Garrus wasn't entirely sure it was a good sign that he was seeing the inside of the Normandy's medical bay for the second time in his first forty-eight hours onboard. His first visit hadn't been particularly informative of the changes to the new medical bay, given that he'd been unconscious for most of it. Now, having concluded the unexpectedly thorough medical examination Chakwas had insisted on performing on his return from Omega's plague zone, Garrus took the chance to peer about him curiously. This room was a lot larger than the first Normandy's medical bay had been, to start with. And rather better provisioned, he thought as he ran a careful eye over the shiny new equipment. It seemed having the deep pockets of a human-centric terrorist group to provide funding resulted in a first-class medical centre. Somehow, he doubted its provisions ran to non-human medical issues though.
The turian leaned an armoured hip back against the examining table and crossed his arms as he studied the two squabbling doctors in front of him. Dr Solus had accompanied him in here, loudly protesting the second examination; he had cured the plague already from his clinic on Omega.
Of course, if Dr. Chakwas got her way – and he'd come to respect the determined human in his time onboard the original Normandy – then Garrus rather suspected the room would be upgraded to cater to any species they happened to recruit. The woman was ferocious, professional, and as stubborn as Shepard could be when it came to getting what she wanted. Garrus had learned to respect human doctors after he first encountered Dr Michel on the Citadel, but even she didn't hold a patch on Chakwas. And right now, the grey-haired doctor was in full swing, levelling a vociferous and inexplicably hostile diatribe at the bemused salarian, for his apparent neglect and endangerment of Garrus by not immediately having him sequestered for recovery once he was diagnosed with the plague on Omega. Confronted with such a blazing accusation, Solus was in hyperactive denial, arms waving, pacing about the room.
It was a spectacle Garrus was thoroughly enjoying, his left mandible shifting in amusement and bringing a slight rush of pain to his right as it tried to match the movement. He exhaled sharply, again reminding himself that medi-gel and painkillers alone didn't constitute real healing. Garrus had known the salarian by reputation only in his time on the station, and had caught the early rumours of his involvement in curing the plague before he and his team had been pinned down. Mordin Solus had the reputation of being highly strung, erratic, unpredictable, and bizarrely dangerous. Watching him almost bounce about the med bay in his argument with Chakwas, and recalling the good doctor's behaviour in the plague sector on Omega, Garrus concluded his reputation was a reasonable one.
"No, no! Needed to protect the team to ensure successful conclusion of mission, and rescue assistant. Had cured turian by then, anyway." Solus paused, inhaling sharply as his speeding thoughts were tripped up by his need to breathe. He fixed his gaze on Chakwas, his indignation over her accusations clear. "No need to monitor, cure 100% successful on all turian plague victims. Confirmed results. Bigger mission at hand, priorities."
Chakwas opened her mouth to retaliate, and Garrus decided it was time to intervene, if he wanted out of here anytime soon.
"Doctor..." He paused as both turned agitated eyes on him for his interruption, and Garrus hesitated, then turned his tone to a more soothing one. "Doctors. There's no need for concern. As you can see, Dr Solus' treatment was successful, and the plague has been cured." The turian stopped, suddenly, eying them both in alarm. "It has been cured, hasn't it?"
Chakwas made a dismissive gesture, shrugging off his moment of anxiety. "Yes, yes. You're fine, clean bill of health Garrus. Well, except for..." Another almost embarrassed gesture to his face, and Chakwas ducked her head awkwardly
The turian nodded firmly. "Fine, then. Dr Solus is correct, our mission was the priority. I knew when I walked into the plague zone that there was a good chance I would contract the disease. I trusted Dr Solus' reputation, and Commander Shepard's threat assessment of the situation. And as it turns out..." Garrus lifted his hands, offering his most charming expression for Dr Chakwas, as he began backing away from the two agitated doctors. "...they were both correct. I'm fine, and if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to the main battery. I have some calibrations to check up on."
His hands touched the door behind him and triggered the switch, letting it open with a swish. With a final nod to the two, Garrus spun and stepped out, letting the door slide closed on their immediately renewed 'ethical debate.' He shook his head, feeling a laugh rumble through his throat.
"Those two still at it?"
The familiar voice dragged his head up sharply and he found Shepard waiting in front of him, arms crossed and studying him in concern.
