Aligarim Dau - Giant four winged bird from ancient turian mythology which was said to have stolen the seed of life from the Creator of All Things.
33 Days ASR
Shepard slipped her hand into Garrus's, the strength of the grip that encircled hers tugging a smile onto her lips. That grip anchored her; a lifeline and a promise stretching out into all their tomorrows. Like everything else in their relationship, physical and otherwise, his hand holding hers felt singular—different, unusual even—but perfect.
She'd never wanted to be touched. Hundreds of hands had traced her skin over the years. Merging into one, slightly repellant memory, they sent her into retreat as soon as touching loomed on the horizon. But Garrus and Nihlus had never provoked that ingrained response, their touch different enough to allow her to form new intimacy pathways through the terrified mess that was her head. Nihlus had scared her, but only due to his intensity, never because she associated his touch with her history.
That's not the reason you're with the big guy, though? You actually love him?
Shepard looked up only to find him staring down at her, those pale, beautiful eyes—alight with joy and love—setting her heart racing until she could feel the blood rushing beneath her skin. No, she wasn't with Garrus because he didn't trigger her. She'd fallen for him in a thousand tiny ways, starting the night he stood outside her cabin door and said he'd try to squeeze himself into that uptight asari's dress. She loved him because he was the best person and the kindest, most caring and patient friend who'd ever walked into her life.
Her father had believed in fate. Garrus ... and Nihlus ... took her as close to being a believer as someone like her could ever get.
"What?" he asked, his mandibles fluttering ever so slightly.
Shepard slipped her arms around him and laid her head against his chest. "I was just thinking how much I love the way your hand feels holding mine."
Pulling away just far enough to nuzzle the top of her head, he said, "I was thinking just about the exact same thing." He nodded toward the door. "Come on, let's feed the monster living in your stomach, then go relax somewhere Chakwas can't track us down."
Shepard took his hand again and let him lead her toward the door. "I don't have to hide from her; I'm free and clear." Laughing at the look he shot her, Shepard shrugged. "What? I'm not the one with the closed head injury."
"No, you're the zombie," he flung back. "And if Joker's movies are true ... I just want you to know I have a very gamey, grisle-ey, not at all tasty sort of brain."
After a moment of staring at him, ten different smart ass remarks flipping through her head, Shepard just closed her mouth and turned away. "Nope, I can't do it." Grinning, she shook her head. "You made every single comeback I can think of just way too easy. I can't go there. It doesn't feel fair." A gentle shove sent her stumbling through the door. "Besides, if I was going to do the whole undead thing, I'd go with vampire. Yeah, definitely vampire. Graceful, ethereal, stealthy ... elegant."
Garrus opened the door, letting her exit the office first. "Now you're making it too easy."
Gasping, Shepard spun to face him, her face drawn in horror as she clapped a hand over her heart. "Are you saying I'm none of those things? Why, General Vakarian ... so cruel."
"Requisitions totalling twenty-five hundred ampules of medigel during our tenure on the Normandy." His shoulders rolled in an innocent, but assured wave. "That's all I'm saying."
Shepard grinned and tugged on his hand. "Come on, I'm starving, and I think I can smell your brain through the hole the rocket punched in your skull. Doesn't smell gamey at all." Her stomach chose that precise moment for another hearty rumble. Clapping a hand over her belly, Shepard cackled. "Sweet baby Jesus ... run, Garrus! It's coming for you."
He just pulled her in close to his side as he opened the outer door. "You're insane."
Shepard pressed tight against her love, not worrying about appearances when they stepped out into the corridor, hand in hand. During their convalescence, Dr. Chakwas's hawk-like scrutiny and refusal to allow them out of bed left Shepard and the general a great deal of time to decide several things about their relationship. The first of those being that life was far too short to hide how they felt for one another. Despite needing to maintain discipline and the respect of their people, they decided that hand holding and casual affection posed no threat to either. Perhaps even the opposite ... that it might help bond their subordinates much like a family with strong, loving parents.
As Shepard stepped over the threshold, an eerie, funerary silence pulled her from her cocoon of safety and warmth into vacuum. Although the entire building had been in mourning for days, at that moment, the pain felt fresh, cutting with a sharp, serrated edge. The alarm at the base of her skull let out a pointed shriek as rolling clouds of agony poured down the corridor, thick, fetid, and strong enough to stagger her. Slamming her hard in the chest, the sheer power of it left her gasping.
What the hell?
Her alarm upped the shriek to a shrill wail, stabbing long pins into her spine. The air pressed heavier, a tight wrap of plastic clinging to her face, trying to suffocate her. She tensed and began to turn back, every nerve in her body screaming that everything—even the air—just felt wrong.
Then Garrus's hand tore free of hers, the thump of his boots on the floor quick, unsteady, and off balance. Whirling to face him, it took Shepard a handful of seconds to realize what she was seeing. Garrus stumbled, arched back and to the side, both hands scrabbling at the garrote cutting into his throat. The strangling bond twisted and bent the general backwards to make up for his assailant's lack of height. She tore her stare from the panic and pain in her love's blue eyes to the pair of large black ones that challenged her from behind the big guy's back. A drell?
Shepard stepped forward, the drell reefing back hard on the rope and cutting off Garrus's air in response. The next second, he jammed a pistol into the general's side. Shepard glanced at the gun, the angle and placement instantly thrusting home that the drell was a professional killer, and that Garrus had seconds to live.
Without thinking, her mind still whirling and screaming, trying to catch up, Shepard leaped forward, her hands held out. "No!" She stepped sideways far enough to stare straight into the assassin's eyes. "Not him."
Those fathomless eyes stared right back into hers, the agony she'd felt earlier rolled from the assassin in waves so heavy they bordered on insanity. "Why do the wicked live and become old, yes, become mighty in power?" The voice, deep and heavily flanged, didn't come across mad or even angry as it quoted the Old Testament, but rather resigned ... almost calm.
