A/N- Firstly, many many thanks to the lovely Stormflite, who volunteered to beta this for me. She was excellent help in unravelling a few issues I was having with this chapter, but I did adjust a few things after she handed it back, so any errors are probably my own fault :)
Secondly, having finished ME3, I am absolutely committed to finishing this story. I really want to write the sequel covering events from the third game, because I was just thrilled with how wonderfully Bioware handled the relationship with Garrus and Shepard. (I'm avoiding spoilers for anyone who hasn't finished it yet, but I promise, Bioware are very good to us!)
Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed, favorited or set alerts for this story. The reviews in particular make me smile and feed my muse, so thank you for all your kind words! Please feel free to share your thoughts on anything you'd like to see happen in future chapters. My overall game plan for this story isn't set in stone, and I'd like to give something back to my dedicated readers.
Now, on with the chapter. I hope everyone enjoys!
Illium's Nos Astra at mid-afternoon was a blaze of silver-white sunlight reflecting and refracting off the maze of shining skyscrapers. Garrus Vakarian paused on the main trading floor, and swept a glance up and over the wall of shining towers. He was on his own today, since Miranda had insisted that Jacob be the third for her sister's escort mission. Garrus didn't like it, and hadn't bothered to hide that fact from Shepard. Not that he would have wanted Miranda along while he was dealing with Sidonis. But Shepard had taken one look at him and suggested in that voice that wasn't quite a command, that he find something constructive to distract himself with.
Fine. Constructive? I can do constructive. Garrus stepped off the trading floor and into the administrative alcove, taking the steps two at a time up towards Liara's office.
"Can I help you?" The asari behind the reception desk was new. Nyxeris had clearly been dealt with by the new-and-improved Dr. T'Soni.
"I'm an old friend of Liara's. Garrus Vakarian."
With a dubious look over his battered armor, the receptionist tapped quickly at her keypad. Her expression cleared almost instantly and she gestured him towards the door. "Dr T'Soni will see you now."
"Thanks," he drawled back at her, reflecting that he probably should get some new armor at some point. It still worked fine in combat, but he usually preferred something with a bit more style. The only problem was he was sending every credit he had straight through to Solana to help with their mother's medical treatments.
As he passed through the door, Liara was already moving around her desk to greet him. She wasn't nearly as easy to read as she had been two years, but his visor gave him an advantage. Garrus couldn't miss the moment when she realized he was alone. Her shoulders dropped, the heartbeat that his visor had caught rapidly increasing dropped back to a steady pulse, and her pupils retracted back to normal size.
"Sorry, Li. The Commander's running escort duty today. It's just me."
The asari came to stand in front of him, her smile growing as she looked over him. "You're always welcome here, Garrus. I'm sorry we didn't have the chance to talk more yesterday... I have missed you too."
He smirked. "Everybody misses me, I'm the life of the party."
Her smile evolved into a familiar laugh, provoking a sharp spike of regret deep within the turian. He couldn't deny he'd missed this little blue brat during his years on Omega. He should have kept in touch, dammit.
"I'd hug you, but I know how you feel about that... and you're still as spiky as ever," Liara commented with a sly grin. She led him over to a conversational lounge under the window, dropping into the low couch and gesturing for him to join her. "So what can I do for you today?"
"You've come a long way from the awkward little archaeologist I remember from two years ago," Garrus answered, taking a seat and leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
The asari glanced downwards unsurely, and it was a relief that some of the gauche adolescent remained. Century-old asari were little more than teenagers, and Liara's innocence had always been part of her appeal. When she looked up, however, Garrus saw something older and harder staring back at him. It was a vivid reminder that he wasn't the only one who'd changed over the past two years.
"I've had to. Saren and my mother showed me the galaxy isn't as safe as I'd wanted to believe. Illium is a good reminder of that," Liara answered quietly.
Prettier. Cleaner. But scratch the surface, and this place is just another Omega.
Garrus nodded. "So you've given up on archaeology and gone into the information market. Not what I expected from a scientist."
