STORY NOTES

Guest: Indeed, hell of a cliffhanger. I like writing cliffhangers. I externally hate other people who write cliffhangers. I internally love them though.

Kasena: FTW!

LegionN7: Gabby being on the away team will probably not be insanely prominent until I have need for her. That being said, interesting theories on what happened. :3

Not even twenty-four hours had passed since Admiral Hackett and Shepard had left the bridge, and already Jane was back to pacing, a furious look on her face. She had been commanded quite verbally out of the med bay by Dr. Chakwas. The words had mostly consisted of Chakwas raising her voice for perhaps the first time that Garrus had ever known her, demanding that she get 'the bloody hell' out of her medical wing. Jane had left, looking like a scolded child. Garrus knew that ultimately, the medical officer of the ship had the authority when it came to injured personnel and the captain 90% of the time was expected to obey lest a life be potentially lost. So he wasn't all together surprised. However, this had done nothing for Jane, who had taken her pacing to a few feet outside of the med bay doors. Garrus was leaning against one of the tables in the nearby mess hall himself, his electric blue eyes following Shepard's pacing. He wasn't feeling terribly good about this situation either. Their ship was stranded in the Terminus Systems, and they didn't even have the convenience of being close to Rannoch to request the aid of the quarians. Their best pilot had tens of bones broken in his body, and it was unknown how long he would be unconscious due to his injuries. But there was one thing that Garrus had to keep reminding himself. It wasn't like this was the first time the ship had been in the unknown. The Omega 4 relay alone was a massive distance from home in comparison to Sigurd's Cradle. At the worst case scenario, it would take them a year of careful planning and rationing to make their way back to Citadel space. The mission was not a suicide mission yet, and Shepard as a simple Commander had managed to bring home every single member of her crew from an actual suicide mission in which none of them were expected to survive.

Garrus could understand Jane's concern for Joker. Jane would do anything for Joker; Jane had even once died so that Joker would survive. Not only was the crippled man their best chance for getting home, Jane treated Joker like a little brother. Jane had suffered heavily after she found out that her actions in destroying the Reapers had also destroyed the love of Joker's life, EDI. Jane had also been one of the top voices to push for EDI's re-engineering. After taking EDI's blackbox out of the Normandy's systems, there was now a crew working on EDI's software and hardware, trying to find a way to rebuild the AI. Though Joker had remained sceptical that EDI would ever return back to who she was, he had wished the engineers good luck in doing so. What Garrus didn't understand was why Jane was acting this way. Normally when she felt helpless, she did something; ANYTHING, to fix that. Garrus let out a humming breath through his closed mouth and nose, and then tilted his head questioningly at the Captain.

"Why the pacing?"

"I have nothing to go off of until I gather more information." the woman in front of him replied shortly. Garrus could tell that her nerves would not be so apparent if there were another crew member watching her. She'd just bottle it up. Not that bottling emotions wasn't a useful thing every once in a while, but Garrus knew that Shepard had a limit before she broke. He sighed as Jane started to pace again and shook his head.

"I don't see how this is getting information."

"I need Joker awake."

"For information, or for your own conscience?" Garrus asked with a flat tone. He saw Jane stop and narrow her eyes at the turian, who raised his hands in submission. "Jane, it's my job to ask these questions. I'm only being logical." He spotted Jane's face contort as she tried to disguise her anger, and Garrus shook his head. He adjusted his position by standing straight and placing his hands behind his back, then started to walk towards her slowly. "You can ask him what you need to know later. For now, if I were you, I'd get my ass down to Engineering and demand to know the details of what happened. That FTL travel was NOT normal... and we need to figure out why before we can plan how to get home. Think about it, Jane. We've got a connected mass relay between Sigurd's Cradle and the Sol Systems. We reconstructed our own mass relays... we were under the impression that all Reaper-based technology was damaged or destroyed, and needed to be rebuilt. Working off of that theory... who built this mass relay?" Garrus jabbed a thumb behind him, although he had no idea whether the mass relay was behind them, in front of them, or anywhere in between. All he knew was that they were hovering in space, and nearby was the mass relay that could either kill them or take them home. "We can't answer that yet, but we can figure out what happened to get us here. But that means that our Captain needs to stay calm, take a deep breath, forget that her pilot is currently in intense treatment conducted by the best goddamn combat medic in Citadel space, and she needs to get down to Engineering and get some answers."