It took her a second to realize what he'd said. "Garrus is not wicked," she replied, a beseeching hand stretching out. Why wasn't the general fighting back? She shook that thought aside as it latched around her neck, squeezing tight. She needed to stay calm. What had the drell said? It was a quote from the bible ... Job. Thank goodness for her father's lectures on patience; he quoted Job frequently. "The general is not the sort of person Job was asking God about, but the very best of us."
Footsteps shattered Shepard's train of thought before it even managed to leave the station, boots pounding out a rumbling beat against the tile. As they stopped, a chorus of guns unfurling announced the arrival of Archangel security. The drell braced, keeping Garrus between him and unfriendly fire.
"I'm prepared to die here," the drell called, his voice calm.
"No guns," Garrus croaked, barely able to rake that much sound past the snare wrapped around his throat. "Grieving ... father."
"Get back," Shepard said, pushing the personnel down the hallway. She needed time ... just a few seconds to think. Why hadn't the assassin already killed Garrus? If it was just a hit, or vengeance, there was no reason to drag it out. Not if the drell didn't care about getting out alive. He wanted something. No. He needed something first. "Let him breathe, and we can sort this out." She lifted a hand to her ear. "This is Captain Jane Shepard. Stand down all security responding to Floor Twenty-one."
Muttering, the personnel backed down the hall, not putting their guns away until they reached the elevator and back exit. Once doors closed behind them, Shepard moved forward again.
"Okay, it's just the three of us." She held those eyes with a frank, businesslike stare. Pleading or showing weakness could well get Garrus killed. "You came here about your child?"
"I received word from a trusted contact that my son had joined a military cult run by a turian the citadel council has designated a traitor and a terrorist. One they wish to eliminate before he throws the galaxy into chaos," the drell replied, moving half a step out from behind Garrus. "I got here too late." He yanked hard on the garrote, making his next words a threat rather than a question. "Why is my son dead? What happened to Kolyat Krios?"
Shepard glanced at Garrus's eyes, not missing the sorrow and regret that flashed through them, nor the slump that relaxed his body. She shook her head, warning him not to broadcast any guilt. That road ended with his death, and no one was dying in that damned hallway.
Focusing back on the drell like a laser sight, she shook her head. "I wasn't here, so I don't have any answers." One finger stabbed at Garrus. "That torin right there is your best, and at this point, probably only shot at finding out what happened."
"Suns ... ." Garrus rasped, the word sounding like a dagger in his throat. "Kolyat ... defected."
The drell stiffened, his posture and expression almost gloating, as if Garrus had confirmed the assassin's every belief. "My son wished to escape your madness by defecting to the Blue Suns, and so you had him killed." He rumbled deep in his throat, an ugly sound full of fury and scorn. "Did you have some other terrified child do it? Threaten the masses to keep them in line?"
Rage overrode Shepard's caution, and she stormed to within a metre of them. "No! How dare you? You break into his home, threaten the safety and peace of his people, and then would condemn him by twisting his words when he offers you answers?" The blade of her hand sliced the air with every point. She pitched her head to one side, allowing the threat in her stance to manifest wholly through the stare hooked into his. "If you don't loosen that rope and listen to what he has to say, I promise you that, death-wish or no, I'll make you regret this moment fifteen ways before you die."
When the drell simply stared at her, she closed another step, hands and jaw clenching tight. "Let. Him. Speak." All the air and gravity on that floor collapsed into a singularity that hovered between Garrus and the assassin, sealing the three of them into a tremulous, fragile pocket universe. Shepard forced every cell in her body to radiate the promise that if the barrier shattered, hell would pour through the breech.
Garrus straightened a little, sucking in hoarse, whooping draughts of air between raw and scraping bouts of coughing. Each torment pierced Shepard through, a lance and brand worthy of inquisition. "Kolyat," Garrus gasped, "joined Blue Suns ... arrived on Omega." He slipped his talons beneath the rope, loosening it a little further, but made no attempt to escape. "CO ordered complete massacre ... civilians ... children."
Despite knowing that the drell needed to hear what happened from Garrus, the sheer effort and pain it caused the general to speak tore into Shepard, demanding that she minimize his suffering. For a half second, she nearly dropped the walls holding all her terror and horror in check. She slapped them back up as the emotion in the assassin's glare drained away, leaving his eyes cold, almost reptilian. Weeping wouldn't save Garrus; she saw that mirrored clearly in the black depths. She needed to be the north wind, frozen and intractable.
But, she could help Garrus get the story out. "Kolyat deserted the Suns when his CO ordered them to kill Archangel's civilians and children?" she asked, feeling as though someone should shout, 'leading the witness'.
Garrus's nod provoked a sharp yank on the rope, but at least his talons buffered the blow. "Crossed bridge ... Archangel outnumbered ... certain death, but brave."
The rope loosened a little, the drell demanding clarification that time. "Kolyat crossed to your side to protect the children?" The whisper of pride and love in the drell's words expanded their universe by a couple of heartbeats. The singularity relaxed, allowing the breath trapped in Shepard's bronchi to escape, a nebulous hiss ... pale and shivering in the dark.
"Yes." The single word dissolved into a choking fit, but the drell allowed the general to bend, bracing himself on his knee with one hand until it passed. Garrus's voice came out a bit stronger when he straightened. "He volunteered ... sniper ... covered my blind ... doctor ordered me to rest." He rumbled low in his throat, clearing it. The sound rolled down the corridor, echoing like the deep, earthy resonance of an earthquake.
It thrummed over Shepard's skin, hope made manifest. The singularity weakened further, light trembling around the edges, allowing for a tease of transparency.
"How did he die?" An elastic band pulled to the breaking point, the drell's tone snapped the boundaries tight once more—a guard sensing imminent escape.
"Lull in the fighting." Garrus straightened, shoving himself upright. When he tried to face the drell, to look into the assassin's eyes, the rope snatched at his air, greedy and strict. "He stood, turned ... out of cover ... second. I grabbed ... pull him down. Too late."