He watched her recognise that this wasn't just a social call. "Like I told Shepard, it's not so different from archaeology. Collating data, sifting through fragments of information to try to formulate a comprehensive picture." Liara shrugged lightly, her head tilted as she regarded him thoughtfully. "But it pays the bills. And there's always plenty of work going for soldiers for hire on Illium. Short term contracts. Even ones that fit your moral code, Garrus."
The turian let himself relax. "Point some of that my way then. I pay my debts."
Liara's expression dissolved into momentary confusion. "Your...? Garrus, you don't owe me anything."
"You got her back, Li," Garrus reminded her, glancing away. Hmm, the view out her window was even better than from the trading floor below.
There was silence for a long moment. Although she was a hugger by nature, Liara had always kept her distance from him. So Garrus was taken by surprise when he felt her small, warm hand press down lightly on his forearm, dragging his attention back to her luminous gaze. Garrus blinked, and looked away again quickly, clearing his throat.
"There's one job I've been having difficulty getting anyone to take," Liara began softly. "Here, take a look."
Garrus took the data pad she offered and glanced over it. Liara had been approached by a visiting asari whose human lover had signed an unwise contract. When the fine print was invoked, the human – Thomas Stiers – had become indentured to Genax Industries for a five year term, and his asari wife was determined to get him free and away from Illium.
"You can see why I'm having trouble attracting any local contractors for this one."
Yeah, he could. Indentured contracts formed the backbone of Illium, and the meta-corporation which administered them could easily ruin anyone who interfered with them.
Garrus scanned further down the data pad. Stiers was employed and housed in the Analytics department in Genax Tower, making it a simple extraction job. But Liara had noted that Genax – like many other proprietary corporations on Illium – employed Abraxis Solutions to assure their security. Abraxis were a private security organisation, known for being well trained and damn well armed.
So at least it would be a challenge. Glancing up towards Liara, he flicked his mandibles upwards into a turian smirk. "Anything I can do to help out a friend," he drawled in satisfaction.
"I'll transfer the payment through to your account once you radio confirmation you have the target," Liara promised him with a warm smile.
He shook his head at that. "I don't want any payment."
Liara made an exasperated noise. "Stop being so stubborn, you big... turian!" she snapped back at him. "I told you, I've been looking for someone to take this job for weeks, and nobody is willing. The client is going to pay me regardless of who does the job, and you need the credits."
Garrus' head snapped around sharply to glare at her. She had the grace to look abashed, but it didn't make him any less annoyed. "Dammit, Liara, is there anything you don't know?" he growled.
"I'm sorry... I only found out about your mother by accident, when I was looking into where you'd been for two years. I had no idea you were Archangel, not until you showed up out of nowhere with Shepard." Liara's voice dropped, and she looked down at her hands. "I thought you'd died too, you know."
Great. Now he felt like the galaxy's biggest jerk.
With a light pat on his forearm, the asari stood up smoothly. "We'll split the payment in half. Deal?"
The brat still knew how to play him. "Deal," he accepted on a sigh, standing up.
"Good. Now clear out of my office."
She was smiling at him when she said it, and damn, but it was good to see her looking so much like her old self. She'd worried him yesterday, but without Shepard's presence to distract her, she had relaxed into the old Liara. Garrus flashed her a grin, mandibles splaying confidently as he made his exit.
Garrus approached Genax Tower from the air, gliding an air taxi in towards the roof to settle gently. He'd hacked through the security protocols to give him manual control, and keep the vehicle from leaving for twelve minutes. He'd calculated that even with a reasonable safety margin, that was all the time he'd need to get in, locate Stiers, and get him out.
He fiddled with the controls for his visor, initiating two combat programs. Immediately twin displays appeared on his HUD, brilliant orange against the normally blue readouts.
Time 12:00
Kills 0
Access to the building came in the form of an alarmed door, but Alliance military-grade electronic intrusion measures, bolstered by turian, quarian, krogan, asari and salarian technology, were sufficient to let him hack his way through it. He smirked to himself. There was a reason Shepard's team could break through nearly any door standing in their way.
"Stiers should be located on the 37th floor," Liara's voice sounded quietly in his radio, the signal coming through on the combat channel they'd used in the old days.