There was a long pause after he was done his pep talk, and Jane was giving him a stony look. Garrus was actually starting to wonder if he had gone too far, but he couldn't imagine why. She had referred to him as a second-in-command. Did that mean something different in the Alliance? Had he stepped on some sort of human taboo? He stopped walking towards her and folded his arms over his chest, raising an eye ridge at her. He wouldn't back down from this. It needed to be said. She needed something to remind her exactly what she needed to do and who she was to her crew.

"Jane, I know this is probably overwhelming, to have things go wrong all the time. But this occurred for a reason. We just need to find out what."

The stony look left her face and Garrus would've smiled triumphantly had he not thought it rude. He nailed it. He figured out what was truly bothering her, and he could work with that if he needed to. He saw Jane sigh shakily and nod.

"Yeah, you're right." She breathed, and then she looked once more at the med bay doors. Garrus walked the rest of the distance to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked down at his hand, and then looked up into his eyes. He tried to make them look as comforting as he possibly could, which seemed to work, because he felt the muscles in her shoulder relax a little. He tilted his head towards the elevator.

"Come on." He started to walk, and was reassured when Jane followed in step beside him on his left side.

Garrus had been the one to call the individuals gathered into the War Room. Ken Donelly, Gabriella Daniels, Greg Adams, James Vega, Jane and himself were seated around the rectangular table. Jane was at one end of the table, while Garrus was at the other end. Donelly and Daniels sat beside each other, closest to the window, and Adams and Vega sat closest to the doorway. Garrus saw Jane look directly at Adams and nod, frowning.

"Alright. What happened. Adams?"

"Whatever it was, it wasn't the Normandy's systems. Joker hit the mass relay at exactly the same timing that he always has. The theory was sound. Our systems surprisingly suffered no damage and no malfunction. The only conclusion I can come to is that the mass relays are missing something that the original schematics had."

"Like?"

"No idea Captain." the elderly engineer shrugged. "I don't specialize in mass relay theory, I specialize in drive cores. I'd have to actually have the schematics in my hands to figure out what was wrong, and even then I don't think we'd have the resources." He rubbed his wiry hands together and placed them on the table. "I'm sorry Captain."

"It was worth a shot." Jane wearily replied. She looked at Donelly and Daniels. "How about you two? Any theories on how we survived that crap?"

"A ruddy miracle." The scottish male replied.

"Ken..." Gabby growled and then she looked at the Captain. "I think we can thank Joker for that. The ship is recording a sudden reverse of the thrusters within a second of accelerating to FTL speeds. Joker must have realized that something was wrong before the rest of us did. If he hadn't acted as quickly as he did, we'd probably all be pulp."

Garrus usually felt uncomfortable when he couldn't control the dangerous situations. Space travel was one of them. He felt a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach as Gabby continued.

"I'm not sure I entirely understand. Why a reverse of the thrusters? Wouldn't that send us the other direction?"

"No." Gabby replied. "About halfway to a destination, pilots are required to reverse the thrusters in order to decelerate enough to not be completely destroyed upon arrival. Instead of waiting until halfway, the minute that things went out of control, Joker reversed the thrusters and that's why we're in Sigurd's Cradle and not in the voids of space." Gabby smiled. "Although, interestingly enough, we were travelling fast enough that we could have covered thirty light years in about a day."

Garrus blinked. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. That's about the recorded speed of Reaper travel."

Jane, Vega and Garrus looked baffled, meanwhile Donelly and Adams had grim looks of understanding on their faces. Garrus heard Jane ask, "Could we even live through that over an extended period of time?"

"Nope, but a Reaper could." Donelly quipped.

