LIV
Taming Cerberus: Speak
I'm not dead. The main mission's done. I've told BS I need to head home, and I got leave. Booking a shuttle home in the next couple weeks, but there's a couple loose ends to tie up first. Need to make sure BS can keep fighting after I leave.
Keep her alive. Tell her I love her. See you soon,
—G
"So . . ." Tali said, bouncing on the balls of her feet in his doorway and twisting her fingers together. "You and Shepard, huh?"
She had followed him into the battery after dinner. Garrus sighed and closed the door behind her, then turned his back on the quarian, adjusted the ladder Caleb had brought in from an Illium hardware store, and climbed up to work with the wiring again.
Tali kept talking. "Kasumi says she saw you leaving the crew deck before the Omega-4 Relay, in civilian clothes with a bottle of wine," she continued. "And Miranda didn't tell her to shut up and mind her own business. She said she thought you had seen Shepard before the battle. I know you were late. The rumors are all over the ship, Garrus. You can't expect me not to be just a little bit curious."
Garrus finished tying together a few cables. "If you're going to stand there, you might as well be useful," he said, gesturing behind him. "Hand me those brackets, will you?"
Tali bounded over to do as he asked, handing up the new brackets to hold the battery cables in place, one at a time. He placed them in a line in a recess in the ceiling. "Helmet?" he asked Tali. She handed it up too, and he put it on and started to weld the brackets in place with his omni-tool.
"It sounds like Lawson's falling down on the job now we're all back through the Relay," he said over the sound of the falling sparks. He paused and looked down at Tali. "You think you could maybe shut up and mind your own business?" He kept his tone light, teasing.
"If you're going to be that way, maybe I'll let you fix the battery yourself," Tali said, with the trace of a playful pout in her voice. "I'm sure there's about fifty other things I could do instead."
"I know. Who would believe it? Visiting Reaper space stations surrounded by starship graveyards in orbit around a black hole can be hazardous for a ship's health."
"I'm amazed that we all survived," Tali said frankly. "Could you imagine what might have happened if anyone had been in the CIC while we were passing through that debris field?"
"How's the repair work going on the hull?" Garrus asked.
"Expensive," Tali answered, handing him another plastic tie to hold the cables together further down the line when he reached a hand down for it. "I was there when Shepard got the estimate. We could do just as good a job back home in the flotilla for a lot less, but I guess the work wouldn't be as pretty."
"The Alliance will probably just overhaul the whole ship again as soon as we hand it over."
"That is how it works with these military ships, isn't it? They'll want Normandy. They won't want her with Cerberus insignia and structure protocol." Tali walked over to his cot and sat down. She leaned back against the wall, folding her arms and looking up at him. "You're really not going to tell me about you and Shepard?" she asked.
"Wasn't planning on it," Garrus answered. He took a step down off the ladder and reached down for the fallen ceiling panel he'd had leaning up against it. He stopped before ascending the ladder again. "We aren't working with the Alliance again yet, but this isn't the flotilla. It isn't a ship in the Hierarchy Fleet either."
He heard Tali sigh as he turned his back on her again. "You're right, of course. Humans are so strange about relationships onboard a ship. As if people can live in space for months or years at a time without things getting more complicated than jobs on the duty roster. Then, I suppose you are a turian. Is she worried about how things might play back on Earth?"
Garrus fixed the ceiling panel back in place and came down the ladder again. "What was that you were saying about fifty other things you could do?"
Tali sighed, or even huffed. "Deep down, you always were a stodgy, overprofessional joykill. Ne-erd."
"I'm confused," Garrus said. "Am I a stodgy, overprofessional joykill or a nerd?"
Tali was quiet for a moment. "It's possible—barely—that you might be a gentleman," she admitted. "Good for you. Well. Whatever's going on with you and Shepard, I'm happy for you. Terrified, but happy. It sort of . . . makes sense, you two together."
