AN: I think I mentioned I wasn't sure if this would be a two or three part story. I thought I'd be able to combine ME2 and ME3 pretty well... and then Garrus decided he wanted to spend a lot of time on Omega. Which in hindsight makes a lot of sense. I just wasn't expecting it when I started this chapter. So... ME3 will get its own chapter. Still haven't decided if I'm gonna go tragedy at the end (that is kinda my MO...)

Please note that I'm taking some liberties with the story as presented in the games. I haven't played the games in years (like... literally years), so I'm going off of memory for most of it. And some things I might need to tweak slightly just to fit in with this soulmate!au I'm working with. So if you see things out of order or slightly changed, just assume it's deliberate (I did have to make a couple amendments to the game to have things flow better).

Also thanks to the commenter who noted my using shorter scenes towards the end. I write a lot of stories in this style and I hadn't really noticed that I tend to do that in most of them (long exposition type stuff at the beginning, shorter pieces later on). Doesn't mean I'm necessarily going to change that, but I like knowing what my writing style is so I can control it and use it to tell the story more effectively. So thanks :)

When they called to tell him about Alchera, he didn't pick up. He already knew. Hearing it would just make it worse, somehow.

The mark on his hand has almost completely faded by the time the memorial service happens. Garrus struggles through it as stoically as possible. He leaves as soon as it's considered socially acceptable.

Which is apparently too soon, because his omnitool pings again and again with messages. Later he'll read them. Ignore Liara's scolding for leaving early and Tali's concerned questions and Kaidan's generic condolences and and and. It's all words and words are the last thing he needs right now.

Three days later he books a flight to Omega.

Garrus isn't even sure what he's doing here. He's mourning. Obviously. But what exactly he's mourning, he couldn't say. Yes, his commander died. She was a good friend, too. That alone is enough to lose. When he allows himself to drink (which is rarely, not after the first time and that bar fight), part of him is able to acknowledge that it's something more.

Not love, no. That would be silly and an overly romantic way of viewing this. More like... possibility. The possibilities that had died with Shepard are immense, and that more than anything else is what sits heavy in his heart.

He doesn't bother with gloves anymore. The mismatched team he assembles takes note, but no one comments on it. The tattoo is still there, a dull grey instead of the once vibrant blue, red and purple. Almost like it's scabbed over. Anyone who sees it would know what it means, so they don't ask.

But sometimes... and it's crazy, he knows it's crazy... sometimes, he happens to look at it. And it's not grey. It's almost like it used to be. Still faded, but no longer the colorless eyesore it usually is. He'll stare and stare at it, sure it's a trick of the light or his over-worked mind. Eventually, it dissolves back into shades of grey.

It doesn't happen all the time. Just... sometimes.

Everything goes to shit pretty quickly.

He had thought he was building something here on Omega. Making progress, both on his own misery (constant and pulsing, even at times when it's muted in the background) and on this shithole of a station. But then it's a lot of running and explosions and trying not to die.

Maybe it's the adrenaline that keeps it hidden at first, but when he gets a second to actually breathe he notices the burning on his hand. It seizes up around the trigger of his gun and he has to all but pry it loose. Although it reminds him of... that time (his mind skirts around the word Alchera, even now), he dismisses it as stress. He needs to get back to the base and check on the rest of his team.

When he gets back to the base, he nearly loses it. He fucked up. He really fucked up. He's trapped and he got his squad members killed and his hand fucking hurts-

Garrus takes two slow breaths. In and out. In and out.

Alright. Freak out over. Time to get to work.

He knows he has some time, not much, but enough to prepare. So he starts with the bodies of his dead team. Gingerly, he puts them together and covers them. Bows his head and says an old turian prayer his mother had taught him when his grandfather had died. He doesn't quite remember the words, but he hopes the feeling behind it will do. If only he had the time to give them the type of laying to rest they deserve. But it's something, at least.

(The pain in his hand settled into a dull ache. He notices the color's back. No time to do more than a quick double take before he's back at it.)

