AN: This took longer than expected to get around to. I've had the outline done for a while, but I've been putting it off for unknown reasons. Just wasn't in the mood for this story, I guess? No idea! Hopefully the next update will be out in a more timely fashion :) Almost done this story (I think... it's gone on longer than anticipated so I guess it could continue to defy my expectations), probably another update or two depending on how long it takes to wrap things up.
As a side note, I spent some of my writing time last week working on a fluffy Shakarian story called Academy Blues (just in case you need something to take your mind off the drama and angst that is this story).
And special thanks to mordinette for being so generous and beta reading for me :)
It's been years since Garrus has had to deal with turians this young. They're not the gangly teens he remembered being when he did his military service (thank the Spirits for that much at least), but they're green enough that it feels a lot like babysitting.
Actually, it reminds him a lot of Grunt.
They're eager to learn to the point of impatience. They're all on edge, especially when they make a mistake, ready to snap at each other. But it doesn't take long for him to realize that some of the tension is from the stress of actually being at war. He himself is too young to truly remember the Contact War, and even that would've been nothing like the threat of total annihilation that looms over them.
He does his best to focus that fear into something useful. His days are filled with lecturing them on the types of Reaper forces he's encountered, their strengths and weaknesses. Sessions with weapon and armor mods. Drills and simulations of combat training.
It's exhausting. But only physically, which is definitely a nice change from his most recent time on the Normandy.
The mark on his hand burns pretty much constantly. The feeling is not unlike what he's come to associate with indoctrination, but instead of buzzing unpleasantly and making him itch, it's sharper. Yet it's not as bad as when she's hurt or in danger. And maybe he's just avoiding the obvious conclusion, because it takes him embarrassingly long to figure out it's because she's upset.
Because yes, he's felt this before, he thinks. Her fury at the Illusive Man had rushed through him like an electric current. But it had been short lived, just a single wave of emotion that had ebbed pretty quickly. This, well, this is constant. A low grade heat that's easy to ignore most of the day. At night it's the only sensation, no sights or sounds or problems to distract him, so it occupies all his thoughts.
So, Shepard's upset.
Which means... very little actually. He's just guessing anger, but it could be anything, really. Frustration. Sadness. Hell, he'd be willing to bet that a strong sense of boredom could do the trick if it weren't for her time in Vancouver being decidedly uneventful (both for her and for his mark). Honestly, Garrus doesn't even know which one he hopes for more.
Just that it'll pass.
He thinks back to that message he deleted. Five minutes of... something. Not for the first time, he wonders if he made a mistake by not at least hearing her out. But there's barely enough room in him for his own disappointment and anger to make room for hers. She didn't hear him out, didn't give him a chance.
As he falls asleep that night, he wonders if they'll ever stop going out of their way to fuck this up.
About a week in, Garrus is cornered by one of the recruits after training. She's a small, lithe thing with a waist most female turians would kill for. Her green eyes are a great contrast to the yellow clan markings on her face (and damn, why did her eyes have to be green?). Overall very attractive.
She more or less propositions him in the hallway on the way to dinner. Somehow the whole encounter is surprisingly turian, so much though that it startles him. He's again reminded of how much time he's spent among humans. If he were younger, he would've probably taken her up on the offer.
Now, he's so startled by the reality of it even happening that he's tongue-tied and barely stutters out a weak, "Wh- what?"
"My quarters are on the way to the mess hall, my roommate won't be back for at least an hour," she practically purrs.
His neck is probably flushed an embarrassing shade of blue and his subvocals aren't doing him any favors. He's probably radiating discomfort. Which mercifully the recruit seems to pick up on. "Or not."
Once again he's thankful that this is a turian outpost, because that's that. The embarrassment was completely unnecessary. The recruit just shimmies off, a little bit of a bounce in her step when she catches up to her companions down the corridor. He watches, baffled, but still a little relieved that he's saved from having to decline the offer or give an explanation.
Thank the Spirits for that much at least. What would he even say? "No thanks, I'm still hung up on my human soulmate that I may or may not have broken up with recently. Although the stress relief would be great, I don't think I'm up for it right now. And good job with your sniping earlier, you've got a real talent."
Actually, he thinks, that probably would have been fine.
Still, he avoids sitting with any of the recruits while he eats that night. The awkwardness is all in his head, but he feels it acutely like an itch.
At least it keeps his mind off the mark... until he wonders what Shepard would think of the situation. If she'd be jealous like with Dr. Michel (which he's convinced had been entirely innocent on the doctor's part, whereas this was decidedly not). Or if she'd encourage him to go for it. Worse yet, she might just shrug and tell him she genuinely doesn't care.
Fuck, he needs a drink.
It's been nearly two weeks, and though he misses being on the Normandy, his head is a lot clearer. It solidifies in his mind that it was a good idea to put some space between him and Shepard. She'd asked for it, after all, and avoiding each other on the ship was next to impossible.
He's centered and feeling more like himself than he has in a while. The only thing is the increasing pressure radiating from his right hand. It's never more than a gentle heat, shy of being painful, but a nuisance nonetheless.
Tali, Joker, and Vega keep in touch with him. Joker's all business. Well, there are also a lot of snarky comments, but overall it's just mission summaries and crew updates. And there is this one strange talk they have about EDI that has Joker blushing and Garrus seriously confused (but definitely intrigued - if EDI is sentient, can she get her own soulmate mark?).
Vega asks all about the training. The marine's genuinely interested, offering suggestions about different drills to run, all modified from his own experiences with the Alliance. A couple times he seems like he's about to mention Shepard, or he'll refer to her casually without realizing it, and then deliberately redirect the whole conversation.
