A/N - I am finishing up the next chapter and hope to have it up in a few days. In the meantime, enjoy! :)
It was supposed to be a straight forward pick up, so of course it went sideways. Cerberus had shipped a batch of new weapons to the Teshub transit station under the name of a dummy corporation, but the shipping container had proven too great a temptation for a local crew of Blood Pack mercs with nothing better to do. By the time the Normandy had arrived to pick up the equipment, the docking bay was crawling with krogan and vorcha, eagerly pawing over their new 'find.'
If they'd had Tali as planned, Garrus knew that the Commander would have hesitated before barging in, guns firing. But the quarian had pulled out just before departure after getting a priority message from the Flotilla, and Samara had volunteered to take her place. With a biotic powerhouse like Samara or Jack, Shepard had the habit of adopting a more reckless approach. It left them in an all-out shooting war with a heavy-hitting crew of Blood Pack, with Shepard pinned down in a corner by a crew of vorcha pyros. Garrus liked Samara - the lady had class - but today he'd have traded her for Tali in a heartbeat, even if it meant putting up with the noise from that damned drone of hers.
Rolling sharply behind the cover of a nearby shipping container, Garrus swore under his breath. A brief scan of his visor readout gave no help; it was lit up with the enemy combatants swarming the crowded docking bay, highlighting too damn many angles of attack and offering an alarmingly limited number of firing solutions. Keeping his head down, Vakarian edged carefully along the length of the blockish shipping container. He fingers curled around the rifle grip uneasily, and he listened intently for the sharp high-pitched whine of Shepard's Shuriken as she returned fire. Beyond that, he could hear the snarl of a charging krogan and the bone-shaking vibration of a biotic burst from Samara as she dealt with it.
Dammit, Shepard.
Rolling sharply behind a loading lift, Garrus sought a halfway decent vantage point. Shepard was going to get her head shot off one of these days if she kept relying on brute biotic strength as backup anytime they had the asari with them.
"Shepard, I've got line of sight on you," he uttered finally, hearing the clear relief in his own voice and ignoring it. Garrus squinted down on the first vorcha, its head lined up squarely in his sights, and fired.
Watching the explosion of blood through the scope was more satisfying than ever.
"Thanks big guy," Shepard answered over the radio. The pyros scrambled for cover as his target dropped, giving her the room she needed to come out firing without having her skin burnt to a crisp.
Garrus didn't answer, too busy checking on Samara as she slammed the now-stunned krogan into convenient walls. Observing her calm, composed stance as she did so, he had to give her points for style. The sniper exhaled, and began laying quick, precise cover fire over the main floor of the docking bay.
On his left flank, he heard Shepard taking down the pyros. One by one, their markers vanished on his visor readout, while her kill count flicked higher and higher. His tension eased further with each flick of the counter. Combat was always messy and chaotic, when people were doing their best to slaughter one another with high powered weapons, but Garrus was used to the meticulous precision Shepard typically brought to her missions. Going in blind wasn't like her at all, and it was always unnerving when she got reckless.
"I'm still up on you, Shepard," he pointed out cheerfully, flicking a glance over their respective kill counts. She'd gotten a little too cocky one night in the galley, and he'd called her on it. The matching displays on his visor HUD helped them to quantify their friendly rivalry.
"Check again, Vakarian!" Shepard crowed, as she took out the last of the pyros, nudging her kill count ahead of his.
Barely.
Garrus popped a hissing heat sink out of his rifle, and eyed Samara as she took down a trio of vorcha troopers. The asari neatly stepped over their fallen bodies; Vakarian snapped the new thermal clip into place.
"Shepard!" Samara called sharply, sudden alarm strident in her voice. Garrus' visor caught the hot flash of fire before he saw it with his own eyes. It caught Shepard square in the back, jerking her briefly before she dropped limply.
Spinning lightly on his toes, the turian snapped his rifle up and fired before he was even clear on a target. A sniper rifle wasn't always great for such close range, and he hadn't had time to adjust the angle with any precision but his Incisor packed enough of a punch to overcome a clumsy shot. He saw a figure - vorcha, alone, M-3 Predator - drop under his fire.
