A/N: The latter part of this chapter covers events that are narrated from Shepard's POV in Disaster Zone: Resurrection Chapter Three, "On Horizon."


IX

Horizon: Perspective

Garrus had showered, dressed in the extra underarmor set Shepard had requisitioned from Omega—"Until you can go shopping for another actual suit of armor and some clothes. We don't want you stinking up the place," she'd said—and rearmored, and now he was sitting down to do some routine maintenance on his weapons.

The mods he'd used against the mercs on Omega weren't as good against the Collectors. Good for shields and barriers; not against chitin exoskeletons and Collector-tech armor. Heavy artillery units like they'd seen—the blue ones and the hovercrafts—as well as Harbinger-controlled drones could bring a hell of a lot of power to bear in a short amount of time. They'd been lucky on Horizon. Lots of cover, but if there were more next time and the next battle didn't have natural fortifications, they'd need to be able to bring those things down fast.

Incendiary tech and biotics will work. Heavy weapons. But concussive blasts could slow them down, help fritz out their tech defenses to leave them vulnerable. Garrus took apart his rifle, cleaning the stock and barrel as he thought about how to put it together again, the tech he'd need. The problem was that the kind of power that would take down a heavy artillery unit in a hurry would be too slow for a horde of attacking husks. No good blowing one away if six more take you down before your gun cools down.

The door opened behind him. Garrus waved absently at the door. "Shepard. Need me for something?"

"Way to be alert, dumbass. I could break you on the wall in a second."

Garrus put down his gun and turned to face the door. Jack stood in the doorway, shifting her weight from foot to foot, trying to watch him and the mess at the same time, hands balled into fists at her sides. "Jack," Garrus said, not trying to hide his surprise. "You know it's still the day shift, right?" He'd caught Jack in the mess once or twice after her first night on the Normandy. She handled her own meals up there in the off hours. The rest of the time she tended to squat down in the hold beneath engineering. Still expecting everyone here to turn on her—or trying to keep her word to Shepard by squashing her urge to turn on everyone else, maybe. But she'd never once sought him out. Think her urge to turn on me is probably stronger than it is for anyone else on this ship—except maybe Miranda.

"Screw you, fucker," Jack snapped. She let out a breath from between her teeth, seeming to collect herself with difficulty. She glanced down at the workbench. "God, is this what you do in your down time? Typical."

"What do you want, Jack?"

"Sorry," Jack muttered, probably realizing swears and insults weren't the best way to get whatever it was she wanted. "Look. Shepard's lost her shit."

That was even more surprising. "I'm going to need a little more information," Garrus said.

Jack waved her hand in the air, impatient. "Shepard. She's lost her shit," she repeated. "After we got back from Horizon, she never left the hangar. Stripped down to her bodysuit and just started whaling on that punching bag she keeps down there. Pushups, pull-ups, weights. So maybe she needed to blow off some steam. I get it. But she's been down there for hours, nonstop." Jack's brows knit. "Don't know what the hell Cerberus did to her in the labs—she should be laid out on the floor by now in a pool of blood and puke. But she's not. Still going at it, looking through everything like she's still seeing that shit on Horizon." Jack's own gaze was long. She made a face and turned around, throwing up her hands. "Fuck it. Just fix her before I split her head open. All the noise she's making is annoying."

Garrus would never have believed it coming on board. The second he'd met Jack, he'd thought they probably should have left her in the freezer. It was clear she'd been through more than anyone should ever have to go through—the scarring, all that hate for Cerberus—and she hid out belowdecks like an animal that had learned it'd be kicked and beaten if it ever showed its face. But everyone had a choice, and Jack had made hers years ago. She'd chosen to lash out, chosen violence and hate and isolation. More antisocial than anyone he'd ever seen. People like that don't change. When you're that far gone, there's no coming back.

That had always been what he'd thought. But here she was, the most antisocial, violent, hateful individual he'd ever encountered, concerned enough about Beth Shepard that she'd come looking for help. Apparently she's not gone. Not entirely.