The drell tightened up on the rope again, the gun never wavering as it aimed upward from under the lowest plate ... a trajectory designed to pierce liver, gullet, lungs, and heart.
"What's your name?" Shepard demanded, whittling the question down to a pointed demand. She lunged into the assassin's space without making any move to rescue Garrus or snatch away the gun. Hand to hand, she might win, but Garrus would lose long before she even managed to pry the pistol from the drell's fingers.
Garrus's assailant just stared, startled by the question, as she'd hoped.
She pressed. "If you're going to attack and kill the best person I've ever known ... one of the only hopes this entire galaxy has to fight back against the Reapers ... I'll look you in the eye and know your name." She turned her back and strode three steps down the hall, eyes closed, praying the whole way that she didn't hear a shot. When she turned around, the drell stared at her as if she'd just peeled back her face to reveal a drell one beneath it.
"Did my son speak before he died?" he asked instead of answering, his tone losing most of its edge. Shepard sucked in a long breath. Thank god she'd been right about the reason Garrus remained alive. The drell wanted ... needed to reconnect with his child too strongly to kill outright.
Garrus let out a couple of harsh roaring barks, then cleared his throat again. "He asked me not to leave him. I picked him up and carried him to the hospital floor."
Sentences coming out whole sparked Shepard's hope even brighter. Somehow she'd get Garrus through. She'd accept no other result.
"In the elevator," Garrus continued, his croak barely audible, "we spoke of fathers and sons. He asked why you hadn't loved him and stayed with him after his mother died." He tried to turn again, this time making it around far enough to look down at his would-be murderer. "I told him that I knew you still loved him."
"How?" the grieving father asked, his voice like boulders tumbling downhill. Even with Garrus looking at him, the drell's stare remained fixed on Shepard. "Perhaps I couldn't wait to cut him loose in favour of freedom."
Shepard thanked every power in the universe that wasn't true. If it had been, she'd be on the floor, holding Garrus's body; the universe darker and uglier than anything she wanted to endure.
"He asked that as well," Garrus replied. "I answered by asking him if he'd stopped loving you. He said he hadn't ... that he had always adored you ... even wanted to be just like you one day."
The silence hovered, tipping back and forth on a delicate edge for a moment. "Thane Krios," the drell said, replying to Shepard's earlier question. "My name is Thane Krios." He backed up a step. "Did my son know what I was when he died?"
The short rope forced Garrus to stumble backwards a step as well. "Yes. I explained your absence as sheltering him from your work." Turning once more, the general said, "In his last few seconds, your son recited a prayer for forgiveness then apologized to you for not remembering more of it."
Escaping Thane Krios's suddenly slack hands, the rope slithered from Garrus's neck. Shepard's mesmerized gaze followed the weapon to the floor, where it pooled, its deadliness jumbled into impotence. The assassin collapsed sideways, catching himself on the sill of the window looking into the main research lab. His gun rattled against the wall then dropped to lie unnoticed at his feet.
"Kolyat prayed?" The raw pain in those words ... the years of regret and lost time never to be retrieved, shattered the singularity, allowing light and sound and life to pour in around them. "Before I left, he was already old enough to call my beliefs old fashioned and dull."
The research lab lights shone brilliant enough to make Shepard's eyes tear as she followed him. "The council and your contact misled you, Sere Krios," Shepard said, keeping a tight grip on the upper hand. "Your son did not fall under the sway of some charismatic, wicked cult leader. Kolyat fought to protect the innocent and died in compassionate arms. He died fighting alongside people who are trying to shield the galaxy from a terrible, oncoming storm."
Garrus staggered toward Shepard, his hand reaching out, talons fumbling for her fingers, then wrapping like vices around them. Keeping her eyes on the drell, she moved in against her torin, helping support him as she quickly checked his throat. Tar black, a thick band curled around his neck, disappearing beneath the bandage covering the side of his head. She opened her mouth to tell him to head up to see Chakwas, but then shut it, knowing that she'd just be wasting her breath.
Instead, she settled him onto one of the benches outside his office door, and followed the drell. "I'm very sorry for your loss, Sere Krios. Please, allow Garrus to give you Kolyat's belongings, and let us explain why the general carries a price on his head."
"All cadets are required to keep a personal log," Garrus said, stepping up behind Shepard as he shifted the conversation back to the dead boy. "Your son was not here long, but he was here during a high stress time. Perhaps what he wrote will ease your fears."
The seconds ticked by, their passage marked by the roar of Shepard's pulse in her ears. The drell stiffened.
"He clings to me, tiny hands wadding up fistfuls of my jacket. 'Please, don't leave me here. Why can't I come?' Tears wash his face. His eyes flash, the last glint of the sun before it sets. So strong. So like his mother. I lift him up. His cheeks are wet beneath my lips. He smells of soil … the sandwiches we ate together ... and his mother. Setting him down, I pry his fingers from the leather. They tremble, fall's last leaves, within my grasp. I brush the tears from his cheeks with my thumb and look to his aunt. She takes hold of him so he doesn't chase me. He cries out as I turn away. 'Father, please don't go.' I step into the blinding winter rain." The drell lifted his head, shaking it slightly.
Shepard stepped forward. "Sere?" A hesitant hand reached out to touch his shoulder. "Are you all right?"
The drell nodded and jerked himself straight and stiff despite the tears tracing pale tracks down his cheeks. "Apologies. I slip into memories too easily, lately." He looked to Garrus, but gestured toward the geth working in their lab. "If I have been ill informed ... if I have been misled ... what is this place? What is Archangel?"
Garrus looked to Shepard, but she backed away, keeping herself within leaping range of Thane Krios, but distancing herself from the conversation. Archangel was Garrus's to explain, and the trust that needed to be built lie between them. A gentle voice whispered in the back of Shepard's mind as her alarm fell silent. Anything that she needed to prove to the assassin had already been settled.
