Uriel: In Paradise Lost, Uriel is the "sharpest-eyed" archangel in heaven. Uriel is The Watcher, and commonly portrayed as the angel set to guard Eden after Adam and Eve's exile from the garden. Sometimes, Uriel is also identified with the angel of death sent to kill the firstborn of the Egyptians.

LIII

Uriel

When Jack, Daniels, and Chambers started having a dance-off, Garrus decided it was time to leave the party in the portside observatory. There was no way he could see that ending well.

Garrus ducked exposed wiring and stepped over displaced paneling as he walked back to the battery. There were no open hull breaches on the crew deck like there were on the command deck and down in the shuttle bay. The ship was still a mess. Before the Normandy flew anywhere else, they were going to have to put in for some major repairs, though Shepard had ordered Joker to make for Illium instead of Omega to do it.

Walking across the mess, he could see a few more people who had opted out of celebrations. Gardner was spotting Goldstein up on one of the mess hall tables. She was refitting some of the fallen cables into the ceiling while he called up instructions. Gardner hailed Garrus as he passed, and Goldstein tried to wave, but Gardner's usually booming voice was hollow. Goldstein's smile didn't reach her haunted eyes.

The people can probably use some repairs too.

Joker, the kidnapped crew. Jack and Taylor and Mordin and Krios. Tali. Goto. Legion. All of them could use a good month of shore leave before whatever came next. The problem was, Garrus wasn't sure any of them would get a month. The Illusive Man's probably already trying to shut down the ship. Going into the Collector base, Garrus hadn't ever imagined a situation where they would come out with every one of the crew and combat team alive but having cut ties with Cerberus. He was pretty sure Joker unshackling EDI in the crew abduction was the only reason any of them were still flying now.

The Illusive Man would send people after them. They'd need other help, both to escape Cerberus and to continue the war against the Reapers. The Alliance was the best bet, but there were other options.

Garrus's hand traveled up toward his visor. He'd sent the countermand order to the message he'd prepared for his family before the battle. But the Hierarchy would need to see all the files he'd compiled there anyway, along with everything he'd added to his vid bank in the Collector base.

They'll probably say it's faked. You can do anything with special effects. He got nervous just thinking about approaching them. Approaching Dad.

But the idea of hundreds—thousands—of Reapers descending on an unprepared galaxy? That's worse.

Garrus sighed, closed the door to the battery, and brought up his omni-tool to take some readings of the Thanix. After the battle, it would definitely need calibrating again. But on the interface of his omni-tool, a message was blinking.

Come up if you like.

–Shepard

Garrus probably hadn't thought about Shepard—Beth—up in her cabin more than fifteen times since they'd come back out safe into the Terminus. She'd been at Kasumi's party for a little while. Caught his eye once or twice. He wasn't completely sure how he hadn't tripped and blushed like some kid back in basic.

Spirits.

Granted, it had only been a few hours since he'd last been to her cabin, but he could relive every moment of their encounter right now as easily as if he was a drell.

Skin softer than he would have believed stretched over lean, hard muscle. The way she could bend and move. Those ridiculous human toes. He could hear her voice, gone strained and husky, breathless with amused laughter, now dipped low in a whisper of encouragement. He could smell her—the fruity shampoo, hard soap, oil, and gunpowder smells he'd known for years, and the salty-sweet smell he'd only ever smelled on her last night.

"What is that?" he had asked.

She'd laughed, just a little embarrassed, and showed him something—alien and familiar all at once. "Yeah. I guess that's probably me . . . wanting you."

He could feel her lips, full and pliable, pressing against his palms when he'd been terrified she would send him away. Her hair slipping through his fingers afterward. He could see the expression in those gun-metal gray eyes when she'd looked at him—like nothing he'd seen before.

Beth.

Garrus breathed in slowly. We'll see, she'd said several hours ago when he'd suggested that if they survived, they should celebrate together. They'd survived. It looked like now it was time to see.

He started the Thanix on a diagnostic cycle and left the battery. Three years ago, he would never have thought he could want a human so badly. If he was honest, after the SR-1 tour, he could've imagined it, even though he hadn't really believed it at the time. But the pull he felt now to Shepard's cabin was an order of magnitude beyond attraction to a human. He heard Wrex's warning echoing in his head: Don't screw it up.