Already striding down the corridor, Garrus paused momentarily in surprise. "Don't you trust me to do this alone, T'Soni?" the turian teased, even as he took a quick sweep of the immediate area. He was in a public corridor but it was empty, and he could see a bank of elevators not much further down the hall.
"We didn't get much chance to talk. I want to know what's been going on with you, and with Shepard. Who else have you got on the Normandy?"
"Liara, you do realize I'm in the middle of something right now, don't you?"
The elevator was small and mirrored, reflecting back a dizzying imprint of his own image. Tuneless music struggled through hidden speakers as the doors closed around him, drawing a grimace upon his reflections.
"Don't be ridiculous, Garrus. You're only going up against private security, I'm almost sure Shepard won't have to come rescue you. Again."
Garrus held back the groan as the elevator began its descent. "You heard about that, huh?"
The screen over the top of the lift doors had only counted down to floor 53, and he was filling Liara in on the Normandy's current crew, when he felt movement stop and the doors slid open. A pair of asari office workers entered the lift, heads bent and focussing on a datapad held between them. The doors closed and it was only when one of them looked up to hit the controls for their level, that they spotted him.
For a moment, the piped-in music burbled louder than ever, and the silence stretched out painfully.
Garrus cleared his throat. "Don't mind me, ladies. I'm here for... ah, pest control."
The two asari stared at him with widening eyes that tracked briefly over his battle-scored armor and face, paused at the weapons. Without a word, one of them reached out blindly to hit the lift controls frantically. The elevator doors opened again and the two women almost fell over themselves trying to get out.
"Pest control?" Liara choked out around ripples of laughter.
"Well, there goes the element of surprise," Vakarian reflected mournfully.
Five minutes later, and he was racing through a lab that looked like a bomb had exploded in the centre of it, dodging a hail of bullets and several bright blue flashes of biotic energy. Garrus twisted to look over his shoulder as he ran, raising his pistol long enough to send a quick response that sent his pursuers scrambling for cover. His visor counter flickered.
Time 06:28
Kills 9
"Garrus, I am so sorry! I had no idea Genax had an asari commando team stationed on site-"
He grunted as he dove for cover behind an overturned lab desk, slamming out the heat sink and sliding another smoothly in. The spent thermal clip fell to the ground, hissing in faint counterpoint to the bursts of biotic attack exploding around him.
Some information dealer, he thought wryly. "Makes you wonder what the hell they're actually doing in these labs, hmm?" he drawled, checking the heat readings on his visor's IR. He had three combatants still in play, one of which had been tagged by his live-fire software as the last of the asari commandos, and the other two as part of the Abraxis security team.
"You're not injured, are you? Shepard will kill me if I let you get hurt."
His shields were being sorely tested, but so far they'd held and he'd only felt one hot spot on his back where a shot had gotten through. Garrus rolled his shoulder experimentally and it felt okay, so he figured the armor had done its job. "I'm fine. Give me a moment."
The feedback from his visor's target tracing system measured the biotic fields of the asari, and flashed up an optimised firing solution. Reacting to it was instinct now after so many years, and had undoubtedly saved his life countless times. It had certainly done its job today, because the sudden appearance of a team of hardened asari commandos had definitely been a surprise.
Garrus gripped his rifle tightly and moved, following the firing solution laid out across his visor and squeezing the trigger confidently. The first Abraxis guard went down instantly, but a quickly conjured biotic barrier from the commando kept his other targets safe.
Time 06:13
Kills 10
Pulling his head back behind cover, Garrus considered his options. He was trapped in a lab, still didn't have his target, and had an asari commando closing in on him. She was probably fairly pissed at him, since he'd just killed two of her sisters. In the split-second glance he'd got at the rest of the room, Garrus recalled a damaged section of the roof. No doubt their biotic games had ruptured the structural stability of this level a fair bit, and if he could lure them into position underneath the weakest point...
"Garrus, I'm contacting the Normandy – Joker can send Tali down to give you support, I'll be there in a few minutes –"
Crawling around the edge of the lab table, and spying another convenient bit of cover in the rubble, Garrus sprinted for it. He ignored Liara's anxious babbling over the radio as he dodged warp pulses and violent biotic slams, along with a few stuttering bursts of gunfire.
