Garrus

The tripwires were just Cerberus' opening act.

A troop transport flew out of the south when the explosion went off, and pinned down the squad. My friends.

Later, I realized I didn't remember leaving the main battery, or catching Vega and dragging him onto the shuttle. I had no memory of the ride down to Eden Prime, or jumping out of the shuttle and into Cerberus gunfire.

What I remember is Liara screaming behind a biotic barrier, shrapnel buried in her shoulder, and Tali slamming her shotgun into a Cerberus engineer's face while Kal'Reegar drew fire away from - from Shepard.

After that, everything went clear and slow, like the world was trapped in glass. I lined up my first shot, breathed in, and squeezed the trigger.

The present tense was the only one that existed. Sight, breathe, squeeze. Battle has its own rhythm, the steady beat of approaching death. The important thing is to hear the rhythm and make sure you stay a measure ahead.

Sight, breathe, squeeze. Run two steps, crouch in cover. Moving closer, always moving closer.

Another blood spray on stone. Vega yelling, drawing fire meant for me. Another shot, a cry, and the heavy drop of a body hitting the ground. Hot metal, cooling blood, too red, wrong colors everywhere. Cerberus white and yellow on burned grass, the smell of melted plastic and medi-gel.

"Vakarian!"

The beat stops.

I tried to sight my next target, but there weren't any. Two Cerberus squads were scattered over the dig site, some missing limbs, some shredded, some with their heads pulped and hollow. There were six of us still alive, but only five of us were moving.

"She grabbed it and broke it up, threw it away, but some of it stuck to her suit. She ran away and threw herself on the ground, it blew anyways and the smell -" Behind her mask, Tali gagged and leaned on Kal'Reegar. "My filters couldn't keep it out."

I moved closer, Vega moving out of my way, his face stony. It's going to be bad, I told myself. Be ready for how bad it's going to be.

There was no way to be ready. I could only see glimpses through Liara's swift movements over Shepard, but what I saw was -

She'd tried to contain the explosion with her body. Her suit was shredded from her neck to her hips, and almost everything was burned black, with fever-red patches of skin between her breasts. There were places on her arms were her suit had melted into her.

And Shepard was still breathing. Worse, she was awake.

"Liara..."

"Don't speak, Shepard," Liara murmured. She spread medi-gel as gently as she could over the worst of the burns, but Shepard arched away from her touch, a breathy scream leaking out of her mouth. There were burns on her neck and under her jaw.

I dropped to my knees and walked-crawled to her side. "Just a minute more," I told her. Behind me, Vega swore too softly for the translator to pick up. "It's going to stop hurting soon, just let Liara finish."

Shepard closed her eyes. What kind of will was keeping her from passing out? Liara inched forward and tried to slick another layer of medi-gel over the burns on Shepard's collarbone.

Shepard howled. Liara pulled her hands back and glanced at me. Tripwire burns were a special kind of hell.

"There's nothing more I can do here, Garrus. We have to get her back to the shuttle." She hadn't seemed to notice that there were fist-sized pieces of metal buried in her shoulder and back, just like Tali hadn't noticed that her suit was punctured.

"Cortez?"

"Yes, sir?"

"We need immediate evac at the dig site - ground and air are clear. Tell Chakwas to prep the Medbay for -" my voice only faltered for a moment "- for tripwire wounds."

"Copy that. On my way."

Shepard's breath rattled in her chest. One, two, three. I counted all the way back to the Normandy.

Chakwas took one look at Shepard and slammed the privacy shields down on the windows in the Medbay. Vega dragged me outside when my feet seemed rooted to the floor, and the last thing I saw before the door hissed shut was Liara's face, her eyes already bruised and too-bright.

"The Commander's going to be fine, Scars," Vega said at my elbow. "Doc knows what she's doing."

I pulled my arm out his grip and shoved away. The main battery was too far away, but if I sat in the mess hall and stared at the blank windows I'd end up trying to punch my way through. I sat on my cot, fists clenched, and tried not to think of the jagged edges of Shepard's suit.

Gravity.

I held that one word in my fists and closed my eyes. As hard as I tried to remember what her hand felt like on my face, I could only see the dark shadows of the burns.

If I could, I would have brought every Cerberus soldier back, so I could kill them again. Archangel wasn't dead, just dormant. I could be very inventive.

Much later, as I was starting to debate the merits of breaking into Medbay, the door of the battery opened, and Liara swayed against the doorframe. I shoved off my cot, just in time to catch her before she stumbled.

"'M fine," she mumbled and tried to bat my hands away, but she let me guide her to the cot and ease her down. From the way her eyes slid over the room, I could tell Chakwas had dosed her to the scalp with painkillers.

"What are you doing, Liara? You need to be resting."

"Shhh, doc'll hear you," she slurred. "I snuck out. Ev'ryone's sleeping. Not me. Came to apologize."

Oh, Spirits. "You've got nothing to apologize for, Liara."

"S'all my fault, so stupid."

"Let me take you back to Medbay." She hissed at me, slapping my arm without any weight behind it, and I eased her back onto the cot. "At least let me take you to your office. This bed isn't made for asari."

She considered this, her face still hazy, then let me guide her up and onto her feet. "Still sorry, Garrus."

"It's Cerberus' fault, not yours. Now shut up and let me get you to bed."

