The three humans walked quietly into the non-descript looking building.
This was the place, the spot where Aria T'Loak, the ruler of Omega, had told them to report to. The meeting had been arranged through her channels when they'd realised that finding their target using standard Cerberus intel would be impossible.
No surprise. This was Archangel they were talking about, after all.
Commander Shepard glanced at her omni-tool. They were five minutes early.
In spite of herself, Shepard had to admit she actually looked forward to meeting Archangel in person. The man was something of a legend, not just in Omega, but the Terminus systems as a whole. Not just any ordinary merc leader, he'd made a name for himself in just two years, showing a surgical precision to his operations that would've made an N7 proud. He was a galactic Robin Hood of sorts; the closest thing this lawless land had to a protector of innocents.
The fact that his dossier was right at the top of her list, alongside former STG Dr Mordin Solus, indicated that his reputation wasn't just hot air.
Still, Shepard always believed in seeing things for herself, rather than trusting someone else's opinions blindly.
At the exact time of their meeting, three figures moved out of the shadows and made their way towards Shepard's group.
They were a fairly odd group themselves. The man in the center, wearing cobalt blue armor, was undoubtedly a human. A krogan walked on his right, and on his left was another...wait, was that a drell?
Before Shepard could form an opinion on this strange team, they were already within hearing range.
"Archangel?" Shepard asked quietly.
The human stepped forward casually. "Who wants to know?"
Shepard simply cocked an eyebrow and glanced over at Miranda, who had a similar look of disbelief on her face.
Just how stupid do these guys think we are?
"I need to speak to Archangel."
"Well, you're looking at him," the man before her folded his arms and tilted his head at her cockily.
"Cut the crap!" Shepard snapped, losing her patience. "We know Archangel's a turian! Now do us all a favor and tell your boss to stop wasting our time!"
She made sure to speak the last three words extra loudly, aware that the real Archangel was somewhere nearby, watching their interaction.
The three figures before her stiffened slightly, making her feel almost bad for them. In another time, Shepard would have played along with their game, just for the hell of it. But ever since her resurrection, she'd been running rather low on patience.
"Shepard," Miranda said softly, a hint of warning in her voice. But she didn't really need it.
All around the, various shapes were beginning to show themselves. Two batarians, an asari, a female turian, two other humans...and a volus?
Miranda and Jacob moved closer together, biotics fired up. Shepard clenched her teeth in anger. Had Aria set them up on purpose?
"Stand down."
The voice was soft, but had a firm and commanding tone to it. The unmistakeable figure of a tall, armored turian walked out of the shadows, cradling a Mantis sniper rifle in his hands.
Shepard was actually impressed. Bastard had a bead on us all along!
Archangel stopped before her and the two Cerberus Operatives. A single gesture of his arm and everyone on his team had lowered their weapons, but not holstered them ('Smart', Shepard thought). He regarded them carefully for a few moments before he set aside his rifle and slowly removed his helmet.
Shepard felt her heart skip a beat.
"Shepard. I thought you were dead."
"Garrus?" she actually laughed. "Garrus, what the hell are you doing here?"
She spread her arms wide, moving forward to pull her friend into a hug. She honestly couldn't describe the feeling of happiness at the sight of her old comrade.
But her laughter died at the sight of the stiff expression on his face. He hadn't moved forward to greet her, instead he seemed frozen to his spot, as though fighting the urge to step away instead.
"You okay?" she asked.
"I've been better," he flared his mandibles in a tight smile. "Good to see a friendly face here. Killing mercs is hard work."
Shepard grinned at him. "About that, how did you manage to piss off every single merc organization in the Terminus systems?"
He chuckled slightly. "It wasn't easy. I had to work really hard at it. Fortunately, I didn't have to do it completely alone." He gestured to the men around him.
"What're you doing out here on Omega?" she asked curiously.
"I got fed up with all the bureaucratic crap on the Citadel. Figured I could do more good on my own." He seemed slightly more at ease now. "Turns out I'm not the only one who thinks so."
The human behind him, who'd previously been pretending to be Archangel, grunted in agreement. "At least it's not hard to find criminals here. All we gotta do is point our guns and shoot."
A murmur of soft laughter went around at this. Even Shepard smiled, glad to see that the tension was slowly disappearing.
"Since when did you start calling yourself 'Archangel' anyways?" she asked with a smirk.