"Mm. I don't think it will end until Mordin tells her you've given him his own lab, and she won't have to share a room with him," Garrus answered, stepping away from the door. He was happy enough to leave the two doctors to battle out their totally unnecessary fight for professional dominance.
Shepard was shaking her head, but he could read the amusement in the tilt of her shoulders and the angle of her head. "Doctor Chakwas didn't have any other medical staff on the old Normandy. I'd think she'd be happy to have the help. If this is anything like last time around, we're going to need all the medical expertise we can get to keep us running until the end."
There was a shadow in her voice; just the tiniest hint of something that anyone who didn't know her might have disregarded. But Garrus had been around her too long; what had started as pure combat awareness had extended past the battlefield, and he could read the underlying concern.
"I'm a lot more confident now that I've had a look over the new Normandy," Garrus replied firmly, then let his uninjured mandible flick upwards into a smirk. "If only for the fact that we have separate bathrooms this time around. That unisex arrangement on the old Normandy was hard to bear. I don't think Liara ever recovered from walking in on Wrex in the communal shower."
He startled a laugh out of her, and counted it a win. Shepard was shaking her head at him, those bright eyes a little bemused but the shadow was gone from them. "How are you feeling? No more sniffles?"
Garrus waved a hand in dismissal. "I'm fine. I have two bills of clean health. I wasn't in there long enough for it to do more than give me a headache."
That wasn't entirely true. By the time they'd hit Solus' clinic, Garrus had felt like varren shit. He'd been drowning in sweat inside his armor, his fever was so high. The 'headache' had been a pounding migraine like a knife stabbing directly into each eye socket, and the rapid burst of gunfire had been pure aural torture.
Another person might have apologised for taking him into the plague zone to begin with. Garrus was relieved that Shepard didn't. He'd known what he was signing up for. She'd needed him, and he hadn't been about to let a cough hold him back. She'd trusted him to monitor his own health. He'd trusted her risk assessment to get him through in one piece.
"Glad to hear it," Shepard replied firmly, shelving the topic for good. She'd never been one to linger over guilt, or question her own command decisions. In the aftermath of Virmire, when Kaiden had been gripped by survivors guilt, it was Shepard's certainty about the necessity of the choice which had pulled him out of it. It wasn't that she didn't care when her decisions led to people being injured or killed; it was just that she trusted herself and her choices. It was something Garrus envied in her, more now than ever before.
She was eying him thoughtfully though, and made a gesture towards the mess hall table.
"Got a minute?" Shepard asked quietly, and some tension eased out of her when he nodded.
Curious, but agreeable, Garrus followed her into the open mess hall. A quick glance showed that Gardner was occupied in his kitchen, preparing the evening meal for the crew. They had perhaps an hour before it would begin to fill up with hungry crew seeking their dinner. The turian lowered himself into the human-style chair, watching Shepard mimic the gesture with her odd human grace.
"I told you earlier, I need someone I can trust with me on this. The Cerberus crew... they have their own objectives here, and I think we both know they're likely to be a little questionable," Shepard began, and he nodded agreement. "So you know, they bug everything. I've found their listening devices all over my damn ship. Feel free to step on any you come across."
Garrus snorted softly in amusement. "Happy to obey, Commander. I know we can't trust them." Though truthfully, the idea of Cerberus listening devices everywhere was making his skin itch. "So what's our game plan here, Shepard?"
Again, he watched that faint tension ease out of her. He wasn't sure what he'd said or done to reassure her.
"I'm still working on that," she answered ruefully. "They've had me running blind since I... woke up. The first thing I did was try to track down the old crew. According to Cerberus, everyone has moved on, or is out of contact. Except for you, of course..." She grinned across the table at him. "You just vanished. Not even Cerberus could track you down."
What could he say in response to that, except look smug? She rolled her eyes at him, and continued. "Tali wants nothing to do with Cerberus. I thought.. Well, there's a good chance everyone else will have the same opinion. You know all about the Illusive Man's dossiers... it's likely we'll have to go into this with just them, and our two Cerberus lapdogs. Things don't look great here, Garrus, I'll be blunt."