There was a long pause from everyone at the table. Garrus himself was trying to wrap his head around the information. They could make their way back via the mass relay, but it was almost a certain death to do so. Hopefully the researchers who had been recording their mission either knew what happened or knew well enough not to send out a team after them, so a message back to the Alliance would hardly be an issue. Now they just had to figure out how to get home... and preferably how to do it before these people's grandchildren were the ones flying the ship home.

He heard Donelly pipe up again. "Captain, we've also got a small problem. Th' speed o' th' travel almost overloaded our FTL drive. If we don' get th' element zero static discharged soon... well... th' hull will fry us. An' I dunno 'bout you, but I don' like th' smell o' fried human."

"Or turian." Garrus rumbled quietly.

"Aye, aye, turian's pretty bad smellin' too."

Garrus watched Jane's face grow sullen and he saw her stare at Donelly. "How much longer do we have?"

"Well, we definitely won' be able ta make 'nother mass relay jump." Donelly replied. "Other than tha', I think we'll be okay until we can find a dockin' station."

"So, a planet or a planet-sized mass." Garrus murmered. He pressed a button on the desk and brought up a three dimensional and interactive map of the galaxy. Then he tapped his middle finger on the top left hand corner, bringing up the Terminus Systems, and zoomed in the sights until he found Sigurd's Cradle. He frowned quietly.

"Well, we're nearby a fuel depot. It should have a docking station." His mandibles were clenched to his face as he stared at the map.

All of the time that the six had been talking, James Vega had stayed uncharacteristically silent. The normally chatty and joking Vega had become a little bit quieter since he had gotten back from his first round of N7 training. Maybe the thought of not being able to complete it had sobered the Latino man a bit. But he spoke now and directed his gaze at Gabby... if one thing could be said, it was that James had an easier time talking to the ladies, even still.

"Is there any way we could get some kind of... I dunno... whatever info you guys need off of the mass relay?"

Gabby blinked. "The one we just came through? We wouldn't be able to analyze it without the proper facilities. I don't see much of a point."

"It'll help our scientists when we get home." Vega countered.

"If we get home." Donelly retorted.

"There's no if." Jane replied firmly, silencing the argument before it even began. She looked at the three younger crew members and then glanced at Adams. "Would there be a point to seeing if we could analyze the mass relay?"

Adams shook his head. "I wouldn't risk it. We don't know what could happen if we get too close. We could do a long-range scan, but that's something our scanners should've already done automatically." He seemed to ponder the situation for a minute. Garrus watched him place his index finger as a cup around his chin. "Perhaps we could get a short-range scan when and if we use that as our method for getting home."

"I don't think that's happening for a long time." Jane inputted. "If we attempt that kind of thing, we need Joker, and Joker's not in the best shape." She looked to Vega, and then Garrus. Garrus and Jane locked eyes for a moment, and Garrus couldn't help but feel hopelessly lost. This was something that he would've needed more time to think about... he was the type to wait for the perfect opportunity, and they couldn't afford that kind of time. His confusion seemed to translate to his face, or at least translate for someone who could actually read turian emotions. Jane picked up on it immediately and turned her head to Vega.

"Any ideas, Vega?"

"None, Lola." James' brow furrowed in frustration. "The best we can do is maybe find an allied colony? See what provisions we can get, and then travel from fuel depot to fuel depot? It's what Garrus had us do when we got shipwrecked on Eden Prime..."

Garrus felt Jane's eyes on him and he felt considerably uncomfortable. Tali had told Jane that Garrus lead the mission to answer her distress signal, but Garrus couldn't remember if Jane had been told the part about shipwrecking on Eden Prime. He coughed quietly. "It wasn't long after you destroyed the Reapers. The whiplash of the beam broke our FTL speed and Joker landed us on Eden Prime."

"Landed? We crashed."

"We'd be dead if it weren't for him." Garrus scolded Vega. Vega fell silent, and Garrus looked at Jane. "We stopped at every fuel depot we could until we got back to the Sol Systems. But that was a week trip. This... this will take us much longer if we can't get that mass relay operational." He raised an eye ridge and saw Jane nod solemnly.

