Chapter 2 – 'Til Death Do Us Part

"Did I ever tell you how much I don't like doctors?" Shepard grimaced as Dr. Chakwas finished up stitching the gash she received when the thug hit her with his rifle. Once C-Sec finally arrived to contain the situation at the restaurant, Garrus insisted on dragging Shepard out to Huerta Memorial to get checked out, despite her vehement protests. Lucky for the doctors and nurses on staff, Dr. Chakwas was available and arrived to handle Shepard's injuries personally. Garrus doubted anyone else in the galaxy could get Shepard to sit down and receive treatment… without sedatives or tranquilizers anyway. Or three really tough orderlies to hold her down… maybe Krogan orderlies. The thought of Shepard kicking the shit out of Krogan orderlies made him snigger aloud, earning him a dour look from both Shepard and Dr. Chakwas.

"Oh you've informed me so every time you've had to visit me against your will. You should've thought of that before you pursued a career that required you need fixing up by a doctor every five minutes." Dr. Chakwas chuckled and shared a knowing look with Garrus across the room, her gray eyes bright and youthful despite her age. "You'll have to watch her for any signs of concussion and such. I did scans and they didn't indicate anything. And yet…" She stepped back from Shepard and flashed light in Shepard's eyes, making her wince and hiss. "The tests aren't exactly conclusive. She's always been uncooperative during physicals and treatment. It's impossible to be sure of anything where she's involved…"

"I'm fine, Karin." Shepard grumbled, waving the doctor off as she eyed the door to the examination room, "Leave me be."

"Don't even think about making a break for it, Shepard." Chakwas warned. She reached over to the datapad on the table next to Shepard and tapped in her observations. "No slurring. Normal pupil dilation. Cognitive function appears to be intact. And as charming a personality as ever…" She was still smiling as she shook her head at Shepard's antics. "I do believe she's fine. We both know she's survived far worse. I still recommend that she be resting and supervised in case, but we all know how well she follows my medical advice."

"Thanks, Dr. Chakwas." Garrus nodded toward the doctor, relief flooding through him. Knowing that Shepard was going to be alright certainly alleviated some of the guilt he'd been harboring from the moment their assailants called out 'Archangel.' "At least I appreciate you helping us out with this."

"This was nothing! Remember that time I took a bullet to the clavicle? Now that hurt like a son-of-a-bitch!" Shepard swore, gingerly running her fingers along the stitches in her scalp. Garrus strode over and examined the delicate stitch-work along her hairline for himself. Shepard looked up at him and grinned, "And this doesn't even begin to compare to the time Garrus took a rocket to the face! Remember that one Dr. Chakwas?"

Dr. Chakwas' smile didn't waver as she picked up the datapad she'd been typing on. "With you two running amok, I'll never see retirement." She joked amicably, shaking her head again as she left the room. "Now wait here for a few minutes, Shepard. I'll be back with the discharge orders…"

Shepard's gaze locked on Garrus the moment the door slid shut. "Are you fucking insane?"

Garrus blinked at Shepard. "What?"

"That chandelier stunt could've hurt a bystander! I know for a fact you weren't considering that when you shot it down!" She punched him hard in the arm and he yelped. "All these years working together and I'm still trying to teach you the concept of collateral damage!"

Garrus let out an indignant growl; he found Shepard's comment to be amusing as well as ironic and derisive. "Yeah. Because 'you' never leave a trail of chaos and death in your wake."

Shepard fell silent, obviously unable to deny his point. Garrus knew it was a low blow considering Shepard did what she had to in order to stop the Reapers, but after the events of the day he was in no mood to defend his actions with reasoning he knew had flaws. After a few tense moments, Shepard finally said "Okay… maybe I'm not the best example here. But still… I want you to be better than me!" She stopped herself then and frowned at him, worry lines creasing their way over her forehead. "You alright? They threatened Sol and your dad."

"And Sidonis apparently. Think they finally did what you refused to let me do two years ago?" Garrus asked petulantly, knowing full well he was just picking a fight now.

He quickly found out that was the wrong thing to do. Shepard's gaze grew cold and serious and Garrus found himself struggling to keep eye contact. "We both know that's not who you are, Garrus. There was no way in hell I was letting you compromise who you were because you were still reeling from what happened on Omega."

"So instead of a quick, clean death from my sniper-rifle, he ends up dying painfully from whatever torture these bastards inflicted?" Garrus scoffed. "Yep. We're just downright merciful, you and I."

