Garrus had been given approval to leave the apartment as long as he kept to the Guard's common areas. He was under strict orders that were he to discover any of the other Guard's identities that he wasn't to ever call them by anything other than their code names. It was easy for him for everyone except for Jane. He couldn't reconcile her new self with her old – they were apparently quite different.
Where Jane had been loud and boisterous, Oya was not. She was more reserved in front of groups, her presence no longer as commanding. She still had the aura of leadership and command, but it was more subtle. The others followed her lead without her having to give any orders; it was just natural for them.
He also noticed that when other members of the Guard seemed to have problems, she did not volunteer herself to help them as she once would. He wasn't sure if that was simply because they had earlier agreed that she wouldn't help, or if she simply never offered. He couldn't fathom her not offering, but something Stryder had said in passing made him think that it was the latter.
Stryder had noticed Garrus' surprise when one of the asari guards had been upset and speaking to the group about her daughter and how she had gotten herself into trouble and the Guard was upset that she couldn't do anything about it. Oya just patted her hand compassionately and then walked out of the room.
Stryder moved to follow her and made the offhand comment, "She's spent her life helping others and got jack shit for it." It's wasn't some profound statement, but Garrus caught the message loud and clear. She had been used up by her friends and had been abandoned when she needed them and was no longer going to offer herself up that way anymore.
It wasn't until Garrus had joined Stryder and Jane at the gym that he truly realized how much he didn't know about his one-time lover. Stryder was lifting weights while music blared from the tumbling room. He asked what the heck the noise was when Stryder put down his weights and walked over to him.
"Have you ever seen Oya dance?" He asked. Stryder refused to refer to her as Jane to him, only referring to her as her call name. Garrus was never sure if it was because he was trying to help him get used to calling her that, or if he simply didn't feel he was worthy of calling her by her real name.
"Dance? Jane never danced, at least not well." He remembered her stuttered two-step fondly and how they all ribbed her for it regularly. She did do exercises in the shuttle bay that hinted at better coordination than she produced on the dance floor, but she never actually danced well.
"Mmm, something tells me you didn't know her as well as you thought you did." Stryder said softly as Garrus snapped his head to the other turian. He was about to argue the point when Stryder gestured to the tumbling room.
Garrus' curiosity won out over his burst of rage as he peered around the corner. He wasn't expecting to see anything revelation inspiring and was fully prepared to go back in to the weight room and belt Stryder in the face for the insult.
Instead he was met with a sight he had never thought he would see. Sure enough, it was Jane… Dancing. The music he recognized as a classical mix, instruments with synthesized beats added to it. She was gracefully moving about the room, going up on her toes and spinning. He recognized the dance as "ballet". Jane had watched some performances on her private vid screen when she still had the Normandy.
Jane had never once insinuated that she could dance, especially not like that. She had always said that she never liked being on public display and he always assumed it was because of her childhood with the Reds. She had alluded that she was used for entertainment purposes – he just never assumed dancing was one of those purposes.
He truly didn't know her as well as he had thought and that scared him. Had she never been comfortable around him enough to share herself like this? Had there simply never been an opportunity? In truth he had never seen her in a gym by herself, with free use of the facilities as she did here. Maybe she would have shown him had the circumstances been right, but that didn't explain why she never told him at least.
They had been talking about adopting kids, about a life together, but somehow it didn't seem as tangible as her showing Stryder a part of herself that Garrus never saw. For the first time since he had reinserted himself in Jane's life he felt like he might not actually get her back. That she had given herself so completely to someone else that he had no hopes of winning her back.
The feeling quickly overwhelmed him and he knew that he needed to remove himself from the gym. Without a word he walked out and back up to his apartment. He had received his order of brandy earlier in the day and he felt it was high time that he inundated himself with the alcohol.
Stryder watched the emotions play over Vakarian's face. He had talked with Jane and knew that she hadn't told anyone the details of her past, but he didn't know how Vakarian would react to learning that maybe he didn't know everything about Jane Shepard. He had expected more anger directed at him for the way he rubbed it in his face, but instead Vakarian just walked out of the gym.
Stryder almost felt bad for him… Almost. It wasn't a unique situation for two turians to want to mate with the same woman; in fact it was quite a frequent occurrence. The only strange factor in this situation was that the woman was a human, but their bodies weren't differentiating her from any other turian. They were both releasing their hormones as if she could read them and were both challenging one another any chance they got.
