Garrus didn't imagine his life coming to an end this way, holed up in a room above a warehouse, taking out incoming mercs and dodging for cover every time his shields cut out. He'd been in the room for days, fending off members of every major merc group on Omega, and when they'd grown tired of expending their own resources, they'd sent hired hands after him instead.

He'd come to Omega with a naïve hope that he could make a difference somewhere where it might really matter; in the wake of Shepard's death, nothing had been fulfilling. At C-sec, he had crossed the line too many times. Any other officer would have been fired for some of the things he'd done, but he was let off with warnings, and saddled with red tape. So he'd left, searching for somewhere that he could improve, somewhere in need of law and order. Omega had been the perfect solution.

He'd fallen off the grid after that, not responding to contacts from anyone, shutting out his past life to usher in this new one. He couldn't have people on Omega knowing who he had been outside of the Terminus systems. The locals had taken to calling him Archangel, because of the good deeds he and his team had carried out. He didn't love the name, but he didn't hate it either.

But his team was gone now, the result of betrayal by one of his own, and he was trapped in the warehouse. His water stores had run out earlier that day and he hadn't eaten in days. He was dizzy, running on stims, and, though his aim was still nearly impeccable, he couldn't hold out much longer against the endless onslaught of hired guns. Sooner or later, the merc groups would get to him, and he would be dead.

The only solace in all of it was that, maybe, just maybe, if there really was a heaven, Shepard would be there waiting for him.

Though he wasn't convinced he deserved to be in heaven.

Resigning himself to his fate, he slumped against the wall he'd been using for cover and brought up his comm link. If he was going to die, there was at least one person who deserved to know about it.

The line rang a few times before the other end picked up.

"Garrus!?" His father's voice sounded on the other end. "Is that you? Are you alive?"

Garrus peered over the wall and shot down an incoming merc, then leaned back down against the cool surface, his head spinning.

"Garrus what's going on? Where are you?"

"Hey dad," Garrus said weakly. "I'm just at…target practice. It's really rough out here. I was wondering if you had any suggestions."

Gunshots fired at him from below and he turned around to shoot at more of the mercs, striking with deadly precision. They fell dead on the ground with the rest of them. No one had come to claim the bodies he'd killed, so the wake of his destruction was laid out before him, a sea of blood coating the bridge that separated him from the mercs.

His father's voice was strained on the other end. It was clear that Castis Vakarian was more than aware that, whatever his son was doing, it wasn't target practice. "Garrus…" his subharmonics trembled. "You just remember what I taught you. Do it right, or don't do it at all."

"I'm trying, dad," Garrus replied. "I'm sorry I couldn't be…a better son."

"Garrus, you are the joy of my life," Castis said. "Even if I don't always make it clear. Where have you been for the past year, son?"

"It doesn't matter. I won't be here soon. I just don't have any strength left. I wanted to be strong. I wanted…I wanted to be like Shepard." Even Shepard, he knew, had experienced moments of weakness, but she had always seemed to persevere. His heart had never fully mended from the loss, so he had tried to emulate her, to be an unwavering force for good. The problem was, he was able to cross lines Shepard never would have. And it had led him here.

"Shepard would be proud of you, son," his father said. "You can't give up."

"It's not a matter of will, dad," Garrus sighed. "It's just reality." He was so immensely tired. And he wasn't convinced that Shepard would have been proud of him. She wouldn't have wanted to see him like this.

"You'll get out of there. And when you're done with…target practice, you come back to Palaven. We have so much to discuss," his father told him.

Garrus leaned up and scoped out the incoming crowd, his father continuing to reassure him on the other end of the comm line, providing him with sniping tactics to avoid the reality of the conversation. A group of three human mercenaries entered the pathway that led up to the warehouse, guns at the ready, flanked by a set of vorcha and batarians.

Garrus lined up his shot, preparing to fire, but his finger stalled on the trigger. There, in his crosshairs, was a face he hadn't seen in two years. His heart pounded in his ears, a burst of adrenaline pumping through his body. It couldn't be…

He followed her with his scope. He didn't recognize the two that were with her, but he did realize none of them were firing at him. Was it really her? How could it be? Was he hallucinating now in his final hour? No…he would recognize that face anywhere…that bright red hair, those deep brown eyes. There were new scars along her face, but it was still her. He traced the familiar path of her body in his mind, the memories still fresh after so much time. It had to be her. He didn't know why, he didn't know how, but it was undeniably her.

"Dad," Garrus spoke into his comm link, ducking back down into cover. "I have to go. Something just turned up. I think my odds just got a little better."

He hung up before his father could say anything else and waited for the three humans to arrive. If he was wrong, if he was hallucinating, at least his death would be quick and painless.

