29 Days ASR
Liquid nitrogen poured down Garrus's spinal column. Frozen in place, brittle and fragile, he stared at the two people leaping out of the bed, scattering to put themselves together. Disbelief screamed so loudly that it wiped everything else out of his head. His purpose … everything he'd intended to show Nihlus … everything he'd planned to say to warn his fratrin … . Gone.
He said something. Sound came out his larynges, and his tongue and mouth formed it into words, but he didn't hear them through the crashing tide of pain and disgust and disappointment battering the inside of his skull. On the bed, the fake Shepard … of which he now had proof … just stared at him, wide-eyed. Did she know why he'd come to see Nihlus, or was it just guilt in the face of getting caught prying her way into the fold?
He looked over at Nihlus, the Spectre standing next to the bed, his tunic in his hands, and the ice shattered. Pity shoved aside the disgust. Spirits. He knew Nihlus missed Shepard … they all did, but sleeping with this … facsimile … his fratrin must have had a great deal to drink.
Fake-Shepard moved to get off the bed. No. Garrus spun on his talons and walked out the door. He couldn't deal with her. He couldn't look into that face and listen to her lies … or her delusions. He'd talk to Nihlus later … slap some bloody sense into him. Nausea from the storm raging inside his head and neck turned his insides to water, but he pushed through it, making it halfway down the hall before dizziness and pain forced him to stop. Buttressing a hand against the wall, he braced himself against the galaxy spinning around him far too fast for his medicated, concussed self to keep up.
"Garrus!" Nihlus chased him down the hall. "What are you doing?" His fratrin stepped in front of him and pressed a hand against his shoulder. Garrus shrugged it off and nearly fell, Nihlus all that kept him from hitting the floor when he leaped in and grabbed the general under his good arm. "Damn it," the Spectre said, his voice soft rather than upset. "Why are you out of bed? Does Chakwas know you're up and breaking into people's apartments?"
Garrus clenched his jaw, took a long breath and pushed off the wall. "I came to see if you'd checked your incoming messages. However, finding you in bed with her tells me that you haven't." He stepped around Nihlus and continued down to the lobby door. As Garrus hit the door control, he nodded toward the Spectre's wrist. "I suggest you check your messages before you allow that Cerberus weapon to sink her talons in any deeper." He stepped through, then, sharp-edged and bristled, turned back to block Nihlus. "And get dressed. Make sure that Cerberus whore is before she comes out here. The last thing we need is half-dressed drama in front of the cadets."
Nihlus retreated down the hall, shrugging into his tunic as he went. "Spirits, Garrus … you know that I—"
"When you're sober, I know exactly who you are and what you'll do," Garrus interjected, spinning away before Nihlus could protest his sobriety. Bracing himself against the wall as the inside of his head got left behind then whirled to catch up, Garrus closed his eyes. He really should just return to the hospital level and get back into bed. He didn't have the strength to deal with all the insanity.
"Shepard!" Nihlus's exclamation echoed out the still open door.
"Thanks for being there for me, Nihlus. I've got … well, I'll catch up with you later." Garrus heard boots striding down the hall, the steps quick, light, and determined.
He shoved off the wall and hit the elevator control. "Come on," he grumbled, staring at it, willing the damned thing to open and give him enough of a head start to escape, if only for a little while. He pushed through even before the doors opened fully, then hit the control to close them.
Shepard dove between the doors even as they closed, one gauntlet trapped under her arm while she pulled the other one on. Once she tugged both into place, she looked up, studying him with that eerily glowing stare. After a second, she let out a long breath and shook her head. "Garrus, you need to get back to the hospital. You look like hell." Her face drew into a pained grimace that pulled the skin apart over the cybernetics, their glow fierce and red through the raw meat.
Garrus stumbled, his stomach heaving, but caught himself against the railing.
She reached out to help support him, wincing as if he'd struck her when he yanked his arm away. Still, after a second, she stepped toward him again. "Nihlus has Archangel in hand. Give yourself time to heal."