Then he switches to his own needs. He shouldn't have come back to the base, if he's honest with himself. But he couldn't know for sure he'd been betrayed until he came back. Had to see if anyone was still alive...

But now he's trapped. He seals off the tunnels below the base. At least now they can only get at him from the bridge. The bottleneck will buy him time. And yes, he is aware that all he's doing is buying himself time.

There's plenty of ammo. He grabs that first, staking it neatly by the window upstairs. Next he grabs some medigel, even though he doubts he'll need it. He suspects that when things get bad, they'll go bad quick. And finally, he sorts through everyone's personal stashes and grabs all the stims he can find. There's enough to keep him wired for a few weeks, probably.

Garrus is determined to last as long as possible, but realistically he doesn't think he'll make it more than a few days.

When there's nothing left to do, he grabs a ration pack and perches by the window. Any moment now they'll start trying to start whiddling away at his defenses.

(The ache in his hand has ebbed. The color's still there. If anything, it's brighter than the last time he looked.)

The first few waves are actually pretty gruesome. They send a whole mess of mercs at him. Luckily he's a helluva good sniper. One by one he drops them, already fixing his sight on the next target before the last one even falls. It's actually so repetitive and mind numbing that when they stop coming he's not even sure how much time has passed.

It's the time in between that worries him. The adrenaline starts to wear off and his mind wanders.

(The colors are so bright now - brighter than even when Shepard was alive. He sighs. At first he thought he was imagining it. Given how dire his situation currently is, he wonders if now it just shows he's one step closer to Shepard. That much closer to death...)

They keep prodding at his defenses. The waves are smaller. Manageable. A distraction while they mount whatever final assault they're planning.

He sighs deeply. It's fine. Really. How surprising can it really be when you form a band of do-gooder mercs that you end up gunned down. He can't go on much longer anyway. Bullets he's got, but his eyes are starting to burn.

Maybe that's why he doesn't believe what he's seeing. Garrus has to blink several times just to make any sense of it. He clips her armor just to be sure she's even real, not a ghost or hallucination.

Then she's standing in front of him and he just... well, he doesn't know what to do about that. His heart's in his throat and his empty stomach is churning. It's absurd of course, for her to be back. But at the same time, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that before him stands none other than Commander Jane Shepard.

The missile to the head thing hurts. Like a bitch. He'd half expected to die, and wouldn't have that been ironic timing. But Chakwas is an exceptional doctor. That's probably the only reason he doesn't bleed out and actually has some semblance of a face left when she's done.

She very sternly tells him to get some rest. They both know he'll ignore her.

Shepard's alive and he's alive and he just has to see her.

The smile she gives him makes him think that, at least for a second, the feeling's mutual.

It's just so easy to work with Shepard again. They work seamlessly together and it brings him a type of peace he realizes he's been lacking for the past couple years.

Which is absolutely ridiculous. They're on a suicide mission and he's just happy to be along for the ride.

It's pathetic really.

Garrus is so caught up in the excitement of being back on the Normandy and with Shepard that it takes him a while to notice the changes. It's not like the "good ol' days" when they were chasing Saren.

Cerberus claims they did nothing to change Shepard, but she's got a darker streak now. A little more trigger happy, less likely to avoid conflict. She takes every opportunity for a fight and tends be just on this side of brutal. The good's still there, but it's harder to see sometimes. Only there in the broad strokes, not the fine details.

He supposes death can do that to a person. Crush their optimism and need to do right by everyone when it wasn't done by them.

There's a new darkness in him too, boiling just under the surface. He's able to smooth it over, most of the time, and be as snarky as he ever was. But there's an undercurrent of rage and guilt for what happened on Omega. It bleeds through into the day to day, just like Shepard's inner demons.

Vaguely, he thinks that it's their responsibility to either pull each other back up to the light or help each other spiral down further into the darkness. He quietly debates which one he'd prefer.

Joker sees his tattoo.

