Captain's Personal Log: Ismar Frontier, Faia, Zorya: Revenge!

I sighted down my gun at the old merc's scar-twisted face. He actually still had the balls to spit his anger and vitriol back at me, "I've survived this long watching my own back. No time to worry about anyone else!"

I really, really wanted to pull the trigger. But I needed this son of a bitch to make sure the rest of us came home in one piece. "No wonder all your stories end up with you being the last man standing! All you care about is your own damned skin, you selfish, egotistical bastard! Tell me, were you like this before Vido muscled you out of the Suns, or is this because he shot you in the head and left your ass for dead?"

I narrowed my eyes. I brought my other hand around to grip the pistol and stepped closer, as if to be sure not to miss. "Listen, you son of a bitch. You're part of a team now. MY team. There's no way we can survive what's coming if we don't work together!"

He looked away. I couldn't tell if he was actually considering letting me shoot him rather than giving up his 20 year fucking vendetta. How obsessed did you have to be for a bullet in the brain to look better than oh, I don't know, saving some civilians, which you endangered in the first place, and picking up where you left off a little later? Then he finally looked back up at me and nodded. "You... have a point. I'm not done with Vido, but I can put that behind me long enough to get your mission done." I looked at him for a minute judging whether I believed him or not. He'd taken too long to decide to convince me it was entirely genuine. Was he going to shoot me the second I took my sights off him? I heard the comforting scrape of Garrus' boot on the concrete behind me and knew it wouldn't matter. If the old bastard was going to betray me to get his revenge, he'd get a turian sniper's bullet between the eyes for his trouble.

Zaeed looked away from my steady gaze, uncomfortable. I holstered the pistol, then crouched to get a good grip on the steel girder that had fallen and pinned the old merc. I made a show of finally lifting the beam off his legs, making sure he had a chance to consider the enhanced strength Cerberus had given me. I was also just a little grateful for the extra boost the powered armor lent me. That beam was damned heavy. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Garrus fell in next to me from where he'd been covering us as I followed Zaeed through the ruins of the refinery. We'd have to evac the engineers, I thought to myself. There's no way they can stay here.

"I'm surprised you didn't shoot him."

I ducked under a fallen girder. "I was tempted. Glad you had my back, though."

"Always. You're much better at resisting temptation than I am."

I grinned and looked him up and down. "Sometimes."

Blue creeped up his neck and he coughed. "Not sure either of us are good at resisting that."

I shook my head and broadened my grin. "I'll show you how futile resistance is later. In the meantime, find a way to send out a distress signal for this refinery."

"You got it, Shepard." Garrus peeled off to find access to the facilities computer systems.

Later, when we'd gotten back on the ship and sent down some emergency supplies for the stranded refinery workers, I joined Garrus in the armory. For absolutely professional reasons.

Right.

He didn't turn when he heard the door swish open, but he did hold up a hand to ask me to wait, so I perched on the crate in the corner, slouching. I indulged myself and watched him. I'd never actually thought of him as truly attractive, not till recently. But he stood there, his head bent over the console, focused intently on his work, his fingers flashing over the screen as quickly as he could type. I discovered I liked that focus. A tiny part of me wondered if he got that focused about everything. I shifted on the crate. That's a thought for another time, Meg. Nonsense, another part of me argued back. When else are you going to get to just sit here and stare at your gunnery officer and mentally take his armor off?

You do have a point.

"Did you need something, Shepard?" Garrus asked, interrupting my thoughts when they were somewhere between wondering how the codpiece came off and trying to picture what was underneath. I felt my face heat.

I cleared my throat and straightened up. "I'm not... making you uncomfortable, am I?"

His cheekplates flared out and settled back in. "I thought I made that clear on the flotilla. There's no one else in this galaxy I respect more than you, Shepard." He narrowed his eyes at me and crossed his arms. "Are you having doubts? About us?"

I shook my head. "No. Well... Just the uh... hows and wheres and what-goes-wheres."