Shepard was sitting on the edge of her bed when he came into her cabin. Despite the fact that she was already dressed down in an Alliance blue tank and soft, casual-looking pants, with her hair falling loose around her shoulders and down her back, he felt at once that it was definitely still Shepard, not Beth. There was a hard, nervous edge to her jaw, shields behind her eyes. But Garrus saw her heart rate and instantly flicked off target mode on his visor, even as his own rose in response. The helpful pointers of weak points in her anatomy and links to her service record and recent news were useless in evaluating what she was feeling right now. The CDR SHEPARD tag on the field was superimposed over her face, and he didn't need the heart rate monitor to register that she was as scared right now as she'd been in the last few minutes that they'd been alone.

"Okay," she said, and her voice shook. "Now that we're both not dead, I guess we need to talk. Do you really want to do this?"

"You mean have sex. Again," Garrus watched her closely, waiting for a reaction. "I wouldn't be against it. Well. I could be, actually." Shepard's lips twitched at the double entendre, but she didn't take her eyes from his, and Garrus frowned. "But Shepard—if it makes you uncomfortable . . ."

That got a reaction. Her head jerked sharply to the side—an emphatic no. Garrus saw her pupils had nearly swallowed up her irises. "Vakarian, I'd jump you right here, right now, and we might not be done for days."

Her voice broke on a ragged laugh. Garrus bit back a groan and shifted. "But?" He wished he'd changed to his civvies for Goto's party. That look on her face and that tone in her voice did things to him, and his hardsuit was becoming uncomfortable.

Shepard nodded—again, very sharply. "But . . ." she said, drawing another long, ragged breath. "If you want a repeat performance, we gotta set up some rules."

Discipline. Not all about keeping your kit inspection-ready for the brass. Garrus straightened, breathing through his nose, and focused. He might be on the cusp of securing a regular sex partner for the first time in longer than he even wanted to think about, but Shepard was right. They had to be careful with this. "It stays up here," he agreed.

Crew dynamics on a military ship—if Cerberus could be called that—were always complicated. Shepard had to maintain her authority, and both of them had to keep the respect of the crew. Humans were weird about sex, and some of them were still weird about their women in positions of power. They were some of the first things the galaxy had noticed about human culture. But even on turian ships, involved crewmates had to keep a watch on personal feelings out on the battlefield, or they were reassigned as being compromised. The last thing Garrus wanted was to make things harder for Shepard.

"To start with," Shepard confirmed. Then she brought up her omni-tool. She put something into it with her small, clever fingers, and Garrus's omni-tool buzzed in response as he received another private message. He brought it up and saw a small string of numbers.

"That's your code," Shepard told him. Garrus knew Shepard's passcode, of course. He'd known since Grunt joined the crew and had been informed of a couple security changes since. He'd been up to her cabin half a dozen times before they had ever had sex. But it had always been by Beth's particular invitation. This was something different. By giving Garrus his own code to enter her cabin, Shepard was making sure that, in case of an emergency, there would be a record of where he was when he was up here. She was also giving him a much more general, open invitation.

Garrus met Shepard's eyes, his stomach flipping. Really, Shepard?

Shepard licked her lips. She took in a breath, clenching her hands in her lap. "Garrus, you are welcome here whenever for whatever," she said. "Sleep, food, talk, sex; I don't care. I like you here, and I want you like crazy." She paused. Raised her eyebrows, making sure he was listening. "But it stays here, and you don't ask me why I'm saying this now or what it means, and you don't ever tell me why you come or what that means. Those are the terms."

She held his gaze and waited. Every line of her body was tense, defensive. And Garrus understood.

Shepard wasn't scared of the sex, and though she hadn't ever had it with a turian any more than he had with a human before last night, it wasn't the interspecies angle that worried her either. When it came to fraternization, sex wasn't where Beth Shepard drew the line.

Beth Shepard. Turian-human intercourse, and neither the DNA or the politics is worth more than a momentary stutter. An actual, meaningful connection with someone else? That's when she starts to panic. Doesn't have anything to do with species. Probably doesn't have much to do with sex at all.

