37 Days ASR

Martin and Kaidan met them just inside the front door looking very pleased with themselves, at least for the first second or two. The kid laughed and held up a rain poncho. "Well, these seemed like a good idea before seeing that you've all been … swimming?"

Bunny snatched the rain gear from Martin's hand and put it on. "No point in adding to it." She punched him in the shoulder. "Thanks, kid."

Garrus just shook his head when Martin turned to face the general, his mouth hanging comically agape. "Go ahead," he said. "Get the Shepards aboard and up to medbay." He nodded to Kaidan to assist Lucille with the poncho. The Normandy stood a hundred metres or so away from the house. Couldn't hurt to block the rain as much as possible. The ladies had suffered enough.

Garrus followed Kaidan and Lucille out the door, Martin and Bunny already just watercolour figures disappearing into the misty downpour. He ducked his head, leaning forward a little to keep the cowl of his armour from filling up. Drains kept him from drowning in his armour, but rain was still damned annoying, although not nearly so aggravating as snow.

Something the size of a fighter slammed into the ground in front of him, stopping his heart as a wave of blue-white energy blasted him back through the door into the house. He crashed into the wall, rebounding to land face first on the marble floor, his entire body letting out a huge, unanimous bellow of pain, the jolt restarting his battered organs.

"The beetle thing's back!" The shout came from Bunny, her tone not terror or anger, but rather something that set Garrus's gut to curdling again. He shoved her reaction aside to examine after he'd survived the next couple of minutes.

Giving him a 'heads up, the monster's still out there' amounted to inexcusable cooperation, Garrus decided as he crawled away from the open door. It couldn't get through, but that probably wouldn't stop it from cutting itself a bigger hole.

Once clear, he scrambled up, talons raking the floor, running before his feet even made it under him. He opened his comms. "Get the Shepards aboard!" He ducked below a window in the next room, some sort of hall or reception room, and peeked up over the sill of the large, picture windows. The thing floated his way, no doubt tracking him through heat. Two beam weapons fired out of the beetle's eyes, sending him rolling down the wall. Luckily, the weapon shot in a straight line rather than tracking him. He rolled again, leading it toward the far end of the room from the door and the Normandy. He needed to buy time to get Bunny and Lucille onto the ship.

"Joker, will the GARDIANs fire with the Normandy on the ground?" he called, rolling away from those beams as they sliced through the front of the house, showering him with glass. A couple more hits and the windows would collapse enough to let it in, and then he'd be screwed.

"Yes," the pilot replied as Garrus set up a concussive shot. "Painting the ugly beetle monster red. Firing."

The GARDIAN lasers hit, taking down the thing's barrier enough that Garrus's concussive shot stripped away the last of it. He got off a few shots, but then the monstrosity slammed into the ground just on the other side of the wall and released the energy blast again, throwing him out of cover.

Garrus bolted, some sort of horrible screeching noise accompanying another attack, but instead of a blast, that one felt as though it reached into his cells to rip all the energy right out of him. He fell out the door, gasping, his entire body suddenly so weak that he could barely stay on his feet. Stumbling into the rain, he took cover behind a large planter.

"We're aboard, General." The professional calm in Kaidan's voice gave Garrus complete confidence in the Normandy's side of the fight. "Returning with more firepower."

"Stay back and attack at range," Garrus ordered. "This thing has short range energy attacks. One will knock you out of cover, but the other … I think it can kill you instantly if you're too close."

"Roger that, sir."

The chatter of a squad's worth of Mattocks filled the air, but didn't distract the Collector monster. Whatever else the Collectors had been there to do, it became glaringly obvious that his death or capture ranked right near the top of their list. He ducked around his cover, hitting it with a concussive shot. Damn thing had restored its shields.

"Keep up the fire, Joker. It restores shields," he called into the radio. "We need to keep it distracted and try to take it down fast once the shields fall." He glanced around as the thing floated up, completely negating his cover. Time to find cover somewhere it couldn't flank him from above.

"GARDIANs are going to start heating up and becoming less accurate," Joker told him needlessly.

Lingering weakness from the last attack tossed 'finding good cover' and 'breathing room' to the top of his priorities. He needed time and a forgiving environment in which to recover. A small stand of trees and bushes grabbed his attention. It would do, as long as the beetle didn't last long enough to cut it all down.