"Fix her," Garrus repeated.

Jack threw her arms up, and Garrus tensed, but her biotics didn't flare—she was nervous, uncomfortable, and irritated. Worried, but not really angry. "Damn it, Garrus, she takes you fucking everywhere. Everyone knows you're tight. I can't talk to her. I'm no good at this—this—"She made a noise of frustration. "Screw this. I'm out of here," she muttered, and stalked away.

Garrus hesitated for about half a second. He didn't know what he was supposed to do, but—She's right. Screw it. He followed her out of the battery, through the mess, and onto the elevator.

"About time," Jack growled. She didn't say a word to him as the elevator descended down to the engineering deck, and when the doors opened, mission apparently completed, she turned on her heel and passed through the door to engineering proper.

Garrus watched her go. Strange.

But Grunt was in the corridor, watching Shepard through the observation window. "I thought she'd knock herself out ages ago," he remarked. "The tank imprints said humans are weak. Shepard has the endurance of a krogan warlord."

"Alliance soldiers go through some gene therapy," Garrus told him, "And I hear Cerberus gave her a few cybernetic upgrades. But even before either of them touched her, I'm guessing Shepard was pretty tough. Jack says she's been here for hours?"

"Since we got back from the human colony," Grunt confirmed. "I've been watching her almost that long. Her movements will teach me how to defeat her in battle one day when we've defeated the Collectors and I have found my own clan. It will be a challenge," he admitted.

"Assuming we all survive that long," Garrus said.

"It is glorious to die in battle," Grunt observed.

Garrus looked at their newest recruit. "Okeer teach you that?" He shook his head. "They tell us that basic training in the Hierarchy too. Give your life for the cause, and your unit will remember your names forever."

Grunt seemed surprised. "Turians say that? They are a worthy enemy," he reasoned.

"They're full of crap," Garrus said flatly. "If you're going to kill something, kill it because it needs killing. Or because what's at stake is worth risking your life for. The bullets that bring you down could bring down everyone that might remember you too, and when you're dead, glory won't mean a damn thing to you."

Grunt considered this. He turned away from the glass and regarded Garrus. "Okeer didn't program the tank with everything," he said after a long moment. He pointed down at Shepard again. "But that—that's a blood rage. Shepard can hit things all she wants, but she can't lead us into battle like that. You come to stop her?"

Garrus looked at her below. She was discolored, the way humans got when they were upset and had been exercising, and Jack had been right. Her eyes were dangerous and stormy—and they were looking past the punching bag she seemed to be trying to knock out into space light years away to the tail of that Collector ship, to wherever Harbinger was waiting. "Stop Commander Shepard," he mused. "Well. One can only try."

Grunt shrugged. "You're her krantt," he said. Seeing Garrus's confusion, he growled, "Her rearguard, her second. I don't know what aliens call it. But you've been with her since before she became a Spectre and went after Saren, right? If you can't stop her, I don't know who can." He shrugged again and ambled back off to the starboard side cargo hold where Shepard had set him up a few days ago.

Garrus got on the secondary lift and rode it down to the shuttle bay. Shepard was doing pushups now. Her grunts of exertion were the only sounds above the hum of the engines. She was hot and sweating and disheveled, stripped down to her underarmor like Jack had said, and whatever product she used to hold up her hair in the field was wearing off.

Garrus had to admit to a certain fascination with human hair. Humans were the only known sapient species in the galaxy that had the stuff—multicolored, multitextured, mostly useless, it seemed primarily decorative, though it also served as a way to tell a human's age and apparently was part of the reason they could adapt to a wider temperature range than many species. Shepard's was long and yellow, and she usually knotted it back behind her head or braided it back in a rope. But now it was starting to fall in extremely interesting curls around her face that bounced and swayed as she moved.

