XXXII
Victim's Justice: The Judge
"The whole point of every justice system in the galaxy is to see that people get what they deserve from an objective standpoint. If you let it get personal, if you let the victim dispense justice, you're losing everything that makes it justice."
…
"Say you're the victim. Say someone kills your family or something, I don't know. Say you know beyond all doubt who did it. Say you've got a chance to kill them clean and walk away. Do you take that shot? Do you call that justice?"
…
"I don't know. I don't have all the answers."
…
"So you let someone else take the decision for you?"
…
"I don't know. Maybe."
—Garrus and Weaver, Mass Effect: Interregnum, The Naked Pen
"I think you're the only person on the Normandy who can talk to Shepard like that," Kasumi observed quietly. Her omni-tool flickered on and off around her forearm, like she wanted to fade out. "I think you're the only person on the Normandy she wouldn't just order to do what she wanted. This guy, Sidonis—he's the reason your team on Omega died?"
"Yes," Garrus said shortly.
"He sounds like a rat," Kasumi noted. "I'm sorry." She glanced up at Garrus from under her hood as they arrived at the maintenance ladder.
Garrus swung onto the ladder and started to climb. "I should've seen it coming. But he's about to be held accountable for his actions anyway.
"Thanks for being here," he added. "Back there with the Suns—I didn't think finding him would be this much trouble."
Kasumi climbed up behind him. "Don't worry about it, Garrus. Well—maybe a little. If we could keep the all-out war with the toughest mercs in the Terminus to a minimum, I'd appreciate it. I have to live out here, you know."
Garrus glanced back at Kasumi. Has she processed the fact that we don't? he wondered. Is she in denial, or does she not realize that once we're through the relay, we probably aren't coming back?
For all she was a thief, he liked Goto. Probably the nicest criminal I've ever met, and she's been a good friend—to me and to Shepard. But no matter what she feels like she owes Shepard, no one should be on a mission like this just because they feel like they have to. When that happens—you get Sidonis.
He could have left another way. He could have told me. Turning all of us over—that's on him.
Every centimeter of Garrus buzzed with energy, focus. He was ready for the relay—to go out taking the bastards doing the Reapers' work out with him. Then maybe someday, if they balanced the people he'd protected—the good he'd done against the people he'd lost and the mistakes he'd made, they'd find everything he'd done hadn't been a complete waste. But to move on, he had to put the others down to rest. To feel like he could put them down, he had to put Sidonis down first.
Garrus extended his rifle and set up at the catwalk railing. "Watch the walkway for me, will you?" he asked Goto. "Maintenance shifts are usually during the night cycle. We shouldn't be interrupted by anyone but the Keepers, and they won't care what we're doing, but let's keep a lookout anyway."
"You got it, big guy."
From this vantage point, Garrus could see the entire plaza below. He had a shot to almost any position down there. The difficulty would be avoiding collateral damage. Too many people had a lunch hour around this time. It'd be Shepard's job to get Sidonis away from the crowds where Garrus could get a clear shot.
She wasn't hard to spot—in this sector, heavy arms and armor stood out like a beacon. From the catwalk, Garrus could see the crowds edging around her, giving her just a little bit more space than they gave anyone else. He opened up the radio connection. "Shepard, can you hear me?"
Shepard's voice came through his radio, strong and confident. "Loud and clear."
She sauntered over to a bench and sat down to wait, nice and conspicuous. She wouldn't be waiting long. Harkin had told Sidonis his identity was compromised, and if there was one thing Garrus still trusted Lantar to do, it was to look after his own interests.
He pictured how it would play out in his head. A signal, a single shot. It would take him less than five seconds to close up the Mantis and get down off the catwalk. Everyone would see Shepard hadn't taken the shot. No C-Sec agent would take a Spectre in for questioning on who had, even guessing she'd helped the sniper. Still—probably better to take the alleys around to another transit station before heading back to the Normandy with Goto. Three blocks at least, but not more than six, because by that time C-Sec would have agents in the area looking for a sniper. Call Shepard and meet her at the docks to catch the shuttle.
