Two chapters in one day? I must be dying. This is turning out to be a hell of a lot longer than I thought it would be!
Tracy Shepard prided herself on staying composed. She'd only lost her head a handful of times. The first was back on Akuze, when her entire team died, leaving her with crippling survivor's guilt. The second was on the Normandy, after she couldn't save all the colonists on Feros. She'd lost it once more, shortly after boarding the new Normandy, cursing herself for getting sucked into Cerberus.
But all those moments paled in comparison when she saw Garrus Vakarian getting blown back by a rocket, his lithe frame crumpling to the ground, a strangled groan ripping out of his throat. Time stood still, Shepard watching in horror as he dragged himself to cover and collapsed.
'Miranda, cover me now,' she yelled as she hefted her rocket launcher, leveling it at the glass that housed Tarak. Miranda ran over and, one by one, took out the mercenaries that were gathering by the broken window.
Shepard took a deep breath and fired, the rocket projectile smashing through the glass of the ship and exploding inside the cabin that housed the Blue Suns' leader. Without a pilot, the ship plummeted to the ground, dramatically exploding on contact. Shepard raced blindly over to where Garrus was lying, trusting in her squad mates' ability to keep the last of the mercs off of her. She dropped to her knees beside him, pulling his head into her lap.
'Oh God. Garrus, come on. Oh my God. Please don't do this to me. You promised me. Please.' She felt herself coming undone at the sight of him, broken and bloody, hysteria rising in her throat.
'Mir-Miranda, I need you here right now,' she all but screamed, tears gathering in her eyes, much to her frustration. 'You can help him, right? Slap some medi-gel on it until we can get back to the Normandy?' Miranda hesitated.
'I'll- I'll do what I can, Shepard, but it doesn't look good. I don't know anything about turian physiology. He needs heavy medical attention as soon as possible.' Shepard nodded.
'Okay, we can do that. Jacob, radio Joker, tell him to come get us.' She turned back to the turian, her tears finally overflowing and falling on his face.
'Damn it, Garrus, you big dumb turian, if you die here, I'm going to be so pissed.' She laid a hand on the less bloody side of his face. 'You know what, screw it. If you live through this, you're never on kitchen duty again, I promise.' She stroked the plates on his face, more to calm herself down than anything.
The medi-gel that Miranda had injected was finally coming into effect, and Garrus gasped, his blue eyes snapping open, and immediately focusing on Shepard.
'Shep,' he croaked, 'why is my face wet?' Shepard let out a half sob, half laugh.
'You got beat up by a krogan, Vakarian.' Garrus frowned.
'No, this isn't blood.' His eyes cleared in a moment of understanding. Tracy Shepard, you were crying.' Shepard waved him off.
'You shouldn't talk, Garrus. We're getting you to Dr. Chakwas as we speak. Just rest, okay?' Garrus nodded.
'Yeah, okay. But you're not- ahh that's going to hurt- you're not getting off that easy. We're talking about this later.' Shepard smiled.
'Garrus, if you survive this, I'll talk about anything you want.' The turian made a soft sound of contentment before letting his eyes fall shut again. Jacob came up behind her.
'Commander, the shuttle is on its way down. He'll be with the doctor in no time.' Shepard sniffed, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
'Yeah,' she muttered, 'yeah, he's going to be okay.' Miranda nodded.
'If he was in good enough shape to wake up, he's got a good chance of survival. I think.'
The next few minutes were torture. Miranda was keeping a steady stream of medi-gel running through him, to stop him from bleeding out, Jacob radioed back forth with Joker, explaining the situation in more detail, and Shepard just sat there, her turian's head resting in her lap, monitoring his breathing and stroking the soft warm plates on his face.
Finally, the shuttle rushed into view, hovering just outside the window. The three humans picked up the heavy turian with some difficulty, and moved him into the shuttle, laying him across the seats on a full side of it, though his head still lay in the Commander's lap. As soon as Jacob buckled himself into the seat, he passed out from exhaustion, but Miranda looked up at the Commander, whose eyes were scanning the turian worriedly, making sure he didn't bleed out.
'So, after all this, are you going to stick with the story that he was just a member of your squad?' Her voice was light, focusing on the best possible outcome, instead of the one they were facing as it stood. Shepard sighed and looked up.
'No,' she said, much to the other woman's surprise, 'I'm not.' Miranda cocked her head.
'So, the two of you really are...' Shepard smiled.
'No, we were telling the truth on that one, at least. Here's the thing, Miranda. Back when we were fighting Saren, I took Garrus on nearly every mission with me. At the time, he was the most capable fighter we had.' She paused, remembering those days oddly fondly. 'The change was very subtle. At some point, though, Garrus and I tipped the scales from teammates to real, true friends. I first noticed it when we came back from Feros. The loss of so many colonists was heavy. Heavier than I was expecting. I had many visitors to my cabin that night, everyone trying to comfort me. All except Garrus. He knew that I needed time, but it just wasn't something I could get back then.
'So, once I thought everyone was asleep, I sneaked down to the training room to lay into a few punching bags. You know, typical dealing with grief stuff.' Miranda tittered.
'Of course.'
'What I wasn't expecting was Garrus, waiting down there for me with my gloves, sans armor.'
'Ooh, how risqué,' the biotic purred, and Shepard shot her a look.
'Like I said, we weren't like that. We'd sparred before, but he'd always been in full armor, as usual, which always seemed like cheating, to me. Either way, he tossed me the gloves, and we started. Except it was different this time, and not because of the lack of armor. Usually, we rarely landed a hit, but that night, he dropped his guard and let me pummel him down. It took ten minutes for me to exhaust myself.' Miranda frowned.
'Ten minutes? That's... That's not good Shepard.' The Spectre grimaced.
'What can I say? I hadn't slept in two days, skipped out on eating, and used all my energy in one big blast. Miranda, I can count on one hand the number of times I've lost my cool in my adult life. That night was one of them. I knocked him down with one last good punch, then curled up on the mats, shaking. And what did the damn turian do? He drops his gloves, pulls me up onto his lap, and holds me until, well, I don't know how much later. We didn't say one word to each other that whole time. So yeah, we're not just squad mates.' Miranda gaped.
'Why tell me all of this? You barely know me.' Shepard shrugged.
'You asked.' Miranda let out a low whistle.
'You're one-of-a-kind, you know that? So, back on Omega, when the Eclipse were storming, and you were giving orders... All you said to him was "Garrus," but he knew exactly what you wanted him to do. Is that just from fighting alongside him for so long?' Shepard smiled, running her hand over Garrus' mandible.
'No. It's been like that from the very beginning.' Miranda shook her head and laughed.
'So you're telling me that you two have had this unspoken connection since you first met, and you're not in love with him? Come on, Shepard, you've got it bad.' Shepard sputtered.
'No, we're close, but not- we've never-' Miranda grinned.
'Sure, Shepard, whatever you say.' The Commander's face grew hot, and she focused on the delicate blue lines running across the bridge of Garrus' nose.
'Oh, go to hell,' she muttered, while, unknown to either of the women, Garrus Vakarian listened in.