"Ah, yes. 'Reapers'." the turian councilor said. "The immortal race of sentient star ships allegedly waiting in dark space. We have dismissed that claim."

"Ah, yes, 'The Council'," Shepard returned. "The governing body of the Citadel allegedly maintaining a non-biased opinion on galactic matters of security. We have also dismissed that claim."

Garrus tried to cover up his laugh by coughing into his hand.

"You're out of line, Shepard," the turian came back.

"No one else saw the hologram on Ilos or spoke to Sovereign outside of your crew," Anderson said. "I believe you, but without further proof, they have assumed Saren was behind it all."

"I told you Saren was dirty, you didn't believe me, and he killed hundreds. Maybe thousands. I told you that you needed to send your fleet in to kill him, and you didn't, and thousands of humans died to save your sorry asses so that your bullshit politics could hold this galaxy together. I told you the reapers were coming, which nearly caused the whole damn citadel to fall, forcing me to step up and put my entire crew in danger. Every time I have warned you of something, not only did you not listen to me, but it always came true. And innocents have always paid the price. You think you would notice a pattern, eventually." She sighed frustrated and exasperated. She stepped towards the Council's holograms. "Let me make something perfectly clear. A great danger is coming, Councilors. Your lives rested in my hands once, and they will again. When that time comes, I want you to remember this conversation. Because the outcome will not be the same."

"You put us in a difficult position, Shepard. You are openly working with Cerberus, an avowed enemy of the Council. This is treason."

"I committed treason once for the good of the galaxy and saved your scaly hides by doing so. What makes you think I wouldn't do it again if I needed to?"

"A fair point," she said. "Maybe there is a compromise. Not a public acknowledgment, given your ties, but something to show peripheral support," the asari councilor said.

"Shepard, if you keep a low profile and restrict your operations to the Terminus Systems, the Council is willing to offer you reinstatement as a Specter," said the Turian.

"This is a show of good faith, on our part," the Salarian said.

"We cannot become involved in an investigation regarding the missing colonies in the Terminus Systems, terrible though they may be. It is outside our reach. But Specter reinstatement shows our support of you personally."

Garrus could tell she wanted to say something else, but she looked at Anderson and he nodded to her.

"It's an honor, councilors."

Shepard dismissed Garrus and Jacob so she could talk to Anderson alone.

Garrus had been intending to talk to Shepard that night after dinner, but by the way the meeting with the council went, he was pretty sure she wasn't going to be very receptive to his help. He contemplated whether or not he should at least give it a shot as he strolled through the wards with Jacob.

The human had actually started to grow on Garrus. His knowledge about weaponry was impressive and they had a lot of good chats on the subject. He almost always deferred to Garrus' opinion when it came down to something they didn't agree on. Shepard was right, besides the fact that he pretty blatantly wanted her, he wasn't a bad kid. He had even helped Garrus fix his helmet and the holes in his armor from Omega.

"She is not going to be happy when she comes out of there," Garrus said, pointing a thumb back at the room.

"Meeting going to put her in a bad mood?"

"Meetings with the council always did. So unless Cerberus removed that part of her brain, yeah."

"You and her were really tight back in the day, huh?" Jacob asked.

"Tight?"

"Close. As friends."

"Ah, yeah. We really were."

"Why the change? Figured you'd be thrilled but you two seem so... Awkward."

"Well, it's an awkward situation. And with all due respect, Jacob, you didn't know her like I did. Everyone on the ship... their views are skewed. None of you have met Shepard. Not the real Shepard. She's so much colder... darker." He exhaled a frustrated breath through his nose. "It's like she's just a shadow of what she used to be."

"She doesn't seem to be either of those things to me," he said. "But you're right, I didn't know her back then. I've only seen vids. Besides the sleep rings around her eyes, I can't really tell the difference. She's kind to everyone, even though it's obvious she doesn't trust us yet, not that I can blame her. And she's obviously one of the best soldiers I've ever met."

"There's a light missing," he said sadly. "From her eyes. They used to light up when she laughed or smiled." he looked out to the sky. I miss it, he thought.

"I suppose we have the sleep deprivation to thank for that," he said before nudging Garrus with an elbow. "I could definitely help her sleep if she'd let me."

"If I thought it would help I would throw you at her myself," he said with a laugh.

"Yeah well. I've given up on that. She's got too much shit on her plate as it is and she doesn't seem... very... responsive in that regard."

"She never really was."

"Really? I find that hard to believe, she had more citations for inappropriate fraternization than anyone in her squad before the Skylian Blitz. Her psych profile said that she would use sex like a tool, or a mechanism. Casual like. Probably because of what happened on Earth."