"I've got her covered," Samara called, and the blue shimmer of a biotic barrier flickered into existence around her and their fallen Commander.
The vorcha was down but those bastards were tough and they regenned almost as fast as the krogans they ran with. Garrus tried to shove aside any concern for Shepard - her shield was almost down and that Predator can tear right through armor; was there enough power left in her shield to slow it down at all? - and moved in towards the vorcha.
It was already back on its knees, fumbling for the heavy pistol it had dropped. Garrus dumped the rifle and grabbed his Carnifex instead, aiming for a head shot. It moved - fast - dammit those things were always unpredictable, and Vakarian found himself suddenly grappling with a snarling vorcha. The air rushed out of his lungs in a startled gasp, as he was shoved backwards, and down. He scrabbled for traction but his boots slid, forcing him to take the full impact across his back as the vorcha slammed them both into the deck plating.
Garrus gasped around the sharp stab of impact shock, feeling the vorcha scrabbling to grab the Carnifex his right hand still grasped loosely. He blinked to clear his vision and slammed his arm out wildly. It connected with the vorcha's face, the force of the impact jarring down his elbow but knocking the trooper back for a moment. It was just a moment's distraction as the vorcha shook his head in disorientation, but it was enough time for Garrus to bring his Carnifex up.
The vorcha was snarling as he pressed the muzzle of the gun under its chin and squeezed the trigger tightly. It's body went limp and heavy, slumping down over him even as blood and heavier things exploded out the back of its head.
"Dammit." Garrus rolled the dead weight off his chest, sitting up carefully. There was a dull ache down his spine, but none of the sharp, hot pain that signalled serious damage.
His visor flashed only with the two green points of his team mates; no sign of enemy combatants. Vakarian sought out Samara and Shepard and found the asari's biotic field fading into nothingness. Shepard was already on her feet, moving stiffly as she met his gaze ruefully.
"Always have to go for the dramatic last kill, don't you Vakarian?" she muttered, as he got carefully to his feet.
"Don't get cranky just because you're not winning anymore," he answered, wincing as things twinged unpleasantly across his back.
She laughed, and it had the wild edge that never failed to make him grin in response. He'd heard it too many times, in too many tight corners, not to recognize the relief fuelling it.
"Let's get our gear and get out of here. Whatever local security they have is probably on its way, and I don't feel like spending the next hour arguing over whether a Council Spectre's authority extends outside Council space." Shepard leaned down and grabbed her fallen Shuriken, shaking her head wearily as she peered over the corpse-strewn docking bay. "I'm damn glad we got the drop on them. I never would have heard the end of it from Miranda if we'd been robbed by vorcha."
Garrus pushed against the weight machine, groaning as the long muscles down his back protested the effort. He knew he'd pulled something scuffling with that damned vorcha. He'd felt it as soon as the adrenaline started to fade, as they were heading back on the Kodiak. It was nothing to bother Dr Chakwas about, he just needed to work the kinks out.
"Officer Vakarian," EDI interrupted unexpectedly. "You have an incoming message from Palaven."
He froze for a moment. Exhaling carefully, Garrus let the weights fall back into their base, and swung himself up so he was sitting on the bench.
"Would you like me to transfer it to your visor radio, or would you prefer the main station on the flight deck?"
The main station would allow video contact; his visor didn't. Garrus shook his head sharply. "Put it through here," he answered curtly, his stomach twisting anxiously as he waited for the signal of an open line.
A message from Palaven meant only one thing: his family. His father would probably rip his own mandibles off before contacting his rebellious failure of a son. Rubbing awkwardly at his own damaged mandible, Garrus sighed heavily.
It was his sister, it had to be. Which meant bad news about mom.
"Sol?" he asked uneasily as soon as he heard the faint static of an open line.
"Garrus," his sisters voice answered, the unhappiness in it clearly audible. "I don't have a vid connection coming through."