Garrus paused his work at the battery console. "We're not," he said finally. "Just—we're not." Whatever was going on with him and Shepard, he knew they weren't together. He was a long way from being able to say that.
Tali's visor tilted. "I see," she said, in an odd, doubtful tone. She regarded him, twisting her hands together in front of her. "'It's complicated'?" she guessed, then shook her head as soon as she asked, waving off his answer. "No, you don't have to tell me. Sorry. And you're right. I do have fifty things to do." She slid off his cot and started for the door, then paused to look back at him, eyes glowing through her visor. "Garrus? I may not know everything that's going on, but—" she hesitated— "You both deserve more than 'it's complicated.' I think you two could be really good together. If . . . if that's what you want. If it's not, that's alright. But if it is, then . . . good luck, I guess." She nodded, deciding. "Yes. Good luck."
She strode out of the battery, leaving Garrus to his thoughts. Tali had been the most enthusiastic about working out just what had happened between him and Shepard since the Relay Run, but several of the crew had asked a couple guarded questions. They talked when he or Shepard left a room and, more significantly, stopped talking when they went in.
The truth was, things had been more than a little strained between him and Shepard the past few days. She was the one who'd said they might be more efficient if he went back to the Hierarchy, but when he'd told her that he needed to go soon, he was pretty sure she'd been upset. She hadn't shown it much. Not in anything she said or in any deliberate action. But she was tense, closed off.
The morning he'd told her, she'd sort of frozen. She'd nodded. Then she'd said, "Whatever you want, Garrus. I'll set you up a departure with the others as soon as Normandy's repaired." Then she'd gone off to take a shower, and ever since, every assignment she'd handed down to him kept him away from her. She'd only really talked to him in the mess around the others or for less than a minute during her ordinarily scheduled rounds.
He wanted to make sure they were okay before he chartered a shuttle back to Palaven—or to the Citadel, to leave from there. And he didn't intend to get a shuttle until he was sure Shepard was as safe from Cerberus reprisals for blowing up the Collector base as they could make her in a couple of weeks. But she hadn't really given him a chance to explain that. Once, he'd tried going to her cabin with his new codes. She'd let him in. Invited him to watch some vid on her screen if he wanted. But she'd said she had to work on some paperwork for the ship repairs, that she'd might join him later. And even though it was definitely true Shepard had a bunch of paperwork for the contractors working on Normandy, watching her past her vidscreen up in her office, looking down at datapads and not saying a word, left Garrus feeling lazy and awkward. He'd offered to help her with the accounts, or work on them himself while she dealt with other paperwork for the departing crew members. She'd said she was fine, and eventually, he'd left.
There was a lot to do before the crew split up, a lot to do to repair the ship. He couldn't be sure Beth was avoiding him. But he had a bad feeling about the quiet, and it only made that nervous itch he had every day he wasn't headed back toward his mother worse. He thought sometimes that if he explained, Beth might get it. Maybe she wouldn't think he was selfish, putting the needs of one family above his duty to the rest of the galaxy. But explaining would mean getting her alone for more than two minutes.
He got his chance about three days before the contractors estimated they could finish repairs to the hull. They finished dinner in the mess around the same time, so Garrus was able to walk up to the head at the same time she was heading to the elevator.
"Shepard, glad I caught you," he said. She stopped and looked up. He saw her shoulders tense, saw something shut down behind her eyes, but this time, he kept going, ignoring the voice in his head that told him he was charging right into that minefield he'd noticed earlier. "There hasn't been a lot of time since last we talked. I wanted to make sure we're clear: I need to leave. Not just to see if I can mobilize the Hierarchy against the Reapers. It's personal. But I don't want to go until I know we're safe from Cerberus. As safe as we can be, anyway. I'll stay until we've tossed Cerberus into an uproar and reestablished connection with the Allianceor the Council."