"I'm not going to pretend to know anything about human mental functions," Garrus admitted. "But the entire year I served under her she did zero fraternizing. And she had plenty of opportunity, the humans on the ship were crazy enough about her she could have had any one of them. But she never took the time. Always turned them down gently, told them the mission was too important."

"That's a damn shame... she's a beautiful woman."

"She certainly is."

Jacob thought for a minute, eying the turian up and down. It made Garrus uncomfortable.

"What," Garrus asked.

Jacob opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted.

"Vakarian?" came a familiar voice from the C-sec office as they passed.

"Chellick, it's been a long time," he said, shaking his hand. "I'll meet you back at the Normandy, Jacob."

The human nodded and dismissed himself.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Around," he said. "Off grid."

"Yeah I gathered that. Heard your human specter was alive and on the presidium too. Figured if she was around, you wouldn't be far behind. Though I'll assume you aren't causing more problems for me this time around."

"You know us," Garrus said. "If there's trouble to be found..."

They laughed together.

"I haven't seen you two since she turned a simple mods pick up into a mass overhaul."

"I remember that. At the time, I thought she was just going to pick up the shipment and go. When she told Jax she was bringing him in, well..." he laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well it was the first time I had seen a human wrestle a krogan to the ground."

"I probably would have paid money to see that."

"It really was impressive. So you're in charge now, I see," he said, seeing Chellick's name on Pallin's old office.

"Yeah, Pallin was killed by the geth in Saren's attack."

"That's too bad," Garrus lied.

"Yeah. Well what are you gonna do, right?"

"Right."

"I do have to get to a meeting, unfortunately. But you should keep in touch. Oh yeah, that reminds me. A message came in to your old account a few weeks ago, which I thought was odd. I saved it just in case. I haven't read it, but I figured you'd want to know. Do you have somewhere I can forward it?"

"Yeah, I have a terminal on the Normandy, I'll get you the address."

"You got it."

"Thanks, Chellick. It was good seeing you."

"You too, Vakarian."

"It's liberating isn't it?" he said.

"Oh good. This is just what I need."

"So much power. So much raw energy inside you. I knew you would come around eventually."

She sat on her bed, looking at Saren's face in the fish tank, digging the bottle Chakwas had given her out of her drawer.

"You are a hallucination, and I would appreciate it if you would go play hide-and-go-fuck-yourself."

"Don't be so naïve, Shepard. You can't get rid of me. I'm you." That same old superiority dripped from his words.

"Shut your mouth, I'm not like you, Saren," She said, before popping a pill into her mouth and swallowing.

"Aren't you? The council has turned on you, your comrades no longer trust you, you've been rebuilt, you're taking queues from a predominantly evil organization... the lines between us are blurring ever so nicely."

"I'm not having this conversation with a fish tank. I'm not like you."

"Do you really believe that?"

"You were indoctrinated, you pointy bastard!" she snapped, pointing at his reflection. "You were a good man forced into doing evil things!"

"And what of you? Are all of these thoughts truly your own?"

"Yes! I need to help these people!"

"Just as I was helping my people?"

"No..."

"Think about it, Shepard.."

"No" she clasped her hands on the side of her head, the bottle of pills falling and spilling onto the carpet.

"You resist, but you are unable to tell the difference between us any longer. It is only a matter of time before it is those who are closest to you that will suffer. It is only a matter of time before it is Garrus who pays the price."

She kept shaking her head, hands over her ears. "That won't happen," she said. "I would never hurt Garrus."

"Very funny," he said with a condescending laugh. "I told myself the same thing about Nihlus. I had convinced myself that I would save him. How long do you think it will be before Cerberus makes you shoot Garrus in the back?"

"Shut up... Shut up!" She punched the fish tank as hard as she could, the bones in two of her fingers snapping. The glass fractured, but didn't break.

But at least he was gone.

"Son of a bitch," she said, going to the bathroom to wrap gauze around her bloodied hand. "Talking to a fish tank like a nut case. Get a grip, Jane," she chanted. "You just need to get a grip."

He knew the message would be from Shepard, the time-line matched up enough, and no one else would send a message to that account since they all knew it couldn't reach him. What he didn't expect, was the content. He read it as soon as it came through his terminal that night.

"Hey Garrus,

I don't know if this can find you, but I guess I have to try. I'm back now, alive, and not dead. I think. Well I'm animated, the alive part is still up for debate I guess.

Cerberus says you're untraceable and that you disappeared a few months after I was declared dead. Yeah, Cerberus, I know. I'll explain it all later when I find you. If I find you. If you even want to be found by me.