As if to emphasize the point, the Normandy shot the beetle as it slammed into the ground just on the other side of his cover. Garrus threw himself backwards into nearly a quarter metre of mud and water as the lasers skipped off the thing's barriers, searing into the planter less than an arm's length from his head.

Heavy limbs dragging, Garrus scrambled up and ran, ducking into the thick foliage, every breath coming hard and ragged. Damned fire suppressant foam. Once he made it a few metres in, he paused to glance back. No doubt, the husk beetle could still see him, but at least he could out maneuver it until it burned down enough trees to follow. "Joker, not hitting me with the GARDIANs would be appreciated."

Joker crowed. "Don't worry, General. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home. I've got this."

Garrus ran a handful of metres further in and ducked down behind a large tangle of shrubbery. Despite his annoyance, a faint chuckle eased back the tension wiring his jaw shut. "That made no sense." He glanced out and brought up his assault rifle. He needed to get that thing's shields down. The geth-installed high frequency GARDIANs would need a few shots to cut that thing down, and they heated up quickly. "Martin and Kaidan, did the Normandy get any of those heavy arc weapons that Shepard brought with her?"

"With all due respect, sir, you're getting old and slow," the kid replied. "We're already on our way with them. Just keep out of range of the arc, or we'll be taking your bar-b-q'd smoky bits back to Omega. That's not news I'm giving Shepard … Kaidan can do it."

Garrus glanced around the bush as Kaidan sputtered in his ear, and emptied his heat sink into the thing. "With no due respect, I'm out here with it glued to my ass. Just shoot it." Sixteen shots barely scratched the damned shields. He hit it with a concussive shot, then rolled into a crouched run, moving around to flank it, hopefully out of bar-b-q range. Electricity ripped through the dim, misty downpour, wreathing the beetle in blue-white lightning. Taking cover on high ground, Garrus emptied two more heat sinks into it.

When the Collector's shields crashed, he saw the deep scars gouged into its armour. At least that didn't regenerate. "Take it out, Joker."

The Normandy fired, ripping one leg clean off the body, a second shot scorching a long gash along the metal hide. Legs lifting, the beetle thing prepared to slam itself into the ground and restore its barrier.

"Again, Joker! Quickly." The GARDIANs and arc projectors tore into the monstrous thing as it opened its maw. Garrus's gut flipped. The damned thing was filled with husk heads ... functional … their eyes lit, their mouths gaping as they screamed. Dear spirits. Would the Reapers' well of horror ever reach a bottom? Colonists turned into—

The Normandy fired again just as the thing descended toward the soaking ground, Alenko and Weaver attacking in concert. Lightning crackled along its shell, lancing into the soil. Flame exploded from its maw, the husks all letting out a heinous scream as they went up in flames. The beetle listed to starboard then the fire spread, consuming the machine in seconds. Ash floated on the drowned lawn, blowing ahead of the howling wind.

Garrus slumped into a crouch, half-leaning against a tree, arms resting on his thighs. Well, if that bastard coming back didn't stir the field from mud to slop. He looked up at the sound of large armour crashing through thick foliage. Bunny had known about the monster. He'd bet his mandibles that she did.

He watched Martin and Kaidan approach without really seeing them. Not a single moment or event of the mission added up. Not unless the Collectors hadn't made a deal with Krellid at all, or at least, not just with Krellid.

"General! You alive?" Martin called, stopping to search.

Garrus stood, letting out a long breath before he spoke. "Yeah, kid, still alive."

"You are hard to kill, aren't you? They warned me you would be."

She'd said they, not he. They warned Bunny that Garrus would be hard to kill. He nodded toward the ship. "Come on, let's get aboard. I'm tired of this storm." Leading the way, angled at thirty degrees to avoid getting blown over, Garrus dug in, the going slow and slippery. He let out a long, moaning sigh of relief once he passed through the Normandy's barrier.

"Thank the spirits." He turned to the other two. "Get showered, dry, and warm, then the two of you can lead the art reclamation effort." He popped the seals on his vambraces and stripped them off. "Lucille wants to save whatever she can. I gave her a twenty-four hour limit, so make sure that everyone digs in." Striding to his armour trunk, he called back, "And make sure both she and Bunny sleep at some point."

When the two men reached the elevator, Garrus stopped and turned. "Martin, call the operations department back home and get them working on carriers to transport the total number of slaves. They'll also need to prepare to house them on Omega until we can locate their families or take them elsewhere. Have them contact Barla Von with budgets and requisitions." Gaze turning to Kaidan, he continued, "Contact the other teams. Find out what sort of numbers we're looking at." His mandibles flicked. "Please."