"Well, not one of your best speeches, Shepard. Where's all the inspiring clichés?" the turian drawled sardonically, shaking his head. He didn't like seeing her this disillusioned, it wasn't like her. Or rather, it wasn't like her to show anyone. Garrus continued. "Last time around, we didn't have much time to think. We were so busy running from one emergency to another, trying to keep up with Saren and work out what the hell we were up against... This time we know. It's going to be just as bad, and this time we know just how bad that can get. So what are our options? We give up and walk away, let the big bad Reapers take over the galaxy and kill everything organic?"
The look Shepard gave him – hard and very much not-amused – told him what she thought of that idea.
He laughed shortly. "Exactly. Not even an option for you. So we fight. We do what we can with what we've got. And one thing I've learnt about you, Shepard... you can do some very unexpected things. You turned an ex-cop, a merc, a quarian pilgrim and an archaeologist into a unified team that worked with your Alliance crew. Building a team is damn hard... I know, it takes a lot of work to get everyone on the same page." Garrus felt nervous, edging this close to the one topic he wanted very much to avoid, but he continued on anyway. She had to know he was behind her on this; that he believed in her. "If you had to, you could kick us all off the Normandy right now, and do this on your own. But your strength is your ability to make allies, to earn loyalty."
It was an ability he had tried to learn, but he had failed. He wasn't Shepard. That failure burned like acid in his chest, but he swallowed it down – again – and kept on. She seemed to be listening intently, but he didn't quite trust that gleam in her eye. Shepard had more self-confidence than anyone he'd ever met, she didn't need a pep talk. So what was really going on here? Garrus found himself hesitating, wondering where this was going. "If you can get Wrex to back you in destroying a cure for the genophage, you can get the Cerberus crew to follow you. So what's this really about?"
She looked away, as if guilty at being caught out. But Shepard wasn't one to back down – not in a fight, and not in... whatever this was. She was lifting her chin and staring him down firmly a second later. Garrus started to feel nervous again.
"Miranda is supposed to be my exec," the former Spectre explained, and it wasn't what Garrus was expected. Why did he so often feel out of his depth with Shepard? Her mind worked on lateral planes, unexpected inclines and unpredictable loops. He could never anticipate where she would come from next. All he could do was sit very still, watch her carefully, and wait. She sighed tiredly, and pressed her hands flat against the table, letting her eyes drop to them.
"They gave me Joker and Doctor Chakwas to make me feel more secure on a Cerberus ship. Hell, they rebuilt the Normandy for me. I know that Cerberus wants the same thing we do: the Reapers destroyed and humanity safe. Kudos to them," she added almost bitterly. "But they also want humanity in a position of dominance in the galaxy, and they'll use anything we find out there to that end. I can't let that happen."
"I understand, Shepard." Garrus stopped, then shook his head. "Actually, no I don't. What do you need from me here?" In a way he could never really explain, that question defined much of their relationship. He had seen in her someone he trusted as a leader, and had surrendered himself to that leadership. Where she led, he would follow. She seemed to be following that thought closely, because she held up a warning hand.
"I need an exec I can trust, Garrus. Someone I can rely on in the field, and off of it. Someone I know has the best interests of the galaxy at large in mind, and not those of a particular group." She was so serious, so intent, that just watching her speak was fascinating. Shepard had never spoken to him like this before. She seemed to recognise that too, smiling slightly into his confused stillness. "Yes, I mean you. You've changed, Garrus. I can see it in you, you're not the idealistic young C-Sec officer I met a few years back." Her small human head tilted, and he froze as he realized her eyes were tracing the frame of his visor, reading the names carved into it. The names of his dead team. The crossed-out name of the traitor.
Shepard studied them for a moment, then met his gaze again. "I don't need someone who will trust me blindly. I need someone who will have my back, but who knows that the mission is what matters and not the person leading it. It can't be about me, and I can't go into this thinking it will all fall apart if I die. I need someone who will follow where I lead, and will lead in my place if I fall."
His mandibles shifted slowly as Garrus listened in shock. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The logic of what she was saying made sense. The Reapers were bigger than Shepard, and if she fell, Cerberus would keep working to destroy the threat. But what damage would be done in the process? His mind wouldn't focus as he struggled to take in what she was saying.
Shepard was asking him to step up his game in more ways than one; stop following and start working with her on a more level playing field. The level of trust she held in him stunned Garrus, and he felt nerves flutter in his stomach at the prospect of their dynamic changing so irrevocably. The problem was, he didn't think he was up for the challenge.