There was a long pause again, one that was filled with most of the people around the table staring at anywhere but each other. Then, Jane let out a long sigh. "Alright. Adams... could there be a potential way to, instead of changing the mass relay to suit our needs, we adapt to the needs of the mass relay? Is there any way that we can get back through that relay alive with the right calibrations, the right modifications?"

"I..." Adams thought for a moment and then he grimaced. He shook his head. "Captain, I'd have to have more time to think about that. Maybe there's a way, maybe not. If there is, the clue isn't coming to me."

Jane nodded. "Right. Well. That's your homework. I want to know if there's any way possible before I send us all on a trek across the galaxy." She looked at Garrus. "Garrus, our guns. Are they operational?"

Garrus barked a laugh. "Does Jane Shepard spit in Death's eye? Yes, Captain, the guns are perfectly fine. I calibrated them myself."

"I know. You're incredibly fond of them if memory serves. Something about them being a love."

He deserved that.

"We may need them. We're going to fly this ship into the fuel depot and refuel. Hopefully we can get grounded while we're there as well so that we don't fry in our sleep. Then, after that, we're going to go to Franklin."

Garrus frowned. He remembered Franklin. He remembered getting into a scuffle with batarians on that moon, and having only five minutes to input a kill switch to Javelin missiles. In the end, it had come down to Shepard making a choice between saving the spaceport and thus resources, or saving thousands of civilian lives. She had done the noble thing and chose to save those lives.

"What will we do there? The spaceport's blown up, remember?"

"There are two Alliance spaceports on that moon. We're going to the one that's not in smithereens." Jane replied with a hint of sarcasm. The woman leaned over the table and pressed a button on the top of it. "Miss Traynor, if you could send a message to General Carlos Newt of the Alliance base Franklin, inform them that the SSV Normandy SR-2 is inbound on their location and is requesting to dock."

"Yes ma'am." Traynor's voice crackled through the speaker. "ETA?"

"Within twenty-four hours."

"Yes ma'am."

Jane straightened herself up and Garrus looked at the other four around the table. Each had a grim look on their face, and Garrus thought that he probably didn't look much better. There wasn't a good chance that they were getting out of this without some kind of sacrifice.

"Get me as much information on what's happened as you can. James, I want you ready for the away party. Gabriella..." Garrus spotted the woman sit up straighter and spotted the look of surprise on her face. "I'll be taking you with me if I have need of an engineer. Be ready."

"Wha... Gabby?!" Donelly yelped. The Scotsman stared at his girlfriend.

"Donelly, Gabby volunteered for the away teams."

"I hadn't told him yet." Daniels commented quietly.

Donelly looked like he was about ready to explode with protest. Garrus sighed and placed one hand on the engineer's shoulder. He knew what was going through Kenneth's mind, in a sense. He had always known that Jane could handle herself in danger, but there wasn't ever a time where he didn't have the aching feeling of worry... especially after Jane's death.

"Donelly... now's not the time. We need her. We'll keep her safe. We look out for each other on the away missions. She'll be fine. Remember, she's still a soldier."

"Fat load o' comfort." Donelly grumbled.

Garrus laughed quietly, his harmonic tones resonating throughout the room. "Trust me, I know. It sucks when someone you care about is reckless-"

Garrus heard a grumble from Jane and yet he barrelled through anyway.

"- but you just got to trust that they'll come back safe. And Daniels will come back safe if we ever take her. Understand me?"

"... aye." Donelly replied in a small and insecure tone.

An ensign by the name of James Richards had taken Joker's spot at the helm. It was a smooth sail to the closest fuel depot, one without many problems at all. So, while Jane couldn't be with Joker, a few of the other crew members had made it their job to check on their favourite pilot. However, Garrus knew that it drove the good doctor absolutely crazy to have so many people come to visit. So Garrus normally kept his visits short, coming only to make sure he was still stable and to check on his progress.

"Thankfully, he's taking to the medigel this time. It will be a fast mending of his bones... probably right in time for him to break them again." Dr. Chakwas reported to Garrus. She frowned. "He hasn't been taking his medication lately. I'll need to speak to him about that."

"Do you know why?" Garrus asked.