He heard gunfire downstairs. They must have turned on the other mercs behind them. Should he go help them? No…he was weak and he needed to conserve his energy. Despite the extreme fatigue, though, the new burst of adrenaline this had inspired was doing a good job of keeping him alert.

Footsteps sounded on the stairwell that led up to his hiding spot. He had barricaded himself with crates and overturned shelves, on the off chance that someone did make it up to where he was. Realistically, they would only provide so much cover against a direct assault.

The three humans appeared, hands raised to signal they wouldn't harm him, and there she stood, at the center of the group, decked out in unfamiliar armor, but otherwise her, just as he had remembered, just as he had seen in his worst nightmares as he watched her floating away into space, as he heard her last desperate choking breaths over and over…

"Archangel?" she asked.

If her appearance had not been confirmation of who she was, her voice, so rich and familiar, was enough. There was one last test though. She didn't know who he was, he realized, his face hidden beneath his helmet. He removed it slowly and dropped it on the floor.

"Shepard," he said, his voice quavering.

Shepard nearly dropped her gun on the ground in surprise. "Garrus," the sound of his name on her lips was something he thought he'd never hear again. It took all the power he had not to sob at the sound of it. Two years. Two years struggling to come to terms with her death and now she was here in front of him by some miracle.

The final test was passed as a warm, earthy scent filled the space between them.

He struggled to his feet and crossed the room, bridging the gap between them, oblivious to her companions. He wasn't thinking about anything except the fact that she was alive. If this was just an illusion created by his dying brain, he didn't want to wake up, and he didn't fear death.

He yanked the gloves from his hands and brought them tentatively toward her. She didn't flinch or hesitate, throwing her arms around his neck and embracing him, with some difficulty thanks to his armor. He stroked her soft hair and breathed in the scent of her. It was her. It was her. It was her. He didn't care how. It didn't matter.

"Shepard…" His legs buckled and she caught him, lowering him gently onto one of the crates. She stroked his fringe affectionately and his subharmonics vibrated involuntarily. He had missed her so much more than he had ever allowed himself to realize. He thought he would never feel her touch again. It was like the spirits themselves had brought her back to him.

"Garrus, what are you doing here?" She asked, taking her free hand and brushing it against his mandible. Neither of them were aware of the profound confusion and discomfort playing across her companions' faces.

"Oh," Garrus shrugged. "Just honing my sniper skills."

"You look horrible," she said.

"I missed you too."

She frowned and pulled his chin up to face her. "The merc groups said you've been up here for days. When's the last time you ate? Or slept?"

"Can't remember," he leaned back against the wall. "Shepard. I saw you die. I heard you die. Are you…" he reached out and touched her face. She felt real enough. "How?"

"It's a long story," she said. "One that I'll tell you once we get you out of here. Why don't you tell me how you wound up here? Or how you managed to piss off every major merc group in the Terminus systems?"

Garrus laughed. "It wasn't easy. I really had to work at it."

"I take it you two know each other?" the woman that was with Shepard spoke.

"You could say that," Garrus replied, closing his eyes.

"This is Garrus Vakarian," Shepard told them.

"Look at that, Shepard. A lucky break. Our first recruit is one of your old squad after all," the woman said.

"It's going to be hard getting out of here now that we've gotten up," the other human, the man, said. "We've basically trapped ourselves up here."

Garrus sat up and opened his eyes. "That bridge saved my life. It's funneled all of the mercs into my line of sight for easy shooting. But it works both ways. We can't get out without a break in their defense. Come with me, Shepard."

He led her over to the wall where he'd been taking cover. The open window allowed him easy access to the incoming mercs. But there were none to speak of. This wasn't helping his concern that he was hallucinating.

"They've reinforced the other side, but no one's coming…" he told them. "What are they doing?"

As if in answer to his question, the building's alarms sounded, indicating that someone was breaking in down through the tunnel system beneath the warehouse. He should have known they would figure out there was an alternate route into the building eventually.

"What's that?" the man asked.

Garrus slumped down against the wall. "They're breaking in through the tunnels. Someone has to manually lock the doors down or they'll swarm us."

Wouldn't it be his luck if the mercs made it up and killed them all? Shepard brought back to life only to be gunned down by nameless nobodies. He didn't have the strength to make it down the stairs and fight off any incoming mercs on the way.

"We'll take care of it then," the woman said. "We have no other options. Shepard, come on, let's seal off the gates."

Garrus reached his arm out and clasped Shepard's wrist. "No," he begged, desperate. "No, Shepard. Please…don't leave me…"

Shepard looked back and forth between Garrus and her companions. It didn't take her more than a few seconds to respond. "Can you handle it without me? I don't want to leave him alone. He's weak."