Garrus let out a chuff that felt as though another rocket exploded against the side of his head. A soft grunt escaped between his teeth as he braced himself against the pain and answered her. "Nihlus has spent the last two years at the bottom of a brandy bottle. And after what I just saw, I can't say I place much faith in his decision making." Again, she jerked back as if he'd punched her in the gut. A faint, vicious satisfaction prickled under his plates, but after a second, it began to burn. That torin … that was not the torin Kahri had loved.
Recovering quickly, she came back at him with a very convincing replica of Shepard's stubbornness. "What do you think you saw in there, Garrus?" She cocked her eyebrow and shrugged. "Two clothed people leaping out of a dead sleep because someone was breaking into the room is what you actually saw." She cocked a hip and bulwarked her arms across her chest. "Forget what you think about me and what or who I am. You know, I understand your scepticism. I really do. Occam's razor is not my friend right now." A strangled sort of sigh cut from her throat, and she raked a hand through her hair.
She shrugged, a helpless flap of arms and shoulders, almost violent in its resignation. "So, go ahead, suspect me all you want … that knot will untangle when it does. But, you know Nihlus, and should bloody well know that he'd never hurt you … drunk or sober." She shook her head, her expression tugging at the unreasonably naive part of him that wanted to believe in the impossible. "So, yeah, I get you not trusting me, but the shit I just heard you say to him in that hallway … I hope to hell it's the head trauma talking." She turned to face the door, her hand stabbing back toward Nihlus's apartment. "Because that viciousness was not the torin I loved. And if that's who you've become … you're a bigger stranger to me than I ever could be to you." A choked, thick sob hiccoughed through her, he watched it travel up her spine, but she bit it off before it escaped.
He forced his stare to slide over her rather than lingering to run comparisons with the woman in his mind. Had she been that skinny and frail, but sharp and hard like obsidian? The elevator saved him, jerking his attention away from her back as it stopped on the fourteenth floor. Her words added to the shame simmering under his plates, flushing the back of his throat with bile, sour and metallic.
The moral high ground was supposed to be his, but his anger kept turning the rock to mud beneath his feet.
The door opened, letting Martin in. The kid looked good, well rested and recovered. A splinter of envy slid under his plates to join the shame. Martin greeted both Garrus and Shepard with salutes, unable to hide the wide grin that greeted the replica. Spirits, not the kid too?
Still, Martin brushed past Shepard to stand next to Garrus as the doors closed and the carriage began to rise once more. "Should you be up? You look like you got shot in the head by a rocket." He cocked an eyebrow at Garrus when only a soft growl of subvocals answered him. "Right, in a mood. Understood." He sighed and held up a datapad. "To business then. First … Daro'Xen is missing. Her cell door was blown off, and she is nowhere to be found. No idea if she escaped or died." After waiting a few seconds for Garrus to answer, he shrugged and continued, "How many guards do you want assigned to the prisoners?"
Garrus frowned, then winced at the fireworks of pain going off beneath his bandages. Spirits, even blinking felt like someone taking a knife to his face. When he opened his mouth, the words came out with blades of their own. "Why do we still have prisoners?" That time Martin jerked back from the slap. Garrus felt Shepard's eyes on him, but focused on the kid.
"Sir?" Martin shuffled a little, his gaze shifting restlessly between his datapad, Garrus, and Shepard.
"Have they been questioned?" Garrus watched the numbers blink past, moving toward the doors even before they began to open. When they did, he pushed through, hurrying as quickly as he could manage without losing his balance, falling over, and vomiting all down himself.
"Yes, sir," Martin answered, jogging along to keep up as Garrus settled into a lengthy stride.
"Do they know anything?" Stopping, he spun to face the kid, managing to save himself and look fairly casual by slapping his hand against a door frame. He already knew the answer to his question. None of the mercs, not even the officers, would know anything more than that they'd been contracted to take out an enemy of their gang and the council. He glanced at Shepard, who stood back, her arms folded across her chest, her stare neutral. Fury rose up to meet that neutrality. Another weapon poised to take him out standing there like she belonged. The anger rose in his chest, magma bursting from the ground, threatening to blow him to ash and wash him away.
Spirits, how he wished it could wash him away. Then all the body bags lined up … all the friends lost to betrayal … all the waste and uncertainty—he glanced at Shepard again—all the confusion and fear could all just disappear into the undertow.