"Shepard..." His voice was deeper than usual, rougher. Garrus cleared his throat nervously and looked away. "Shepard, you don't want to put me in charge of anything. I'm not... I'm not like you. I'm not a leader. I think what happened on Omega proves that." Damn, it hurt to say it. Hurt to swallow the truth down like a jagged lump in his throat. His mandibles were pressed tight to his face; his hands, resting on the table between them, were curling in on themselves with the anger that burned in him.
Then a tiny, pale human hand was resting over them. Small, soft fingers were delicately uncurling his much larger taloned ones, and Garrus' head snapped up to stare at Shepard in astonishment. The strength of her grip was surprising, but it shouldn't have been. He'd personally seen her strength in the battlefield, but to his certain knowledge, they had never actually touched outside a combat scenario before. It was different to dragging one another behind cover, or injecting medi-gel and holding a wound together until it closed. She wasn't wearing armour, for one thing, and her strength without it surprised him.
"Garrus, it's because of what happened on Omega that I'm asking you," she said softly, her eyes fixed on his face. Her hands carefully worked his open, palms up, and she pressed her own flat against them to prevent him clenching his hands into fists again. They were miniscule against his, her hands from wrist to fingertips barely covering the length of his own palms. Garrus found he could not look away from the sight as she continued speaking, his attention fixated on those pale fingertips resting at his wrist.
"You've always had a strong sense of justice, but the Officer Vakarian I met on the Citadel didn't know how to lead without losing track of the bigger picture. Now, I don't know what happened on Omega... you promised you'd tell me the whole story and when you're ready you will. I'm not pushing here, Garrus."
One small human finger tapped imperiously at his wrist, just over his pulse-point, and Garrus looked up into her face, startled. Shepard smiled at his skittishness. "I'm not asking for a freaking miracle here. I don't need you to be perfect. I need you to be there to watch my back, to stick to the plan, and not let Cerberus screw this up. Whatever happened on Omega changed you. Maybe not in a nice way, but it made you capable of doing what I need from you."
The turian was frozen solid, her words washing over him like ice locking him in place. Or was it her tiny, frail human hands pinning his to the table? Garrus didn't know where to look, could not quite meet the intensity of her gaze. He had never thought of it like that... had never known she'd even wondered about his potential... But she didn't seem to understand his point.
"I don't..." Garrus swallowed heavily. "There's a reason my team died on Omega."
But she was shaking her head in denial, and damn it, didn't she understand he was trying to do what was right for their crew here? He would follow her into Hell again, he'd already told her that. But she couldn't trust him to stand in her place, lead in her name. He couldn't let another team die, especially if it were one that she had entrusted him to keep safe. He wanted to open his mouth and blurt out the truth, that he'd gotten them killed... but he couldn't move.
Her felt her hands curl into small fists where they rested on his palms, and saw the muscles jumping along her jaw line. "You stubborn bastard. I'm not asking you because there's nobody else," she hissed at him, voice low and fierce. "I'd rather suck it up and do it alone like last time, than ask this from someone I didn't think could do what I needed. But you're here, you know what you're doing, and damn it Garrus, I need your help with this one."
Shepard wouldn't look away from him, and Garrus' thoughts were spinning in a whirlpool of chaos. His alarm at the idea of being put in charge again... I'll fail them, the way I did my team, I'll let her down, let them all down... was spinning in mindless confusion with the blind shock at her request... she trusts me to do this, she believes in me... And some part of him that was still that younger self exulted in knowing his revered Commander Shepard trusted him so, while the part that had been Archangel reminded him that until Sidonis' betrayal, he'd been doing a damn fine job on Omega, thank you very much...
Garrus inhaled slowly, trying to calm his thoughts into coherence. He found himself watching Shepard with an attention to detail he had not previously granted her. Before, he could not have seen behind the mantle of 'Commander' to recognise that an individual stood there, as flawed and perhaps confused as any other sentient creature could be. But now, having known what it was like to have the lives of other soldiers placed in your hands, he could meet her gaze as an equal of sorts. He could look ahead and know what they were going into, and put aside his own self-doubts for the sake of the mission. And to ease her fears. He was sick with the thought of what she would say when he told her the truth about Omega, but he couldn't abandon her in this.