Focus, Garrus. This isn't the time for xenostudies. The messy hair was only a symptom of the problem. Shepard seemed manic. She was doing pushups now with the same kind of intensity she usually directed toward blowing their enemies to smoldering pieces. As ever, her athleticism was fantastic, but she was moving too fast. Her breathing was ragged and uneven, but she didn't seem to notice. Didn't seem to see him, either.

He stepped forward, but Shepard sprang to her feet and started at the punching bag she'd hung up off to the side again. Her unprotected fists connected with a sharp, loud smack. She kicked the bag, and Garrus heard the chain that held it squealing with the force of the blow. She beat at the sandbag again and again, but like the pushups, her blows were too fast, too hard. Garrus's mandible tightened. So did his throat. He didn't know what Jack and Grunt expected him to say, but they were right: someone had to say something. May as well be me.

"Shepard."

She hadn't seen him, but Garrus knew she heard him. Her muscles went as tight as a bulkhead, but she ignored him and hit the punching bag all the harder.

"Shepard!"

"What?" Her voice cracked, choked with fury and desperation.

It was a little hard to look at her. He'd never seen her so angry, and he knew what Shepard could do on an ordinary day. Garrus swallowed and replied. "You've been down here for hours. You haven't eaten all day. You're scaring everyone down here in engineering. Grunt says you're in a blood rage. Jack's worried. Jack. Says you've lost your shit. I'm starting to believe her."

"Well, screw them!" she snapped. "And screw you, too! Just—"

Hoping he didn't get a punch in the face for his trouble, Garrus stepped forward and put his hand on the other side of the punching bag. "Shepard."

She looked at him, eyes glittering. She was close to tears, Garrus realized. He hadn't seen Shepard cry since Omega, if that hadn't been the pain or a stim-fueled hallucination. She hadn't cried after Virmire. She hadn't cried when the Council had grounded her, or even after the attack on the Citadel. Shepard in tears—it was surreal. Fascinating, but wrong on the deepest, most fundamental level.

She swung at the punching bag one more time, but now he'd thrown her off her game. She missed, threw her hands up in disgust, turned her back, and walked away. She hit the bulkhead hard with her shoulder and slid down to sit on the floor by the shuttle. She rubbed at her eyes and pushed her hair back. She shot Garrus the kind of dirty look that two years ago would have had him making an excuse and coming back later for sure. Guess I've changed too. Anyway, now he was thinking about it, the hunched shoulders, the tight jaw, and the bloodshot eyes all took away from her intimidation factor.

"Damn you, Vakarian! Damn you!" she spat. Her breaking voice was as easy to understand as the subharmonics of any grieving turian he'd ever heard. "I was handling it. I was fine. Why'd they go to you, huh? Why'd you have to come? Don't answer that. You always pull this shit, and it doesn't suit you. I don't need you. I'm fine. I'm fine."

I shouldn't have needed Jack to come get me. I should have known this would be bad. I should have been here hours ago. Still, Shepard's hostility surprised him a little. Every tell she was giving off told him she'd talk, that maybe she'd even been waiting to talk to him. So why the reluctance? She wants to talk, but she doesn't, too.

Figure it out later. That's a secondary issue. Address the primary problem first. "If you're fine, that's the best imitation of messed up I've ever seen. Shepard. Talk to me."

Shepard scrubbed at her face again and groaned from behind her hands. "Garrus, they took half that colony. We were there, and they took half that colony." Her hands fell away and she looked down at the floor between her feet. "We were supposed to stop it. We're supposed to be better. I'm supposed to be better. I'm Commander Fucking Shepard. Some job of it I did. Not one more. You hear me? Not one more."

Garrus sighed and slid down to sit next to her. "We were late to the scene, Shepard. You can't blame yourself for that. Next time we'll get them. We're getting ready, and when we have all we need, we'll take those bastards down."

Shepard glared at him. "We better. They're pissing me off. You know why they picked Horizon, don't you? You know why they went there."

