AN: so here's a late update... whoops! last week i was in an off mood and ended up writing barely anything. this week i've been sick, so it's been slow going. (never mind that garrus decided to be super mopey this chapter and that slowed down the plot...)
also slight retcon - i think i implied that both of shep's parents were still alive, but i'm changing it to papa shepard being recently deceased. so keep that in mind!
side notes: shep is kinda being ridiculous, as those of us without her particular baggage can see, but you gotta keep in mind this isn't canon shepard. this is one whose got issues because of her parents' situation. just like ppl who have divorced parents might have that color their perception of marriage, shep's views on soulmate tattoos got tainted a while back and she'll need some time to get over herself when it comes to that.
i like dr michel, and she's not really an antagonist just like she's not in the games. i took things that happen in canon (the chocolates and garrus' misunderstanding of possible romantic intent) and let them play out in front of an insecure shepard. considering canon shep can be somewhat of a bitch/asshole by playing the field with a bunch of love interests until being forced by the game to pick just one of them, this doesn't seem that bad.
and i assume tali ate the chocolates as a smoothie (and it unfortunately prbly tasted about as good as those "chocolate" flavored protein drinks...)
yeah, my dialogue's not great - which is why i tend not to use a lot of it. actions speak louder than words blah blah blah (lol that's my excuse at least)
He gives it enough time to know that Shepard's gone, managed to escape to wherever the hell she's run off to. Maybe he shouldn't be surprised that his sour mood is so easy to pick up on, but Vega takes one look at him as exits the elevator and pushes him back in. Garrus lacks the energy to argue, just lets the human lead him out onto the Citadel and to a bar.
The two trade stories and shots well into the night. Garrus finds he's only too happy to lose himself in an alcohol-induced haze.
The next morning he wakes up with a headache and an emptiness that he carefully doesn't swell on. He fucked up, that much is clear, and it's easier to focus on the physical after effects of his night of drinking than it is to think about the hole he's dug himself into.
He heads out into the Mess, immediately spotting Joker's shit eating grin and Vega looking like he's dead on his feet. After grabbing some dextro rations he heads to sit with the two humans. Joker lets him get settled before casually saying, "So... I hear you guys went drinking last night."
James winces slightly at the reminder, hunching further over his lone cup of coffee. Garrus tries not to laugh as he drawls, "I thought humans could handle their liquor better."
James groans, Joker laughs.
They tease Vega a bit more before Joker starts going on about comm chatter he's been picking up, all of it pretty depressing... except for a murder mystery he swears he's come across, something straight out of a soap opera. Vega mutters that he's full o fshit, either making it all up or reading too much into it, before burying his face in his arms and passing out on the table top.
"Now that sleeping beauty's out for the count," and Joker pokes Vega a few times for good measure, "You wanna tell me the reason you two were out getting smashed last night? Never really thought that was your scene."
Garrus snorts, hoping his subvocals don't reveal just how much he agrees, but only says, "No."
If this were Liara or Tali or Shepard, he's pretty sure that would not be an acceptable answer. But this is Joker. He eyes the turian for a minute, shrugs and says, "Fair enough."
Avoiding Shepard has never been difficult. The ship's not that big, but they're both busy. War tends to do that.
He claims that he's just trying to give her space, but it's harder to justify that when he spends half his day outside of the Battery. Truth be told, he doesn't want to find her... and he sure as hell doesn't want her to find him right now. Things are a mess between them, and he's not sure there's any fixing it. He needs the distance for his own sanity, needs to let the idea of "it's over" settle inside of him before facing her again.
(What's over? What the hell were they even doing?)
(Gotta focus on it being over, quash all the hope that's still alive, deep down. Get used to the idea of working together and nothing more.)
Working with the Primarch helps. He can focus on Palaven and strategies for the Heirarchy to implement. All of this is familiar and makes him feel useful (and useless, as the casualty reports come in, but that's another issue).
There's some urgent whispering among crewmen, but he ignores it. They eye him a bit with an open curiosity, and though it makes him wonder, he doesn't care.
But after the fifth or sixth time he catches the eye of someone, only to have them immediately stop talking and turn away, it does start to nag at him a bit. He hasn't been the subject of gossip since he first joined the Cerberus crew. Do they know about his fight with Shepard? But no, how could they? It was private, and he doubts either EDI or Shepard would have said anything.
No, he's just being paranoid.
He's not being paranoid.