Crap, I think that one hit, he realized with a grimace, sliding into cover again. His shields were down for a moment, the alert on his visor flashing an alarming red.
"Liara, this will be over in another minute. If I'm still alive, we'll talk then."
He barely heard his friends choked-off gasp, too busy focussing on the biofeedback intel his visor was offering up. The two targets were moving into the position he wanted them, and Garrus hastily checked his shield status. Not back up to full strength, and he knew he'd have to expose himself to fire, but this was the best option available. Gritting his teeth, the turian raised himself to his knees and aimed his rifle high, over the asari's heads.
Even as he let loose a violent burst of gunfire at the most fragile section of the roof, they retaliated. Garrus heard gunfire from the Abraxis guard and the screaming alarm as his shields flatlined under it. Without any protection, and committed to firing at the roof which was even now shrieking in protest, he had no choice but to watch on in horror as the asari commando lifted a hand and flared out a biotic pulse.
His ears felt like they were bursting, and he couldn't tell if it was the scream of gunfire, or the screams of the roof giving way – come on, damn it, give way! – but his vision was already spinning and graying out even before he felt the ground drop away from him.
For a moment, there was nausea and alarm, the sense of being suspended in mid air by the biotic grip and he had a second to think – this is gonna hurt –
There was a flashing light, blurry and out of focus, when he forced his eyes open. Garrus groaned with the immediacy of pain making itself known through every inch of his body, and struggled to open his eyes properly.
Time 03:12
Kills 12
It gave him pause, because the biofeedback program was showing him an empty room other than himself. Garrus exhaled slowly in relief; slowly, because the second he breathed in, he felt pain flash like fire down his ribs.
"Garrus? Garrus? Answer me! Oh Goddess, answer me? Please!"
He groaned as he moved to sit up carefully. "I was right. That hurt." His first priority was triggering the medi-gel release through the armor. He exhaled softly in relief when the first blissful flood of pain-relief hit his nervous system.
"Oh thank the Goddess," Liara breathed over the radio. "What happened? You stopped responding!"
The turian struggled to stand up, his body still not entirely under his command. The room had looked like a bomb hit it before. Now, it looked like the middle of a war zone. The entire roof of this level had crashed down under his gunfire, crushing the two asari who'd been underneath it. Structural support beams were visible, which explained why his kill count had gone up. A roof falling on them wasn't enough to stop an asari commando, normally. He'd gotten lucky.
Moving slowly, Garrus stumbled free of the rubble where he'd landed after being knocked unconscious, and studied the fallen roof thoughtfully. It provided an almost perfect ramp up to the next level.
"Stiers is based one level up, right?" he asked Liara.
"Forget Stiers and get out of there, now. I would never have sent you in alone if I'd known they had commandos."
Garrus smirked painfully. "Haven't failed a mission yet, Li," he reminded her. Not even Omega, the turian reflected with quiet pride. Shepard and her team had helped, but in the end, he'd left Omega without a single damn Blood Pack, Blue Sun or Eclipse merc standing.
The fallen roof was unstable and unsteady, but his body was finally starting to react to the medi gel. His muscles were loosening up again, letting him clamber more easily up the fallen rubble. By stretching to his limit, Garrus was able to get a grip on the broken edge of the intact ceiling and heave himself up. Liara must have been listening to his grunts and gasps as he pulled his protesting body up and rolled onto the floor of the level above, but she kept silent.
He appreciated that right now.
"I'm getting Stiers and getting out. Shouldn't be too hard. How many commandos can one company have?"
"...I'm telling Shepard you said that."
Grinning tightly in response, Garrus made his way carefully and quietly down the corridor. Aside from the room with the collapsed floor, he could see no further damage to this level. The building was in lockdown mode, though, so Stiers should still be here. He paused at the end of the corridor, spying a sign pointing him in the direction of the Analytics department. Garrus limped in that direction.