"Well you must've forgotten to calibrate my crystal ball or something because there was no way in hell I'd have foreseen this happening two years ago, Garrus." Shepard snapped angrily. She let out a tired sigh and rubbed her temples. Garrus watched her fingers gingerly trace along the stitches again and he felt guilty for riling her up. "Look, arguing about this won't fix this mess. We need to get to the bottom of this if we're gonna help any of them. Any idea who it is we're dealing with?"

Garrus' tension eased some and he pulled up a seat across from where Shepard sat on the exam table, rubbing the back of his neck as he struggled to think. "Considering they mentioned my old codename and Sidonis, I think it's safe to assume an enemy I'd made on Omega has finally tracked me down. But we dealt with Garm, Tarak, and Jaroth. And the group we were fighting didn't appear to be a part of the Blood Pack, Eclipse, or the Blue Suns factions. It just doesn't make sense…"

With a hum of discontent, Shepard crossed her arms and a pensive expression crossed her face as she commenced with voicing her thoughts aloud; aloud being a rather irritable muttering thing she tended to do whenever she had to process something mentally. "Okay, so we're not talking about the big three. Well, there isn't evidence enough to discount them completely… but a minor gang maybe? Though everyone was led to believe you'd died in the final assault on your old base of operations. We've gone to Omega numerous times and nobody's recognized you as Archangel. The only people who knew about you being Archangel were with Cerberus and the Normandy crew… Cerberus is done and the Normandy crew… well some of them might have a grudge but I doubt they'd go that far. Joker would probably just spam your omni-tool with hanar porn or something…" She stopped muttering and looked up at Garrus with a teasing smile. "What are the chances this was a one-time deal?"

Garrus let out a dry laugh, grateful she could turn a conversation from grim to blithe in a matter of seconds. "Yeah, I don't think so Shepard. I highly doubt the lot of them were sitting around bored one afternoon and decided 'Hey let's go shoot Archangel and Commander Shepard!' You and I, we don't make stupid enemies. Vengeful and well-funded enemies certainly, but not stupid."

Shepard gave an obnoxious snort in response. "They must be a bit stupid. I mean they're challenging Shepard and Vakarian, after all!" With a resigned huff, Shepard pushed herself up from her perch on the table and made her way over to the door. "Let's move."

"Where are you going?" Garrus got out of his chair and grabbed Shepard's arm. "Dr. Chakwas hasn't even discharged you yet."

Shepard turned and gave him an 'are-you-serious' look. "I intend to find, torture, and shoot the bastards who dared to threaten my in-laws. What do you think?"

"What do I think? I think you could have a concussion! Or worse! Damnit all, Shepard!" Garrus growled, angry at how relentless his wife could be. But as angry as he was with her, Garrus couldn't help but be in awe of her as well. There once was a time he believed Krogan to be the most stubborn species in the Milky Way galaxy… but then in walked Shepard, hell bent on proving him wrong at every turn.

"I need to stay awake. Hunting bad guys keeps me awake. So let's find me some bad guys!" Shepard said cheerfully, giving him her signature 'try and stop me!' smirk.

Before Garrus could continue what he knew would be a pointless argument, the door to the exam room opened and James and Ashley shuffled in, still dressed in their now ruined formal attire. "See! I told you she'd be fine. The woman literally took a hit from Harbinger's beam and still managed to pick herself up and kick the Reaper race to hell. A little bang to the head won't bring Lola down." James crossed his arms and winked at Shepard, "Tell her you're good, Lola!"

"Sure… which Ash should I say it to?" Shepard asked and Garrus, Ashley, and James all tensed anxiously. "I'm fine! Bad joke!" Shepard laughed, holding her hands before her to reassure them. "How's the situation back at the restaurant?"

"Well the moment it looked like it would be a shitstorm, Bailey showed up to reign in the situation. He rounded up the witnesses and told the press to get the hell off the premises. C-Sec's taken over the scene and they took the surviving bastards into custody. Bailey told James and I to get out before people could put two and two together. I mean two human Spectres in the very restaurant that gets attacked by a group of unknown assailants? The Council definitely won't be happy with us." Ashley answered as she picked a piece of shrimp out of her hair and made a face. She then glanced Shepard up and down worriedly. "You sure you're alright, Skipper? I could do the interrogating if you want."

Shepard waved Ashley off. "I'm fine, alright? Besides, Garrus should be the one to go in and interrogate them. He's got one hell of a bad cop routine and seeing Archangel alive with the upper hand may be enough to get them talking if watching all their buddies die didn't loosen their lips. Exactly how many of the bastards survived the fight?"

"Two. One Garrus punched out and the one who knocked you upside the head. You know… the one I saved your fine ass from." James bragged, performing his obnoxious muscle pose to emphasize his point.