Both men gave a hearty 'Yes, sir', and headed off.

Once he stripped out of his armour, Garrus headed up to the shower. Hopefully a few minutes of scalding hot water would stop the shivering, an intractable chill that settled just beneath his plates. Exhaustion hung heavily about his cowl as he stepped under the hot water. Whether caused by injury, the beetle thing's life-draining attack, or just the stress of the day … right then, he didn't care. He turned off his comms and let out a long breath. Silence for just a few moments. It wasn't too much to ask, was it?

Bracing his hands against the wall, he let his head hang between his arms, and closed his eyes. All he wanted to do was go home, wrap his arms around Kahri and breathe her in. No, what he really wanted to do was sweep her up and carry her off someplace warm and beautiful. No more impossible war and terrifying enemies, just long, slow days spent next to an ocean, surrounded by the people who mattered.

"Do turians get pruny?" Joker called over the intercom. "You've been in there for forty-five minutes. We're going to have to put out rain barrels if you use any more water."

Garrus shut off the water. "Are you spying on me? That's more than a little creepy, Joker." Without moving the curtain, he reached through the gap and grabbed his towel. Surely the Alliance hadn't changed the regs to allow cameras in the heads.

"I can't actually spy on you, and believe it or not, it's not my burning desire to poke my nose into your showers, but you've been in there thirty-two years." The pilot grumbled a little under his breath. "Dr. Chakwas keeps calling me because your radio is turned off. She thinks you're avoiding her and is threatening to dispatch a squad to bring you in if you don't report to medbay."

Garrus clutched the towel against his belly, fully aware that it was ridiculous. Anderson would never betray his people's trust by putting in cameras, and he didn't have anything on display to worry about. Still, going from being alone with his thoughts to having Joker hanging over his shoulder proved slightly violating and off putting to say the least.

Of course, he'd been radio silent for much longer than he intended, so he supposed he couldn't blame the pilot. "I'm on my way there as soon as I get dressed. Now, stop spying on me and keep an eye out for Collectors." He dressed quickly and headed out to the galley to make a large mug of amarceru before he crossed to medbay.

"I was wondering when you'd make it in here," Chakwas scolded. She nodded toward the back table. "Up you get. Heard you tried breathing fire suppressant foam."

He shrugged, but the burning in his airways didn't leave room for argument. "It doesn't work as well as you might think." Sitting, hands braced against the edge of bed, he watched her gather her supplies. "Have you had a chance to look over Lucille and Beatrix?"

The doctor nodded and rolled a table over next to his bed. "They are both healthy enough to work on clearing out the art. Lucille will need to be treated for malnutrition and to finish healing up her wounds. Beatrix will be a far more complicated matter." She nodded toward the pillows. "Make yourself comfortable, you're going to be here for a while. Your lungs and trachea need to be treated for chemical burns." She activated her scanner. "Not to mention the rest of your injuries."

Garrus grumbled and took a long, scalding sip of his drink. "May I finish this first? I just made it."

She chuckled and nodded. "Fine. I have to spackle up a few holes first, anyway." She finished scanning. "You and Shepard share a talent for getting yourselves filled with holes."

Chuckling, he nodded and took another drink. "Comes with the territory, Doc. If you'd seen the things we were fighting, you'd understand."

She frowned and began treating the wound behind his aural canal. "Strange, everyone else came back in relatively good shape." A crooked half-smile betrayed her teasing, so he left the barb unchallenged.

The combination of being warm and dry, the hot drink, and the gentle touch soothing the pain of his wounds left Garrus ready to lie back and allow the doctor to hook him up with a mask when it came time. He closed his eyes, letting the medication's cool mist to work its magic on his scorched airways. Muscles sinking into the mattress, cramping a little before going soft and slack, Garrus moaned, the relief both welcome and painful.

"Get some sleep," the doctor coaxed, lowering the lights. She set up privacy blinds and lowered the shades. "By the time the treatment is complete, you'll be ready to head back out and get shot full of more holes."

Garrus chuckled, but was already drifting off. When she spread a heated blanket over him, he just curled into it a little and fell fast asleep.

"General?" A warm hand touched his shoulder. "Garrus?"

Blinking against the bright lights, Garrus woke, one hand rising to cover his eyes while his pupils adjusted. He turned his head to look at the doctor.