He had to hack his way through the door, before it opened smoothly onto a lab full of startled techs. Garrus entered, rifle at the ready, even as his visor fed back IR data on the head signatures inside. It was a race between the software and his own instincts to see which one reassured Garrus first that nobody in this room had a weapon.
"Thomas Stiers?" he asked expectantly, glancing between the two human males in the room. The rest were asari, or human women.
"I'm Stiers," one of them answered hesitantly, giving him the kind of look that suggested he was wondering if he'd just signed his death sentence by admitting that.
Garrus gave him a full turian grin. The one with lots of sharp, pointy teeth. "Your wife says you never call anymore. Let's go."
Stiers was a tall, lean human. He had Alenko's height, but Joker's muscle tone, and he moved closer to Garrus with an edgy, nervous manner that definitely reminded him of the Normandy's pilot at his most awkward. "Saria sent you? Is she okay?"
Time 01:47
Kills 12
The flashing countdown in his visor was getting low enough that Garrus wasn't inclined to be chatty. "Keep your head down, there could be a few more commandos," he said in reply, checking the corridor before heading out. The other techs hadn't said a word, but they kept their distance and watched on uncertainly. Garrus left the door open behind him; if they wanted to take their chances, they were free to do so.
Garrus wasn't willing to risk the elevators now that Abraxis knew he was in the building, so he dragged Stiers up the stairwell. The human was straight-up civilian without an ounce of military training or combat experience, but adrenaline must have been riding him pretty hard, because Stiers kept up with the turian's long-legged pace as they climbed the stairs to the roof.
"Garrus, I'm taking Saria to the rendezvous point. Just get out of there, now," Liara urged him over the radio.
They broke through the roof access door at a run, Garrus aiming his rifle around sharply, his visor scanning for an ambush. He knew there was at least half a team of Abraxis security personnel running around the building, and he wasn't taking any chances. By the time he'd confirmed there wasn't anyone up there with them, Stiers had already scrambled into the waiting cab and Garrus hastened in behind him.
Not a moment too soon. The door was barely closing, the engine firing up under his hands, when three Abraxis guards burst onto the roof, firing almost before they could possibly have targeted them.
"Damn it," Garrus muttered, yanking back hard on the controls and dragging the cab up from the roof with a lurch. He heard the impact of bullets hitting the underside of the cab, and hoped nothing important had been hit. But the onboard navigation system accepted his destination from the coordinates Liara had given, and the vehicle inclined smoothly enough into a higher lane of traffic.
With a relieved sigh, Vakarian leaned back against his seat.
Almost immediately he became aware of two things. Firstly, his shoulder was stinging like a son of a bitch – he must have been hit there. Secondly, Stiers was staring at him intently but not with any expression Garrus was familiar with. He still had trouble with humans he didn't know very well.
"My wife... Is she all right?"
Garrus rolled his injured shoulder, lifting a hand up to unclasp the shoulder guard. "Make you a deal. I'll fill you in, if you tell me why the hell they had three asari commandos back there?"
Stiers blinked, taken aback. "They.. I've only been there a month, since I defaulted on that damned contract. I'm a systems analyst, so they had me running numbers on their projects... One of their high-security projects involved experiments with enhancing biotics. They'd just started testing on live asari last week."
"Last week. Of course. Damn." Garrus shook his head at his unlucky timing, and pressed his fingers under the loosened shoulder guard. He could feel the sticky-smooth texture that meant blood and when he pulled his hand free, his glove was stained blue. Irritably, he wiped the glove on the edge of his greaves, and refastened the shoulder guard. Stiers was still watching him expectantly.
Garrus cleared his throat. "Your wife's fine. We're on our way to meet her now, then a friend of mine is going to take the two of you to a ship that will get you off Illium. Indenture Tech can't enforce contracts outside of asari space, so I strongly suggest you stay away from Council space for the next twenty years or so."
"You're a... are you a mercenary?"
Garrus felt his mandible twitch. "I prefer vigilante. It sounds classier."
As the car dropped down into an empty cargo area not too far from the main spaceport, Garrus could see two asari standing. Early twilight was starting to distort shapes, stretching shadows out in eerie patterns, but it was still light enough for him to make out Liara standing alongside a shorter, more lavender-hued asari.
