise she left him with.

She was all his. That would be worth fighting a war over.