"No, sir," Martin answered. "They were all just following orders."
Garrus nodded, a sharp jerk of his head that rammed a solid steel spike down his spine. Good, he needed it. He needed to stay solid … strong. "Then empty the cells, Instructor Weaver." Out of the corner of his eye, Garrus caught the tightening around Shepard's mouth, the deepening of the furrows that dug into the skin around her eyes. She closed down and looked away, clearly understanding the order even if Martin didn't.
The kid's forehead furrowed, his heavy brows disappearing behind his prosthetics. "Let them go, sir?" He shifted foot to foot a little, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to turn and run, to pretend he'd never found Garrus, never asked about the prisoners.
A long grumbling sort of groan answered before Garrus opened his mouth. "No, Martin, I didn't mean to let them go." He turned back toward his office, making them chase him if they wanted to keep up. The faint satisfaction returned, penetrating his chest to slither around his heart, ice-cold scales abrasive and shameful. He'd upset her, and he liked it. Damn, he was a bastard.
"But, sir, they're unarmed prisoners," Martin stuttered. "I can't … ." He looked to Shepard, who just turned away.
Garrus stiffened. Great, demoted in the course of two days from general to the torin standing two paces behind Shepard, and not even the real Shepard.
How much would you have sacrificed for that position even three days ago?
He stomped that thought to dust and glanced at Shepard. Having the real Shepard's back was a privilege. Having his subordinates look to that piece of fakery formed the worst sort of insult. The replica's expression didn't shifted a millimetre.
When Shepard didn't step in, Martin shuffled a little more, then gave Garrus a stiff salute. "Yes, sir." Dropping his hand, he turned and wandered back toward the elevator, looking lost … no, looking as though he wished he were lost.
Garrus slammed back his office door with enough fury that Vortash didn't even look up. The batarian wore bandages on his face and neck, and what pale yellow skin showed between was mottled a terrible black and green.
"Good morning, Instructor Vortash," Fake-Shepard said as she followed Garrus through the door. "You're looking better."
The batarian nodded. "Captain Shepard. Thanks for pulling me out of that bloody tunnel."
Garrus glanced back as she pressed her lips tight into a sad sort of smile. "Thank the fact that you all wear identical armour. Only reason I stopped was I saw one set of recognizable boots amidst the mercs."
Storming past the desk, Garrus slapped the control into his office. Even his most loyal people were accepting her without question. When the door shut behind Shepard, he turned and, leaning back against the desk to steady himself, faced her.
"You didn't say anything about the order to execute the prisoners." Had he been hoping she would? No, the prisoners couldn't just be set loose. They endangered Archangel. Still, a tiny voice in the back of his head prodded him for the truth. Was he so desperate to rail against her that he was setting her up?
Fake-Shepard just shook her head and walked over to the miniature galaxy map. "It's not my place to question your orders," she replied, staring into the slowly turning display of stars and coloured dots.
The simple statement opened a valve, releasing the pressure that was keeping him upright. A hissing sigh escaped as he sagged down to sit on the edge of the desk. "But you don't like it?"
Her shoulders popped in a small shrug as she turned to face him, her face a careful, still-neutral mask. "Of course I don't like it, but I'm a soldier. I've heard a lot of orders I didn't like in my time. I've obeyed more than I'm comfortable with, and given more than I can hope to be forgiven for." She hooked her thumbs in her utility belt and drew her shoulders up around her ears in a bristling, defensive posture.
She sighed and shrugged, dropping her shoulders. "But, if it's what you feel you need to do to protect Archangel, that's your call. This is all you." Her stare held his for at least a minute before she walked over and lifted a hand to press against his keel, the first contact she'd made with him since before the surgery.
And whose fault is that? She kissed you … held your hand … told you that she loved you, and you told her to go away and not to come back.
She held his stare, those green eyes making his heart ache worse than his head. "But if you break that beautiful boy's spirit because you're angry and distrustful of me … . By the glowing asses of the Enkindlers, I'll kick you so hard that you'll spend the rest of your life feeling like my foot is still rammed up your ass."
"I have other people who will be more than happy to finish off those merc bastards." He stared at her hand, unable to feel the light contact through the thick tunic.