Stiers made a happy sound as he spotted his wife, leaning forward in his seat while the vehicle manoeuvred to a halt. Garrus expected him to be up and out the door the instant they hit dirt, but to his surprise, the human paused with his hand on the door controls. He regarded Garrus seriously for a moment.
"What's your name?"
Garrus blinked at him in surprise.
Stiers met his gaze levelly. "I probably won't ever be able to thank you for getting me out of there. Hell, I doubt I'll ever see you again. But you got shot getting me out. I want to know who I should be grateful to."
It startled him, caught him off-guard. It had been a while since he'd done anything to be thanked for, and it brought up memories of Omega. The good memories, from those days when a job had gone right and lives had been saved. Damn, it felt good to see someone looking at him like that again. He'd screwed it all up on Omega, but...
No. That one's on Sidonis.
The thought was like an epiphany, blind-siding him. Garrus realized he'd been staring blankly for a second longer than was probably normal, and forced himself to respond.
"Archangel," he said finally. "Where I came from, they called me Archangel."
"You're getting blue crap all over the deck again. What'd you do, get into a bar fight because the boss lady left you behind?"
It was just the kind of day he was having, Garrus decided. He'd hoped to get from the elevator to Med Bay without attracting any attention, so of course it stood to reason that Jack would be on one of her irregular scrounges for food. She had a habit of coming up for air when Gardner was off duty, so she wouldn't have to deal with him.
The turian sighed and turned to face her. Jack had perched on the edge of the galley bench, and was grinning broadly at him. Even as tired and sore as he was, it roused his urge to tease.
"Nah. Broke into a high security biochemical lab to rescue an indentured tech. Just killing time really."
Jack looked momentarily startled, then her face contorted into a scowl. "Dammit, Blue, next time you take shore leave I'm coming with you. You have all the fun."
Garrus laughed tiredly. "Is the Commander back yet?"
At that, Jack's grin reappeared. "Oh yeah. You missed out on that one. I hear they took out half the Eclipse mercs in Nos Astra this afternoon."
"What?" His stomach dropped uneasily as Garrus pinned the biotic with a fierce gaze. One mission, Lawson. You had to watch her back for one damn mission. "What the hell happened? It was supposed to be an escort job. Is Shepard hurt?"
"I think I'm doing better than you, big guy."
Her voice came from over his shoulder, and Garrus turned quickly to spot her standing in the door to Med Bay. His gaze raked over her in relief. She was back in her ship-board uniform and out of armor, but aside from a new derma-graft on her forearm, she didn't seem injured. As she approached him, he couldn't spot any hesitation or awkwardness in her stride that would indicate hidden wounds.
"Shepard, what went wrong?"
Shepard was looking him over just as carefully. "Nothing major. Miranda's father had gotten to her contact and they were waiting for us. We got her sister where she needs to be. Want to tell me what you've been up to?"
That wasn't any kind of explanation at all, and Garrus narrowed his eyes at her.
"Nothing major," he replied eventually, keeping his voice level enough that she couldn't miss the rebuke.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Jack move suddenly; she pushed off from the bench she'd been leaning on, grabbed her food and made for the elevator.
"The parents are fighting, I'm out."
She high-tailed it out of the mess hall and didn't look back. It wasn't entirely unexpected. Garrus had noticed that while she thrived on violence, she had an almost aggressive aversion to dealing with emotional issues. She'd pick superficial fights at the drop of a hat, and never backed down, but Jack hated it when things got personal.
Shepard was frowning. "Are we going to fight, Vakarian?"
"If we are, can we wait until Doctor Chakwas fixes up my shoulder?"
Her sigh was very audible. "Let's go."
Chakwas was as efficient as ever as she stripped the armor from his torso in order to properly sterilise the wound, and graft his damaged flesh back together again. The concentrated medi gel she slapped on him soothed the pain instantly, and Garrus had enough experience dealing with the good doctor that it normally didn't bother him to submit to her ministrations. But having Shepard standing there, arms crossed and a look of growing displeasure on her face, made him feel a little uncomfortable.