Sere Krios's reaction to his son reciting the prayer before dying put her defences on stand down. A moral man of strong beliefs stood before her, but also one of intelligence and reason. Given all the information, she felt sure that he'd not only stand down, but become a fierce ally. She didn't sense any of the cold ruthlessness she'd experienced with other assassins … none of the contempt for life. However Thane Krios had survived life as a killer for hire, it hadn't been by selling his soul.
Although her eyes never left the pair as they spoke … well, Garrus spoke and Thane stared into the lab … she allowed the conversation to wash over her without paying it any attention. It wasn't until Garrus began to explain how the organization came by its name that she focused in on the words, a faint, exasperated flush crawling up her neck. She glowered at the general as he turned to look at her, the expression carrying no heat despite how badly the name embarrassed her.
"I knew that even dead, Shepard would be watching over us … protecting us." He smiled, a soft, sad sort of smile. "And then she returned to save her namesake … just … in a more literal way that I imagined." The smile warmed, a teasing spark igniting in his gaze.
Shepard sighed and shook her head.
Sere Krios turned from the glass to stare into Shepard's eyes. "Siha," he said, the word invoking a sort of reverent hush that pricked the hairs along Shepard's arms. "The word for such a being in my beliefs is siha … warrior angel."
The sudden softness in the drell's expression set off an altogether different alarm … that one in Shepard's gut. No. No no no. People believing she was the archangel balanced far more weight on her shoulders than she cared to bear. She shook her head. "Mere mortal here, Sere Krios, definitely nothing divine." Holding an hand out toward the elevator to divert the conversation, she said, "Please, allow the general to escort you to your son's belongings, then we'd be honoured if you would join us for the evening meal. We'd be happy to answer as many of your questions as we can."
Thane nodded once and followed her to the lift. He remained silent as they led him to the quartermaster's office, where they left him alone with the box that contained Kolyat's belongings.
Shepard sat Garrus down on a bench and crouched between his knees, her fingertips lifting to check the bruise around his neck. "Damn. You need to go up and let Chakwas look at that."
He shook his head even though his talons lifted to rub at it. "I'm fine. He never pulled it tight enough to crush anything." His hand left his throat to caress her face. "Good thing he wanted to know about his son. Otherwise … ."
Shepard leaned into him and wrapped her arms around him. "Yeah." After several minutes, the gravity behind the door to the quartermaster's office began to tug at her, and she pulled away. "I hope he's all right in there." A wince chased that idiocy as it escaped her mouth. "Well, he's not going to be all right."
Garrus nodded, then looked up as the door opened, Thane Krios stepping out, the small crate under one arm. Shepard and Garrus stood, turning to stand at attention, Kolyat Krios's honour guard.
"Kolyat wrote of you and this place with great respect." Thane held up a datapad. "He speaks of many things I'd like to know more about, if you'd indulge my curiosity." Shaking his head, he looked at the text on the device. "These Reapers … the council declared Sovereign a geth dreadnought. It was a sentient machine … ." Looking up, he held Shepard's stare for a moment before turning to Garrus. "These things are what my son was preparing to fight?"
The general answered by holding his arm out toward the elevator. "Please, come join us for the evening meal. The kitchen will be deserted by now, the cadets up in their dorms. We can talk."
The dining hall stood empty, dim, and silent, Marcie and a few staff the only people still walking the main floor. After setting trays of food in front of the trio, even the staff retired, leaving them alone.
For three hours, Sere Krios posed thoughtful, intelligent questions, giving the answers his full attention. Shepard watched him, able to see him setting pieces into the puzzle, weaving threads together to create a whole deeper than even they gave him. As she watched, she hoped that the drell assassin would conclude that their cause was one worthy of his assistance. He'd make a fine addition to her little gang of misfits aboard the Ypres.
"And despite their treachery, you saved the council?" he asked, even though his expression told Shepard he already knew why.
She nodded, staring down at her tray as she drew patterns in the spaghetti sauce with the tines of her fork. "They're a known quantity. Besides, any replacements would end up indoctrinated as soon as they were appointed. Best to just leave things as they are, preserve the status quo as long as we can. Panic, market crashes … none of that would serve the cause." One hand covered a yawn, and she slipped a little lower in her chair as the hour closed in on midnight.
Across the table, Thane bristled. "Stealing people's souls, corrupting them silently as they go about their lives … as they sleep." He shook his head as if he couldn't comprehend that level of evil, or perhaps because he could. After a moment of silence, he spoke again, his words startling her.
"In his log, Kolyat mentioned a story I told him when he was a child. He asked for it over and over again." The drell shoved himself away from the table, leaping up from his chair to pace to the threshold of the lobby. "When I was a child, I begged my father to tell me the same tale every night. It wasn't a tale well-suited to settling children to sleep, so Irikah, my wife, protested as my mother had." A discomfited grumble rolled from his throat. "It is a hanar legend about a beast of shadow that creeps up on children as they sleep, wrapping itself over their nose and mouth, stealing their souls through their breath. In the hanar tale, they wrapped around the child's gills, but the idea remained the same."
Stopping a few metres away, the assassin stared into Shepard's eyes, the black gaze exhausted and haunted. "In the hanar version, a great hero descends from the stars to chase them back into the abyss." He looked down at his hands, folding them as if to pray. "In my father's and my own, Arashu sends her siha to defeat them. Kolyat believed the Reapers—their indoctrination and turning people into monsters—to be the origin of that story."
Shepard sucked in a long breath through a throat tight with both revelation and horror. "My father told me a similar tale when I was a child. I used to sleep with the cat next to my pillow to defend me against the monsters. The way I remember it, the old wives' tale was that cats stole children's breath, but my father assured me that the cats actually protected people ... that the monsters were huge and dark ... oily shadows longing for life and breath ... stealing souls in an attempt to fill their own emptiness."
She shuddered, tucking herself in against Garrus's side. The general wrapped his arm around her as if sensing that terror suddenly drained the heat from her blood, leaving her craving warmth and comfort. "Sweet baby Jesus ... the Collectors and Reapers ... they've been the monsters under all our beds since we huddled around fires at night."