He appreciates the effort, he supposes, but at one point outright tells James that it's unnecessary. He doesn't need to walk on eggshells around him. Garrus maybe isn't over whatever the hell happened (is happening?), but there's no reason for Vega to feel uncomfortable. With a shaky laugh, the marine nods. And then continues to keep doing it.
With Tali, it's more about "feelings". How does he "feel" being away from the Normandy? How does he "feel" about the recruits he's training? How does he "feel" being with turians again? He spends half the conversation stuttering out vague replies and trying to get her to talk about anything else.
Liara is suspiciously quiet. No new messages, no video chats, no replies to his own attempts to contact her, nothing. He's not so much worried as slightly unnerved.
Garrus has had his fair share of bad luck. Good luck, too, he supposes, but it's usually easier to remember the bad. But he's in the middle of a war and the shit storm that is his personal life, so it's not at the forefront of his mind. Bad things are constantly happening, any news feed or comm line that crackles to life has an over abundance of examples to show you that.
Maybe it's a sort of complacency. It's all already pretty sucky, it's not like it's going to get any worse.
But it can always get worse.
The alarms start going off in the middle of the night, all throughout the compound. He's half-asleep when he checks the monitor by his cot. A turian colony in the system is under attack by Reaper forces. They need support while they attempt to either fight them off (given their size, this isn't a viable option) or buy them time to evacuate. Well, fuck.
He's out of bed and pulling on armor, mentally going through lists of recruits and combing out the most qualified. If they're fast, they can be there within an hour, maybe two.
The other instructors want to come, but they agree that not all of the trainees are ready for combat. Three of the seven instructors agree to stay, and somehow along the way Garrus takes it upon himself to lead the rest of them. They easily defer to his expertise, and he wonders when the hell he became respectable.
The recruits are all gathered in the mess hall, the only space big enough for all of them. They gathered when the heard the alarms, but clearly they don't know what's going on. As Garrus walks toward the small raised platform at the far side, he hears them whispering amongst themselves.
"Is this a drill?"
"Are we under attack?"
"What's going on?"
When he gets up onto the platform with the other instructors, he pauses a moment before he realizes he's somehow in charge of this and it's his responsibility to actually say something.
"The Maurion Colony in this system is under Reaper attack and is requesting assistance so that they can evacuate. The colony is too small and under-equipped to mount any resistance. We're answering the call for support. Lieutenant Vaponia, Sergeants Quinus and Gatis, and I will be leading a small contingent of you who we feel are the most qualified and best trained to deal with the situation. Blue, green and red companies, grab your gear and head immediately to the hangar. We leave in twenty. The rest of you will remain here." He pauses for a moment, letting it all sink in. "Dismissed."
And to show the urgency behind it, he himself immediately leaves.
There are already Hierarchy ships in orbit - seven by his count - holding the Reaper forces at bay. They're not large, completely military, so the only support they can provide is here in space. Any larger transport ships must already be on the ground, where they'll be helping.
One of their ships is shot down as it approaches the planet, another is badly damaged as it makes its final descent. Garrus' transport is lucky to have little more than a few shots fired at it, which the pilot easily avoids. It doesn't make it any easier to swallow the fact that some of the recruits - young turians he himself had trained - are already dead.
And they haven't even started the fight.
Garrus' squads are positioned at the southern most edge of the colony. It happens to be where the housing structures are. He quickly orders them to set up a perimeter and start helping civilians towards evacuation sites. And then he heads into where the combat seems to be the worst, because he's Garrus Vakarian and apparently is an idiot.
Not that he realizes just how bad it's gotten. Sure, he sees the body and the rubble and hears the screams. But it's a fire fight and something he's just so used to. He finds one of the few remaining structures tall enough to provide a decent view, heads up, and sets up shop with his rifle. It also gives him a great vantage point for coordinating efforts among the trainees.
They're doing well. He's proud of what they're doing and doing everything he can to keep his mind away from counting how many are left. That's something he can drive himself crazy with later, when they're back to the relative safety of the training compound... Which they'll probably need to relocate, since the Reapers are now in this system.
Maybe these thoughts are what distract him. Maybe it's that complacency he's developed over the past few years with Shepard. If you can survive a suicide mission, anything and everything else seems by definition not as bad. Maybe it's just fate.
He's always said that somewhere out there, there's a bullet with his name on it. Once it was actually a missile, and that's the one he thought was going to do it. So perhaps it's only fitting that it's a missile this time, too.
And sure, he notices the Marauders collecting at the farthest edges of his sniper range. Far enough that he's not even sure he could hit them, so he leaves them to the others. And yeah, they seem to be setting something up. But his scope doesn't give him a clear enough picture and there's so much else to occupy his attention. Why he doesn't put two and two together, though...
Distraction.
Complacency.
Fate.
Once the missile is fired, he takes notice immediately. Two seconds is all it takes for him to figure out where it's headed and guess how much time he has. Barely enough time to get to his feet and jump.
He lands awkwardly, the shock absorbers in his boots help but it was a three story drop. There's no time to try and get up before the missile hits a little to the left of where he'd been perched. The debris starts raining down and he's starting to get to his feet, to get away, when he's hit.
With ears ringing, he's face down on the ground. His vision's doubled (not that there's much to see through the muck now covering his helmet. The debris is still falling and he knows it's hitting him, but the fog in is head numbs the pain. There's a throbbing in his side, and he wonders if the wetness he notices is blood or his imagination.
The last thought to creep through his mind as he loses consciousness is, what an embarrassing way to go - dying in front of his own recruits.
(And maybe if his mind drifts to Shepard, you couldn't fault him for that either.)