Shepard was fine with blowing off some steam. She was fine with sleeping with someone on her ship, and even fine—now—with sleeping with a turian. What she's not comfortable with is that last night, we did a whole lot more than that.

Garrus tilted his head, considering. The worst he'd ever been through was still visible in the scars on his face. Shepard's physical scars—Beth's, because I think I was wrong before—had been healed by Cerberus or faded over time. But looking at her now, other scars he'd only ever glimpsed on her before were clearer than he'd ever seen them.

The dispassionate voice of the Hammerhead VI seemed to speak in his head. Warning: Minefield ahead. Beth wasn't about to give him anything to help navigate through and around the wounds of her past, not if she could help it. But she'd given him clearance to enter her territory.

Garrus nodded slowly. "So, this goes on, so long as we don't find out what it is," he summarized, gesturing between them.

Beth jerked her head again—a less emphatic and more apprehensive assent, this time.

Garrus hesitated. There it is: the dream. Coming off an impossible victory, the best warrior and military leader you've ever seen—strong, smart, and sexy as hell, says 'let's not label it.' All the rewards of a relationship and none of the responsibility. Regular sex—with her—with a promise not to ask for any kind of commitment. Time to open that bottle of wine, Vakarian.

And enable Beth Shepard to be a coward.

He shook his head slowly, half disgusted with himself, because he knew what he was going to do. Shepard's condition was unworkable long term. But he was going to go with it, because even if she didn't want to look whatever they actually were in the face just yet, agreeing not to, for now, would get him closer than the alternative.

And maybe because, deep down, you're scared to look this thing in the face yet too.

Okay. Okay.

"Well," he said, finally, spreading his arms. "I think you mentioned something about not being done for days?"

Beth let out a shaky breath and stood. "God, I'm glad you're not dead, Vakarian," she informed him, grinning and peeling off her shirt.

After, he sat, propped up by a messy wad of pillows, with the sheets tangled up around his spurs, and his legs tangled up around Beth's. Beth was sitting propped up by his torso, more or less in his lap, finger-combing the tangles out of her hair over her shoulder and occasionally reaching down to play with his fingers instead, which were rubbing absent circles over her hip and abdomen almost completely without permission from his brain.

They sat there, for two minutes or three hours, silent. Finally, Garrus broke the silence. "So. What now?"

She was still for moment before she realized what he meant. Then she leaned back even further into him and took both his hands in hers. "I'm going to give anyone who wants out a chance to leave during repairs on Illium," she answered. "It's a hub world, so they should be able to book passage anywhere else they want to go, but it's still the Terminus systems, which should keep them safe from any Council or Alliance legal action. The Collector base is a smoking run, but none of these people signed on to fight the Reapers or the Illusive Man. That's what's coming next."

"You left things that bad with the Illusive Man on the last transmission?" The Illusive Man had contacted them one last time after they'd made it back to Sahrabarik. Shepard had taken the call in the comm room alone and had come out looking half defiant, half triumphant.

She tensed against him now, nervous, uncertain. "I've had Jacob and Kelly Chambers a while now," she explained. "And no one else on the Normandy was ever really Cerberus. Hires for this mission against the Collectors or puppets, meant to keep me happy and clueless. You think Ken and Gabby would ever be complicit in the torture and enslavement of sentient creatures? You think Rupert Gardner could ever approve of the murder of an Alliance admiral?" Shepard shook her head. "All I needed to break with Cerberus was Miranda and some way around EDI. Thought I actually might have to ditch the Normandy eventually—get everyone I could out and just vanish. But then Joker freed EDI, and she was ours. When I realized that—" she shook her head again, and Garrus could hear the relief and wonder in her voice. "Then, Miranda made her choice.

"Back there, the Illusive Man came clean that what he really wanted from that Collector base was the technology to secure human dominance in the galaxy," Shepard went on, jerking her chin to indicate the comm room two decks below. "Told him I wasn't out to forward Cerberus's megalomaniacal ambitions, and I hadn't really needed another reason to be glad I'd blown up that base, but . . ." she spread her hands and shrugged. "There it was. By the end, he was more or less making overt threats. I had Jeff lose the channel."