Seems pointless to give you all the details now, when I don't even know if you're going to receive this. You probably never will. I suppose this is more like therapy. Chakwas says I need plenty of that.

I don't know what to think anymore. They say I've been dead for two years. They spent billions of credits to bring me back, so I can fight some new impossible threat abducting human colonies. God, two years. No wonder none of my old crew is available. Chakwas and Joker are here, and I saw Tali, but she's got her own squad now. Garrus, she looked at me like she didn't even know who I was. Wouldn't come with me either. She doesn't trust me anymore.

I can't blame her. I don't trust me either.

I can feel the machinery under my skin. Hear it slowly tinkering away my humanity. Doc says that I'm being ridiculous, that there's no way I could see or feel my own cybernetics, but I can. Maybe I'm just going crazy. That's what everyone seems to think. But everything is so wrong. I'm supposed to be dead, right?

But I guess when you're a hero you don't get to die peacefully in the atmosphere, you get brought back from the brink and told to get your lazy ass back to work, surrounded by people you can't trust. I can't sleep at all, not for more than a few minutes. Remember when I would have nightmares of those prothean visions? Well they're like that but worse. Instead of fighting Saren's reanimated corpse, it's my cybernetics that light up, and it's me you and Tali kill on the Presidium. Sometimes it's the other way around and I'm the one killing you guys. Either way I feel like it's better to just avoid sleep altogether. I can't really handle the images that get left in my head.

Jesus, I'm afraid. It seems so foolish to say it now, after everything we've seen. But I am, Garrus. What if I end up like Saren?

I guess, when you think about it... I already am.

I hope you're okay. God, I wish you were here. If I had someone on board who didn't look at me like I'm crazy, or like I'm a science experiment, then maybe I would actually be able to gain some semblance of direction. Of sanity. I keep thinking you're on Palaven with your sister or found a nice girl or something. That you are something other than dead and never coming back. I don't know if I can handle that. So I have to keep hoping.

The Illusive Man, the head Cerberus mouth piece, has me assembling a team to take down the Collectors abducting the humans. There's a dossier for one "Archangel" and it just... it reminds me so much of you. Head of a band of vigilantes making life hard on some thugs on a red-tape-less station. Doesn't that sound like you? I keep trying to fight the urge to pretend it is you, just to keep some kind of hope alive. To keep the darkness at bay. To keep out the madness.

I hate what I see in the mirror. Garrus, I look more and more like Saren every day.

God, look at me whine. At least I'm alive, right? That's more than Saren can say, at least. I think I just need someone to give me one of my own military pep talks. "Man up, get your head in the game, get a grip, blah blah blah."

Wow, this is a lot longer than I meant for it to be.

I know we got really close, and it never really felt like we needed to say anything to each other, or at least I never thought I needed to say it. But now that the possibility of living my life without you in it is very real, I feel like I need to say it to you, even if you'll never actually know it. With the geth, and the reapers, and all the death that surrounded us, our friendship was all I really needed for it to all make sense again. Even when you went back to specter training, it was what kept me going.

You were the last thing I thought about when I died.

-Some Zombie."

He was clutching the console so hard he heard it start to creak under the pressure. The missing pieces all fell on the console in front of him. The things she called herself, the conversation with the doctor, the nightmares, the sleeplessness, the voices...Saren.

Stupid turian, he cursed silently. How have I been such an idiot?

Spirits, the true gravity of her state finally hit him. He suddenly felt the need to talk to her, to help her somehow. She was surrounded by people she couldn't trust, and she thought that the ones she did trust didn't trust her anymore. Damn it, that couldn't have been further from the truth. It had nothing to do with that.

All this time he was making it worse. All she had needed was for them to be okay again. His own demons on Omega, coupled by his complete inability to trust his own instincts when they kept telling him she was the real thing, had helped him unintentionally drive her to the edge. He had no idea what he was supposed to do, but he wasn't just going to sit around and figure it out anymore. She had been there for him when he had needed her the most and, spirits be damned, he was going to return the favor if he had to wrestle it out of her.

He stood there staring at the access panel on her door for about ten minutes trying to figure out what to do. He clicked his tongue in his mouth as the red beamed at him. Since he'd known her he'd never seen her lock herself in her quarters before. But he went up with a purpose that needed fulfilling, so he just hacked his way passed the lock.

"God damn it, EDI," she cursed hearing her door open. "I told you to lock it."

"Mr. Vakarian has bypassed my security module."

"Of course he has," she grumbled. He just saw her feet hanging off her bed as he approached. Then he saw her arms were over her face, her hand looked like it had been bandaged up for awhile.

