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Without Garrus, Shepard wasn't sure she would ever have made it back onto her ship. He walked with her, talking about inconsequential things to take her mind off the day's events, giving warning glares to anyone else who tried to speak to her.
At last the familiar doors were closing around her, solitude nearly upon her. "I … think I just need to be alone."
"Of course. I'll just go up to your quarters with you, make sure no one bothers you on the way."
"Thank you, Garrus."
"He was my friend, too," he reminded her gently. "This is the last thing I can do for him."
Tears stung Shepard's eyes and she looked away, trying to hold them off. She couldn't go to pieces. Not yet.
The elevator ride up to her quarters felt like so many elevator rides they'd taken on the Citadel. She hadn't even processed what had happened there today—she wasn't sure she was ready to.
Garrus must have been thinking along the same lines, because he began musing out loud, "Hell of a day, huh, Shepard? Udina loses his mind, the Citadel almost falls … and you almost had to put down a friend." He turned his head to look at her.
It took her a moment to realize that he meant Kaidan, and she shook her head. "No, I didn't. Sure, it got a little tense there, but he never would have taken that shot. I knew he would come around."
"You had more faith than I did."
She smiled. "I always do."
"What about you? If it had come down to it, could you have pulled the trigger?"
"Could I have? Yes. Would I have? Never. Not on Kaidan, or you or Liara or Tali or Wrex … You're more than crew, more than companions. You're my family, Garrus, all of you. The only one I have." Or am ever likely to now, she thought, but she left that unvoiced.
Garrus's long-fingered hand closed gently on her shoulder and gave her a little shake. "Right back at you, Shepard." He cleared his throat. "It will be good to have Kaidan aboard again. We can always use a friendly gun."
"I agree."
The elevator reached her floor, and she got off. Garrus held the door for just a moment. "Shepard, if you need anything, you'll call me?"
"I'll call you," she agreed, although they both knew she wouldn't. Still, it meant a lot that he offered.
She wearily keyed her code into the door of her quarters, glad now for the half-finished repairs that made a mess of the cabin. This was no longer the cabin where she had first made love with Thane, or where they had come to know each other so well. It was more sterile, more impersonal.
At a loss for what to do now that she was alone, other than cry, which she was trying to put off as long as she could, she sat down at her personal terminal, idly scrolling through emails.
Her breath caught in her throat, her heart skipping a beat when she saw one from Thane. For a moment, it seemed that the whole day might have been a bad dream. But, no … the time stamp indicated that he had sent it from the hospital, while she was off chasing the black shadow who had killed him.
She wanted to read his words, but if she did—there would never be any others. These were the last words he would ever address to her.
Siha, it began.
And then she stopped, looking around her. This was not the right place for his last words. No, those belonged somewhere else.
Downloading the email onto her omni-tool, she got up, taking the elevator down to the crew deck. Swiftly she crossed the hall, hoping no one was around to see her, and she went into life support.
A sob escaped her when she saw that it was still the same. The table, the chairs—even his tea mug still sat on the table where he had left it. Thane was everywhere in this room.
Her throat tight and painful with the unshed tears, she sat down and pulled up the email.
Siha,
I write this with a heavy hand, knowing you will read this letter when I am no longer able to share my thoughts. I am dying, Siha. Perhaps because of the difference between our species, I can hope that time will treat you with kindness and dim the hurt of my passing to faded recollections that a drell would forever remember with perfect clarity. Selfishly, however, I could not leave this world without leaving a piece of me behind that would never fade.
It was ironic that what Thane most hoped for her was what Shepard most dreaded. She knew someday her memory of him would fade, but she didn't want it to. She wished for a drell's memory, to know that he would always remain bright in her thoughts.
By the time she reached the final paragraph, her eyes were welling with tears, blurring her vision so that she had to keep blinking them away to read the precious words.
I love you. If all else whispers back into the tide, know this for fact. By grace given me by the Goddess Arashu, I bid her divine protection to you, my warrior-angel, my Siha, to succeed in your destiny. To light your path through the coming darkness. To give you hope, when all seems lost.
I will await you across the sea.
Thane
There was a comfort in his final words, in the blessing of Arashu. She would take that blessing forward and succeed in her destiny as he had charged her. But she would do it without his wise counsel, without his clear understanding, without his guns at her side, without his silent, stalwart support always there for her.
And in that knowledge, she lowered her head to the table and surrendered to her grief.