Her hand fell away, and she nodded, her lips set in an expression that clearly asked him if those were the sort of people he wanted to have his back. He looked past her, allowing the message that had awaited him in his morning mail to play through his mind. He couldn't let his love for Shepard draw him into this replica's game. Swallowing hard, he braced himself, shoring up all the softening edges. Yes, he wanted to believe it, but he needed to hold himself to a higher standard of vigilance, for the sake of everyone … even her.
"You expect me to believe that you don't intend to have any say in Archangel business?" he asked, enough of an edge in his subvocals to make it a demand.
She backed away from him. "I didn't say that. As pieces of the bigger war, I expect the troops and the fleet to be at the war council's disposal. But other than that? Of course not." Holding her hands out away from her side, she turned a little one way then the other. "None of this is me, General. This … this is all you."
Damn her. Garrus let his eyes sag closed for a moment, then lifted his hand to his aural canal. "Weaver. One guard for every three prisoners. Make sure the kitchen knows how many extra mouths they need to feed, and that there is a two person escort per prisoner to the head. Strip them, search them, get them in basic gear. Confiscate all amps and omnitools, and process their belongings."
"Yes, sir, General Vakarian!" The kid's relief practically jumped through the radio and hugged him. "I'll have a report for you by the end of the day."
Garrus closed the channel and met Fake-Shepard's grin with a scowl. After holding her stare for a few seconds, he pushed off his desk and retreated around to his chair. "As for you," he said, taking a deep breath and steeling himself to administer the blow. "You are not welcome here." He clenched his teeth, savouring the pain, channeling it into forming a shield against the hurt in her eyes. "I told you not to come back, and that was a one time warning. If you set foot inside this base again, you'll be processed and locked up with the prisoners."
Looking down at the datapads covering his desk, he swallowed hard, a frozen fist reaching down into his throat to wrap around his gullet. "If you interfere with our operations against the Collectors or the Reapers, I won't hesitate to shoot you."
Fake-Shepard stepped up to his desk, her fingertips pressing against the top. "Why can't you see that it's me, Garrus? All that time we spent … the long hours we looked after one another on Feros … eating junk and watching the Maltese Falcon after Donovan Hock … the nights you held me and read to me … . Why can Martin and Nihlus see me, but you can't?"
The tears in her voice … the crystalline token of sorrow that bloomed as it hit his desk … lifted a reedy keen from his throat, but he choked it down. Without looking up, he activated his omnitool, pulled up the message that he'd received overnight. Guts churning, he looked away. He couldn't watch it again. Thank the spirits, it didn't have sound. If he had to listen to it … if he had to hear the sounds gasping from her open mouth ... he didn't think he could keep himself from throwing up.
Shepard let out a faint hiss of what sounded like anger or disgust as the vid began to play, but he didn't look up … couldn't look up. The … thing … standing before him had taken the person he loved … the gift he'd never thought he'd receive and turned her into … his traumatized brain struggled to find the words and failed.
"Garrus … ." Fake-Shepard sighed. "That was a fake … a ruse to protect Al—Specimen Alpha—from Miranda and her bosses. I hoped that if they thought they could use him to control me, that they wouldn't just shoot him in the back of the head while we were escaping." She muttered under her breath. "We were faking it for the cameras. That wasn't real."
He deactivated his omnitool. "Don't come back. I imagine this vid will have lessened Nihlus's sympathy for you."
"Garrus, please. We can talk about this. Don't just send me away."
He saw her shift, but didn't look up. His pulse pounded in his head like a timer counting toward detonation, the pressure building until he began to retch. "I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on," he managed to say, his voice a thin rasp.
He knew the sound of a heart breaking. The sharp, resonating crack of his own remained ingrained in his bones and etched into his soul … something he could never hope to erase. As Shepard stepped back from his desk, a tiny sound crept from her throat, a soft mewl that he knew heralded his blow striking true. The pain woven through that sound tore at his resolve, insisting that he look up … that he at least acknowledge the damage.
Instead, he took a deep breath and flushed his veins with ice water. Picking up one of the pads, he activated it, staring at the information there without seeing it. Her footsteps crossed the floor, and the door opened.