Anything you need, Shepard. I'm right behind you. How many times had he said those words to her? Before, all she'd needed was his rifle and good aim. Now she needed something more... and there was a sense of something opening up inside of him, as Garrus realized it was something that, just maybe, he could provide. It was surreal to realize how much he had changed in the past two years, and he shook his head slowly at the reality of that change. Maybe, once she knew about Sidonis, she would tell him she'd made a big mistake. He was a coward not to tell her now. But if he could prove himself worthy of this, maybe when he did tell her, she'd decide he was still salvageable.
"What... do you want from me?" he asked slowly, almost reluctantly, and felt her hands relax against his; heard a relieved sigh from the other side of the table. When he looked back at her, the muscles bunched along her jaw had relaxed, and the tension had eased from her small frame. She squeezed his hands lightly in gratitude and released them, leaning back in her chair.
"I want you with me on all of our missions. Watch my back and if I fall, get it done the way it needs to be done. Not the Cerberus way. Our way." He nodded slowly; he could do that. Hell, he was usually the first to put his hand up for a mission in the old days.
She smiled back at him in approval, and continued. "But more than that... I need your help planning what we do here. I want your input, your opinions, your suggestions. You've been through this before too, and you're more up to date with current affairs than I am. I'm going to need that; I can't trust Cerberus intel exclusively."
Garrus felt tension ease out of him slowly, and he nodded again. "Okay. And when Miranda asks why you're planning mission scenarios without her?" he asked with a weak smile.
To his surprise, Shepard's expression hardened, and she shrugged one shoulder. "I'll deal with Miranda. I'm not stupid enough to alienate her. You're right in what you said earlier – we will need her loyalty on this. She's smart, talented, and her biotic strength is amazing. I'd rather have her following me because she believes it's the right way, than because she's reporting everything back to Cerberus."
The turian chuckled at her calculation. Shepard had a way of sweet-talking people into her way of doing things – rather as she'd just done with him, in fact – so the unsuspecting victim had no idea of just how calculating her approach was. Even he had never quite grasped how deliberately she planned her actions until now.
"You're a dangerous woman, Shepard," he complimented her. His unhappiness with her proposal was fading slowly as he began to see just what she was asking. She wasn't dumping him back into the role he'd left on Omega, wasn't expecting perfection. She was still the Commander, and she wouldn't throw anything at him that he couldn't handle.
But... as always with this woman... Garrus found himself wanting to be good enough for anything she needed from him. Strong enough, smart enough, cunning enough to keep up with her.
Shepard grinned. "You're not the first to say so, Vakarian. Glad to have you onboard for this one. Now... we've got two choices on where to go from here. A convict called Jack – some kind of super-biotic – who's being held on a turian prison ship. The Purgatory." She glanced sidelong at Garrus and he just shrugged noncommittally, having no immediate information on the ship to add. "And Doctor Okeer, a krogan warlord." She dumped two data files on the table between them.
"Doctor Okeer?" Garrus blurted in surprise. "I didn't know krogan's had Doctors. Wrex never seemed to have anything pleasant to say about them."
"I remember. But Wrex never did have much pleasant to say about anyone," Shepard remarked with a fond grin. Hard to admit it, but Garrus could tell she missed the big krogan. "Anyway, Okeer is working to save the krogan from the genophage, and has gotten himself caught up with some Blue Suns on Korlus."
"Kidnapped?" he suggested dubiously. Garrus knew perfectly well how skilled the Blue Suns were, but he couldn't imagine them being quite badass enough to capture a krogan warlord. "Or do you think he's working with them?" He separated the data files and lay them side by side, studying the minimal information on them.
The Commander shook her head helplessly. "No way of knowing until we get there and can do some recon. I can't figure why Blue Suns would be involved in trying to cure the genophage, anymore than I can figure why they'd want to kidnap a krogan who's doing so."
Garrus was looking from one file to the other, his mandibles shifting unhappily. "Shepard... is it just me, or does it seem to you that a subversive, galaxy-spanning terrorist organisation with a better intelligence gathering division than anyone except the Shadow Broker should possibly know a bit more about the people they think would make good allies on this mission?"