Garrus actually looked embarrassed. "It's just a name the locals gave me, for all my good deeds. I don't mind it, but please...it's just 'Garrus' to you."
"Always so modest, isn't he?" the asari stage-whispered, eliciting another round of snickers.
Miranda cleared her throat loudly and looked pointedly at Shepard. She grimaced and turned around to face Garrus again, who had also gone back to being all business after throwing his asari subordinate a mild disapproving look.
"I'm putting together a team of sorts to investigate the recent human colony abductions." She decided to cut straight to the point. "We have reason to believe the Collectors are behind it. We're going after them."
"The Collectors?" Garrus looked thoughtful. "Going after them means going through the Omega-4 relay."
"I know. I've been told it's a 'suicide mission'." She smirked at him again. "Course I intend to prove them wrong."
Her smirk faded away when she realized he wasn't smiling. Turian expressions were always hard for her to read, but the way he looked at her, his face may as well have been carved in stone.
"So," she cleared her throat. "You coming along for the ride?" She hoped nobody else could make out the desperate plea in her voice at the end.
He continued to stare at her with that inscrutable expression on his face. "When you said 'we'," he said slowly. "Did you mean the Alliance or the Council?"
Shepard felt her throat clench in despair. This, right here, was the crux of the matter; the reason he was being so cagey. "No...I'm not working for the Alliance or the Council...not right now anyways. It's...complicated..."
"Oh for heaven's sake," Miranda muttered, finally having had enough of the drama. "Commander Shepard's mission is being funded by Cerberus!"
Damn you, Lawson! Shepard heard the tense silence following her pronouncement. She purposefully focused her attention on the turian standing before her, who still hadn't so much as twitched a mandible in surprise.
"Cerberus, Shepard?" he asked her softly. "You're working for Cerberus, now?"
"I'm working with them, Garrus," she corrected. "Not by choice, either. But they're the only ones willing to do anything about it."
"So," he drawled. "You faked your death to go and work for Cerberus, Shepard?"
"I didn't fake anything!" she snarled. Dammit, why was he being such an asshole? Didn't he know her better? "I was dead! Cerberus brought me back to fight against the Reapers!"
He actually laughed at her, a cold hollow laugh that chilled her to the core. "Really, Commander? Is that the best cover story you can come up with? 'I was dead but I came back'?" He shook his head bemusedly. "Just who are you trying to fool over here?"
"I'm not lying!" Shepard was outraged. "You honestly think I would lie about something like this?"
"That's just it, Shepard, I don't know what to think anymore!" he exploded. He paced angrily from side to side. "Two years! For two whole years you disappeared, making everyone believe you were dead; and now you turn up at my doorstep, acting like nothing's changed, when you're working with the very same people who killed my team all those years ago?"
She hung her head slightly. She knew Garrus would react like this when she'd mentioned Cerberus, but accusing her of faking her death?
Behind her, Jacob frowned. "Killed his team? What's he talking about?" he directed this to Miranda, who was also deep in thought.
"Bloody hell," she whispered. "Akuze."
"Exactly," Garrus nodded. "I'm glad to see someone within the organization still remembers, Operative Lawson."
"How do you know my name?" Miranda was stunned.
"Oh I know a lot more about Cerberus than most people, Ms Lawson, believe me." He smirked viciously at her. "Operatives Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor. I've been hunting you guys for a while now. I must say you've been rather difficult to get hold of."
"You've been looking for us?" Jacob glared at him heatedly.
"I make it my business to acquaint myself with as many Cerberus operatives as I can." There was an ominous note in his voice, one that sent chills up Shepard's spine.
"It's you!" Miranda gasped. "You're the one who's been attacking our bases for the last two years, killing all our researchers!"
"Very good!" he nodded approvingly at her.
"Do you have any idea of what you've done?" Miranda was incensed. "You've set some of our work back by decades! You've cost us so much in terms of manpower and resources! Do you have any idea how many innocent lives you've taken? How…"
"You misunderstand, Lawson," Garrus said coldly. "It's not that I do not know how much damage I've caused, it's that I do not care. As far as I'm concerned, if you choose to wear Cerberus' symbol proudly on your chest, you are guilty! And speaking of guilt," he looked at Shepard once again. "Tell me, Shepard, did you really destroy the Normandy SR1 just to keep your cover intact?"
"How dare you!" Shepard shrieked. "You're accusing me of staging the attack on the Normandy!" She couldn't believe her ears. "You really think I'd sink so low? You really think I'd put my crew, my friends in danger like that?"