Leaning forward on the weights bench, he rested his head in his hands and sighed. "Sorry sis, I'm only on the visor right now. How's she doing?"
There was no need for him to specify who she was. There was only one reason his sister called these days. Of course, she was also the only member of his family who had any idea of how to reach him.
"Worse, Garrus. The meds aren't helping anymore," Solana said, and he could hear the weariness in his baby sisters voice. It hurt to hear it, hurt more to know there was nothing he could do to help her or their mother.
"Damn, Sol. I'm sorry. I know... we both knew this would happen eventually..."
The doctors had been almost painfully blunt once the diagnosis had been made. The drugs would work, but only for a time. It had held off the inevitable for a year already, and hell, maybe that was all they could ask for.
"Are you coming home?"
It was the resignation in her voice that got him where he lived. The fact that she already knew he'd say no. Garrus felt the familiar guilt swamp over him, twisting uneasily in his gut. He stared blindly down at his hands, not even recognizing that they were clenching and unclenching spasmodically.
"I... I can't, Sol..."
There was a little indrawn breath, the only thing he'd hear of the tears she would never shed. He knew his little sister too damned well. She was the stronger sibling by far, and he wasn't surprised when she responded with anger.
"Why the hell not?" Solana demanded. "Mom's dying, Garrus. They've given her three months, tops. What the hell is more important than that?"
Saving the galaxy from Reapers. Stopping the Collectors from harvesting millions with more assaults on human colonies.
How could he say that to her? The Reapers had been officially denied by the Council, and Spectre Shepard declared an alarmist. Solana would never believe him, and there was nothing else he had to offer.
Garrus sighed heavily, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands again. "Isn't there anything? You told me something about that new research..."
She'd practically been bubbling over with excitement and hope. Even his mother had sounded less resigned that day.
"That's not going anywhere, the salarians had their funding cut. Dammit, Garrus, you need to come back to Palaven."
Garrus Vakarian had never been one to give in and accept the inevitable. If there was even one option left to him, he'd take it. Cut funding just meant a lack of resources, not a dead end. His eyes narrowed as he considered whether Mordin Solus could get his hands on that abandoned research. The doctor was former STG and a genius; Garrus would happily tell the salarian about his mother's situation if there was any hope that Solus could find something to delay the inevitable.
Solana was still waiting for an answer. Spirits, he could picture her so clearly. Eyes flashing, mandibles twitching with restless impatience. Garrus wished he'd had the courage for a vid link up.
"I'll... try," he managed, sighing in regret. He wanted to tell her, wanted to tell her everything. But the channel was hardly secure, and she was more likely to think it was just another cop out. Just Garrus Vakarian running away again.
"You'll try." The flatness of her voice was like a slap in the face. "Sure, Garrus. You do that."
The line dissolved into static, and Garrus stared blankly through the signal lost alert flashing across his vision.
"...Garrus?"
He spun sharply at the familiar, quiet voice. Shepard was standing behind him, close enough that she must have heard at least some of his conversation with Sol. Garrus could read human expression well enough to catch the concern on hers now. He hastily played back the conversation, trying to work out what she could have overheard. Enough to worry her, judging from the frown between her eyes as she approached.
"Shepard," he greeted carefully.
She moved closer, looking more uncertain than he was used to seeing her. "You look... unhappy. I didn't meant to eavesdrop. Sounded like a pretty serious conversation."
It was very Shepard. She didn't like to push, but she cared so much about her crew. And self-doubt aside, Garrus had worked out by now that he was more to her than just another crew mate. Of course she was worried.
His hesitated briefly, then flicked his mandibles in resignation. "Sit down," he invited, gesturing to the crate of weapons they'd brought back earlier. Soon enough, Jacob would unpack, catalogue and store the new additions in their armory. For now, they'd been yanked out of the Kodiak's belly and stored on the flight deck, conveniently accessible for Shepard to use as a seat.
He watched her drop onto the crate, mirroring his pose. Legs spread, elbows resting on her knees. He met her eyes and tried to keep his mandibles still. "My mother is dying."
