The morning comes with nothing but regret. I tried to convince myself all night, with Orbin's help, that ignoring Shepard's call would eventually feel good. That I'd feel empowered by not needing her.
Instead, I could barely manage a glance at anyone else in the bar, I got a crappy night of sleep, and I feel like shit the moment I want up. I shouldn't have ignored her; I never wanted Shepard to think I'm not there for her, and then I failed to be. I wouldn't have been anything mission-critical, I know, but Shepard came to me when she needed someone.
Nothing in my life made me prouder than being that person for her. Now I've failed at that, too.
I don't have time to sit around and wallow in this, though. I wake up late and have to rush through a shower, barely enough time to grab a coffee before heading out the door without catching any news or eating breakfast. I don't get into the elevator before my Omni-Tool rings with a call from Orbin.
"Pup, get down to the docks!" he demands before I can say a word.
"What? I have to get to the training center, what's - "
"Vakarian, listen to me," he interjects. Orbin always keeps his cool, so his panicked tone makes me anxious. "It's...it's the Normandy, Garrus. Something happened."
My heart all but stops, and I have to reach out to the metal-paneled wall of the elevator when the floor sways under my feet. There's a moment where I can't breathe, and though I can hear Orbin calling my name on the other end, I can't formulate a response.
Something happened to the Normandy. The docks. The ship is coming, and the crew needs me.
"I'm on my way," I tell him before ending the call just as the door whoosh open. There's a line at rapid transit, and I know that if I stop moving, I'll start panicking. So, I start running. Moving as fast, I dare through the crowds.
It's total chaos on the docks. C-Sec and the emergency response teams are in full disaster response mode, civilians are gawking for position to gawk, and several ships are dragging battered escape pods to the dock.
Escape pods.
The Normandy is nowhere in sight. They had to abandon the ship.
I have to catch my breath before I can push through, grateful for my armor and a C-Sec badge to let me get through fairly quickly. The C-Sec guys recognize me, and I'm waved through, Orbin coming to my side just before Pallin does.
"Garrus, I...I'm not sure you should be here."
I've known the C-Sec Executor my entire life. He served and is friends with my father, he's had dinner with my family, one of my nephews is named after him. And the man has not called me by my first name since the day I became a man at fifteen. My blood runs cold at the sound.
"They're my crew. I have to be here."
I can't even look at him. The pity in the subtones and eyes terrifies me; I don't want to know what he knows. Not yet. Not ever, if it's…
I shake my head. I can't go there, not if my team needs me.
The first pod reaches the dock and releases some of the crew; I feel more relief than I ever thought I would at the sight of Kaidan Alenko in one piece, but I aim for Liara and Dr. Chakwas. They're all visibly shaken, the doctor bleeding from a gash on her arm that someone tied a shirt around.
"Oh, Garrus," Liara practically moans, swaying on her feet. Nearby, Alenko shoves a C-Sec officer away just in time to throw up all over the floor.
They've been through hell, and I nearly join Alenko in heaving.
"Garrus, it was...it's not…" Chakwas shakes her head, her face nearly as gray as her hair. I've never seen the collected, matronly doctor at a loss for words. I refuse to meet her eyes when I see exactly the same expression on her as I did on Pallin.
Why are they pitying me? Where is she?
The second pod has most of the support crew and engineers. I hear someone say that Pressly is gone before they break off in wails. Pressly. The Normandy. What the hell happened up there?
The final pod is in bad shape, and it makes my skin crawl. Joker and Shepard...I haven't seen either of them yet. They're both inside this beat-up pod, so it's hard to imagine they aren't hurt. Badly.
The doors whoosh open, and no one standing in front of it moves. No one comes out, and the C-Sec and emergency crews just stand there, staring. I find my senses and push past them, stepping inside the pod to get them out myself. Joker is on the floor, slumped and broken while simultaneously curled into a ball. His legs are at unnatural angles, and I can see bruises forming all over him, but the chaotic look in his eyes tells me that his mind is far more broken than his body.
I reach for him, my heartbreaking. Joker loved that ship, it was his life, and I can't imagine his pain. He whispers my name and closes his eyes, looking away. I recognize that expression. I can see the shame in his features.
It's only then that I realize what's really wrong here.
Joker is alone.
I dart back out of the escape pod, my heart racing in an uneven rhythm while i search the docks. I must have missed her, but there's no gorgeous redhead in sight.
"Where's the other escape pod?" I demand, not actually sure who I'm asking.
"Garrus." I whirl at the sound of Captain Anderson's voice. He's standing by Pallin and wearing his dress blues. He looks far too formal for the grief-stricken look on his face, the low set of his shoulders...the fucking tears rolling down his cheeks.
One look at him, at Shepard's mentor and father figure, and I know.
Something snaps. I feel a physical pop inside me, somewhere in my chest. Whatever it was must have been holding the galaxy together because the entire Citadel sways around me.
Everything goes blurry. I can't hear any of the chaos anymore. I know someone is touching me, but I can barely feel it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it registers that I'm not standing anymore. Someone is calling my name, but I can't respond to it. I can't move. I can't…
Shepard isn't on any of the pods. She's not here. She and the Normandy.
Gone.
I've always had a somewhat pessimistic view of the galaxy. I realize that things aren't unfair, and there is just as much evil in the world as there is good - if not more.