Shepard snorted in amusement. "You got it, big guy. The Illusive Man is playing his cards too damn close to his chest, and right now, he's got all the power in this game. It's a trade off. I accept his suggestions, he pays my bills. If he pushes too hard, he knows I'll take the ship and run. I know if it gets that far, this job is going to get a hell of a lot harder, dodging Cerberus agents every other day."
She looked him straight in the eye, and Garrus was struck by how tired she looked. He had tried his best to avoid thinking about the process Cerberus used to revive her... in fact, now that she was back, he was doing his damnedest to just forget that she'd ever been gone... no point dwelling on something that had just about ripped his world apart, now that it had been fixed as cleanly as if someone had hit the big red reset button on reality. But looking at her now, he had to accept the truth of what she'd been through. She looked bone-tired, and surprisingly vulnerable. It was not something he'd ever expected to see in Shepard. She was the poster child for soldiering on in the face of adversity.
"The convict," he said suddenly, surprising himself with the sudden switch in topic. She blinked at him and he explained. Anything to get her focus back on action, instead of worrying about what couldn't be changed. "I say we go get the convict first. Seems pretty straight forward, go collect a prisoner the Illusive Man has already arranged the release of. I'd say what could go wrong with that, except I don't want to jinx us."
"Too late, Garrus," Shepard groaned at him.
He chuckled. "In the meantime, I'll check with some of my contacts and see if anyone knows what the Blue Suns are up to on Korlus. Maybe we can get a bit more intel before we go in there, see what's really going on. I don't like walking in blind anymore than you do."
Commander Shepard smirked across the table at him, and he felt her boot kick him lightly in the shin. Judging from the nod of approval she gave him, he concluded the gesture was meant to indicate her satisfaction with him, rather than being the prelude to a verbal dressing down. There were times he still found humans a little odd.
"See, I knew you were the right man for the job. Alright, Jack's first on our shopping list. You let me know what you get on the Blue Suns, and maybe we can decide how to handle that one. But Garrus..." she held up a finger warningly, and he found himself studying its delicate length in fascination, recalling how light it had felt on his hand. "I swear, if things screw up on Purgatory, I am holding you personally responsible for it."
The turian gave a low chuckle, nudging the data files back in her direction. "You know me, Shepard, I always like to keep things interesting."
"Is that really why you picked the convict? I'd have thought you'd want to stay as far away from a lawbreaker as possible. Or did your time on Omega get you more comfortable with criminals?"
There was too much insight in her expression, and Garrus shifted uncomfortably on his chair. Shook his head. "No. But that's why I want to go after him first. Having a convicted criminal on the Normandy makes me nervous... seems like a bad idea. But I don't run away when I'm nervous. I leap head first. Sometimes into missiles," he admitted, with a gesture towards his bandaged, artificially-reconstructed right cheek. He tried for a grin, but knew it was a poor effort. Still, it was enough to make her smile at him.
"Or maybe you're just a crazy son of a bitch who doesn't know when to get the hell out of dodge?" Shepard suggested, with that grin dancing about the corner of her mouth. "Seriously, Garrus. You have a bad habit of taking on suicide missions. I'll have to train you out of that."
"Are you sure about that, Shepard? You can drop me off at the next inhabited world we come across, but when you're in the middle of a fight with the Collectors and find yourself thinking, 'damn it sure would be good if I had the best sniper in the galaxy at my back,' you'll have only yourself to blame," Garrus drawled back at her.
"Arrogant turian bastard," she threw back at him in retaliation, and he grinned. The teasing was a side of her he'd only seen rarely, after a particularly successful mission, or when they'd had an unexpected windfall. After the battle of the Citadel, when she'd been damn near playful in her delight over their success. It was reassuring to see it now, and oddly flattering to realize it was probably his willingness to help her on this mission that had made her so happy for the moment.
But he'd been the one in charge on Omega, and he knew how damn lonely it was in that position. How hard it was to be the one making the decisions, to be the only one who could shoulder the blame when it all went wrong. He watched her gather up the dossiers and slide them into a thigh pocket, and knew that he'd do everything in his power to lighten her load this time around. They'd asked too much of her already. She'd been brought back from the dead to save the galaxy – again.
It was more than any living creature should be called on to do, and it was damn sure more than Shepard should be asked to do alone.
