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Shepard stands in the driving rain, and thinks she is the worst kind of coward. The call from Nalah Butler had shaken her more than she wanted to admit, and she had buried that discomfort in the savage heat of Haestrom's unstable sun, Dholen.
When the Normandy passed the first comm buoy , a substantial data packet from Liara had confirmed the brutal death of Jaroth, who's brutalized body had been found hung from the balcony of the deserted apartment building where Garrus and his team had made their final stand. Included with that information was a set of still pictures, mercifully cropped from video footage, of Nalah at the execution of her husband. Shepard had stared at the final still for several minutes, gazing at those dead, empty eyes, at the way an armored hand was holding her face upright by her hair, the shine of fresh sick on the front of her tunic, and the way her hands had been curled around her then-flat belly. Afterwards, with a newly recruited Tali in tow, she had walked into the first bar she saw on Illium, and gotten as drunk as possible.
Telling Tali about Garrus had been something like throwing stones at a kitten. Shepard had gulped back the harsh on-tap beer and watched the quarian flinch with each new carefully worded scrap of information; not saying anything when Tali changed her order to harder liquors. Eventually she had left her sitting silently at the bar and wandered the streets and markets of Nos Astra, hazy with drink and wracked with indecision.
Garrus had once told Shepard that the hardest part of working for C-Sec had been the post-crime rookie assignments of informing a family about the loss of a loved one. At the time Shepard had been skeptical , now, standing in the downpour staring at the Lanastia clinic, she had come to realize that Garrus had been completely in the right. Shepard had honestly considered leaving Garrus completely in the dark about the new developments on Omega, but Liara's condemnation of that idea, and her own guilt at the thought of deceiving her friend had destroyed that concept.
The driving rain was warm, with a slight tang of ocean salt. It plasters Shepard's clothes to her skin and slicks her hair flat to her skull, but does nothing to clear the haze of alcohol and dread from her mind. Lanastia had added Shepard to a rare all-hours pass list, and the door slides aside to admit her without hesitation. As the clinic door hisses shut behind her, Shepard stands, dripping, in the door way, trying to ignore the furious glance the night-duty receptionist gives her. Managing to wring the worst of the storm from her clothing , Shepard ducks her head so she doesn't have to see the pointed glare the young asari gives the clock on the wall. The lights in the hallways have been dimmed, the only sound is the squelch of Shepard's sodden shoes.
The door to Garrus' room swings back soundlessly when Shepard presses her fingers to the access panel. The only light is from outside, the shimmer of traffic lights and the glow of distant billboards reflecting in a soft haze through rain spattered glass. Garrus is sprawled out asleep with one arm curled up against his chest, the other outstretched, palm up, talons slack and relaxed. Its the first time Shepard had seen his face without its shroud of bandages, and although its evident that the terrible injuries have healed a great deal, the dull gleam of cybernetic reconstruction of his jaw makes her stomach clench.
It seemed strange for Shepard to see Garrus so unguarded, and she stood for long minutes, watching him sleep while cooling rain dripped down her face like tears. His rest wasn't completely peaceful; occasional tremors flickered through his body, and he would gasp in a few deep, deliberate breaths, talons curling like he was trying to hold onto something. He had just relaxed back into peaceful slumber again when Shepard summoned up the flagging remnants of her courage.
"Garrus" Shepard's voice came out a soft rasp, as if her traitorous body itself shied away from the situation as much as her mind did.
Despite the softness of her call, Garrus was awake in an instant, pale eyes fixing on her, muscles coiling under the darker scars crisscrossing his reconstructed shoulder. "Shepard?! Is everything alright?" The adrenaline induced flanging of his voice eased, replaced by the higher tones of fear and concern, "what has happened? Are you hurt?" He sits up, untangling long legs from the blankets and blinking up at Shepard as she stepped forward to rest a clammy hand on his shoulder, its slight weight entreating him to stay sitting as she sinks down beside him.