"Honestly? He probably became so accustomed to EDI reminding him to take his pills, he forgot. Or he doesn't have the heart to keep his treatment up anymore, in which case, things became quite a bit more complicated." She frowned and looked at Garrus. "He tries, Garrus, but I worry for him. I've never seen him so depressed."

"We all worry about him." Garrus commented. He stared at the unconscious man, who had his right arm in a splint and his chest bound. His customary ball cap wasn't on his head, and his head was showing short brown hair that matched his scruffy beard. He looked away from Joker and rubbed the back of his neck, sighing quietly.

"Can't you speak with him?"

"Me?" Garrus snapped his head back to look at Chakwas. "Why me?"

"Haven't you gone through the loss of a lover before?" Dr. Chakwas frowned as she folded her arms. Garrus blinked.

"Not... really. I found her within a week." Garrus reminded Chakwas. He assumed that she was referring to when Jane had destroyed the Reapers, and the fact that everyone thought her to be dead. But Chakwas shook her head.

"No... I mean when she actually died."

Garrus' mandibles twitched a little, but it wasn't a smile on his face... it was confusion. "I don't think I follow. I wasn't involved with Shepard at that time." But he saw Chakwas wave her hand in front of her face, dismissing his argument.

"Garrus, anyone could have seen the respect that you had for her. She was your teacher, and if Omega was any indication, you cared for her more than that." Garrus' ears were ringing with alarm, but Chakwas continued on. "You... when you were injured by that missile on Omega, you said a couple of things in your sleep-"

Garrus raised his hands. "Look... Doctor, I don't want to know. Keep it between us... or... rather in your head. I'll see what I can do for Joker when he wakes up, if you think it's that important." Garrus felt incredibly uncomfortable now, and wanted nothing more then to get the hell out of the med bay. "You know where to find me if you need me." He said in parting, and then he briskly walked out of the med bay, leaving what was probably either a knowledgeable or confused Chakwas to tend to Joker.

When the doors shut behind him, he stood still in front of it with his back to the door. He closed his eyes and took a breath. The problem was that Chakwas had hit too close to the mark. While he wasn't in love with Jane at the time, or at least he thought he wasn't, Jane had been a big influence on his life. Jane had been his mentor, had taught him how to feel empowered yet still adhere to the rules. When reports came in that the Normandy had been destroyed, Garrus HAD gone to Omega to escape the memories... but at the time, he was just grieving a lost mentor and friend. What he had found there had changed his life forever... had given him a purpose again, until Jane came back to life two years later. He found teammates to lead, he found a reason to keep existing; to clean up the shafts and alleys of Omega. Otherwise, he was just a washed-up C-Sec officer who was incredibly unhappy with the way his life was turning. Saren had given him an adrenaline rush to track down and apprehend. Jane had given him teachings that he would probably take to his grave, teachings in morality and respect.

But Chakwas had mentioned that he mentioned her in his delirious state, after he had been shot. He had mentioned Jane?

Was that why when she started to hit on him not long after that incident that he had been so accepting of it?

Garrus frowned and shook his head. He had no time to think about this sort of crap. They had to get back to Citadel space. He'd use all these emotional feelings later, when he had to. He gathered his calm and zen, taking a deep breath, and then exhaling. Then he walked towards the CIC.

When he arrived on the CIC Deck, he saw Jane hunched over her private terminal and facing away from her. But Garrus knew her better; although he teased her that he would always be the better shot, he knew how good the infiltrator's senses were. He walked towards her and stopped on her right hand side, keeping his hands behind his back respectfully.

"Status?" Jane asked him. He saw her look up and he grew worried when he saw a slightly haunted look on her face. This was not going to be a good week for Jane Shepard. He decided to make the report as positive as he could.

"Joker's body is responding well to the treatment. Chakwas is not entirely sure when he'll open his eyes but he'll definitely live to fly another day." Garrus reassured her. He didn't mention that Joker hadn't been taking his medication and that his injuries may have been preventable, or at least less severe. That was something that Jane didn't need for the mission. He looked around the deck, where people were running around and working furiously. "Status up here?"

"Proceeding as planned. We're inbound on Franklin now." Jane said. But Garrus heard the apprehension in her voice, and raised an eye ridge.