But it's not until that instant that I realize just how cruel the universe really is.
Only now, now that she's gone, does it hit me just how much Shepard meant to me. Nothing will ever be the same again. It's not heartbreaking, it's earth-shattering.
A Turian only gets one chance at true love. And mine, my chance, my bondmate...my Shepard. Gone.
The next few days blur together. I can barely distinguish one day from the next, sleep evading me and people around me at all times. After breaking down on the Citadel, my friends and the crew of the Normandy decided they need to be worried about me.
No one has called me out on it, on what happened between me and Shepard that brought on such a reaction. And I'm grateful for that. But I wish they'd all just leave me the hell alone.
Even as I think it, I feel bad. Orbin and his wife have been around as much as they can, Liara and Chakwas keep coming to check on me, even Pallin and Anderson are around. I can barely look at Anderson, though; that's just too painful. And Solana...I can't face my family right now.
Joker is the only thing that gets me moving in the days after. He was badly hurt in the Reaper attack on the Normandy and needs a lot of care - which he initially refuses because he blames himself for what happened. At first, I want to blame him, too. But I know Shepard better than anyone else; she would have sacrificed herself for anyone on that ship.
I blame Shepard for her own death, and I am pissed about it.
That makes her funeral pretty much hell for me.
It's an empty fucking casket. There's no body, and we're supposed to say goodbye to it. Worse, Shepard apparently updated her final wishes within the last year. She didn't have much to leave, but she left it all to me and then assigned Wrex and me as her honor guard. The Krogan standing strong at the other end of the podium, holding what amounts to an empty wooden box, is my anchor.
Someone chose a picture of Shepard to display, and it's right in my line of sight for the hours that we have to stand there, pretending that any of this is OK. The photo is a good one, at least. She looks as beautiful as ever, caught in a candid moment of laughter.
I know what she was laughing about when that picture was taken. I know that she's smiling at me, just off-camera.
I want to throw up to die every time I look at the picture. It mocks me the entire day, reminding me that she died a galaxy away from me and on a night when I ignored her call. She died without being mine, without knowing how I felt about her - before I even knew how I felt.
Staring at stunning green eyes while people who barely knew her mourn Shepard's loss makes me want to rage. I want to scream at that damn Hero of the Citadel for being so...good. She never had any understanding of how much this whole damn galaxy needs her.
By the time the funeral is over, I'm convinced that the cold in my chest will never thaw. My mind feels clouded like I'm moving through thick mud in heavy boots. Something dark has settled in my mind. I can't name it, can't really even think about it...but it's there.
The only good thing about the funeral is that it reminds me why Shepard died.
Her mission isn't over, and that means mine isn't either. The Reapers are still out there threatening our galaxy, and I know Shepard wouldn't want me to quit now.
But then I open my bedside table drawer, looking for pain killers, and something silver sticks out, sparkling in the dull orange lights from the Citadel outside my bedroom window. The second I see the chain, I know what it is and who left it. Shepard's dog tags, a gift, a human tradition. "It's a way of promising to come back," she told me once. She promised to come back to me, even after…
But then she died.
Shepard's promise lights a fire under my ass. I know what she would have wanted me to do, and I'm entirely failing at it. She left me her dog tags, and I wear them inside my armor when I start exactly what I should have done in the first place.
Pallin looks at me like I've totally lost my mind when I tell him I'm quitting Spectre training, and I want to pick up Shepard's mission. He gets me a meeting with the Council, Liara and Joker standing with me while Tali and Wrex send their support remotely.
It does nothing.
They're just as eager to deny the Reaper's existence now as they were before. The difference is that now it feels personal; now, the Reapers have taken Shepard from me.
It's Anderson who inspires me to keep going when I see an interview he does with a reporter. Emily Wong is all too eager to sit down with me when she hears my name, and she agrees to a series of interviews and reports on the real threat. I'm impressed that she's willing to call out the Council for lying about Saren. After they air, the Council asks me for a meeting.
The bastards have the nerve to offer me status as a Spectre, immediately, if I'll stop talking about the Reapers and go Geth chasing. I can have Shepard's mission, but only if I let them continue spitting all over her reputation. I make sure all four Councilors are clear on where they can shove that idea.
Everything collapses in on me the next day. The Council launches a series of public reports declaring Shepard was over-worked, over-tired, and confused. That's the public side. Their whisper campaign is worse, suggesting that she was indoctrinated by Saren. It's like a smack right in the face, and the only thing that keeps me together is knowing that Shepard's crew won't quit.
And then, just when I'm wondering how much more I can take, Kaidan Alenko shows up at my door.
Listening to that son of a bitch who fawned over Shepard, who claimed to love her and tried to take her from me, whine that he can't be sure about the Reapers because she never took him on missions, is the final straw. Every blow, every disappointment, every failure makes that darkness in my mind harder to ignore and the cold in my chest heavier.
It gets hard to breathe at all on the Citadel, my failures, and our memories everywhere.
I've failed at picking up her mission. I can't go after the Reapers on my own, I can't convince anyone who matters that Shepard wasn't crazy, and I can't stay where I lost her. I can't stay on the Citadel, and I can't go home to my family a broken-hearted and shamed Turian.
I leave my apartment to Joker, clear any tracking information from my Omni-Tool, and split my money onto un-named credit chits.
And then I disappear.