Author's Notes - Guys I love you. So please, I am here on my knees before you begging, please follow, favorite, and most importantly review. I must know how I am doing in your eyes as writing stories isn't exactly a strong suit, even anonymous reviews are fine. Just tell me what you think. That is all:)

Chapter 6

No Shepard Without Vakarian

As Shepard looks in the mirror in the bathroom, she buttons up the shirt of her dark blue and gold Alliance uniform. Her long jet black hair flows over the collar of her uniform as she collects it to put into a bun to fit dress regulations. Her light blue eyes penetrate the eyes of her reflection and peer right into her soul, as the saying goes. She looks at the slight scar that runs across her jaw, still not healed from the procedures to help heal the damage that she hadn't remembered at all. A slight knock on the door breaks her concentration on herself.

A slight Turian hum penetrates the door, " Are you ready?"

She puts the makeshift tube ring that Garrus had made her on-the-fly as he doesn't and she doesn't expect him to know everything about Human marriage customs, but he did promise to replace the ring with something more adequate when they get out of the hospital. As she opens the door she surprises Garrus as he's about to rap his hand on the door again.

" Are all Humans this slow when they get ready, or is it just you?" he jokes as he moves closer and nuzzles under Shepard's chin as he so often does. " We need to get out. I promised you I would get you an actual ring," he says as he holds her hand with the tube ring up with their fingers intertwined together.

She moves her free hand to the back of his head and massages his hide as she responds, " It's all of us to answer your question, and lets go, I want go get this ring shopping out of the way and find something else for us to do."

" God damn it's hot," Shepard says as she tries to adjust her uniform as she exits the safety of the rented skycar into the heat of the San Diego sun. Gars follows and huffs at her comment on the weather.

It's cool here. If you thinks it's hot here, just wait until you get to Palavan, he thinks as he exits the car.

They walk the short distance in the war-torn downtown to a small open air market that had decided to reopen. Probably to service the many Alliance personnel who work to get the city back up and running, or the remaining aliens that had decided to not relocate with the rest of their races as the mass relays were being repaired.

As they walked up to the market Shepard had stopped and look at the broken glass of one of the giant skyscrapers of the city that had not been destroyed from the Reaper invasion. She walked up to the building slowly, noticing the dirt and grime that had stuck to the glass, making it hard to see herself or inside the building. She lifted her hand and ran it across the smooth glass to remove the grime to be able to look at her face. As her eyes adjusted to the sunlight she was able to fully see herself in the glass.

She looks at her face, staring deep into the light blue eyes that looked back, finally noticing the small scar on her jaw, undoubtedly from the final push that she didn't remember.

As she tried to gain a better look at the scar, she started to get a flashback.


As the Normandy lifted off she turned around and started to sprint toward the beam in the middle of London. She looks up to see Harbinger's beam aim directly in her direction. "Oh, for fucks sakes," she yells as she sprints toward the beam. The noise of the beam being released breaks her concentration from the beam to Harbinger's attack.

She instantly felt intense heat from the charged beam of Harbinger coming to meet her. She had shut her eyes and thought about Garrus and how she was sorry for the hurt she was about to cause him. She was ready for the sizzling heat that had started to make her shields pop and crackle because of the energy overload.

As she steeled herself for the beam to hit her, she was pushed back by an overwhelming force, making the beam narrowly miss her and disintegrating where she was standing.

She felt warm liquid covering her face and reached up to find a piece of shrapnel had pierced her jaw and was the source of her bleeding. As she was laying down she had looked over to the area she was a minute ago to see a smoldering Mako, the source of the shrapnel.

At that point she was starting to lose consciousness. Her vision had started to get blurry and as she closed her eyes she whispers as she watches the Normandy lift off, "Garrus."