"We're ready to lift off, General. I thought you might want to be up to lock everything down." She removed all the equipment attached to him.

He stared at her for a few more seconds, then ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth. Dry and pasty. How long had he been out? Brushing back the blanket, he sat up. "Preparing to lift off? How long have I been asleep?" A numb hand rubbed at the side of his head. Numb? A vague, embarrassed sort of alarm set in. Losing feeling in his limbs would take extended hours lying on the too-thin mattress. "Really, how long? My arms are numb."

She nodded, a soft, kind chuckle greeting his alarm. "These beds aren't made for turians. You've been asleep eighteen hours. It didn't take as long to pack up the art as they thought."

Martin walked in, stared at Garrus for a few seconds and then threw up his hands. "He lives!"

"Eighteen hours? Why did you people let me sleep for eighteen hours?" He slid down off the bed and stretched out his limbs, shaking them to restore some circulation, mind racing. He should have been up hours ago. "There are a hundred things I need to do before we leave."

Martin preened a little. "Well, I have been both busy and amazing. Barla Von found a research institute that wants the rachni statue. Asari … and willing to pay an amount of money I can't even comprehend, not to mention that they are willing to share all their research with us. But that is a statement of Von's awesomeness, not my own. Kaidan gave me the numbers, I gave them to Von and Operations, and carriers and Archangel personnel and supplies to care for the slaves are already underway. I also have arranged for the rest of Building Three to be opened, and Von cleared the funds for the extra sundries that will be required."

Sighing and shrugging as if his brilliance exceeded even what he could imagine, he continued, "The art is already crated and packed in our hold. The slaves here are organized and ready to evac when the carrier and its heavily armed escort arrives. You can go back to sleep if you want to. General Weaver has it all under control."

Garrus chuffed and straightened his clothing. "How long until the carrier gets here? What is the status of the other teams?"

Martin slumped a little as if wounded by the lack of appreciation then let out a dramatic, long-suffering sigh. "Just under fifty-three hours. The turian teams are remaining to provide security for the slaves at the mining operations. Victus is apparently recovered enough to be running the show from his hospital bed. He ordered his people to move the slaves into the most secure caverns in the mines and has patrols in place to watch for Collectors. Nyreen only reported sixty-three slaves. She's shuttling them over here to hitch a ride back to Omega."

Garrus activated his omnitool, opening his messages as Martin reported. Nothing from Shepard or Nihlus, but several from Archangel and Barla Von.

"The Passch transported down the crates of supplies we brought, but there wasn't enough to go around, so we raided the house for blankets and warm clothes." Martin ran down the list glowing on his omnitool. "We also set up the kitchen with power and the kitchen staff are back in there cooking up hot food and drinks. So, everyone should be okay until their transport arrives." He looked up, his eyes sad and exhausted. "There are a lot of people wanting to call family. I assured them that they'll be able to once we get them to Omega, and we'll make sure they get wherever they need to go."

"Good work." Feeling as though he'd slept for a half century, Garrus leaned back against the bed and took a second to collect himself. "Spirits, fifty-three hours?" It made sense, it was straight system to system FTL, and the carriers weren't nearly as fast as the Normandy, but he didn't want to remain on Lorek for another fifty-some hours. He needed to get back to Omega and prepare for another influx of people, get the Shepards settled in … and find out what was happening on Thessia.

First things first.

"Dr. Chakwas, I want Beatrix Shepard kept under guard in the back lab. We'll have to move her to house arrest once we get back to Archangel, but I'll leave her care and treatment in your hands. Call in whatever resources you need." He raised his brow plates, giving her an opening to bring up concerns or questions, but she just nodded.

"Where are they now?" he asked, looking to Martin.

"Bunny is with the slaves. Mystery solved as to why they were locked away." The kid shrugged. "She knew we were coming and knew the Collectors were going to be shooting up the place so once Krellid locked himself in his panic room, she locked the slaves up to keep them safe." The careful, suspicious expression on the kid's face reminded Garrus of his earlier theory that Bunny might well have made some sort of deal with the Collectors.

"And Lucille?" Gripping the doctor's shoulder in his talons, he nodded. "Thank you, Doctor." Gesturing for Martin to fall in, he strode from medbay.