Garrus was thinking rapidly. "EDI can keep Cerberus from hacking the Normandy, but the Illusive Man probably has a few other avenues of attack. What are we going to do? The crew can split up and go underground. The ship will be more of a target, even with the stealth drive."

"Honestly, I'm happier with the Illusive Man chasing us," Shepard told him. "Gives Miranda and Caleb and all the rest of the crew with families chances to change their addresses. And I figure, we start enough fires, do enough damage, we get Mr. Illusive on the defensive, too busy reacting to what we're doing to go after people who never knew much in the first place. Then we barter the ship and all the intelligence we've gathered—on Cerberus and the Reapers—for Council or Alliance protection, and do what we can to boost galactic readiness against the Reapers."

"You've got a plan," Garrus said. It wasn't a question. He heard it in her voice.

Shepard was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Liara. Remember how she's on the hunt for the Shadow Broker?"

Garrus got it right away. "Information blackout on Cerberus, now that their agents on the ship aren't reporting. We'll get whatever the Broker has on the Reapers too." He grinned, liking the idea. It was always better to be on the offensive. "Brilliant."

"I thought so."

"Will you be able to work with Liara?"

Shepard was quiet for another long moment. Then she said, "We're gonna need some allies, Garrus. I'd rather work with Liara than with Cerberus."

Garrus's mandibles tightened. "Well, with that kind of endorsement . . ."

Shepard turned her head to the side to look him in the face. "A little harsh?" she asked.

Garrus hesitated. T'Soni was a sensitive subject with Beth. Finding out the asari had given her body to Cerberus had really done a number on her, and despite the fact that she was alive and would've been dead if Liara hadn't done anything, he wasn't sure she'd ever forgive T'Soni completely. Wasn't exactly rational, but then, people weren't often rational. "Maybe a little," he admitted. "Liara's not a terrorist, Shepard, and she means well. She's always meant well."

Beth closed her eyes and bent her head against him. She didn't like it, but she didn't argue either. Instead, she moved on. "Back before it was open warfare between me and Cerberus—"

"Yesterday or six weeks back."

Beth smiled and tilted her head, rubbing her hair against his chest, conceding the point. "Cerberus gave me some data that might help Liara," she told him. "After we make repairs to the Normandy, we'll see what we can do with it. Then I've got a lead on one other Cerberus cell. The Illusive Man wanted me to put some pressure on them, see why they weren't getting results. Only now I figure, when the Shadow Broker goes dark, we pay the cell a visit. Make sure they never get results."

"One more fire for the Illusive Man to put out," Garrus said, following. "And it demonstrates to the rest of the galaxy that you're done with Cerberus."

"That's the idea," Shepard confirmed. She turned over in his arms and moved her legs off to the side so she wasn't so much sitting as laying on top of him. "Then back to the Alliance. I've got a favor on deck for Hackett. We take care of it and show up when he already owes us something, with a cutting-edge warship and intelligence on several Alliance enemies. That ought to buy me a hearing at least. Tali goes to the flotilla, Grunt to the dominant krogan clan on Tuchanka, and Mordin to the salarian STG. Massani and Samara gotta have a few connections, though they probably aren't as centralized." She yawned. "Could you get anyone in C-Sec or the turian fleet to listen?"

She was falling asleep, and at first it didn't seem like she was going to wait for him to answer. But when Garrus didn't, her eyes cracked back open and she reached up and tugged on his mandible. "Can you?" she asked again.

Garrus shifted under her. Beth moved off him and rolled over on her side, coming up to rest her head on her elbow and look him in the face. Typical. Now she wakes up. "You been taking vid all this time, asking me which assignments we run are classified and which you're free to share," she pressed him. "You telling me you never planned on taking all that anywhere?"

Garrus turned around and started pummeling the pillows into shape, distributing them back over the bed so she'd have one and arranging the others to support his cowl and crest more comfortably lying down. "Yeah." He didn't look at her, even though he could feel those eyes on him, full of curiosity. "My dad knows a few people. In C-Sec and the upper Hierarchy back on Palaven. He could do something with everything we've found. If he wanted to listen."

"I wondered," Shepard murmured, still looking at him. "You think he won't listen?"