"I love you, Garrus." The whisper tumbled to the floor, breaking into pieces on the tile, and then she was gone.
Garrus dropped the datapad on his desk. Acidic, oily tears burned the corners of his eyes as a long keen broke free of his control. Damn Cerberus. He'd smash the entire organization … bring it down around their ears for dredging up all the old agony … for what Nihlus and Martin would go through losing her again … even for the pain that that poor, programmed fake was going through. They'd pay for all of it. Starting with Operative Lawson.
He lifted a hand to his aural canal. "Vortash, make sure the outer guards know that I want the Cerberus operative, Miranda Lawson arrested the moment she sets foot in this base. The same goes for everyone else on that crew, including Shepard if she returns."
"Sir?" Vortash's gravelly voice rolled with confusion. "Those people saved us. Captain Shepard pulled me out from under a half ton of rubble herself."
"That's the only reason she's being allowed to leave. I'm turning off my comms, route any calls through my omnitool. Vakarian out." He closed the channel and forced himself to focus on the reports. He had a base to rebuild, outposts to secure, refugees to bring home. Enough time and pain had been wasted on Cerberus. As long as they stayed away from him, he'd return the favour.
Three hours passed in a heartbeat, his wounds straining his concentration to the breaking point, but he muscled through. As long as he didn't move or yawn or cough … or breathe, the pain remained bearable. His omnitool chimed incoming messages throughout the morning, but he left them. Anything truly important would end up with someone pounding on his door.
The first intrusion appeared not as a pounding, but a command override on his lock. Dr. Chakwas appeared in the open portal, one hand on her hip, the other holding a medical bag. "You're supposed to be semi-horizontal up on the twenty-fourth floor," she said, striding across the threshold. Without so much as allowing him a chance to protest or explain, she circled his desk and activated her omnitool to run her scans. "But since the mountain refuses to come to Muhammad, Muhammad will come to the mountain."
"That makes no sense," he groused, wincing away from the brilliant orange light. "And I'm fit enough to sit at a desk and read reports."
"You have a closed skull fracture and a severe concussion. That leaves you fit for drooling into a pillow, and that's it. By all rights, I should tranq you and drag you back upstairs by the foot." She tapped at the interface. "And if I could drag you, I'd do just that. Your intercranial pressure isn't subsiding the way it should."
She opened her bag, withdrawing several syringes. "I'm going to give you some painkillers, but they won't completely eliminate the pain. I want you to be able to tell if the pain is getting significantly worse. If it does, come upstairs. That's an order."
"Fine." When she shut down her omnitool, he looked up at her. "You ran tests to verify that Shepard isn't a clone or a VI driving her body?"
Chakwas stepped back and leaned a hip against the edge of his desk. "I did, but … " She held a hand up when he opened his mouth to ask her about the results. "I'm not going to break her confidentiality. I sent you a message an hour ago saying the tests had all come back. If she's comfortable with you being there when I give her the results, then you're welcome to accompany her."
"I ordered her to stay away from this base," Garrus said, fighting to keep his voice even.
She straightened and picked up her bag. "That would explain why I've tried several times to reach her, but to no avail. No doubt, she's turned off her comms. I contacted her ship, but her yeoman hasn't heard from her since yesterday." She strode to the door. "I've always considered it a good policy to not make major life decisions for myself or others while under the influence of a brain injury. You might want to consider making that one of your guidelines as well, General." She palmed the control.
"If and when I hear from the captain, I'll send a message that you will, no doubt, ignore."
About an hour after Chakwas departed his office, Garrus leaned back, intending only to rest his eyes … his sudden weariness probably due to medication-induced sabotage. He awoke a considerable time later, startling awake from a nightmare. Heart pounding, head and neck alternately slamming him with stabbing and throbbing pains at random intervals, he scrambled to keep from falling backwards out of his chair.
Damn. He braced his elbows against the top of the desk and lowered his head gingerly into his hands. Although the dream images had already begun to dissipate, he recalled the general theme. Trapped back on Haestrom, wounded and in agony, he'd wandered the ruins screaming for Shepard, but she never answered.