Stryder was playing for keeps with Jane and he knew that he had the upper hand at the moment. The only thing he was worried about was that Jane seemed to be warming up to Vakarian again. Ever since Sparatus sent out the notice informing them of Vakarian's situation with Quinela and it had warmed some of the frost between them.
That wasn't to say that it was all flowers and sweets between them, she simply wasn't being as dismissive as she had originally been. She had been including him in conversations more and more and it was starting to raise Stryder's hackles.
Had he more time before Vakarian's grand re-entrance he would have simply proposed to Jane already… But, they hadn't been dating that long and he wasn't sure she would accept with this new development.
Jane was nothing if not careful. She still had deep feelings for Vakarian and Stryder couldn't fault her for that. Hell, had he been in a similar situation he doubted that he would have been able to make the decree that he wasn't going anywhere. But she had, so he took a measure of comfort in that.
He knew that things would be up in the air until she worked through her own feelings and he just needed to ensure that he was there for her. She had been ready to marry Vakarian, she had wanted to, and he had been her family since she was resurrected by Cerberus. It was hard not to forgive family when you found out their wrongs weren't their fault.
He was thinking himself into a small depression and simply decided to act on his need. He strode confidently out of the weight room and caught her mid-spin. He quickly pressed his forehead to hers and smiled when he heard her answering peaceful sigh. This was where he belonged and he would be damned if someone else was going to remove him from her side.
Jane didn't really know what to think of the situation as it stood. She had been furious with Garrus when he stalked right up to her and touched her as if nothing had happened, but then she read Sparatus' message about the circumstances in which Garrus had found herself and she found her anger dissipated quite a bit.
She couldn't fault him for what had happened, but it didn't change that it had happened. She had initially felt bad for not trusting him, but she knew that she was working off of the same knowledge as everyone else and everyone had assumed he had moved on. She couldn't be angry about that, just as she couldn't fault her own reaction and her own attempt to move on.
If she were honest, she loved both Garrus and Tiberius. She loved them in different ways and she was certain that she would be happy with either… But, she couldn't have both of them and she was still hurt by what Garrus had done. Intentions aside, she saw the news reels, she saw the pictures of him with Quinela and they had hurt her deeply.
Maybe this is a sign that I need to further move on from my old life? She thought to herself. Maybe she just needed to cut the ties and let Garrus find love with someone who wouldn't have the baggage she had.
Her thoughts were interrupted when Tiberius stopped her mid-dance and pressed his head to hers. She felt the relief and comfort from the gesture and felt herself relax into his embrace. He knew more about her than anyone else had and cared for her regardless. Besides, she wasn't sure how committed Tiberius was to her, it wasn't a conversation they had engaged in yet.
She knew that he wanted her now, and that he was committed to her for now, but the extent of that commitment was still unspoken. She liked it that way, it was less pressure on her to work through her emotions and she had a feeling Tiberius had left it that way on purpose just for that reason.
"I lo…" She opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off from a ping to their omni-tools. There was a lead on the merc teams that had been attacking the Council and they were given separate assignments to investigate.
They smiled at one another and she kissed him in her human fashion before they separated and left to get ready for their missions.
Oya worked her way through the docking bay crowds easily, her cloak keeping her from sight and all she had to do was dodge unsuspecting travelers. The ship in question had similar designs to the one she and Stryder had investigated earlier in the week and it raised her suspicions.
This time there were guards outside of the airlock and they were keenly watching the maintenance and delivery crews. She silently walked right up and past them to see if she could get on to the ship unseen. Unfortunately, she couldn't. Even with the guards the door was sealed and there were no obvious maintenance passages near the hatch. Moreover, the guards were being guarded themselves by a security camera.
She could disable the camera and then the guards, but she would need a quick exit route on to the ship and she couldn't spot one from where she stood. Instead, she propped herself behind the guards and listened in on their conversation.
"The boss said she had something to do and then she was going to need the ship ready for a quick departure, do you think we'll have to shoot anyone?" Guard one, a hanar said to two, a krogan. Guard two grunted his reply, "I doubt it. You know the boss doesn't like to draw attention to us unless it's absolutely necessary. We'll probably just need to clear a path as she gets back to the ship. She said this was going to be a big hit, so I think she'll want to clear Citadel space before anyone can point a finger."