"Lucille is down making sure that all the art and books are secured properly." He snorted a little. "She smacked me in the back of the head when I packed a vase in the wrong crate." He stiffened and wagged his index finger. "That's Earth Qing dynasty porcelain, young man. It doesn't go in with the batarian Dar'letk period earthenware."

Garrus did his best to hide his grin, but the kid saw it and sighed. "What? Everyone is always smacking me in the head, and I think it's starting to jar things loose. I've got broken neurons in there just floating around, I know it."

That time the general let the smile loose. "You make it too easy, kid. Way too easy." Garrus ran through the list of things he'd wanted to do before the Normandy returned to Omega. Martin had covered most of it. "But you did good getting everything arranged." He slapped the young man's shoulder. "Now, let's go tie up the last few threads and get home."

Leaving Passch and most of the first and second teams behind under Kaidan's command, Garrus and the Normandy returned to the stars, headed home. It didn't even seem strange to think of the filthy station as home any longer. He took pride in how much it had changed over the cycles. Crime rates had plunged, Kima District wasn't an abandoned mire of violence and gang activity, people didn't run through the docks with their heads down and their noses covered any more, and they'd even created acres of paradise in the lower levels. Of course, the gardens needed a great deal of repair and replanting, but in at least their district, Omega had become a place to consider home.

Garrus spent most of his day and a half aboard standing at the QEC, arranging to house more than three thousand freed slaves, no small task, but luckily with having so recently absorbed the Talons and the refugees from Archangel's outer facilities, most of the work was underway. What was another three thousand bodies?

Three thousand more souls relying on his leadership, at least for a time. Dear spirits. When had such things become nothing more than part of his day to day? Three cycles before, that hothead cop yelling at the executor couldn't have even dreamed the way his life would change.

"General?" Joker's voice swooped into the vacuum of an ended conference with Von and the heads of Archangel's operations and accounting departments.

Garrus stretched and raked his talons over his fringe. "Go ahead, Joker." He winced as his spine popped all the way down, the muscles threatening to cramp.

"We're two hours out from Omega. The captain thought you'd like to know."

"Thanks, Joker." Garrus closed the myriad of files he had open, stuffed all his datapads into his attache case, then headed down to medbay. He wanted to have a chance to speak with Bunny before they arrived. The last thing the place needed was Shepard's little sister running through the corridors calling her sister a bitch and threatening to kill her. So soon after Shepard had saved all their asses … the kid would be lucky to end up with a simple beat down.

The younger Shepard looked up and let out a long, annoyed-sounding sigh when Garrus stepped through the door. "Let me guess," she said. "We're just about back to your superhero lair, and you've come to lay down the law." She bolted up to sit on the edge of her cot, her spine straight and rigid, her head pulled back, her shoulders and arms held wide. She swung stiff arms back and forth a little as she mocked him. "Now look here, little lady, I need you to behave yourself. Your sister loves you and … blah blah blah."

"Beatrix May Shepard!" Lucille scolded, moving over to sit next to her daughter. "That's no way to speak to the general who just freed us all."

Garrus just shook his head and waved off the insult. "Had I come to say that, I wouldn't be saying it now. I can't compete with that impersonation. You do a better me than I do." His mandibles flicked slightly under the heat of Bunny's glare, the surprise on her face very satisfying. Sitting on one of the crates facing her cot, he continued, "But, we are about to enter the heart of the army your sister started. Archangel was built out of love of her, and a lot of the people rallied to our cause because in some form or another, Shepard saved their lives."

"Like the kid claims that she saved him?" Bunny scoffed. "He looks about as saved as I was thanks to her." She yanked away from her mother as Lucille tried to put an arm around her. "Don't. You can believe all the lies you want, doesn't mean I have to."

"Anyway," Garrus continued, breaking up the family drama, "Shepard just saved most of Archangel from being obliterated by a massive merc army, so for your own good, I'm advising you to keep your opinions to yourself. They won't be popular." Raising his brow plates, he fixed her with an earnest stare, hoping she'd see the sense in his words.

"So no more lectures on how my sister suffered? Just a warning to keep my mouth shut?" She returned his stare with a glare.

"That's it. I told you, I'd only say the other once. I don't know enough to have the right to say anything else."

The door opened to reveal Anderson standing at the threshold. "But, I do." The captain looked over at Garrus. "I had Dr. Chakwas let me know when you came down to do this." He stepped inside far enough for the door to close, and looked over at Lucille and Bunny. "I was the one who found Jane on Mindoir. I was a lieutenant in the Alliance military, and on shore leave a couple of clusters away when we got word about what had happened on Mindoir. I caught the first ride I could and volunteered for one of the search parties."

