Chapter One: Let me Be Honest
As the elevator door slid shut, Shepard slumped against the wall, stripping off her gauntlets and scrubbing her hands down her face. She looked… smaller, somehow. Worn down and exhausted, buried under the weight of her armor.
They were all tired. The Blood Pack mercenaries on the planet below had given them a tough fight, leaving the three of them bloodied and dirty and ready to collapse where they stood. But Shepard usually returned from missions such as these riding a battle high that made her seem as invincible as Arashu's warrior angels, radiating the awesome and terrible light of righteous victory, inspiring to behold. Only later would she crash back down to earth as if betrayed by her own mortality, and sleep with the same reckless abandon with which she fought.
Today, however, that crash appeared to have come early. Her hands trembled, and her face was haunted. Something was wrong.
A quick glance at Garrus confirmed that he saw it, too.
"Are you hurt, siha?" Thane asked with a frown.
Shepard blinked up at him in surprise. "What? No, Thane, I'm fine. I just…" She turned to meet Garrus's eyes, letting out a long, unsteady breath. "That was really close down there."
"What, you mean the krogan?" Garrus shot back airily. "Nah, I was just playing for time. You know, looking for his weak spot. Let him think he had me, and then, bam! Take him out before he knew what hit him." He gave Thane a mock glare. "Not my fault Krios here thought I was in real trouble. It's just 'cause my acting was that good. Right, Krios?"
Thane recognized Garrus's posturing for the coping mechanism it was, and inclined his head with a small smile. "A masterful performance, indeed."
"See? What did I tell you?"
Shepard shook her head, chuckling, as the elevator slowed approaching the CIC. It seemed Garrus's ploy was beginning to work, calming her fears somewhat. "You keep telling yourself that, Garrus. You're a master bullshit artist, is what you are." She clapped him on the back, pretending not to see his theatrically wounded expression. Then, eyes twinkling, she turned to Thane. "And you are an enabler." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek as the door finally opened. "Now, both of you, stow your gear and get some rest I'm going to take a very long, very hot shower, and then I'm gonna be dead to the world for the next twelve hours or so. Good night."
"Sleep well, siha."
"'Night, Shepard."
The elevator door closed behind them, whisking Shepard up to her cabin, and Thane and Garrus made their way to the armory together. "In all seriousness, Krios—thanks," said Garrus quietly. "You saved my life back there."
Thane opened his locker and placed his weapons neatly inside. They needed to be cleaned, badly, but he was as weary as Shepard. It could wait until morning. "We are a team," he said simply. "You would have done the same."
"Sure," Garrus grunted, slamming his own weapons into place with enough force to make Thane wince, "but the difference is, you would never have gotten yourself into that situation."
"You're embarrassed because you were defeated in combat."
"I'm embarrassed because I nearly got myself killed. Again," Garrus snarled. He scratched at the bandages on his face. "Before I joined C-Sec, I was one of the best hand-to-hand fighters in my unit. As Archangel, I was the deadliest shot on Omega. But now?" He scoffed. "Now I'm on some backwater planet in the middle of nowhere, getting my ass handed to me by a geriatric krogan with a cracked head plate, having to be saved by a—" He broke off at Thane's raised brow ridge, mandibles fluttering sheepishly. "You know what, I don't think I'm going to finish that sentence."
"That may be wise," said Thane drily.
"My point is, I guess I'm starting to feel a little useless." Garrus slammed his locker shut and began to pace back and forth as he spoke. "I calibrate the big gun, and I get rescued. I might as well just stay here on the ship, where it's safe." He sneered the word as if it were a curse. "Apparently, I'm more of a liability than an asset on the ground."
"Surely you overreact. Commander Shepard extolls your skills on the battlefield, as does Tali'Zorah and everyone else who has fought by your side. I, too, have confidence in you." Thane shrugged. "And all of us make mistakes at times."
"Gee, thanks," Garrus growled. "But did you see how my little mistake down there affected Shepard? When we hit the Omega-4 relay, she'll need to be a hundred percent focused—we all will. But she can't if she's worried about babysitting me."
Thane gritted his teeth. "You do her a disservice," he said sharply. "Of course she worries about you. She relies on you, Garrus. She trusts you, even as the thought of your death shakes her world to its very foundations."
That brought Garrus up short. He stopped his pacing and stared at Thane for a long moment, then folded his arms under his keel and looked away, mandibles drawn in tight. "Yeah, right," he muttered. "Why should it? You're the one she's fallen in love with."
The bitterness in his voice took Thane by surprise. He knew, of course, that Shepard and Garrus were close. Their friendship had begun long before Thane had ever met her—they'd battles Saren and Sovereign together, had faced down hostile geth and indoctrinated troops and an indifferent Council side by side. But it hadn't occurred to him that Garrus might actually harbor romantic feelings for her. If nothing else, the wounds of the First Contact War were still too fresh for most humans and turians to even entertain the idea of a cross-species relationship.
Shepard, however, was no ordinary human. There was something inescapably compelling about her, something that transcended race and history and drew one inexorably toward her. Something he'd seen only once before. (Sunset-colored eyes, defiant in the scope. "How dare you?" she mouths. I am enthralled.) Thane had been caught in her pull and given in to it almost against his will. Was it so unexpected, then, that Garrus had, as well?