Shepard stared at him long enough he started to regret saying anything, feel maybe he'd misread everything about the last few days. But then the corner of her mouth turned up. She sat back on her right leg and folded her arms, but she was smiling. "Can't help putting on that white hat, Vakarian, can you? Like I need it or ever asked for it." She jerked her head toward the elevator. "Come on. The workers are gone for the day, and I got some time."
"Right behind you."
When they got back to Shepard's cabin, she opened the door and gestured for him to precede her in. "Have to say, I was feeling a little strange when you just up and said you had to go the other morning," Shepard admitted. "Wondered if I did something embarrassing the night you stayed over to scare you right off Normandy."
"No!" Garrus said, going hot as he realized it made perfect sense for her to have thought that. "No, I should've said—"
"Think maybe I should've said," Shepard said. She ran her fingers through her hair and laughed once. "Think maybe garden-variety sexual awkwardness might be as much trouble for us as the interspecies kind. We'll have to watch that." She gave a very military nod, dismissing the issue. "You got a comm that morning? Something from outside?"
"Yeah," Garrus confirmed. "Some stuff's going on back home. I'd have to ask for leave, wherever I was posted. I hate leaving—"
Shepard held a hand up. "You don't have to apologize," she told him. "Most people on a ship do have private lives back home. You've never said much about yours. I'm here if you want to talk, but you don't owe me an explanation."
I don't? Garrus looked hard at her, but she twitched her fingers in a negative gesture. "Don't worry about it, Garrus," she said, and even though she was Beth up here, it sounded like an order. "Well. I guess if you're leaving, we should make the most of what time we have left, huh? You want to watch that vid now? Maybe do a little something else?"
Garrus knew an invitation when he heard it, and there was a tilt to her eyebrows and her mouth that was more than a little distracting, but even as Garrus opened his mouth to give the standard witty reply, he couldn't help thinking there was something off about Shepard's willingness to just smooth the whole thing over. Beth Shepard could be one of the nosiest beings in the galaxy. Never shared much about her own life, but eavesdropping on random conversations, trying to solve the problems of complete strangers? She pried into the private business of every member of her crew like she would get inspected on how much she knew. Now she was suddenly willing to leave well enough alone?
Part of him wanted to push her, see what he turned up. Another part knew if he did that, he might be having a conversation about his mother he had really wanted to avoid. What's the human expression? Why look a gift equine in the mouth? A third part of him was really mostly interested in that something else Beth was offering. There were a few things he'd thought of since they'd last been together that he really wanted to try.
So Garrus took the hand she offered and kept up the banter and told the idiotic, masochistic investigator in the back of his head to leave it. He and Shepard had enough trouble. No need to borrow more.
"I'm gonna shower," Shepard said afterward. "You planning to stay tonight?"
Beth's back was to him, and once again, she was pulling on clothes to make the trip across the room to her personal shower, just like she'd done after the first time. Garrus watched her. Under all that human hair, every muscle in that back was taut, and even though she was leaving the decision up to him again, trying to make good on the promise she'd made when they'd agreed to keep sleeping together, he had a feeling that, tonight at least, she didn't want him to say yes.
"I'll probably go back downstairs and check the guns," he said. "I'm sure one of those techs today screwed something up, and if we're going after the Shadow Broker, there's no telling when we might need that gun. I'll see you later." He swung his legs over the side of the bed, reached over to where he'd left his undersuit folded by the nightstand, and started to get dressed himself.
Beth just nodded and started for the shower. She stopped in the doorway, turned around, and smiled once at him, and then she was gone.
Complicated, Tali had guessed, when he'd denied being together with Shepard but hadn't denied going to her cabin on terms not exactly talked about back in the Systems Alliance. That about summed it up, Garrus thought, along with awkward—both on an interspecies and a sexual level. Not that the sex itself was awkward—or not too much. Shepard had the same athleticism, instinct, and energy in bed that she had anywhere else, and he'd spent the better part of two years of his life now watching and interpreting her physical cues. The new dimension was exciting, and the couple times he'd been up here in this capacity, he'd enjoyed every minute, and any physical misunderstandings the two of them had they had been able to talk through or laugh off. And while he knew from years in C-Sec and aboard Normandy that in some human cultures, they did think it was polite to fake it, he also didn't think Shepard had. For one thing, she was a terrible actress. For another, it just wasn't her. No—he was fairly certain she'd been having a good time too.