As she came to in front of the building she looked past herself and saw Garrus leaning on a car staring at her back. She let out a slight smile that she was sure that the Turian couldn't see in the glass. She turns around quickly to walk back to the tall, uncomfortable Turian among the sea of Alliance personnel. He dismounts the side of the car and calls out, " What's so funny? Never seen a Turian in a sea of Humans?"

" No, but I've been the Human in a sea of Turians before. Let's get going."

Garrus rumbles in approval and follows her lead as he can't read any of the signs without his visor. The visor had been destroyed in the final push and he hadn't noticed until Laura had pointed it out. You'd think after wearing it for so long you'd feel naked without it, but when the one you love is in trouble, you don't care about anything else, he thinks as he easily keeps up with Laura who stops at every storefront she sees.

She finally stops in front of a store and as she walks in, motions for Garrus to follow her in. As he lifts up his omni-tool to access the camera to translate the stores name. Spirits, how have I ever survived without the visor, he groans as he waits for the translation suite to run on the picture.

Saronis Applications

Of course she would think of solving his visor issue before even thinking of getting a ring like a normal marriage would have in Human customs.

As he walked in she was already talking to the man behind the counter about software upgrades and getting a discount. O Spirits, just like on the Citadel, he muses as he shakes his head on approach.

"… I actually want to enquire about getting a visor with a targeting and omni-tool suites custom made and fitted for him," she motions to Garrus as he walks up to the counter.

The human slowly looks up to his face and lets out a small smile, " Sure, just let me take measurements and I can actually have it made in a few minutes. I still have a lot of stock so there's little wait for parts as no one really is in the market for software upgrades," he says as he motions to a chair for Garrus to get his measurements. " You're the first Turian I've ever made one of these for. Do you want anything special on your visor?"

Gars doesn't have to think hard about what he would want to customize the visor. " Yes, An engraving in Human English and Turian Script."

" That I can do, if you provide the Turian Script that is."

As the owner finishes the measurements and inputs them into the printer, Shepard is waiting at the door, pacing as she looks at her omni-tool. " What did you want engraved?" he asks as he pulls out his omni-tool.

" There's no Shepard without Vakarian," Garrus says as he holds out his omni-tool for the owner to copy from the Turian Script displayed on the screen. When he's done Garrus heads over to Shepard engrossed in her tool as he approaches. " What's wrong?"

" Nothing, just reading through the reports Hackett sent me. Loss reports, resettlement, stuff like that." She moves to the side and looks into the store, " Is it done?"

" Yea, he's just adding engravings to it, and before you ask I will not tell you yet," he says as he swivels around to head to the counter as he sees the owner move to the counter with the new visor.

" Try it on and power it up to see if it's good."

Gars carefully fits the visor on his head, which was still hot from the printing of the harness. He moves one clawed talon to the back and presses the power toggle. Half of his vision turns to the blue hue of the Vakarian clan colors. Human and Turian text scrolls over the visor as all the systems turn on.

System Diagnostics engaged. Welcome Garrus_Vakarian. Omni-tool link engaged. Weapon Link engaged. Language suite engaged.

The visor had a narrator unlike his old one. A very familiar narrator, he chuckles as the voice of Laura fills his ear in filing reports on the visor.

" So how much for it," Garrus asks as me pulls out his credit chit from the breast pocket of his civvies.

" Free. I know who you two are and I'm sure after all you've been through you don't want to be seen as heroes, only normal soldiers. So, you won't see me making a fuss over who you guys are, but let me at least pay you back in some way for fighting for us."

Garrus slowly puts away his chit and collects the box for in and motions in silent thanks to the owner which he returns as Garrus leaves the counter.

As Garrus approaches the door he lets out a slight rumbling to Shepard, still engrossed in her tool, " Ready to go?"

" Yea," she replies as she looks up to see him with the visor on. She reaches up to cup the right side of his face, " What's the engraving?" she asks as she tries to squint to see the small characters on the side of the visor.

" No Shepard without Vakarian," he whispers as he leans down to nuzzle her neck as they head out hand in hand.