Roughly ten hours later (why he's still awake and working when his shift ended some time ago, well, he'll just blame the war for that one) he finds out from Vega.
The marine pulls him aside just as he's entering the Mess. Without preamble, he mutters, "Shepard's gone."
He blinks, mandibles flaring slightly, his mouth seems to get stuck around all the questions he has at that simple statement. Fuck, you know things are serious when Vega drops the nicknames. Garrus is so rarely caught off guard like this, but his imagination lets a dozen scenarios run out in his head.
She abandoned the crew.
She's gone back to Earth.
She's been kidnapped.
She's been killed.
Whatever happened, he'll never find out.
"What do you mean gone?" Because there's no way the reality could be worse.
"I mean she's fucking gone, man. From what I hear, she met up with some asari chick from Omega and-"
Oh Spirits, no. "Aria?"
James frowns and nods. "Sounds right. Some ensign says he saw the two of them boarding a ship together. Blue looked into flight logs, seems like the ship's probably headed to Omega."
"And we're obviously going to follow and go get her."
"No dice, Scars. We're not even a hundred percent sure that's what happened. Alliance is telling us to stay put for now."
His heart is pounding in his chest. This is bad. This would be bad in any circumstances, but with the Reapers bearing down on them from all sides, the timing could not be worse. "Who'd she take with her?" If it's not him and Vega, or apparently Liara, he wants to at least know she's in good hands.
Vega doesn't answer.
"James..." There's a warning there, something bordering on a growl.
"The entire crew is accounted for... except for Lola." He doesn't meet Garrus' eyes as he says it. They're both judging what is obviously a poor call on Shepard's part, but the lieutenant is trying his best not to think poorly of his commander.
Garrus, well... he's not so forgiving. He storms off for the Battery without looking back.
The logical part of him knows he should sleep. He's been up for a solid fifteen hours. But he can't. Even if he tries, he'd just be tossing and turning, staring into the dull glow given off by the Normandy's guns.
He goes over everything he knows about Aria, everything he can find out about the current situation on Omega. For a moment he's tempted to get Liara to give him access to Shepard's personal files. He knows the two of them are at best uneasy allies, so there must be something to give him insight on what's going on.
It's unethical for sure, and in the end he decides against it. Not because it's morally questionable, but because he assumes Liara's already gone through those files and if anything were pertinent, she would have forwarded them to him by now.
Also in the realm of things that would make one question his morals, he hacks into various military channels. He sets up some algorithms to sift through for information that might be relevant to whatever Shepard's up to.
Sometimes there's no data to go over. No interaction from his time on Omega to over analyze. Instead it's just him and his ever growing unease. The very real feeling that Shepard is in danger and that it is categorically his fault.
Garrus isn't the first person to underestimate Jane Shepard, and he's unlikely to be the last.
She's gone three days. 63 hours.
He has slept somewhere in the ballpark of five of those hours. Once the crew is given word to expert her back, that she's alive and fine and they'll be leaving the Citadel once she's back, he shuts off all his computers. It's surprisingly easy to pass out after that.
Thankfully he doesn't dream.
Garrus wakes up rested but stiff. His console's blinking at him, a message waiting. He stares for a while, not sure what he's expecting or dreading more. With a grunt, he gets up to check.
Just one message, from Joker, telling him that Shepard's back on board. That despite everything, she came back unscathed, more or less. She's got a bit of a limp, looks like shit, but is fine.
Nothing from Shepard herself, which is probably a bad sign. But he expected that, so okay.
Everything returns to a sort of mockery of normal. He gets questioning looks from the crew. Liara even tries to corner him in the elevator at one point, but he narrowly escapes that disaster.
Garrus doesn't see Shepard for a few days after she comes back. She doesn't seek him out, so he takes that to mean she needs space. (Though she might be thinking the same.) They see each other during mission briefings, but it takes three of them before she makes him tag along.
Vega's the third, and he has an almost terrified look when he finds that out. The tension in the shuttle ride is palpable, though most if it is James. He keeps fidgeting, making awkward small talk and giving each of them a look. After the third or fourth time, he catches Shepard's eye and they both smile.
Well, it's something.
After the mission, with an ache settling between his shoulders and under his plates, Shepard has to run to catch up to him. "Vakarian!"
He stops and waits. "You on duty tonight?"
"You make the duty rosters, Shepard, so you know I'm not."