The awkwardness was just in the newness of it; in two military professionals a little out of practice dealing with personal relations.
Or very out of practice.
It was in the timing; in the fact that somehow, they'd both survived the Omega-4 Relay and suddenly had to deal with what next. It was in navigating this course surrounded by a shipload of people with a shipload of questions neither of them wanted to answer yet, not to mention a galaxy outside of the ship just a bit too obsessed with the life and choices of the resurrected first human Spectre. It was in Mom on Palaven and Shepard uncertain for once on whether she wanted him to go or stay. It was in all the things she didn't want him to look at or say and all the things he hadn't worked out yet anyway. All that, with maybe two weeks to figure it out or let it go before he had to leave.
Garrus left Shepard's cabin on autopilot, went down the elevator, had his own shower, and walked out again into the mess still thinking about it. Gardner took one look at him and laughed out loud. Supper had been done for a while, but Gardner was stacking the last clean, dry trays back inside the cabinets.
"Hah! I know that face, even on a shot-up turian," he said. "Somebody's in the doghouse."
Garrus sighed. "You'll have to explain the idiom to me, Sergeant. I'm not sure it translates. You're comparing me to an Earthen canid?"
Gardner blinked. "What? No! Didn't mean it that way, Garrus." He paused, considered. "Though shit, maybe you are a dog. I don't know. It's a figure of speech. Means you're in trouble with the commander. You got 'kicked out of bed' written all over your sorry ass."
Garrus's mandibles tightened. The mess hall was clear for now—just Goldstein and Matthews having a conversation of their own by the elevator, out of easy earshot. But Gardner had the kind of voice that carried. "I didn't mean to publish," he said.
Gardner laughed again. "That's good—'didn't mean to publish!' Alright. Didn't mean to offend. I guess what you and the commander get up to off duty isn't any of my business. But hey, she still makes your turian coffee, right?" He picked up the ariita pot from its side of the brewer, poured Garrus a mug, and slid it across the bar.
Garrus caught it, feeling the heat of the ceramic through his gloves. He looked across at Gardner, and the older human shrugged. "I keep track of supplies," he explained. "Have to let Lawson and the commander when we need to pick up groceries. Stock your dextro roots right next to the coffee arabica, but I'll be damned if I've made more than three or four pots this tour. And even though you might as well have gills under those bandages, I don't often see you do it. It's usually Shepard, and since Tali'Zorah maybe has a cup a week—jumpy enough without chemical help—I have to assume she does it for you." He caught Garrus's eye, raised his eyebrows, and one corner of his mouth turned up. "Ain't a thing in this here galaxy as confusing as a dame, but if I learned one thing in twenty-three years of marriage, it's so long as she's making coffee in the morning, you're doing something right."
Garrus held the ship cook's eye. Gardner didn't talk about his wife a lot. Garrus knew she'd been killed in a batarian raid along with her children and Gardner's. It had been the reason the sergeant had joined Cerberus—to help protect humans outside easy reach of the Alliance or the Council. But with some people, the things they didn't say meant as much as what they did, and Gardner's very silence about the deaths of his family told Garrus something about what they'd meant to him. But now, he was sharing with Garrus, treating him like he might have treated a younger human man struggling with girlfriend problems, and Gardner's slightly offensive manner aside, Garrus was touched.
Of course, then the sergeant went and ruined it. "You aren't a dog, though, are you, Garrus?" he asked, seeming sincerely curious.