For some reason Oya's skin rose in goosebumps as she listened to the conversation. So they were here to assassinate someone. She wondered if they were going to go after the entire Council.
"Stryder, they're here for a hit. I've sent word to Sparatus." She buzzed through their private comm as she started to move away from the ship. She could delay their boss' movement back towards the ship but she needed to figure out what she was going to do in the meantime.
"Yeah, I'm following a contingent of them headed towards the warehouse district. One female turian surrounded by two krogan, I can't see their faces. I'm going to continue to tail them."
He was sounding cocky and it added to her discomfort. "I'm going to join you, I've sent word to Sparatus so he'll get the additional Guards and have everyone secure. I don't like this." She was already rushing through the Citadel as she spoke. She heard him click off his comm and she pushed herself faster.
He wasn't arguing with her about them not staying split up as he would normally do, so she knew that he was feeling off about the situation as well. Vakarian would have Sparatus' back and she could focus on having Stryder's.
She really had very little clue on where she was going except for Warehouse District and she was cursing Stryder for not giving her a bay number before he logged off. She was going to have to individually search each warehouse for any signs of him since she couldn't risk an omni-ping giving his presence away to the group he was following.
She had just cleared the commerce floors of the Citadel and was about to enter the warehouse airlock when her omni-tool pinged with an emergency beacon. Her heart stopped the moment she recognized who's beacon code it was – it was Stryder's.
There were no life readings accompanying the signal and that meant that either there were no signs to report or it was malfunctioning. She was praying to every God she had ever heard of that it was malfunctioning.
She forgot her cloak as she raced through the corridors, her target on the other side of the warehouse. Of course it isn't close! She thought angrily to herself. She got notice that the backup teams were already on route and that a medical team was closely following them. She sent one of the backup teams to cover the ship in the docking bay as she realized that this was probably the hit they were talking about.
Take down one of the Elite Guard and publish who it was. It was a perfect way to discredit the Council by accusing them of keeping secrets, keeping the best of the best in regards to Spectres to themselves. She hopes and prayed that she was wrong, but it's what she would do had she been so inclined.
She finally reached the door and had to hack her way through, wasting precious minutes breaking through the door's digital locks. Once through it didn't take her long to spy her fallen partner and even less time for her horror to become reality.
His mask had been forcibly removed and his eyes were opened halfway. He was lying in a growing pool of blue and there was a large, gaping hole in the torso of his armor. She absently thought that they had to be close and the weapon had to have been a very high caliber to break through his shields so quickly. They would have had to have hit him on the first shot for him not to throw a barrier and find cover. They knew how he fought, which meant they had been watching him.
Jane couldn't breathe right and she knew her own suit would soon send off a warning for elevated blood pressure and limited oxygen, but she didn't give a damn. All she could focus on was that Tiberius was dead. She wasn't fast enough and didn't get there in time. She had lost someone else, someone wholly more important to her than anyone she had lost before.
Her screams were silenced by her helmet, but her agony could still be witnessed in the way she fell to her knees and crawled to Tiberius' body. She was covered in his blood by the time she pulled his head up in to her lap and cradled his body best she could.
This is a nightmare, it isn't real. She chanted to herself over and over again, she wouldn't let herself believe this was really happening. Not now, not ever.
The backup team found her like that and quickly sent live feed to Sparatus. He couldn't help the keen of remorse and pain escape into the air that alerted his comrades to the situation. Tevos was the first to react by placing her hand on his shoulder. She knew how close Oya and Stryder were and knew that this was a huge blow to Oya as well as the Elite Guard.
Garrus' attention was drawn away from watching the exits to the omni-vid screen Sparatus' attention was drawn too. He saw Oya's prone form clutching at a body swathed in blue. It was then that Sparatus activated the private comm through the video and they could all hear the tearful, "No, no" that Oya kept reciting.
The only thing Garrus felt was burning rage at whoever had killed Stryder. Yes, he had wanted to oust the man from Jane's side, but not kill him and certainly not break her in the process. He had never witnessed her react the way she was now to a teammate's death and he was scared that this may break her fully. All he could think was, "Not now, not this way. I didn't want it to be this way."