"Friends?" Garrus snorted disdainfully. "You don't have friends, Shepard. You have pawns! That's all the Normandy's crew has ever been to you!"
She felt like he'd just slapped her in the face.
"I've never...I've never used you, Garrus! Any of you!" How could he even think otherwise!
"No? What do you call what you did to Wrex then?"
She felt her stomach churn horribly. Wrex's death on Virmire had been one of her greatest failures. She couldn't believe Garrus was throwing it in her face so casually!
"You know I did my best to talk Wrex down..."
"Save your crap, Shepard," he waved his hand dismissively. "You forget, I was there! I saw what you really did! While you distracted Wrex by pretending to talk to him, you had Williams sneak up behind him and blow his brains out!"
"That's not true!" she gasped. "I never...Ashley did that on her own..."
"Oh, save it! You really expect me to believe that a by-the-book marine like Williams would decide to kill Wrex all on her own, risking her CO's wrath? It was a setup, plain and simple." He shook his head in disgust. "You didn't even have the courtesy to do it to his face, did you?"
"I'll be the first to admit, I didn't like Wrex, but I respected the hell out of that old bastard! For him to die like that, shot in the back by a friend...he didn't deserve that, Shepard; and to think he actually respected you..."
"That was the day I realized what kind of a person you really were. That was the day I realized that no matter what we did, we non-humans would never be anything more than tools in your eyes! Tools for you to use and discard as you wished." He glared at her hatefully. "Frankly, I'm not even surprised you ended up in bed with Cerberus!"
"I'm nothing like them!" she spat in anger. "Dammit, Garrus! How can you compare me to...?"
"Why not? You've always chosen human interests over others', haven't you?"
Shepard blinked at him. What is he...?
He began pacing again. "You killed Wrex on Virmire because you couldn't control him anymore! You used Ashley Williams to do your dirty work, then left her behind with the salarians to die on Virmire, so that no one would ever find out! You sacrificed the Destiny Ascension so that human casualties would remain at a minimum: ten thousand lives gone so that your kind could rule over the galaxy!"
He snarled hatefully at her. "With such a stellar record, I'm surprised Cerberus didn't recruit you sooner!"
She gaped wordlessly at him. How on earth did he connect those events in his head to form that kind of picture about her? Was that the kind of image she projected to those around her back then, that of a pro-human fanatic? Did her crew, more importantly her friends, really think that little of her?
She'd be the first to admit she had been a little lax back on the first Normandy. At that time, she hadn't tried very hard to discourage the xenophobia that a lot of the human crew openly exhibited against the aliens in the squad. Her own image as an Alliance officer had been too important to her. She didn't want the people around her to start accusing her of being an alien-lover, especially since she'd just recently become a Spectre.
In hindsight, that had definitely been the wrong decision to make. Had she worked harder to quell the paranoia of crew members like Ashley, Wrex wouldn't have had to die on Virmire; and she wouldn't be standing here, listening to one of her closest friends call her a Cerberus lackey.
Is this why Cerberus spent billions of credits to bring me back? Did they think I'd readily subscribe to their philosophies, that I already was as anti-alien as them?
"Garrus, please!" she begged, not knowing what to say anymore. "I'm not Cerberus. I never have been!"
"That, Commander, is something I find rather hard to believe," he said venomously.
"What're you...?"
"Do you remember Dr Wayne, Shepard?"
Shepard came up blank. "Who?"
"Dr Wayne? The scientist we picked up on Ontarom, along with Lantar Sidonis, my teammate from Akuze? The Cerberus scientist?"
"Yeah..." Shepard recalled that mission. "What about him?"
"Where is he? Where's Dr Wayne?" Garrus fixed her with that hawk-eyed gaze of his.
"In Alliance custody. Where else would he be?" Shepard was confused. What the hell is he getting at?
"He's dead, Shepard! That's where he is!" Garrus sneered at her. "He was found dead in his holding cell a month after he was picked up by the Alliance."
"What!?"
Garrus began to pace once again. "I knew there was something wrong that day. I knew there was something suspicious about the way you insisted that he be taken into custody. At that time, I believed you when you said that we needed him to help investigate Cerberus. I was a fool."