Garrus tapped the bar. "I have to say, I have no idea what you mean." His translator was tagging "dog" as possible perjorative slang, but without context for Gardner's particular regional use of the term, he didn't know if he could be considered one or not, or whether, under Shepard's conditions, Gardner's question was even something he could answer. Gardner was one that tended to use a lot of regionalisms and idiomatic expressions uncommon in standard human translator apps. His accent and phraseology wasn't quite as difficult as Ken Donnelly's, but it was bad enough.
"He wants to know if you're sexually promiscuous, or whether you treat your partners badly," said the voice of Karin Chakwas. Garrus turned to see her leaning up against the wall of the med bay. "But just like the rest of it, it's really none of his business. Rupert, leave the poor man alone. He's overdue for an appointment with me in the medical bay, and you're off duty now."
"Save him if you want, Doc," Gardner said easily enough. "Don't change you listened in from next door to do it."
"Well, if you're going to bellow loud enough for the entire ship to hear," Chakwas returned.
Rupert lifted his hands above his head, shrugged again, and tugged the towel he used as an apron out of his belt to hang over the partition in the sink. With a half salute, he wandered back toward crew quarters. He slept early so he could be up in time to make a meal for crew coming off the graveyard shift.
"I suddenly find myself nostalgic for C-Sec," Garrus told the wall. "I'm sure they gossiped as much as Normandy's crew, but I just can't remember."
"You don't have to tell me a thing you don't want to," Karin Chakwas told him. "'Don't ask, don't tell,' is the rule in the Systems Alliance when it comes to in-unit fraternization. Imperfect, just as it was when it applied to sexual orientation in general two hundred years ago in certain militaries back on Earth. But as relationships do arise between soldiers in space together for weeks and months at a time, it's somewhat easier than pursuing charges against everyone who gets cozy on a tour of duty. You were too quiet out here, and when you did speak, you sounded uncomfortable. And we need to talk about your options for surgery, now the mission is over."
Garrus followed Chakwas into the med bay. The door slid shut behind them, and she gestured for him to sit on the medical cot he usually sat on for her examinations. He swung up onto it. "You sure you're up for a major surgery, Doc?" he asked.
"Oh, don't worry about me. With everyone else busy with repairs and out of action for the moment, I need something to do," Chakwas answered. "And I wonder if you could tell me where in the turian Hierarchy you'll get free cosmetic surgery to fix the damage from that rocket."
Garrus acknowledged the point. "Hah. The Hierarchy tends to restrict its health coverage to surgeries that are medically necessary. Might not even have fixed my ear, depending on where they'd assigned me."
He thought again about the surgery Chakwas was offering. No one could say Normandy's doctor wasn't qualified to practice on nonhumans. She'd been treating the nonhuman members of the crew for as long as he'd known her—everything from T'Soni's exhaustion and malnutrition straight out the gate after Therum to taking bullets out of regenerating krogan and seeing to Krios's Kepral's Syndrome. She'd patched him up enough over the years, kept the implant she'd installed up to date with his body's own natural processes so he'd never once had trouble with his hearing. And, headed back home, Garrus could probably avoid some uncomfortable conversations if Karin Chakwas reconstructed his face beforehand.
But—he couldn't get past it—he didn't want the surgery. And honestly, he didn't trust Chakwas to perform it—not now, whatever she said. His eyes dropped to her hands. They had a visible tremor. She saw him looking, and her face flushed pink.
"You know, it's alright if you're still recovering, Doctor," Garrus said. "It's only been a few days since the Collector base."
He'd tried to keep his tone even, keep the pressure off. But it was too late. Chakwas's hand had flown to her mouth. Her green eyes flooded, and before he knew what had happened, she was bent double over her desk making horrible noises—something between a succession of dry, ragged sobs and gasps as she tried to restrain them. Garrus closed his eyes. Rumor had it several of the crew had broken down over the abduction. Tali'd told him Chambers was in bad shape. The coffee use of the crew in general had increased since the Relay Run; he'd heard Rupert talk about it before tonight, and a couple of the crew talk about why—Normandy's dormitory wasn't exactly a restful place these days.