Shepard tried not to look over at Garrus as she mechanically recited the details surrounding the deaths of Omega's criminal elite; from the corner of her eyes she could see his hands clenching and relaxing rhythmically against the sheets, partly grown in talons leaving pocked tears in the tough fabric. A single glance through the still sodden strands of her hair showed clear confusion on his expressive alien face; but his eyes sparked with a gleam of predatory satisfaction as Shepard laid out the details.
"Garrus, I need to know, is there any way that one or more of your team survived?"
"No!" Garrus bolted to his feet so fast his bare feet gouged runnels in the flooring. "How...how could you ask me that?" Shepard watched as he paced across the room and back, movements jerky with stress. "You saw, you saw...Melanis, Butler...Sidonis..."
"I know, I know, and I'm sorry." Shepard scrubbed the last of the damp from her face with a forearm, "but what about any of the others, is there any way?"
Garrus' pacing slowed, and he paused at the window, resting his forehead against the glass. "No, " he said softly, voice heavy with regret, "Erash...lived for a while, if we could have gotten him help...then maybe...but nobody else..." His voice trailed away, and Shepard could see the grief in his eyes as he turned back towards her, and mentally cursed herself for reopening old wounds.
"That's not everything, is it, Shepard?" Shepard turned her face away from that piercing gaze, she always forgot that Garrus' C-Sec background allowed him to read her far better than she expected. In truth she hadn't even been sure that the subject of Nahlah Butler's cowardice and betrayal had been necessary to broach. "Shepard?" Garrus' dual toned voice had a low note of resigned dread, and Shepard twitched involuntarily, hands clenching together in her lap.
" I've been in contact with Nalah Butler, she's...pregnant, near term, and..."
"Pregnant?" Garrus cut Shepard off mid-sentence, "but human gestation is...nine months?" His eyes flickered over to hers for confirmation, and Shepard nodded mutely. "That would mean that she..." Garrus slowly froze, "oh", he finished in a small, horrified voice.
"The mercs promised she would be safe, her and her husband both," Shepard added desperately, hoping to soften the blow; but it was as futile as grasping after a bullet after the gun had already been fired.
"The door codes." Garrus sounded like a dead thing, his voice hollow and lost. Shepard watched as he folded his forearms against his stomach, hunching forward as if the revelation had been a physical blow. "I gave her the door codes, so she would be safe." Shepard slid to her feet, reaching out to rest a hand against the side of Garrus' face, "I did this, Shepard, my fault...all of it, all..." Whatever else he had been planning to say was muffled as Shepard pressed her palm over his mouth, feeling the hot huff of his breath against her hand.
"No," she whispered, "no, you tried to help her, to protect them all. So don't, please...don't." Through the remaining alcohol haze, Shepard was aware that there was far more she wanted to say, but the words seemed jumbled in her mind, overlayed with the slight burn of the cerberus implants as they struggled to process the toxins in her blood. "Just...don't," trying to ignore the stricken look in his eyes, Shepard slid her palm up across the rough plating of his jaw to cup the softer hide on the underside of his fringe; and rising on her tiptoes, she pressed her lips to the unyielding cartilage of Garrus' mouth.
For a long moment Garrus remained utterly still and unresponsive; but Shepard let one hand track across the familiar planes of his face, and felt him press instantly into her touch, and the tentative brush of his tongue against hers as he tried to kiss her back. It wasn't at all like kissing a human, Shepard realized, Garrus was all sharp teeth and angles, with an odd smokey-sweet taste. Her hands found the softer hide at the back of his neck, and he made an almost desperate noise as Shepard lightly ran her fingernails against the sensitive skin, marveling at the almost feverish heat of his body.
Shepard felt the rough heat of his palm as it ghosted over her cheek, talons tangling in her hair, his other hand a hot weight against the small of her back as he pulled her up against him. Shepard turned her head to nibble lightly at Garrus' undamaged mandible, smiling at the sharp gasp he gave in response; then reaching up to carefully untangle his hand from her hair, when he involuntarily tightened his grip enough to hurt. "Easy, that feels nice, just ease up a little" she murmured against his jaw.