No one on this street would see him, but it was possible—if unlikely—that he'd be picked up on suspicion before he got to a transit station. If that happened—well. If Shepard doesn't step in, I'll take whatever they give me. Like Sidonis should have done.
Muting the radio, he spoke to Goto, on his flank about a meter and a half away. "After the shot, you can get to Shepard or come with me, but either way, you're going to have to move fast. Understand?"
Her laugh sounded behind him. "Oh, I know how to avoid C-Sec, Garrus. It's sweet of you to think of me, though."
Garrus held up a hand. Through the scope, he'd seen a turian with a blue-striped mandible walk onto the street. He steadied his gun on the railing, focused his visor. Short, broad nose; narrow, sculpted browplates and chin. He looked more tired and worn than Garrus would've imagined—out of shape and unarmed in a red and blue suit, but the text over his face confirmed the ID.
LANTAR SIDONIS, TURIAN
-Search?
-Construct targeting solution?
Garrus fell into a breathing pattern to stabilize his shot and selected the second option. But Sidonis was in the middle of a crowd now—there was at least one civilian in the way on any approach vector. Garrus opened the radio connection again. "Red-and-blue, at 0245. Wave him over and keep him talking."
Shepard straightened on the bench. She stood, and Sidonis caught sight of her. He tensed. His mandibles tightened, and he looked over his shoulder and to either side—but not up. After all we did together, he still doesn't look up.
Sidonis strode quickly over to the bench, and Shepard's radio picked up his voice, low, nervous. "Let's get this over with."
Yes. Let's do that. Garrus had to force himself to breathe, looking down at Sidonis's unblemished face, that suit that couldn't have been cheap. You bought that with the lives of our friends, didn't you? Suddenly, he couldn't wait for Shepard to be ready. She'd already pulled Sidonis away from the civilians. Now the only person standing in between Sidonis and the bullet he'd had coming for months was on the other end of Garrus's radio.
"You're in my shot," Garrus told her. "Move to the side."
Then, at thirty times' magnification, he saw Shepard's shoulders tense and the back of her head lift in his crosshairs, and a wave of incredulous rage swept over him before she opened her mouth to say a word.
"Listen, Sidonis. Stand still."
She's not. She wouldn't.
Of course she would.
Sidonis was leaning forward. "Don't ever say that name aloud," he hissed.
Shepard's hand made a negative gesture in front of her. She didn't move her head a centimeter. "Too late for that now. Garrus is here, and he wants you dead."
Just past Shepard, Garrus could see the bastard tense all over. "Garrus? Is this some kind of joke?"
He'd run. He'd dive into the crowd and into a store the first chance he got, and there would never be a chance like this again. He was fast. Garrus had plenty of experience with just how fast.
I'm faster.
"Damn it, Shepard! If he moves, I'm taking the shot!"
Sidonis was staring into Shepard's face. "You're not kidding, are you?" he realized. His voice shook. "Screw this. I'm not sticking around here to find out. Tell Garrus I had my own problems."
Sidonis turned his back, Garrus's finger tensed on the trigger—and Shepard lunged forward and grabbed Sidonis, holding him in place behind her head. "Don't move!"
Sidonis fought her. "Get off me!"
"I am the only thing standing between you and a hole in the head. Do. Not. Move."
Shepard's voice was taut and terse, but Garrus didn't see any sign she'd give. She'd made her choice, and she'd stick to it, damn the consequences. It was something they'd always had in common. He could feel the bullet burning its way into Sidonis's brain—but the only path it could take went straight through Shepard's head.
Sidonis looked around wildly, spotted the catwalk. Garrus doubted Sidonis could see him—he was thirty-three meters away in the shadows. But Sidonis knew where he would be. "Fuck!" His hands twisted together, rubbed behind his fringe. "Look . . . I didn't want to do it. I didn't have a choice."
"Everyone has a choice," Garrus spat. You can do the right thing or you can do the wrong thing. I'd hoped I taught you that. Looking down the barrel, though, past Shepard, Garrus saw the same idiot merc who'd rescued him from a krogan just for what he could get. The guy who'd given him excuses from day one. You said you wanted to change. Turns out, you just wanted to think that. I wanted to believe you. And you got ten better men killed.
