Notes: Updates will continue to be slow, but I hope my readers will stick with me for the ride.
All standard disclaimers still apply. Although I don't own the characters or universe, I do work hard on my little stories. Please don't print or repost without my knowledge. Thanks.
Chapter-specific notes: Takes place not long after Garrus' ME2 loyalty mission.
And thanks again to all the people who've taken time to encourage me by adding me or my story to favorites or alerts. And, most especially, thanks to those few who've written reviews. I welcome your interest, thoughts, and ideas-even constructive criticism. Your support is always appreciated, and often instrumental to maintaining the inspiration necessary to develop a story.
Garrus had lost track of how long he'd spent sequestered in the Main Battery, hunched over the console, watching streams of numbers scroll swiftly by-each sharply delineated, their meanings and their consequences as sure and solid as concrete.
At first, following Shepard had been like that. He hadn't stopped to consider, hadn't even really asked her for permission. There wasn't really a choice-he'd followed her because he'd had to, because it was the right-the only-thing to do.
Shepard had vowed to kill Saren herself because the Council had already proven themselves unable-or maybe just unwilling-to contain the danger he represented to themselves, to human colonists, to the galaxy at large. And yet...Shepard had shown herself reluctant to kill Saren while he might yet be turned to some good use.
Garrus didn't kid himself into thinking that was mercy.
It was practicality in the end. Sometimes, a fight took every resource you could muster, so you didn't waste them when you found them. Period.
Which was exactly why Shepard hadn't put a bullet through Zaeed's head at the Eldfell-Ashland refinery, however much her fingers must have been itching to do it.
It was part of why she'd walked away from the workers and let them die, however much it killed her to do it.
Vido Santiago was the rest of the reason.
As the long-term head of the Blue Suns, he'd taken more than one group of workers hostage...if he lived, he was sure to do it again, and it was hardly likely that would be the only thing he'd do, let alone the worst.
So...if killing him cost the lives of these workers but saved the lives of countless victims in the future...Shepard would kill him...particularly if doing so also happened to help her muster a little extra firepower to protect the entire galaxy against a much more dangerous threat. Even if it was firepower she didn't particularly like... though while she might have heartily disliked Zaeed at the time, overall she seemed almost fond of him in a begrudging sort of way... as she'd told Garrus at the time, it was more that she and Zaeed disagreed...
something she and Garrus had almost never done... until... Sidonis.
But, ultimately, Garrus' revenge was different than Zaeed's.
Partly because he had given her an option, but mostly because...
whatever Sidonis had done, he was clearly too much of a mess to be danger to anyone else in the future...
Garrus understood that much.
He ought to, he'd seen it more than once in precedent-
Mordin's compatriot Maelon had to die for an inability to repent his dangerous scientific goals and unethical experiments. Experiments that might all too easily be repeated.
Shepard had allowed-encouraged-Garrus himself to kill Saleon because Saleon had proven himself a threat to others for as long as he lived, a threat C-Sec had already proven themselves incapable of keeping in containment...
But she'd managed to spare both the "father" and the L2 biotics who'd gone and done something stupid out of desperation. He wasn't quite sure-even now-she would have been able to bring herself to kill them, in spite of her violent dislike of terrorists, particularly the type that took hostages.
And that damn doctor, the one on Ontarom... the one with her friend holding a gun to his head...
well, now that he thought about it, she'd talked that guy down too. He should have known, should have expected. But, really, he had to admit to himself-didn't he?-maybe he had.
That was what he hated most of all.
That he understood.
Actually, no. That wasn't true. At least not entirely.
What bothered him most was that some part of him-a part that grew larger every day-couldn't help feeling that the death of his team might be worth it.
He tried to tell himself that finding some good in the bad was not the same as approving the bad, that being glad to rejoin Shepard however it had happened wasn't the same as being glad his team had died, but...he wasn't sure he believed it, not really.
If losing them-all of them-was what it took to bring Shepard back to him...
The gunnery door cracked like lightning.
"All right, Vakarian," Shepard said, her voice tense, tired. "Spill it."
"Shepard, spilling anything in the Main Battery would be inadvisable," EDI interposed.
"It?" Garrus asked, fanning the plates on his forehead a bit, very much the equivalent of a raised eyebrow.
"It," Shepard reiterated firmly. "As in... the reason why you've been avoiding me."
"Avoiding you?" Garrus repeated skeptically.
Shepard crossed her arms, lowered her chin and looked at him.
Garrus rocked back on his heels, tilted his own chin up and back, and returned the look with interest. "Shepard, every time you step off this ship, I'm right behind you."
Shepard blinked, the look dissolving into something else, something almost pained. Or maybe it was just a trick of the light, because as quickly as he thought he'd seen it, it disappeared.
"Just like old times," Shepard said dryly. It was a statement, but Garrus had the oddest impression it might just be a question.
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
Shepard smiled slightly, reached out and thumped him on the shoulder in an affectionate sort of way, sighed and shook her head. "You never objected to me interrupting you when you were working on the Mako or in the armory, helping Ash out. What are you doing in here that's so damn important you keep shutting me out?"
Trying not to think of the first Normandy, of the great, tearing buzz of those golden beams of energy as they tore through the hull like a turian talon splicing an old-fashioned soda can in half...something he'd been harassed into doing one afternoon by a very bored Shepard, an equally-bored Williams and a slightly apologetic Alenko, all observed by a highly amused Wrex.
Trying not to think of the silence of the night preceding those shots, trying not to think of how the Normandy had never gotten so much as a shot off, not one. Of course, the gunnery chief had been KIA, and neither the Council nor the Alliance had seen fit to appoint a replacement, temporary or otherwise, or even to give Garrus the necessary clearance to fill in. But... if he'd had clearance...if he'd tried...
would it have made a difference?
Would they have been able to fight their way free?
He wished it had happened that way.
He wanted the comfort of the fantasy...
It haunted him...he'd wanted the chance to see what the Normandy could do in a fight...Alenko was too damn cautious, too controlled, but he'd been right-the first up the ladder rarely made it over the wall in one piece...and even Shepard was no exception.
They'd been caught completely unaware, unaware and outgunned...
Most likely, even if he'd had clearance, he wouldn't have time to do anything. If he'd tried to fight it out, he might have been the one Shepard had died trying to reach...
would she be standing here without him?
or would all three of them-Garrus, Shepard, and Joker-all be dead, gone beyond redemption?
What might have been didn't matter.
Only what had been.
He had lived. He had become a vigilante and lived to regret it.
Only what was.
Joker was at the helm. Shepard was standing in this room now. Alive.
Still chasing across the galaxy, righting wrongs.
Even confronting the Collectors themselves, right out of urban legend.
And if the Collectors had tech even remotely like whoever-whatever-they had run into off of Alchera... "I don't like our chances," he said grimly. "Not unless we upgrade the guns."
Shepard slid down onto the crate she'd been standing next to.
The lights in the battery flickered low and red, catching in the fissures of her skin, erupting into view like veins of lava, making her look as if she was breaking slowly apart.
Garrus hissed between his teeth, a turian curse, rough and succinct.
Shepard raised a hand. She looked calm, composed, even the lines of the scars seemed to be cooling rapidly. "We can get you any gun you want," she said. "Money, resources, not an object. Any gun you want, Garrus."