"I don't know, Shepard," Garrus said. She raised her eyebrows, and he scowled. "Beth. I haven't talked a lot with my dad since I left C-Sec. Probably better off with you than anywhere else."

He should go home. He needed to go home. He didn't know why he couldn't tell Shepard. My mom's sick. She's . . . she's not going to make it. Probably doesn't have a lot of time left. My dad hates anything I do with you anyway, or used to. If I go home now and tell him he has to leave Mom to go talk with the top officials in the Palaven meritocracy on the word of my friend the terrorist Spectre—

The words stuck in his throat.

Beth Shepard isn't the only coward in this cabin.

Would Dad think the Reapers were a duty the Citadel Council shrank from due to its difficulty? Would Castis Vakarian believe in them, or would he react the way he had the first time Garrus had resigned from C-Sec to go after Saren? Would he react like Solana, saying Garrus was playing Spectre, just a witless idiot who'd thrown his life away on needless heroics while Auralie slipped away? Garrus knew he could help Shepard on the Normandy. Here, he knew who he was and where he fit. Back home, everything was a gamble.

He didn't know how much of that Beth read in his face or in the silence, but she raised a hand to trace her fingertips over his nose, the edges of his mandible. "You are welcome here whenever," she repeated softly, meaning something very different than she had earlier. "There's always gonna be a place on the Normandy for you." She laughed once. "Don't think I've got the guts to order you away. Scared out of my mind, Garrus, and you make me braver. Hell, I'm probably Commander Shepard because of you." He knew she wasn't talking about her rank. She meant the idea, the galaxy's concept of Commander Shepard, the mask she put up in the Collector base and the hero everyone and their varren needed her to be. "You make me better. Always have."

"But?" Garrus prompted her, growling. He knew where this was going. Any other day, he could have given her this speech himself. But not today. Today, it didn't mean an encouragement, affirmation that whatever happened, she was the best there ever was. Today, it meant something else.

"But I'm a damn good soldier without you," Beth finished.

There it is.

She looked him straight in the eye and gripped his shoulder. "And without me, you can hold every damn merc in the Terminus at bay. Look—moving forward, we're not looking to take out one Collector base. We're looking at taking out a species of mechanical superweapons with AI beyond anything anyone in the galaxy has ever fought, and lived to tell about. All I'm saying is, we might want to consider that—no matter what either one of us prefers—we might be more efficient separated than together."

She rolled over on her stomach and closed her eyes, reaching down to tug the wrinkled, twisted sheet up over her. "I'm not giving you orders one way or the other," she said. "Just think about it, alright?"

Garrus's mandibles tightened. ". . . Right."

"You can stay if you want," she yawned.

At first, he thought she was saying again that he didn't have to leave the Normandy. Then he realized she meant now. You're welcome.

The trouble was, he always wanted to stay, whether it was Shepard's cabin or the Normandy in general. Garrus vas Normandy, more of a rogue human ship than he was of anywhere else. Whether or not it was a good idea. Screw the DNA, screw the politics, screw whatever baggage she has and doesn't want to tell me about. And screw a sensible strategy for the war against the Reapers.

He wanted to stay—because Shepard was incredible, sure, but also because he was a coward. About different things than Shepard, maybe, but a coward nevertheless. It was safer to stay in a place where he was welcome, a place where he fit, where there was someone to lean on and he never had to make the ultimate call. Away from Shepard, he'd be on his own, just one dropout turian with a gun, a message the Citadel and the Hierarchy had shut down once already and his father might not even want to hear. All your mistakes will be back on you. He could fail. Let down Shepard. Let down the whole damn galaxy.

Damn it. He was going to have to go.

Garrus looked over at Beth. Her mouth was open, and she was drooling on her forearm, propped under her head with the pillow. Her hair was tangled around her like some half-dead aquatic weed, and beneath it and over the edge of the bedsheet, he could see her back, rising and falling with every breath she took. Garrus closed his eyes and swallowed, and a selfish, guilty resolve clenched in his chest.

Not yet.