Shepard's eyes widened in alarm. "Was she hurt? An accident? What happened?"
Garrus raised a hand in reassurance. "No, nothing like that. It's an... illness. Corpalis Syndrome. She was diagnosed two years ago. It's terminal."
Two years ago. In fact, a bare month before word reached him about the Normandy SR-1.
There was a long silence, in which he let his gaze rest on the deck plates between their feet. He knew if he looked at her, he would see sympathy and that wasn't anything he could face right now. Not after Sol. It would make it... too real. Garrus needed it to not be real just a little longer.
"Is it almost the end?"
He nodded, staring resolutely at the space between their feet. Shepard's boots were scuffed, he noticed. That meant she'd been too busy doing her 'rounds' to bother cleaning them after this mornings fight.
"Hell, Garrus. I'm so sorry."
She sounded helpless, and he didn't want her to be helpless. Garrus inhaled sharply, ready to say something - who knew what - when she beat him to the punch.
"When will you leave?"
Shock dragged his gaze up sharply. "Shepard. I'm not abandoning the mission. I could never do that."
It was one of those moments that brought home how different their people were. If Solana had known and understood what they were up against, she would never have asked him to come back home. The safety of the community always took precedence over the survival of one individual, and you never walked away from a mission. Garrus knew he wasn't the best turian, but still... No turian could make that choice and be okay with it.
Humans weren't like that. They fought for every single life; he'd seen his very human Commander rail against every unnecessary death under her command. He watched Shepard stare at him unsurely, then she leaned closer. Her hands closed around his own, soft palms curling over his fingers and squeezing lightly.
"Garrus, she's your mother. I'm not saying we don't need you, you're the best I've got here. But you should..." Shepard exhaled softly. "You need to be there."
"There's still some time," he managed, fighting for control over the sub harmonics in his voice. Even she must hear how strong they were. "If we make it back from the Collector base, I'll go see her. After."
Shepard's frown was deeper than he'd seen it for a while. "You know as well as I do, we might not make it back."
There was a raw truth in that which they'd never put so brazenly before. He nodded in acceptance. "Yeah. But the Reapers, the Collectors... What we're doing out here is more important. It has to be. My mother would understand that." He smiled faintly. "If I can, I'll explain it to her afterwards, and to Solana. Maybe even to my father, but I doubt he'll believe the Reapers are real. Not unless he saw Palaven burning."
There was a bitterness in his voice he couldn't hide, but Shepard knew that history. They'd talked about his father enough back in the old days, and she didn't question it now.
She did move, though; shifting off the crate, Shepard came to sit beside him on the bench. It creaked under them as she laid a bare human hand on his knee.
"I won't compromise this mission for anyone, Vakarian, not even you. I know you'd never ask me to. But I will do everything I can to get you back to Palaven in time to say good-bye to your mother." She raised a hand to touch his face carefully. "I can promise that much."
The visor was flashing data at him, things he'd come to learn to interpret as they applied specifically to Shepard. He could see the quick beat of her heart, echoing the swift pulse jumping at her throat. He understood the quicksilver flashes of muscle tension as she fought the urge to do something, anything, to resolve the problem she'd discovered. Shepard was a fixer. She hated an unresolved problem.
He felt his mandibles tilt into a smile, warm affection rushing over him as he listened to her determination and saw it echoed in the secret signals of her body. She would probably do the same for anyone on her crew. The Commander didn't play favorites. If he'd dared, he'd have dragged her close and kissed her for it, but he knew better. Unlike the main battery, the shuttle bay was still littered with Cerberus bugs.
"Shepard," he began, but her hand moved to press against his mouth, silencing him.
"Quiet, big guy. This isn't just about you anyway." Shepard gave a tiny shrug. "I've been stalling on this, because I don't want to lose people if Cerberus decides to screw us over again. But when you get right down to it, we can't wait forever. We're almost ready now. Thane is fighting fit, Samara worked out perfectly this morning, Grunt hasn't lost it once since we got back from Tuchanka. Even Jack's been playing nice."
