Note: All standard disclaimers still apply. Thanks again to all the people who've taken time to encourage me by adding me or my story to favorites. And, most especially, thanks to those few who've written reviews. Your interest and support is always appreciated, and often instrumental to maintaining the inspiration necessary to develop a story.
Chapter Title: See quote within the text. Also, note similarity to line in Sayers' translation Inferno, which I paraphrase from memory as: "Midway this way of life we're bound upon, I woke to find myself in a dark wood, where the right way was wholly lost and gone." Less directly connected, but also of interest for this story as a whole may be the inscription on the gates of hell: Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
Chapter-specific Notes: Takes place directly following Parts Answering Parts Chapter 8: Two Pains.
I think there will eventually be a scene directly following this one as well, but that may change as the story develops.
A recap of Chapter 8 may be helpful: Shepard has refused to take Garrus into the Omega Quarantine zone and has ordered him back to the ship as Acting XO. Also, as is mentioned in the story text, very little time (probably less than 24 hours) has passed between Garrus' (partial) recovery and the start of this next mission.
Williams may have had the Indoctrinated in mind when she spoke of Purgatory, or Saren's determination to believe he'd betrayed the Council in order to save some scrap of life in the universe, or perhaps even (most likely?) her own desire to reclaim the family honor. This may or may not become more clear to us as the story progresses. ;-)
Purgatorio quotes are from the Longfellow translation of Dante's Purgatorio and can be found at this link: .
Williams had once described an odd place where the spirits of human dead gathered to wait for many years and were punished for their misdeeds in life in order to be free of them before moving on to the eternity beyond. I've shown him all the people of perdition/ And now those spirits I intend to show/ Who purge themselves beneath thy guardianship. (1.66), she'd said, reciting part of a poem. She'd had to explain so the quote would make sense...and he wasn't sure it did, even then.
But it did now.
Omega had begun to explain it to him, perhaps better than he'd liked. Not just in the lives the of the people he saw there,suffering every day, but in the way he'd appointed himself their guardian, as if doing something, anything, remotely good, would somehow make things right. Somehow provide him with enough wisdom and experience to find a way to make the Council reconsider. To force them to stop hiding behind their regulations and their rules and face the facts. About the Reapers. About justice. About Shepard.
He'd let her walk away without him once, and he'd been left behind.
Along the solitary plain we went / as one who unto the lost road returns,/ and till he finds it seems to go in vain. (1.120), he could almost hear Williams making yet another of her sardonic observations over his shoulder.
Williams was right.
He'd tried to catch up, tried to follow the Commander as he always had, off into the mists of time and, by some impossible act of the spirits, she'd turned back into the clear blue present, pulling him along with her.
But now, standing in the airlock of a ship that was and was not the one to which he'd longed to return, he couldn't help feeling fear in every hollow of his bones.
She'd walked away. He'd let her walk away, and he'd be left behind. Again. Maybe this time for good. The spirits tended to get vengeful when they felt their gifts weren't being properly appreciated, after all. Not that he could blame them.
His fear superseded the shock of seeing her again at all, against all the odds.
And as shock ebbed, pain was setting in.
The pain of losing her.
The pain of losing the only cause he'd ever been allowed to fight for as well as believe in...
And the pain of losing his team.
His failure, his fault...that had certainly taught him something of how the great and burning desire to atone could become so visceral, so immediate, so tangible, that it trapped you and held you more tightly than the best restraints C-Sec had ever devised.
The blow so great, that they despaired of pardon. (1.11-2) He heard Williams speak the words like a benediction. Soberly, somberly. Maybe even tenderly.
The expression on Shepard's face as she gazed through the viewport at the blazing light that spread and pooled beneath them on Virmire and throughout the first few days that followed flickered through his memory, dousing his anger at her refusal to let him follow her into quick and sputtering death.
His urge to turn and run after her in defiance of her orders remained, but...he'd already sacrificed more than enough dignity for the day.
And for all the days to come.
He had no idea how he was going to make amends.
A red-headed woman was waiting for him just inside the airlock.
Garrus was no expert on human expressions, but he had the impression that hers was almost unnaturally warm and friendly. It made him feel rather like a pyjak being greeted by a varren.
"Officer Vakarian?" She thrust a hand toward him. "Kelly Chambers. Commander Shepard's Yeoman."
Garrus eyed her hand warily, trying to remember what the gesture meant, then snatched it a bit precipitately as he remembered. He was supposed to clasp it in his own hand and jiggle it a bit- "shake" he believed the humans called it. An odd ritual by way of greeting, if you asked him, but, of course, no one had.
"I don't suppose the Commander has had time to mention me yet," the woman added, a trifle awkwardly, though that might just have been because his shake seemed to have thrown her a bit off-balance. "She hasn't had a chance to tell me much about you, either, but I'm very happy to see you."
"Happy?" Garrus repeated, confused. Shepard hadn't seemed particularly happy to have him back on her team when she was ordering him back onto the Normandy, and even if she was happy to have him keeping an eye on the ship, why would this woman care? She didn't even know him. She probably couldn't tell him apart from any other turian in Omega.
Maybe it was just nostalgia, but he didn't remember having this much trouble understanding the human crew-let alone the Commander-the last time he was on the Normandy. On a Normandy. He had to be hallucinating. Dementia had set in. The end was nigh.
At least he'd gotten to see Shepard again, though if anyone had asked him ahead of time, he'd never have guessed this would be how he'd imagine their reunion. So maybe it was real? If so, that missile must have scrambled his senses.
Oh. The missile.
"Ah. Yeah, I think I owe Dr. Chakwas for that."
"What?" The Yeoman looked nearly as confused as Garrus felt. "Oh. Your injuries." Her expression cleared, though it still looked a bit...inquisitive. "I'm sure seeing you well is all the thanks Dr. Chakwas wants or needs. We're all very pleased she and Operative Lawson were able to save your life, though, of course, we wish we'd been able to prevent your injuries in the first place, but I don't know how Commander Shepard and her team could have gotten to you any sooner.
"I mean, the Commander had barely been back from the dead for a day before she was asking The Illusive Man where you were. She's had me scouring space with a toothbrush, looking for you, ever since she arrived on board. I was beginning to think Alliance High Command would call me out for treason if I so much as wrote another letter. Come to that, they probably still will..." she trailed off, "Unless..." she paused hopefully... "I don't suppose you're still in touch with Lt. Alenko?"
"Staff Commander Alenko," Garrus corrected.
"Ah." Garrus wasn't entirely sure he liked the way those laser-bright green eyes seemed to bore into him, unearthing events-and feelings-he'd thought gone and buried.
The red-head waited just long enough for it to be uncomfortably apparent he had no intention of volunteering any information to fill the silence. "So...Commander Shepard left you in charge of a ship you haven't really seen yet, right? I'd be happy to show you around."
Garrus wasn't at all sure he'd be happy to spend that much more time with this bright, brittle female, but if he didn't do something, he'd go mad waiting on Shepard to return, wondering whether or not she'd died...again, wondering why she'd left him here, wondering if he'd imagined the whole unlikely thing...not that seeing the ship could really confirm the reality for him, but at least it would be a distraction...