"The real reason you prevented Sidonis and me from killing him was because you wanted to make sure he really was the last loose end. I bet your Cerberus friends in the Alliance must have questioned him to find out everything they could about his research. Then they killed him to ensure he wouldn't implicate anyone else."
"With Wayne conveniently dead, the Alliance refused to investigate Sidonis' claims. They closed the case due to lack of evidence, saying they simply couldn't take the tall claims of a rambling turian at face value." He clenched his fists in rage. "My team never got the justice they deserved! And that's all thanks to you, Shepard!"
"Are you even listening to yourself? You're being paranoid, Garrus!" Shepard was truly horrified to hear that things had gone so badly, but to think that he was accusing her of being a Cerberus agent in the Alliance?
"Am I?" he challenged her. "Or am I simply seeing things the way they are; the way I should have seen them. Maybe I was blinded all along by my hero-worship? Maybe I should have suspected you from the very beginning, instead of following your orders unquestioningly like everyone else?"
"I'm not a Cerberus spy!" Shepard was getting angry now.
"Forgive me if I decide not to take your word for it," he said bitingly. "Especially considering that every time you get involved with Cerberus, people just seem to wind up dead."
"What are you...?"
"Remember Admiral Kahoku?" He was on a roll now. "He asked you to run a small errand for him, only to find out that his men met the same fate as mine did on Akuze. He starts investigating Cerberus and goes into hiding, informing only you of all the facts. Then three weeks later we find his body on an abandoned base on Binthu. Kind of convenient, don't you think?"
"Are you implying that I...?"
"You're damn right I am!" he shouted at her. "Every time you get involved with something related to Cerberus, people die! Do you really expect me to believe that all of this was just one big coincidence?"
"Yes! Yes, you're supposed to believe that! You're supposed to believe me, you turian bastard!" Shepard was beyond livid now. She couldn't believe that Garrus of all people was saying these things to her. She took an angry step forward, intending to beat some sense into his scaly head...
...only to hear the loud noises of several charged weapons pointing at her from all sides.
"I would advise against it, Shepard," his voice was deadly calm. "If you think my people will hesitate to put you down, think again."
Shepard took in her surroundings with unease. They were in a classic standoff, with Miranda and Jacob also having drawn their weapons, their bodies glowing brightly with barely restrained biotics.
Had this been just any ordinary bunch of mercs, even with four-to-one odds, Shepard wouldn't have been worried. But a single glance was enough to tell her that Garrus' team weren't a bunch of amateurs playing mercenary; they were professionals. She was sure that at least half of them had had some kind of Special Forces training.
Even if, by some miracle, they managed to beat all of them, there was still Garrus himself to contend with. It was plain to her that he wasn't the same simple-minded C-Sec officer she had picked up on the Citadel all those years ago. No, Omega had changed Garrus Vakarian. The way he moved, the way he carried himself now, reminded her of some of the veteran N7 marines she'd served with. No way was he going down easily in a fight.
Plus, he had the added advantage of fighting on familiar territory. It certainly explained how he was able to stand before her so confidently, his rifle still dangling at his side, not even looking slightly fazed by the threat of violence before him.
She shook her head violently. Why am I even thinking all this? This is Garrus, dammit! I came here to recruit him, not take him down.
She took a deep breath. "Garrus, please. None of that is true. I'm not with Cerberus because I want to, it's because I've got no choice." She paused, silently beseeching him to trust her. "You know me. You know I'd only do this for the right reasons!"
"I wish I could believe that, Shepard. I really do." To his credit, he genuinely sounded regretful. "But all the evidence is against you. You can't expect me to take your word for it, not in the face of all these facts, not when your own record is against you."
Shepard bowed her head in defeat. "So...this is goodbye, then?"
He merely looked at her for a second. "Yes, I guess it is." He raised his hand and his team quickly stood down.
"For old times' sake, I'm going to let you walk away from here, Shepard." His bright blue eyes gazed into her own. There was no warmth there. "But the next time we meet, if you're still working for Cerberus..." he trailed off, the unspoken threat hanging in the air.
Shepard met his gaze stonily. "When that happens, Garrus, may the best man win."
He nodded at her. For a moment the two former friends merely stared at each other, all too aware of the unbridgeable gap between them, the deep chasm that nothing could repair...
Then Shepard turned around and walked away, doing her best to ignore the gaping hole in her heart.
For the first time in a very long time, she truly felt alone in the galaxy.
AN: What do you guys think? Should I leave this as a one-shot, or turn it into a story?