Garrus remembered the voice of that thing, leaping from Collector to Collector, possessing them like an evil spirit from the old myths. Harbinger. It had called her by name. The Collectors—the Reapers—were challenging Shepard specifically. They'd gone to Horizon to strike at her, even before the Normandy had arrived. "Kaidan. The Collectors are working for the Reapers, Shepard. I think you've pissed the Reapers off, too, if it makes you feel any better."

She grimaced. "Yeah. Not much. All those people, Garrus!" She looked at the floor between her feet.

That wasn't all of it, though. Garrus knew it wasn't. "And Kaidan?" he guessed.

Shepard scowled. Garrus knew he'd hit a nerve and wished he hadn't. "Mind your own damn business," she growled.

Garrus looked at her. Do I want to know? He took a breath and started to stand, but then she continued, voice low. "I shouldn't blame him. If it had been him dying, staying dead two years, then coming back Cerberus and wanting to be friends again . . ."she laughed, and like her pushups, the laugh had a manic edge to it. "Forget telling him where to stick it. I might've shot him. I know what Cerberus is. I know what this looks like. He has no reason to believe this is on the level, no reason to trust me. The Alliance deserves his loyalty—"

"—So do you," Garrus interrupted. He turned his head away immediately, cursing the vehemence that gave him away, but she paused. She stared at him.

"Do I?" she asked softly. "I don't even know what I am. I don't know what all Cerberus has done to me, but I'm not the person I was two years ago. I don't even know if I qualify as human anymore, all the stuff they put in me. For all I know I'm something like EDI." The uncertainty and vulnerability in her voice caught him completely off guard. She shook her head. "No. That wasn't fair. I actually like the damned AI. It's not her fault. She tries so hard, too. I'm something like . . . like those husks."

He couldn't let that stand. "Shepard. Shut up. You're you. Maybe with a little extra," he admitted. "But you're you. Stubborn as hell, and just a little crazy." In some ways, Garrus thought, she was even more herself now than she'd been before. Back on the SR-1, she'd been so perfect, so stoic and together that sometimes she hadn't seemed real, just this elite officer, this Spectre—more of an idea than a person. She had edges and dimension now that she hadn't before—or maybe he just knew her better. "I'm pretty sure husks don't spend time worrying about their humanity," he added. "Or lack thereof, I guess. And I don't think our resident baby krogan and psychopath would waste time worrying about a husk. More likely just blow it up."

That got a smile out of her. Garrus considered. "Anyway, I think I could tell if you weren't you," he said, remembering how he'd thought she wasn't when she'd first come looking for him. "You see some strange things on Omega."

She hissed and looked away, but it didn't sound like she was in pain. More like somehow, he'd said exactly what she needed to hear. He saw a tear fall down her face after all and pretended not to notice. He just sat there with her, wondering if this pulling in his ribcage would ever go away when she was around. I thought this would be done by now. I need some shore leave. Some time to walk around and get my head screwed on straight.

Eventually she broke the silence again. "About Kaidan," she said. Garrus clenched his fist. He really didn't want to hear it, but he stayed quiet and listened. "It's stupid, but I do blame him," she admitted. "I understand why things went down the way they did. I do. I would've done the same thing. Probably wouldn't have been as nice about it. But I blame him anyway. And it hurts, and God, we could've used him." She closed her eyes and hugged herself, like she was trying to hold herself together.

Garrus tapped his feet on the floor and tried to think of what to say. It had been common knowledge on the SR-1 that Alenko had had a thing for the commander. T'Soni, too. As far as everyone knew, nothing had happened, but Garrus had sometimes wondered if Shepard's feelings had always been quite professional, at least where the lieutenant was concerned. They'd been close, at any rate. Alenko had gone with her on a lot of important missions. She'd always asked for his input afterward and listened to what he had to say. She'd respected him. She'd trusted him. Kaidan had broken that trust on Horizon.

