You can have the money and the world,
The angels and the pearls,
Even trademark the color blue…
She woke up, shivering in the cold night air. Glancing swiftly around her, she discerned she was lying on an abandoned park bench, rotted wood creaking beneath her.
She sat into an upright position, realizing she was clad in dark grey armor. Where she had gotten it from, she was unsure. It barely clung together and was broken, shattered, burnt, dented and scratched in every way possible. Some pieces of it were shred to bits, while others were missing entirely. It was utterly beyond repair.
'I've been here before', she thought, struggling to remember, though she recognized nothing. Trees surrounded her, but they were bare, bereft of leaves, dead branches swaying eerily in a slight wind. The wind itself brought a scent of death and decay, filling her nostrils and causing her to wrinkle her nose in disgust. Dead grass littered the parched ground in small tufts. The whole area was devoid of life, a barren and ruined wasteland; death seeped from every crevice, haunting her. It was a scene born of nightmares.
Wary of what lurked in the dark shadows, she observed her surroundings a bit more. Inky shades loitered on the outskirts of her vision, seemingly flickering in and out of existence. They whispered to her, disturbing her in a way she didn't believe to be possible.
I am the vanguard of your destruction…
Had to be me…
I'll see you all when you get back…
There is a realm of existence… you cannot even imagine…
Come back, alive… it'd be an awfully empty galaxy without you…
Every part of her body screamed, cried and moaned as she stood from the bench. Underneath the ruined armor, her body showed no signs of damage, not even a solitary scratch or bruise. She couldn't figure out why she was in such terrible pain.
Her thoughts soon drifted to the voices she was hearing from the dark shades. She believed she recognized some of them, but couldn't quite place any.
Her mind was a mess. She was unable to decipher much of their whisperings, though they sounded ominous, foreboding, warning her of some unforeseen threat.
She approached the nearest one, not daring to look at it completely, out of fear it might vanish. She reached out her hand in a desperate attempt to grasp something definitive, something real. As her hand passed through the shade, it disappeared into the ether.
The shadows and the trees, the empty park bench and the dead grass suddenly fell away beneath her. She tumbled in darkness for what may have been an eternity, but could have only been mere seconds.
Unexpectedly, her feet slammed into solid ground. Blinking the abrupt change of darkness to blinding light away, she began to distinguish where she was.
Pink and white cherry blossoms were in bloom on the trees surrounding her. Their sweet smell lingered in the air, driving away any remnants of death. She could hear several fountains trickling water. Balconies overlooked the large area while a set of main stairs ran up the middle to a large dais. She knew this is where the Council typically convened.
"Stall the Council? Don't be ridiculous. Your investigation is over Garrus," she heard an angry voice behind her say. Turning on heel, she saw the familiar face of a turian, though much younger and unscarred.
"Commander Shepard? Garrus Vakarian. I was the officer in charge of the C-Sec investigation into Saren," the turian said.
"Garrus?" she said, taking a step forward. He nodded, a shadow of confusion flitting across his plated face.
"What happened? Did the Crucible work? Are the Reapers dea-" she stopped abruptly. Something was off… she had done this… all of this before…
Cocking his head to one side, he said, "Commander? Are you alright?"
Someone placed an armored glove on her shoulder. It was Kaidan, naïve, cautious, wistful Kaidan. The person standing beside him though threw her off completely. She shook her head, not quite believing what she was seeing, "Ashley?"
Apprehension was flitted across the gunnery chief's features.
"Yes, Commander?" she said slowly.
"You can't be real… You died on Virmire… the bomb…,"
Ashley took a step back, alarmed.
For a second time, everything shifted…
She was on Virmire, the planet etched her mind forever. A red holo flickered before her, mocking her. Garrus and a much younger Liara stood on either side of her, trepidation written upon both their faces.
"Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything," Sovereign threatened.
She snorted, "We exist because you allow it, demand our ending, the vanguard of our destruction. I get it. I know what you are and I 've already blown your kind from the sky." She waved her hand dismissively.
She wanted the hell out of this place, out of her mind. She was beginning to understand this was not reality, her frustration and rage quickly rising.
Quite unexpectedly, Sovereign's holo transformed, and she was left staring at an eerie image of herself.
"You chose wrong, organic," it intimidated in a voice not entirely her own. "Even after all this time, you can not comprehend our existence. And as we extinguish all organic life from this realm, you will truly see us for what we are… and you will beg for death before the end… We await your arrival Shepard."
Everything went black, and she knew no more.
Garrus thrashed himself awake. Twisted in a single sheet, he rolled off his couch and onto the cold, hard floor with a resounding thud. He laid there for a few moments, trying to recall where he was. Wincing, he pulled a mug he had landed on, out from underneath him. He loosened himself from the sheet and chucked it on the couch.