Garrus nuzzled Shepard's ear, then rested his brow against her temple. "My father told a story as well. Shadows that clung beneath the wings of giant, nocturnal raptors, dropping down to drain unwary children of life, stealing the spirits tied to them. He said the famactylus were the shards of evil created by the Aligarim Dau's greed."
Shepard shook her head as possibilities unspooled in her head. Yes, the Reapers might be the galactic bogeymen, but maybe they were for a reason. "No one has ever thought to ask about real monsters hiding behind the myths … well, except for Dr. Bryson. But what if they were put there … if the stories were woven into our cultural memory for a reason and with purpose? Not just the figments of our ancestors trying to process a power they couldn't comprehend?"
Garrus shifted so he could look down at her. "You mean there may be some useful information in them?" He nodded, a thoughtful scowl pulling his brow plates and mandibles in tight. "It makes sense from what you've said about Tashac and Merol … the Protheans' attempts to prepare us for the next cycle."
She sat up a little, resting her forearms on the edge of the table, her fingers threaded in a loose tangle, and met the black stare pinning her from across the table. "The whole idea of these aliens being seeded into our cultures as the bogeyman is terrifying, but … " She grinned. "... I've got to admit it's exciting too. We may well have been given another weapon in this war."
Garrus sighed, his breathing still sounding as though the air had to fight its way out. He shifted forward, reentering Shepard's peripherals. "It certainly places a lot of importance on the work that Liara and the Brysons are doing. Everyone laughed at Joker's idea, but they won't be laughing if, in the end, the stories turn out to be more valuable than guns and ships."
Thane returned to his chair, his entire body held rigid, practically vibrating with tension. He didn't speak, however, just watched them.
Shepard stretched and chuckled, trilling a little in the back of her throat as she reached the apex of her stretch. "I'm suddenly a lot more excited to see what Liara has in store for us on Thessia. She seemed really excited about what Ann Bryson was able to decode, and said it was related to Tashac and Merol."
"The protheans the beacon downloaded into your head?" the assassin asked. "You're travelling to Thessia to investigate the truth behind these legends?"
A loose shrug rolled across Shepard's shoulders, and she pulled herself up in her chair. "I'm not exactly sure what we're going to investigate, but I'd really like to take some time to look for where they lived. I know they built something into that mountain." She turned to face Garrus. "I'm starting to fade fast, and I need to meet Nihlus down here at 0530." Shifting her gaze to the assassin, she asked, "I hate to lay all this on you and run. Can we help you in some way? Do you have somewhere you need to be? Is there anything else we can do for you?"
Thane stared down at his hands, resting between his thighs, fingertips pressed together. For long moments, he didn't move, and when he looked up to meet Shepard's stare again, he moved so quickly it startled her. "I'm dying," he said, simply and without any trace of melodrama … just a statement of fact. "I sought to reconnect with my son, because I have only months to live." A soft breath struck a poignant, but peaceful-feeling pause. "That goal will now have to wait until I join him and his mother across the sea."
Shepard watched him, studying the carefully controlled movements and expressions, trying to read his intentions. Although she didn't believe him a threat any longer, he remained an unknown, and sweet baby Jesus, she hated those. As they sat there, a question burgeoned in the air between them, swelling until she began to fear it was headed toward becoming a thunderstorm.
"Kolyat believed this cause worth his dedication and his life." His dark, intense stare burrowed through Shepard's as if following it to find and examine her soul. Uncomfortable, she blinked and shifted her gaze to her hands for a second. He cleared his throat, a soft sound that came off as an apology. "Would you allow me to fulfill his promise … to take up his oath to help defeat the Reapers?"
He laughed, soft and bitter. "I took the contract to assassinate you," he said, looking to Garrus, "because I seek to balance the scales of my life … to make the galaxy a brighter place before I die." The chuckle died, but a much more genuine smile replaced it. "Perhaps Amonkira answered my prayers, and by leading me astray, the council guided me to my true purpose."
Shepard looked to Garrus as well, trying to judge how he felt about the offer. She didn't doubt its voracity, but the electric tingle that walked up her spine every time the drell looked at her told her that he didn't intend to stay on Omega with Garrus. He could be a hell of an asset, but the whole idea of him seeing her as some sort of angelic deliverance wriggled like maggots in the back of her throat.
She watched him sit there, a panther coiled upon a branch, waiting for the chance to pounce. Dying or not, uncomfortably weighted stare or not, Thane Krios was a living weapon … one that could deal a fuck-ton of damage against the Collectors.
And she had a team of five, one of whom didn't want to fight if he could help it, and another who'd be off on his own missions a lot of the time. She reached up and opened a channel to Miranda. The sleepy slur through the operative's greeting gave Shepard a twisted ping of joy.
"Operative Lawson, I'm sending you another member for the team. His name is Thane Krios. Please see to it that he is given accommodations that suit his needs and that he checks in with Dr. Eis for his combat fitness exam before we reach Thessia. Thank you. Goodnight." She closed the channel before Miranda could reply. The hour was far too late to argue.
Instead, she activated her omnitool and brought up the Ypres's berth information. "Satisfactory?" she asked, a half-teasing smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"Quite." He grabbed the information, then gave them both a stiff, half-bow. "Thank you, Captain … General … for this opportunity." His eyes shifted back to Garrus. "And for being a voice of kindness and care in my son's last moments."
Garrus stood, a starched nod preceding his offered hand. "Welcome aboard, Sere Krios."
Shepard stood, but didn't offer her hand. Then again Thane didn't seem to expect it. He merely turned on his heel and walked out the front door. When he disappeared from sight, she wrapped her arm around Garrus's waist. "Well, that ended not too badly at all."
He chuckled, the sound painful. "Let me grab something to drink, and then we'll head up?"
"Sure." She walked over to one of the refrigerators. "Think the horde left any good soda?" She pulled the door open, a small hoot of victory greeting a couple bottles of orange. "Glory hallelujah, an honest to god, praise Jesus miracle."
"Glad to see your priorities are intact," he grumbled.