Her hand slid away from his mouth, settling into a now-familiar pressure against his damaged cheek. Garrus exhaled slowly as he regarded his Commander. "Zaeed came with a price tag," he reminded her.
Shepard nodded. "We'll deal with his Blue Suns issue, then we're going after that Reaper. If that IFF exists, I want it."
Part of him wanted to argue that she was being reckless again, or hasty. But the part that had the same clock ticking away in the back of his head wanted to sigh in relief. It wasn't just his mom. Garrus had made peace with the idea of not seeing her again a long damn time ago. It was the thought of another colony being taken, while they raced around like Cerberus' prized pet, chasing down missing scientists and recovering experimental vehicles.
Not that the Hammerhead wasn't worth the effort they'd put into finding it. But the Collectors wouldn't play this game of hide-and-seek with them forever.
"Okay," he sighed in agreement. What else was there to say? It was her call, and he knew she'd started chafing at the bit again lately. Her impatient behavior on today's mission was just the first sign of it. It was time to go after that Reaper. Time to risk uncertain intel and let the pieces fall where they may. Their options were getting more limited every day.
Shepard smiled, sliding her fingers approvingly over his cheek. "Glad you're behind me on this."
"Well, who knows how long it will take to get that IFF to work for us, if we can even find it?" he answered as calmly as he could. He could feel the warmth of her palm even through the bandage. Did the new cybernetics Chakwas had patched him up with sense the heat, or was that his own leftover nerve endings? Garrus felt his thoughts fraying around the edges, as he frantically wondered whether she remembered where they were. Shepard had been careful to keep the change in their relationship private, no matter what rumors raced through the ship, and he'd followed a lead. This... was unexpected.
Shepard ran a thumb over the edge of his mandible. It was a touch that had become so familiar so quickly, but it still tripped his heart rate into overdrive. That light touch stroking over the only exposed damage on his face sent shivers down his spine.
And for a scarred, broken down vigilante who was too ashamed to hold a vid call with his sister, the press of this tiny humans hand against his bandaged face was more reassurance than Garrus ever hoped to receive.
"You always do that," he said because he had to say something and of all the things racing through his brain just then, that seemed the least likely to get him into trouble.
But Shepard paused, pulling her hand back. In alarm, Garrus saw his visor reporting a faint increase in her heat signature, and realized she was blushing. Embarrassed or angry, he couldn't tell which, but he grabbed her hand sharply with his. With infinite care and absolute determination, the turian pressed her palm back against his bandage-covered face.
"I wasn't complaining," he remarked calmly. "Just an observation. You always touch... that side."
Apparently reassured by his gesture, Shepard relaxed and her hand went back to stroking those slender, dexterous fingers along his scarred mandible. "Do I?" she asked with a small smile. It was the smile he was coming to like the most. The small one, that was a little unsure and a bit sheepish, as if she'd just been caught doing something she didn't think she should be.
"...I think I like them."
Shepard wasn't quite meeting his gaze, her own line of sight skittering across his jaw line and making his mandibles twitch under all that focus. "I hate how you got them... how close you came to dying. But..." Her fingers were ghosting over scar tissue that shouldn't be this damn sensitive to such a gentle touch. "Garrus, you took on three merc gangs and damn near destroyed them all. Alone. You took a missile to the face and lived. I'd be lying if I said that fact wasn't just a little..." She cleared her throat awkwardly, dropping her gaze again. "...Hot."
Garrus blinked; one long, slow blink as he struggled to take in her admission, the elevated pulse rate and core temperature his visor was feeding back to him, putting all this data together into one single truth that damn near blew his mind.
He swallowed hard enough that he could hear it, and pressed his fingers down harder against her own. Drove her touch harder against the scar tissue. "You don't happen to have any krogan DNA, do you Shepard?"
She laughed and it was relieved. Had she expected him to be offended, or disgusted? Garrus watched her smile widen slowly, her eyes sparkling with that dangerous glint that just about killed him everytime he saw it.
