"Something about this crew and suicide missions …" Tali sighed.
Garrus huffed a laugh as he adjusted his sniper scope for the fifth time. As usual, it was set just how he wanted it; he just needed something to occupy his hands. They had only been down in the cargo bay for a few minutes, but it felt so much longer. His nerves were on edge as Cortez did his systems check.
"Hey, Lola would do the same for any of us," Vega answered. "She already has for a lot of us."
"Of course, she has. She wouldn't be Shepard otherwise."
Vega grinned and turned his attention to Garrus. "Sure you can make it okay, Scars? Doc looked like she was goin' to pull her hair out when we left the CIC."
"She had the same reaction after Omega," Garrus shrugged. "I guess I'm not very good at following doctor's orders. Besides, Dr. Chakwas should know me staying here while someone else goes to find Shepard is impossible."
"Always the gentleman, wielding his rifle for the woman he loves," Tali said happily.
"I try not to show it off, but I pretty much am the perfect boyfriend."
The other two laughed before they all fell into a silence. Jokes and banter were done to distract them from what they could be walking into. Stubborn as he was, Garrus felt the sinking worry that finding Shepard could all be for nothing. Logic was one of his downfalls, as he began to steel himself for what he could see. Possibilities …
"Systems check good!" Cortez called from the shuttle. "Joker's looking for a drop spot."
Turian, human, and quarian stepped into the small sitting area of the shuttle.
"Might want to strap in," the man in the driver's seat suggested as his fingers worked furiously over the holographic menus before him. "It's gonna be a bumpy one."
Garrus allowed himself a deep breath before sitting down. Another few moments of waiting, then he would have the chance to help Shepard, at least one last time. He found himself thinking of the look on her face when the Normandy came to evacuate Liara and himself. Few times he had seen the look before, when she thought she was alone in a room. Hurt, struggle … something more than he couldn't quite place. Emotions were so easy to see on human faces; they could be read in moments. But Shepard was an exception. There was so much to her that so many didn't see, he didn't see. Given this opportunity, he would do whatever he could to see all of it again. Tali and Vega sat down to strap themselves in when they heard the communications.
"Cortez, hold up," Kaidan's voice came into the shuttle. "Something's happening."
"What is it, Kaidan?" Cortez asked.
"Looks like—"
"All fleets!" Hackett's voice cut into their communications. "The Crucible is armed."
"Shit," Vega muttered.
"Disengage and head to the rendezvous point."
The Normandy started shaking more violently, as if there was a force building around the very ship. Cortez put his hands down from the shuttle's controls, turning to look back at the three behind him. Garrus was on his feet. No, he was so close …
"I repeat: get the hell out of here!"
A lurch forward pitched him into the wall of the shuttle. The turian caught himself on the bars above his head, his right shoulder striking the hardest. Flares of pain erupted in his mind as the wounds in his side reopened. He could sense the blood pool inside of his already damaged armor, but he didn't feel it. In that moment, he didn't feel much of anything.
"Joker …" Kaidan's voice came over the comms quietly. "We gotta go."
"… Damn it …" Joker muttered, his voice weighed in defeat.
No.
"Scars …"
No. He walked wordlessly back to the ship's elevator.
"Garrus, wait …"
Garrus stopped by the doors, waiting for them to open. No, there had to be something. There had to be. He spent his entire life picturing the worst, knowing that anything at any time could turn sour. Best intentions were destroyed with the worst results. A "negative Nancy," or something along those lines, as Shepard jokingly called him once. It was a human saying for a person who never expected much, or always thought the worst of anything at any given time. But that was life, his life.
Not Shepard's. Shepard didn't deserve this. Death was inevitable; he knew that. He had accepted his own back on Omega, when he prepared himself for his last stand against the endless gangs. Then Shepard arrived, convincing him that there was still hope for this broken galaxy. For whatever reason, she saw its potential to come together. Destinies changed because of that woman's existence, especially his own, and now all of it could be taken away from him … for the second time.
Shepard never deserved this.
Tali and Vega were wordlessly beside him as the elevator arrived. The three climbed in as the ship took a huge surge forward. Vega caught Tali's arm before she was thrown into the wall of the elevator. Garrus did nothing to stop himself from striking the wall; in fact, the pain helped him to focus momentarily.
He had to shut it down. Drown it out. Emotional reaction was not what was necessary in this moment. Both of them knew the risk; both of them knew in those moments on Earth that it could be their last … Forget her face, that last touch of her hand on the sensitive skin of his scars, finally telling her the words he had been trying to grasp for months … No, he would never forget those memories. But he could turn away from them, at least for a little while. All of the people in the Normandy still had to be protected. Priorities. Order. They were easy to understand, to lose yourself in.
He would do just that.