So far, he hadn't been there for any of the breakdowns. He was flattered Dr. Chakwas felt safe enough to break apart in front of him. At the same time, rank and position made it awkward. She was an Alliance major, and thirty years or more his senior, maybe even in time served. It wasn't like he could give her a hug and tell her everything would be alright.
"Oh, Garrus, it was horrible!" she was saying. "Suspended in that foul-smelling liquid, helpless to do anything about those little robots, watching men and women liquified beside me. Knowing I'd be next. If the rest of you hadn't come for us—"
This was what the Reapers did, Garrus thought, clenching his fists in the paper on top of the medical cot. It tore inside his grip. It wasn't just all the people they took and killed, the abominations they created from the bodies. It was the survivors stuck in the nightmare afterward. Karin Chakwas had nerves of steel. She'd stared down a cranky Grunt and Jack, and here she was, rocking back and forth with hospital-grade PTSD.
Garrus bowed his head. Then he stood, walked over to the doctor's desk, and opened a cabinet overhead. He found a glass there, filled it at the sink, and handed it to Chakwas. She took the glass with one hand, reaching out to grip his hand with the other as she did so.
"I'm sorry—I'm sorry," she told him.
"For what?" Garrus asked. His subvocals cracked. "No one on the squad blames any of you for needing more than a few days to come to terms with all this. There are mental wounds as bad as anything you treat in this med bay."
"I've nothing to complain of," Chakwas protested. "I have my life. Any abrasions the crew suffered in those tanks were cured within forty-eight hours of return to Normandy. Your wounds were all much more serious. Biotic exhaustion and overloaded amps on Jacob, Jack, and Miranda; Tali was swimming in antibiotics for days after the battle; reconstructive surgery on Jacob's wounded arm. I dug five bullets out of Grunt's tissue, and Jeff's mended fractures will be weak for weeks yet. He just made them worse firing that gun during the escape. Beside all of that trauma, what can I say? And yet I—"
"Watched entire colonies turned to fuel for the Reapers," Garrus finished, "after being taken from the ship, helpless to do a damned thing the entire time. If it helps, the Hierarchy that might not fund cybernetic repair of my right ear would remand you all to mandatory crisis counseling."
Chakwas laughed—a wet, cynical sound. "Like Shepard after Akuze. Jeff after Alchera. There are limits to the efficacy of psychological treatment after a thing like this. I've prescribed enough antianxiety, stomach, and sleep medications to know. And now I've just violated doctor-patient confidentiality, though I'd venture to guess both Shepard and Joker have told you something of their experiences."
"Enough."
Karin stared into space, raised her glass, and drained the water inside in one. "They took us to get to Shepard," she said. "But we were rescued because of Shepard. When I think of the thousands of men, women, and children taken from their homes like we were, stuffed into those horrible pods, breathing when they should have drowned, awake when Collector technology converted them down to nothing—"
"They should be done with ship repairs soon," Garrus said. "We could go back, kill the bastards all over again."
Chakwas smiled through her tears. "Thank you. That won't be necessary. I think we should probably focus on their masters."
"Definitely."
Chakwas squeezed his hand, which she'd gripped the entire time, like a lifeline. Then she let go, moved her chair back, and reached for a tissue from a box of recycled ones she kept on her desk. She was embarrassed. Wouldn't look at him. "You're a good man, Garrus. Putting up with the foolishness of a silly old woman."
Garrus hummed. "I'm really bad with foolishness, usually—but today I haven't seen any. And you're not that old."
Karin wiped her eyes, and her mouth quirked. "You should save that sweet talk for Commander Shepard."
Garrus leaned back against the medical cot, resigning himself to hearing what the doctor had to say. She was feeling vulnerable and needed to shift the focus, and, for now, he was willing to take the hit. "Mm. Have an opinion after all on the recent ship's gossip?"
Chakwas sighed, sat back in her chair, and looked at him. "Not as such. More . . . advice. Without forcing or expecting any confidences, outside of my capacity as an Alliance physician. Merely as a person who considers herself your friend, who's served with you for nearly two years. Will you hear it?"