Stomach clenched, Garrus watched the captain walk over to one of the computer terminals then looked back to the doctor standing in the doorway to make sure she was okay with Lucille and Bunny seeing it. "Are you sure?" he asked, his voice flat. "They're two days out from being ground through hell."

"No!" Bunny jumped up, aimed at Garrus. "I want to see it." She turned to Anderson. "Go ahead, do your worst."

"This isn't about trying to hurt you," the captain said. "It's about the truth of what I found that day. "I recorded the entire mission. The Alliance wanted evidence to take before the Council." He started the vid and then looked up. "If you'll excuse me, I'll return after it's finished playing. Living through it once was more than enough."

Garrus looked to Lucille, clenching his teeth hard enough to send a vague ache rumbling through his jaw and up into his head. "You've already lived through this once as well," he said, trying to delay the inevitable. The icy dread crackling along his veins formed as much for himself as Lucy.

Grinding to a halt, he realized that as long as Bunny remained, Mother Shepard wouldn't leave her side. Damn Bunny's stubbornness. For all the girl's posturing and Lucy's hard shell, he felt the fragility that lay beneath the surface of both Shepards. He didn't believe either one in any state to be reminded of what happened on Mindoir, and the child's determination to prove them all wrong could end up harming both.

"I'll stay, General, thank you." Lucille sat beside her daughter and tried to wrap an arm around Bunny's shoulders. "You don't need to do this. Take some time, recover from—"

Bunny jerked from away from her mother. "Don't try playing mommy now. You're fifteen years too late." Turning her back on her mother's tight-lipped pain, she looked up at Anderson, challenging either him or herself. "Go ahead."

"If either of you wants to stop it," Chakwas spoke up, "we'll turn it off immediately." She stepped out of the doorway, moving over to sit on a crate near Lucille.

"Stop, all of you." The teenager whirled to glare at them. "Damn, I'm not some porcelain doll. I've seen a hell of a lot worse than dead people in the last fifteen years." She sliced an index finger at Anderson. "Since you seem to be the only person willing to treat me like a functional adult, turn the damn thing on and go."

A curt nod answered her demand, then Anderson looked over at Garrus. The captain's expression clearly told the general that he didn't want to see what the vid had to show. Sighing, Garrus nodded. Every muscle in his body tightened to the point of spasm as he stretched between staying to provide the Shepards with what little support he could and sparing himself. However, as much as he didn't want to witness the darkest moments his Light had ever faced, he needed to.

He and Kahri needed to move past what the vid showed and what it meant. Maybe the only way to do that was for him to face it, see the reality, and then, let it go. As long as Mindoir remained some sort of taboo mystery, it held too much power over them both.

"April 2, 2170. Mindoir colony. 0600 hours. Lovell settlement. Lieutenant David Anderson recording for S&R Team Theta."

Garrus looked over at the vid screen without turning to face it. A younger, worn-out looking Anderson stared into his helmet camera as he spoke. Then the picture swivelled, panning the troop compartment of a Grizzly as Anderson seated the helmet on his head. "We're approaching the settlement from the east along the main road from the capital."

Garrus squinted as light exploded across the screen, the aching brilliance transforming into a blur of dizzying movement that solidified into grass and a dirt road. In the distance, across wide fields of smoking char, a cluster of about thirty homes stood vigil. The Alliance troops fanned out to cross the burned out field, searching for survivors. Seconds into their search, the condition of the bodies littering the ground spoke to the futility of their effort.

As he watched, the general's gut tied itself into a tighter and tighter knot. So many bodies. No doubt, they represented everyone too old to be considered useful.

"We were a small settlement," Lucille said, her voice a bare whisper laden with so much regret and pain that each word cut like a scalpel. "Our family was one of the exceptions amidst retired folk. They moved to spend their dotage away from the capital." Her entire body heaved, her hand clapping against her mouth as the wave rolled up her torso. "Most weren't even given the mercy of a bullet. After they finished with them, the batarians simply herded them into the field and burned them alive when they torched the crops."

Garrus let out a long breath, heart aching. He wished he knew Lucille well enough to feel comfortable sitting next to her and taking her hand. Her daughter should be comforting her, but Bunny occupied herself trying to look tough and unaffected.