"Shove it, Vega." Shepard said coolly, "Or Lola's never gonna save your fine ass ever again." She turned and faced Garrus then, arms crossed. "So how do you want to proceed?"

Garrus was taken aback by the question. That was twice now Shepard had relinquished command to him. Certainly, the thugs had been after him, but she'd been affected by the whole affair as well. And considering the rather heated argument they'd been having mere moments earlier, Garrus had been pretty sure she was going to step up and take the situation into her own capable hands like she always did. But there she was, giving him whiplash in typical Shepard-fashion as she looked to him once more. He shook his head and cleared his throat, his mind scrambling to put the pieces together. "Well first we've got to interrogate the bastards from the restaurant to confirm our theory about the enemy coming from Omega. We might be able to shake them down for names and meeting locations, but I doubt it. Anyone with the balls to go after us would want to play smart. These men were likely just a group of hired thugs sent out draw our attention if they weren't lucky enough to kill us."

"'Well-armed' and 'well-informed' thugs, considering their equipment and how they managed to track you down." Shepard pointed out. "Depending on how 'well-paid' they were we might not get any answers out of them. You said it yourself, we make vengeful and well-funded enemies. If that's the case what then?"

"We contact our friendly neighborhood Shadow Broker to see if she can dig up anything pertinent. I'll probably have her focus on the mercenaries' backgrounds and recent work." He playfully elbowed Shepard, hoping to lighten up the somber mood that had taken hold of the group. "Probably have her run a trace on their weapons too. We may have to hit up the Casino tonight after all!"

"You people seriously need to let that go." Shepard said flatly, unamused by Garrus' attempt. She gave Garrus a cautious glance before suggesting, "You should probably have the Shadow Broker look into Sidonis' recent whereabouts as well. They could've been bluffing about his involvement. But even if they weren't, where they nabbed him could offer insight."

Garrus nodded solemnly, his mood quickly dissipating at the mention of his ex-colleague. "Agreed. And while I'm not relishing the idea, we may need to bring him into this on the off-chance he knows who'd be attacking me now."

Shepard let out a loud, obnoxious groan that drew everyone's attentions, "What's with people? The moment the galaxy isn't in peril somebody decides to bring up old vendettas or stir up trouble and I've gotta drop everything to go and shove my boot up their ass… Next thing you know they're just lining up for ass kicking and by the time I get done with them, all of known-civilization will be knee-deep in yet another galaxy-shattering crisis that only we'll be able to fix." She crossed her arms and made a pout, an expression Garrus had found to be both endearing and annoying whenever Shepard wasn't getting her way, "When's a woman supposed to catch a break?"

"Right, Shepard's self-pity party aside…" Garrus faced Ashley, who was still picking dinner out of her hair and from her clothes. "You and Vega go interrogate the would-be assassins and find out what you can from Bailey's investigation. I'm going to contact my dad and sister before I call up our Shadow Broker. I'm sure they'd appreciate knowing I've got old enemies threatening them and all. Hopefully Liara will be able to give us something more to go on."

"And while you're all doing that, I'll find Joker and the rest of the crew and get the Normandy ready to go!" Shepard announced as she made what had to be her fifteenth attempt to escape the examination room since Garrus had brought her in. "Let's move people!"

"Shepard…" Garrus started but Shepard cut him off.

"I don't want to hear it, Vakarian! How exactly do you intend to get to Omega without my ship or my crew? Will you hitch a ride with a merchant freighter? Take a mundane passenger liner? I doubt they'll let you bring your whole arsenal aboard and by the time you get to Omega your enemy will have gotten bored and moved on. Give it up Garrus! It's your mission, but there's no way in hell I'm not going with… 'til death do us part!" Shepard turned toward the door again just as Dr. Chakwas re-entered the exam room with a look of displeasure. "Ah, crap…"

"And where do you think you're going, Commander?" Dr. Chakwas took a firm stance and crossed her arms as she stared Shepard down. "Firstly, I haven't even discharged you yet. Secondly, did you think I wouldn't find out you weren't up to date on your vaccinations? And you haven't been attending any of your follow-up appointments regarding treated injuries 'I' told you needed monitoring." Chakwas held up her datapad and starting tapping in information. "I've ordering a complete blood panel, full-body scan, and every vaccine known to treat humankind, Shepard. You just sit back down on that examination table before I call in nurses to restrain and sedate you."

Garrus chuckled as he quipped "You sure the vows weren't 'til Chakwas do us part!'?"

"Oh go call Liara before I decide to assist whoever's trying to have you assassinated. Smart-ass…" Shepard snapped as she stomped back toward the exam table. "All right, Doc. Let's get this done quickly… Someone out there needs my boot up his ass!"