Thank you for reading! Special thanks to Oleander's One for idea-bouncing and overall support!
Shepard sat next to Garrus, watching her friend breathe. He was doing so more easily now than he had been the last time she'd come into med-bay, but his condition still worried her.
Dr. Chakwas approached from the back room, studying a clipboard, jumping when she looked up to see Shepard there. "You're back again, are you?"
"Just checking up on our man here."
It had been a relief to Shepard to see Dr. Chakwas in the Normandy's med-bay. With Joker at the wheel and the doctor here to patch everyone up, she felt much better about the mission. And she admired Cerberus's thoroughness—they had undoubtedly predicted she would react that way. She was only surprised they hadn't packed the new ship with more of her former crewmembers. No doubt they'd imagined that as a commander, she wouldn't have known all her subordinates, but surely their research had been more thorough than that. More likely, they'd probably had a hard time finding the others on the various Alliance ships they had no doubt been redistributed to, much less talking them all into joining Cerberus. She'd have bet a hefty amount of credits that they'd made the attempt with some of the others. Gerard, who used to man the door of the debriefing room, or Jenya, who had worked with Ashley as Assistant Gunnery Officer, or Butch, who had taken care of rebuilding the Mako every time Shepard had wrecked it planetside.
The current Normandy's crew seemed competent, though, too, and Shepard intended to get to know them. She found Kelly Chambers, the chirpy redhead she had first met on the Cerberus station lying to her about the vid stations being down, the hardest to deal with so far. Chambers was never-endingly perky and seemed to feel it was her role to tell Shepard every time a new email came in … and was overly familiar in the bargain, no matter how often Shepard tried to squash her by keeping everything military and professional between them. While she admitted there was a good reason to have a trained psychologist aboard keeping an eye on people's well-being, she certainly didn't need to be psychoanalyzed.
With an effort, Shepard drew her thoughts away from Chambers and quelled her rising irritation by checking the screens above Garrus's bed to reassure herself of his improving vital signs. Finding Garrus on Omega had been a rare moment when she'd felt as though maybe she could complete this mission successfully: When "Archangel" had taken off his helmet and she'd seen that familiar face, she'd come very close to hugging him. Only their armor and the approaching mercenaries trying to kill them had prevented her. At the end, when they had defeated the mercenaries only for Garrus to nearly die before they could get him on board the ship … Shepard had known that her former companions meant a lot to her, but she had never really realized just how important they had become until she felt the panic of thinking she hadn't been fast enough to save him. The guilt of leaving Ashley on Virmire had faded, although it would never entirely disappear; she couldn't lose another team member on her watch. Not if she had any choice in the matter.
Dr. Chakwas straightened up from her examination, laying a gentle hand briefly on Garrus's shoulder.
"How is he, Doctor?"
"I've done what I can for him, Commander. It was a bad hit." She looked down at him and shook her head. "Surgery was successful, so far as it goes, and he improves by the hour. I expect him to regain full functionality. But his face …"
"What about my face?" came the weak but unmistakable voice.
"Garrus!" Shepard exclaimed. "You're alive!"
"So it seems. What about my face?"
"There will be some scarring. You should be glad it's no worse than that," Dr. Chakwas told him sternly, but there was a hint of a smile on her face as she bent over him again, shining a light into his uncovered eye and entering some notes on her datapad.
"Hell, Garrus, you were ugly before. What's the difference?" Shepard asked him.
He chuckled, then winced. "Don't make me laugh."
"Who said I was joking? Slap some face paint on there and no one will even notice."
"I see you're in good hands here," Dr. Chakwas said. "If there's anything you need, I'll be right over there." She left them and sat down at her desk, her hands flying over the keyboard as she typed up a report.
"Some women find facial scars attractive," Garrus mused. "Mind you, most of those women are krogan. Think you can find me a nice krogan, Shepard?"
"I think I'd have a better chance of finding you a unicorn, Garrus. Krogan don't exactly do 'nice'."
"Good point." He sighed, and coughed. "Tell me about yourself. You're dead for two years, then you show up on Omega—"
"Saving your ass," Shepard pointed out.
Garrus gave as much of a smile as he could with half his face still bandaged. "Saving my ass," he agreed. "And working for Cerberus."
"They put me back together and rebuilt the Normandy. They're going after the Collectors. I figure I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, at least for the moment."
"Fair enough."
"Besides, now you're here. If I'm going to walk into hell, at least I'll have someone I trust at my side."
"I was with you on the Citadel," he reminded her. "Isn't that enough hell for one lifetime?"
"I'd think someone calling himself 'Archangel' would be willing to tackle hell more than once."
He chuckled and winced again. "Stop that."
"Again, who said I was joking?"
"Just like old times."
"Almost." She thought of Kaidan, wishing … She hadn't been able to find out anything about him, where he was, what he was doing, which meant she still hadn't been able to contact him. They were heading for the Citadel next—hopefully she would find him there, or some clue as to his whereabouts. "Joker's at the helm," she told Garrus.
"Can't break him and the Normandy up, eh? No surprise there."
"What were you doing on Omega, Garrus?"
"Helping," he said simply. "We took down slavers, pirates, gangs that went too far—wherever there was a need for some muscle to do the right thing."
"You didn't have any interest in going back to C-Sec?"
He nodded, hissing in pain as he did so. "I went back to C-Sec after … what happened to the Normandy. But with all the rebuilding at the Citadel, there was so much chaos. It was impossible to know where to do any good. Omega, on the other hand, was filled with criminals nobody else could touch, and there was no red tape to slow me down. Over time, as I proved I could get things done, I collected a few others who could get things done as well." He stopped talking, closing his unbandaged eye. "And now they're dead."
"How did it happen?" Shepard asked softly.
"My own damn fault," Garrus answered without opening his eye. "One of my people, a turian named Sidonis, betrayed me, drew me away just before the mercs attacked my squad. Then he disappeared. The others are dead because I didn't see it coming."
Shepard thought back to Virmire, to her own sorrow and sense of guilt and failure when Ashley died. "I'm sorry, Garrus," she said, genuinely grieved for him.
"Thank you." He opened his eye at last and looked at her. "I remember thinking, 'Shepard would be so ashamed of me.' When I could think of anything other than revenge, that is."
"I'm not," she told him. "I'm proud of what you accomplished."
"That means a lot. I appreciate it." He turned his head slightly, looking up at the ceiling. Even with half his face bandaged, Shepard recognized the look of determination on his face. She'd seen it before. "I lost my whole team thanks to Sidonis. One day I'll find him, and make clear to him exactly how I deal with traitors."
"I'll help you," Shepard promised.
"I hoped you would." Garrus was still looking at the ceiling. "I'm glad to be back on your team, Shepard."
"And I'm glad to have you." It was clear to her that the conversation was taxing his strength, though, and she stood up, patting his hand. "I'll let you rest."
He nodded, and Shepard left the med-bay, glad that at least one member of her previous team was back with her.