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Captain's Personal Log: The Professor

I stormed into the forward battery and hit the door close button behind me. I paused to blink in the dimness of the red lighting and tried not to shiver in the colder air. The tall fully armored alien in front of me didn't bother turning around or acknowledging my presence except to stop typing into his console. "What the hell, Vakarian?" I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest and staring at the back of his head where his scouter device attached to his skull.

"Well… I figure if I get the current guns up to spec and properly calibrated, it'll be much less difficult to install future upgrades," he raised his head to look out over the structure of the forward batteries.

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it."

He finally turned around fully to look at me, leaning on his console, "No, Shepard, I really don't know what you're talking about."

"Why the fuck do you have to play the hero all the goddamned time?"

He imitated my posture, crossing his arms over his chest, "I could ask you the same question, Shepard."

I glared at him and began to pace, partly to vent my frustration, partly to warm up. I understood the reason for the gunnery bay to be colder than the mess, didn't mean I liked shivering while talking to him. "I just helped the Professor upgrade his Omni-Tool. And in the process, I found the scan he did of you in his clinic, before we went and cleaned out the vorcha." I stopped in front of him, staring up into his face. He was looking down at me, plainly amused. I stabbed my forefinger at his armor in emphasis, "You were dying! That plague was killing you! You lied! You said you just had a cough!"

His eyes flicked toward the closed door and then he grabbed my hand in both of his, "Shepard, you told me you wanted someone you trusted with you when you walked into hell, didn't you?"

I blinked, "What does that have to do with anything, Vakarian?"

"I meant what I said when I told you I'd be there, plague or no plague," he said quietly, his voice dipping into those lower registers that always seemed to make something low in my spine tingle. Kaidan's voice did similar things to me; I was just used to acting on them with him.

I wrenched my hand out of his grasp and he went back to crossing his arms, "You nearly died yesterday, Garrus. You have a massive bandage and cybernetics holding your head together. Is avoiding dying by a bloody plague too much to ask?"

"If it means I leave you without backup, yes," he told me his voice still low. "I'm not going to leave you to rely on those Cerberus flunkies."

I clenched my fists. "I do not want your blood on my hands, again, Vakarian!"

He leaned closer to me, inches from my face, "And I don't want your blood on my hands, again, Shepard."

I froze, staring into his silver-blue eyes, "What are you talking about?"

He blinked and straightened back up, "Nevermind." He turned back to his console, fingers poised over the board, "I've said too much."

"Oh, no, you don't!" I walked around him to peer up at him over the console, "You don't get to say that and turn away from me. What the hell are you talking about?" I demanded.

He closed his eyes, "I shouldn't have left the Normandy. I should have been there."

My death. Right. It was bound to come up sooner or later. Between him and Joker, I'm surprised it hadn't come up before now. "And what would you have done, Garrus?" I asked, softening my voice.

He opened his eyes and stared down at me, "Gotten you on a pod."

I raised my eyebrows, "You are aware Kaidan was up there with me, right? If he couldn't get me on a pod, with how I felt about him, what makes you think you could have done anything different?"

Suddenly, he spun and I found myself pinned against the railing, a very angry turian glaring down at me, his hands clenching the railing on either side of my hips, his feet on either side of mine. I should have been afraid, but God help me, I wasn't. I should have been angry, but strangely, I could only stare at him. "I'm stronger than you are, Shepard. I would have picked you up and carried you to a pod, orders be damned."

"You'd have tried, you mean." Good, my voice was steady. I was proud of that.

Somehow, he moved closer, "No, Shepard, I'd have done it. You're too damned valuable, too necessary, to this fight. I'm just a failed C-Sec officer."

Tentatively, I put my hand on the uninjured side of his face, tracing his mandible with my thumb, "And I'd have been stuck on shit missions 'cleaning up' pockets of 'geth resistance' instead of being able to focus on the real threat. And you or Joker or both would be dead."

"You can't know that, Shepard. If you'd been around, the Council wouldn't have been able to conduct the smear job on you that they did. They wouldn't have been able to ignore the Savior of the Citadel." Just as tentatively, he leaned his face into my palm. "And I think Joker would agree with me that would be a suitable sacrifice for you."

Akuze. Virmire. "No one dies for me ever again, Garrus. No one. That includes you and that stubborn ass who flies us everywhere.

"And you will never be a failure to me."

He froze and stared at me, all I could do was continue to meet his eyes. I couldn't tell what was going through his mind. His uninjured mandible flexed against my palm. I waited, afraid I'd said too much. Carefully, I slid my hand to his neck, laying my fingers and palm flat against the warm rough skin of his neck. He was tense and why was he trembling? "What did I say? What did I do wrong?"

He pushed away from me and holding himself rigid, went back to his console and stared down at it without answering me. Irritated at his silence, I placed my hand on his chin again and pulled his face around to me, "What did I do?"

With a frustrated growl, he pulled me against him, pinning me between him and the console. He gripped both my hands in his, holding them between us. "Do you still care for Alenko?"

Startled, I said, "Yes."

He closed his eyes and bowed his head for a moment, when he looked back up, his face was calm, and he released my hands and stepped away. "Then, Commander, if we're done here, I have some calibrations to finish."

Confused, I got out of his way. He pressed a button on the console and the door slid open. I took the hint and stepped through the door. Looking steadily at me over his shoulder, he said, "I'll be here if you need me." The door closed in front of me.