He was in the cockpit, helping implement some new modifications Miranda had asked about. A panel needed to be removed so he could access some of the ship's hardware. Too delicate of a process, he'd had to take off his gloves. He neglects to put them back on immediately, not really caring since there's a job to do.

When he turns to ask Joker something, the human's eyes are locked onto his right talon. There's recognition there, and Garrus sees the second it turns from just some vague recollection to knowing damn well where he's seen that mark before.

Their eyes meet. Garrus tries to remain neutral, just barely allowing a small twitch of his mandibles.

"Does she know?"

There's a moment - just a few seconds, really - where he considers playing dumb. But instead he just looks away, distracting himself by typing into the console. "No."

"You going to tell her?"

Carefully chewing on the word first, he simply says, "No."

He can almost hear what Joker's thinking, probably because he's had years to think over the same questions. It's all just a big, continuous game of What if What if what if.

But there's enough respect for both Garrus and Shepard that instead of butting in, he just grinds his teeth in frustration. "You might want to." And that's that.

After Horizon and Kaidan's complete disbelief, he finds Shepard drinking in Starboard Observation. Silently, she grabs a bottle of the dextro stuff for him and pours him a generous amount.

"I don't get why he won't trust me," she mutters into her glass before polishing off the rest. She slams the glass down. "You trust me, don't you?"

"Of course, Shepard."

She seems to try and stop herself from saying it, but the words come out anyway. "How come? You just dropped everything and came back."

It was easy, of course. Just as he knew the moment she died, he apparently had been aware of her resurrection as well. Garrus trusted her because he knew she hadn't faked her death, as Kaidan had implied. He knew that this was really Shepard, not some clone or poor copy or impostor. The mark on the back of his hand made all of that clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

But he couldn't say any of that. He was pretty sure she wasn't asking, or at least didn't really want to know even if she was. So instead he settled on a much safer - and no less true - answer.

"There wasn't really much left to drop." Before she can start asking about or apologizing for his lost team, he continues. "I came because there's only one Commander Shepard. And if she's working with Cerberus, I know there's a damn good reason."

It's probably the alcohol, but he feels bold enough to reach out his hand to cover hers. "You earned my loyalty on the SR-1, Shepard. It'll take more than dying to lose it."

She stares at his hand for a moment before blushing and pulling her own away. "Thanks, Garrus." Her smile's a little off, too small and not reaching her eyes (not that he can really tell, she won't look up at him). "I should go finish up some mission reports. I'll see you around, Vakarian."

And just like that, he's alone.

Shepard stands in the crosshairs of his scope. His finger itches to pull the trigger, but he can't think of a single reason in the galaxy that would let him hurt Shepard. So he snarls into the mic for her to move, knowing his threats probably sound as empty as they are, and waits.

Even from this distance, he can feel her thinking it through. The Shepard that hadn't yet died above Alchera would be dead set against him killing Sidonis. No question. But this is not that Shepard. She's changed, ever so slightly but just enough that she's not no longer so sure in her self-righteousness.

Slowly, she steps to the side. "I don't think you should do this," she says over the mic. "But they were your squad. It's your choice."

He'd made the choice so long ago that he doesn't even have to think about it.

Except that he does. Shepard could've stopped him but chose not to. She thinks he'll make the right choice. Or maybe she doesn't know what the right choice is, not anymore. Maybe she feels a little lost and is depending on him to point her in the right direction.

In the end, it's the thought of her that makes up his mind. Picturing Shepard in his position, imagining her pull the trigger...

He loathes that image.

Does she hate the idea of him killing Sidonis just as much?

With a frustrated sigh he nearly throws down his sniper rifle. He lets his anger taper off before he heads back to the shuttle. It might be petty, but he doesn't acknowledge Shepard at all the whole way back and even after they dock. He just beelines for the Main Battery because his thoughts are a jumbled mess right now and he can't deal with anyone else right now.

Shepard's smart enough to let him go.