Even Dr Chakwas felt the tension, limiting her usually pleasant commentary to necessary remarks only. Once she'd finished, she assured Shepard he'd be fine, and excused herself from the medical bay hastily.
Sitting on a bed, surrounded by neatly stacked pieces of scorched armor, Garrus watched her go. "Well, we've chased two of the crew away already. If we keep this up, there won't be anyone left to run the ship."
"You just can't help getting into trouble the second my back is turned, can you?" his Commander asked, and even accounting for the alien lack of flange to her tone, it was clear she wasn't happy. She pushed off the opposite bed she'd been leaning on while Chakwas had worked on him and moved in closer.
"Right back at you, Shepard," Garrus snapped.
"I didn't leave a blood trail from the airlock."
Garrus lifted his chin and met her gaze head-on. "It was a favor for Liara. Turned out to be a little more complicated than I expected. A bit like your simple escort mission."
He'd half-turned away to grab his chest armor when Shepard shoved his hand aside pre-emptively. Ignoring his protest, she hefted the chest piece and stepped in closer to him. Garrus met his Commander's gaze, blinking in surprise when she looked pointedly at his arms. With growing confusion, he realized she wanted him to move so she could... put his armor on? What?
What is going on with you, Shepard?
Studying her carefully, Vakarian shifted so his Commander could get in close enough to attach the chest piece. He couldn't read her mood at all and that was starting to concern him.
"The difference is that I had back up," Shepard said quietly. Her hands were efficient but strangely gentle as they buckled and snapped the chest plate of his armor into place around his torso. It was at odds with the cool, distant tone of her voice. "Miranda and Jacob were with me, and that's why I walked out of it with a graze and you got shot full of holes." Shepard paused. "Again."
"At least it wasn't a missile to the face this time," Garrus managed to say, his brain slowly going blank as she picked up the back piece of his armor and moved around behind him.
"Shut up." Her voice was fierce, and Garrus could feel the tension in her body as she leaned over his shoulder to yank at a protesting buckle.
"That one's always a bit stiff, you just have to –"
"I said, shut up Vakarian."
Her voice was brittle, but it wasn't anger. He knew her anger, had seen it flare up too many times when a mission went south. Garrus felt her wrench firmly at the fastening and it settled into place comfortably, the back plate shifting into a familiar position again. When she reappeared in front of him, she was every inch the Commander. Distant, professional, radiating her authority – but the look in her eyes as she glanced over the broken edge of his armor was the key.
It was the same way he used to look at her scars. Angry. Guilty. Hating them for the reminder of how badly he'd failed her. It was a fact that Shepard wouldn't have died if he'd been on the Normandy that day. Unlike Alenko, Garrus Vakarian would not have let her stay behind. Wouldn't have even been an option.
She wasn't angry, he realized slowly. Shepard was scared. For some reason, his injury had frightened her and as always with Shepard, fear made her more aggressive. He'd been hurt worse than this on missions with her, so it had to be his lack of back up.
"You know, Shepard..." Garrus leaned in towards her, consciously pitching his voice at the most soothing tone he could manage. "I'm a big turian. I took care of myself just fine before I met you. I even managed pretty well most of the time you were gone."
"You nearly died on Omega, if I recall," Shepard pointed out.
Garrus watched her levelly. The soft flange of his drawl filled up the small space between them. "It was a straight in and out mission. Shouldn't have been a big deal, but you know how that goes. Something slipped past Liara and it went sideways."
Her eyes narrowed in displeasure. "Some information broker."
The echo of his own thought from earlier made him chuckle. "Not her fault, I don't think. Besides, it felt... good to help people again. All we seem to do these days is take out mercs, and hunt down intel. I know we're on a mission to save the colonies and probably the galaxy, but..."
"Archangel still likes to fight the good fight, huh?"
He met her resigned expression and nodded carefully. "Something like that."
Shepard grimaced. "Do me a favor? Take some back up next time?"
Garrus wished he could ask for the same in return. But she was the Commander, and he had no claim on her save that of one soldier to another, and maybe their friendship. It wasn't enough. He leaned back, nodding slowly. "You have my word, Shepard."