As the Marines closed in on the settlement, Lucille paled, the skin around her lips growing so white that Garrus threw caution aside. Sitting next to her, he reached up to grip her shoulder, deciding that left enough personal space between them. She looked up at him, a wan smile dying stillborn on her lips.

The other Marines hollered and ran forward, Anderson chasing after them, but before he arrived, shouts of hope turned to anger. Two of them ran past Anderson, and the sound of retching drifted in from off camera.

"Bastards," someone muttered, pushing past. Judging by the patch on the man's uniform, he was the unit medic. "Just a fucking kid."

The camera pushed forward, moving up the gravel road into the rows of houses. Garrus closed his eyes as Anderson stopped, no doubt trying to figure out what he was looking at.

Herros had taken Garrus drellak hunting in his youth. The days spent together in the forest and stalking herds across the grasslands of Palaven remained some of the general's best memories. However, killing the beast and then dressing it provided some of the worst. Neither those memories nor anything he'd ever seen in C-Sec came close to what appeared in Anderson's camera.

A soft mewling sound rattled from Lucille's throat, smashing any barriers of propriety, the knot in Garrus's gut insisting that he wrap his arm around the woman's shoulders. She leaned into his side as if grateful not to have to hold herself upright when Anderson bent down next to one bloody, ragged arm and took its pulse.

The lieutenant hollered—a wordless shout of discovery—and rolled the dead man off Shepard's back.

"Dad," Bunny said, matter-of-fact. She glanced over her shoulder at Garrus. "You're going to tell me that piece of meat there is Jane?"

Too sick, in both stomach and heart, to reply, Garrus simply nodded toward the vid screen. She'd see for herself soon enough.

Gentle hands untied the hood over her head, then removed it, followed by the blindfold. A face looked up at the camera, red hair tangled around everything, soaked to her skin with sweat and blood. Despite a nose broken so badly that it sat bent to the side, blood, bruises, and smashed bones, the face undeniably resembled those in the room with him. Green eyes, brilliant against the black skin around them despite being bloodshot, stared up at Anderson for a moment before the scream Garrus had only imagined until that moment, broke free.

Bunny staggered backwards a little as the girl on the vid screen shrieked then collapsed onto the gravel. Jane lay limp and still as many hands rushed to save her ... none stronger or more urgent than Anderson's. The lieutenant ripped the stakes from the ground, then unfolded a thermal blanket and covered her with it. The soldiers around the bloody spot on the ground celebrated. Jane's survival seemed such a small miracle, but he supposed amidst all that death, even one survivor amounted to victory.

"Anderson carried her through the shuttle ride to their ship," Garrus said, hoping to ease the pain etched on Lucille's face. "He visited her in the hospital and again when they put her in a psychiatric ward. Eventually, he broke her out and took her home."

"It's a mercy Franklin died," Lucille said, her voice still burrowed down into her throat. "He would never have been able to live with what he did that day ... what he forced Jane to endure." She straightened and pulled away from Garrus. "I sat as close as I could to her, talking to her through the long hours. I don't know if she heard me ... the pain must have been—"

Dr. Chakwas jumped up and strode over, crouching to grip the woman by both shoulders. "Jane grew up to be one of the most remarkable women I've had the privilege of knowing. She's okay." The doctor smiled. "I'm tempted to say that I don't know how she survived, but I've treated her, and she's also the toughest, most ornery person I've ever known. Her strength got her through it and just kept growing."

Lucille drew in a deep breath and nodded, her momentary despair turning resolute once more. Her strength helped unravel the knots in Garrus's belly.

Garrus looked past the women to where Bunny stood, staring at the screen. Pushing off the cot, he walked over to stand behind her. "You okay, kid?"

Bunny shrugged and reached out to turn off the vid. "Why wouldn't I be?" She jerked her chin toward the door. "Get out of my cell, General." She returned to her bunk and flopped down on her back, legs crossed at the ankle, her hands behind her head. "And take the do-gooder corps with you. You all have work to do."

"I'll be back once we're docked." Garrus took the hand that Lucille held out to him, squeezing her fingers. "We'll get you settled in."

(A-N: Sooo sad, true story. My internet died last Friday, so no posting on Monday because no internet. I did nearly die during the detox process. It was horrible, but now I am back and you have a chapter. Should have one for Monday, but we will see. It is a huge chapter full of important things. Thanks as always to the readers and the reviewers. Loves and hugs.)