Garrus sleeps for four days. Shepard frets almost constantly, torn between the desire to see him wake, and the paralyzing self doubt that she can't possibly do anything to help him once he does. A slide show of images from that damned video twist through her mind in an endless loop, plaguing her waking hours and making her nights a nightmare kaleidoscope of horrific dreams.
The coffee is Gardner's typical bitter brew, but Shepard gulps it down anyway, relishing the sting of it on her tongue as she watches Chakwas carefully change the dressings that cover the bloodpack brand on Garrus' stomach. The edges of the burn are startlingly black against the turian's tan hide. Chakwas slicks on a clear, viscous ointment before taping a fresh patch of sterile gauze over it.
Shepard sees the first flicker of muscle tension as Chakwas turns away to toss the stained bandaging into the bio-hazard bin. Its not much-just a twitchy movement of his arm, but Shepard is already rising, bitter coffee forgotten, when his eyes snap open. His eyes are clearer, Shepard notes, devoid of the dull haze of sickness, but still a long way from sane.
"Hey," Shepard begins, making the initial mistake of leaning forward, hand outstretched in a hopeless effort to calm him. A desperate attempt to forestall the reaction she's afraid she's going to receive, "it's just me, Garrus."
Garrus flings himself back from her so savagely he hits the floor in a tangle of bony limbs and sheets. The spur of one flailing leg hooking on a medical stand, sending a tray of surgical instruments crashing to the floor in a cascade of silver. Struggling awkwardly to his feet, Garrus claws almost frantically at the IV lines in his arms; the monitors set up a piercing alarm as he drags the ports roughly free, spattering the floor with droplets of dark blue blood. The alarms seem to startle him more, and he lunges away, clawed feet scrabbling for purchase on the slick floor.
Chakwas moves slowly in to shut the alarms down, keeping her movements steady and non aggressive, backing quickly away when the shrill beeping is silenced. Garrus tracks her with a swing of his head, one hand raising to paw curiously at the bandages and grafting on his jaw.
"You remember Doctor Chakwas?" Shepard tries for a smile, "you'd think she would get tired of patching this crew up, but here she is."
"No doctors...I didn't want..." Garrus looks fixedly at the floor, voice oddly flat, lacking the usual thrum of dual harmonics.
"You were dying, Garrus."
Raising his head, Garrus fixes Shepard with a stare as dead and flat as his voice, "I know."
Shepard feels a cold lurch at that statement, and stands, watching helplessly as Garrus starts to shake with the strain of staying upright. He folds his knees, and Shepard thinks his strength has given out, but he fumbles for something on the floor then manages to stagger back to his feet, swaying slightly.
"Shepard..." Chakwas warns lowly at the same second Shepard realizes what Garrus had retrieved. He's staring down at the surgical scalpel in his hand with a kind of dreamlike fascination, and as he starts to raise the flash of blade to his own throat, Shepard flings herself forward with a desperate panic.
Shepard had sparred several times with Garrus on the SR1, and had enjoyed the challenge. With a combination of turian military tactics and C-sec training, Garrus in his fighting prime could spar her to a standstill. Its that experience that makes it all the more surprising that, even in his weakened state, Garrus goes down like he's been poleaxed when Shepard pile drives her full weight into him. There's no time for niceties, and Shepard wrenches Garrus' hand away from his throat, digging her fingers roughly into the pressure points in his wrist joint, until his fingers spasm open, and the scalpel falls free. She kicks it away, keeping her grip on Garrus' wrist as he writhes beneath her, voicing a gut wrenching keen of despair.
"God dammit Garrus! stop, STOP!" Shepard hates the necessity of this, as Garrus goes shakily pliant, head tilting in the submission that Shepard has come to hate. His eyes go strangely distant, starting to glaze as his mind seeks refuge from the suffering he's been conditioned to expect.
"No, just stay with me." Shepard presses her free hand to the side of Garrus' face, "that's right, just stay with me, you're safe. Nobody's going to hurt you, you're ok." Garrus closes his eyes, but Shepard can feel the reactionary shivering ease slightly, and a faint almost unnoticeable pressure against her hand as he presses slightly into her touch.