Of course not, you sent her away.
He focused back on his work, ignoring the pain, ignoring the growling in his belly … blocking out everything other than budgets, repair schedules, and the hundred details needed to open the third building to house the refugees from their outer bases.
Chakwas returned to give him medication and thump a large container of liquid meal replacement down in front of him, but other than growling something about no one having heard from Shepard, she remained silent.
After a few more hours of work and another neck-breaking nap, Garrus awoke to someone pounding on his office door. He blinked, and activated his chrono. Damn. More than twelve hours had passed since he shut himself away.
"Open up, Garrus, or I'll bypass it," Nihlus called from the other side.
"Go away, Nihlus." He had no desire to see his fratrin. Nihlus had no doubt been drinking and would want to either discuss the vid or Garrus sending Shepard away.
Why wasn't Nihlus the slightest bit suspicious? He'd just climbed into bed with her. That level of trust … without proof … it just didn't make any sense.
Damn it. He wasn't jealous, was he? Yes, he didn't believe it was Shepard. He knew better. Dead was dead. But the anger that morning … the viciousness … had that all been pure pique because while he was lying in post-op, his fratrin had been curled up in bed with Shepard.
"I've sent you messages every half hour since just before noon. You've ignored them all, so now, I'm coming in whether you like it or not." A second or two passed and then the telltale bypass music of the Spectre's omnitool began. Thirty seconds after that, the door opened and Nihlus stepped through.
"You really can be a completely stubborn ass, you know that?" the Spectre said, his voice just shy of shouting. "You were all too quick to leap on that vid as proof that Jane was a fake, but when people try to contact you, to talk to you about it, you lock them out and shut them down." He activated his omnitool.
"Nihlus, I'm tired and in pain. Don't dance around … what do you want?" He dropped his arms to the desktop and stared up at his fratrin with undisguised annoyance.
"About two hours after I opened the file we were sent, another message came in addressed to both of us and Operative Lawson." Nihlus brought up a vid file and pressed play. "I'm going to assume from your continuing foul demeanour that you haven't bothered to look at your messages."
"I don't want to … ," Garrus started to say, but then Shepard's face appeared on screen, a sincere expression of concern knitting the skin between her brows into a frown.
Taking a slow, deep breath, Shepard whispered, "Right now, you are etched in stone under the liabilities column on Miranda's ledger." She stared just past the camera. "She is working very hard to keep me from forming attachments to anyone who doesn't work for this organization. When the fighting breaks out, and it will, she'll have every gun under her command aimed at you."
A hand lifted into frame, skating the backs of talons along her jaw. "And you think this will shift me over to leverage? If Miranda believes she can control you through your attachment to me … ."
Garrus watched the vid playing on Nihlus's omnitool, the audio and different angle shattering the illusion. Shepard cackled helplessly over some strange human joke or pun, while Specimen Alpha muttered grumpily. Miranda and the others showed up, and the sounds of fake orgasms overwhelmed the laughter for a moment. The vid ended, but Nihlus didn't move.
Even as his gut sank, his ugly words lodging like stones in his gullet, Garrus looked up at his fratrin, questioning. What else was there to see?
Movement on the screen drew his attention. "She has nightmares every time she falls asleep," Alpha's voice said, the darkened recesses of a hood appearing in frame. "She screams and calls out … thrashes like she's fighting off the forces of buratrum." The turian shook his head, revealing the pale shine of his eyes for a moment. "The things she says … bone-chilling. I've never mentioned them to her. She doesn't seem to recall them at all when she wakes up, and I'm loathe to dredge any of that up if being awake gives her peace from it."
Garrus glanced at Nihlus. "Last night … ?" Guilt, slick and oily, slithered under his plates, its scales rasping like a promise … an itch too deep to scratch. He'd sent her … .
His fratrin just nodded without making eye contact.
"Apparently the blocks that Operative Lawson and her goons placed in Shepard's mind only apply when she's conscious, because she calls for Nihlus and someone called Garrus as well as Anderson, and her family." Alpha took a deep breath. "I know I can't convince you that she is Jane Shepard. However, having been resurrected by the same people, I know she is, because I am still me."