He laughed and I had to grin back at him. "I'm a little worried about that, too. But I promised to do some research, didn't I?" He offered me his hand and put mine in his. Instead of just helping me to stand, though, he gently yanked me to him in a smooth motion I'd almost thought he'd practiced.

I raised an eyebrow, "Research?"

"Maybe," he ducked his head. I leaned mine against his, on the uninjured side, content to just stand there for the moment. "Weren't you going to show me how good at resisting temptation you were?"

I pressed my lips to the side of his neck, behind his cheekplates, relishing the feel of suede-soft skin there. I think he actually shivered. I do know he tightened his arms around me. "No, I said I wasn't any good at resisting." I straightened up to meet his eyes. He met mine with that look I was learning turians seemed to share with human men. The one that said want. And Mine. And please, now, all at once. I had a feeling I was looking at him similarly. "See? I suck at resisting."

"I noticed. I'm not doing all that good at it either."

We stared at each other for a while. I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the edge of his armor's cowl so he could straighten up and stop bending funny to help me reach his neck. I felt him press his nose and mouth into my hair. "This was a really bad idea," I told him.

"Which part?"

"To come down here and test myself." I bet his visor was giving him all sorts of useful information on my biological statistics. Like the fact that my heart was pounding so hard it wanted to come out of my chest. "I always have to do that, you know." I stepped back, away from him, out of the circle of his arms and tried not to shiver in the cold of the battery.

"I know." He leaned back against his panel and crossed his arms, again. "We've been friends for a while, Shepard. I know you pretty well."

"I think you know me better than anyone at this point, Garrus."

His cheekplates flared out in a smile. "You're probably right. And I think you know me better than anyone else does, too." He looked away, out over the battery. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"Garrus, everything all right?"

"Yeah," his demeanor changed. He wasn't teasing anymore. He'd gone back to serious, almost closed off, if he could be that with me ever again, that is. He stood taller. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was fighting not to come to attention. I found myself mimicking his straight-backed posture and stopped leaning on the railing. "I got a prime example of a twenty year vendetta today, Shepard. Thanks. For... you know." He looked steadily at me and I knew the reason for the sudden formality. I suppressed a shudder, remembering the months after Akuze where all I'd wanted was to track down every single thresher maw and drown it in its own acid. Or the days after Ontarom where I'd have liked nothing better than to resurrect all those scientists who'd tortured Toombs and let them share in his fate. Sometimes, I still fantasized about a perfect round bullet hole between the Illusive Man's eyes. But, neither of us wanted to end up like Zaeed. Closed off. Alone. The sole survivor of every mission. Hardened and hardbitten, bitter and angry. Only looking out for our own skins, saving our own asses, not caring about anyone but ourselves.

"Hey, I keep you from ending like that, you do the same for me. It wouldn't take much for me to go there, either." He uncrossed his arms and I stepped closer to him, holding his gaze. "It was a long dark road back from Akuze, Garrus. You know that."

"I think it'd take a lot more than you think for you to end up like Zaeed, Shepard." His voice softened, dipping down into those dual toned lower registers that made me want to throw myself at him.

I shook my head. "Only losing every friend I have, Tali... Joker... Even Miranda and Jacob. Anderson. Everyone I could count on." I reached up to gently touch the bandages on the wounded side of his head, my fingers trembled with how much I was suddenly so very afraid. "Losing you. Losing you would definitely send me there again."

He closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath. "Point taken." He turned his head into my hand, letting his damaged cheekplate flick as much as it was able against my palm. "I promise not to try to catch any more rockets in my teeth."

"And I promise not to get spaced again."

"And I promise not to get so wrapped up in a vendetta, I can't see what you're really thinking."

I smiled. "And I promise not to get so obsessed with a mission that I forget about our friendship."

He pulled my hand down from his face and cupped it in both of his. "Deal. Now, should we see what poison Gardner's assembled for the crew tonight? I can hear your stomach growling from here."

I snatched my hand back and wrapped my arms around my waist defensively. "You cannot!"

"I certainly can! The cybernetics help, too." He actually winked at me before sauntering ahead of me out into the mess.