"Sorry, sorry," Garrus' voice was oddly quavery, and Shepard was about to question him, but then that rough tongue was curling against the pulse in her neck and it was hard to think coherently, never mind formulating any kind of question.
Shepard prided herself on her ability to read the subtleties of vocal nuances and body languages, it had served her well throughout her military career, although it had taken a while to adapt to the subtle physical ques of her non-human crew members. Garrus had been a relatively easy study, and it hadn't taken her all that long to easily recognize the mandible-splayed grin that usually heralded some smug witticism, or the way he tilted his head back when he was being particularly stubborn. Had she not been still blurred with alcohol, Shepard would have immediately picked up on the almost desperate edge to Garrus' actions. The way he immediately pushed into any touch or contact, the way be buried his head in the crook of her neck, avoiding eye contact even as he slid his hands up under the fabric of her shirt, talons scratching lightly at the skin on her back.
Even the slowly dimming haze of inebriation couldn't cover the sudden, full body shiver Garrus gave as Shepard let her hand track across the heavy collarbones that joined his cowl to the protuberant keel bone on his chest, settling into the flare of one hip.
"Garrus? Hey, what?..." Shepard pulled her hands back immediately, horrified when Garrus stumbled back from her, folding his arms protectively across his midriff.
"Don't," he said hoarsely, stepping back away from her, as Shepard raised a hand to see if he was alright. "I'm...I'm sorry Shepard, I just...can't," the haunted look in his eyes, full of fear and shame, caught Shepard like a blow to the stomach.
"Ahh, dammit, I'm sorry Garrus...I should never have..."
"Its not your fault!" Garrus interrupted, "I wanted...I wanted, but I just...can't," he turned his face away, mandibles flattened to his jaw in frustration and embarrassment.
"This was a mistake." Shepards voice was cold and taught, the adrenaline surge of shock and self recrimination had chased the last remains of the nights drinking from her system; the reality of the situation settling into her mind with brutal clarity. "I had no right, no right at all," turning away so she wouldn't have to look at the confusion and hurt on Garrus' face, Shepard forced leaden legs to take her to the door. "I'm going to look into whats been happening on Omega, I'll let you know as soon as I know anything."
The door was half open before Garrus protested, " Shepard, wait! Don't go, please... I'm sorry!"
"You're sorry?" Shepard's voice sounded choked. "You're sorry? That only proves just how fucking wrong this was," the look she cast back over her shoulder was heavy with sorrow. "I'm so sorry Garrus."
"I don't understand." Garrus sounded so lost it made Shepard flinch, " I don't understand what's going on here, but I'm going with you. To Omega," he added for clarification.
"No, you aren't." The door was swinging closed when she added, "goodbye, Garrus," before it clicked shut with solemn finality.
Shepard was far enough down the hallway, that she could pretend not to hear as Garrus called her name, quickening her pace as she heard the click of his bare talons on the hallway flooring. The front doors automatically swung open in front of her, and the wind and rain slapped into her like a physical blow. A surge of bile in her throat is her only warning before the night's alcohol makes a violent reappearance. Scrubbing her mouth on her sleeve, Shepard tries to tell herself its the burning in her throat that is bringing tears to her eyes.
The rented skycar was still parked where she left it, listing crossways into several spaces, and Shepard is in the drivers seat before she realizes that Garrus is standing in the rain staring at her. He's yelling something, but it's lost in the driving rain, and the insulation of the car's interior. Shepard can see he's shivering, the torrential rain soaking instantly through the loose, sleeping clothes he had been wearing when she woke him. Remembering his endless complaints about the cold on Noveria she tries to motion him to return to the complex. "Go back!" she mouths at him, watching as he shakes his head violently, water scattering from his fringe in a glittering arc. He says something back, but Shepard cant understand, so she simply shakes her head as she rams the aircar into gear, sending it careening skyward. Desperately she pushed the rented machine to the limits of its capabilities, as if she could somehow outrun her own misplaced guilt.