Sidonis scrabbled at Shepard's wrists. Her arms seized, like she wanted to throw him away. Do it! Just let me kill him! But she stayed put. "They got to me. Said they'd kill me if I didn't help. What was I supposed to do?"
"Let me take the shot, Shepard!" Garrus exploded. "He's a damn coward!"
Anger surged through him like a back-alley stim; a dozen plans that wouldn't work floated through his head.
If she won't move, I can make her. She has medi-gel and backup here and a doctor in orbit. A shot to the leg won't kill her. I can follow up in time.
The muzzle of his gun dropped just a few degrees. His visor automatically tracked the new firing trajectory. His finger tightened on the trigger. Loosened.
Damn it, it's Shepard.
He raised his gun again. Just move.
She was snarling at Sidonis. "That's it? You were just trying to save your own skin?"
Words, words, and more words. They were useless. She knew what Sidonis was, he could tell, but she was still trying to find another way, when he'd told her there wasn't one. She has to realize. All she has to do is take a step. One step. Shepard.
"I know what I did," Sidonis said. His hands fell away from Shepard back to his sides. "I know they died because of me. And I have to live with that." He turned away, and he took a step—but Shepard stepped with him, keeping her head squarely in Garrus's crosshairs. Sidonis's voice was fainter now, turned away from Shepard and the radio, but Garrus could still hear him. "I wake up every night . . . sick . . . and sweating. Each of their faces staring at me . . . accusing me. I'm already a dead man. I don't sleep. Food has no taste. Some days I just want it to be over."
His shoulders were slumped, resigned. His voice was gray. Regret and guilt colored his every word. Garrus's eyes stung, and his stomach turned.
I didn't want to see this.
All the regret in the galaxy doesn't do them any good now.
He swallowed. "Just give me the chance," he whispered to Shepard.
Shepard turned—just slightly. Not enough the shot cleared, but enough he could see her profile. "He's already paying for his crime, Garrus," she said. The tension had gone from her voice. She sounded grim, but he caught a note of satisfaction there too. "He'll pay for the rest of his life."
It's worse, she meant. That for Sidonis, wallowing in his cowardice and his guilt for however long he had to live would punish him more than any bullet.
So he walks away when they didn't? "He hasn't paid enough! He still has his life."
Shepard threw her hand out at Lantar. "Look at him, Garrus. This is a man that sold his soul to save his skin. Now he has to pay the devil. Leave him to it." Garrus saw Sidonis close his eyes, mandibles fluttering. "He's already in Hell," Shepard concluded. "There's nothing for you to kill."
Garrus's vision blurred. If she stepped aside, could he even make the shot now? An eye for an eye, a life for a life. That's what the humans say. But if you put them all on the scale, one life isn't ten, no matter what you do to the numbers. Was Sidonis's life worth even one of theirs, even then?
. . .
I thought so. I hoped so. But it definitely isn't now.
There wasn't any comfort in seeing who Sidonis really was. Who he'd always been, and what he'd done to himself that day on Omega. He's not bad. He's just weak. He always was. And that just makes it worse. "My men . . . they deserved better."
Sidonis looked up at the catwalk. "Tell Garrus—" he sighed and dropped his head again. "I guess there's nothing I can say to make it right."
Garrus lowered his rifle. "Just . . . go," he told Sidonis. Then he remembered Sidonis couldn't hear him. "Tell him to go."
Shepard jerked her head at the way Sidonis had come. "Get out of here, you bastard. He's letting you live. Do something with it."
There's nothing he can do.
But I've been wrong before.
Sidonis bobbed his head, backing away. "I . . . I'll try." He looked up at the catwalk. "Garrus—I'll make it up to you somehow." He looked back at Shepard. "Thank you—for talking to him."
Shepard shook her head and looked straight up at Garrus. She couldn't see him, either, but he saw her, peering through the shadows right to his position. "I didn't do it for you," she said—but she wasn't talking to Sidonis anymore.