Shepard stuck her tongue out at him and snatched up both bottles. Strutting ever so slightly, she headed for the stairs, waiting for him to join her before climbing to his door.
Garrus palmed the door, but allowed her to precede him into the cool, dim space. He entered, moving through the near dark to turn on a lamp by the bed … the light dim and golden. She watched him walk to his wardrobe, sensing something … hesitation or fear, maybe?
"Garrus?" She took a step toward him, but then hesitated. A wry smile greeted that. For all their talk of not waiting for anything, but rather grabbing hold of their life together and running with it … there they stood, both suddenly unsure and shy.
"I dreamed about you the whole time while you were … " He hesitated long enough that she knew he warred with using the most honest word. "... gone. We were always somewhere beautiful." She watched him swallow, his throat convulsing a little, the black band striking and horrific in the light. His words came out thin and stretched, mostly from emotion, although a salty sort of rasp spoke to the damage he'd taken earlier. "You were so happy … so free of all the weight and pain."
Shepard took another single step forward, but then he closed the rest of the gap. He reached out a trembling hand to touch her cheek. "Did they pull you out of paradise, Shepard?" He blinked, Tears welling along his lower lid, he blinked. She saw his throat convulse as he tried to swallow a soft keen before it could escape. He turned away, his shoulders slumping as if something he'd seen in her eyes weighed on him.
Following him, heart beating slow but strong, she reached out, aching to take that burden back. "Garrus?"
"How could they?" he said, his voice a low grate of fury. "How dare they? I would have died a hundred deaths before I brought you back to this nightmare of Reapers and disappearing colonies . . . the endless struggle." He walked away another half dozen steps. "No matter how badly I missed you. No matter how badly I ached to touch you, to just … be with you like this." He turned, his hand lifting toward her. It hovered for a moment, then started to fall.
Shepard jumped forward and caught it, her fingers cradling his tough, calloused ones, then lacing into them. "I don't remember," she whispered, only putting enough strength behind the words for them to reach him. "I don't really remember anything after you fools cheering for my being made a Spectre." She stepped into him, slipping an arm around his waist. "And there were a couple weeks where I wished they hadn't bothered. I suppose if I'd been left to heal completely the way I was supposed to, things would've been different." Lifting his hand to her lips, she kissed each talon. "But I'm here now. I can keep fighting, help find out what is happening to our colonies. I'm content being back … with you."
He looked down at her and pressed his mouth to her brow. He nuzzled her, the sensation so tender that tears gathered in her throat. Closing her eyes, she savoured the contact as he whispered, "I wouldn't have asked you to give up peace for that." He kissed her then rested his cheek against her hair. "I'm so sorry, Kahri."
She pulled away, wriggling loose of his arms. Taking his hands, she laced every bit of love into the stare that met his. It ached deep in her bones that he thought her return hurt her, that somehow sorrow stared back at him instead of the sweet, warmth that shored her up, making every pain so very worth experiencing.
"I'm not," she said, the gentle rain of tears escaping to trickle over her cheeks. "I don't care if I was there in those dreams, Garrus. As perfect as they may have been, this is better. Above and beyond everything else … all the other reasons I could be grateful to get another shot . . . there's you." She squeezed his hands, the warmth of them … the slight pulse under her thumbs … so alive. He formed such a huge piece of her heart. How had she made it through the month without it? "Would you ask me to give up peace to be with you?"
Garrus winced, one hand breaking free to erase the tears, his thumb avoiding the splits in her flesh. She knew by the gentle, but stubborn set to his expression that he couldn't tell her anything but the truth. He took a shallow breath. "I wouldn't ask you to give up anything for me, Kahri, but I'd have walked away from even the most perfect paradise to be with you right now." He tried to pull her into his arms, but she resisted, backing toward the bed.
"This one looks a whole lot more comfortable than the last one." A tiny smile broke through the rain. "Garrus Vakarian, will you make love to me?" She stopped, standing next to the bed and looked up at him, feeling so very small right then, but strong beyond limit, ageless and wise. How had she survived the month without him?
He hesitated, cupping her cheek in his hand. "Shepard … ."
"You said it yourself, Garrus. No more waiting. I didn't come back from the dead to spend my life in fear." That time her hands escaped his grip and reached up to undo the fasteners down the front of his tunic. "Neither one of us is in any shape for gymnastics, but I miss you making love to me."
A confused frown dropped his brow plates and mandibles. "I've … we've never … ."
Shepard cocked an eyebrow at him. "Haven't we? I recall one night where we made love sitting on my bed and watching a movie. Another several where you held me in your arms and read to me." She brushed the backs of her fingers along the smooth blade of his mandible. "You've always made love to me, Garrus … even before we kissed."
Halfway down his tunic, she stopped, able to feel his heart pounding against the backs of her fingers when they pressed against his chest. He was afraid. After a second, she dropped her hands and backed away a step, suspecting the nature of the problem. Her eyes staring straight at his chest to remove some of the pressure, she asked, "Did we make love in your dreams?"
He sighed and closed his eyes as he nodded. "We did, but we never … ."
"We never went all the way," she said, her voice soft. "You woke up." Her hands pressed against his chest to either side of his keel. "Garrus, open your eyes." When he did, she looked up, a soft smile encouraging him. "Are you afraid the real thing won't live up to the dream or is it something else?" Shaking her head, she caressed his face again. "I'm really here, Garrus." She smiled, just a thin, tight press of her lips. "I'm here."
He bent down, pressing his mouth to her lips, his tongue flicking ever so slightly against the sensitive skin. "You won't vanish on me?" he whispered, pulling back a tiny bit.
"No. I'm not going anywhere." She unfastened the front panel, her hands slipping inside before she laid it open. He tensed, but she just closed her eyes and smiled. "Mmm, so warm, just like I remembered. My turian-shaped heating unit."
Following the line of his chest plates, she spread his tunic open, freezing as her fingers nudged into something hard and raised … and metal.
What the hell?