The next morning, the buzz of his omni-tool woke him before Beth did. Garrus stirred and groaned. At first, Shepard's human bed was more comfortable than his hard, narrow, extra-long cot down in the battery. Beth's mattress was thick, soft, and deep, and equipped with high thread count sheets and a spread that definitely weren't military issue. But in the end, neither one of them had been designed for a turian. There was a distinct lack of neck and cowl support in Shepard's accommodations too. And I'm guessing Cerberus covering the chiropractor's bill is probably out of the question now.

He fumbled on the nightstand for his visor and saw they'd arrived on Illium a couple of hours ago. It was 0638 in Nos Astra, and there was a message icon blinking in the top left corner of his visor indicating he'd received two emails from priority accounts.

Garrus froze when he saw the names of the senders and the near identical subject lines. The one from his sister read, Please Come Home, G. The one from his father read, Require Your Presence in Cipritine. Both were marked urgent.

He opened his father's message first. It was brief and to the point.

Garrus, it read.

Your sister and I have made three calls in the past 36 standard Palaven hours and were unable to connect.

Sure enough, now that his visor and omni-tool had connected into the Illium grid, he was showing a record of the calls. He stood and walked over to Shepard's sofa, where his underarmor was folded next to his stacked-up hardsuit, waiting for him. Still reading the message, he began to pull on his bottoms.

We can only hope you are somewhere out of the reach of normal communication channels and will respond as soon as possible. The doctors of the Helos Medical Institute have released your mother back into home care, and your sister and I are returning with her to Palaven. Doctor Kieron gives your mother less than eight weeks before her brain becomes unable to sustain basic functions. I understand you feel a duty to your current mission, but if your presence is not vital to operations and can be spared, I ask you to take leave to return home to Palaven. We have a duty to our families as well.

My Regards to Cdr. B. S., etc.

—Castis Vakarian

Solana's message, if possible, was even shorter.

G,

Fucking call us back and let us know you aren't dead. I can't lose you too. And if you're alive and ever cared about as all, book a shuttle and get your ass back home. Love you.

—S

"What's happened?"

The sleepy question made him jump. He'd nearly forgotten he was still in Shepard's cabin. Beth was sitting up now, pushing wild hair back from her face, dragging one hand over her eyes and hugging the sheet to her chest with the other. She yawned, then focused. "You look like hell," she said slowly. "What's happened?" she repeated, concerned.

Garrus opened his mouth and tried to speak. "I—" He broke off. "I have to go. I have to go back to Palaven. As soon as possible."

A/N: For those of you following both this chapter and the Disaster Zone series, this chapter immediately follows the final chapter in Disaster Zone: Resurrection, "The Bravest of Us."

Some parallelism and contrast with the ending of DZ: Awakening here. While feeling similar sentiments, Beth is now counseling a very different course of action than the one she recommended there—and while the advice is actually sound, you gotta question her motives for it. Does she really think she and Garrus will be more efficient separated? If she does, is she promoting a separation for strategic reasons or for personal ones, because she now feels too vulnerable with him around?

For his part, as you can probably see, Garrus's desire to stay with her isn't exactly healthy either. He's capable of being a partner to her, but to some extent, right now, he's using her as a crutch. It's time to head into the denouement, which covers the major DLC for ME2 but also delves much more deeply into the rather dysfunctional early days of Garrus's (always unlabeled!) sexual and romantic relationship with my Beth—communication failures, mixed signals, slight flavor of codependency and all.

We'll return to the Friend Breakup subplot with Liara that's an undercurrent of the way I play Beth Shepard's relationship with Liara in ME2 and 3. We'll spend more time with the aftereffects of the Collector abduction on some of the Normandy crew. And we'll let Garrus's grief and helplessness over Auralie Vakarian's terminal Corpalis Syndrome and the strain on his relationships with his father and sister (and when and how they each became strained), which heretofore has been mostly backdrop, rise up to the fore.

Eleven chapters to go!

One final note—to those of you who take the time to drop me a line after reading a chapter, or every few chapters, thank you. This has been a very long, involved project, outside my comfort zone, written during what has been a very difficult time for everyone in the world but also for me personally. Feedback from those of you who are enjoying the fic, questions, or engagement of any kind has been a godsend for my motivation and a pick-me-up on occasionally very dark days. I appreciate you.

LMS