It was an easy promise to give. Today had been... unique; the need to repay Liara for her role in getting Shepard's body to Cerberus. The situation was unlikely to arise again.
Shepard sighed, and flicked a quick glance over the remaining pieces of his armor, still sitting in a neat pile beside him. "I still don't like you wearing this crap. It's been through hell, Garrus."
"So have I. Seems appropriate."
That provoked a laugh from her, and it sounded genuine enough that Garrus felt himself begin to relax.
"Did you at least get the job done?" Shepard asked, grabbing up the nearest shoulder guard from the pile of armor. She moved in closer again, tugging it into place over his uninjured shoulder.
"Of course," Garrus answered indignantly, submitting to her odd compulsion to dress him. "You said do something constructive. Does reuniting a pair of cross-species lovers count?"
He heard her snort as she grabbed the last shoulder guard. This one was for the injured side, so she was a bit more careful about pulling it on. She was close enough that he could see every individual strand of her strange human hair. Close enough that he could see the pulse point beating in her throat, underneath that soft, pale human flesh. Her eyes were intent on her task, but he watched a tiny smile tug at the corner of her mouth.
"Never pegged you for a romantic, Garrus." She hesitated over the final fastening. "Um. What cross-species?"
Garrus gave a low, flanging laugh. "Krogan and salarian. It was a match made in heaven."
With a final tug to check the fit of the shoulder guard, Shepard stepped back, eying him sceptically. "You've been reading Fornax again, haven't you?"
"Well, I don't see any eligible turian women around here. A guy's got to have a little fun," he teased her back. Normally, she'd roll her eyes or throw out a disparaging one liner, but he was surprised when his visor caught a sudden jump in her heart rate. There was a moment of silence, before Garrus cleared his throat, and quickly changed the topic. "Liara said if we come back this way, she'll take us to dinner. Tali, too."
Shepard shot him a quick, tight grin. "That'd be nice. Did you try to recruit her too?"
"Nah, I figured we already had our token asari on board, now that Samara's joined the team."
"Hmm, Samara. Think we'll have problems with her? That Justicar code seems a little... intense."
"Not since she swore herself to you. I don't know a lot about Justicars, but I know they don't make oaths like that lightly." Garrus shook his head, not even bothering to be amazed anymore that Shepard had commanded the loyalty and allegiance of a thousand year old asari Justicar. This was Shepard. It was what she did. "It's the assassin I'm more worried about."
"Thane?" Shepard looked surprised. "Why? Isn't he your new mancrush?"
Garrus stared at her. "My what?"
The familiar smirk appeared on her face. "Come on, Vakarian. You haven't used the word 'impressive' so much since we unpacked the new Incisor sniper rifles. You were all 'oooh, perfect headshot!' and 'ahhh, what an entrance!'"
He gave a protesting rumble, but couldn't really deny it. The assassin had been... well, impressive. "Yeah, okay. What can I say? He's good at the solo kill. Maybe even better than me."
"That hurt to say, didn't it?"
The turian scowled. "A little. I'm better in group combat. It's the difference between a vigilante who knows how to play well with others, and an assassin who works alone."
Shepard grinned and slapped him companionably on the arm. "Don't worry, Vakarian. I still like you better." She curled her fingers around his arm guard and tugged; he let her pull him to his feet. "Take it easy on that shoulder. We'll have a few days travel before we hit Lorek to extract this missing Cerberus operative. If you want, you can sit this one out and I can give our new crew a test run."
You went out without me once and you died.
The intensity of his reaction caught Garrus by surprise. He gave an uncertain cough. "Nah, I'll be fine. You heard Chakwas."
"Good to hear it, big guy. Now come on. Let's go get something to eat and you can fill me in on what you got up to today. I'm sure it's very impressive. Were there explosions?"
"Oh, maybe one or two," he drawled, following along easily as Shepard made for the doors.
"You blow up any Heavy Mechs?"
"Not this time. Just a few asari commandos."
"... Damn it, Vakarian. You're never leaving this ship without me again."
"Don't worry, Shepard. I'm sure your mission was just as impressive."