"But?" He prompted.

He saw Jane sigh and close her eyes. "But General Newt hasn't answered our transmissions." She shook her head. "Which means... well... it could mean quite a lot. But something is either preventing our messages from going onto the moon..."

"Or something is jamming their signal out of the moon." Garrus frowned and folded his arms. "What's your theory?"

"Something is jamming them." Jane said firmly. "There's more reasons for a potential jam on their end, and it's not just sabotage. Solar conditions, malfunctions in their systems... it could be anything."

"Captain," Richards' high voice piped through the speakers. "You may want to take a look at this."

"What is it?" Jane asked as she walked around the Galaxy Map towards the cockpit. Garrus was following on her five, as he normally did.

"It looks like a turian vessel?" the confused ensign replied.

"A what." Garrus rumbled in disbelief. He caught up to Jane's right hand side and the two of them shot glances at each other. Both were trying to figure out whether the other could make more sense of the situation. Garrus quickly saw that Jane was just as lost as he was. At least that was a good thing. He wasn't the only one completely in the dark.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's-"

"-the same build as a Heirarchy vessel." Richards, a tiny lad of Egyptian descent, no long had to speak over the speakers, because Jane and Garrus had entered the cockpit. They leaned like mirror images over Richards' chair, making the small man probably feel very uncomfortable. Garrus peered at the ship and frowned.

"Yeah, that's definitely Turian." He ran a talon along the hull of the ship. "That hull proves it. See the resemblance to the Normandy?"

"A little, I guess. What's it doing all the way out here?"

Garrus raised a hand to the comm link on his head. "Traynor, try to flag that ship. I'd like to speak with their commanding officer."

"They're already ahead of you."

"SSV Normandy, this is the XO of the HSS Menae. State your business." A hollow and crackly high voice came through the speakers. Garrus immediately picked it out as a female voice.

"You first." Garrus countered. He motioned for Jane to remain silent, to which Jane obliged with a look of unease. "What is the HSS Menae doing so far from Citadel space? Aren't you a ship of the TEC?"

"The wha...?" Richards whispered to Jane.

"Turian Engineering Corps." Jane muttered back quietly.

"Oh."

"Yes. We have been sent on a specific investigation of the Far Rim. Our understanding was that the SSV Normandy was still docked in Citadel space. State your business."

Garrus grimaced. People thought that he was a stick in the mud... dealing with his own people usually showed the humans he associated with how easy-going he was.

"Honestly? We're lost. We were testing a mass relay connection between two Systems Alliance relay points, and instead of landing in the Exodus Cluster, our ship malfunctioned and we were sent here to Sigurd's Cradle. We just want to dock here to gather some supplies while we try to figure out what to do."

There was a long pause and then finally the voice came back through the speakers. "That's going to be a problem, SSV Normandy."

"Are we going to have a problem here, Menae?" Garrus asked sharply.

"You misunderstand me. We won't stop you, but that spaceport is compromised."

Garrus registered the look of alarm on the other two humans in the cockpit and frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I think it would be better to speak in person about it. Requesting permission to board."

"Granted." Garrus replied without hesitation. The comm link turned off and Garrus glanced over at Jane, who was now looking incredibly alarmed.

"Compromised... how the hell...?"

"They'll explain once they get aboard, I guess."

It wasn't long before a walkway extended between the two ships and their airlocks. Garrus and Jane remained by the door and spent most of it in awkward silence. Then, the door hissed open.

Out emerged three turians, and Garrus could easily spot that one of them was female. All of them were helmeted and wearing black armor. The one in the middle took off her helmet, and Garrus stood in shocked silence.

"Hello Garrus. I thought you'd be the one I was talking to." The female turian had the same shade as Garrus, and the same blue clan markings. She had a far thinner face than Garrus, and lacked a crest at the back of her head, but otherwise had close to the same build and height as Garrus. Her mandibles were flaring, showing a giant smile on her face. Garrus finally found his words and beamed.

"Solana!"

CHAPTER NOTES

I finally got my Solana in. Now to fit in more Joker.