It's deja vu of the whole Saleon debacle. At least, it feels like it until he realizes his anger has fizzled out before it even really had a chance to grow. He tells Shepard as much when she finally seeks him out. She lifts her eyebrows in surprise but otherwise doesn't seem all that surprised.

They still talk it out. They always do. He expected it and wasn't trying to side step it by letting her know she was right. Honestly, he just needed to say it. For the first time in a long time, things start to feel like when they were back on the SR-1. Way back when Garrus hadn't seen Shepard's tattoo and didn't over analyze everything that happens between them.

Until Shepard goes and pulls the rug out from under him.

Thane flirts with her. Jacob flirts with her. She's still in contact with Liara, and they all know there are feelings there. So the last thing he expects is for Shepard to flirt with him.

He stutters and actually has to work at remaining calm. Of course he's not calm. He's anything but. Falling back on his usual bravado, he flirts back (just enough to hint that he's interested) but holds back.

How is he supposed to concentrate on saving the galaxy when Commander Shepard propositioned him?

It's left hanging between them for the weeks that pass. Promises of maybe and soon. In the limited amount of down time he allows himself, he actually thinks about it. Him. Her. Together. He likes the idea. More than he thought he would. Probably because he'd never thought about it.

The mark on his hand... he's never really taken that as a promise or guarantee of something to come. Shepard's got her own hang ups about this whole "soulmate" thing, and over the year's his own have grown. Garrus has never liked being told what to do, and quite frankly this whole thing bugs him. Did he come to care about Shepard because of the tattoo or does he have the tattoo that he would come to care about her?

Thinking about it keeps him up at night. So he doesn't.

In the time he's known her, he's rarely seen Shepard lose her temper. Brutality was never really in her playbook. So when she's pistol whipping a suspect to get info, he and Tali share concerned looks. When she pushes a merc out of a window, well, Tali's surprised gasp and the way his jaw locks into place don't even seem to register to Shepard.

First chance she gets, Tali manages to slip away. Why it falls to him to say something, he's not sure.

(Of course he knows why it should be him. But he wonders what Tali's reasoning is.)

Against his better judgement, he brings it up to Shepard. And not just the stuff today, but other things he's seen since the whole Lazarus Project.

"I could say the same thing to you, Vakarian." She crosses her arms, goes for the menacing I'm Commander Shepard, don't fuck with me pose she'd perfected years ago. But then she seems to deflate a little. "Or at least I could have before you let Sidonis walk away."

"I'm not accusing you of anything." He feels compelled to make that part clear. "I just wanted you to be aware of it."

She runs her hands through her hair in a human gesture he's come to associate with frustration. "Look, I know I've been... a little different since I came back. Angrier..." A sigh. She still won't meet his eyes. "I'm... I'm working on it."

"Alright."

It gets better after that. Not quite like before she'd died, but closer. And he gets it, he really does. She's not willing to deal with the bullshit and she's got a mission that needs to be seen through. Sacrifices need to be made, and there are some she's obviously already committed to.

But she tries to be a little softer around the edges. Actively stops herself from going down that road.

Tali seems to think it's because of him. Garrus doesn't comment either way.

A message from Hackett and Shepard takes a shuttle and disappears. It's no secret (the Yeoman has a big mouth and even Miranda confirms it). The crew whispers about it. No one's happy about it, least of all him.

Two days later and there's a tension underlying everything. Shepard wouldn't abandon them, wouldn't break off radio contact for so long. Something's gone wrong.

It doesn't help that there's been a tingling sensation in his hand, the mark itching for attention.

When Joker asks him (thankfully, when no one else around) if Shepard's okay, he doesn't know how to answer. He goes with the safe answer, that she's still alive. He knows what it would feel like if she died.

But what would it feel like if she were indoctrinated?

AN: This chapter was just getting too long, so I cut it short before I could finish ME2. Might have to do the same for ME3? No clue, because these characters won't cooperate and keep making me tell a longer story than I had planned *shakes fist angrily at Garrus*