All he could say was the truth. "Kaidan's an idiot." Garrus looked at the ground. Because honestly, if Shepard hadn't found him when she had in the way that she had, he didn't know how he would have reacted to learning about her new 'partners' either. "But he was pretty messed up when you died. I guess we all handled it differently."

Shepard scoffed. "Yeah. You left C-Sec, went to Omega, and started shooting people." She sucked in a breath then, and her eyes went wide. Her hand came up to touch his shoulder, but it was too late.

Well. That's an entirely different dangerous territory, isn't it? Why don't you tell us how you really feel, Shepard? It was hard to believe a sentence that short could sting so much. Garrus took a breath. "Well. We all saw how well that turned out."

Shepard actually winced. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"she trailed off.

"It's okay," Garrus said. It wasn't.

"No," she said, still upset. "You've been through enough. I promised myself I wouldn't say anything. And it's over now, anyway. It's done."

She wanted him to walk away, to just move on as if none of it had happened. But if she hadn't moved past the deaths of a bunch of thugs, thieves, extortionists, and murderers she'd never known, how could she expect him to move past what had happened to his team—his friends? Good men that had given their lives to justice and been betrayed to a death they hadn't deserved? There was no moving on. Not yet. "Not until I kill Sidonis. I'm close, Shepard. And when the time comes—"

She cut him off. "We'll handle it." But when Garrus looked at her, she shifted, and she wouldn't meet his eyes. She'd changed since the old days, yes, but stripped of her Alliance title, forced into Cerberus, forced into a fight she hadn't wanted with a host of new cybernetic upgrades she hadn't asked for, Shepard was still more similar to who she'd been than she was different. She was still carrying all the ideals two years on Omega had stripped away from him.

Stripped? Or were you glad to throw them down?

Shepard didn't let herself hate. She carried every life she took with her around her neck, always tried to find another way. But sometimes there wasn't another way. Sometimes the only way to solve a problem was to pull the trigger and accept that if that made you wrong, at least you were more right than the guy with a bullet in his skull.

Is it better or worse that I know that and she still doesn't? Which of us has it easier? And why do I hope she never learns?

Two years could be as much as a lifetime. Garrus tried to explain how it had all gone wrong. "It played out exactly like you'd said. The politics, the smear campaign. But you were dead, and when they started tearing down all we'd seen, all you'd said, I couldn't—I had to do something. I thought on Omega I might make a difference. But I didn't even make a dent in the place."

Control—that was what it was really about, said the nasty little voice in the back of his head. When you heard about Mom, after Shepard, with the Council doing everything they could to erase everything she was, you went looking for something you could control. And how did that work out for you?

It'd been crazy. He knew that now. He couldn't fight Shepard's impossible fight, so he'd gone and found just a slightly less impossible one with all the rage years of C-Sec ineffectiveness and months of Council avoidance policies had built up in him. Gone and done everything they wouldn't let him do in C-Sec, just because they'd never let him do it, and he hadn't cared much if he died doing it until he'd realized, too late, just what getting the handful of men just as crazy as he was killed would mean.

Shepard tried to smile. "You made yourself a name. Pissed a hell of a lot of people off. You've got talent, Vakarian. And you took an awful lot of bad off that station."

Garrus shrugged. It was true. But it wasn't enough. She knew it, too. "But I didn't put a lot of good back in its place," he answered, paraphrasing something she'd used to say to him back on the SR-1. "And I lost what good I found."

Shepard looked up at him and spread her hands. She wanted to make him feel better, he could tell, but she couldn't disagree with a single thing he'd said. Downside of striking out on your own. When there's no CO, there's no one else to take the blame for your screw-up.

Finally she gave up trying to come up with words to comfort him. She collapsed against him, letting her head rest between his armguard and breastplate. It couldn't have been very comfortable, what with his armor, but she didn't complain. She smelled like the leather of the punching bag, like salt and sweat and herself—a weird combination of floral shampoo and harder, ordinary soap. There was always a little bit of gun polish in there too. It was an honest, reliable smell—just like her.