The woman looked extremely unhappy with the situation, but it was clear, as always, that Shepard was in charge. The two strangers took off to deal with the situation downstairs, while Shepard sat down next to Garrus.

Going against all his better judgment, all of his training that had taught him not to distract himself on the battle field, he reached out to Shepard and brought his lips to hers. If these were his last moments, and she wasn't really there, he at least wanted to feel her lips against his one more time.

When their mouths broke away, she stroked his face. "Garrus, what happened to you?"

He leaned against her, resting his head on hers. "You died," he said simply.

She grabbed his hand and intertwined her fingers with his, stroking the top of his hand with her thumb. Slowly, quietly, she began to explain how she'd come back to him from the grave. How Cerberus had found her body and rebuilt her, against all odds. How from the moment she'd awoken, scared and confused inside the Cerberus facility, she'd been wondering where he was, what had become of him.

"Shepard," he said softly. "I can't believe you're here. You're back."

She stroked his face. "Look at you. I can't leave you alone for a second, can I? Clearly you don't know how to get along without my commanding influence."

He laughed. It was so…perfect…to have her there again. If he was going to die, he could at least die happy.

"I don't know if I can join up with you, Shepard," he told her. "Cerberus is bad news. It would really hurt the reputation I've built here to cozy up with the bad guys."

Shepard peered over the ledge to check for incoming mercs. "Garrus, I will drag your skinny little turian butt kicking and screaming on to my ship if I have to," she told him.

"Please, Shepard. Like I'm going to let you get out of my sight again?"

She nudged him with her shoulder and, at least for the moment, it was as though she'd never been gone. It must have been strange for her: what had been two years apart for him had only been a few weeks for her. It couldn't have been easy to reconcile that time difference.

"We've got mercs incoming," she said, raising her gun and firing off a few rounds.

Garrus stood up and fired off three shots, taking down a group of incoming vorcha. The pathway up to the building was empty again, for the moment.

The man and woman, who Shepard had explained were called Jacob and Miranda, emerged at the top of the stairs several minutes later. Garrus and Shepard moved across the room to meet them.

"We closed off the gates," Miranda said. "What's the status here?"

"We cleared the path, but I'm suspicious," Garrus told them. "Stay back here, behind the pillar. I'm just going to check and see what they're up to."

He moved forward cautiously. It all felt too easy. Of course, he was neglecting to fully remember the days he'd spent slowly picking them off, wasting away as he did so, but he thought for sure that the entry through the tunnels was some sort of distraction.

As he inched closer to the wall, he could see Shepard in his periphery, hugging the wall near the pillar, but still keeping an eye on him. For once, she was watching his six. Even a few inches from the wall, he could see that the bridge was empty. He was about to turn to Shepard to tell her as much when a gunship came flying into view, firing off a series of shots. Garrus scrambled behind one of the crates, the shots clipping his shields.

"You think you can fuck with the Blue Suns, Archangel?" A voice was projected from the gunship.

Garrus attempted to get a view of the thing, to fire off a shot at the pilot, but as soon as he peeked out from behind the crate, the ship launched a heavy-duty missile at him. While the missile itself narrowly missed him, it made impact with the ground directly in front of him, the blast knocking him backwards as a searing pain coursed across his face and down his body. He fell to the floor in a pool of his own blood, struggling to breathe, his vision fading.

Whatever happened next was a blur. Shepard screamed his name, there was gunfire, bombs going off. One of the humans lobbed a grenade and he was vaguely aware of an explosion behind him. Blood was gushing from the right side his face and his neck, his armor torn open from the explosion and bits of it embedded in him. His ribs ached and he figured he had broken at least two of them.

He had no clue how long the fighting went on, but eventually the sound of the violence died out and Shepard's face appeared above him. She moved him slowly onto his back, a gasp escaping her throat at the sight of his injuries.

"Garrus, you hold on," she begged. He could see the tears welling in her eyes. "You can't die on me now, okay?"

He reached a hand weakly up to touch her face. If this was how he was going to die, at least he had seen her, had touched her, one last time. He wasn't afraid of death any longer. He closed his eyes and let his body relax.

A/N: God I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to post this chapter, or how I had like the entire scene of their reunion formulated in my head since I started writing this fic. Poor battered and broken Garrus! I'm really excited for the coming chapters as well! Thank you all so much for reading!

Chapter title is from a Blur song called "Tender" which is, I think, really apt for Shakarian. Then again I can listen to any song and find a way to make it about them.

"Tender is the ghost, the ghost I love the most
Hiding from the sun, waiting for the night to come
Tender is my heart, I'm screwing up my life
Oh lord I need to find, someone who can heal my mind"