"Right." She chuckles a bit, but there's something underneath. "My quarters when you're done your shift?"
His brain short circuits for a second. Panic. She's going to lay it out, end it all for good.
(Maybe she won't-
He kills that voice before it can gain any strength.)
"Okay."
And then she's gone before he can change his mind. He watches her go and tries not to think how that ominous that image is.
After Shepard leaves, he spots James skulking by the shuttle. "So... which one of you's in the dog house?"
Although the idiom means nothing, he gets the gist of it. With a shrug as he turns for the elevator, he mutters, "Definitely me."
There's only so much he can do to delay. Puttering around the Battery only buys him a couple minutes. Eventually he just gives up trying to put it off.
Shepard's at her desk and he can see the way she tenses when the door opens. They stare each other down, neither giving much away.
Great start, this isn't going to be painful at all.
He never was an optimist.
After the way things went last time, he feels like he can't be the one to start. But as the silence stretches on, his resolve starts to waiver. Eventually she takes mercy on him and speaks. "Haven't seen you around much lately."
He snorts, reasonably confident that's not his fault. He's not the one who disappeared. He didn't run off with a crime lord to Omega. But working with the Primarch taught him to be diplomatic. "It seemed like you needed time to... figure things out."
Her fingers twitch where they lay on her desk. "You could say that." She pauses, shifts in her seat. "I feel like I need to explain myself a bit."
Diplomatic maybe, but he still errs more towards blunt. "If it's because of what happened with your parents-"
"I felt for all three of them, actually."
He pauses, not quite understanding. "What?"
"For my mom, because apparently my dad wasn't 'it' for her, and she wasn't for him. My dad, because he fell in love with my mom and had some fucking tattoo telling him he didn't fucking understand his own feelings. And... for my dad's soulmate. Because I saw them together - and yeah, they were only ever just friends - but they were pretty good together and it was like looking at wasted potential."
She turns away and idly plays with the sleeves of her shirt. He hates that she won't even look at him right now. "It sucked. For all of them. And it just... didn't have to. If there weren't any of these damn marks on people, all three of them would've been happy. Mom and Dad would've been good, and I bet anything that lieutenant would've become a good family friend. But..."
"But?" he urges when she won't say more.
With a sigh, Shepard shrugs. "My mom trusted by dad, but... There's always that worry in the back of her mind. That she wasn't good enough, that my dad might have an affair, that she was in the way of true love. All of these things nagging at her for years. Until my dad died a few years ago, and then it became guilt for having thought any of those things to begin with."
Garrus is once again at a loss for words. What the hell do you say to something like that? But there is one thing, something that's bothered him for a while and that's even worse now that they both know. "Shepard," he says gently, because he doesn't think this is going to go well but he still has to ask, "What does this have to do with us?"
She snaps around to glare at him, as if the answer should be obvious.
"Your parents weren't soulmates, we are, so I'm not sure what you're afr-"
"When did you find out?"
Somehow it feels like a trap. Unfortunately it's one he has no choice but to step into. "On the SR-1. Pretty early on."
Maybe she suspected as much, that it's been some time (it's not like she goes to the trouble of hiding her own mark like he has), but she seems shocked anyway. "And when did you realize you were interested in me?"
And there's the trap. Because honestly, he doesn't know. Before he noticed? After? A mix of both? Did the mark influence the feelings or were the feelings always going to happen and that's why there's a mark? Slightly defeated, he can't really mount an argument against it.
Reading what she needs into his silence, she turns away again. "I don't want someone who's not sure if they want me."
To think anyone in the galaxy could question whether or not he wants, needs, loves Jane Shepard is ridiculous. And the fact that it's Shepard herself who doubts it. "Shepard- Jane, how could you think-"
"We want fundamentally different things and I think we need to take a step back for a bit. Maybe when the damn Reapers aren't hanging over our heads..."
Anger rises up in him. Justified or not, he can't help it as he snarls out, "Will you at least look at me-"
She does. It doesn't help. "You lied and..." There's a pained look in her eyes before she masks it. "Look, I understand I put you in a situation where you felt you had to. I get it. But it doesn't change the facts here. I think we need space from whatever the hell it is that we are or were or could be or whatever." She frowns. "I need the space. Can you give me that?"
Really, he knew this was coming. No surprises in the outcome, maybe just in how it got here. So he takes a step back, stands up straight, and says as dutifully as possible, "Yes, of course Commander."
This time it's his turn to storm off.