"What can I say? I am the best, and you get what you pay for." He eyed her suspiciously. "Since Cerberus is footing our bills here, I assume I am getting paid for selflessly risking life and limb to defend the galaxy from invasion? Again?"
"Of course, and I think you even got a pay rise. Great medical cover. Not so big on the retirement package," she replied.
"And I won't look too closely at where the money comes from," Garrus concluded, a bit more grimly. There was something obscene about taking Cerberus blood money, knowing as he did exactly what sort of sick experiments they were involved in. Knowing the kinds of things they did to draw revenue to fund projects like this one. He could see the same grimness reflected back at him from Shepard's manner.
"I meant what I said about taking out their bugs. Keep the main battery clear of them. I've got my quarters clean. We'll meet in either one of those places."
Garrus glanced around the mess hall thoughtfully, considering the reality of the situation. "You don't think they'll just replace anything we destroy?" he asked curiously.
Shepard shook her head confidently. "No. It's a game, Garrus. The Illusive Man knows damn well I won't let him get away with spying on me everywhere. We compromise. He gets most of the ship, I get a few areas I want clean. If I pushed to clear out all the listening devices, he'd let me know in some unpleasant way that I'd crossed a line. If he pushed to replace the ones I destroyed, I'd do the same. In the end, it's a balancing act. Neither of us pushes the other too far, and we can work together. He tried to shove Miranda down my throat as my exec, and I'm not having a bar off it. But because I'm still willing to work with her, he won't pitch a fit about me bringing you in at this level." The Commander shrugged dismissively, leaving Garrus puzzled and amazed by her cavalier attitude to this sort of political manoeuvring. It didn't seem something that was common in the Alliance military, so he wondered where Shepard had learned it.
She smiled gently at his bemused expression, and stood up. "Trust me, Garrus. The day might come when the Illusive Man and I move against each other for real, but until then, it's just posturing." The sudden sound of voices behind them made her glance over her shoulder at a few of the crew who had evidently just emerged from the elevator, coming around the corner to the mess hall. "Get some dinner and have an early night, Garrus. You've had a rough week. Missile to the face, and a plague. I don't know how you'll top that, but I'm sure you'll manage to surprise me. You usually do. In the meantime, I'm going to let Joker know to get us headed in the direction of Korlus."
With that, she was gone, throwing a casual nod to the crewmen who she passed on her way out of the mess hall. They looked past her to Garrus, and he watched the wary uncertainty grow on their faces. For a moment, he just sat there, absorbing all that had happened, blankly watching the Cerberus crew as they edged around him to a far table.
Somehow, he had a feeling they'd have a few objections if they worked out he'd been unofficially – or was it officially? – promoted above their Agent Lawson as Shepard's exec. Although he hadn't exactly had enough free time to mingle with the crew, Garrus was aware enough to recognise their latent hostility towards him. They were part of a human-centric organisation; he couldn't expect anything else really. He figured Shepard wanted him backing her more for his strategic skills than his interpersonal ones, but meshing with the crew could only help here.
Hell, he'd practically told her to go earn Miranda's loyalty. The least he could do was try to make nice with the Cerberus crew.
"Try the chicken soup," he suggested as he rose from the table on his way out. They turned and stared at him in shock, or maybe confusion, and his mandibles twitched into a turian style grin. One that he carefully ensured didn't show any teeth. Humans got funny when you flashed a mouthful of sharp turian teeth at them; probably some backbrain primate response. "I heard Jacob say it was the one thing Gardner couldn't screw up." One of them grinned, a bit nervously, and another snickered. "But hey, what do I know. I can't even eat your levo-amino foods, and to be honest, I'm not really sure what a 'chicken' actually is."
He was satisfied when Crewman Goldstein gave a surprised laugh, and waved him farewell as he turned to leave. It wasn't exactly ground-breaking, but it was a start. Most of these humans had probably never had much to do with aliens, and folk always feared the unknown. If all he had to do was show them that the big scary turian was just as much a real, living sentient as them, he could do it. He didn't need to be best buddies with the crew - just make sure they could all work together. And if going out of his way to be a bit more sociable than was his habit would do it, Garrus was willing to play the game.
In the meantime, he had some old friends to track down and question about Blue Suns activities in the Eagle Nebula.