"Garrus?" Gently, but urgently, she pushed the material off his shoulders, exposing the damage. Holy shit … he looked as though he'd been torn apart. Horror, stark and excruciating, sucked all the air from her lungs and stole her tears before they could escape. Incisions circled his entire chest, thin metal slabs and pins holding his keel and plates together. Long, raised lines of scar tissue in his hide betrayed where he'd been cut open.
"Oh, my sweet baby Jesus," she said, her voice barely louder than her breath. Her heart contracted; a pair of pale, milky eyes flashed through her mind, the remembered stench of flesh decaying off a body still alive bit deep into her nose, and the soft moans of a suffering beyond imagining echoed inside her skull. "What happened to you, Garrus?" Shaking her head, she ran gentle fingertips over the damage, knowing all too well what had happened to him. "Oh my … holy … ." The only words left amounted to a string of profanity, so she just bit them off.
She left him to dispose of his tunic, her fingers fumbling with the fasteners on his leggings, frantic to see everything those bastards had done to him. "Is that the extent of it?"
He reached behind his back and pulled the sleeves off his hands, tossing the garment in the general direction of the couch. "Shepard, I'm fine." He tried to capture her hands, but she slipped them from his grasp, slapping his talons away, and crouched to free his spur.
"Like hell you are. It looks as though someone took you apart and some mechanic threw you back together in his wrecking yard." Her voice snapped with lightning ready to strike, but it stemmed from fear rather than anger and wasn't aimed at him.
Why? Why had they taken him apart? And how? When?
He sighed and straightened, letting her finish her taking his leggings off. "We never get this right, do we?" he asked, the soft humour in his words breaking through the frozen wall of her horror, letting the sorrow pour through.
Instead of replying, she fell back, leaning against the bed. She stared at the damage, tears raining thick and fast down her face.
"Oh my god, Garrus. Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered, reaching out a hand to touch the long scar down his thigh. Fingers as gentle as kisses caressed his hide, her face wincing a little every time she encountered a deviation.
"I'm sorry, Kahri. I … ." He paused, long enough that she knew he was searching … trying to figure out how or why it had slipped his mind. "Weeks back, Nihlus and I disappeared for ten days. We don't remember what happened to us, we just woke up like this. Dr. Chakwas fixed us up. I'm okay. We're both okay."
She knelt and wrapped herself around him, her arms raised to press her hands into the small of his back. Resting her cheek against his stomach, she just squeezed him tight. "I'm so sorry, Garrus. I'm so very sorry."
He bent down and slid his hands under her arms, gently lifting her onto her feet. As soon as she stood, she wrapped herself around him again.
"Why are you sorry?" he asked.
She just breathed him in for long moments, calming the frantic stilettos that stabbed into her heart with every beat. She knew she wasn't responsible, but pressure, like a hand, latched onto the back of her head, naming her responsible … as if she should have been able to do something to stop the Cerberus bastards.
"Al … Specimen Alpha … the turian in that vid … ." Pulling away, she pressed her hands on either side of Garrus's keel. "They were trying to turn him into some sort of command unit or super soldier to fight the Reapers. They'd implant him with cybernetics … I think they were based on tech salvaged from Sovereign, then they'd make him fight … ." She shook her head, her fingertips tracing his injuries. "They tortured him for two years."
"And then tested their results on Nihlus and I?" he asked. She looked up, searching his expression when she heard no anger in his voice, not even a rumble. Well, maybe a rumble.
Garrus nodded. "Yeah, I've guessed most of that already, Shepard, and it's not anything you've got to be sorry about. You had just woken up, didn't know anything was going on." He kissed her. "I was supposed to be making love to you, not making you cry." Brushing the backs of his talons along her jaw, he nuzzled her lips. "I'd much rather get back to the first."
Shepard's breath left her in a muttered, barely-audible grumble about the impossible nature of all turians.
Garrus chuckled as his hands slid down her sides, moving to the waist of her leggings. "You can't possibly have met every turian." Pausing with his thumbs hooked into the elastic, he looked down at her. "You okay?"
"Nervous, but okay," she replied, slipping her hands down his arms, then back up, balancing with her hands on his shoulders as he pushed them down to her feet, and she stepped out of them.
"Oh, Kahri," he whispered, crouching in front of her. "They're everywhere."
She nodded and reached out to tip his face up to look at her. "You're supposed to be making love to me, not making yourself cry, either." Grinning, she leaned in to kiss him. "We're not going to be doing a lot of jumping up and down on one another for a while, but I want us to get as close as we can manage."
Garrus stood and drew her to the bed. He sat and drew her in to stand between his thighs. "Okay." Leaning in, he nuzzled her neck, the touch pouring warmth down her entire nervous system. As quickly and roughly as Shepard had removed his clothing, Garrus took his time, revealing her slowly, one fastener at a time, spreading the wide panel down the front open a little more as his talon tips slid over the heavy fabric. Those same talons barely kissed the skin, tracing just beside the deep rents carved into her flesh, his expression clearly displaying the war going on within him, battalions of sorrow and anger putting up a brave defense against the bright light shone by the forces of love and gratitude.
When he finally reached the last fastener, he laid her tunic wide, easing it just off the balls of her shoulders. Slightly narrowed eyes and gentle talons moved over her as if trying to learn her landscape. He'd barely known the old one, and this new one … . The pad of a talon followed a particularly long, ugly split down over her right breast. She looked down at the intense, unexpected combination of pleasure and pain, and then pulled away from him. God, her entire body was just so damned hideous, it seemed indecent for it to react with that flood of yearning, tingling warmth. Clambering up onto the mattress, she sat against the head of the bed, tucking her arms around the knees she pulled up to her chest.
Damn it, Janey. Would you like to pull and push him a little more? If you work at it, you can probably come up with some even more mixed signals to send him.
The general … her general … sat on the bed, the outside of his thigh pressed against her feet. He draped one large hand over her knee, and stared into her eyes, waiting for her to find the courage to look up and meet the intensity … the laser sight focused on her. A soft smile brushed over her lips, and she reached one hand up to caress the plate over his right eye, careful to avoid the damage.