"What happened?" he asked.

"The fish tank looked at me funny," she said, humorlessly. "What do you want, Garrus?"

He noticed the radiation cracks in the fish tank where she had obviously punched it, and the bottle of pills spilled out on the floor by her feet.

"You want to talk about it?" he asked, bringing his eyes back to her.

"No."

He exhaled angrily. He didn't want to let on how much he knew, but he wasn't going to back down, either. He tried to fight the anger creeping up in him. He wasn't mad at her, after all.

"Shepard, it's obvious that you have something you need to get off your chest. Talk to me."

"Can it wait for a bit?" she said without looking at him. "I'm in the middle of some contemplations."

"Very funny," he sighed. It was a fair point. "Shepard, look-" he started.

"No, Garrus," she snapped, sitting up to look at him. "You don't get to decide the difference between when I want to talk to you and when I need to. I've been trying to get you to talk to me about Omega for weeks. Trying to get that darkness out of you. You think I can't see it? You think I don't see how it eats at you? You think they brought me back stupid, Garrus?"

"Darkness in me? How about that darkness in you?" he growled.

"I died and was brought back by an evil organization two years older, what's your excuse?" she said as she stood, cocking out her hip.

Another fair point. Damn it.

"It's obvious that whatever happened to you on Omega has left you hurting. But you have made it perfectly clear that you don't trust me enough anymore to talk to me. And I don't blame you." As soon as she said it the tension in her shoulders fell away, though she tried to keep a strong posture. "I don't blame you even a little bit. I wouldn't trust me either." She ran her hand back over her head and held it on the back of her neck. "It feels like just last month to me, but it wasn't. It's been two years. Jesus... two years," she sighed, and put her hand over her eyes to regroup. "So I understand, I do. It was foolish to think that our friendship would have truly endured through two years, you dealing with my death and god knows what else, I mean, it was a fools hope and honestly... I'm-" she exhaled through her nose, putting her fists on her hips and meeting his eyes with hers. "I'm just glad you're here. In whatever capacity I can get. Just knowing that you are safe and alive and... within arms reach... is enough to keep the madness mostly at bay. But I'm not going to burden you with my bullshit problems when you feel like you can't open up to me about yours. I've had enough one-sided relationships in my life. It's not a satisfying situation. Not like our friendship was. I can't have that with you I just...can't. Not you."

The anger hit him square in the chest and his hands turned into fists. Damn him. Shepard had always been so positive, he had never seen her when she was in pain. Not hurting over Williams or angry at the council. Real. Dark. Pain.

As such he never needed to recognize it. He didn't know what it was when he saw it. He was never very good at sentimentality, but it had always come so natural to him when it involved Shepard. He had somehow always said or done the right thing to bring that light back in her eyes. But now. Now he had just made it worse. He tried, and failed, to fight the angry growl coming up in his chest.

After a long exhale, he closed the gap between them and took her firmly by the shoulders, hoping the familiar gesture would ignite something. It had always worked in the past.

Old tricks are the best tricks, she had said to him once.

"You're right," he said finally. "I'm sorry, Shepard. It was hard getting over your death. And now you're back and you're in so much pain, I don't know. I haven't really known how to act around you. Haven't wanted to burden you with my problems." He looked down at his feet for a moment, trying to bury the shame, before returning his gaze to hers. "But Shepard, do you honestly think I would be here, watching your six and chasing an impossible threat, if I didn't trust you anymore?"

For the briefest moment, her features softened, her eyebrows upturned, he felt all the tension in her shoulders melt away under his touch. He thought she was going to move into his arms, like she had always done in the past.

EDI made sure that didn't happen.

"The Illusive Man has an urgent mission for you, Commander," she chimed.

Just like that, her brow was furrowed, her scowl firmly back in place. With a silent exchange between them, she excused herself, patting his shoulder as she passed him.

"Shepard," he called as she stepped in the elevator. "Whenever we're done with whatever the hell he has for us, we'll talk. About Omega."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"It's a date, then," she said with a smile that looked like it took effort.

His mandibles clicked angrily after the doors to the elevator closed. What an idiot he had been. How much time had he wasted? He had seen her face start to light up just by telling her he still trusted her. Surely if he had just opened up to her in the beginning she wouldn't be kicking herself like she was. Wouldn't be in so much pain.

He tromped back to the main battery to busy himself but her words kept haunting him.

"I wouldn't trust me either," she had said. "I look more and more like Saren every day- It's not a satisfying situation, not like our friendship was..."

Was, he thought, covering his face with a hand. Spirits, he had made a mess of things.