"Yes, she has," he replied softly. "But to whom do you think she will turn when I am gone?"
Garrus stared at him, wide-eyed and very still. "What are you saying?"
With a heavy sigh, Thane bowed his head. "Garrus, you know that I will die very soon. Probably within the year. And while I would give anything for Shepard not to be hurt by my passing, it seems that is not to be. She will need a friend she can rely on. She will need you to be… to be everything I cannot. She will need you to be there for her." He drew a deep breath, gathering his courage, and met Garrus's eyes again. "And though it may not be my place to say this: should that friendship blossom into something more, know that you have my blessing."
"You're right, it's not your place," Garrus snapped, stabbing a finger toward Thane's face. "That is none of your business, and I… you…" He trailed off, and his ire seemed to drain away, leaving him deflated. He dropped his hand with a dismissive gesture and shook his head. "Whatever. Nothing I say is going to change anything, anyway. The point is, when we're out there, I'm supposed to be watching Shepard's back. What good am I if I can't even do that?"
"Do you truly think she would take you on ground missions if she doubted you?" Thane asked pointedly. "Do you think she would have brought you aboard at all?"
"Well, no, but… I don't know." Garrus sighed. "I guess I'm just starting to wonder if I'm losing my edge."
"Then perhaps what you need is a sparring partner," Thane suggested. "Someone to practice with."
Garrus hummed thoughtfully. "Now, there's an idea. That's definitely one thing I've missed about the turian military. Sparring matches were regular events on our ships—it eased tension and kept our skills sharp. But it's not as big a thing on human ships, apparently." He raised one brow plate. "You volunteering?"
"Me?" This was unexpected. The idea wasn't without merit—Garrus would be well served by learning to defend against, and use, different fighting styles than his training had prepared him for. But if he was looking for a confidence boost, this was not the way to go about it. Not immediately, anyway. "You are aware, are you not, that I have been training in hand-to-hand combat since before you were born?"
Mandibles flared in a cheeky grin, Garrus shrugged casually. "Well, that just makes you old, then."
Ah, so that was how this was going to be. Thane studied Garrus with narrowed eyes, schooling his features carefully to keep from smiling. "Very well," he said coolly. "We will meet in the hangar bay tomorrow morning at 0500." He closed his locker, then turned back to Garrus, hands tucked behind his back, brow ridge raised. "If that is acceptable, of course. It is my understanding that children often require more sleep than do we old men."
Garrus laughed out loud. "You're on, Krios."
Garrus snarled as he shook his head to clear the stars from his vision. "Biotics, Krios?" he demanded. "That's not fair."
But Thane's impassive expression didn't waver. He only raised his brow ridge and said, "Fair? I hadn't thought you so naïve. Get up."
Naïve? A surge of anger propelled Garrus to his feet, and he launched himself at Thane again in a move calculated to tackle him to the deck. "How's this for naïve, you son of a—"
There was no impact—at least, not where Garrus had expected. His arm swept through the air where Thane had been, and something slammed into the middle of his back, driving him face-first into the deck and knocking the air from his lungs. He tasted blood. "Ow, damn it," he groaned.
"'Fair' is for children and games, Vakarian," said Thane. "Get up."
Garrus coughed. "Give me a second," he wheezed. "Let me catch my—"
Another flash of blue light, and Garrus skidded across the deck to crash into a bulkhead. "The enemy will not wait for you to collect yourself," Thane snapped. "He will press every advantage, every show of weakness. Get up."
Climbing to his feet again, Garrus held up his hands. "Look, Krios, I think we came into this with very different expectations of—Spirits!" In the blink of an eye, Thane was on him again with a flurry of blows, blinding him with a palm strike that came just short of breaking his nose, doubling him over with a knee to his gut, and a knife hand to the underside of his fringe putting him back on the deck. Before he quite knew what had happened, Thane was kneeling on his back, wrenching his right arm up behind him at a painful angle.
Garrus slapped the deck with his free hand. "I yield, damn it, I yield!"
Thane released him immediately, and when Garrus looked up, he saw a green hand extended to help him to his feet. He ignored it and staggered upright on his own, blinking away the last of the dizziness. "The hell was that?" he panted.
"Lesson number one," Thane replied. Damn him, he looked as relaxed as if he'd just strolled down here to say hello. The unrelenting storm of violence from moments ago was so completely gone that Garrus almost wondered if he'd imagined it.
No, the bruises were definitely real. But Garrus had seen Thane in action enough to know that he'd held back to avoid seriously injuring him—and had wiped the floor with him anyway. "Is this how they taught you in the Compact?" Garrus asked.
"It is," Thane said, nodding once. "Advice and theory are meaningless without application. The most enduring lessons are practical."
"So, what was the lesson here?"
Thane tucked his hands behind his back and cocked his brow ridge. "What did you learn?" he countered.
"Never to piss you off." Garrus chuckled darkly. "Seriously, though, I guess it would be that there's no such thing as a fair fight. Expect your opponent to use dirty tricks, and you'll never be caught off-guard."
It might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw the ghost of a smile cross Thane's face. "Good." He dropped into a fighting stance. "Again."