Ever since returning home, after spending the majority of the last four years aboard the Normandy, Garrus found himself unable to sleep in a turian bed more often than not. During the most recent stint aboard the Alliance ship, he had wound up sleeping in Shepard's quarters, becoming accustomed to the softness of the human bed. She had complained military beds were too hard, but Garrus found himself preferring them versus what he was used to.
He ran a hand over his fringe. The dream had utterly terrified him. And while bits of the dream slipped away with every waking moment, the last part alarmed him the most. It had all seemed so real, particularly the feeling of dread it had left inside him. He let out a long, low sigh just as Liara rounded the corner, coming from his guest bedroom.
"Bad dream, huh?" she asked, not sounding surprised.
"Yeah, a waste of good sleep, if you ask me," he muttered. The asari walked past him over to the large picture window in the living room, overlooking the streets. Cars still buzzed to and fro, people continued to walk the shattered pathways, and a slight wind blew through several stark looking trees across the road.
Garrus followed her path to the window and leaned against it, his arms crossing over his bare carapace. Scars etched across his body, discolored in the ambient light from the streets. He was no longer the same turian he was in his C-Sec days. Hell, even as he saw his faint reflection in the window, he thought he didn't even look the same.
"Does it still hurt?" Liara asked him, nodding toward the large scar on his abdomen put there by the shrapnel from that damn Mako. Garrus glanced down at it, shrugging.
"I suppose whenever I twist the wrong way or make any sudden movements, they all twinge a bit, reminding me that we've been through hell and back." He rolled his shoulders, his bones creaking, making several god-awful sounds. "What about you?"
"I get headaches. Not sure why exactly but sometimes they're severe enough to be nearly debilitating,"
"I don't suppose any of us came out of the war without some sort of scar," Garrus said slowly.
"I suppose we haven't," said Liara, frowning. The pair stood in the dark of the apartment for some time in silence, allowing the soft lights to wash over them.
"What do you think our chances are Garrus? I mean of finding her… alive?" Liara whispered to him finally.
"Shepard used to ask me what our odds were all the time…," he said deliberately.
"I think she was always so unsure of herself. Not others, mind you, but always of herself," she said.
"More toward the end, she was… In the beginning, she thought she could do anything, and she was full of herself… spirits she had an ego on her," Garrus allowed himself a brief chuckle. "After Cerberus brought her back though, she realized she wasn't invincible. She became more cautious, aware that more than just her life was at stake. The fate of the galaxy literally depended upon her, and she finally cracked, right in front of me, the night before the attack on the Cerberus station,"
He paused for a moment before breathing a sigh of regret, "I should have been there, Liara. I should have been there in that final push to the beam,"
"You mustn't blame yourself for that though. We were both injured. I would do it all over again if it meant I could have gone with her as well...," seeing the discomfort upon the turian's face, she quickly changed the subject. "You know… I've been jealous of your relationship with her Garrus, even from the start," Liara said sheepishly.
Garrus tilted his head, surprised at Liara's confession. She held her hands up defensively, a smirk playing across her lips, "Sorry, I've given you the wrong impression. What I meant was, I've always been a bit envious of how close the two of you were… are… Even during the hunt for Saren, when she was with Kaidan, she preferred your company above any one."
"Don't sell yourself short, Liara. She always spoke very highly of you. She saw you as a sister, a best friend. And I consider you… all of you… even Wrex, as family. A strange family… Yeah… But a family regardless…," his voice strayed off as Liara smiled, tears streaming down her freckled, blue face.
"Thank you Garrus… That certainly means a lot to me,"
"And to answer your question… I've lost a lot of hope over the last six months. And they've been a long six months, mind you, but my gut is telling me she may not be alive... And all we'll have is a corpse and distant memories," he paused, not wanting to dwell on the possibility. Placing a claw over his chest, he continued, "My heart, on the other hand, is screaming we'll find her alive and extremely pissed we didn't find her sooner."
Liara chuckled, wiping her eyes, "I think it's about time to try for some more sleep. We have a big day in front of us, and an even bigger undertaking ahead. Goodnight." The asari turned and walked back to the guest bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her. Garrus returned to his couch, hoping it wouldn't take him long before he was asleep.
Tychus stood behind the door of Garrus' bedroom, where he was supposed to be sleeping. He had unintentionally overheard his son and the asari speaking about Shepard as he had awoken to grab a glass of water. Listening to their conversation, it pained Tychus how much he really didn't know about Garrus' life. It hurt even more to know how personally Garrus took losing his commander… his bond mate. The thought still made Tychus a bit more uncomfortable than he was willing to admit. But Garrus was right, it was time for petty differences to be set aside, unless they wanted to destroy each other, and become like the Reapers, bent on annihilating one another.
He thought briefly of his wife, and longed to hold her again, hoping one day he may be at peace with her.
Updated 6/6/14