"I'm sorry. I'm still a complete basket case, but I do want this, Garrus." Her fingers wandered over his face and down his neck. "I just … how could you look at this mess and feel any sort of desire?" Misery, heavy and thick, packed onto her, fetid clay weighing her down. "How am I supposed to feel about this mess reacting with desire?" She sighed.
He just smiled. "We're quite the pair, aren't we?" The warmth in his voice lodged in her throat, a strangling ball of emotion that launched an uncomfortable heat and pressure up through her sinuses to burn in the corners of her eyes. Leaning ever so gently on her knee, he bent down to touch his brow to hers. "You never worried about me seeing the old scars or touching them," he said, his voice just soft rumbling tones and warm breath on her face. "Why the new ones?"
She felt the soft mewling sound that squeaked from her throat more than heard it. "The old scars were my armour, Garrus. They protected me. They'd grown into a part of me." One hand flapped at the damage tearing across her face. "Cerberus did this to me. They pulled my corpse out of its coffin and … ." Her stare dropped to the pulse beating against the front of his cowl. "They turned me into a monster, Garrus. How could anyone ever want to make love to a monster?"
When he tried to speak, she pressed her fingers over his mouth. Her brows drew together, the skin between pinching uncomfortably as the coals trapped in her tear ducts formed themselves into molten pins. " The worst part about you turning me away because you didn't know what I was … I don't know what I am. Not really." A small shrug pushed her tunic back up over her shoulders. "I feel." She pressed her fingers against the top plate of his mouth, latching her stare onto that contact. "I feel all these things. This love and connection. I remember … not everything, but enough to believe that it could have been my life."
His eyes drifted closed, and he nuzzled her fingers. "I desire you, Kahri. You. And I know exactly what you are. I did before Chakwas told us it was you." His tone imparted an understanding that tore at her defences. "I knew it was you. Nihlus was right, it only took one look into your eyes, and I knew. But … if I let myself believe it, if I let you wake up that part of me again, and I lost you … ." He shook his head and then grasped her wrist. "It was just easier to convince myself you were something else."
Lifting her hand, he pressed her palm against his chest just over his heart. "Does the fact my chest is covered by plates—and now metal plates and screws—does it make me undesirable to you?
She let her hand slide down his belly to rest on the taut, hard length of his thigh. The smile returned to warm her face again, pushing back the gorgon-cursed-chill that spread from all those fissures as if the silicate and carbon of her cybernetics infiltrated her flesh, slowly turning her to stone. "Not in the least." A slightly wicked gleam sparked deep in her belly, travelling along her muscles to escape through her smile. "I want to learn every centimetre of you … every place that makes you do that rumble in your chest."
"Then trust that I feel the same, even if I'll need to be careful for a while." Garrus stood, and sliding one arm under her knees, the other slipping around her back, he lifted her from the mattress to cradle her in his arms. He chuckled as she resisted. "You've always trusted me, and even though I understand why that trust might not come as easily after the way I behaved, please … Kahri." His voice lifted to frame a question even as the tone lowered, laced with an oh so familiar, comforting rumble.
She relaxed into him, reaching up with the hand not trapped against his lower chest to caress his mouth plates and chin with her fingertips. "Of course I trust you, Garrus. Always." She gripped the front of his cowl as he sat her down on the edge of the bed, holding onto him as he tried to pull away. "Where are you going?"
He bent down to kiss her, mouth moving softly against her lips, his tongue remaining firmly behind his teeth as his hands gently pushed her tunic off her shoulders and slid it down her arms. She kissed him back, parted lips damp, clinging to his hide, caressing as she lifted into him. She tugged at the sleeves that caught on her hands, suddenly wanting that last damned barrier gone. When she was free, her hands slipped around his neck, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss.
After a moment, he pulled back a little and answered her question. "I'm only going as far as the wardrobe." Chuckling, he kissed her again, then straightened and turned away.
Watching him as he crossed the floor, Shepard let a wide smile beat back the last of the earlier chill. As long as she had him, she could believe that she'd come back, that she was alive … not whole … no, not by a long shot, but alive.
He closed the wardrobe and turned, holding out a simple, emerald garment made of shimmering material. Shepard's grin widened until it sent stabbing pains through her cheeks.
"Holy crap … you saved it." She stood and lifted her arms over her head as he gathered the material between his hands.
"Of course I did." Slipping it over her arms, he released the silk to slither and caress its way down her body. His expression fell a little as he ran a talon along the underside of the neckline, his knuckle just brushing her skin. "You left it in my drawer … waiting for the next time you came to stay. I just couldn't throw it away."
She stepped into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Let's get into bed. I need to be up in a couple of hours, and I want to squeeze out every last second I can of being tucked into your arms."
He nodded, but held onto her when she tried to pull away. "Do something for me?" he asked, his stare suddenly serious and hard.
"Of course." She leaned back against his arms to better meet his eyes. The worry she saw there started her heart pounding rabbit quick. "What is it?"
"I don't trust Cerberus. Keep Nihlus with you at all times." His head shook when she opened her mouth to speak, silencing her. "During the day, you don't leave his sight. At night, I want him in the same cabin … in the same bed, close enough to know if you hiccup. They don't get any chances to continue their experiments on you."
"Garrus … ." Fifteen different arguments formed to protest his request, but after giving them all their say, she let them go unvoiced. Her sleeping in the same bed posed no threat to her relationship with Garrus. She knew it, Nihlus knew it, and Garrus trusted it. "Okay." She nodded toward the bed. "Come on, I really have missed falling asleep in your arms."
(A-N: I'm settled! For a month or so, at least. Yay for that. I can get back on schedule. This is a long one, but I really loved the flow of it, so kept it as a piece. Yay Thane! I love that drell and can't wait to bring him into the crazy Sassy mix. He might strangle her. :D
Thanks to all my readers and my reviewers. I hope that everyone continues to love the story. Hugs to all who like the hugs.)