For a long second Shepard thinks she's maybe she's imagining that slight pressure against her palm. Daringly she gently rubs her thumb over the colonial markings on his jaw, and Garrus tips his head slightly to the side, unconsciously pressing into the soothing touch. Shepard wonders sadly how long its been since anyone touched him with any manner of kindness, for him to fight down his natural response to pull away for such simple comfort. As much as she wants, almost desperately, to stay like that, Shepard is well aware that she is still pinning Garrus' wrist hard enough that she can feel his pulse against her fingers, and away from the heat of the bed his skin is cooling rapidly.
"Alright," she says softly, instantly missing the feel of him against her hand, as he jerks away from her voice. "I'm going to let you go now." Shepard eases back, carefully relaxing her grip on Garrus' wrist, ready to grab for him again if necessary.
As soon as he is out of her grip, Garrus scrabbles back until his back hits the wall, tucking his knees up in the achingly familiar defensive posture Shepard had first seen in purgatory. Instead of tucking his head down, he raises a hand to touch the light smear of blood on his neck where the scalpel had nicked him before Shepard had pulled it away. "Why did you?...I wanted..." Garrus looks up at Shepard, hurt and bewilderment written plainly in his pale blue eyes.
"Because I need you," Shepard says simply, sitting down crosslegged so she isn't towering over Garrus. "I trust you, and I need you at my back for this, more than you can know."
"Oh" Garrus says simply, eyes infinitely tired as he lets his head rest against the wall behind him.
Swallowing down the unexpected lump in her throat, Shepard adds, "and those fuckers, those goddamn bastards on Omega, on Purgatory...they cant win this Garrus. I need you to fight, I need you to fight them, one more time."
"I fought," Garrus mutters bleakly. "I fought...but they just wouldn't stop...I..I tried to make them stop, but everything... everything hurt...and they just kept.." His voice trails off into a mournful, choking keen, and Shepard watches sadly as he touches his own hand to the blue-marked plates of his cheek, broken talons scratching along the sensitive hide behind his jaw, pressing into his own touch as he tries to comfort himself.
"I know, I know...damnit, I know." Shepard wishes she had put a bullet in Kuril's skull when she had the chance, "but they can't touch you now, never again. Trust me on that."
Garrus blinks slowly at her, and Shepard can see him starting to shiver with cold, the loose scrub pants Chakwas had dressed him in offering no insulation against the sterile chill of the air. "I'm just...tired, Shepard. Don't want to fight... any more...," his gaze starts to waver with exhaustion, "Its...in my head, all the time..I can feel it all the time...can you make that stop?"
The desperate spark of hope in his eyes makes Shepard's gut lurch. "I don't know," she whispers, hating herself for the honesty, "but I'm going to damn well try, so I need you to stay with me, OK?" Shepard waits until Garrus manages an almost imperceptible nod, before carefully clambering to her feet. "We really need to get you back in bed, get you warmed up," she offers Garrus an open palm to help him up.
Garrus stares at her outstretched hand for a long moment, and Shepard can see the fingers on one hand twitching as he half raises it; he almost stretches out to her, then at the last minute snatches his hand back, levering himself up without assistance. Covering her disappointment with a reassuring smile, Shepard backs up as he weaves forward and manages to scramble onto the bed, curling up on his side with a sigh of relief as the heat sinks into his starved body. He doesn't even stir as Chakwas quietly steps in and shakes out a blanket over him, though he watches her warily until she backs away.
Shepard sits and waits by his bedside until he drifts of, the tension leeching out of his body in a series of overstressed muscle twitches, his breathing softening. She's just rising, quietly so as not to wake him, when he uncurls one thin arm. Reaching out with surprising speed, he snags the edge of her jacket.
Freezing, Shepard blinks down at Garrus in surprise, thinking for a moment that it was some kind of weird involuntary movement; but there is a flicker of blue as he slits his eyes open, his sleep hazed gaze flickering up to her then quickly away.
"Uhh, you...want me to stay?" Shepard isn't entirely sure if she was expecting a response, but Garrus' eyes flutter closed again, and his hand tightens its hold on her jacket. "I'll take that as a yes," Shepard can't hardly keep the grin off her face, as she eases back down to sit beside him. Garrus doesn't stir again for hours, but not once does he ease his grip; Shepard simply sits, lips curved in a slight smile and watches him breathe.