"Garrus, if you were somebody else I could lie to you," she murmured. "Make you feel better about your mistakes, or feel like I have all the answers."

That was where everyone else had it wrong, Garrus thought. Shepard didn't have any more of the answers than anyone else—she was just a hell of a lot better at finding her way in the dark. Garrus had used to wonder how she dealt with everyone looking to her, expecting her to save them, expecting her to be better. He looked at her knuckles, still red and swollen after all this time from her episode at the punching bag, and knew that even though Shepard handled the pressure a lot better than he had, it still got to her sometimes. On Omega, he'd driven himself to the brink, trying to plan for everything, expect everything. But he couldn't. No one could. Sooner or later, there's something you can't see, some way they catch up with you.

He promised himself things would be different for Shepard. She'd always have one turian who remembered she was as lost in the dark as anyone else, as terrified she'd get it wrong as anyone else. Shepard was back from the dead, but she still bled when she got shot. She couldn't keep an eye on everything. So he'd watch with her. "I think I know you a little too well to think that," he said.

She laughed. "Yeah, you wouldn't fall for it if I tried, and I respect you too much, anyway." She raised her curly head to meet his eyes. Some of her hair brushed his face. It was soft, but it tickled, too. His mandible twitched. "I—you made mistakes, and I know it hurts like hell," she said softly. "But—I—shit, I don't know. I'm sorry, I guess. But we're okay. You know that, right? I'm just glad you didn't get yourself killed, too."

"I gave it my best shot," Garrus joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Her eyes flashed. That was a mistake. She elbowed him, hard. Even through his armor the blow connected, knocking the air right out of him. Garrus doubled over, wincing and laughing. "Don't even!" Shepard cried.

Well. It's nice to know she cares, he thought. Without really thinking about it, Garrus brought up his arm to hold her. Outside her armor, Shepard was light. Not especially short, but small, even for a human woman. Back on the SR-1, Wrex had sometimes wondered how she fired some of her guns without breaking in half. Garrus knew better. A lot of humans looked so soft, it was sometimes hard for turians who'd never faced them in combat to believe that the Council considered them one of the more dangerous potential opponents in Citadel space, but from the moment Garrus had met Shepard in the Council chambers, he'd known she was deadly. She was sharp all over, all angles and long, lean muscle. From her level, gray eyes to her hard, narrow jaw and runner's build, she'd looked like she could kill him a dozen different ways without ever touching one of her guns, and they were nice guns. Something in the way she moved, with smooth, controlled strides, energy and strength in her every limb. Alliance N7s were some of the most lethal spec ops in the galaxy, on par with asari commandos and drell assassins. There was a reason Beth Shepard had made the grade.

Still, she didn't seem too deadly now. It was nice just to sit with her. Hardly professional, of course, Shepard just about lying on top of him, him holding her there, enjoying it, but somehow it still felt right.

It's not like this is more than you'd do for Sol on a bad day, anyway. Or a good friend back in basic. And she started it.

Garrus blinked. But she's Alliance. Or was. From a turian woman off duty, Shepard's behavior would indicate a lot of trust, a fairly close, informal relationship—but it wouldn't be especially remarkable. But if he was remembering C-Sec coworkers' explanations right, conversations with Williams and Joker on the SR-1—in the Alliance Shepard's behavior would be against regulation. Disciplinable action.

Easy, Garrus. To her, you probably don't even register as someone she could break Alliance regulation with. Just a turian bulkhead. Remember that.

Still, Garrus's thoughts couldn't help wandering back to her strange behavior when he'd come looking for her earlier. I wonder . . . "What was all that earlier? Some shit I always pull that doesn't suit me?"

She tensed all over, and Garrus's visor lit up like Unification Day. He let his arm fall away as she sat up and moved several centimeters farther down the wall from him. Garrus tried not to stare. It was an accident; he hadn't meant to leave his visor in target mode, but the feedback he was getting now was overwhelming. Her heart rate had hitched. So had her breathing. Her stress signs were all over the map.