"Without giving any confidences, or confirming anything anyone is saying," Garrus answered, in the same style.
"Fair enough," the doctor answered. "You probably know I've served with the commander for more tours than anyone in or out of the Alliance. By now, that includes Councilor Anderson. I feel I've gotten to know her reasonably well, and I'm very fond of her. But the woman I've known isn't one to trust or love very easily. Before she was given command of the SR-1, I'd never seen her with a friend, let alone a romantic or sexual relationship that lasted longer than a few casual meetings on shore leave."
Garrus nodded. "Commander Shepard: ask her to go on a suicide mission and she doesn't bat an eye, brings back everyone alive to boot. Try and hug her and she panics. It's come up, both with Tali and me back on the SR-1 tour and this tour, with Wrex. Both in a friends context and in why she doesn't date in general."
The doctor looked relieved. "I'm glad she's mentioned it before. She's changed since the beginning. Back on the SR-1, and even more since Alchera. I think dying has a way of revealing who matters. And she's closer to you than she's been with anyone before, physically or otherwise. But, if I had to guess? I would say it's happened in spite of her habits or inclination."
Garrus paused. His mandibles tightened. Doctor Chakwas's observations were directly in line with his own instincts, sometimes. That a big part of whatever awkwardness and miscommunication was going on between him and Shepard, the reasoning behind her second condition for sleeping with him, and the reason she'd looked about ready to bolt right before the Omega-4 Relay had nothing to do with him at all but stemmed from things she'd learned as a soldier in the Alliance or as a poor foster kid on Earth. A constant voice somewhere in the back of her head saying anyone she ever loved or trusted would leave, or worse.
It wasn't the kind of thing you could fight with bullets or tech programs. It was shielding or armor better than any corporation in the galaxy could make, and what the doctor was trying to get at, sideways, was that anyone who wanted to be with Beth Shepard—for real, long-term, as her friend or even more as a partner, would have to deal with it. And could possibly end up defeated.
"So. This isn't the 'don't you dare break her heart' speech," Garrus said.
Chakwas looked wry. "I imagine you've heard that one once or twice already, from people much more intimidating than me. But as dramatically satisfying as that speech might be, I don't think the scenario as such is very likely. And—if you did manage to break Shepard's heart, I rather think I'd be more impressed than otherwise."
"There's a confidence booster."
Chakwas's expression was halfway between amusement and sympathy. "If it helps, I think you just might be capable, if anyone in the galaxy is. I just think it's more likely she'll break her own heart to save you both the trouble, and so while I don't have an opinion one way or the other on whatever may or may not be happening between you, I wanted to warn you. Make sure she doesn't break yours in the process."
"So, Shepard could break my heart—just as friends or otherwise—and she might break her own, but it'll be the next thing to a miracle if I break her heart," Garrus summarized. "Sounds about right. You should go in for professional ego deflation."
"It goes with sedating marines for surgery and being the first person they see, morning after shore leave," Chakwas joked. "But now you've seen me in hysterical tears, I think we might be even. But returning to the cosmetic surgery, granting that it might not be the best plan for me to get out the scalpel at 2200 hours after a cry, would you like to schedule a time to come in another day?"
Garrus hesitated. "I appreciate the offer, Doctor. But I don't think so," he said finally. He brought his hand up, ran his fingers over the bandage that still concealed the healed burns beneath. "I've gotten used to seeing this ugly face in the mirror. I'd miss it if it were gone."
Chakwas tilted her head, peering at him. "Well, at least let me change the bandage," she said. "Infection may no longer be a factor, but hygiene is still a consideration."
"Sure, Doctor," Garrus agreed, submitting to Chakwas's ministrations. The bandage was ridiculous by now. If he was ready for cosmetic surgery, he could go without it. But Dr. Chakwas wanted to give him one, and he didn't mind it.