But spirits, he'd've taken another rocket over seeing Sidonis walk away. Over knowing that bullet he'd planned to shoot couldn't make things right any more than Sidonis could. Garrus stood up and turned around to climb down the ladder so he wouldn't have to watch it anymore.
Goto's voice sounded behind him, unusually subdued. "Garrus. You did the right thing."
Garrus shook his head. "I don't know what the hell that is."
Shepard was already at the transit station when he and Goto got back, leaning against the driver's side, looking for him. Those gray eyes met his, and her mouth opened. Garrus held up a hand. "I know you want to talk about this, but I don't. Not yet."
Maybe not ever.
Shepard held his gaze for a moment, then simply nodded. "Let's go then."
Garrus looked out toward the sky. There was only the relay now. Only the Collectors. But I don't deserve anything different. He palmed the public skycar open. "Right with you."
Forgiveness was more complicated than a lot of people thought. Justice meant extracting the price of a debt from whomever or whatever that had incurred it. Mercy meant you didn't—but someone still had to pay the debt. So forgiveness meant absorbing that price yourself. In credits, in guilt, in grief, in blood. And if you can't afford it, well, that's just too bad.
Garrus took off his visor. He ran his finger over each name engraved into the rim. Whatever had just happened, it wasn't forgiveness. He couldn't carry the weight of every life there with the most powerful mass effect field devised. But neither can Sidonis.
He closed his eyes. He heard Shepard's armor rising and falling with every breath she took beside him, each little movement she made as she steered them back toward the docks, and he could see how she'd looked, standing in his scope, pushing everything that had happened on Omega back at him up the barrel of his Mantis.
Stop.
Look.
Listen.
It would have been easier to see her laid out on the street next to Sidonis and walk away.
But nothing's ever easy.
No one else in the galaxy could've talked me out of shooting Sidonis back there, Shepard.
I would've shot anyone else that tried.
That was a different kind of disturbing, but he would process that later.
He could feel she was still looking at him, glances stolen away from watching the skies. Without saying a word, she had the gravity of a star. What was it about, Shepard? If it wasn't about saving him, why?
But he thought he knew.
Two years or a lifetime ago, he'd kept someone else from killing a man that deserved it—a gunrunner, a gangster, and a murderer. Justice—real justice—had to be objective. That's what he'd said, and he'd believed it. In C-Sec and on Omega, he'd always fought for the victims, and he'd never let the victims make the calls.
Today, Shepard had done the same. She'd taken the call away from him and forced him back inside lines that once upon a time he'd agreed with. The only difference was that Shepard hadn't bothered to shoot the guy that deserved it for him.
Would you like it better if she had?
He didn't like the conclusion he came to.
Shepard touched down at the docks. She shut off the public use skycar without a word and opened the doors for him and for Goto. Across the transit station, Niels was already hovering, ready to take them back to the Normandy.
Just the relay now.
But now, he didn't feel so ready.
A/N: Even with inconsistent posting dates nowadays, I like to get at least two chapters a month up. So you get two in immediate succession this week, because I'm running out of time, and I had this done already. It's combat scenes that take me forever.
I've mentioned before that I take large portions of The Naked Pen's Interregnum as headcanon for Sometimes Grace. NP's Garrus is not quite my Garrus—my Garrus is younger, for one thing, and has a noticeably different voice, because I write him, though I hope he still sounds like Garrus. But the foreshadowing in the "Eye for an Eye" arc of NP's fic was too good not to explicitly reference here, so credit to The Naked Pen for the experience they wrote for Garrus and Weaver there that I made use of here. To those of you who haven't read the fic—drop everything you're doing and go do that now. It's a long read but worth it. One of my favorite stories, period, fanfic or published. I've recommended it to people completely unfamiliar with the Mass Effect franchise.
While this chapter marks the halfway point of Sometimes Grace (YAY!), it is the climax of Garrus's personal arc, though there are a few chapters more of denouement as he processes everything that just happens and what he thinks about it. After this chapter, the focus of the story shifts to the wider fight against the Collectors and the Reapers (and furtively, against Cerberus) and the changing nature of the relationship between Shepard and Garrus.
Leave a review if you've got anything to say,
LMSharp