"Nothing," she muttered. "Just routine word-vomit."

Garrus was momentarily distracted by Shepard's choice of words. "What a vivid metaphor," he remarked. "But I thought you said you didn't lie to me."

And there went her temperature—up almost .1 degrees. She wouldn't look at him. "It was nothing!" she insisted. "It's just, you know—you always try to pull the white-hat hero shtick whenever I just need ten minutes to sort things out. It's annoying! The whole turian rebel thing works much better for you, anyway, and it doesn't force me to play damsel in distress!"

The very idea of Shepard as some archetypical helpless human female in need of rescue made him laugh out loud. Is that what's embarrassing her? "Damsel in distress? No one in their right mind would ever confuse you with a damsel in distress. But nobody can be a hero all of the time. Sometimes it's okay to borrow strength from your unit. It won't kill you."

Something like a dark cloud passed over Shepard's face. "You'd be surprised," she answered cryptically. She dismissed it. "Just next time, leave me alone, okay?" she asked.

"Shepard. I've got your damn six. It's the one thing I can do right. Even if it means sometimes I'm keeping you from shooting yourself down."

A turian officer might have written him an official reprimand and put him on scut duty for a week for a challenge to her authority like that. Shepard only reached over and pushed him, and it still felt like a victory. "You do a lot of things right, Vakarian," she grumbled. "More than most people."

It probably said more about her than him that she thought that, Garrus reflected. Shepard didn't talk about herself much, but he knew she'd had it rough before joining the Alliance and that it hadn't been a walk down the Presidium for her since. Still, she has to have a dark view of 'most people.' They said the inner cities on Earth weren't too different from down the wards on the Presidium, or the streets of Omega even—minus a half-dozen species. Imagining Shepard growing in a place like that wasn't exactly hard—but it made him sick to think of her there, just a kid, running with the hitmen, forgers, and cons so no one else would beat her to a pulp or sell her to a pimp.

Long enough that most people look worse than a turian dropout and a failed vigilante that just happens to be a good shot with a rifle.

Shepard cleared her throat, interrupting his thoughts. "The lllusive Man's cleared Tali for recruitment."

Garrus took his cue. "Tali? It'll be good to have her back on the Normandy. Just like old times."

Shepard wrapped her arms around her knees. "If she comes. I ran into her on Freedom's Progress. The quarians have problems with Cerberus." She gave him a sidelong, self-mocking, weary smirk. "Just like everybody. And she was busy at the time, but she still trusts me." Her voice was quiet. "I think. And at least she knows what we're up against. But I didn't think Cerberus would let me pick up any of the old crew."

Garrus glanced at her. "And who am I, then? Nobody?"

Shepard laughed. "You don't even know, do you? You were a hell-outta-nowhere accident, Archangel. I went to recruit the vigilante. Just got damn lucky he turned out to be you."

He'd guessed as much. Coincidence. An accident. But, oh, don't you just wish she'd been looking for you?

But Shepard was still laughing. "God, Miranda was pissed! She was sure you and me were going to team up to take all of Cerberus out straight out the gate."

Garrus hummed. "We could do it, too. Might be something to add to our to-do list. If we survive, that is." They wouldn't be attacking Cerberus yet; they needed them, and the Reapers were more important. Still, even if Cerberus was trying to save the humans in the Terminus systems, they hadn't seen anything yet to counter everything they'd learned about the organization going after Saren. Resurrection project? Buying a mass-murdering convict off a mercenary gang? And baiting the Collectors to Horizon? If anything, all we've seen is just further support for the idea that they need to go down eventually.

He could tell she liked the idea of taking them down. "If we survive. Think Tali will help?"

He shrugged. "It'd be a service to the galaxy. But even if Tali isn't down for some Cerberus destruction, Jack will definitely help."