"Not last time I checked. Does being an honorary krogan count?" she asked, shifting closer.
His arm curled around her shoulder of its own accord, pulling her closer as she leaned in. "That must be it," Garrus murmured softly, tasting her breath on his tongue the instant before her lips touched him.
Part of him remained aware of their location. Some part of Garrus Vakarian recognized that they were in a public area of the ship. That part of him went numb with startled delight, because Shepard would never have exposed this side of their friendship if she was embarrassed by it.
It was something that had worried him. A human, shacking up with a turian? They were on a boat crewed by xenophobes and it didn't bode well; even the most reasonable humans could still have issues with turians. Given their species shared history, a turian wasn't the best romantic interest for the first human Spectre. But when had Commander Shepard ever let public opinion stand in her way?
Shepard pulled back, seeking out his gaze with a questioning expression. Garrus managed to pull himself together enough to answer her with a reassuring tilt of his mandibles.
"Thanks, Shepard," he murmured quietly.
For... everything.
The kiss, the reassurance, but mostly her company at a moment when he was feeling pretty damn crappy about his life in general. On Omega, the darker moods had stolen him away more often than he'd liked, dragging him into guilt and regret that he had only been able to expel with direct violent action. Planning a mission had cleared his head, given him an outlet. But Shepard's presence did the same thing.
It was unexpected. But Garrus figured he preferred this over taking out two-bit mercs.
"Anytime, big guy." Shepard's smile faltered briefly as her gaze slid past him and fixated on something over his shoulder. "What's that about?"
Blinking, Vakarian turned to follow her line of sight. His gaze shifted upward, finding the large, clear viewing panel on the engineering deck. It afforded anyone standing there a clear view of the entire hangar bay but the solitary quarian figure pacing relentless back and forth down the corridor seemed uninterested in the view.
Garrus narrowed the focus of his visor, frowning at the clear signs of distress in the pacing girl. Most quarians had more obvious body language than the other races; it was a way to communicate subtle emotions that were hidden by their suits. But Tali was even more blatant in her mannerisms and the twitching hands and restlessly rolling shoulders said that the young engineer was more upset than he recalled ever seeing her.
"She got that priority call right before we left," Garrus reminded her, pulling the zoom on his visor back and meeting his Commander's concerned gaze. The turian gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Maybe it's bad news all around today?"
Shepard's mouth set into a thin line. He could follow her thoughts with reassuring ease. Foremost of course was the concern for a friend, but riding a sharp secondary was worry over having a key member of their tactical squad wrestling with a personal issue that would distract them from the mission.
He waited her out, and heard the small sigh. "I'll go check on her. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it."
Garrus squeezed her arm lightly and pulled back from her. "I'll run some scenarios for Zaeed's Blue Suns job. Keep me in the loop," was all he said. He got a reassuring pat on the shoulder as she rose and stepped last him.
Listening carefully, he heard the elevator doors open and then close. Peering thoughtfully up through the window, Vakarian waited until he saw Shepard approach the pacing quarian.
His visor was good on visual, but not good enough to pick up audio. He'd have needed Kasumi's help with that, or maybe one of Massani's little bugs. But Garrus could watch as the two women spoke. After a moment, Tali's shoulders slumped and her head dropped down. He saw the Commander step in close, one hand gripping the engineers arm gently, and he could picture Shepard offering quiet, sympathetic reassurances.
Definitely a bad day all round, he decided on a sigh.
Garrus turned away from the two women and lay back down on the bench, stretching his legs along its length. Reaching upwards, he gripped the weight bar and lifted it with a grunt.
There was nothing Shepard could do for his mother... But maybe they'd be able to help Tali with her problem.
Hell. Maybe it was enough to know they were ready to make their move on the allegedly derelict Reaper. Once they had that IFF, they could begin planning an assault on the Collector base.
If he was looking for some justification of a greater good to make him feel better, Vakarian decided, that was probably as good as he was going to get.