Alpha sucked in a deep breath and shook his head again. "She doesn't deserve what Lawson will do to her if you let her get away with this. Shepard doesn't deserve to be isolated and enslaved to this war. And trust me, that is why the vid of our little pantomime was sent to you. Cerberus wants her all to themselves. They want … no need … to control her completely." After another second of looking into the recording, Alpha shrugged, and the vid ended.
"She's a mess, Garrus," Nihlus said, his voice soft and nasal. "She's trying to act like she isn't, and while she's awake, I think she even convinces herself that she's same old Shepard. But if you'd seen her sleep, you'd know that she's just patches and ribbons." He blinked a few times. "I've done my best to help her deal, but the two people she loves the most think she's some … monster."
Garrus stared at his desk, Nihlus's words slicing through his plates to hit bone. The abrasive, icy scales of shame wrapped around his heart, strangling it until he could barely draw breath. Spirits … he'd let the combination of pain and … yes … jealousy … strike her far too hard and far too deep.
Nihlus closed his omnitool and turned to face Garrus head on. "Forget that you thought I would do that to you … that you think so little of me, you just assumed I'd have sex with her." The Spectre sucked in a long, ragged sounding breath. He laughed, but it came out all bitter nettles and thorns. "She was just trying to save his life, and you called her a whore. Guess I'm not the only jealous idiot around."
"How do you know it's her?" Garrus demanded but without any heat or malice. Standing, he walked over to stare into Nihlus's eyes. "You know Shepard died. We buried her three days after she was shot in the head." His pulse roared inside his skull, making it feel as if the entire room pulsed along with it. Lightning flashed, following the lines of his skull as the pressure built, throbbing behind his eyes. Spirits, what if it was true? Did miracles that huge even happen?
Nihlus laid his hand on Garrus's shoulder, the contact breaking through the pain. "You've looked into her eyes. Why don't you just know?" The Spectre smiled, but the pain running beneath it squeezed Garrus's heart tighter in the icy vice. "The universe has given you a miracle, Garrus, and you're spitting in its face."
All the strength in Garrus's muscles fled, and he sagged back, only the edge of his desk keeping him from hitting the floor. He stared into Nihlus's eyes, light-headed and reeling. For long moments he struggled against an ache in his chest so strong and so crushing that he reached for a waste basket, sure that he'd throw up.
When he managed to speak, it came out as a soft gasp. "It can't be her, Nihlus. It just can't." His stare drifted down to the floor, his voice burrowing down under a low, wavering keen. "I promised I'd never hurt her … that I would be the one person who never hurt her." Salt-laden tears seared his eyes before escaping, pooling above his cheekbones for a moment before falling.
Nihlus stepped forward, to grip him gently by both shoulders. "Welcome to the club, Garrus." He shrugged a little. "That day she brutalized her hands … all I needed to do was be kind. I knew she was just looking for a way in." He stepped back, and turned to pace to the door. "And now … even Anderson is treating her like she's some sort of bomb sent to take him out. She tried to board the Normandy to see Kaidan and Joker, and he chased her off."
That image hit like a grenade. Anderson? Damn, that would have broken her heart right in two. No wonder no one had heard from her. Where would she go?
"We've all let her down at some point." Pivoting on his talons, Nihlus turned back. "The true test is what we do once we have." The Spectre's mandibles dropped, sweeping in and out with his distress. "She's been missing almost twelve hours, Garrus. I've got to go look for her. I hope you'll come with me. The kid is already waiting down in the lobby."
Garrus nodded, his fear so huge, so overwhelming that it paralysed him, trapping the air in his lungs. What if it wasn't her? What if he let himself believe it? What if he loved her, and it turned out that she was a clone or some sort of trap? What if it was his Kahri … and she left him again?
"Garrus?" Nihlus stepped up beside him and turned, wrapping a leading arm around his waist. "Come on. Chakwas has the results. We'll contact Miranda, see if she can help us find Jane, and we'll get this all sorted. Trust me … trust Merol … we know it's Jane."
Garrus nodded, a sliver of hope cutting the shame away from his heart as he allowed Nihlus to guide him to the door. "Okay." Even if there was the slightest chance … didn't he have to take it?