"Help?" Shepard repeated. "We'd be sitting back watching the show."

Garrus caught her eye. "Seriously, though, Shepard. Do you want to go after them?" he asked. The Reapers were one thing—they had to be stopped, but Garrus knew Shepard's feelings for Cerberus were much more personal.

Shepard sighed. "I don't know. I can't imagine getting along with Cerberus for long. The shit we saw on the SR-1? I think it's only a matter of time before Cerberus gives me an order I won't be able to follow, and then we may have to deal with them, before they deal with us."

Garrus shifted, and if it brought him closer to Shepard again, she didn't complain. "You know, turians follow bad orders," he remarked. "Well. Good turians do. I've never been what you could call a good turian, though. You're different, though, Shepard."

She smiled but shook her head. "No, not really. I mutinied against the Council to go to Ilos, remember? Mostly I've been fortunate enough to have been given good orders that make sense. But when I'm not? I'll do the right thing. Cerberus aren't often into the right thing. But on the other hand?"

"The Reapers," Garrus agreed. Putting up with Cerberus wouldn't be as satisfying as dealing with them, but somehow, it was good to hear that Shepard still had her priorities straight.

He saw the same grim resignation he felt on her face. "The Collectors, as bad as they are, aren't the real threat. If we survive this, and Cerberus is willing to help me fight the Reapers? I don't know. They're the only ones in the galaxy that seem to be taking the Reapers seriously. I may have to take what I can get, at least to start."

Garrus accepted this. "But first we have to take care of the Collectors. Through the Omega-4 relay, that no one's ever survived."

Shepard smiled wryly. "Straight into hell," she reminded him. She rolled her shoulders, preparing to rise. "But Garrus, we have to be better. Smarter. Faster. It's a suicide run, but it damn well better not be pointless."

No. If there was one thing he didn't have to worry about with Shepard, it was going on a pointless mission. "Whatever happens, I'm with you," Garrus promised her.

"On my damn six, whether I like it or not." Shepard's voice was dry, but for all that, she didn't look too upset. Another victory.

"You got it."

Shepard climbed to her feet. She held out her hand, and Garrus took it. She pulled him to his feet—but as she did, he registered another split-second temperature spike. "I better go tell Jack and Grunt the Commander's not going to explode any time soon," she said, releasing his hand.

Garrus looked at her, but replied normally. "Shame. They'd enjoy the fireworks."

"Sweet they were worried," Shepard commented.

It was time to leave. They each had duties, and it was time to get back to them. "I should probably go check on the Thanix," he said.

"See you later," Shepard said.

"You know where to find me if you need anything." They went up to engineering together, and Garrus took the elevator while she hung a right to check on Grunt. Garrus flicked his eye to the right, switching his visor out of targeting mode now that he wouldn't have to explain the action to Shepard. Back in C-Sec, he'd gotten into the habit of leaving the thing on. He'd learned early on that the Kuwashii model access to thermal imaging and heart rate had other uses outside of combat. Good way of telling if someone was wounded, and with the Council races, it had given him an edge, a way of knowing whether or not a suspect might be lying or holding something back.

But in casual conversations, sometimes it felt too much like eavesdropping. That was when things got awkward. Accidentally reading reactions and realizing two coworkers were having an affair—cheating on their respective spouses, discovering that a superior was lying about the reasoning behind a reprimand. Useful, maybe, but awkward.

Garrus didn't quite know what it was that he had just seen—if it hadn't been for that last fluctuation he wouldn't have suspected a thing—but he sure knew what it looked like. Like it hadn't been pride that had embarrassed Shepard earlier—and like maybe he wasn't a turian bulkhead after all.

He was probably wrong, he thought. What would she want with someone like you? Washed-up vigilantes aren't her style. She's got better men than you, humans, lined up around the block—pretty ones, too, according to Joker and Jack.

And even if he was right, she'd been Alliance. And she'd pulled away.

It shouldn't matter. They had bigger problems.