She dozed off under my arm as we crossed the mess, and I ended up carrying her the rest of the way. Glyph greeted us, too loudly, but settled on hovering in aggrieved silence when I ignored him. Liara curled onto her side as soon as I laid her down, murmuring into her pillow. Glyph promised, without being asked, to watch her, and I locked the door from the outside when I left.

The door to the Medbay was open. Tali and Kal were gone, to suffer together in whatever corner of the ship they'd colonised, and Chakwas was asleep at her desk. I can move almost silently when I want to, and she didn't wake when I slipped through the dim light to the bed closest to the AI core.

Chakwas had either adapted to expect the worst when Shepard went on missions, or more time had gotten past me than I thought. The last time I had seen Shepard, she had more burns than real skin, but now vat-grown skin, pink and vulnerable, covered her chest and neck. Her breathing was easy, but shallow. The skin under her eyes was the color of a new bruise.

The worst part was the smell. Shepard didn't smell like herself, metal, rain, and good clean skin. She smelled like plastic and antiseptic. I tried to tell myself it was just temporary, but it stung.

But she was alive. If - no. No ifs.

I crouched next to the bed and watched her sleep. Everything felt too heavy, and I thought again of gravity.

"You're going to have to tell me when you wake up," I told her, and leaned down to touch my forehead to hers. She would never know.

My touch broke her sleep apart. She shuddered awake, trying to scream and thrashing hard enough in her sheets to tear her new skin open.

"Shepard, Shepard!" I grabbed for her hands, as carefully as I could, grateful I'd kept my gloves on. Even with them, the fabric caught the skin on her palms. Chakwas shouted behind me, but I didn't turn around. I couldn't take my eyes off Shepard.

She lunged away from me, gasping for breath, her hands reaching back to fumble behind her head. Two words poured out of her.

"Notagainnotagainnotagainnotagain."

"Shepard!" As gently as I could, I cradled her head between my hands and made her meet my eyes. "Shepard, it's all right. You're in the Medbay. I'm here. It's all right."

For a long, fragile moment, she didn't see me. Then, with the smallest noise I'd ever heard her make, she dropped her head against mine.

"Garrus. I thought I was -"

"Shhh." She didn't need to finish. I knew what she had thought.

The Normandy breaking up around her. Nothing but wreckage as far as she could see. And she was falling, her air leaking away, and she was on fire.

"You're safe," I told her. "I'm here."

She slumped down. After a few seconds, she covered my hands with hers. I could feel her shaking like her muscles were my own.

Shepard

I'm not on the Normandy. I'm on Mindoir.

It's night. No moon. I can hear the wind but around me the air is cold and still, and in the distance I see the dark swell of the forest. Nothing moves. Above my head, the stars wheel on in senseless, needle-bright circles.

When I look down, my armor is blasted open, with jagged edges. Beneath what's left of my undersuit is charred-black flesh.

"You came."

I turn around, and see a ghost.

Garrus flares his mandibles in a smile and crosses his arms over his chest. His markings are fresh, like they've just been painted on, and he holds himself without any tension. He's loose and happy, and so very young. The right side of his face is shredded, and blood covers his armor.

"I've been waiting for such a long time, you know," he says. "I've been so bored. It's always night here."

"Garrus," I wheeze. My ribs creak. "Why are you here?"

"Omega took something out of me. Nothing I'd miss - nothing you'd miss - but a part of me got left behind. Not you, though. You didn't leave anything behind."

This is where the dead go.

"You've been here before, just the once, but I wasn't here. You must have been so alone." Garrus has never sounded gleeful in his life, and I flinch away from it. "Do you remember being here? Was it this quiet after you died?"

"Stop it." I stumble back. The young, dead Garrus in front of me shows his teeth.

"It won't be quiet now. We can run and hunt and play. No more fighting. You're free."

Two years. I was here for two years, and I remember every minute of it. Every lonely, tearless moment as I wandered over the hills, trying to get home.

"You're home," Garrus says to me. His smile is horrible. "I'm here, you're here. Do you understand now? This is how it was always going to end for us."

"You're not Garrus!" I shout. "He's alive, he's on the Normandy."

"But aren't I better? I'm yours. No war or duty to distract me." He cocks his head at me, honestly confused. "It's quiet here. Why don't you want to stay?"

"I'm not dead, not this time."

Garrus nods, considering this. "Not dead, but nearly there. That stubborn heart of yours is still beating. Don't you want to rest?"

Yes, I do. It's so peaceful here, in the cold darkness. It would be so easy to stay with this Garrus, broken but happier than I've ever seen him. I could let someone else do the work.

A wind blows out of the hills. It finds the notches in my spine and burrows inward, ignoring my armor and chilling me down to my marrow. I shiver. Garrus blinks.

"I'm cold," I tell him.

He shrugs."It's always cold here, you know that."

This is where the dead go.

"I just want to be warm," I say, and his shoulders curve inward.

"I can't give you that," he says. "I should have known you'd leave. Now I'll be alone again."

He's not real, I tell myself. The real Garrus is on the Normandy.

"You'll be back," says Garrus. He sounds quite sure. "You'll run out of miracles sometime. But don't worry, I'll wait for you." He steps forward, into my personal space, and touches his forehead to mine.

I scream myself awake.